Senshi Alliance

Kōun walked down the empty street towards her rundown apartment block, messenger bag full of sheet music slung over shoulder as she tiredly made her way home. It had been a busy day and she was ready to curl up in bed. She craned her head back to look up at the sky before cracking her neck to try and ease some of the tension in it, and when she looked back down she saw a familiar face coming towards her. It was her brother.

Surprise and excitement welled up within her and she went to call out his name as she started to skip forward with a new energy, but something felt off. His gait seemed unnatural, and his face blank. Instead of shouting his name, it came out as a muted question, "Haruto..?". Her excited skip left her and she slowed down as he approached, it felt so strange. Right as he got close and she took her final step she stumbled and tripped, falling to the ground. What-? I never trip! No sooner than the thought crossed her mind she felt a rush of wind above her as a clay blade swung past, right where she would have been standing had she not fallen. 

Lucky me.

Kōun hurriedly crawled back out of its reach, watching in horror as the façade of her brother dripped away to reveal a blank faced clay golem underneath. She instinctively reached her hand up into the air, bracelet sliding up her arm until she called out the words "Fortuna Power! Make Up!", at which point it glowed, widening and flying off her arm to form a pronged halo in the air above her before enveloping her in light and transforming her into Sailor Fortuna.

She had barely gotten to her feet though before the golem took another swipe at her, forcing Fortuna to back away again. As she moved backwards she reached her left arm out and summoned her chakram, waiting for her opponent to attack again, dodging, and then striking back with the sharp spokes of her weapon, cutting into the clay. Any satisfaction at the contact was quickly lost though, as the clay merely reformed and filled in the cut. Fortuna frowned, focused on it, and was blindsided by the golem's other arm formed into a club hitting her in the side. She felt the pain spread through her, and even with the enhanced strength and resistance her senshi form gave her it was strong.

Distracted by the pain she was nearly hit again, but the arrival of a tortoiseshell cat using the golem's head as a landing pad saved her, throwing the golem off course. "Good timing!" she exclaimed as Felix jumped off the golem's head and walked over to her, "Fantastic, aren't I?" he responded. "Oh shush, now, do you know anything about this thing?" Fortuna asked, keeping an eye on the golem and staying on the move to avoid another heavy hit. "I'm afraid not, though it seems it's name is Emet." "Um, okay, fascinating, but useless." Fortuna muttered with a small smile, processing what to do next. "Alright, I better get a move on with it then, Luck's Gambit!" she called out, firing off a beam of light at her opponent. It pierced Emet through the shoulder, leaving a hole that filled back in, though not as quickly as before.

Before the hole had completely regenerated, Emet lunged forward, its club arm about to hit Fortuna, but just in time she brought her chakram up and yelled "Wheel of Fortune!",  leading the weapon to transform into a giant spinning wheel in front of her, shielding her from the hit. As Emet was pulling back its fist from the shield it had splattered up against, the wheel slowed down and came to a stop. Fortuna held her breath as a chime rang out, hoping it had landed on a useful spot, and watched as light poured from the wheel and hit Emet with a magical force twice that of what it had original used in its punch. Fortuna let out her breath, seems she was extra lucky today, and watched as Emet crumbled to dust in front of her. "Lucky you." said Felix as he moved towards the golem's remains, leaving Fortuna to roll her eyes and grin as she followed him, side still aching. "Not that lucky, I think I'm going to have bruises."

At first the remains just seemed to be pure rubble, but Felix poked his nose in and revealed a small slip of paper with some sort of glyph on it together with a strange symbol, that of a thorny vine wrapped around a nautical wheel. Fortuna picked it up and looked it over before passing it back down to  Felix, "Do you recognise this at all?" she asked. He paused before answering, "I think I've seen it before, but I can't recall where. This  is going to require some research." Felix flicked his tail, paper in his mouth, and started walking back to their apartment. Fortuna looked around, the place was still deserted so she quickly kicked through the  remaining rubble to spread it out like dust before de-transforming and running after Felix.

She hadn't gotten very far though when suddenly she heard someone clearing their throat behind her, she froze, panicking that one of her neighbours had seen her transform, but when she slowly turned around what she saw was a very strange sight. A feathered green snake. With wings.

“You dealt with that well enough I’d say, not bad at all.” it spoke in a masculine voice, pausing for a moment before realisation flashed across his eyes, “I suppose I ought to introduce myself first, apologies. I am Kukulkan, advisor to the great Sailor Chicxulub.” he stated proudly, bringing his head up higher as he coiled up the rest of his body, waiting for Fortuna's response.

Kōun remained frozen and speechless for a moment, she'd seen a lot of weird things in her time as a senshi, but this was certainly the weirdest. She opened her mouth and after another moment of silence finally managed to push out a questing "Hello?"

"I see you are in shock, but no matter, I am sure you will settle down soon enough. More importantly though, it seems like there’s trouble brewing, something best faced together rather than individually, so why not throw in with us? I’m sure we can show you a thing or two about defending a world!” he finished his good natured introduction with what Kōun assumed must be a smile.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"That golem you fought is likely only the beginning. Sailor Chicxulub and I hope to prepare this world for the fight to come and we would like your help in this. We offer you sanctuary at our temple, it is a well equipped headquarters built for a great number of senshi to occupy and as such is the perfect headquarters."

He finished his good  natured introduction with what Kōun assumed must be a smile, and  presented her with an amulet that was around his neck. “Just tap this three times to activate it and you’ll be able to join us at the temple,  it’ll be great fun I’m sure. Well, I’d best get going, but hopefully we’ll see each other again soon enough, ta ta!” and with that, he flapped his wings, blowing some of the dusty remains of Emet the golem flying about, and took off into the sky.

Koun watched as he left, looked down at the amulet in her hands, and then walked home.

☸︎

Once  home, Kōun filled Felix in on what he had missed with the feathered serpent, then took a shower and collapsed on her bed while Felix investigated the symbol. After a quick nap she woke to find him sitting next to her with a paw on her face - clearly the reason she had woken -  and was about to complain before she realised this must mean he had found it. "The symbol...?" she asked groggily.

"It's connected to some secret temple here in Tokyo. This is going to require some field work." Felix explained, leaving Kōun to just groan and roll over, trying to sleep again.