AN: I've decide to re-start "Chasing Serenity," tweaking some of the plotlines in order to make it easier to write. So, in the meantime, here's a story that takes place between Galaxia and Crystal Tokyo. It's meant to provide background for my somewhat unique take on SM canon: while it's mostly manga-based, I do draw from the anime and even PGSM, and even just make some things up or omit them entirely. I also hope this story will provide explanation for how certain characters got to be the way that they are in my version of Crystal Tokyo. Enjoy!

Sailormoon does not belong to me, etc.

I was the first of us to awaken as a soldier. I had just turned 13. For most of my teenage years, I balanced being first Sailor V, then Sailor Venus, with my life as a schoolgirl. And I did it, through energy draining and torture, through entrance exams and unrequited crushes, even through death itself. I was Venus and she was me. Then, after Galaxia, after I was reborn out of the Cauldron of the Stars, there was nothing. No threat to Earth. No reason to fight. I was just plain old Aino Minako again.

Would it sound odd if I said that I missed it? Sure, it was kind of a shitty life, what with all the late nights and deception and pain and death, but... well, there you have it. I did miss it. Three things I missed about it, out of millions:

3. The way it felt to leap across the skyline, from rooftop to rooftop, the moonlight in my hair and the wind on my face.

2. The way performing a Crescent Beam, or a Rolling Heart Vibration, or a Love and Beauty Shock made my whole body tingle and course with energy.

1. The way Usagi, transformed, beatific as Sailor Moon, would sometimes, after a battle, smile at us, at me, in that ridiculously beaming and infinitely reassuring way that she has. We were making a difference in the world. We were saving it. Just a glance of that smile was like a full-body hug from anyone else; one look at that smile and I knew that come what may, good would triumph. We would triumph.

After I was reborn, when I didn't need to be Venus anymore, life was muted. It was like reverting back to black and white after living in Technicolor. Sure, we knew that someday things would be different, that we would be soldiers again, that Usagi would marry Mamoru and become queen of Earth, and that Chibi-usa would be born. But even then, even post-Galaxia, Crystal Tokyo seemed like nothing but a distant dream of a future. I mean, we were still in high school.

It was not until summer vacation of my senior year that things changed again. I was almost, but not quite, 18. I was still living at home and relations with my parents were growing more strained the closer it drew to my graduation day. I couldn't help it; I felt my freedom calling me. They couldn't help it; they still thought of me as a little girl, when they thought of me at all. It was an exceptionally hot August, and Michiru and Haruka invited us to their beach house under the pretense of beating the heat. Just us girls. No Mamoru, as he was still off at college. And no cats.

"But I want to come," Artemis pleaded, rubbing up against my ankles.

I continued stuffing t-shirts and underwear into my backpack. "Artemis, it's the beach. You hate the water. We'll be setting off fireworks. You don't like loud noises." My hand brushed along something cool and smooth at the bottom of my dresser drawer. My crescent compact. And next to it, my transformation pen. When was the last time I had been Sailor Venus? "You are a cat. Cats don't go to the beach."

"Hey! I'm human on the inside."

"You just want to go because you're a pervert who wants to see me and the girls frolicking around in tiny swimsuits."

"But--"

"No." The sound of a horn came again from outside the window, then a piercing whistle. I leaned out. Makoto had poked her head out one Michiru's windows. Her fingers were between her lips and she was looking up at me expectantly. "Yeah, yeah," I yelled. "I'm coming." I grabbed my compact and pen on impulse and stuffed them into my backpack. I turned to back to Artemis. "Besides, Luna isn't going either."

His voice dropped. "I know."

"What, did you have a fight?" I locked my bedroom door behind us and bounded down the stairs, taking them three at a time. Artemis walked behind me, his head down. "Yes.

I rolled my eyes. "Who were you looking at this time?"

"It-- it wasn't about that." He paused on the last stair, his pupils narrowing to pinpricks as I opened the front door. "We'll talk about it when you get home."

My fingers drifted up from the doorknob. "Artemis...'

He shook his head. "It can wait."

"If you say so."

"I do." He tried to brighten his expression, but was somewhat hindered by his furry face. "Have fun, Minako."

"I will." I shouted a perfunctory, "Bye, Mom!" back over my shoulder and stepped out into the blinding sunshine. The weirdness with Artemis was soon whisked away from my thoughts when Usagi grabbed hold of my hand and started pulling me in the direction of the waiting vehicles. Michiru was behind the wheel of the first, Makoto shotgun, and Ami, Usagi, and I would be in the back. Haruka usually drives two-seat sports cars, or as she explains it, "One seat for me, and one for Michiru; why do I need anything more than that?" The car she had brought today was a mid-size convertible, though still smaller then the car Michiru was driving, with Hotaru shotgun, and Setsuna and Rei in the back. But as soon as we approached, Setsuna flung open the door of the convertible and all but tumbled out into the grass. "Hey... Minako..." she managed to eke out, ⌠Want to switch places?"

"Eh?" I stood over her. Setsuna's face was a paler tint of her hair color, but not by much.

"Setsuna, are you okay?" asked Usagi, crouching down on her heels.

"Just a little motion sick. That one," here she closed her eyes and shuddered, "drives like a demon."

"I'll have you know that I am a professional," retorted Haruka, adjusting her rear view mirror.

"Yeah, for speed racing," I said. "Sure thing, Setsuna. I'll take her on. I've got a stomach of iron." Giving my stomach a thump, I tossed my backpack in before me and vaulted myself over the door. Makoto and Michiru carefully helped Setsuna off the grass, settling her in next to Ami.

"Hey, Rei. How's it going?" I glanced over at my travelling companion. Jet black shades concealed half her face and her long hair was pulled back in a high ponytail to keep its stifling weight off her neck. I knew because I had done the same thing, tying mine off with the red ribbon I always wear.

She shrugged one bare shoulder. "Well enough. You?"

"I'm cool."

Haruka glanced up me in her rearview mirror. "Ah, Minako, you might want to buckle up."

"Right." I reached for the seat belt and tightened it around my narrow waist. Then I reached into the front compartment of my backpack for my tinted sunglasses and brought them down over my eyes. "Let's rock and roll."

Haruka started the car. Some grandiose classical thing with lots of cannons boomed out from the stereo system. Haruka's finger quickly pressed the stop button. "Ah, that would be one of Michiru's favorites." She opened up the glove compartment and rummaged around, retrieving a book of CDs. She tossed it back to me. "Here, Minako. You pick something."

I flipped through the book, selected the latest by Plastic Tree, and passed it to Haruka. "Ah, mademoiselle makes an excellent choice." She slid it into the CD player, it began, and we were off.

"So, where is this beach house of yours?"

I caught Haruka smirking in the rearview mirror. "You'll see."

Forty-five minutes later, the nine of us arrived at a private garage with a heliport. Michiru and Haruka's helicopters were on the roof, gleaming in the sun.

"No, seriously," I asked Haruka, "where is your beach house?"

She grinned, handing off her car key to an attendant. "We can't get there by land."

I raised an eyebrow. "You do realize this raises my expectations, like, exponentially, right?"

We unpacked the cars and loaded the helicopters. "Damn, Michiru," said Makoto, pulling a clown car's worth of matched brown leather luggage plus her own forest green duffel bag out of the trunk of Michiru's car. "How much did you pack?"

Michiru pursed her lips. "A lady brings enough to be properly dressed for any occasion that might arise." She laughed. "And there are just so many things I might want to wear, you know?"

Even with temperatures in the nineties, Michiru seemed effortlessly elegant. She was wearing a linen sundress and a pair of strappy sandals with mind-bogglingly high heels. I wore rather high heels in my most recent form of Sailor Venus, but I chalk up my ability to walk in them to sheer serendipity and adrenaline, not any kind of skill.

Michiru caught me staring, and said, "With enough practice and grace, one can learn to do anything in heels."

"'Grace' being the key word, Mina," said Rei, handing me my backpack.

"Well, we can't all go around punishing monsters in our high heels, Miss Sailor Mars," I elbowed Rei in the side and she shot me a withering glance. I'm not so good at elegance.

We climbed into the helicopters in the same groups we had shared in the cars. Setsuna's skin had regained its normal coloring at least, and Ami and Setsuna seemed to be deeply engaged in a discussion about theoretical physics, with Usagi walking close behind them, looking deeply confused. I didn't blame her. I may have a stomach of iron, but those types of conversations make even me feel a little motion-sick. I settled myself in next to Rei, my backpack tucked between my feet. Then there was a whir of blades and wind and our helicopter lifted up, up, and over the ocean.

I marveled at Haruka's nonchalance about piloting the thing. "So Haruka, you're going to let me pilot this on the way back, right?" I nodded enthusiastically, while Rei silently shook her head beside me.

Haruka took once look at us back over her shoulder and burst out laughing. Hotaru looked back as well, saw our bobbing heads, and grinned. "Haruka-papa's a very good pilot."

"She sure is," I agreed. "Hey, what are you reading, Hotaru?" She been reading since I'd been picked up, not saying a word to any of us.

She held up a thick, dusty tome, using her pointer finger as a bookmark. "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire."

"Oooooh," I sucked in a deep breath. "What's that about?"

"Pretty much what it sounds like."

"I see."

"I'm re-reading it, actually. It's one of my favorite books."

"Oh." Rei held one of her hands in front of her mouth and began to snicker quietly. "Hey!" I whirled around to face her. "Stop laughing at me!"

The ocean pulsed beneath us, pushed and pulled by the invisible hand of the moon. I pressed my hands against the glass and looked out across the expanse. The surface of the water was a deep aquamarine blue, not azure like my eyes, but darker, like Usagi's, and dappled by a tessellation of cresting waves. We spend so much time at ground level, dwarfed by nature that it can be quite refreshing once in a while to step above it all. To see it spread below you in miniature, all the riches of the world, the foam on each wave no bigger than your pinky fingernail. I recalled the image of Earth from space. I know I'm biased, as Earth is my home planet now, but when I first saw it from the darkness of space, I knew that it was the most beautiful of all planets. Blue and green, with a swirl of white clouds, it is the jewel of the Sol system. I remembered having the impulse, then, to scoop it up in my hands and hold it against my heart.

A pod of dolphins broke the repeating surface and jarred my thoughts back to the present. I called Rei to come look. We tried to count them. Seven? Eight? They followed under us for a long while, and then our paths diverged. I found myself waving good-bye as we left them. Finally, off in the distance, I saw a small island, crowned with emerald greenery and ringed by a white sand shore. And, amid the trees, I spotted a house. I pressed my face closer to the window, my breath condensing on the glass. "That's it," I said.

"Indeed it is," Haruka said.

We touched down about ten minutes later, but not before I had almost leapt from the helicopter in excitement the moment we were hovering the island. The air was thick with the scent of tropical flowers and everywhere I looked there seemed to be a color that I had never seen before. I felt a million miles away from Japan. This was another world entirely.

The beach house itself was stunning, immense and inviting, the sort of place that just begs to be explored. Strangely, it seemed to be the only building on the island, but that was probably due to the size of the house in comparison to the smallness of the island. The big house was big enough that we could each have our own bedrooms. Michiru directed us along the upstairs hallway, pointing each of us into our rooms. Mine had warm white walls and yellow accents. The bed was king-sized and I immediately flopped down backwards upon it, tossing my backpack to the floor. The comforter was pure white, thick and fluffy, but I could tell it was lightweight. It was the most comfortable bed I've had the privilege of lying upon, and let me tell you - I'm a girl who likes her beds. Maybe not the connoisseur Usagi is, but I've still overslept on a few mornings of my own. After a few moments of ecstasy, I jumped up to investigate further.

A pair of French doors led out to my own private balcony that overlooked the beach, with a lounge chair and a low table provided for my convenience. Back inside, another door led to a spacious walk-in closet with an overhead light. "Damn," I said aloud to myself. "If I'm going to stay here, I'm going to need to buy some more clothes." The last door led to a bathroom, but not a private one. It was apparently shared to be with Rei, my next-door neighbor, from the way she was standing there admiring the contents of the fully-stocked cabinet. She picked up tiny a jar of moisturizing cream and turned it read the label. "La Mer," she said. "It's very expensive." I myself was more amazed by the shower. There was an open shower booth, of the type where the water falls from directly over head like a tropical rain shower, all done in sleek glass and black marble.

I hopped up to the edge of the sink. It was a double, with a huge mirror that spanned the entire counter. I realized that I hadn't seen a toilet yet, and then spotted it tucked over in a corner, discreet in its own closet. The towel rack was overflowing with thick, white towels and was flanked by two hooks, each holding a white bathrobe. "It's amazing that Haruka and Michiru went through all the trouble to decorate seven guest rooms. And so lavishly too! Did you see that Usagi got the second master suite, to share with Mamoru in case he ever comes out?"

"Mmm."

"Rei," I said, "I think we've found the good life."

"Here," she handed me a small tube, "try some Bulgarian lavender hand cream."

After some desultory unpacking, I joined the others in the kitchen. Michiru and Makoto had stopped at a grocery store before they picked me up, and had bought enough provisions for week. Makoto was thrilled by the size of the kitchen, and had even found a white chef's hat in one of the cabinets that she wore as she served us. Lunch was grilled lemon shrimp on an arugula and romaine salad, with watermelon sorbet for dessert. We settled ourselves around the kitchen table or perched on counters, plates in laps, conversation a blur of the deliciousness of the food, the scenic qualities of the island, and the comforts of the house.

"When did you two buy this place?" Makoto asked.

"Oh, a while ago," Michiru said.

"It's lovely. Thank you very much for letting us stay here."

"Thank you, Rei. You're welcome to stay whenever you'd like."

"Yes, thank you for your hospitality, Michiru and Haruka." Ami gave a sly smile and skewered a shrimp onto the end of her fork. "But this isn't really your house, is it?"

Conversation stopped. Rei, Makoto, Usagi and I all stared at Ami. Usagi started choking on a shrimp and coughed into her napkin. Makoto helpfully thumped her on the back. I could feel my heartbeat vibrating in my fingertips.

Setsuna was the first to speak. "No, you're right, Ami. This isn't really Haruka and Michiru's house." Our heads swiveled towards Setsuna. "In fact," she said, smoothing a white linen napkin across her lap, "it belongs to all of us."