Silver Millennium Soldier
-18- Jedite's Final Act
by
Mike Macdonald
(Age: 27)
copyright 10-14-2006
Age Rating: 18 to 127
"I am so very disappointed in you."
Such are the last words any man wants to hear from his queen.
The other officers had said nothing to him all day, perhaps out of pity, or their own feelings of disappointment. Once, they had been so enthusiastic, and their words so encouraging; now they would not look him in the eye. Neither would his own servants for fear that he might use them to vent his fury one way or another. He knelt lower for Queen Beryl this day than he ever had for anyone prior. In his worst hour during the age of the three kingdoms he hadn't carried himself half as meekly, even before the King. At that time the blame was not his, alone, to bear. Nor was his liege a spoiled rotten nine-year-old in a grown woman's body.
Queen Beryl of the House of Metallia was not seated at the throne before her humble Colonel; she was too upset to sit still. As delicate a creature as she was, from the perspective of a worm she seemed monstrous. She stood so directly overhead, and he knelt so low before her, that were he commanded to kiss her feet he could oblige without moving a muscle.
"You established an impressive number of highly profitable life force farms. Now, with many thanks to your apparent incapacity for organizing your departments and enforcing their morale, not one establishment remains operational," here her index finger threatened to gouge out Jedite's eye, "and you have managed to lose more than one third of your harvest! All your time and effort, in short, amounted to nothing! The entire project is ruined! Do you understand? Ruined!"
"I have one establishment yet which shows great promise, My Queen."
Beryl's staff came down with a thud that shook the walls of the palace.
"Which is still pending of late!" she hissed. "Since the day I issued your orders, from what I understand. You’ve also allowed several of our best agents to get themselves killed, and your security people have failed miserably in the task of locating and liquidating the Silver Millennium Soldiers, which I hardly regard as a demanding assignment. My patience has gone, Colonel Jedite."
The Colonel could bear no more of this treatment. He stood tall and proud, strangling his instinct to plead for the Queen's mercy. Slaves pleaded for forgiveness. He would set things right, with or without her esteem. She would see.
"They will no longer plague our efforts!" Jedite declared. "This I swear to you! I shall see to it myself this time! On my honor, My Gracious Queen, what little of it may remain, I shall pave the road to your campaign’s success!"
With one last humble bow, Jedite pivoted and stormed to the grand hall's doors, and stopped when the Queen called his name again. He did not look back. He no longer had the nerve or the stomach to face her.
"Do not return if you fail again," she said.
Once far outside of Beryl's hearing, Jedite began a long string of curses regarding the Queen's threats as he marched down the hall to the stargate. Had the palace any furniture, and were it in his path of travel, it would have been wiped from existence. Neflite and his unheeded words of solace were close behind, and further back were the twin cyborgs the Lieutenant-General had benevolently donated to the Colonel's security team, both too afraid to so much as utter a sound.
She made him grovel. A royal officer in the Black Moon Legion. As if he were a peasant. Never, in all his centuries of devotion to the royal family…
Captain Tethys saw his approach and hailed him with a humble bow before fully realizing the extent of his anger, and her own role in the cause of it. The mere sight of her drove him to screaming fury and he returned her greeting with a blow to the face that knocked her off her feet. Not yet sated, he telekinetically drove his incompetent security chief toward the stargate's chamber as he walked, with little concern for how many walls or pillars got in her way. Neflite found the scene quite amusing.
"Do you see what your blundering costs me?" Jedite wailed. "Do you?"
Tethys tried to answer, but no sooner had she gathered enough air in her lungs to do so she was dashed against the palace walls again.
"I’ve no more patience for failure, do you understand me?" Jedite continued. "My entire operation is in shambles because you people cannot do your jobs! That stupid girl should already be dead! I've given you the means to locate her and still she slips away from you!"
Tethys opened the doors leading into the stargate's room with her face, and here her kinetic torment finally ceased. Jedite knelt to the floor and grabbed a fistful of his lieutenant's hair, wrenching her head back to look her in the eyes.
"Perhaps the fault lies not with my security force, but with its director! The Queen thinks me an incompetent. Well, my plans may not have gone so sour had I the strong, capable men who used to serve me in the war instead of the flighty whores and trollops that were left over afterward!"
Tethys sobbed and barely had the breath to speak. "Master, please don’t kill me! I know I’ve failed you, but I’ve always been loyal and obedient! My adoration for you knows no bounds-!"
"Quiet!" Jedite screamed. The entire palace must have heard him.
Tethys was silent, watching her master with the eyes of an abused child. When Jedite glared back at Gemini, both sisters stood straight and still, waiting for something terrible to befall them next. It appeared, however, that the Colonel's fit had subsided. He ran his hand through his golden hair and ended this lesson in cruelty with a deep sigh.
"What are you proposing?" Neflite said.
Jedite straightened his shirt. "A duel, of course. I said I shall see to them myself, and I mean it in the most literal sense."
When his hand commanded the twins to bring his coat, they presented it to him immediately. They didn't dare acknowledge Tethys, who still laid on the floor crying silently to herself. Had they any emotional capacity beyond self-preservation they might have felt sorry for her.
Neflite shook his head. "Taking on the Sylvan Guardians by yourself may prove foolish, Jedite. Are you sure you’re up to it?"
"More so than facing the Queen’s wrath," Jedite said, fixing his cuffs. "Besides, they are but children and barely know how to handle their own powers. I’ll be ready for that masked ponce as well. He’s sure to attend."
The Colonel graced Tethys with a disgusted glance, then addressed Gemini--again jolting them to standing at attention.
"Castor, Pollox, once Galatea’s operation is in full swing she will depend upon you for protection. That is your sole responsibility. On the completion of her mission you are to return to Lieutenant-General Neflite’s command."
The twins affirmed this simultaneously, as always. Tethys was standing again, battered and distraught. When Jedite's attention returned to her, she stiffened and held her breath, her eyes moist and trembling while her master thought long and hard about the warranty on her usefulness.
He straightened his cuffs again, refusing eye contact. "Tethys, you will accompany me. The game I've prepared will require your assistance."
She struggled to hide the smile forming on her lips as she bowed to him again.
"Yes, Your Excellency. Anything you say."
The Colonel turned and bowed to his superior, whose concern still shined through in his troubled expression.
"Neflite, I wish you the best of luck with the Imperium Project. I trust your part in it is nigh."
"You’re making a mistake if you go through with this," Neflite said.
"I’m through making mistakes. Come along, Captain."
Straightening his coat once more, Colonel Jedite stepped through the portal, with the loyal Tethys at his heels. The Queen said nothing of his promotion to general, but he knew it wouldn't come to be at that point. His losses greatly outweighed his profits. His choice of operatives all proved unworthy. If he was to be awarded anything by the mission's end it would be a demotion.
The Queen didn't matter to him anymore. Greater cause or not, he would slay the girls to the last.
***********************
Cherry Hill was a beautiful city at midday when there wasn't a cloud in the sky. On those days, the sun was at its brightest and really brought the city's colors out, particularly the trees and the grass in every park, and the clothes on mannequins and people alike, since Japanese fashion was typically very colorful. On bright, cheerful days like this everyone in Cherry Hill was walking the streets to enjoy the full effect, and passing cars were rare. On bright, cheerful days like this it was impossible to feel blue.
Even Amy Anderson noticed when someone didn't talk much. As she strolled along the boulevard and realized she'd spoken more words than Serena Babbit in the last hour, she grew concerned. She was obviously deep in thought, but Amy didn't know if it was okay to bother her, so she didn't say anything.
Serena's mind was so busy at that moment that it didn't have an extra hand to work the mouth. She'd been stuck on her last meeting with Venus in the coffee shop the day of the hospital incident that she completely missed out on. The incident, itself, didn't bother her anymore since it was used as a proving ground for Mars. Luna made that pretty clear afterward.
Another thing that had been made very clear to her recently was that her self-defense instructor, Lita Kaehler, was a total psychopath. That very day, around 10:30 a.m., as Serena made her way to the café where she was going to meet Amy for their shopping trip, she had been attacked on the street in broad daylight yet again. This time, as soon as she saw the ninja, and the shinai strapped to her back, she screamed and ran, darting through stores and restaurants as she tore through the shopping center. It was to no avail, though; the ninja cut her off and sent her face-first into a bush, then bound her wrists and gave her another nasty swat as amused onlookers watched and laughed. This time, Lita at least had the decency to untie her and walk her to her destination, but Serena was still pretty miffed about the whole thing. As soon as Amy saw them together she burst into laughter and shared her own encounter with the ninja earlier that day in her front yard.
This wasn't what bothered her at the moment. Her thoughts kept returning to her first time meeting the martial artist, or more specifically, the conversation with Darien following her departure.
"She talks funny," Serena had said.
"Well, she's a Missouri girl," Darien had said. "Traveled across the country the last few years."
"You dating her?"
"What, you kidding? All bright and cheery one minute, then not ten minutes later you’re in a thunderstorm. ‘Sides, she thinks I’m a kid."
"Ha! Doesn’t feel so nice, does it?"
"But you are a kid. And she’s actually younger than me by about four months."
"She’s hot."
"She’s a certified pain in the ass."
"But she's fun to kick back with, right?"
"Usually. She doesn’t socialize a lot. Keeps to herself. When she does socialize she talks your ear off."
"Ever ask her out?"
At that point, Darien hadn't given an answer, and it was just as well because she wouldn't have caught one given her sudden state of shock immediately following the question. She couldn't remember the last time she'd spoken to him without some form of name-calling. Somehow she'd felt at ease around him, suspended beneath the surface of a cool lake on a hot summer's day. Mind clear, nerves completely at ease, skin sighing with pleasure. A sense of sanctuary, like the little baby in the arms of Lita's protective winged guardian. Then she'd jumped back into reality and asked the handsome lad why he was staring at her.
"Sorry. Your hair looks nice when it's down."
Serena had cradled a strand of her hair in response to this, not sure whether he was sincere or not. He was always making jokes about her appearance. He didn't laugh this time, though. Just kept smiling that damn smile of his.
"What is it with you and my hair? I thought you had the hots for my new friend?"
"Oh, is she here?"
He'd perked up and looked around the room with melodramatic anxiety as he said this, and the tiny laugh that escaped Serena's chest almost made her gasp. She covered it up with a roll of the eyes and a slap to Darien's arm.
"Horny little bastard," she said.
Darien gasped with a smile. "Take that back."
She'd almost smiled again, herself, so she abruptly turned and walked back to the snack bar where Amy and Molly were chatting away. This meant Molly's mouth was at full throttle and Amy was listening attentively.
What was that sudden sense of security she'd felt? It was only for a second and she'd thought she might swoon and faint. No visions came to her or anything, but her heart was racing from the confusion of it all. And then her swift escape from the patronizing college boy because he made her laugh. It made no sense that she'd take such offense at this. Her face was hot, and it must have been red, too, because when she came to the table Molly's conversation stopped and both girls stared up at her for several moments without saying anything.
Amy was talking back in the present. She didn't hear. She'd been so lost in the memory she wondered if she'd spoken any of it aloud.
"Sorry, what?" Serena said.
"Are you okay? You were spacing out."
"I do that."
Amy said nothing, but her eyes didn't leave her friend; Serena's face was indeed troubled. Still not convinced it was civil to ask anything further, Amy turned her gaze to the lush green trees lining the sidewalk, one filled with a choir of chirping birds. It must have been dinner time for the children.
She brushed the blue tuft of hair from her face again, and Serena's heart jumped; without her jacket, and having decided to go with short sleeves that day, Amy's wrists had nothing to cover them. Her strikingly snowy white skin, while perfect everywhere else, was marred halfway down her left forearm: deep-cut scar tissue spelling the word "ALONE" in capital letters. Although it was barely two inches long, Serena couldn't figure how she hadn't noticed it until now.
Then again, this was the first time she'd ever seen Amy without her jacket. Or long sleeves of any kind.
"Can I ask a personal question?" Serena said, startling Amy.
"Go ahead."
Serena opened her mouth, and hesitated before finally speaking. "Do you have a…healthy relationship at home? With your mom? You never talk about her. Or your dad. And when I see you at home you act kinda funny."
Amy turned back to the trees, listening to the cheerful song of the feathered family as they passed beneath its noisy home. Her eyes then fell to the buckles on her boots.
"They're divorced," she said.
"Was it…y'know, hard for you?" Serena said, looking at the scar again.
"Sorta. They fought all the time about what would be best for me when I was little. Dad thought I should go to a special school so I'd fit in better. Mom thought medication and therapy would fix me. One day they just got tired of arguing about what was wrong with me."
Amy looked up and found Serena watching her with the same heartfelt expression she'd worn the first day they spoke, when she'd asked about the little black book.
"Oh, it's all right now," Amy said. "They get along well enough. I just wish they'd have thought to listen to me instead of each other."
"But what did they think was wrong with you? I mean, that's harsh."
Amy shrugged. "I just couldn't make friends. Came home from school crying a lot. Spent all my free time by myself, so I started drawing. Art became a sort of emotional release for me."
After a moment of silence, Amy looked back and found her friend's eyes beginning to well up. They stopped walking.
"I'm sorry," Serena said. "I just...I didn't realize."
She glanced down at Amy's scarred wrist again. Amy gave a sheepish smile and looked down at the word dismissively.
"It really doesn't bother me anymore," she said. "I just have a hard time looking Mom and Dad in the eye. It's complicated."
"Well, I'm glad, then," Serena said, wiping her eyes. "Y'know, that it doesn't, or whatever."
Amy smiled again. The two of them walked on another block, Amy's ears fixed on the singsong of the birds until it faded behind them in the sound of a passing car.
"Should we go say hi?" Amy said, pointing to the coffee shop across the street.
Serena squinted, then her lips curled into a big grin; sitting all by herself at a table right by the window was Molly Baker. The two girls scurried across the street and stumbled inside, almost knocking over two customers in their haste. Molly saw them right away and started laughing.
"Haven’t seen you cats in a while," she said.
Serena laughed awkwardly. "I’ve had…things to take care of. So wassup?"
"Nothin'," Molly shrugged. "Oh! Melvin’s been teaching me to play chess! But I keep losing…"
"That’s cool," Amy said. "You'll get the hang of it."
"How’re you girls? Like you said, I haven't seen ya about since the movie."
Serena groaned. "Exhausted. Been going around town, making new friends, taking care o’ personal stuff."
"You get popular all of a sudden or what, Girl?" Molly said, lifting one eyebrow. "Add any boys to the list?"
Serena immediately thought of the arcade and Darien, and shook the thought from her head. What was wrong with her?
"Naw," she said. "Boys’re icky."
"Oh, my God," Molly said, rolling her eyes. "Third grade flashback. I got a tennis match next week on Wednesday! Did I tell you?"
"No, you didn’t."
"You should come see!"
"Aw, you know how I feel about sports."
Molly clung onto Serena's arm and nearly dragged her to the floor.
"But it's meee! Your bestest friend in the whole wide universe! You gotta come! Bring Amy with! She’ll dig it, huh, Amy?"
"Only if we can go shopping afterward. Amy saw this hot blue button-up dress yesterday-"
Amy was silent. The last time Serena mentioned the dress she turned bright red and started freaking out at the visual. She turned to Amy and found her staring at the coffee shop's television, and prodded her with her elbow.
"Aw, c’mon, Ames," she said, glancing at the TV. "I try to get under your skin and you’re-"
The words were lost in her throat and she mimicked Amy, staring dumbly at the screen as the barista turned up the volume. Now Molly was curious, and she took a look, too.
Cherry Hill airport, clearly labeled at the bottom of the screen, was enveloped in a shimmering black mass like a swarm of ants devouring a larger animal. Just like the jewelry store Serena's first day on the job, except plainly visible to the naked eye.
"--of unknown origin. At least three people are dead from trying to leave the airport through the mysterious barrier. There are currently two hundred people trapped within the building as police try desperately to think of a way to get them out. In addition to the appearance of this phenomenon, two jetliners exploded during refueling earlier this morning. Only three airport personnel were killed and another five injured, as neither plane held occupants at the time of the explosions. However, the loss of two 747’s will certainly add to the airline’s financial troubles this year, in addition to the repairs needed to the runway after the failed emergency landing attempt from mid-August--"
Right on cue, Serena’s and Amy’s palm computers vibrated.
"Oh, God!" Molly squealed, turning back to her friends. "Bad year for the airlines, huh-?"
Molly suddenly realized she was speaking to herself. Serena and Amy were already a block away.
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Hola Mike :)
I've snuck in, though can only jump in on this chapter. 7 more months.
Since I can't really comment on the flow of the story so far, I must say this chapter was awesome. I'm not usually one to read Sailor Moon fics, but I love this. I did notice a few things I'd like to point out to you.
"...during the age of the three kingdoms he hadn't..."
Something in my head is saying 'three kingdoms' should be capitalized.
"Do not return if you fail again." She said.
Maybe a comma instead of a period at the end of the diologue? Because the way I read it, there is no stop. It seems a bit awkward.
"More so than facing the Queen’s wrath." Jedite said, fixing his cuffs.
Another comma-period thing here.
I love how Jedite and Jordan talk so similarly! So proper and everything. It's great!
"You’re making a mistake if you go through with this." Neflite said.
Period-comma...
"She seems really cool." Serena said
Period-comma
There are a few other period-comma instances, though to point them all out would make me look like some sort of nerd. :)
" Darien didn't give an answer, and it was just as well because..."
Throughout this paragraph, I found myself getting confused. It is Serena, right? The handsome lad also confused me for a second. Darien, or some other person? Only later on is it clarified.
When did Amy get to the snack bar? As Serena and Darien started talking?
Try using Serena's name a bit more in your paragraphs. I get confused who you are referring to something, whether it's Serena, Amy, or Molly, or even Lita.
I am VERY confused. This whole Molly thing. In one instant Amy is talking with Molly, and the next she's in a cafe across the street. >Confused<
"Naw," She said, "boys’re icky."
I'm not 100% sure on this, but I don't think you need to capitalize 'she.' After a comma, or so I've been told and doing, you don't need the capital, unless it's a person or a place, or whatnot.
Heh, ok, I cannot wait till I can read this from the beginning! I really can't! I think you've written the first fic I like.
Welcome !
