DISCLAIMER: Relatively standard stuff. Existing characters are properties of the people who made them up. Mitsuki, and several other characters are mine, and so's the story, hence ownership and copyright of them belongs to me. Contact me at my usual email address if you want permission to use anything I've written for whatever purposes. As per usual, I'm having formatting ripped out on upload, and now having line breaks introduced for no apparent reason. I apologise in advance for any formatting errors you may meet.
Justice
By
Raymond Cooper
Life On Mars
Setsuna made it inside the spire before the carefully pursuing guards showed up, which relieved her slightly. The girl, Seilei, had come inside this building – Pluto's own tower from what she dubbed the 'real' timeline – but as yet, since seeing her vanish outside when a flock of birds erupted from the ground between them, Setsuna hadn't seen the girl inside the tower, and didn't know quite what to do now.
Whatever she did, she wasn't going to provoke the guards. That meant no more transformations. She'd let her other self slip away immediately after arriving in this world to better walk amongst the people and find why it looked so different from her timeline, but hadn't needed to call on the power of Pluto since. With the guards, and the entire human race, intensely prejudiced against the senshi after their war on humanity a thousand years before, Sailor Pluto making an appearance would only make things worse in this place
Still, she had better make sure she had her transformation wand on her. She patted her pants pocket casually, expecting to feel the comforting hard length of the rod under her fingers, but no – nothing. She quickly checked her other pockets, and there was nothing. The silence of Pluto in her head now started to make sense. Was she no longer a senshi in this time after events in the past, in some kind of twisted paradox? Was it something done to the senshi remaining in this timeline to prevent them from rising as a threat again? Or was there another reason, like the potential power source running Crystal Tokyo pouring backwards from the future to power the past senshi no longer in operation?
Standing in the ruins of Crystal Tokyo, she suspected this to be the most likely of her immediate theories, but she just didn't know.
There was a noise behind her, and Setsuna spun around, half-expecting to see a guard coming in the door behind her, but instead the door was sliding shut. Solid crystal, cracked and blackened from the ancient war, the huge door grated across the ground in fits and starts before locking into place across the entrance way. Setsuna turned around again, suddenly feeling there was someone else in the room with her, but could see no one.
Outside, she heard the first of the guards reach the door, pounding on it with some item Setsuna suspected was the butt of some kind of gun. She wasn't too sure; she could only hear the noise. No vision from outside made it through the crystal, and no screens were active inside. In fact, the entire ground floor looked as if it had been stripped of anything that might be worthwhile to her inside the tower. More guards started banging on the door now, and Setsuna could also hear them yelling loudly, but could not make out what they were yelling about, or even if it was to her or to someone else. For that many to be there now, within thirty seconds of her entering the spire, they must have abandoned their attempts to reach her without panicking anyone, as well as stopped their actions to move people away so as not to be injured if things blew up in more ways than one.
The elevators to the other levels – crystal platforms normally suspended in directed gravity wells, but now lying discarded on the bottoms of their shafts – weren't working, and the doors into the few staircases were all blocked off by human locking mechanisms. With her transformation wand, nothing here could stop her from going where she wanted in the spire.
Without it, she was trapped on the ground floor until the air ran out.
It was evening now, and Usagi was resting in one of the hot springs out the back of the dorm building. Her head rested on the rock edging of the pool, the hot water working its magic on her aching insides even as Hotaru healed her wounds. She hadn't expected the early training to be quite so involved – most of the senshi had some kind of injury that Hotaru was healing or had healed – but she had to admit, she was getting better. The training... it was hard, but Cologne never dealt out more than Usagi was capable of handling... if she applied herself, at least.
She sighed as Hotaru moved on to fix a sprained elbow of Rei's, and closed her eyes. She had to do this, she had to be better. Crystal Tokyo was the outcome, and she couldn't do it if she didn't have the hearts and minds of everyone on Earth. Based as it was in Tokyo, she couldn't do it without the people of Japan, and she needed them accepting magical people to be able to grow a giant city made from super dense crystal structures in the city's CBD.
Crystal Tokyo. Setsuna had always intimated it was built a thousand years in the future, after a major cataclysm caused by the Dark Kingdom, but why couldn't it be built now? Why wait for future evil to strike and cause enough destruction and death to force the construction of the city as a way of saving the world? Surely it would do better to build it during a time of peace and prosperity than during a time when people were doing it tough.
Usagi heard something above her, and opened her eyes just in time to see Hina Ichigo push her underwater and then jump on her face, giggling as her dress wrapped around her nose and mouth and her fingers dug into Usagi's scalp and her knees pushed down on Usagi's throat. Usagi swallowed water and coughed badly before sitting upright and out of the water. She grabbed the little doll, still giggling and wriggling madly as Usagi pulled Hina from her. She coughed up water while the other girls stared in surprise. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" Usagi yelled in shock.
Hina laughed in reply, deliriously happy, and Usagi made to throw her out of the spring and at a wall, but a sharp rap on her knuckles nearly made her drop Hina back into the water. Instead, Hina pried herself loose, and stepped down to the rock edging around the springs, and ran off laughing. Usagi rubbed her sore knuckles, still stinging from where Shinku had hit them with her cane, and glared at the red-clad doll.
"I won't have my servant abusing my little sister, it is most unbecoming," Shinku scolded Usagi. Usagi scowled back.
"Then stop your little sister from trying to kill me!"
"She's not trying to kill you," Shinku replied. "You really must stop imagining such things. Such flights of fantasy are not healthy in a woman your age."
"It's not a fantasy! She dropped a toaster into my bath before I came out here."
"It wasn't plugged in," Shinku reminded her.
"And she replaced the water in my bottle during training with acid."
"She was merely curious. And your water bottle was in no shape to be used after it melted like that. I doubt you'd have gotten down and licked the acid up, now. Am I right?"
Ignoring the doll, Usagi continued. "I dodged a safe on the way out here that fell off one the rafters in the hall. She was up there, too."
"Really, now, I think you're just imagining this."
"That's Usagi," Rei sighed pleasantly as the hot spring and Hotaru's ministrations did their work on her body. "Always thinking she's the centre of the world."
"I do not!" Usagi yelled, standing upright in the shallow spring all of a sudden to point at Rei. Makoto, embarrassed, handed Usagi a towel to wrap around herself. "And this is really happening! They keep trying to hit me in the head!"
Rei shook her head and tsk-tsked. "And anyone who knows you would know that hitting you in the head doesn't kill you, so what's the problem?"
"Rei, I swear –" Usagi started, but then broke off as she heard a noise. A familiar whistling. Her eyes opened wide, and she clapped her hands to the back of her head to ward off the incoming suitcase, but wasn't expecting it to hit her in the forehead this time. She went down again, pole axed. The suitcase dropped down on her stomach, and the latch popped open.
The lid opened, revealing a doll in an ornate full-length green dress, and long brown hair that hung down low to the ground as she stood. "Is it safe to come out, sister?" the doll asked Shinku.
Shinku nodded briskly, helping the other doll step daintily from Usagi's forehead to the rock edging of the spring. She spared an interested glance at Usagi, who was blowing bubbles under the surface of the water. "Oh look, I do believe she's learned to breathe underwater."
Again, Makoto came to Usagi's aid, lifting her from the water and making sure the suitcase hadn't done any permanent damage to her friend. Hotaru helped, healing the massive welt across her forehead.
"Carefully with that suitcase," Shinku snapped as Makoto moved it. The taller woman gave the doll an odd look before putting the suitcase down next to the two dolls and returning her attention to Usagi.
"Who's your new friend?" Rei asked, from the other side of the spring, looking curious now.
"This, Rei, is another of my cherished sisters. This is Suiseiseki, the most shy and retiring of the Rozen Maidens. She will be able to help us cure Usagi of these paranoid fantasies that people are out to kill her, also." The doll beside Shinku lowered her gaze, and shifted her feet as if to suggest she'd rather be somewhere else at the time, anywhere but here under scrutiny.
Hina ran at Suiseiseki with her arms outstretched. "Sister! Sister! It's good to see you!"
"It's the small one, yes," Suiseiseki said, in a quiet voice. "You were here second, yes? Not I, yes?"
"Yeees!" chimed Hina Ichigo.
"It is a shame, you must have been so scared by yourself, yes?"
"Big sister Shinku was here as well!" Hina reminded Suiseiseki.
"You must have been scared by yourself, yes?" repeated Suiseiseki, apparently ignoring Shinku's rising temper behind her.
"Shy and retiring?" Minako whispered to Rei on the other side of the hot spring. "She really seems to be pushing it with the Shinku doll."
Rei agreed with a nod. "But these dolls seem weird. Usagi said to keep an eye on them; she didn't completely trust them. I don't know why, they seem pretty charming."
"They've hit Usagi in the head three times now," Minako reminded Rei.
"As I said, they seem pretty charming. They're doing what we only dream about." Rei giggled, and a few moments later, Minako joined in guiltily. Usagi was nice, but sometimes just a little over the top. While neither wished her ill, it was occasionally nice to see her on the receiving end of some grief. Usually, it was at their hands. "But I wonder how many dolls there are in this range?"
Shinku overheard from where she stood, and her temper drained away. "In total, there are seven of the precious dolls created by Father."
"We all take part in the Alice game!" Hina announced proudly.
"Hush!" Suiseiseki urged Hina. "What is the first rule of the Alice game?"
"Um... it's pink and yummy?" Hina guessed. Shinku rapped her with her cane, and Hina yelped before adding, "We do not talk about the Alice game," in a quiet voice.
"That's right, yes."
"Oh," Rei said, exchanging a glance with the groggy Usagi. Maybe Usagi had something here.
"The Alice game is nothing. A pastime of the Rozen Maidens. Father has... made us special, apart from other dolls," Shinku explained. "For the right to be the only doll with a full soul, we must occasionally fight our sisters when awoken. But," she announced, looking meaningfully at Suiseiseki and especially at Hina, "I am not participating in the Alice game this time, and neither shall any of our sisters who reside in this inn. It is not proper and fitting of a lady to fight while staying under another's roof. Is this understood?" Suiseiseki and Hina each nodded to Shinku, who turned back to Rei. "There. It is agreed. You shall have nothing to fear from our 'Alice game'."
"That's good," Usagi grumbled, rubbing at her forehead now that Hotaru had finished healing the major damage. "Because I can't take much more of this."
Behind the frilly cuff of her sleeve, Shinku grinned sadistically.
Sailor Ceres had found a gathering of people, all holed up in a cave on a hillside. There seemed to be somewhere between five and ten people in the cave, but as everyone was close together, all panicky, and several seemed to be massively overpowered, Ceres couldn't get a strong individual count from a distance. As she closed, she realised this was the group led by the girl with the fan, and currently with the robot in tow. So, they were strong fighters. Not necessarily skilled, mind you, but strong all the same, and with that many strong people, it would only take the slightest mistake on Ceres' part to have this blow up in her face.
As a senshi, she thought she would be safe from just about anyone or anything on the island, but thinking something and being something were two completely different things. This was something Ceres had learnt time and time again in Nerima to her chagrin.
She became aware that someone was watching her. It was a careful presence, hiding itself incredibly well, but Ceres was very skilled in the arts of detection. Fighting against Yoshihiro while unpowered, she had had to be. Now, even as a General under Yoshihiro, she had to be brilliant at detection to avoid the occasional monster who remembered the new General had once fought against them with their greatest foes, and had a habit of winning.
This person, though... female. Very quiet, very stealthy. Thinking back, Ceres had been aware of the tickle in the back of her head since she had arrived in the area. She'd been watched the whole time, but the presence wasn't an immediate threat to the senshi, so Ceres had simply not noticed her on a conscious level.
Ah, yes, the ninja girl. It had to be. Ceres wondered then if the other girl, the gunslinger Mana Tatsumiya, was nearby also, but her senses weren't screaming at her. It wasn't likely. Possible, but not very likely, otherwise Ceres' red hair would be standing on end. No, it was just the ninja, then, curious about the new intruder to the island.
Well, nothing was to be gained by staying out in the trees for any length of time. And something seemed to be... familiar from the cave. She had to check it out, so Ceres started her climb up the narrow, overgrown path leading to the cave's entrance.
She was about twenty metres away when the combat gynoid attacked, from her hiding place behind a tree where she snapped a leg out at the height of Ceres' head. Without blinking, Ceres bent over backwards, turning the basic dodge into a graceful back flip catching the gynoid's leg in her own and pulling with the not-inconsiderate strength the senshi had access to.
Chachamaru went flying through the air, but her rockets activated and she stopped to hover. She whipped her right arm up, the surface of the arm shifting and disassembling to reassemble into a heavy blaster of some kind. Ceres didn't stand still long enough to find out how strong the weapon was; she flickered with pseudomotion, then was behind the gynoid with a leg spinning ready to catch Chachamaru in the small of her back. Chachamaru caught sight of Ceres, and moving as fast as she could possibly manage, was able to partially block the kick. Chachamaru's rockets strained to keep her from a damaging impact, but she still crashed through a tree trunk before managing to bring herself to a stop.
Before Chachamaru could make another move, though, Ceres held up a hand. "No, stop. This isn't what I'm here for. I'm Sailor Ceres and I'm here to help!"
"How could you possibly be here to help?" a biting voice asked. Ceres tracked it to the girl with the fighting harisen. "This entire island is dedicated to killing us! Or having us kill ourselves. How can we believe you?"
"Ask your robot here how long it would have taken me to take her down if I was being serious? Better yet, ask your ninja hiding over there in the trees." Ceres pointed back over her shoulders directly at Kaede's location. "Or just ask yourself: why would Big Man go to the trouble? The longer you all stay alive, tortured, the better for him to surpass his mentor, Demegawa. He needs you all to go down fighting. He'd seed this place with someone else like that gunslinger girl before he sent in super-powered support. Because he doesn't know what he's dealing with here."
"And what is he dealing with?" Asuna challenged Ceres.
"A combat gynoid. Mages. Ninjas. Assassins. What my lieutenant tells me is a vampire."
"Lieutenant?" seized Asuna, eagerly.
"Lieutenant?" Asuna echoed on the television broadcast to the otherdimensional base where Yoshihiro and his forces operated. Umiko turned her face towards the screen. The girl seemed to be talking to thin air. She got closer to the screen. Was it her displaced rival, Ranma?
"Wow, she's cute," one of the girls now appearing behind Asuna said.
No, girl. Damn. Where is he? Umiko wondered, before spotting one of Ranma's troops also in the TV room With a start, she realised she had seen this young woman around before. Similar to herself, her transformation from standard human had ended in a feline form, but unlike Umiko's, there seemed to be no transitional reptilian body the girl had gone through first when they had been operating from the alleyways of Tokyo and the surrounding districts.
She headed over to the catgirl, realising as she got closer that this woman had been following her around the base for several weeks now. Every time she turned around, the girl was there, peering around doorways or in through windows. Every damned time. As she thought about this, she got more and more angry, until she was burning with rage by the time she reached the girl.
"You," she snapped, "where is your master?"
"I do not know," the girl said.
"You must know," Umiko pressed. "All of us monsters can tell where our masters are with ease. You must know where he is."
The girl's hand started creeping up, as if she was hesitantly raising it to ask a question. "I don't know where he is," she repeated.
"I will find him, you know. And then I will find out what he's really up to." The girl's hand crept closer to Umiko. "Once I find out, I'll deal with him exactly like the Master should be dealing with him: rending him limb from limb and causing him delicious agony." The girl's hand crept too close to Umiko for her to stand it any longer, and she bit the girl's hand hard.
Tears gathered at the corners of the catgirl's eyes, but she didn't make a noise. Umiko spat the hand out of her mouth and spun away to leave the room.
After the door had closed behind her, Ayumu appeared in a burst of black. She absently patted the other girl on her shoulder, and examined her fingers. "Have them disinfected back at our rooms."
"Will our General be okay?" the taller catgirl asked, worried. "That one scares me."
"Our General will be fine," Ayumu affirmed with a nod. "Whatever she throws at him, we'll be there to back him up. Just remember, we all have to play our parts, and play them well. Our Master is relying on us, remember. No one else."
"Will our General forgive us?"
"Yes. Because that's what he does. Now," Ayumu said, her expression slackening and returning to its more common vacant expression, "it's time to work." She gated out, followed quickly by the catgirl.
"As I was saying," Ceres shot back, trying to speak over Asuna, "I'm here to help, but I can't do a lot if you're all talking to me! I don't think the cameras can see me, and it's good that they can't, because if they could there would be monsters like you wouldn't believe descending on this place and no one would get out alive."
Asuna finally quietened, and Ceres continued in a lower tone of voice. "I'm trying to save you all, but as I told the two girls earlier tonight, I need to do it secretly. I need you all to stay alive for now, and I have to get you all to meet somewhere when I'm ready to do my thing."
"Here would be the best place," Konoka confirmed. She took a look around, but the blackness of night was settling in now and there was no bright light to show much of anything. "We've got a cave, which Asuna says is easily defensible, and a lot of strong fighters, like Setsuna here." Konoka giggled despite the situation, and clutched at her friend's arm. Setsuna looked pained.
"I can't defend you if you keep holding on to me," the exasperated girl complained.
"Anyway," Ceres agreed, "that's a great idea. I can get people to come here, and then once I'm ready, we can either all do it here, or do it somewhere else. I'm not sure yet."
"My Master should be here soon," Chachamaru added. Ceres bristled extremely nervously at the words.
"Master?"
"Evangeline McDowell, the person you saw on television who vanished. She would have been banished back to the academy grounds, and I believe she will come back again." The gynoid looked a little dejected as she continued, "But until she returns, we are without experienced magical support." She eyed Sailor Ceres speculatively. "From your appearance, I would assume that you have a series of specialised magical attacks based around elemental capabilities. Your fight with me earlier also suggests a high degree of fighting skill across a range of disciplines and your willingness to commit to combat without making an effort to evade my attacks would also suggest either limited invulnerability or perhaps an extremely high level of skill leading to an abundance of overconfidence."
"Perhaps both," Ceres allowed with a smile as she relaxed. Not Yoshihiro, that was all she needed to know. "But that answers my question. But," she continued, returning her attention to Asuna, who seemed to Ceres to have taken on the mantle of leadership of this group by default, "do you have any problems with me sending people here?"
"No. I'd probably prefer it, easier to keep track of everyone. But, gathering that many people in one place, won't that make us a bigger target for Mana and Big Man? What if they send the soldiers out?"
"I think you've got enough strength between you girls and ninja girl back there to see them off." Ceres gestured at Chachamaru. "Just between you and me, even not like this I could beat ya, but I'm special."
"Special?" Satomi piped up from the back of the group. She gave a disbelieving snort. "Nothing human could beat the combined might of the Mahora Advanced Design Science Bureau!"
"... MAD Science...?"
"It's our new name," Satomi preened. "Or it will be once we get out of this mad place."
"Once we're off this island, and all is said and done and I can relax, I'll take ya up on that." Ceres looked around behind her. "It's dark. Everyone will be looking at settling down for the night. Best time for me to go visit." While she looked back into the forest, she felt something grate at the edge of her senses again. Something from behind her, with the group of girls. It was the familiar feeling. She turned again, and ran over eye over the group, not seeing with her eyes but instead with her soul, and what she saw surprised her.
She pointed at Misa Kakizaki, but standing as close to her friend and fellow cheerleader Sakurako Shiina as she was, no one was really sure which of the two girls she was pointing out.
"Her. Keep her safe."
"She's just a cheerleader," Satomi said, without thinking.
"All the same," Ceres replied, still pointing. "Save the cheerleader, save the world. This world, at least. You make sure she survives, okay?" She directed this last comment at Asuna, who nodded emphatically.
"I don't intend to lose anyone here to Mana, or the others if I can help it."
"Good," Ceres said, before turning away again. "This is going to be hard enough by myself. What I might do, then, since we're all worried about what actions Big Man will take if we group you all together without some kind of distraction, I'll tell everyone to meet here in... a week. Seven days to go about their routines, they should be able to handle that. Until then, keep everyone here safe, and if you can afford it, get that Mana girl stopped."
"You could easily..." began Setsuna brashly, before she stopped. "Oh, you can't fight, because if you do you'll bring down a different kind of hell on us."
"One that's over much quicker," Ceres confirmed. "That's right. Now, I have to go. I've got to meet some more of these people out there, tell them how to act, what to do. Every day or two, have an argument for the cameras. Fight if you can, but do no or little lasting damage, just enough to make a show for the television team."
"Why?" Konoka asked. "That seems counterproductive."
"It stops Big Man from being bored," Setsuna guessed. "Stops him from deciding he needs to create drama by killing someone. We need to show a steady decline in our mental states; from what Sailor Ceres says, the show is fastidious in picking us apart, watching what makes us tick."
"That's right," Ceres agreed. "Remember, save the cheerleader, save the world." With those last words, Ceres hopped into the trees and vanished, leaving behind a group of very confused girls.
"Um..." Asuna said, turning around and scratching her head, "was it just me, or did I just hallucinate a magical girl?"
"Definite hallucination," Ku Fei said. "I having same hallucination. Think Konoe needs to find safer berries, or lots more of those."
As the girls headed back into their cave, carefully taking out any sign they had been outside as they retreated, Yuna took a look at Misa and Sakurako, and snorted. "Save the cheerleader, save the world my ass."
The guards had been outside the spire now for about two hours, searching for another entrance in, but as far as Setsuna could tell, all of them had been closed down when the main doors had closed. After her earlier thoughts, she had reassessed her situation: there was plenty of air in the tower for her to breathe, but apparently no food or water. She'd die from starvation or dehydration long before she died trying to spontaneously evolve lungs capable of breathing carbon dioxide.
Every so often, she felt a presence in the room with her, as if someone was coming into and out of the room, but she hadn't been able to see anything or anyone. The temperature dropped as well, Setsuna noticed, when this sensation occurred. Maybe I'm being haunted, she thought to herself. Or the tower.
It wasn't a comforting thought. Where was she in this future? Surely she had made it back in time a thousand years somehow, and for better or for worse, stood by her Princess, and then her Queen. Yet she had found no evidence on this issue. For all intents and purposes, Pluto had disappeared before the senshi had fought Yoshihiro, as she had lived thus far in her own timeline before the Dark Kingdom warship shattered Pluto's control of the Time Gate at the edge of reality and plunged the Senshi of Time through a random cascade of portals before finally being deposited here.
Here, with no powers, unable to access the Time Gate and get back to a time when she could actually do some good, prevent this future from coming to pass.
Here, where the senshi were remembered as the most evil people who had ever and would ever exist.
Here, where Sailor Moon had made the wrong choice, which had then rippled and reverberated along through time, erasing everything that was good about her and her people and twisting it into something evil. The blond girl outside had been right; Sailor Moon had been fighting for an ideal, showing people of a better way of living through love and respect. She was super-powered, but the size of her heart far outweighed her strength or other abilities, which was what had made her special. But she was also a teenager, not yet capable of seeing things in shades of grey – only stark splashes of black and white. It was her experience that enabled her to keep fighting and bring Crystal Tokyo about when the world wanted, needed, change, but give her the power to make change early and what would happen?
Like any teenager, convinced she was always one hundred percent right, Sailor Moon would make the choice that seemed best for the world: blanket it in a forceful peace. Stop all wars, death and destruction, corporate rape of the world.
That had knock-on effects a teenager wouldn't necessarily think about, though. If the world asked for the choice, they would be ready for all the job changes and closures. They would be ready for the global economy to shift. They would be expecting things to be different.
Don't give people the choice, and factories won't work, jobs are lost wholesale, the economy of all countries crashes, inflation explodes, and without a model to replace the existing one, people are unable to afford to survive.
When they retaliate, and the people would, and you wipe their aggression, you open a new kettle of fish. Suddenly, people lose the will to live, and you wipe out populations. When that happens, the rest of the world goes into a panic and retaliates the only way it can: work around whatever is stopping their weapons and going all-out to wipe out a city of super-powered people.
Setsuna had no doubt many of the defenders of justice would have joined against the senshi. The descendents of Clow Reed, for example, or any number of alien visitors – Juraians, Saiyin, Kree. The parallel world of mages would also help out, and the world of the night.
The girl had mentioned vampires earlier. They and their ilk would crawl from their holes and exclusive private schools and fight alongside vampire hunters to protect their way of life.
It was all a huge mess, and had started from the best of intentions: to create a lasting world peace.
Instead, the world got its highest-ever death toll and a decade-long war, having to wait another decade while people squabbled over how to treat Serenity once she was in custody before finally executing her.
According to the books, serenity as a word now no longer peace and stillness; now it meant peace at the pointy end of the stick.
Again, the temperature dropped, and Setsuna instinctively looked around as she felt the presence again. This time, though, behind her stood a Chinese girl with her black hair tied up in twin buns. She had slightly flushed cheeks and a mischievous smile directed at Setsuna.
"Who are you?" the woman blurted.
The Chinese girl waggled a finger. "This is really not the place to have those sorts of discussions," she said, the smile not fading in the slightest. "Why have you come back here after a thousand years?"
"I've – I've been away," Setsuna replied. "Lost in time for a thousand years."
"Ahhh, my ancestor thought so," the girl replied. She glanced sideways. "And you thought so too, Sayo, yes."
"Sayo?"
"A ghost. Kind of passed down through the ages. She's been variously appearing to people through two families for about a thousand years now." The Chinese girl half-turned to the unseen phantom. "Go and make sure there's no Evangelions on the way. Or Gundams. Nothing with enough firepower to breach the walls. It's going to take time to repower the teleport systems. Yes, yes, I know, but we need time to get out of here, and I'd prefer not going toe to toe with an Evangelion again. They're scary things to fight."
"Those are the giant robots that fought the senshi?"
"Yes. But they're not robots. They're a combination of Human and Meltrandi DNA spun in a loom and wrapped in mystical armour to hold everything together." At Setsuna's look, she added, "oh, I know they say they're not Meltrandi in origin, but can you really imagine the Zentraedi not getting involved in the biggest fight this plane of existence had ever seen without damned good reason? There was an unexpected side effect of Queen Serenity's mind wipes, and that was a crashed observational vehicle from a Meltrandi fleet. Rather than get involved in the growing conflict and possibly all end up mindless automatons, the Meltrandi mothership and associated Zentraedi fleets stood by, waiting and watching to see the outcome. The remains were recovered and put to good use." She snorted a chuckle as she popped open a wall panel and began digging around inside, pulling out handfuls of crystal fibres and throwing them back across her shoulder to keep them in one place. She grabbed a thicker conduit and ripped that out, also. "I should know; my ancestor worked on melding the technology and magic into something workable. It was amusing, really, and the Evangelions are scary things and not used very often these days. But they'll bring one in."
"I'm not a senshi at the moment, though," Setsuna pointed out. "I don't even have my transformation wand."
"You're still using that?" The Chinese girl snorted again, this time in disbelief, as she turned around and regarded Setsuna. "I thought you were the most experienced of the original senshi. Are you sure you're Sailor Pluto?"
"Yes, I am. Sure, that is," Setsuna added, annoyed. "I've had it with me through all the random time-jumping I went through when the Time Gate was shattered, but when I arrived here... well, I've been here a week and only just noticed it being gone."
"Ahh," the girl nodded in comprehension. "You were asking Questions. People don't ask Questions anymore. It can bring about too big a response. But if it disappeared when you arrived here, it's because the possibility of your future is no longer in doubt in the here and now. In fact, if I wasn't here, you'd be what is technically-dubbed 'screwed'. Thankfully, I am here."
Setsuna regarded the girl curiously. "You look like someone I know of. Someone I was keeping an eye on."
"My ancestor again, no doubt," the girl replied proudly. "She travelled back in time a hundred years from her time to bring about a change in the way that magical people lived – bringing magic out in the open to the whole world, to try and make it something known, cause problems earlier than was expected to try and force some kind of human response to things before they got out of hand. But, she ran out of time when Crystal Tokyo was built overnight. She saw her nightmare, her history, coming true. The war, everything. She was prepared for the chaos, or so she thought, until she saw it in action. Still, she was one of the people who helped defeat the initial anti-technology spells. She didn't get home for another twenty years, though." The girl looked sad for a few moments, then cheered up again. "I'm actually named after her, you know. Chao. Pleased to meet you."
Chao plugged something into the wall conduit, and began threading the crystal fibres into the device. It looked vaguely biomechanical, with what appeared to be red strands of muscle holding the complex moving parts together in a tight ball. There was also some LEDs that shone through or behind the muscles. As the fibres were plugged in, the lights on the device burned brightly and then faded to a dimmer level. As the device was hooked up, Setsuna noticed the room brightening also, the walls coming alive with displays and controls.
This was more how she remembered things. She moved to a wallscreen, and using a finger traced a symbol that opened up an outside feed. The temperature chilled just as the image came up. As Setsuna turned around, she caught a roughly human-sized shape next to Chao.
"What? An Evangelion? This soon?" Chao snorted at the shape.
"An Evangelion," Setsuna confirmed, gesturing at the screen. A black and orange giant was striding towards Crystal Tokyo.
Chao sighed theatrically, before making the final adjustments to the device. "But I like this outfit!" she complained loudly before giving another sigh. "Okay. Sayo, make sure Setsuna stays safe. I'll try to keep the fight away from here. Once the system is ready to go, this light will come on." Chao pointed at a section of wall that was completely featureless. "Once it does, you come get me, no matter what. Okay? Right. Well, here goes." Chao walked to the front door, and placed her hand over the activation patch.
Setsuna grabbed her shoulder in alarm. "You can't be thinking of going out there to fight that thing," she said, disbelievingly.
Chao blew a quick raspberry at the door. "I'm not scared of them. They make me angry. They don't like me when I'm angry. I remind them of what they lost." With that, she slapped the door patch and stepped outside, quickly slapping the outside patch to shut the door again.
Setsuna returned to the screen to watch where the teenager was standing off against a massive giant.
"You are suspected of harbouring a senshi," the pilot inside the Evangelion unit boomed through an external speaker. "Turn her over now and you won't be harmed."
"Won't be harmed?" Chao yelled back, her tiny voice nothing compared to the booming from the Evangelion. "I've had friends you've said that to."
"Then we are not responsible for any damage that occurs."
"Somehow, I knew you'd say that," Chao said, before triggering something on her belt. Something huge filled Setsuna's vision, and battle begun in front of her.
TO BE CONTINUED..
SAILOR MOON SAYS:
Another chapter down! I can't believe this is the third or fourth chapter still on day 3 of Battle Royale, but there you go.
Still, next chapter: distant family visit the Evangelion. The result: round 1, fight! And speaking of the E's, Evangeline gets back to the island.