Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon: Sailor SunHeart
Commander Memorandia

Disclaimer: I don't own Sailor Moon! Naoko Takeuchi does and I just play in her playground. I do own every character except for Jedite though so hands off my Commanders!
Author's Note: Just a little flashback into the past for you all - enjoy!

Tugging on a strand of her hair, Kyo looked at her fellows around the table, the lot of them having managed to get a more private table. Jadeite, displaying a rather remarkable skill at finding the Commanders even when they'd explicitly not told him where they were heading, looked at the five disguised Commanders.

"So as I was saying, it doesn't make sense." His ice-blue eyes were narrowed to stare accusingly at Kyo, draining his cup before setting it on the table's surface. "My fellow Generals-" He ignored the muttering that Kyo, Shouka, and Jared interjected at his pause, "-were all named for our minerals. The entire-"

"-fact that you were all sworn to service of the Prince of Earth and changed your minds and swore service to Beryl," Kou interjected smoothly, running a hand down the front of his vest and checking the buttons and neatening his silk tie. "But since we don't have any of those illustrious ties, why do we have the same naming convention, you wonder?" Kou chuckled as, one by one, each of the Commander gave Jadeite a level glare.

Gritting his teeth Jadeite nodded to each of them. "Yes. None of you, as far as I'm aware, came from any of our divisions and I know that none of you were members of the Earth Court."

Pushing her glasses back into place on her nose, Tora snickered. "None of us were stupid enough to be sent to your divisions, iJason/i. Even you had the better sense to ship me off someplace different, ne?

"The reasons," she blithely continued, "aren't anything grand, noble, or even deeply divined. We're a practical bunch, remember? We're not the ones who stupidly decided to send the strongest youma against the ruler of the Moon Kingdom before making sure she couldn't use her little crystal." Jadeite winced at the jab and the subsequent laughter around the table, Tora enjoying his discomfort immensely.

----

Her red hair was pulled back from her face, Arna having given in to the prodding of Marson and tied her wave of hair back before heading in to finish the paperwork to confirm her promotion. "Excuse me," she found herself saying, blue eyes open in a frank display of shock, "You'll need to say that again. In order..."

Looking down his nose at her, the clerk sat straighter in his chair. "In order to be able to confirm your promotion, there are a few minor things that need to be done. The first is that your current living residence is on the wrong half of the kingdom, as per the Paragraph Nine agreement with Tenth Division."

Pulling out a rumpled stack of parchments, Arna dug through the top ones until she found the chit paperwork she was looking for. "Okay, I submitted this last cycle - see, I've already moved to standard barracks, I did it last month, the ones that Nine dictates division members should live in. So that's no longer a problem." Handing the paper to the clerk, she waited until he'd read it through seven times before she pointed to the red mark at the bottom. "Look, it's already stamped by your supervisor, it must not have been added to my file."

"Hmmm..." The clerk bit his lip before he tapped the paper, making a copy of the chit for the record. "All right, since that's already been taken care of we can move on to the next problem."

Under the crisp, cleanly-pressed collar of her division uniform, Arna felt a flush. iThis sounds worse and worse...the pay increase is dramatic, though, and if I get this I'm only one more recommendation away from second division. It can't be that bad - Marson's doing the same thing either today or tomorrow himself.../i "Which would that be," she asked politely, decided that there was wisdom in buttering the clerks up.

"Your name."

Silence permeated the little office as Arna stared. "My...name? There's a problem with my name?"

"Yes," the clerk said, his tone managing to convey that he thought this was a useless conversation. "According to Rank File Memorandia Zed-8-Kicern, all division members promoted to any rank requiring formal issue uniform must be named under the mineral and gemstone standard code."

"Mineral and gemstone standard code...?" Sure, every grunt snickered about their superior officers, not a single one who had an imposing, fear-inspiring name but instead something pointless, but the rumors just assumed that the current crop of Dark Kingdom officers all hailed from the same Kingdom backgrounds. That was the only explanation that made sense, after all.

Folding his hands, the clerk leaned his chin on them. "Yes - Memorandia Zed-8-Kicern states that all formal ranks are only to be given to those whose names are taken from minerals or gemstones. This prevents the majority of the population from potentially being appointed to higher ranks but, as we've seen recently, there's been a slight problem as the Kingdom has expanded. Due to the political situation and current occupation of the leaders in their invasion plans, no change to the Memorandia has been issued."

Breathe in, breathe out. "So what you're telling me is that to actually be given my promotion, I need to be named after either a gemstone or a mineral deposit?"

The man smiled, clearly pleased that she'd grasped the problem so easily. "To put it succinctly, yes."

Muffling a groan, Arna resisted the urge to bang her head or the clerk's head against the desk or wall. Skirting her eyes around the room they landed on a chunk of blue rock. "What's that thing called, that mineral?"

The clerk looked to his right at the carved and carefully cut formation of crystal. "This, grunt, is topaz. I picked it up from a Zarran trader last time we swung into their system, it's a native cut."

Forcing a smile on her face, Arna leaned forward. "Isn't that just something? That hunk of rock and I share the same name - Topaz."

To his credit the clerk seemed to take it all in stride, blinking only a few times. "Topaz?"

Arna - Topaz - smiled. "Yes. Now confirm that damned promotion, you hear me?" She tucked strands of her bangs behind an ear, the smile strained but remaining in place until the clerk had finished, stamped, signed, and sent her promotion paperwork off to division headquarters. When it was all over her pay upgrade was completed, the clerk handed over a packet of parchment which was sealed with her new division insignia, and a new uniform top had appeared on the desk just as she was about to leave, the name 'Topaz' clearly stitched on the breast.

The smile strained a little further as she left the clerk's office, following a summons towards the barracks.

----

Jadeite seemed a bit taken back at the tale until Kyo grabbed the pot right from his hands, her face twisted into a peeved glare. "Do you remember why that Memorandia was issued, rockhead?" Her face bore the faintest signs of a blush as she picked her tea cup up, leveling the General an expression that hinted that she held him personally responsible for it all.

"Not exactly..." he had to admit, shifting uncomfortably in his seat now.

Setting the cup down, having drunk all of the liquid in one swallow, she let a breath out. "You told Kunzite that it was nice to have all of the commanding officers be such good friends, just you four. That it was nice that the four of you would be easily distinguished from the rest of the Dark Kingdom due to your unique names. And that, the four of you decided, the only people worth being commanding officers were people just like you, with the same kind of names that you had. Except," holding up a hand as Jadeite looked about to speak, "Some brilliant youma took that to the Queen and it became a military-issued command."

Silence, Jadeite looking at each of the Commanders and seeing their accusations, their outrage, and, far worse, the pitiful amusement. "So you're all named after gems because we were?"

Flicking a wad of napkin at Jadeite, Jason made a grunt of assent. "Yeah. And with everything that was going on, they never changed the Memorandia. By the time it was repealed we'd had the names for so long we'd half-forgotten we used to go by something else."

"So," he said slowly, realization dawning as he looked around the table, taking in the drastic difference of appearance and names from their true forms and these human disguises. "These are your real names? And what you looked like?" It was the final peice to the puzzle, the last odd thing about the Commanders that none of the Generals had been able to figure and now it-

Shouka laughed, the sound rich. "Oh heavens Jason, we're far more creative than that. You're not even close, though I do think that's the most intelligent idea you've had since the Queen brought you back." Mirth colored her voice as she talked at him, sipping her tea delciately. "No, it's just that you're the reason we've got ridiculous mineral names in the first place."

Closing his eyes Jadeite rested his forehead on the table. Just what he needed - another reason for the Commanders to not listen to him.