I can't believe I'm done writing this story; how long has it been? Now it's only a matter of posting the last few chapters. Thanks everyone for reading and being patient!

This is manga based, and is distorted enough that it combines Stars, Supers, and all. And yes the Starlights are female, (incognito male as in the manga). I don't know why I made Kakyuu a little girl, but I did, and that's a bazillion chapters away if you're reading this for the first time. I have taken many, many other liberties, but they will explain themselves I think. Usagi/Serena hasn't found all of the senshi and doesn't know she's the princess. I hope that covers it.

Blood on the Moon

By Lydiby

Chapter I

It was very late. Technically speaking, the park was closed, but it wasn't as if they had a way to lock people out. The stage was all mine, and the stars my only audience. I wistfully looked up at the sky, wishing I could see them, instead of the glow of inner city lights. Slowly warming up, an inward smile grew.

This was my privet midnight-be-damned jam session and the music was all in my head.

Despairing of my own klutziness and Mamoru's teasing I had begun ballet lessons in an effort to nullify his favorite target. Unbeknownst I began to do it for myself instead and fell in love with dancing for it's own sake. It had given me a focal point and although I still loathed school I began to put more effort into it. Dancing gave me more energy so I didn't always wind up sleeping on top of my math.

Visions of Julliard had danced in my head. The rejection letter very nearly crushed me, but I didn't give up. I qualified for the five-year program studying at Columbia University and Julliard for a bachelor's with a small scholarship.

'What ever happened to Mamoru?' A small forgotten part of my mind wondered about the guy who had unwittingly given me so much.

So here I was, early Saturday morning, giving myself a recital. It was a bit chilly for September so I didn't remove my black cut up sweatshirt and warm-ups. I pulled out all the tension and stress in me and stomped on it. All the acrimony of Julliard competition and all the murderously impossible classes at Columbia were pounded out.

The irony of Julliard was a slap in the face. It was possibly the most cultural and artistic school in the world and nowhere on earth would you find more savages and Brutuses. Life was a never-ending Greek tragedy. It was so ridiculous I could hardly help but laugh sometimes. Not everyone was egocentric, but with such limited space, the students operated by the law of the jungle.

By a fragile balance of diplomacy I managed no deep personal enemies. I kept my mouth shut and worked hard. While I was not top, I got respect. Once you got in, respect was a more powerful currency than talent, because it was earned rather than given. I was the unofficial ballet division peace ambassador, in a word: chaos. With the knowledge that we all came out better when everyone was on even terms, I drove the crew to avoid conflict when I could. Then I studied and studied and made jell-o. Or spaghetti. It was extremely nerve-racking. So I danced.

Venting my anger, stress and trying to fill something that was empty in spite of an overflowing schedule. Something that was empty. It burned a hole through me. There was nothing for it but to wait for him to show up. I didn't have time to look for him. As far as the destiny of it, if it were truly meant to be, I wouldn't have to look. Which sounded nice, but did little to stop the acid eating me inside. Besides, I had someone more important to be looking for anyway. Luna had reluctantly agreed with Mina and I that our Princess must be hiding herself from us for reasons we could not know. There were no other explanations. No cheerful ones at least, or cheerful by comparison, I suppose. Put in an understatement, the situation was discouraging. I pulled this out of me and let it float across the night air. I dragged everything out of myself until I was only left with the peace of solitude.

"Good morning."

I unceremoniously landed flat on my feet (which can be awkward) and brought my hand to my throat and shoulders exposed from the cut out neck. I sharply turned in the direction of a smooth male voice, fear skittering through my mind. I nervously recalled the knife at the small of my back, a gift from Topaz. She insisted that as long as I was her friend; I carry the unadorned, but silver-plated switchblade every time I left campus. Her vampire slaying bit was crazy, but she was a reliable friend—trustworthy if bizarre—so I let it slide with little comment. Being armed in a big city wasn't such a bad idea so I carried it with me most nights I went out alone. At least if you're going to bluff your way out of a situation flashing a blade is much more effective than a can of mace. Who runs from mace? A knife means business, and unpleasant business at that. Guns are another thing completely, in which case I'd be more than happy to throw my wallet one way and run the other. I grew up in a big city, a world away, but some things are the same wherever you go. Mostly, I avoided a place where these things might be an issue and that was the end of it. If you aren't looking for trouble it's really not that difficult to avoid.

Ordinarily.

'Augh, she's making me so paranoid with all that Buffy crap! I know youma, this is no youma.'

I tore my hand away from my throat, only to have it involuntarily slip behind my back. Shifting from the broach that was not there, to the knife. I stared through the shadows at the man, one coherent racing through my mind.

'He's not from Julliard.'

Which, admittedly, was about as coherent as it was helpful.

"Excuse me but I couldn't help but notice your dancing. It's very beautiful, but you really shouldn't be out here alone at this time of night," he said softly. In a flurry of fright, I tried to decide if there was any menace in his voice. I wasn't sure. There was some ulterior motive and I did not want the specifics.

"Would you join me for a cup of coffee?" He asked, gently. I took a few steps back to study what little I could distinguish carefully.

I shook my head. So coming out here late at night, in the dark, all alone wasn't exactly giving trouble a screaming-wide perimeter. I'd known that; now I regretted it. Exactly how late was it? I wondered. Dim light glinted off his wrist.

"Quarter 'til three."

"What?" I gasped out sharply.

"Quarter 'til three." He laughed, gently. I frowned at him and took a few more steps back, prepared to run.

"I'm sorry," he murmured, "I forgot, you never did like being laughed at, did you Usagi?"

"How the hell do you know my name?" I asked, tersely. I held the unopened knife in my hand at my side now. I shivered; the sweat had dried leaving my skin chilled and this was all too unreal.

"You don't know mine?" Before I could move he'd draped his coat about my shoulders. Something was so familiar about this man. My loosened muscles tensed. His jacket; it smelt like the ocean. I felt his gaze on me. Who was he? I couldn't see him. If I screwed up my sight I could see his eyes glimmering faintly.

Cerulean eyes laughed at me.

I blinked trying to get my eyes to focus again. Had that been a memory of, of someone else? Or were those his eyes? I took a step back uneasily, engulfing myself in the clean fresh salty scent of his coat. I knew that scent.

"Mamoru? Chiba Mamoru?"

There was a pause.

"I'm afraid not, I'm Darien Shields. Why don't you put Topaz's trinket away though."

"You know Topaz?" I shifted more uneasy than ever. He wasn't Mamoru, but he knew Topaz. This was taking an unpleasant and unnerving turn. I didn't understand.

"I wanted to meet you, she thought you might be here."

She was the only one who knew about my witching hour escapades. They made her act uneasy, but she partially encouraged them; Topaz could be so sphinx-like. But she never would have told this guy, not unless she completely and utterly trusted him, and even then! Topaz had some truly…peculiar friends, but this was not something she would do. I squinted at him, just a shadowy form.

"I'm sorry I bothered you. But this really isn't smart. You should know better. Please Usagi." His voice changed so suddenly from reprimanding to remorseful. What was going on here?

"What?"

"Be careful." He vanished…

Taking all my answers with him. Floored, I stood there for a long moment. Shivering terribly, I put my arms into the sleeves of his coat, took my toe shoes off and got back onto a well-lit street. I jogged to the nearest station and took the subway to the west side lair where I knew Topaz would be. I needed answers. Or at least explanations, or something, anything at all that might help me make sense out of this episode.

Straight out of the, (what was it called?) X Files! My roommate last year had been halfway to being obsessed with it. Come to think of it, I had met Topaz through her, and discovered that X File junkies and Buffy aficionados ranked among that circle's more, shall we say, normal types. While we're at it, I'll add that my first whopping dose of American culture had absolutely nothing to do with apple pie and barbeque. Topaz took pity on me after that. I'd never had trouble making friends before, but everything was so different and my English had always been wobbly. If it hadn't been for all my time spent training and fighting all those monsters as a senshi, I'd easily have sunk that first quarter.

Shangri La was and is one of the stranger clubs in New York and oddly enough one of the safest. Looking at it you'd suspect it was a hell's angels hole in the wall. Setting foot inside, if you had any sense at all you would run back out like you'd just killed a kingpin. Topaz said not having sense was one of my finer traits; I told her it would make a fine opening for my eulogy.

Twisting through the crowd, I waved to the owner who knew me as one of Topaz's friends. Then slipped underneath the bar top to climb up the spiral staircase to the more exclusive balcony.

"Topaz?" I called. She started and spun around fanning her mahogany hair out. A crowd of the clubs higher end patrons inhabited the more lounge-like setting that overlooked the dance floor below. What she did here I didn't know, and I didn't understand why she liked the place. I wasn't a clubbing sort of girl, and I didn't really think she was either. We didn't have time for it; we were trying to hold onto honors at Columbia!

"What brings you to the underworld?" Her amber eyes shimmered with laughter.

"This guy, Darien Shield showed-up-at-the-park, said he knew you, what-the-hell-is-going-on? I-was-freaking-out, I—"

"Whoa, Serena," she pressed a glass into my hands, "breath, take a drink, start at the beginning, slower and don't leave out anything."

I took a sip, choked and sprayed it out; it was cognac.

"Hey don't waste that! It's good stuff," she scolded, but I could tell she was worried. Personally, Topaz was reckless, but she had a don't-mess-with-my-crew attitude. One of many things that tended to get her into fights.

Anxious to know what was going on I told her everything. When I'd finished, she leaned back and gave me a wary look. Something I didn't like coming from her.

"You're not going to like what I've got to say," she murmured barely above the music coming from below.

"Tell me anyway," I growled, sardonically.

"We had a run-in earlier this evening," I stiffened, knowing what she really meant by 'run-in,' "he broke through my shields briefly, but I managed to head him off. Going after a friend was a bit lower than I expected from him, but evidently, he knows you. I doubt you'll see him again."

"Knows me? What do you mean?" I demanded.

"Powerful as he is, he's young," she replied. Topaz put it best simply and enigmatically.

"I don't understand," I grumbled.

"You will when you want to," she said, tiredly. This was an old discussion and we both agreed to differ so neither of us wanted to go into is again. Youma were the real thing, vampires were something off Halloween decorations. Topaz didn't know anything about youma so I often wondered what exactly it was she did, or maybe thought she did. In my experience Shinto priest had a limited amount of power that affected youma. So I was curious, if Topaz had no senshi powers, what did she have and what was she really fighting after all? I thought about the being I had spoken to in the park. There was no telling.

"Why don't you go home, Serena? There is a very small few who will touch you while wearing that jacket and the few won't be bothered."

I nodded, dismissing the tail end of her sentence as some unknown superstition and ducked out of the balcony. I went home to the dorms in Morningside Heights and slept it off.

The rest of my week was normal.

Briefly I toyed with the idea of contacting Luna, Artemis, and Mina, but brushed it aside. This wasn't normal. They couldn't provide enough force to be any help. I was truly hesitant to leave Tokyo utterly undefended for something I couldn't define. Youma were alien, invaders, foreign to earth. This (whatever 'this' was) had been here for—for a very long time. It was dark, bearing the signature of death, but was it evil? Was it real?

I shoved the jacket in the back of my closet and forgot about it. If Sailor Moon tried to defend NYC, she'd die of exhaustion. Tokyo only had one Scout in residence as it was.

I drilled endlessly with winter solos in mind. The lead would be great exposure for a place in a ballet company and the tension hadn't built up yet. When I wasn't practicing, I was in the Low Memorial Library trying to finish my term papers early. Besides all of this, after my encounter, Topaz decided I needed to learn how to knife fight, despite it being illegal. Topaz was never one for following rules that didn't suit her. She would have hauled me off to a shooting range if she could have found one either of us could afford. I got out of it whenever I could, which wasn't often.

The stress built until I found myself on stage on one considerably cooler evening. To my relief only my regular audience was in place. I pit stopped at my dorm to grab the bass guitar I had been messing around with since I had met Melinda. Still wearing my black dancing gear (layered camouflage) I took the sub. Tension drained, I meandered through the west side until I came to Broken Glass. Melinda was playing lead tonight and on open mic night a few of us jammed together. Truthfully, I wasn't any good, but I got a kick out of playing with them and they didn't mind. She gave me a hand up and I set up her sweet antique sunburst Gibson

Since I wasn't very good we stuck to uncomplicated (and usually old rock) songs and I followed Miki, who was the group's proper bassist. One song blended into the next and before I knew it Sweet Home Alabama had warped and she was belting out,

"Something's happening here, what it is ain't exactly clear, there's a man with a gun ova there, a-telling me, I got to beware, time children we stop, hey, what's that sound, everybody look what's goin' down…"

Unnerved by the lyrics (and the event they were based on) I left the responsibility in Miki's competent hands. I found a table, ordered a double caramel mocha and listened with my eyes easing shut.

The chair across me scrapped the floor. I snapped my eyes open into a pair brilliant green ones. I glared at him, hoping he would leave. He wore dark grey shirt with black pants, which did nothing for his bloodless complexion.

Bloodless complexion, those words echoed in my mind and I involuntarily shivered. His lips twitched into a smile, I sipped my coffee. His hair caught the light, blazing tawny. I folded my hands in my lap and stared into his emerald eyes, dazzled and dazed. Suddenly everyone else seemed half dead.

"I'm Devin," his voice had a charming ring to it. He grinned and I tore myself away from the explosive vivacity of his eyes.

"Well aren't you going to tell me your name?"

"Do you really need me to?" I snapped at this gorgeous stranger. Something about him jarred me, jarred me badly, maybe his cockiness. I didn't know; he was like a purified alkali metal. Dangerously cataclysmic with anything he came in to contact. I didn't like it.

"Temper, eh? Manners, my dear," he drawled.

"Why don't you leave," I snarled; it wasn't a question.

"Why don't you? Fine, fine." He sauntered away looking amused. I sat there for a while, but it was ruined. I downed my drink, tossed down a pile of change and stalked out. I walked down the street, tossing about the idea of hanging out with Topaz. In the end I dumped it in the gutter and stepped over it. Black combat boots would get you through anything.

Walking down an abandoned block, two precariously flickering streetlights gave their last flash and went out, throwing me into darkness. Cursing under my breath, I picked up the pace. I could see the subway entrance and just wanted to get home. Striding out of the darkness, I glanced around me. On the other side of the broken lights was a lurker. Hopefully a mugger; as strange as that may sound, my wallet was the nicest thing he could be after. And for all the cash it contained he was welcome to it.

As he stepped into the shadows I ducked into the conveniently located alley. Using the advantage of his undeveloped night vision to disappear. I pressed myself against the wall, holding the switchblade in my hand. Beside me, I could hear…something. I turned and could just make out two forms. My panicky breath caught in my throat. A guy with brilliant, even in the shadows, platinum hair was holding a girl against the wall. He was kissing her neck, but blood was running down from his lips. Before I knew what I was doing, the knife was against his ribs and I'd pressed the catch.

I'm not sure what happened after that.