Chapter Fourteen
A World United

      Usagi opened her hand and Renee’s Silver Blade flew to her.  She touched the two swords together.  For some reason, she knew they would merge into a longer, two handed sword.
      “For my world.”  She charged at her nemesis and slashed upward.  It was blocked.
      “A world that will be our promised land,” he replied.  He did a strike similar to the one that threw Renee into the air.  Usagi merely batted it away.  “What?!”
      “For my people.”  She lunged at Vlarokh.  He blocked it with his hammer.
      “People who will live among the stars under my protection.”  He raised his hammer and struck downward.  Usagi punched it upward.  “Impossible!”
      “For my friend whom you murdered.”  She lunged again and only Vlarokh’s speed kept him from being impaled.  The blade still cut deep into his chest as he dodged to the side.
      “Gah!  A friend whose memory you honor well.”  He struck his hammer into the ground and a shockwave hit Usagi.  She merely stood her ground as it passed through her.  “You won’t die easily, will you?”
      Usagi slashed at his neck.  He blocked it with the hammer and threw a punch.  She dodged it and arched her sword around to strike across his chest.  He leapt back and punched the ground.  A geyser of energy shot Usagi into the air.  She tapped into the strength of the Silver Crystal and angel wings sprouted out of her back.  She flew higher into the air and looked down in time to see a hammer flying towards her.
      Before she could react, it hit her left wing, breaking it.  She cried in pain as she fell to the ground.  The wings retracted painfully back into her, and she looked up to see Vlarokh had caught his hammer.  It was about to come down and crush her.  Then he cried out in pain.
      Usagi rolled out of the way and saw Haruka’s scimitar protruding from his shoulder blade.  She then saw Haruka standing hunched over.  Blood was coming out of her mouth and nose and running down her chin and neck.  Before she could monopolize the situation, Vlarokh ripped the sword from his back and leapt towards Haruka.
      “Look out!!”  It was too late.  The general ran Haruka through, and Usagi could only watch helplessly as another one of her friends died.
      “You’ll…never…win…” Haruka relaxed and her body slumped towards Vlarokh.  He withdrew the sword from her and she fell lifelessly to the ground.
      “Don’t beg for mercy,” Usagi cried out.
      “Let’s finish this, Val’kurie.”
*      *      *
      The silver streams had been compacted into a giant ball.  Both Dortheena and Segraius were straining under the intense amount of energy they were harnessing.
      “Usagi,” Dortheena more thought than said.  “It is time.”
*      *      *
      “It is time,” the voice said in Usagi’s head.  She couldn’t tell if it was Dortheena, or her Selene.  Maybe it was both.
      “Help me,” she whispered.
      “Losing faith,” Vlarokh asked.
      Usagi regarded him for a second and realized he wasn’t even bleeding.  He had multiple cuts in his uniform and blood on himself, but he wasn’t bleeding any new blood.  All those blows he had taken were but a mere memory to him.
      “Then you are already dead, Sailor Moon.”
      The long sword turned into a long silver scepter with a large red orb on the end.  “Cosmic Moon Power!”
      A small silver beam shot at Vlarokh.  He returned fire.  His crimson beam easily pushed the silver back towards Usagi.  And then it happened.  The hopes, fears and raw human emotions of Earth’s population began to siphon into her.  Her power steadily grew.
      But so did Vlarokh’s.  She needed more.  Faster.  And it came.  But it wasn’t enough.  After what seemed like an eternity, the powers of earth reached their max.  Yet it still wasn’t enough.  “Please…”
      “Mercury.”
      Usagi sensed the essence of Ami’s powers bleeding into the sliver energy stream, even though she lied on the ground unconscious, barely even alive.
      “Venus.”
      Another wisp from one of her friends.  She hazarded a glance, and saw that she was still the only one standing.
      “Mars.”
      “Saturn.”
      “Pluto.”
      “Neptune.”
      “Earth.”
      “Moon.”
      Usagi smiled as she felt the essences of her fiancé and daughter augment her powers.
      “Jupiter.”
      “Uranus.”
      “Mako-chan…Haruka-san…”  Usagi sensed the powers of Jupiter and Uranus, but no sign of life from Makoto or Haruka.  “Thank you…”
      She could see Vlarokh straining to charge more power quicker as the silver beam advanced towards him.
      “Serena…” a man’s voice said.  It was Solaris.
      “Oto-san…”
      “My child…” this time a familiar woman’s voice from a millennium in the past.
      “Oka-san…”  The silver beam of light advanced closer and faster.
      Usagi sneered as she focused more and more energy from the silver crystal.  Even as she felt terrible pain in her chest, she gave more.  “Only you will die, Merceisch.”
*      *      *
      Vlarokh hurriedly backpedaled as the silver beam inched towards him.  He was gaining more power.  He just needed a little more time.  He could still win.  He sensed that the silver beam had greatly slowed the acceleration of its power.  He was gaining.  If he could just gain a little faster.  He sensed the strain on his adversary’s face.  If he could just outlast her, she would kill herself.  Or if he could just keep gaining power, he’d overwhelm her.  Just a little more.  A little more.  And the beam was nearly upon him when it happened.
      “No…” Usagi forced more and more power from the Silver Crystal into the energy beam.  But it wasn’t enough.  Vlarokh was slowly taking more and more ground back.  The crimson beam then got to the midpoint and kept pushing.  Usagi stained more and more.  She felt the Silver Crystal begin to crack.  And that was when the beam took on a life of its own.
*      *      *
      Over a billion voices echoed unheard in that silver beam.  The collective consciousness sensed that it could not win by strength alone.  So it slowly siphoned its way around the crimson beam.  No longer pure energy, but ethereal, it coiled around the crimson beam and flowed through the body of Merceisch nel Vlarokh.
      And then he heard the Earth.  We hate you.  We wish you would die.  We want you to go away.  Leave us alone.  We pray your people will die out.  You are not worthy to take what is ours.
      The feeling was so overwhelming.  It was then that Vlarokh realized the truth.  Klijarga had gone astray.
      “Goddess, what have we done…”
     Vlarokh lowered his arms and was devoured by the silver beam.
*      *      *
      Usagi stared at the smoldering corpse of Merceisch nel Vlarokh.  Her vision became blurred and the pain in her chest increased to the point where she collapsed and curled into a ball of anguish and pain.  She saw the cracks along the silver crystal as it glowed an eerie blue.  Then that blue light exploded and the pain ceased.
*      *      *
      Merceisch opened his eyes.  This didn’t seem out of the ordinary.  He was dead and in the afterlife.  He would probably have a perfect body there.  He realized he was lying on his back, sprawled out.  Apparently, one entered the afterlife in the position he died in.  He sat up, and realized something was indeed out of the ordinary.
      He was in Tokyo.  He saw the forms of his enemies stirring.  He then blinked.  He blinked!  He realized he was looking through natural eyes.  He looked down at his legs.  They were…long.  Very long and muscular.  Normal dimensions for a Vlarokh.  He closed his eyes, removed one of his gloves, and touched his face.  It wasn’t deformed anymore.
      He opened his eyes and saw Sailor Moon slowly get to her feet.  He looked behind him and saw Uranus sitting up.  He looked to the left a bit and saw Jupiter taking Venus’s whip off of her neck.  He was not in heaven at all.  He was alive, and he was whole!
      “Is it over,” Moon asked weakly, yet filled with an aura of power.
      “You have won.  As Regent of the Klijargan Empire, I offer you a ceasefire.”
*      *      *
      “Journeyman!”
      Tetsuya painfully opened his eyes and saw Ami shaking him.  “Stop shaking,” he said weakly.
      “Don’t be such a baby!  We’ve all been healed.”
      Tetsuya sat up.  His body was in terrible pain.
      “Are you okay?”
      “I haven’t been healed a damn bit…”
      “But…that’s impossible!  Jupiter and Uranus were both killed in battle…”
      “What…”
      “But they’re alive now!  We were all healed.  Aren’t you…”
      “Maybe it’s just like with Saturn…maybe I’m just immune to the Silver Crystal’s healing powers too.”
      Ami lowered her head.  “She’s really beautiful…”
      Tetsuya said nothing.
      “I can see why you like her.”
      “I just don’t think it was meant to be for us.”
      She nodded.  “Lemme help you up.”
      She helped him to his feet.  He stood on his own, despite the sheer pain.  “I’m assuming we’re under a ceasefire.”
      “Look at Vlarokh!”
      Tetsuya looked at the blind general.  Except the blind general had brown eyes and stood at nearly eight feet.  “You’re kidding…”
      “The Silver Crystal brought him back to life and healed his deformities.”
      “Ami…”
      “We’re not supposed to use names…”
      “Help…me…”  And the pain plunged Tetsuya into the darkness.