Sailor Moon Fan Fiction ❯ The Fragility of Time ❯ Chapter 35: The Messiahs of Light and Dark ( Chapter 35 )

[ P - Pre-Teen ]

The Fragility of Time BOOK TWO: "Falling Towards Apotheosis"
Chapter 35: The Messiahs of Light and Dark
Author: etj4Eagle
Email: etj4Eagle@yahoo.com
Lasted Edited: 1/22/05

Disclaimer: A reminder I own none of the characters of
this story, all rights are owned by others. However, the
unique circumstances of the story are mine. If you
distribute the story, do only so freely and inform me of
where you post it.
_______________________________________



The afternoon had been a long one for Eudial, having
had spent it shifting through the remains of the Daimon
incubator to see if any of it was salvageable. While a good
amount of the structural steel was still good, many of the
more sensitive and hard to come by parts had been destroyed
and would have to be replaced. Now sitting at her desk with
a bowl of instant ramen, she began to pull the necessary
files for replacing those items. As she worked, she hoped
that Hotaru was okay; apparently Mimete's mess had resulted
in the telephone switching office that serviced Tomoe-
sensei's house being destroyed. Or at least that was what
the telephone company said when she called them after being
only able to get a recording telling her that the Tomoe
line was out of service As plodded through this initial
paperwork, she hoped that she would be able to finish it up
within the next hour so that she would be able to return
home and check on Hotaru.
Hearing the door to her office open, Eudial looked
up. <Is it that late already that the review session is
over?> she thought to herself figuring that her visitor was
Tomoe-sensei himself. However, to her displeasure she saw
that it wasn't, instead it was Rubeus.
Not wasting any time, Rubeus demanded, "Eudial-san
where is Tomoe-sensei?" as he entered her office.
Any fears that Eudial might have had with respect to
the Mimete incident evaporated as she saw that he appeared
to be in a very good mood, not that that made her feel
really any safer. Just that it meant that she wasn't likely
to be killed in a fit of rage in the next few moments. So
now relaxing from how she had instantly tensed up upon his
arrival, she said, "Tomoe-sensei is conducting a physics
prelim review right now. He will be done in an hour."
"Then it looks like the review is over. What room is
he in?"
"105" Eudial replied, not wanting to get on Rubeus's
bad side by suggesting that he wait. If he was happy, she
was going to do all that she could to make sure he stayed
that way.
Without a word of thanks, he spun on his feet and
left the office. Walking down the hallway, he took the
stairs up from the basement level. He was almost tempted to
directly teleport to the classroom, since with the Grail
there was nothing those pesky Sailor Senshi could do to
him. However, he barely restrained himself and decided it
was better to avoid giving them too much of a heads up on
the final element of his plan. Arriving at the classroom he
threw open that door and entered.
"... and when you pass light through a converging lens
you get a..." Tomoe trailed off in the middle of his optics
lecture as he saw Rubeus enter his classroom. "Pardon me a
moment minna-san." Tomoe said to his class before walking
to where Rubeus was standing. Once he arrived by Rubeus he
asked, "Rubeus-sama what brings you to my humble
classroom?"
Rubeus's only reply was to hold the Grail out to
Tomoe and to smile. Seeing the Grail, Tomoe's face did not
take long to brighten up into a similar smile.
"You've found it! With this, I will be able to open
the portal without any more modifications to the system."
Tomoe eagerly exclaimed and then turning to the class he
said, "Minna-san, I am afraid that something has come up,
so I am going to have to end this review session now. Since
I will otherwise be occupied tomorrow, I will have Eudial-
san conduct a review session for you tomorrow during class
and we'll push back that prelim by one day. Anyone have an
issue with that?"
None of the students raised their hands in protest
over having another day to prepare for their exam as well
as getting a free hour that evening. And so instead, they
just smiled and quickly collected their books and filed out
of the classroom.
Returning to Rubeus he said, "Come let's go conduct
our experiment."
As the two of them walked out of the classroom,
Rubeus said "Tomoe-sensei, I have some additional good
news. In addition to the Grail, I have secured a large
short term supply of strong magical energy from around
Tokyo that you can use as well."
"That's very good Rubeus-sama. We are going to need
that energy to quickly mature the rest of the Daimon eggs
to hold off any trouble that our opening of the gateway
might draw. I'm fearful that many might react the wrong way
to the gateway and act without thinking."
The rest of the walk down to the basement was
accompanied by Tomoe mumbling to himself as he began
running through the various final items that he had to take
care of and the various checks that he would need to run.
Ignoring the professor's ramblings, Rubeus instead focused
on the pending arrival of the Wiseman. He knew the Wiseman
was going to be quite pleased with what had been
accomplished and while he expected that Sailor Moon was
still hanging onto life, the Wiseman's arrival would fix
that.
As they reached the basement floor, the twosome took
a detour by Eudial's office. Stepping inside, Tomoe
instructed her to locate his daughter so that she could be
healed and to instruct the remaining members of the Witches
5 to come to the lab.

* * * * * * * * *

"Now did you find all of them or just half of them, I
wonder?" those had been Rubeus's parting words before he
had vanished.
Instantly realizing that they had been setup, Uranus
practically ripped the communicator off her wrist as she
hit the panic button. Within ten seconds faces for all the
other Senshi except for the two Moon Senshi had appeared.
"Another demon attack? Uranus where are you?" Minako
asked as soon as she activated her link.
"Hai, but Pluto's taken care of that for a moment,
that's not the reason why I am contacting you. We have been
had. Rubeus expected us to find those energy collectors; he
has planted a second set."
"Nani-ka?" the others all exclaimed.
"Now it makes sense, that's why Rubeus did not have
them booby trapped. Those were sacrificial." Ami said.
"Um minna-san, why isn't Usagi or ChibiUsa on the
link?" Jupiter asked.
"Iie it can't be, she can't be dead." Rei insisted,
not wanting to accept what the absence of Usagi suggested.
"Rei lets not jump to any conclusions." Ami said.
"Hai, when we last saw Usagi, she was flying out of
the Crown Fruit Parlor carrying ChibiUsa and Hotaru. If
something had happened to her we would expect ChibiUsa to
have already alerted us." Neptune said.
"Ah, why was she carrying Hotaru and ChibiUsa?"
Minako asked.
"We'll explain later." Uranus said, knowing that
right now the battle was not relevant to the issue at hand.
"So she's at Hotaru's house, and the two of them
can't answer their communicator. I guess that makes sense."
Rei figured.
"That might be true. But, Neptune you said she was
flying right." Ami asked
"Hai."
"Then there is another possibility. If the power loss
occurred while she was flying." Ami began
And the others finished with, "Then she might have
crashed." which was an option that also would explain why
ChibiUsa had not contacted them - she was injured as well.
"Neptune, Uranus do you know which way Usagi was
going." Venus asked.
"Iie she was just trying to get away from here as
fast as possible and I don't think she stayed flying the
same course she left on, or at least she didn't if she was
smart. The new enemy that suddenly appeared here was
gunning specifically for her." Uranus replied. "Oh and we
have another problem. In order to deal with this enemy,
Pluto had to seal her away in a stasis field. This required
the power of a very powerful artifact, the Holy Grail,
which that bastard Rubeus now has."
"How did Rubeus get a hold..."Makoto began but was cut
off by Minako
"We can worry about that later. With Rubeus choosing
now to set off his trap and also having possession of that
artifact, he must have something major planned. We need to
find Usagi and take out the rest of these energy collectors
now so that we can stop whatever he has planned."
"Hai." The others all agreed.
"In that case minna-san henshin yo." Minako
instructed.
"So how do we go about finding Usagi?" Jupiter asked
once the transformations were finished. And with that they
quickly began planning their search strategy.

* * * * * * * * *

"Owie, what did I hit my head on?" Usagi mumbled as
she began to stir. Feeling very lethargic, Usagi wanted to
do nothing more than to drift back off to sleep. But her
back felt like it was on fire and she knew sleep would not
come again. Wondering why her back was in so much pain she
became aware of some warm bodies pressed up against her
chest. Now really opening her eyes and taking in her
surroundings, she directed her gaze down along her body and
found two girls curled up against her stomach. Seeing them,
she thought <Hotaru and ChibiUsa.> happily to herself as a
warm feeling spread through her body.
Moving her right arm so that she could wrap it around
the two children, Usagi relaxed for a few moments more.
Seeing the two of them asleep as they were pushed her own
pain out of her mind for the moment. With a smile still on
her face, she began looking around, trying to remember how
they had ended up in a grove of trees. And slowly the
memories of the battle at the Crown and the resulting
flight across town came back to her. But neither of those
explained why they had crashed or why she was feeling so
tired right now. <That's right, I suddenly felt very
drained while I was flying and then we crashed.> Usagi
realized, figuring out the missing piece of the puzzle.
<Though why am I feeling so drained right now? Maybe I'm
getting sick? Wohoo no school tomorrow.> Usagi thought with
a smile, hoping that to be the reason and also knowing that
she would need to see Mizuno-san and Ami-chan for a checkup
in the morning.
Having figured out what all that had happened, Usagi
turned her gaze back to her two charges. Now noticing that
it was getting quite late out, she knew that as much as she
really didn't want to get up, they needed to head home.
<But when I get home we can then take a nice relaxing bath
in the furo and there will be a nice warm bed instead of
this hard ground.> she thought to herself as she began to
become aware of the pain in her back again.
Using the arm that was wrapped around the two girls,
she softly shook the two of them. Then seeing their eyes
open, she asked them, "Hotaru-chan, ChibiUsa, are the two
of you okay?"
"Uhh, what happened?" ChibiUsa moaned as she began to
come to.
Beside ChibiUsa, Hotaru gave a quiet little moan as
she too awoke and then looking around blinked her eyes a
few times as she tried to make sense of what had just
happened. Things had been going so smoothly, she was having
a good time with ChibiUsa's cousin's friends and was once
again beginning to look on her talent as maybe a gift
instead of a curse. That was when all hell broke loose.
There was that strange woman who accused Usagi of being
Sailor Moon, which had been borne out shortly after with
Sailor Senshi revealing themselves. Then in the midst of a
terrifying battle, Usagi had taken her and ChibiUsa in her
arms and jumped out of a window, it was then that she had
learned that Usagi had wings and could fly. With a smile,
Hotaru remembered how after the initial bit of fright, she
had come to quickly enjoy that thrill. Of course that was
before they had suddenly plummeted to the ground. Finishing
her review of what had happened; Hotaru looked up at Usagi
and replied, "Hai, I'm okay. Are you?" concerned over
whatever had caused Usagi to go down.
"Hai, I think so. I'm just very tired for some
reason. And no don't worry about healing me; you have
already done enough for today with Michiru and then during
the battle." Usagi said waving off the attempt at healing
that was bound to come. Then with a smile she asked,
"However, the two of you could help me get up."
"Hai," both ChibiUsa and Hotaru energetically replied
as they bounded off Usagi and helped her up, both of them
instantly forgetting about their own injuries.
"Okaa-san you don't look good" ChibiUsa stated after
finally getting a good look at her mother.
"Hai, my back is killing me and I am feeling even
worse than I did at auntie Misaki's. My crescent moon is
visible isn't it?"
"Hai," ChibiUsa replied.
"Was afraid so, I'll have to ask Ami what's
happening." Usagi said. "Come let's get out of the woods."
At first Usagi tried to walk unassisted, but after
stumbling with every step, ChibiUsa and Hotaru finally
forced her to accept some assistance. While it was not
easy, given the relative size difference between the two of
them and her, they managed to find a way to help her walk.
As they moved slowly through the wooded area of the park,
Usagi spoke to Hotaru. "Hotaru-chan I know you must have a
lot of questions about this evening. When we get back to
the house, I will answer all that you have. You need not
worry about knowing that we are Sailor Senshi, I trust
you."
"Arigatoo Usagi." Hotaru said thanking Usagi as an
unformalized worry that she had was laid to waste.
Sometime later the group finally reached the edge of
the park. Just as they were about to step out from behind
the last of the trees, Hotaru pointed out that they had a
slight problem - Usagi being quite a draw with her wings
visible. Of course the two of them were not much more
inconspicuous given the dirt all over their clothes and the
occasional twig in their hair, but at least that could be
passed off as them having been a bit rambunctious in the
park. After discussing the problem for a minute, Usagi gave
Hotaru some money so that she could run into a nearby store
and pick up a light jacket and a baseball cap for Usagi to
wear.
Leaving ChibiUsa with Usagi, Hotaru went into the
store. She had seen how torn her friend was between leaving
Usagi, her mother, and coming with her, so Hotaru had
suggested to ChibiUsa that she stay to look after Usagi.
Shaking her head, Hotaru wondered how Usagi could be
ChibiUsa's mother. <But if Usagi could fly, then why not?>
she thought to herself with a smile. Noticing the odd looks
she was getting from the others in the store, Hotaru
hurried to an appropriate rack and selected the first
jacket that appeared to be of the right size. Then grabbing
a baseball cap, she went to pay. Accepting the purchases
back, a thought came to her and she asked the cashier as to
the location of a pay phone.
"Moshi moshi." came Ikuko's response as she picked up
the phone.
"Moshi moshi Tsukino-san, this is Hotaru."
"Hotaru-chan is everything okay? We were getting a
bit worried about you, ChibiUsa, and Usagi."
"Iie, Usagi is not feeling very well and ChibiUsa and
I have to help her to walk."
On the other end of the phone, Ikuko gave a slight
sigh of relief. She had been very worried every since
Mamoru had called them ten or so minutes earlier greatly
agitated. He had suddenly felt his link with Usagi fade to
such a degree that he was no longer able sense her
presence. And while based on Hotaru's description it
sounded like something was probably very wrong with Usagi,
at least she was alive and that was all that mattered to
the mother right now. "Hotaru-chan, tell me where the three
of you are and I will send Kenji to go pick you up." And so
after telling Ikuko where the three of them were, Hotaru
returned to where she had left ChibiUsa and Usagi.
Usagi looked up from where she had been lightly
dozing against a tree as ChibiUsa announced Hotaru's
return. Giving the black-haired girl a smile, she accepted
the jacket and cap and put them on. Then seeing a slightly
guilty look on Hotaru's face, she asked the younger girl
what the matter was.
"Gomen Usagi, but I didn't think you would be able to
make it back to your house by yourself so I called your
mom. She is having your dad come over here to meet us. I
didn't tell them what happened only that you weren't
feeling well."
"Don't worry about it Hotaru. Guess I should have
told you this while we were walking here, but my parents
know about me and ChibiUsa, so you don't have to worry
about hiding anything. Though I guess your limited
explanation might help keep my mom from freaking too much
before we get home."
Hotaru smiled at that, relieved that she hadn't done
anything wrong. With that taken care of, the group of three
moved out to a nearby park bench to wait for the arrival of
Usagi's father. It was about ten minutes later, that
Tsukino Kenji drove up in the family car and three of them
got in for the drive home.
"What happened to the three of you?" Kenji asked.
"I don't know, I was flying and then lost all of my
strength. Hopefully I am just getting sick" Usagi
explained.
"Have you told Ami about this?" Kenji asked.
"Iie, I haven't seen her since we fell."
"How about your communicator, or did you damage it in
the fall?" Kenji asked
"Usagi no baka." ChibiUsa chided her mother as Usagi
let her head fall and bounce as she realized she had
forgotten that she had a communicator which she could have
used to call for help.
Activating her communicator she was surprised to be
barraged by a bunch of Senshi happy that she was okay. It
took a while for her to get the story out of them regarding
Rubeus's trap, following which she explained what had
happened to the three of them. With the immediate crisis of
locating Usagi over, the communicator conference turned to
how best to find and destroy the additional energy
collectors. Keeping a quick pace of action, the Senshi
quickly decided to pair of Uranus with Neptune, Mars with
Venus, Jupiter with Mercury and Tuxedo Kamen with Ryo while
Usagi and ChibiUsa returned to the Tsukino household so
that Usagi could rest.
"Don't worry momma, they'll get those energy
collectors soon and then you'll have all your energy back."
ChibiUsa said from the back seat as she tried to wrap her
arms around the seat in front of her so that she could hug
Usagi.
The ride home thankfully was short and then the two
young girls were headed into the house, while Kenji helped
his daughter walk in. Entering the house, ChibiUsa and
Hotaru came to a halt as they saw Eudial having tea with
Ikuko. After getting over their initial shock they both
realized that the shouldn't be surprised to see Eudial
here; after all they had left a note saying this was where
Hotaru was going to be spending the night. And with that
they slipped off their shoes and continued into the house.
"Konnichiwa Eudial-san." Hotaru said as she greeted
the older woman.
"It's good to see that you are okay after that attack
on the house Hotaru-chan." Eudial replied with genuine
happiness in her eyes. "I was so worried about you when I
saw the house and how badly it was damaged. You father will
be happy to learn that you are okay. I have been talking
with Tsukino-Ikuko while we have been waiting for the three
of you to get home and we both agree that it would be best
for you to stay here while the house is repaired."
"Arigatoo." Hotaru said to Eudial. And then turning
to Ikuko she gave the woman a large bow and said, "Arigatoo
Tsukino-san for letting me stay here. I am sorry that
ChibiUsa and I didn't have the opportunity to ask you
before now."
"Don't worry Hotaru-chan. I am happy to have you
here. Now the three of you look like you have seen some
better days so why don't you all head upstairs and take a
bath.
"Hai!" the three girls said.
"Oh, Hotaru, before you go. You father wants to see
you to come by Mugen around ten tomorrow morning; he thinks
he has the cure to your illness ready." Eudial said.
"Really?!" Hotaru asked, not believing her ears.
"Hai." Eudial confirmed.
"Hotaru!" ChibiUsa screamed as she leapt at her
friend and smothered her up into a bone wrenching hug of
happiness. "I'm so happy for you."
"Umm... ChibiUsa why don't you let Hotaru breath a
little bit." Usagi said. And then addressing Hotaru with a
smile, "Congratulations Hotaru. If I was not feeling so
under the weather I probably would be doing the same thing
as ChibiUsa right now."
"Okay, off to your bath the three of you." Ikuko said
as she began corralling them to the base of the stairs.
Watching the three girls go, Eudial was very happy
for Hotaru. Not only was the girl going to be cured
tomorrow, she had really found a pair of good friends.
Those two loved her unconditionally. It was too bad Hotaru
had to go for all those years without friends like those
two. Well at least she now had them. Her spirits uplifted
even more; Eudial finished her tea and took her leave of
the Tsukino household.

* * * * * * * * *

Racing through the night skies, the Sailor Senshi
hunted as fast as they could for the extra energy
collectors. Uranus remarked to herself that it was a quite
brilliant move by Rubeus - use two different methods of
hiding the crystals. That way should they find one half
they would think they had uncovered his secret plan, not
realizing that he had a second layer of cloak and dagger.
As much as she was upset that Rubeus had managed to pull
this over them, she was very glad that they had found that
first batch. If they hadn't there was no doubt in her mind
that the princess would now be dead.
"Over there." Neptune said after pausing to look at
her mirror.
"You mean by that large cherry tree?" Uranus asked
"Hai, my mirror is showing a large swirling of dark
energy enveloping that tree. The energy of the crystal
point must be why it has grown so large." Neptune replied
indicating how the cherry blossom tree in question was at
least double the size of the rest of the trees in the
grove.
"Any idea of how we get at the energy collecting
crystal without destroying the tree?" Uranus asked, hoping
that they could avoid destroying such a beautiful tree. Her
first instinct of course was to say heck with the tree, the
princess needed them. However, she knew her Highness would
not accept that as a valid trade and with her stable for
the moment she could not use the excuse that they didn't
have time to look for an alternative."
Thinking to herself, Neptune tried to figure out a
way to extract the enemy's crystal. In the back of her mind
she had a vague idea that somehow it should be possible.
Then looking down at her mirror, she got an idea. Jumping
down off the roof of the building they were standing on,
she walked up to the tree. Then holding out her mirror, she
said, "Submarine Reflection." and hoped that the beam of
energy that it emitted would not destroy the tree.
Uranus quickly followed her partner down to the
ground. Seeing the attack Neptune fired at the tree, she
was about to chide her partner for destroying the tree;
however, when the attack finished, the tree was still
standing there. But now the tree was bathed in a silver
glow that itself was wrapped up in a cage of black
lightning. <Well this is obviously the target.> Uranus
thought to herself before she began to circle the tree. She
got about a quarter of the way around when she noticed that
all of the dark energy strands appeared to be radiating
outwards from one point. Following the propagation of the
energy strands, she located Rubeus's crystal.
"Now this is something that I can do something
about." Uranus commented to herself as she summoned her
saber. And then with a fluid slash, she had sliced the
crystal into two parts. Watching on with satisfaction, she
followed the subsequent disintegration of the crystal and
the vanishing of its dark energy. She was then momentarily
blinded by the light of the crystal point as the tree flare
brightly, with the energy of the Crystal Point no longer
constrained.
"Beautiful." Neptune commented from where she had
come up beside Uranus.
"Hai, we need to bring her highness here sometime in
the future and have you do that trick with the mirror
again." Uranus replied, also awed by how beautiful the
Cherry Blossom tree looked enveloped in the silver light.
The two paused there for a little while, just watching the
energy arc up into the sky. It was not till the silver
light vanished with the fading of the spell that Neptune
had cast that the two of them remembered their mission. And
then in a blink of the eye the two of them were on the move
again, looking for the next Crystal Point.

* * * * * * * * *

Sitting in the bath with ChibiUsa and Hotaru, Usagi
suddenly felt a jolt. This drew the attention of ChibiUsa,
"Momma are you okay?"
Looking down at the worried ChibiUsa, Usagi replied,
"Hai, I am. Actually I am feeling a little bit better now
than before. I guess the others must have found one of the
objects that was draining my power."
It was at this point that Hotaru remembered about
Usagi being Sailor Moon. The recent learning of her pending
cure had of course distracted her from those thoughts.
Looking over at ChibiUsa, she asked, "ChibiUsa-chan why do
you call Usagi momma?"
Smiling with a Cheshire cat's smile, ChibiUsa
replied, "Because she is."
"Now ChibiUsa, be nice to Hotaru." Usagi said chiding
her daughter for trying to confuse Hotaru. "Hotaru-chan,
ChibiUsa is from the future. So while she has not yet been
born, I will be her mother." Hotaru gave a little nod of
understanding with that explanation as it did at least
explain why the two were so close in age. "One of the
Sailor Senshi, Sailor Pluto, is guardian over time. And
ChibiUsa here was sent back in time to train to be a Sailor
Senshi."
"You're a Sailor Senshi too?" Hotaru asked her friend
with eagerness in her voice.
"Hai, I'm Sailor ChibiMoon." She said while striking
the best pose she could while seated in the bath.
"Sugoi." ChibiUsa commented before chuckling at
ChibiUsa's attempt to strike a pose.
"I'll show you my Senshi form once we get out of the
bath."
"So do you have any cool moves?" Hotaru eagerly
asked.
This caused ChibiUsa to look a little downtrodden,
given the general ineffectiveness of her own scepter
attack. She was saved from further embarrassment by Usagi.
"Hai, she can form her tiara into a powerful energy
discuss" Usagi said mentioning that attack that ChibiUsa
had used at auntie Misaki's and had apparently forgotten
about. "And I am sure as she gets better she will develop
more. Though I think nothing can top Mercury's snowman
disguise." That comment caused ChibiUsa to break out
laughing. While neither of them had seen the snowman Ami
had turned herself into and were really disappointed that
they had missed it, they had gotten a good enough
description from Makoto.
"Huh?" Hotaru asked, wanting to know the joke. And
with that, Usagi and ChibiUsa began to relate the snowman
incident and from there the conversation drew onto other
Sailor Senshi topics.

* * * * * * * * *

As the night drew into the wee hours of the morning,
the Senshi finally concluded that they had probably found
all of the energy collecting crystals. They had found an
equal number of crystals as to those they had destroyed a
few days earlier and when two hours of searching following
the last discovered crystal failed to turn anymore up, Ami
decided that it was likely there were no more. Satisfied
with their search efforts, the Senshi had returned to their
homes to try to get some sleep in preparation for the next
day, for each knew that they would likely be spending the
day fighting. While Ami wanted to spend time analyzing the
measurements that she had taken at some of the infected
Crystal Points, her mom had sent her straight to bed.
As for Tomoe, he worked through the evening and into
the wee hours of the night making various final adjustments
to his gateway generator. Though, before he had started on
the generator he had prepared a batch of daimon eggs to be
quickly matured using the energy supply that Rubeus had
found. Deciding to only mature them to the minimal degree
possible, he was able to mature a batch of eggs every hour
and by the time the energy supply had died out, he had a
few hundred warriors. While they were nowhere as strong as
the individually matured Daimons, he figured that they
would be sufficient to delay the advance of anybody who
detected the opening of the portal.
For his part, Rubeus was making arrangements of his
own for the inevitable arrival of the Sailor Senshi. While
the trick with the Crystal Points had allowed him to get
away with the Holy Grail without issue, he was not foolish
enough to think that he was lucky enough to have killed
Sailor Moon. And in any case when the Sailor Senshi
arrived, they would be coming at him and Tomoe like bats
out of hell for what he had done to their leader. And for
that he would need some cannon fodder, a job which the rest
of Tomoe's assistants fit the bill perfectly for as well as
his associates.
While he was willing to let his associates delay the
Sailor Senshi for a few minutes with just their guns, he
had decided to augment the powers of the witches. After
all, they already had some experience with magic, so giving
them some more would not be a waste. And so prior to giving
the Grail to Tomoe, he had used some of its energy to
charge his own shard of the Wiseman's crystal. When he was
restricted to just his own powers, he had been barely able
to caste the spell that allowed Kaolinite to be gifted by
the Wiseman with some of his powers. But this time by using
some of the power of the Grail he would be easily able to
bring Tellu, Viluy, Cyprine and Pitol to see the Wiseman.

* * * * * * * * *

With the arrival of morning, Luna opened her eyes.
Unwrapping herself from Diana, she stood up and then
stretching she prepared for the daily morning ritual of
awakening Usagi. Though, if she had remembered her
conversation with Ikuko the previous night, she would not
have bothered. After seeing the gashes in Usagi's back as
the girl was getting out of the bath and then hearing about
the various battles, Ikuko had declared that Usagi was
going to spend today at home in bed. At the time Luna had
agreed that Usagi would be best served getting some needed
rest, though she also suspected that Ikuko's real
motivation was partially a need to mother her daughter
some.
But as it was, Luna was still half asleep and with
her mind not thinking straight yet she just went about her
normal morning routine of waking Usagi. And while it was
nowhere as bad as it was before ChibiUsa's arrival, it was
still not an easy task to rouse Usagi out of bed. Padding
over to the bed she absently noted that both of the futons
on the floor were empty, indicating that ChibiUsa and
Hotaru were already up. However, upon leaping up onto the
bed she discovered that conclusion to be wrong. While it
was not unusual to find ChibiUsa curled up with Usagi in
the morning, she was surprised to find Hotaru there curled
up as well. Shaking her head at the scene, she thought to
herself <If Usagi is not careful she is going to end up
with another daughter, especially with how Diana's has
described Hotaru's home life.>
The presence of Hotaru in the bed though did give her
an alternate method by which to wake up her charge. Padding
over to where Hotaru was lying, she licked the young girl's
face. Unlike a Usagi, Hotaru's reaction was not long in
coming. Slowly opening her eyes, Hotaru turned to regard
the cat.
"Morning Luna-chan." She said as she pulled the cat
up to her chest and began to pet her. Then extracting
herself from the grip the other two girls had on her, she
swung her legs over the side of the bed and got up. Still
carrying Luna, she headed to the bathroom to wash up. "So
Usagi and ChibiUsa tell me you can talk." She said as she
placed Luna down on the counter.
<Wha... why did they tell her that?> Luna thought to
herself. But then the memories of everything that had
occurred last night began to finally settle back in,
including the realization that she could have slept in a
little longer. Not dwelling on that mixed luxury, Luna now
remembered that Hotaru had learned about Usagi, Michiru,
Setsuna, and Haruka the other day. Now fully awake, Luna
replied "Hai, that I can. How are you doing this morning?"
"Ok, I'm excited about what my father has for me. I
really would like to not get sick so easily." A giddy
Hotaru replied.
"And the rest of yesterday?" Luna asked. While she
did not want to ruin Hotaru's good mood, she wanted to make
sure that Hotaru was not suffering any ill effects from the
other two incidents she was involved in.
"I don't remember much of the dinosaur attack and I
don't want to think about what happened at Crown. However,
flying with Usagi was very fun." Hotaru finished on an
upbeat, managing to find the good in bad as kinds are bound
to do.
While Hotaru had been talking and going about washing
up, Luna had been watching her intently trying to determine
if the girl was suffering from any physical injuries.
Hotaru did show signs that she was probably still a bit
banged up and there were a couple of bruises visible, but
nothing serious. Satisfied that Hotaru was okay, Luna
followed Hotaru back out of the bathroom.
"Hotaru-chan could you wake up ChibiUsa and Usagi?"
Luna asked as they reentered the bedroom, figuring that it
would be a good idea to get Usagi up for at least a little
bit this morning and that way she could see ChibiUsa off.
"Hai." Hotaru replied before heading over to the bed.
Shaking ChibiUsa, she tried to wakeup her up. It took a few
shakes, but eventually ChibiUsa opened her eyes. "ChibiUsa-
chan time to get up." Hotaru said.
If it had been Usagi, Luna, or Ikuko-sama ChibiUsa
would have mumbled an excuse and snuggled back into sleep.
However, as it was Hotaru, she gave in and open her eyes
the rest of the way before yawning. During this time, Usagi
opened her own eyes and seeing that the other two were
getting up, decided to get up herself. She was still
worried about Hotaru from yesterday and was hoping that the
events wouldn't come back to hit her later in the day.
"Morning Hotaru-chan," Usagi said to Hotaru as she
reached out and gave the girl a quick hug and then giving a
longer hug to ChibiUsa, she said "and to you too muzume."
"Usagi-chan how are you feeling this morning?" Luna
asked Usagi as she got out of the bed.
"Other than many aches leftover from crashing
yesterday, back to normal. Were the others able to find all
the energy collectors?"
"Hai, Ami believes so and I agree with her. And, I'm
glad to here that you are feeling back to normal." Luna
said.

* * * * * * * * *

A little before ten that morning, found Usagi along
with her mother walking Hotaru to the Mugen Academy. Ikuko
had planned on walking Hotaru over by herself, but Usagi
obviously had other plans. She had been in the process of
changing the laundry loads when she had heard the front
door open. Instantly realizing that Usagi was trying to
take Hotaru herself, she had stepped out into the hall and
asked Usagi and Hotaru to wait for a moment.
And it was a good thing that she had caught her
daughter as Usagi had managed to completely forget about
her wings, again. Unfortunately at times for Usagi, the
phrase "you would forget your head if it wasn't attached"
was quite applicable. Thankfully though, she was generally
pretty good about remembering about her wings. And in fact
more often than not it was Ikuko who belatedly forgot about
her daughter's wings when guests were visiting, but in each
case to her relief Usagi had already hidden them. But every
now and then, Usagi tried to leave the house or go to open
the door with them still out. More often than not that
occurred when she was tired such as today. And so after
finishing changing the laundry loads and then outfitting
her daughter with an extra long wind breaker for her wings,
the three of them had headed out.
"So Hotaru-chan what is the first thing you are going
to do when you are all better?" Usagi asked.
"I'm going to go run to ChibiUsa's school to give her
the good news." Hotaru replied enthusiastically.
Chuckling to that, Usagi replied, "That sounds like a
good idea. And then I'm sure Haruka-san would be more than
happy to help you begin training so that you run a
marathon."
"A marathon?" Ikuko asked, having not heard Hotaru's
dream.
"Hai, Hotaru's dream is to be able to run a
marathon." Usagi replied, answering her mother. And then
turning to address Hotaru, she said "And I think that it is
a wonderful dream, which I am going to make sure that you
achieve." while giving the young girl a pat on her back.
"Arigato Usagi-san." A happy Hotaru replied.
As the topic of conversation then drifted onto to how
school was going for Hotaru, they continued their relaxing
walked to the Mugen Academy. And then before either of the
three realized it they were there and Ikuko and Usagi said
they goodbyes to Hotaru. Then after watching her disappear
through the front doors of the school, the two of them
turned to go home. After a few block of walking in silence,
Ikuko began speaking to Usagi.
"Usagi I am very proud with how you have been
handling yourself since ChibiUsa's arrival. I know it may
sound a bit harsh, but I find it hard to believe that you
are the same daughter of mine from before."
Not letting her mother's words sting, Usagi instead
said, "Hai, I know I have done a lot of growing up over
these past few months. Many times I still want to be who I
was before Luna found me, not having to worry about
anything. But whenever I see ChibiUsa I forget all about my
own desires and can only think about her and making sure
that I am the best mother that I can be for her."
"And even though you are just fourteen years old, you
are doing a very good job of being ChibiUsa's mother.
ChibiUsa couldn't have asked for a better mother and the
pride in her eyes over you being her mother is very
evident."
"Arigatoo okaa-san." Usagi replied, "I just wish that
I didn't have to hide that she is my daughter."
Ikuko understood the feeling that Usagi was admitting
to. Just as ChibiUsa was proud of Usagi, so was Usagi proud
of ChibiUsa and she wanted to be able to be able to proudly
be able to introduce ChibiUsa as her daughter instead of
just a distant cousin. "I know; I wish I could tell my
friends that ChibiUsa is my granddaughter as well. And
while you are doing a very good job with your newfound
responsibilities, at the same time I do not want you to
forget to be a teenager. Your father and I are here to
help."

* * * * * * * * *

Racing through the hallways at a pace barely below
that of a run, Hotaru hoped that the treatment wouldn't
take too long and that it would have its effects quickly so
that she could go show off her new healthy body to ChibiUsa
this afternoon. Her father had been working on this
particular invention for quite a while, so she had no doubt
that it would do what it was supposed to, she just hoped
that it would not hurt.
Opening the door to the lab, she spied her father and
cried out, "Poppa!" as she flung herself practically across
the room to grab a hold of him in a hug.
"Hotaru you're full of energy this morning."
Professor Tomoe said with a smile as he caught his
daughter.
"Hai, if I am going to be healthy again this
afternoon, then I won't have to worry about getting tired
anymore."
"Well then we should get to work." Professor Tomoe
replied as he let his daughter go and headed over to the
machine.
Really seeing the machine for the first time, Hotaru
asked, "Poppa how is that going to help make me better?"
the size and design of it scaring her a bit.
"It won't directly make you better. You see, Hotaru-
chan, this is a gateway generator, which will allow us to
bring over a powerful healer." Eudial said as she came up
behind the girl.
"A healer?" Hotaru asked.
"Hai, someone with powers like your own, but with
lots of training." Eudial said, putting the best spin on
what she thought of this mysterious Wiseman. She did not
want to worry Hotaru with her own worries, so for now she
had decided to hide her concerns about Rubeus and his
goals. For now all that mattered was healing Hotaru.
"So how long will it take to open the gateway?"
Rubeus asked Tomoe as he entered the lab as well.
"I'm not sure, but probably a few hours. Yesterday's
temporal disruptions have substantially complicated the
calculations and I have only now gotten the initial ones
finished. Now I need to begin probing the gateway, so that
I can get the information I need before I activate the
power of the Grail."
While Rubeus didn't look too pleased with that
response, he did not say anything and instead took a seat
in the corner of the room. He was close enough to bringing
back the Wiseman that minor time delays would not matter.
And anyways he had plenty of cannon fodder should the
Sailor Senshi discover their plans.

* * * * * * * * *

Half an hour after lunch, the classroom could barely
be described as alive. With lunch settling nicely in their
stomachs, the students drifted in and out from following
the English lesson and even Haruna did not have the energy
to scold more than a few of the students for not paying
attention. And so, when an alarm began buzzing with a rough
approximation of an air raid siren, the more awake members
of the class and Haruna jumped slightly while the less
awake members ended up falling out of their chairs.
Turning to find the culprit, Haruna did not have to
look very hard, as it was impossible to miss one very read
faced Mizuno Ami. Instantly putting two and two together,
Haruna realized that the alarm must indicate some kind of
Senshi business. And with thoughts of the previous day's
devastation, she said, "Mizuno-san, you might want to think
of using a more subtle setting on your beeper, such as
possibly a vibrate mode. However, you are dismissed to
check in with your mother."
"Gomen, Haruna-sensei for the disruption, I won't let
it happen again." Ami said after standing and while bowing
quite low in apology to her teacher.
Once she had left the classroom, Ami summoned her
computer and quickly acknowledged the alarm. Now with that
noise maker silenced, she headed down the hallway to the
nearest girls restroom. Entering one of the stalls, she
began examining the readout from her computer. <Let's see
"temporal breach attempt". "Non response of Guardian of
Spacetime", must be because of that stasis field Pluto is
in. Is Rubeus unleashing another demon like yesterdays?
Hmm... no these readings don't look anything from yesterday's
battle.> Ami thought to herself as she began to shift
through the various sensor readings. Before long she
realized that Rubeus must be attempting to open a portal to
the Time Gate, probably so that he could bring
reinforcements from the future. Now having figured out the
what, Ami went about trying to determine the where.
Unfortunately, the readings were too diffuse to adequately
conclude that. In fact, the alarm appeared to have been
trigged by the Gate itself, which she realized was probably
why the computer had gone into a crisis mode, as the Gate
logic would have hit a crisis response when it couldn't
contact its Guardian.
A couple of minutes more and still not having figured
out the where, Ami was about ready to go do some roof
hopping in hope of finding the where, when she remembered
the readings she had taken yesterday evening and in the wee
hours of this morning during the hunt for those extra
Crystal Points. The analysis on where that energy might
have been directed was still running and she had a strong
feeling that that energy was being used at least partially
for creating this breach. Her fingers flying over the
keyboard, Ami issued the commands to cross compare the two
sets of measurements and then under a minute later she had
her answer, Mugen Academy.
Closing her computer and stowing it back in her
subspace pocket, Ami left the bathroom. Taking a moment to
stop by the classroom, she let Haruna know that she had to
leave and then headed down the hall as she walked she
activated the panic button on her communicator. Once
outside, she walked down the street a few blocks till she
found an appropriate alleyway to henshin. Once she was
transformed, she leapt up onto the roof of a nearby
building and waited there for the others to check in.
Jupiter was only a few minutes behind her in reaching
the roof, having gotten herself sent to the principal's
office on purpose a few minutes after Ami had left. And
during the distraction that Makoto had caused, Ryo had
slipped out of the classroom and had arrived on the roof
with Jupiter. Usagi, of course being at home, had responded
immediately. Minako, Rei, Haruka and Michiru were all a few
minutes after that. Once they were all online, Mercury told
them to meet her on the roof of the Mugen Academy. And
Haruka and Michiru were, as to be expected, quite surprised
when they learned that it was their school that appeared to
be Rubeus's base of operations.

* * * * * * * * *

Sensing the arrival of the Sailor Senshi, Rubeus
thought to himself, <Well it looks like the Rabbit's
protectors have arrived. Well time to unleash the demons.>
And with that Rubeus walked over to the counter that held
the containers of semi-matured Daimon egg broth. And then
grabbing a hold of the containers he teleported to the
roof.
"Well, well you are being as annoying as I had
expected." Rubeus said as he appeared in front of the
Senshi.
"Rubeus!" replied the Sailor Senshi when they saw
him.
"I'm afraid that I don't have a good quality droid
for you to face today, but quantity here will hopefully
make up for that." Rubeus said as he emptied the buckets
onto the roof of the building.
"Yuck, what is this stuff?" Venus asked as she backed
away from the foul looking liquid.
Scanning it with her computer, Mercury was about to
say that it appeared to have some of the same properties of
the demons they had been fighting lately, when humanoid
like shapes began to grow out of the liquid.
"Okay, instant demon I take." Uranus replied before
slashing one of the demons with her sword. The blade cut
smoothly into and through the demon to Uranus's delight and
she smiled as the two halves of the demon returned to a
liquid state and fell back into the muck. But then to her
consternation, a new demon reformed out of the muck to take
its fallen comrade's place. "Umm... this can't be good." She
said as she realized that they might have a slight problem.
While Uranus was examining her sword work, Neptune
had fired off a "Deep Submerge." blowing apart a dozen of
the demons. Mercury for her part had frozen a series of
them into ice statues, which then promptly shattered and
Venus caught three of them in a row with one of her
crescent beams. And unfortunately like the one Uranus had
sliced in two, all of the demons they destroyed were
quickly replaced by new ones coming out of the muck.
"Mercury-chan why aren't these demons staying dead?"
Sailor Moon asked as she dashed behind Mars to get away
from some of the advancing demons, demons which were
quickly fried by Mars.
"Yeah how are we supposed to kill them if they keep
reforming?" Jupiter added.
Deploying her visor and summoning her computer,
Mercury began scanning the demons and the muck that covered
the ground. As she tried to find a way to kill the demons,
the rest of the Senshi formed up a wall between her and the
advancing demon hoard. Settling on quickly firing off their
attacks with the least power possible, the Senshi moved
from one demon to the next, each focusing on the area just
in front of them. This process of hitting the demon with an
attack, watching it collapse back into the muck only to be
replaced moments later continued for over ten minutes
before Mercury finally spoke up.
"Minna-san I think I know why the demons aren't
staying dead. This muck that is on the ground is the base
component of the demons we have been fighting lately. When
it forms up into a demon, it is doing so with only the bare
minimum of energy needed for maintaining a demon form. So
when we destroy it, we aren't doing any significant
damage." Mercury said.
"Lovely" was Uranus's only reply between slashes with
her sword as she cleaved one demon and then had to quickly
bring her sword around to cleave another.
During the time that it took for Mercury to do her
calculations, the demons had closed into melee range. And
while Uranus was being forced to hack left and right non-
stop, things were going relatively good for her - at least
in comparison to the other Senshi. As none of the others
had any kind of melee weapons and had so been forced into
hand-to-hand contact with the gelatinous creatures. And
while Venus did have her chain, which could be considered a
melee weapon, her skill with it was insufficient for the
current task at hand.
Actually Sailor Moon did have an improvised melee
weapon as well - her scepter. She hadn't planned on using
it as a club, but once the hoard of demons got too close it
was impossible for her to use it for its intended purpose
and so she had resorted to bashing them with the club.
While not as effective as a sword, a couple bashes from the
club, though, was sufficient to take down one of the
demons. And with Mars and ChibiMoon helping to cover her,
she wasn't in anymore danger than the rest of the group in
being overwhelmed. The only one in the group not bothered
by the demons was Ryo who after slicing too many demons
with his claws and feeling sick each time he sliced into
that gooey substance had decided to phase out and wait out
of this battle. Even Tuxedo-Kamen's arrival did nothing to
help turn the tide of the battle as he quickly discovered
that he should have invested in Rose futures before he too
was forced into just bashing the demons with his cane.
With her wings, Sailor Moon was a bit worse off in
fighting the demons than the others were as she had more
body area that could get covered in that demonic goop. And
furthermore like happened to Ryo, she was finding that her
body did not react well to getting demon remnants on her
wings. But she managed to put up with the effects without
too much more wining than the others were doing, but when
Venus speared drenching her left side in the broth that was
finally too much for Usagi to handle anymore. And so, with
a distinct desire to get away from that substance, she took
to the air. Now hanging in the air above the demonic ooze
that was preventing their entry into the school, Usagi
tried to think of some way to get past what was in affect a
multi-headed demon. The power of her scepter was
insufficient to blast away enough of the ooze to make a
difference. Her Eternal Tier was another option open to
her; it had worked the other day. But she knew that if she
was forced to resort to using its power now, she wouldn't
have sufficient strength left to fight Rubeus. But if the
current state of affairs went on much longer that wouldn't
really matter. Putting that depressing thought out of her
mind, she tried to think of another solution. <If only
there was some way to purify this ooze all at once. Wait,
that's it.> she thought to herself as she hit upon the
solution.
Calling down to the others, Sailor Moon said, "Minna-
san I have an idea"
Now finally noticing that Sailor Moon was no longer
on the ground, Mars grumbled, "Just great, the Odango-atama
finally remembers she can fly, leaving us to fight these
things hand-to-hand." Then tossing the demon she was
currently fighting with to the ground, Mars turned and
threw an ofuda onto another demon. Unfortunately she failed
to notice a second demon, one which now lunged at her legs,
knocking her to the ground. And then before she could move
to standup, the one that had been the target of her ofuda
turned back into ooze and fell on top of her. Quickly
finding it difficult to breath, Mars struggled to free
herself.
Seeing Mars trapped on the ground, Venus and Jupiter
rushed to her side, but were clueless as to how to free
her. Each time they tried to grab a hold of her, their
fingers would slide off her arms. The problem of course
being the ooze that was coating Mars's body, but they dared
not use their attacks to free her from the ooze, sure that
all that that would accomplish would be to hurt Mars even
more.
Looking down on the situation that was quickly
overwhelming her friends, Sailor Moon summoned the
Ginzuishou. With a cry of "Moon healing Escalation" she
sent a wave of purifying energy towards where the others
were fighting. As the energy passed across the demons, they
lost their cohesion and fell down into the ooze, which
itself was quickly beginning to drain away as it turned
into nothing more than dust. Then with the spell completed,
she dropped quickly back to the ground, landing beside
Mars.
Lifting her second best friend up off the ground, she
asked, "Mars-chan you okay?"
Seeing the worried face of her friend, Mars smiled as
she said "Hai, at least now I am."
Then turning to look at everyone else, Usagi asked
"Is everyone else okay?" And when they replied in the
affirmative, she said, "Well then let's go stop Rubeus."
With a nod of agreement the group of eight Senshi,
one tuxedo clad warrior, and one alien dropped down to the
street and rushed into the school building.
"Okay Mercury which way do we go now?" Venus asked
after they entered the school.
"Give me a moment." Mercury replied as she began
trying to determine where the location of this gateway
generator was.
While Mercury was doing her analysis, the rest of the
Senshi were trying their best to ignore the scene that they
were in the process of creating, as students all around
them stopped and turned to stare at the Sailor Senshi who
had barged into through the front door of the school.
"Umm minna-san, shouldn't we do something about these
kids?" Uranus asked after recognizing one too many of her
schoolmates.
"Well we'll hopefully be going soon and then they can
go back to what they were doing." Mars replied.
"Iie, that's not what I meant. We are probably going
to be fighting Rubeus somewhere in this building and..."
"We've got to get them out of here!" Usagi exclaimed
as she realized what Uranus meant.
Then turning to ask Uranus how to find the main
office, she was shoved off her feet by Ryo. Rolling with
Sailor Moon on the ground, Ryo yelled, "Scatter!"
Stirred into action by Ryo's sudden action and then
even more so by the sound of gun fire, the Senshi quickly
found what cover they could in the hall. Looking over to
where Sailor Moon had been standing a few moments earlier,
they saw the floor had been torn up by a series of bullet
shots.
"Damn this is not good." Uranus grumbled as she
risked a peak around one of the lockers. "There are far too
many children around here." She said as she noticed a group
of fourth graders down one of the halls who only moments
ago were heading there way.
"Hai, we can't afford to fight here." Venus agreed.
Trapped out in the middle of the floor, Sailor Moon
and Ryo were currently hiding behind a shield that Usagi
was projecting using the Ginzuishou. Thankfully the impact
of bullets from the automatic weapons was not very
draining.
"Anyone have any good ideas?" Jupiter asked while
trying to figure out how to send one of her attacks down
the hall without hitting any of the students who were also
trapped out there in the main hallway.
"If they can't see us, then we will have an opening."
Mercury replied as she dashed out into the center of the
hall with her arms pulled up into the beginning stance of
her spell. Then acting before the enemy could get a bead on
her, she summoned her fog with the words "Mists of the fox"
not realizing that she had cast a different spell than her
normal one.
As soon as she said her words, the hall and all
adjoining corridors quickly became enveloped in a heavy fog
as the ambient light faded to being no stronger than that
of weak moonlight. Deploying her visor, Mercury and the
others began to cautiously make their way down towards
their enemy, moving quietly so as to not give away their
position.
Beside Mercury, Mars shivered as she began to hear
the sounds of rustling and motion in the distance. Looking
around, she tried to peer through the fog to find the
source of the noise, but this latest fog of Mercury's was
far stronger than any of her previous ones and she could
barely see more than a few feet in front of her face and
part of her mind was even telling her she was lost in a
thick forest. Straining her ears even more so to locate the
source of the noise, she realized that whatever it was, it
was all around her. And now her spiritual sense began
screaming about some kind of presence in this fog, almost
as if it was alive. It was then that she began to hear
grown men begin to scream and the assault rifles open up
again. Falling back into a ready stance, she realized after
a few moments that none of the shots were coming their way.
Listening more closely to the sounds of the weapons, she
realized that they were being fired in random directions.
Though, now their sound had diminished some, as well as the
number of screams.
"Nani-ka" came the questioning voice of Mercury a few
moments later just before she suddenly dissolved the mist.
Able to now see where they were moving, the rest of the
group quickly moved up beside Mercury and saw what had
surprised their friend. There on the ground lay the bodies
of six men, each sporting a series of nasty cuts and teeth
marks. Beside them lay their weapons, or what remained of
them, all but one of them had been broken into at least two
parts. The sixth weapon quickly proceeded to join the
others when Uranus saw that it was still in one piece, her
sword neatly cleaving it.
"What happened?" Neptune asked.
"I don't know; Rubeus must have some other demon in
the area, one that did not discriminate between friend and
foe and took advantage of my mist to attack." Mercury
hypothesized.
"Hai, I agree with Mercury. While Mercury's mist was
obscuring everything, I felt another almost demonic
presence in the area." Mars said.
"Great, so we have another demon to worry about?"
Jupiter asked.
"Hai, and Rubeus has designed one that makes sure
that I can't use my mist to buy us time and cover." Mercury
replied, not too happy with their realization.
"Well then what now?" Venus asked
"Well at least it doesn't look like we have to worry
about evacuating the students anymore." Ami replied as she
nodded her head towards one of the blaring fire alarms,
apparently someone had pulled the alarm while the Senshi
were busy with the gunmen. Then pulling out her computer,
she ran some scans before continuing. "It looks like Rubeus
has set up shop in the basement." And with that the group
took off towards the nearest stairwell with Uranus and
Neptune in the lead.
Taking the stairs one landing at a time, the warriors
quickly reached the lowest basement level and then without
pausing they burst through the fire door and into the
hallway.
"Well, well it looks like the Sailor Senshi managed
to get past the Daimon broth." came a woman's voice that of
Tellu.
"In that case, I guess it is time for us to try out
these new powers that Rubeus-sama has given us and prove
that unlike Kaolinite and Mimete that the rest of Witches 5
are not pathetic failures." Pitol added.
"Hai, and I think I will start with the dumb blond."
Cyprine said moments before unleashing a blast of energy at
Venus.
Quickly following suit the other three members of the
basement welcoming committee attacked the gathered Sailor
Senshi as well. Scattering out of the way, the Sailor
Senshi quickly came to appreciate that the extra wide size
of the basement hallways, as it gave them room to actually
dodge out of the way of the attacks. Otherwise taking them
out would have been no harder than shooting fish in a
barrel. Counter attacking the witches, the hallway soon
became nothing more than a jumbled melee as witch and
Sailor Senshi unleashed attacks before quickly moving out
of the way of an attack aimed at themselves. As they
fought, Mercury wished she could have used her mist to give
them some cover from the witch's attacks.
Blocking an attack from Ryo and then blasting him
with the other end of her staff, Cyprine called out to her
twin, "Since when did the Sailor Senshi begin recruiting
demons?"
"Don't know. Too bad for it that its invisibility
doesn't work when it is between the two of us." Pitol said
before bringing the glowing end of her staff down on the
back of Ryo causing the Shadow warrior to shriek in pain.
"Hai, though I might just let it go if it would just
shut up." Cyprine said as she blasted Ryo with a blue ball
of energy, resulting in another shriek of pain.
"Ryo-kun!" Mercury screamed as she saw the beating
that her boyfriend was taking. Unleashing a Shine Aqua
Illusion at the red head who had her back to her, Mercury
was surprised when the girl suddenly spun around and
deflected the attack right back at her. Not expecting to be
hit by her own attack, Mercury was suddenly frozen in
place.
"Hmm... looks like we have an artist in this group. And
I thought you just liked playing with your chemistry set."
Cyprine said.
"Well I can't take all the credit, I had a great
model." Pitol replied. "Though, I guess I should share my
talent with others." She said before giving the Mercury
statue a good whack and sending it flying towards the
others. It proceeded to fly midway through the melee before
hitting Sailor Moon in the back knocking her down on top of
Sailor Mars.
"Hey Odango-atama are you putting on some weight?" an
annoyed Sailor Mars said from where she was face down on
the linoleum floor.
"Gomen, something hit me in the back." And then
turning to dislodge what had knocked over she gasped,
before crying out "Mercury-chan!"
"Wha..." Mars said as she worked her way out from under
her princess and then trailed off as she saw the frozen
body of Mercury.
"Well well, now if this isn't a bit touching. How
about some flowers for your funeral?" Tellu suggested
before throwing a handful of seeds at the three of them.
Seeds which midway through the air suddenly sprouted into a
flowering vine with razor sharp needles.
Unable dodge out of the way in time, both Mars and
Sailor Moon cried out in pain as the vines cut into their
exposed flesh and sliced through their uniforms. Ignored by
Tellu, the frozen statue of Mercury finally began to thaw
from the sudden warmth that spread out as Mars began
summoning fireball after fireball in an attempt to burn
away the killer plants. Unable to actually control where
she was summoning the fireballs, bound as her arms and
hands were, most of them lay harmlessly on the ground. But
a few of them appeared close enough to Mercury and some as
well did manage to ignite the binding plant.
Finally free of the trap, Mars advanced on Tellu
while bouncing a fireball in each of her hands. "Now if you
know what is good for you, you'll let me burn all the rest
of the seeds that you have." Stated Mars, but she did not
get to take more than a few steps before the twins launched
a very bruised Ryo at her. Falling to the ground, entrapped
in the many legs of the Shadow Warrior, Mars's mental
defenses cut in and shut down her mind to protect it from
the telepathic contact she was currently having with the
creature.
On the other end of the melee, Jupiter, Uranus, and
Neptune were not having much better luck facing off against
Viluy. Very quickly the trio had learned to stay away from
any electric outlet or ficture in the hallway, as Viluy's
powers over electronics turned each and every one of them
into deadly instruments of war. Stray to close to one and
you would be attacked by electric cables with a life of
their own, each rippling with a nice shocking current.
"Now what?" Uranus asked as Viluy suddenly began
tossing small items out of the pockets of her lab coat.
The items in question upon closer inspection appeared
to be spiders made out of one of those child mechanical
engineering toy building sets. If they weren't involved in
a deadly battle, they might even be quite cute. But as it
was none of them had a good feeling about the swarm of
mechanical spiders that were suddenly being sprawled all
over the floor or the fact that they were slowly marching
towards each one of them. The bad feeling increased when
the back of the lead spiders suddenly opened up and a small
cylinder rose up and was aimed towards the Senshi.
"Umm... I have no idea what is about to happen, but I
say jump!" Jupiter hastily said. And as the three of them
jumped out of the way, three dozen class IV lasers opened
fire blasting substantial chunks out of the basement wall.
Landing, the three of them were very dismayed to
realize that the mechanical spiders had tracked them.
Jupiter and Uranus were blown off their feet by the second
volley of fire. However, Neptune had summoned her mirror
and consequently had reflected the attacks directed at her
back at the swarm of spiders, turning many of them into
smoking wrecks. Or at least for a few moments into smoking
wrecks as very quickly they reformed and began stalking
towards their targets again.
Seeing the reforming spiders from where she had been
knocked to the ground, Uranus just grumbled to herself,
"Great just like the goop from earlier it's another group
of instant heal demon." Then getting to her feet, her
thinking out loud continued, "Well until Mercury gets a
chance to figure out how to stop them for good or the
princess does her trick again, World Shaking." And with
that Uranus blasted a large swath of destruction through
the swarm for a few moments. Following on her lover's lead,
Neptune also began using her Deep Submerge in an attempt to
keep the spiders in pieces.
Also returning to her feet, Jupiter took a few
moments to examine the battle between Uranus, Neptune and
the spiders and got an idea. Rushing into the center of the
swarm of spiders, her brazen move caused both Uranus and
Neptune to stop attacking as all the spiders turned to face
the tasty treat which they now had surrounded.
"Jupiter-chan what the heck do you think you are
doing?" Uranus practically yelled at the Thunder Senshi.
"Well this witch's power seems to be electronics and
you know how bad lightning strikes tend to be for
computers. Well I figured that these spiders might be
similarly vulnerable." Jupiter said explaining her actions
before tuning them out as she began to concentrate drawing
all of the available electrical energy that she could.
Around her the spiders suddenly froze in their motions,
devoid of energy, and the lights began to flicker. As she
drew the electricity toward her body, it arced from the
various sources into the antenna on her tiara. Her body now
crackling with electricity, Jupiter spoke the words.
"Thunder Dragon Plunge." And with that the buildup of
energy around her body suddenly took the form of a dragon
which proceeded to dive straight into the ground, resulting
in a sizzling wave of current radiating away from her body.
And as the wave impacted the spiders, each one briefly lit
up as every circuit was overloaded before becoming nothing
more than a dead husk.
Awed by what was happening, Neptune and Uranus did
not realize till too late that standing on the ground while
an electrical surge was heading your way was probably not
the best of ideas. They only had time to look at each
other's face with the realization of what was about to
happened before the wave hit them too and they screamed out
in pain before they fell to the ground unconscious.
Viluy of course had taken to the air, the moment she
realized what Jupiter was planning to do. As for the rest
of the participants in this battle, the strength of the
surge had died out enough by the time it hit them to cause
them to only stumble in their steps and in the case of the
Sailor Senshi to send nasty looks Jupiter's way.
"Well if you want to play with high voltage, two can
play that way." An annoyed Viluy said before blasting the
recovering Jupiter into a wall with an arc of electricity.

* * * * * * * * *

Venus of course had managed to miss the initial part
of the battle, given that she had been the first target of
the witches and unlike the other Sailor Senshi had not been
able to move out of the way in time. Upon recovering she
had attempted to help Ryo with Cyprine and Pitol but the
twins did not seem to even need to look her way in order to
repeatedly bat her into a wall as they proceeded to fight
Ryo.
Then when the twins had decided they were done
playing with Ryo things had gotten a whole lot worse for
her as they were now able to turn their full attention to
bashing her around with their staves. Quickly realizing
that she was not going to survive long in this 2 on 1
battle and knowing that the others were likewise fully
occupied, she decided to see how much camaraderie the
witches had for each other. Hopefully they would be like
Beryl's generals and would be looking for an opportunity to
off each other, in which case she might just be able to
make it out of this mess alive.
With much effort and pain, Venus slowly led the twin
witches towards where Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Kamen were
trying to avoid being turned into plant fertilizer. Risking
a quick glance to confirm where the Tellu and her opponents
were, Venus leapt into the air and fired off a pair of her
crescent beams, one at each of the two twins. As expected
they easily dodged the energy beams and had retaliated with
an energy attack from their staves - aimed right at where
she was supposed to land. There was no way she could dodge
those attacks, or that would be the case if she was to land
on her feet, but with a smile Venus splayed her body and
closed her eyes knowing that the face plant was going to be
quite painful.
Pitol and Cyprine could only watch on in surprise as
the blonde haired Senshi proceeded to hit the floor face
first, having made no attempt to land on her feet. Looking
at each other with a questioning look for a moment before
looking back to their target, they suddenly realized what
Venus's plan was since at that moment their attacks hit
Tellu square in the back. But then with nothing more than a
shrug, the twins returned to dealing out pain to Venus.
Venus's gambit came at the right moment for Sailor
Moon and Tuxedo Kamen as they had run out of room dodging
the plants that were quickly beginning to cover the entire
floor in the area. To make things even better, as Tellu
attempted to return to her feet, Mars and Ryo rejoined the
fight. Now fighting against two Senshi, one Tuxedo clad
warrior who had limited powers over plants and a Shadow
Warrior Tellu quickly found herself being overwhelmed. With
no one being thrown into her, Mars was now able to
incinerate the plants that Tellu called forth as fast as
the witch tried to call them. And then with a scream of
pain, Tellu was down on the ground as her leg began to
bleed profusely through a series of claw marks.
"What happened?" Sailor Moon asked, not having seen
the attack that had taken Tellu down.
"With the three of you distracting her, I was able to
get in close and cut her with my claws. After much recovery
she will have use of her leg again, and if we bandage the
wound now, she will live." Ryo said, knowing that Usagi
would not want any of their opponents to die if they could
help it.
"Hai," Sailor Moon replied, already moving to patch
up the wound on Tellu's leg. For Tellu's part, the shock of
the blood loss had gotten to her and she had passed out, no
longer a threat.
Then as soon as she had the wound patched up, the
four of them joined Venus in her fight against the twins.
As for the fought against Viluy, Jupiter was now done for
the count. The spell she had cast to take out the spiders
had really taken a lot out of her and as a result she was
only able to put up a token resistance against the witch.
But thankfully, by the time she was fully out of the fight,
Uranus and Neptune were back in and with them no longer
having to worry about tiny spiders packing deadly lasers,
the two of them were able to double team Viluy back into a
corner.
Never moving far from each other's side, Neptune was
able to deflect every blast of electricity that Viluy sent
their way, while Uranus used her sword to slice through any
electrical wires that Viluy attempted to call forth.
Dodging Deep Submerges and World Shakings, Viluy tried to
think of someway to gain the upper hand again when she felt
the cold concrete of the basement wall press into her back.
Knowing that she had run out of time, she reached into her
pocket to pull out one more contraption, a contraption that
was quickly sliced in half by Uranus's sword in a strike
that also sliced across the her left side of her body.
Badly injured Viluy fell to the ground. Trying to get back
up she suddenly was lifted into the air by a quick kick
from the now minimally recovered Jupiter. Not yet recovered
enough to use her spells, Jupiter however was fully capable
of following up her kick with a strong punch to the face of
Viluy knocking her unconscious.

* * * * * * * * *

Even though all but three of the Senshi were now
battling the twins, the situation hadn't really improved
for the Senshi. About the only improvement for Venus in the
fight was now that there were more Senshi she was getting
bashed quite so often since there were others to be bashed
as well. Getting fed up over being tripped by the red
haired twin, Mars twisted as she fell to the ground and
unleashed a wave of fire from her hands. The fire of course
completely missed either twin, since Mars had attacked in
rage, and instead had slammed in the ceiling of the
basement. Like many laboratory buildings, the ceiling here
was unfinished and so her fire proceeded straight into the
utility pipes and melted a steam line. Thankfully Mars had
also melted a water line, so no one got scolded by the
sudden mist that enveloped the hallway.
"What the?" some of the others called out as they
tried to figure out what had just happened.
And of course with visibility nil, Sailor Moon
managed to find Tuxedo-Kamen's dropped cane by tripping
over it and giving a cry of "owie!" as she hit the ground.
Then picking herself up, she gulped as she a glowing blue
light just a bit further away in the mist.
"While I am not sure what your fire happy friend was
thinking, I don't think you need to worry about it much
longer." Cyprine smirked as she fired a massive ball of
energy at her target.
However unbeknownst to Cyprine, Pitol had been
thinking the exact same thing and had unleashed a deadly
attack at Sailor Moon as well. While the two of them were
too close to Sailor Moon for her to have been able to dodge
if she had been one of the other Senshi, they had failed to
take into account her wings. Wings which with a strung flex
gave her an extra push up into the air, allowing her to
clear ground zero just in the nick of time. Unfortunately
for Cyprine and Pitol as was the case when they had
accidentally hit Tellu earlier, they had not aimed their
attacks at the ground and the two of them had been on
exactly opposite sides of Sailor Moon. Eyes widening in
fear, each of the witches took their twin's blast in the
chest. Blown off their feet, they hit the ground and
quickly slipped into comas.
When the Wiseman had given the twins their powers, he
had given them complimentary opposite powers. This made the
two of them quite deadly, but it also meant that they were
especially vulnerable to each other's attack, a drawback
that they had now learned or would learn if they ever
regained consciousness.
As soon as Mercury had realized what Mars had done to
the pipes, she had used her ice to temporarily seal the
pipes. Then as the mist finally faded away, she gave a sigh
of relief that the unknown demon from before had not made a
second appearance. And with the mist now clear, they were
able to see that their opponents were finally down for the
count and so began the process of bandaging wounds before
they moved onto Rubeus. But before they did that, Mercury
had Mars melt the damaged pipes shut, and then they were
off again.
Reaching the final door, no one blinked an eye as
Jupiter and Uranus blasted it clear off its hinges and deep
into the lab room. Then slightly more cautious than when
they had entered the basement, the Sailor Senshi entered
the laboratory and were immediately forced to scatter when
Rubeus attacked.
"Well, well, you Sailor Senshi are definitely more
trouble than I had thought you would be." A very confident
Rubeus said from where he floated in the air midway between
the group and a giant machine in the distance.
Taking stock of the room, .the eyes of all the Sailor
Senshi except for Usagi and ChibiMoon were drawn to the
giant machine and Rubeus. The eyes of Usagi and ChibiMoon
were instead drawn to a black haired girl who was sitting
on a chair near the machine, a girl that the two of them
instantly recognized to be Hotaru.
"Hotaru?" the two Senshi asked.
Hearing her name called, Hotaru looked up to see
Usagi in her Sailor Moon outfit. <What are the Sailor
Senshi doing here?> she wondered and then taking a good
look at the room again, she suddenly felt a chill in her
soul as she realized that her father was somehow connected
to the demon attacks. Any further thoughts, however, were
ended when Rubeus teleported back to where she was sitting
and grabbed her by the neck.
"Now Sailor Moon I am sure you don't want to be
responsible for this girl's death. So be a good girl and
don't move." Rubeus commanded.
From where she had been working beside the professor,
Eudial gasped in horror when she saw Rubeus ruthlessly pick
up Hotaru. Abandoning her work, she rushed over to save
Hotaru, and as she did so she unhooked from behind her back
one of her custom creations. After getting up from the few
hours rest she had had last night, Eudial had stopped by
her office before returning to the lab to pick up her Fire
Buster. At first she had interpreted the feelings that she
was having as being indication that someone would try to
prevent Hotaru's cure, but now she realized that her
intuition had been telling her not to trust Rubeus. Aiming
for Rubeus's legs, the only part of him that she could
confidently hit with out worrying about Hotaru, Eudial
unleashed a stream of fire.
Noticing motion out of the corner of his eye, Rubeus
turned his head in time to see Eudial charging towards him
with furry in her eye. Quickly taking to the air, he
managed to avoid the majority of the fire that Eudial sent
his way, though his lower legs did get singed. Ignoring the
pain, Rubeus turned his full gaze to the woman who had now
come to a halt.
"Well I see that you have outlived your usefulness.
The Wiseman was correct in knowing that your desire to
protect Hotaru would make you too much of a liability."
Rubeus said before blasting Eudial.
Eudial tried to shield her body with her arms and
hence the Fire Buster she held as well. However, the blast
quickly burned through the Fire Buster, igniting its fuel
tank in a mighty deflagration. Blown backwards with her
front singed by the fireball, the rest of Rubeus's attack
then impacted her chest - charring her stomach and internal
organs in third degree burns. Falling to the ground in
unimaginable pain, she was left to stare at the smirking
man as her body began shutting down, death being
unavoidable.
Not wanting to take any chances with the professor
defecting, Rubeus now proceeded to send a pulse of energy
into the crystal shard that the professor carried. With the
good professor now under his full control he asked, "How
much longer Tomoe-san?"
Looking up from his work with a large smile the
professor picked up the grail and set it down on its
platform. "None, the gateway is being opened as we speak."
And he was right, as behind the device a region of
the room began to grow increasingly dark as it seemed to
pinch itself away from reality as it formed a portal to
another plane of existence. From where they stood, stopped
by Rubeus's taking of a hostage, the Sailor Senshi could
only watch helplessly as darkness spilled out of the
growing portal while Rubeus laughed. Then before they knew
it a robed figure holding a purple crystal ball slowly
glided out from the portal, bringing a deathly chill with
him that caused each of the Sailor Senshi to shiver.
Returned to reality, the Death Phantom grinned with
glee. Ahead of him lay the Sailor Senshi, and by the time
they reached him it would be no trouble to crush them.
Glancing to the side of the portal he saw his servant
Rubeus and the professor that Rubeus had recruited. There
was also a small child that Rubeus was holding by the neck,
inwardly smiling some more he realized that must be why the
Senshi were frozen in place like statues. Taking a few
moments before the inevitable chaos broke out, the Death
Phantom regarded Serenity, her aura was quite strong and in
some ways more powerful than that of her future self. That
was not good, but beside her stood the rabbit and she was
also stronger than she was in Crystal Tokyo and that was
good. Once he had taken the girl's body as his own,
defeating Serenity would not be an issue.
Then feeling an unknown sympathetic energy the Death
Phantom tried to locate its source. Very quickly he
realized that he was feeling its presence through one of
the crystal shards, which was very curious. Focusing in on
what remained of the crystal, he now realized that the
source of the energy was the child that Rubeus was holding.
Now using the crystal shard to probe this energy, he smiled
as he confirmed that she like him held the power of pure
destruction - her soul was black as night.
This child would be a perfect a 1st to stand beside
him as he took down this universe before moving onto the
next. And combining her powers with those he was going to
get when he took the Rabbit's body, there was nothing that
would be able to stop them. Now searching his memories for
the child's name, he slowly approached the girl.

* * * * * * * * *

From where she was being held in midair, Hotaru
watched in horror as Rubeus brutally cut down Eudial - a
woman who was like a mother to her. Eudial was the one who
would protect her from Kaolinite's verbal abuse and gave
her the will to live during those long periods when she
rarely saw her father and before she met ChibiUsa.
Struggling with all her might, Hotaru tried to free herself
from Rubeus when her papa began activating the machine he
had been working on. She did not know what kind of evil was
about to come out of it, but she was now sure that it was
evil and she also knew that she was the only reason why the
Sailor Senshi were not destroying it. She had to get
herself free from Rubeus.
Unfortunately, her struggles were insufficient and
far too quickly pitch black darkness began to leak into the
room. Strangely as much as that darkness chilled her soul
and made her want to run away and hide, she was also
strangely drawn to it - almost finding comfort in it. And
then the evil which her father had called forth had entered
their world. Gulping in fear, she realized that the
creature was now regarding her. Feeling as if his eyes were
peering into her soul, she suddenly felt very dirty. Trying
to shy away in revulsion she was unable to and then the
creature began caressing her right cheek.
"Yes it is as I thought. Rubeus you have done very
well. This child you hold is kin to me and holds tremendous
power." the Death Phantom happily stated, startling the
Senshi and Hotaru. Now looking at Hotaru he continued,
"Awaken my Soldier of Destruction. Come serve your master
and cast away your mortal body."
As he spoke those words, the Death Phantom began
channeling a portion of his energy and essence into the
crystal fragment that she held. Feeling the energy
exploding out from within her body, Hotaru screamed. Now
released by Rubeus, she collapsed to the ground as the
energy that the Death Phantom was feeding her soul began to
burst out from within. With each passing moment the energy
coursed more densely and Hotaru withered and screamed in
even more pain. On the other side of the room, the Senshi
could only stare in shock and horror at what this creature
had done to Hotaru. Then a full minute after it had begun,
the energy vanished and Hotaru found her strength
returning.
Once her strength had fully returned and more so,
Hotaru stood up. At first ChibiMoon and Usagi were pleased
to see that she was alright, but their happiness died when
they got a good look at her face. The warm eyes of the
Hotaru they had gotten to know and love were gone, instead
cold glowing purple orbs remained and on her forehead an
alchemic letter was etched in purple as well. Then after
reaching out a hand to summon her weapon of destruction,
the Silence Glaive, Hotaru knelt on one knee in front of
the Death Phantom.
"My lord I am in your dept for awakening me and
saving me from that frail mortal body. What is it that you
wish me to silence?" The Soldier of Destruction asked.
"Take the Holy Grail and use its powers to bring me
the rabbit. We need her alive, though only by the barest of
margins, so that I can merge with her and gain dominion
over the Ginzuishou and the Golden Crystal. The others you
can destroy."
"As you wish my lord." Hotaru replied.
While the Hotaru was pledging her loyalty to the
Death Phantom, the attention of the Sailor Senshi was drawn
by a telepathic scream from Ryo. Turning to look at Ryo,
they saw him screaming in agony as violet energy clashed
with silver energy along his body while his golden crescent
moon glowed brightly and he tried to break free so that he
could answer the siren's call. But as one moment passed to
the next, the amount of violet energy decreased and the
silver energy seemed to take on a more solid cord like
appearance. And then when the last of the violet energy had
vanished, the silver energy solidified into binding cords
and Ryo fell to the ground unconscious.
"Ryo-kun!" Usagi cried out in concern when Ryo fell
to the ground. Rushing up beside him, she looked at Mercury
who had also moved instantly to Ryo side. "Mercury-chan
what happened to Ryo?"
"I don't know, but at least his life signs are
stable." A worried Mercury replied.
"How touching, such concern over my foot soldier.
Don't worry once I kill Sailor Moon here, Urawa will be
free to carry out my bidding again." the Dark Soldier that
was once Hotaru said as she walked towards the Senshi.
Unsure of how to react to this demonic persona that
had obviously possessed Hotaru, the Senshi fell into
fighting stance but did not take any further action. Seeing
that the Senshi were going to give her the honor of making
the first move, the Soldier of Death unleashed a wave of
black lightning at the group. Ready for the attack, the
Senshi jumped out of the way and upon landing unleashed
their own set of attacks - attacks that vanished harmlessly
upon meeting a barrier created by Hotaru.
"Now, now did you think my power of the Silence just
applied to taking peoples' lives? Your attacks are no
different, especially since they are merely projections of
your souls." A smug Hotaru replied before dashing towards
the group with blinding speed.
Caught off guard by Hotaru's rapid movement, still
considering Hotaru to be a weakling, she was past their
ranks before they knew it and Sailor Mars and Uranus were
down on the ground - the two Senshi who had stood near her
path. Mars had been taken down when Hotaru had jammed the
butt end of her pole arm into her stomach. Uranus met the
other end of the pole arm and now lay on the ground
clutching her arm trying to staunch the flow of blood.
Smiling at the pain she had inflicted, Hotaru turned to
regard the others just in time to be hit front on with a
blast of from Usagi's Moon Scepter. In seeing Rei cut down
she had forgotten who they were fighting and had instead
become consumed with the soul need to protect her 2nd best
friend.
The attack from Usagi knocked Hotaru into a cabinet
full of glassware on one of the laboratory walls. Quickly
recovering from the attack, Hotaru landed on her feet. Then
summoning her Silence Wall to nullify another round of
attacks from the Senshi, she retaliated by slashing her
glaive down at Sailor Moon. As she did so, a black blade of
energy was released along the direct line from the tip of
her blade to Usagi. Barely having any time to react, Usagi
brought her Scepter up to block the attack. Grimacing under
the strain, she was pushed back a few feet, but she managed
to hold her ground. At least she held her ground till the
scepter snapped in two and then the final remnants of
Hotaru's attack bowled her over.
Seeing the Sailor Senshi getting ready to attack her
for yet another time, Hotaru decided she just wanted to end
this battle. And looking over at the child that her master
was so interested in, she noticed that the tuxedo clad
warrior had her safely off to one side, which meant that
she could unleash her full power on the rest without worry.
Summoning the grail, which the Death Phantom had
given her, Hotaru spoke to her attackers. "Foolish Senshi,
don't you know that I am the Messiah of Silence, nothing
can stop me, especially when I have the power of the
Grail."
Then slamming her glaive into the ground she
unleashed a massive blast of energy at the Senshi,
sufficient to kill them all as well as taking out a good
mile of Tokyo's real estate. Knowing that the others would
never be able to get of the way in time from Hotaru's
attack, Usagi discarded her broken scepter and ran in front
of the attack. Throwing her arms and wings out, she called
upon the power of the Ginzuishou moments before the blast
overcame her.
Curious as to why Sailor Moon had just thrown away
her life, she after all had been far enough to the side of
the epicenter of her attack to have been able to escape,
Hotaru waited for the dust to settle. Once the dust had
settled, she noticed that her blast had dug a nice ramp out
to ground level in what use to be an exterior wall of the
basement. But she also noticed to her annoyance that Sailor
Moon had some how managed to erect a silver dome, thereby
protecting the others from her attack.
While the dome had protected the Senshi and the bound
Ryo from the worst of Hotaru's attack, the shield was not
perfect. Some of Hotaru's attack did slip through and it
had left six very badly bruised Sailor Senshi. As for
Sailor Moon, she still stood, but her wings and fuku were
slightly scorched. Feeling her strength faltering Sailor
Moon slipped down so that one knee was resting on the
ground. Looking up at Hotaru her expression had become one
of confusion and pleading for the young girl to explain why
she was helping Rubeus.
Walking closer to the weakened Sailor Moon, Hotaru
just smiled, soon the battle would be over and she and her
master in his new body could go about bringing the Silence
to the entire universe. Reaching out her glaive so that it
pointed directly at Sailor Moon's chest, she did not need
to speak. It was clear that with the next attack Sailor
Moon would be dead.
But then Sailor Moon found her strength returning as
a hand was placed on her left shoulder. Looking up over
that shoulder she saw that Tuxedo-Kamen had come and was
now lending her his strength. Returning to her feet, she
summoned her Eternal Tier. She was not sure how useful it
would be given the bad record she had in using its attack,
but she did feel more comfortable holding it in her hands.
Bringing the tier up in a ready position in front of her
chest she found her body gaining even more strength as
ChibiUsa now joined her on the right side, wrapping an arm
around her leg.
Smiling down at her daughter, Sailor Moon said,
"Don't worry muzume, we'll get Hotaru back to normal
somehow." Then turning back to look at Hotaru she called
upon all of her power, letting her Serenity form take over.
As she did so, Mamoru's Endymion and ChibiUsa's princess
forms also took over. And so now two princesses and a
prince looked towards Hotaru with expressions that said
they wouldn't rest till she was saved.
Taking a step forward from Endymion and princess
Usagi, Serenity said, "Hotaru-chan you don't have to do
this. I don't know what that demon did to you, but we all
liked the Hotaru that we used to know. I know you are my
daughter's best friend." Serenity implored the opposing
warrior. And to the last part, princess Usagi vigorously
nodded.
"The Death Phantom did nothing; he only awoke the
power that was already in me. And it was that power, which
showed me my destiny. Now Princess Serenity, the last of
the moon princesses it is time for you to finally meet the
Silence."
Reacting quickly to Hotaru's attack, Serenity used
her Tier to deflect the blast and then the second and third
blast.
"Well you seem to be doing a bit better now, but how
will you do against a grail enhanced attack?" Hotaru asked
as began calling upon the power of the grail to unleash a
series of violet-black ribbons from the tip of her blade.
Quickly realizing that the Tier would not be
sufficient, Serenity dropped her staff letting it vanish
and instead called forth her crystal. Erecting a silver
shield with it, she poured all that she had into to
stopping the attack. But even as she felt Endymion and her
daughter add their own support to the barrier she knew that
it would not last. Her mind racing, she tried to think of
some way to stop Hotaru - preferably one that would allow
her to still heal Hotaru.
"Princess give it up, you are no match for the power
of the grail. You do realize that the attacks that humanity
faces are because of you." Seeing the confusion cross
Serenity's face she smiled and continued. "Don't be so
surprised, I am the force of movement, I can see the
shadows which cross the white moon. Your rebirth here on
Earth shattered the seals holding Beryl and her army
imprisoned in the fabric of space. Twentieth century Tokyo
faced the wrath of Rubeus, because of your daughter and
your future actions as queen. Did you know that 30th century
Tokyo is utterly destroyed, the only survivors being those
lucky enough to be in the palace during the attack. It was
your actions you know which led to the creation of the
entire Dark Moon Army.
"And yet more shadows will cross the moon and cause
pain and suffering for the people of this planet, and all
because of you. Should you cease to exist the people of
this planet will be spared from those wars. If you really
do desire to protect the people of this planet as the
Silver Millennium was formed to do, you will see the truth
and end this lie. Your time ended with the fall of the
Silver Millennium. Join the rest of your people and succumb
to the great silence."
Serenity tried to think of a counter argument, but
none would come to her. The more she tried to think of a
reason to justify her right to live, the more she realized
Hotaru was correct. Not even the efforts of her love and
daughter helped. Dropping her head and arms slightly she
began to give in. Her efforts not so full hearted, Hotaru's
attack grew closer. But then a conversation she had with
father Morgan came to her mind.
"Usagi-sama you have a destiny to fulfill. You are
the chosen one; you will bring Utopia to everyone. I knew
this from the moment you healed me. It was further
confirmed when I heard of the prophecy which foretold your
birth and fall of your kingdom. Know this, before you can
come fully into your power, you will have to walk through
fire.
"Don't worry about those of us who fall during the
fires. We gladly make our sacrifice so that you can achieve
your destiny. Only you can bring heaven to Earth and
protect us from those who wish to destroy it. The
consequence of you failing is far greater than the price we
will pay for you to accomplish your task."
Gaining strength from those words of Morgan, she
straightened her back. "I think not, the people of this
planet need me, I will give them the utopia of Crystal
Tokyo. If I was gone, who would protect the people of this
planet from demons like this Death Phantom? He would have
attacked whether or not the Dark Moon rebels existed; they
were merely a convenient set of tools for him."
Pausing for a moment, she looked Hotaru in the eye.
"Let me heal you." She pleaded with the dark haired girl
one more time. Beside her Endymion and ChibiUsa's auras
began to glow and energy streaked from their hands into her
crystal. Golden energy came from the Earth prince and pink
from their daughter.
"Moon Healing Esca..." Serenity began, but before she
could finish her spell to her horror the crystal shattered.
From where they had pulled themselves to their knees,
the fallen Sailor Senshi's eyes went wide as they all cried
out "NO!" in horror.
For the first few moments the shattered fragments of
the Ginzuishou moved forward against the tide of Hotaru's
attack. But then the unrestrained wave of Hotaru's attack
swept them up and plunged into Serenity. There was nothing
anyone could do but watch in horror as the deadly ribbons
impacted into Serenity's chest lifting her into the air and
backwards. And then the razor sharp fragments joined the
ribbons and began slicing into Serenity, not one of them
failing to hit her.
When the attack was over, princess Usagi and Endymion
lay knocked to the ground from when the attack had hit
Serenity and Serenity lay in a crumbled form in the opening
that Hotaru had previously made in the wall. The silver
hair's girl chest was barely rising with her now very
labored breaths as her crescent moon began to fade. Along
her body, Hotaru's ribbons continued slipping in and out.
While her eyes were open, her mind was barely there, which
was a good thing as she would have otherwise been blinded
by the pain of the ribbons and her multiple broken ribs,
broken legs, and a shattered right arm. And then as
Serenity's body began to glow silver, the Senshi all began
shedding some tears.
"Momma, momma!" Usagi cried out between sobs as she
broke down in tears.
Beside his daughter, Endymion's world collapsed as
Serenity's life was cut short. She was everything to him,
his reason for living after his kingdom fell, the light in
the darkness of his orphan life here in the present.
Stunned beyond being able to form a coherent reaction to
what had just happened his mind began shutting down, not
wanting to acknowledge reality. As he his own will to live
began to journey through his link to Serenity and to
oblivion he saw Usagi. Tears running down her face as her
body shook uncontrollably with tears, he reached out to
pull her into his arms and some of his will to live began
to return - so that he could take care of her.
But then as the silver light faded away and everyone
expected to see a lifeless body or maybe even nothing, they
were all shocked as Serenity began to slowly pick herself
up. "How?" was a question more than one suddenly very tired
Senshi asked, amazed that their princess was still alive
and then they were even more amazed when they realized that
her injuries from before appeared to have been healed. For
his part Endymion had to hold onto his daughter tight to
prevent her from running over to where Serenity now stood,
knowing that the battle would be rejoined very quickly.
Looking more closely at Serenity, they saw that she
was wearing her Sailor Fuku again, however this time it was
different. Instead of the outfit she had worn since the
battle in the artic, this one was nearly pure white with
many of the frills of the previous fuku gone. The only
color on her fuku now was a series of vertical strips on
the front of her skirt and the yellow fabric covering her
shoulders. And then even more surprisingly the crescent
moon was gone from her forehead, replaced instead by a
large star burst. She still had her wings, arcing out
majestically from her back and upon standing she had
summoned a long silver staff. Again the staff was far less
ornate than her previous ones and was adorned simply with a
crystal sphere and a pair of small wings at one end.
If Pluto had been present in the room at the time,
she would have dropped to her knees in recognition of her
one true liege while at the same time screaming in her mind
over how things had changed so much. Hotaru had succeeded
in killing Sailor Moon, the Moon princess was no more. But
as Sailor Saturn was the soldier of both death and rebirth,
the energy of the attack had also given Sailor Cosmos the
phoenix ability to arise from the ash. However, Sailor
Pluto was not there so no one knew the gravity of what had
just happened, not even Sailor Cosmos. To her, she had only
a few moments before felt the last of her life slipping
away as she realized that she had failed Hotaru. But then
somehow something had saved her and now she had a second
chance to not fail Hotaru.
<How is that possible? There is no way she could have
survived a full hit from my Death Reborn Revolution,
especially with it having been enhanced by the power of the
grail.> Hotaru thought to herself as she too was riveted in
position, not even considering for the moment that her
opponent had also healed herself.
Hotaru's contemplation came to end though, when
Cosmos gave a powerful downward swoosh of her wings and
took to the air. The battle returning to the forefront of
her mind, Hotaru also moved into action. Releasing Rubeus's
trademark set of black spheres of energy, Hotaru was not
surprised when Cosmos easily dodged the attack. That was to
be expected, instead she had used them to distract her
opponent while she setup to unleash another blast from her
grail.
Up in the air, Cosmos knew she could not dodge the
second incoming attack and so she instead crossed both of
her arms in front of her body and then to her surprise she
formed a shield of ice, which blocked that attack. Not
pausing to ponder how she had created that shield she
instead let her staff vanish as she dove towards Hotaru.
Reaching halfway to girl, she brought her hands together
and unleashed rings of fire from her outstretched palms
before pulling out of her dive.
As expected, Hotaru easily blocked the attacks before
retaliating. And so began a ranged battle between the two
opponents, each of them blocking and then unleashing an
attack before moving quickly to another part of the room
hoping to find a position that would give them some kind of
an advantage.
From where they lay, the Sailor Senshi could not
believe their eyes. They had never seen Usagi fight this
good before. While she had recently gotten fairly good with
all of her added training, both Senshi and the martial arts
class that her father sent her to, she was still far from
achieving this level. And then there was the issue of the
various attacks she was using, none of them being anything
like her usual ones.
Seeing Cosmos unleash a shower of energy beams, Mars
suddenly realized what seemed so odd about the attacks.
"She, she's copying our attacks." Mars whined to the
others.
Venus opened her mouth to argue the point, but closed
it when she saw her princess form a sphere of water similar
to Neptune's deep submerge before throwing it at Hotaru.
Instead, Venus just nodded her agreement.
"What I want to know is how she survived that blast,
and what about the Ginzuishou. To my eyes she appears to be
even stronger than before, not to mention she is putting us
out of our jobs." Uranus said.
Pulling out her Mirror, Neptune looked at it and
almost dropped it. Looking back again she spoke, her words
unsure, "It is her, she in the chosen one. She is the
Messiah of Light."
Rei was about to comment about how could Odango-atama
be the Messiah, but then thinking about it she instead
said, "That makes perfect sense to me. However, that does
not explain how a blast that was supposed to kill her only
mode her stronger."
"I don't know, all I know is that she and the crystal
are now one. As for her power, she is drawing on the power
of the 8 planets." Neptune replied.
"I didn't think she could draw upon the power of
Earth, unless Endymion physically touches her." Mercury
stated.
"Earth is not one of the eight."
"But there are only seven of us, unless. But there is
no Senshi for Saturn awaken yet."
"I don't know why, but if it is Saturn. Then Saturn
is the reason why the princess is able to fight that
solider of darkness." Neptune said while pointing to the
very bright energy stream heading towards their princess.

* * * * * * * * *

From where they stood by the machine that had opened
the gateway, Rubeus, the Death Phantom and Tomoe watched
the unfolding battle in awe. Tomoe his mind still
controlled by the crystal fragment only thought of how
strong and healthy his daughter looked, never considering
that what had made Hotaru Hotaru was now gone.
The Death Phantom was disturbed however when he saw
Serenity somehow survive and become even stronger after
that attack from Hotaru. No longer so sure of his
inevitable victory, he realized that he needed to take his
new form quickly. Once he was in the body of that child he
would be able to pull the power of the Ginzuishou out of
Serenity. Looking over at the rabbit, he saw to his delight
that that she was relatively unprotected. Yes, Endymion was
with her but he was obviously not expecting an attack and
he was far less of a challenge than any of the rest of his
protectors. Sending a quick mental order to Rubeus, the two
of the teleported over to their target.

* * * * * * * * *

From where he stood with an arm wrapped around his
daughter, Endymion watched his love wield her power in a
battle that was one that bards would have immortalized in
song and story had they seen it for there in front of him
was a classic example of the yin and the yang. By this
point the two fighters had now moved on from using ranged
attacks and were instead clashing together their staffs in
an attempt to bring the other down. With each attack, the
two warriors were pushed apart by the violent release of
energy that occurred each time the staffs touched each
other.
So caught up was he in the unfolding battle, that he
had forgotten about Rubeus and the Death Phantom. And so it
came as a surprise when upon sensing something he turned
his head and saw Rubeus floating only a meter or so distant
from him. Eyes widening in alarm, he was unable to do
anything before Rubeus had blasted him. Returning to his
feet, his alarm grew even greater when the Death Phantom
suddenly appeared next to his daughter. Running to save
Usagi, he drew his sword but was unable to reach her before
the Wiseman had grasped a hold of the young girl with his
own bony hand and the two of them had vanished.
However, Endymion did not let the kidnapping of his
daughter falter him. There was still one participant in the
kidnapping standing in front of him and leaping forward
into the air he called upon the Earth to give him the
strength to smite this foe. Then as he reached the apex of
his leap he began bringing his sword down, which was now
shimmering golden energy. Unable to get out of the way in
time, Rubeus tried to block the attack with a shield spell.
But within seconds the sword had overwhelmed his defenses
and cut quickly and deeply into his side, leaving a long
gash. As bad as the cut was, the pain from the blade of the
sword was minor in comparison to that Rubeus was now
experiencing from the sword's energy. With the golden
energy of the Earth burning away at his soul, Rubeus felt
his body go limp as he fell to the ground. Now barely able
to focus his eyes, the last thing he saw was the cursed
blade once again plummeting towards him and then his dead
body lay on the ground, unworthy of any purification.

* * * * * * * * *

With the prize in his hand, the Death Phantom
rematerialized beside the gateway. Everything was going
perfectly now, in but a few moments he would be able to
transfer his essence to body of this child and then he
could begin consuming this world. Feeling the rabbit try to
struggle, he looked down at the child and grinned, there
was nothing that she could do. And with that he began to
forcibly channel his pitch black soul in the child.
For her part, Usagi tried to fight back at first
struggling against the strangle hold that she was in and
then against the mental invasion. As she fought, the
horrors from her previous encounter with the Death Phantom
came to mind and she remembered how he had once before
turned her against her parents and friends. Not wanting to
let that happen again, she tried to call upon the power of
her shadow crystal as the pain of what the Death Phantom
was doing to her continued to increase. As she fought she
began to think that the struggle was hopeless, but then her
confidence began to sore as she felt one of her moonbeams
begin to build. Knowing that one of those blasts would be
enough to buy her sometime, she began to smile.
But that smile was quickly wiped from her face by the
Death Phantom. Realizing what Usagi was about to do, he
unleashed the entire power of his being into Usagi. As he
did so, he crackled, "Sorry my little one, not today." And
with that, Usagi screamed one final time before her body
went limp as her Sailor Fuku faded away to leave her street
clothes behind. On her forehead a dim crescent moon
birthmark now glowed. And with that, the rabbit was ready
to be possessed.

* * * * * * * * *

Feeling more than seeing the attack on her daughter,
Cosmos paused in her attack on Hotaru to scream "ChibiUsa-
chan!" while simultaneously falling to her knees.
Following Cosmos's gaze, Hotaru saw the girl who had
only a while earlier been her best friend go limp in the
Death Phantom's hand. Seeing that sight somehow managed to
for the moment shatter the hold that the Death Phantom held
over her as memories of ChibiUsa came back to her. Letting
the silence glaive fall to the ground with a clang, Hotaru
slumped down onto her knees as well.
Not noticing the change that had overcome Hotaru,
Cosmos spread her wings once again and took the air. Flying
as fast and as hard as she could, she could only think of
one thing killing that creature. Dark emotions which rarely
tainted her soul now were the only things she could think
about as she began charging her staff to unleash a deadly
attack. About ready to dive bomb that demon, she was
suddenly sent spiraling out of control when the Death
Phantom summoned a defensive barrier in front of her right
wing.
Now turning his attention to his little Firefly of
Destruction, the Death Phantom realized that she was no
longer under his control. But it was a simple matter to
increase the energy that he was using to bind her to his
will. And as he did so he told his tool, "You can't fight
my power. You know it's your destiny to join with me."
For her part, Hotaru did try to fight the Death
Phantom's attempt to regain control. She tried to hold onto
to those happy memories of ChibiUsa, but it was a loosing
battle and one by one those memories began to fade away.
And before long she was struggling to hold on to one final
memory of her friend - when they had first met.
<Don't fight the darkness, embrace it.> a regal voice
said in her head.
<Huh?> was Hotaru's response to the voice telling her
to give in to what she was fighting so hard against.
<Firefly you are the darkness, it is your birthright.
Only by embracing it can you avoid having it consume you.>
<But...> Hotaru tried to argue, not wanting to become
the killer that this demon was trying to make her into
again.
<Don't fear the darkness; it has protected you and my
granddaughter in the past. Embrace that power now.>
Realizing that she really had no other option as she
barely could even remember ChibiUsa's face, Hotaru began to
embrace the darkness. And very quickly she felt her mind
drowning in that blackness as she felt herself being
overwhelmed by the desire to bring about death and
destruction. Panicking Hotaru tried to push back against
the darkness, but it was no use and the last fragments of
her memories of ChibiUsa vanished. Gathering her resolve
she turned and dove down into the depth of the darkness as
fast as she could before she could loose her resolve.
As she dove she found that the darkness was no longer
quite so black, instead she found that the blackness was
tinged with a violet light, a light that became stronger
the farther she dived. Finally reaching the source of the
light she found an alternate her wearing a Sailor fuku and
cloaked in shadows holding a glowing crystal. Then as this
alternate her turned her face to regard Hotaru, she once
again wanted to run away for the look on her other self's
face was one that the innocence of Hotaru never wanted to
have.
But Hotaru knew she did not have a choice, it was
either take this soldier of the night into her soul or give
her body and soul over to that demon forever. Taking tepid
steps forward, Hotaru reached out and grabbed a hold of the
crystal that her other self was holding. All the while this
other self neither said anything nor did she make any
moves. All she did was to coldly regard Hotaru with the
assessing eyes of someone who had fought many hard battles.
As soon as she took the crystal into her hand and
brought it to her chest, her other self raised her face
fully out of the shadows and gave a heart warming smile
before dissolving into motes of lights. The motes of lights
now looking like fireflies began to circle around Hotaru
surrounding her in a cylinder of light. Closing her eyes,
Hotaru could feel the warmth of the crystal as it began to
pulse in turn with her heart. Pulling it in even closer she
smiled as the crystal gave one final warm blanketing pulse
before vanishing.

* * * * * * * * *

As Hotaru was diving through who she was, the Death
Phantom began to feed more and more energy into the shard
in the young girl's body. Cursing in an ancient tongue he
realized that he was loosing control of this girl and that
soon Serenity would have her on his side. While he was sure
she would not pose a problem once he took possession of the
rabbit's body, the possession would take a few minutes.
Minutes, that he was quickly realizing that he was not
going to have. And so ignoring the rabbit for the moment he
focused all of his energy on trying to regain control of
Hotaru.
But as Hotaru whispered the words "Saturn Planet
Power Make-Up!" he knew he had failed.
As the words were whispered, Hotaru's body suddenly
exploded outwards in a violent explosion of violet energy.
After shielding their eyes from the flash, the others
dropped their arms to see that all that now remained of
Hotaru was dozens of what looked to be fireflies, fireflies
which begun to swarm closer and closer together, forming
into a body. Then with a ripple the body solidified into
the final Sailor Senshi of the Silver Millennium - Sailor
Saturn.
Looking down at her hands Sailor Saturn saw that she
was still holding the grail. Not yet sure of this new power
of hers or even sure if she really wanted to fight, she
instead looked over to her side where her best friend's
mother stood. Catching Cosmos's eyes, she said "Usagi,
catch." before tossing the grail over to the other girl.
Glad to be rid of that powerful artifact, Saturn allowed
her body to fall down to her knees as her mind tried to
come to cope with everything that had just happened.
Having watched Hotaru fight her internal battle from
the expressions on the young girl's face, Cosmos was very
glad when she heard those five words that the girl had
whispered. She almost broke down in tears when those words
had apparently caused the death of Hotaru, but then
rejoiced when she realized that they were just dissolving
away the evil of the Death Phantom by renewing Hotaru's
body. Now with the complete confidence that shortly
everything would be back to normal for the Hotaru, Cosmos
caught the offered grail and turned to face off against the
Death Phantom.
But then in a cruel twist of fate with a bone
chilling scream, the smile was wiped off of Cosmos's face
as her two golden spheres of energy impacted her back. She
remained standing with her back arched forward for a few
moments before the blindingly bright shining crystal that
was her soul was forced out from the front of her chest.
And with that her soulless, lifeless body crumbled to the
ground.
Stunned by what had just happened, the others just
watched helplessly as the crystal was caught by another
warrior. Closing her hand around the star seed, Sailor Lead
Crow smiled and said, "Mission Complete."



-End Chapter 35

-I am sure that quite a few of you are not going to
like where I just ended the chapter, especially since
I rarely end with cliff hangers. However when I
sketched out the battle between Usagi and Hotaru back
when Gundam W was still showing on Cartoon Network
this had seemed like a perfect place to put a break,
thereby giving the Gundam W reference more impact.
Anyways the chapter as it is quite long and writing
the full climax of this book would have pushed the
completion date off till the summer at the earliest.

-For those wondering about Sailor Lead Crow, yes
Pluto's stasis barrier is now no more

-I hope everyone is correctly following the use of
names for Usagi, ChibiUsa and Mamoru. Once Usagi
takes her princess form, ChibiUsa and Mamoru takes
their royalty forms as well and hence I begin to
refer to those two by Usagi and Endymion.

-In case you are wondering Usagi does not know that
she has become Sailor Cosmos or that anything was
different.

-The "toys" that Viluy used are based on the
Replicators from Stargate SG-1

-As far as stories to tide you over till next time
here are my latest recommendations:
+"Of Mikos and Mutants" by Sayin_girl which you
can find posted at www.fosff.net by The
Collector, who incidentally is also posting
this story at Freedom of Speech Fan Fiction as
well.
+"Ranmazoku" by PansutoTarou5925 a Ranma-
Slayers-Sailor Moon crossover of different
sorts. Ranma is a "monster" from the Slayers
universe and things play out from there. Hotaru
also gets to play a darker prominent role in
this story.
+"Process of Elimination" by Brian Randall
(http://www.rakhal.com/florestica/durandall/).
This story is primarily a Ranma Tenchi (OVA)
crossover and takes place when the world is
being faced with destruction. The primary
Tenchi characters are Washu and Tsunami. Other
series do get crossed in and in the later
chapters also include heavier crosses with
Sailor Moon.