The Past...

"Is all...ready?"

"Y-yes. Everything's ready."

"Then, my work is done." The hand stretched out, towards something only its owner could see. "Uuuusaaaagiiii..."

Then there was only silence, and the sound of weeping.

*****************

The present...

Ever since that damn Jusenkyoin had smacked him with that damn virus, Saotome had spent half his life as a woman and as he did now whenever he thought about them, took a moment to curse the entire geneomancers guild.

Still, he was something of a positive thinker. Yes, it was disorienting to change gender when hit with water, but it also meant could finally achieve his dream, and like his mother before him, join the Senshi, the royal family's personal bodygaurd.

But first, he had bisinuess to take care of and he shoved the left control rod forward, increasing the horse's speed, the ruins growing ever closer. This really was a good horse, he decided as he steered it over the stone blocked road with his palm on the right rod, the single wheel humming as it passed over the cracks. Gentle pressure was all he needed to steer and Saotome decided that when he returned to Tokyo, he would buy the horse.

The sunlight suddenly dimmed and Saotome made a face as he revalueated the light conditions. Overhead, he could see the green and whites of Midway, one of Japan's several moons as it passed between Japan and the sun. That meant that he would be fighting the first duel in the dim twilight. Still, his female form, which he was currently in, had better night vision.

'Man,' he thought to himself, 'how the hell did I wind up havin three duels in one day?'

Twisting the lever, he parked the horse by the tree and stared at the young lady standing by the wall, chewing on a blade of grass. Her bright red hair was tied back from her face in a long pigtail and she wore a long red cloak. She looked much like his female self, but smaller and more slender.

"Your manners need more refinement," she said, giving him a cute smile as she stepped away from the wall. "Our bisinuess was to commence five minutes ago."

"Is dying that important to you?" Saotome asked as he heard the howl of two more horses as they approached. The rounded the corner and stopped and Saotome felt his heart sink as he recognized his other two appointments.

One of them was tall, with blue hair that was pulled tightly back and wore a dark blue cloak. The other appeared to be male at first glance, and it was only by the planes of her face that you realized that he was a she. She wore a dark purple cloak and her pink hair spilled down her back in straight waves.

"Shidou, you can't fight her," said the blue haired woman. "I'm dueling her in an hour."

"I'm fighting her as well," said the third woman. "We were to meet at the meadow in two hours."

Shidou started chuckling as she began to remove her cloak, the other two climbing out of their horses and doing the same. "Well, it seems you have a busy afternoon ahead of you," she said to Saotome. "Let's get on with it then." Her cloak hit the ground and Saotome stared at the tunic.

"You're one of the Senshi?" he asked Shidou. The cloaks of Shidou's friends also hit the ground, revealing that they wore identical tunics. "You're all Senshi? I've been looking all over Japan for you."

"And now you've found us," Shidou said. "I believe we have your lack of manners to discuss, unless you'd like to reschedule."

Saotome sighed and removed from his belt Nerima, the blade handed down through the generations of his mother's family. A single thought, and the blade flickered to life, an energy beam a meter long, ten centimeters wide, and an edge of one molecule. "No," he said. "I do not reschedule matters of honor. But I will take no pleasure in this victory." He slipped into a gaurding stance as Shidou produced a blade of her own seemingly out of thin air. "I'll be with you ladies in a moment."

"Ooh," the blue haired one said, "she's a fiesty one." The other redhead nodded agreement.

At that point, there was the sound of multiple horses approaching and Shidou's expression became one of disgust. "She wouldn't, not twice in one day."

"Took them long enough," muttered the blue haired woman, almost at the edge of his hearing.

Around the corner of the ruins came five men and women in the tunics of the Church's soldiers. "You'll all under arrest," said a woman with the epaulets and silver braid of a captain. "Will you come peacefully, or resist arrest?"

"She would," the other two Senshi said in unison.

"I'll ask again," said the captain levelly. "Will you come peacefully or will you resist arrest?"

"What are you, stupid?" demanded the blue haired Senshi. "Of course we're going to resist. Just give us a moment." The three Senshi went into a huddle. Saotome tried to join them, but was shoved away.

"Five aginst three," said the blue haired woman. "Hardly seems fair. Should we offer them a chance to surrender?"

"There's four of us," Saotome said.

"This isn't your fight," Shidou snarled. "This is between us and High Priest Kagato. Don't be stupid."

"I may not wear a Senshi's tunic," Saotome shot back, "But I believe that I have the heart of a Senshi, like my mother before me."

"A warrior and a poet," observed the second redhead.

"You got a name?" Shidou demanded.

"Saotome."

Shidou exchanged looks with her comrades. "Shidou," she said and indicated the others. "Ryoko and Utena." Saotome shook everyone's hand.

"So that's it?" asked Ryoko. "Everyone's aqauinted?" They spun to face the Church soldiers, an energy blade manifesting in Ryoko's hand and Utena took hers from her belt. "Okay," Ryoko said with a smile. "We're ready to resist."

The soldiers clambered out of their horses and drew their own swords, shouting a battle cry as they rushed forwards. For a moment, there was a flurry of swords as everyone jockeyed for position and then they all flowed in different directions.

Saotome wound up with the captain, who proved to be well skilled with her sword. Put on the defensive, Saotome could only retreat, fending off her snakelike blows as he searched for an opening, any opening to use for his offense.

Shidou cleaned off her blade and stared disgustedly at the man in the dirt before her. "Amatuer," she growled as Ryoko and Utena joined her. "So much for being strengthened by Serenity's will." Ryoko made a strange noise and Shidou winced. "Right. Sorry, Ryoko. Forgot."

Saotome stared as Nerima's hilt bounced from the top of the wall, and fell to the ground far below. 'Far enough to kill someone,' part of him dispassionetly noted and he looked back at the captain, and smiled as he moved into a gaurding stance. After all, swords were only an extension of the body, which was the true weapon.

"Look," Utena said quietly, causing the other two to look up from their looting of the soldiers. That was to say that Shidou was looting, and Ryoko was watching. "She's still alive." She pointed at the high wall at the south end of the ruins. At the top, they could see two figures, and only one of them had a sword. The other was dodging the orange blade as it swept through the air.

"Unarmed combat against a blade?" Ryoko asked. "Is she nuts?" Unnoticed by her fellow Senshi, her fingertip began to subtley glow.

"Its only bad if they get you," Utena replied.

"Utena's got a point," Shidou said as she ripped the platinum braid from the body of the soldier at her feet. "Unless they make contact, a sword's just a nifty light beam." She scowled at the solider's purse. "Only fifty banum?" She slapped the body. "How the hell are we supposed to stick it to Kagato if the church pays its dopes crap?"

"We got paid in standard creds," Utena said. "Banum's only good if you're buying Arcian Draught, remember?"

Shidou's eyes lit up and she started digging through the fallen soldier's tunic more enthusiastically,

When one is armed and their oppenent is not, one generally believes that the advantage is theirs. This belief had made the captain overconfident and provided Saotome with the opening he had been looking for. As she lunged, he twisted and leaned to the left, and then lashed out twice with his foot, catching the captain in the stomach and then again in the face. Groaning in pain, she toppled forward and then fell off the wall, plunging down to hit the ground below with a sickening thump that he could hear even from atop the wall. Concentrating, he reached out to Nerima and called it to him. A second later, the hilt was hovering before him. Grabbing it, he hooked it to his belt and turned to make his way back, only to stop as his foot brushed something.

Looking down, he saw a data link embossed with the Church's symbol; A tree under crescent moon. As he picked it up, Midway finished its passage and the world began to brighten, the sunlight reflecting off the link's black casing and the embossed moon. In that brief, glaring flash, he thought he saw the silvery moon of the insignia go transparent, revealing the face of a rabbit. And then the moment passed, leaving him blinking rapidly. He studied the case again, but there was nothing remarkable. Shrugging, he tucked the link into his belt pouch and began making his way back down the wall.

By the time he got back to the horses, Ryoko and Shidou were leaning against one of the walls, watching Utena pile the bodies of the soldiers.

"What's Utena doing?" Saotome asked.

"Revenge," Shidou replied. "She likes to get creative with Kagato's lackeys." Saotome turned away as Utena took out a knife and began to hack at the bodies.

"But why?"

"She used to be one of the Church Soldiers," Ryoko shrugged. "Then something happened involving someone called the Rose Bride. She won't talk about it much."

"She takes her revenge pretty seriously though," Shidou said.

"Shit," Ryoko said, staring down the road. "Horses."

"I don't see anything," Saotome said.

"Ryoko's got better hearing then we do," Shidou said and then raised her voice. "Utena! Company!" Utena gave no sign of acknowledgement, but she did rise to her feet and walk to retrieve her cloak.

"What about Saotome?" Shidou asked as the Senshi gathered their cloaks.

Ryoko's green eyes were unreadable as she studied Saotome. "She comes with us," Ryoko declared. "She's too full of idealisim for me to feel comfortable leaving her here with Church soldiers coming."

Saotome bowed his head in thanks and headed for his horse.

****

As they moved north, the terrain turned rocky and the road bad, and the qaurtet was forced to slow down to a snail's pace or risk crashing. They stopped only late at night and moved out at dawn. They had taken the news of his gender changing ability with minimal concern, but Saotome couldn't help feeling like they knew something he didn't and often caught them looking at him oddly, speculativly, almost.

But he welcomed it. While maybe not a Senshi yet, he had found them, and for that, he was thankful, if a bit troubled. For as long as he could remember, Nodaka Saotome had regaled her son with tales of the Senshi, painting them as unflawed gaurdians of love, justice, and peace. Saotome could still hear her ringing tones as she told him tales of heroisim and sacrfice. Of the Lady of Heart, one of the original nine Senshi (when there had been only nine) who sacrificed her only shot at love for Queen Serenity's safety. His father, however, had spoken of them as human beings, with all the good and bad that came with it.

If the trio he had fallen in with was any indication however, then Emperor Tenchi and Empress Usagi entrusted their safety to borderline psychopaths and Shidou seemed to be the worst of the lot. She fought the few bandit ambushes they encountered with a zeal that seemed almost suicidal, was perhaps a bit to fond of ale, and companship with people who made a living out that sort of thing did not overly offend her sensabilities. She was occasionally careless about the truth, and indifferent about the rights of the dead when it came to property ownership...or the rights of some of the living for that matter.

Utena quite obviously had a fued with the Church. They encountered patrols of Church Soldiers quite frequently, and Utena always took time to butcher them even though it forced them at times to slow down.

It was Ryoko who drew his attention though. Unlike the others, she seemed to have no particular beef with the Church, in fact she scowled, when the other two joked about the tenents of the Church and yet was indifferent to her companion's bloodthirsty excesses. She rarely spoke, but her eyes were always on him. Watching, studying..

It was on one cold and clear morning as they traveled a narrow road along a moutain face, that suddenly the sun seemed to wink out, Saotome looked up just in time to see what almost looked like some kind of hand descend upon them.

The next thing he knew, he was standing in a chamber fashioned out of some kind of metal. The floor lurched and there was a strained sound, as though some aged voice was calling out "Miya!".

Saotome somehow managed to perch on Shidou's head as the scream of sheer terror bellowed forth from his lips. "CAAAAAAAT!"

"What the hell?" Shidou demanded, shoving Saotome to the floor. Saotome immeditly dashed to the wall and pressed himself against it, eyes darting everywhere.

"Family thing," Ryoko said. "I'll talk to him later."

Once it was explained that the ship only made those noises because its builder thought it was cute and there were in fact no felines on board, Saotome calmed down. Though whenever the ship, which he soon learned was called the Ryo-Oki, made a noise, he jumped.

The Ryo-Oki was an old ship, but fast, and they were soon in the system's outer reaches, out among the asteroids. Ryoko, who sat in the room's only chair, a hand on each of the crystal spheres that seemed to be the controls, slowed the ship, apparently searching for something. Finally, they dipped inside one of the great rocks and after manuevering through a crevice, came to a large cavern. Clinging to one of the walls by means of a bottom mouted grasping claw was a medium size frieghter. It was disc shaped and obviously very old. It appeared to be a single deck and the cockpit was mounted on the side, rather then center on in the front.

"That's a Republic ship, isn't it?" Saotome asked.

"Sort of," Ryoko replied as they slowed. "She was built during the fifty or so years between the First and Second Republic, when the Empire was decorating systems with the burnt out hulls of Alliance ships. After the second Republic was founded, this design became popular with independant haulers because of the increased cargo capcity and low operating costs." On the viewscreen, the hull of the freighter closed with frightening speed--

--Saotome blinked and found himself standing in an empty cargo bay. At his feet was a small brown creature with thin brownish-gray fur. Saotome jumped back, instinctivily distancing himself from the creature's catlike appearance. The creature, however, looked at him with dim yellow eyes and made a pitiful squeaking noise. It was then that he noticed that the air in the room was stale and smelled bad. It wasthin, and barely breathable. Saotome tried not to breathe too deep.

"I'll put Ryo-Oki in her chamber," Utena said, scooping the creature up.

"Fine. Saotome, come with us." Ryoko and Shidou led Saotome through a cooridoor to a small conical cockpit. before him was two seats set into the floor before a console. To his right, another console set into the wall, and an ordinary chair at some kind of desk to his left. "Flip every switch on that console with a red light," Ryoko said to him as she took the left seat at the front. Saotome did as instructed as Shidou squeezed past him and took the right hand seat.

"Seven percent systems failure," Shidou said. "Not bad considering its been here for what? Ten years?" Her fingers danced across keys, and Saotome could hear the hum-whirr of stasis fields spinning down. The air began to freshen as the scrubbers started working and the deckplates started vibrating as the engines came online.

"Closer to twelve," Ryoko said absently as she she manipulated the controls, detatching the ship from the wall and guiding it out of the cave. "Anything vital?"

"Nah, at least nothing the auto-repair can't handle. So where are we headed?"

"Dunno. Its a pretty safe bet Kagato knows we're here, so we need to get out of this system. Any suggestions?"

"Jump Gate then hyperdrive," Utena said as she entered the cockpit and sat at the third console. With nowhere else to go, Saotome sat at the desk and began fiddling with the data link.

"No. He's going to be watching the jump grid." Ryoko said and reached for the console set between the two front seats just below the hyperdrive controls, slouching a little to see the screen. "I'd rather just hyper out of here." Long fingers tapped keys. "Some out of the way system where Kagato doesn't have a reach." She muttered a curse to herself. "Or at least where the Church has other things on its mind." Then a moment later. "Shidou, you owe me fifty."

"Huh?"

Ryoko jabbed a finger at the screen. "Manticore and Haven are at war. Again." The blue haired woman resumed tapping keys, stopping only to take a cred chip from Shidou, who was half leaning over her shoulder.

Foe the most part, the next hour passed without incident, the Senshi speaking together in hushed voices.

"Ryoko?" Saotome asked, breaking the silence. "Can I ask you something."

"Sure."

"What was the Helios project?"

"Helios?" Ryoko's head came up, almost smacking Utena in the face. "What's that?"

"Its on this link."

Ryoko snatched the link from his hand and studied it. "This is a Church link...where did you get this?"

"The captain dropped it."

Ryoko held it out to Utena.

"A memo to all units from Kagato's office ," Utena said after a moment's glance at the link's screen. "They're to gather any and all references to Helios, no matter how passing or the context. Its tagged as High Priority."

Ryoko muttered an oath and turned back to the screen. "Helios, Helios, why does that name sound familar?"

"Nothing in the ship library," Shidou said as they gathered behind Ryoko.

"I can see that," Ryoko muttered and swore to herself. "All right, where can we go both to hide and find out what Kagato is up to?" She began to page through the computer.

"Hey wait," Shidou said after Ryoko paged through several entries. "Go back. No. One more. There. Nabiki."

"Nabiki system?" Saotome asked.

"Nabiki's not a system," Shidou said. "She's a woman."

"More like a cult," Ryoko groused, even as she called up system coords on the navigational controls. "Whatever you need, Nabiki can get it's hands on it, and it has no particular love for the Church."

"So we can trust them?" Saotome asked.

"It. Nabiki has no gender. And yeah, we can...as long as our money holds out." Ryoko said, as she pushed the lever forward. Outside the cockpit, space became the molted sky of hypersapce.