Putting
a cup of hot tea against her lips, she relaxed her jaw line as the warmth
of the liquid went into her. The liquid flowed freely into her, and
she sighed, relieved that it would soon be over. The person that
she disliked so much would soon be disposed of, and her misery would finally
come to some sort of an end. Ami was sitting on the couch, across
from Lord Takeuchi, her bare, slim long legs resting comfortably on his
lap. She leaned against the arm rest and smiled at him in contentment
as he gently massaged the base of her feet.
Meanwhile
their tender glances created a buzz in the air, their attention was also
partly in front of a screen in front of them. It was a secret camera,
recording the workings of the security room, their focus was on Avarice
who was at the present sitting in front of the security panel, watching
screens of the prison, and the porthole room. Avarice was not a man
to be trusted, especially when they had proof that he had sent such a message
for the senshi to come… he was undoubtedly their traitor.
“So all
you want me to do is to keep people away from that machine over there while
you work downstairs to rescue them?” Motoki asked, wanting to make sure
and clarify his role in the warped saga.
“That’s
all you have to do.” Artemis said, while Luna sat on Mamoru’s lap, comforting
him over the loss.
“Can
you get it done before, say, 12:30pm, lunch hour is a bit hard to control,
know what I mean?” Motoki left the office and winked at them, “Tell me
how it goes.”
Artemis
and Luna followed out of the office, looking around, they went behind the
gaming machine. After pressing a few buttons, the machine suddenly
moved sideways revealing a set of stairs down to the control center, once
again checking for witnesses, the three disappeared below as the machine
resumed its position.
“Okay,
Luna, Artemis, why don’t you give me the directions and I’ll type it in,
no offence, but I have a slightly better reach with my arms.”
Nodding
at Mamoru, Luna took charge, “first, bring up the communicator monitoring
screen, that will check for any intra-communication.”
Moving
the mouse, and a click, “done.”
“Okay,
now type in these coordinates”, Luna handed him a piece of paper that had
the positions of where the message had been sent from previously,
“then, type in, ‘ANZTW-SCAN:
ct2wk8 <ENTER>’,
got that?” Mamoru nodded silently, “then, ‘XMAP-SEC-MOONLC-TYEC
<ENTER>’.”
“Er…
it says that ‘authorization failed’.”
“We’d
better get to work,” Artemis answered him, “this is one intricate security
system that we have to bypass before we can send them any type of communication.
Let’s try to get up a map of the place then, type in ‘XMAP-HOUSE-TYEK
<ENTER> EIWUSLR2WE5:AUIE97IE8-8937 <ENTER> /MAPXSCAN-SEC-MOONLC-TYEC
<ENTER>’.”
Avarice
sat in front of the security panel, his eyes never leaving the screens
in front of him, but his main point of concentration was the filled maximum-security
cell.
“Sir?”
Came a voice from behind him.
“What?”
He growled impatiently without turning.
“Er,
sir, you took the key of the whole prison section, we need to continue
the interrogation of some of the prisoners in there, but we can’t get into
that section. Could we have the key to it?”
“No
you may not! I’ll go and open the door myself.” Turning his attention back
to the security panel, he pressed an unlabelled button before leaving the
room.
Lord
Takeuchi sat rigidly in his seat, from the position of the camera, they
had not seen the men asking for Avarice’s assistance, rather, he saw Avarice
push a button and leave the security panel. Lord Takeuchi was about
to stand when Ami removed her legs from his lap, swinging them to the floor
to move and sat next to him, at the same time restraining him, “I want
to see what he is doing first.”
He turned
to his lady, “but…”
“We
can still monitor the cells from here, can’t we?” Ami smiled at him, pointing
to the same screen, where they saw smaller versions of the monitoring of
the cell. Neither of them seemed to notice when the screens in the
security panel blinked for a brief second.
*Beep!!!*
“My
communicator beeped, that means security down and we can go!” Minako said
excitedly, throwing her hand in the air, she yelled, “Venus
crystal power, make up!”
The
others nodded in agreement and transformed one by one.
“Moon
crystal power, make up!”
“Mars
crystal power, make up!”
“Jupiter
crystal power, make up!” SailorJupiter
then immediately moved to the large door that they had seen Avarice struggle
with earlier. “Move back everyone!”
With
her superhuman strength, she give it a push, the door opened slowly, as
they checked for any witnesses to their crime. According to Avarice’s
‘security’ measures however, no one had been allowed in the prison section,
thus the corridors remained empty. Taking charge, SailorVenus held
onto the map and led them into an air duct, using her chain to wrap itself
around the vent, she pull out the piece of metal. She gestured for
all of them to follow her, SailorMoon soon found herself sandwiched between
SailorMars and SailorJupiter in the snug-fitting duct under the reason
of protection of their princess.
“One
more vent and we’re there.” SailorVenus
whispered softly.
Soon,
they were in the light once again and lowered themselves to the ground.
Facing a piece of impressive equipment, they stared at it in awe, they
had not had time to take a good look at it when they had first arrived.
This was the Porthole Room, the mechanics of it shook them, and the panel
that they were to work flashed like Christmas lighting on a tree.
SailorVenus was speechless, and her hand, which held the piece of paper,
wavered, completely overwhelmed by it. The small green numbers on
a particular panel blinked and was replaced with new ones to reveal the
closest opening of the porthole in relation to coordinates of the universe.
“I can’t… this is too much...”
SailorVenus mouthed silently, her voice cracking from the stress.
SailorMars,
calm as ever, pulled the paper from SailorVenus without a word and kneeled
in front of a small keyboard at the base of the screen showing the blinking
numbers. Pressing the same ‘menu’ button, she waited patiently for
the menu that she wanted to appear, then, sighing in satisfaction, she
said to them, “the porthole will be opened
for 10 seconds, so get ready.”
Then,
punching in the secret PIN number of Avarice, ‘pri1398721a1seccom’,
the coordinates of the Control Center, ‘631:249
- 80:21 - 23176’
then, <ENTER>,
she stepped back and waited. Suddenly that was a loud sucking sound
as the centerpiece of the machinery in the room came to life. The
frame which had previously surrounded a wall of blackness slowly began
to glow, the light seemingly focusing on the middle, as the glow brightened,
the light in the center swiveled intensely. The movement then grew
sparse, until a hole appeared in the center of the swirling, revealing
the Crown Arcade. Holding each other’s hands, the stepped towards
it and allowed themselves to be enveloped by the light…