For a moment she was dazed and felt sick, her chest ached, breathing became a chore for her lungs, her body screamed for oxygen, but her senses screamed in pain as she tried to take a breath to replenish what had just been knocked out of her. Her senses returned almost immediately, she was not dead, and there was a fight still to win.
Somehow, Asuka’s attack had hit her without harming her. Whatever it was that had just happened told her that it was not her time to leave the rest of the senshi behind, it made her more the determined to defend her friends.
    Ami sat up quickly, the pain in her chest was quickly subsiding, she now regretted not having transformed. If only she had transformed, she wouldn’t have gotten hurt as much, there would be no bruise tomorrow morning. Boy, would it hurt to skate tomorrow in the competition. She felt dizzy for a brief moment from the lack of oxygen circulating in her blood. Shock was yet to set in, and instinct was taking over. When she looked up, she found that Asuka had collapsed, he was in pain. She immediately wondered what had really happened. She quickly tapped on her computer to analyze exactly what had just occurred.
    Yes, the stream of energy was racing towards her, hit her in the chest… exactly on… she didn’t need the computer to tell her that, she could feel the pain herself. But the attack had been reflected and concentrated into a thin beam of stronger, higher concentrated attack, when she was pushed back and thrown down, that had caused the beam to be reflected upwards, thus the beam had hit Asuka right in the neck… and… he was… dead.
    Ami looked down at herself, and saw Asuka’s charred Skating Medal hanging from her neck. The medal had protected her and reflected the hit. She must have had distracted him when she touched her medal while he had been preparing the attack.
    She had just killed him, her best friend, with… the gift that he had given her. While part of her blamed herself, she couldn’t help but remember Asuka begging her that day in the hospital to kill him if he tried to harm her. Yet… killing him with his own lucky charm… it was indisputable that he had given it to her to give her luck, but… in a way, she felt cruel, cold… she felt no more different than the three creatures standing before her, heartless, unfeeling…
    “Well, well, well, we all knew that she was a bit of a murderer before now didn't we? But we didn’t think that she would kill her lover to save her own life. How selfish of her. We might just have to bring him back to the Negaverse in order to save him, won’t we? After all, we can’t leave this kawaii-kun (Mr. Cutey) with this bloodthirsty woman can we? ”
    Ami’s eyes narrowed with anger as she stared at Avarice’s disgusting self-satisfied, arrogant look. She was not a murderer, and neither was Asuka her lover at any point in time. She had killed him, in self defense, she could only hope that Asuka understood. The only problem was, even if he could forgive her, she could not forgive herself.
    Suddenly Avarice nodded to Ossify, and without a word, Ossify picked Asuka up as if he weighed absolutely nothing… in a flash, they were gone.
    “Mizuno-sama, I leave you with my able friend, I’m sure that he will treat you with what you deserve after having shown your immense courage.” Avarice bowed mockingly. “Ganbatte! (Goodluck)” he growed and with that, he slowly disappeared, leaving only Animusor behind.
    Ami was disgusted at Avarice’s mocking tone, calling her “Mizuno-sama”, his jeering of her as part of the royal family of Mercury, then the loss of Asuka… she felt a fire inside her burn like she had never before. For a moment, she wondered if Rei felt this way all the time, like she had felt cool and calm all the time.
    Animusor rubbed his so-called hands together, although they looked more like claws. He growled and slowly walked towards them, half dragging the rest of his body along with his large elephant-like feet. “I have a treat in store for you, grrrllls.” His annunciation of each of the words immediately made her insides cringe with nervousness. “Perhaps you want to say a few words before you die, llladiesss.”
    Everyone behind her froze from the lisps of his words. He barred his teeth at them, white mist overflowed out of his mouth surrounding all of them, first on the ground, slowly rising to the ceiling. Cold air filled the room around their bodies, the senshi felt as though they were in quick freeze, their flesh slowly hardening, their arms, legs, freezing to blocks of ice. They did not feel the coldness, rather they knew it was cold, their sense had already been lost, blood shrunk from their skin like shy cats. 
    Ami felt the chill of the air over her, but it did not affect her to the same extent as to the others. She turned to the rest of the senshi standing behind her. “SailorMoon?”
    SailorMoon’s mouths moved slowly, with great effort. “It’s cold… I think I am freezing…”
    Ami then turned to Rei, this should be affecting her most since she was the Senshi of Fire. Rei was the fiery one of them all, and hated the cold. Although she was proficient downhill skater, it was when she was rugged up. Rei’s skin had turned a bluish tinge but she had gone past the phase of shivering. “SailorMars? Are you…?” She didn’t need to finish the rest of the sentence, Rei could not move, only her eyes spoke. And it spoke of cold and disconfort. Ami was the only one which the coldness would not affect, and she wasn’t going to let her friends freeze to ice statues in front of her very own eyes. “You’re not going to take my friends away from me, you can’t! I won’t allow it to happen! Mercury IcePike Penetration!”
    Ami’s hands reached outwards, out of nowhere, an ice-pike grew from her bare hands, her hands then reached to the sky above her head as she began to spin around on one foot, her head flung back, like she had just done when she was skating on the same piece of ice. The whole effect looked rather bizarre since she was still wearing her skates, her skating dress, not to mention, that she was still in the skating rink…
    Blizzards of ice flakes flew around her (as if it wasn’t quite cold enough) almost as though they were fine shavings, cut from the ice from below her,  her arms circled down to her waist as she let go the ice-pike. The pike went flying at an eye-deceiving speed (in fact, double the speed that the eye could see) towards Animusor. The creature who had been captivated in the beauty of the pre-attack sequence, was dead.  Before he had time to escape back to the safety of the Negaverse, or scream, the creature of strength had died.

    An almost immediate effect thereafter, was the rush of warm air that filled the room. The reviving of the girls from the warmth, and the excitement that they were actually still alive after than instant freeze.
    Ami did not join in the celebrations, she merely skated away from them. She took her skates off, and zipped up a windbreaker, picking up her belongings she started up the audience stands. When they rushed towards her to thank her and inquire after her feelings, she said nothing, only raising her hands indicating her want of privacy. She shook her head, and left hall.
    They stared at her, not knowing quite what to do. Perhaps they should leave her alone, perhaps not. Taking one road and realising its mistakes did not necessarily mean that the other was the right route. There were no absolutes. There was no correct answer, and they wondered what Ami would have done had she been faced with the same question.
 

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