The Crystal Winter

By Adins

Credit to Robert Frost where applicable.

Standing near a tall pane of glass in her familiar blue sailor suit, the one that she hadn't been able to remove (and she'd tried, oh yes) since the moment her dearest friend invoked the power that made her a Queen, Sailor Mercury peered out into the darkness as the furious blizzard continued to bury the palace, the city, and the Earth beyond. The Crystal Palace may have been born in an instant from a seed of the Ginzuishou's power, but the rest of the Earth was not so keen to keep up with the pace that the holy stone set. The Palace was merely the clot that would staunch the flow of the planet's lifeblood; the Earth would take its own good time to heal and part of that healing process, as it now reached into its second year, was a new ice age.

It had been five years since the day that the Earth suddenly and unexpectedly entered what every scientist, news anchor, and religious leader thought was its death throes. Earthquakes ravaged the surface; tsunamis swallowed islands and continents whole; mountain ranges exploded with volcanic activity. Forest and city alike burned. Almost a third of the planet's landmass was scorched by wildfire. Countries disappeared overnight as governments, unable to cope with each successive disaster, failed and fell apart. The super-powers isolated themselves and communication came to a sudden, terrifying halt as the Earth became a smoldering ember.

In the end, as they all knew it would one day be, it was Sailor Moon who saved the crumbling remains of humanity. The power of the Ginzuishou, magnified by its wielder's own boundless compassion, halted the planet's destructive deterioration and placed everything, including the Earth itself and all of its living inhabitants, into a rejuvenating state of suspended animation. With the waste and excess greenhouse gases produced by the slumbering human population suddenly switched off, the Earth's atmosphere gradually cleansed itself causing a drop in overall temperature and finally an unexpected cold snap which jump-started the aforementioned ice age.

All in all, it was not the idyllic utopia that Ami and her fellow Senshi had so feverishly discussed in their youth and so eagerly anticipated in their adulthood. Not yet, anyway. Still, in spite of all the calamities, it was that one moment of salvation that would always stand above the rest in the mind of Sailor Mercury: the moment when the light of the Ginzuishou washed over her and the whole planet. In that instant when their far-off future suddenly began to spill into the present, she felt a familiar sensation deep with her: the pull of destiny.

She had felt it in her youth when she pushed herself to academic excellence. She hadn't realized it at the time, but that was the call of fate challenging her to test her limits and mold herself into the type of person she would need to become to take on the role of the Senshi of Wisdom. Whereas that had been a mere tug; a whispered breath of a suggestion, this had been a full-on yank and more akin to an order shouted on a battlefield. While Usagi (Neo-Queen Serenity as she would soon be known to all) may have put the world to sleep with her power, she had awakened something long dormant within her most trusted friend's soul.

"You know," a voice spoke from behind, startling Sailor Mercury from her snowy recollections, "There is a problem with being so well-attuned to this planet."

The Senshi turned to see her good friend, fellow healer, and new King standing on a crystal stair clutching a heavy padded comforter around his whole body.

"Whatever she feels." He shivered with a sideways grin, "I feel."

"My King!" Sailor Mercury exclaimed upon seeing the icy blue outline around his lips and upon the tips of his ears, "You shouldn't be out here like this!" She rushed towards him and grabbed one of his frigid hands and began furiously rubbing it between her gloved palms, "You're practically frozen! You should go to the saunas or run yourself a hot bath or—"

"Ami…" he spoke her down gently, "I don't think my own planet is going to let me freeze to death."

She smiled at that and reluctantly released her grip when Mamoru pulled his hands back under the confines of his blanket-robe. The guardian Senshi turned back towards the window and resumed her silent vigil over the frozen landscape below.

"Hard to believe that not too long ago the whole area you're looking at was a burning wasteland like so much of the rest of the world." Mamoru spoke candidly about Armageddon's near-miss.

"I think I know enough of hate," Ami mumbled in reply "To say that for destruction ice is also great and would suffice."

"Ami!" Mamoru was shocked at her sudden morose declaration.

"Fire and Ice." She said, turning to him with her innocent gaze once again putting him at ease, "Robert Frost."

"Oh." He sighed relieved. The last thing he needed was to bring the news to Usagi that Ami of all people had given up on the dream of Crystal Tokyo and embraced a slow, snowy suicide by apathy.

"Usagi will be getting up any minute now." Mamoru turned the subject away from the Earth's wintry slumber and tried not to sound too eager, "Would you like to join us for breakfast?"

"Breakfast?" Ami asked in mild surprise, "Is it morning already?"

"It's almost noon, actually." Mamoru replied evenly.

"Noon." Ami repeated and looked as though she were just emerging out of the fog from a long night of sleep herself, "Usagi only sleeps in this late on the weekends."

"Ami." Mamoru approached her cautiously and leaned a hand on the crystal window, "Do you even know what day it is?"

"I…" she started and her eyes fluttered wildly, "Well, yes. I, that is…"

"That's good enough for me." Mamoru sighed and turned the young woman by the shoulders to face him, "Ami, I'm asking nicely; don't make me play the King card." He grimaced when he spoke the words. This was not going to get any easier, no matter how many centuries still to come he had to practice, "Go get some sleep."

"Pardon?" she asked confused.

"Usagi is worried about you and so am I." Mamoru revealed and his face softened somewhat.

"I'm okay." She feebly attempted to dissuade him.

"No you're not," he called her bluff, "Half of the time when I see you in the palace you don't even acknowledge me; it's like I'm not even there." He shook his head disapprovingly, "You're like a ghost haunting these halls. You don't sleep; you hardly eat."

"I don't mean to worry you, my King." Ami again tried to play casual.

"I'm not speaking as your king, Ami." Mamoru was not deterred, "I'm speaking as your friend and as a medical colleague. You should know better than to keep pushing yourself like this. It's not healthy."

"No." Ami countered and pointed with a visceral sneer to the cold, snowy sight beyond the palace, "That's not healthy."

"What?"

"The weather phenomena the Earth is experiencing is just, well…" she couldn't put it any simpler, "It's wrong. The healing process should have begun by now. We shouldn't be in the midst of an ice age!"

"You've been nothing short of heroic in your efforts to study exactly what this crystal-hibernation is doing to the Earth." Mamoru thinly congratulated her, "But it's coming at the expense of your own health and you need to rest. The Earth isn't going anywhere."

"But—" Ami tried to argue, but Mamoru raised a hand.

"I have one more dirty trick up my sleeve." Mamoru promised, "And it involves Usagi crying herself to sleep because she's afraid you're slowly killing yourself."

"She…" Ami looked utterly heartbroken, "She does?"

"No." Mamoru offered her the slightest smile, "But I'm hoping just the thought of it is enough."

Ami shifted her weight back and forth and took another glance out the towering window to the icy world beyond. That familiar pull in her chest was tugging her in the exact opposite direction that Mamoru wanted her to travel.

"Maybe I'll join you and the Queen for lunch this afternoon." Ami suggested without making eye contact, "For now I think… maybe I'll just try to get some sleep."

"Good." Mamoru sighed a heavy breath of relief, "Get yourself a good, long rest. No alarm clocks, no wake-up calls from Rei and no worrying about your regular duties around the palace. We can handle it."

"Are you certain?" she looked crestfallen, "The protective wards around the palace will need maintenance. The main computer core is still not fully encrypted and I've yet to automate all the—"

"We've got it covered." Mamoru interrupted her again, almost sounding exasperated, "Sleep. Doctor's orders."

Ami blinked twice, "I'm a doctor too, you know?"

"Yes, well…" Mamoru cleared his throat and shuffled inside his heavy blanket cocoon, "I'm older than you."

It was obvious from her blank expression that Ami was having none of that excuse, even if it was meant in jest.

"And I'm your king?" Mamoru sounded as though he were asking permission to call himself such.

"Very well." Ami relented, seeming satisfied with something, "My king."

"You're good at that." Mamoru was less than receptive to her obedience.

Ami just smiled in return and walked across the hallway to an arched doorway that led to her private chambers. She opened the door, walked in, and closed it behind her with a heavy clack of the latch. Mamoru waited in the hallway for a good five minutes before he was satisfied that she wasn't going to re-emerge and make a beeline down the hallway to her laboratory on the lower floors.

It was Monday. The actual date didn't matter so much anymore. The inhabitants of the Crystal Palace could only reckon time thanks to the atomic clock housed within the palace's mainframe computer. They hadn't seen the sun in months and day was just as dark as night thanks to the thick layer of black clouds which continuously poured foot after foot of snow onto the frozen landscape.

Regardless, Ami knew it was Monday because she and the rest of the Guardian Senshi were gathered as they did every Monday in a sterile silver conference room near the pinnacle of the palace's tallest, main tower. Mamoru and Usagi, the still-to-be-crowned King Endymion and Neo-Queen Serenity, sat at one head of a long, slightly curved conference table.

"First things first." Mamoru folded his hands on the cold crystal surface of the table and glanced down at Sailor Mars on his far right, "Rei, has the sacred fire revealed anything new since our last meeting?"

"No." the former miko replied sounding somewhat aggravated, "I'm still having the same recurring vision of a shadowy figure standing in front of the palace's main gates out in the snow, but the image hasn't cleared."

"I finished installing the alarm on the main gate two weeks ago." Ami added her information without waiting for Mamoru to ask, "Also, I've been running continuous scans of the area surrounding the palace, but I haven't detected anything out of the ordinary. No life signs aside from those in suspended animation."

"Do you really think this vision could be trouble, Rei-chan?" Usagi worriedly asked her spiritual confidante.

"I don't know." She shrugged back, "Like I said, it's still no clearer than last time. I'd hope it's nothing to worry about, but my gut tells me to be cautious."

"Maybe we should consider starting nightly patrols around the palace." Sailor Venus suggested from the opposite head of the table, "Just to be on the safe side."

"NO!" Sailor Mercury practically leapt out of her seat at the suggestion and all eyes were suddenly on her. In a moment she composed herself and offered, "What I mean to say is… s-surely the palace security system is sufficient."

"The security system was designed by a genius." Sailor Jupiter commented and gave Mercury a playful wink.

"True enough." Venus agreed, "But I would feel better if we had eyes out there, too." She nodded in Usagi's direction, "It's your call, my Queen."

"Okay." Usagi said after a moment of careful consideration, "Let's do it." Before anyone could react she pounced on the opportunity to declare, "But Sailor Moon is going to take one of those nightly patrols."

"That's really not necessary." Venus tried to talk her down.

"So will I." Mamoru proclaimed, "There are seven of us so that makes it easier. Everybody can pick a night. No one gets stuck with a double shift; no one gets left out."

"Patrolling the palace is meant to be a means to protect it." Rei injected her thoughts, "And the two of you."

"Okay, look." Mamoru put his hands on the table and stood up, "Can we all just stop the act right now?" he took each of the Guardian Senshi in turn, "Can we stop pretending that Usagi and I are both wearing crowns and that we need protection?"

"Mamo-chan!" Usagi spoke up sharply, "They're only trying to help!"

"I can peel my own grapes, thanks." Mamoru almost callously dismissed her, "And I can patrol my own palace."

"If that's what you want." Sailor Venus issued a barely constrained challenge through her grit teeth, "My king."

"Anyone else have any business?"Mamoru asked as he looked quickly from one end of the table to the other. Satisfied, he clapped his hands on the table again, stood up, and announced, "Good. See you next week."

And with that he spun away from his chair, not bothering to push it back in as was his polite habit, and stormed out of the room leaving his wife and four of his closest friends feeling very much like enemies.

Later, Ami and Makoto were walking down one of the many identical silvery hallways that made up the majority of their crystalline home. Minako had sketched out a tentative schedule for their patrols and agreed to take the first shift that night, a fact for which Ami was endlessly thankful.

"So our king can be a royal dick sometimes, huh?" Makoto broke their companionable silence with one of her many profound observations.

"Makoto!" Ami gasped and stopped in her tracks, switching awkwardly to a whisper, "Don't say things like that; he'll hear you!"

"So?" she laughed, "Ami, this is Mamoru we're talking about, it's not like he's going to throw us out into the snow for having a laugh at his expense."

"It's improper." Ami was adamant, "You should have more respect."

"Oh, I've got plenty of respect for the guy." She agreed and laced her hands together behind her head, "I respect that he helped save the planet on multiple occasions and that he's a wonderful husband to Usagi and he'll make a fantastic father in the future." She glanced down at Ami's head which always bobbed a good distance below her normal field of vision, "Doesn't change the fact that he was whining like a two-year old in that meeting."

"Mako-chan, please!" Ami nearly shouted.

"Fine, fine." She acquiesced and relaxed her stride.

"I'm sure it's just stress getting the better of him." Ami diagnosed the king's behavior, "It's only natural when you live with the same group of people so long that you would witness those sorts of moments. Everyone has them."

"Speaking of stress." Makoto switched gears, "I feel like working some off. You want to go down to the pool with me and swim a few laps?"

"Thank you." Ami politely declined the invitation to the palace's Olympic sized pool on the lower levels, "But I have a lot of work to catch up on tonight."

"You always have work to catch up on." Her old friend reminded her, "But just because we're semi-immortal now doesn't mean we don't have to stay in shape!"

"Another time." Ami promised.

"How about a run tomorrow morning?" Makoto pressed the issue, "Bottom of the palace to the top?"

"If I'm up to it, I will." Ami told her when they reached the door to her private laboratory, "I'll probably be up late tonight."

"What have you been doing down here that's so important, Ami-chan?" Makoto asked her, suddenly very serious, "What's been keeping you up every night?"

"I- I'm still trying to understand how all of the palace's functions tie into the main computer system." Ami stuttered. She overcompensated by going a mile a minute, "I'm also monitoring the growth rate of the crystalline lattice that the palace is built from and I'm looking for ways to adapt it into any other forms way may need and I've been running continuous scans of the Earth's weather patterns and comparing it against the data that Haruka and Michiru send back to us and—"

"Okay, I get it." Makoto interrupted her, "I'm sure this place would fall apart without you doing whatever it is you do down here."

Ami frowned at that, "You don't have to be rude, Mako-chan."

"I'm not." Her friend smiled, "But I am going to nag you about pushing yourself too hard."

"I'll be fine." She promised again, waving the warning away.

"Ami, I know Mamoru may be going through one of those male-PMS episodes that I don't understand, but I know he's worried about you; Usagi tells me as much." She bit her lip, hoping this wasn't crossing the line into Ami's comfort zone, "So am I."

"It's nice to know people worry about me." Ami said in a peculiar mix of scorn and appreciation. She opened the door to her lab and glanced at her chestnut-haired companion over her shoulder, "Goodnight, Mako-chan."

"Goodnight." She replied as the door closed.

She turned, shaking her head as she did so and hoping that her old friend would take her advice and respect her own limits. Before she continued on her way she reached out, cautiously and quietly towards the door handle and turned it as gently as she could. The handle wouldn't budge; the door was locked from the inside.

That night Mamoru lay in bed, his wife nearby reading a sappy romance novel no doubt pilfered from Sailor Venus' seemingly endless supply. He glanced at the table near the bed at the small wooden box that had sat there since the moment they moved into the palace. There were plenty of nights after Usagi had fallen asleep that he would lay awake, his head tilted to one side (all but assuring a sore neck the following morning) and did nothing but gaze at that box.

"Mamo-chan?" Usagi whispered from across the bed.

"Hmm?" it took him a moment to snap from his silence and reply.

"What happened at the meeting today?" she asked the question he had been expecting all night. Mamoru had never snapped at the Senshi the way he had today. He was, quite frankly, surprised that Usagi had suppressed the urge to discuss it for so long.

"Just a little stress." He told her.

"Talk to me about it?" she invited after a moment.

"It's…" he trailed off in mid-syllable. He tried to keep his vision centered, but it was being pulled towards the side of the bed. It took a moment for him to refocus, "It's nothing. Still adjusting, I guess."

"Could you talk to them about it?" she nodded her head towards the little wooden box on the night stand.

Mamoru's gaze drifted again. This time he didn't stop it and after a while he responded, "I would have. Long ago."

"Why don't you call them?" she asked innocently.

He smiled and pulled himself closer to her, taking her slim shoulders in his embrace. She immediately turned her body towards his, tossed the book on the floor, and snuggled in as close as she could.

"I don't want to disturb them." Mamoru replied. A little white lie.

"Is it because of me?" Usagi wondered wistfully. She held the belief, no matter how much Mamoru tried to convince her that it wasn't true, that the occupants of the little wooden box didn't like her and distrusted her because of her status as the Moon Princess.

"No." Mamoru assured her yet again, "It's just that they won't appear to anyone but me."

"So it is because of me." She pouted.

"They don't hate you, Usako." He consoled her, "They never did and never could."

"You always look so lonely when you stare at that box." She observed, obviously having watched him those nights when he though she was fast asleep, "I'd hate to think they won't answer because I'm here with you."

"It doesn't matter." Mamoru tried to brush it off, "I know they're there." He turned his head away from the box to his wife, "And besides, I have you. I'm never lonely."

"You're a terrible liar." She gave him a solemn smile.

That he was. Mamoru was lonely. The company of Usagi and her Guardian Senshi was one thing, but being cooped up in a huge crystal palace with five young women for five years was more than a man, even a King, should have to bear. He loved the other girls as much as Usagi did, but there were unspoken boundaries among their group and for as cordial and compatible as his relationships with the other Senshi were, Mamoru found that he had very little in common with them.

He was able to connect with Rei at a spiritual level thanks to his psychic connection to the Earth, but those moments were few and usually involved dire circumstances which colored their relationship as more of a business partnership. Ami was a fellow doctor, but in a sterile crystal castle whose occupants were functionally immortal there was little of medical relevance to discuss and Mamoru was uneasy around Ami, always careful with his words and cautious that he might infringe on her privacy in some way. He found that outside of fighting with the Senshi he had next to nothing in common with Makoto and less than nothing when it came to Minako. He would have much preferred the company of the Outer Senshi who were closer to his own age and were solitary creatures much like himself, but when the ice age struck the Outer Senshi decided to travel to opposite corners of the Earth and keep watch while the new Crystal Palace was isolated and buried under miles of snow.

"I could go down to the kitchen for a midnight snack." Usagi suggested sweetly, "If you want to talk to them."

"Don't be silly." Mamoru told her, "Let's get some sleep."

"Mamo-chan." She placed a hand on his chest and turned her face up to meet his fully, "Why don't I ask Mako-chan to help me fix up the room? Then you can go there whenever you wanted to be with your friends."

"What room?" Mamoru gave her a perplexed look.

"The Shrine." She answered and excitedly started converting her wonderful idea to a functional plan, "We can paint it whatever color you like and we can get some tables and chairs and build a little bar and put up posters and a dart board or anything you want!"

"No!" Mamoru snapped and chill ran down Usagi's spine. Mamoru was a very stoic person by nature and emotional outbursts like the ones he was displaying today were rare. She bit her lip and waited for him to shout again.

"Sorry." He whispered, almost choking up, "I'm sorry."

"It's okay." She soothed him and put a hand to his cheek. Despite their deep, abiding love for one another, Usagi still sometimes had trouble understanding his inner workings.

"I know you're trying to help." Mamoru smiled at her, his melancholy evident, "But I can't go to that place. I can't."

That place was a small room in the lower reaches of the palace, one that he had discovered some time ago. Just as Mamoru's psychic power linked him to all the living things on the planet, so too did it link him to the palace which itself was alive to some degree. It had the ability to adapt its architecture into almost any form and anticipate what its inhabitants required. As they explored they discovered purpose-built rooms: kitchens, conference halls, and of course a throne room which sat empty and unused since the moment they found it. Each of the Senshi had a room of their own as well catering to their specific needs and interests such as Sailor Mercury's laboratory or the room where Sailor Mars would consult the sacred fire.

Mamoru's room, which Usagi had taken to calling the Shrine, was a small rectangular construction with four alcoves located along the far wall. Those alcoves, he had immediately deduced, were intended for the four small gemstones that resided in his wooden box next to his bed; the only earthly remains of his four Shitennou. Sailor Mars' assessment of the room indicated that it was designed to enhance and focus psychic energy which would allow Mamoru to call the spirits of the Shitennou more often, for longer periods of time, and possibly even allow some measure of physical interaction.

But Mamoru had no intention of ever using the room. He hadn't stepped foot inside of it since the day he discovered it. For one, it was located in the depths of the palace, possibly in the basement if one existed, but more likely far underground near the foundations. The room itself was drab and cheerless with unadorned inward-sloping walls and a short ceiling, a stark contrast to the tall, spacious, vaulted rooms throughout the rest of the palace. This one felt almost like an afterthought and its design was reminiscent of a mausoleum or a tomb. In short: the Shitennou's final resting place and Mamoru was not prepared to accept the permanence that the Shrine room offered. He clung to a shred of secret hope that somehow the Shitennou would return when Crystal Tokyo was finally established; a hope that the Guardian Senshi did not share.

Mamoru had told the Senshi of how the Shitennou had been his friends and loyal retainers when he was a prince in the Silver Millennium, but his exposure to his sacred talisman, the Golden Crystal of Elysion, afforded him a greater wealth of memories than the Senshi had available to them, so they took his words at face value only. The Senshi's own memories of the Shitennou dealt almost exclusively with their Dark Kingdom incarnations: empty, evil puppets of Queen Beryl who threatened their peace and their very lives. When Mamoru revealed that their spirits persisted within the gemstones that bore their names and that he kept them at his bedside, Sailor Mars went so far as suggest performing an exorcism, lest their spirits attempt to possess their "master."

From there things only deteriorated whenever the Shitennou were mentioned. Almost immediately the Senshi began to report strange goings-on in the palace and became convinced that the halls were haunted by their ghostly former enemies. They reported seeing the Shitennou throughout the palace: Nephrite reclining in their kitchen, a glass of amber liquor in his hand; Jadeite wandering the halls, his hands clasped behind his back looking lost in thought; Zoisite in the gardens sitting beneath the sakura. Even Sailor Venus had professed to have seen one of the ancient kings. One evening years ago before the snow began to fall she saw the figure of a tall man standing at the far side of the courtyard of the Crystal Palace, silently peering out across the city. He had long, snow-white hair and was wearing a cloak that touched the ground and blended almost perfectly with the crystalline horizon. She even caught a glimpse of his face when he turned to glance over his shoulder and she saw his steel-gray eyes, but after she had rubbed her own in disbelief and refocused on the scene, Kunzite was gone.

Mamoru chalked it all up to cabin fever. He would have dismissed it completely, but a problem persisted; one that he side-stepped this very night when Usagi questioned him about calling on the Shitennou. While it was true that they responded to his summons alone, they often told him how they would appear, if called upon, even with others present and would even welcome the opportunity to interact with Serenity and her Court as they properly referred to them.

They problem was: they were no longer answering his call.

It had been almost two years since he'd last spoken with the Shitennou. He purposely tried to call on them as little as possible lest he got too used to their company; something that was certainly not assured given how little he know about existing in a non-corporeal state. They had given no indication that anything was wrong or that they were in any way upset with him. In fact, Kunzite heaped an embarrassing amount of praise on him whenever they spoke, congratulating him for saving the world (again) and ushering in a new age of peace.

One day they simply weren't there. He waited a few days and called on them again, but again they did not appear. It was around that time that the first snowflakes began to fall and he assumed that, due to the Shitennou's own connection to the Earth, their spirits were hibernating along with the rest of the planet's inhabitants. However, it was a hunch at best. Then the sightings began. Mamoru began to seriously consider that his former comrades-in-arms were haunting his new home, but he refused to accept it based on the fact that he had never seen them himself and he knew, even in death, that the Shitennou would not be far away from him. They were sleeping. And they deserved a rest.

Mamoru opened his mouth to continue the conversation about the Shrine room with Usagi, but he found that she had rolled away from him at some point was now facing the opposite direction clutching a pillow to her chest and softly snoring. He smiled, obviously having lost himself in his thoughts for longer than he realized, and reached to turn out the light on his night stand. His hand hesitated near the switch and brushed the top of the wooden box where he kept the remains of his closest friends. It had been so long since he'd seen them. For a moment he considered ignoring the urge, but it would not abate.

He opened the lid.

The Senshi were once again gathered in the conference room, just a few scant hours after they had left. The call, or rather the order, had gone out over the palace's public address system just minutes before. As they stood together near the table Sailor Venus caught sight of Mamoru stalking quickly down the hallway, a half-hysterical Usagi at his heels.

"That was a quick week." She quipped.

"Mamo-chan, please wait!" they heard Usagi's tense voice plead as the pair rounded the final corner

Mamoru put one hand up and burst through the doors, made a beeline for the table making sure not to make eye contact with anyone, and finally threw down an empty wooden keepsake box in front of the Senshi. It bounced; one of the brass hinges snapped and then came to rest with the lid sitting broken and hanging askew.

"Where are the stones that were in this box?" he demanded immediately.

"Why are you asking us?" Jupiter was immediately on the offensive.

"Because I know that you four are not overly fond of what I keep in here." Mamoru reminded them of the box's prior occupants, "Now where are they?"

"Okay. Let's take this one step at a time." Venus spoke up, "Mamoru, when was the last time you saw them?"

"Don't insult my intelligence, Venus!" Mamoru threatened icily, "I didn't lose my best friends."

"Your best friends are a box of rocks?" Jupiter pushed her luck.

"Mamoru." Rei interrupted before her king could tear her outspoken friend apart, "We are sworn to protect you and Usagi and once this snow melts we will help build a new Silver Millennium. Whatever issues we may have with the Shitennou, you know that we would never threaten something so precious to you."

"Then somebody needs to explain to me what happened to them," the irate king continued, "Because they're not here anymore. I can't even sense their presence in the palace."

"You could before?" Venus asked.

"If I wanted to." Mamoru replied.

"When was the last time you felt their presence?" Rei asked seriously.

"I don't remember." Mamoru impatiently replied.

"I thought part of your power was being able to sense all the living things on earth." Venus recalled, "Didn't you always feel their presence?"

"Only if I wanted to." Mamoru stressed, "I don't keep constant psychic tabs on something that never leaves my bedside."

"So the stones could have gone missing some time ago…" Rei pondered and her gaze shifted sideways.

"Rei-chan, do you have an idea where the stones are?" Usagi asked hopefully.

"Maybe." She stroked her chin, "Is it possible that when Usagi used the Ginzuishou to create the Crystal Palace that the Shitennou's spirits were released from the stones?"

"No." Mamoru sighed dejected, "I called on them several times after the palace was built."

"Well maybe it was something that happened later." Usagi grabbed Mamoru's arm supportively, "Like a delayed reaction, maybe?"

"No." Mamoru whined pitifully and pressed a hand to the side of his face.

"Well nobody snuck into the palace and stole them, that's for certain, so they must still be here." Sailor Venus postulated, "We can have Sailor Mercury run scans of the whole complex; top to bottom!"

"Good idea!" Usagi agreed and leaned down to be eye-level with Mamoru who had slumped into a chair, cradling his head in his hands, "Hear that Mamo-chan? Ami will find them, no problem!"

Mamoru drew his hands down the sides of his face and his eyes darted left and right hoping to catch a glimpse of their group's resident genius. If there was anyone among them who could find a needle like four small gemstones in a haystack as big as a palace, it was Ami.

"Where is Ami?" Mamoru asked, noting her absence for the first time.

"My gosh." Makoto was surprised by the question, "You're right."

"We've seen so little of her lately that I didn't even notice she wasn't here." Sailor Venus added sounding utterly disgusted with her oversight.

Suddenly the room was bathed in a reddish glow as a blaring klaxon put an immediate halt to their current argument. The Senshi stopped and looked around as Mamoru instinctively rose from his chair, stepped closer to Usagi and put his hand on her shoulder.

"What is that?" Jupiter scrunched her face at the horrible sound.

"It's a proximity alarm." Venus identified it, "Part of Ami's security system. Someone is trying to open the main gates."

"The main gates." Mamoru repeated and turned immediately to Sailor Mars, "Is this it? The vision you've been having?"

She was silent for a moment though her eyes were locked with his, "I'm uncertain."

Mamoru forced Usagi back a step and quickly stooped to one knee. He pressed his right hand to the cold crystal floor and closed his eyes. His lashes fluttered as the muscles in his eyelids spasmed with psychic effort. In a moment his head pitched upward, his eyes flew open, and his mouth hung slightly agape.

"It's Ami." He spoke in a hoarse whisper, "She's opening the gates."

"What on earth for?" Usagi sounded horrified.

"Let's go." Mamoru ordered and nodded at Venus who silently accepted the command and sprinted ahead of the rest of the group.

They ran out of the conference room and to the end of the hallway beyond where an elevator awaited them with its doors open, the palace having sensed the urgency of their flight. Mamoru and Usagi entered the elevator in their bedclothes. When the doors opened seconds later on the ground floor of the palace Tuxedo Mask and Sailor Moon emerged. They exited the elevator into the main foyer of the crystal palace which was impressively tall and adorned in the center with a many-tiered fountain several stories tall. The group rounded the corner into the wide hallway that led to the palace's main gate. The arched crystalline portal stood open and already almost a foot of snow had collected on the floor as the wind blew the frigid white powder inside.

"It's so cold." Usagi immediately shivered, her Senshi heritage doing little to insulate her against the brutal climate of a true ice age, "She'll freeze to death out there!"

"Ami!" Venus shouted as the group slowly made their way down the hallway against the howling arctic wind, "Ami, where are you?!"

They climbed out over the small mound of snow to the front of the palace which was somewhat sheltered from the constant storm. The snow formed a gradual hill that stood at least three stories deep and through the pounding precipitation they saw the familiar blue of Sailor Mercury's uniform as she scaled the side of the snowy rise heading further away from the safety of the Crystal Palace.

"There she is!" Jupiter pointed when she spotted her, "AMI!"

"Come on!" Venus ordered.

She led them along the edge of the snowy mesa. It was slow going, but Ami seemed undeterred. Her Senshi connection to water and ice obviously afforded her an advantage when traversing the frozen, white wastes. With a few deft strides Mamoru managed to overtake the Senshi. In a few more strides he managed to pull himself up out of the two-foot deep layer of fresh powder to almost glide along the surface of the snow. He caught up to Ami, calling her name and crying out for her to stop, but she didn't react to his presence until he reached out and grabbed her by the wrist.

"LET GO!" she roared in unrestrained fury and violently shook his hand away.

"Ami, what are you doing?!" Sailor Venus hollered over the driving wind from the endless blizzard.

"He's out here somewhere!" Ami returned cryptically.

"Who?" Mamoru shouted his question.

"I have to find him!" Ami's tone sounded almost like she was grieving, "Please! I- I know he's here! I need to find him!"

"Ami, let's go back to the palace!" Usagi tried to reason with her oldest friend, "We'll all get a cup of hot cocoa and you can tell us what happened."

"No. I need to hear this." Mamoru interrupted and stepped into Ami's vision, "Who are you looking for, Ami?

"I tried… s- so hard!" Ami told him tearfully, "This is my last chance! I need him, do you understand? I can't go on like this!"

"I understand, Ami." Mamoru was ready to believe in earnest any ramblings her half-frozen mind could conceive, "Just tell me: who is out here? Who are you looking for?"

Ami's face had gone blank. For a moment Mamoru thought that she had fallen unconscious where she stood thigh-deep in the snow, but he soon realized that she was struck silent by something she saw. Mamoru turned and saw the same thing: a figure moving slowly towards them from out of the blinding blizzard.

Rei clapped a hand to her temple and groaned from the sudden surge of psychic power, "This is it. My vision."

"What is it?" Jupiter asked breathlessly.

It was a man. A man they had known in a different time and a different life. He staggered towards them, naked and shivering. Whatever warm luster his skin had once possessed was stolen away by the snow leaving him deathly pale. Spots of flesh on his cheeks and the tips of his fingers were already graying from a slow, painful death by frostbite. His green eyes were fixed straight ahead as if he didn't even see the group, only the palace doors in the distance and the promise of warmth within. His curly copper hair was frozen to his neck and the sides of his face. He breathed in harsh, ragged gasps, but otherwise didn't make a sound. Only a few steps away, so close that they would be able to stretch out their arms and touch him, the stranger stopped, pitched forward, and fell face-first in the snow at Mamoru's feet.

"Oh god." Mamoru fell to his knees near the prone figure and sank up to his waist. He cradled the man with both arms and gently turned him over on his back. The naked man made no sound. His emerald eyes stared lifelessly up at the black clouds. Mamoru's voice caught in his throat as he squeaked out, "Zoisite."

"No." Ami gasped and dropped down in front of Mamoru. She took one of Zoisite's frozen hands and began furiously rubbing it in a pitiful attempt to warm and wake him from his cold sleep.

"Zoisite." Mamoru repeated in shock as a warming fire of rage began to build.

"Not this way." Ami broke down in tears. Her nails were biting into the frozen flesh of Zoisite's arm, "It wasn't supposed to be like this!"

"Ami…" Usagi's grief at the sight would not allow her to say more.

"How did you know he was going to be here?" Mamoru snapped.

"I lost them." Ami croaked through her heavy sobs, "All of them. I- I couldn't…"

"What do you mean you lost them?" Mamoru demanded and spun Ami roughly by the shoulders to face him, "Ami, what did you do?!"

"I…" Ami could barely speak now the tears where streaming so hard, freezing to her pale cheeks as they fell, "I needed him! I had to do it! I had to bring him back!"

"Where are the others?" Mamoru's anger roiled. When she hesitated in answering he shook her as hard as he could, nearly dislocating her shoulders in his fury, "WHERE?!"

"They're gone." She whispered sounding almost as though she were in a drug-induced haze. Her gaze drifted up and she met Mamoru's burning eyes. Undeterred she confessed, "I needed him. I didn't… didn't know h- how to bring him back, so I…" she chose the most frigid, impersonal word she could, "I experimented."

"Experimented?" Mamoru could hardly believe his ears, "Is that what you've been doing in your lab every night? Experimenting?! On my friends?"

"I learned from each mm- m-…" she had trouble with this word, "…mistake." Her empty eyes glanced down at the body of Zoisite, already covered with an inch of newly fallen snow, "I thought I had it right this time."

"You killed them." Mamoru finally released her shoulders and took a step back, staggered, shocked, and scared, "My god, Ami. You killed them all!"

"I'm sorry." It was instinct. The Ami they knew, the innocent genius, was gone.

"Ami..." Usagi gasped, grief beyond contemplation tearing her compassionate heart in two, "How could you?

"You killed them!" Mamoru screamed, inconsolable sorrow wracking his body.

All she knew was ice and emptiness. The world was frozen; as was her heart. Soon her body would follow into the frigid void of nothingness that awaited the doer of such a terrible deed. Regardless of her home planet's proximity to the warming sun, Sailor Mercury knew only cold. She welcomed it. At least the cold brought numbness. At least she would no longer have to feel what she did.