Court Evil

Part One: The Assemblage.

Chapter Two: Rolling Dice, Drawing Cards.

	Jadeite tapped Malachite’s shoulder, pointedly ignoring Zodiac and his 
featureless iron mask. Malachite was not alone in his contempt of the masked 
stranger. “What is it?” Malachite asked.
	“There has been reports from my own network of contacts, Malachite.” 
Jadeite was outwardly calm, but Malachite heard the almost imperceptible tremor in 
the younger general’s voice. A trickle of sweat ran down from Jadeite’s blond hair 
and down the high-necked collar of his uniform. He was nervous. That made Malachite 
uneasy. Jadeite was never nervous. He had proven his worth countless times in combat 
during the war against the Moon Kingdom. He had slain the Captain of the Queen’s 
Guard himself. Jadeite’s sword ran red with the blood of three fourths of the Queen’s 
Guards, in addition to the Captain himself. 
	“Reports?”
	Jadeite unconsciously wiped a trickle of sweat from his brow. “A Sailor 
Soldier was supposedly seen in the Number Three Supply Depots in the Gamma 
quadrant. The demilitarized Gamma quadrant.” Jadeite’s emphasis on ‘demilitarized’ 
had a double meaning, Malachite knew. Shortly after the war began, the Gamma 
quadrant, the small speck of the galaxy that was between the Negaverse and the 
Moon, had declared neutrality. Neither side wanted to set off a two-front war, for 
the Gamma quadrant was an well-armed area suited to fighting as many as three 
fronts in a heated war and still managed to win. The Negaverse and the Moon, on 
the other hand, could barely engage one another and survive. Neither side had the 
military power to handle a two-front war. The Declaration of Neutrality was a direct 
blow to both sides, as the Gamma quadrant had a rich supply of food and arms in its 
sector. Both sides wanted the supplies to keep going in the war. As a counterstroke 
to the sudden Declaration, the Gamma quadrant was turned into a demilitarized zone: 
no man, woman, child, or machine was to enter the Gamma quadrant with any sort of 
weapon. The denizens of the quadrant were to reduce their armory and their siege 
weapons to the bare minimum.  The arrival of this “Sailor Soldier” just put a major 
crimp in the Game. Sailor Soldiers were the elite fighting force of the Moon Kingdom. 
Such a warrior having even been ‘supposedly’ seen was enough to start another war. 
Malachite smiled. Oh yes, it could very well start another war. A war against the Moon 
Kingdom. Only the Moon Kingdom had Sailor Soldiers. It is the Moon that the Gamma 
quadrant would attack. 
	Even demilitarized, the Gamma quadrant outnumbered the Moon Kingdom’s 
battered armies ten to one. The Moon Kingdom would be crushed instantly if this “Sailor 
Soldier” was proven to be true by…an anonymous…tipper. 
	“Jadeite, why are you so agitated? This is excellent news!” Malachite was
ecstatic. He couldn’t believe it! What luck! The Moon would be crushed without the 
Negaverse having to waste more troops in battle!
	Jadeite looked right at Malachite. “This Sailor Soldier is a man.”
	Malachite’s pale face turned paler. A man.
	A man. The female Sailor Soldiers were bad enough, but a male Soldier 
was trained not only in using their special energy attacks, but they were trained in 
martial arts, wrestling, weapons, and the Forbidden Dance. Malachite shuddered. 
The Forbidden Dance was an attack style that was banned by Queen Serenity 
herself. Queen Beryl also banned it, for it was too destructive. In both the Moon 
Kingdom and the Negaverse, every book, tome, scroll, or written work that contained 
even the slightest hint of the Forbidden Dance was destroyed. Every man, woman, 
and child who knew even the slightest rudiment of it was killed. Malachite was the 
only Negaverse being who knew the full style of the Forbidden Dance, and he kept 
it very secret, hiding it in the deepest, darkest recesses of his mind. 
	A male Sailor Soldier. They were the bane of all living things. Queen 
Serenity’s husband was the one who founded them. He allowed the male Soldiers
to be trained in various fighting and survival techniques. Unknown to Serenity, the 
King was fully trained in the Forbidden Dance, and taught the five young men who 
were successful candidates for being Sailor Soldiers. The King was killed early in 
the war, however, and the names and locations of the five male Soldiers died with 
him. Not even the Soldiers themselves know where each other are. Each was
 privately and personally trained by the King on a different planet.
	To this very day, the Moon Kingdom, and most of the Negaverse, had 
no knowledge of the secret organization of Male Sailor Soldiers. Malachite knew, 
though. So did Jadeite. He and Jadeite were one of the few in the galaxy who knew 
of the Males existence. They both fought them in the war. It was totally a surprise 
to meet a male Soldier. The male was killed by Malachite’s blade after a heated 
combat in which Malachite and Jadeite had to work together to defeat just one man, 
Sailor Soldier or no. The Soldier, with his dying breaths, told of the King, the Forbidden 
Dance, and that the Males will run free again. The Male Soldier was insane from 
the sound of his voice; no sane person would talk of his secret organization like that. 
Malachite burned the body after testing the brain tissue samples from the Male. 
Malachite was right, the man suffered from manic-depression and had gone totally 
over the edge, according to the medical report he got.
	“Another Male Sailor Soldier.” Malachite was starting to sweat himself. 
“You know what this means, Jadeite.” The blond general nodded. “No one else must 
know of this. Zodiac must not know, especially. Not even our Queen herself must 
know of this.” He looked at Zodiac, who stood about three yards away, out of earshot.
“You remember what that Soldier said to us, Jadeite.” The blond general nodded 
slightly, sweat going down his face. 
	Jadeite wiped perspiration from his forehead. “I know,” he replied. 
“Serenity trained women with elegance; the King trained men with violence.” He 
swallowed before continuing. “Women were trained in grace; men were trained in 
destruction. The Male Sailor Soldiers shall not die; we shall rise and take all. Our 
mission was given to us, and we have never failed a mission. Those were the Male’s 
last words…” Jadeite was sweating profusely, now. The male Soldier’s tone when he 
spoke those words was one of commitment, determination…and insanity.
	“God help us,” Malachite whispered. If a male Soldier was on the loose, 
everything will fall apart. He looked up at Queen Beryl, who was standing on a large 
black platform, giving her a view of every member of the Court. Beryl seemed to eye 
each member of the Court individually, yet, at the same time, her cold, amber-eyed 
gaze took in everything.
	“I trust you know why you were called?” Beryl rasped. Without waiting 
for an answer from anyone, Beryl continued. “Our defeat was sudden and unexpected. 
Our defeat must be rectified. And I will see that our defeat is rectified!” She roared out 
that last word, made it hit home hard as a nail being hit by a hammer. Beryl collected 
herself and smoothed the anger from her face. “Zodiac, come forward.” The masked
man strode across the black tiles, his dark cloak barely rustling as he moved. The Court 
parted, giving the masked man a wide berth. Malachite was not alone in his unease 
around Zodiac.
	The masked man kneeled before Beryl, cloak spreading out in a pool of 
blackness around him. “My Queen, I live to serve you, and will serve you even in 
death.” His tone was even, calm, unreadable. Beryl eyed him warily. Not even she 
trusted him fully.
	“Zodiac, you made the discovery. You tell the Court your findings.” Beryl 
hissed out those last words. 
	Zodiac nodded, slightly, and stood up, facing the Court. His cloak dramatically 
whipped around him, like shadows wrapping around an even darker shadow. “My 
findings,” his tone was still calm and collected. “My findings are many and well-organized. 
I have confirmed the sighting of a specialist soldier in the Delta sector of the Mars system.” 
Malachite was taken aback at this. He certainly had no idea there was a specialist in the 
Mars system. He certainly hadn’t known anything about this. The Game was revolving, 
and he was caught like a stick in a whirlpool. 
	Zodiac’s voice was still cool and even. “This specialist was apparently under
a mission to destroy a Mars Kingdom power station. Mars Kingdom soldiers managed to 
wound the specialist, but the unknown soldier managed to escape in any case. The specialist 
left over fifty Mars soldiers dead in his escape. Every scrap of blood from the specialist 
was wiped clean from the scene of the mission. This specialist does not want to be identified, 
even from a blood test. This specialist is good. My opinion is this: we find and capture this 
specialist and turn him to our side. We can use this specialist to locate the Children of the 
Moon who were reincarnated in the future.” Zodiac fished something out from the folds 
of his cloak. It was a blueprint of some kind of machine. “My researchers and I have 
stumbled upon the key to time travel. In a matter of six weeks, my personal staff of 
scientists and I will be able to complete this time machine. We can methodically scan
each century from here on up to the year 5045 AD. However, this time travel machine
is one-way; whoever goes to the future is not coming back. This specialist will be a good 
choice to send to the future to kill the Sailor Scouts and their Guardian Cats.”
	Malachite’s head spun as he tried to take this all in. It was preposterous! Time
 travel? Impossible! The whole plan was insane! Completely mad! The consequences 
were too high! Surely, Queen Beryl could not possibly take this plan into consideration! 
The consequences were just too high; one mistake is all it will take to get everyone either 
killed or ripped from existence! Any tinkering with the space/time continuum could be 
disastrous! 
	Beryl did indeed seem to be taking the plan into consideration. “It shall be 
done,” she said. Malachite felt as if his body turned to ice. Oh, yes, the dice were rolling. 
The cards were drawn.

Beryl dismissed the Court. They all left, one by one, through a series of shadowy portals 
to their personal bedrooms and quarters. Pyrite, back in her chambers, shivered. Zodiac’s
plan was insane! More than insane! It was pure suicide! “Damn him!” she cursed. “If 
Zodiac had never showed up, I would be the Primary Advisor to Beryl!” She strode to 
her bedroom doors, using that stride of hers that involved swaying her hips in such a 
manner as to drop most men’s jaws to the ground. “I might as well check up on that 
dull-witted brother of mine.”