Gundam Wing Fan Fiction / Sailor Moon Fan Fiction ❯ The Perfect (Sailor) Soldier ❯ Chapter 03 ( Chapter 3 )

By: stefani teee a.k.a. Koneko

© Tale Spinners inc.

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Koneko-chan says!

Stefani: Last chapter!

Nanashi: *groaning* Finally…

Chibi-Relena: Now you have only… what? Twenty left?

Stefani: *frowns* Only fifteen… oh. Right… sorry about that.

Heero-chan: Weren't you supposed to be writing less now that you're trying not to go blind?

Stefani: *eeps* SHHHH!!!! I'm trying!

Nanashi: Suuurrrre…

~*~*~*~

While Heero had gone back to the gym to find his laptop computer to find some problem or other he'd found in the gundam's makeup, Hotaru had been amazed to find Duo appear in front of the cockpit she was sitting in. She looked up immediately, "Yes?"

Duo shrugged, sitting down easily on the precarious edge of the metal ledge. "I wanted to talk to you," he said seriously, brushing his long bangs back with a swipe of his hand. "About stuff I didn't know before and stuff I didn't want to believe."

Hotaru waved the screen away from her face, and to Duo's amazement; it slid back into its compartment obediently. "So should I take it that you believe me when I tell you I'm Sailor Saturn, sworn to defend love, truth and justice? That I really am made living only by the combined power of my native planet and my vow to protect Queen Serenity to her death?"

Duo swallowed, "Yeah… something like that." he said slowly, "Listen… I'm sorry about… well… everything…"

Hotaru cocked her head to the side, "Everything?" she asked, "You mean this isn't how you are around other people? I'm just a special case?"

"Well… I haven't been having the best of luck hanging on to a girl that I actually care about. You've seen Hilde. And… well… I don't know…"

Hotaru smiled, and her laughter rang out, clear as wind chimes. "You could have just said you were going through a bad breakup and we would have understood from the beginning!" she grinned at him, holding out her hand. "Let's start over. Hi, I'm Hannah (Hotaru) Tomoe."

He looked at her proffered hand before taking it with a smile of his own, "Duo Maxwell."

"So… I hear you call yourself the God of Death… did you pick just 'cause it sounds cool or because there's an actual meaning behind it?"

Duo shook his head, fingering the cross around his neck. "I didn't use to believe in God," he told her, his eyes clouded with old memories that just couldn't be laid to rest, "I lived as an orphan and it was only me and my gang that mattered until I was taken in by a church. I told them I didn't believe in God, but I did believe in the God of Death."

"Why so?" asked Hotaru, leaning back in the cockpit seat, molded perfectly to her body.

"I thought of God as the bringer of Divine Miracles." He shrugged, "I hadn't seen any miracles at all… but by then I'd already seen more than enough death."

Hotaru shook her head, "I don't think of God like that," she told him seriously. "I mean, I know most of my friends are still Shinto… one of whom is a priestess at a temple… but I believe that a God is only as real as the believer. He doesn't make his existence known, someone human and mortal does. You don't have to look for miracles to believe, it's just a sort of comforting to know that you have religion to fall to, to believe in when there's nothing else." She shrugged, "Perhaps that got a little philosophical, but it sure straightened me out at the beginning when all this started. Of course," she added, touching a finger to the large gold cross hanging from his neck, "It seems you've gotten past that old belief of yours. That's a good thing."

Duo looked uncertain for a moment before asking, very suddenly, "What you said back there… about destruction…"

"Destruction and rebirth, yes?"

Duo scratched his head, "Well… I had this… friend, you see… she was a fortuneteller…" He looked up suddenly to see if she would have that disgusted expression on her face. "And she told me…"

He pulled something out of his pocket and handed it to her. She took it gingerly, but the moment she touched it, she felt a sudden sense of belonging. And through that sudden surge of… well, whatever it was, she distantly, oh so distantly, heard a soft female voice floating on the wind.

Destruction, Death, Rebirth… all part of a circle everlasting, one cannot be without the other… wound in a destiny spun since the Beginning and will last until She brings forth the End…

There were more words, words she couldn't hear as the voice grew fainter and fainter and the rush of sudden warmth dissipated. This, she distantly realized through the glowing violet fog that had appeared before her eyes, was because Duo had wrenched his hand away from the thing that now lay quiet in her hand. Shaking her head to clear away the remnants of that wonderful, safe feeling, she looked down at what he'd placed in her hand.

It was a Tarot card.

"Death," she murmured, trying to regain her scattered thoughts. This had brought on the onslaught? She looked up to where Duo was staring both at her and the card round-eyed, breathing as if he'd just run an Olympic marathon. "What… what was that?" he finally managed to ask.

She shook her head, "I couldn't tell you…" she trailed off as she remembered how for the first time, everything had fallen into place, how everything had seemed so right…

Duo just stared at her in disbelief, "You can't tell me you didn't feel it. You look positively post-orgasmic. What the hell was it?"

"I didn't say I didn't feel it," she replied, flushing a bright red, "But that doesn't mean I know what is was… it wasn't my magic."

Duo frowned, "But I've had that card for a long time… it never happened to me before…"

For the first time, Hotaru inspected it even closer. The card was as she had suspected it would be. La Morte. Death. She looked at the picture however, and instead of the usual skeletal face beneath the black hood of the robe, it was Duo's, several strands of hair escaping the braid at the back of his head and floating about his face. The strangest thing was that when she'd glanced at it before, she had sworn that ghostly figure behind Duo hadn't been there before, that there hadn't been a background at all.

"I guess… that it might have something to do with me," she said slowly, tracing the image of Death with her fingertip. "What did she say to you? The fortuneteller?"

"She said… she said that this was my card," he said, "But I was only a part of three: Death, Destruction, and Rebirth, that there were others that would make me… make me complete." He shrugged, "I'd always thought Hilde would've been my Rebirth… guess I was wrong."

"Death, destruction and rebirth…" repeated Hotaru staring hard at the card. Slowly, oh so slowly, the foggy image in the background came eerily into focus, first her face set in a mysterious smile, then her hair floating around her. A black-and-violet cape thrown around her shoulders, the hood flying up in the unseen wind as well appeared next, and what she could see of what she was wearing from behind Duo, was perhaps a glimpse of her Sailor suit. In both her hands, she held her Silence Glaive.

She went cold.

What she had said before… that she was looking for her Death… that had been true. But now, when she was facing him…

"No… no…" she said, her hands shaking throwing it down in Duo's lap, "NO!" she threw herself back, back into the pilot's chair as far away from the card, and away from Duo as she could.

She had expected to feel complete. But instead, when the wonderful feeling the card had given had disappeared, all that was left was a cold, bone-chilling fear, and a hard bitterness. She had faced him before, so many times, and no matter how many times she pleaded to him, the disembodied spirit had found her worth nothing more than the rest of the world, and had thrown her into that abyss. She had lost against Death so many times…

She was afraid.

"Hotaru…"

"Stay away!" she shrieked, holding out a hand in front of her as if to push him away, "Stay away from me!"

All her longing to be a part of something shattered around her, all her bitterness at her lot in life flooded back over her. How she had never truly been a part of the Sailor senshi no matter how hard they tried to let her in… how she had to watch Reeny disappear into a future she could not know at the time… how all her life she had been miserable…

And now the one being Pluto had told her would make her feel complete was alienating her from the world altogether.

Duo stared at her, then down at the card. "Then you mean what she said was true?" he asked slowly, "You are both Destruction and Rebirth?"

She didn't answer, only wrapped her arms around her legs, curling her body into a ball, cringing away from him.

She was crying.

Duo stared hard, the Tarot card lying forgotten beside him as he stared at her. He had seen her be many things… as serious and determined as Heero, and as sweet and kind as Relena… but never like this. Never sobbing into her arms as if her heart had broken and could never, never be whole again.

"Hotaru…" he began again, but she shook her head, "No… no…"

"HOTARU-CHAN!" bellowed another voice, this time from behind Duo on the ledge, surprising him so much, he nearly fell over.

Chibi-Usa appeared, scrabbling up onto the ledge looking out of place in her Sailor suit. She took in the scene with a swift glance at both of them, before glaring at Duo, hands on her hips. "What did you do?!"

"I didn't do anything!" he replied defensively, holding up both hands, "I'm innocent!"

Chibi-Usa glared at him for a moment longer before she noticed the card left forgotten beside him, swooped down and grabbed it. She stared at it for a moment, her eyes widening to astronomical proportions as everything fell into place. "Oh… my… god…" she whispered, before crawling into the crowded cockpit with her friend and held her in her arms while maintaining a constant stream of words of comfort to her best friend which Duo vaguely recognized was in Japanese.

"She's asking her if she can still fight."

Duo jerked, off-balance for the second time in as many minutes and only Heero's quick reflexes kept him from tumbling over the side. "God damn Heero!" he yelled, "Are you trying to kill me?!"

"Maybe," Heero replied noncommittally, "What did you do?"

"Why is everyone saying I did something?! I didn't do anything!"

Heero raised an eyebrow before shaking his head and looking away from Hotaru, who was still sobbing, but quieter now, as Chibi-Usa continued to murmur words to her in their native language. He turned towards the horizon, squinting as he stared.

"They're coming." He said finally, pointing in the direction of the sunset, where large moving things were moving towards them rapidly. He immediately went down on his hands and knees and leaned over the edge, "Sound the alarm!" he bellowed down at Trowa, who had appeared along with Quatre in the meantime, "They're coming!"

Trowa didn't even bother to answer, he simply turned and raced back towards the alarm console, punching in the code with flying fingers, and then instantly, all around the place, the red lights began flashing and the alarm blared, accompanied by the flurried running of soldiers all around it.

Heero turned back to Duo, "Get Deathscythe," he told him, "You're leading 2nd squadron."

Duo nodded, glancing only once more at Hotaru, before grabbing the cord and letting himself drop down to the ground. Heero turned on Chibi-Usa and Hotaru, "Are you done yet?" he asked her bluntly, "Are you ready to prove yourself to the rest of us?"

Chibi-Usa glared at him, "You don't understand-!" she yelled at him indignantly, but he cut her off in mid-sentence. "I understand just fine." He replied, "I don't need to know whatever mystical shit she's going through, but if she can't fight, then the rest of us can."

Chibi-Usa was about to fire a retort at him when Hotaru grasped her friend's arm. "No," she whispered, "No, I have to…" she sat up straighter, wiping her eyes with her sleeve, "I'm going to." She looked up at Heero, her eyes drowning in sorrow, but they were still determined. "Go," she told him, "I need to start this thing."

He nodded once, disappearing over the edge, down the cord to the ground, leaving her and Chibi-Usa. "You too," Hotaru told her, "He's out there, isn't he?" she asked, "It's not just the monsters. There's something else."

Chibi-Usa nodded forlornly, "It's the Nameless," she replied, "He's come."

Hotaru glanced down quickly at where her friend sat, bathed in the golden light of the sunset, but there was no shadow to be seen. "So he's finally come to kill me," she said softly.

Chibi-Usa started, pulling away from her. "You've fought him before?"

"Pharaoh 90 served under him. When I was Mistress 9, I tried to go up against him and failed, and he beat me. But he needed me then so he let me live. I think he's here to finish the job."

"Not if I can help it," retorted Chibi-Usa, her bottom lip stuck out stubbornly, "I'm going-there's got to be someway I can get through without running through them all. We're never going to get any leverage that way."

Hotaru looked up suddenly, "Your bell." She said so unexpectedly, that Chibi-Usa blinked at her. "My what?"

"Your bell," she repeated, "When you were Chibi-Moon, you had a bell to call on Pegasus… do you still have it?"

Chibi-Usa's eyes widened, "You mean… call on him?!" she looked frantic, "I can't do that!"

"Why not?" she demanded in turn, "You'd get to the other side just as quickly as I could that way."

"But… I'm not speaking to him…" Chibi-Usa trailed off, shaking her head.

"Coward."

The pink-haired girl's head came up so fast, Hotaru's vision seemed to blur. "What did you call me?!"

Hotaru didn't repeat herself, but continued to cross her arms and frown at her.

The younger girl ground her teeth together, before reaching up into thin air. "Coward my ass!" Glitter coalesced in her palm forming the familiar pink-and-gold bell. "Moon… twinkle… SOUND!"

Out of a sudden burst of cloud, the familiar shape of the winged unicorn appeared, flying with solid beats of its wings towards them. He alighted delicately in front of them, garnet eyes looking down silently at Chibi-Usa, who was close to tears, as she stared down at the toes of her pink boots.

"Helios," she whispered finally, her hands clenched together as she struggled not to cry.

Chibi-Usa.

"I need… I need your help…" she managed to whisper, finally looking up at him.

He watched her, not moving for a moment, before finally answering her. Do you?

She nodded once, tersely, pointing to a point behind Helios, "They're coming."

So I see…

Her fists clenched even tighter, "Well?!" she demanded, glaring at him, even as the tears she had promised herself to keep back fell, "Are you going to help me?"

Another moment, another silence. I would always help you, no matter how angry I am with you…

"You're angry at me?!" she shrieked, stamping her foot. "Why you-!"

There is no time for this… what is it that you wish of me?

"I need to fight. And we have to make our way there." she pointed again, and this time he looked around, curving his long neck to look. I see…

He spread his wings, I will take you.

"Thank you," she replied stiffly, as she leaped onto his back in a practiced motion, but this time, she did nothing to hold onto his neck like she used, while he leaped off Hotaru's gundam towards the battlefield.

Sailor Pluto raced ahead towards their front lines, watching the growing cloud of dust from the coming onslaught as she shouted out orders, voice magically amplified thanks to her time staff so all of them could hear. Truthfully, there wasn't really much of a hope that they could take care of most of it. This wasn't a Sailor War, but it was damn near close to one, enough so that she wished the Keeper of Destinies several different types of death for not letting them have at least one more Sailor senshi.

"Fight together," she repeated again, "That's really all you can do you beat them… make sure the moment you hit one, someone else does a second later. Otherwise… well, you don't really want to find out what happens otherwise."

"Now, gundams will lead the squadrons. Mobile suit troops follow after picking off as many of the ones left as you can, when we're far enough, all foot soldiers take on any that get through to you, which I assure you will be plenty. There will be few enough however, that I think you should be able to handle it. Neo-Moon here," at this point she pointed her staff at Chibi-Usa high in the sky on Pegasus' back, "She will be around to help you, as her magic cannot touch those that aren't monsters because they aren't physical attacks."

Taking advantage of her heightened abilities being in Sailor form gave her, she took a running start and leapt up, landing neatly on Sandrock's shoulder. "Do you think you can get past them?" she asked him.

"I think so." He replied back, knowing full well that she was there.

"Good."

The monsters were almost upon them.

"Ready…" she bellowed, watching them with narrowed eyes. The soldiers tensed, and there was an added edge of fear riddling some of them who'd faced the monsters before without knowing what they were. That would have been unsettling for Pluto had she not noticed the thirst for revenge coming from those self-same soldiers.

Closer…

"CHARGE!"

Chaos broke out; human yells clashing with inhuman roars and high keening shrieks as the monsters bore down upon the soldiers.

The sound of rapid-fire machine guns could be heard over the din, as the gundams surged forwards, their regular weapons having been deemed useless, most of them had adapted their weaponry to large handheld machineguns which they used to cut through the ranks of monsters charging towards them. Of course, their massive size also served to their purpose by crushing several at every step, which worked just as well if the monsters weren't nimble enough to dodge out of the way. For the first time, Quatre was in the lead of all the gundams, not Heero, because he didn't have a Squadron to lead, and because Pluto had been unanimously chosen as leader. He bore her straight into the battle and did not disappoint her as she stayed firmly on his shoulder.

Pluto's attacks were devastating. Once in the midst of it all, she'd quickly started firing her attacks forwards, their allies starting to become too close for her to avoid hitting them alongside the monsters. So she worked instead on thinning the ranks of monsters before her, high enough to be safe from most of the earthbound monsters, though a few winged ones had attacked her before she could fire an attack at them. The fact that Quatre provided perfectly good cover with his set of guns was also a great help.

Heero leading 1st Squadron had left off the shield and beam saber, strapping on instead an extra machine gun, though he kept his twin buster cannon, power level lowered down to work under necessary conditions on Earth that differed from a space battle. In other words, he'd toned it down a little. It did plenty of damage however… a lot of damage, almost as much as Pluto's attacks because although it was not magic, any force powerful enough to blast through a colony and disintegrate it was devastating against both earthbound and winged enemies. He didn't even need the ZERO system for this. The monsters, deadly and powerful as they were, were just cannon fodder. The real fight was at the end of all this… and he was determined that even if it wasn't his fight, he would be there to see it through to the end.

Duo leading 2nd Squadron in Deathscythe HELL continued to keep an eye out for the large dark violet gundam from the corner of his eye that still did not appear. Where are you, Hotaru? He thought desperately. He needed answers, and she had been too distraught to answer them. And now, the fact that she wasn't here, the fact that she wasn't with him, was tearing him apart. It was the screeching of some hybrid bird-beast in front of his main monitor that brought him out of his thoughts entirely, bringing him to concentrate on shooting it down. His Grim Reaper-influenced beam scythe was nearly useless if he weren't fighting mobile suits, which he wasn't, but he kept his standard double machine guns which did plenty of damage all on their own. Settling himself into an automatic state of mind, he allowed himself the same thought over and over again. Damn it, where was she?

3rd Squadron was led by Trowa, who didn't really need to leave much behind other than the six heat-seeking missiles which might have accidentally targeted one of their own troops which certainly wouldn't do. He watched the monitors, making sure to fire several of his 24 short-range Scrambler missiles to destroy several more hordes of monsters closing in on his squadron in between firing with his other long range machine guns.

The 4th Squadron was made up completely of foot soldiers, therefore Neo-Moon had taken charge of them, though Sally Po led the ranks, swooping down on Pegasus wherever the monsters were gaining the upper hand, decimating them with a shower of moondust. The monsters then seemed to crumble or melt into a like substance, pooling at the feet of the soldiers. Not wanting to risk any other attack that would ultimately hurt some of her own troops, this was the only attack she used unless she could get close enough to have a clear shot with her tiara. Any other wand, she'd decided, was out. She was close enough to the back to see that Hotaru's gundam hadn't moved an inch. "What the hell is she doing?" she screeched, so wrapped up in the sudden wash of anger at her friend that she barely noticed when a birdwoman launched itself at her, making her drop down against Pegasus to avoid being decapitated.

That left 5th Squadron, obviously left to Wufei, who had removed only his double-ended beam trident-the retractable arms armed with the twin Vulcan guns and the Plasma rifles on his tail-like extension did double damage. This was especially due to the fact that the arms could also be extended up to about a hundred feet, which made it possible to clear both a long-range region as well as a short. He watched the hordes coming at him with a critical eye, "Bloody demons," he muttered, "From what hell did you come from?" he asked, looking up at a shrieking harpy flying at his head. He checked his scanners. That girl, the one in the violet gundam who had said so much about how much she was willing to give up in order to fight hadn't even entered the battlefield. He frowned… she hadn't looked like a coward.

~*~*~*~

Meanwhile, as she watched Chibi-Usa and Helios fly towards the battlefield, Hotaru's mind was racing. Throughout the exchange between Helios and Chibi-Usa, only the ears he'd intended them to be heard by had heard Helios' words. Hotaru had watched the two of them silently, forlornly. Mad as she was with him, Chibi-Usa's emotions shone so clear in every movement of her slim body. The longing to suddenly run to him, throw her arms around his gleaming neck… Hotaru could read her best friend as easily as a book. It made a girl who had nothing certainly feel lonely.

Shaking her head clear of the dismal thoughts collecting in her mind again, she made it blank, concentrating only on the coming battle. There was work to be done.

Pressing the buttons to start up the gundam, and to allow the front panel to slide shut over her, the monitors and screens lit up all around her. She grasped the controls, staring fully at the battlefield ahead, never noticing the forgotten Tarot card fall as the front panel slid shut. She took a deep breath, and began to move forward, stepping over the electrified fence towards the battlefield. In front of her, she could already see that the fighting had started without her. She glanced over their method of attack with a close eye. It took a lot of firepower to kill a single monster… how much could they handle against a horde this large?

Then she zeroed in on Pluto leading and she relaxed just the slightest. "They'll have to handle it," she told herself out loud, "We're here this time."

She readied the controls, moving them to step forward when she stopped, frowning. What she knew of the Nameless came back to her. He would never start a headstrong confrontation-he preferred to keep his battles on even territory.

"He's not there…" she realized, immediately switching on her gundam's scanners, searching for anything else. Pluto's ingenuity had allowed those selfsame scanners to pinpoint Negative energy, and Hotaru just hoped that the onslaught of monsters would not jam her scanners too much.

A warning light blinked on, informing her that she was overloading the sensors. She ground her teeth, cursing silently as she continued to scan, away from the battlefield, hoping to catch a glimpse of some other big power. In the opposite direction, there was a small dust cloud forming. She narrowed her eyes, focusing her sensors nearer that selfsame dust cloud. Her eyes widened, growing larger than she ever thought they could.

"Oh my god…" She turned wildly back to the battlefield where they were all engrossed in the fighting. For a moment, she considered calling to them, telling them. But then, that same feeling of being apart from them all, being alone reasserted itself and she turned back to face that oncoming dust cloud. They were youma, monsters, like the hundreds she'd fought before. She could handle them, especially in this amazing new machine.

She charged.

~*~*~*~

Relena watched from the command center in the base, where several other soldiers were, headphones on their ears as they talked loudly on voice speakers that she doubted any of the soldiers would hear over the din of their own battle. It was times that this that she felt she was at her most useless. She had been a damsel in distress so many times it had enraged her. For a moment she wished fervently that she was out there, fighting alongside Heero and the rest of her friends, to protect them all, but she quickly repressed that. She never could do that… not and live. Even if it was possible that she could stay alive, it would have completely crushed her newfound set of ideals, that were built on her determination that for there to be peace, it had to be maintained. People believed in her. If she ever wanted to be like the rest of the world and glory in the bloodbath, there would be nothing she could do to help the populace. For all the power she had, she was helpless in these times of war and she knew it. She could only watch-watch and hope that everything would turn out for the best in the end.

Behind her, standing in the shadow of one of the larger computers, she noticed Hilde watching the monitors with narrowed eyes. Noticing the angry set of her mouth, she walked towards. "Are you all right?" she asked.

"Fine." Hilde replied narrowly, not even bothering to look at her, her eyes glued to the screens. "Just fine."

Relena blinked, never knowing the girl to act like that, ever. She had always been the fun one, back when things between her and Duo had still been fine. Then when they'd broken up, everything had changed…

"I'm sure everything will be-"

The dark-haired girl looked at her then, "What, just fine? Isn't that what you always think?" she took in Relena still in her tank top and skirt with a derisive snort, "Not that you really have to care, right? All you have to do is show up looking pretty and you've got Heero wrapped around your little finger."

Relena looked almost outraged, "I do n-!"

"You do and you know it. I saw you out there, shaking your ass at every guy who looked at you-you and that pink-haired-!"

"Hey, hey, what's happening here?" broke in another voice. Cathrine, stepping in between them looked questioningly from one to the other, "What's with the intended name-calling?"

Hilde said nothing, just stayed in her shadowed corner, not looking at either of them. Cathrine took one more glance at her before leading Relena away from her. "Hilde's not been acting like herself, has she?" she asked, almost conversationally as soon as they were out of earshot.

Relena shook her head, "No… no she hasn't…"

The redhead looked thoughtful, "When did this start to happen?" she mused, tapping a finger on her lips. "She wasn't like this until-"

"Until after she met Hotaru… do you think she could be jealous?"

"Her? Jealous?" asked Cathrine incredulously. "Why?"

"I don't know… she doesn't seem the type to be jealous… of anyone."

"Yeah, or maybe… maybe she's the one Pluto's calling the Nameless."

Relena stopped short, "Hilde?" she asked, staring at the older woman. "Where would you come up with something like that?"

Cathrine looked shifty-eyed. "Well, remember when Chibi-Usa told us to get the soldiers to hoof it and get ready?"

Relena nodded.

"Well, you remember when I didn't go?"

"You were spying on them?"

The redhead shrugged defensively, "Well I wanted answers! And Pluto certainly wasn't giving me any."

"Well, what did you see?"

"Remember when Pluto started screeching about her shadow? Or her lack of one, I suppose I should say."

"Yes."

"Well, when they ran out, I saw Chibi-Usa's come flying into the gym. It kind of peeled up off the ground, and then Hilde just stepped out of nowhere, looked at it for a second, and then started laughing." Cathrine shuddered. "It was the creepiest thing I'd ever heard… I never thought anyone could laugh like that."

"You think… you think we should tell them?"

"How? Are you going to run to Heero through a battlefield of monsters?" she asked sarcastically. "You know quite well that neither of us knows anything about piloting a mobile suit. The only one that does is Hilde, and she's staying her for God-knows-what reason!"

"I was thinking more along the lines of using the com-link from the control room, actually." Relena replied wryly, and was amused to see the older girl blush. "Oh right," she murmured, "I forgot about that. Well, come on!" they ran back the way they came.

The moment they appeared in the doorway however, was the moment one of the officers seated at the control panels sprang up, tearing off his headset. "Dear GOD!" he yelled, "What the hell is that?!"

The two of them immediately rushed forwards, Relena picking up the discarded headset and putting it to her ear. She got it within a foot close to her ear before she heard the high shrill continuous electronic keening. "What the-?" she wondered, dropping them back on the seat. "What was that?"

The officer who'd been sitting there shook his head, "I don't know… but it's not stopping." In fact, the keening had increased in volume. But it was soon realized it wasn't coming from only that headset, because the rest of the officers were ripping their headsets off too. Covering her ears, Relena yelled, "Can we still get across to the gundams?"

"Are you kidding?" the officer beside her yelled back, his hands also over his ears, "Someone's messed with the connection. We'll have to find out what's wrong before we try contacting them."

"Relena!" exclaimed Cathrine, "Look!" she pointed at the spot where Hilde had been. And no longer was.

"Where did Hilde go?"

The officer shook his head, "I didn't hear her leave… I was too busy watching the monitors."

Cathrine swore under her breath, "She must've done something," she said fiercely, "All of the com-links couldn't just go down all at once!"

Relena, who was still standing next to the dropped headset was the first to hear the sudden scratching of static that interrupted the horrid noise coming from the others. Then, a voice came through, "HelLO! iS ANYonE THere? HelLO!" the frequency of the com-link wasn't very good, Relena found out, making the girl's voice first loud and then soft accompanied by loud shrills and squeaks and blips.

Relena dropped her hands from her ears immediately, grabbing the headset, and setting the microphone, "This is Relena Dorlian!" she had to shout through the static that was all that she could hear, "Who is this?"

"HoTARu." Was the answer she received and she was flooded with a sense of relief. "Hotaru, this whole battle might be a trap. I don't think the… the Nameless is in that battlefield."

"NeiTHEr dO… I. … MoRE cOMing frO…M beHINd… goING after THEM."

"We think the Nameless is here! Here in the complex!"

"ExPLAin."

"We think Hilde might have been the one who stole Chibi-Usa's shadow!" she knew quite well that the other officers still in the room were staring at her oddly, but she ignored them like a true diplomat. "She's disappeared and we'll have to start searching for her!" she continued to yell into the microphone, hoping that at most of her words could be heard by the mysterious new pilot.

She heard several words being spat out in Japanese, which she vaguely knew to be those not used in polite society. A ghost of a smile crossed her lips at the thought of this girl being a queen of her own world someday in the distant future.

"… WaTCH hER… …WIll reTURn… … dOne."

Relena swore herself as she yelled, "What?! The signal's breaking up!"

"…teLL…" and that was all, before static reclaimed the headphones. She ripped them off instantly, her hands back on her ears after her brief reprieve from the horrid electronic squalling that was certainly not abating over time.

She turned and grabbed Cathrine by the arm, "We're going to the monitoring rooms," she told her, before turning back to the mechanics who had appeared in the rooms. "Fix those damn com-links. We're going to find Hilde." It took a lot to make the princess swore. This whole situation had managed it.

Those left behind stared at each other for a moment, before simultaneously began diligently working on the consoles again. On their ears, they wore borrowed earmuffs, of which several pairs were pink and fluffy in order for them to ignore the shrieking of the computer.

Those who were wearing the abominations sincerely hoped that someone destroyed the tape in the security camera before this was all over. Otherwise there would be hell to pay.

The blonde and the redhead raced down the hallways as if the monsters had already penetrated through their army and were hot on their heels. Relena vaguely promised herself that once this was all over and she survived with all body parts intact, she would actually purchase one of those godforsaken treadmill things that they advertised on every fitness channel. If, she added a minute later, she still had any air left in her lungs to do so.

They burst into the monitoring room with gasping breaths, startling the officers already in them, designated to watch the monitors and watch for any intruders within the building's perimeters. "What are you-?"

"Where is she?" Cathrine cut in shortly, crossing her arms over her chest. "You've been watching the monitors, haven't you? Where is Hilde?"

Their faces registered confusion. "Who?" They both answered at the same time, in the exact same tone. As if implying that she was a lunatic. Cathrine glared at them. "Where is Hilde Shiebecker? German? Small, eighteen, used to hang out with Duo a lot?"

"Oh, that girl." said the female one, "Yeah, she was running down past the residential area-why?"

Relena stepped up towards the monitor, "Where does that lead to?" she asked, pointing to the main corridor running straight through the residential area. "I don't think she's just going to go and hide in her room."

"That… well, that eventually goes to the mobile suit hangar… but that place should be empty now with all the suits out there fighting…"

"Then why would she be heading towards the hangar?" Cathrine wondered aloud, staring at the screens. "It doesn't make any sense…"

Relena bit her thumbnail deep in nervous thought, as she watched the monitors with a quick eye. "How big an exit from the hangar bay area?"

"Big enough for six Tauros to get through side-by-side."

"Then it's big enough to let in a horde of monsters in quickly." Relena said curtly, "We've got to get some people down there."

"But ma'am, there aren't any more people-most of them are out there fighting, and there aren't going to be enough to withstand another ambush."

"There already is another ambush that Hotaru's fighting. This is a third one," she flung back at them as she went through the door. "Gather all of them that we can-see if those damned mechanics have gotten the com-links back online-otherwise we're really going to have to send someone into battle and get some of those soldiers back here to fight."

Cathrine's eyes were wide as she stared after the princess storming off. "By the gods, I can't believe that girl…" she said wonderingly as she followed her. "You're not what I expected at all…" she murmured, watching the girl admiringly. "You're not the spoiled little princess I thought you were at all…"

Relena ran ahead, looking back to see Cathrine not moving at all. It was a long way to the residential area… and even longer to the hangar bay area… and she didn't even know if they could make it in time even if they ran… but why was she just standing there?

"Cathrine…?"

"Relena… I… don't think it would be a good idea to go down there just yet… nothing without anyone with us…" she looked nervous… and Relena allowed that she had reason to be, but wasn't Cathrine just as desperate to do something as she was? But apparently the older girl had more caution. "If we're going to get caught or captured or… whatever it is that this Nameless does to people, we'll just be causing more trouble… I know I wouldn't want to be that kind of burden on Trowa… and I'm sure you wouldn't want to burden Heero with yourself like that. I know you want to help… what do you think I am, heartless? Trowa's out there fighting monsters for heaven's sakes and I can't do anything to help him…" Cathrine trailed off. "We can't do anything by ourselves… but if we get the rest of the soldiers in this place… we might have a chance to do something…"

Relena bit her lip, with a hopeless look on her face. What Cathrine had said was true after all… she was just a burden when it came time to pull out the guns and start firing. What was she good for in times of battle than to play the damsel in distress… a part she so verily hated? Cathrine was right… what could she do all by herself?

~*~*~*~

Hotaru's gundam hadn't really been equipped with any physical weapon, but she honestly didn't really need one. Her Silence Glaive stowed safely beside her in the cockpit, hooked up to it as the source she used to channel her power, and she could throw out the same attack energy as her "Silence Glaive Apply!" Racing towards the approaching hordes, she readied her hands on the controls and pulled back on them, bringing her to an abrupt stop in the middle of them, throwing several bolts of violet magic at random around her. Without anyone else's safety to worry about, she unleashed the magic freely, drawing it both from her Silence Glaive, and from the magic the gundam itself had been engendered with. They threw themselves at her by the thousands, slashing long scratches at the impossibly hard metal of her suit designed exactly for a situation like this, keeping damages to a minimum. As she started her boosters again, she continued to throw blasts of attack magic from the hands of her gundam, the place she usually allowed her magic to spread outwards from.

She muttered several choice curses as she realized her com-link to the command center back to the base was giving her nothing but static. Damn it, she didn't like the way this was going. This battle was too easy. It wasn't even that big of an army of monsters-nothing like what the others were fighting, so the Nameless couldn't possibly be relying on these. But he couldn't be heading off a direct confrontation with the rest of them could he?

"Hello?" she yelled into her com-link for what seemed to be the fiftieth time and was gratified to receive an answer, scattered and hard to hear as it was. She immediately recognized Relena's voice as she told them of the ambush from behind. When the girl informed her of her suspicions that dealt with the Nameless actually having already penetrated the facility itself, she went cold. After snapping several instructions in the hopes that the girl could hear, she cut the connection and focused on killing the rest of the monsters as quickly as possible. There was something going on inside, but her priorities were to first keep them all from being killed by this bunch of snarling and shrieking monsters, then hope that whatever instinct that told her Relena could handle herself was right.

~*~*~*~

It took a while for Pluto to get past the fear and adrenaline that being in the middle of battle gave one, as well as the single-mindedness to continue living, in order for her to assess what was happening around her. The hordes were noticeably diminishing in size and in power and their allied forces were winning. The Nameless however, still hadn't shown himself to help his troops and, if they really were protecting him, then he would have been even weaker than Pluto had imagined him to be. He couldn't possibly be, not if he had fought and against Mistress Nine at the peak of her power and won.

That meant only one thing. This was a trap, a diversion. It had to be. The Nameless was going to try something big elsewhere while she and her army were busy fighting off his demons. She searched the battlefield for Hotaru's violet gundam but she still couldn't find it. That meant either two things: that Hotaru had deserted, or she had found something else had happened while they were busy fighting the Nameless' demons.

"Quatre!" she yelled down towards the boy in the suit she stood upon. "Turn back!"

The boy sounded startled. "What?!" he asked, "But we're winning!"

"We won't be if this funny feeling I've got in the pit of my stomach turns out to be true and something else is going on around here. Something that's going to destroy us all because we've all been tricked by this army as a diversion."

"Are you… sure?"

"No, not at all sure, but this is not the way the Nameless works. He would not hide behind a faltering army. He would be plotting something else."

"Such as?"

"Such as working from inside the fortress all along. That's it! There has to be a Deceiver in all of this!"

"A… what?"

"A form or shape that has been taken over by the Nameless… given form, given a…" she paled, "give a name! That's what he's wanted all along!"

"But how would we know who it is? It could be anyone around here."

"Not anyone-," she replied, distracted by a shrieking harpy that she knocked off-course using her Time Key like a bo staff. "-here," she finished. "It would be where it would deal the greatest damage-that's it!" she snapped her fingers. "It would be right back at that base, with a weapon great enough to decimate this entire battlefield. "Dear God, we've got to get back," she turned back to the gray building in the distance, "You're coming with me, you know,"

"But, Miss Pluto-"

"Don't worry about it, Quatre dear, I'm sure I can manage a Sailor Teleport with you tagging on for the ride." She muttered, "Keep me covered for as long as it takes and-" She was cut off by a sudden barrage of two winged beast things that dove right for her.

"I can't let you do that little Queen," one of them hissed at her, a wicked-looking jagged scythe in its half-rotted hands, "You see this army is all for naught if I let you come back now…"

"Nameless!" she shrieked a moment before she was jerked from her place on Sandrock, and lifted into the air. A twist of another bird-demon's claws wrenching her Time Staff from her grasp and she watched helplessly as it fell down into the mass of broken bodies and bleeding raw flesh that had been killed by Sandrock's main guns.

"Miss Pluto!" Quatre yelled, turning around as quickly as he possibly could, sighting with his gun, but certainly unable to get a clear shot at the demons without harming the Sailor Scout. He watched as her staff fell and as more winged beasts and myriad demons continued to swoop towards her, attacking her with weapons or claws or teeth, whichever anatomy allowed them to use.

Pluto is being attacked, Little One.

"Pu!" shrieked Chibi-Usa, as she noticed all the winged demons swerve away from their attacks on them towards a different target closer to the other end of the battlefield. "They've got Pu!" in her panic, she reverted back into using the old nickname.

Should we go to her? Or would you rather we stay here to protect our people here?

"Without Pluto, we're lost," she replied firmly, "Can you see Sally?"

Sally… the golden-haired girl…? He asked, remembering the name Chibi-Usa had called out once in awhile to a girl down in the battlefield who had been tending to the injured.

"Yeah, she's the one."

Hold on, he advised her, as he drew his wings back in preparation to make a swift dive towards the ground, spreading them only when they were close, several of his hooves kicking out at a demon's head, crushing its skull as he passed.

"Sally!" Chibi-Usa bellowed, "Keep an eye on the troops-I've got to help Pluto!"

Wheeling Pegasus around, she yelled back over her shoulder, "We'll be back as soon as we can!"

"What the hell is she thinking?" yelled one of soldiers nearest Sally as he watched her and the dazzling white horse disappear into the distance. "We're going to be swamped here if she leaves!"

"Pluto is in trouble," Sally replied grimly, reloading her weapon in a break of the onslaught, "And we're going to hold them off as long as we can."

That was when the battle took a turn for the worse. Whatever minor physical attacks the demons had been using previously, they immediately stopped and simply began throwing bolts and blasts of dark magical energy at the oncoming soldiers.

Wufei's Altron gundam was the first to fall.

~*~*~*~

"What the hell?" wondered Hotaru as she stared at the oncoming monsters. They seemed to have doubled in numbers right before her eyes. Literally. Right in front of her main monitor, one of the monsters split itself in two, before both halves attacked her. "Dear Lord!" She exclaimed, eyeing her controls warily… she still didn't know much about it. Nor did she really know how to work it. Immediately, she tried to establish a com-link with Heero, who she was quite sure Pluto would be traveling with.

"Yes?" Heero's image was fuzzy, but the voice was clear, and she responded quickly. "How are things going down there?"

"Wufei is down, half the mobile suit forces are shot, and the foot soldiers aren't doing too well." His voice was rough, as if he was truly annoyed at her. She couldn't really blame him, it certainly had looked like she'd deserted. "Where the hell are you?"

"I'm on the other side of the base fighting off several hundred of these youma on my own… do yours seem to be doubling on you?"

There was a moment of silence while Heero digested this information. "No. But they suddenly got stronger."

Hotaru swore. "That means the Nameless, wherever he is, is getting stronger. Where's Pluto?"

"She's hanging in the air by a flying monster while that pink-haired girl is trying to keep them from killing her."

She went white, "What?" she croaked out. "Is she all right? Can you see?"

"She's lost her stick. The purple one."

"Shit!" Hotaru shot through another demon, turning it into an unattractive-looking piece of bloody meat. "That's it, I can't do anything is in this piece of scrap metal… how the hell do I blow it up."

There was a sudden, incredulous silence from the other end before Heero's voice sounded again, "Do you know what you're saying?"

"I need to blow this thing up. With this much power, I'm sure I can decimate this bunch and get back to that base. Relena tells me the Nameless is there. And if I don't get there in a hurry, your girlfriend's going to die."

"She's not my-" he shook his head. "Fine. See the panel nearest the main keyboard on your left hand side?"

"Yeah."

"There's a small blue button next to it. Press it."

She did, and the panel slid open, revealing a large, red button flashing "WARNING!"

"Press that. I don't know what kind of detonation device Pluto installed, but I'm guessing it's a suicide mission. You press that, and the entire thing will explode with enough force that just might blow that entire horde you say is out there, if you get far enough from the base in order to do so. The thing will probably blow in about ten seconds after you press it, and even if you get clear of the gundam, you won't get far enough without going with the rest of the monsters."

She smiled sardonically. "You forget, Yuy," she told him, "This is nothing more than a chunk of metal to me. It doesn't matter. Not to me, not to Pluto. And I won't die, Heero, this war isn't over yet." She cut the link, before opening the hatch to the cockpit, grabbing her Silence Glaive in the one hand, and smacking the large blinking button with the other.

Leaping down into the fray, ignoring the monsters that took the opportunity to claw long ragged lines along her arms and legs as she dropped, she instantly cast a shield around her, as the violet gundam began to glow, and she huddled beneath her Silence Wall, praying it would hold.

The blast of violet magic and flying metal could be seen from the very end of the battlefield where Heero was on his side monitor, as he looked back towards the dull silver of the base. Relena? He thought, wishing for what seemed like the first time, that he could be reassured she was all right. For the first time in a long time, it was like he couldn't feel her anymore. No one would ever say they had gotten any closer than they had during the Eve wars, but that hadn't changed the fact that always before he could always feel what she was feeling. And vice versa, he assumed. But now… God, Relena, are you all right?

Chibi-Usa, no, the entire battlefield paused and turned to look at what had happened behind them, and the explosion that had rocked sky-high from behind the base. The base itself was remarkably standing, but half of its extensive back facilities were completely gone. The shrieking harpie-women holding onto Pluto immediately dropped her, flying straight for the building in the distance, which, Chibi-Usa with a burst of quick thinking, decimated them both with a quick tiara throw as she and Pegasus swooped low to catch the plummeting Pluto.

"Where's your staff?" Chibi-Usa snapped immediately as soon as Pluto was safe on Pegasus' back. "Call it back. We don't have a lot of time… something just happened back there… some backlash of magic." The older woman didn't respond, but slumped limply against Pegasus' gracefully curved neck. "Pluto? Pluto!" Chibi-Usa shook her friend, snapping her fingers in front of her face, "Come on Pluto… something happened. And it felt like Hotaru."

"She… detonated the… gundam…" Pluto finally managed to gasp out as she attempted at sitting upright. "Staff…"

"Right… staff…" muttered Chibi-Usa, realizing she was too weak to call it of her own magic. That meant only one way left. Searching for it. Hot damn.

"Any sign of it, Helios?" she asked him, for the moment forgetting the old anger, and looking towards him for help as she used. I cannot see it, Princess. But that does not mean we cannot find it…

"I hope you're right," she replied, looking down at the carcasses littering the battlefield, "But I suppose it would be easier if…" she pulled out the Moon Wand again. I approve… the dust should blow away… and we might catch sight of it… if the enemy hasn't taken it.

"No…" croaked Pluto, "If the enemy had wanted it… would have taken it… wouldn't have made me drop it…"

Chibi-Usa shrugged, "Right then." Flourishing her wand with her fingertips, she yelled, "Moon… Healing… Activation!" The sparkly powder falling from the moon wand fell on the dead corpses, which immediately melted into the same substance, and fell apart. The wind, which had picked up since the battle began, quickly blew the dust away. Pegasus swerved down lower as Chibi-Usa continued firing blasts of magic through the wand melting both the dead and alive monsters that continually attacked them as they flew ever lower to the ground.

After Chibi-Usa had managed to clear a goodly amount of ground for Pegasus to land, Pluto got off gingerly, placing her hands in the midst of the dust and the dirt, closing her eyes and concentrating.

Chibi-Usa's tiara came in handy here as she repeatedly flung it at enemies that were throwing fireballs and attacking Pluto while she was not putting up a fight. What is she doing? Helios queried, as he dodged a fireball himself.

"Calling her staff," replied Chibi-Usa through clenched teeth as she let loose another "Moon Healing Activation" at another nasty-looking demon with several clawed limbs growing out of its mouth. "The Outer Scouts have that ability… sad that I can't do it." She waved the moon wand at him, "I'd have a heck of an easier time keeping this thing safe."

I do not believe even an extra ability to call your wand would make it any less difficult for you to find it when you need it.

She glared at him. "You're not helping me any," she replied dodging another glowing green fireball aimed for her head. Forgive me.

She was then treated with the sight of Pegasus have to throw himself down towards the ground in order to dodge Pluto's Time Staff which came whirling over their heads towards its Mistress's hand. She allowed herself a giggle, before she nodded to Pluto. "Great to have you back with us. Now what the heck happened to Hotaru?"

"She pressed the self-detonation button in her gundam. She caused that blast by exploding her gundam."

Chibi-Usa stared horrified at the faint glow of violet that still scorched the sky on that side. "You mean…" she clutched her moon wand in both hands, "Is she still alive then?"

"I don't know… I didn't think she would ever know how to work the self-detonation… nor would she need to. She must have been desperate."

"Why didn't she call some of us back if she was in that much trouble?" demanded Chibi-Usa stamping a foot into the moondust piling around her feet creating sparkling whorls of the stuff to float around her heels.

"She couldn't. Something was jamming up the signal. I got a transmission from her… there were more demons over there. She went to get them. I told her she would probably not survive." Heero's voice boomed from his gundam towering over them.

"You mean she's… dead?" asked Chibi-Usa horrified still.

Pluto shook her head, "I don't think she'd give in without a fight," she said, pulling Chibi-Usa towards Helios. "Get back up into the air and fly there, see if she's still alive. You," she added, looking towards Helios, "What can you tell me of what's happening overall?"

He gave the same information he had stated to Hotaru a few minutes earlier. "And the enemy's status?" He was silent for a moment before, "I think we just might be holding them. Barely."

"Can our forces spare Deathscythe HELL?"

Another moment of silence. Then, "Probably. But we'll be running on empty soon enough. We don't have enough bullets for this type of thing."

Pluto swore, before she said, finally. "All right, I'm going to go with you and try to thin down the monsters. You, Chibi, go and find Hotaru, but don't look for too long. If you can't find her, get back to the base and see if you can find that Relena girl who knows who the Nameless might be."

"Right." Chibi-Usa leapt astride Helios and grinned quirkily, "Don't die out here, Pu." She called back, "Or I'm going to kill you!"

Pluto shook her head, before she took a deep breath and jumped lightly onto Heero's proffered hand, which she leapt from up to his shoulder, so as not to leave him at a disadvantage.

"Got enough ammunition to thin the crowds a little?"

"Yeah."

"Good. Neo-Moon should take care of most of the monsters that have passed our frontal defenses on her way, so they should hold… our job is to keep them from getting any closer. If they manage it…" she shook her head, "It won't be pretty is all I have to say."

They started off, plunging deeper into the battle.

~*~*~*~

Duo stopped short in mid-slice as he stared around the cockpit wildly, as he gripped his side with a sudden gasp of pain. "What the hell?" He gasped as he lifted his shirt, looking for the wound. There was none, but he could feel it, still feel bits of metal imbedded into his flesh. What was going on?

A second later, he saw the explosion in the distance, and his heart seemed to stop beating. "That girl… Hotaru…" he forced the words through his lips in a shuddering whisper. "She's… dead?!" He stared, unable to move his hands on the controls, as every particle of his being pulled him to that place, where the violet light was still glowing, unable to fade away. No… no she couldn't be dead… Even if she were tied to him, he wouldn't just get off with an imaginary wound to his side while she died. If he was hurting because of her, then she was still alive… in pain, but still alive.

"Maxwell! Hey Maxwell!" he shook himself out of his thoughts, just in time to hear Quatre's voice come on over the com-link. "Yeah, yeah I'm here Quatre. What was that?"

Quatre's visage blinked on in a small sub-window on his monitor. "That was Hotaru," he said grimly, "And she's hurt… there were monsters there that we didn't know about. And she was fighting them all by herself."

"What?!" Duo yelped, staring at Quatre's serious face. "And she didn't tell us?"

"I suppose she thought we had too much to handle on our own already." Quatre replied, but there was a nervous look on his face. "I think… I think you should go there, Duo."

"What? Me? Why me?" he demanded, "Am I not good enough on the battlefield?" all his pent-up feelings of being incompetent compared to the other pilots like Heero and Trowa surged back up to the surface, and he was sure Quatre could feel them. Damned empath.

"I have a feeling you're the only one who can help her," Quatre replied, apologetically. "I would've liked to go too… but since Wufei's down… I don't think we should risk it with just Heero and Trowa."

Duo sighed, "All… all right. I'll go." He thought back to what had happened before the battle, how she had cowered away from him, looking at him as if he were one of the monsters. And he hadn't been able to ask why. "Tell my squadron for me, all right?"

"Sure."

He blasted off in that direction immediately, thankful that the large black batwings attached to the back of his mobile suit were there so he could actually fly and not just there to look intimidating. He kept his hand on the pulsing point on his side and just hoped that Hotaru, if she was still conscious, knew to keep pressure on that wound. That was only if she was conscious… he had seen her heal her friend before… couldn't she heal herself as well?

~*~*~*~

Sailor Saturn's prone body lay half-buried in the corpses of the dead monsters around her, her Silence Glaive held limply in her right hand. She woke dazedly up to a sea of faces, most of them appearing not to be human. She managed to force a groan through her parched throat. More monsters. More demons.

She couldn't get up. She vaguely realized that her Silent Wall had shattered in the blast, but it had kept her from being destroyed like the majority of the Nameless' secret army. But that didn't help her any as she had to endure the horrible screeching and shrieking around her as the monsters fought to decide what to do with her while she was unable to move. The eventual decision was to take her to the Master.

She attempted to move, even a little, any part of her body at all, and realized, with a jolt, that she couldn't. She'd been paralyzed in the blast, and the backlash of magic, and only her healing abilities had kept her alive. She was very, very lucky. She was even luckier because of those selfsame healing abilities of her own, combined with those when she was transformed, would eventually make her as good as new. The only hitch was whether or not they would heal her completely in time. She was already being picked up, and separated from her Silence Glaive by two different monsters. The one carrying the burden of the Silence Glaive literally fell down in a heap when it tried to pick it up. There was magic in that Silence Glaive that only Saturn could handle… and no monster could ever bear its weight. Not even any of the Inner Senshi could bear the weight of the Silence. She found it being roughly shoved back into her hand, and she was swept, bonelessly into the sea of monsters swarming towards the base.

Her vision was swimming at that point as the healing magic directed itself to other parts of her body that needed the healing more… and she allowed it, knowing it knew more than she just how extensive her injuries were…

When she was actually able to recognize her surroundings again, she realized she was in the middle of the large mobile suit hangar, empty of mobile suits except for perhaps one or two left behind. Why? She thought blearily, staring up at the metal ceiling of the place. Had the base already been taken over? She couldn't see… images and colors swam before her eyes in blurs. Then there were eyes looking down at her. Large, cold, blue eyes like daggers piercing through that world of blurs that was Saturn's vision at the moment. She was laughing, Saturn realized, it was a girl with big blue eyes and she was laughing down at her. Relena? No… her hair was darker than that… and shorter…

There might have been something wrong with her vision, but there was absolutely nothing wrong with her hearing. "…I can't believe a little firefly like you managed to wipe out the superior darkness of Mistress Nine." Saturn groaned… it was the Nameless, since it most likely wasn't Pharaoh 90.

"…wasn't… superior…" she gasped out, enraged with herself that the world rolled so clumsily out of her mouth.

"Oh she wasn't now, was she?" the Nameless said, glaring down at her. "How can you remember this clearly… do you not remember your defeat against one of my minions in your own body? How you took the heart crystal of your own best friend to become that great evil? How can you be sure… unless it happens to you again?" the sugary sweet tone of her voice was horrid to Hotaru's ears as realization crystallized in her mind. "No…" she managed to choke out, "No…"

"Oh, but you are… after all, you and that Moon girl are my greatest weapons… didn't you know? I learned something from that brat Moon child all those years ago. All your petty emotions get in the way… which is why I will win… and you… you will serve me."

Hotaru's scream was drowned out by the sudden rushing wave of blackness that coalesced around her, the shadows that had been collected forming together into one seamless cocoon around her body, crushing her, choking the breath out of her… Breaking every bone in her body, and then remaking it as it reformed into that of an older woman, fully matured, with raven hair that swept out, the ends reaching all four walls of the large hangar. The loud, full-throated sound of Mistress Nine's laughter rang out as the cocoon of shadows burst open around her, revealing the dark side of Saturn's past. The Nameless looked on with a cold smile on her face… now there was only one other that needed to be brought back into the waiting arms of the darkness.

"Come on, Moon child, I'm waiting for you…"

~*~*~*~

Duo stared down again in shock as he realized the pain had suddenly ceased to be in his side. He gritted his teeth as he set the controls to maximum speed as he raced for the place where the light was beginning to fade, streaks of the red sunset showing through around the edges. He was amazed sunset had lasted this long… night should have fallen long since.

A sudden tingling in the back of his head made him stop short, right in front of the base itself. For a moment, there was an urgent cry of help sounding in the back of his head in the ringing tones of wooden wind chimes… before it died suddenly, and he was replaced with a sudden chilling feeling of cold, darkness, and alone. For a little while, ever since he had shown the card to Hotaru, there had been a hint of belonging, a sense that hadn't been felt for such a long, long time.

He smacked at the control panel instantly, opening the door to the cockpit and leaping out, one hand on the line down as he dropped down in a flat-out run towards the base, leaping over what remained of the mangled electrical fence. Something made him stop all of a sudden, and he felt his feet slow down into a walk without his brain's permission. His eyes caught sight of something reflecting the last dying rays of the sunlight and he bent down and picked it up. It was the Tarot card, lying there on top of the fine layer of dust that lay on the ground all over this whole cursed place as if waiting for him.

He heard Raina's voice then, floating as if on the wind, the lilt of her voice like music that he remembered so well… Destruction, Death, Rebirth… all part of a circle everlasting, one cannot be without the other… wound in a destiny spun since the Beginning and will last until She brings forth the End…

…an End from which only He cane save her from…

He frowned. He? He thought… me?! "But what can I do?"

It was if the image of himself answered from the card, his own lucky-go-happy smile flashed once on the image's face. Go in and find her, of course! The other image, that of Saturn, had a lost looking expression on her face. Find me… her voice said to him, in barely even a whisper. Find me… help… me… Then there was nothing more and Duo placed the card carefully back into his pocket. "Right…" he muttered to himself. "I've got to go in then…"

He checked his gun methodically, just to be sure… it always felt safer to be carrying a weapon, even if it was a false sense of security. He'd been a spy before… he was the best known amongst all five of them for undercover missions because he was just so good at slipping in and out of things. He just hoped all that would be enough…

"Hey you!"

He had the gun cocked and the safety clicked off before he had registered it, pointing it into the sky from where the voice had come from. Then he frowned. "You!" he yelled back, as he stared at the flamingo-haired girl astride a winged white unicorn. They landed only a few feet away from him and she leaped off. "Where is she?" she demanded, fists on her hips, "I felt her disappear."

"I don't know." He replied, looking back at the dull silver walls of the base. "But I think she's in there…"

Chibi-Usa looked up at the building and cringed. "The Nameless is in there," she said finally, and the white unicorn beside her nodded as if he had heard her, understood her, and was agreeing with her. Duo wasn't about to doubt himself.

"We're going in then…" Chibi-Usa said decisively, "Good thing I got here before you went in… you would've been killed before you knew it with just that piece of metal." She said, gesturing at Duo's gun. He glared at her, "And I suppose I should be carrying a pink plastic wand shouldn't I?"

She shrugged, "It's kept me from being torn apart by demons… are you coming?" she asked the horse exasperatedly, and it seemed to glare at her with his large ruby eyes. Duo was about to say something when a brilliant flare of light enveloped the horse, so bright that he had to look away. When finally the light had diminished enough for him to see, he saw that it had been replaced by the figure of a young man, looking not much older than he was. His face was set in a frown when he looked at Neo-Moon, but when he spoke, Duo was amazed at the ringing tones of his voice that didn't seem to quite match that almost feminine-looking frame. "I'm coming."

"Good," she replied shortly, stomping off first, not bothering to wait for Duo or the new one. Duo raised an eyebrow, "I'm Duo Maxwell… you're…?"

"Helios," the young man replied shortly, watching Chibi-Usa stalk off towards the door.

"Women troubles?" Duo offered as he watched Helios watch Chibi-Usa as they half-ran to catch up to her.

"Perhaps that is what you may call them, yes." The stranger replied, cursing his white robes. They really didn't let him run very well. It didn't help at all that by the time they had caught up to Chibi-Usa, she was running as well, her wand out as the demons began to come out of hidden places in the corridors. Rooms, walls, ceiling, once even through the floor.

Duo's gun came in handy a few more times than Chibi-Usa had initially expected. And Helios… well, a golden glow had begun to spread out steadily from his body… not as bright as it had been when he'd transformed, but Duo realized soon enough that it was rather like Saturn's Silent Wall, a protection and a shield as they raced through the corridors.

"What do you see?" whispered the Nameless in the Mistress Nine's ear as she swept around the woman in circles. "Where is the moon child that I need?"

"Coming… coming this way…" the other woman returned, her voice deadened, her eyes glassy as she looked past the walls of the hangar and searched for the pink-haired princess. "Closer… with a boy… and the golden one."

"Ah, so he too has come… at her beck and call, always he is… bring her here," she ordered. "Bring just the girl." Mistress Nine nodded slowly, reaching out one long arm, and a glowing blue light seemed to appear at her fingertips, slowly sliding up her forearm, stopping just above her elbow. Reaching out even further, she seemed to pierce the air in front of her, slipping through it…

"What the hell?!" Duo yelled as Chibi-Usa was suddenly dragged upwards by the throat, clutched by a glowing blue hand. "Who is that?" he yelled, catching hold of Chibi-Usa's legs and trying to aim his gun at the arm that was pulling her back up into the vortex.

Helios had grabbed onto Chibi-Usa's waist, and the shield around them flickered as he lost his concentration in the sudden involuntary jolt of protective instinct. Chibi-Usa's hands were pulling at the hand that held her, but it was like prying open a bear-trap… she just couldn't.

"Shit!" yelled Duo suddenly as a large body suddenly threw itself at him, knocking him down away from Chibi-Usa and Helios. Without him, Helios lost his hold as well on her waist as Chibi-Usa was yanked forcibly upwards and disappeared into thin air.

"NO!" Helios made as if to follow them, reaching out into the nothingness that Neo-Moon had disappeared into. His hand penetrated the vortex for a moment, before he was blasted back, off his feet, and straight into the monster that had knocked Duo onto the ground.

"Helios! The shield!" gasped Duo through clenched teeth, fighting with the monster. Helios sat where he had fallen, staring at him, his eyes suddenly blank with the sudden shock of grief that hit him like a ton of bricks. "She's… she's gone…" he said, almost as if to himself, as if he couldn't quite believe it. It seemed as if he had forgotten where he was, what was happening.

"I know!" Duo yelled back, struggling with the jaws of the monster trying to rip open his throat with its powerful jaws. "But we won't be able to get her back if we die!" with a grunt of supreme effort, he shoved the monster off of him, kicking it full in the face while he got his gun out and shot it, accurately enough, in the eye.

He then glared at Helios, "Are you just going to let her die?"

He watched as the young man seemed to mentally put himself back together. "No…" he murmured, "No I won't…" The glow surrounded them again, shoving the monsters back, throwing them away from the both of them. "She's not going to die…"

"Now, come on," Duo said grimly, as she reloaded the ammo clip for his gun. "I've got some shooting to do."

That was when he heard Relena scream.

~*~*~*~

That's it for now… I know I said I thought I could finish it in this chapter, but my muses apparently decided that there was more to tell. And I know I haven't explained much about the Dreaming, and I would, right here and now, if I didn't know for a fact that most people don't read the Author's notes at all. I don't blame them. I rarely do myself. Anyway, the next chapter should end it, or, if I'm in a fit of writing, the one after it. No more than that, I promise. Review me, please? I do like this fic, and I hope anyone who reads crossovers do too.