Cat O' Nine Tales
Rated PG (Oooh! A first one there!)



     Greetings!
     His lordship Chaos here once more.
     The stories we tell come in many ways, shapes and forms. This
one for the most part is different than the others I have written,
not by the plot or the style of writing or even the series it falls
into. Mainly because of the character I have chosen to write about.
Namely that frantic white feline of Naoko Takeuchi's creation:
Artemis.
     I've always felt that Artemis receives the brunt of many an SM
otaku's jokes. Poor Artemis is usually misrepresented, given less
appearance time than even Luna (she had a whole movie centring
around her; Artemis has had really only one episode that featured
everyone attacking him because of Diana), and is generally left out
of all the action. Now while a cat does have nine lives, such
things are not to be used frivolously. He's tended to be abused in
the Anime, and fanfiction has on the whole proven to be no
exception. For those of you experienced enough, I just have to
mention the name Oscar and you'll be shuddering for the next hour.
     So raise your cups and saucers of milk with me, and let us
toast to that white cat who's been Minako's hapless feline sidekick
for so long. It's been said that every dog has his day. Then let us
see what happens on the day of the cat.
     I have a story to tell you....

          -His lordship Chaos  (hislordshipchaos@hotmail.com)



     "If a cat spoke, it would say things like 'Hey, I don't see
      the problem here.'"
                         -Roy Blount, Jr.



     CAT O'NINE TALES

     When Artemis awoke one morning, nobody was around.
     Now this in itself wasn't exactly a strange thing--at first,
anyways--for being a cat, he had the tendencies to nap whenever and
wherever he pleased. Yet napping does not typically result in an
empty bedroom followed by an empty house followed by an empty
street followed by an empty city. But perhaps we're rushing into
things right now.
     He had grown forgetful as to the exact number of years now he
had stuck with Minako as her feline guardian, and companion, and
guide, and trainer, and...and anything else that came with the job
of accompanying a Senshi. That actually encompassed a lot. Yet
through the good times and bad, he had remained loyal to her. For
those of you unfamiliar with the ways of the cat, this in itself is
an impressive feat. While dogs are the Yes-men of the animal
kingdom, cats are quite the self-centred individualists. They
rarely give heed to their masters (though their masters tend to
think otherwise), the only exception being when said cat desires to
be pampered just a little further.
     It had all happened during his afternoon nap, which he really
had needed after a battle with a mysterious new youma. A youma that
had proven to be just as absurd-looking and annoying as all the
other ones in the past. Normally he would have let the Senshi
handle it (let's face it; humans tend to be better than a small cat
against a humanoid youma), but this one had proven to be different
from all the others. Everyone took a beating before an opening had
been seized by Rei.
     In the aftermath of it all, he had hobbled up to Minako's
bedroom on all fours (having returning home without her), and
settled back down onto the covers to rest and recover. Now while
cats do spend 90% of their time sleeping, this would have been
naptime well spent. It had been a valiant effort Artemis had made
to draw the youma's attention away from Minako and Makoto by biting
the youma's rear end. 
     Valiant, but stupid.
     The resulting impact of white cat against brick wall had hurt.
A lot. Somewhere while the Senshi were picking themselves up after
the battle, he found himself in Minako's arms. Ah, it was nice to
be appreciated for his efforts. Of course, that appreciation was
shown in a rather strange way:
     "Baka Artemis," Minako had scolded him. "Why did you have to
do something like that? You could have been killed."
     "You're supposed to be our guides, not fellow soldiers,"  Rei
had added. "Leave the youma to us next time."
     Now naturally he had protested. Well, he had tried anyways,
but that is a rather difficult feat to pull off when one suddenly
coughs up a hairball. That was probably the reason he had come back
alone, leaving the Senshi--and Luna--to discuss the new threat this
youma posed.
     Why did Luna get more credit than he ever did?
     Was it a female thing?
     Regardless of the answer, Artemis had grudgingly accepted
their insistence that he leave.
     "Daijobu," Ami had said. "It's probably nothing."
     Makoto had winked at him. "We can handle this. No problem."
     Luna had just indignantly sniffed and said something about
never leaving a cat to do a lady's work.
     Well, what was he supposed to do in the face of such
opposition? 
     And so Artemis did what all cats do when they can sense and
impending threat: he took a nap. He curled up on Minako's covers
and dreamed whatever it was cats dream of (electric mice?), purring
contentedly before finally waking up. While his one leg continued
to throb nicely enough to make him mutter dark things that really
shouldn't be repeated her in a PG-rated fanfic, for the most part
he was able to leisurely yawn and stretch out his entire body.
     Cats always make for great body contortionists. Let's see your
average human try to reach down and lick their inner thigh.
     Thinking to himself how great some milk (non-fat all the way)
would be--followed closely by a nice mocchachino, an addiction
begun courtesy of Minako--Artemis trotted off down the stairs and
into the kitchen.
     As usual, Minako's parents weren't home.
     For that matter, neither was Minako. 
     Curious simply because he could be, and use up a few extra
lives in the process, Artemis glanced up to the clock. According to
the clock, it was nine in the evening. Six hours since that youma
had shown up. And Minako wasn't home yet?
     "Minako!" he called out, adeptly leaping from floor to kitchen
tabletop. "Minako?" With her parents not around he could talk
Japanese all he wanted. English or Spanish too, if he felt so
inclined (or if he actually knew those languages).
     He mused to himself, "This doesn't feel right. She would have
called and left a message by now. They can't still be in a
meeting."
     Artemis' ears twitched slightly, a sure sign that he was at
the very least agitated about this. Okay, so typically when Minako
was out late at night she would return with leftover chocolates of
some kind to share with him. There wasn't a good reason for him to
be upset about being home alone at such an hour.
     The gently falling in Tokyo in the middle of June not
counting.
     That managed to catch Artemis' attention. He leaped from the
kitchen table to the counter...and with the wondrous grace of a
one-legged swam trying to land, crashed onto the floor. Yes,
contrary to popular belief, cats do not always land on their feet. 
     "Mental note," Artemis ruefully muttered, tenderly rubbing a
paw against the back of his head. "The table and the counter are
*still* further apart than I can jump."
     He took a more dignified and less painful ascent onto the
kitchen counter, pressing his feline face against the glass. Sure
enough, it was snowing in the middle of summer. The cicadas were
not going to like this. But there was more to the entire scene
presented on the other side of the window that made his fur stand
on edge. It should have been dark with the sunset, but the entire
city was a dim grey, and he couldn't even see the end of the
backyard thanks to a mist that was covering all.
     "'Daijobu, it's probably nothing'," he mimicked, shaking his
head before dismounting off the countertop. "If this is nothing,
then I might as well go out and build a snowman."
     Despite the sarcasm in his words, and still feeling dejected
from having been left out of a debate of a threat that had
evidently escalated since his nap (and it was a good catnap, he had
to admit), Artemis slipped out from the warm house and into the
great unknown. 
     The best place to begin looking for everyone, he thought,
would be at the Fire River Temple. If the Senshi were anywhere
else, he'd probably just have to follow the path of fiery
explosions. His wiry body bounding down the sidewalk, Artemis began
his quest. About five minutes into his run, he slowed down upon the
discovery of another strange thing: he could very well have owned
all of the Tokyo prefecture.
     Now while cats do act like they own the town (not to mention
you, whomever you may be) sometimes...most of the time...all of the
time, this was a notable exception. Fact was that he had not seen
a hint of traffic since he had stepped outside. No cars driving
down the streets, no pedestrians trying to walk all over him. No
signs of life at all. The mist might have been contributing to this
since he could barely see across the road. Then again, the notion
that this was a big conspiracy against him, and that the entire
city's population was hiding on the other side of the street, did
seem rather preposterous.
     Growing more and more uneasy as time progressed, Artemis
resumed his run. Each street he turned to, each road he dashed
across, there was no traffic happily honking horns and trying to
run him down. 
     "Just where is everyone?!" he exclaimed in exasperation. 
     Was there a mass exodus and he was uninformed about it?
     A snowflake drifted in front of him, landing on his nose.
Artemis' eyes crossed slightly as he stared at the snowflake. "And
what are you doing here in the summertime?" he asked it.
     This had once happened before, with that snow queen and her
flying comet. Come to think of it, that entire ordeal had centred
around Luna too. Good heavens, was he just being left out of
everything now? Had the entire series continued without him?!
     But let's not throw ourselves into a panic now.
     The Fire River Temple had proven to be as deserted as the rest
of Tokyo. There was no sign of life as he bounded in beneath the
torii, and checked around. Everything at Rei's temple was as silent
and dead as everything else he had passed. The room where they
usually met had a few half-full cups of something, and some half-
eaten snacks. This threat must be direly serious, Artemis realized,
for either Minako or Usagi to not finish eating chocolate before
jumping into their sailor fukus. 
     Not that jumping into their sailor fukus was such a bad
thing.... 
     Oh, please!
     Okay, which of any of us males (or females, if you feel so
inclined) out there *haven't* been turned on every now and again by
the sight of Senshi in short pleated shirts? Some of us haven't
even had that particular lightswitch turned off yet. What would
make you think Artemis was any different. Granted there is that
whole cat/human thing, but after all, he had Luna. Supple thighs
aside, Artemis bounded back outside, nimbly descending the stairs
that led up to the shrine.
     Well, now what could he do?
     So with a song in his heart, a chill down his spine, and
absolutely no idea where the hell he was going, Artemis ventured
out into the great unknown of Tokyo--which was still suffering from
its nastiest case of fog coverage to date. The snow hadn't stopped
falling, though the light gentle flakes were starting to become
heavier. Artemis continued to walk, and walk, and walk still
further without even encountering the slightest indications of life
other than himself.
     Fortunately for him, and fortunately for all of us reading,
just when it looked like even the writers were completely stumped
as to how to get the plot going once more, a mysterious shadow
appeared in the depths of the mist. Artemis was immediately on his
guard, back arching and fur raising as something slowly emerged
from the grey fog.
     "Who's there?" he shouted.
     Could it be Minako? Could it be another new youma? Could it be
Santa Claws? Well, on that last one, Santa might have gotten
confused with all this snow in June, and just decided to stop on by
Tokyo to drop off presents anyways. But no, it was none of the
above. Artemis could have sworn a sweatdrop appeared next to his
head as the small figure finally cleared the mist.
     Walking with a great bounce in each soft step was another cat.
     A Tonkinese tomcat, to be exact: half-Burmese, half-Siamese.
In appearance the cat looked Siamese, with all the darker patches
of fur where they should be for the Siamese cat at the paws and
tail and face. But even still those areas of black fur were more of
a foggy grey, and the rest of it, where tanned white fur should
have been, there was an orange tint.
     "Ohayo gozaimasu!" the Tonkinese said cheerfully, stopping
next to Artemis for an exchange in conversations.
     Artemis simply gawked at the Tonkinese. This other cat had
greeted him, though not in the language all cats spoke (that which
we humans interpret as a "meow") but in perfectly enunciated
Japanese. Again, as was mentioned before, cats can understand and
speak quite a few languages. They're just too lazy to do so. The
same thing applies with water: cats can certainly swim, but who
wants to get wet and exercise when your human servant can just let
you roam free on a boat?
     "How...did you know I spoke that?" Artemis asked, though more
out of confusion than wariness. The puzzle of a suddenly vacant
Tokyo was still taking up most of his feline wit to decipher, and
this was only compounding the problem.
     The Tonkinese didn't reply as swiftly as Artemis had hoped. In
fact, it moved leisurely as all cats tend to do when called by
their human masters. The Tonkinese yawned, stretched out his front
paws, and began to bathe himself with his tongue. Artemis endured
this for a short while before losing his patience.
     "Well?"
     "Well, what?" the Tonkinese asked back.
     "How did you know I spoke the language of the humans in this
city?"
     The Tonkinese blinked in surprise, as if the answer should
have been frightfully obvious to even a kitten. "Oh, that? You've
got that look about you, my friend, something in your eyes that
derives a more intelligent mind than most--even though we cats have
always been quite the intellectual ones. You've got that 'je ne
sais quoi' that I doubt I could fully explain without confusing the
both of us. And then where would we be? You'd still be looking at
me with your brow so wrinkled I'd think you were an old dodger
instead of a young tomcat, and I'd be sitting here with only half
my front legs bathed."
     Artemis slowly nodded, uncertain of just how many kittens
short of a litter this fellow feline was. "Ah...of course," he
said. This conversation wasn't getting anywhere, so he decided to
change tactics. "Ano...do you know what's happened to Tokyo?
Everybody's disappeared, the city's covered in mist, and it's
snowing in June."
     "Oh, this?" the Tonkinese remarked, looking up from his tongue
bath and giving Artemis a look as if he should have known better.
"This is the result of the guy who feeds me invading your world.
Not a bad guy, really, if you discount that whole 'I'm going to
take over the planet' thing."
     Artemis could only gawk at the Tonkinese. "Take...over the
world?"
     The Tonkinese nodded matter-of-factly. "Hai. He's done it to
a few planets before as it is, but I must confess that this one is
by far the most seasonable place I've ever been to."
     "But...take over the world?!" Artemis blurted out again,
unable to really find any other words without reverting into
catspeak again.
     "Yare yare, I thought we had already covered this," the
Tonkinese sighed, finishing off bathing one leg and forgoing the
rest of himself. "The guy who feeds me comes from some other region
of space, conquering this, that and the other as he wishes. Myself,
I'm with him because I get all the free meals I want, the beautiful
scenery changes every few months, and he lets me play with
explosive magiks."
     Artemis' ears were twitching once again.
     On the one hand, the origins about this afternoon's youma had
been answered. Even still, curiousity was brimming up inside the
white cat. And even though he was sure it might kill him, Artemis
asked more questions of the Tonkinese.
     "But why am I left here?" he pressed further. "Why me and no
one else?"
     The Tonkinese simply shrugged. "No idea, actually. It could
have something to do with that crescent moon on your
forehead...then again that black cat also had one, and she's not
here right now."
     Artemis stiffened. "Luna? How do you know about her? Where is
she?"
     The Tonkinese blinked, ears twitching slightly. "Shimatta! You
know you ask too many questions. You should sit back a little and
enjoy the ride, my fellow feline."
     "My name," he cut in. "is Artemis."
     That drew a curious smirk from the Tonkinese. "Really?
How...interesting. But names aside, you shouldn't get so stressed
out about every little thing--otherwise you'll become a chihuahua.
You've probably lost seven or eight of your nine lives already--"
     You have no idea, Artemis ruefully thought to himself.
     "-- and it would be a shame to waste your last one this way.
Just let them work it out, and relax. Let the humans worry about
human problems."
     "But I can't," Artemis protested. 
     "Oh, of course you can," the Tonkinese replied evenly, his
tail swaying in behind him. He got up and started to trot off into
the mist. "It's easy, my fellow feline. I'll just tell the guy who
feeds me that you're my new companion; it's that simple! Picture
it: catnip as far as the eye can see, little mice on roller skates-
-or, what I call 'fast food'--and if someone strokes your fur the
wrong way, you can blow them up."
     That last idea sorely tempted Artemis as he relived all those
wondrously fond memories of Minako flinging him around like a doll,
ignoring him half the time, giving him heart attacks when
announcing her newest scheme to become a famous young lady, and
scolding him for going into her underwear drawer more often than he
ever did go in there. But hey! Anywhere, they don't care, cats
sleep anywhere.
     And typically a cat can sleep among a girl's panties and get
away with it. After all, panties are quite soft and make rather
comfortable pillows...not that your author would know anything
about that. Anyhoo, while normal cats could get away with such a
thing by making it look cute, he couldn't. That whole 'talking cat
who acts as my mentor' thing always blew it for him, even when he
gave Minako his most sincere smile and innocent "meow?".
     Getting back to the story at hand, which is indeed far better
than two in the bush, Artemis scrambled after the Tonkinese,
adamant about solving this particular problem. Quite honestly, he
would have been content to smack the Tonkinese around with his
claws to get an actual answer. 
     "Hey, get back here!" he called after the other cat, desperate
to get some form of a straight answer. "What's happened to Tokyo?"
     "Our two realms are merging together," the Tonkinese replied,
sauntering across the foggy road. His eyes glowed an eerie green in
the dim light. Artemis shivered slightly; with the expression this
cat wore, the Tonkinese looked like...well, for lack of a better
metaphor, he looked like the cat who just ate the canary.
     "And you're not doing anything about it?" Artemis pressed.
     "I would have missed my afternoon nap had I decided to join
the guy who feeds me in his daily routine. Conquer this, wipe out
that; if I got involved in every little thing he did, I'd be so
dirty that I'd be bathing myself at least ten times a day. Imagine
how hideous the hairballs would look!"
     The Tonkinese hopped onto the sidewalk, and continued along.
"You were the exact same way, my dear Artemis. You took a nap when
all those girls who feed you decided to fight against the guy who
feeds me."
     Artemis' ear twitched as he tried to keep up. "That was
different!"
     The Tonkinese looked back at him. "Is it then?"
     "Hai. They told me to go home and rest."
     That got an exasperated roll of the eyes from the Tonkinese.
"Yare yare. You let the ones who feed you *tell* you what to do? I
swear, you're becoming just like a dog! Next thing I know, you'll
be fetching sticks and drinking out of the toilet."
     Artemis hissed. "Why you little...!!"
     After all, being called to a canine wanna-be is not the thing
to say to any cat, not matter how much they might drool.
     "Think about it for a moment," the Tonkinese stated,
effortlessly bounding up the side of a wall before contentedly
walking atop it. Artemis followed in suit, and then noticed the
reddish form of the Tokyo Tower starting to pierce through the veil
of mist and snow. 
     "How many times have you done the things you've wanted to do?
Indulging your inner feline, as it were. In you I see a distinct
blur between master and pet, and if you must know that rather
frightens me." The Tonkinese turned around, pushing his foggy grey
face right into Artemis'. "Perhaps it was fate that we should meet,
my friend. It's not too late to join me in marking some territory,
and letting the guy who feeds me take over this backwater world of
yours."
     Artemis found himself at a crossroad.
     Yet for all the words this other cat had spoken, no matter how
tempting they sounded, Artemis already knew the response he would
give. Certainly being taken for granted by Minako and the others
was something that rubbed his fur the wrong way, but on the other
hand, who else would talk to him endlessly about their newest
boyfriend (usually by sight and not by dating)...even when he
didn't want to listen? Who would smuggle him into movie
theatres...and then leave him stuck in the bag so he couldn't see
anything? And who would give him some chocolate during a midnight
fridge raid...and then blame him when all the chocolate was
discovered missing the next morning? 
     Okay, so that argument was not going the right way.
     But no matter how he looked at the situation, Artemis realized
where his real place laid--other than in Minako's underwear drawer.
With his blue eyes, the little white cat looked right at the
Tonkinese, and shook his head.
     "Iie," Artemis said. "I can't. Minako and the others...they're
more than just the ones who feed me. They're my friends."
     The Tonkinese blinked, a little surprised to say the least,
but before he could say something in response, Artemis pushed past
him, bounded down onto the ground, and headed for the Tokyo Tower.
For some reason the Tokyo Tower was the centre of the universe.
While it did make finding battlegrounds rather simplistic, it was
annoying to always wind up at the same place time and time again.
Then again, an agile cat like him was at home jumping among the
thin metal beams and girders.
     "I'm warning you, Artemis."
     Shivers went up Artemis' fur with those words. The Tonkinese's
voice had suddenly lost its friendly and relaxed tone. Now it had
become a lot more dangerous, and threatening against him. Artemis
stopped, slowly turning back. The Tonkinese was staring solemnly at
him, those eerie green eyes glowing brighter now than before.
     "Artemis, I feel like we've become good companions in this
time," the Tonkinese stated. " Strange that it would come to this,
given how our feline nature is more or less self-serving."
     The Tonkinese paused, considering. "Then again, if we use the
pretense of serving our human feeders, we are in actuality in this
just for ourselves. Ne? If your feeders win, then I'll be without
a ghost city to prowl at my leisure, and I doubt I'd have my feeder
to cater to my many whims. On the other hand, if my feeder wins,
then there goes your way of life too, and that blonde girl won't be
able to feed you. So here we are at an impasse. We could, as I have
already proposed, just have a nap and let our feeders deal with the
problem since they're the ones who started it. Whomever wins, we
cats just let each other slip on by, unharmed by either side. Or,
as you seem so eager to do, join the fight and probably be cleaning
the dirt out of our fur for the next two weeks."
     Hopping down from the wall, the Tonkinese began to pace the
sidewalk, closing the gap between himself and Artemis. "Now, I
would really rather not take part in that second option. Mainly
because I'm afraid that if you do decide to fight...I shall be
forced to kill you."
     Artemis' head straightened up, his eyes widening in disbelief. 
     A catfight? It appeared such things were not confined to
merely the females of the species.
     The Tonkinese's eyes abruptly bulged out from their sockets,
the lenses, pure and black, went from circular to slitted. The
Tonkinese's body began to ripple, swelling up as hideously as his
eyes were. Fur began to shed, flying in every direction. What was
left behind was something that might have been fur; a tangled mass
of dark black that was wrinkled as if the former Tonkinese had put
on a suit of skin ten sizes too large. That changed about five
seconds later when the entire body of the former Tonkinese grew,
slowly rising up to let the second skin take hold. From four legs
to two, he rose up on his hind legs, tail widening and stretching
out until it became almost like a whip.
     For every foot this creature rose up to tower over him,
Artemis' jaw dropped another few inches. Ten feet of creature
height later found
Artemis' jaw on the sidewalk. "N-Na ni?!" he hissed through his
fangs.
     "Oh, did I forget to properly introduce myself?" the former
Tonkinese inquired. "Yes...yes I did. My name, dear Artemis, holds
as much mythical references as your own. Call me Cerberus."
     Three heads, each one as ferocious and terrifying as the next,
pushed out from the ribbons that might have been the flesh of the
former cat's original head. They were not fully feline, too savage
and grotesque to be that of a cat. They more resembled wolves'
heads...and rather unpleasant ones at that.
     Artemis backed away, gawking at the sheer size of
this...this... well, for lack of a better word, this thing. "But
Cerberus was supposed to be a dog!" he exclaimed. 
     Which was true, and in which this case would have been worse
considering how well the species of feline and canine have gotten
along with each other for as far back as any of us can recall.
     Cerberus smirked, all three heads of him. "An interpretive
error," one head stated. "that we shall soon remedy. You can't
imagine how insulting it's been to have our species mistaken for
another for so long."
     Artemis arched his back, his fur standing on edge as he
instinctively hissed at the Cerberus creature. This particular
tactic was used to make himself look bigger than he really was, a
means of psyching out his opponent. Of course, when you're opponent
is about ten feet high, said tactic fails rather miserably. And so
in the face of such danger, Artemis did the most valiant and
honourable thing he could: he bolted.
     The entire story was going from the typical dog-eat-dog world
to
dog-thing-eat-cat world, and let's face it: when you're on the
lower end of such a particular food chain, you would rather find a
nice cozy drawer of underwear to curl up in and forget everything.
Unfortunately, this story did not possess an eyecatch, which meant
that poor Artemis had to run for his life without getting a half
decent commercial & catnip break. 
     Cerberus' laughter echoed in behind him before there was an
enormous "thud!" as the three-headed creature dropped onto all
fours. Next came a rapid series of rumbling pawsteps as he began to
give chase. Artemis lunged up the stone wall next to the sidewalk,
scrambling into the bushes just as Cerberus pounced. Claws were
unsheathed that might as well have been Ginsu knives, raked down
upon the brush Artemis had disappeared into.
     With a chuckle, Cerberus felt him slash something surprisingly
soft. He withdrew his claws, a trickle of blood running down the
middle one. "Ara, so you're not as fast as I thought, my dear
Artemis. How disappointing."
     Extending his tongue, Cerberus licked the blood clean off his
claws before leaping into the trees to track down his newest prey.
Cat and mouse, three-headed cat creature and poor little white cat;
it didn't matter. Now that he had tasted blood, he wanted more. The
instinct to kill was driving him along.

                    *    *    *
     The last thing he wanted was to have a drop-off awaiting him
at the edge of the park. Artemis looked down at the four foot drop,
where the unevenly leveled grounds of treeline and sidewalk met. "I
do not need this now," he muttered to himself.
     He was currently in no shape to try something like that.
     Wincing through the pain, Artemis gingerly licked the wound on
his left hind leg. It wasn't a deep cut, but it was still enough to
make him wish that he had never indulged his curiousity. This time
it looked like his curiousity might kill the cat after all--namely,
himself.
     After that close call, he had managed to use his small but
wiry form to lose Cerberus through that thick tangle of trees and
bushes in one of the nearby parks. A cat's nose might be able to
smell and hunt one thing, but actually tracking something down
through vegetation and growth is something quite different. If
anything, the sight of Cerberus pouncing and then clotheslining
himself on a tree branch was giving Artemis a more cheerful outlook
on the ending of this chase. Well, it had been cheerful...right
until a rather irate Cerberus had retaliated against the branch by
ripping out the entire tree from the ground and lobbing it at him.
     The scenery wasn't very pleasant now either.
     All of Tokyo had suddenly transformed itself into something
that looked like a city designer's version of hell. The streets and
sidewalks below his tender paws were now rusted grates that he
could see through. However all that could be seen through that was
more darkness, much like what was around him now. A few stray
streetlights, a sickening colour of rust brown flickered unevenly.
Buildings were all looking like they had never been used for a
hundred years, crumbling apart and as rust-ridden as everything
else.
     And the rain.
     Before it had been mist and gentle snow. Now it was pitch
black outside, and the rain was pouring down, soaking his fur.
Imagine Artemis' disbelief in emerging from dry forest, a short
walk away from the Tokyo Tower, only to see this sort of citywide
dilapidation. He could already see a series of bright, flickering
lights at the observation deck; a sure sign that the Sailor Senshi
were already deep into a battle.
     Why didn't he get some sort of cool attack?
     Granted he didn't get into the heat of battle all too often,
but whenever he did, he either got thrashed across the room or was
stepped on. It just seemed so unfair that the humans got all the
neat powers. Maybe Cerberus would stop hounding him if he shot the
creature with a Dead Scream.
     A loud roar echoed in behind him.
     "Doesn't he ever give up?" Artemis groaned, picking himself up
and carefully hopping down from the wall. The water already
covering the sidewalk helped cushion his fall, allowing him to
start running again across the street. He abruptly halted his mad
dash, nearly toppling into a gaping hole in one of the grates. The
rains pelted through his fur, and he was already wading through the
water. The pull from the rivers flooding into the hole nearly
sucked him in.
     Suddenly an enormous tree, its trunk severed rudely from the
ground, leaped out from the park and came crashing down next to
Artemis. Now even he could take a hint when presented with
something like this; he could hear Cerberus smashing through the
rest of the trees. 
     Artemis scrambled up and over the tree, using as much of it as
he could to cut across the floodwaters. A bolt of lightening
streaked across the far distant sky. Finding himself at the root
system, Artemis leaped onto the sidewalk, slipping on the water and
colliding with a telephone pole. He shook his head, trying to
regain his senses. The streetlights overhead were still flickering,
casting an eerie glow over the area--but leaving a wonderful amount
of shadows to hide within.
     "There has to be some trick to beating that guy," he panted.
     Size mattered, in this case.
     If strength was out of the question, then he had to use
something else to his advantage. His body soaked and bedraggled,
Artemis managed to move in behind a parked car, crouching low
behind the rear tire. Not a heartbeat later, Cerberus exploded from
the leaves and trees, soaring across the sky to come crashing down
onto the tree he had previously lobbed into the open.
     "Come on out, my little feline!" Cerberus sang. "It's time to
play!" His three heads surveyed the area, finding nothing. "What's
the matter, dear Artemis? Cerberus got your tongue?"
     Cerberus dropped onto the roadway, a large wave of water sent
up from the epicentre of his landing. The rain was coming down in
torrents now, thick and drenching and making it near impossible to
see anything clearly.
     "You know," the former Tonkinese remarked, seemingly oblivious
to the storm. "I find it rather ironic how our names are played out
in mythology. I am named after a creature guarding the dead, whose
name is associated with ferocity and terror. No one could ever pass
Cerberus without being torn to shreds. But you, Artemis...you're
named after a girl! Artemis, goddess of the moon. What has the moon
ever done?"
     "Artemis was also the goddess of hunting," came a small but
vicious retort.
     Although all of his three heads could see very little through
the rain, Cerberus' feline hearing was still very acute. Already he
knew where to attack. Cerberus lunged, striking with one of his
forearms. Savage claws were unsheathed, moving in a rapid blur of
grey towards Artemis. With a chuckle, Cerberus felt those claws
slash through something...hard and solid? He whirled as a streak of
white appeared behind him.
     Artemis had used the flowing water to help dodge the blow,
racing right beneath Cerberus' legs, frantically running for all he
was worth. He never looked back as he dashed towards the park, even
when he heard the snapping of the telephone pole Cerberus had
bisected. With one desperate kick of his hind legs, Artemis bounded
across the fallen tree at the edge of the street, pushing off the
branch closest to the wall and leaping into the air. He was also
praying that for once that this cat might fly and land on his feet.
     With an enraged snarl, Cerberus watched Artemis soar through
air and rain. Moments later, the three-headed beast looked back as
the telephone pole he had buried his claws into broke apart and
toppled over. The lines were snapped apart, pure electricity
sparking wildly from the severed ends. All of Cerberus' slitted
eyes widened in utter disbelief as the telephone lines crashed into
the river of water at his feet. Instantly all the pent-up
electricity was unleashed into the water, blue and white and purple
bolts jumping across anything that was wet.
     Cerberus howled as he was caught within the discharge, his
entire body spasming uncontrollably as thousands of magnified volts
of electricity were sent up through him. From the ends of his
claws, bolts of lightening were sent flying in every direction,
sparks exploding as the lightening took out lights, bushes, the
road and anything else they could strike. All the lights began to
flicker, the Tokyo Tower itself subjected to a sudden outage of
power.
     Artemis' body coasted through the air as the electricity
swarmed through the waters below him. He frantically reached
forward with his front paws as the stone wall leading to solid
ground loomed in front of him. Bolts of lightening streaked past
him, blowing holes into the wall and leaving black scorch marks
over everything.
     "KUSOOOOOOO!!!!!" the former Tonkinese's voice yowled through
the fierce rains.
     And then Artemis' paws struck rock. Claws unsheathed,
furiously digging into the stone. Without any second of hesitation,
Artemis' hind legs found the wall and kicked upwards. The small
white cat tumbled over the top of the wall, protected from the
electrical hell that was still engulfing Cerberus. The three-headed
beast, once fully feline, threw out one last attack of lightening
that was coursing through his body, unleashing a bolt that smashed
itself into the wall just as Artemis toppled over. 
     Artemis yelped with the added kick to send his back end
kicking over the wall...and the rest of him too. He toppled head
over paws into soaked green brush, dazed but alive--and swearing
that he had just used up another one of his nine lives.
     The smell of barbecued kitty was thick in the air, causing
Artemis to wrinkle his nose in distaste. Cats do have quite the
sensitive nose, and this particular scent nearly made poor Artemis
lose whatever lunch he had eaten earlier. Power was starting to
return to normal in the city, the lightpoles ceasing to flicker
while the Tokyo Tower's lights all went back on.
     Walking over to the edge of the wall, Artemis stared at the
twitching, burnt, and quite dead remains of Cerberus. Any smoke the
furry corpse might have given off was washed away in the downpour.
Artemis slowly turned away and limped back towards home; he was in
no mood to check up on the others and see how they were faring.
     "That's it," he groaned, gingerly trying to keep weight off
his left hind leg. "The next time they tell me to just stay home
and not fight, I'm going to listen to them."
     As he traversed back to Minako's house, things began to return
back to normal. The rains let up, floodwaters draining into the
sewer systems beneath the roadways. A cool breeze filled the air,
bringing with it a dense fog and gentle snowfall. Artemis only
noticed a few blocks from home that the city had returned to its
normal, deserted state instead of looking like an architect's
rusted-up version of hell. By the time he slid in through the front
kitty door, the fog had all but cleared up, the snow ceasing
completely. It was a perfectly cloudless, starry night out tonight.
     Utterly exhausted, Artemis managed to drag himself back onto
the base of Minako's bed, a bedraggled heap of white fur. His
eyelids drooped. Finally allowing the paranoia to subside, Artemis
let sleep take over. He desperately needed a tummy rub. Anything to
get him to start purring and forget how much the muscles he never
even knew he had before were aching.
     Not too long after Artemis had collapsed amidst the sheets,
the front door opened. Footsteps made their way towards the
bedroom, and the door was swung wide to allow for two Sailor Senshi
to walk in.
     "I can't believe how terrifying that was," Minako sighed,
flopping down on the edge of the bed. "I almost thought we were all
going to die more than once back there."
     Ami nodded, a slight limp in her walk. "Hai. Me too...How do
you think Mako-chan is doing?"
     "Her arm wasn't broken after all," Minako answered quietly.
"But I've never seen someone so bravely charge towards something
that grotesque before."
     "I might have ended up like her if Tuxedo Kamen-sama had not
intervened," Ami admitted.
     "Even still, he was hit pretty hard," Minako said, removing
her jacket. "Usagi-chan will no doubt be spending the night with
him to make sure he's all right."
     Ami leaned against the doorpost. "We were lucky that that
creature was distracted by the sudden power surge. If it wasn't for
the blackout, I doubt he would have hesitated. And we would have
never been able to get that attack in."
     Minako nodded. "Hai hai. Now all I want to do is sleep for the
rest of the next three days." She glanced down at Artemis,
thoroughly unimpressed. "And you just slept through it, you lazy
cat. You're just lucky you didn't go through that horrific ordeal
like we had to."
     Artemis' whiskers twitched. 
     "Ne," Ami asked, sniffing the air. "Do you smell something
like...burnt fur?"



          THE END OF THE FIC AS WE KNOW IT.