Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to any character, location, important concept, etc. that you recognize as being copyrighted/published. I just like to play with them.

Awakening! A Warrior's Return

"I shall keep your heart…safe with mine…"

ooooooooo

"…one thousand years to the hour…"

ooooooooo

"…my little maiden…time to wake up…"

Dark. Weightlessness. Nothing. She was drifting, in an endless sea of inky blackness. Just as she had for…an infinite amount of time. There was no time. But something had changed. For now she was aware that she was drifting in this space.

Pain. This was something new. She wasn't used to being in pain, not since the last time, an eternity ago…Her head was pounding – no, not her head; it was sound. She was hearing sound for the first time in a thousand years. Nothing too descript; just strange, monotonous noises in the background.

She was aware of a background now. There was something. Something other than the black oblivion she had grown accustomed to.

Her eyes burned. She felt them, and it was terrifying. She felt motion, and she wasn't floating anymore. There were confines now; she felt a body – her body. She was in a body now and was no longer floating in nothingness.

Slowly – and very painfully – her sense of touch awakened. Her skin felt ridden with pinpoints of icy pain. She felt a surface beneath; she was lying on something hard and flat. And so very cold. She shivered.

There was time now. She was somewhat aware of the passage of time. She knew that some length of time had passed since she recognized her link to a body, however distorted that perception was. Images flooded her mind now. She remembered; only bits and pieces, random images that vaguely made some sense. They were distant and fleeting memories of the distant, fleeting past. But they couldn't help her now; she had no idea where she was now.

She tried in vain to curl her fingers, finding the joints and ligaments in discordance.

… body … atrophied … dormant so long…

A minute or an hour later, she gained back full consciousness. In this newly awakened state, she attempted to open her eyes. They burned as she did, so she closed them again, and waited. The second time proved more successful; she could keep them open, fiery pain though they caused her. But she saw nothing; it was dark as the oblivion she had awakened from.

She slowly moved her arm to the side, only to be stopped by an unseen barrier. The same happened with her other arm. A box, she concluded.

More fear set in as she came to realize the tightness of the space. She started to struggle, only to find that she was in some way strapped to where she was at the waist and feet and legs. She panicked and fought her binds. Snap! -- She tore her feet free.

She was very frightened, she acknowledged to herself. But then again, who wouldn't feel terror at waking in a dark, cold, tight space, with nothing to see and nowhere to move? Who knew what was in that darkness? And what was beyond it could be far worse still… Images floated to the surface to her consciousness and she was powerless to stop those fragments of a broken memory. She vaguely remembered darkness from some distant past, albeit a far more horrific darkness…the memory was painful, so she pushed it away. There was the here and now to think about at present.

With the knowledge that escape was possible, and therefore probable, she calmed her pulse down and began to work on detaching the rest of her body…

ooooooooo

The stones of the ancient temple seemed to vibrate with the grating noise that filled the structure. The ageless stone sarcophagus in the corner, dusty and long forgotten -- tucked away behind the more…recent…additions to the mausoleum -- had begun to move. Rather, its cover began to slide off by some force from the inside. A shaking hand appeared from the crack in the stone to push the cover the rest of the way off.

The hand was followed by an arm and finally a head and neck. The doll-like curls were dark against porcelain skin, matted and disheveled after the owner's millennium-long rest.

With much effort of her long-useless limbs, the girl climbed out of the sarcophagus, and doubled over, her breathing ragged from the effort.

Her child's body shuddered; her bare feet were numb and blue on the freezing stone floor. Her once lovely silky white gown was threadbare, though it was clearly never meant for the cold; the ratty straps still holding the garment up indicated that further still.

The golden locket hanging from her neck by a delicate chain, though it looked fragile and delicate itself, seemed to weigh her down.

Her eyes were a dull gray from exhaustion; so badly she wanted to go back to sleep…

But she pressed on, with an unknown determination, outside into the snow…

ooooooooo

She discovered that she was in a strange alien world, unlike anything she had ever seen, though in her current condition of mind, that was not much anyway.

There was strange painted stone everywhere, atop which moved giant shiny beings at great speeds. Despite the freezing cold and what she recognized from some distant memory, there was pointy green vegetation abundant. Trees – and they sparkled with hundreds of little lights, right on the branches! Outside they were, but inside buildings, behind glass, too! Buildings were as tall as a thousand men and people wandered this world in animal pelts. Some were laughing, others simply in too much of a hurry to notice too much of anything. She even saw a few speaking curiously into their…hands?

She had momentarily forgotten her fear in favor of awe, and interest in this peculiar environment. She questioned what was there before her eyes, and for a second thought she may still be dreaming in her little stone cradle.

Though still in her state of inadequate dress for the weather, she decided to explore a bit. She joined the stream of people.

"Hey! Watch where you're going! Stupid kids…"

She bumped into someone. Another someone in the crowd of people rudely shoved her aside with a curse. Not very friendly….

She walked on a bit in the crowd until the cramped space proved to be too much and she stepped off of the sidewalk and into the entrance to a park, it seemed. In a fleeting thought it occurred to her that she missed the heat the strangers had inevitably provided in the crowd.

She walked for a while through the park. Though these trees were bare of their green leaves, the snow glittered in the moonlight and so the seemed to sparkle – a different, quiet, kind of beauty, like nothing she could recall ever having seen.

The tranquility of the scene was suddenly interrupted by a scream. She didn't know what came over here but she sprinted towards its source, an unknown power commanding her movements.

There, in a little clearing, was a giant beast of some sort, black as night, made of coarse fur-like matter. It smelled her approaching, and turned its beastly head towards her, revealing glowing yellow eyes devoid of anything but lust for blood. Blood of the human girl, too shocked to even scream now, beneath its clawed paws.

A short distance away, a man stood calmly, seeming a passive onlooker at a museum.

"Ahh how nice! Two in one night! Perhaps you have the blood we seek…? Take her."

The beast followed the command without hesitation and pounced, a tiger lunging for the mouse.

She was too afraid to move; her feet were rooted to the snowy turf.

But the star around her neck had other plans. It began to glow a golden light, faint at first and then it suddenly flashed a powerful energy that threw the now howling creature back.

He glared at her; "What illusion is this?!"

Did it protect me…?

And then something began to happen to the little gold star, and its wearer. It glittered and washed the area in golden light and when the light ebbed, in its stead stood a very different girl than the one before.

The curls of her hair were refreshed and shined. Beautiful ribbons swirled around her. She wore a white bodice, with a collar and skirt of black and gold. On her back were soft white wings, and on her chest were a small matching pair. And where the wings joined was the golden star.

A deep glare this time: "Who are you?"

"I am…" she stammered, "I am…"

She had no idea. Her memory showed her only fragments of what seemed to be unrelated events and she had no inkling as to who, much less what, she was. No name, unknown past, uncertain future…she wanted to cry right then and there.

"…speak your name…brave warrior! Sailor Solaris!"

She met the demon's fiery eyes dead on with fiery ones of her own:

"A soldier for a shining star, I am Sailor Solaris! And you're really pissing me off! Die!"

Her voice was raspy from disuse. She was speaking as someone else then: those words didn't seem here own, and who knew what the hell a "Sailor," Solaris or otherwise, was?

"Ha-ha! Nice try! But my Queen destroyed Solaris over a thousand years ago! Your game of pretend will cost you. Good luck trying to take down my demon!"

But then her body launched, with a will of its own, or at least borrowed strength, at her attacker. She leaped, her knees tightly bent in midair, as a long whip appeared in her right hand. No sooner had she landed than she maneuvered her whip to entangle the offending beast's neck. A thin, elegant sword manifested itself into her left hand now, and an unseen force thrust the arm and weapon into the choking creature.

Black blood poured from fatal wounds as Solaris ripped out the sword with a twist. The demon let loose a pitiful moan, fell to the ground, and stirred no more.

Too shocked and angry to say anything, the man disappeared into the shadows, as the body of the demon disintegrated into ash, and then nothing at all. The woman under attack had long since run away, finding a perfect opportunity during the battle.

Solaris fell to her knees as her weapons disappeared to where they had come from, followed soon by her odd skirted uniform, replaced instantaneously by her ragged silk dress.

"…you must fight the demons…Sailor Solaris…Hikarino Emi…"

"Hikarino…Emi…I am…" She was out cold.

Everything that night had happened so fast and she could no longer keep up with all of these new sensations. And the strange voice she alone seemed to hear wasn't helping either. She was exhausted; her body shut down. But it was unwise to fall asleep in such an open place. Who knew what kind of person might come across her in her comatose state?

Who knew Tsukino Usagi witnessed the battle from behind a bush?

A/N: thanx for reading! wow, ok so this is the first story I've finally mustered up the guts to stick online for others to read. Please be nice! I was encouraged by a good friend. I promise to post the next part if my feedback is good ;)