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Part Eight: New Soul, Reborn Soul, Ancient Soul
Akane refused to leave the grove.
No one could reason with her. She point blank refused to budge.
And the cylinder rose higher.
***********
The being had only one thought raging through its mind as it heaved against the glass ceiling of its tomb.
‘Akane.’
***********
As the battle raged below between one being and its prison, a far different battle raged above.
For a strange tetrad of alien beings had arrived in the grove and one had managed to land upon Akane, making her rather mad, but doing little else productive in the process.
Akane’s reaction was predicable, if slightly odd.
Her eyes burned with a fiery light and a sapphire aura so bright it registered on the visible spectrum sprang up around her as she shoved the creature that had landed on her off of her and headfirst into the obsidian cylinder rising out of the ground.
"Ka KA!" The annoying brown creature with the oddly disfigured head protrubance screamed, just before slamming headfirst into the crystalline substance. It succeeded in making a rather nasty visual demonstration about the physics question of what happens when unstoppable force meets immovable object. Apparently, the unstoppable force tends to crush whatever its holding into little gooey pieces.
"Po!" hollered another of the beings, hurling itself towards Akane.
She reacted by launching one of her full-force, no-holds-barred, gonna-reduce-that-obstacle-to-its-component-atoms, block-breaker punch at its head. Her sapphire aura clung tenaciously to her fist, giving it the impression of being engulfed in flames. The Po creature eeped and suddenly disappeared only to reappear behind her. It then began singing. "Lalalaaa!"
At the sound of that disturbing mumbling, Akane whirled around and Kuno-punted it into the upper stratosphere.
Meanwhile, the girls had scurried off in mock fear and transformed so they could remerge as the fearless Senshi of Love and Justice.
The effect was immediately ruined when Sailormoon suddenly exclaimed over how cute the two remaining aliens were. Especially the one with the purse.
Then the one with the lewd phallic symbol on the top of its head launched itself at Sailorjupiter. Who, being the tallest one in the group, had a very unsettling sight of that particular phallic object heading under her skirt. Thus she began screaming and racing around the grove trying to get away from the ‘Hentai-fucking-alien!’.
Finally, Sailorvenus launched herself at the ‘mad-tentacle-beast’ and managed to knock it over. It immediately curled itself into a small ball and began stroking its head protrubance. Which caused Sailorjupiter to become even more perturbed by it. Thus it found itself hurtling through the air at an extremely high rate of speed, soon even passing its companion in space as it flashed by propelled by the force of a Senshi’s boot.
The last alien was remarkably easy to get rid of. It simply watched as the phallic beast was rocketed into space and started jumping up and down trying to go after the other one.
Sailormoon took pity on it after listening to its whimpering cries for several minutes and proceeded to boot its ass after the first one.
Sailormercury had been working hurriedly at her palmtop computer throughout the entire battle. At the present, she sighed and closed her computer as she looked up with a mixture of disgust, worry, and relief painted across her face.
"I know what those were." She started without preamble. "They’re from an insidious race of beings from a distant star system that come and infect every race on a planet with a disease that effectively renders a body absolutely mindless. Thus the planets are ripe for takeover. Did you notice the silver screens in the area of their stomachs?" At Akane and the other girls nods, she continued. "Those are what cause the spread of this beguiling disease. Though we really don’t know how they work. What we do know is what they are called. Those are what is known as ‘Tellytubbies’. That looked like a scout force, so we had best keep an eye out for more. Most assault forces have four members. We only saw two."
"Let’s just hope that was the last of them, shall we?" A red-faced Sailorjupiter added, smoothing at her skirt.
"Definitely." Sailormercury acceded. "We do not want ‘Tellytubbies’ on OUR planet. For then, we’d be doomed for sure!"
"Hey, where’s Akane?" Sailorvenus interrupted, looking for the other girl. Quickly, they detransformed as quietly as possible and went looking.
They found her around on the other side of the cylinder that had by now risen to the point where it was able to hide her from sight. She was scrubbing at the disgusting remains that stained the column.
"Blessed Kami! What is that!" Rei exclaimed, pointing at the mess that was smeared all over the obsidian surface.
"One of those creatures that was here a moment ago." Akane responded dully, still scrubbing at the mess.
"Akane! Did you do all this?" Ami was in shock at the amount of damage. Never before in her history as a Senshi had she ever seen a creature blown into quite so many ... pieces. As she realized what she was looking at, Ami hurried away to lose her lunch in the bushes.
The other girls looked decidedly pale and green when Akane nodded her head slowly.
"I made such a mess of Ranma’s marker." She whispered, still scrubbing away at the steadily rising column. "I should have been more careful."
***********
Deep beneath their feet, the being had managed to shove the roof so far away from the floor that he now managed to stand upright. Slowly, he forced his arms straight above him, hoisting the ceiling up another good foot and a half from the ground. Lowering his arms, he looked up at the ceiling as if to ensure that it wouldn’t fall.
Then he crouched down upon the ground and the fire swirled tight about his form.
Suddenly, he leapt straight up, one fist outstretched before him in his flight.
The fist struck the glass canopy quite firmly.
***********
Akane stared confusedly as first the column stopped moving. Soon afterward though the ground begin to shudder and shake and the column issued a terrible rumbling from beneath itself. Then her eyes widened appreciatively as she rapidly cleared away from the column.
"Everybody! Back! Get back!" she yelled, racing into the relative shelter of the nearby trees.
At her words, everyone raced away from the column.
Suddenly the column shuddered and shook even more fiercely than before.
Then with a great explosion, it issued fully from the ground in a massive gout of flame and air pressure. Two full miles worth of obsidian suddenly blasted out of the ground and vanished into space.
What was left in its place was a hole that lead downwards over two miles. The edges of the pit were fused into glass from the heat of whatever had caused the obsidian to form.
Then a dim light registered at the distant bottom of the pit. Slowly it grew brighter. A slow pulsing caused it to flicker.
And it gained speed. Slowly at first, but soon faster and faster, the flickering emerged from the pit like a strobe.
Akane and the others crept forward from their hiding spaces to peer down into the pit. They watched almost hypnotized as the light flashed faster and faster and brighter with every passing second.
Then they became aware of a sound. Like the roaring of a 747 it echoed up from the depths. With a timbre not unlike the fierce warcry of a lion, it resounded from every tree to fling itself even higher into space.
The sound grew steadily louder as they listened. Ami was the one that suddenly connected the light with the sound, only seconds before Akane made the same connection. Almost as one they stepped back from the edge.
"Doppler effect, everyone." Ami explained almost conversationally. "The light, strobe effect, and sound is getting respectively brighter, faster, and louder."
Usagi stared at her in total non-comprehension.
Akane yelled the explanation as Ami just sighed. "It’s getting closer, Usagi-san! Move away from edge!"
Everyone scurried back just in time.
For at that moment a torrent of flame came hurtling out of the mouth of the pit accompanied by the wild roar they had been hearing.
As the stared in disbelief, the flame hung in midair for a second then, almost unbelievably, spread outwards.
They looked on as gigantic wings composed of twin infernos of massive proportions unfurled to hang over the grove in light it to an almost incandescent hue.
And there, in between the monstrous wings, depending from them, was the one they were searching for. It was from his throat that issued the glorious sound. Then it grew softer, gentler, and they understood the cry.
One name held forth through most magnificent resonance to glorify all existence. "AKANE!" Or rather, the name of that one which one man held to such esteem that the mere thought of her could inspire in him such grand feats of strength, skill, and endurance that he could accomplish anything.
As it was, Ranma looked down and saw the girls. His face for once bore all the expressions of his heart upon his features.
As he looked upon Ami, his face was open and caring, as for a true friend. His eyes fell upon Usagi and a strange loyalty blossomed in his expression. With Makoto a great onrushing of pride. Minako saw a mischievous side that masked great pain and sorrow. Rei could only see the sad betrayal in his eyes and refused to see the enduring endearment that accompanied it as she rushed off into the undergrowth.
Then he finally spotted Akane, and it was as if someone had given a child their fondest desire. His eyes glowed with pleasure. His lips curled upwards into a smile. He veritably radiated his joy at seeing her again.
"Akane." He whispered, though she heard.
He held out his arms to her as he hung above the hole. She smiled happily and ran and leapt towards him. She hovered over empty space for a second.
And suddenly fell.