Rating: PG
Disclaimer: not mine, cool? cool.
"What do you mean we have to work with Beryl? If we know she is trying to end the Silver Millennium, shouldn't we be stopping her? Why are we helping her?" Nephrite, the most emotional of Earth's four warrior-princes, stood up, slamming his fist against the stone table.
"Understand your position, general." Sailor Pluto demanded at the same time Kunzite's lower voice spoke a similar command.
"Stand down, Nephrite."
Ignoring the guardian of time and instead staring defiantly at his leader, Nephrite remained standing for several tense moments before he sighed and sat back down, his emotional outburst giving way to a lifetime's worth of training. Everyone in the room relaxed just a fraction. Nephrite rested his elbows on the table and his forehand against his folded hands, forcing himself to calm down. Pluto took a sip of her tea before continuing on her explanation.
"It is what Fate demands of you. It is the only way for Princess Serenity and Prince Endymion to ever be together, you must understand." As soon as Sailor Pluto mentioned the forbidden love between the Moon princess and the Earth prince, the four generals looked up, directly at her. Varying levels of surprise and suspicion were clear as day on their faces. Even though she was telling them what they needed to do for a chance at a future, they still were wary of her knowing their prince's secret. "If we do not do this, Metallia may grow capable of capturing the Silver Crystal and really win the war. What I am asking you to do will only allow Beryl to win the battle - the love between your prince and my princess alone can save the universe." The men fell still and silent; Zoisite even stopped his habitual pen-twirling.
"We'll do it." Kunzite didn't need to consult with his men before making a decision that would change not just their own lives, but all of history. The decision wasn't really their's to make in the first place. It was their duty, something they swore to do when they took their oaths to protect the Prince of Earth. It was just a little ironic that the only way to protect him was not only to let him die, but to guide him straight to death's door.
"It's useless thinking about the what if's, you know." Serenity was sitting so lightly on her cracked throne that she appeared to be floating. The remains of what was once the grandest hall in the Silver Millennium surrounded her, now reduced to nothing more than the most common rubble.
"I know." Pluto knelt in front of her queen, the one she'd sworn to protect with her life. Yet, that very promise was what forced her to help destroy everything she knew.
"And yet you still are." Despite having just seen her entire world literally crumble before her, Serenity was as calm as she was when she first took the throne. She kept her head high, even though there was no one but her closest friend around to witness it.
"I can't help it. I just can't help but wonder how something like this could possibly have good results. What if there was another way - a better way - and I just missed seeing it?" Pluto, on the other hand, was slowly cracking. She wouldn't be able to bear the guilt much longer, even though she had had no choice.
"Pluto, I'm sorry to have put so much so much responsibility on you. You will see though, it was all for the best." Serenity stood and walked forward to put her arm around the last soldier standing in her once invincible army. "Let us go. It is time." Together, the two women walked out onto the balcony of the palace, where official announcements were once made. Now, only broken pillars and crumbling walls gathered on the plaza before the palace, waiting for a glimpse of the Moon Queen. Serenity stretched her arms out in front of her, closing her eyes as a warm light emerged from between her hands, growing to encompass her arms, then her entire body. With a single word, the light exploded, and history was forever changed.
The first thing Usagi did when she woke up after the deep sleep in what would soon become Crystal Tokyo was call Pluto to her side. "Setsuna, you knew all this time?"
"Yes." In two millenniums, the soldier had not changed a bit. The pain in her eyes were still there - it had been there, unchanging, every day she stood guarding the gates of time since the day she watched the Silver Millennium fall. Usagi had seen it before, but had not known it for what it was until now.
"I cannot express how deep my debt to you is, then." Usagi's eyes sparkled with unshed tears, the sympathy and respect emanating from her volumes louder than the wails she was famous for as a teenager.
"I was just fulfilling my duty." Even though her words were polite and cold, the pain in Pluto's eyes slipped ever so minutely - just enough to let a little relief slip through that it was finally over.
"When will we see them again?" Usagi stepped forward, clasping Pluto's gloved hand between her own two. There was so much hope, so much anticipation, and so much fear in her eyes that the soldier was loathe to give her the straight response.
"That, my Queen, only time will tell." Pluto squeezed Usagi's hand before letting go, turning to leave the room. There was so much for the soon to become Neo-Queen Serenity to do in building her new kingdom, it wouldn't be right to spend any more time reminiscing on the past.
"Just one more question, Setsuna. Why then, during the 20th Century, did the generals still fight for Beryl? Wasn't their mission over?"
"That's the one question that I can't answer. You will need to find that out for yourself." Even as the two women conversed, the wheels of fate and destiny turned. Elsewhere in reviving world, four men awoke with tears in their eyes, leftovers of a dream so beautiful and so equally wretched that they each wished hard for it to be a mere nightmare.
"Sailor Venus, a foreign presence has been detected near the East Gate."
"What energy signal?" Head of security Venus spoke seemingly into thin air, though she was really speaking into a microphone placed on one of her pearly white teeth. She placed the sword she was inspecting back in its place before heading towards the East Gate.
"It's not in the database. EM analysis so far only shows that it is blue."
Venus wasn't too concerned as she approached the gate. Magick surrounded the palace and normally didn't let anyone who didn't belong approach it; it was almost like being in an alternate dimension, except that it was physically there and could be seen from what used to be the city of Tokyo. However, anyone who tried walking in a straight line towards the palace would unknowingly curve his path around it, never getting closer. She greeted the two soldiers guarding the gate, having long ago trained her men to not salute her in casual meetings, before turning to look at the cloaked figure standing still outside the gate.
"Who are you and what purpose do you have here?" Venus was completely alert, ready to fire a Crescent Beam and fling her wink chain at the same time, yet looking completely at ease and diplomatic.
The figure reached his hands out, showing he carried no weapons, and slowly brought them to his hood. Pushing it back, he revealed blond hair, followed by a beautiful, familiar face.
"Jed- no, Jadeite?!" Venus's shock was clearly shown on her face. Despite not meeting Jedite in the 20th century and not remembering Jadeite from the Moon, the names instinctively came to her mind and fell from her mouth. She didn't open the gate just yet though. Even though the newly crowned Neo-Queen Serenity had told the senshi about how Beryl's generals were once Endymion's personal guards - his version of her senshi - she couldn't exactly forget how they had killed them all not once, but twice.
The man dropped to his knees, still outside the gate. "Sailor Venus. Please, hear my story before turning me away. My name is Wang Jianjun; I've come here from Hangzhou, in the southern part of China. When the world was reawakened after the deep freeze, I had nightly dreams of a past on the Moon and a war - a war so bloody that none survived. I couldn't stop them, until one day I saw a newspaper with a picture of you senshi on it. You were in my dreams, all of you, and I knew I had to get an audience with the Queen."
Venus's heartstrings were pulled when she felt the desperation emanating from the man, even through the force field surrounding and protecting the palace grounds. "I'll bring you in, but only on the condition that you let me search you for weapons first and bind you up." She rested her hands on the chain around her waist. "I can't take any chances."
"Thank you - thank you so much!" Jianjun scrambled to his feet, allowing the cloak to drop off his shoulders. Instead of the gray uniform Venus had half-expected, he was dressed in normal civilian clothes, complete with a pair of sunglasses hanging off his Abercrombie & Fitch shirt's neckline. Venus watched as the guards opened the gate and scanned him for any possible weapons. Satisfied with their search, she tied his wrists and feet with her wink chain, leaving him just enough slack to walk, using her own powers through the chain to suppress any aura-based attacks he might attempt.
Commanding the guards to close the gate, she touched a switch on her earpiece that switched to the channel reserved strictly for senshi use only. "Guys, I need you all to meet in the Main Hall. We've got a special visitor."
"Do you really not remember anything?" The first to get over her shock, Mars took a step forward, towards the man Venus had led into the Main Hall and reintroduced into their lives.
"I regret to say that I remember very little, Sailor Mars - just the battle. The fiercest battle this universe has ever seen. The senshi were there, as was I and three comrades of mine. I don't remember who was fighting whom though, or who won. Everything else I know is from my current life, in China."
Jianjun fell silent as the only other man in the room stood up from his throne. Heads turned as Endymion crossed the large hall towards a man who had once been his third in command and his enemy, rolled into one. Serenity half stood from her throne, for the first time not knowing what her husband was planning on doing. Endymion stopped directly in front of Jianjun, who remained kneeling, clearly terrified to look up at the Neo-King. Suddenly, Endymion held out his hand, on which rested a bright green, unpolished stone. "Take it. It belongs to you."
Jianjun slowly raised his head, looking into Endymion's eyes for the first time since stepping into the room, and felt a wave of emotions rush through him. He took the stone in the gloved hand, feeling warmth spread through his entire body as soon as he made contact with the stone. "Jadeite," he whispered, as a bright blue light engulfed him and he was once again dressed in a familiar gray uniform with blue piping, not unlike the one Jedite had worn.
The senshi were immediately on guard, completely prepared to blast him into oblivion if not for Serenity raising her hand and commanding, "Stay." They remained in attack position, ready to counter at the first wrong twitch from Jadeite.
"Do you remember, now?" Endymion asked the man now standing in front of him.
Jadeite was perfectly still, as though frozen. Memories came surging into his mind, memories locked away for so long and yet seemed as clear as though they were of yesterday. Endymion. The generals. Training. A trip to the moon. A woman in a red dress. A visit from a woman with a large key-shaped staff. Then pain, so much pain, so much, unendurable pain that he caused - he and his companions.
"Jadeite!" Mars exclaimed as Endymion caught the unconscious man. She covered her mouth, unsure why her heart jumped when the blond crumpled.
"It's OK, he just needs to rest. His memories probably came back too quickly for him to deal with it." Endymion called for someone to take Jadeite to the medical quarters. Mercury prepared to follow them until Endymion spoke. "Mercury, stay. The doctors there can take care of him; he'll probably be sleeping for awhile. We need to meet."
The group retreated to a side meeting room behind the two thrones in the main hall. There was a few minutes of silence as they each tried to accept what had just happened. Finally, Luna, sitting on top of the crystal table, broke the silence. "Do you all remember who he was?"
"The Prince of Asia, Third General to Prince Endymion of Earth," Serenity responded. She walked over to the snack cabinet behind her chair, taking out bags of candy, chips, and other such junk food she'd developed an addiction to as a teenager and had never learned to give up. Everyone else nodded, except for Endymion, who was too lost in his own thoughts to hear what Luna said.
"Asia. That's it. Jadeite was from Asia, Nephrite from America, Zoisite from Europe and Kunzite from Arabia. Kunzite was my first in command - he was like an older brother to us all, the old stick in the mud. Nephrite was second, with his hot head always in the stars. Jadeite was third, a very no-nonsense type of guy - never any fun, really. And then Zoisite, the sneaky little rat - he used to cheat in practice and Kunzite would let him. Jadeite would always find some way of punishing him though." Despite his choice of words, the smile sneaking into Endymion's words couldn't hide the fondness he felt for his memories.
"Was he also Jedite though?" Serenity spoke the question that was on everyone's mind, while munching on a candy bar. Luna sighed - while Serenity looked and acted regal enough in public, in private, she was much the same as she'd always been.
Mercury, who'd been tapping away on her computer ever since Venus had brought Jianjun in, finally closed it and put it away. Everyone looked at her expectantly. "His story of having grown up in Hangzhou holds up. He was in high school when we were fighting Beryl and Jedite though. Genetically, he matches Jedite, though that doesn't necessarily mean anything. If Jedite were a clone, for instance, he would be a genetic match, but a different person."
"He was still involved in the downfall of the Moon Kingdom though." Mars, having gotten over her initial shock at seeing a former enemy return to them as a friend, had returned to her suspicious self. Serenity could only look at her best friend sadly, knowing it wasn't her place to tell her senshi what had really happened back on the Moon. It was someone else's job to inform them of that.
When Jadeite woke, he was in a clean bed, sunlight streaming in through windows over his head. He blinked once, twice, and remembered. Two tears slid past his eyelids without warning. He had betrayed his prince, had helped destroy the Moon Kingdom. Even if it was for the future, he helped destroy their happiness and innocence. He'd single-handedly led the attack on the East Wing, after he'd slipped the cyanide into Princess Mars's water - it had been a cowardly action, but he hadn't wanted to face her in combat. He wasn't sure why he was reincarnated, or what had compelled him to head for the Crystal Palace. He remembered the suspicion with which the senshi had regarded him - the way she had positioned her hands, ready to call up a bow and arrow of flames to incinerate him at a moment's notice.
"Rei." He mouthed her name, too overwhelmed to produce any sound as a silent sob shook his body. A knock sounded on his door, and he quickly pulled himself together. "Come in."
"Oh, you're awake." The girl that opened the door was smaller than the four senshi he saw when he first entered the palace, but her distinctive clothing clearly marked her as one of the elite group.
"Saturn?" he queried, remembering the girl that had ultimately ended the great war by lowering her glaive to the ground.
"Yes. There's water on the table next to you and the bathroom's right there." She pointed at the other side of the room, where there was another door. "I'll go get Mercury while you freshen up - you've been sleeping for twelve hours." She backed out of the room, closing it gently behind her.
When Mercury entered a few minutes later, Jadeite was sitting up on his bed, emotions already hidden behind a mask of seriousness. "I've called Serenity, who's on her way. I'll get them as soon as we finish this check-up to ensure that you're OK, all right?" When Jadeite nodded, she proceeded with the exam.
As she was checking his pulse, he couldn't refrain from asking anymore, "Why are you all being so kind to me, after what I've done?"
Mecury looked up, lips moving rhythmically as she counted his heartbeats. Several seconds later, she dropped his wrist and scribbled something on her clipboard. "Because Serenity told us to." She strapped a digital blood pressure monitor on his wrist without another word, and the rest of the check-up was conducted in silence. There wasn't any other reason she was doing this - her queen ordered her to take care of him, so she did.
After taking a small sample of his blood to the lab, Mercury returned to show Serenity and Endymion into the room. "Prince- no, King-" Jadeite scrambled to get out of bed so he could kneel in front of his king as was his habit, but Endymion grabbed his shoulders and pushed him back against the pillows.
"There's no need to bow, Jadeite. Rest."
Serenity took this time to gather up Jadeite's hands in her own much smaller, more delicate ones. "Jadeite." Her eyes welled up with tears as she sat gingerly on the edge of his bed. "Jadeite, how can I ever thank you for what you did. I can't imagine ever having to head a war against the rest of you, knowing full well what you did about what was going to happen." Tears fell from her eyes, though she no longer wailed like a little child.
Endymion put his arm around his wife's shoulders. "Thank you, Jadeite. Without you, this couldn't have happened."
Jadeite felt as though the proverbial heavy weight had been lifted off his chest. "I'm so sorry."
"There's nothing to be sorry for - you're our hero!" Serenity's alarm broke through her tears as she stared, wide-eyed at the guilt-stricken man. "Do you hear me, Jadeite? You didn't do anything wrong."
"Yes, my Queen. Does- does Mars know?"
"Just call me Serenity - we're still the same friends we've always been, I promise. And no, Mars doesn't know yet. It's not our place to tell her - it's your's. Whenever you're ready, I promise she'll listen." Serenity smiled at him through teary eyes, and Jadeite couldn't help but smile back.
"There's just one question, Jadeite - do you remember any battles during the 20th century?" Endymion phrased his question gently, attempting to make it sound as non-accusing as possible. He didn't want to accuse Jadeite of having gone against them even after the duty Sailor Pluto assigned him was finished, but they needed to know.
"No, the 20th century - all I remember was being a normal boy in China. It was just recently, after the deep freeze, that I started having nightmares of the war every night until I knew I needed to see you for the answers." Jadeite grew worried as Serenity and Endymion exchanged a look. "Why? What happened?" He could tell Serenity wanted to keep it a secret from him, so he continued. "Please, Serenity, if you still regard me as a friend. I need to know."
"Beryl attacked - that's when we finished off Metallia once and for all." Serenity wasn't telling him everything, and he knew it. Jadeite looked at her intently, imploring her to tell him everything. She relented. "The shitennou, in a sense, were working for her. Jedite, Neflyte, Zoycite and Malachite. We can't figure out who they were though - Mercury claims you have an alibi during that time."
Jadeite could only shake his head. "That wasn't me, you must believe me. I would never intentionally harm any of you again, certainly not for Metallia or Beryl's purposes. The only reason we did that in the first place was because Pluto said we had to, if we wanted to keep Metallia from ever gaining control."
"We know, Jadeite. We just can't figure out who those four were then, if they were clones or what. But trust me when I say that we believe you." Endymion clapped a hand on Jadeite's shoulder and smiled at him. "Now, why don't you get dressed and we'll go get lunch together? Someone I know should be starving by now." Right on cue, a loud growl came from Serenity's stomach. Jadeite smiled as Serenity and Endymion laughed. In two millennia, after all that had happened, they hadn't changed one bit. Everything was going to be OK. After changing into his uniform, he stepped outside to meet the two waiting for him and they headed off to the dining hall together, chatting like old friends.
It's been a long time since I've written Sailor Moon, so please, be brutal. Should I try finishing this? Or should I give it up as a terrible storyline and move on to something else?