Sailor Moon Fan Fiction ❯ Pretty Soldiers ❯ Act 18 - time warp : Sailorpluto ( Chapter 18 )

       It was always so very cold, and she hated it. Everything was still as a place frozen in time, a stage set complete with fog; and because, of course, it was exactly that. The endless echoing, the constant loneliness, and she had, in her own lifetime, only been here for sixteen years.
       The small, forlorn Hello Kitty calendar proved it, worn at its edges and dulled from her fingertips, tucked into her right boot. After all, where else could she hang it? On the spinning corner of a tiny universe? Hooking it on the elegant high frame of the massive door behind her, a gaudy pink scrap against polished wood made to last the span of eternity? Blasphemous.
       And the constant size of her workspace drove her utterly bonkers. No matter how far a universe and its shared time was, no matter how far she seemed to walk - it could have been the distance of miles - that damned door was always at a determined pace behind her, as if following her everywhere. But it wasn't the door moving; it was simply the space contracting around her, remaining at a constant length and width to her eyes. She couldn't let the thing out of her sight, after all, and if she had to wander off to check on a certain time frame, well then, the thing could damned well follow her.
       In her first year she had run frantically, trying to escape the hulking door that kept…following…her. She had not slept since she set foot through it; nor had she ate, passed excrement or urine. Though it seemed as if time was passing, she was - and how it hurt her head to think of it - actually living in the same minute constantly, because, obviously, she was between time. Her stomach never rumbled with hunger, because she had eaten in the last hour before her arrival. Having used the bathroom minutes before entering, she felt no intestinal cramps or pelvic clenching, demanding she release her body's waste.
       And damned if she didn't actually miss, no, long, for the chance.
       Probably had forgotten how the muscles worked, too.
       Though she had to admit that the few visitors she had, staring out from the forbidden side of the door, living in the flow of time, did brighten her now and again. Especially her lovely princess, though she was usually very sad that she was still just a child.
        Thinking of that very child had her hand straying to her hip, to fondle the empty space between the lavender skeleton keys that hung heavy on the loose belt she wore. Each key was a miniature of the larger model staff she held in her left hand almost constantly, heart shaped at its top and tooth whimsically. Though the ruby orb that adorned each one didn't seem to pulsate with warmth as the one in her staff, which even now emitted its light merrily. Attuned to the one missing key….
       "Small Lady," she sighed finally, sadly.

      "I always wanted to be an idol," she said sadly. Eyes like the sky after the fallen sun glittered with emotion, worlds in miniature reflected in curves. Flickering candles like tiny fireflies made pinpoints of light within her pupils; a beautiful, somber tableau. "To be so famous everyone recognized me, wanting my autograph. A picture. 'Ara, there goes Aino Minako, the famous idol!' they'd say…
       "And as Sailor V, I had that." She laughed, bitterly. Ironic. "A false identity to fight evil; and it was popular. There are still girls I see running down the streets with pins of my face, always smiling…always smiling," she whispered, clenching her fists within the folds of her skirt. Rumpled from her earlier tussle with Usagi, the Juuban uniform slowly faded away like a half-recalled dream as she concentrated, shedding the illusion to reveal bright orange pajamas. The whole idea had, after all, been a spur of the moment plan when she'd woken up for school.
       Alex stared at her over the rim of her coffee cup, as always utterly direct. It somehow comforted Minako to know the woman was so absolutely American, unable to dance around the subject or question. She knew when to listen, a skill the long-haired blonde recalled in another lifetime that she'd cherished as well. Free psychiatry to die for. "Somehow, it doesn't surprise me. You're too bright to be ignored, Minako; a trait you share with Venus. But then, she had always channeled it into being the strongest soldier, to besting everyone and living fast and hard. She had accepted her role to be nearly expendable to her kingdom and to her queen, but she had also grown up from near birth being told it.
       "You, as Aino Minako, grew up for thirteen years utterly carefree. Where Venus would have enjoyed her status as an icon, you have troubles, because you have the unfortunate position of being two people in the same body." The tall red-head swirled a finger in her coffee, seemingly unconcerned with the steaming temperature. "I see it in Usagi as well; though she thinks she's accepted herself as a soldier and a princess, all she's done is struck an agreement to work with them. She never truly merged; like three of her standing back to back within her, there's a very distinct separation between Tsukino Usagi, Sailor Moon, and Princess Serenity." Pausing to take a sip, she added, "I would say she's even less willing to do it than any of you, as her guardian soldiers, are."
       Minako reached across the couch to slowly run her hand through Artemis's fur, the sleeping feline unconsciously arching his back into her palm. Next to him Luna remained an adorable ball of fuzz, curled into a loose crescent. "Why is that, sensei?"
       The tall red-head snorted at the term, but let it go. It was better than the damned respectful '-san' all the time that made her feel like an old hag. "Easy. From what I know of your lives, what do you have to lose in becoming completely Venus, Jupiter, Mercury, or Mars? Your parents seem to dislike one another, or at least, your father disappoints your mother, and she makes your life a mild hell. Makoto, obviously, has no family at all, lives alone, and considers herself lucky to even have all of us as her friends after so long.
       "Ami's parents have long since split, and her mother is so absorbed into her job at the hospital that she may as well be alone as well, and her ability to make friends? Almost nonexistent. Rei is the only one who even has close to a decent family, because her grandfather is a caring, nurturing individual who is, unlike her father, always there for her. But it's her father's betrayal and her mother's death that has done so much damage; and her grandfather won't live forever. She thinks being aloof and distant will keep people away, stop her from truly making any sort of bonds.
       "But Usagi? What doesn't she have that you could all wish for? Loving, living parents. A little brother, friends at school, a pretty attitude towards life, and a carefree existence in a house paid for by her father's job. All she's had to suffer is a lack of allowance and bad grades, and that, my dear, is almost inconsequential. And she even has the love of her life - granted, she lost him for a time - but to have been essentially linked to him for millennium and having known they would be together is more than any of us have received." Though Alex included herself in the lack of love life factor, she breezily skipped over any attempts at elaboration, adding, "and why would she want to lose it all just so she can become a short-skirted martyr?"
       Minako's face mirrored the utter despair she felt as her old teacher quite skillfully hit on the very heart of the problem. "But…Usagi-chan would, if she had to. I know she would…!"
       "Of course she would," Alex said soothingly. "But not without remorse. Maybe a bit of prodding. But this early in the game, it's too soon to tell that she would even need to give up Tsukino Usagi; or that you would have to give up Aino Minako. Maybe it'll be the other way around, who knows?" She shrugged, sipping damn near silently from her cup. "Maybe you'll all become old hags, bereft of your true magic and long life, and I'll have to babsit all your screaming little brats."
       The long-haired blonde couldn't help but laugh at that particular image, though the idea of herself with - horror! - wrinkles was a bad thing indeed. But she did pause as she mentally replayed Alex's last words, brow furrowing with thought. "Ano…long life? But how would that be possible?"
       Alex, in the middle of getting up, motioned questioningly towards Minako's can of Coke, to which she got a responsive nod. Waiting for her to return, Minako shimmied towards the massive stereo with a gleam in her eye, considerably cheered as she flipped through the music selection. The silence had been tickling at her even more than her unsettling thoughts, and she plucked out the Labyrinth soundtrack simply for familiarity and popped it in. Not too loud; Mamoru and Usagi were presumably now sound asleep in the guestroom, Chibi-Usa on the couch in the den. And of course, the two pussycats on the couch, one of whom had sprawled on his back, leg reflexively kicking as he chased squirrels, mice, or a svelte Luna through his dreams. Minako had woken up often enough at night to hear his particular warbles.
       Her new Coke, already snapped open, sat on a coaster for her to drink, along with a fresh package of cookies. A bowl of popcorn, buttery to the point of sickness - and oh, how Minako already adored the stuff - was set down as well, within reach of both of them. Late-night sleepovers at Alex's place were definitely going to be good things. "I'll assume you don't remember enough about Venus to warrant the surprise," the tall red-head started off, curling comfortably into her seat.
       "I remember…things," Minako said hesitantly at length. "Planetary agreements, the name of our castle…a little cousin's name for some reason…having to prepare myself for a trip to Jupiter…"
       "Jupiter always was hard on outside visitors," Alex said dryly. "The gravity none withstanding, there was always the faintest tickle of radiation once the ships passed through the radiation belt - what's been named the Van Allen belt, though they had some Jovian title for it back then, of course - and into the protective spheres of the colonies."
       "Hai, hai….it was always so difficult to walk around, I hated it!"
       Alex snorted, rubbing at her temple offhandedly. "You weren't the only one. Gods knew why they liked the gravity so high, the masochistic bloody bastards. They did it on purpose, you know; they could have changed it, but no, they liked the constant pressure. Kept them hale and hearty, I think that was Jupiter's answer when I asked her once." She waved her hand dismissively, saying, "But I'm getting off-topic.
       "The reason Earth was so damned jealous of the Moon - and of Serenity, consequently - was that the kingdoms within her sphere of power shared in the long lifespans given by the Ginzuishou. Because Earth was seen as an evolving planet, not quite ready to gain such heady power, it was left out of the pie. Even though the Golden Kingdom rivaled, in its own way, the seat of the Silver Millennium on the Moon, it was regarded in the same way a human nowadays regards a monkey. Close, but no cigar."
       "The Ginzuishou is so powerful as to give thousands of people immortality?" Minako whispered, awed. Of course, Luna had told of its immense ability to destroy worlds, and Usagi had decimated the evil of Metallia from Earth as well as resurrecting the Moon Kingdom; but one planet at a time! Not nearly six!
       Taking a handful of the yellow popcorn, Alex said matter-of-factly, "Well, you remember the crystals needed to act as a focus in each kingdom just to channel magic to every corner. Like electrical sockets, they merely plugged into the power of the Ginzuishou itself, which gave them all the juice needed to work. And it only took a little bit; mages would add their own spells and crystals to spread out the magic to make everything livable. It was the failure of the Ginzuishou to power everything as much as your soldiers' spirits being closed off to your planets that effectively wiped out our system's population.
       "The long life was simply channeled through the crystals as well. But immortality was reserved only for the sailor soldiers; and that was of a magic older, more primal, than the Ginzuishou." She munched neatly on the popcorn between words, licking the butter from her fingers like a cat. "At the prime of your lives, had you lived that long, you would have been ageless until you were killed in battle, but most, I was told, never made it that far. But it makes an ironic kind of sense; keep the powerful avatar of your planet alive despite Time, so that you don't have to diddle around waiting for the next while the poor thing gets too old to kick over their head or even fight without pissing themselves. Then they'd die, then allow the next to be awakened usually as a squalling infant in need of teaching. All of it had a sort of cosmic logic to it."
       "So we could live forever?"
       "Theoretically. Like I said, sailor soldiers tend to die rather quickly. Uniform a dead giveaway and all, and usually, the fights you were sent into weren't just quick 'blast 'em all and let the gods sort 'em out' shebangs. Oh no. Mostly it was a pissed creature from outside of the system, sneaking in and attempting to take over the galaxy. Big things that could turn you inside out."
       Minako gulped, turning an interesting shade of green. "I see."
       The tall red-head began to absently bob her head to the next song, the only sign she gave that she was even paying attention to Minako's selection. "The sailor soldiers were revered for being avatars of the planet, powerful, and willing to go out in a blaze of glory for the good of all. Those who survived and lived on to fight more battles were practically worshipped; I guess the Mars of two lifetimes previous to Rei's first incarnation was thought to be not just the protector but the creatrix who formed Mars by her flames. Lots of girl power worship back then.
       "But the wielder of the Ginzuishou itself had only a certain amount of life in her, a cycle of a thousand years that, from what I understand, came from the symbiotic nature of the crystal itself. It kept the queen alive, rendered her barren upon the birth of her first - and only - child, gave her the time to rear the girl properly, then promptly withdrew itself to link with the daughter. The queen would die exactly a thousand years after she was born, and the princess would take her place."
       "Na-ani?!" Minako choked, nearly spitting saliva and Coke across the table. Slightly drooling, she stared at Alex, who was contentedly eating another handful of popcorn and apparently not fazed by the reaction. "That's…that's terrible!"
       She did have to admit it was interesting, though.
       After all, she never recalled such a fact in her memory, but then, it was highly possible that she, as Venus, was never told. She was expected to die quickly after all, and what business was it of a sailor soldier to know the time of her queen's death? Still, it was a rather gruesome bit of information, one that had her looking uneasily up at the ceiling and her sleeping princess just on the other side.
       "Well, a thousand years is a hell of a nice lifespan," Alex cut in dryly, peering into her coffee cup with annoyance. Plucking out what looked to be a white cat hair - Artemis had been 'investigating' her shelves, none too subtle about his search for tuna fish - she flicked it from her finger into the nice carpeting. "And it puts a bit of a leash on any wrongdoing. Feel like being a dominating hell-bitch? Great, you've only got a thousand years to do it, and everyone else has just as much time as you. Granted, the long lives of the citizens tended to overlap the reign of the queen, but for the most part they outlived the majority ruler. You knew you had a certain amount of time to do your job, and that's it. No extensions."
       "So…" Minako drawled slowly, suddenly quite intent on her can o' Coke. "If we could…theoretically….live forever-"
       "…ah," Alex cut her off masterfully, setting her cup down. "That's what this little soul-baring session is about."
       Innocence personified, not a sullied hair to be found, gentlemen, Minako said, "Ne?"
       Too bad the tall red-head wasn't fooled. She deftly removed the source of Minako's current infatuation, setting the can out of staring range. Then she lightly lifted her by the chin to meet her eyes when Minako refused to do it herself. "You think you could be alive in Chibi-Usa's future."
       "…ano...that wasn't what I talked to you about, at first, but…I think now…."
        "Minako, Minako." Removing her hand, Alex leaned back in her seat, focusing her eyes on a point not quite past Minako's head. "I figured the fact she was talking about the future, hers or anyone else's, had you thinking about yours. But I guess now you're also wondering if maybe you'll get to find out…" She tipped her head, saying, "ne?" almost coyly.
       The long-haired blonde nodded slowly, flushing deep crimson to the roots of her hair. "I…I've been wondering about it, but I always wondered if I'll ever get to just stop being Sailor Venus. But that's the problem." Frowning, she touched the tip of her thumbnail to her lip, pressing hard. "If I find out my future - if I find myself - it means I never did. I don't want to know that," she whispered, almost too quiet to be heard. "I don't want to know that I can't live out my years truly as Aino Minako, that I have to give up my dreams and my loves and my entire life to fight."
       Slowly, the CD was spinning to the end, and it signaled for them both to glance, unevenly, at the clock. 2 A.M. "It's late. You need to get some sleep; you do, after all, have school tomorrow," Alex commented, in an abrupt divorce from the topic that had Minako staring at her. The tall red-head stood, taking the popcorn bowl and her cup for a last trip to the kitchen as Minako, dressed as she was for bed already, slipped down onto the other couch. It had been prepped for sleep hours before, with a nice thick blanket and a pillow of just the right firmness to make a person weep.
       If she noticed the candles seeming to turn themselves off on their own, extinguishing as if by invisible fingers, she ignored it. Curling up beneath the blanket, she heard Alex walk back to the table, taking the half-full can. "Sleep well, Minako; and maybe in the future, you're doing the very same; peacefully dreaming."

      It was unfortunate that she was both right and horribly wrong at the same time.
       But on a planet so laughably small as to be, possibly, merely a habitable asteroid of the Kuiper Belt, another slept well in her place. His dreams were of bloody revenge and a particular sexual fantasy, but he did, to his taste, sleep excellent.
       He awoke with the sunrise, which, seeing as they were so far away that the gigantic yellow star was a tiny little dot in a cold sky, was more thoughtful than scientific. Nevertheless he woke by his own particular schedule, stretching a body that was still pleasing to the eye - very much so - despite their diet regimen. Tall but compact as an athlete, he had retained his muscles merely for show, each pectoral perfect, abdomen washboard. He took pride in staying so fit, because who knew when he would finally find his one true love kneeling before him, begging to be allowed to touch him?
       Well. 'True love' was maybe stretching it ludicrously. 'Massive infatuation' was more in the ballpark, 'stalking victim' even closer. He had no mistaken belief that she loved him. He merely desired her constantly, aching for the need to have her, warm in his bed and possibly crying with those eyes for mercy. Yes, he rather liked that idea.
       Demand slid from beneath the sheets - silk, a rare enough commodity on Earth after the ice, and the only material fit for a prince - to stroll across the cold floor, ignoring the temperature as he donned a robe of white silk and tied it temptingly loose at his waist. As if his demeanor dictated his tolerances he had no notice of the cold, and would often brave the chill with flimsy bedcovers and clothes inside of his chamber. He had a bit of a guilty pleasure watching his little brother, Saphir, emotionless as he was, trying to keep his teeth from clacking as he delivered his reports just inside of the doorway. Priceless.
       Palming a remote device from his bedside table, he flicked an image on above the projector near the wall, quivering slightly from anticipation. Though the woman never changed in her expression or pose, a fanciful painting he had found and copied during the siege, he hungrily devoured every curve and hollow. As always he longed for her eyes to be open, but he had no chance of that until he had the real thing.
        Beside her body he dressed himself, taking pride in his clothes as he did every other aspect of himself; each fold and pleat perfect, stain-free, shoes so clean as if they had never trod upon the ground. His grooming regimen was only slightly quicker, as he merely had to comb his hair, attend to his teeth and skin, and lightly dab a bit of cologne at the hollow of his throat. Stray hairs were never a problem, as he had rid himself of the entire problem years ago.
       Though he was a prince in name rather than blood or title, he looked every inch the part.
       Smoothing back the drapery of his cape, he strode out of his rather large chambers and into the badly lit hallway that connected all of his allies' private room. Exiting out of another door was Rubeus, looking scorched and irritated from his last battle against the sailor soldiers. Demand barely gave him a glance; though the information the red-head had brought back was valuable indeed, his defeat was a mark against him.
        Nonetheless, he gestured imperiously for him to follow, ripping open a portal with the fingers of his free hand. Alerted to the noise, Esmeraud appeared in the door of her room, coinciding with the silent opening of Saphir's door. Neither had to be told to follow, and they filed through the black, jagged tear after their prince.
       They stared at the bodies of three young girls as they lay on the floor once they stepped through, the smell of their unwashed skin becoming rank. Esmeraud make a show of covering her nose and mouth. "To have brought the fabled sailor soldiers down so low! How terrible that they submit to such a stink after only a few days; perhaps they've begun to rot?"
       "They live. And they are of use to us." In the darkness sparked an unholy light; and the light became Wiseman's roiling, tempestuous crystal ball, the only true illumination in the room as the robed seer appeared before Demand. "Though their forms are fragile despite their blasphemous intentions, they can be used as examples. Destroyed, like the sacrifice."
       Demand was too dignified to sully his shoe by nudging the closest of the three girls, but Rubeus, his spirit tempered by a sound defeat the day before, pushed at the blue-haired genius hard enough to illicit an unconscious gasp. She flopped bonelessly, an arm slapping across the dark-haired shrine girl's waist, pressing the two together in a lazy spooning position. "But they're useless sacks of flesh," Rubeus snapped.
       "So useless that the last of the guardian soldiers defeated you, Rubeus?" Esmeraud drawled lazily, snapping open the feathered fan she kept close at hand. Waving it lazily to dispel the rather moist stench, she ignored the red-haired man's blazing, fierce stare at her, turning fawning emerald eyes to Demand. He ignored her effortlessly.
       "Wiseman, you told me of a troubling vision; repeat it for us now," the prince commanded on a sudden switch of topic. Though the robed seer knew he was the true power in the room, able to smash them all without hesitation - and he should have done it, if only to send them as company to the four sisters who had failed him - he bowed his head in subservience.
       His insubstantial hands continued to flow around the ball in his lap, images flowing like the waves of a troubled sea within. He said, "Rubeus was defeated by the lone guardian soldier, Venus, but also another. A soldier who sleeps now, but stands awake at the side of the sailor soldiers in the 21st century."
       Esmeraud, the youngest and almost viciously defensive of the fact, looked puzzled. Rubeus, though he had seen the soldier himself, was almost equally puzzled but derisive. Saphir, being the scholar he was, allowed himself a fractional widening of the eyes in slow shock; and his brother, the eldest of them all, wore only a grim frown. "She Who Is Fire and Flame," the prince murmured slowly.
       "Hai…the Crystal Guardian," Saphir added, running a hand through his perpetually tousled hair. "Of course; she was put into sleep by the cataclysm. She would still walk in the 21st century, at the side of the sailor soldiers."
       Rubeus snapped, "And so what? It's just another girl. She couldn't defeat me. There's no worry to be had over another brat."
       The harsh, repetitive hacking in the room had them halting the argument before it started, but it wasn't until the sound ended that they realized what it had been. Wiseman, laughing. "Foolish, impetuous boy. The Crystal Guardian was sworn to protect the royal family. She is the fire itself; it comes to her summons without the aid of magic or oaths. Nothing is hidden from her, not even the tiniest secret in your mind." The seer sounded almost angry. "And she cannot be killed by human weapons. To have her in untouchable sleep is what allowed for us to invade the city; awake, she would have struck every soldier down."
       "You make it sound as if she's some sort of god," Esmeraud said distastefully.
       "Not a god. The legends say that she is rightfully protector of a greater power; but that she accepted the queen's offer to protect her blood, like a humble knight," Demand remarked in kind, almost as if reciting from memory.
        Rubeus seemed ready to stomp his feet in irritation, angered at the talk. "Ridiculous! Calaveras may have cowered from her, but she couldn't even dismiss my flames. Like children scared of the ghosts-"
       "You idiot." Saphir managed to put a lot of wrath into such a quiet statement. "You blithering fool, would you use the equivalent of a bomb against an ant? She is a weapon to be wielded only in the worst of circumstance, not to swat a careless little idiot like you. Only when the royal family is in mortal danger would she bother with such power."
        "How true, Saphir," Wiseman said mildly. "Most likely she found it convenient to disrupt Calaveras' spirit to fight."
       At this, Rubeus seemed to be puzzled. His eyes narrowed as he stared at the seer, obviously thinking, but Demand once more steered the conversation away. "And what are we to do now? The last of our troops are gone; Calaveras is the last of the sisters to have fallen in battle. Has anyone an idea?"
       Proving she had at least a modicum of intelligence, Esmeraud said, "Well, surely the rabbit will come back. Perhaps we should wait until she returns, and most likely she will bring allies."
       "That's quite true," Saphir remarked. "When she vanished, she went by a different path through time; an opening that was made to do so. Not the shoddy tears we've made. Certainly it would be easier for her to haul her new friends with."
       Esmeraud crooned, reaching with her fan to trace the curve of Demand's chin with its feathered edge. "My prince, allow me to prove my faith to you. I'll capture the rabbit once she steps back on the soil of the 30th century, and she will give us the keys we need to finally destroy the Crystal Palace once and for all." Tilting her head with a jealous light in her eyes, she added, "And I'll make of the queen a gift to you, my sovereign lord."
       Demand pushed the fan away with the tip of an index finger, not so much as acknowledging her flirt as he said, "See that you do. If the rabbit were to escape us and reach the palace with the soldiers, it could destroy our victory."
        Wiseman dissolved as the prince, gesturing for his brother to follow, abruptly turned to leave. Though Saphir was to follow he would have to open his own door; Demand's closed on the heel of his shoe with an inch to spare. Imperious to the end. "I distrust him," Rubeus snapped in the silence that followed.
       "My brother?" Saphir asked lowly, turning in the darkness towards the red-haired man. But Rubeus shook his head in the negative, snorting.
       "Wiseman. I think, sometimes, he merely uses us as pawns; that the Jakokusuishou is not as powerful as he claims. That he needs us to do his work for him." By the mirrored looks of suspicion on Esmeraud and Saphir's faces alike, he knew he wasn't alone.
       Esmeraud snapped her fan shut, pressing the back of her hand to her nostrils. "His knowledge of this girl in the 21st century….how odd that Calaveras would know of her as well, to be scared of her. She's younger than I; how would she have such information?"
       "From Wiseman, perhaps," Saphir offered. "More than once I caught him talking to them, though in meetings he would never even acknowledge their presence. Perhaps it's better they've been killed; perhaps he was plotting with them."
       "Perhaps," Esmeraud murmured.

      For once, it was a glorious day in Tokyo.
       And thank the kami, it was a Sunday.
       Out of the window of the upstairs den Chibi-Usa stared, watching the birds fly by. It wasn't the highest she'd been above ground, but the view was decidedly different. More alive and warm. Definitely beautiful.
       She still wasn't sure that she wanted to return home. In fact, she was hesitant, knowing that it would be a terrible sight; dead, as opposed to the city she saw now. It made her want to forget everything and just stay put, sleeping forever at the Tsukino house or here, ensconced in comfort, a lost cousin who wasn't really a cousin at all.
       But she had a duty to fulfill, a strong sense of loyalty that both her parents had given her driving her to it. Instinctively she clutched at the crystal and key around her neck, the crystal's cold facets again driving a tiny dagger into her heart. Only her mother could make it warm; her mother might never be able to do so again. She wanted to cry, and it wasn't until she felt the heaviness on her cheeks that she realized she was doing so.
       And there was also the sight of Luna P, rolled lifeless into the corner. Eyes dim, the mechanical toy could do nothing to comfort her until another power crystal had been inserted into its core. Though it was merely a machine invented to protect her, she had long ago begun to rely on it to always be there at her side, beeping quietly. To have it so cruelly dismantled broke her heart, and she knew it was unfixable; the crystal that powered it simply did not exist yet.
       Not to mention the fact that coming to this time had broken one very serious rule.
       She shivered to think, poignantly, of what her punishment could be. Even though she had done it with the best of intentions, she knew she had done an unforgivable thing…and now, in the light of day, she realized as well that she could have very well have changed history. It had never once entered her mind before.
       In the next room she could hear Usagi and Mamoru, their voices carrying through two sets of open doors. Earlier she had peeped in, being the precocious, curious child she often forgot she was, to see them almost feverishly kissing one another. It was an anxious thrust of hips and tongue they shared, a heat that was obviously shared but not consummated. She recalled her own parents and their chaste kisses by comparison, their cravings satiated by one another often enough to prevent such need. They gave of their love to each other freely; by comparison, the odango-haired blonde and her dark-haired prince seemed to hold back, perhaps for their morals, or her inexperience.
       Strangely she was reminded of her parents, and there had been moments when, as they stood as joined in the sunlight, a dark, solid silhouette, she had whimpered their names so perfect was the image. How silly, of course; Tsukino Usagi no Sailor Moon, the most powerful sailor soldier, was too…childish to have ever been her mother. Unladylike and rambunctious, she was no better than a child herself, in Chibi-Usa's opinion.
       When her father had told her the legends of Sailor Moon, of her power and uncompromising love, she had always pictured a woman like her mother; sophisticated and a true gentle lady. Her mother had always laughed at the comparison, saying it had never been like that, and Chibi-Usa had always mourned that Sailor Moon had vanished before she had been born. Died, perhaps, in glorious battle, no one would tell her.
       Now, seeing the soldier in person, Chibi-Usa was just a bit angry. A crybaby was not the kind of girl who should have born such a mantle of power, and it had infuriated her that such a child bore such a magnificent legend. Something obviously had lost between reality and fantasy. And yet, still, she had seen the odango-haired blonde in battle; seen her take each loss like a physical blow, yet retaining herself throughout. Only a strong soldier would have taken defeat so well.
       Could she….would she…take the strongest sailor soldier to her future to save it? It was easy to accomplish - Tsukino Usagi did not exist in the 30th century as she knew, as Sailor Moon had ceased fighting in the 21st - but could the girl save her mother? Though she had always assumed the sailor soldier had been the protector of the Ginzuishou before passing it to her mother, both of them having the blood of the past lunar kingdom in their veins, could a 14-year-old girl know how to use it? Protecting the sacred stone was one thing; using it was entirely different.
       In bare feet she crept downstairs, clad in an oversized T-shirt the tall red-head had found in her closet - a washed-out, comfortable black fading to grey - smelling coffee and the baked smell of pancakes and waffles. She could see Minako's blonde head in the kitchen shoveling strawberries, cream, and miniscule waffle chunks into her mouth, swallowing mouthfuls big enough to choke her. As she wandered into the doorway she saw Artemis and Luna sharing a bowl of cream, moving their tails this and that way to avoid being stepped on as Alex moved around the kitchen making breakfast.
       The pink-haired child felt a lump rise in her throat at the strangeness of it all; a comfortable, relaxed presence that was oddly domestic, a cheery tableau she had never experienced herself. Her parents, loving and attentive as they could possibly be, had always been far too busy to cook meals for the family, leaving the task for servants. A happy household for Chibi-Usa had never consisted of shared dinners with less than seven people. Consequently, she realized, she didn't even know if either parent could cook.
       Alex noticed her first, though she said nothing as Chibi-Usa continued to stare at the room in its entirety. Then she said, "Chibi-Usa? Do you want some breakfast?" waving a spatula at the plate of steaming pancakes sitting on the cutting board, piled some twelve high. Bacon lay draining on a paper towel next to it, a plate made of eggs - over easy - bacon and sausage already sitting in wait for Mamoru out of the way.
       "Sensei cooks! I'd forgotten all about her cooking," Minako managed to say around another mouthful of food. "I'm going to just live here and become a fat sailor soldier, content to eat all day long…"
        "So we can roll you into battle like a cannonball?" Artemis muttered dryly from the floor.
       Chibi-Usa crawled onto the other stool, staring quizzically at Minako's plate. It looked as if a bomb had hit it, the waffle shredded and soaked with strawberry juice and melting whipped cream, a few whole berries left rolling in the liquid. "Ne, what's that?"
       Minako speared a strawberry with her fork, letting it drip before she shoveled it into her sticky maw. "This?" At the child's nod, she said brightly, "Ara ara, the future has no strawberries? Chibi-Usa-chan, you've been deprived!"
       "A strawberry? Ano…so they're…red?" She picked one for herself out of the cooling sludge, staring at it as the juice dripped down her fingers. "They're so big, too…"
       "There's no strawberries in the future?" Luna sounded a bit suspicious - if not worried; for such a common fruit to be non-existent, something drastic must have happened, and Chibi-Usa had yet to truly explain the situation.
       The pink-haired child frowned down at the black feline, licking experimentally at the red, syrupy fruit. "Of course there are. But they grow so small, and darker in colour….they're very rare."
       "Are you sure you're not confusing them with blackberries?" Alex asked over her shoulder blandly, pouring the last of the batter into the pan.
       Whatever Chibi-Usa said was lost in a moan of joy as she bit into the fruit, juice and syrup spilling down her chin as it simply melted into ooze between her teeth. Taking it as a sign of agreement, Alex flipped the new pancake onto a plate holding two recently made, and got a carton of strawberries in syrup out of the fridge to pour on top. Chibi-Usa squealed as the plate, a fat dollop of cream set atop, was placed in front of her. She began to steadily devour it much in the same way Minako had her waffle, as if forgetting the simplest rules of etiquette in favour of a delicious breakfast.
       "I anticipate a shopping trip once this is all over," Alex muttered.       
       At her feet, Artemis blinked at Luna and said, "Why?"
       "Because once tsukimidango gets down here and finds food, the three of them are going to leave a mess behind to rival the San Francisco earthquake," the tall red-head snorted, "and I'm going to need some serious cleaning supplies."
       Sure enough, as if called Usagi appeared in the doorway, her loyal prince at her back. "Ne," she purred, sniffing the air, "I smell breakfast."
       "Uncanny," Luna drawled.
       Alex promptly handed Mamoru his fixed plate, shrugging with a mildly mischievous smile to his surprised stare, and handed Usagi an empty one. "Go to it. Just leave the trimming on the walls, please? I just re-painted."
       "I do not eat that much!" the odango-haired blonde squeaked, though she found herself smiling as she realized it had been a joke. She stared at the tall red-head's retreating back before turning to the pancakes, spearing several. Even the cooking ability matched Moriya's; just maybe she was going to have to allow the American into her life after all.
       Minako vacated her seat so Usagi could settle down - though it put her and Chibi-Usa within line of sight of one another, both appalled at the other's messy eating habits, both unwilling to consider themselves so crude - and put her plate in the sink to wash. Mamoru used the cutting board as a table, and for a while the kitchen was reasonably quiet as they all found themselves busy with their own little tasks. Domestic bliss at its most surreal.
       It was too bad Chibi-Usa, by her very existence at the table, represented the mild pall cast over everyone's thoughts. Minako's confession about the future hit very close to what the problem was; the child represented an uncertain fear they all had in regards to their lives. Would they possibly live to see the future Chibi-Usa called her home? Would they even live to see a year from now, or a week? Taking on their mantles of power had cast them all into doubt, but the pink-haired child had quite abruptly reminded them of their expendable lives.
       The clunk of dishes in the sink was the only deviant noise in the room, save that of silverware scraping plates. Minako, in a rare display of domesticity, offered to dry as Alex washed; Artemis' comment in the positive towards it (or negative, depending on your translation) gained him a wet dishrag in the face. Usagi's disparaging remarks in regards to Chibi-Usa's table manners turned into a furious snap of teeth across the table, a scene so odd everyone stopped to watch until Mamoru managed, by grace or luck, to put a stop to it.
       "She who would be queen, behold her serene presence," the tall red-head sighed, rinsing off one last dish.
        Chibi-Usa's sudden change of attitude was startling to behold. Eyes the colour of an albino, such a pure mix of white and red, focused past Usagi and her prince to a spot on the wall, as if she had seen an apparition. Mamoru noticed; Usagi, oblivious, was still eating. And she was oblivious still as that stare came down on her head, intent on details that the dark-haired prince couldn't guess at. Finally, in the absence of general conversation in the room, her question seemed thunderous: "Queen?"
       The snap of heads up and around was sudden and, in the main, reluctant. Warily, the two felines glanced up towards Alex, who was meeting Chibi-Usa's eyes with a strangely intent look of her own. Searching, maybe. After all, the child had known of Sailor Moon, and coming from the future as she claimed was bound to have known of the soldier's royal blood. But Chibi-Usa's surprise - more accurately disdain - seemed at odds with her knowledge up until now. "Usako is…" Mamoru started to say, unsure, until Alex raised a hand to stop him.
       She was still staring at the pink-haired child. Muttering a curse beneath her breath in French, she touched a hand to her temple as if annoyed, glancing away finally from Chibi-Usa. "Chibi-Usa, what do you know of Sailor Moon?"
       "That she was the strongest soldier."
       "And that's all?"
       "That she was Tsukino Usagi, and that she carried the Ginzuishou," the child added.
       The odango-haired blonde began opening her mouth, most likely to start yelling, but another raised hand stopped her. Alex closed her eyes as she said, "And no one told you about her past?"
       "Mama and papa only told me bedtime stories. Of great battles and victories. Mama told me Sailor Moon had been an ordinary girl, but she had been strong, stronger than any soldier in the galaxy. But," and here she frowned, "mama never said she was such a klutzy, childish, stupid girl."
       "C-c-chotto!" Usagi sputtered. "I am not stupid!"
        "You are too!"
       "Am not!"
       "Are too!"
       "Quiet, both of you!" Luna snapped from the floor, stamping her paw. "Both of you are acting like immature babies!"
       Both girls flinched in an eerily similar manner, their reactions nearly perfect. "Gomen ne," they both warbled petulantly.
       Frowning, Alex stared between the two slowly as they both bowed their heads in a contrite manner, oblivious to the strawberry goo getting on their hair as it sort of…flopped onto their plates. Muttering again in French, a slightly longer curse this time, she said, "She has her faults, but no one's perfect. As Princess Serenity she was just bad, and gods know it was only a gaggle of handmaidens and instructors who kept her from constantly tripping on her face."
       "Serenity…? Princess Serenity?" Chibi-Usa's face transformed again, into one of extreme disbelief as she looked across the table at a maddening Usagi.
       "We were all reborn," Minako cut in, noting Alex's lack of chastisement for the interruption. "Millennia ago, we all lived on other planets, and Usagi-chan was Princess Serenity, of the Moon Kingdom."
       Chibi-Usa smiled. It made perfect sense now; Usagi had to be an ancestor. She had died, passed the holy stone on to her mother, and one day, she would receive it. Everything that had seemed so muddled in history was now clear. "Obaa-sama, I'll call you now."
       Sputtering. Artemis, surprisingly, was trying not to laugh, but then again, so was Alex. Mamoru looked as though he was caught between laughing and trying to maintain his stern, adult stance. Luna was speechless, and Usagi was, well, horrified. "NA-ANI!? How dare you, you, you, you little brat!"
       That did it. Composure lost, everyone in the room but the two in the middle of the whole mess broke up laughing. Usagi's screeching protests were simply lost in the noise, but then, weren't they always?

       Later that night, they assembled in the park. It seemed somewhat ironic that such a piece of idyllic nature in the city proper seemed to be the centerpiece for many of their problems. Even the Tokyo Tower, with its almost inherent ability to lure all that was bad and monochrome dressy, didn't have so many hits beneath its belt. And sadly, both places still bore scars from those battles, though the park was in far worse condition. They had to literally break in, the gates now locked at their common entrance and the interior taped off, to prevent any worse trauma to the greenery. What they saw was sad. "I…I didn't think we'd done so much damage," Minako whispered, as if a loud noise would disturb the fragile ecosystem.
       "Terrible, isn't it?" Alex murmured back, lightly jingling a set of keys and their chains in her palm. She had driven them to the park in, of all things, a black Saturn. Not exactly the epitome of filthy stinkin' rich that they had figured her to be, though granted, the thing was loaded to the teeth, all leather and chrome and an engine that was definitely not factory floor. But all she had said was, in reply to Minako's sarcastic comment, "What did you expect, a Porsche? It has no passenger space, hideous body design, and it's bloody stick shift. How else do you expect me to chauffeur the princess and her court around, a refurbished limo in pearly Cadillac white?"
       It had been a good point.
       So they had driven here, through traffic that was still ridiculously congested due to the constant stream of nightlife that refused to die despite the growing lateness of the hour. Though Chibi-Usa had said nothing about needing darkness to do whatever she needed to send them through time, they had all opted to wait. Partially to nap, to think; and to assume that the flashing lights that were bound to occur would just be forgotten as someone's personal firework display. In the city, it was possible; it was just the brilliant light and acts of healing or earthshaking that was a bit hard to pass off as normal pyrotechnics.
       Mamoru, with the pink-haired child riding on his shoulder, her broken toy clutched forlornly between her arms, formed a ragged triangle of protection around Usagi with Alex and Minako taking the lead. Both cats were draped like rag dolls over the shoulders of the two, Luna's whiskers twitching in a sure sign of nervousness against the tall red-head's cheek. "I feel a disturbance here still. As though the Black Moon destroyed more than trees."
       "If they time-traveled, maybe they're doing it in an unorthodox way." The dark-haired prince held out a hand as if smoothing the air beside him, frowning. "Ripping open space and time violently, it would leave a mark."
       "I see someone's actually been paying attention during science class," Alex remarked from the front.
       Whatever he would have said in return was cut off as Chibi-Usa, sensing that very distortion, squirmed from his shoulders to shimmy to the stones. "They don't use the time door. They use a power that is evil and wrong to rip open holes to pass through, in disobedience to the sacred rule."
       The pink-haired child's comment was obviously a repetition of something told to her, parroted as seriously as an adult. Fingers curling at her neck, she frowned as she added, "I violated the sacred rule, too. But I had to. I have to save mama, and papa."
       "The sacred rule, Chibi-Usa-chan?" Luna asked slowly, piqued.
       "The door must not be opened. Time must not be traveled." Her eyes, as bright and comic as a kewpie doll's, looked sad. She knew how serious that rule was, and that she had tap-danced right over it in complete violation. The guardian of the door would possibly be stern with her, but forgiving; but now she realized, with a sinking feeling, that her guests might not be allowed to pass through at all. Her entire mission could end in failure.
       In the quiet that followed, Usagi emphatically said, "Let's transform, ne? We can't visit the future as ordinary people!" grappling with her brooch. It was mostly towards Minako, as they were the only two sailor soldiers left; the transformations of their two allies were something neither of them had really witnessed.
        The long-haired blonde's response was to lift her transformation pen high, flashing the victory sign with her free hand. "Venus Star Power, Make Up!" she crooned, relaxing in the grip of her magic as it spun her around, teasing her with its growing strength and familiarity of her body. As it dropped her she blew off a kiss to her admirers - all seven of them, including a perplexed bird - posing jauntily. "To the future! Sailor Venus and the spirit of love will never die, in any age! Even when the hour looks weak, the guardian of the age of Pisces will pronounce victory!"
       "Do you just think of these stupid speeches to bore the villain to death, Venus?"
       "Why, sensei, I have no idea what you're talking about."
       "And it's the Age of Aquarius, by the way."
       Venus gestured foppishly. "Whatever."
       Chibi-Usa was quietly giggling, though she was trying to hide it, ladylike, behind her hand. Venus' little song and dance had worked to break the mood, and she grinned as she gestured towards the odango-haired blonde. "Ne, Usagi-chan?"
       Lifting her brooch just as high, Usagi cried out, "Moon Crystal Power! Make Up!" allowing herself to be lifted off her toes. Her power was more of an explosion as it exchanged Tsukino Usagi for Sailor Moon, sculpting her clothes into that of her fuku. The light was a brilliant, momentary flash that left them all strangely invigorated in its wake, blinking to see her smile and plant her hands on her hips. "For love and justice, the pretty soldier, Sailor Moon, will always triumph!" Her own pose was definitely unique, with a lot of hand and arm gestures, one of which nearly smacked Venus in the face. "In the name of the Moon, I will punish evil!"
       "You know, during this wonderfully voyeuristic minute of posing and speeches, the enemy could have killed you both twice over."
       "Ara ara, jealous, Guardian-sama?" Venus purred, the respectful title appropriate to the tall red-head's change in attire. Though hers had been vastly quieter, and more subtle, she stood at ease in her blue uniform and cape, fingers hovering above the empty sword scabbard on her hip.
       "Realistic."
       It left Mamoru as the only civilian left needing to change, and his was a tricky transformation indeed. Though he had managed to perfect it to the point where he could force his change without his beloved being in danger, his capture and subsequent death had done some very subtle alterations to his body. One being that he had lost the connection in his brain that had allowed him to access his power; and so he was again trapped to Sailor Moon's peril. Now was as good a time as any to break free.
       He slowly flexed, recalling the sensation of his power. How it felt to bring the transformation on, knowing he was needed. That his aid had been summoned by a link to his princess, a bond older than the nations of the world. Catching her eyes with his own, he stared into the crystalline blue he had come to associate with peace, taking her gloved hand in his naked palm. Smooth like satin, but strong enough to act as body armor, he concentrated on the feel of her inside of it. Her power.
       Like the breaking of a mirror Chiba Mamoru shattered, blown away on a sudden breeze to reveal the dapper suit and cape of Tuxedo Kamen. His reward was the bright, open smile of his princess, who whispered "Tuxedo Kamen-sama" in quiet awe.
       Impulsively they kissed, melding into one another. When they parted, they blushed as Venus said, "Awwww!" longingly, most likely wishing she had her own prince to lock lips with; but Chibi-Usa was staring at them with a sad, wistful look, partially hiding below her toy. She turned away as the dark-haired prince frowned, taking hold of the key around her neck again.
       He took it as a sign and parted from Sailor Moon, glancing at the Crystal Guardian and pointedly back at the pink-haired child. Saying without needing to vocalize that he trusted her to fulfill her duty; to be a commander and a maker of decisions. Nodding with a wry smile, the tall red-head said, "Imouto, the future awaits. We can't save your mother until you lead us there."
       "Hai." She lifted the key into view to show the tiny glow deep within the decorative orb at its top, as if responding to a beacon none of them could see. "It has to work," she whispered desperately, looking up into the sky. If they had all looked up as well, they might have seen, amidst the white dots of the stars, a purple light that pulsated in time with the key. "It must," she added just as softly.
       Like the transformations before her, she stabbed the key up towards the sky like a receptor for the lightning, bracing herself for the inevitable winds. "Time Guardian! Tear apart the sky and open the space-time door to me!"
       And the winds did indeed start, though nowhere as pressurized as they would become. Still they whipped branches, ripping yellow police tape free and sending it over the wall. "I call the true name of the almighty god of time, the time guardian's father!" she cried, closing her eyes. "Cronos! Reveal to me the path of light!"
       The light stabbed down from the sky.

       There was no solid surface, nothing to give one a perception of confining space or depth. It played hell with the eyes, and nausea racked them all as they were thrown, no, hurtled, through the opening into this new dimension. Venus cried out as she landed wrong, twisting her knee, toppling over with Tuxedo Kamen riding her back. Sailor Moon fell backwards to crack her skull against her beloved's arm, her long ponytails tangling in the legs of the tall red-head flailing madly behind her.
       Chibi-Usa, sucked up into the vortex seconds before it had taken them all, leaping after her frantically, was nowhere in sight.
       "My head, my head!"
       "Unggh, I've fallen, and I can't get up…"
       "Are we there yet?"
       "Luna? Artemis? Where are you!" Tuxedo Kamen called over the ruckus, still partially buried under a mound of girlflesh. The two felines had been like dead leaves in a hurricane; they had been ripped off their separate rides rather violently, and all he had seen of them was a matched pair of kitty tails-and-hindquarters.
       The relentless weight finally eased off, and everyone got their feet, if hesitantly. Around them was darkness, but it was a living darkness; and as their eyes were adjusting, they could see, near and far, the mini swirls and reaches of the universes that held those lives. "Sugo-o-i," Sailor Moon whispered, reaching out as if to touch them; but they stayed perpetually out of reach.
       Against the backdrop in what seemed to be in front of them appeared Luna and Artemis, running to meet them. "We finally made it!" Artemis panted as they got close, skidding to a tired stop at Venus' feet.
        "Where did you go? Is Chibi-Usa-chan with you?" Tuxedo Kamen asked.
       "She isn't here?" Luna looked around slowly, a worried expression obvious on her furred face. "But she has to lead us, she's the only one who can!"
       Picking up the black feline, the tall red-head agreed, saying, "She has the key. Without her guiding us, we'll be lost between time forever; or until someone else comes through. Not much chance of it happening, seeing as it's forbidden."
       She added, "You'd think it would be easy to spot that ridiculous cotton-candy pink head."
       They all traded looks.
        "What can we do?" Sailor Moon queried, sounding worried. "Without Chibi-Usa-chan, we're lost, but we can't just stand here! We have to save the future!"
       Wrapping his arms comfortingly around her, Tuxedo Kamen held his princess silently. Venus stroked Artemis' back, frowning in thought. "Maybe we can just…walk, and see if we run into her?"
       The odango-haired blonde leaned into her prince, crystal blue eyes staring into the unfathomable expanse of darkness. This was terrible; she knew the pink-haired child was depending on them, on her, to save her family and future, and it may have already been in vain simply by their being lost. They would wander eternally between so many possibilities and realities, all of their powers and abilities unable to save them. And the future would be bleak, but they would never know.
       She stifled a sob, feeling suddenly, violently useless. With Metallia, she had still had a chance; here, there was nothing. Nature was not forgiving, nor cruel; it simply existed. It didn't mean for them to be trapped, but that was simply how it worked. "No," she whimpered. "No, I can't leave it like this. We have to save the future, I promised her…!"
       Her prince was puzzled as she left the solace of his arms, cupping her hands at her breast. Calling her crystal from its protective brooch.
       Behind them, their allies had been arguing over suggestions of what to do, but the sudden release of power had them pausing. "Ne, Usagi-chan, what are you doing?" Venus asked finally, after a long minute.
       "Finding Chibi-Usa-chan." Holding out her arms, the odango-haired blonde directed the crystal towards their seeming front, closing her eyes. The glow they had already learned to expect began to grow around it, illuminating their space with a gentle, pure light.
       "Ah, tsukimidango, I don't think that's a good idea," the Crystal Guardian said as a warning, glancing around.
       "I have to find her!" Sailor Moon shot back, nearly snapping it. So focused was she on her task that she didn't see the dots of light. Multitudes, millions, appearing in many of the galaxies and universes surrounding them; the echoing light of her crystal on a host of worlds. She realized her folly only when the faces began to surround her, thousands of similar blonde faces, all of them responding to her probing with their own power. They pushed at her like a stream, then a river; a torrent of lives, past and present, slammed into her finally, throwing her back as they crowded her. She screamed.
       A hand closed around the living warmth of the stone itself, abruptly cutting off her control. Disoriented, she opened her eyes as she lay sprawled on the equivalent of the floor to see the tall red-head close her other hand to create a fist, a shield, around the crystal. "I told you that wasn't a good idea," she sighed.
       Everyone was staring back and forth between them, before Tuxedo Kamen reminded himself that he was a gentleman and knelt to help his princess. She lolled in his arms, sweat beading on her forehead from the exertion; nay, the shock. "I don't…I don't understand…how…?"
       "What happened?" the Crystal Guardian replied, opening her hands. Like a balloon it lightly hovered between them. But when Sailor Moon held out her own hand, it floated easily back to her, like a dog returning to its owner. "Simple; you were searching for the future Ginzuishou she holds, correct? We're between time; there are, as you've seen, literally thousand incarnations of the holder of the sacred stone. You searched blindly, and they all responded to your call."
       Venus pointed her finger off to their right. "So did that."
       An ornate door, elegantly scrolled and massive, now stood there, closed.
        But it was the woman that stepped out from behind it that wore an expression of severity that had them staring the hardest. Not because of her arrival, but because she wore the fuku of a sailor soldier in a deep, unreflective black. And she had a really damn big stick. "Halt! I will not allow you to go any further!"
      An easy order to follow. Venus slid to point, fists clenched; behind her she sensed rather than heard her superior take up a similar protective position. Though the woman looked to be a sailor soldier, an ally, her arrival was suspicious at best. "We'll ask the questions, lady!" she snapped imperiously, lifting her finger, ostensibly to get her point across but in reality to aim. "Who are you to block our way?"
       "The guardian of time. The wielder of the keys. My job is to eliminate any who break the sacred law; I am Sailor Pluto," she announced, sounding stern, but somehow almost childishly anxious, as if this was her first chance to do such a thing. Her rounded face and features still had the last remnants of baby fat before true maturity, framed by long hair that was so deep an emerald green it seemed black. The look in her ruby eyes was not quite ageless, but anticipatory; this was indeed her first such job to protect the door.
       She swung her staff around to aim its heart-shaped head at them, whispering, "Dead Scream."
       The wind that had sucked them into the light was nothing compared to the needling, sharp gale that came at them. Venus cried out in pain as it slammed into her, Artemis echoing her with a yowl of his own as he hunched at her feet. Then it abruptly stopped inches from her face, curving away and over her head, only to fade entirely as the attack ended. Not bothering to waste time checking in with her allies, she leapt up to shout, "Crescent Beam!" shooting the golden energy at the black-clad soldier.
       Surprisingly, she seemed shocked that she was getting return fire, but she brought her staff up to ricochet the attack off and away into space. Again she said, "Dead Scream," buffeting Venus in mid-air before she could land safely, slamming her down hard enough to have her seeing dancing cabaret birds circling her head. But before she could get up and try again, the Crystal Guardian shouted, "Stop! Both of you, stand down!"
        Ruby eyes looked around towards the blue uniformed soldier, frowning. But she pulled back to stand at ease, gripping her staff in its upright position. "My apologies, Guardian-sama. I recognize you all, but I cannot let you pass. It is forbidden."
       "I know. I apologize as well for not recognizing you as well; you were an elusive soldier to visit." The tall red-head smiled wryly, eliciting a similar, if smaller, smile from the black-haired woman. "But we were led here by one with a key. Only from your grace can someone have one; and we need to find her."
       This bit of information was surprising, to say the least. Pluto's expression seemed to crumple, twisting into an emotional mess. "Small Lady?" she whispered.
       She swung around, touching the red jewel atop her staff, the size of her fist easily. Within was a steady glow, a beacon that was growing brighter even as they all stared at it. No one had to ask what it meant; the vagrant key was coming closer.
       As if similarly called, a blob of sugar pink appeared within their sight, off to the left of the door. Closer it came, matching the brightening glow of Pluto's orb, until they could see two bobbing pigtails. "Chibi-Usa-chan!" Sailor Moon cried.
       "Sailor Moon! Minna!" And then, plaintively, "Pu!"
       The child launched herself into the black-clad soldier's arms, simpering. Luna P, dropped at her feet, rolled uselessly over towards the gathered soldiers, and Venus picked it up. "Pu, oh, Pu, I was lost! I brought them here, and I got lost, and I was so scared….!"
       "Small Lady, you had me scared to death! I thought you were lost forever in time, unable to use the key…you broke your promise! Why?"
       Chibi-Usa sniffled, wiping her nose messily on the sleeve of her uniform. She flailed at the soldiers, all of whom were still staring in rapt attention at the strange reunion. "I had to bring the past Ginzuishou home with me; the crystal of the soldier of legend, Sailor Moon. I thought, maybe, it would be stronger than ours, and it could save mama and papa and everyone…so I went to the 21st century."
       Pluto went to her knees, bowing her head in forgiveness to the child as she whispered, "You had me so worried, princess…! Breaking your promise and stealing a key, I had thought you lost. And it was for nothing; the Ginzuishou is everlasting, no matter what era. All that matters is the knowledge of the user."
       "Princess?!" Sailor Moon, and Venus, shrieked.
       Both blondes were staring in blank shock and a bit of horror at the pink-haired child, who, still in Pluto's arms, had a rather haughty look on her face. And if they didn't know any better, the black-haired woman was trying hard not to start laughing. "I happen to be the princess, of course! I didn't tell you because you were all ordinary people-"
       "Ordinary people!" Sailor Moon raged, flailing her hands. "I'm a princess too!"
       "Obaa-sama!"
       "Cheeky brat!"
       "Sailor Moon, this isn't the time to start an argument!" Tuxedo Kamen cut in abruptly, doing his levelheaded best to stop the entire thing before it reached the razz of tongue stage. Then all they could've done was stepped back and tried to stay out of reach of the saliva.
       The odango-haired blonde and pink-haired child flinched, chastened, but not quite mollified. They glared at one another across space, a length that had suddenly shortened without their knowledge by Pluto's presence. Luna sighed. "How unusual that two princesses can manage to be so childish."
       "I think it's the pigtails. They're just tied too tight," the tall red-head offered.
       Pluto rose, releasing Chibi-Usa to retrace her steps, taking up a position at the side of the door. In her other hand was the key the child had used, and she hung it on her belt as she said, "Enter the doorway; the future awaits."
       Sailor Moon held her prince's hand tightly, releasing the tension they all felt as the door opened on its own. Chibi-Usa ran through it without waiting, disappearing into the light. Venus and Artemis slowly followed, along with Tuxedo Kamen and Sailor Moon, Luna at her heels. Slowly they all disappeared from sight, leaving only Pluto and the Crystal Guardian, who asked mildly, "How could you let this happen?"
       Ruby eyes looked away as the soldier sighed, fondling the keys at her hip. "I love Small Lady," she said softly. "I trusted her, but her mother's situation….she took me by surprise and stole the key. And I am bound by oath and duty to never leave the door, unable to have simply followed her and preventing this all."
       The tall red-head looked around slowly, her eyes seemingly drifting nowhere in particular; but a galaxy far, far off to the right and above their heads was chiming with the klaxon of bells. A dissonant, worrying noise; it was associated most commonly with warning. Danger. "We've disrupted the natural order of time already, haven't we," she stated more than asked, looking back to Pluto.
       "Hai." The guardian of time looked physically sick.
       A shrug; the Crystal Guardian moved towards the door, blinking at the light. "I suppose we'll know if we irrevocably fucked it up if we cease to exist." With that parting statement she stepped through the way, surprised at the sensation of sudden weight as she left a world unburdened by time to one governed by it. On the trip in, she had been so buffeted by winds and knocked about that she had never noticed the change, and it was somewhat anti-climactic. Behind her the door closed, and she was nearly shoved up against Tuxedo Kamen and Sailor Moon as they stood shocked, staring out over a destroyed, wasting hulk of a city.
       "It's so terrible," Venus was saying, sounding pained. "Everything beautiful is destroyed."
       Like a giant foot had stomped down, smashing all in its path, the city looked like so much broken glass and crystal. Everything had been made from the two materials with supports of wood and stone and man augmented materials, but it had all been crafted cunningly to hide the latter. It would have shone and reflected like a jewel in its entirety; now, the moon that hung low in the sky simply illuminated the tragedy.
       All that truly remained was a giant spire of opaque white crystal, encircled by smaller, similar spires at its base. Like a child's rendition of a futuristic building, it was streamlined and utterly beautiful and looked entirely useless as any sort of living quarters. "So much crystal…the entire city was a giant focus," the tall red-head murmured, eerily echoing Makoto's prediction of days ago. "And this is the future?"
       "Crystal Tokyo." Chibi-Usa was staring at the city with an unrecognizable expression, silent tears running down her cheeks. "A gigantic blast destroyed all of those buildings, killing people. Then the enemy came and released poison gas; it killed more people in the streets. I…I was protected, somehow…"
       She squared her shoulders, preparing herself. And then she began to walk into the city itself, into the heavy mist that covered it all like a funeral shroud, thick and noxious. Sailor Moon never hesitated as she followed, pulling Tuxedo Kamen along, though Venus jogged ahead of her without saying a word, all of them followed by the cats and the Guardian.
       The mist was cold, a chilling sensation that ate right down to the bone. Chibi-Usa's teeth were chattering, noisy over the silence of the dead city; Tuxedo Kamen moved forward to doff his cape, wrapping her in it. It wasn't enough, however, to kill the rotting smell of the corpses lining their path, many so far gone they were unrecognizable. Sailor Moon was making gagging noises, a hand clasped over her mouth. In unison - though the long-haired blonde was silent up until that point - both Venus and Chibi-Usa voided their stomachs onto the hard, frozen ground at the sight of a particularly gruesome pair of bodies.
       "Strange how no animals seem to have been around," the tall red-head remarked a few minutes later. She knelt down near a large man, her push to roll him over enough to send Sailor Moon this time heaving off to the side. "No bite marks. By now, even stray pets would have started to gnaw on them. Are there any animals alive at all in this century?" She directed the question towards Chibi-Usa as she stood back up.
       The pink-haired child, her eyes gone dim yards back, shook her head slowly. "Iie…only cows, and pigs. What we eat."
       Tuxedo Kamen was muttering something beneath his breath that sounded suspiciously like a Buddhist prayer. He was helping his princess to his feet, wiping her sour lips clean with his sleeve like a doting parent with child. "Chibi-Usa, where are you leading us?" he asked over her head.
       "The Crystal Palace." She stood several feet away, pushing limply at something in the mist, Luna P rolling listless at her feet. It took them all a minute to realize, sickly, that it was a swing; it had been a playground; there were bodies too small to be adults lying on the slides, hanging in another set of swings. All of them she had known, because there were simply too few children in the city for her not to have at least casual contact with them all. She wished she knew what she was feeling. "That's where mama is. Inside of the Palace."
       Everyone was staring at her - most of them were pouting in that particular way that she had long ago recognized as an adult's expression of pity for the child. For what they were obviously not supposed to understand, or even really accept. Surprisingly, only Tuxedo Kamen and the Crystal Guardian seemed to have a twist to their mouths that meant they had not pity, but a sort of resonance to her situation. Mamoru; he had told her last night that he knew her terror, that he too had lost both his parents forever to a car accident. Alex had mentioned briefly that death had a bad habit of wearing her clothes, a cryptic statement Chibi-Usa had no idea to interpret.
       But Usagi, Minako; neither of them had lost so much as a close relative. Nothing to really hit them so low in their guts that they felt their breath ripped out of them. Only friends brought back from the grave by the wish of a holy stone. And no matter what, that pain was only temporary.
       Chibi-Usa nodded slowly to herself, pointing through the mist, past the destroyed and shattered crystal. Even at their distance the large black monolith was visible, sleek as the Crystal Palace - because that was the only thing the gleaming, perfect spire in the center of the city could be - and just as tall, like its sinister, negative twin. "That appeared after the blast. I saw it. I think they use it to travel."
       "It looks like a giant crystal as well," Luna piped up from the top of a shattered fountain. Mist poured from the urn of a robed woman instead of water.
       "Black crystal…like the earring that woman, Petz, threw at Jupiter!" Venus added, balling up her fists as though merely saying the name would invoke the green-clad witch back into the flesh.
       Like a black hole, it seemed to absorb what tiny bit of light hit its facets, a dull, opaque, lifeless thing. "So the enemy knows how to use crystals. No doubt they used it to amplify their evil, as the Crystal Palace would amplify the Ginzuishou," the black feline said, picking the conversation back up after Venus' interruption. "To break the evil swallowing the city, we need to destroy it!"
       Sailor Moon shook her head, looking away from the black monolith to stare at the palace, so translucent that it was barely visible through the mist. "If Chibi-Usa-chan's mama is inside of the palace, in safety, we should try and help her first."
       Luna twitched her whiskers, musing over the idea. The odango-haired blonde didn't wait, however; she simply started off, glass and crystal crunching beneath her heels. Venus jogged to intercept her, gaining a somewhat irritated look from her princess at what she considered babying; the rest of them fell back into pace, a tired procession. All too soon they were passing through a wall of crystal into the front entranceway, though the absence of a door was… "That was strange," Tuxedo Kamen remarked.
       "No door." The tall red-head swung Chibi-Usa and her toy up in one scoop despite her protests as someone began laughing. Echoing off the walls, it was distinctly unfriendly, and it grew almost screechy as the child was handed over to the prince. "I think we've been tricked; this isn't the palace, is it, Chibi-Usa?"
       The pink-haired child shook her head in the negative as the laughter grew louder. Behind them, Venus adjusted her stance with the quietest click of heels on the ground, Moon turning about completely to stare off to their right, fists balled. With an easy twist, the Guardian closed her hand above her scabbard, the solid shape of a broadsword simply appearing to fill the once-empty space. The cats did a quick leap to stand guard at their princess's feet, despite their size.
       In here, there was no mist, and it made the sudden entrance of the two men, standing side by side in front of the wall they had entered through, more unsettling. "Greetings, Rabbit! Welcome to your deaths!" they both gloated, assuming identical postures of arrogant waiting, arms crossing over their chests. "The legendary sailor soldiers. How sad that only two of you remain to be so easily destroyed."
       "We're not so easily defeated!" Venus threw back, gesturing with a rude flick of wrist that had several sets of eyebrows lifting. "And who are you to think otherwise?"
       Both men bowed, a splay of arms in almost foppish manner. "We are the Bull Brothers of the Black Moon."

       The problem with having teenage girls who, having grown up most of their lives without any sort of knowledge of their magical powers or special abilities, become super heroines and get dropped immediately into dangerous situations, is that they simply don't think. Most will still be so assure of their newfound powers that they seem to think that any sort of plan or even time itself is a thing to be used as a weapon in itself, and that just blasting away will work.
       Of course, all girls that age had such a problem, heroines or not.
       So it was with the two sailor soldiers.
       Before either man could elaborate any further - like maybe personal names, or their evil plot to kill them all, effectively giving them ideas on how to circumvent those plans - Venus snapped out with her chain, about to send her golden links flying as surely as her beam. Sailor Moon, seizing the opportunity alongside, held aloft her weapon, yelling, "You can't stop us! You captured Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, and for that, you'll pay! Moon Princess Hala-"
       There was a noise like the popping of a lightbulb.
       Both attacks fizzled seconds before even fully forming, mere specks of promising light and nothing more. Two sets of jaws dropped in disbelief. Two sets of hands, and a few paws, smacked their foreheads. "We were interrupted before we could mention, with glee, that there is a shield around your very feet that is simply preventing your powers. Magic's cannot penetrate it," the leftmost twin sniggered.
       He gestured to himself, light skinned and blue eyed, a reverse image of his twin - though both, oddly, had white hair. "Kiral."
       His twin, dark skinned and red eyes, said, "Akiral."       
       Both said, "Shi ne."
       From around the feet of the gathered soldiers rose a rapidly growing border of crystal, thick to the point of opaque. And it was true; Venus pointed her finger at the wall, shouting, "Crescent Beam!" only to have her finger pop and fizzle, slightly scorching her glove. "…shimatta!"
       "Oh, how lovely, a beautiful cage to keep my rats inside!" The source of the grating, harsh laughter appeared just high enough for them to see above the wall, though she hid her pouting lips behind her fan. Esmeraud. "Kiral, Akiral, excellent work! Now, in sight of the ruins of the palace of the unholy, you'll all die worthlessly. My prince will love me and only me!"
       Chibi-Usa trembled in Tuxedo Kamen's arms. The sudden hatred she felt for the woman was almost heady, a sensation she never had really felt nor needed before. She was one of the people who had destroyed her home; her people; and she felt no remorse for it. Screaming suddenly, needing to vent the anger before it grew inside like a weed, she threw Luna-P at Esmeraud's head. "No! No, no, no! You can't destroy the palace! It's protected by my mama and by a holy power that can stop you!"
       Esmeraud, unused to such forms of combat - physical objects? Thrown at her? - barely ducked the flying toy. Still, it grazed the side of her skull, prompting her to shriek like a bean sidhe. "You little insect! You-you-rodent child!" she screamed, touching the faint mark at her temple, barely red. "Kiral! Akiral! What are you waiting for, kill them! Create the chemical reaction, blow them up!"
       The wall loomed high over their heads, impervious to their magical attacks. "Smash it!" the tall red-head snapped, kicking it for emphasis. "Break it with your fists if you have to!"
       The twins visibly started on the other side of the wall as the group began to physically pound on the crystal, kicking and punching at it. Apparently, they hadn't thought of such a simple thing, and they both began to shriek as the entire thing came tumbling down like cards, as easily broken as a thin plate of glass. The barrier, however, exploded hard enough to slam them all into one another, enough to rattle their heads. "Faulty spells," Kiral stormed.
       "Not our fault!" Akiral agreed.
       "Well, don't just stand there, do something!" Esmeraud snarled, making no attempt to do it herself. After all, that's why she had them. Both of them jumped, looking from their mistress to the soldiers, who were still shaking their heads. What the hell else could they do? Their one plan had been stopped; they were only minions, not intelligent, thinking individuals.
        "Moon Princess Halation!"
       Akiral became so much black dust, blown away from his twin's side. Kiral watched him fly away, twisting his body entirely away as he sighed; being an evil construct dedicated to being merely a disposable lackey was turning out to be a pretty shitty job. Though, surprisingly, he wasn't dusted yet, and he peered around curiously to see why.
        Venus had pulled out a microphone.
       Artemis was making gagging noises at the odango-haired blonde's feet at the sight of the golden, gaudy thing, which she held to her lips with a wink. "I feel past-tense today."
       "That's 'nostalgic,' Venus," the tall red-head muttered.
       "Whatever." She held the mike out, pointing it at Akiral. "Venus Ten Billion Bolt Rock `n Rouge!" she sang, hitting a rather high note hoarsely. Like his twin, he was blasted into dust, though his death released the spell of illusion around them to reveal the mere yards they stood from the palace gates; Esmeraud, predictably, was nowhere in sight.
       Chibi-Usa wasted no time in tearing herself away, fleeing the safety of their rough circle to pick up the small black dot that was Luna-P, dropping to her knees to huddle around the toy. If they had asked, she would have merely told them she was thanking the gods for saving them, though in reality she was trying desperately not to cry. She was too young to have seen all of this death, far too innocent and pampered and protected in the years previous to have so much forced on her so soon. It wasn't fair; but she was coping. She was Princess Usagi Small Lady Serenity, by the gods.
       When they all walked up to her, some a tad quieter than the others, she simply stood up and said, "The Crystal Palace" and walked through the gates.
       The gardens were still beautiful and growing, in sickening contrast to the death just feet away. Obviously, the structure as a whole was powerful enough to repel the Black Moon's evil, its death and subsequent decay. Water still flowed from the fountains, and the air was redolent with the scent of flowers and greenery. As they came closer to the castle proper, an immense ornate door, similar in design to that of the door Pluto still guarded, appeared within the crystal wall. Like it had always been there. At the touch of Chibi-Usa's hand it swung open noiselessly, revealing an immense chamber.
       Pillars and marble walls served as decoration, the crystal soaring in arches above. Like a fusion with the Moon Palace, the scrollwork and carvings resembled pre-Roman architecture almost identical to that of the ancient building. The floors were alabaster, diamond and pearls and precious gemstones forming mosaics beneath their feet. But as beautiful as it all was, the eye was caught by the fanciful doorway off to the right, almost as grand as the entrance to the palace itself.
       Chibi-Usa led them towards it, and they passed beneath thick pearlescent drapes tied back, into a chamber that held nothing but an altar.
       Set high above the floor, carved with a robust goddess in modest robes and Roman pillars and scrollwork, it was like a piece of art in itself, even without the immense piece of crystal atop it that stabbed the air in multiple directions, rough but beautiful. From the doorway, it merely seemed lovely, like an expressionist sculpture; but as you came closer a shape took form inside of the facets, a face in repose becoming clear. "Kami-sama," Artemis whispered.
       "Oh…oh, no," Venus moaned.
       "She looks…peaceful…" Tuxedo Kamen said, staring slowly towards his princess as she, frozen like a deer in headlights, stared at the figure. "Peaceful, Usako…"
       She lifted her hand, covering her mouth as if anything she said would profane the sacredness of the altar, of the room itself, stepping back. Next to her, the Crystal Guardian exhaled sharply, asking, "Chibi-Usa, who is that?"
       "Neo-Queen Serenity," a different voice said, a girl's squeaky, lilting tone.
       The 21st century fugitives looked towards the door, expecting someone to enter behind them, but Chibi-Usa looked down instead. "Diana! Diana!" she cried, a lavender-gray kitten, complete with a cute little bell at her neck, prancing out from behind the altar. She skidded towards the pink-haired child, allowing herself to be scooped up and appropriately nuzzled and cooed. "Diana, you're still alive!"
       "Another talking cat?" Venus remarked quizzically, looking pointedly at the white feline draped over her shoulder. "Isn't two enough in the world?"
       Diana purred in response.
       It was then that they realized someone was indeed standing in the doorway, watching them all with a sad, wistful expression. The kitten leapt from Chibi-Usa's startled arms, scampering towards the man to plunk down at his feet, looking entirely innocent and adorable and horrifically, matching his outfit.
       His hand passed through the drapes, gloved in white. But the suit he wore was a tone of lavender that no straight man should have been caught wearing, along with a matching cape lined in white satin. He even wore a domino mask, though it seemed silly when it was obvious who he was; who he had to be, with eyes the colour of a deep, restless ocean. "Tuxedo Kamen-sama?" Sailor Moon moaned, echoing everyone's surprise. "Iie….Mamo-chan?"