It looks like I'm going to be taking a break from this story for a
while, pretty soon.  That doesn't mean that I won't be writing, of
course.  Just on stories that don't fit into the main part of this one. 
It's starting to get stale for me, and writing it is a chore.  I'll just
step back for a while and hope that it clears up by the time I come
back.

Oh, yeah, the next thing you see (maybe) might just be The Tales of
Sailors V and J... but I'm not going to guarantee anything, I could go
ahead and write part 17...  This chapter is also a leason in paying
close attention to your spell checker.  The word studying was replaced
with studding.  See if you can guess where ^_^

And, as always, I love getting mail from people who've read the story. 
Just drop me a line, few sentances, comment on a scene, whatever.  It's
like helping a friend study for a test you're both taking.  The more you
talk about it/think about it, the more firmly you grasp it, yourself. 
Some of the best parts of this story so far have been based off ideas
that were generated out of such discussions.

Disclaimer goes here.  (Sailor Moon)

Part 16

        General Nephrite awoke slowly, not knowing where he was.  He felt cool
tile pressing against his cheek and decided that he was probably
unconscious somewhere unfriendly.  Of course, not many places were
friendly these days, so it was a reasonable assumption.
        He forced his eyes open a bit so he could get a look at his
surroundings.  Black tile with swirling grey patterns.  Low step in
front of him.  BIG chair on it.  Thoughts drifted towards each other in
his mind with all the speed of drifting oil tankers, but eventually they
collided and made a mess for the wildlife.  
        Good thing Nephrite wasn't an otter.  Anyway, his muddled brain finally
cleared enough for him to realize that the floor he lay upon was that of
Queen Beryl's throne room.  
        That probably meant one of two things.  She was happy with him or she
wasn't.  There wasn't much more to worry about when it came to Beryl. 
And, either way, she didn't like to be kept waiting.
        He got to his feet quickly and snapped to attention.  Well, he tried
to, anyway.  At the top of his rising motion, the world seemed to come
back up around him and it was all he could do to keep from returning to
his position on the floor.   Finally, things seemed to settle down a
little and he could stand without too much trouble.
        "General Nephrite."  Queen Beryl's voice sounded old and weak, like he
had never heard it before.  "It is good to see that you are back among
us."  She trailed off wearily.
        Now that his vision was refocusing again, he could see her.  She looked
far older than normal and utterly exhausted.  "Queen Beryl."
        She held up a hand to stop him.  "Those miserable Sailor Senshi
corrupted you with their foul magics and I had to work long and hard to
remove them.  I am tired now, leave me."
        Nephrite bowed deeply to his queen even though it almost sent him to
the floor again.  "Yes, my Queen.  As you will."
        "And Nephrite?" she called after him as he prepared to exit the throne
room.
        "Yes, my Queen?" he paused but didn't turn around, almost dreading what
she might say.
        "The Sailor Senshi.  They must die.  Soon."
        "Yes, my Queen."  With that, he departed.

***

        Makoto had been in a funk for several days.  Ever since Nephrite was
stolen away by Beryl.  
        Serenity was concerned about her, but didn't know what to do.  Taika
had talked to her for a long time about what had happened and was ready
to try to do something, anything, to cheer Makoto up.
        Serenity had informed her of the possible consequences of Beryl
recovering Nephrite, and Taika wasn't sure that Makoto could handle some
of them.  Most likely, it wouldn't be good for whatever relationship
they might have had.
        So it was that she decided that it was the perfect time to drag Makoto
and Minako along with her and Umino to the Juuban district cooking
exhibition and contest.  Umino had gotten two pairs of tickets a few
days before and decided that it would make a nice almost date for him
and Taika.  Getting Makoto out of her apartment and into a cooking
atmosphere, one of the things that she dearly loved, was just an added
bonus.
        He really liked Taika, which wasn't really that unusual for him.  He
did pine after girls on a regular basis, Usagi having been his longest
running fixation.  The unusual part, however, was the fact that she
didn't seem to mind.  In fact, she almost seemed to WANT him around.  A
totally novel experience for him.
        He was even learning to read her moods.  Learning which of her
expressions meant that he was talking too much about something that she
didn't care about was probably the single greatest stride in their
relationship so far.  Though, she did seem to be giving him that look
far less often now.  
        Somewhere along the line, she had started finding Umino's little pieces
of useless information fascinating.  No one was more surprised by that
than she was.  A lot of it had to do with the other things that Umino
did, though.
        Like a few flowers at just the right moment, or a card tucked into one
of her school books found while she was studying.  Little things that
spoke volumes about what kind of person he was.
        Producing tickets to an event that he knew that Makoto would enjoy was
just the latest in a long string of sweet things that he had done over
the last couple of weeks.
        So, there they were, four teenagers wandering a vast array of stalls
and booths amidst a cloud of some of the most tempting aromas they had
ever experienced.  After a little while, the internal forces of the sea
of pedestrians began to make it hard for such a large group to navigate
and stay together.
        They agreed to spit up and find each other again later, before the big
demonstration by the French star of the festival, Pierre Louise,
followed by the contest judging.  Makoto and Minako wandered away
chatting happily about nothing and Taika and Umino wandered away
together.
        "She seems better," Taika said, "but I'm not sure that it'll last."
        "You never did tell me what she was so upset about, anyway."  Umino
gave her a slightly hurt look.  
        Taika sighed inwardly, slightly annoyed by what was probably Umino's
biggest flaw.  He was always looking for flaws in their relationship. 
It was like he was constantly expecting to be told that she was just
kidding about everything and he should just go away.
        "Well... it's complicated."  She tried to decide on the best way to
phrase it.   "Let's just say that it's over a guy that may or may not
try to kill her the next time she sees him."
        Umino nodded acceptingly.  There was a lot that Taika either couldn't
or wouldn't tell him about herself or the other Senshi, but he had come
to live with it.  Not that he had a whole lot of choice in the matter,
getting her to change her mind on something was extremely tough.
        They wandered through the stalls for quite a while, pausing
occasionally to sample one of the culinary delights being prepared all
around them.  Eventually, they found the crowds around them moving
toward the main gathering area where the contest judging and exhibition
was to take place.
        Makoto and Minako already had seats staked out near the front and were
viciously defending them.  Many an unwitting person received a bop with
a rolled up program.
        Taika and Umino slid into the extra spaces and Makoto and Minako were
able to lower their guard and relax for a while.  Seating at this event
was rather poorly planned, it seemed, and there were a lot of people
trying to squeeze into too few seats.
        They chatted for a while about some of the dishes that they had found
particularly memorable before Pierre stepped out into the area cleared
for his demonstration and tapped the mike.
        "Hello," he proclaimed in heavily accented Japanese.  "Demonstration
will be starting in moment.  Please to relax."  Some of the younger
children in the audience got a giggle out of his grammar and phrasing.
        The crowd murmured for a while before he began his show.  He chopped
vegetables in mid air, flipped food from container to container, kneaded
dough into interesting shapes, and prepared flaming dishes.  All in all,
the show went on for the better part of an hour while the crowd stared
on with watering mouths.  
        Here and there, he would request a volunteer who would get to taste one
of his creations or brave death holding a vegetable to be cooped or any
of half a dozen other quirks in his show.  After a while, he started
just using a large cleaver to hack into things.  His chopping and
cooking was reaching an almost frenzied pace and many of the crowd were
backing away from the stage.
        Taika realized that something was wrong and used sight amplification so
that she could see energy patterns.  Yes, there was an unusual strand of
energy stretching between the chef and that cleaver that he seemed so
attached to.
        "Girls, we'd better go transform.  This isn't part of the show."  The
energy levels were almost high enough to be seen by everyone at that
point.  "Definitely not part of the show."
        "Umino, get out of here, we'll find you later." She gave him a peck on
the cheek and shoved her way through the crowd, followed closely by
Makoto and Minako.
        Umino, for his part, just stood there in shock.  His eyes glazed over
and a blush threatening to make his face explode.  
        They managed to get free of the crowd which was milling about in
confusion and work their way around to the rear of the stage where it
was fairly deserted.  Taika metamorphoisized her outfit while the other
two used their wands.  
        "You have to teach us how to do that," Makoto told her.
        "Yeah," Minako agreed.  "I'm tired of showing the world my panties
every time I need to transform."
        Taika grinned.  "Teaches you character.  Besides, it takes a lot of
control to do it without the wands.  Remind me to explain it to you
later."
        Minako looked at her warily.  Taika's explanations were often to be
dreaded since even Ami had trouble following them.  "Uh... maybe I'll
pass on that one.  Let's get out there and dust that youma!"
        Makoto smiled happily at the prospect of combat.  When things got to
complicated, it was nice to have something straightforward to do.
         
***
        
        Nephrite watched as the power levels rose and intensified.  Too bad
Beryl had set him after the Senshi without giving him a chance to
demonstrate his superior skills in energy gathering.  
        It didn't matter, the chef was very close to being perfectly filled
with power.  Even as he watched, the last bit filled him and the youma
sprang to life.  Nephrite tapped into the youma and used him to rapidly
drain the human of most of his energy.  
        He would have gotten it all, but the Senshi chose that moment to show
up.
        Cursing silently, he severed his link with the creature and called out
to the girls.  "I'd love to stay and play, but I've got things to do. 
Play with my little pet for a while if you want, though."
        The looked over to his place of concealment and the one in green
shouted his name and ran toward him.  Somehow, that caused a thrill of
deja vu to go through him, but he wasn't foolish enough to stick around.
        He teleported back to Beryl's throne room to offer her his nice little
haul of energy as a kind of thank-you for saving him from the Senshi.

***

        Makoto shouted out Nephrite's name and rushed toward the place where he
was standing but he seemed to ignore her.  The blade youma, however,
didn't.  Resembling nothing so much as half a dozen articulated blades
welded together, it stepped forward and kicked upward with one of it's
knife edged feet, slicing cleanly into Sailor Jupiter's abdomen.
        Taika, who had been occupied with readying an attack for Nephrite, had
to let it lose at the youma instead.  The creature didn't even have time
to scream before it was a pile of rapidly cooling ash.  
        However, by the time she could have launched anything else, Nephrite
was gone.
        Minako was already at Makoto's side, gingerly turning her over to
assess the damage.  Taika rushed over to see what she could do.
        The damage was bad.  No where near as bad as it would have been if the
kick had hit an unprotected human, but still bad.  Gently, she pulled
the torn edges of the fuku away from the wound so she could get a better
look.
        The slash wasn't very deep, fortunately, most of the force of the blow
being spent to cut through the extremely strong material of the fuku. 
There was a fair amount of blood, but nothing important looked damaged.
        Taika concentrated and laid her hand over the wound, searching with her
mind for each and every severed blood vessel and infecting agent and
snuffing them out one by one with minuscule bits of flame.  She knelt
like that for several minutes, a faint read aura surrounding her body.
        The crowd, which had fled at the appearance of the youma, began to
trickle back in to get a glimpse at one of the mysterious Sailor
Senshi.  No one approached too close, but Minako was starting to get
nervous.  
        "Hurry up," she whispered loudly to Taika, but she just seemed to
ignore her.  Only the fact that she was worried about Makoto's health
kept her from dragging both of them out of there bodily.
        Police had arrived by the time Taika finished and were hurriedly
surrounding the trio of girls.  "Hold it right there!" one of the cops
proclaimed.
        Taika looked around at the assembled police and did a quick bit of
planning.  She was going to really regret this in the morning, but there
didn't seem to be any other way out.  Carefully, she slid her arms under
Makoto's prone form and whispered to Minako.  "Place your hands on my
shoulders.  When you feel something pulling at you, go with it."  Minako
nodded slightly and slowly set her hands onto Taika's shoulders.
        Taika reached out with her spirit toward Minako's and nudged the right
areas.  The words formed in her mind, and, as one, they spoke them,
"Sailor Teleport."
        The police had a lot of trouble explaining how that one happened.
        
***


        Queen Beryl was giving Nephrite a hard look, though it was growing more
difficult to do so in the face of his successes.
        "One of the Senshi was wounded, perhaps seriously by my youma."
        "And why did you not stay and finish them, General Nephrite?"
        "The one with the unusually high power levels was with them, my Queen,
so I felt it wiser to return here with the energy instead of risking a
confrontation.  To face her will require a trap."
        "Perhaps you do not understand the merit of following orders?"
        "My Queen..."
        "Never mind that.  You have new orders now.  Gather as much energy as
you can.  I will give unto Zoicite the task of killing the Senshi."
        "But-"
        "No buts.  You have proven to be most effective at gathering energy. 
Perhaps Zoicite will finally manage to prove his worth to the Dark
Kingdom since he has repeatedly failed in his quest for the Silver
Crystal."
        Nephrite grumbled to himself, but was careful to keep his outward face
calm.  "As you will."
        //Giving my task to Zoicite?  I'll show him.  Failed to find the Silver
Crystal did he?  Wouldn't it just be priceless to see his pretty little
face when I hand it to Queen Beryl...//

END