"The nerve..." Sailor Mars grumbled angrily while they were following the many footsteps of Ash and his companions. "He can't just bring his freaky friends out of nowhere, attack the construction site and demand they should stop their work. After all, those men only do their job."
"I wonder why they are so upset..." Sailor Moon sighed. "This 'Alph Passage'... do they live there? Is it their sanctuary or something like that? Or is it something else?"
"Well, I'm planning on finding out," Rei grumbled. "And that boy better watch his mouth the next time, or else I don't know what I'd do."
They then quietly followed the trail for a while.
After some time, they heard something. The sound of flowing and rippling water...
"A waterfall?" Usagi asked as she recognized the noise.
"We must be near the place where the small river Grandpa told me about is flowing into the lake," Rei explained. "He said that the water is flowing down a waterfall, directly into the lake."
They stepped out of the forest and looked upon the lake. For a short instant, Usagi expected that the waters would turn crystal clear, like they did two days ago, and she would see the sunken city again.
But no such thing happened.
Rei looked around. "Hey, where did they go? I can't see them anywhere."
"Well, we can still follow their footsteps, can we?"
"No, we can't," Rei said. "They're ending here, for some reason."
She was right. The footsteps of Ash and the others were leading directly to the edge of the lake, then ended.
"You suppose they swam through the lake to reach the other side?" Usagi pondered.
"I don't think so," Rei replied. "I don't really believe that unicorn with the flaming tail would tolerate water. And if they took a boat, we should be able to see them."
She scratched her head. "Damn, they're not making this very easy..."
Sailor Moon looked over to the waterfall. "You know... I once saw a cartoon where the hero hid in a cave behind a waterfall. Perhaps that's where they vanished."
"Sailor Moon... such things only happen on TV, you know?"
"Well, we won't know for sure if we don't give it a try. I'll just take a look..."
Rei groaned. "Usagi... you're wasting our time here."
But after a short while, her meatball-headed friend shouted: "I was right! There's a cave in here!"
"No way..." Rei murmured in disbelief as she climbed over the rocks that were lying along the lakeside. She didn't know what amazed her more: That there was actually a cave behind the waterfall, or the fact that Usagi was actually right for once.
As she peered through the flowing waters, she could see the hidden cave as well. "Maybe this is another hidden tunnel," she suspected. "But it doesn't look as dark and narrow as the tunnels of the labyrinth."
Usagi grinned. "Looks like this is where they vanished. Well, let's go after them!"
Rei hesitated for a short while, then carefully balanced along the edge of the water, until she reached the waterfall. She quickly stepped through and shivered as the cold water flowed along her back.
Usagi quickly followed her. "Brrrrrr..." she shuddered. "C-c-cold..."
The cave was indeed a tunnel, much bigger than the tunnels of the hidden labyrinth they had explored the previous day. It also looked like the sunlight shining through the waterfall was illuminating it sufficiently.
The Senshi looked at each other and nodded. Then, they walked over the wet cavern floor, as they followed the tunnel.
But just after they took a few steps, Usagi suddenly felt woozy. "Whoa..." she muttered as she staggered around. "What the...?"
It had felt as if something soft had hit her neck, near the shoulders. And then, she felt lightheaded. The way Rei was staggering around made her suspect that her friend was feeling the same.
"W-w-what?" Rei groaned. "D-did you hit me, Usagi?"
"Of course not," Usagi replied, slightly offended. "I got hit by something as well..." She looked up at the ceiling of the cave. "You think it was a pebble that fell down from up there?"
"A rock would have hurt," Rei said. "But that felt like... like... Well, as if someone had thrown a pillow at me from behind."
Usagi looked around the floor. "There's no pillow lying around here..."
"I know that," Rei grumbled, upset at her blonde friend's ditziness. "Go on ahead instead of saying stupid things!"
"Meanie..." the moon princess muttered as she continued to walk through the cave.
"I wonder if Ash and his friends have reached the construction site by now," she then wondered.
"Let's hope not," Mars said. "If they managed to cause an explosion, I don't want to know what else they might be able to do. So let's hurry up so we can catch up with them."
But as they very soon realized, they wouldn't catch up with them in a while.
Mars and Moon just stared in surprise when they reached the dead end of the tunnel.
"Well, one thing is for sure," Usagi sighed. "They didn't go that way."
"What the hell?" Rei mumbled in irritation. "If they didn't go through the waterfall, where else could they have gone?"
She looked around to see if there was some other way, maybe a hidden passage they didn't see. But there was nothing.
"Man, what a waste of time," the Senshi of Mars groaned. "And who knows how far they have gone by now?"
"I think we would have heard something by now then, right?" Sailor Moon asked. "I mean, the construction site is not that far away, is it?"
"That's true," Mars nodded. Seeing that they had no other choice, they turned around and walked back the way they came.
When they reached the waterfall, Rei looked grimly at the flowing water. She wasn't exactly looking forward to the inevitable cold shower.
"All right," she grumbled. "Let's get this over with..." And together, they stepped through the water.
And just seconds later, something came crashing down on them with the force of a sledgehammer and pressed both of them down into the depths of the lake.
Confused and in panic, they both struggled wildly against the powerful pressure that was coming from above. They didn't know what was going on, and at the moment, they really didn't care. They only knew that they had to reach the surface soon, or they would drown.
They've both been swept some distance away from the waterfall by now, and so they began paddling wildly, hoping they would reach the bright surface of the lake in time.
But only after a few strokes Rei realized that she wouldn't make it. She would only be able to hold her breath for a few seconds, and that was it.
But just before she abandoned hope, a dark shape came zipping through the water. To the paddling girl, it felt as if a strong hand was grabbing her right arm and pulled her upwards. She then felt how she was downright catapulted towards the surface... and then she broke through it with a mighty gasp.
After taking some breaths, she realized that Usagi's head had appeared right next to her. She swallowed a few times.
"Th-thank you... Usagi... I thought I was gonna die down there." She then grinned. "I didn't know you could swim that fast. And how did you manage to hold your breath for such a long time?"
"I... I didn't..." Usagi coughed. "It wasn't me," she said. "I thought you were the one who saved me."
"Huh?" Rei wondered. "But if not you, who else did...?" She looked around, but there was no one else there. No boat, no other swimmer...
But then something occurred to her. She turned to take a look at the waterfall... and gasped as she saw what was pouring down into the lake just behind them.
It wasn't the small waterfall they saw before... not at all! Coming down the enormous cliff with a thundering roar was a massive waterfall, at least as wide as a four-lane highway. No wonder the massive force of that thing had pressed them down into the depths of the lake, which...
Which wasn't the lake they knew.
The lake in which they were swimming was at least twice as big as the lake near the summer residence of Usagi's aunt, and the castle sitting on top of the hill wasn't a ruin... it was a massive, intact stronghold, towering over the lake which was not the same lake they had seen earlier that day, just as the castle over there, on the other side of the lake, wasn't the ruin in which they had seen Ash and Gary.
After the two Senshi finally reached the shore, as weak and tired as they were, they came to a very simple conclusion...
"Rei... we're saved!"
"Yes. But... I believe we're not in Japan anymore, Usagi."
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(Posted Sat, 10 Feb 2007 19:08)
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