Age of Aquarius (Arc 62)

by TheElephantInThePrideParade

SEQUEL to Age of Aquarius (Act 61). The senshi successfully defeated a sunspot army, but their enemy still lies in wait. To survive, more of the senshi will need to unlock their past lives & full powers. But tensions are running high in public & private, & the silver millennium's skeletons are falling out of the closet - the senshi may have more than they can handle. MANY PAIRINGS

2. The Interview

AN: Apologies for the long wait. Between work, grad school apps and of course Sailor Moon H, I do not have the freedom to write that I did last year. But I am still continuing. (I JUST FINISHED MY FIRST GRAD SCHOOL APPLICATION!) And as I wrap up Sailor Moon H, I will be able to prioritize this. So HAPPY 2017 to everyone! Let's all work together to fight for our own future against our own demons, who are (as our scouts are finding) perhaps closer to home and harder to deal with than your normal ancient evil monsters.

Disclaimer: See chapter one

Last Time on Age of Aquarius: With negative press coming at them from all sides, and anti-senshi rhetoric and action mounting around Tokyo, the scouts have agreed to an Interview with Kenji Tsukino to get their own story into the press. Meanwhile, work continues on whether or not sunspots growing in the Earth's core are affecting public opinion – and what can be done to get them out.

The Interview

"Dear!" Ikuko said sharply as she bumped into Kenji for the fourth time and nearly spilled the four dishes she was balancing onto the floor.

Kenji looked up from his notebook and blinked. He looked around, and then, when Ikuko cleared her throat, up at her. His wife's face was red, and she was frowning like she did when she realized he was listening to the TV and not to her. What had he done this time? "Uh…" he glanced at the dishes stacked in her hand as Ikuko adjusted the top one. "The plates look nice."

Ikuko sighed. "I should never have married a writer and a man," she said, giving him a shrewd look. "Each is absent minded in their own right; the combination together…" she shook her head and set the plates down on the table where she'd intended them to go. "As I said five minutes ago when your chair nearly lost us the soup: either plan your interview in your office, or our room, or on the roof. I do not care, so long as it is not being planned in the middle of my kitchen while I am cooking."

"But… but I write here every day." Kenji said.

Ikuko crossed her arms. "Kenji – how many people are coming over for dinner?"

"I believe it's still seven unless Chibiusa's invited Hotaru…"

"And how many people do I normally cook for?"

"The five of us," Kenji said, looking around at all the glasses and dishes that had been packed around the table.

"Exactly," Ikuko snapped. "That is more than twice as many things I need to prepare – and you have so far gotten in the way of most of them. And," she gestured to his notebook, ream of notes and printed articles, and the highlighters and pens that had started out in his pockets but had somehow migrated into a haphazard array that spanned the dinner table. "You are taking up valuable table space."

He flushed, moving to sweep his mess off the table. "Sorry," he said. "I did attempt to do this in the office, but I had a lot on my mind – being near you helps me focus."

That earned him a smile, and then Ikuko dusted off her hands on her apron and grabbed his collar, leaning close and kissing him. "I love you too," she told him. "And I'm sure your questions are all written up seeing as I glanced at them this morning and they looked wonderful then. Now get out of my kitchen."

"They're not wonderful!" he protested. "I mean… look at the 12th question." he thrust the notebook towards her. "Is that tactful? Can I ask that?"

Ikuko raised her eyebrows. "I am not the Senior Editor – if your assistant brought it to you, what would you say?"

"I would say… yes, but that trick doesn't work when I've written all of these!"

"And Luna approved or suggested most of them," Ikuko said. "Including 12, if I am not mistaken."

Kenji sighed. Yes, that was right. He briefly recalled that Luna had seemed to pause on that one – her ears had twitched. But that was surely a normal cat gesture. How was he to have any clue what it meant? "You're right. Sorry. I'm just very nervous." He chuckled, looking at the packed place settings around the table. "I've never had my assignments over for dinner before."

"And they've never had a journalist coordinate questions with their advisors," Ikuko said, taking his notebook and closing it before setting it on the table behind him. "I think all of you are a little nervous…"

She grabbed his hand as he stared at the closed notebook on the table and at the heap of his notes beside it: a jumble of printouts and loose leaf pages jammed into a folder and decorated in coffee stains and multi-coloured sticky notes.

From the living room, they heard shouting emanating from the television: from the protesters angry about the Sailor Accountability Initiative, and from the overwhelming numbers of Initiative supporters. Both were clashing in front of one of the government buildings. Kenji forgot which, for the news had been the background noise of their lives recently. Ikuko refused to turn it off. He'd gotten good at tuning it out.

Kenji looked at Ikuko as they heard something shatter on the television – like glass had been thrown. Ikuko's hair flew around her as she turned towards the living room and leaned away from him to check the TV. He caught a glimpse of grey strands peaking up among the roots of her purple curls. He couldn't recall when they'd appeared.

The shouting on the TV had now completely drowned out the newscaster. Kenji bit his lip. He'd seen many times when the populace's emotions had been riled up by an enemy. Not even the riots spawned by the Negaverse's magic years ago had produced this high an escalation of outrage so quickly.

"A million articles aren't going to stop this," Kenji whispered. "Not if this has magic helping it along."

"Are you a wizard now?" Ikuko teased, turning back to him. "How do you know if it will or won't help?"

"Because what can I do?" Kenji worried, looking down when she squeezed his hand. "Against an enemy they are struggling to deal with, against a public outcry that I can't understand? What can I do if this is magic?"

Ikuko smiled and turned his hand over, She used her other hand to push up his sleeve, so that the crescent symbol that had appeared on his wrist months ago – identical to hers and Shingo's – caught the light.

"I bet Usagi thought that too, years ago," Ikuko told him. "And look at her now." She released his hand and kissed him again, briefly straightening his tie. "Have a little faith in your abilities, won't you? It's not all magic making people mad – its rumors. You are an investigative reporter – you love crushing rumors."

He smiled at that. "I suppose… and I am telling a side of things that no one's heard yet!"

"Exactly what you told me yesterday," Ikuko said, checking her phone as an alarm sounded. She briskly turned it off and stepped away from him, moving to the stove. She flicked off all the burners, checked the oven, and placing the still steaming pots off to the side with the large dishes they'd be emptied into. "Now," she said, untying her apron. "Half hour left – I need to run out to the pharmacy before I forget." She winked at him as she moved into the hallway to grab her spring coat and purse. "So you can stay at your disruptive kitchen office a while longer – do try not to have a crisis while I'm out."

He laughed and settled back into his chair as she left the kitchen. "What do you need the pharmacy for?" he called after her

"Folic acid," Ikuko called from the front door.

"Folic acid…" Kenji raised his eyebrows. "But that's for…" he felt all the blood rush from his face and plummet all the way down to his shoes. His chair scrapped against the wood floor as he stood. "Honey!"

Even as he moved to the hall, he heard Ikuko burst into laughter. She waved her hand at him. "Oh relax, Dear. It's not for me." And she blew him a kiss before slipping out the door.

Kenji sighed and slapped his hand over his face. "She riles you up on purpose – and you fall for it – every time," he muttered to himself as he turned and shuffled back to his seat at the kitchen table. He sunk back into his chair and reached for his notebook. The wording of question 12 still bothered him.

He'd thought of a new word to put in and had put his pen to the paper when he froze.

Is it for Usagi!

His pen clattered to the table and rolled onto the floor as Kenji fumbled for his phone. "IKUKO!"

~AgeofAquarius~

Ami jumped – turning away from the computer she'd been staring at and towards the rapid knocking sound coming from her apartment door.

"Ami!" Daiki called. "Did it work? Is it done yet?"

"Hang on," she called, standing up from her desk and glancing around. She hastily tucked the blue Mercurian helmet and the broken Mercury palm-top into the top drawer of her bureau. Just because she'd accidentally let the flash-drive (full of Mercury hard-drive data) wind up in Daiki's hands, didn't mean she was ready to reveal the rest of the Sailor technology she worked with. After all, if Mina's own mother couldn't be trusted with their secrets, It would be foolish of her to reveal any more to the boy she was dating, or trying to date… conducting a dating experiment with was the best way she could phrase it right now.

But Daiki had managed to get the virus off the flash-drive, someway she still couldn't fathom. And in her excitement at having that information in her possession, at last, she'd (impulsively for certain) agreed to let him help her explore the data.

Maybe, Ami thought as she opened the door and welcomed him in. If he proves I can trust him with the hard-drive… maybe he can help me with the rest. After all, the palmtop and the helmet were still pieces of technology she was hard-pressed to repair anytime soon (what with the projects for school and preparing defenses against their current enemy pushing both to the back burner). I want him to be able to help me, Ami decided as she opened the door and let him in. Daiki hugged her as he soon as he'd stepped through her door. He immediately began to prattle on about the computer science and chemistry projects they'd been set in class. It's nice to have someone around who can keep up with me.

Then, as he dropped the sandwiches he'd brought for them to share onto the corner of her desk, his eyes fell on the computer. He grinned "Is that it? It's nearly finished isn't it?"

"I did say a half hour," Ami smiled, checking her watch. "And thank you – you didn't have to bring those," she said, moving to put the sandwiches in her mini-fridge. "I told you it'd be a tight time-frame. I have a dinner to go to in a little while."

"How long?"

"That depends on Mina," Ami said, smiling. "She does drive fast, but she never manages to leave on time, so I'm a bit unsure of the time-frame."

"Well that's fine – look!" he said, pointing to the screen of her PC where the download bar was now creeping up on 98% "Only five minutes left!"

"I know," Ami pulled up the other chair that was tucked into her small dining table, now more of a book depository than a place to eat.

Daiki took the chair from her and spun it around, straddling it and leaning over the back. He smiled at her as she retook her seat in the blue desk chair. "Have you been watching this all afternoon?"

"Only since three," Ami said, fingers hovering over the keyboard as she checked the download progress. Four minutes left. She once again wished she had her palm-top back. That had handled these files in barely a blink. "I wonder if it's taking so long simply because some of the file types are incompatible or if the actual coding used on Mercury is the problem."

"Hmm," Daiki said as she impatiently tapped the keyboard. "Well, it took about the same amount of time when I put it in my computer. Dunno about the files. I didn't open any – promise!" he assured her, raising his hands palm up.

Ami chuckled. "I'm sure you didn't." She flicked her eyes towards the screen again. The download bar was hovering at 99%... 99.2…99.4…5…6. She swiveled her chair closer to the desk and grabbed the mouse. "Thankfully I did anticipate a PC might have some trouble." She grinned as the bar flashed 100% and a new window popped up. Files flooded the screen, all named in Lunarian and Mercurian script. "I had our advisors help me design a program that would open these on a normal computer." She said, hovering over one of the Lunarian files. "Sailor Mercurys…" she read the title as she clicked on it – one of the largest files with a Lunarian title.

"You can read that?" Daiki marveled.

"Only the ones in this language," Ami said, crossing her fingers as the program she'd transferred from the Lunar command computer attempted to open the file…

"These are in more than one language?" Daiki muttered. "I thought…"

Ami didn't hear the rest, though; attention caught on the screen where the alien programming language was being processed. "Come on," she muttered.

A few moments later the computer blinked. The window with the programming language closed and another popped up. She cheered internally as she noted it was written all in Lunarian with a title and the paragraphs aligned along the right hand side…

And a black rectangle off to the left… with a symbol in the middle: a circle.

"Could that be a video?" Daiki asked.

It certainly resembled one. Ami's fingers twitched atop the mouse as she dragged the cursor over the black rectangle, forgetting her hesitation at letting Daiki see too much of the Senshi's technology. She clicked on it.

It was a video. She held her breath as it loaded. It was long, nearly an hour so. She flicked her eyes over to the text on the right-hand side of the screen as she waited for the video to play.

Compared to some other worlds, such as Jupiter, Uranus, and Earth, Mercury's four guardians have originated from very diverse geographic, and genetic backgrounds. This may account for the greater variation between each Mercury's attacks…

Four Guardians! Ami wondered. As in… four Mercurys… Four of me?

Then the video finished loading, and a first black-and-white image appeared on the screen. Ami gasped.

"That's not one of you," Daiki murmured.

It certainly wasn't. The collar was too long – forming a cape that extended to the Sailor's feet, and her hair (rendered steely gray in the black-and-white image) was far curlier than Ami's or any of the current senshi. It was gathered in a bun atop the sailor's head and a band of light gems (like ice crystals, Ami thought) stretched across it.

The ornament at the center of her bow was different too. Not a blue gem, like Ami's first uniform, nor a star like her current one. It did not even resemble Usagi's brooches. Rather, it appeared to be a snowflake, the brightest, whitest part of the whole portrait.

The image changed too quickly for Ami's liking, though the next certainly gave more hints of the colors in the first picture: it was a drawing, photographed perhaps ages after its creation if the yellowing of the paper it was rendered on were any judge. In this, Ami could clearly see the blues of the ancient Mercury's uniform, the darker blue of her curls and the dark tone of her skin which stood out against the bright, blinding white of the desert sands she stood on – to say nothing for the sand daimon that towered several stories high above her.

I didn't realize there were other Mercurys! Ami stared as another drawing appeared. The same Sailor, the same battle. This time, the ancient drawing showed a wind of snowflakes, which must have been sharp as razors, slicing into the giant daimon and turning several of its limbs back into sand.

"Can you do that?" Daiki murmured.

"I…I can." Can't I? Ami stared as the picture changed again, a whole cyclone of ice and snow spun around the daimon, unhampered by the intense heat she assumed existed in the ancient desert landscape. She gaped at another image, of that same cyclone shining like sunlight, giving off a rainbow of color, and then (another picture): a pool of water spreading across the desert, the ancient Mercury pumping her fist into the air, and the spot where the sand daimon had stood empty save a small wisp of smoke.

Aqua Rhapsody couldn't do anything like that… Ami thought. She glanced at the corner of the screen and narrowed her eyes. There in the corner was a date, of the kind Luna had taught her to read years ago. Sagittarius 1116… Her eyes widened. But that was 40,400 years ago!

Well, the Sun is 4.5 billion years old that's hardly a long time…

"Mercury had people that long ago?" Ami murmured, flicking her eyes to the Lunarian text to the right of the video – to a date that matched that timeframe. Her eyes lit on one near the top of the page: "Sagittarius 620s: the earliest known records of Olympé date from this decade in the old city of Everblossom, the original settlement of the current capital which is named for her – Olympus."

"Like the city of the gods," Ami whispered. "I wonder if all Earth's myths aren't corrupted pieces of these histories."

"Ami," Daiki nudged her with his elbow. "That's a different person on the video now."

Ami flicked her eyes back, going to the date first. Leo 1264. Not a Sailor uniform, she noted, though in the intervening millennia clearly someone had discovered colored film. The teenager in the picture nearly blended in with the background – her pale skin taking on the same blue sheen from the lighting as the snow and ice around her. She was the only person not dressed in a thick coat or cloak: and had her brown shirt rolled up to her elbows as her hands nimbly plucked metal parts and tools off of the ice at her feet. She worked so quickly Ami could barely follow her hands, much faster even than the other teens around her. A competition? Ami wondered as they raced to put the pieces together into what she thought at first was a thick snowboard…

And then the girl the camera'd focused on finished what she was building. She brushed tight braids of dark blue hair away from her face, revealing the blue Mercury sigil on her forehead. Her pale eyes (behind her round blue glasses) glinted like the snow around her as she cheered in a language Ami found, with a pang in her chest, that she did not understand. The teenager lifted what she'd been building over her head and pressed a button on its side.

The bottom of the board lit up bright blue as the girl let it go. Ami stared. Beside her, Daiki whistled. It wasn't a snowboard the girl had built – but a hoverboard that remained stationary right over her head. She leaped into the air, completing a full flip before landing on the board and bowing; the other teens, still in the snow, stared in awe and envy. She must have leaped twelve feet at least to complete the flip and land solidly…

"She's a Sailor too isn't she?" Daiki asked. "Does it say her name?"

Ami looked to the accompanying text again, scanning past details she was sure she wanted to stay up later reading, looking for any dates in Leo – there…

"Asima…" Ami murmured, flicking back to the video.

The records for this Sailor Mercury were far more extensive. Videos of her went a whole twenty minutes more. Ami barely heard any of Daiki's exclamations and questions as she watched Asima battle, alone, through daimons and dark storms and even veritable armies.

Could I do that… Do I really have power like that?

"Are you in this?" Daiki asked as they watched an older Asima – in a Sailor form with a cape that brushed her knees – gather a glacier's worth of ice around her and dive off a different hover-board. She and her ice plummeted downwards towards a red planet, into what, Ami realized, was a sea of molten lava, boiling over an angry, blood red. Dark power rippled across its surface as it stretched across the planet. The lava was so hot, half the ice around Asima melted before she breached the surface. Ami squeaked as the old Sailor splashed into it, her hoverboard still above the planet's atmosphere. Whoever was filming was talking in a high rapid voice, in the still unfamiliar language that was surely Mercurian. They shouted something as the magma that blanketed the planet suddenly turned white, even the flames that burned miles into the air around it changed to white light.

And then those flames shrunk and vanished. The lava pool remained white, as it slowly and stunningly evaporated off the surface, into heavy clouds of steam.

"She turned that into snow," Daiki murmured as they watched what had once been magma continue to evaporate and recede, revealing healthy fields of green beneath it. "Damn… I'm pretty sure you can't do that?" Daiki chuckled.

"Could I?" Ami wondered. Could I be that strong?

Even the thought that there were Sailors with her powers who could hold their own – who could win handily against such clearly powerful forces made her hands tense into fists on the desktop. She had contented herself so long with the rationale that no single one of them was strong enough to fight alone… except for Sailor Moon, and then the outer senshi, and now Venus too...

I always thought my powers were naturally weaker? Ami thought. But… but I can't do anything like either of these Mercurys…

"Woah!"

Ami refocused on the video at Daiki's shout. A new Sailor. A new date: Aries. Her eyes scanned down the text file to the same era. Her name… Zeinab.

She and Daiki watched this Mercury and her battles on worlds Ami could only guess the names of. When she could finally recognize a planet, it was her own – She could tell by the circular room Zeinab stood in, identical to the one she had found on Mercury with the super computer. Though in Zeinab's time, it appeared much different: with no ceiling, no computer… and a great tree with glowing blue leaves stretching up through the middle, high into the night sky.

Ami leaned closer to the screen as Zeinab put her hand against the aged, icy wood of the tree, smirking. Her eyes and tiara glowed a bright blue, the same as the tree's leaves. The camera panned away from Zeinab, towards a dark nighttime landscape (visible through a window that spanned part of the wall). Many blue lights began to pop up across a vast tundra of ice.

A car honked outside. Ami ignored it, watching as whole, glowing blue saplings sprouted from the ground across Mercury's surface. She stared at Zeinab's confident, still smirking face. We could grow things! Ami thought. That's no relation to water or ice at all…

Her cell phone buzzed on the desk, but Ami didn't hear it, mind focused solely on reassessing, scrapping, and reformulating every observation, theory, and supposition she'd ever made about the senshi's powers, and most of all about her powers. How do I get that powerful? Ami thought. How?

Her cell phone was buzzing for the third time when a new clip began: an older Zeinab strolled, in full uniform, into the same wide, circular room. Her grin stood out compared to the nervous expressions of the others milling about. Ami didn't look away as she fumbled for her phone. Beside the window that looked out onto Mercury's tundra, there was a new addition: a large mirror positioned across one section of the circular walls. It displayed an enormous comet heating up red and orange. Through the open roof of the room, and the glowing blue leaves of the great tree, Ami saw an identical red and orange light rapidly approaching in the sky.

Ami lifted the phone as it buzzed a fourth time and accepted the call without looking away from the screen. "Hello?"

"Brains! Oh, thank god," Mina exclaimed. "I thought you were going to make me fly up to your window."

"You're outside…" Ami whispered, eyes widening as she watched the video.

Zeinab looked at the comet in the mirror, spoke to someone else in the room, and then moved to the tree that grew through the center. The confident grin was still spread across the old Sailor's face. She put one hand on the tree. The other, Ami saw, held a harp. Is that mine?

"Uh, of course I'm outside? Did you fall asleep studying? I came to pick you up."

"For the interview…" Ami recalled.

Zeinab's uniform began to glow blue, and her tiara faded away, revealing the glowing Mercury sigil on her brow. She glared, eyes blazing, at the comet and shouted. "Aegis!"

"Aegis…" Ami repeated as she watched blue light fill the giant tree and then appear across the Mercurian surface: trees that had once grown at this Sailor Mercury's command filled with light once more.

"What?" Mina asked. "Are you listening to me?"

"Sorry… watching something."

"Well… I mean great, but… but we're late."

The blue lights from Mercury's trees intensified, merging together high in the sky into a translucent dome of blue high up in the atmosphere. A planet-wide shield!

"No I mean like we're really late," Mina rambled. "I got stuck in traffic… Ami: Usagi's mom wanted us over for dinner like 20 minutes ago… Mako's already threatened to eat my share."

The blue light that shone off of Zeinab brightened and turned a brilliant white, as did her uniform. Her hand danced across her harp. "Sol Aqua RHAPSODY!"

Ami gasped.

"Exactly… Ami come on! Michiru's gonna worry that I've crashed her car. See she's texting me right now. Ami!"

"Oh my goodness…" Ami murmured.

Zeinab's Aqua Rhapsody rushed up through the giant tree, into the planet-wide shield she had created. Its glowing blue water crashed right into the threatening comet. The resulting thunder shook the room the old Sailor Mercury stood in. Zeinab stumbled. The giant mirror with the comet's image shattered.

But the shield held. The attack sapped the power from the comet, and then pitched it backward, out into space, so rapidly that Ami had only blinked once before it was a speck of light in the sky.

"You're not… listening to me… are you?"

"Sorry!" Ami rushed to say, forcing herself to pause the video. She heard Daiki sigh as she stood from the desk. "Sorry, I am now. Where are you?"

"Illegally parked on your curb."

"I'm coming." She hung up the phone and looked at Daiki. "I have to go."

"I figured," he sighed. "I really wanted to watch the rest of this… Wanted to see what you could do."

Ami flushed red. "I'm nowhere near that impressive," she muttered. "I've never done… a quarter of that."

"Well… couldn't you learn to?" Daiki gestured to the computer. "I bet this has all those… spells or whatever."

"I hope so…" She said, rushing to her door and pulling it open. "Sorry we couldn't eat the sandwiches."

He scoffed. "Oh come on you're busy. I know that. I shouldn't have assumed." He grabbed her hand as he led the way out the door and hovered behind her as she locked it. When she turned around he was very close. He leaned down towards her, brushing back her hair. "And I think you're damn impressive," he whispered. "Your brain, your powers… they're astounding, well I mean…" he shook his head and chuckled. "I guess it's not turning lava into snow, but don't start thinking you can't do that – You work harder than anyone I know." He grinned, "I bet you'll be even more amazing."

Ami was sure she was blushing. His confidence in her put a warm feeling in her chest, one that banished the long-ingrained doubts about the strength of her powers.

"Anyways," he said, flustering her with a quick kiss. "If Mina's mad you're late, you can totally blame me." He waved as he strode away. "See you in class."

As he walked away, Ami's phone began buzzing furiously inside her bag. Ami hurried along to the stairs and exit that let out onto the street, going straight to the light blue Porsche that was pulled up onto the curb. She wrenched open the door.

"Finally!" Mina cried, throwing the car into gear and nearly stalling it as she tried to speed away.

Ami heard herself give Mina an apology for being late, but her mind was far away from the car. She curled her hands around her seatbelt and stared at her reflection in the side-view mirror outside. It reflected her frown and her furrowed, thoughtful eyebrows.

They had weaved through the neighbourhood and were out on the main road a few minutes later when Mina spoke to Ami again, tearing her away from her rapidly spinning thoughts. "Sooo…" Mina drawled as they wove through traffic at a speed that normally would have had Ami clinging to the seat. Now her hands were gripping her seatbelt, her eyes staring out the window and not at Mina's speedometer. "Not to spy or anything… but you are giving off an emotional shit storm right now… uh. What kind of video were you watching?"

Ami flushed and looked away from the window, she stared down at her hands as they twisted the seatbelt. "It was something I got off the Mercury hard-drive." She told Mina. "I finally had time to download what I put on the flash-drive."

"Woohoo!" Mina cheered and bumped the ceiling of the Porsche with her fist. "So… what was it? I mean you feel like." Mina frowned. Stunned, confused, exhilarated… "I don't even know what you feel like," Mina said.

"Sorry," Ami tucked her hair behind her ear. "No, I just… I got a bit caught up in what was stored on the hard-drive."

"Which waaaaas?"

"Some part of an encyclopedia I think," Ami thought that was what the Lunarian title had said, but she admittedly was having a hard time recalling. "Or a dossier file, maybe. I didn't have time to look at very much."

"Well, you have a computer's worth of stuff to sort through."

"Part of a computer," Ami reminded her. "67% at most, that's if I was lucky when I downloaded it off the hard-drive." She frowned. "I really hope my planet kept backup files somewhere."

"You'll find them quick if they're there to find," Mina said. "You still haven't said what was in the video."

"I still don't understand the video…" Ami muttered and frowned. "Or the languages."

"Hmm?"

"I can only understand what's in Lunarian," Ami explained. "The video's in Mercurian."

"Well… I might be able to understand it…" Venus frowned. "We had spells for translating speech. I didn't know them, but… Luna might… or she could whip up a translation program as well"

"That's one option." Ami sighed. "Anyways…" she noticed the buildings outside; five minutes from the Tsukinos. "How late are we?"
"I don't even want to know," Mina said. "As long as we don't miss the interview."

"Do you know what he's going to ask?"

"Besides the questions I've had thrown in my face for two months?" Mina shook her head.

"He could surprise you," Ami pointed out. "I'm sure Mr. Tsukino has a much different perspective on us than the rest of the media."

Outside, Mina's gaze flicked to a TV featuring an image of Senator Hino, no doubt talking up his Sailor Accountability bullshit. The image of the wrecked TV tower was right behind him. "I hope so."

~AgeofAquarius~

Ikuko Tsukino, all the senshi agreed, was a masterful host, firstly for managing to make enough food for nine senshi (several of whom would happily put away two large pizzas per sitting if allowed) and secondly because she managed to make all of them but Haruka forget for a brief time that Kenji Tsukino was a journalist: who would be asking them questions and then publishing their answers in a front page article about them after months of their collective effort to stay off that page of the newspapers.

Ikuko let the conversation travel from their misadventures avoiding the paparazzi, to how Hotaru was doing, to having Chibiusa explain her chances in the upcoming school elections ("She's a shoe-in," Usagi muttered with a smile and roll of her eyes. "She's passing out buttons with her face on them.")

Ikuko was not even fazed by Mina and Ami bursting in half-way through dinner, simply asking after the traffic, pulling out their chairs, and pointing out which dishes had not been polished off by the combined efforts of Usagi, Haruka, and Makoto.

Eventually though, dinner was cleared, the dishes were piled in the sink, and all that sat between the nine of them and Kenji the journalist were nine steaming cups of tea, and Kenji's open notebook.

He clicked his pen and cleared his throat as several of the senshi shifted uncomfortably in their seats. "Well…" he began once he'd ruffled through his notes once more and pushed his glasses up his nose. "I suppose I should start with the most important question."

"What's that – whether we're human or not?" Haruka challenged him. Setsuna squeezed her shoulder and Michiru clasped her hand.

But Kenji Tsukino only frowned at her and shook his head. "Of course not." He looked at Haruka, and then around the table, at all of them. "The most important question: how are you doing?"

There was silence for a few minutes as they glanced at each other, and at Usagi. But their Queen only nodded encouragingly at them, a subtle reminder that she could talk frankly to her father any time, that this was their chance to speak.

"Well…" Haruka cleared her throat and looked up at Kenji. "Honestly…"

~AgeofAquarius~

SENSHI EXCLUSIVE:

WHAT YOU DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT TOKYO'S MOST DEDICATED WARRIORS

Thursday, May 1st

By: Tsukino Kenji

They're my daughter's age – all of them.

I learned my daughter, Usagi, was one of the Senshi, nearly two years ago after she disappeared on the twelfth of September, and did not appear again until the twenty-second of December, when we woke up and discovered her asleep in her bed as though she'd never been gone.

I didn't know my daughter was a senshi until she told us that day. But I could have guessed, I could have guessed so many times, from the look she sometimes gets in her eyes.

It's the kind of look you see on old soldiers – who made it home from wars, who won those wars, but who certainly lost many battles along the way, and with each loss, pieces of themselves.

My daughter said that's not how she thinks about it. "I'm not losing who I am," she laughed. Her laugh is one thing that has not changed, and for that, I'm very grateful. "I'm just…" And there was the soldier's look in her eyes again as she explained: "We fight so many evil things: small and big… from this world and other worlds… there's no way that doesn't change you.

"But it's more like gaining things, not losing things," she went on. "I haven't lost anything. I just appreciate what I have and what I want so much more now because I've seen how they can be destroyed, or taken from me. So… so I do appreciate things more, and I don't think that's bad – I'm more responsible now!" She laughed again. "You and Mom like that!"

I sat down with all the senshi for an extensive interview on Tuesday – all save for Saturn and Chibi Moon (who had homework to do).

"If it were our choice homework's all they'd do," Sailor Pluto told me. "But we don't get a say in when fate awakens a sailor, and asking them not to fight because they're young would be quite hypocritical given some of us awakened at their age – and they feel the same instincts and duty to fight evil that we do."

"I fight alongside Saturn a lot," Kaioh Michiru added. "And she awakened when she was about seven – I hated that. I care less about fate than Pluto: we keep she and Chibi Moon away from as many fights as we can, but the rest…They need to train," Kaioh reasoned. "And I'd rather train them to fight well and protect them while I can because there may be a day I'm not here to protect them. I feel better knowing I can help them protect themselves."

Saturn and Chibi Moon are hardly lesser senshi for their age either – they are the reason we only have a third of a TV tower to reconstruct rather than a whole one. They're also the reason over 5,000 people were able to find shelter during last week's battle, thanks to a shield that covered the downtown during the heaviest part of the fighting.

That's something that's fallen to the wayside this week as many powerful people have flooded the post-battle news with rumors and fear: the majority of Thursday night's battle was our senshi doing their best to protect buildings and civilians.

"They did come to Tokyo to attack us," Aino Minako confirmed. "But only because what they actually want is a lot bigger than one city – and we're the threat standing in their way."

"We're continuing to improve the technology that predicts these attacks," Mizuno Ami added. "So as of now, the shield we built will keep them from attacking Juuban again, and we're hopeful that we'll be able to head them off before they reach population centers in the future."

I wanted to know how they were doing after a battle that had clearly not been easy for them.

"Honestly," Tenoh Haruka told me, looking to her fellow senshi as she spoke. "I'm okay. I slept for the entire day after, which... it's nice to know we've set the enemy back for a while."

The physical costs of the battle remain with them: Hino Rei still has bandaging concealed beneath her shirt sleeves, and Sailor Pluto is still walking with a slight limp thanks to a building that collapsed on top of her. But like Tenoh, all the senshi are good, or fine, or okay. And all had that soldier's look in their eyes as they said so. It made me wonder if anyone can feel any other way if their version of a bad day is dealing with the life threatening to apocalyptic problems and dangers that the senshi so often do.

I wondered how they felt about the reactions to their battle.

"To be frank, I usually don't care what people think of me," Tenoh said. "But I am pretty sick of everyone accusing me of destroying buildings and not caring about Tokyo and s*** like that."

"We've already donated a sizeable amount to the reconstruction," Kaioh Michiru added. "Which the press has not noticed and the government hasn't pointed out. But I've lived in this city for years. My home is here, my friends. So I don't think anyone can say I don't love it, and it hurts me as much as anyone to see enemies wrecking the buildings. I've donated money to this city and many of its charities almost as often as I've risked my life for it. I hope people can look past the rumours and fear-mongering being spread around and see that."

Mizuno Ami said she's been trying to sympathize with the tone expressed in the press: "I was always the one at school who got the perfect scores on exams, and I was very shy, so I'm used to being called a freak. But it does hurt to see so many people turn away from us for one tough enemy, when we've had others in the past do as much or worse – one enemy leveled the Delta a few years ago. But… In one sense, people are right: no other enemy has done this sort of damage before. Most liked to remain out of sight, to hit isolated targets because they didn't want us to notice them. This enemy is brazen and adaptive, and we are still learning the best ways to counter it."

For Hino Rei and Aino Minako, my question hit closer to home. Both have parents spearheading the Sailor Accountability Initiative, a movement seeking an investigation and legislation to determine (among other things): whether the senshi should be held responsible for the damages they cause, whether their ability to act in emergent situations should be regulated, and (its most extreme measure) whether they should be permitted to live amongst other people at all.

"I'm not... speaking to my parents right now, if that wasn't obvious," Aino said. "I don't know why my mother's spreading these rumors, I just wish I knew how to show her… everyone really, that we're not something they need to be afraid of, that we're not the problem!"
And what of Hino's own father, whose voice in the legislature is well poised to push for action against the senshi?
"All I think of the Sailor Accountability Initiative," Hino said "Is that… my father's never cared for me, and even less so now that I refuse to be a political prop for him. He's never loved me, and this new political stance is just a good excuse not to – what irritates me," Hino added, "is that other people are listening to him. I saved some of those reporters' lives two months ago and I nearly died doing it! So they don't get to talk to me about whether the enemy's my fault when I'm the only person able to fight it – and all the others before it too."

It was a tough interview to listen to, as I imagine it was a tough interview for them to give, and I wanted to end it on a more positive note. I asked all of them what they dream of for their futures. Their responses were humbling and as varied as the young women themselves. Though one thing was consistent: despite the hype about their ability to use their powers to control the city, their roles as senshi did not factor into any of their dreams.

"Someday," Kaioh Michiru told me with a sigh, "I am going to finish composing a symphony." When her partner, Tenoh Haruka pointed out that she's already composed three, Kaioh elaborated. "All three of those are dreadful. I can't say I've written one until I've finished one that satisfies me."

And for Tenoh, the famous racer?

"I still haven't raced in America – that's on top of my list. But also," she smiled. "I've started thinking I'd like to coach, settle down, just… raise a family."

"Me too!" Kino Makoto added. "But first I've got to save up some money. I want to buy the building the bakery's in – oh! Can I do a plug for the bakery here? Is that allowed? Anyways its Kino's: Chiyoda, District 2, Block 4, number 3."

"I think you just dream of that number now," Aino Minako joked.

The bakery itself is a dream realized for young Miss. Kino, and she has far bigger dreams for it than that.

"When I own the building," she said. "I want to live in the apartment above the bakery… maybe open a flower shop next door. And then get married. And have a family. Yeah, that would be nice."

"All I want's to be a doctor," Mizuno Ami said. "It's not as romantic as Makoto's for sure… but I'd get to invent new cures and help people."

"All of you make mine sound so simple!" my daughter teased her friends. "I want to get married," she said. "And I'm going to get married." She got engaged two years ago and somehow, despite that, I still don't quite believe it. She's already planned that dream wedding she wants, including having each of her fellow senshi stand with her for the ceremony. "Nine Maids of Honor sounds good to me."

And what of Hino Rei and Aino Minako?

"My grandfather's getting older," Hino told me. "I've loved helping him out at the shrine for a while. I want to be able to take over for him. I was going to go to school for it this year too. This enemy put that on hold for a while. But I will do it. I want to be a full priestess."

Aino Minako took the longest time to answer. "I don't know what I dream of right now," she finally said. "All I've ever done is act, but I think I want something different now – All my friends keep telling me I have more than enough time to figure it out… I just have to work on believing them."

What I found most surprising was the thoughtfulness that seemed inherent in all of their answers – not something I am used to in off-the-cuff remarks from teens and twenty-somethings. I think it shows that if their time as senshi has changed these young women at all, it is in the same way it has changed my Usagi. The senshi appreciate their lives and their dreams in a way most of their peers (who are filled with naive, youthful confidence in their own invincibility) simply cannot. And I, for one, appreciate them. I've covered many of the conflicts they've resolved and covered them before the day was saved, at times believing my words might be the only record of what happened in this city. I covered the riots caused by those energy-crazed daimons five years ago, and the meteor (MG 347) the size of Hokkaido that was poised to end the world before the Senshi destroyed it on its way into the atmosphere. I covered the Death Busters that leveled the Mugen Delta and the aliens that froze people as they walked in the streets. I covered the disappearances at the Dead Moon Circus and the mass-hypnosis and kidnappings of children from their beds. I even covered each of these young women's disappearances two years ago up until my daughter's, when she left with no other thought except to see her friends safely home: I've covered the Senshi's battles for years. The situation is different now, and their enemy is more frightening, but I do not understand how one can shrink away from the senshi in fear of that. In truth: I appreciate them that much more.

Michiru put the paper down and smiled. "He's even left out my crying episode from the middle there," she said. "Good man."

"That scared me, to be honest," Haruka said as she came in from the kitchen with fresh juice for Michiru and a coffee for herself. She set them on the table and moved to stand behind Michiru's chair. She put her hands on her shoulders and, when Michiru looked up at her, kissed her forehead. "Is the crying going to happen again?"

"Probably," Setsuna chimed in. She was sitting across the table from them, nose buried in a book. She tapped her pen against it. "This says you're more likely to cry at several intervals over the next few months."

"She's taking notes," Michiru told Haruka. She shook her head and reached for her drink. "I've already read that book cover-to-cover, Setsuna."

"I've read it twice," Haruka added.

"Well, I don't want to rely on simple memorization," Setsuna said, and then directed an irritated look at the book. "This knows more about what'll happen to you in the next 29 weeks that I do – I want to be prepared."

"Well," Michiru sipped her juice. "Then you should both be happy to know Dr. Mizuno's made time for me in two days at noon… if either of you are up for sneaking into a hospital unnoticed."

"Yes." "Easy," Setsuna and Haruka said at the same time.

"You told Ami's mother?" Setsuna asked with a smile.

"No – Ami and Ikuko told her." Michiru shook her head. "I tried to be mad at them. But really I'm just… relieved." She stared down into her juice. "This is still hard enough to wrap my head around, I hadn't even started thinking of a doctor I could trust."

"Well I'm glad Ami and Ikuko think ahead," Haruka said. She squeezed Michiru's shoulders. "Of course we'll go with you."

"Absolutely," Setsuna said, flipping a page in the book.

Michiru had yet to look up from her drink. "That's good…" Her voice trailed off, making Haruka and Setsuna frown. Setsuna closed her book, sharing a look with Haruka.

"Michiru?" Setsuna asked.

"It scares me a little," Michiru confessed quietly.

"Which part?" Haruka asked, glancing up as Setsuna rose from her seat and walked around the table to them.

"29 weeks…" Michiru whispered. "I have to keep her safe that entire time… when this enemy could be around the next corner."

"Well we will keep the both of you safe from that," Setsuna said. She sat down on the arm of Michiru's chair and combed back her hair. "Let us do the protecting."

"But that annoys me," Michiru said, reaching for Haruka and Setsuna's hands. "Side-lining myself and making the two of you and the others pick up the slack?"

"Does this mean you've decided not to fight?" Haruka grinned.

"No," Michiru said with a definitive shake of her head. "No – what annoys me is that it makes sense to stand behind you, but I will fight as long as I have the transformation with which to do so." She looked up at them both. "Are we going to fight about that?"

"If it will change your mind," Haruka murmured.

"It won't."

"Then we'll save the argument for later," Setsuna told Michiru. She kissed the back of her hand. "Still scared?"

"Hmm…" Michiru smiled and looked between the two of them. She squeezed their hands. "Not quite so much."

"Good," Haruka said and moved around Michiru's chair. "By the way." Haruka cupped her face and leaned in to kiss Michiru properly. "You're glowing today."

~AgeofAquarius~

Luna did not get home until quite late on May second, having spent the majority of the day monitoring the response to Kenji Tsukino's article. It had been a trying day for certain: in addition to the truly negative takes from several sources, she'd also filed away a whole thousand or so particularly concerning ones (most from social media) for detailed investigation, only to learn from Mina that these were being inflammatory for amusement's sake, and that the command center algorithms were as bad at these as they were at filtering satire. It would figure that the planet who's global digital community were obsessed with teasing cats with laser pointers would also have invented such a pointless and frustrating thing as an "internet troll".

Luna jumped over the gate into the Tsukinos' garden and noticed the kitchen light on. So Ikuko was still up, and perhaps Kenji as well. She wrinkled her nose. Usually, she preferred the thoughtful cat-door they'd installed on the front door, but not tonight. True, Ikuko and Kenji would welcome her home with dinner, which would have been delightful especially as Ikuko never thought twice about making her something fresh, but Luna decided, she could scavenge something for herself later. For as lovely as Ikuko was, Luna did not feel up to sitting through her questions – no matter how well meant or thoughtful – after a day of such little progress.

I just don't understand this press atmosphere, Luna thought as she hopped up onto the garden wall and made her way along until she could leap onto the roof. Surely not all of them believe these things wholeheartedly, why indulge in all these… scaremongering rumors.

Senator Hino had come forward early in the morning to call Kenji Tsukino an unethical journalist, and to suggest in the next breath that perhaps Usagi had brainwashed him to write senshi-friendly propaganda. To be sure, several sources had come out with positive articles, changed their tone (and she'd even seen one of Motoki's sympathetic hashtags trending that afternoon) but negative press was still dominating their narrative.

Several publications and television programs were still running with the theory that the senshi and the sunspots were the same alien species and that the sunspots were here to arrest the senshi "fugitives." Luna had been trying all day not to think of how closely that spin resembled a doomsday prophecy and knew she was likely to have nightmares about just that scenario because of it. I wish they'd never noticed the sunspots are made from crystals, Luna thought as she padded along the roof towards Usagi's window. She stepped up onto the windowsill, moved to pry the window up, and paused.

It hadn't looked like there was any light on from the ground, but there was a golden light illuminating Usagi. Her crescent mark was glowing, shining on the book she had in her hands.

Luna frowned as she pushed the window up and stepped hesitantly into the room. It was a bizarre sight to see Usagi at her desk, reading a book no less. Though as Luna jumped to the bed and padded silently across the covers, she was relieved to find Usagi was not reading. For the book in her hands was one of those she and Chibiusa had brought back from the Moon months ago, journals she had barely touched after opening one and realizing, quite quickly, that not a one of them knew how to read the coded writing.

"Usagi," Luna said softly. And Usagi looked up from the book. The golden light from her crescent mark made Luna squint and threw the blond's whole figure into dramatic shadow.

"Luna?" Usagi's eyes flicked to the window, and she frowned. The light from her crescent mark dimmed. "It was still light out when I started."

"It's 22:00 now," Luna whispered back. "Am I to assume you've learned to read that code since I've been gone?"

Usagi made a face and shook her head. "No," and she turned the green journal to show Luna the page she'd been gazing at. "But some of these have pictures…"

On the particular page was a grand palace, drawn in clumsy lines like the quite large characters of the coded writing around it (as though both had been rendered by an un-practiced hand).

Luna was about to tell Usagi that this was the royal palace on Jupiter, when the blond drew her attention to something else, pointing her finger to the top of the page. "But I can read the dates, they're not in code."

Pisces 302.

Usagi looked over at her desk and Luna followed her gaze, noticing for the first time that the journals and the ream of paper with Earth's old writing were being sorted. Usagi had started with the green journals it seemed – lining them up neatly on the desktop. Luna could not recall a time that the desk had been so full of books. It was an odd sight for certain.

"It probably won't help at all," Usagi sighed. "I just… needed to feel like I was doing something. Even if I can't read anything but the dates… Why is that?"

Luna jumped at the chance to answer – it was a rare day now where she had any useful advice to pass to the young Queen. "It was a common practice between the worlds," Luna said. "Messages would often get passed between couriers to whom coded words were undiscernable, but you'd still want them to know how long ago the message they were relaying had been written – after all it could be urgent. And you always wanted your records of anything to be clear to everyone even if the content was classified."

Usagi sighed and set the journal near the left-hand side of the desk, picking up the last of the green ones from the top of the stack. Luna saw her leaf through it, eyes searching for any sketches that had been stowed inside. She paused on a few and then hummed, sorting the journal in with the rest and reaching for the next of the documents found in her mother's private desk months before: the stack of parchment with the old Earth language on it.

"Don't bother with those," Luna said, hopping onto the desk. "Earth and Elysion used a much different dating system, you'll hardly be able to tell how old…"

"But they're written like the rest," Usagi said, pointing to the date in the corner. "Gemini 251, see."

Luna gaped, flicking her ears as she stared at the Sol system's common date system in the top right corner of the parchment. "But… but Earth never followed the way the rest of us did things."

Usagi shrugged. "Well… this is old, isn't it? Maybe they did a long time ago." She turned the parchment to the back and, discovering it did not have any pictures, sorted it onto the far left corner of her desk. "Could you help me with these," she said, passing half the stack up to Luna.

They weren't in order; that was clear as Luna nosed through the first few pages. She saw Usagi pulling her stack apart, setting aside pages with pictures and putting those without into chronological order on her desk. Luna's tail twitched. "Perhaps… you should leave these in the order you found them, Usagi," Luna suggested. "I'm sure whatever order your mother put them in meant something."

"Yeah well, my mother isn't here anymore," Usagi said, throwing an irritated glance at Luna. "And she never taught me to read her secret code or her old Earth languages. She never even told me she came from Earth, and she definitely never showed me any of these, so I can't help it if I mess it up trying to organize them, now can I?"

Luna had nothing to say to that, she cocked her head to the side and watched Usagi sort through a few more pages in the ancient stack of paper, squinting as the light from her crescent mark briefly dimmed.

After a few more pages Usagi glanced up at Luna and her shoulders slumped. "Can I have a pen?" she asked.

Luna found one in an old mug behind her and tossed it to Usagi, watching her lean over the old Earth notes and write a number atop each, marking the original order she'd found them in. "There – happy?"

"I didn't realize you were angry with her," Luna whispered.

Usagi sighed, continuing to sort the old notes. "Neither did I," she said. "I just…" She sorted a few more pieces of parchment as she thought, and then explained: "everyone here's all angry with us because they don't know things," Usagi said. "They don't know our past, or why enemies attack the Earth, or where our powers come from – and I don't know many of those things either." She gestured to the stack of black journals that remained unsorted in the corner of the desk, which Luna knew were in Queen Serenity's handwriting. "And my mother knew so much that she never told anyone, and I keep wondering whether she didn't know things that would help us now." Usagi sniffed, tears welling up in her eyes "With the press… and the enemy."

"She meant to tell you," Luna said, walking to the left corner of the desk and dragging a box of tissues forward so Usagi could reach them. "If she'd had time, she would have told you everything, Usagi." Luna felt as though she were being pulled in two directions as she tried to defend her old Queen while comforting her new one. "You have to remember – the Silver Crystal made her the most powerful person in the universe by many accounts. I'm sure you realize yourself that when you have that much power, it's easy to feel like you need to do everything yourself."

"Sometimes," Usagi sighed. "What's so special about the Silver Crystal anyways if it's just a Sailor Crystal?"

"I really don't know," Luna said. "Its origin is unknown. It was gifted to Queen Serenity by the gods at the very beginning of her reign."

Usagi looked down and pulled a chain out of her pajama top, the Silver Crystal's brooch was swinging on the end. "Gods..." she hummed, frowning at it.

"Well there do exist forces in the universe beyond our understanding," Luna rationalized.

"I know, but..." Usagi looked at Luna, her brow furrowed. "But sometimes I'm one of those forces... or Saturn, or Pluto..." Luna shivered as the brooch popped open and the room flooded with light. The Silver Crystal floated out. Usagi lifted it, letting it hover a few feet above her open palm. Its glow spread light like moonlight throughout the bedroom.

"I suppose so," Luna whispered.

"I just mean…" Usagi frowned up at the crystal. "If we're forces the universe doesn't understand, then... what did my mother mean by gods?"

"Well Queen Serenity never spoke of its origins," Luna amended. "This was just... well it was written, Usagi."

Usagi frowned at her. "But... didn't she had to tell someone that for it to be written?"

Luna opened her mouth to answer and closed it, recalling the long hours spent pouring over the Sol system's history in the Moon Kingdom's library. How was it, as a researcher, she hadn't asked the same question herself?

Her young Queen sighed. The light of the Silver Crystal dimmed. "Never mind, I don't know what I'm getting at..." Usagi said, letting the crystal fall back into her palm. "Maybe that is true, and I'm being paranoid." Usagi closed her hand around the Silver Crystal. "It's just… she didn't just keep secrets, Luna: my mother lied to me a lot."

"Only to protect you!"

"I know," Usagi assured her. "I just... she was so good at it. I wonder if she wasn't used to it – if she lied to lots of people about lots of things."

Luna stared thoughtfully at Usagi – reclining in her desk chair with the crystal in her hand – and Luna shivered as she recalled a scene much like it...

Queen Serenity sat at her desk high up in the observatory, the Silver Crystal and its crescent wand cradled in her hands as she spoke quietly to a tall figure in the magical mirror that hung on the wall beside her – the Plutonian Queen, Luna noted from the robes they wore.

The person whose shoulders she was resting across sighed, distracting her from Serenity's conversation.

"It makes me sad sometimes," the woman said, her low voice a whisper so the Plutonian Queen, and perhaps Serenity too, would not know others were eavesdropping.

"What does?" Luna asked.

The woman lifted her tan hand with the pale old scar across the back, and gestured to Serenity. "She used to be a dreadful liar – the worst in all the worlds – I could tell stories." She laughed quietly. "Her ears used to turn red at the slightest fib."

"Well a Queen who can't lie makes a vulnerable Kingdom"

"Oh don't quote Martian proverbs at me." The woman crossed her arms. "I want this stalemate over Sol done with," she complained. "She's gotten too good at this."

Luna blinked and shook her head. She was still standing on the desk in Usagi's room and it was Usagi in the chair, in her pajamas, not a regal gown, and cradling the Silver Crystal alone (its original home, the crescent wand, long ago shattered).

Usagi was staring at her. "You alright Luna?"

"Yes," Luna said, "Usagi... your mother was at war," she explained as she reflected on the memory. "There were a lot of things she had to lie about." Luna nodded to the crystal. "Perhaps that was one of those secrets."

Usagi nodded and then looked to the papers that remained in her lap, and all the journals on the desk. "Do you think Pluto would let me go back there?" Usagi asked. "I could talk to her – I could know if there was anything that would help us."

But Luna shook her head. "Even if she could bend the time travel laws like that, she existed in the Moon Kingdom, Usagi." Luna looked back to the pile of parchment Usagi'd asked her to sort. "Her past and future self – especially her future self who has broken so many of her taboos – could not meet that way."

"…I know," Usagi said, pausing as she picked up a new piece of parchment. Instead of sorting it in with the rest, Luna saw Usagi put it off to the side. The advisor looked at it, and all her fur stood on end.

There were two pictures sketched across the center of the page – a drawing of a star with black ink bands wrapped around it, and the second drawing of an identical star: being eaten away by the mess of dark ink that had been colored onto the page.

"They look like what the others described in their visions," Usagi said, her gaze, like Luna's, lingering on the parchment. "Maybe, once we can read it, it'll be useful."

"Perhaps so…" Luna said quietly, turning to her own stack of parchment and rifling through it. She'd dismissed these old notes' when Usagi and Chibiusa had brought them home, but perhaps the notes and The Moon Kingdom really did have information that could help them.

And does that mean Queen Serenity knew we'd face this enemy? Luna thought. Goodness, I thought Usagi was grasping at straws. She did not see any more pictures in her parchment stack that stood out to her. Luna frowned. "I should know where these come from," she muttered, scanning through a few more. "I should remember." She frowned, staring hard at the parchment and trying to recall if she had ever seen it.

The Queen had been a collector of many histories and books, gathering them even from the most isolated corners of the Sol system. Some had been gifted, some hunted out of hidey-holes, and some, Luna recalled, had taken the most complex orchestrations of diplomacy to acquire. These notes must have been in the latter category if they had originated on Earth… perhaps even more drastic measures than that, Luna considered as she sorted the pages for Usagi. They had a certain smell to them she found, one she vaguely remembered.

Like a cave… Luna thought and frowned. She recalled that smell… associated it with fire in fact.

The shockwave of magic that had made all her fur stiffen, the smell of smoke wafting in from the Balcony where Artemis stood, arms braced on the railing. The silver flash. The inferno off in the distance intensifying as thicker plumes of smoke billowed up into the noon sky…

Three figures approaching on the wind: Uranus and Neptune with the Queen between them. Luna curled her hands tightly into Artemis' jacket as the two Guardians alighted on the balcony railing and the Queen slipped from between them, hanging her head as she collapsed onto the stone tiles.

"My Queen!" Artemis and she kneeling close to her just as Uranus and Neptune did. The Queen looked at them.

"Has that magic affected anyone?" She asked.

Neptune glanced at her mirror. "Not yet."

"Let's go make sure it doesn't," Uranus said. She looked at the Queen. "We'll be back soon."

But Queen Serenity shook her head and held up her fist. Luna gasped. Serenity's hand was as burnt as the parchment pages grasped in it.

"Guard Serenity," the Queen said. "I'll be fine. I have these to see too." She uncurled her hands as the two Guardians rushed away, into the palace. Both the Queen's hands were burnt, Luna saw, both had been protecting parchment pages.

"Are these prophecies?" Artemis asked, lifting some of the delicate pieces of parchment.

"She burnt the rest," the Queen coughed. "This is all I have..." She unrolled the delicate pages with her reddened fingers. In the corner of one, Luna could see, was the burnt sketch of a crystal palace. "We've got too…"

"Luna?"

Luna jerked her head up from the parchment she'd been staring at, the scrap of a memory nagging at her. "Sorry… I was trying to remember…" she looked through her own stack of parchment. "Do you see any burnt ones?"

"Uh?" Usagi shuffled through the papers remaining in her lap. "Well, I see some with stains all over them buuuuttt."

"Never mind," Luna sighed. "Just a memory," She went back to the parchment under her paws. "Here: let's finish sorting these like you wanted," she told Usagi. "And perhaps then I'll set up a conference with Helios and see if they're in a language he can read."

~AgeofAquarius~

Michiru: Can you swing by the Orchestra Hall early today?

Haruka was on the way to her car before she thought to text Michiru back. She was more than grateful for the excuse to leave early today. She'd gotten to test a new racecar – newer and faster. Then she'd found out they were reserving it for another driver. She was still plotting out how to challenge the man to a race while the owner of the car was watching as she wove her Ferrari through Tokyo's streets on her way to the orchestra hall. She laughed as she thought that plotting was certainly something Michiru could help with and pulled her car out onto the main road. I hope when Michiru said to pick her up early, she meant right now.

When Haruka reached the Orchestra Hall, she could hear all the instruments playing. Something by Mozart, it sounded like. She slipped into the auditorium through the side door to wait for them to finish.

But Haruka frowned as she scanned the violin section. Michiru wasn't there.

Quietly, Haruka slipped out into the hallway. Maybe Michiru was in the green room. She made her way there, wondering if she still had morning sickness despite it being nearly 13:00.

The green room door was open when Haruka reached it, but Michiru wasn't there either. Her prized violin was in its case at her vanity. Haruka walked to it and lifted the case, noticing the crumpled newspaper on the floor under Michiru's chair. It was one of several newspapers around the room. Haruka also saw, as she turned to leave, the TV on in the corner by the door: a daytime show host was laughing with a man in a well-tailored suit – a man with gray peppered through his aqua hair.

Haruka'd only ever seen Michiru's parents in the news: glances caught just before the TV was turned off, or the articles folded up and slipped in with the recycling. And Haruka didn't take a long look at Mr. Kaioh now. Rather, she left the green room and the Orchestra Hall entirely, with Michiru's violin in hand. Once she was outside, Haruka closed her eyes, turned her ear to the sea breeze, and listened.

Traffic, seagulls terrorizing the tourists, swearing, laughter, sniffling…

Haruka focused on the last sound. The wind led her down the street, to an alley that let out onto the delivery service road behind the buildings. Guardrail blocked it off from the steep, rock slope down into the sea.

She spotted Michiru perched there, behind the Orchestra Hall. She was gazing out at the water. Haruka went to her.

"I'm here," she said as she came up beside Michiru. Haruka'd barely sat down when Michiru turned, grabbed for her shirt, and kissed her. Michiru's face was wet. When Haruka pulled away she caught a glimpse of Michiru's red face and the gleam of her tears in the sunlight.

Then Michiru pulled Haruka closer to her, gasping as she hid her face in Haruka's shoulder.

"How long were you waiting for me?" Haruka worried, wrapping her arms securely around Michiru.

"Not long."

Haruka sighed. It usually took her about twenty minutes to get here from the racetrack. "You could have called Setsuna," Haruka said. "She would have been here in a second."

She regretted asking when it made Michiru cry harder. "Do you think you're interchangeable?" Michiru gasped. "I needed you."

Haruka sighed. "Sorry," she murmured, kissing Michiru's hair. She listened and waited.

Finally, Michiru spoke. "I don't need them."

"No you don't," Haruka agreed.

"I don't want to be like them."

"I know."

"And I don't miss them," Michiru insisted. She sniffed.

Haruka rubbed her back with an ear to the wind to make sure no one was coming. "All that's true," Haruka whispered. "But you can still be upset."

"No," Michiru protested, shaking her head.

"But it's alright to cry about –"

"No!" Michiru sobbed as she protested this time, which turned into a frustrated sound and another bout of crying. Is she crying now because she's still upset? Haruka wondered. She hugged Michiru more tightly and waited a while longer for her to explain.

"They don't get to upset me," Michiru finally said. "They're not worth it."

So I'm right about the reason… Haruka thought. Not that that helps… Haruka had not witnessed the aftermath of an encounter with the Kaiohs since high school. She wished she'd taken a look at the crumpled article in the green room.

"So… well if this can't be because of your par – er – them." Haruka corrected herself quickly, afraid actually acknowledging the Kaiohs might make matters worse. "Then I guess..." she took a risk. "I guess you're only crying because you're pregnant."

There was a long pause during which Haruka was absolutely sure she was about to be exiled to the couch for the foreseeable forever.

Then Michiru sniffed. And nodded.

Thank God. "Which... is my fault," Haruka reasoned, an idea came to her mind. She ran with it. "So then… then I guess I made you cry. I'm so sorry, Love."

Michiru let out a weak laugh and tightened her arms around Haruka.

"How can I make up for it?"

"You are."

Haruka smiled against Michiru's hair. "Let's get outa here," she said. "We'll go home, grab the bike."

"Go flying"

"Well if you want to fly," Haruka laughed. "Minako and Usagi are better than me."

"You know what I meant!" Michiru fumed, pulling away and slapping Haruka's arm.

Haruka grinned at her and took her handkerchief out of her pocket. "Okay?"

"Okay," Michiru said. She fixed her hair and took the handkerchief to wipe her face. She shook her head as she handed it back. "I suppose I could have asked Setsuna to get you," she said. "I wasn't thinking clearly."

"That's okay," Haruka told her. She stood, picked up the violin case, and held out her arm to Michiru. "Ready to go?"

Michiru nodded and linked arms with Haruka. She clung tightly to Haruka's arm as they made their way back to the car.

Setsuna forwarded Haruka the article that Michiru had crumpled up in the Orchestra Hall while they were zooming down the coast. And so did Mina as they made their way back.

ANOTHER SENSHI PARENT ENDORSES SENATOR HINO

Monday, May 5th

Following the buzz surrounding the senshi's interview on Thursday, two more of their parents have come forward in favour of the Sailor Accountability Initiative.

Kaioh Tatsuo and his wife have been unsure of the senshi for several years, ever since their daughter Kaioh Michiru cut all ties with them at barely 16 years of age.

"I consider myself a tolerant man," Kaioh explained. "I lived on my own for a time as a teenager – and it helped me so much to put my youthful rebelliousness into perspective. And even if she was far more childish, I thought that was working with Michiru. We sent her to one of the best schools in Tokyo. We paid all her expenses. Before her 16th birthday, she was talking about moving home, enrolling the prep school her mother attended, And then suddenly she's moved out of the apartment we'd rented for her, she's got a different cell phone, I tell you it was the strangest thing. It was certainly not behaviour I expected from my daughter. We were stunned, both of us. And my younger daughter, it was the hardest thing to explain to her when my wife and I had no explanation ourselves."

The only clues that something was affecting his eldest child, Mr. Kaioh said, were nightmares that began some time before she cut ties with them.

"I don't know when they started, but each time she was home from Tokyo on a school holiday she would get them. We even sent her to see someone about it, to get a prescription and all that. We thought it was stress. But she became more and more resistant to talking about them."

Mr. Kaioh said Senator Hino, and Mr. and Mrs. Aino sharing similar stories convinced him that the Sailor Accountability Initiative was worth investing in.

"Do I know if they're correct that the senshi are alien? Or possessing our children? No, I can't know that. No one can know that. But that's why we've got to investigate and get some answers. Because if it's true: then that may mean I can get back the daughter I should have had."

That's why the Kaiohs are sponsoring an event on May 13th: to promote Senator Hino's Initiative. It'll be a public event, with the end goal of raising funds for investigating theories pertaining to the senshi's origins and goals – and those of their enemies as well.

Mr. Kaioh also wanted to say that the donations made by his family and corporation to charity and relief efforts that happen to clean up after the senshi are not in any way an endorsement of their actions and are entirely separate from the donations made by Kaioh Michiru.

The article prompted an emergency meeting that night, so emergent that Ami joined them in Lunar Command via webcam. Her furrowed brow and tight-lipped expression (enlarged to fill one of the five large computer screens) was the first thing Chibiusa saw when she descended the stairs with Luna.

"Mr. Hino and the others can't really do anything that bad can they?" Chibiusa asked.

"No," Luna assured her. "But they could certainly produce a lot of minor problems – and those can turn into a big problem, one we'd rather not deal with since our focus should be on the enemy." She hopped down from Chibiusa's shoulder once they reached the bottom of the stairs and dashed to the computer console, standing with Artemis to address the room.

The Initiative event was going to be held in one of the largest hotels in Tokyo – with room for hundreds of people to attend.

"Another advertisement says there'll be some speakers during the gathering," Artemis told them. "So we think they're not only trying to draw in money and power, but more people as a base of support."

"We need to see what it's about," Minako decided, "And see who's involved."

"There's a simple solution to that," Setsuna announced. "It's a public event. I'll go."

It was also an opportunity, they realized, to find out the true origin of people's ire. With so many Initiative supporters in one place, it would be easy to see if there was negative energy from the sunspots surrounding them.

"I can see it!" Hotaru volunteered, leaping at the chance to do something useful. "I can go with Mama-Suna. I could see if there's any of the sunspots' energy and no one would look twice at me."

"If my mother's there, she will," Mina warned her. "She knows you're a senshi. If she sees you there, I doubt she's gonna keep her word to your Dad."

"Yeah, but she's never seen me," Hotaru pointed out. "If I go with Mama-Suna, she'd never suspect."

Her parents had been less than enthusiastic, but neither could they dismiss the benefits of her suggestion.

"If your father agrees…" Michiru decided as she looked to Haruka and Setsuna to see if they objected. "Then, I suppose… it's a good idea."

~AgeofAquarius~

It was a hectic week, running tests of an expanded detection system and exploring ways to monitor sunspots forming within Earth's core took up the bulk of Ami's time, the rest went to the six courses she had – two of which had Mid-terms the following week. It was a busy time throughout the University. She did not even see Daiki outside their shared classes. That made it an even more lonely week, given he had become her sole companionship on a campus where most people reactions to her were to stop and stare or avert their eyes and rush away.

Somehow, though, in stolen ten and fifteen-minute intervals, Ami carved out time at ever chance she could, to dig deeper into the file on the past Sailor Mercurys. She realized as soon as she had the chance to read the Lunarian file all the way through that it had been a piece of an encyclopedia, and was one of several such files recovered in the damaged hard-drive data. This file, she learned, was specifically a record of every attack and ability ever used by a Sailor of her world.

The list of those attacks sat on her desk for five days. Every spare moment she had, she glanced at it, practiced the words, even tried to copy the motions she saw demonstrated in the ancient videos.

Aegis – Mercury 3 – Created a spherical shield apprx area. 78.8 million km.

*(Sol) Aqua Rhapsody – Mercury 3 – combination attack. Merged with shield. Disrupted large, atmospheric threat. Much bigger than mine.

Blizzard Bombard (Lun. Translation) – Mercury 3 – conjured blizzard to mask attack direction. Varying sized snowballs hurled at enemy.

(Unk.) Blizzard attack – Mercury 1 – Created contained blizzard that shredded opponents. Caused rainbow of light (potentially refracting sunlight to produce melting effect…)

Glacial Sleep (Lun. Translation) – Mercury 2 – covered undetermined area in a thick coat of snow (one case transformed lava into said snow)

Ami's list went on another page and a half and included several things these Mercurys had been able to do without transforming, such as make the Mercury sigil on their foreheads glow.

Obviously, that will have to wait until I get my full powers back, Ami'd reasoned. But the others… She pulled the list out from beneath her keyboard each time she paused during an assignment, and even put off exploring more of the hard-drive data in favor of re-watching the Mercury attack videos well into the morning hours.

She waited for the perfect time, when a thunderstorm rolled through Juuban at 1:00 in the morning on the 10th. There'd be no one awake, and plenty of rain to mask her work.

Sailor Mercury jumped up from her studio apartment window and onto the roof of the complex as the heavy rain began to pelt downwards, obscuring visibility in all directions. She took a deep, centering breath as the first rumble of thunder rolled overhead.

Her hands had practiced the motions in her rooms for the past five days. She was ready. She could do it.

"Mercury… Blizzard BOMBARD!" She cried, throwing both hands out in front of her.

Her shout rang in her ears, along with the pounding rain, which continued to pour unhindered over her outstretched hands.

Well… I suppose that was a final attack form. Maybe the earlier one…

"Flurries FLY"

Nothing still.

"Maybe our styles are incompatible," Sailor Mercury pouted. She tried an attack from Mercury 2 next. Nothing. She even tried to figure out words that might accompany the mysterious attack from Mercury 1, an effort which lasted three tries and left her feeling more ridiculous than before.

And the heaviest rain was dissipating. Mercury heard a group of students whoop in the distance and knew that all those who'd been reckless enough to go out in the downpour would be able to see her soon. She really didn't need reporters finding out which apartment building was hers.

One more, Mercury decided. She'd tried only attacks that related to ice and water so far, but there was one above all the others she wanted to use desperately. Maybe that means I'm connected enough to it that it'll work. She squared her feet and bowed her head, focusing on the ice-cold power that surged through her, that concentrated in her chest each time she transformed. Sailor Mercury took a deep breath and spanned her hands wide. "Aegis!"

She gasped. There was a flash! Small, white. It stretched between her hands, waivered, and vanished "Aegis!" she tried again.

But this time the light did not appear.

Mercury sighed, transforming back into Ami and turning her head upwards, eyes closed. She let the cool spring rain pour over her face as the thunder echoed back to her, quieting as the storm raced away from Tokyo.

Maybe I imagined it, Ami thought as her shoulders sagged. The rain had, by now, soaked through her jeans. Maybe I do have to wait until I get Athena's memories again. She looked down at her hands. No… she'd definitely seen something.

"I am perfectly capable," Ami whispered to herself. "And it did work… for a second."

I could do more research into the hard-drive tonight! Ami thought, but groaned, throwing the thought away nearly as soon as she'd thought it.

She had, of all things, an Organic Chemistry exam later in the morning.

She decided she would study that for an hour, and then turn in for a few hours of rest.

Before moved to climb down from the roof though, Ami allowed herself another five minutes to stand under the rain, letting the cool droplets run across her face and hands, feeling in those moments the full weight of her duty to the scouts, the demands of her university, her lingering fears that Daiki might realize how dreadful she was at dating and move on, and the ever-present need to prove to her mother, her friends and more and more herself, that she could do this. That she was strong enough to do this.

Ami sighed as the rain washed over her, imagining that the rivers of water droplets could wash the stress away with them.

~AgeofAquarius~

Hotaru spent every day of the week before to the Initiative event working her way up to asking her father's permission. Souichi Tomoe fell somewhere between Haruka and Setsuna on Hotaru's scale of how easy it was to get her parents to agree to something. (And he was much worse than Setsuna at predicting when she was preparing to ask). Because of that, her plan worked flawlessly.

Hotaru didn't ask Souichi whether she could go with Setsuna to the event until three days before. Instead, she devoted the bulk of the week to being on her best behavior: she woke up early to do her chores, did all her homework in time to help with dinner, and begged Souichi for stories about her mother. Her efforts put him in such a good mood that when Hotaru asked Saturday during dessert, talking points written on her palm, her father's eventual decision was: "I'll sleep on it." Which, true to experience, had turned into a reluctant "yes," by the time Hotaru asked again Sunday at breakfast.

"I sorta didn't tell him it was to see if the enemy was affecting people," Hotaru confessed to Kara Aino at lunch Monday, which they ate in their usual spot atop Mugen's roof. "But that doesn't matter. It's still not a battle, which is all he's worried about."

"Wait," Kara said, sandwich halfway to her mouth. "But Mom's making me go… do you think people are really possessed? Will I be infected?"

Hotaru shrugged. "I don't know." Then she giggled. "But if you're suddenly angry with me, I guess we'll know why."

Kara didn't laugh though. "What if I out you to the newspapers," she worried and put down her lunch. "And I'm not good at faking sick – there's no way I can stay home." She made a face. "Unless we go find someone who is sick and get them to sneeze on me."

"I don't think you should have to do that." Hotaru wrinkled her nose and frowned. "But your parents work on the Initiative…" she raised an eyebrow at Kara. "Wouldn't you… already be infected?"

"I'm still not taking chances," Kara insisted. She furrowed her eyebrows thinking, and gasped when an idea came to her. She looked up from her sandwich. "Can I investigate with you?"

"What?"

"Well… Mom won't mind me hanging out with someone else my age. I could go around the event with you, and that way the negative energy or whatever wouldn't get to me right?

Hotaru raised her eyebrows. "I'm not an evil-repellent!"

"How do you know? Oh!" Kara's eyes widened. "And I can help you do your mission!" She squealed. "I could be like Mina!"

She certainly looked like Mina – she had the same gleam in her blue eyes that Mina got when she became obsessed with an idea. Hotaru hoped Kara didn't pursue her own obsessions as dramatically as her sister or the two of them were going to stand out among all the Initiative supporters fast.

"As long as you can act casual better than Mina," Hotaru said. "It's just an observing mission… it should be easy." She frowned. "But it'd be easier if we knew more details about it before tomorrow."

"Oh! I know that stuff!" Kara said, "I've been helping Mom with the planning…"

~AgeofAquarius~

Tuesday the thirteenth of May, a set of lavender doors swung open into an empty third-floor hallway in Tokyo's second largest hotel. Two figures stepped out dressed for a formal affair: a tall, green-haired woman in a sleek, burgundy dress, and a black-haired girl, half as tall, in the powder blue suit she'd worn to match her Papa's last New Years.

"Do you think all of them will be influenced by the sunspots?" Hotaru asked. "I kind of hope so." The alternative, that all the anger towards them was ordinary and human was not one she wanted to contemplate at all – it just didn't make sense.

"It is likely not affecting everyone in the crowd," Setsuna told Hotaru. "Many of these people may be getting involved for the first time. This movement's been building since the senshi's identities were leaked."

"But the sunspots in the Earth are definitely affecting them, right?" Hotaru said.

"I think we've established there is some connection," Setsuna told her. "Your job is to see how much of one there is, and whether it is people's emotions affecting the sunspots activity or the other way around." They stopped in front of the elevator and Setsuna pressed a button. "We may want to get you close to some people who've been involved since the beginning. They'll give us the best understanding of where this anger's coming from." The elevator went up three floors and they emerged in a hallway next to two bathrooms – as well as the open doors into the conference hall. They walked inside, bypassing the guest sign-in that had been in the lobby entirely.

Setsuna navigated the two of them along the walls, weaving between tables with lace coverings and flower centerpieces where people would be sitting down later to listen to speeches. Setsuna was still thinking aloud of how to get Hotaru to the Initiative's key promoters. "Preferably while everyone here is still mingling – ah, perfect." Setsuna looked down at Hotaru. "I hope you've been practicing your acting," she said with a mischievous smirk. She led Hotaru into the thickest part of the crowds, weaving their way through without once bumping into anyone: Setsuna simply stepped into spaces the moment another attendee moved even slightly to the side. As they walked a winding path through the attendees, Hotaru looked all around trying to see whom they were going to meet.

Their path was such that she didn't see the people Setsuna was moving towards until they'd slipped into a tight circle with them. Hotaru caught Kara Aino's eye across the circle as her friend stared at her, and then glanced at the tall man to her left. He was wearing a tailored black suit that matched the sleek black of his thinning hair, and Hotaru knew his name immediately as he noticed her. From behind his wire glasses, he stared at her and Setsuna with shrewd, purple eyes.

"Senator Hino," Setsuna greeted him with a respectful demeanor that Hotaru did her best to match, for him and then for Hikari and Hideki Aino. All of them, Hotaru noted, had negative energy around them, though (she was disappointed to see) it was only the normal, human kind.

"It's an honour to meet you," Setsuna was saying to the Senator. "I was hoping I'd get the opportunity."

"A pleasure," Senator Hino said. "And you are…"
"Dr. Setsuna Meioh," Setsuna introduced herself. "Ph.D. in Astrophysics," she gestured to Hotaru. "This is my daughter, Rini."

"Very nice to meet you," Hotaru said. And across from her, she saw Kara Aino do her best to stifle her giggles. Hotaru greeted her formally too, and added: "I didn't know you'd be here!" As though they hadn't discussed just this that afternoon.

"Rini was just telling me she was afraid she'd be the youngest here," Setsuna said. "Is this your daughter?" she asked the Ainos.

"Yes – Kara stop slouching," Hikari Aino nagged. She smiled at Hotaru. "You know my daughter?"

"Yes, sorry," Hotaru said. "I believe she goes to Mugen Academy – I'm in class three."

"How wonderful – you see Kara," Hikari said. "I told you other students would be accompanying their parents."

"I thought it would be quite educational," Setsuna said.

"And what sort of research do you do?" Senator Hino asked Setsuna. "I've been looking to make more connections in the Astrophysics community – I think there's lots of potential for answers there."

"Well I'd like to investigate how the enemy in the recent battle generated their energy blasts," Setsuna said. "Given that they seem not to have any fuel source…"

"Can we go walk around?" Kara whispered to her parents.

"I suppose so," Hikari Aino agreed, barely glancing at Hotaru. "But be in your seat in time for the speeches – early. I am speaking second. You and your father are going to stand with me.

"Okay!" Kara told her, grabbing Hotaru's sleeve and pulling her away into the crowds before Hikari changed her mind. They had to push and duck through the tight groups without Setsuna to help navigate. Finally, they squeezed through the edge of the crowd and rushed to one of the empty tables waiting along the side of the room.

"So… Rini?" Kara giggled. "My mom's gonna want to invite you over, she keeps nagging me to make more friends."
"That would be interesting," Hotaru muttered. "And Mama-Suna wasn't exactly going to use my real name, was she?"

"She used hers."

"Cause…" Hotaru frowned, straining to see Setsuna in the crowds. It looked like she was still talking to Senator Hino. "Maybe she want's to work with him?"

"Why?"

"I don't know… maybe so she can stop him from finding anything we don't want."

"Why?" Kara asked. "I thought you didn't have anything to hide?"

"We don't – but he'd find a way to make everything bad, wouldn't he?" Hotaru narrowed her eyes, double-checking the energy around Senator Hino and the Ainos. No, she hadn't missed anything. "Still no sunspots," she muttered.

"Still no what? Oh wait, hold on!" Kara said, and she opened the small, pink purse that was slung over her shoulder, fishing out a pen and a notebook with a large colorful sticker splashed across the cover. "Okay – Mission notes ready to record!" Kara grinned. "What do I need to do?"

Hotaru tried very hard not to smirk and just about succeeded. "Well first of all…" she said, looking at Kara's notebook. "I think you should hide that Sailor V sticker on the front."

Kara turned the notebook over and flushed, scrambling to fold it so the sticker wasn't visible. "Sorry."

"Don't worry about it," Hotaru said, scanning around the ballroom. "Okay… first."

"Wait," Kara stopped her again. "Are my parents possessed by the bad energy?"

"No," Hotaru assured her. "They're all full of negative energy… but it's the kind humans make. Not the kind other things make."

Kara sighed and then frowned again. "And…me?"

Hotaru crossed her arms. "What do you think?"

Kara tapped her chin and shrugged, scribbling in her notebook. "Kara… not possessed," she muttered. "Mom and Dad… ne-ga-tive-human energy…"

Hotaru looked around. There were already hundreds of people chatting and mingling around the room. "Let's… not look at everyone," she told Kara. "Just…" What had Mama-Suna said? "Just the people who've been working with your parents on this the longest."

"You mean all the people they've had over for dinner recently?" Kara asked. "Yeah… there's a lot of them here." She tucked her pen into her ponytail and held her notebook close. "Come on!"

Hotaru let Kara lead her around the crowded room, getting just close enough to specific people Kara knew in the crowds for Hotaru to get a read on their energy. She tried to catch their eyes as often as possible – as much because it helped her read their energy faster as because it made most people nervous. Normally she felt bad making people nervous, tonight not so much.

She was glad that Kara was there to do most of the talking to people and all of the navigating because the more they moved around in the crowded room and the more people she got a good read on, the more frustrated Hotaru became. While most people here had little to no negative energy around them, the ones closest to the initiative only had the normal kind of negative energy Hotaru was used to seeing on people who'd got stuck in bad traffic, or had a miserable day at school.

But there has to be a connection to the sunspots! Hotaru thought, accidentally bumping into someone. The room had filled up even more since she and Setsuna'd arrived.

"Are you mad or thinking?" Kara asked as Hotaru stormed out of the crowds.

"Thinking," Hotaru muttered back. She saw a tall plant against the wall and headed for it, ducking behind the thick, green ferns.

Kara ducked behind them too. "Isn't it… good." She checked her list again. "No one who's making the Initiative is possessed."

"Yeah," Hotaru sighed. "But… but our enemy has to be affecting them somehow." She bit her lip.

"Well… what about all the new people?"

"Mama-Suna already said it's probably not affecting them much." Hotaru sank down against the wall with a glum look on her face and stared at her polished white dress shoes. "Why's everyone so angry."

"You can tell they're angry?" Kara said. "I thought only Mina could do that."

Hotaru shrugged. "I can't really…but it's more common than other negative feelings… and just… looks different."

"Why?" Kara asked. "Do the angry people look red?"

Red? "No," Hotaru raised an eyebrow at her. "I don't see energy as colors."

"Then… but then how do you see it?" Kara frowned. "How's anger easier to see than anything else?"

Hotaru made a face but took the opportunity to explain anyway, rather than go on a person-by-person search for anyone here whose anger she could blame on the enemy.

She closed her eyes to focus more – how to explain this – and paused.

She'd been so focused on individuals, on trying to stare hard enough at particular people to know where all their negative feelings were coming from, that she hadn't once tried to shut everything else out and focus on the room as a whole.

Hotaru stood up behind the plant without opening her eyes, startling Kara as she turned her head up.

"You can see without looking?" Kara asked.

Hotaru nodded. "Up there." She snapped her eyes open, glaring at the brightly lit ceiling. "There are angry people here generating their own negative energy," she told Kara. "But there's energy like the sunspots all around." She realized something. "And I didn't notice at the beginning because it wasn't here earlier!"

"What's that mean?" Kara asked.

"It means…"

We know there is a correlation, Mama-Suna had said. Hotaru grinned. She had found it. It was not exactly what she'd hoped for, but still. "I think all the people who are angry being in one place is making other kinds of dark energy grow," Hotaru whispered to Kara. "So… so people are still angry," but! "But if the sunspots regroup faster or… or stronger then that'll be their fault!" She closed her eyes again to see. Yes: the mass of dark energy feeding off the room had even grown a little in the past few minutes. "It's like a huge cloud over the whole crowd," she tried to explain to Kara. "Normal negative energy from people's emotions always stays near…" Near them, Hotaru directed her attention to the whole crowd of people in the room. Oh…

It wasn't just the sunspots energy growing all around them – the people's negative feelings had grown too – had spread even to some curiosity seekers who'd only come to the Initiative event for free food. The energies are building off each other! Hotaru realized. I need to get Mama.

"Where's Mama-Suna?" Hotaru wondered. She saw Senator Hino near the stage where speeches would be held, but her Mama was no longer talking to him.

"Uh…" Kara and she both moved out from behind the plant, standing on their toes. Kara pointed. "She's in the same spot," Kara said. "She's just… talking to someone else."

Hotaru peered at Mama-Suna, who was tall enough that she could see her eyes over the crowds. She looked really serious. Who's that? Hotaru thought to her.

"Not an enemy and no one important," Mama-Suna replied quickly. "They're starting a few speeches soon – you should stand close to the door on the left side, you'll have a good view of the whole room."

Hotaru frowned. "When do the speeches start?" she asked Kara.

"Uhh." Kara fumbled with her small, pink clutch bag to check her phone. "Not for 15 minutes."

The left-side doors were in the back with no crowds obstructing them. I can get there in two minutes, Hotaru thought. And Mama knows it!

Which meant there was someone she didn't want Hotaru near.

I won't talk to them, Hotaru reasoned. I'll just get close enough to see who they are.

"Come on," Hotaru said, dragging Kara along behind her. She led them into the thickest part of the crowd and hoped Mama-Suna wouldn't notice her approach.

"What are we doing?" Kara asked.

"I want to see who she's talking to," Hotaru said. She was having trouble the closer she got. It seemed like there were a lot of people around listening.

"I personally think you're right," Hotaru heard as they got close enough ("That's my mom!" Kara whispered). "It's got to be possession."

"Well the alien theory's not a bad one – the press loves it," another woman responded, letting out an elegant laugh. "But you notice not even Hino will say whether he thinks it's plausible, and we all know that's a politician's way of saying they don't agree."

The group of them laughed again. Hotaru could see Mama-Suna now, putting on her best false smile. Hotaru focused on the lady who was laughing. The negative emotions around her were as high as around Senator Hino or the Ainos, the man on her far side as well.

"But I know she can't be an alien," the woman continued. "I feel a bit more confident about it knowing the rest of you agree. True, the teenage rebellion got positively unacceptable, but I think I'd know if my own daughter was a Martian or something."

The woman laughed again and Hotaru froze a few feet from the group, eyes wide. She was familiar with that laugh – a warmer, more genuine version of it, but there was no mistaking the similarity...

"And how are you hoping to investigate whether they're possessed, Mrs. Kaioh?" Setsuna asked coolly.

"Well I wouldn't expect it to have anything to do with Astrophysics, but I've spoken to several well-regarded researchers tonight – we're offering a generous grant whether the Initiative goes forward in the legislature or not – and I have several candidates who've explained their theories – what was your favorite, Dear?" Mrs. Kaioh asked, turning to her husband.

Hotaru traded a look with Kara and crept closer, trying to move behind Mama-Suna so there was less chance she would be caught. She was probably already caught, Hotaru reasoned. But from the way Mama-Suna had her hands in tight fists behind her back, perhaps she had more important things to worry about than Hotaru eavesdropping.

"Are you saying you would welcome her back?" Hikari Aino asked. "If there were a way to make her normal again?"

"And however would you deal with the enemies they fight?" Setsuna interrupted.

The man beside Mrs. Kaioh (Hotaru gaped at his graying aqua hair) appeared entirely unfazed. "Why we would increase the powers of our Defense forces and have them manage it of course – at least until the accursed things realized there were no longer Senshi about. Then they'd move on. But back to your question," he said to Hikari. "Yes if she is being possessed by this magical… being and there's a way to stop that, I'd welcome her back with open arms. She was a very promising girl – excellent head for business."

"And what about your daughter?" Mrs. Kaioh asked Hikari and Hideki.

"Well," Hideki Aino began. "I'd certainly like it."

"No," Hikari said.

Beside Hotaru, Kara gasped.

"Well, we have Kara to think about, don't we. And she has such a promising future. Even if Minako were to go back to normal (whatever that was) I just don't think I'd trust her right away, would I? I'd need to see she really was herself again. I wouldn't want her around Kara before that. It's a wonder she hasn't had a more negative impact on her already."

"I completely understand…" Mr. Kaioh began saying. But Hotaru did not hear the rest, distracted by the sound of a notebook and pen hitting the floor. She spun around.

Kara was scrambling away through the crowd, and her notebook had fallen in the middle of another group of people. Hotaru dove for it, giving a hasty apology as she knocked into someone. Then she chased after her friend.

When she had pushed out of the crowds, Hotaru saw Kara bolting towards a set of balcony doors at the back of the room and ran after her, weaving through the tables and chairs along the side of the room where many people had already sat down.

"Kara!" she gasped when she bolted out onto the balcony.

Kara was gazing down at the street, head pillowed on her arms as she leaned on the balcony's marble wall. "I thought the whole point of this was that Mom would let Mina come home," Kara blubbered. Tears were already rolling down her cheeks. "But now she wants to what? Just punish her for… for what, not listening?"

"And for choosing things your Mom didn't want," Hotaru added.

"Yeah!" Kara said. "Are you sure Mom's not possessed?"

Hotaru sighed. "Yep," she looked up at the stars. "She's completely herself."

"And what did she mean bad influence?" Kara mumbled. "Mina's great."

"Excuse me," a girl's voice interrupted. Hotaru and Kara both jumped and turned towards the doorway, where a short, slim figure in a dress was standing just beyond the reach of the balcony lights. "It's not time to be outside right now."

"Who're you?" Hotaru snapped.

The girl made a disapproving sound and stepped out into the light: it brought out green highlights in her aqua hair (which fell in an elaborate braid across her shoulder) and made the small gems on her purple dress glitter. Hotaru tried not to stare as the girl approached and introduced herself. "Nori Kaioh," she informed them in a prim voice.

She was taller than Hotaru close up, but not so much from her age as from the small heels on her feet. (Hotaru had worn heels once when she'd taken a pair from Michiru's closet. She'd decided quickly that she was never wearing a pair again). Nori only looked about their age.

"And I believe you're the Ainos' daughter," Nori said to Kara. "I was hoping I would see you tonight – you're seated with us during the speeches you know – they're starting in five minutes. I was going around making sure everyone took their seats."

"We'll be in, in a minute," Hotaru said. "Kara just needs to,"

"To collect herself of course," Nori realized when she noticed how red Kara's face was. "I can sympathize, as no one else can, really." She smiled at Kara. "I guess we have a lot in common."

Hotaru narrowed her eyes. Nori was full of negative emotions just like a lot of the adults at the event. "What… exactly do you have in common?"

"Well isn't that obvious?" Nori said, standing a little taller in her heels so she could look down at Hotaru. "I'm sorry, I believe you forgot to introduce yourself."

Hotaru blanched for a moment on the alias Mama-Suna had used. "Rini," she said.

"Rini what?"

"Rini… Meioh."

"Meioh," Nori tipped her head to the side as she looked at Hotaru. "I've never heard of your family before. Where are they from?"

"They… travel a lot," Hotaru said, glancing inside as a round of applause started.

"Hmm," Nori raised her eyebrows and turned her attention back to Kara. "Well anyways, we really should go inside… but I've been wanting to talk to you all night. I'm sure mum will understand. Here," she took a lacy handkerchief out of the purple clutch bag she carried and passed it to Kara. "I know it's hard cause she's only just run off – but everything will be a lot better eventually and they'll stop trying to get her back."

"Huh?" Hotaru and Kara frowned.

"Your Mum and Dad." Nori rolled her eyes. "They're like mine – all hoping Michiru's just been possessed by magic this whole time. I hope they're wrong."

"They are," Kara sniffed. "I want Mina to come back."

Nori stared at her. "Why?"

"Cause… cause Mina's my sister." Kara frowned. "Isn't… Michiru yours?"

"Unfortunately," Kara shook her head. "Daddy hasn't written her out of the will yet. Mum was finally talking him around to it before all of this Initiative business started up. Now all they talk about is how she's possessed and they can un-possess her, and she can come back and be perfect all over again." Nori scowled. "She doesn't deserve it."

"As if she'd even want to come back," Hotaru muttered, her hands in fists. She was starting to realize why Michiru and Haruka had never answered her naïve questions about their Moms and Dads.

Nori thankfully hadn't heard her. "Why do you want Mina to come back?" Nori asked Kara. "All they do is wreck things and get on the news and bring all sorts of bad things to Earth."

"No!" Kara said. "That's wrong." She looked at Hotaru. "I don't care what our parents think. Mina's just a normal person who has to fight bad things."

Nori Kaioh huffed, her hands turned into fists curled as tightly as Hotaru's. "I hope not!" she snapped. "I hope they're aliens – then we could explain how Michiru ran away and stole Daddy's money and they'd stop complaining about what a shame it is and stop saying how perfect she was at everything." She looked at Kara. "Maybe you don't care cause your sister isn't all over the tabloids with her… grease monkey friend. But mine is embarrassing!"

"Shut up," Hotaru glared at Nori.

"No! Listen," Nori said to Kara. "You shouldn't miss her. I guess I understand why you do cause your sister's only been a media scandal for a few months, but eventually you'll see it'll be better if she's not around. Mina's the star in the family, right? If she's gone, your parents will let you be the favorite. Don't you want that?"

"No," Kara said, shifting closer to Hotaru as Nori's cool demeanor broke down into an angry glare. "I want them to let Mina come home."

"Ugh!" Nori put her palm over her face. "Never mind – I thought I'd have someone to commiserate with." She shook her head. "Will I hope they prove they're all aliens – then we can send them away and I'll get the Stradivarius, and no one will talk about how perfect Michiru was anymore!"

"They won't prove anything," Hotaru scowled at Nori, feeling as though the temperature had suddenly dropped to freezing. "And they won't send any of them away."

"Oh I hardly think you'd know," Nori said, moving to block them as Hotaru made to drag Kara back into the hotel.

Hotaru glared at Nori. The lights in the big conference room flickered.

"I don't understand!" Nori continued. It seemed she would not rest until Kara agreed with her. "Why do you want them back? First, they're just embarrassing and now they've got weird powers that attract demons and destroy buildings!"

"Move," Hotaru ordered Nori. She was shaking. The lights around them flickered again.

"Not until I understand!" Nori snapped. "Why do you even want a sister like them they're such freaks!"

"SHUT UP!" Hotaru shouted and froze as she felt her magic flared up.

The lights inside the Hotel conference room exploded. People screamed as the glass lights shattered and shot down into the crowd.

Nori whirled around. "Mummy!" she called.

"Hotaru?" Kara whispered. Hotaru barely heard her. She backed away from both girls, staring into the dark room where she could hear chairs and tables being knocked over as people scrambled for the exits.

"Hotaru!" Kara said again, walking towards her as Hotaru continued to back up, into the edge of the balcony.

Nori whirled back around to stare at them. Her blue eyes widened "You're a freak too…" she realized, backing away towards the dark hotel. "M-m-mum!"

As soon as she'd run into the room, Hotaru transformed, jumping up onto the railing of the balcony and leaping up onto the hotel roof where Kara couldn't follow her. What if I hurt her? Sailor Saturn thought as she clutched her glaive close and curled up on the Hotel roof. She closed her eyes.

Transformed, the energy of the Initiative gathering was much easier to read. Saturn shivered. The negative emotions being generated by the crowds who were pouring into the street had quadrupled. Worse: so had the dark sunspot energy that was feeding off the crowd. I did that! Saturn thought. What if that makes the next sunspots come back faster or stronger? What if it's hurting the Earth?

"Saturn?" Sailor Pluto's low, calm voice carried across the roof.

Saturn squeezed her eyes shut tighter.

"You ran into Nori then," Sailor Pluto sighed and Saturn heard her approach and then kneel close to her. Her hand smoothed back Saturn's hair. "I'm sorry, I had thought that was unlikely enough that you wouldn't see her."

"I'm sorry!" Saturn exclaimed. "I was just following Kara… cause I didn't listen to you when you said to stay back."

"That's my fault," Pluto said. "I should have told you I'd run into the Kaiohs… But if I had told you, you would have come to investigate anyways.

Saturn felt as though her face were burning with shame. Yes, she would have. "I'm sorry!"

"Don't be," Pluto assured her. "It doesn't matter – were you able to see how the energy in the room was interacting?"

Saturn sniffed. "Yes," she said.

"Then this was successful then," Pluto said.

"But my powers got out of control!" Saturn exclaimed. "I… I could have hurt someone… and it made the dark energy worse!"

"Accidents happen," Pluto consoled her. "You will get a handle on it – I promise."

"Can you see it?" Saturn asked, looking up at Pluto.

Her mother smiled at her. "I don't need to see – I have faith in you, Little One."

Saturn swallowed the lump in her throat and nodded. "But you can't see?"

"Because your future is one that is still very flexible," Pluto said, putting her hands on Saturn's shoulders. "That means you get to decide how it goes."

That means I could go out of control again! Saturn thought, tightening her grip on the glaive. What if she never got a handle on it? And every time I get angry something will explode or implode or melt or… or…

"I'll try harder," Saturn promised Pluto. "It's… it's just hard because of the Initiative!" she decided. "I need to stop letting them get to me."

Pluto hummed and summoned the Time Doors, steering Saturn through them. "I think they're getting to all of us more than we'd like," she said. "Come on," she smiled at Saturn. "There's time for a Hot Chocolate at least before I drop you off at your Father's."

Saturn looked away and de-transformed. She's being too nice to me, Hotaru thought. I just ruined the mission! I probably made the whole Initiative even worse!

And I keep losing control! Hotaru thought as the Time Doors swung open again revealing the coatroom in the Penthouse. Why does it keep happening?

Her phone buzzed in her suit pocket as she stepped out of the Time Dimension. Hotaru took it out.

Chibiusa: How'd it go?

Hotaru: It was fine… no one's possessed. But they are making the dark energy worse.

Chibiusa: Are u ok?

Hotaru: …I got angry and blew up the lights.

Chibiusa: ! Is everything okay?

Hotaru: Yeah…

Hotaru: This stuff stops happening in the future, right?

Chibiusa bit her lip. She didn't know Hotaru in the future. I'll just tell her yes anyways, Chibiusa decided.

But as she went to type the reply, her thumb passed through the phone. It clattered out of her grip, tumbling down the shingles of the roof and clanging as it fell into the gutter. Chibiusa gulped, staring at her hand as she flexed out her fingers. They'd turned translucent. Bright gold specks of light were all that seemed to join them together. Her arms tingled as they too began to shimmer and fade. She felt the tingling in her toes too.

Chibiusa shivered as she watched her hands grow more and more transparent, and sighed as (at last) the color and opacity returned to them, the golden specks of light vanished. She closed her hands into fists and sighed. I need to make sure Luna doesn't sit on my shoulders anymore, Chibiusa thought. Or they'll notice…

It's only because the Time Key doesn't work, Chibiusa rationalized. Time's uncertain… but that's okay. "As soon as they kick this enemy's butt, everything will go back to normal," Chibiusa said aloud. "I don't need to worry, cause… cause Usagi and Mamoru are still alive." She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "So what if the future's uncertain – as long as they exist, I exist."

It was enough to convince her for five minutes, as she stared up at the half-moon overhead.

As long as they exist… and defeat this enemy… and all the Anti-Sailor people go away so they can be King and Queen… I'll exist. And when I go home, Mama and Papa will get to explain why the Crystal Points got built early and why I don't know future-Saturn… or future-Pluto… or Neptune or Uranus or the baby.

Chibiusa sighed, opening her eyes and staring once more at the Moon. "Why don't I know them?" Chibiusa asked. "If… if they're happy here, now and they're fighting evil with you now… why don't I know them?" Surely they would have wanted to stay in Crystal Tokyo… The only reason they might not have been there is cause past Pluto is in the thirtieth century, Chibiusa thought.

But even in that case, it had been years since Pluto's past self had died stopping time. And Chibiusa had visited several times since. None of the outer senshi had been there.

She shivered as she felt the tingling feeling spread through her hands and feet again, and squeezed her eyes shut until the feeling passed. It was worse when she thought of her doubts. I can't tell them, Chibiusa thought. They have too much else to worry about.

After all – she'd disappeared at the Galaxy Cauldron too when Mamoru's star seed got thrown in – and she'd come back fine from that.

It'll work out, Chibiusa thought.

She heard her phone buzz in the gutter and then the slamming of a car door close by. She sat up and slid to the edge of the roof to get her phone, and saw the car parked in front of the house.

No… not a car. Chibiusa squinted as she plucked her phone out of the gutter. A taxi. She heard whoever'd gotten out of the taxi ring their doorbell. Who'd be getting a cab here so late!

The front door of her house clicked open and she heard Ikuko-mama gasp and call into the house. "Usagi!"

"WHAT!" Usagi complained. Chibiusa heard her stomping through the house even from the roof. "I was slee-EEEEEEEE!" Usagi shrieked from within the house, and Chibiusa heard her run and slam into the person waiting on the porch. The impact and made them stumble back off the porch, dropping their bag. Chibiusa grinned as she saw the tall person's dark hair in the porch light, and heard him laugh as he spun Usagi around.

He's home!

"Mamo-chan!"

~Á Suivre~