Sailor Moon Fan Fiction ❯ Pretty Soldiers ❯ Act 21 - Worlds Apart - fukutsui ( Chapter 21 )

       "Lost forever?" Sailor Moon sounded faint, not a particularly inspiring emotion considering her position as not only their princess, but also their moral support. "Mamo-chan…"
       The odango-haired blonde stared out past them all into the darkness of space-time, eyes aching for just the faintest sight of her prince. To have rescued her friends and freed them all from the rot of Nemesis, only to now have lost Mamoru as he did her…this back and forth motion seemed relentless, never ending. It seemed like that in the past months all they did was lose one another to forces they couldn't control, with hardly the time to themselves.
       This coming summer vacation she was going to drag him to some out of the way resort and spend some quality time with him, come hell or high water.
       Of course, that meant surviving this mission.
        She realized she had been silent for a little too long; all of them were inching closer, most likely afraid she'd gone into terminal shell shock. The fact that her limbs felt watery, tired from her recent surge of power and the effects of Demand's dead planet, must have made her look like a cripple learning to walk again. She felt as though someone had been kicking her stomach, twisting as it was with what she recognized as hunger. All she honestly wanted right now was a warm bed to sink into, snuggled up with her prince - "I'm going after him," she said suddenly, holding a hand out for a key without even asking for one.
       When one didn't fall into her palm, she looked questioningly at Pluto. The black-clad soldier was staring at her somberly, her rod draped loosely across her arms at rest. It wasn't immediately obvious to anyone but Endymion and the tall red-head - both experienced - to recognize that her deceptively casual stance was in fact to protect her belt of keys. Sailor Moon was not a violent person by nature, nor necessarily greedy, but her concern for her prince could have very well pushed her to simply try and take one of the lavender duplicates. "Sailor Moon, you've been through a great deal. Travelling through space-time for a long distance is disorienting, enough to drive you mad. I have the power to protect myself, but you are not the Guardian of Time, you do not carry the blood of Cronos. Endymion-sama is most likely dirtied with enough time refuse from the storm to shield him. You could search for him now, or years from now, and the possibility of finding him remains the same.
       "Please, Serenity. My princess, my queen, our shining star. Don't go into this hastily. Rest your body before you come back to me, needing my aid."
       For the emerald-haired guardian, this was a monumental speech. And Sailor Moon seemed to understand this, because she literally took a step back, hugging herself from shoulder to shoulder. She felt the hands of her fellow sailor soldiers, her friends, come to touch her in support; her four guardians again.
       It was good that they were so close to her, sharing warmth and care. When she finally fainted, giving in to her exhaustion and bone-throbbing weariness, not to mention her pains, there were eight hands to pillow her sudden fall. If only it had been the certain strength of his arms, smelling always of a faint, subtle cologne….

      But when she woke up, there were only three faces to greet her. None looked happy, though at seeing her awake, there was a sudden effort made for them all to smile. "O-ha-yo, Usagi-chan," Ami greeted her. But it was such a shy intonation that it smacked eerily of her first days in Usagi's presence, so soft and withdrawn as to make herself nearly invisible. She had made so many changes to her personality since then that it was a shock to see it again.
       "Ohayo, Ami-chan, Rei-chan, Minako-chan," she responded in turn, making an effort to infuse her words with a cheer she didn't feel. Her body simply ached all over as though she'd been beaten with rods, especially in her lower back and stomach, a deep throbbing pain. Cramps from hunger no doubt, and she sat up with a noticeable wince. "I feel terrible. Where's Mako-chan? Luna?"
       "Luna and Artemis are with Diana, keeping her company," Minako said first, rocking on her heels. "Diana is blaming herself for Chibi-Usa's disappearance."
       She grunted faintly as Rei pinched her arm, most likely chastising her for her lack of subtlety. The dark-haired shrine girl then said, "Mako-chan is in the kitchen making dinner for us, along with Aleku-su-san." She was having a bit of a problem pronouncing the 'x' properly.
       Usagi nodded slowly, crystal blue eyes flicking up and down Ami and Rei's bodies. The blue-haired genius wore a somewhat shapeless baby doll dress, a few sizes too big for her and the pinkest sugar candy colour the dye could produce. It seemed ridiculously incongruous on the poor girl, whose taste ran more to understated warm blues and neutral tones.
       Rei had on a pair of yellow overalls and a black T-shirt, both of which were also large on her petite frame. The crotch of the overalls hit her at about mid-thigh, even though she had cinched the shoulder straps as tight as possible, and the T-shirt billowed loose and long enough to be a nightgown. To say they both looked as though they had lost a bet was an understatement. "Why are you dressed like that?" Usagi finally asked, her face turning almost comically quizzical. "Why aren't you sailor soldiers?"
       Both girls shifted uncomfortably, rubbing opposite shoulders in a simultaneous gesture of bruising pain. "We can't," Rei finally murmured. "Your power, Usagi-chan, gave us power to resist Nemesis and transform, but we were already so weak…"
       "We lost our power again, after you collapsed," Ami finished for her. "Ma…Endymion-sama says all we need is rest, we pushed our human bodies too hard." She picked at the hem of her dress, a furious crimson blush rising into her face. "Our clothes needed washing and mending."
       Minako, looking fantastically normal next to them in her school uniform, piped in: "We had to ransack a clothing store the city had rescued from the ice, but most of the clothes were destroyed in the blast. It used to be an expensive American clothing store in Omotesando."
       Well, that definitely explained the sizes.
       Speaking of clothes, what was she wearing? Lifting up the blanket to peek, she found herself in a hospital gown of the open-backed variety, tied loosely shut. Her civilian clothes, a rather favoured outfit, were lost to her on Nemesis, and most likely destroyed. "Where's the dress I was wearing?"
       "We burned it." Minako stared at her fiercely, crossing her arms. "We took it and burned it in the courtyard."
       The odango-haired blonde shrugged finally, scratching her cheek. It had, granted, been a lovely dress, but for her adult body; and she had been Demand's idealistic doll to be coiffed and molded into it. Maybe it was better off as ash.
       Ami reached over to touch her forehead, as if for fever. Somewhat amused, Usagi watched her putter around the room, totally at ease amongst the equipment, and produced a thermometer. She held still as Ami took her temperature, though she said, "I'm fine, Ami-chan, really! All I did was faint…"
       The three girls seemed fidgety again, though Ami could cover it up with her suddenly professional attitude. She peered at the thermometer, nodding her head at the number, and said, "Usagi-chan, you were in terrible shape. The constant pressure of Nemesis on you - on all of us there - forced our bodies into survival mode. We all lost several pounds, dehydrated to the point of collapse, and not to mention the festering of our injuries. Mako-chan's ribs are broken, and they might not heal properly. You, being awake and the focus of their power…were rapidly accelerated in your condition. If we hadn't escaped, you could have died."
       Usagi stilled beneath the weight of their gazes, her hands gripping tightly at her meager sheet. She stared slowly between them all, seeing the horror lurking just behind their eyes - that they had almost lost her, that they had been unable to help her. So she changed the subject. "My tummy hurts," she said. "I'm so hungry. When will dinner be ready?"
       There it was again! That tiny flinch, that tightening around their eyes. Rei laughed, and it sounded hollow in the sterile whiteness of the room, almost desperate. "Usagi, always thinking about food."
       Minako was smoothing the sheet around her legs like a fussy nurse. Ami was shaking her head in denial, tapping the thermometer against her palm like a teacher with her pencil. "You can't eat too much, Usagi-chan. All of us have to ingest solids slowly. We'll make up a plate for you with what you can eat."
       She was ready to start whining - withholding food? That was criminal! - but of course, they were only concerned for her safety. So she contented herself with pouting, looking around the room as Minako tugged the sheet up onto her lap. Next to her pillow was her brooch, and she could feel its comforting power even though it didn't touch her body. But it was puzzling to know that it couldn't heal her injuries; or, even, that it had done its best, and she had still come near death. Perhaps the thing wasn't infallible after all. Or maybe, she simply wasn't as spiritually capable as she needed to be.
       The door opened, and she looked up to see Makoto dressed in a spring green pant suit, an outfit that fit her far better than her two unfortunate friends had been stuck with. And it was in a tone of her favourite colour, too; double lucky. The only thing wrong was the way she held herself, so stiff in her walk and stance, no doubt from her ribs. In the heat of battle and the rush of power, she had not shown such hurt, but adrenaline was a marvelous painkiller. "Usagi-chan, you're awake!" she cried, moving forward to hug her. Usagi, aware of her injuries, held her high on her shoulders.
       Behind her in the doorway stood the tall red-head, leaning an arm against the frame in a relaxed pose. Endymion was a wavering mirage next to her, shifting like a TV with a bad case of static. The king's power was obviously waning, and severely. "How do you feel, Sailor Moon?"
       "Icky," she answered with a pout. "And I'm not Sailor Moon. I'm Usagi."
       The king flickered as he shook his head, fiddling with his cuff. She knew Mamoru well enough by now to recognize the signs of his discomfort; he always played with his sleeve when he was in such a state. "I think it would be…better…if I referred to you as Sailor Moon."
       Meaning her soldier identity was neutral to him, but Usagi and Serenity were not. It would have been something akin to a knife twisting in his gut to refer to her as either name, with his wife so close to him, yet completely out of reach. And yet, she recalled hearing him call her Serenity when Demand attacked. But she couldn't blame him for that slip; it must have been the nightmare all over again.
       So she nodded, folding her hands in her lap as Makoto pulled back to stand with her fellow sailor soldiers. She felt a moment's irritation as they stood there like obedient dogs, as though waiting for her to command them to sit, stand, or lie down. But she knew they didn't mean it like that. Why was she feeling so irrationally upset?
       "Food's ready," Alex said suddenly, bluntly. "I need to talk to Usagi alone. Ami, can you go with them? Or does your patient need you to hold her hand?"
       "H-hai, Alex-san, I can go with them," the blue-haired genius mumbled, suddenly very interested in her thermometer. She wouldn't meet Usagi's questioning eyes.
       Neither, for that matter, would the others. They murmured their leave, all but dragging themselves out the door as if they didn't want to take a single step. Minako flashed her the victory sign before she closed the door, but she couldn't quite hold her smiling expression. Mamoru and Chibi-Usa's disappearance shouldn't have had them treating her so delicately; something was up.
       But she did have to admit that in the past day she had spent a lot of time thinking. Her confusion and pain every time she saw the tall red-head, the grown-up woman her friend had not lived to mature into, had diffused into a quiet contemplation ever since Mamoru had chided her. She had been rewinding the weeks since they had met Alex, seeing Moriya in her seemingly careless gestures, her charming smile - now far more self-assured - and her casual attitude. The way she laughed, the way she stood even now in the doorway, and the unspoken wall she seemed to possess around her, the shield that had kept even her closest friends at bay. And that was what she had realized. Why had she ever made it so complicated?
       "I don't even have a cast for everyone to sign this time," she said weakly, though she deviously watched the tall red-head as she walked between the beds. As she leaned back, butt against the lip of the bed next to Usagi, she regarded the odango-haired blonde with barely repressed surprise. "But even falling out of the tree didn't hurt so much."
       "Too bad you didn't fall out of a tree; it would have been a lot less traumatic."
       Usagi smiled brightly, tipping her head like an inquisitive kitten in an oblique gesture to egg her on.
       "You just had to get the kite out of that damned tree, that's why, couldn't wait for your father to get a ladder. Nearly gave your mother a heart attack," Alex recalled slowly, staring at Usagi with the same tilt of head that, this time, was confused instead of interested.
       That was the answer the odango-haired blonde needed, and her telling smile was proof of it. But she didn't say anything else on the topic, instead pressing a hand to the sudden twinge in her belly. It was a deeper pain, one that smacked of rumbling muscles. "Itaaii. My tummy hurts so much, I must need food."
       She peeked at the tall red-head, but the woman was expressionless now, staring back at her with a bland face that could have meant anything. Where her friends would have given at least something away, with a flinch or a look, Alex appeared to be adept at hiding everything unless she felt the need - or freedom - to show her emotion as she had a minute ago. It was a trick Moriya had not quite perfected by her death, though she had had her moments. But it was still a hint to the seriousness of this entire visit. "Your tummy hurts? How?"
       "Like hunger. Cramps," Usagi described thoughtfully. "I'm hungry, of course."
       Alex shifted, adjusting her lean against the bed. "I realize that. But, I need to ask you something rather private, and I doubt you would have wanted the others to hear it." When Usagi didn't answer, merely leaning back a bit, she said, bluntly, "When's the last time you and Mamoru had sex?"
       Usagi shrieked, nearly falling off the bed. She clapped a hand over her mouth as the sound echoed, partly in guilt, partly in mortification. Had she heard her right? "N-n-nani?! That's personal!"
       The tall red-head pinched the bridge of her nose, sighing. "I said it was private, didn't I? And I have to know this, Usagi, I wouldn't ask if it wasn't important, for gods' sakes."
       "I…we…I mean, we haven't…"
       "You have."
       "But it wasn't…"
       "It was."
       "We haven't had…had sex," Usagi finally whimpered, pulling the sheets up to her chin. "Mamo-chan says it's too soon for such a thing." She could not be any apple-cheeked; her face must have looked like an overripe tomato. This entire line of questioning was delving far too deeply into her personal affairs, even if she had been reassured that it was in good cause. It was a far different cry from the teasing of a day ago, or even that of Chibi-Usa's possible conception.
       Alex actually seemed a bit perplexed by the answer. "That's not possible. If you haven't had intercourse, have you two…" She waved her hand vaguely in the air. "…fooled around?"
       Usagi was positive she was going to die of embarrassment. She pulled the sheet entirely over her head, as if hiding would solve the problem. "….hai."
       "Probably had it on his hands when it happened," she heard, muttered, beneath Alex's breath, most likely to herself. "That would explain it. Usagi, will you come out of there?"
       When she didn't answer, the tall red-head firmly but gently pulled the sheet down, peering directly into her eyes. "I'm sorry, tsukimidango. I'm not exactly enjoying this either." She released the sheet, leaning back as Usagi slumped, hugging the sheet to her chest. Another spasm of pain twisted her stomach, and she moaned, closing her eyes.
       "Isn't it bad enough that Mamo-chan, Chibi-Usa-chan…they could be lost forever in the storm….and you ask me these questions?"
       The tall red-head looked upwards to heaven, shaking her head. "Am I the only one with enough common sense to recognize the impossibility of him being dead? If he were dead, this entire place wouldn't exist, or would be dramatically different. He's lost, maybe horribly so, but he's obviously going to be found by us at some point because this is all still here. Stop thinking like a lovesick heroine and start thinking like an intelligent girl." She pointed at Usagi's stomach as the odango-haired blonde blinked, slowly digesting the meaning of her words. "This is more important right now, Usagi. You want to know why your stomach hurts? It's because it isn't your stomach, it's your womb. You were pregnant, tsukimidango, and you lost it."
       Usagi paled, no mean feat considering that she had already been ghostly upon awakening. She touched her hands to her stomach, her entire body beginning to shake with the entirety of what Alex had said, and realizing, intimately, that she had known all along. Little clues that had eluded her understanding suddenly became clear signs of her condition; the sudden grinding pain in her womb she had felt just as she had collapsed. But it couldn't have been too far along; it was impossible. "How? I don't understand…Mamo-chan and I…that is, we never...."
       "But you two must have at least experimented with one another, fondled or touched. All it could have taken was him touching himself, getting a little on his fingers, and not thinking when he slipped one in you." The tone of Alex's voice now had taken on a bit more weight, a bit more soothing as she said what was, to Usagi's mind, rather outrageously taboo. (Ah, to be such an innocent.) It seemed as though everything was fine, and in fact, Usagi was feeling almost relaxed; calm washed over her entire body. "It was obviously a mistake. And it couldn't have happened too long ago, the fetus was barely even bean sized."
       "Why did I lose it?" the odango-haired blonde asked softly, hugging her stomach. "Was it supposed to be Chibi-Usa? Did everything change?"
       Alex shook her head, brushing copper hair out of her eyes with an impatient flick of her hand. "She was born after you became queen. It's impossible to assume that was supposed to be her, it's too soon. And besides, the reason Chibi-Usa was even born is obvious; you gave up being a sailor soldier. You couldn't carry a child to term as Sailor Moon; the trauma to the fetus would have been - was - fatal. Transforming, fighting, putting your body through all of these changes…as a human, you simply aren't equipped for it." She slid up to sit completely on the bed, bending her knees to brace both boots squarely against the vertical support.
       "If you gave up Tsukino Usagi to truly become Sailor Moon, then you would change completely into a sailor soldier, and your body would think nothing of carrying a baby whilst performing magic. If you gave up Tsukino Usagi and Sailor Moon both to become Neo Queen Serenity, then you would change completely into a Silver Millennium being, and your body would be equipped to carry only one child. But you cannot be Tsukino Usagi and Sailor Moon and Princess Serenity and expect to ever become pregnant and bear a child. You have to chose one, and you haven't chosen yet, and the stress of Nemesis only accelerated what would have happened in perhaps another month."
       They stared at one another. Crystal blue eyes seemed on the verge of crying as Usagi finally looked away, though she wasn't quite sure what she felt now. On one hand, she was relieved that within the span of a conversation she had been told she was pregnant, yet it was solved. She was too young to have a child, being hardly older than a child herself, and it would have been ludicrous to assume she could handle such a responsibility or physical abuse. But at the same time she felt that creeping hand of fate tickling her spine again, reminding her of her slowly depleting time as Tsukino Usagi, that she wouldn't enjoy this anonymity for any more than perhaps six years. She had no more realistic dreams to look forward to, only the certain promise of motherhood and royalty.
       In a slightly morbid sense, it was at least nice to know what the future held.
       Sighing, she realized by the silence behind her that Alex was either waiting for her to accept her condition gracefully, or regress into the screaming crybaby unwilling to change. The kami knew she'd been the latter enough times, though the soldier of justice, the future queen of a kingdom, should have been stronger. Now was a good time to begin.
       So she said, "Can I go eat now? A strong soldier needs proper nourishment to continue the fight."
       "Don't you think of anything else but food?" Alex retorted, though there was warmth to the statement. Sliding from the bed, she waved her hand to gesture at the heap of cloth behind her on the third bed. "Yes, you can go eat. Your clothes are the only ones that we found in any exact size, so be grateful for small favours."
       Usagi toddled over, picking up the bundle to find it to be a white linen shirt and a simple black skirt to her knees, with a modest slit at the leg, along with simple flats. She began stripping out of the hospital gown, looking over her shoulder as Alex opened the door to go and said, "Arigatou, kochou-chan."
       The name stopped the tall red-head in her tracks, and though she stared at Usagi, the odango-haired blonde continued to dress as though nothing were wrong. So much unspoken hung in the air between them that perhaps there really wasn't anything that could be said. But she cleared her throat anyway, adding quietly, "They don't know. Ami thinks Demand physically abused you, because I realized your condition first, and burned the evidence. Maybe it's a half-truth, but it's the only one they've been told." The door closed with a barely audible sound.

      Death was a mild disappointment, but Demand wasn't about to argue about it. In fact, it was disappointing only because there was nothing to it, no final judgement, no licking flames. Just the weight that pressed upon the senses from the lack of light, and the stone floor beneath his cheek where he lay. Felt a lot like his single drunken stupor, or more accurately the morning after, when he had woken up to find himself in a room he didn't recognize, with one of the farm girls he did recognize and wholeheartedly despised. Maybe hell really did know how to subtly torture you.
       But then Saphir moaned next to him and broke the illusion. "I'm not dead….?"
       "Together, in hell? It would hardly surprise me," Demand sluggishly responded, rolling his head against the stone. Now he was beginning to feel the bruises growing all over his body, copulating and creating more and more hurt. One of his calf muscles was twisted in the agony of a charley horse, and he began to painfully stretch his leg to relieve it.
       "But we should be dead," his brother doggedly continued. "The castle collapsed atop us."
       "I would like for you to shut up about being dead, Saphir."
       He heard his brother move, mostly by the series of grunts and groans he let loose, presumably about his own injured body. Neither of them could have escaped such devastation unhurt, and they really shouldn't have been alive, but Demand could cope with that. It meant revenge would be that much easier. Easing his leg free of the cramp, he sat up as well to see that the darkness really wasn't as total as he had thought.
       "But it's just that we really should be crushed under the castle." Saphir was nothing if not persistent 'til the end, constantly aggrieved by not knowing the answer. "It's not a bad circumstance to wake up alive, but death was supposed to occur. There's no way we should have survived."
       "And now is the time," Demand growled rather ferociously, "that I would like you to shut up about it."
       His brother made some more grumbles and general pissing about that only the minimally injured could make, scuffing his shoes on the ground as he stood up. "Fine. I know it is, on the scale of things that matter to you, nii-san, rather unimportant. But it's odd, to wake up alive instead of dead."
       Demand pursued the idea of simply making his brother's wish come true and snapping his neck, but it would only leave him with one less human shield. They were useful for his survival, and for it to be his brother - his only family - would perhaps double his willingness to take the proverbial bullet for him. It was most likely a worthless endeavor, considering their predicament, but until his breathed his last he would continue to scheme. Everyone needed a hobby.
       Instead, he asked, "Can you figure out where we are, Saphir?"
       He could hear his brother shuffle around, investigating what was their prison. "I feel rock walls, like that of the underground prison. But we're in a smaller space, almost a quarter of the size…it can't be the noxious room of death we used so frivolously."
       The white-haired prince thought on that as he steepled his fingers, frowning. When they had found the underground room - or more accurately, Wiseman had shown it to them - it had been an enormous cavern in the rock, so large as to completely torment the helpless prisoners tossed inside. It had been Saphir who had put the door leading into it, in the very early days of their banishment when their magic had been weak and insufficient for such teleportation. Otherwise, it had been an exit-less chamber, designed to be forgotten until needed again; an oubliette of a twisted race.
       And it was, to his realization, also hot as an oven. Sweat clung to his body, beading at the hollows of his joints and bones. His clothing was light in defiance to the cold of Nemesis, but here it felt like the heaviest fabric in the height of summer. What kind of rocky prison would be so blasted hot, and yet, not scorching in its torment? This was a natural temperature, as though the sun had continually warmed the stone. "And then, where could we be? It's impossible to think we could be on the surface of the planet."
       Someone was laughing, a sweet soprano that was somehow lightly malicious despite its honey. It was a deceiving laugh, the kind that could lure you with false joy to your doom, so unlike Esmeraud's brittle, annoying screech. "You were taken from the surface to escape the danger of the reactor. Because of the annoying power of the Ginzuishou, the reactor sped towards meltdown in an unusual way, de-stabilizing the surface with explosions and fires. Your cobbled outpost in the wilderness had toppled."
       "And so where are we then, if not on the surface?" Demand snapped imperiously, standing tall despite the oppressive heat.
       A flickering light, like a will o' wisp, appeared roughly to his left. Against his better judgement, Demand strode forward to follow it, noting that Saphir fell into step behind him immediately. Like children at play, they tromped at a steady pace out of the cramped room and through a similar stone hall that had the look of natural erosion to it; they had to crawl and struggle through the openings, forcing their thankfully slim bodies through crevices barely large enough to fit them.
       At the end, there was a brighter light, but it was the blackness they were familiar with that came from the reactor, fed at its core by the Jakokusuishou. Undoubtedly, they had been dumped near its base, within a maze of catacombs created eons ago when the planet had been tectonically alive. No wonder they were so hot; most likely the power given off by the crystal, this close to its origin, had long ago thrown the molecules of the air into a tizzy.
       Framed by the light was a slender waif of a woman as she stood at the very edge of the jagged monolith of crystal. Above, they had seen only the tips of its facets jutting up, and it was from these reachable chunks they had mined their personal talismans, building the reactor around them. Here it was obvious that the crystal was in its entirety immense, its veins reaching into the stone as though there was more to be found and discovered. How much had Wiseman not told them about this planet? "Prince Demand, Saphir. How proud are you of your accomplishments? Because of your greed, the Jakokusuishou has reached critical mass, spreading like rot into the skin of the planet. Nemesis is now the embodiment of death and decay, unmatched within the galaxy."
       "Spreading…you mean, the crystal is no longer confined to this monolith?" Saphir choked, unable to conceal his shock.
       "Hai. Now, the planet has crystallized. It has become unstoppable," the woman purred, touching a fingernail to her lips in a coy gesture that was instead seductive.
       She turned within the light for them to see her, throwing them a 'come hither' look over her shoulder that, if Demand hadn't been so intent on survival instead of sex, he might have returned. As it was, he simply stared at the soft rounded curves of her body, sheathed in a long dress that was the colour of rubies stained by age, black with red highlights, the colour of purple arterial blood for the lining. It had been coupled with a peach see-through blouse beneath it, cinched at the neck and wrists with black jeweled cuffs that should have looked ridiculous, but seemed fitting. Her shoes made the sharp clack only high heels could make, most likely in the same aged ruby colour as her dress, and she had a silken wrap twined around her back and arms to match the purple lining.
       But it was her hair, a pink spun sugar confection that fell loose in two long ponytails to the floor, cinched up by two conical balls of that same hair, curled into corkscrews at each ear, that completed the outfit. Hair that colour belonged on an innocent, not a woman who seemed at ease with the thought of killing either of them, her expression sweet except for the sharp downward slope of both fine eyebrows. Ruby lips curled in the smile of the cat who had eaten the canary, and it seemed no surprise that the black sigil Demand and his allies had all shared graced her brow. "Who are you? And why do you wear the mark of the Black Moon?" Demand finally asked, moving a step back to put himself closer to his brother; the unschooled would have thought him wanting to be near his beloved sibling.
       The smile curved up amazingly sweeter, though her devious expression never changed. With a foppish flick of her wrist she set the heavy black crystal piercing her ear to swinging, sending tiny shards of light into their eyes. "Ara ara, so impatient, my prince! All will be answered by my master. You merely need to take my hand."
       Her hand curved out like a queen awaiting her courtiers to kiss the back of it; unsurprisingly, her fingernails were that aged ruby colour again, long and undoubtedly strong enough to scratch their eyes out.
       But what else did they have left? She had saved them, or the nameless master she spoke of had done so. Trusting her was obviously out of the question, but finding some answers was also a priority for their survival. (Besides, how could they escape?)
       It was then that both brothers recognized what was in the shape of an anthropomorphic body slumped against the very crystal itself, as if tossed there by a giant hand. The tiniest gleam of a pale hand gave it away, for the clothes it wore were of the same fathomless black as its surroundings. Every now and again it groaned, a sound they had mistaken for the working of the reactor, a plaintive noise that was most likely a name. However hot the air and the remaining stone, the crystal itself must have been cool to the touch for a living being so close. "Who is that?" Saphir finally asked, beating his brother to it.
       "My gift, from my master. When the world is laid to waste, my prince and I will ruin the nether regions. Endymion, come to me," she commanded, though she never once bothered to look and see if he moved at her summons. She simply assumed.
       And he did move, though it was a halting, hesitant jerk of limbs. He came to stand at her back, a tall, dark-haired man with eyes a solid ocean blue, pupil-less as a cartoon. Like a dancer she pressed against him, sliding around his body as she curled her arms up around his neck. Possessive of her prince, she came to a rest clamped against his side provocatively, one long leg drawn up against his hip, her cheek against his arm. "My beautiful Endymion. He came to me, like a lost puppy. The one I will love until the end of our days."
       "Endymion…" Demand stared into eyes that held no recognition, a negative copy of himself. Ironically, the dark prince to his white, though their associations and passions were a far cry from their colours. "Of course. The king's younger self. Serenity's husband, King Endymion."
       "No longer her king, but my prince!" the woman countered, writhing against him in a fantastically erotic motion.
       Saphir was making a throaty noise beside him of irritation, not arousal. As usual, the cold-blooded scientist, never a passionate man, he was getting impatient with all of this grandstanding. Demand frankly had to wonder sometimes if they were truly related at all. "As interesting as this is, were you not going to lead us to your master before you showed us your…toy?"
       "Hai," she sighed, holding out her hand again. Her other arm remained securely around the waist of her prince, fingers playing in that forbidden zone between his belt and his stomach.
       The white-haired prince looked at his younger brother, tilting his head ever so slightly. Saphir, as always obedient - except when he was insolent - moved forward first to take her hand. Demand held his shoulder, exhaling sharply as the room suddenly fell away from them, dropping them down into a darkness so total it made everything he had ever experienced laughable in comparison. This was a place where light would never reach, the depth of a planetary core.
       And it was cold.
       Temperatures dropped so suddenly that his limbs trembled with shock, frantic to compensate for the loss of heat. Everything was quiet; not even the air rushing past them made so much as a whistle in his ears. "Where are we going? Surely we're no longer on Nemesis!"
       The woman's laugh was startling in the lack of natural noise. "Nemesis was merely the doorway. Long ago, it was once a vibrant planet; now, its core is no longer a functioning axis, but a collision of negative energy by the Jakokusuishou. Warping time and space, it is the realm from which my master rules."
       Light pricked their eyes. Suddenly their descent had meaning as a structure of crystal appeared before them, a focus for their attention. They passed right through its walls like ghosts, barely having the time to marvel at the architecture, and both Demand and Saphir landed roughly. Their bodies, however buffered by their magic, were still susceptible to fatigue, and neither of them was feeling very well. But as the woman walked around them as though they were no longer interesting to her, leading Endymion by the hand, Demand caught sight of her master. It was enough to push him onto his feet despite his nausea.
       "My prince, how well of you to survive the catastrophe," Wiseman mused, diaphanous fingers folding above his crystal sphere. At his side the woman stopped like a loyal dog, head tilting in a curious fashion as though this was all so very fascinating. "Saphir, you have proven yourself to be stronger than I anticipated. Welcome to my castle at the end of space-time."
       Demand didn't like the contemptuous tone Wiseman's words all but dripped with. Who was the leader of their operation, after all? He, or a robed, sickly sage? "Strength runs in our family," he acidly replied, lifting his chin. "And you, Wiseman, are proving to be a force to be reckoned with as well. Glad I am to see a falling stone did not crush your body."
       The woman hid her mouth with the back of her hand, a lady covering up her laugh. But it was directed at the white-haired prince, not with him; and he was insulted. "And who is your pretty doll, Wiseman? She bears the mark of the Black Moon, yet she is not one of us."
       He watched her eyes flash at the remark, though she remained wisely silent. "Have you not been introduced, my prince?" Now it was a mocking tone that the Wiseman used, his hands unfolding for one to curl, possessive, against her cheek. "My lovely rabbit. The black lady of whom has brought her line to ruin. Chosen by her will to become the instrument."
       Saphir muttered an oath of shock, though it was Demand who had gone rigid with a cold sensation. He had called Sailor Moon that very name, pronounced her to be his 'black lady' once the Jakokusuishou infected her body… This couldn't be coincidence. "How is this possible? That body is of a woman!" he finally choked out.
       "I was given my true desire by the Wiseman's power. Now, this body possesses only revenge and a will for ruin against the decadent light of the Silver Millennium. I've chosen the right path in this lifetime," she somewhat snidely replied, cupping her breasts. And to a degree, it was true; her desire had been to become a lady like her mother, which inferred growing up into adulthood. Wiseman had simply taken a few liberties.
       "And what does all of this mean?" Saphir demanded. "To create such a form for the rabbit…the daughter of Neo Queen Serenity! Do you have some ulterior plan you've never revealed to us, Wiseman? What possible reason could there be for this?"
       Wiseman said nothing, not immediately. Both brothers received the chilling sensation of being regarded like a meal for the snake, sized up like delectable snacks. Saphir moved closer to Demand protectively, though in truth his brother needed no such protection.
       And then the pain ripped through their skulls like white-hot needles stabbed into soft tissue, bending them both forward as they screamed. In the work of a second, Wiseman thrust his will into them, shoving theirs aside into a door-less quarantine. They collapsed atop one another like puppets with their strings cut, drooling like idiots as their higher brain functions scrambled to compute everything. Only a miracle now could rescue the unique personalities of Saphir and Demand from deep within their brains; they would exist as puppets at the behest of their new master.
       The woman strayed over to nudge at them with her toe. Neither of them moved. "I wish you would let me kill them," she sighed, resting her hands on her hips. "We no longer require their bodies. The mission can be accomplished with my power alone."
       "But you are the final piece. The Ginzuishou of the present you've given me is cold, powerless in my hand. To retrieve the past Ginzuishou is our goal now. These two will be nothing more than pawns, as they were always intended to be. Trust in me, my rabbit."
       "Unconditionally, my master. Already, the last operation is underway." She laughed, holding up the dull Ginzuishou in her hand, tickling its facets with her nails. "Though only Neo Queen Serenity can wield it, the combined power can easily be fed to the Jakokusuishou. Then, it will be a power unequaled throughout the galaxy. I will make the queen bow to me; I will have her afraid and begging for mercy before I wipe the board clean. Wiseman! Trust in me."

      It was strange to sleep in a palace like a couple of girls at a sleepover. But none of them wanted to be alone in a room, even though Endymion had suggested they take the servants' quarters upstairs for themselves. If anything so terrible happened, they wanted to face it together.
       So they had brought down futons and pillows and blankets from the storage, spreading them out in the dining room in a rough circle. It was no surprise that Usagi found herself farthest away from the doors, the girls surrounding her like a protective shield of bodies. Though it looked to be an uncomfortable night; only Rei and Makoto frequently slept on a traditional futon, instead of the raised American beds the others were used to. Only they and Alex seemed at ease on the thin mats, though the tall red-head had assumed a pose on her back, hands clasped at her chest, which seemed more meditative than restful.
       They also had the weight of fatigue wearing them down, a soreness of muscles and bones that continued to torment them. After Usagi had finished her portion of dinner - a simple spread of Chinese beef and broccoli with rehydrated vegetables, rice, and chicken dumplings - they had been led down into the underground training room. It had been an interesting spar session to say the least, considering not just their conditions, but their intuitive knowledge of form and fighting carried over from their soldiers' identities; rather nihil.Makoto and Rei were the only two with any real fighting ability, though the dark-haired shrine girl disdained such physical combat. She was adept at knife strikes and powerful kicks that could knock a man down in own blow, even kill if need be, but of real tussling or hand to hand she was untrained. Her training had come from her grandfather, in case she had to defend herself from any attackers, knowing that no amount of martial art skill could really fight off an assailant. That was silly. People fighting on instinct and raw emotion were infinitely more dangerous and anathema to the rigid stances of anything he could have taught her, and no amount of skill could have overcome her size. The joking adage was true: size does matter, especially if caught in a corner by a horny man with several centimeters and fifty kilos on her.
       The tall brunette, of course, had the advantage in both size and intimidation. Girls her age simply did not grow to such a height, though they no doubt were rampant in America from looking at Alex. Hell, most Japanese women, period, didn't grow much taller than her at maturity, and she still had several years to go! It was a curse, but it was also an effective shield when she had been alone in the city, especially in the increasingly dangerous sections of Shibuya. She had a fierce stare and quick reflexes to match; whoever tried anything was usually gifted with a knee to the balls, or a punch to the solar plexus. The second time, they usually had to crawl away; knees had a bad habit of being kicked out of joint. Her martial arts skills, cultivated early in life by a few lessons for the same reasons as Rei's training, she had cajoled and scraped to receive more after her parents had died. In the span of a year, her pacifism had been sacrificed on the altar of survival, and she had adapted.
       Minako had not the slightest training in any martial art, but her proclivity for sports, especially volleyball, had hammered her into a quick, limber athlete, with muscles strong for rapid punches and kicks. With lessons she could have given anyone trouble on the mat. But she had always been such a free-spirited, joyous girl, even if a bit too tomboyish for her mother's taste, and even now she found it distasteful to learn how to better hurt people. She had simply relied on her identity as Sailor V, and Venus, to let loose with that frightful urge, keeping it separate from her identity as Aino Minako. Even in civilian clothes she made the distinction.
       Not surprisingly, the blue-haired genius was completely inept at physical combat. She had the speed, though not so much muscle, for simple hand to hand, and could have gained both with experience. But she was just too damn meek to actually learn, or so she seemed during her time; she kept apologizing to the mannequin as she hit it. Half the time she barely dented the cloth with her fist, and had she been a harder hitter she could have broken her thumb as she kept forgetting and folding it outside of her hand instead of in. Alex finally released her from the torture, suggesting that she read up on the subject. It would be of no surprise that Ami could learn easier from a book than a live session.
       Usagi was also, predictably, utterly clueless, though her rapid slapping could have wrung tears from anyone's face. Somewhat like Minako, she was just too much of a bleeding heart softie to actually go out and hit anyone, let alone learn the art of it. Her body, though amazingly slim despite her appetite - Alex was convinced she had some gastronomic disorder, had for years; there was no way she could gorge so much and gain almost no weight - was nothing but skin and bone. The entirety of her musculature could have modeled with toothpicks and dental floss. She also had a decided lack of aim, and in fact missed the mannequin twice while standing dead center in front of it. Whatever her fighting skills, she simply did not possess them as Tsukino Usagi.
       Finally, the tall red-head had released them from the practice, threatening - or at least they had assumed it a threat, from the way she said it - to ship them all off to New York and have them trained properly. Then she had corrected that, promising to train them herself once they got back home, and that scared them worse than the New York comment. It sounded like a very dire promise.
       Endymion was no doubt laughing at the entire thing, though they couldn't tell if he even made the effort to show his amusement, considering that his image was getting weaker. None of them had to ask to figure out why; it was most likely amazing that the king had managed to sustain it for this long in the first place, considering his injuries.
       So they set up their beds for the night, though with all of the talking going around the circle, it was doubtful any of them would sleep a wink. Makoto had been rapidly debating the merits of male bodies with Minako - the tall brunette preferred slightly muscular, tall men, and the long-haired blonde preferred slim, athletic types - with Rei somewhat forcibly ejected early on when she offered her own critical analysis of all men entirely. Ami had refused to comment at all, claiming no interest in the opposite sex (or more accurately no time for interest while studying for high school and college), while Usagi had simply waxed poetic on the love of her life.
       "But now, I've found the perfect man," Makoto said, clasping her hands to her heart. "He's wonderful for me! Sommers-san…"
       "Ne, ne, tell us!" Usagi burbled, all but bouncing in her bed. If any of them had harbored concern over her beating at Demand's hands, her constant chirpy demeanor had assured them she was otherwise fine. And her predicament at the training session had sent them into spasms of laughter, after which they decided she couldn't possibly have been so badly hurt.
       Alex eyed them all through half-closed eyes, her gaze sharp despite her sleepy attitude. Though she seemed completely amused by their conversations, she had yet to add even a single word to them, more at ease with listening than talking. She did, however, smile wryly as Makoto turned a beet red, mumbling, "Ano…"
       "Would that be the instructor you so eloquently sang the praises of, at that martial art class?" Alex finally commented, turning her head.
       "I didn't….!"
       "Come on, Makoto, you gushed so much over the class itself that it couldn't just be his tense of defensive timing you admired."
       "But I…!"
       "Mako-chan found true love?" Minako giggled. She received a pillow, however soft and downy, for her comment, and she went down still laughing at her own hilarity.
       The tall brunette hugged that very pillow back to her chest, huffing. Ami, sitting next to her almost primly with legs folded carefully, was reading from a thick textbook she had found in the royal library (actually the salvaged Hana High School library), which she had discovered in another building adjacent to the main palace. She rolled her eyes at their childishness, squinting as she continued to read the rather pale text without the aid of her glasses. Minako razzed her silently.
       Sitting on her back, the odango-haired blonde had a rather interesting view of the circle as she craned her head. Her bare feet danced atop the futon to a tune only she knew, mildly irritating Rei next to her, and her fingers joined in. "Alex-chaan! What about your perfect man?" The question gained her four astonished stares, and, not unsurprisingly, one rather bemused smile. "Moriya-chan always said she liked dark-haired men with hidden strength."
       "Well, yes," the tall red-head drawled, closing her eyes. "I suppose it's an ethnic thing; you grow up surrounded by all sorts of perfect white male specimens, and you'd want a different dish. Though blonde and blue-eyed was never bad, with the rebellious type."
       "Where did you grow up, sensei?" Minako asked next, tilting her head. "Isn't America also full of all types of people?"
       The question was more interesting and important than the previous conversation, and even Ami was lowering her book in attentiveness. It wasn't that they knew very much about one another's lives before becoming sailor soldiers; they were all in fact still mysteries to each other. But they were native to the island, accustomed to the same habitat of the Tokyo jungle as it were, and Alex obviously was as foreign as they came, in many ways.
       She opened an eye, that deep circle of lapis lazuli seeming to roll and fix each one of them with a stare all at once. "It is, actually. But isn't Japan also full of all types of people as well?"
       Rei played with a strand of her hair as if to emphasis the statement, remarking, "Of course. But when one thinks of Japan, one thinks of dark hair and dark eyes and mellow skin."
       "Even though none of us but Rei-chan really look like that," Makoto intercepted, lifting up her unbound mass of brown hair away from her neck.
       Alex rolled abruptly onto her side, propping her chin up. It was a smooth motion, but nonetheless a bit unexpected, and Minako, next to her, yelped. "Of course not, but it's an enduring stereotype: Japanese people have black hair, and yellow skin and brown or black eyes. Nevermind that intercontinental breeding has produced all of these contrasts," she said, motioning with her free hand at the girls, omitting Rei. "And what do you think when you think of Americans?"
       "Blond hair and blue eyes and white skin?" Usagi offered helpfully, somewhat wryly looking up at her own blonde bangs with eyes blue as a cut crystal.
       "Mmmhmm. Even though the ancestors of all those lily-white-assed citizens weren't even native to the region, they had rather crudely wiped out the real natives, and even those dark-skinned people weren't even native, but had emigrated a couple million years ago from Siberia. The racial stereotype of America is of a majority dwindling into a minority, of the Europeans that are being eclipsed by the Africans and the Mexicans, to lay it out neatly. But even in America the stereotype persists, and you can't help but think of anyone who isn't a pale-skinned ghost to be some ethnic aberration." She shrugged, smoothing a hand over the cloth of her futon. "And I happen to be white; I was born white, it can't exactly be changed or helped. I was raised by white parents, I escaped the den of homogeneous to mature in the cave of Sisyphus."
       It was rather hard for them to follow her somewhat lengthy diatribe, especially when she started to sound like a random word-of-the-day calendar, though Ami and Rei managed to keep pace. At the sight of three somewhat blank faces, the tall red-head laughed. "Sorry. Am I using big words?"
       "….yes, actually," Minako muttered.
       "You asked." The smile Alex had was not unlike a contented cat, eyeing the bowl of cream after it had just eaten a plump jaybird. "I was born in the south, but my parents moved to Australia when I was about three, and Aborigines didn't send their children to the schools I was forced to learn at. Consequently, I tend to think of 'ethnic' as being dark-skinned, thoughtful progressive libertarian that I am."
       "So tell us!" The odango-haired blonde was leaning dangerously forward, having crawled onto her knees. Minako seconded the statement, leaning in a rather uncanny mimic of her princess.
       Ami lifted her book again, as if intently reading, though she had, despite herself, one ear trained on whatever impending conversation there could be. She would never admit it, but she was just as curious as anyone, though she wouldn't dare pry. It went against her deep-rooted ethics to do something so offensive. It went against Rei's Catholic school discipline as well in the same vein, but she was more than willing to subvert it. Anything to remain knowledgeable. She had no trouble in showing her interest.
       The tall red-head sat up, holding her hands out as if to ward off a blow. "Wait a minute here; first, you guys want nothing to do with me, now you want me to regurgitate my life's story for you like a fairy tale before bedtime? You probably know less about one another than I would say is safe."
       "Hai, but this is so much more interesting!" Makoto said rather slyly, lying now on her stomach, chin in hands. "We can always tell each other about our lives, but would you ever do it voluntarily?"
       Alex grunted, affirming the question. "I didn't even have a life. And I've already told you too much already."
       "Not enough!" the long-haired blonde crowed. "Tell us!"
       "Hai," Rei echoed, though she sounded slightly more malicious than Minako had been. In her lived the tested soul of a true pessimist. "Tell us."
       "What am I supposed to tell you?" Alex finally said, resting her arms on her folded knees. "Where I was born? What my life was like before the Silver Millenium? I'm twenty-two years old going on twenty-three this year, and I've lived almost twentyfold that."
       Usagi reared back slightly, her face drawing into a frown. "Twenty-two?"
       The tall red-head nodded, drumming her fingers against her jeaned leg. All of them were forced by circumstance to sleep in their clothes, and she looked to be up for an uncomfortable night in the thickly seamed denim. "I was taken into the past a few months after I turned twenty-one, and when Moriya died, I was able to become solid because my previous body no longer existed in this time. This August I'll be twenty-three." She dipped her head in a strange movement that made her seem to be looking up at them despite her height. They saw her eyes through a veil of copper hair. "I'm physically eighteen, numerically twenty-three, and mentally about perhaps a baker's dozen centuries. I don't even remember how many years exactly I lived on the Moon; shit, they didn't even use years, they used some system that worked off the phases and position of the Earth."
       She waited as she watched them digest the information, though it was no more than a slightly more detailed rehash of her description the first night they had met her. But this time it seemed more real for her to tell them, for them to look at her again and realize that what looked to be a girl of perhaps a mature twenty was in fact nearing a century of physical life. More clearly than ever now, they could perhaps imagine the weariness that could come with such a burden. "But I was born here, on Earth," Alex said, continuing on as though she had never in fact stopped talking, "in New Orleans, to parents of whom one wasn't even old enough to legally smoke, and the other married to someone else. You didn't get pregnant in a Catholic family back then without a marriage to the poor bastard who knocked you up, but my momma was clever; she'd already found someone to pin the blame on."
       It seemed somewhat incongruous for her to say 'momma,' a departure from her usual, rather formal speech. Not 'mother,' not 'mom,' but 'momma.' "She was nineteen when I was born, and my birth father was just fifteen. Strange as it was, she had loved him; he was, apparently, rather precocious at that tender age. But he was betrothed to another, another precocious little tot who was also her friend and his elder by a year and a half, and so she hid the pregnancy by making merry with the first man she could find that she could tolerate." The wry smile that followed seemed more bitter than ironic. "The families were a bit upset to say the least. You just didn't marry an outsider so easily, but she did it anyway. And so the man listed as my biological father on my birth certificate is not, in fact, mine, and he never knew. But he'd made a boy with my momma a year later, my little brother, so I supposed it worked out."
       "You have a brother?" Rei asked slowly, apparently stupefied at the thought of two of these crazed red-headed yokels running around in the world.
       "I did."
       The statement was not curt, nor dismissive, but it had an air of finality to it nonetheless. And it made them feel all the more embarrassed for Rei's question, even though none of them anticipated such an outcome. But it fed the flames of curiousity higher than before, hardly quenching it. "Then…perhaps, one day…we'll meet your mama and papa?" Usagi burbled, her question more than just a little bit innocent: after all, when the tall red-head had lived life as Chouno Moriyakumi, she had never had a father and a mother to introduce her best friend to. The thought of having such a meeting was strangely thrilling.
       Alex had a curious expression on her face. She looked away, her fingers playing against one another in an odd fidget. "My mother and step-father are dead, Usagi. My father…isn't usually within reach of a phone, and he doesn't…he doesn't know I'm alive."
       "He thinks you're dead?" Ami ventured softly, her book closed in her lap. She had the page marked with her finger; though her sudden concern for the tall red-head had forced a halt to her studying, she had no intentions of losing her place.
       "Most likely." Not that she looked entirely happy about it, either. "We had an…argument. Or a knock-down, drag-out fight, I guess," she laughed flatly, continuing to fidget with her hands. What she wouldn't give for a deck of playing cards to shuffle and play with. "I left. I packed up my stuff and left. And I found out later that the house had been destroyed, and since I hadn't told him I was leaving, he most likely thought I was there when it happened."
       The girls exchanged a series of rather identical looks. For someone who said she hadn't had a life, having one's house destroyed sounded quite exciting. And if it had been a fire or an earthquake or something normal, she would have specified; 'destroyed' spoke of something more violent and intentional. "What did you fight about, sensei?" the long-haired blonde asked, finally.
       The anger that lit up both those lapis blue eyes suddenly was entirely frightening. "Past incidents that I never plan on speaking of."
       She did seem to have a way of killing their lines of questioning cold.
       But then her face changed again, relaxing into the casual lines and curves that was nothing more than a generic, placid expression. She tilted her head, an elbow on her knee as she ran that hand back into her hair. "Does that satisfy your deviant little curiosities for now?"
       "Only because your life is sooo boring it's putting us to sleep," the long-haired blonde replied in a purring coo, fluttering her eyelashes. Makoto snorted at the remark, though it was true; all of their eyes were growing quite heavy. It simply happened to coincide with Alex's vignette, of all the rotten luck.
       Indeed, Usagi looked to be nearly asleep, bent over on her knees like a narcoleptic in the act of kow-tow. She shook her head as if sensing everyone's eyes on her - and maybe she had - looking up with a jaw-splitting yawn. Her hands rubbed at her eyes as she murmured sleepily, "Did I miss anything?"
       "Godzilla," the tall brunette offered.
       Usagi frowned, though it was more of a perplexed pout due to the sleepiness having taken her entire face captive. "Mako-chan…"
       It didn't take much longer for them to all drift off then, despite the hard, flat surface of the futons, and the discomfort and strangeness of their surroundings. Even Ami gave in to sleep finally, her cheek partially pillowed by her book; no doubt she'd wake up with a deep crease in her skin come morning. When it was gently removed from her hand, her head allowed to rest fully on her pillow, she simply rolled onto her other side.
       Knowing Usagi constantly took her hair out of their buns before sleep, and just as often forgot to do so, they were unbound for her, the pins and bands set in a neat pile atop a nearby table. Makoto's ponytail was also undone with less effort, the spherical holders placed on the table as well. The red bow that decorated Minako's hair was carefully untied.
       As Alex did this last task, Endymion shimmered into existence next to her, though his image was so faint and ghostly it seemed a wasteful effort. "How long can you maintain this figure?" the tall red-head asked, apparently as unsurprised at his arrival as anything else.
       "If I continually appear to you, perhaps half a day. But even if I relinquish the image and rest for periods, I would gain no more than another day past that. Without Serenity, my spirit is weak; my body is no more willing." As usual, he spoke this as though he were discussing the weather; mild, patient inflection, with no hint of powerful emotion. But it was obvious he was disturbed by it, angry that his wife wouldn't - couldn't - awaken to save them all, angry at himself for thinking such a thing, for not being strong enough. Or perhaps it was only obvious to someone who knew what the man would probably feel in these moments.
       "Then why don't you rest? There's nothing more you can do." She stared at him as she returned his mild tone. "The Black Moon will carry the battle to us, no doubt. Even at your strongest, an illusion can do nothing. And you know this."
       "Perhaps I simply wish I could be here for her, again," he replied, his eyes drifting downward, towards the floor, the spill of golden hair still wavy from being bound up. "Wherever the me of before is now, he would want me to do this for her. Protect her. My beloved Usako….my beautiful, precious Serenity."
       The tall red-head reached forward, her hand hovering above the transparency of his shoulder, slightly curving to seemingly clasp what wasn't solid. "You know they'd die for her."
       "I know you would as well." His hand rested over hers, and yet she couldn't feel it, anymore than he could feel hers. "But is it rude to say that I trust only myself to protect her?"
       "Of course not. That's what love does to you; it turns you into a selfish bastard," she said ruefully, dropping her hand as he nodded.
       She watched him fall onto his knees, touching the air next to Usagi's cheek. How eloquently in microcosm it reflected the problems throughout their lifetimes, down to her inability to even feel him kneeling there. He faded out in that fashion, his hand moving in an up and down stroke along her hair, bent over her as the lonely, fearful lover instead of the competent king.

       Despite the fog, the morning sun was valiantly trying to warm the ground. She stared at the light in disgust, pink eyes narrowed against the sharp pain. The light was deceptive, showing a city still sparkling despite its bloody tarnish, eager and able to rebound from the tragedy. That was why she hated such pure illumination; it always made everything look so much happier, as though the evil of the world had gone away with the night.
       Lies, lies, lies.
       Well, she was done with those cunning words.
       Holding her arms aloft, she summoned the power from the heavy crystals hanging from each earlobe, feeling it course through her body like burning acid in her blood. Of course, Wiseman had told her she would feel discomfort; she was quits with the purity of her mother and that shining kingdom, but no amount of loyalty to her new lord would rinse her of the shame of her birth. Her body simply was not a proper vessel for the power despite her change, but she welcomed the pain as a sign of rapture, knowing she had chosen the proper path.
       "Nemesis! Across the stars I call upon your power; that of ruin, of collision, of death and proper decay. For this planet is ripe for the belly of our master, and I have been chosen to led it towards this new destiny! Nemesis!" She pulled an earring free, barely wincing as she ripped it a bit too hard from her lobe, the warm trickle of blood nearly scalding hot against her cold skin. It fell from her hand to strike the frozen earth, incongruous amidst dead plants and the crumbled soil.
       For a second, nothing happened. There was, after all, the consideration of distance from Nemesis to Earth, and though it was rapidly shrinking, light speed was not instantaneous yet.
       Then she was blasted with the power that simply erupted, her arms held out wide as she grinned, rictus, into the force of the energy as the crystal began to grow. It expanded exponentially, shooting up into the sky amidst black, jagged lightning, blotting out the sunlight in her eyes. And she positively screamed with laughter as the twin monolith that sandwiched her from either side of the city released their power across the planet, which shook and rumbled even the most inconsequential year in Time; negative space collided and twisted.
       Tokyo in the 21st century was ripped apart.
       In the midst of philosophy class, the entire room became a hellish mirage, warping around the students as their teacher froze in the act of writing on the chalkboard. Most of the class began to scream, getting up from their seats as the windows showed an entire city seemingly melting in the same fashion, in a manner that cities simply did not do. The events of the past months seemed ridiculously tame next to this.
       Curiously, the teacher seemed more surprised than fearful. As her students cried, everything seemed to straighten out, become reasonable again; and it was as if nothing ever happened. Arimura Yuuko set down her chalk, removing herself from the room in a rushed silence, unnoticed but by two students who were, just as curiously, intent on watching her. "This can't be the work of the master…it's too soon! The time of ruin…we've only just begun our mission in this city!" she muttered, disappearing into the elevator.
       "Even the enemy seems to be surprised," one of the students remarked quietly, blocking the doorway as he and his classmate looked down the hallway.
       The girl nodded, saying, "Perhaps there are forces at work that we cannot guess at. Surely we were not the only ones to awaken in this time."
       Through another window at the opposite end of the hall they could see the tallest of Tokyo's skyscrapers, looking perfectly linear. "No, I don't believe we're the only ones at all," the girl added, looking up slowly as her classmate touched her hand.
       "So let them fight this secondary enemy. Obviously, our mission has nothing to do with them. Put it out of your mind, Michiru."
       Michiru shrugged with a slow lift of shoulders that was graceful despite its casual connotations. "It doesn't matter. To prevent the Silence, we must be focused. We acted accordingly to this threat. Now," and she tilted her head as the bell rang, two hours early, releasing them from their studies in the wake of such an event, "it no longer matters."
       Across time, the pink-haired woman mused on the very same fact. Sweat drenched her body from the effort of creating the monolith, though the cold fog froze it on her skin almost immediately. Goosepimpled, she wrapped her flimsy stole around her arms, murmuring raspily, "No longer does it matter. Crystal Tokyo has become ill with the worms, and will be led into decay."
       Stepping carefully - for high heels did not travel well over frozen dirt and partial snow - she descended down into the city itself.

       From outside, the sight of the power striking the palace was not unlike lightning striking a rounded glass enclosure. Around the palace seemed to be such a shield, repelling the force of the black energy like water, refusing to allow even the most tender plant in the gardens to be wounded.
       Above Usagi's chest, the Ginzuishou blossomed into a vision of the lotus.
       In the sky grew massive storm clouds, not merely grey but violent black and green, voicing their displeasure of the violation. Around the monoliths the ground looked to be infected, wounded from the crystals that cut deep into the planet, like jagged splinters that refused to be budged. It was a planet injured, and only its true avatar could tell the extent of the damage, a knowledge that stabbed ground glass into his eyes and stomped feet into his guts. Even though it was an imaginary pain, his physical body, in a sleep resembling death, twisted with the sensation. Before, during the first intrusion, he could ignore it, because it had not so actively sought to dig into his planet, ruining its life. Now, there was no possible way to remain ignorant of their intentions.
       But it was a premonition of disaster he failed to pass on; with a sudden terror, he realized he couldn't create an illusion. The pain was so terrible, and he was already so weak…in his mind, he screamed, spots appearing in the world of his imagination where he'd sought refuge upon collapse. Like a prisoner chained to the wall, he could see the door, but couldn't move to get out…
       So many floors below it didn't matter, because five girls woke up in a terror of their own.
       The sixth futon was empty, rumpled as though someone had slept badly, and vacated. Cold to the touch. But as the fear ceased, as the monoliths withdrew back into themselves and thrust back down into the earth proper, seeking out its core, the girls remembered where they were, and why they were there. "The enemy has already begun to attack..?!" Ami whispered, rubbing her cheek as she propped herself up on her elbow.
       Minako rolled up onto her socked feet, kicking away the blankets and sheets. "If that's true, we can't waste another minute talking. We have to transform and face them!"
       "Transform first, plan later. You should have become soldiers at the first sign of danger!" a voice scolded them from the doorway, though it was a rather tired, breathless Luna who spoke. Behind her, Artemis was a white speck running down the hall, followed by a tinier gray and lavender dot; headed for the control room, no doubt. "Usagi-chan, as leader, you should be setting an example!"
       No longer did the Ginzuishou glow at her breast, heavy again within her brooch. Maybe it had been her dream that had given her the vision of it doing such a thing, taking the place of the 30th century holy stone and protecting them all. She stood fiercely, clutching the brooch in her hand as she nodded in agreement. "Hai, Luna! No matter what, we have to do our best!"
       In tandem they stood with her, holding their pens in their hands. The articles on the table meant nothing to them; they would be reunited with them as sailor soldiers. "Moon Crystal Power, Make Up!"
       "Mercury Star Power, Make Up!"
       "Mars Star Power, Make Up!"
       "Jupiter Star Power, Make Up!"
       "Venus! Star! Power! Make UP!"'
       The room exploded with the power, a warm cocoon of colour and light that made no differentiation between the five soldiers. As they felt themselves lifted into the air, they shared their strength and devotion, re-energizing themselves through nothing more than willpower and kindred spirit. Their feet touched ground and they stood as five proud sailor soldiers, heads held high and no longer in pain or weakness.
       As gratifying as it was to see such a vision, Luna snapped immediately, "Hurry! Guardian-sama is waiting for us in the control room."       
       It was a rather silly notion to hurry, seeing as the two rooms were perhaps two minutes walk from one another, but they ran anyway, heels clicking on the tiles. As the hallway curved, they could see directly into the second door that accessed the control room, and the back of the tall red-head in uniform. In front of her the screen rose with a particular vision of darkness, and as they came closer, they realized, sickeningly, that it was nothing more than the view outside of Tokyo. Something tall glinted in front of the clouds, like glass.
       "Is that the black crystal monolith we saw, when we arrived?" Venus asked as she took up a leaning position next to the Guardian, gloved hands gripping the console.
       "Unfortunately, no. This is a second one that appeared, maybe a minute before the entire city was blasted again by a dose of what I've come to call Really Bad Shit." She tapped a knuckle against the screen, and the scene pulled back to focus on an overhead view of the city, perhaps several kilometers above their heads. They could see the two monoliths jutting from the dirt obscenely, directly across from one another on the outskirts of the city. North and south. "It seems as though the blast was just a tactic to scare us; neither of them have done a thing since. Perhaps they're waiting for something."
       "Or someone," whispered Mercury.
       Another tap, and the screen became alive with charts and graphs, monitoring the amounts of energy in the city. Not surprisingly, everything was screaming a warning as to the amount of negativity, and would Neo Queen Serenity-sama care to do a cleansing? 'User Friendly' took on a whole new meaning. "What do you intend to do?" Artemis asked from his agitated position on the console.
       Venus opened her mouth to reply, then snapped it shut. She looked between her princess and her commander, as if unsure who to ask permission of. Though she was, technically, the leader of the sailor soldiers, Sailor Moon was her princess and of higher rank; but also, the Crystal Guardian was her commander, and also of higher rank. Finally, she just threw up her hands, saying, "May I?"
       "I'd be upset if you didn't have something to say," the tall red-head answered, as the odango-haired blonde nodded in agreement.
       "Hai, hai." Clapping her hands together as if summoning some spirit, Venus steepled her fingers. "What can we do, Artemis? The enemy is unquestionably trying to lure us out. They can't enter the palace, no one can, because Endymion-sama called on the wards to resist anyone not of the Silver Millennium. So we could either wait and see what else the enemy is going to do to the city, or we could just go to them and get the fight over with."
       They all seemed to agree with her, she could tell by their murmuring. But really, what conclusion could they have come up with that would have differed? "I say, we go to the new monolith. The worst that will happen is that we will have to fight, and now, we're a team again. We have a duty to protect this planet."
       "And what if the enemy intends to divert you, to attack the Crystal Palace?" Diana asked from the floor, sounding almost as cynical as her mother; the sweet clarion of her voice somewhat ruined the effect.
       "From Endymion's story, the Black Moon refused the Ginzuishou's powers. And so they aren't Silver Millennium citizens, but mere humans, and wouldn't be allowed past the barrier," the Crystal Guardian said, gesturing with a hand. "They could beat at it for the rest of their lives if they wanted; until the power infused into the very palace walls gave out, which could be eons if no living queen resided within, the shields would remain."
       The screen behind them gave off a klaxon of warning, asking again if Serenity-sama would please cleanse the city before the negative energy became too intense. This was merely a safety measure for the good of the population. It shut up as the tall red-head finally punched the button to turn the screen back to the overhead view. Mercury said, "So what shall we do?"
       "We should confront the enemy. It does us no good to hide," Mars offered firmly, folding her arms. "Already they've caused too much suffering."
       "Hai; so many families they've destroyed, people who only wanted to live good lives." Jupiter said this, looking just as set in her way as Mars.
       All of them looked then towards Moon, who seemed sad. Though the Black Moon had indeed caused such trauma and death, she still felt sorrow at the punishment they would be given by her hand, by the hands of her friends. Killing, she was beginning to realize, was the only sure solution to these problems, and her hands already were bloodied.
       But she nodded in slow agreement. "Sou yo. For justice."
       The three felines bid them all goodbye as they walked away, though in no hurry to exit the safety of the palace. Unconsciously they formed another half circle of protection around Sailor Moon; a crescent of bodies shielding the odango-haired blonde from the possibility of attacks at their front, easily changeable to protect from the back. This time, she didn't feel annoyed at their formation.
       With the blast of negative energy, the city looked even more decrepit than ever. Buildings, torn apart in the initial attack, were now beginning to warp and melt, twisting in the sky. Mercury made a choking sound as they came upon the first of the bodies, shredded further into nearly unrecognizable meat. Mars' hand on her arm steadied her as they continued to walk on, circling around the palace towards the newest monolith. Of course, the sheer aura of negativity in the air was almost nauseating on its own, and Mercury finally voided her stomach into the gutter. Even if she wanted to be a doctor, with all of its trauma and bloodiness implied, the sheer amount of death around them was simply horrifying.
       They waited for her, ghostly figures in the thickening fog. Reassured again by the hands of her friends, they reformed and continued walking.

       The pink-haired woman would have laughed to know that in looking for the enemy, they had walked right past her. But it was so easy to do in this fog, so thick and clammy, like a solid white veil over the city now. And she in her high heels had not taken the straight road to the palace; she had diverted from the quickest path, strolling to view the decay and destruction already taken place in the city. She had time to dawdle, and she spent it well.
       As she came to the entrance of the palace gates, she paused. Though she had been prideful to the Wiseman, she was not quite as sure now that she could enter. After all, she had rejected their purity, and could the palace perhaps reject her in kind? If it were so, it would only prove again to her that she was not respected.
       Her heels made that sharp click against stone as she passed through. Though her body had changed, grown into a beautiful adult form, the palace still recognized her, and she was elated. She smiled wickedly, her pace becoming brisk as she strode down the path towards those big doors, appearing for her. "'Wiseman, our triumph is at hand!"
       Inside. There was a lovely light coming from the curtained door, a warm glow that beckoned her closer. She knew what was within that room.
       She was surprised to see upon entering that she wasn't alone; not that the opposition was a surprise, but it was the fact that it was a trio of cats that blocked her way in the middle of the room. Artemis, foolhardy, leapt at her, obviously meaning to drive her back out of the door, and she slapped him from the air like one would a bug. He made a rather spectacular splat into the crystalline wall as Luna arched further into position and Diana cried "Otou-san!"
       "I have no quarrel with you," the woman said breezily, fanning her hand. "But I will do the same to you if you do not remove yourselves."
       "Intruder!" Luna spat in reply. "You won't hurt the queen!"
       "Oh, but why would I? I already have what I need from Neo Queen Serenity." With a foppish flick of her wrist, a familiar crystal fell into her palm, still strung on its golden chain. She laughed to see the two felines' stark shock, though there was the quietest voice in her mind pleading with her to stop. "Now, where is the carrier of the past stone? Where is Sailor Moon?"
       Diana timidly put a paw forward, her bell ringing irritatingly in the woman's ears. "How did you receive that stone? Have you hurt Small Lady?"
       The woman stepped forward, reaching out her hands for the crystal bier, and the body that lay within. Ignoring the two felines, she ran her hand over the crystal above Serenity's face, frowning at the eyes that remained stubbornly closed. "Look at me….look at me, see me!" She slapped at the clear stone in an angry outburst. "Even now, she won't awaken! Even for me, she won't open her eyes! Look at me, mama! I've grown, and you won't look at me…"
       She continued slapping at the crystal in a temper tantrum. How dare Serenity not wake up to look upon her only child! It wasn't fair! Pummeling the bier, she might have then taken out her anger on the mother and her kitten if a strange noise - like that of electronic interference - had not become like a loud buzz in her ear. Pausing in her tantrum, she looked around curiously to see a vague shape walking towards her, a blurry image in motion. "Who are you, invader? How is it possible that you've entered this palace?"
       "King." Her expression turned sly as she leaned back from the crystal, smoothing her hands over her hips in an obvious pose. "You don't recognize me? Usagi Small-Lady Serenity was my discarded name. Your daughter."
       Diana made a wailing sound.
       "That isn't possible," Endymion replied softly, though it was amplified and distorted into some sort of interpretation of Japanese. But the gist was there. "You're an adult."
       "As my master has seen fit to grant me," she purred, holding out her arms to give him the full effect. "As a gift for my loyalty, I have been given this body and a new name, and a mission to fulfill."
       The king finally looked horrified, though his image quality turned it into something of a grimace of pain. "A mission…? Small Lady, this is your home! How could you-"
       "Iie," she said sharply, cutting him off. "I am no longer Small Lady.
       "I am the Black Lady. Chosen by the Wiseman, I have been reborn as the Queen of Nemesis, sovereign of its darkness. You and the purity of the Silver Millennium shall be no more in the face of this new destiny.
       "Finally, with such power, I've become my mother's daughter," she laughed joyously.
       Not surprisingly, she saw that no one else laughed with her.