Natalie and Jupiter arrived at the palace to find that the other scouts were already there waiting for them.
“Where have you been?” asked Mars.
“I had taken Charon out into the city to look around. What happened?”
“It came out of nowhere, we didn’t even pick it up on the scanners before the palace was hit,” Mercury answered.
Natalie hung back, just trying to keep out of the way. What could she do to help anyway? She knew so little about this place or even about her own powers.
“Right now, we can’t even get close enough to the site to figure out what it was. The Queen is managing to keep it contained for now…” Venus added.
“Contained?” asked Jupiter.
“Yeah, it was giving off this strange gas after it landed. A few of the people in the palace passed out from it but they didn’t seem to be in any major danger. Since they did pass out though, the Queen didn’t want to take any chances. That’s the reason we can’t get near it right now to find out any more,” answered Mercury.
“We should go back to the Queen. We only left to try and find the two of you,” Mars said, sounding more than a bit cross.
Nodding in agreement they all started to head into the palace. Natalie still hung back. She was scared out of her mind. How was she supposed to deal with this?
Jupiter noticed quickly that Natalie wasn’t coming. “What are you waiting for? Come on…”
Natalie shook her head. “I don’t think… that is… I can’t…”
Jupiter went back over to Natalie and put her hand on her shoulder. “I get it, you’re scared. We all were the first time we were faced with having to fight, the Queen especially, but you have to find a way to overcome it. If you couldn’t do this you wouldn’t have been born with it inside of you.”
“How did you do it?”
Jupiter sighed softly and smiled. “I just remember that I have people dear to me that I want to protect. If I don’t fight for them I know I’ll lode them and I don’t handle losing people very well, contrary to what people might think otherwise. You have to find your own reason though.”
Natalie took a deep breath and closed her eyes. She needed to find her reason, her way to overcome the fear. Her mom came to mind and how hard she had worked to raise Natalie all by herself. What would her mom say if she didn’t give it everything she had? What would Amy, her best friend in the world, say? They would both smack her silly for second guessing herself because it wasn’t like her.
Opening her eyes, she looked at Jupiter with newly gained resolve. “OK, I think I’m ready now.”
“Think?”
“I KNOW I’m ready.”
“That’s better. Now, let’s go and catch up to the others.”
Running, Jupiter and Natalie caught up to the other scouts as they entered the main hall. Serenity and Endymion were already there. The look on the Queen’s face did not give Natalie a good feeling. That and she looked so tired. Whatever this was, it was taking a rather large toll on her. This was all too familiar to Natalie. The Black Poison Crystal monoliths had done something like this to the world. The people started out by only passing out but then they gradually started wasting away. They hadn’t launched the monolith in to the palace directly then though and the thing that hit was no monolith, that was clear.
“Scouts, the gas that was emanating from the object that struck the palace has started to subside. It’s safe enough now, I think, so please, go down there retrieve the object and see that it safely makes it to the labs?”
They all nodded. “Leave it to us Queen,” Venus replied.
Leaving the main hall, they headed outside to the impact site. Slowly the silver crystal that surrounded the area melted away revealing a basketball sized projectile. It was black as night and looked more like a pod than a projectile.
“How do we move this without touching it?” asked Mars. “I don’t think it would be safe to touch it.”
“I agree,” said Mercury as she took out her computer and started to see if there was anything she could learn to make their task safe and easier.
Natalie watched as they all went back and forth trying to figure this out. She had an idea but she was nervous. “Um… can I give it a try?” she asked her voice shaky from her nerves.
“What did you have in mind Charon?” Jupiter asked.
Natalie took a deep breath to try and steady her voice. “Well since my power is to be able to travel anywhere, I was thinking that I might be able to open a portal to the lab’s containment area right under the object. That way it would get where we need it to be and we don’t have to take risks and touch it. The people in the lab should already be outfitted to handle it so…”
“Do you think you can do something that precise?” asked Mercury.
“I honestly don’t know but I won’t know unless I try right?” Natalie tried very hard to sound more confident about this idea than she felt. It must have worked because Mercury nodded at her.
“Alright, let’s give this a shot,” Natalie said as she walked over to the object. She closed her eyes and concentrated on the lab and the containment area. She didn’t know what it looked like or exactly where it was in the palace but she hoped that just knowing that it was there and where she wanted it to be that would be enough. With that in mind she lowered her staff to the ground and opened the portal below the object and it fell through to the lab with a crashing thud. Seems she had miscalculated a little and the portal had opened up in the ceiling of the lab itself instead of in the containment area.
“Sorry!” Natalie called through the portal just before it closed. She turned to look at the other scouts smiling. She was a little embarrassed that she hadn’t gotten it 100% right but it had worked none the less. She was actually pretty proud of herself, she had used her new powers and she had managed to help.
“Good job Charon,” Venus said, smiling at her for the first time since she’d arrived. “Let’s head back in and see if we can help the people in the lab. The sooner we can figure out who or what attacked us, the better.”
Natalie and the rest of the scouts nodded in agreement the headed back inside. Natalie was finally starting to feel better about this whole sailor scout thing now that she had constructively used her powers. She had to wonder though; did she have an offensive power? If the time came that she might need one, she hoped that it would come to her as instinctively as the traveling power had. Well, she hoped it would come with a better ability to aim.
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