After a moment, Tariko and Shinobu slowly pulled apart so they could take a deep breath, and then . . .
BOOM!
"What was that?!" both girls exclaimed as they spun around to look out the open doorway of the Hamachaya on Ryuunosuke-shima. Without hesitation, they walked outside, their eyes scanning the horizon around the small islet. Soon enough, they locked in on a tall pillar of smoke emitting from somewhere to their north-north-east.
"Tokyo," they breathed out in chorus.
"Nerima? Tomobiki?" Tariko asked.
"No, that explosion's too far east. Definitely Minato," Shinobu replied with a shake of her head. "Most likely, it's one of those monsters the Sailor Senshi fight all the time."
"What should we do, then?" the former then wondered. "Last night, when he showed up in town, Sensei ended up getting into a fight with half of them. Trashed them, too."
"I wondered about that myself," the latter mused, her forehead furrowing as she tried to match what Tariko had just said with what she personally knew about the pretty warriors of Minato's Azabu-Juuban district. "According to what I've heard of them, they're dedicated to fighting things like youma, daimons and the like, who always seem to be attracted to their part of Tokyo for some oddball reason or another. Are there some sort of intermensional gateways in Minato? I can't say." A pause. "Supposedly, they're descent from some ancient star kingdom that had ruled this whole solar system back around the time of the Roman Empire. Or so all the stories say."
"Weird," Tariko lamented with a rueful shake of her head. "All I cared about when I heard about them was how short their skirts were and how much leg they showed off in their costumes." She then took a deep breath. "Is this where we get shanghaied into this and try to help out?"
Shinobu stared at her companion. "Do you want to? Tariko, I'd understand if you didn't. After all, you just got the Jewel today, not to mention the fact that you just emerged from the Doll House. You'd probably want to sit back and rest for a bit, get your bearings back before you decide to move on with your life."
"Are you getting involved?"
A nod. "I have to. Even if all the Rampages in the past often skirted between being faces and heels when they were alive and active, I just couldn't forgive myself for not trying to help when I have the power to help." A wry smirk then crossed her face. "I guess I'm just too Catholic in the long term."
"Never complained about that," Tariko admitted before she stretched herself. "Oh, what the hell! Let's go have some fun!"
Azabu-Juuban, minutes later . . .
"What the hairy heck is that thing?!" Sailor Jupiter screamed before she dodged back just before a tendril of a silvery, metal-clad flesh slammed into the pavement of the main north-south street in the Senshi's part of Tokyo.
"Trying to scan it now!" Sailor Mercury declared from her position nearby, her fingers flying over her personal labtop as she tried to do a detailed scan of yet another unwelcome visitor from another dimension to Minato, it currently slithering its way out of a huge hole it made in the ground. Around the Senshi, the windows of nearly every building within a half-kilometre radius of the beast were shattered thanks to the explosion of several large gas mains when it first appeared. "It's definitely not composed of any sort of energy familiar to the Silver Millennium. I don't know if we can muster the necessary levels of power to properly deal with this!"
"Let's hope some of those other heroes who showed up earlier today to deal with Gojira come down here to give us a hand!" Sailor Mars growled before she cut loose with a Flame Sniper to prevent the beast -- it actually shaped like a demented mix of earthworm and subway train; no doubt, the metallic parts on its body had been absorbed from one of the many subway trains which passed under this part of the metropolis -- from lashing out with one of its tentacles towards a team of paramedics moving to deal with several bystanders who had been cut down by flying plate glass.
"They would be appreciated . . . YOW!" Sailor Venus then shrieked out as one of the beast's appendages lashed out right at her face.
Before it could make contact, a red-and-blue blur whipped down out of the sky to land before the blonde Senshi, a hand lashing out to grap the offending tentacle and yanking hard towards Mustang. The creature then shrieked out as the force and speed of the grab literally sheared off the limb in question. "Quit pickin' on defenceless girls, ugly!" Mustang snarled; he had flown down to Minato from Nerima seconds after the echo of the explosion had rolled past the Tendou doojou.
"'Defenceless?!'" Venus shrieked out in embarrassment.
Mustang ignored her. "Pick on someone your own size!" With that, he cupped his hands and lashed out with a Mouko Takaibisha.
The bolt slammed into the creature's main trunk, shearing off its forward end -- about ten metres' worth -- from the rest of its body. The beast squealed in pain as its severed part dropped away to the ground, it crashing into asphalt with a resounding BANG!, the shockwave from the blast nearly knocking all the Senshi off their feet. Before Venus could get her bearings, Mustang raced away from her, he charging for the very head of the thing so he could finish it off.
"Oh, no!" Mercury screamed out. "It's regenerating itself!"
"No, it won't!"
Everyone froze in place on hearing that airy Kansai-accented voice, and then the creature was encompassed with a glow. A flash of light later, it then disintegrated into shattered parts of subway cars and dust. A second later, a lady in grey landed right next to Mustang. "You rude beast!" Infinity then scolded as she wagged her finger at the disintegrated monster. "You meanie! Coming out of the ground, making all that noise and hurting people like you did! Don't do that again!"
"Um, Infinity, I think you don't need to rant at it anymore," Soul Searcher then declared as she and Heart Player came up to join their companions from Nerima. "It's dead. You killed it."
Silence.
"I killed it?!" Infinity gasped as she stared wide-eyed at her classmate, and then she moaned, her hands reaching for her temples. "Oh, no! I didn't mean to kill it!"
Forget it, Osaka! Soul Searcher telepathically signalled. It probably wasn't 'alive' as you and I would think of life, so it doesn't matter.
Infinity gazed on her. You reall think so, Yomi-chan? she thought back.
Hai!
"Okay," the warper of Reality itself replied verbally.
"So where did this thing come from, anyway?" Heart Player asked.
In response . . .
(Posted Sun, 24 Sep 2006 15:27)
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