Sailor Helga SGR - Chapter 10

Note: For the sake of clarity, whenever a character is in their transformed state, their name will be given in italics.

For example:

Helga G. Pataki = Helga

Sailor Moon = Helga

Diana stood with her mother, Luna. Before them was Sailor Pluto.

"Pluto..." asked Luna. "What has happened? Why are we here?"

Sailor Pluto looked at the two cats, a grave expression coloring her face. "There has been a significant event...a grave incident, that threatens to tear the space-time continuum asunder. You are the only ones I could save from the catastrophe."

"And Small Lady?" asked Diana urgently, forgetting her place. "Where is she? Is she safe?"

"I'm afraid...she has gone missing...along with the Crystal. That is why I retrieved the both of you. You must go to the endpoint of the grave incident and recover both the Small Lady and the Crystal. You will require assistance, and I cannot guarantee that the original senshi will be able to assist at the point of time which you arrive. Therefore, you must find the girls chiefly responsible for the incident, and awaken them to assist in your mission. Understand?"

"Yes," said Diana and Luna simultaneously.

Sailor Pluto raised her Garnet Rod into the air and activated its power to open the Space-Time Door. "Be careful," she cautioned. "A recent shift in the space-time continuum has made the way highly unstable."

"We'll do our best, Puu!" cried Diana, as both she and Luna dashed through the open door.

Schools were cancelled throughout the city, P.S. 118 included. The earthquakes, floods, and bizarre events were getting too frequent to handle. Even more troubling was the black hole in the sky. Scientists were calling it a hole in the ozone layer, but Helga and the girls knew it meant something far worse...

"I know, it's scary, right?" said Helga to Phoebe on her cell, as she peered at the hole through her window. "And I think it's getting bigger."

"Helga..." said a voice from downstairs.

"Listen, Phoebes, I gotta go. I'll talk to you later."

Helga hung up and went downstairs where, as soon as she got to the bottom of the steps, she was ambushed by a crushing hug.

"Olga?" gasped Helga, surprised.

"School's on break up in Alaska, so Olga decided to pay us a visit. Isn't that nice?" explained Miriam.

Helga struggled, trying to not-so-subtly-to pry herself from her perfect sister's grasp.

"I heard you haven't been in school lately, baby sister. So I'll be your sister-slash-personal tutor in the meantime!"

"Isn't that great?" said Big Bob, patting Helga heartily on the back.

Helga coughed. "I'm ecstatic."

Lila did her homework at the coffee table. As she did, she watched, Liam, who was asleep on the couch.

Also as usual, Liam started twisting and turning in his sleep.

"Poor Liam," she thought. She stood up to try and wake him when she heard the door knob jangle.

"Lila, I'm home early!"

"Liam, Liam, wake up!" Lila whispered, shaking him.

"Huh...wha...?"

"My dad's here! Quick, go in the closet!"

Lila pushed a disoriented Liam into the broom closet. At the same time, Mr. Sawyer came through the door, snow on his jacket.

"The weather's crazy out there!" he said, brushing the freshly fallen snow off his clothes. "I don't know what's going on in this city, but I don't like it!"

Lila smiled nervously. "It's almost like the world is coming to an end."

Suddenly there was a loud, banging noise coming from the closet. Lila's heart skipped a beat.

"What was that?" asked Lila's father.

"What was what? I didn't hear anything..."

"It sounded like it was coming from over there."

Lila held her breath as her father walked over to the closet. He opened the door and Lila braced herself for the inevitable.

Instead, all Lila heard was a perplexed grunt coming from her father.

"Huh," he said, scratching his head. "That was strange. Must be mice again."

"What?" quickly Lila joined her father at the entrance to the closet. Sure enough, save an old broom, some old clothes, and some workboots, the closet was completely empty.

"Impossible," Lila said to herself.

"Honey?"

"I-I have to go," said Lila, reaching for her jacket and heading out the front door. "I've got to find Diana," she thought.

Diana sat in the front of the pet store on the corner of the block. Eventually, she walked inside, unbeknownst to the young pet store clerk at the counter.

Diana walked over to the cat section of the shop and peered at all the unclaimed little kittens mewing in their cages.

"I know the feeling," she thought sullenly. "But I know my mother would want me to be strong. We've got to get to the bottom of this city's deterioration before it's too late..."

Moments later, Helga and her older sister, Olga entered the pet shop.

"For the last time, Olga!" Helga complained. "I don't want a pet! I had a hard enough time pawning off that monitor lizard I used to own!"

"Still, there's no harm in just looking," Olga sauntered over to the cat section, just as Diana decided to duck behind a nearby scratch-post. "Aren't they just adorable?"

"Yes, they're saccharine. Can we go now?"

"In a minute, Helga!" Excuse me, miss?" Olga tried to get the attention of the clerk behind the counter, who reluctantly tore her eyes away from the magazine she was reading.

"It must be so exhilarating to spend your time here amongst all these adorable animals!"

"I count my blessings, everyday," replied the shop clerk drily.

Helga rolled her eyes. Just then, Phoebe walked into the shop. Helga immediately took her aside.

"Finally! Did you get my message?"

"Yes, and I came as soon as I could. What's the emergency?"

"Olga's driving me nuts! You gotta bail me out!"

Phoebe frowned. "Is that it? Helga, I was practicing flower arranging with my mother!"

"Forget that! Help me find an excuse to get out of here!"

"Oh Helga," said Olga. "I didn't know you invited your friend to join us!"

"Just in time, too" said the clerk flatly. Because now it's the best part of the day: feeding time. Yay. The fun never ends."

"This. Is. Torture." whispered Helga to Phoebe.

The shop clerk walked over to the cats with a bowl and a saucer of milk. Suddenly, the bottle of milk started vibrating, then exploding, splattering all over the clerk, consumer her. Olga screamed uncontrollably as the clerk went from girl to monster in an instant.

"Well, this'll work," said Helga. "We just got to find a way to get Olga out of the way."

The milk creature pointed a finger at Olga, shooting a beam of gooey substance at her and sticking her to the wall. The creature then sprouted wings and flew out of the shop.

"Even better," said Helga, then turned to Olga. "Stick around, we'll be right back – let's go, Phoebes!" And with that, she and Phoebe left in hot pursuit of the monster.

Diana felt bad for Helga's sister so she unlocked the cages and let the cats out, who made short work of the goo (which turned out to be nothing more than sticky milk)

"Wha...where...huh?" Olga stopped screaming but was still in a mindstate of hysterics. Diana rubbed against Olga's leg to get her attention and mewed at her, signaling her to follow.

Helga and Phoebe were already in their sailor senshi forms when they cornered the milk monster.

"Let me guess," said Helga. "You can't detect a weak spot."

Phoebe nodded. "Well, that's just perfect. I think you'd better call the others and get them down here."

But the monster shot the cell phone out of her hand. It then shot the gooey substance at both Helga's and Phoebe's feet, making them unable to move.

"You leave my baby sister alone!" yelled a voice from several yards away.

"Olga?"

Olga jumped on the monster, which went splat! on the ground, and the two futilely wrestled.

"Olga, quit being stupid, you'll get yourself killed!"

"No one harms my baby sister!"

Meanwhile, Lila finally caught up with the sleepwalking Liam.

"Liam, wake up!" she turned him around to get his attention.

Suddenly his eyes shot open, fearful and delirious. Liam grabbed his head with both hands and kneeled to the ground.

"Liam! Liam, snap out of it! You're awake!"

But that was the problem; as Liam knelt to the ground, he kept shifting from his human form to a weird, shapeless, shadow entity.

At the same time, the milk fairy was shifting in the same manner, until eventually it simply vanished.

Phoebe and Helga were free from their bondage and Olga was wrestling herself on the ground until she realized the monster was gone.

"Oh," she said, slightly embarrassed. "What happened?"

"That's what I'd like to know," muttered Helga.

Lila took a step back. "You're...you're one of them...?"

Liam groaned in pain. "No...Lila, I know who you are...but I'm not who you think I am..."

"Liam..."

"This is all my fault," he strained through gritted teeth to get the words out. "The city is collapsing because of my existence. I only find peace when I'm asleep, but then I have these nightmares, and...I shouldn't even be here!"

"Where are you really from?"

"I can't say...nowhere in particular. That's the problem. I've been occupying some sort of negative, alternate dimensional space...with my mother. But then...something happened. Something broke or changed, I don't know...and I was thrust out, with no way to get back...every second I spend in this place, I suffer constant pain..."

"Liam..."

"Then I met you, and somehow, being around you made me feel better. But I have no idea how to get back. I'm dying. And this world is dying. You'll have to destroy me."

"But didn't you say...?"

"From the outside. From the inside, I feel like something bigger than me is causing all this. That's why you have to go inside my dreams and destroy that which is destroying me before I destroy this entire planet."