Chapter 2: Dogs In Danger

"What do you mean, we kill endangered species? You're the one shooting fire at us while we have these puppies with us," Sailor Cookie retorted to Yomi, gesturing towards Miaka, who was on the ground, sniffing curiously at Serena. "You don't care if innocent dogs get burned?"

"Dogs aren't on the endangered list. But iriomote cats are. And you Senshi killed an iriomote cat. You also endanger people with your fighting. If you would just give us the Talismans and the Silver Crystal, there would be no more battles," Yomi declared.

"But I've never even seen an iriomote cat! How could I have killed one?" Sailor Popsicle protested, "And we're not just going to give you the Talismans and the Silver Crystal! Neo-Queen Serenity needs her crystal to protect the world from evil! And you're the one who just shot our friend's heart crystal out. What are you going to do with it? She'll die if you don't put it back."

"Why should I believe you? You're going to take over the world with the Talismans!" Yomi accused. She shot more fire at the Senshi, but it was countered by Sailor Popsicle's "Shine Aqua Illusion" attack and a bunch of steam surrounded the three Senshi and Yomi. Suddenly there was a flash of white light in the fog.

"Where are you, Chiyo? Did you fly away on your pigtails?" asked a voice. Though the Senshi didn't recognize it, Yomi obviously did.

"Osaka, what are you doing here? If you're not prepared to fight, the evil Sailor Senshi will get you," she scolded the newcomer. The steam had mostly cleared away by that point, and the Senshi could see another girl wearing a bodysuit, only hers was white. She also had brown hair like Yomi, but hers was shorter and she wasn't wearing glasses.

"Ah! The Senshi! They'll hurt Chiyo's pigtails!" Osaka yelped in surprise. Meanwhile, Haruka had picked up the puppies and she was ushering Hotaru into the house, while Michiru and Setsuna began to gently move Serena out of the battle area.

"Now that you're here, you can take a heart crystal. I'm sure one of them has the Courtship Fan," Yomi said, pointing to Setsuna and Michiru. Osaka stared at them for a moment, slowly raising her arm.

"Sparkling Wide Pressure!"

"Calculator Spinning Boomerang!" Sailor Cookie and Sailor Peppermint both attacked at the same time Osaka let out a white beam of light from her finger. As Osaka was knocked down by the electricity and flying calculator, the beam hit Setsuna. She collapsed as her heart crystal rose up from her body, and Michiru dropped Serena in reflexive surprise. Yomi lunged to grab Setsuna's heart crystal too, but Sailor Popsicle used her Shine Aqua Illusion attack to send freezing water flying at Yomi, who dropped Serena's heart crystal as she fell.

"She's calling us," Osaka said, still lying on the ground.

"I hear it too," Yomi muttered, and the two girls disappeared in flashes of red and white light. The Senshi hurried over and put Serena and Setsuna's heart crystals back in their bodies.

"Serena better not tell us to be nice to the Azumanga Daioh characters. If she tries to join them I'm going to zap her and Galaxy, you can freeze her in place so she doesn't betray us again," Sailor Peppermint said bitterly.

"I doubt she would want to join them, not after they just tried to kill her," Galaxy said, as the three Senshi detransformed. "Rainbow, Serena didn't mean to make Spectra attack you. You talk about your stories so much, our enemies were going to find out about them sooner or later."

"It's not what the enemies did. It's that Serena gave them the idea. She TOLD me that sending Spectra was her idea!" Rainbow snapped.

"She was being controlled at the time. I don't think she normally would have done that, but she had been brainwashed by the Love Angels. Would you blame Hotaru for anything she did as Mistress 9, for example? Or King Endymion for the time Queen Beryl turned him into her servant?" Haruka pointed out, interrupting the argument.

"But..." Rainbow started to say, but then she stopped. Was it true that most of Serena's actions when she was Angel Rose were out of her control? What about when she tried to defend Mew Ichigo after she saw that nightmare vision? Then again, Serena wasn't the only one to have thought her hallucinations were real, Pierre had also described having been convinced that the giant cat was real, too.

"Look, we need to take of Setsuna and Serena right now. Since you seem to be free, could you please hold the puppies?" Haruka asked. Miaka and Yui both had been getting rather squirmy in her arms, and Miaka was busy trying to climb up on Haruka's shoulder. Galaxy reached over Haruka's shoulder and took Miaka, and Rainbow took Yui. Meanwhile, Setsuna and Serena had started to wake up.

"I noticed something," Hotaru said quietly, sitting next to Setsuna and Serena, "The two girls who attacked, it looked like they left because someone told them to. I heard the one named 'Osaka' say that someone was calling her."

"Probably Sailor Nemesis. They wouldn't be attacking in the first place if she wasn't controlling them," Haruka replied.

"Is it impossible to just heal the anime characters? Like with the Silver Crystal. Or is it really true that they won't stop being evil unless they die in this world and go back to their own world? Because I wish they could stay and be my friends," Serena said.

"Serena, even if they could be healed, Sailor Nemesis could still brainwash them again. If they are dead in this world, they won't be able to return and that way, Sailor Nemesis won't be able to force them to attack us," Michiru reasoned.

"I didn't think about that. I guess I thought that if they were healed, they would be able to fight it off because then they would know what was coming. But I guess that wouldn't work for the characters from Azumanga, since they don't normally have superpowers. And being magic didn't help any of the others, either," Serena said, sounding disappointed but resigned to the idea that their enemies were going to be anime characters she liked. Since she and Setsuna had revived, they all went inside with the new puppies.

"We got kennels for Miaka and Yui, right? They should go in their kennels if it's possible, the next time the Azumanga enemies attack here. That way they don't run into the middle of a battle," Galaxy pointed out.

"Yes, that would be a good precaution to take," Michiru agreed, "The enemies should not even know about the puppies or be allowed to get near them. They would unfortunately make for perfect hostages if our enemies wanted to do something like that."

"They wouldn't really...they would use innocent puppies like that? They really WOULD be evil if they did that!" Galaxy exclaimed in horror.

"I guess Sakaki might want to have the puppies for herself because she loves cute things. I don't think they would normally hurt puppies, but if Sailor Nemesis brainwashed them into being evil, they might," Serena added.

"Unfortunately, I think they already saw the puppies. Pierre just HAD to mention it to them, too," Rainbow snapped, rounding on him, "First you insult Space Girl Spectra, and now you make our new puppies vulerable to the enemy?"

"What do puppies have to do with Space Girl Perfect? I was just pointing out that they were the ones putting dogs in danger because they accused us of killing endangered species!" Pierre shot back.

"That's enough, you two. We learned the hard way when we were younger that a team of Sailor Senshi must not be divided," Setsuna scolded, "If the Azumanga characters saw you fighting, it would be another weakness they could exploit."

"Then tell Pierre not to point the dogs out to our enemies!" Rainbow demanded.

"Rainbow, even if he hadn't said anything, the dogs would have been easily visible. We can't change the past, but what we need to do now is just make sure these puppies don't become easy targets in the future," Setsuna said. Unfortunately, now that they had been let loose inside the house, the puppies were now the ones doing the targetting.

"NO! Yui, no! My running shoes are not an outhouse!" Haruka shouted as Yui squatted and urinated right on the sneakers that were sitting by the door. Miaka, on the other hand, had found a cup of chocolate milk that Serena had left on the floor and began drinking out of it.

"How cute! Miaka thinks she's a cat!" Serena giggled. Michiru ran over and picked Miaka up.

"Serena, you can't leave drinks or food on the floor anymore now that we have dogs living here. Especially nothing with chocolate in it. I don't think that little bit will hurt her right now, but ALL the dog books we read said that chocolate is like poison to them, especially tiny dogs," Michiru explained seriously.

"Dogs can't have chocolate? Poor puppies! I would hate it if I couldn't have things like chocolate and other sweets! But I guess I named Miaka right because she went right to the food, and Miaka from Fushigi Yuugi always likes to eat," Serena commented.

"What if these dogs ARE Miaka and Yui from Fushigi Yuugi, and they got turned into dogs by Sailor Nemesis?" Pierre suggested jokingly.

"I don't think so. Yui in the series has blue eyes, and Yui the dog has brown eyes. I just named them after characters I like," Serena said, looking a little worried. "She wouldn't trick us like that, would she?"

"I didn't mean that seriously. I was just making a joke because of how well you named them," Pierre said, annoyed that his joke had been deflated