Title:  First Truths - Chapter 11a
Author:  Lilac Summers
Rated:  PG
 salaices@leland.stanford.edu

        Hello there, stranger!  Long time no see, huh?  My fault, I know,
but what can one do about the vagaries of life?
        Well, you might have noticed this is chapter "11a."  Hmm, and
after I'd promised myself I'd never split up a chapter!  As you can tell,
this is substantially shorter than I'd promised.  I actually have quite a
bit more written, but I'm having trouble with my server not wanting to
paste it in and I figured better a little bit than nothing at all, right?
I'll fix the rest so that it can be posted next week, even if I have to
retype the whole dang thing over!

  BTW, still WAY behind on e-mail.  I'm sorry!!  I * will* get caught up,
though, just give me some time.  Thank you thank you thank you thank you
thank you thank you thank you all for being so patient with me!

Disclaimer:  Sailor Moon belongs to Naoko Takeuchi and I am borrowing her
characters and story without permission and I promise to return them to
her just as soon as I'm done making them do all kinds of wacky things.
^_~

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First Truths
by
Lilac Summers

Chapter 11, Part A

        Tuxedo Mask was already several blocks away, preparing himself for
a long leap to the next rooftop, when his lungs seemed to cease
functioning.  He stumbled to the ground, grasping his throat and wheezing
painfully, wondering if he were having some sort of asthma attack and
fearing he was going to die of asphyxiation.  He fought the blind panic
that came with loss of air and slowly forced his lungs to  work against
the irrational sense that he was drowning.  It was as he lay on the rough
surface of the roof for the next minute, still gasping gratefully for air,
that he realized those intense sensations of fear and suffocation were not
his own, and that they had not abated.

        A rage-filled oath exploded from his lips as he scrambled up onto
his feet and returned the way he had come.

~~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  "Shabon Spray!" cried Mercury for the third time.  Again, the freezing
bubbles revolved around the green structure that had encapsulated Sailor
Moon.  Again, they crystallized and dissolved, useless, and the structure
stood resolute.  Jupiter and Mars grit their teeth and attacked it with
punches and kicks that bounced harmlessly off.

  "Come on, dammit, come on..." muttered Venus as she painstakingly
lazered through the gelatinous mass with her crescent beam.  It *was*
cutting through, millimeter by millimeter, but at a pace that would never
free Sailor Moon before her oxygen ran out.

~ ~ ~ ~

  Inside the structure that had become her prison, Sailor Moon struggled
feebly to move her limbs.  They refused to work against the binding green
gel, and she realized with horror that her aborted movements only served
to eat up her oxygen faster.  She froze then, staring at her friends
through an emerald tinted field.  She could see them fighting for her,
trying everything they could think of to get her out.  They would be too
late, she knew.  It didn't even seem to bother her so much now, knowing
that.  Her lungs were burning terribly and it might just be a blessing to
finally let go, finally stop feeling like fire was climbing up her throat
and clamoring for her to take a breath.  But she couldn't do that; she
couldn't just give up without a fight.  If not for her, at least for her
friends. And...and for a promise made that morning.

<Promise me you won't die.>

  God, she didn't want to die.  She gathered her failing energy and
focused it past the pain in her lungs, past the burning in her throat and
nose, the ringing in her ears...past all that and into the core of her
heart that refused to stop beating in order to honor a promise given.  It
exploded from her in a burst of white light that threaded through her
prison and emanated to the outside in the shape of a white aura.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
  The Senshi, outside, paused in their struggles to free their leader as
the white glow exploded outward and then faded.  They stood, certain in
the power of their friend, waiting for the structure to crumble like so
much dust.  Then Sailor Moon would be standing there, indomitable as
always, ready for her friends to fuss and cheer over her.

  It didn't quite happen that way.  The light faded and the mass of plasma
shook as if from a slight breeze.  Then nothing.  The Senshi's gazes
snapped up to the frozen face of their friend just in time to watch her
eyes glaze over and then shut slowly and painfully against the weight of
the gel.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  Energy utterly spent, Sailor Moon could not fight against the
overwhelming need to *breathe*.  Without her consent, her control gave
out and she inhaled deeply.  Immediately, goo filled her nostrils, her
throat, her lungs.  Her body rebelled against the invasion and she tried
to cough it up through lips that would not open.  The agony, however, was
blissfully short.  Her vision clouded in instants and her body refused to
work on the substance she had substituted for oxygen.

  <Promise me you won't die.>

  She would miss them.  She had never anticipated that four unlikely girls
would become such fast friends in a few short months.  They had always
seemed so much closer than friends, even since the beginning.  Almost like
sisters.

  Her eyes closed of their own volition.  She didn't notice, as her world
had gone black already.

  She wished she *had* kissed her little brother goodbye that day.  Her
parents, too.

<I promise.>

  And, God help her, she would miss Mamoru most of all.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  Shock held Mars immobile a second longer before a keening wail broke
from her lips and she attacked the blob with unmatched ferocity.  An
instant later, the other three joined her, their sobbing breaths at
counterpoint with the scrape of their feet and fists against the hard
outer shell.

  "Get back!" roared an agonized voice from somewhere above them and the
sheer volume and pain in the tone caused the Senshi to step away.  The
instant they did, flashes of red struck the statue from every angle.  The
end result was a bizarre sculpture of lime-colored crystal and crimson
roses.

  The air still hummed with the vibration of the stems piercing the glass
when Tuxedo Mask descended to the ground.  He touched one red rose and it
began to glow, then the one adjoining that one, and the next, and the
next, till the roses glowed in symphony of red over green.  He didn't
quite know what he was doing.  Something inside of him was telling him
what he was doing was right, though, and it was the only part of him that
was thinking with any semblance of logic at the moment, so he trusted it.

  Behind him, the Senshi shifted uncertainly.  But they clung to each
other in fearful hope as the energy began to thrum and resonate.  Mercury
chanced a glance at her computer and squeezed her eyes tightly at the
time.  Three minutes had passed since Sailor Moon had become trapped.
Three minutes that seemed to span an eternity.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  It was a tiny, insignificant fissure.  Thread-thin, it spread from point
of contact inward.  In and of itself, it posed no threat.  However, a
hundreds of those tiny cracks *did* matter.  Not much, but enough to
slightly imbalance the impermeability of the structure.

  Still, drive wave upon wave of raging energy through those tiny cracks,
and then you've got something.  Clashing atoms fought a violent
sub-particle battle as white magic fought against black.

  But the clincher was the weakening from the *inside*.  The last
spectacular discharge of energy from the imprisoned girl had weakened the
internal composition of the gel.  Now, the residual white energy bonded
with the red energy like one welcomes an old lover, and the subsequent
pink scattered the black as if the black were some impertinent child.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  "Tuxedo-san...Tuxedo-san, stop!  It's worked!!"

  Tuxedo Mask shrugged off the bothersome grip on his shoulder twice
before the actual words broke through his concentration.  His eyes snapped
open to watch the roses, charred black from the sheer amount of energy,
dissolve along with the green capsule.  Already the Senshi were converging
around it, waiting with bated breaths for their comrade to be freed.
Seconds later she was, and they set her on the ground immediately.
Mercury moved closer without hesitation...to be roughly pushed aside by a
masculine form.

  "Let me," commanded Tuxedo Mask, not noticing Mercury's shocked
expression or Venus' restraining hand as Mercury moved to protest.  Sailor
Mercury subsided after Venus silently pointed to Tuxedo Mask's tormented
expression.

  "Let's give him some room," whispered Venus.  For the first time, the
girls noticed they were slowly being surrounded by curious and worried
spectators.  Children and adults alike fought to move closer and see what
was happening to their favored superhero.  With little else to do, the
Senshi began to direct the milling people back.

  Tuxedo Mask, for his part, was completely concentrated on the still
figure before him.  Ignoring the slime that covered Sailor Moon from head
to foot, he lifted one slim wrist and searched for a pulse.  It was there,
thready and indistinct, but there nonetheless, and he almost wept with the
relief of it.

Moving on automatic now, with instructions that had been drilled into him
by teachers and textbooks alike, he tilted her head back slightly.
Nudging her blue-tinged lips open, he dipped his fingers into her mouth
and cleared it of the green goo before placing his mouth over hers.  His
other hand pinched her nose shut.  His stomach rebelled slightly against
the taste of the slime that had coated her lips and mouth, but he fought
it down and breathed deeply and steadily into her mouth.  His free hand,
placed securely over the upper swell of her chest, felt her chest expand
in time with his breathing alone.

  His life suddenly had one purpose: make her breathe.  Minutes were no
longer measured by seconds; they were measured by how many puffs of air he
forced into her lungs.  He became dimly aware of the Senshi standing
behind him and Mercury counting off the seconds, and of the murmur of the
crowd contained away from him.

  One of the Senshi was crying openly.  Someone in the crowd mentioned
that an ambulance was on its way.  Mercury muttered "four minutes" to
herself, and still he breathed into the lips of a girl he'd met only weeks
ago, because she would not breathe for herself.

  <Damn you...damn you...you promised me.  You promised me!!  Breathe,
goddammit it!>

  His eyes teared in frustration but her chest stubbornly refused to rise
and fall on its own.

  Tearing his mouth away from hers in a sudden rage of despair and loss of
control, he cradled her slippery face in his hands and screamed at her
what his mind had been chanting.

  "BREATHE, damn you!"  His tears fell unheeded, drawing clear tracks down
her green-tinted skin.  "You promised me...now keep it!!  BREATHE!!"

  He crushed her mouth once more, exhaling and inhaling for her.  Once,
twice, three times.  When he felt himself being pushed away, he struggled,
thinking the Senshi were trying to pull him back.  But no, two desperate
hands were pushing at his *chest* and then the mouth beneath him was
being wrenched away so Sailor Moon could turn on her side to retch
unbelievable quantities of green gook.

  The Senshi began to rush towards Sailor Moon, till the sudden burgeoning
of the cheering crowd forced them to turn back and fight to keep the
people away.  They contented themselves with throwing teary-eyed, grateful
glances at her as she gulped lung-full after greedy lung-full of air.

  Tuxedo Mask was cradling her in his arms after supporting her as she
threw up the slime that had filled her lungs.  He held her tightly,
watching her face as he rocked her.  Still enamored with the novelty of
breathing,  she had failed to open her eyes.  When she did, they were
brilliant and blue and clear.  She pierced him with a look and her smile
spread, slow and sure, piquant and wry.

  "You know, you didn't have to shout."

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to be continued...

  Again, it wasn't supposed to be this short!  Ack, but the rest will get
sent out next week.  this was the "serious" part, if you will.  The next
part is much lighter and nearing the end...Stay tuned!
Ooh, and nevermind my tardy status...write me!!!
salaices@leland.stanford.edu