Character Sketches #1, Sailor Mercury - Part III, "Mercury"
Chapter 6: The passing of the mantle

Oedipus:	Daughter, what will happen now?
			-Oedipus at Colonus

Sailor Mercury ran on, unheeding of the shouts behind her. Her friends were trying to get her to stop, and once she thought Mars had fired at her, but she still went on, tears flying.

She had made the most colossal mistake in the history of the planet, and she saw only one way to atone for it. She ran on to the temple.

Years ago, she had wondered why it was that they always went to Hikawa shrine to teleport. Ostensibly it was because the shrine was relatively secluded, and there was little chance of discovery. She had known intuitively, however, that there was another reason, and she had found it.

As far as she could tell, space-time was extremely thin there, and a couple of other places, most notably a certain region of Greenland. From those places, a minimum of energy was needed to initiate the teleport. But still a considerable amount.

And certainly more than Mercury had to give.

But she was prepared for that. She didn't care what it took, she was going to see Hastings dead. Everything had built up to this, she knew. Hastings and Mercury, man to senshi. And she would emerge victorious. She had to. Why else had he feared her so?

She reached the shrine and bounded up the steps four at a time. (Senshi can do stuff like that.) Hurrying into the courtyard, she took a moment to look around, trying to remember the coordinates. The shrine had been rebuilt since the attack, and some of her reference points just weren't there anymore. Time to take an educated guess.

"SAILOR TELEPORT!"

The sirens began to wail, throwing off her concentration.

The other senshi huffed up the steps just in time to see a large hunk of flagstones fall back to the ground with a thud. Sailor Mercury was nowhere to be seen.

"Shit!"

"There was nothing we could do, Venus," said Mars. "Who would have guessed who'd go off like that?"

"Hai," added Moon, "and so fast!"

"Not that, baka! THAT!"

They turned to where she was pointing. The sky looked like ink was being poured onto it. The western sky, from horizon to zenith, was completely black, and the blackness was spreading. The winds picked up, and they hugged themselves in the sudden cold. The Dark was powering for an all-out attack.

"Anybody have any butter?" asked Sailor Venus. "I do believe we're toast."

By chance or fate, Mercury materialized right where she wanted to: Hastings's lair. She hadn't counted on it being above ground, however. She shivered in the bitter cold: it had to be -20 centigrade out there, and the brisk winds certainly weren't helping.

"Ah, Sailor Mercury," came the shout. "So good of you to join me!" From out of the blowing snow appeared a figure all in black. He gestured around them. "Sorry about the accommodations, but you and your friends have yet to reimburse me for previous damages."

She put her hands on her hips, trying to look stronger than she was. "You'll have more to worry about than losing your cave, Hastings! I am-"

"-the pretty sailor suited warrior Sailor Mercury. Yes, yes, I've heard it all before, believe me." He drew closer, to within arm's length. "Sailor Mercury, you're emotionally upset, you're weak from having teleported solo all the way from Japan, you're tired from defeating that youma earlier. Do yourself a favor and surrender now. It'll be easier for both of us."

"Never!"

"Come now, Mercury, be reasonable." He ran a cold hand over her cheek, then withdrew. "You have no chance against me. It took all five of you to defeat me before, and that was while I was still waxing. I am at full strength now, my dear, and there is no force on Earth that can stop me now!"

"There's one. The zenbunosuisho." The what? She hadn't known the word before. Where had that come from?

He looked surprised as well. "You know of the zenbunosuisho? The Universal Crystal?"

She spoke again, and again she didn't know what she was saying until she said it. "Hai. The crystal that manifests itself but once in a millennium, and that has the power to grant the bearer any one thing he wishes."

"Once, my dear. Only once. At the proper time and the proper place, and who," he asked with a sneer," can know when and where in advance?"

"You. And me."

"Precisely. Which is why I'm going to kill you." Casually, he held out a hand, and a blast of black energy punched into Mercury's chest.

"You see, Mercury-san, , with you out of the way, , only I will be able to harness the power, , of the zenbunosuisho."

Mercury rolled in the snow, but making snow angels were the farthest thing from her mind. Shivering violently from shock and the cold, bleeding from numerous cuts, bows in tatters, she slowly struggled to stand. "You're forgetting one thing," she said weakly, spitting out a couple teeth. "Any of my blood can use it as well. It is written."

"Your blood?" He laughed. It was not a pleasant sound. "Sailor Mercury, as polluted as your blood is, I really wouldn't trust the hopes of the Earth to such poor stock as that." He let loose another blast, and she collapsed in the snow once again, closing her eyes.

They fluttered open again, to see Hastings standing above her in the swirling snow. She opened her mother to speak, but found that her mouth was too full of loose teeth and blood to say anything.

"And thus does the mighty Sailor Mercury fall in battle." He raised his hand to deal the final blow.

"NO!" She rolled over just in time to avoid the felling blast from Hastings. She sprung to her feet, drawing energy from...somewhere else. "It won't end this way! Double Shabon Spray Freezing!"

"Hold." The pulse of blue energy froze in midair and slowly dissipated. Mercury stared in shock.

"How could you do that? That's-"

"You'll have plenty of time to mull over that in the afterlife." He spat casually on the ground. "Sad, really. I was expecting more of a challenge. DARK STORM BLAST!"

A cloud of purest black raced from his hands to envelop Mercury, accompanied by a roar. It was, in fact, so loud that it deafened the winds that howled about the top of the world.

It had the added effect of making inaudible Sailor Mercury's last words as she was blasted out of reality forever.

Athena Minerva lay in bed. Her eyes were red from crying so much, but she cried no more. She doubted she could muster the tears.

She had placed a sheet over her father's...grandfather's...uncle's body, but the blood had soaked through in a hurry. At last she had just taken a thick blanket and laid it over the corpse, and went to her room to wait for the end of the world.

She had no idea how long she lay there, or how many times she awoke only to fall asleep. She only knew that after seconds or millennia she opened her eyes to see a strange object before her. Propping her head up on an arm, she inspected it more closely.

It was blue and gold, with a clear sphere at the top, and an unusual symbol within. A circle with a plud sign dropping down from it. The circle was capped by a short arc. An astronomer or astrologer would have easily identified it as the symbol of the planet Mercury. It was...no. Her mother had to be dead now, along with her father.

"Mom's dead," she said. "She'd dead, and I never got to tell her that Mercury was my favorite senshi." She started to giggle, then stopped herself. If she started laughing there was no guarantee she would ever stop.

Was there a gene for becoming a senshi? Was it dominant or recessive? She decided to find out. And if it worked, there were some matters to attend to, like the glow of fires outside the window.

But would it work? Did she have the right to do this? Could she do this?

There was, she resolved, one surefire way to find out.

"MERCURY STAR POWER, MAKE-UP!"

It worked.