New Earth: Part 6
By Tisha

	"Mama, is Takara gonna come home soon?" Takeo looked up at his mother, who smiled at her 
youngest child. She was glad to be taking a break with her children rather than stressing over this 
mission in the control room as she had been doing so far. Aiko looked at her little brother. 

	"Don't worry, they're going to be fine. But I can't wait to see Usa again."

	Minako nearly laughed. "Aiko, she's only been gone two days. And you're right. They'll be fine. 
They have had pretty good training so far, and they're much more powerful than we started out all 
those years ago."

	The two children exchanged looks and Minako looked at her watch. "I think I'll go check on the 
status." So she headed once again to the control room. Ami and Mamoru had been trying to get data 
and carefully watching the monitors for the full four hours that the senshi had been in the 
underground palace. "Any news?"

	Ami turned to look at her, shaking her head. "Still no word. And still no signal from Michiko's 
communicator."

	Minako sighed and sat on a comfortable couch on the side of the room. Usagi and Makoto 
were already sitting there, exhausted from waiting and worrying. Usagi looked at Minako as she sat 
down. "You okay?"

	Minako nodded at her. "Yeah, except I'm making promises to my kids that I'm not actually sure 
are true." The other two nodded as silence fell over the five in the room. Only the quiet sound of Ami 
tapping keys could be heard. Suddenly, Ami gasped. The three on the couch immediately stood up.

	Ami turned to them. "I think I picked up their power from teleporting." 

	They looked at the board, where Mamoru was studying the energy diagram. "It's the only 
thing I can think it would be. This must mean they're safely coming home."

	Makoto frowned, her brow furrowing. "But their stuff is still in the hotel room. Why would 
they teleport straight from the palace?"

	Her question went unanswered because the five senshi appeared in that very room in their 
teleportation circle. Everyone immediately went to hug his or her child. Usagi kissed the top of Chibi-
Usa's head and looked at Michiko, suddenly stepping back from Chibi-Usa and becoming serious again. 
"Where's Rei?"

	Michiko looked at the floor. "She's still there. She told us to leave her." She started rambling a 
bit with the information. "Takara and I wouldn't have been enough to stop Toshi if we had too. Plus 
with mom injured it would be nearly impossible. And with the place like a maze we'd have to find 
everyone else..."

	Everyone was staring at her. No one said anything for a long while, only trying to put together 
the information and figure out what to do next.

	"Who's Toshi?"

	"And how is Rei injured?" Usagi added.

	By then the rest of the parents had made their way to the control room. The other four senshi 
left explaining up to Michiko, since she'd been there the longest. Michiko bit her lip and sighed. "Toshi 
is my dad's girlfriend."

	"What?!" Asked almost all of them, including many of the senshi who had just been in the 
palace and didn't know the whole story yet.

	"He's not dead. I don't exactly understand it all but he's brainwashed and he doesn't 
remember my mom. Toshi wants revenge against her for stealing him or something so she just kept 
on beating her with blasts of energy." Michiko could feel water coming to her eyes, and she clenched 
her fist, trying to stop herself from crying. Now was not the time to break down and look weak.

	"We've got to get her out of there." Usagi said, putting an arm around her own daughter. "But 
what do we do?"

	Ami chewed on her thumbnail in thought. "You five are the only ones with powers to use 
against her. But I think that one or two of us should come to help navigate the palace and help get Rei 
out of there."

	The others nodded in agreement. "Ami and Mamoru should probably go because of their 
doctoring skills." Shiro suggested. No one had any objections to that.

	"That's a good idea." Mamoru said. "And I'm sure I can carry Rei if I need to, and I can also 
navigate pretty well."

	Everyone nodded with the choices of these two, and they decided that they would be enough 
to go. Ami brought along some medical supplies in case she needed them, and they brought some 
extra devices in case they would be in need of them. Everyone reluctantly kissed their children 
goodbye for the second time. Usagi and Urawa also said goodbye to their spouses.

•••••••••••••••••••

	Rei slumped against the wall. Her chest felt utterly crushed and she knew she must have some 
ribs broken. She heard movement and her head snapped up on instinct. Even that tiny move sent pain 
through her body. Yuuichirou had entered the room and he was standing and staring at her. She 
stared right back at him, trying to read his face. He looked behind himself nervously before coming 
closer to her, kneeling down in front of her.

	Rei swallowed and remained quiet. Just seeing his familiar face so near her after so many years 
almost made tears spring to her eyes. He put the back of his hand to her cheek and whispered in a 
barely audible voice. "You have to get out of here or she's going to kill you."

	Rei had to swallow just to make sure her own voice could work. "Yuuichirou?"

	"I had to pretend I forgot you." He whispered. "Or she would have tried harder to get rid of my 
memories. I didn't want to forget you, Rei."

	"But..."

	"Just get out. Go home to our daughter. She needs at least one parent."

	Rei was about to reply when Toshi entered, obviously very angry, and interrupted her. 
"Yuuichirou, what are you doing?" He stood up straight and stiff in reply, moving away from Rei. He 
just looked at Toshi without answering. Toshi studied him carefully, as if trying to read his mind. She 
shot a quick bolt of energy at Rei, meanwhile never taking her eyes from Yuuichirou. He tried to keep 
his face as blank as possible, but Toshi managed to see something there, as well hidden as it was.

	"I knew it." She said, coming forward towards both of them. "You're going to pay for this. How 
dare you betray me again." She stopped a few feet away from 
Yuuichirou and concentrated all her energy into a large ball of energy that she shot at him. It was 
powerful enough to lift him off the ground and send him crashing into the wall with a lot of force. He 
was still alive as he made small movements, trying to sit up.

	Rei bit her lip to keep from saying anything. Toshi smiled evilly at Yuuichirou where he laid on 
the ground. She shot at him once more. He coughed from his place on the floor, a thick, raspy cough 
that produced blood on the floor. Rei bit her lip. She knew enough to know that he had to be bleeding 
internally. He struggled to roll himself to a sitting position, while coughing constantly. Toshi just 
watched him with a smile on her face.

	"I love you, Rei." Yuuichirou closed his eyes as soon as he'd said it, knowing how much it would 
anger Toshi. She shot him once more, and he stopped moving. Rei couldn't hold her own tears 
anymore. She was mad that she didn't have a chance to reply. She was mad that she had to have the 
man she loved die twice for her. Toshi turned her ice-cold glare to Rei.

	Rei knew very well that Toshi could kill her as fast as she had killed Yuuichirou. So far she had 
been trying to drag it out, trying to make her suffer. But now she seemed angry enough not to care. 
Rei just kept crying, even though she knew Toshi would kill her any minute. Toshi finally started to 
collect energy in her hand. But just then the room flashed with light and Toshi turned with wide eyes 
to see that seven people had just appeared in the middle of the room. Five of them were the same 
senshi that had been here earlier.

	She was so shocked that she let the energy in her hand dissipate. The five senshi quickly took 
fighting stances while Mamoru and Ami risked running past Toshi to where Rei was. Rei was still crying 
but she forced herself to stop and she looked at Ami. "Are you okay?" Ami was asking her.

	Rei shrugged her aching shoulders. "I guess so. Physically at least. Except for my ribs, I think a 
few are broken."

	Ami felt her friend's chest, agreeing that there were a few broken ribs. She looked over to the 
body she saw laying nearby and swallowed. She looked up at Mamoru. He followed her gaze and 
nodded, walking over to it. He felt for a pulse before looking at Ami and shaking his head. Ami looked 
back to Rei and the restraints she was in. "I think we can get these off with the laser we brought."

	Toshi completely ignored the fact that these two were helping Rei escape, and instead she 
started building her energy against the five young senshi who were challenging her. Once Mamoru 
and Ami had helped Rei get free of the chains and helped her to stand up, the three of them just had 
to stand back and watch their children in their first real fight as senshi.

	Toshi was incredibly determined to beat these five girls. She had lost her only love to the first 
five of them, and she was not about to let these ones go. She tried to gather a very large energy ball in 
her hands. It crackled with the amount of power she had brought into it. She threw it toward the 
middle of the group.

	Sailor Mercury managed to jump out of the way but the rest of it hit Mars and Jupiter. They 
were both thrown to the floor. Mercury went to see if they were okay while Venus attacked Toshi 
with a Love and Beauty Shock that hit her head on. Mars and Jupiter got back up, each with their own 
aches and bruises from the energy but still able enough to fight.

	Sailor Jupiter and Sailor Moon teamed up against her and this time they knocked Toshi from 
her feet. Rei, Ami, and Mamoru just stood off to the side, waiting. Sailor Moon looked over at the 
three adults. "She's human. We can't just kill her." In their training they had been taught never to kill a 
human. If you had the ability, you healed a human. Humans had to be possessed in order to be 
wicked. Or at least that's what they said in the training. This woman, though, was not possessed. She 
was actually this wicked all on her own and had somehow acquired power.

	Rei looked at the other girls. "She may be human, but she doesn't have a heart. Treat her as 
you would any youma."

	They reluctantly nodded. Toshi was not happy to hear this decision and she stumbled to her 
feet, trying to collect more energy. Sure she was human, but she had power. Power that she worked 
very hard to gain. At this very moment she was very weak. She had used a lot of power to kill 
Yuuichirou and a lot to attack the senshi the first time. The power was now only collecting slowly.

	Toshi was still desperately trying to gain power when the five of them put all of their energy 
into a powerful Planet Attack, blasting into Toshi with enough power to finish her off on impact. It was 
rather a shock for the five young senshi. Their very first battle had resulted in killing a human, 
something they were trained not to do. All eyes tried to avoid looking at the two dead bodies that lay 
silently on the side of the room. The eight of them quickly teleported back out of the underground 
palace, anxious to be reunited with family and to be done with this whole thing.


To be continued...