Sailor Moon Fan Fiction ❯ The Fragility of Time ❯ "The Fall of Night" ( Chapter 26 )

Prime Minister Yue returned his empty cup to the table. He tried to think how many cups of this vile drink he had had this evening, far too many he supposed. But the caffeine was the only thing that was still keeping him alert. However, it was also leaving him less able to deal with the bickering that had pushed this emergency meeting of his ministers into the wee hours of the morning.

Attempting to pay attention to the discussion around him, he realized that Defense Minister Raidon was once again speaking or more accurately complaining. Raidon was the primary reason why this meeting had not ended hours ago, or at least that was how his sleep-deprived mind was seeing it. "Something needs to be done about these vigilantly fighters." Minister Raidon complained. "Till this afternoon no lasting damage or injury resulted from this latest series of attacks. But as soon as these Sailor Senshi became involved, we got massive damage. We are just lucky that everyone got out of that tunnel before that explosion occurred."

"I assure you that any damage the Sailor Senshi have caused and may cause in the future will be minor compared to what those forces practicing blood magic are capable of. You in the muggle have no concept of the death and destruction that just one wizard can unleash with the right spells and curses." The Magic Minister replied.

"And I am supposed to take your word on that. You a ministry that till recently never even existed and one that I now find out further has had spies in the rest of our government. I am not even sure where your loyalties lie. Maybe you and your shadow government are in league with these Sailor Senshi and plan on deposing the emperor and crown Sailor Moon the new empress." The defense minister fired back.

Finally having had enough with the evening long bickering between the Defense Minister and the Magi Minister, Yue yelled, "Enough!" He knew that he should not have been too surprised at Raidon's response or for that matter of any of the others to learning about the secret world of magic users, after all the men in this room were used to knowing everything.

Now that he had the attention of everyone in the room, he continued, "As I said when I briefed you on the Ministry of Magic at the beginning of this evening, the various wizards have always been loyal citizens of Japan and the Magic Ministry has faithfully served the emperor for the past thousand years. Because of a desire to keep magic affairs separate from our affairs, none of you nor me was ever briefed on them, since under normal circumstances we would never need to know.

"But now things have changed, and they can't simply clean up the damage and keep the population from worrying when the attacks are televised on the evening news. The Magic Counsel of the United Nations passed a resolution shortly after that false asteroid hit our city recommending that the various Magic Ministries around the globe reveal themselves to their full governments.

"Unfortunately it appears that the Sailor Senshi are still the best suited for fighting this war we find ourselves in. However, I do agree with Minister Raidon that we should not rely on them solely for our defense; we have no way of knowing how long their goals match our own. That is why I want the Ministry of Magic to work with the Ministry of Defense to analyze these attacks, figure out what is going on, and to put together effective strike teams for dealing with what we face. And I also want to know if any of this has to deal with the previous war that we so conveniently forgot about due to these memory charms."

Satisfied that all around him understood his directives, the Prime Minister formally closed the meeting before standing up and leaving the room. Checking his watch, he figured that he could still get a few hours of sleep before he had to return to the stack of crises on his desk. Hopefully he would have a day or two before those two ministers attempted to vie for power once again. He understood the whys for why the Magic Ministry had shielded itself in secrecy till now, he just wished that he didn't have to deal with the fallout of those secrets. Stopping at a water fountain, he took some painkillers for his massive headache before heading out of the building. <Just give me a week of norm before throwing another incident like today.> he wished for as he settled into his car.

Opening her eyes, Ami greeted the morning sun. After her late night, she would have liked to be able to roll back over to sleep. Unfortunately, she had school and so instead, she got up and opened the blinds to greet the morning sky. Dressing, she headed downstairs. Getting herself some sandwiches for breakfast, Ami was a bit surprised to see that her mom was not up. She had thought that her mother would surely have been waiting for her with questions.

Ami secretly felt glad that her mother was apparently still asleep. It was not that she didn't want to answer her mother's questions, she just was unsure of how her mother was going to react now that she had been able to sleep on the information. And, she had a feeling that any discussion that the two of them had would take far longer than the little time she had before having to head off to school.

Feeling a presence beside her and the warm comfort of a hand resting on the side of her chest, Minako opened her eyes. Turning her head, she came eye to eye with Usagi who was kneeling down beside where she had been sleeping on the couch. Giving her friend a smile, Minako began to get up.

Helping her friend sit up, Usagi asked, "How you feeling this morning V-chan?"

"Other than feeling like I got hit by an eighteen wheeler, I feel fine." Minako replied. Her quiet grunts and moans further told of the how much she was still feeling her injuries. Then changing the subject, she asked Usagi, "Though what I want to know is how you are managing to be up and so alert this early in the morning?"

Standing up Usagi stretched out the stiffness that had begun to accumulate from kneeling beside Minako for the past half hour. All loose again, she looked back down at Minako and simply said, "You" before turning and heading happily towards the kitchen to where Makoto was cooking breakfast.

Shortly thereafter, she was chased back out of the kitchen by a spatula-wielding chef. Seeing that Minako had gone to get ready, Usagi decided that she could pass the final few minutes before the pancakes were ready by sitting on the couch. However, her stomach did not like that idea and grumbled its disapproval at not being fed. While she normally had the appetite of a small village, though she often missed breakfast and instead ate her lunch for breakfast, today's hunger was more than normal.

She had used up a fair bit of her energy doing something that the others would have scolded her for doing had they known that she had done it. This morning while Minako was still sleeping and Makoto was cooking breakfast, she had attempted to use some of her magic to heal Minako. She wished that she had Hotaru's gift for healing, but while what she did have was very crude, she did feel that she had managed to keep Minako's pain at a bearable level.

As Usagi was beginning to decide to risk another attempt to snatch a pancake, Makoto brought out breakfast. Moving in a blur, she had herself seated and her plate all loaded with food, before Makoto had finished calling Minako to the table.

Later as the others were finishing up eating their breakfast at a more leisurely pace, Usagi excused herself to use the phone. Her first call was to her parents to check in, the second one however was to Haruna-sensei. She had to wait a few minutes while the school paged her teacher to the main office to take the phone call. This was not really the type of thing that one could have an aide relay, unless she wanted the town to know her identity by the evening news.

"Moshi, Moshi," came the reply from the other end.

"Haruna-sensei I have to apologize, but I will be arriving fairly late today." Usagi said. There was one big advantage to having your teacher know that you were a superhero and a former princess, you could call in your own excused absences. Of course that would only work for the classes that she had with Haruna-sensei, but the first one that she had with another teacher was PE and that was not till after lunch, which gave her all of the morning.

"Yesterday? You are not hurt are you?" Haruna asked in response.

"Iie, I am fine. Unfortunately, one of the others was not so lucky, but she is fine today. And, Hai the reason why I will not be in is because of that incident yesterday. I need to speak with Mizuno-san this morning, she found out about us yesterday."

"Take all the time you need Usagi-chan." Haruna replied as she said bye to Usagi and hung up the phone.

<What a wonderful friend Usagi-chan is to all the others. They are lucky to have someone like that, wish that I could find a man with a shred of that quality in him.> Haruna thought as she returned to her classroom to prepare for the arrival of her students. She knew that with Mizuno Ami's mother learning about her identity, Usagi-chan would be spending this morning ensuring that there was no damage to that mother-daughter relationship. She had seen the impact that Usagi already was having on that blue-haired shy genius and was glad that Ami-chan had such a friend, the girl now carried herself with a strong confidence.

Opening her eyes, Mizuno-san turned to look at the clock and then looked at it again not believing the time that it gave. <Ugh, I had wanted to get up in time to talk with Ami before she had to head of to school.> she thought, annoyed with herself for oversleeping. <But I guess I really needed that extra few hours of sleep, I didn't fall asleep till almost 3 last night anyways. Plus there is always tonight for talking with her.>

Getting dressed she headed downstairs have breakfast. Unlike her daughter, she favored more traditional fare for breakfast, she was unsure of where Ami had picked up that habit of eating sandwiches for breakfast. It was a habit that Ami had had ever since she was real little, only later on did she begin to bring books to the table to read while she ate. Though, now as she thought about it a bit more, in light of what she had learned last night, she postulated that this sandwich habit may very well have been something that Ami was instinctively remembering from her previous life.

Finished with her breakfast, Mizuno-san headed into the living room planning on spending the morning catching up on the journals. However, a knock at the door put that plan on hold for the moment. Wondering who would be calling on her in the morning, she opened the door. Instantly recognizing Usagi, she let the silver haired girl in while asking, "Don't you have school?"

"Hai, I do, but I told Haruna-sensei that I had something to take care of first." Then seeing the quizzical look in the older woman's eyes, she continued, "She learned about us indirectly through Naru a little while back."

"How many others know about you and your friends?" the doctor asked.

"Well as I just said Naru and Haruna. Then there are my parents; the arrival of my daughter from the future kind of complicated the decision to protect our families by not telling them that we are Senshi. And then there is a gaijin priest, though he only knows about ChibiUsa and me. He was one of the carriers of the crystal shards."

Walking into the kitchen to get her guest a cup of tea, Mizuno-san asked, "While I don't agree with your desire to protect us by keeping the knowledge from us, I am wondering why the change with respect to me?"

Accepting the cup of hot tea, Usagi smiled and replied. "That was your daughter's decision, though one I fully agreed with." Then in more of an aside to herself she added, "even if others didn't" Taking a sip of the tea, Usagi continued, "I do however, believe that she needs you to know the truth.

"We all draw strength from each other to face the hardships of being a Senshi. In this respect, Ami is no different from the others and having to be a Senshi would pose no problem for her. However, there is another element to being a Senshi, duty and obligation. And in this regard, Ami is different from the rest of us. She has dreams for her future, ones that are more than a simple schoolgirl fantasy. And I am sure that she has even planned every step along the path to her dreams.

"Hai, she has." Mizuno-san said and nodded her head in assent beginning to see what Usagi was driving at.

"However, because of me her life is now turned upside down." Mizuno-san wanted to object at that statement, however, Usagi held up her hand and continued. "As just a Sailor Senshi, she was always able to hope that before long the enemies would be defeated and that she could continue pursuing her dream. However, because of me, because of an oath she took three thousand years ago things are different.

"When she joined the rank of the Sailor Senshi, she took an oath to always protect the line of Serenity. She like the others is willing to sacrifice any and everything including their own lives to fulfill that oath, and nothing that I can say can change that. And it is because of that duty that she has given up her dreams, because she no longer believes that they lie along the path of her destiny. She feels that her future is that of a military officer, not a doctor.

Ami's mother looked a bit surprised as Usagi described the depth of the Senshi Oath. While she had gathered from last night that the girls were some kind of royal guard for their princess, Usagi, she had not realized how deep that sense of responsibility really was. As much as the magnitude of what being a Sailor Senshi from a long dead kingdom meant to Ami surprised her mother, it also told Mizuno-san exactly what she needed to do. Till now she had not known how she should now act around Ami, but now she realized a truth that she should never have forgotten. It was true that Ami was a reborn super hero, but Ami was still a fourteen-year-old child who has had her dreams crushed.

"Don't feel bad about missing it." Usagi said referring to the crushed dreams. Then seeing the curious expression from the older woman, she added, "I can feel your grief. I may not be the best student academically or the best fighter, but I always know what others are feeling." Then thinking to herself, <Especially after that battle in the artic, it awoke something in me. Since then, I have always been awash in a river of emotions.>

"Anyways like I was saying, don't feel bad about missing it, since done of the others have realized that anything is wrong with Ami-chan either. And, I only realized it all last night. You see when Ami remembered her promise to you, she pulled me aside and broke down in telling me what she had done, feeling that she had failed me. During those moments as I tried to calm her, I was able to feel the raw emotion in her soul and suddenly understood."

"Hai," Mizuno-san said, reluctantly agreeing not to blame herself for missing her daughter's troubles. Though at the same time, there was no excuse for how much time she was spending away from her daughter. <I guess that I will just have to fix that today. Usagi doesn't just look like an angel she really is one. I am glad she came into my daughter's life.>

"Well it is time for me to finally be heading off to school." Usagi said in a tone that conveyed every dislike she had for her dreaded school. "However, I can safely rest now, knowing that you will be there for Ami-chan and that I don't have to worry about her. Thanks for the tea."

"Anytime." Mizuno-san replied. "Thanks for stopping by. Because of you I don't have to worry about how to act around my daughter, she is still my child and still has problems that I can solve. Arigatoo Usagi-chan. And I won't hold anything against her for not telling me. Anyways you are her princess, so I guess that means I should take my ire up with you."

With that final comment, Usagi slowly backed towards the door, realizing that Mizuno-san might want some blood before this little meeting was over. "Actually the not telling wasn't my idea it was Luna's and at the time none of us knew that I was the Moon Princess."

"Luna?" Mizuno-san asked, not knowing whom Usagi could be referring to.

"Hai, she is my cat, black with a golden crescent moon mark on her forehead like mine. And no I am not crazy; she is capable of human speech. I am not exactly sure of all the whys but I do remember that she was from a different star system. I'll send her over at some point so that she can explain her logic to you. Ja ne." The last bit Usagi said quickly as she tore away from the front door.

Mizuno-san chuckled to herself at Usagi's reaction. <Guess that I came across a little too much there at the end. Well after the shocks of last night, I deserve a little humor.>

For the two weeks following the tunnel mishap, Rubeus and the two aliens managed to keep the Sailor Senshi on their toes. Between the two of them, the Senshi were forced to fight just about every other day. This allowed Rubeus to place a dozen of his energy collecting crystals.

Unlike the droids that the Senshi fought, these crystals were strictly energy collectors. When activated they would flood the area with dark energy and channel the energy of the crystal points to what remained of the Dark Poison Crystal. And hopefully while they remained dormant, they would be undetectable by the Senshi.

However, since he was trapped between time, the Wiseman did not want to take any chances with gathering the energy necessary to open the gateway. Consequently, Rubeus was planting two sets of these crystals. One set he accompanied with a demon attack nearby. The other half of the collectors he had placed with no fanfare. That way if the Senshi did manage to discover one of the collectors, that crystal would only lead them to half of the others.

Finding the center of this Crystal Point's manna pool, Rubeus placed the collector crystal. Standing back up, he looked around to find a nice target for the decoy droid. Seeing a nearby school, he smiled and walked over. The innocent children caught in the middle of the attack would make this target perfect. Teleporting inside the building he walked to the front of one of the classrooms, there he placed the droid crystal on a teacher's desk. Casting the activation spell, he teleported back out of the school.

Now floating in the air above the school grounds, he surveyed the scene before preparing to leave. He hoped that the Wiseman would soon have him directly attack the Senshi again. While he knew how dangerous Serenity was, his desire for mayhem was starting to get the better of him. However, what he really wanted to see was the expression on Serenity's face when he activated the network of crystals. He looked forward to seeing her collapse to the ground in utter pain as her life force was diverted from her body and the terror on her Senshi faces as they realized they could do nothing, nothing at all. Laughing at that final thought, Rubeus vanished.

The following day as the bell rang announcing the end of the morning periods, Hotaru quickly put away her stuff and grabbed her lunch. For her, lunch was one of the best parts of the day, even better than the end of the day, as during lunch she could spend time with her best friend. Yes, some days they would spend time together after school, but more often than not Hotaru had to go home right after school, Kaolinite's orders, and she felt it to be just wrong to bring the light that was ChibiUsa to the darkness of her home.

Meeting up with her best friend, the two of them walked to their normal spot. They normally ate under an elderly tree, which of late seemed to be getting a second wind at life, something that Hotaru took as a promising sign. "So ChibiUsa-chan how were your classes this morning?" the dark haired girl asked.

Looking up from her lunch, ChibiUsa wondered why her friend wanted to waste such a wonderfully beautiful lunch time talking about something as worthless as school. "Ok I guess, however Uraki-sensei yelled at me for not paying attention a few times. Guess I am more like my mom than I would like to admit." ChibiUsa chuckled a bit at that last bit remembering how she had teased Usagi relentless about her "stupidity" the last time she was in the past.

The two girls continued eating their lunch while idly discussing various things, though to ChibiUsa's delight the conversation did drift from school to other subjects. Unfortunately, screams of terror brought an early end to their lunch. Looking up apprehensively, ChibiUsa saw what she had feared; a demon was here at her school. Dropping their lunch, the two girls quickly scrambled to their feet while looking for a place to run.

Taking a good look at the monster, Hotaru asked, "Is that supposed to be a sunflower?" The creature in question was some kind of demonic plant and did vaguely resemble a sunflower, with a large yellow head. Unfortunately the pollen that it released was not harmless, instead the children it touched fell to the ground unconscious.

Wondering about what the demon was supposed to be did not dull Hotaru's reaction to the situation. Already moving while ChibiUsa was still considering her comment; she grabbed the pink haired girl's hand and dashed towards the perceived safety of the school building. Seeing a teacher come out of the building, she felt some instinctive relief of having an authority figure there to deal with the situation.

Unfortunately, the teacher in question did not seem too concerned with safety of the students. Instead, he was quite upset that the monster in question was attacking this particular group of children. "What do you think you are doing? These are my victims. I am the one collecting energy here." The teacher said has his body convulsed and grew in size, becoming another demon.

Surprised and scared at seeing the teacher become another demon, Hotaru skidded to a stop. Unfortunately, ChibiUsa who was now running on her own power had not seen the teacher's metamorphosis and instead plowed into Hotaru, knocking the two of them to the ground.

"Hotaru-chan why did you stop?" The pink haired girl asked, and then added "Oh." when Hotaru pointed to the second demon. <This is not good, two of these creatures and I can't henshin with Hotaru here.>

While ChibiUsa tried to figure out how she could safely get away from Hotaru to henshin, the other girl had already come to a decision. Grabbing her friend's arm once again, she pulled ChibiUsa back up to her feet and then with her friend in tow made for a row of bushes by the property wall.

Getting halfway to the bushes, they were thrown back down when the ground beside them exploded. Having hit the ground hard, it took a dazed Hotaru a few moments to clear her vision. Looking around, she noticed that the two demons were actually fighting each other, and that it was only a stray blast that had hit her and ChibiUsa. <Strange, guess these bad guys don't all get along well with each other. Either that or these things have little brains.> Hotaru thought to herself, and then after watching them for a bit more she decided that whatever was the case that they also had very little in the way of brains.

Unfortunately with the damage those two were doing to the surrounding area, she knew that she and ChibiUsa had to get to safety if they wanted to live to see the end of the day. Looking over at her friend who was now sitting back up as well, she asked, "You okay, ChibiUsa?"

"Hai, I think so."

"Come on then, we need to get out of here." Hotaru said as she helped ChibiUsa back up to her feet. With escape now being their only option, they had to head for the school's gate. Unfortunately, the two creatures were also in that direction. Though thankfully, they were not directly in the way, so they might still have a chance of making it. Motioning to her friend, she said, "This way" as she took off running.

They might have made it safely out of the schoolyard, but lady luck still had them in ill repute. And, as the two girls were getting ready to make a break for the gate, three others arrive and they were not the Sailor Senshi.

"What the hell?" exclaimed Rubeus as he arrived. The activation of his droid to its demonic form had summoned him. But whereas he had expected to find the Sailor Senshi fighting it, he instead found another demon fighting it. <Great just great, interlopers. Ah there they are, well I guess I will just have see about ensuring that this never happens again.> Then addressing the two aliens on the far side of the yard, "It would be rude not to introduce myself before I kill you, I am Rubeus from the dark planet Nemesis." he said before unleashing his trademark dark energy spheres.

Looking up at the new comer, Ail and Ann barely had enough time to register the attack before it arrived. Hastily creating shield spells, the two were knocked to the ground. Getting to her feet, Ann looked over at Ail, but saw that he was unconscious with ugly energy burns over much of his body. Looking back up at Rubeus fire entered her eyes and she took to the air. Her left arm had been caught by the blast, but she paid no head to the pain. Instead, while returning to the sky she unleashed an attack of her own at Rubeus.

The speed of her recovery fed by her need for vengeance took Rubeus by surprise and he fell to the ground as he took the full brunt of her attack. However, he was far from out and quickly teleported to a new location before retaliating with another energy attack.

For the two youngsters trying to make their way to the school gate, the schoolyard suddenly became hell itself. The two demons at least did not have the brains to move around that much, so their collateral damage was somewhat confined. However, these other two were not so thoughtful. Instead, as they looked for an advantage and avoided incoming attack, the two teleported willy-nilly around the yard.

The net result was that nothing and no one in the area was now safe. Only meters from the gate, Hotaru and ChibiUsa ran out of time, as the ground beneath their feet was ripped apart. Flying through the air the two hit the ground hard and slid into the wall surrounding the school property.

Somehow, Hotaru had remained conscious throughout it all, feeling the heat of the blast, the crushing impact of hitting the ground, the burn as debris was embedded in her skin and then the jarring stop has her back slid into the wall. With all the pain that her body was feeling, she just wanted to let her eyes close and the darkness of unconsciousness sweep away the pain. However, a love for her friend resonated just as strong. And instead of giving in, all she wanted to do was get back to her feet and protect her only friend.

Following her heart's desire, Hotaru forced her eyes open all the way, as she rolled over onto her knees. Not looking at her shredded uniform or at the blood that was running down her arms, she put a hand down on the ground to stabilize herself as she stood up. Walking slowly over to where ChibiUsa now lay, she checked on the other girl.

ChibiUsa looked awful with her uniform just as badly torn to shreds and with gashes all over her body. Rolling her friend to her back, she checked to ensure that ChibiUsa was still breathing. A large cut on the other girl's forehead riled her anger even more. Reassured for the moment, she turned to face the battle.

Having not yet thought of what to do next, such as getting ChibiUsa and continuing their dash for the gate, Hotaru looked up and her face drained of all color. There heading towards them were five spheres of sizzling black energy. With horror, she realized that in a matter of moments that it would all be over. Doing the only thing she could do, she raised her arms up in futile attempt to block the attack as she cried out "Iie!!!"

Anger over the situation now taking full control, she became lost to the moment as her body erupted in energy. Coursing along her body, the energy flowed up to her arms and from there radiated outward to form a shield of silence. Without a second thought, Rubeus's attack was neutralized, and the Mistress of Silence dropped her arms.

The black haired child was no longer Hotaru; with a purple glow in her eyes and the sigil of Saturn glowing brightly on her forehead, she was now nothing more than the embodiment of Saturn's power. As she looked harshly at the combatants, tendrils of a very dark violet-black energy began to be whipped up. Some of this joined with its mistress, other tendrils left her body, and still others just existed in the area. As the energy built the sounds of battle gave way to absolute silence.

With the silence's arrival, Rubeus and Ann paused in their combat. It was now that they first took notice of the Mistress of Silence. Neither of them could make out any of her features due to her injuries and the arcs of black lightning around her body. Looking past this newcomer, Rubeus saw a pink haired child on the ground. However, the first girl prevented him from examining the other child any further.

Seeing that she had their attention, Hotaru raised her one of her arms. As she did so, energy tendrils began to pull together coalescing into a ball of energy in her hand. Seeing this occur, Rubeus and Ann suddenly felt that it would be very wise to erect their strongest shields. Looking up at the two, the Mistress of Silence declared that, "This ends now."

Hotaru's power up for attack had also drawn the attention of the two demons, causing them to pause in their battle. However, unlike their masters they did not realize the grave danger that they were in and instead gawked stupidly at their executioner. Her lips curling up into a chilling smile she lowered her gaze to see the two demons. Opening wide her hand she said one word, "Silence."

From one moment to the next, a ball of energy had raced from her hand to the two creatures, which were conveniently located next to each other. Without any sound, the demons disappeared in a flash of light, nothing remaining.

Looking up at the other two she mouthed "leave," as she one again raised her hand. Not wanting to give this girl a chance to take him out, Rubeus immediately teleported away. Ann, for her part, dropped down to where her brother lay on the ground and gathered him up into her arms before leaving.

Turning back to the unconscious child, this new warrior placed her hand on the other's chest. In her hand, she held the energy of silence that she had already gathered again for a second attack and she unleashed it, but this time as healing energy. Funneling all the energy of her next attack plus that, which had been fueling her anger into healing energy, Hotaru collapsed to the ground on top of ChibiUsa.

ChibiUsa glowed with the violet healing energy, before an explosion of pink light erupted from her own body to caress the bodies of both girls. When the light faded, nothing more than some cuts and scrapes remained on the two girls. A few minutes later, feeling a weight on her chest, ChibiUsa opened her eyes.

Unsure of what had happened or where she was, ChibiUsa tried to sit up. But that action was prevented by the weight that had convinced her to open her eyes instead of sleeping some more. This time just moving her head, she saw that the weight was Hotaru; turning her head, she saw the remains of the schoolyard. As she saw the destruction, the memories of the attack flooded back.

<I guess the others must have arrived and taken care of the two demons while I was out. Though where is Usagi? I thought she would have been here with me in her arms waiting for me to wake up.> ChibiUsa thought. She was quite surprised that her mother was not there, and bit sadden as well. <Though I guess Ami and Rei probably pulled her away, since otherwise Hotaru might have figured something out, considering that she is on top of me.> rationalized the child.

Looking around again, she noticed that other people were beginning to wake up. Considering that she still felt a bit groggy and figuring that help would be arriving soon, ChibiUsa decided that it would be best to just lie here on the ground and await help. Noticing that Hotaru had finally awoken, she grasped the other girl's hand and smiled.

Eating her lunch, Haruka paused as her body suddenly shivered. Looking at Michiru, she saw that the other girl had felt it as well. "The Messiah of Silence," Haruka voiced as she realized what it was that she had felt.

"Hai." Michiru replied.

"Have we already lost?" Haruka asked disheartened that the war might already be over.

Pausing for a bit to sort out what the seas were telling her, Michiru replied, "I don't think so. The Messiah is not yet awake, but the process of its awakening has already begun."

"Hai." Haruka acknowledge as she realized that the power she had felt was already gone, returned to its slumber. "The enemy has yet to make a move for the heart crystals, something must be causing the Messiah to awaken on its own."

"If that is the case then we have even less time to find the Talismans. The Messiah is connected to those Talismans and will easily be able to find the pure heart crystals that hold them. We have to find the Grail and give it to the Messiah of light before something fully awakens the Messiah of Silence."

Agreeing with her love's analysis, Haruka said, "Agreed, we will have to begin our search as soon as classes are over for the day."

"There was a what?!" Usagi screeched as ChibiUsa attempted to ask her about the demon attack at her school. Then making an abrupt change from preparing to scold ChibiUsa, the silver haired girl picked the other girl up and begun examining her for injuries and asked, "Are you ok?"

The others were equally surprised when ChibiUsa mentioned the demon attack. Of the others, Rei recovered first and quickly realized that she needed to intercede to keep ChibiUsa alive. Very quickly she realized that it was futile to attempt to reason with Usagi, as that girl appeared to be both trying to strangle and mother her child to death at the same time. <Figures,> she thought to herself.

Finally getting fed up with the odango-atama, she grabbed ChibiUsa out of Usagi's arms and deposited her into the arms of a surprised Ami. Unfortunately, this meant that she now had the full fury of Usagi bearing down on herself.

"Rei!" Usagi yelled.

<Well at least ChibiUsa is out of harms way for the moment.> Rei thought as she backed up and gulped a bit before responding. "Odango-atama why don't we let Ami-chan check ChibiUsa out and find out what happened first." she said with her usual fire.

Pausing for a moment Usagi thought this suggestion over. Then as her features drooped, she accepted Rei's apparent scolding. "But…" she whined out.

"I know how much you are worried about ChibiUsa and even more so because she did not call us. However, there will be time for that, right now lets let Ami-chan check her out, ChibiUsa might have some internal injuries like a cracked rib. Then after that we can find out what happened and why she did not contact us."

"I suppose so. But I can mother her all I want when I get home this evening?" Usagi asked, hope returning to her voice.

Smiling Rei replied, "Hai you can. And I think she that might just like some of that mothering then as well."

Walking up to the group of his best customers, Motoki noticed that ChibiUsa's school fuku was pretty badly ripped up and that she had some nasty looking bruises and scrapes. Wanting to know what had happened to the Usagi's cousin he asked, "ChibiUsa-chan what happened to you?"

Looking up at the arcade keeper, she smiled at his friendly face. "There was a monster attack at my school."

"I had heard something about that on the radio. They said that the school grounds were heavily damaged. I thought though that people just pass out during these attacks?"

From where she sat on one of the game stools, Makoto had to stifle a laugh. <Yeah they are all pleasant except for those dozen or so ones that turned into war zones. Though now that I think of it, except for those early Rubeus attacks most of the damage I think is actually done by us. Hopefully the city will never find out who we are, or we are going to be very poor for the rest of our lives.>

"Not when two different demons and their masters decide to fight it out. Apparently, one demon had already laid claim to us, and another one moved in on its territory. Things fell completely apart when their masters arrived and began fighting. Shortly after that, I got caught in one of their blasts and knocked out. When I came to they were all gone, and those who had only passed out began waking up. I assume that the Sailor Senshi must have arrived and taken care of them while I was out."

Motoki's expression showed that he was very concerned for his young customer. "And your injuries?" he asked.

"They will heal, nothing more serious than some banged up bones and a couple nasty bruises and this one cut." Ami replied for ChibiUsa, having finished her analysis.

To this Usagi, let out a large sigh of relief. As soon as Rei had mentioned the possibility of a broken rib, she had begun working herself into a worry with her daughter having every conceivable non-obvious injury. Thankfully Usagi was not forced to explain why she was sighing only now over the good news of ChibiUsa's injuries, as Motoki had not noticed her sigh.

Instead, the young man said to ChibiUsa, "Tell you what, why don't you come upstairs to the Fruit Parlor with me and I will have my sister get you a sundae on the house."

Like her mother, the offer of ice-cream instantly had ChibiUsa's attention and she hopped off her stool to follow Motoki upstairs. Following not far behind her was her mother and the others. After getting themselves settled in the Fruit Parlor with a snack for each and having answered the worried questions of Motoki and his younger sister, Ami and Usagi had ChibiUsa explain the attack again, this time in more detail.

As she listened to the others discuss the battle, Makoto thought back to her first battle as Sailor Jupiter. That one was also an attack on ChibiUsa's school; she hoped that this wasn't the beginning of a pattern. She remembered how in the middle of class, Usagi's head had suddenly snapped up with an utter foreboding on her face. And then only moments after Usagi had left the room, Ami had followed her out of the room. She herself had left class not much longer after that.

She guessed that while she did not consciously know that she was Sailor Jupiter, the instinct of protecting her princess was there, even if she had not known then that Usagi was her princess. She had never been able to figure out how she had been able to find the others that afternoon. Somehow, her instincts just lead her to the battle; maybe it was some kind of connection with her princess, which reminded her of something. That day, Usagi had known instantly that her daughter was in trouble, but today in a battle just as bad if not worse she had been clueless to what happened.

Deciding to voice this contradiction, Makoto asked, "There is something I don't understand. Why didn't Usagi-chan know that ChibiUsa was in trouble like the other time her school was attacked?"

Her questioned stumped the others.

Usagi thought about it for a moment. "Mako-chan's right. It's hard to describe but I can sense ChibiUsa's well being. Her fear or pain hits me right here in the heart, even if I am separated by miles from her. But this time I felt nothing." Then pausing to think about it a bit more, she continued, "I didn't really notice it then, guess because that math exam was taking all my concentration, but now that I do think about it, I did feel something different then, nothing. During this attack I could not feel ChibiUsa, it was if something was blocking my connection to ChibiUsa."

This conclusion worried the others, what could have blocked the princess's connection to her daughter? "Are you sure that your link was blocked?" Rei asked.

"Hai, unfortunately I am."

"We should then head over to ChibiUsa's school right away then." Ami decided. "There might be some clue to this mystery there. And anyways we should check out this demon battle anyways."

"One question though before we go." Artemis said from where he was sitting on Minako's shoulder. "ChibiUsa's injuries do not match what I would expect from her story."

"Hai you're right, the extent of the damage to her uniform does not match the only minor injuries that she has. And it has been too soon for our Senshi healing to have done that much work." Ami replied in agreement.

Usagi debated with herself if she should mention her suspicion of how ChibiUsa was healed. But realized that if she didn't the others would spend too much time focusing on this issue. "Hotaru must have healed ChibiUsa before she passed out herself."

"Huh?" the others responded.

"Hai, Hotaru healed a skinned knee of mine once before when I first met her. She has a healing power, but it also makes her very tired to use it. I guess she must have not been knocked out and used her power on me. But then the resulting spasm would have knocked her out to lie as I found her when I awoke." ChibiUsa said and to the Senshi's belief solving the issue.

"Hmm… a powerful healer…" Luna began, but was cut off by Usagi.

"We are not going to get Hotaru involved. I am not going to risk her getting hurt by involving her in our battles. She will stay out of this and none of you are to approach her, understood?" she asked.

Nodding their heads, the others accepted Usagi's decision. They knew how much she valued the life and safety of everyone else and knew that she would rather bear the horrible pain of future injury or even loss than to potentially get an innocent involved in their battles.

Leaving money on the table for their bill, the Senshi left to visit the school.

In a flash of magic Ail and Ann arrived back in their apartment. Her energy levels low and the pain of the burns calling to her, Ann wanted to do nothing more than to fall to the ground and sleep. However, she knew that if she did that then her love would not survive the night. He was alive, but only barely. She had to get him to the tree and just hope that it was not too late.

Struggling under his weight, her strength fading fast, she made her way into the Tree Room. Placing him against one of the tree's massive roots she watched as some of the tree's vines began to wrap themselves around its injured child. <I only hope that the tree has enough energy to save him. Back during those first days we were here, the tree had blossomed for the first time that I can remember. But now it does not look much better than Ail. And what if in healing Ail it uses up all its energy? I need to find new energy to feed it and fast, otherwise both of them might die.>

"umm…" was all that Sailor Jupiter could say as words failed her. "A pair of demons did all this?" she finally managed to ask.

"That is what ChibiUsa said." Replied Venus.

"Actually I think that very little of this resulted from the droid and Cardian fighting. Considering that the majority of the blasts is scattered across the area with nothing between them, they would have to have been caused by Rubeus and the two aliens teleporting around." corrected the always analytical Ami.

For a moment, Makoto was going to object about the damage being intermittent, since the entire area looked toasted to her. But then after looking more closely, she did have to admit that Ami was correct.

Rei for her part had stayed out of the analysis, focusing instead on her friend. She had not even heard any of the current conversation, as she was no longer down on the ground with others. Instead, she had followed Usagi and ChibiUsa up to one of the building tops. Usagi had been unable to look at the devastation for more than a few moments and now she stood up here with her back to the school holding ChibiUsa in her arms, while Rei stood next to her and placed a comforting hand on her shoulder.

ChibiUsa likewise had not fared well upon returning to the site of the attack. During the battle, ChibiUsa had been more afraid for the safety of her friend, she herself was after all a Sailor Senshi. But that was before she got knocked out by a near miss and learned that the Sailor Senshi did not come, that something was blocking her connection to her mother. She now realized how easily the outcome could have been vastly different. She was just lucky it ended before a stray shot found her.

While Rei watched the mother and daughter find solace in each other, she realized that she should have expected this reaction that they should have had Usagi and ChibiUsa remain at the arcade. In actuality, the only one who needed to be here was Ami-chan, and possibly the cats. Being here was just hurting Usagi and ChibiUsa. However, she also realized that Usagi needed the closure of seeing the battle site. If they had left her, Usagi would have just followed them here on her own.

Hearing another pair of footsteps hitting the rooftop, Rei looked up to see Tuxedo-Kamen arrive. "There was a battle today at ChibiUsa's school between Rubeus and the aliens controlling those Cardians. ChibiUsa got pretty banged up during the battle, however something prevented Usagi from knowing about it." Rei said before Mamoru could ask any questions. She had a feeling that he had felt Usagi's sorrow through his own bond with her.

Letting Mamoru take over in providing the comfort that his future wife and child needed, Rei decided to return to see how the others were doing. Dropping back down to street level and then walking over, Rei for the first time really took notice of the damage. <Wow, I am glad that ChibiUsa made it out of here okay. It is a good thing that her friend Hotaru healed her; Usagi would have lost it if she had seen ChibiUsa in the shape that this battle had to have left her.>

<Something does not feel right here.> Rei began to realize as she reached the others.

"Mars what's wrong?" Luna asked noticing that Sailor Mars did not look quite right.

"I don't know, there is just something about this place that does not feel right. I am not sure what it is, but something else happened here then just a simple battle between Rubeus and the two aliens."

"She may be right." Mercury said looking up from her computer. "The readings that I am getting are quite strange. There was a massive build up of dark energy and then nothing. There are no other energy signatures from after then."

"Another enemy?" Venus asked

"I don't know, but it looks like that may be the case." Mercury replied.

"Just wonderful." an annoyed Makoto said as she punched a fist into her hand.

"Your thoughts Rei?" Luna asked.

"I don't know, I will have to do a fire reading later on what I am sensing here." Rei replied, while thinking to herself, <however, I don't have a good feeling about where this is going to go.> "I suggest, though, that we wait to till after I have done my fire reading to tell Usagi about this possible new threat. She doesn't need to learn that ChibiUsa was in even more danger right now."

"Hai." the others agreed.

The apparent paradoxes in studying black holes with their quantum and relativity effects give headaches to all but the most learned physicists. An object falling across an event horizon crosses it in both an instant and infinite time depending on your frame of reference. In addition, an object that is so massive that not even light can escape still emits radiation and looses mass. However, all these paradoxes are easily explained if you study the theory or are a genius like Hawking.

Unfortunately, add in the manifestation of travel through the fourth dimension, which is the time-stream and these neat little theories suddenly become inadequate. For instance how can an event at one time destabilize a black hole from a different time that is not even located within parsecs of the event at the time of destabilization. Pluto is probably the only being that could really understand and explain how all the threads and streams of time match up. Unfortunately, the original time disruption still occupies her full attention and this new paradox did occur.

End Notes:While I generally don't like cliffhanger endings for chapters, unless it is a multipart chapter that for convenience sake is broken into segments, I am not above leaving an enigmatic teaser at the end. Something to get your mind thinking about. Comet Moon gets credit for the coming up with the idea of a droid Cardian battle. Though, I had originally envisioned it being a humorous battle however the muses had different ideas for how it would play out. And instead, you got Hotaru coming close to laying waste to Tokyo. And yes that first scene in this chapter was a homage to J. K. Rowling and the world she created with Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. (and yes I am using the correct British title, since I am into alchemy and the Philosopher's Stone is an actual item of myth. And it really is supposed to be red when correctly prepared, though for kinetic reasons it should be a powder and not a large stone. The higher surface area of a powder makes it a much more effective catalyst for the transmutation of base metals to gold. Time to end my rambling as a Chemical Engineer). There is a possibility of a side story involving Hogwarts and Harry Potter, however like everything that is for the future after I have finished this book (anyways it would take place after this book). The next chapter should hopefully be out by the end of May, I am trying to get them out once a month now. However, that may change this summer. Being an unemployed Chemical Engineer is making me stir crazy (having essentially no experience makes it hard to find a new job). Consequently I am thinking of working at my scout camp for the summer as a break from being unemployed and then in the fall refreshed to begin looking for employment anew when the college hiring season is in full bloom. What does this mean to you my readers? Not much, other than if I do go to work for the scout camp, I will not have access to a computer for the summer, and so there won't be any updates till the fall. However, not to worry I will leave at least a heads up on my web page before I vanish. But unfortunately, it looks like it may be even longer before I finish this mammoth story. On my request for help finding those two stories last time, thanks are in order for Matthew who ID'd the Tenchi Fic as "Strange Days" by Horosha And and to Bekah for ID'ing the Sailor Moon fic as "Empire of the Sun" by Sophia Prester. I recommend everyone read those as well as "Sailor Moon Millenials" by the Judge (though this one is only on MoonRomance.com). For those who like to be alerted to when I post new chapters, I have created a yahoo group for that. Just go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FOTupdates and register or send an email to this address: FOTupdates-subscribe@yahoogroups.com