Court Evil

Part One: The Assemblage.

Chapter Three: Faith.

	Gae-dhal Tha-ein pushed back his long, thick hair from his face. His thin 
face was emphasized by the wrinkles of old age around the mouth, the crow’s feet 
around the eyes. The physical signs of age marked him as a man of nearly forty-five 
years of age. Though age bowed his shoulders, bent his back, and dulled his reflexes,
 he still had a keen eye for detecting weaknesses, a brilliant tactical mind, and most 
importantly, years of combat experience. 
	But all that experience was for naught in teaching his youngest child the 
art of creating his own energy attacks. 
	Gae-dhal sighed a sigh from the bottom of his toes as he regarded his 
youngest child. Tall and handsome, with broad shoulders and a full head of black 
hair that highlighted his shining eyes, Iridium had inherited Gae-dhal’s knack with 
women. Gae-dhal looked past his son to see five women sighing over how Iridium 
looked without his shirt, training with his sword and staff. Gae-dhal shook his head, 
remembering how he, as a young man around Iridum’s age, had attracted those 
same sighs from women twice his age. 
	“Iridium!” Gae-dhal called, thinking to put his son back on track. “Time 
to try and create that energy attack again!” 
	Iridium looked to the women, sweat streaking his face and bare chest, 
threw them a sly, wolfish wink, and turned to his father. “We’ve tried this about a 
zillion tomes, Dad! I keep telling you, I cannot make an attack!” 
	“You’ve only tried five times. It took me seven before I created my 
“Burn Out” attack.” Ah, yes. Burn Out. Simple, effective, ingenious. Take a thin 
strand of the element of Wind, let it wrap itself around a thread of Soul, and add a 
long, thick weave of Flame to finish it off. The result: A small fiery dart that pierced 
armor, flesh, and bone and literally burned the target from the inside out. It left no 
remains other than a pile of unidentifiable white ash. It was his first attack. And it 
was his best. Only a barrier of water, wind, or three inches of iron could stop it. 
	Iridium sighed and drew out his silver dagger from its small sheath at his 
hip. “Alright. One more time,” Iridium said softly, confiding. Gae-dhal could feel the
five elements being plucked and threaded as Iridium wove them together. Flame, 
Wind, Earth, Water, and Soul were taken-a small thread from each. Gae-dhal felt 
Iridium weave Flame over Wind, and Wind under Water. He felt the weaving of 
Soul and Earth being wrapped around each other. And he felt the finishing weave: 
Soul and Earth, wrapping around Flame, Wind, and Water. 
	“Gently, now…” Gae-dhal heard his son whisper. Iridium’s dagger 
hummed faintly, a silver mist outlining the blade. The five elements were forming 
together, creating the mist, and causing the dagger to vibrate. Iridium imagined the 
mist shooting out from the dagger’s tip, striking the far wall, and draining the energy 
from the wall. Not living energy that the Nega-Force required from humans; the 
energy from the atoms of all things, living and non-living. Atomic energy was what 
Iridium hoped to control with his attack. With the atoms under his control, Iridium 
could cause the wall to collapse on itself or expand, depending on his thoughts. And
by draining the energy from the wall, he could modify it, making it energy that his 
body could use, thereby rejuvenating himself.
	The mist floated slowly from the dagger’s tip…
	And the dagger exploded into a thousand shards that fell to the ground, 
the mist already fading to nothingness. 
	“No!” Iridium roared. “Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!”
	“Nice try, Son.” Gae-dhal patted Iridium on the shoulder. “I could feel 
you forming the attack from the five elements; you almost had it. I do not know 
what you did wrong. The proportions were right; they were quite adequate for 
forming an attack.”
	Iridium grabbed his shirt off the back of a nearby bench and stepped 
out the door, head hung low. The five women stepped out with him, disappointed 
at his sudden failure, but still admiring his physique.
	Gae-dhal didn’t notice Pyrite’s entrance until she patted him on the shoulder. 
	“Don’t EVER do that!” Gae-dhal roared off. Pyrite laughed in his face.
	“Oh, Father, you are beginning to show signs of your age!” she laughed.
	Gae-dhal was not in the mood to be pestered by his eldest child. “Pyrite, 
you are twenty years old! Act your age, young lady, and stop patronizing me, you 
antagonist!” Gae-dhal took up grumbling about “where have I gone wrong” in the 
rearing of his smart-mouthed daughter. 
	Pyrite, still giggling like a little girl, looked at the shards on the floor, the 
remains of the dagger.
	“He still hasn’t gotten the attack right?” she asked rhetorically.
	“Your younger brother is more interested in his growing amount of 
hormones than his growing amount of power,” Gae-dhal said acidly. “He is more 
interested in a pair of pretty eyes and eyelashes than Queen Beryl’s army or 
creating attacks.”
	Pyrite shrugged. “Most boys his age are. It’s to be expected. Its called 
puberty.” 
	Gae-dhal was not amused, and his icy glare at Pyrite told her so. “We 
both play the Game, Pyrite. You know what is coming: another civil war. Lady 
Zirconium is challenging Queen Beryl for the Throne of the Negaverse. There’s
also the Lord Chromium, who is wanting the Throne for himself, but he won’t 
strike until Zirconium and Beryl are weakened.” Gae-dhal knew Chromium well: 
he fought alongside the male Lord in his youth as a soldier. He knew Chromium’s 
tactics. Chromium would wait, ever so patiently, for an opening, a chink in the
armor, before going in for the kill. Zirconium and Beryl would try to rip each other
apart, and, when one of them claimed victory, in a weakened state, Chromium would 
no doubt strike fast and take the Throne. “We play the Game, Pyrite. Iridium does 
not. He doesn’t even realize our compromising situation. Being totally loyal to Beryl,
you, Iridium, and I are suitable targets for Zirconium’s henchmen. Because of our 
loyalty, we could very well be killed by an opposing faction.”
	“I know all that, Father,” Pyrite said, irritated, “There’s another thing, 
Beryl called the Court into attendance. There seems to be an unidentified specialist 
soldier in the Delta sector of the planet Mars.”
	“Mars?” Gae-dhal was surprised. “All reports say that the Moon 
Kingdom’s allies were totally decimated after the Sailor Scouts and the other 
Children of the Moon were sent to the future to be reincarnated.”
	“I know,” Pyrite said. “However, my personal spy network has confirmed 
that only the Moon itself had lost its governing body. The remains of the Moon Kingdom 
are nothing more than a large band of freedom fighters and small pockets of rebels.
They no longer have a ruling body. The Moon Kingdom’s allies, on the other hand, still 
have their government, more or less intact. The planets Mercury, Venus, Mars, and 
Jupiter are fully functional, and have distributed the government’s power to their 
respective High Councils, since their Queens and Princesses were all sent to the future 
for reincarnation after the defeat of the Moon Kingdom. None of Queen Serenity’s allies 
are monarchies now. They are all democratic republics with the loss of their Queens and 
Princesses.
	“At any rate,” Pyrite continued, “This specialist was on Mars, doing quite a 
bit of damage. I believe that he is a male Sailor Soldier.”
	Gae-dhal managed to hide his complete shock at this bit of news. “Male? 
Are you certain, Pyrite?” His daughter nodded. Gae-dhal pulled out an amulet from 
behind his coat and let is hang in front of his chest, out in the open. A silver crescent 
moon surrounded by a silver circle hung from the chain around his neck. The circle 
had words engraved on it. “Women were trained in grace; men were trained in
 destruction.” 
	Pyrite eyed her father with a cold glare. “Hide that symbol, Father. If anyone 
else saw that…”
	Gae-dhal ignored his daughter’s cold warning. “I must meet this specialist. If
he is a Sailor Soldier, maybe he will know what happened to Neo-Sailor Mercury all those 
years ago. It was disquieting to discover his disappearance. I, for one, do not believe him 
to have gone traitor or AWOL. My bet is that he is dead, but how, I cannot say.”
	“Which Sailor do you think he is?” Pyrite asked.
	“How should I know? It has been nearly five years since I even heard of any 
rumor concerning even one male Soldier. Neo-Sailor Mercury was sent to Andromeda to 
execute the corrupt politicians there. Neo-Sailor Mars went with him as backup. Neo-Sailor 
Venus and Neo-Sailor Jupiter both were on an undercover mission the last I heard. And I 
heard about all this close to five years ago.”
	Gae-dhal rubbed a fingertip across the silver crescent moon symbol. He 
smiled. “I used to bounce little Serena on my knee when she was a baby. I was only 
twenty years old, then. Not even old enough to be considered an adult. Princess Serena 
was like a daughter to me…. And there was her mother, Serenity.” Gae-dhal’s smile 
was one of remembrance.
	The cold face Pyrite took up would have made ice seem warm. “That is 
Queen Serenity, Father.” She emphasized the word ‘Queen’. “Just because you were 
her lover after her husband died does not exclude you from proper protocol.”     
	Gae-dhal’s face was smooth as ice. “Leave me, Daughter. I must think 
on these complications.” He dismissed her with a wave of his hand. Pyrite turned on 
her heel and stalked off.
	The old, tired, worn-out general slipped a hand into his pocket. Gae-dhal 
sighed, looking at the thing in his hand. A picture of himself, though several years 
younger, holding an infant Iridium with a very young Pyrite beside him, holding onto 
his leg. She was about four years old back then; Iridium was less than a month old. 
Their mother died a few days after that picture was taken. The war with the Negaverse 
had sealed her fate. She was another casualty of war and hate. Gae-dhal remembered 
his wife’s red hair and green eyes. He remembered her soft, knowing smile. The day 
she died was the day a large part of Gae-dhal died. 
	Then he met Queen Serenity. Her own husband had died, leaving her to 
command a battered, war-weary army and to raise the infant Princess Serena all by 
herself. He didn’t know how the thought came into his head. A simple soldier like him, 
wanting to be with the Queen of the Moon! Well, somehow, fate brought them together, 
and Serenity took him as her lover and confidante. 
	For a time.
	He abandoned his Queen to turn to the Negaverse, thinking that he could 
somehow convince Beryl to call off her attack. A simple soldier he was, ignorant and 
head-strong. Beryl defeated him and made him kneel before her, swearing fealty to 
her might. His fate, and those of his son and daughter, was sealed. 
	“Maybe I can rectify my mistakes, maybe I can have my reconciliation for 
my deeds.” He truly hoped that there was a God out there. He had never been very 
religious; now though, it seemed faith was all he had left.