Chapter Two: Return of the Demon Hunter

After following Usagi around the shopping mall for hours, I'd finally dragged myself - and a cab full of packages - back to my hotel room. Ami had a class at 9am, so I hadn't bothered to set an alarm. I didn't wake until the phone went crazy next to my head. Why do hotels always put the telephone on the bedside stand?

"Mmrf," I mumbled into the phone as I fumbled to hold it to my ear.

"Bill? Did I wake you?" Ami's voice cut through my fog and brought me to the full upright position.

"No, Angel. I'm awake anyway." I felt a twinge of guilt at the lie, but I didn't want her to feel guilty for waking me. I glanced at the clock. It was 11:23. Ami's class should be over, but I didn't know if she had any others today. "When's your next class?"

"I have a lab at 3:00, but my next class isn't until tomorrow morning."

"Would you like to join me for lunch?" I bit my lip as I waited for her response.

"I'd love to! Where would you like to meet?"

"Well, I'm in the mood for some una-don. Any suggestions?" OK, so I'm more than a little hooked on unagi. In fact, I love it almost as much as I love tea.

"Mmm...I think there's a place near campus that might have it. I've never eaten there, so I don't know for certain." She sounded unsure, but willing to try.

"So it'll be an adventure for both of us!" I laughed happily. "Give me a little time to pull myself together and find a cab, ok? I'll meet you...."

"I have a better idea. Why don't I meet you there? I can be upstairs in five minutes."

I stared at the phone in shock. Not only had she interrupted me, something I'd never expected from her, but she was already here.

"Uh...I'm not dressed, Ami. Don't you want to give me a little time to pull myself together so I don't embarrass you?" I could feel that I was blushing and my heart was racing at the thought of Ami catching me in my current state of undress. I always slept nude; whenever I'd tried sleeping in a nightshirt or pajamas, I felt like I was strangling, or tied up, or both.

"I'm not embarrassed if you're not, Bill. I'll be right up." She hung up the phone before I could come up with an answer, leaving me staring at it in surprise.

I jumped out of bed, tripped over the shirt Haruka had loaned me, and tore through the bags I'd brought back last night. Nothing in any of them was suitable for use as a robe. How could I answer the door like this? I heard a knocking on the door and ran for the bathroom. I could wrap a towel around myself. That would work - at least for a minute or two.

"Who is it?" I called, leaning against the door as the knocking started again.

"Bill? It's me, Ami. Please, may I come in?"

I took a deep breath and unlocked the door with one hand, while holding the towel in place with the other. As the door swung open, I stayed behind it. It was weird; I'd never been this afraid before to let a woman see me naked, even when I was fat.

"Bill? Why are you hiding?" Ami stepped in far enough to look around the door at me with a teasing smile.

I blushed and swallowed as my body reacted to the beauty before me. She was wearing navy blue pea coat over a peacock blue turtleneck, with an ankle-length skirt in a darker blue that went with it perfectly. She had a little black purse attached to her belt, and black pumps on her feet. I looked into her beautiful blue eyes and saw happiness, amusement, and something I'd hoped for, but hadn't allowed myself to expect. She tugged the door from my hand and closed it behind her, turning the knob on the lock to the "Do Not Disturb" position.

Ami raised her head from my chest and smiled as she gazed into my eyes. I sighed happily and twisted to kiss her. She mmm'ed contentedly and snuggled closer.

"Don't you have a lab this afternoon, angel?" I teased, nuzzling her hair. She looked up at me with a satisfied smile and growled softly.

"The only lab I'm interested in is right here." She reached between my legs and got a good grip, while squirming on top of me.

"Ami?" I gripped her shoulders and looked into her eyes. "Aren't you sore? I don't want to hurt you any more."

"Silly," she chided and tapped the tip of my nose with a finger. "I don't care about a little soreness. It feels so good, and I didn't bleed enough to worry about." She bent down and kissed me, pressing her breasts against my chest and moving her hands up to hold my head in place so she could take her time and enjoy the kiss.

No doubt about it; she was excited, and she was so exciting she was inspiring me despite the way making love drained me. Then again, I didn't feel as drained as I used to. Another advantage to losing eighty pounds. I surrendered to the inevitable and wrapped my arms around her as she shifted to take advantage of the effect she'd had on my body.

"Imp!" I laughed and turned the showerhead on Ami, still spluttering from the deluge she'd conjured up over my head. She squealed and collapsed against me, laughing just as maniacally as I was. She actually HAD blown off her lab; I expected her professor was frantically trying to find out what was wrong with her.

"I thought you said I was a pixie," she pouted, looking up at me with a quivering chin.

"Uh-uh. You are not Usagi," I chided, helplessly watching as she turned on the water like her Princess had done the night before when she wanted something from Mamoru. Now I understood why he'd looked so resigned when Usagi had done it. I pulled her close and kissed her, whispering, "You're my pixie, Ami. My beautiful pixie, who I'll love forever."

She sighed happily and snuggled against me; we stood there, my arms around her, as the shower beat down on us like a warm summer rain. A beeping, like that of a celphone, came from the bedroom.

"Do you have a celphone, sweetheart?" I gently lifted her chin so I could lose myself in her eyes again.

"Celphone? No, I..." Her eyes grew wide and she spun, grabbing for the shower door. "My communicator!"

While she was dashing for her purse, I shut off the shower and went into the main room, carrying two towels. Ami was talking into something that - to me - looked like a pocket Rolodex.

"The shrine? I'm on my way." She closed the communicator and looked at me sadly. "I have to go, Bill. There's an oni attacking the neighborhood around Rei's shrine. Wait here for me?"

"I'll wait for you, angel. For as long as it takes." I carefully didn't say I'd wait in the hotel room; something told me I needed to be at the shrine.

She smiled and kissed me, then reached into the air. I smiled at the beauty of her nude form, still glistening with water as she called out "Mercury Crystal Power, MAKE UP!" I had a brief impression of her spinning in place as bubbles swirled over her body, then my vision cleared, and she stood ready as Sailor Mercury. I blew her a kiss, drawing a smile and a blush, as she turned to leap off the balcony.

I toweled myself off and dug into my new clothes for something I could move easily in. While I was dressing, I dialed the front desk and asked where the nearest fire shrine was. The Hikawa shrine was just a few blocks away, according to the clerk. I asked him to call a cab for me, then opened the bottom of my suitcase and removed a walking stick I'd been inspired to hide in it before coming here. I checked the catch in the center and slid it apart just far enough to be sure the blades wouldn't bind, then headed for the door, leaving the balcony door unlocked in case Mercury got back before I did. I stopped when I realized if she got back before I did, she'd be worried, so I opened my laptop and recorded a message for her, then left it open on the table.

"If I don't see you at the shrine, I'll be back soon. I know I promised I'd wait, and I meant it. I'll wait for you, no matter what. But something calls me to the shrine, and I have to see what it is. I love you Ami. Bill"

The cab stopped a couple blocks from the shrine. There was no way on earth the cabby was going to get any closer to the battle ahead. I paid him and slipped out, then began jogging toward the fight. It was a real clusterfuck. The oni had come with friends. So many friends, the Senshi were forced to divide their forces to deal with them all. I found an apartment building to watch from, where I could see who was fighting what.

It quickly became obvious they were fighting a losing battle. Every time they destroyed one demon, another appeared to take its place. Someone or something had to be summoning them. I watched until I was reasonably certain I could find my way to the place where they were appearing, then ran back down the stairs to the street.

As I ran past the area of the battle, I noticed the two cats watching from the roof of a house.

"Luna! Artemis! Follow me!" I didn't wait to see if they would. The sooner I could find the source of the demons and plug it, the sooner the Senshi could stop the threat.

**I hope you know what I'm doing better than I do, Lord.**

**You're doing what you've always done. Trust your instincts. You'll do fine.**

It was weird, hearing Him respond so clearly when I said or thought in His direction. Then again, I know now that He had always responded; I just hadn't heard Him so good.

I got to the spot where the demons were manifesting, and hid for a minute while scanning the area.

"What do you think you're doing? You could get killed out here. Don't you realize what that would do to Ami and Haruka?"

"Hush, Luna. I'm trying to figure out who's calling the demons." I didn't see anything obvious in the immediate area, other than the manifesting demons; I looked around to try and figure out where someone would set up shop for something like this. There! Something didn't look right about that house, about fifty yards from the center of the problem.

"All right, you two. It's time to help the others." I rose from my crouch and ran toward the house, trusting the cats to keep up.

The closer I got to the house, the less I liked it. It looked like an ordinary house, except for the aura of evil around it that was thick enough to cut with a chainsaw. I stopped and crouched beside its yard's wall and waited for the cats.

"I don't like this," Luna complained, when she had caught her breath. "You should let the Senshi handle this."

"They're too busy dealing with the demons. I know what I'm doing. I just need you two to keep stuff off my back while I'm eliminating the source of the problem. Can you do that?" I looked down at the cats expectantly. The look of surprise in their eyes was delightful.

"You want us to help you?" Artemis asked.

"That's right. Not much that's better against demons than cats. You two have a reputation to live up to, you know." I grinned. It was hard to see Bast in these two, but I was willing to bet that was as much because the Senshi thought of them as noncombatants as anything else.

"I don't like this..." Luna started.

"We'll do it," Artemis decreed. "Come on, Luna. You know how much you worry when Sailor Moon fights. It's time for us to help her. And I think that helping him will help her."

"Well..." Luna sounded as if she wanted to argue, but couldn't think of a good argument.

"All right. Here's my plan." I ran my finger over the sidewalk as I talked. "I'll go around to the kitchen door and pop it open. If either of you senses anything I miss on the way there, we take it out before it can warn its master. Once we're inside, we get to the main room as quickly as we can. I suspect that's where the enemy is set up. Claws and teeth ready? Let's go."

The three of us crept around the end of the wall and into the yard. As we crossed the boundary, I suddenly felt like impersonating Buckaroo Banzai (You know, "Evil! Pure and simple! From the Eight Dimension!"). The cats felt it as strongly as I did. Their fur stood up so abruptly it was as if they'd been puffed like popcorn.

We stopped together to reorient ourselves, and realized the house wasn't anything like it had appeared from the street. In fact, there wasn't a house. The sky had darkened, the ground was clear of snow, and the air around us was whipping like the leading edge of a hurricane. In the center of the space where a house had appeared was a glowing circle on the ground, with a man levitating beside it, his back to us. I slid my walking stick apart, forming a matched pair of fighting batons tipped with 12" chisel-point blades.

As we crept toward our target, he rotated to face us. You know, I really hate it when someone with glowing red eyes glares at you. I'd been irritated before - demons offend my sensibilities - but this just topped it all off. With a snarl, I charged him. He looked honestly surprised. What else was I supposed to do? Cower in fear? Hell, I'd already died once this week; why should I worry about dying again? That was the worst he could possibly do to me.

"You're not one of the Sailor-brats. Dark Fate! Deal with him!"

A creature appeared between me and the enemy. It stood about eight feet tall and had obviously once been a human girl. It had wavy red hair that wasn't quite shoulder length, and it looked as if its eyes might have been blue under the fiery glow. From nowhere, it produced a pack of cards and peeled one off the top. I had a gut feeling that if I could eliminate the enemy, the girl would revert to her natural appearance, so when she drew her hand back to throw, I dove past her, hit the ground rolling, and came up with both blades leading - right into the enemy's belly. He looked down at me in surprise and faded like a Cheshire Cat, snarling, "I'll be back."

Behind me, the creature collapsed, and Luna gasped, "Naru?"

I turned to look, and saw a cute girl, about the same age as the Senshi, with wavy red hair held away from her face with a blue ribbon. She wasn't beautiful the way the Senshi were; she was more the kind of girl you'd love to have as a little sister.

"You know her?" I was as surprised by Luna's reaction as she apparently was by the girl's presence.

"She's Usagi's friend. She seems to be fated to be used by the enemy, no matter who or what it is." Luna sounded resigned; maybe even a little sad.

I crouched and scooped Naru up. "Would one of you call them and tell them I'll be at the shrine? I think she might need Rei or Usagi to make sure there aren't any lingering effects of what was done to her."

Artemis did a backflip and one of those pocket Rolodex things appeared in mid-air. He pawed it open and started pushing buttons as I carried the girl - Naru - toward the shrine.

"You could have been killed!" Sailor Mercury was livid. She had me backed into a corner and was screaming into my face from inches away. "Did you think of that?"

"Yes, angel, I did." I tried to keep my voice as soothing and gentle as I could. Demons and evil mages, I could face. An angry Sailor Mercury, on the other hand, hurt. A lot. "I thought of how you could get killed, too."

"But that's one of the risks of what we do! I'm Sailor Mercury! It's my job to risk death for the sake of the world." She was on the verge of tears. I reached out and touched her gently, encouraging her to move closer so I could hold her.

"It's what I do, too, sweetheart. It has been for, oh, the last three or four thousand years." I didn't know why I'd said that, but I knew it was true. It was why I wasn't - and never would be - a priest. My calling was to take the battle to the enemy, not stay in the temple and perform the rites.

Sailor Mercury looked at me in shock, silenced by what I'd said. I tugged her to my chest and held her close, murmuring softly into her ear until she relaxed against me.

Sailor Pluto nodded and commented, to nobody in particular, "He's remembering. Good."

Sailor Uranus shot a glare at her and snarled softly, "You could have told me."

"It was more important for him to do what he did. You needed to learn to trust him on your own." Sailor Pluto can be annoying with her smugness. If she knew what I had been, why hadn't she bothered to tell me ?

"You needed to remember on your own," Sailor Pluto said, with that same smug smile. "There's a lot more for you to remember, so don't be surprised when the next few months are confusing."

"When, not if. Thanks for the reassurance."

Sailor Pluto just shrugged.

"Bill? Do you really have to fight?" Sailor Mercury whispered against my chest. I looked down and kissed the top of her head, wishing I could ease her pain.

"I'm afraid I do, angel. Back in Khem, I was a demon hunter. My job was to hunt down and destroy any demons or evil mages who dared to threaten our land. That's why Rei thought I was a priest." I brushed Mercury's hair back and looked into her eyes as she raised her head with a brave smile.

"And you did it without being one of us? That's wonderful." Her voice dropped to a whisper as her courage failed her for a moment. "But scary. What if I lose you, now that I've found you?"

"Then we'll find each other again, in another life. Now that we're together, I promise I'll always find my way back to you, no matter where or when." I lowered myself to her and met her lips as she stretched to reach me.

On the other side of the fire, Rei and Sailor Moon were trying to revive Naru. Her lack of response reminded me of someone whose life had been drained by a vampiric demon. Rei had made sure she wasn't possessed, and Sailor Moon was shaking her and yelling at her to try and wake her.

"Sailor Mercury? Can you analyze Naru? I can't help but think her life's been drained."

She nodded and looked at Naru through her visor.

"Sailor Moon! Let her be! Her energy's been drained. We have to find a way to restore it or she'll never wake up." The way Sailor Mercury's voice quavered, it was obvious Usagi wasn't Naru's only friend.

"Rei? Is there a priest or priestess around here with more power than you?" I'd seen the look of despair on Rei's face when Mercury had called out. "It's either that or let Sailor Moon use the crystal."

"Well, there's my grandfather...if he's not out chasing skirts." Rei sounded uncertain. He must have been the old pervert I'd seen the full-page ad warning against.

"It will take more than me to do it," Sailor Moon said. "I'll need help from all of you if we're to save her. If Chibi-Usa were here...." The heavy sigh made it clear she missed Chibi-Usa, whoever that was. Tuxedo Kamen wrapped his arms around her and murmured gently to her, causing her to raise her head and look tearfully into his eyes, a smile slowly lighting up her face like a perfect sunrise.

Sailor Mercury kissed me and slipped out of my arms to join the other Senshi in a circle around Sailor Moon. Even Rei transformed back to Sailor Mars so she could join the circle. Sailor Moon gently lowered Naru back to the floor and held her hands in front of her chest, as if cradling something. Her brooch opened, and the crystal floated out to hover between her hands. The light coming from it was brighter than the sun, yet not painful. The Senshi each called out their henshin, and the room felt as if it were a dam, holding back enough energy to swamp the world. The crystal glowed brighter, then a single beam of light stabbed down like a laser through Naru's chest. Her whole body glowed, and as the glow faded she whimpered.

"All right, everyone out before she wakes," Sailor Mars barked, then transformed back to Rei. "I'll take care of her from here. Not you, Bill. She'll need a believable explanation of how she got here. You're it."

I nodded and moved to catch Sailor Mercury before she could leave. With a quick kiss, I told her I'd left the balcony door open so she could get into the hotel room without drawing attention. She laughed and joined the exodus, glancing backward to see me watching her leave.

"If you love her as much as she loves you, you'll make her as happy as Usagi. I'd like that." Rei bustled around Naru, covering her with a blanket and adjusting a pillow under her head. Naru tossed and cried, apparently caught in a nightmare.

"I don't know if I love her that much. I don't know if it's possible to love as much as she does." I sighed happily at the memory of her eyes on me as she left. "She has more love in her than I'd thought possible for anyone human to carry."

Rei chuckled softly, jolting me out of the reverie I'd fallen into.

"Just remember, pedestals can fall - and they don't give the person standing on them much room to be human. If you love Ami as much as you love the image of her in your heart, I'll be satisfied."

I ducked my head, turning crimson with embarrassment. She'd nailed me there. I was definitely in danger of putting Ami on a pedestal high enough to have her breathing vacuum.

Naru suddenly sat up, screaming. Rei knelt beside her and rocked her in her arms as she sobbed. I poured a cup of tea from a pot Rei had set near the fire when we'd arrived and offered it to her. Rei smiled and took it from me, then held it so Naru could drink.

"It was horrible...I can't take this any more...why can't Usagi stop them before?" She looked up at Rei and repeated her question, this time in a scream. "WHY CAN'T USAGI STOP THEM?"

"I can't stop them until I know they're there, Naru." Usagi's voice, from the doorway, surprised both of us. Naru screamed at Usagi, her cries becoming quickly incoherent - but not too quickly for us to realize she'd figured out that Usagi was Sailor Moon.

Usagi moved in and knelt beside Naru, took her from Rei's arms, and rocked her gently.

"I'm sorry, Naru. I wish there were some way I could stop them before they come, but that would require me to see the future, and I can't do that." Usagi's eyes were filled with tears over Naru's pain.

**Can I do anything, Lord?**

**That's why you're there. She'll recognize you shortly.**

**I was thinking more long-term.**

**Trust your instincts. The more you do, the better you'll get.**

I took Naru's cup from Rei's hands and refilled it. As I knelt to return it, Naru's eyes opened and she saw me.

"Who are you? Why didn't you kill me?" The despair in her voice cut into me like a rusty knife. Nobody should ever feel that.

"I didn't kill you because you're innocent." I looked into her eyes and smiled as hopefully as I could. "I knew that if I could get rid of him, it would free you."

"But he's not gone! I can feel him still out there!" She sobbed brokenly and clutched Usagi. "He's going to come back for me. I know it. I don't want to go through that again. I'd rather die!"

I offered Naru the cup and murmured gently, "How about I make you a promise, Naru? If he comes back and it happens again, I'll kill you. Will that help?"

"You promise?" Naru's voice and expression showed the first hope it had since she'd awakened. "Please?"

I took a deep breath, clenched my jaw, nodded, and held out my right hand, little finger extended. She looked at my hand, then into my eyes, then at Usagi, then back to my hand again. She reached out with her right hand and hooked her little finger around mine. "Thank you." With that, she collapsed against Usagi and closed her eyes. Usagi kissed her forehead and gently lowered her to the pillow.

I let out my breath and murmured, "Now we just have to make sure I don't have to keep the promise." I looked at Rei and Usagi. "She'll be ok here?" When Rei nodded, I murmured, "I'm going back to my hotel room and see what Ami and I can come up with. Where's Artemis?"

"He's with Minako. Do you need anything from us?" Usagi's offer was so open and trusting it brought tears to my eyes. It was obvious the Princess was growing up to be a Queen. I shook my head and rose to my feet.

"If I think of anything, I'll tell Ami. Thank you. Both of you."

As I left the shrine, I thought I heard Rei say something to Usagi.

"You promised what?" Ami was too shocked to raise her voice. She looked at me as if I'd just slapped her.

"I promised her that if the enemy returns and turns her into a monster again, I'll kill her. I don't know how many times she's been victimized before, but she was on the verge of killing herself out of despair. I came back as soon as I made the promise, so that you and I and Artemis could find a way to keep that from happening."

Ami bit her lip and nodded. When I held out my hands, she moved to take them and snuggled against my chest. As I wrapped my arms around her, I felt her tears soaking through my shirt.

"Angel?"

"I'm not brave enough to be an angel." She rubbed her face against me and sniffled. "I couldn't have made her that promise. I couldn't carry it through if I did."

"I'm not sure I'm brave enough, either. That's why I want to find a way to save her." I looked down into her eyes and smiled tiredly. "Can we do it, sweetheart?"

"We can sure try. The data from my visor should tell us something."

Her look of determination recharged my flagging energy. I hugged her and moved to the telephone to call room service. Once I was sure we had a stack of sandwiches coming up, I started the room's hotpot and dug my personal stash of tea out of my overnight bag. At the table, Ami had networked her computer with mine and was tapping away on her keyboard.

When room service showed up with our sandwiches, she grinned and dug in. The way she tore into them reminded me of Usagi at the ice cream parlor. I laughed softly and blew her a kiss.

"You like sandwiches, don't you?"

She blushed and nodded around a mouthful of roast beef and cheddar cheese. I grinned and reached out to swipe a bit of mustard from her lips, then returned to my work, using her network connection to search through any demonology references I could find online. Unfortunately, most of what I would find most useful didn't exist online. I did find a reference to a collection of texts at a temple in Tokyo - I'd have to ask Rei for help getting at those.

"There! I've programmed my visor to scan for the energy that was infecting Naru. If there's any of it around, I'll see it." Ami sat back with a sigh and the tired smile of a satisfied hacker.

"Great! I'll ask Artemis to start a general scan. Maybe we can find them before they start causing trouble." I fired off a message to Artemis, who was working in parallel with us on Minako's computer. That done, I pulled up one of my working circuit simulations and made some modifications based on ideas that had started percolating in my mind after watching the Senshi pulling their objects out of mid-air. I left the simulation running and moved around the table to squeeze Ami gently. "Now...how'd you like to see Gojiro stomp New York?"

"Gojiro? But...you're kidding, right?" She smiled up at me.

"Nope. No joke. I noticed an ad in the paper before I went to the Tower yesterday. It's a fun movie. It's as good as some of the old Toho flicks, but with better special effects. Other than that, it has absolutely no redeeming features." I grinned at her.

"No redeeming features? That sounds like a day with Usagi," Ami laughed. "Sure, let's go."

She shut down her computer and tucked it away in her extradimensional pocket, then rose into my arms and purred happily. I nuzzled her and whispered, "My angel."

She smiled up at me, so beautiful I had to kiss her before I slid my walking stick into its hidden pocket in the lining of my trench coat. We slipped our shoes on and headed out for the evening.

"Poor Phillipe! He never did get a decent cup of coffee, did he?" Ami laughed and danced across the park, turning pirouettes under the stars. I laughed and followed her, hoping we'd find a nice secluded spot to stop for a while.

"No, he never did. Then again, I always thought French Roast tasted like charcoal anyway, even when I did drink coffee." I laughed and caught up with her as we came to a bridge over a pond in the middle of the park. At the top of the bridge, I caught her hand, then caught her as she spun into my arms with a happy laugh. Mist rose around us from the water below; it reminded me of the heated water of Lake Wisconsin. The only ice, even in the dead of winter, was at the far end of the pond, where it curved to form a small pool, separate from the main body of water.

"I've never done anything like this before! It's as if something inside me has broken free and wants to experience all the things I've never had time for before." She giggled and tossed the last of her popcorn at the swans below us.

"I'd like to be with you every step of the way, Ami. Forever." My heart felt as if it were about to burst from my chest and fly away as I held her close. She looked up at me with glistening eyes and nodded.

"I'd like that, too." She looked up at me seriously and murmured, "You know my life isn't going to be my own for at least the next six or seven years. Will that be a problem?"

"Only if you don't let me share it with you." I gently brushed her hair back with my fingertips and smiled. "Sweetheart, as long as I'm with you, I can face anything - from stuffy professors to tentacle demons."

She laughed and batted my chest. "You're bad! Of course I want you to share it with me! I want you to share all of it." She sighed happily and snuggled closer, turning a little so she could look out over the pond and watch the swans competing for the popcorn that hadn't already sunk to the bottom.

Her communicator beeped, and I let her go with a quiet sigh. The problem with being a hero is that the bad guys never pick a good time to make trouble. It's always when you're doing something you'd much rather be doing - like sharing a quiet moment with the one you love.

Artemis' voice came out of the communicator.

"Ami! I'm picking up an enormous amount of that new energy, very close to where you are right now. I'm sending the rest to meet you. Be careful."

"How close, Artemis? Which direction?"

"The reading is so high, all I can tell is that it's within one kilometer north of you."

"I understand. We'll be careful."

"We?"

"I'm with her, Artemis. Tell the others to hurry, will you? It's getting big enough for me to sense it. Either that or it's getting closer."

"Will do."

I nuzzled Ami's hair and stepped away so she could transform. My walking stick came out of its pocket in my trenchcoat, and I separated it in preparation for whatever might be coming.

When it arrived, it let us know - by coming up through the bridge, throwing Sailor Mercury to one side of the pond while throwing me to the other. I hit and rolled, coming up in the middle of some rose bushes. Good thing I had my trenchcoat on - I hate getting scratched by thorns. I looked up at the demon and groaned. Great. The thing looked like a damned sandworm. If it was designed like one, all we could do was keep it busy until Sailor Moon arrived to destroy it.

A blast of ice from Mercury's side of the pond confirmed that she was still in action, so I held back to watch. Her blast didn't cover the entire creature. As soon as her next blast hit it, I made my move. The bridge arched up enough to give me a launch pad; when I hit the side of the demon, I shoved the tips of my blades under the edge of one of its segments. It went ballistic.

I held on until I felt my blades starting to come loose, then kicked free and tumbled into the smaller pool, breaking through about three inches of ice and sinking about four feet before I hit bottom. As I fell, I saw Sailor Saturn's glaive sink into the thing in the same spot where I'd impaled it. A moment later, Sailor Uranus' sword sank into it just a few feet away. They both screamed out something I couldn't hear over the demon's roaring, but I assumed were their attacks; the demon began leaking light from all its segments, like a ship that had just had a direct hit on its magazine. I prepared to dive back beneath the surface of the pond, and then Sailor Moon was there, aiming her scepter at the thing. A torrent of moonbeams flowed over the demon, and it vanished like a foul mist.

I reassembled my walking stick and tucked it away, then trudged to shore near Mercury. The other Senshi were congregating there, so I stood back a few feet to shiver while they talked and compared notes.

"That was a brilliant idea, Bill. If I hadn't seen what you were doing, it would have taken longer to stop it." Sailor Saturn smiled and leaned on her glaive as she offered her thanks.

"It looked like a sandworm, so I thought I'd try treating it like one. I'm glad I was able to hold on long enough for one of you to see what I was doing. I knew you and Sailor Uranus were the only ones with weapons that could duplicate it."

"It was still a big risk." Sailor Uranus looked at me severely from where she had moved to stand behind Sailor Saturn. "If we hadn't arrived as quickly as we did...."

"I'd have had to do it again. Sailor Mercury was doing an excellent job of distracting it, and if it had been a real sandworm, her attacks would have been devastating. But my instincts told me the only way to really hurt it was to get inside. And there was no way in Hell I was going to dive down its throat." I laughed.

Sailor Uranus looked at me thoughtfully, then nodded. I saw the glimmer of an approving smile in her eyes, though.

"Ewww! Down its throat? That sounds disgusting!" Sailor Moon chimed in from behind me. "I hate slime!"

"Yeah, well that's because your hair would never come clean!" Sailor Mars shouted. I laughed as the two of them started bickering.

"Are they always like this?" I asked Saturn and Uranus. "They sound like sisters."

"Oh, sometimes they're worse," Sailor Mercury said, slipping her arms around me from behind. "We all know how much they love each other, though, so we usually tolerate it."

"When we can't get away," Sailor Uranus added dryly. I chuckled as Sailor Neptune joined her and the two of them slipped away, followed shortly by Sailor Saturn.

I turned to face Sailor Mercury and hugged her gently. "So what's the plan now, angel? Back to the shrine, or back to the hotel?"

Sailor Mercury looked at the other Senshi and thought a minute, then smiled. "Back to the hotel?"

I laughed and kissed her, then stepped back so she could transform.

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Disclaimer: Sailor Moon, Sailor Senshi, and all terms, names, etc. associated with the series are copyrighted by Naoko Takeuchi and Kodansha. I make no claim to them and this work of fanfiction should not be seen as making a claim.