Cycles of Life

by Technuma

My very own personal P.O.V. on the series. Old characters return, new characters appear, new situations, and more than one surprise to pop up while reading. Go ahead, read and enjoy.

5. Cosmic Convergence

By Yohann DeSabrais
a.k.a. Technuma Saturn


Out of all the stories I wrote, this one has to be the most
confusing.

You see, I like to see the characters I create come to life, in a
way they are my children. When they die, it`s always a sad moment.
This story is my own way of bringing them back without resorting
to an endless number of resurrections like a certain comic book
company has been doing these past few years (if you think I mean
Marvel, you`re right).

If you`re really, really perceptive and you have the temporal
imagination of, say, Einstein, you`ll notice right away there are
a few temporal discrepencies in my fanfic; it took me a couple of
months and many proofreadings to find them even though I did write
this myself. Since correcting them would have meant major rewrites,
I figured "the hell with it!". Besides, the timeline of this story
is so completely warped that it`s barely noticeable.

This is why I`m presenting the story as is, uncorrected and just
as easily readable. If you find exactly what the discrepencies are,
drop me a line and tell me. Those with the correct answers will get
bonus points and my heartfelt congratulations.

This being said, enjoy!

* * *

CYCLES OF LIFE: EPISODE FIVE

COSMIC CONVERGENCE


Sitting by herself in her room, Usagi stared at the full moon in the
star filled sky. She was dreaming once again about her sweet Mamoru,
wondering why he ignored her and what she might have done wrong to
upset him. She had bumped into him earlier that day in front of the
game center (so what else is new?) and he still wouldn`t talk to
her or explain his reasons for leaving her.

Right now, Usagi felt like she was going to cry; she loved him from
the first time he came to her rescue as Tuxedo Kamen; she loved him
even more since she discovered his true identity while they fought
Zoisite for the rainbow crystals. Rei kept telling her that she was
sure Mamoru loved her very much and simply refused to show it for
some reason, but how could she know for sure? Sometimes love fades
away, Usagi had seen it happen.

She started to cry.

The door opened and a little pink-haired girl took a peek; Chibi-Usa
saw Usagi crying and felt sad for her.

"Meatball head is in tears again." she thought. "I bet it`s over
Mamoru... maybe I should try to help her out, somehow I feel those
two belong together."

She walked in on Usagi with her Luna ball hovering behind. Chibi-Usa
didn`t really know what she could say, she had always seen her
parents so happy with each other; she had little experience mending
broken hearts, so she just stood next to her, smiling, with a glow
in her eyes that said "please don`t cry, I`m here for you".

Usagi hugged the cute miniature version of herself and felt a little
better.

"Chibi-Usa, I`ve always been so rotten with you, what do you still
hang around me for?" she asked.

"Don`t know. Maybe I just want to learn from your mistakes so I don`t
repeat them." she replied.

"You really are a little spore, you know that?"

"That`s why you love me!"

* * *

Mamoru stopped his motorcycle and took off his helmet. He looked at
the silver moon shining high above and couldn`t help thinking about
his precious moon princess. He felt empty inside because he was apart
from his true love. Just as he thought of Usagi, he had yet another
vision, always the same, striking on cue as he began doubting the
veracity of this dark premonition.

A beautiful city made out of the purest crystal stretched as far as
his eyes could see- he`s never seen this city outside of his dreams,
yet he is certain that it must be Crystal Tokyo. He could hear the
voice of Usagi calling out to him:

"Help me, Endymion!"

He desperately wanted to help her but could only watch helplessly
as the entire city was torn to shreds by a huge explosion, killing
everyone including the moon princess. From the smoking ashes another
voice arose, sinister and gloomy: "If you want to save the princess,
to save the future, you must STAY AWAY FROM HER! The fate of the
world is depending on it!"

The horrible image went away in a second, leaving nothing more than
terrible memories for Mamoru. He didn`t want to hurt Usagi as he was
doing right now; he didn`t want to see her get hurt in the future,
either.

"I love you so much, Usagi... that`s why I must stay far from you."
he whispered in the wind.

He walked up the stairs and entered his empty appartment. As he took
off his shoes, he looked down on the floor to see if Usagi had
slipped a love letter under his door again; she had done this many
times in the past few weeks and he was hoping for another one that
night.

Not this time, though.

* * *

At the Cherry Hill temple, inside the house of the resident shinto
priest, Rei and Minako were engaged in some star watching of their
own; movie stars, to be exact. After her daily chores, Rei had
invited Minako to watch movies and one of them in particular got
them thinking.

It was the story of a man who meets destiny and asks him what would
his life be like if he`d been a more successful baseball player as
a teenager. Destiny then transforms his life accordingly from the
moment where everything changed- the one swing that would have had
him noticed by the big league talent scouts had he hit the ball.
The man discovers that even though he became a major league star
and a very rich man, his life had no meaning because the woman he
loved wasn`t in it; being a sport star had kept him from ever
meeting her.

"Isn`t it strange how so many lives can be affected by a single
person? Can you even begin to imagine how our lives would be if I
hadn`t met Usagi or Artemis hadn`t found you?" wondered Rei.

"Yeah, I can. Every time something can happen, it does. In a million
different worlds, history takes a billion different roads. In one of
them Usagi never became Sailor Moon, or maybe she was the sole
survivor from the battle with Queen Beryl; in another, maybe I
remained in England as Sailor V..." said Minako, leaving her phrase
unfinished. "...and somewhere out there my dear love Jedite never
died. " she thought with sorrow as she looked at her right hand and
the scars in her palm.

"We can`t spend our whole lives wondering what might have been.
We`ll never know for certain and that`s probably a good thing too."
said Rei.

* * *

A few blocks away, Makoto and Ami were spending some quiet time
reading, although their choices of books was eclectic to say the
least; Ami was learning more about molecular biology while Makoto
read about the adventures of a romantic mercenary in medieval
japan (who reminded her a lot about her ex-boyfriend, go figure
out why).

They were both very relaxed and in no mood to fight off evil monsters
who screamed their own names real loud; fortunately, there were none
to be found in Tokyo that evening, otherwise it would certainly have
found its way to Naru by then as they always did.

* * *

To make a long story short, no one was expecting or even suspecting
reality to collapse on itself any time soon as it was about to do in
the following hours.

* * *

After helping Usagi feel better about herself by providing a
shoulder to cry on and watching her pig out on double chocolate ice
cream, Chibi-Usa went back to her room, thinking hard about her
purpose in Tokyo`s past. The time portal should have worked the
day before when she tried to activate it, but it did not.

"What AM I still hanging Usagi for? Rubeus was destroyed and the
past is safe from him now. Why can`t I return even if I don`t have
the crystal? It doesn`t matter anymore!"

She removed her necklace and held up the tiny golden key it was
attached to. This key was much more than mere jewelry as it
controlled the time gate that would allow her to go back to her
own time in the future... if only it would work.

"Time portal, open now!" she said loudly, holding the key in the
air as high as her little arm allowed.

For some reason, the time portal just wouldn`t open. Unlike her
previous attempts, however, something DID happen. Something that
would affect the life of every single being in the whole of
existence. Her repeated attempts to go back home had breached a
hole in time, warping the fabric of spacetime in the process.
Timelines intertwined in an unpredictable pattern more twisted
than the entire dark kingdom and dark moon put together.

Caught amidst the maelstrom of time and space, Chibi-Usa suddenly
came face to face with her mother... she was home.

* * *

Early in the morning, Usagi woke up late as usual.

"WHAAA! EIGHT TWENTY?!? Why didn`t anyone wake me up, I`m sooo
late!"

She got dressed for school in a hurry, grabbed breakfast very fast
and swalowed it almost whole on her dash to school. So far, there
was nothing out of the ordinary. She then charged head first into
Mamoru who was coming from the other direction; she bounced off
his stomach and landed hard on the sidewalk. Nothing out of the
ordinary.

"Oh, its you..." she said in a dull tone, expecting a heartless
reply to the effect that she should leave him alone.

"What`s the matter, meatball head? Can`t walk two blocks without
falling down?" he said as he pulled down his sunglasses. "Well, I
shouldn`t expect too much from a total clutz, after all. Any chance
you might cause MORE than thirty accidents today or are you sticking
to your daily quota?" he added in a sarcastic tone, mocking her
with a vengence.

"Mamoru, why are you so mean to me all of a sudden?" she asked,
surprised of his attitude.

"Nothing sudden about it, meatball head. I`ve been like this ever
since the first day you walked in the game center... or should I
say FELL in! See ya` round, meatball head!" concluded Mamoru as
he put his shades back on and kept on walking.

"What was THAT all about?" she wondered.

Usagi heard a cat meowing to her side and saw Luna who was rubbing
herself on her leg. She was purring very loudly as she did so.

"Hello, Luna, nice of you to pay me a visit. Where were you this
morning?"

"Meow."

"So you`re not gonna tell me, are you? Were you seeing Hercules
again? Or was it Artemis?" asked Usagi. She knew well that she
could get Luna all worked up simply by mentioning the possibility of
her being involved romantically with Minako`s cat guardian.

"Meow."

"So you`re not talking to me, are you? You`re mad at me or
something?"

No answer.

"I`m late for school anyway, I`ll talk to you later."

"Meow."

* * *

Although Usagi had no idea what happened with Luna not talking and
Mamoru being a jerk, it couldn`t be serious; after all, everything
else was just the same, right?

"All right, class, now we`re going to correct your homework.
Remember that even though it`s geography, spelling and neatness
count!" said Miss Haruna.

"Oh no! I was so depressed last night that I forgot about it!"
thought Usagi whose heart accelerated over 1000 RPM.

"We need someone to read their essay first, let`s see now..."

"PLEASEDON`TPICKMEPLEASEDON`TPICKMEPLEASEDON`TPICKME" thought very
hard Usagi, hoping this improvised mantra could save her. Her heart
reached about warp 8 or so.

"Usagi! You go first."

"Well, Miss Haruna, hum... I sorta... I mean... huuu..." she
mumbled.

"Are you trying to say you DIDN`T do your assignment?"

"Guilty as charged, your honor." whispered Usagi in a barely
audible voice that only a high school teacher had the training
to hear.

"Don`t worry, Usagi, I can understand."

"You can?"

"Yes, Usagi, you had a very difficult project at the science fair
yesterday, and you did extremely well! You were certainly very tired
at the end of the day. Since your work is always on time and done so
well, I`ll just let it slide by this time." explained the teacher
with a warm smile.

Now Usagi knew for sure something was horribly wrong.

* * *

During the lunch hour, she sat in a corner all alone, looking around
for the other scouts. Oddly enough, she couldn`t find either Ami or
Makoto. she would have gladly gone to Rei`s or Minako`s private
school to talk to them about this, but she preferred not to leave
just in case something even weirder happened on her way there.

Naru came to Usagi and smiled. "Now you know what it feels like to
be me." she said.

"What do you mean?" Usagi asked.

"You`re a straight A student, it must feel weird not to have your
homework done on time. I sure know how that feels, I`ve been there
quite often myself."

Usagi was puzzled. A straight A student? HER? It made no sense.

"So, where`s Umino? I thought he`d be with you right now." said
Usagi.

"That nerd? I was lucky enough to avoid him all morning. Besides,
YOU`RE the one he`s got the crush on, remember?" replied Naru.

Usagi looked back on the information she had so far: Naru wasn`t in
love with Umino, Luna didn`t talk, Mamoru was a total jerk, the
other scouts didn`t seem to exist and she was a straight A student.
Yup. Either she had been hit over the head recently or she was in
bizarro world or something. Like this was the wrong universe.

The wrong universe? With all the weird stuff hapening to her all the
time, it wasn`t so far fetched, now, was it? There was an easy way
to test that theory.

"Say, Naru, have you ever been... I don`t know... attacked by some
wacked-out energy sucking monster that screamed its own name all the
time?" she asked her friend.

"Oh, goodness, no! If I ever saw a monster, I`d flip out or
something." Naru replied.

Usagi had her answer.

* * *

After school she went straight home- she had a feeling the only
person she`d find at the temple was a lonely old priest with a taste
for young women. She came across her mother in the kitchen.

"Mom, have you seen Chibi-Usa anywhere?"

"Chibi-Usa? Is she a classmate of yours?"

"Yeah, something like that... thanks anyway."

Usagi walked up the stairs and opened the door to where she knew the
little rabbit had her room- or WOULD have her room if she actually
existed in this world. She saw a pink swirling mass of water-like
light floating in the air in wich she could see thousands of rapidly
changing images, some she reckognized but most she never saw before.

"What have you done now, you little virus?"

Seeing how she had very little options at her disposal, she did the
only thing she could think of.

She jumped in.

* * *

"Mommy! I found you at last!" said Chibi-Usa as she hugged Queen
NeoSerenity.

"Why did you come back so soon, my darling? Do you not realize we
are still in danger from the dark forces?" said the queen.

"But Rubeus is dead! We beat him good!"

"Rubeus was just a lackey, the wiseman still lives and so does the
threat to me and your
father."

"I didn`t know, mommy... I guess I`ll go back, but I promise I`ll
return soon!" said Chibi-Usa.

A shadow materialized in front of them and took the form of a tall,
seemingly ageless woman with long black hair. Sailor Pluto had
arrived.

"Pu! You`re here to help me go back!" said the little girl, happy to
see her friend.

"I`m afraid that some strange force mixed with my powers has rendered
me unable to send you back... or to keep the flow of time harmonious,
for that matter." she said in a concerned voice.

"What can we do?" asked the queen.

"We can do nothing. It is up to young Tsukino Usagi to find the
women warriors spread over the unlimited possibilities of spacetime.
Only she can stop the darkness from spreading further." explained
Sailor Pluto.

* * *

The strange kaleidoscope of colours and sounds finally stopped
spinning around Usagi and dropped her in some unmarked street in an
unknown place, six feet in the air. When she touched the ground,
she hit her head pretty hard on the concrete sidewalk. She managed
to open her eyes, but closed them right away, unable to stay awake.
For that brief instant, she saw a pair of huge manlike machines
coming her way.

"This is gonna be one of those days..." she barely had time to
mumble before she went unconscious.

The automated Yttrium-six units noticed the human lifeform lying
unconscious on the sidewalk, blood trickling from a wound to her
head.

HUMAN FEMALE AGE AROUND SIXTEEN
CURRENT STATE: LIGHTLY WOUNDED
PERFORM RETINAL SCAN

The first unit opened what looked like an electronic eye and scanned
Usagi`s left retina.

NAME: TSUKINO USAGI
STATUS: NEW TOKYO CITIZEN
REPORT TO DISTRICT HOSPITAL FOUR

They delicately picked her up and left in direction of the nearest
medical facility to help her recover from her acident.

* * *

Endless worlds mean infinite possibilities and a hundred million
stories to be told.

One of these takes place in a very familiar setting as the vicious
leader of the dark kingdom, Queen Beryl, scolds one of her generals
for his repeated failures.

She sat immobile on her throne, a physical incarnation of the great
dark force Queen Metalia looming over her head and spreading terror
among those who saw it. Truth be told, it scared Beryl herself more
than any of her minions as she knew the full extent of Metalia`s
evil. However, she would never let it show in order to add Metalia`s
fearsome aura of power to her own.

"Nephryte, you brought great amounts of delicious human energy for
our conquest of this universe... it is rather unfortunate that you
weren`t able to defeat those wretched scouts at the same time." she
said coldly, waving her hands around her glowing crystal ball.

"Next time, they will not survive, I vow it!" he replied.

"I am also very disappointed in your less than successful attempts
to retrieve the silver crystal. We need it absolutely to complete
our plan, as you know." added Beryl.

"Yes, I am searching very hard, but it seems that the crystal is
nowhere to be found! "

"You`d better find it soon- or you`ll be joining Jedite in
darkness to share his disgrace."

"Yes my queen." said Nephryte before vanishing from Beryl`s throne
room.

A moment later, Zoisite made his entrance and elegantly saluted
his leader.

"Greetings, my queen, you called upon me?" asked Zoisite.

"Indeed. I begin to wonder if Nephryte is placing his loyalties
elsewhere than in our quest to release Queen Metalia... he might be
going soft like Jedite did. I`d like you to keep an eye on him from
a distance and report to me anything that might suggest he`s unfit
for his mission."

"And if he turns on you, what am I to do?"

"Should Nephryte betray the trust I placed in him... DESTROY HIM!!!"

"Yes majesty." said Zoisite, repressing a smile. He vanished in a
cloud of pink flower petals.

(author`s note: to those of you who aren`t aware of it, the original
Sailor Moon serie casted Zoisite as a MAN. Yes, he and Kunzite are
homosexuals. In dubbing the serie into english, DIC recast him as a
woman wich wasn`t very hard since he looks so feminine... in my
fanfics, however, I corrected this and kept him as a man.)

* * *

Usagi woke up with the sound of a jackhammer concerto in her head to
realize she was in a doctor`s office of some kind. She was lying down
on an examination table and was surrounded by anatomical charts and
supplies as well as various tools wich could be used to prod just
about any part of her body (she didn`t care to know wich ones).

She REALLY needed some aspirin right now.

Ami entered the office- she was wearing a doctor`s hospital coat
and some blue glasses that reminded Usagi of Sailor Mercury`s
hi-tech lens that came with her laptop. She also carried a clipboard
with a medical file reading Usagi`s name.

"That`s a nasty bump you have behind your head. Fell down again, did
you?" asked Ami.

"Yeah, guess so. What were those things that picked me up?"

"The Yttrium-six sentinels, they`re a New Tokyo sentry prototype that
went online last week in sector D where you fell down on your noggin;
so far people like them very much and they respond well to my
expectations. It`s really nice to see them work out, considering
I made them in my spare time." explained the doctor.

"YOU made them?" said Usagi, amazed at her friend`s technological
prowess.

"Yes. By the way, I got your test results today."

"Test results?"

"That fertility analysis you asked me to run on you and your husband
last month, remember? Neither you or Mamoru have any kind of
physiological disorder and your genetic compatibilty profile checks
up nice, so just give it some time and you`ll be pregnant for sure
when the time is right!"

"What do you mean by that? WHAT YEAR IS THIS ANYWAY?" screamed the
confused Usagi.

"The year? It`s 2309, of course; it only changes once a year, you
know. Usagi, I understand your frustration; you and Mamoru still
don`t have any children after over 300 years of marriage, but you
shouldn`t worry, it`ll happen someday!"

"Ami, I`m not married to Mamoru yet- how can I say this? I traveled
in time and landed here by accident, wherever here is."

"Then that would explain your old style clothes... that sort of thing
happened a lot to us back then, didn`t it? Now that I think about
it, I might have told you a bit too much about your future, haven`t
I? Or maybe not, you could be from an alternate timeline... how DID
you get here in the first place?" Ami asked.

"I`m not sure, really, I jumped in some kind of hole in time after
discovering I wasn`t in the universe where I really belong."

"How can you be sure you didn`t belong there?"

"Naru never got attacked by any monsters and I was the top student
of my class."

"Oh."

* * *

Nephryte brought his red Ferrari to a stop and entered a small
cottage located in a part of the woods that, for some reason, was
perpetually shrouded in deep fog. Upon entering, the small amount
of daylight that managed to enter the dark room was snuffed away by
the awesome presence of the dark kingdom warrior. A scale map of
the entire galaxy formed and filled the entire house, showing
Nephryte the movements of the stars and the fluctuations of cosmic
powers in relation to the earth.

"The stars know EVERYTHING..." he whispered. "Great powers of the
stars, guide me in my quest and show me how to find the lost silver
empirium crystal."

An harmonic vibration began forming between several constellations
and reflected an energy wave on Nephryte`s forehead, connecting him
to the unseen knowledge of the almighty cosmos; through his newfound
cosmic awareness, he witnessed an image of Usagi leaping inside the
time rift created by Chibi-Usa.

"Could this girl be the key to finding the crystal... did she hide
it in ANOTHER UNIVERSE? Yes, that must be why the stars couldn`t
locate it before!"

From outside the window, a pair of glowing eyes observed carefully
the images summoned by Nephryte through the power of the
constellations. Zoisite knew he finally has an opportunity to prove
himself to Beryl by bringing the crystal to his mistress.

His plan was simple: wait until Nephryte got the crystal- then
kill him.

* * *

Somewhere in the graveyard of Crystal Tokyo is the final resting
place of a great man whose life shaped a planet and whose death
brought sorrow to all of the city where he chose to live with his
equally wise wife. Queen NeoSerenity stood in front of his white
marble monument, looking sadly at the epitaph.

Here lies Chiba Mamoru, known to all as Endymion.
In this place sleeps for ever a king, husband and hero.

This was the first time since the funeral that she managed to
gather enough strenght to come here again. She was still grieving
for the man who had become a part of her over the last thousand
years. She would have liked to tell him how much she missed him,
but the words were trapped in her throat, unable to cross her lips.
She simply shed a few tears, wondering why fate would have decided
to crash his shuttle one grey april morning.

In the distance, someone watched over the queen; dressed all in
black leather to match his dark hair, he carried the traditionnal
weapon of royal bodyguards on his his belt, a heavy chain whip.
Kuromizuno Ryusenshi had known the king very well over the past few
years as the queen`s personal protector. He also knew how much he
meant to her and felt broken up inside to see her suffer like this.
He wanted to bring Endymion back to life so she could be happy again,
but there was nothing for him to do except stand strong for her.

The queen walked in his direction and whispered "let's go back to
the castle". They left the silent resting place as rain started
falling. Having reached the royal chambers, Ryusenshi said that she
only needed to call for him if she required his services again.

"Is there anything more I can do for you?" he asked.

"Yes, there is." she said softly. She hugged him and rested her
head on his muscular chest. "Don`t ever die." she said.

Down the corridor, Kuromizuno Ami remained out of sight of both
her son Ryusenshi and the queen, watching at the touching scene
between the two. It looked like maybe the queen was beginning to
have strong feelings for him since he`d been there for her though
this ordeal. Her son shouldn`t be too hard to manipulate; she had
done so for years and she could control the queen through him.

Placing that bomb in the king`s shuttle was the best move she ever
made.

* * *

Ami held up her old Sailor Mercury laptop in direction of Usagi;
she believed she could learn more about this strange situation
through her vast scientific knowledge. The laptop had gone through
much over the years and was beginning to show signs of wear; the
crisp blue casing had faded to a dull shade while the bright golden
alchemical symbol of planet mercury was worn down to near
invisibility.

"You have all these incredible machines and still use that old
thing?" asked Usagi, bored from the long process of data acquisition
for the molecular harmonics comparison.

"That old thing, as you call it, is my greatest tool. I upgraded
it a hundred times over, now it`s more powerful than a seventh
generation Cray artificial intelligence." she replied.

"Oh... right." said Usagi who had no idea what a Cray computer was.

A minute later, she had her answer.

"It seems that some sort of distorsion is moving across the timelines
of the multiverse, causing paradoxal errors in time and localised
ruptures in space where spacetime is weakest. We`ll have to find the
place where the ORIGINAL disruption took place and stop it from ever
occuring at all." explained Ami.

"I`m no genius myself, but... wouldn`t this be a paradox too? Using a
time distorsion to prevent it from happening?" asked Usagi who was
feeling her head spinning from this twisted logic.

"Yes, and it`s our only hope of restoring the spacetime continuum.
My computer can detect these flaws and I think I can come up with a
way to open them into portals we can use."

"You know, Ami, I`m really glad I bumped into you- what would the
scouts do without you?"

* * *

Slowly drifting over Tokyo in stealth mode, Rubeus`s ship silently
surveyed the city for signs of Chibi-Usa and the silver crystal-
both were instrumental in the wiseman`s plan for destroying the
sailor scouts of the future and taking over the world. Rubeus had
just returned from a meeting with the wiseman and knew where the
rabbit would pop up next; all he needed now was one of the sisters
to get her for him. The four of them were out shopping -again-
but one of them would be back soon. Sure enough, Catsy waltzed in
with a bagfull of varied beauty products promising eternal youth to
their user.

Rubeus thought of the warning he received form the wiseman... I SEE
DARK CLOUDS OVER CATSY, BE CAREFUL OF YOUR SERVANT AS HER ALLEGIANCE
TO US MAY BE WAVERING. No, it wasn`t possible, Catsy was so
hopelessly in love with him, she`d never do anything to risk losing
the attention he covered her with.

Time to use that foolish love to his advantage once again...

"Hello, Catsy, I was waiting for you." he said, looking her straight in the eyes.

"Oh... you were?" she said, happily surprised.

"Of course, you`re my best warrior, I`m worried when you`re gone."
he said, seeing love glowing in her eyes. It had always been so
easy to manipulate the sisters through their emotions...

"That`s so sweet of you!" she said. She`d hoped so long that one
day he might say that he loved HER, now she was sure of it, he
loved her!

"I have a mission for you. The wiseman had a vision, he saw that
the rabbit would be at the temple this afternoon; since you`re
familiar with the place, I want you to go there and get her for
me." said Rubeus.

"Yes, I`ll get her for sure this time." she said, putting down her
bag. She reached in and pulled out a small crystal bottle which she
handed to Rubeus. "I bought you a gift; it`s a fragrance I found at
the store, it reminded me of your strenght!"

He looked at the bottle in his hand with open contempt. He crushed
it in his fist; Catsy felt her heart squeeze as he did so.

"I have no use for such ridiculous things." he snarled. He dropped
the broken bottle shards on the floor, cologne dripping from his
hand. "This is what the wiseman will do to us if we fail! Now go
get the girl and don`t come back empty handed." said Rubeus with
anger boiling on his twisted face.

Catsy left through her transporting mirror, unsure whether Rubeus
really did love her or not.

"Now how am I going to get that stench out of my hand?" thought
Rubeus to himself.

A strange sound behind him interrupted his train of thought- one
of the mirrors was glowing bright pink and twisting wildly like a
sheet of paper in a hurricane. Before he had time to even begin
assertaining the situation, the mirror collapsed on itself and
created a powerful vortex that sucked the bewildered Rubeus
screaming into a whirlpool of compressed time distorsions.

* * *

"Ami... are you SURE this gizmo is gonna work?" asked Usagi,
concerned that the small remote control improvised by Ami didn`t
look at all like a time machine.

"Although I`ve never built a time dilatator before, I`m pretty sure
it`s going to work just fine."

She analysed the data from her computer and comfirmed the location
of a spacetime flaw: right in front of the World War Four monument.
They followed the signal there and proceeded to test their new
device; after punching a few buttons on the time dilatator, it shot
a thin laser beam that instantly hit an invisible obstacle. It
formed a small vortex of quickly moving images similar to the one
that brought Usagi to this world.

"Shall we go in?" asked Ami.

"We don`t have a choice, do we?" wondered Usagi.

"No, it`s the only available option."

"Well, here we go again!"

They went in and the planar gate closed behind them.

* * *

A universe away, Nephryte had just reached Usagi`s house in search
of the portal that took the bearer of the elusive silver crystal to
another world. He appeared in what was Chibi-Usa`s room before the
rift was formed and found what he came for.

"It`s beautiful, all those sights, sounds and colors, dancing in
unison..." he said.

He looked at the small detector crystal he carried and noticed it
was pointing straight to the shifting portal. He smiled.

"I have you now, girl. You can`t escape from me."

Nephryte followed Usagi in the discontinuous flow of time,
determined to get the silver crystal.

* * *

"Is everybody ready to PARTY?!?" yelled Jedite in his microphone.

"YEAAAAAAH!" screamed back the capacity crowd.

"ALL RIGHT! LET`S GET STARTED!"

He pushed a button of his CD player and flipped a few switches to
turn on the special lighting on the dance floor. Club Crystal was
once again getting a huge turnout for it was the hottest club in
town; it has been for years, now.

It might be hard to believe, but thirty years earlier Jedite opened
this place with the sole intention of gathering energy in order to
destroy Sailor Moon. He`d just broken out of his crystal prison
where Beryl had trapped him for failing once too often to kill the
sailor scouts; his only goal was to murder those he believed were
responsible for his fate.

That was before he met HER. He mistook her for Usagi with her long
blonde hair and almost crushed her neck before realizing it wasn`t
the girl was blaming for destroying his life. She had been so nice
to him; no one had ever kind like this unless they had a hidden
agenda to cover up. She had no idea he was the mortal enemy of her
best friend and he didn`t know she was a sailor scout.

Jedite and Sailor Venus fell in love.

He came very close to succeeding in his plan to kill the scouts and
Tuxedo Kamen- with all the accumulated energy from his customers,
he would have easily crushed them all. Before the scouts came to
confront him, however, he found that his love for Minako had given
the strength to forgive Sailor Moon and let go of his anger. He even
accepted that Minako was a scout herself.

From that day he continued running his night club normally, earning
an honest living and pursuing a relationship with the woman who
taught him how to love.

Tonight was very special indeed, for thirty years after he opened
Club Crystal he was passing on the managing of the place to his
daughter Hematite who had been a regular for five years now. Hematite
loved to dance and was simply crazy about her mom and dad`s club.

Minako came next to Jedite and kissed him softly.

"Our sweet Hematite is twenty years old today, where has the time
gone?" he asked to Minako.

"It`s hard to say... look at her, she`s having so much fun!" she
replied; their voices were barely audible over the blaring rock
music.

At the center of the dance floor, Aino Hematite was dancing up a
storm, her long blonde ponytail following the wild rythm imposed
by her athletic body. She had inherited of both her father`s great
strength and her mother`s delicate beauty. Her eyes closed and
hypnotized by the music, she swayed to the smooth flow and enjoyed
every moment to the fullest extent.

Bright lights flashed all around her in all colours of the spectrum;
she didn`t notice that the colour pink became more and more intense
in her surroundings alone. She was not immediately aware that the
increasingly warped structure of reality had taken her away from
the world she knew and left her stranded in some strange outworld...

* * *

Mamoru entered his appartment, hoping to see another love letter from
Usagi slipped under his door. Not tonight, however.

He felt terrible from having to lie about his true feelings to the
only woman he ever loved- to the woman he was destined to be with.
What could he do about it? Those visions and nightmares left no
uncertainty: if he did not take his distance, she would die.

He dropped down in the hallway and sat there, crying silently in an
unspoken plea to the fate that so unfairly tore them apart.

Around him, the walls disappeared to make place to the futuristic
outlines of Crystal Tokyo.

"NO! NOT AGAIN, I CAN`T TAKE THIS ANYMORE!!" he screamed in despair.

This time was different, though. No gloomy voices telling him of
impending doom, no terrible explosions ripping the city to shreds.

No cries for help from Usagi.

Suddenly, this peaceful utopia revealed its beauty to Mamoru who
noticed it for the first time. He walked down the streets and felt
home. At the center of the crystaline metropolis, he met her. The
queen of all the reincarnated moon souls, NeoSerenity.

"Greetings, my love." she said.

* * *

"Any idea where we are?" asked Ami.

"Not really. I don`t skip across reality very often, you know."
replied Usagi.

Although there was no questions this was Tokyo, the exact time frame
and historical context of this specific version of the japanese
capital remained a little hazy; everywhere they looked, nothing but
abandonned ruins, rusting cars, grafiti, grafiti, grafiti and more
grafiti still.

"It looks a bit like the old Tokyo after the last world war before
it was torn down, but there are too many intact structures and no
destroyed armored vehicules anywhere. This one seems to have fallen
in front of anarchy, pure and simple." explained Ami in flawless
logical deduction.

"Does it mean we walked in on a Mad Max movie or something?"

"More or less."

"Then I think we might be interested in leaving this place fast!"
suggested Usagi.

"You`re right, we better locate the next rift and make it a portal
pronto." replied Ami.

* * *

Far away from the sun flew a derelict starship containing a lonely
prisoner. Sole passenger of the Pegasus, Celeste had already spent
the last four hundred years paying for her hideous crimes against
the silver millenium. Stripped of her role and duties as Sailor
Mars, she was now condemned to spend the rest of her life in
solitude with no hope of escape.

She often thought about her younger sister Rei who replaced her as
Sailor Mars; Celeste owed her life to the pleas of mercy that
convinced Technuma Saturn to give the disgraced scout a fair trial
instead of killing her the instant he caught her. Then again,
Celeste would love nothing more than to return and reclaim what
Rei had taken from her; with no thrusters on the Pegasus, however,
this was not to happen.

This is why she waited through the centuries for death to one
day come.

Then, one day, a strange vortex of pink light formed inside her
arboritum deck, inviting her to leave this dull existence for more
welcoming planes of reality...

* * *

"I found it... it`s fourteen blocks down this street." said Ami.

"FOURTEEN? We have to walk fourteen blocks?" whined Usagi.

"We don`t have much of a choice... or have you packed a folding car
under your jacket?" asked Ami with sarcasm.

"Since when are you so mocking?"

"After three centuries around Rei, you learn a thing or two."

Usagi was actually able to reckognize a part of the deserted streets
they were walking down; this was where some of her father`s family
used to live... before the whole place went to hell, she supposed.

"Hey, gorgeous, where are you going like that?" said a voice coming
from a half-destroyed wall.

Usagi was afraid of something like this, she had seen a lot of movies
where the lonely detective woman gets cornered by the evil gang of
thugs. And a large gang they were: over two dozens bandits leapt out
of empty buildings armed with knives and steel bars.

"This doesn`t look good!" whispered Usagi to Ami.

At this point, the lonely detective woman would usually punch some
sense into the thugs, but they were never armes with knives in those
movies... come to think of it, there was never more than five or six
of them at a time!

"Well, it`s nice to meet some good looking women around these
parts... you two are a nice change from that whacko priestess
downtown. Now THERE`s a girl who could use some taming!" said
the one who looked like the leader.

"WHO ARE YOU CALLING A WHACKO, JARVIS?" said a voice coming from
nowhere.

"Oh no, it`s her, she`s here!" said Jarvis with obvious fear,
already regretting his choice of words.

"FIRE... SOUL!!!" she screamed as a dozen fireballs fell from the
sky to ignite the clothes of the entire thug gang, leaving Usagi
and Ami unscathed.

The thugs couldn`t flee fast enough to their own liking.

From the shadows came out Rei, dressed in traditionnal garbs that
must have been repaired and resewn a hundred times. Time had been
harsh on this particular Sailor Mars.

"Ami, Usagi... I thought you both swore never to set foot again in
this hellhole... did you come to fight the great chaos as I am?"
she asked.

"Yes, in a way." said Usagi.

"For some reason, the spacetime continuum is unravelling fast- we
came from alternate realities to track down the origin of this
phenomenon and we`re trying to put an end to it." said Ami.

"Since this is going to be tough, would you help us? We`ll be
travelling through strange worlds and we need all the help we can
get!" added Usagi.

"How can I follow you to other worlds when I can`t even make sense
of this one?" said Rei as she pointed out the random destruction all
around them.

"I can hardly make sense of my own world as it is, we have to stop
other worlds from barging in! Are you with us, Rei?" said Usagi.

"Yeah, I`ll go. Could other realities really be as bad as my own?"

* * *

Ryusenshi enjoyed reading very much; it was a real passion to him,
especially the ancient scriptures of the previous millenium
regarding the rise of the sailor scouts and their role in history.
Strangely enough, most people didn`t believe in the existence of
Sailor Moon until the end of the second millenium; the oldest
records he`d found, some old Tokyo newspapers, recorded the scouts
as "figments of an overactive imagination". Whoever wrote this
garbage would be red in the face right now if he hadn`t been dead
for a thousand years.

Because the guards of the rose assumed the protection of the queen
during the evening and night, Ryusenshi had a lot of time to spend
lost in the epic story that was the rise to power of Queen
NeoSerenity. He was reading another old tome in the privacy of his
room when a knock at the door disturbed his concentration. Careful
not to damage the fragile book, Ryusenshi put it down on his table.

"Who`s there?" he asked.

"It`s your mother, dear." said Ami through the door.

"Come in."

Kuromizuno Ami walked in, dressed in nothing but skin tight black
leather. She always wore very conservative clothing; her short skirt,
jacket and spiked heel boots were no exception as virtually no one
wore these since the last century or so. Just like her son whom
she trained in combat, she carried a chain whip on her belt.

"How is the queen lately? Feeling better I hope?" she asked.

"Much better, though she still needs a lot of moral support. It`s a
good thing I was there for her, otherwise I don`t think she would
have recovered from the king`s death." answered Ryusenshi.

"So... she depends a LOT on you, does she?"

"Yes, I suppose so..." replied Ryusenshi who was beginning to be
suspicious of how this conversation was turning.

"You know, my son, I`ve been thinking. It`s time to make a few
changes around here. The queen has made some bad strategic decisions
over the past years and it is my opinion that our military strength
as a nation should be increased... to begin with." explained Ami.

"And how do you plan to make her listen to your ideas? You certainly
remember the answer you got the last time you made that suggestion!"
argued the warrior who recently learned to despise his mother`s
political views.

"That`s where YOU come in. Keep in mind that I got you the position
of royal bodyguard, you owe me."

"Me? What do you want me to... NO! You want me to manipulate her?!
In her fragile emotional state?!?"

"That`s why it`ll be so easy for you to do what I never could."
said Ami with a smile.

"So that`s why you had me named royal bodyguard when father died-
you took this opportunity to put me in a trust position in case
something like this happened some day!"

"It was never a question of IF but rather of WHEN. It`s really
amazing what you can do with a little knowledge of explosive
chemicals..."

"You killed them both? You planned this FROM THE START?!?"

"Yes, from your birth actually. I`m a patient woman you know, I`ve
been waiting centuries for the right moment to strike."

"I`m not letting you get away with this!" said Ryusenshi.

"If you don`t cooperate with me, I`ll have you removed like your
father and the king; face it, you don`t have a choice."

"Wrong, a man ALWAYS has a choice. Since I`m apparently going to
hell, I`m chosing to drag you along for the ride!" yelled the
angry warrior who rushed out of the room at full speed to reach
the queen`s chamber.

He had to warn her of his mother`s fiendish plan.

Calmly, Ami touched her brow and concentrated, directing the dark
energies inhabiting her body towards her son to reveal the mark
of his dark heritage.

"MAJESTY! You have been deceived by one of your advisors!" screamed
Ryusenshi as he entered the queen`s room. As he said so, he felt a
slight tingle on his forehead, strange and unlike anything he could
remember.

The queen froze in terror as she saw him; he didn`t understand why
until he caught a glimpse of his face in a mirror. His brow was now
marked with a black upside-down crescent moon, the dark moon symbol.

"How... how could this happen?" he mumbled in panic.

"He`s right, majesty..." said Ami who entered the chamber with dead
calm. "..and he just revealed himself to you!"

"What have you done to me? ANSWER ME!!!" he screamed at his mother.
All this screaming attracted the attention of the two guards posted
at the chamber`s door who walked in and saw the symbol of the enemy
on Ryusenshi`s face.

"GUARDS! SEIZE THE TRAITOR!" yelled Ami.

The two guards of the rose charged Ryusenshi but were no match for
his greatly superior combat skills. In one well timed spin kick he
projected them both out of the room which he immediately locked to
keep out the soon to be arriving reinforcements. for all his
training, he couldn`t fight off all the guards in the palace. He
looked at the queen and saw in her eyes that she didn`t understand
what was going on.

"I`ll be back, my queen, I promise!" he said before running past Ami
and leaping out the window into the night.

Some guards posted in the garden below saw him and gave the alarm-
every soldier in earshot followed in pursuit as the hunt began for
the dragon soldier.

"I`m terribly sorry about my son`s betrayal, majesty. I`m crushed
just like you are." said Ami.

"I don`t believe it, I REFUSE to believe it!" she said with tears in
her eyes.

"You saw the symbol on his face- he`s a turncoat, no doubt about
it." Ami added with confidence.

"You don`t look too sad about losing your son, do you my friend?"
asked the queen; she lifted her hand and a soft glow surrounded
Ami`s face. A dark moon symbol appeared on her forehead, identical
to Ryusenshi`s. The dark Ami laughed about it.

"Well, you found me out it seems. It is very unfortunate that you
won`t be able to prove my son`s innocence from the treason charges
he`ll be facing, seeing how he`ll also be looking at execution for
the horrible murder he commited before fleeing the palace." Ami
concluded, her smile twisting into an evil grin.

"No! Ami, we used to fight evil together, I`m begging you to step
off this dark path you walk on!"

The evil woman picked up her whip and skillfully snatched the queen`s
leg as she tried to reach for her crescent moon wand on her
nightstand. Pulling with all her strength, Ami threw NeoSerenity to
the ground where she landed flat on her back. Breathless and out of
reach of the only weapon capable of defeating her enemy, the queen
was helpless.

"You know, Usagi, you always DID drag me down! Time to turn this
boat around, now..." said Ami as she wrapped her chain whip around
the queen`s neck...

* * *

"Where are we now? Why doesn`t it look anything like the world I
know?" asked Usagi in an irritating voice.

"No matter what universe you come from you always whine, don`t you?"
commented Rei.

"You`re so mean to me!" complained Usagi as she started to cry very
loudly.

"You always cry, too, it would seem." added Rei.

The travelers had indeed landed in a very strange place; there was a
town a short distance away identified by a signpost as Tokyo. Despite
the signpost, the town looked more like a medieval village than the
thriving metropolis the scouts had expected.

"We`ll have to cross many realities before we can track down the point
of origin of all this distorsion; some are weirder than others, I
guess." said Ami.

"Hey, what`s that cloud of dust coming from behind us? It sounds like
a tornado or something." observed Usagi as she noticed the
evergrowing noise coming from the horizon.

"I`m not really sure, there aren`t any clouds and it`s too cool for
a tornado, plus there isn`t any sand for a sandstorm..." said rei.

A minute later, though, there was no more doubt about it.

"It`s a looting raid!!!" she screamed.

They ran in the opposite direction towards the village, but there was
no real point in doing so since the bandits were going there anyway.

"We can`t just run off like this, we must help the villagers!" said
Ami, concerned for the local population.

"Right!" said Usagi and Rei.

Just as they were about to transform into the heroic sailor scouts,
another noise of stampeding horses came from the other side: the
protectors of the small town had arrived to meet the pillaging
invaders.

"BANZAI!!!" they all screamed at once, charging for the bandits.

The mighty warriors clashed with the numerous bandits in a furious
battle; even outnumbered ten to one they still ravaged their
opponents as though they were ants under their boots. The scouts
decided it would be best to leave from this battle site; caught
between a rock and a hard place, they figured the village was safe
from the attackers and leaving was their best option. One bandit
managed to make his way to Usagi, however, and raised his sword
in her direction.

"Die, golden one!!!" he screamed, but his weapon never got a chance
to touch Usagi. The bandit had been cut down by a well aimed arrow
before he could strike.

"Who shot that?" said Usagi in relief.

"I did." said a tall samurai in heavy armor walking her way.

Usagi couldn`t see the samurai`s face because of a mask, but the
voice, though hard to recognize from the mask, sounded oddly
familiar. As soon as the samurai saw Usagi, she dropped to her knees
and bowed; Usagi had no idea what was going on.

"Shogun Tsukino, you have returned at last!" said the samurai as she
stood back up. "I would have taken my own life had I not so firmly
believed you were still alive all those months; now I know for sure
you were not killed by the dark lord Beryl. Let the name Kino Makoto
be spoken again for I am ronin no more!" she said as she removed her
helmet and mask to reveal herself as this world`s version of Sailor
Jupiter.

"This just keeps getting weirder by the minute..." thought Usagi.

(author`s note: a ronin is a samurai without a master- usually an
outcast if he chooses not to take his own life.)

* * *

Sitting by a magnificient fountain in the middle of an open courtyard
of the crystal palace, Mamoru could hardly believe his eyes. Queen
NeoSerenity was right there with him and so far no terrible warnings
had come to tell him he should get away from Usagi. As a matter of
fact, the queen looked exactly like Usagi would if she did not die as
his visions foretold.

"This is not one of your visions, Mamoru, all you see and hear is
very real." she said.

"How did I get here, then?" he asked, confused.

"I`m not quite sure, but it is a phenomenon affecting the whole of
reality. Sailor Moon is trying to put a stop to it as we speak." she
said.

"She would, I`m sure. She`s always risking her life for others."

"You like that about her, don`t you?"

"Yes... she`s the kind of person who does what it takes to help her
friends- maybe some day she`ll understand I`m doing the same for
her... for you." said Mamoru who began to find this conversation
rather bizarre, as he was speaking about Usagi to a different Usagi
who wasn`t the same person but would one day be identical... (is
anyone else confused yet?)

"By leaving her? I`m not sure I could ever get over that one. I loved
you very much at her age and so did you as I remember." she said
with a smile.

"You don`t understand, I have nightmares each night in wich I see
you die every time- with a warning. If I stay away from you, this
won`t happen." he explained to the queen, trying to convince himself
at the same time.

"What would you rather believe, my dearest? Your heart or your
nightmares? Your visions or your love?"

"I just don`t want you... Usagi... to get hurt."

"Just listen to your heart, it will tell you what to do. What DOES
it tell you?" the queen asked.

"It says that... that..."

Mamoru gazed into her lovely blue eyes and found himself incapable
of keeping up his lie anymore. His feelings for Usagi were stronger
than ever and he had to expess them before he was consumed by his
self-imposed torture.

"...that I love her with all my heart, that I`ll be there for her no
matter what tragedy strikes her." he said.

"I know." said the queen. "You`ll also be there when my greatest
moment of happiness arrives."

She took his hand and gently placed it on her stomach. He felt a tiny
spark of life coming from deep within her body.

"Can you feel the presence of the child in my womb as I can? It`s the
most beautiful thing in the world." she commented.

"Am I...?" asked Mamoru.

Queen NeoSerenity silently turned her eyes towards the horizon and
Mamoru did the same. They saw a man dressed in a white tuxedo
surrounded by the sailor scouts- that man was King Endymion.

"Yes, my love, you are." whispered the queen.

* * *

The lights and music suddenly stopped around Hematite who wondered
why that was- when her father got the party going, he rarely halted
until it was time to close for the night. There wasn`t anyone around
her. No customers, no Jedite, no Minako.

Club Crystal actually looked as though it had been abandonned for
months. Everywhere she looked she saw dust, holes, burn marks and
shards of a shattered mirror ball. She liked to close her eyes when
she danced, but how could THIS happen without her noticing it?!?

"Father? Mother? ANYONE?!"

She was shocked of realizing so many people vanished at once; where
had they all gone off to? Still disoriented and very tired, she just
left the club and went back home, lost in a haze. She hardly paid
any attention to her surroundings or to the curious stares of people
surprised by her strange clothes- she made it home on autopilot,
one could say, trusting her subconscious mind to guide her back.

Hematite arrived at the house her mother had lived in ever since she
moved to Tokyo from England as a teenager. Minako had bought the
house back from her parents when she got married and now lived there
with her husband and daughter while her parents moved to a nice
condominium a few blocks away. Having no keys with her, Hematite
simply used the spare they always kept under the porch`s loose
floorboard. The old key had been there for decades, first put there
by Hematite`s grandparents some thirty five years earlier.

"Mom, dad? Did you make it home already?" she asked.

No answer.

Still only half conscious of the world around her and totally unaware
that she was in another reality altogehter, she went straight to her
room, wich used to be Minako`s before she bought the house and moved
to the master bedroom with Jedite. First remodeled into a nursery
for the newborn Hematite, the room had been remodeled many times over
to fit the girl`s age. In the dark, it vaguely ressembled Minako`s
room as it was during the nineties.

Hematite undressed and crawled in bed, thankful for a chance to rest
at last. Before falling asleep, she saw Jedite`s portrait on the
wall; through her semiconscious state, she still managed to
recognize her mother`s artistic style.

"I don`t remember that one, but it`s a beautiful portrait of dad."
she mumbled.

She smiled and closed her eyes.

* * *

The wiseman meditated as he did so often, leaving his mind open to
the visions that would guide his attempt to take over the future by
destroying the past. The images came to him but made no sense
whatsoever. He saw the sailor scouts fighting against Rubeus even
though he was dead; the scouts themselves were strangely dressed as
though they were nothing more than caricatures of their true selves.
He also saw Sailor Moon fighting dark kingdom warriors, Tuxedo Kamen
facing off against prince Endymion, a warped version of Sailor
Mercury facing off against an evil Sailor Mars and an explosion the
size of wich had never been seen in this sector of space.

"This is strange." he thought. " Could my senses be clouded somehow?
Or are these events reflections of what might really happen? I must
take no chances if my conquest is to be successful- I`ll send
Esmeraude to investigate."

He summoned her immediately, knowing it would take her a while to
come. That woman had to be the deepest sleeper of the entire dark
moon.

"This does not bode well for us." he whispered to himself.

* * *

"Think, man, think! Where did you read about this?" thought the
panicking Ryusenshi.

He knew something was horribly wrong with his mother and one of the
old scriptures in his room made a reference to a pair of time
travelers dressed in black- whatever turned ami into such an evil
woman must have happened that day. If he could go back in time, he
could certainly stop it from ever happening, but he`d have to
remember the exact date... then it came back to him! Yes, it could
work. Crawling out of his hiding place, he set out to find Sailor
Pluto, the guardian of time.

At the same time, the news was spreading fast aout the tragic death
of Queen NeoSerenity at the hands of her own bodyguard. No one could
believe it, but his mother`s testimony combined with the chain marks
on the queen`s necks were more than enough to convince everyone.

"A crime of passion." explained Ami to the guards of the rose. "He
was in love with her but she refused him... it must have driven him
mad with pain. If only I had known the dark moon had corrupted him,
I could have done something! I saw that symbol on his face for the
first time tonight; he hid it well."

Of course, she kept to herself the fact that he bore the symbol
only because his mother had one wich she never showed to anyone.

"What do you think his next move will be, advisor?" asked the royal
guard captain.

"I belive he`ll be trying to alter history to his liking, after all
history was a passion of his. With his plans shattered, he`ll
certainly try to reach Setsuna as a last ditch effort to succeed.
I`ll have to capture him myself."

* * *

"I can`t believe we still haven`t found Usagi yet, we`ve been to all
her usual hangouts, we`ve met all her friends and did we find her?
No! And like that wasn`t enough, Luna calls us to say Chibi-Usa is
missing too!" said a very tired Artemis to Minako.

"She was feeling depressed over Mamoru yesterday, remember? Maybe
that why she`s gone. For all we know he made up with her and the two
of them are making out some place. That would explain why Mamoru
wasn`t home when we went by earlier." suggested Minako.

"That wouldn`t account for Chibi-Usa. Besides, if they did
reconciliate, why didn`t Usagi use her communicator to tell us
at the very instant it happened? It`s late, let`s go home. We`ll
search again tomorrow." said the white cat.

"You`re right, Artemis. I`m pretty beat myself, that can`t help us
find them faster."

Minako slipped her key in the brass lock and opened the front door.
Her parents wouldn`t be home that night so she didn`t bother turning
on the lights; the moonlight getting in throught the windows was
more than sufficient to guide her to her bedroom; Artemis
diseappeared to somedark corner to find a cool place to sleep,
unappreciative that he was of the warm blankets on Minako`s bed.
When you wear fur all year round, summer heat gets to you that way.

As she entered her dark room, she took off her sweater and jeans,
dropping them on the floor next to the bed. Keeping nothing but her
undies, she slipped in under the covers unaware of the sleeping
Hematite`s presence. When she felt the contact of warm skin to her
own, Minako shrieked and jumped out of bed, searching frantically
for the light switch. Hematite woke up and saw Minako standing
there in the room, wearing her underwear and the bedsheet she held
on to during her moment of fear.

"Is that some kind of fashion statement?" mumbled Hematite.

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING HERE?!?" screamed Minako.

"Sleeping, until you woke me up."

"I can see THAT, I meant in this house? Who are you?" asked the
furious Minako.

It suddenly occured to Hematite that the decorations in this room had
a very nineties look- her own room was much more trendy than that
tacky old style. Furthermore, Minako looked very young, younger than
she did when she was at the club earleier in fact... and why didn`t
her own mother recognize her?!? Minako and her friends often told
Hematite stories of time travel, so she thought this might be it,
even if she didn`t understand how it could have happened. She picked
up a magazine on the nightstand- it was dated for some thirty years
in the past.

"I`m not sure you`d believe me..." said Hematite.

"Try me!" snapped Minako.

"Would you believe I`m your daughter from the future?"

"Oh, are you really? And I`m supposed to swallow that?"

"I know things about you I couldn`t know otherwise, like that scar in
your hand- when Usagi tried to warn you how Jedite was evil, you
were so angry at her that you squeezed a glass in your fist until
you smashed it; then you screamed at her to leave your house at once.
Of course, at the time, you had no idea you were in love with a dark
kingdom warrior, you thought he was some kind of self-employed
businessman named James..." explained Hematite.

"That`s ... right." said Minako who began to feel her heart hurt
again from these painful memories.

"That`s a fantastic portrait you made of dad, by the way!" said
Hematite, pointing to the painting on the wall. "No wonder you fell
in love with him, he`s handsome. Hey, could I see him now? I always
wanted to see if he REALLY had blonde hair before he turned silver!"
she joked.

Minako didn`t respond to her daughter`s request. Her old wounds had
been reopened, as painful as the day she received them. She was too
choked up to talk, so she cried the same way she did when Jedite
died in her arms. She felt her heart bleeding once more and almost
expected her right hand to do the same.

Hematite realized that their love story did not end well in this
universe.

"Oh, mom, I`m so sorry, I had no idea!" she said as she hugged
Minako to comfort her.

* * *

Under the cover of the dark night sky, Esmeraude flew around town
looking for signs of "strange activity" as described by the wiseman-
he`d also given her a statuette to exploit sources of dark energy
if any such source was to be found.

"I can`t believe he pulled me out of bed for this! I was having such
a nice dream about those four bodybuilders... if that Sailor Moon
is responsible for this, I`ll make her regret it, that`s for sure.
Nobody messes with my beauty sleep!" she thought.

She kept flying around for a while, hoping she`d find something
worthwhile to do; she didn`t want this night to be a total waste.

* * *

"Ami? Makoto? Rei? Hello! Answer me if you can!" said Minako to
her unresponsive communicator.

"Why aren`t they answering?" asked Hematite as she got dressed in
her twenties style clothes (two thousand twenties, to be exact).

"I don`t know, but I don`t like it one bit."

Minako looked at her daughter from the future and noticed she had,
hanging on a silver necklace, a venus transformation pen identical
to the one she used before Luna gave her the upgraded starpower pen.

"You have venus power too?" she asked.

"Yes, ever since I was a little girl I wanted to be a sailor scout
just like you. You always told me that I could when I was old enough-
you gave me the pen for my fourteenth birthday." explained Hematite.

"You`re really something special, Hematite. If I ever have a daughter,
I want her to be just like you."

"Thanks, mom!"

* * *

Returning from yet another failed attempt to gain control of the
empirium silver crystal, Kunzite was greeted with the mocking taunts
of his number one rival.

"Well, well, Kunzite, you failed once more to grab the silver crystal
from that brat Sailor Moon. You`re pathetic, you know that?" said
prince Endymion to his "ally".

"I don`t see you coming up with any good plans of your own,
Endymion!" snapped Kunzite.

Kunzite knew that Queen Beryl grew more and more impatient with each
passing day. He would have gotten that crystal already, but for some
reason Endymion`s evil brainwash had not completely erased his
feelings for Sailor Moon- he kept interfering every time she was in
trouble. The prince of the earth claimed that he saved her life from
Kunzite`s youmas because Beryl ordered that she be taken alive;
Kunzite suspected it was something more profound than that.

"Oh I`ll take the crystal, no doubt about it, just stay out of my
way!" said Endymion. He turned around and faded into the shadows.

"I`m not letting you get Beryl`s favor, you can count on that- you
caused Zoisite`s death, I`ll see you dead for that, both you and
your little girlfriend!" snarled Kunzite at the absent prince.

* * *

In the barrens plains of a forsaken desert, Usagi and her
transdimensional friends walked along the edge of huge sand dunes
in the general direction of what would be their next portal. Without
Ami`s computer, they never would have made it this far in their
search.

"I can`t believe how hot this is!" complained Usagi.

"Stop whining, will you? This is a desert, for crying out loud,
it`s SUPPOSED to be hot. Besides, would you prefer we go back to
the cold wastelands where we almost froze to death?" said Rei.

"Be more respectful to Shogun Tsukino!" said Makoto to Rei.

"Makoto, how many times do I have to tell you I`m neither a shogun
or your master?" said Usagi.

"Are you not Tsukino Usagi?"

"Yes..."

"Do you not fight the forces of darkness and evil?"

"Err, yeah..."

"Then you are truly my master, Shogun Usagi, first daughter of house
Tsukino." concluded Makoto with pride.

"Oh boy, I don`t know how much more weirdness I can take." said Usagi
before tripping into something hard and rolling down the dune. "HACK!
HACK! SAND IN MY MOUTH!" she coughed as she climbed back up.

"Usagi, did you see exactly WHAT it is that tripped you?" asked Ami.

"No, why?"

The girls were mortified to discover that the small bump at the top
of the dune was really the half buried skull of a young woman long
dead from the scorching desert heat. Judging from the unique hair
style and tiara, this was undoubtably Sailor Moon`s corpse.

"Let`s leave this world fast, it`s freaking me out!" said Usagi with
a shiver down her spine.

* * *

Around midnight, a pink halo formed in an alley behind Minako`s
house, immediately alerting both of the girls.

"Something`s happening!" said Minako.

"Let`s check it out!" added Hematite.

Outside, a glowing time portal and Kuromizuno Ryusenshi stepped out,
a headband covering his forehead. He knew he didn`t have much time
to warn the scouts before his mother came in pursuit; she wasn`t
going to let him live to tell his side of the story.

Minako came in the alley and reckognized the warrior whom she had
met some weeks before.

"Ryusenshi, why are you here? I thought your timeline had been erased
out of existence!" she said, her daughter arriving as she completed
her sentence.

"Mom, do you know that guy? Does he have a girlfriend already?"
whispered Hematite who felt quite attracted to the handsome time
traveler.

"You... know me already? How is that possible, I won`t be born for a
thousand years in a timeline not meant to happen at all!" said the
baffled warrior.

"Because we already met you and defeated your evil mother. For some
reason, you`re repeating the same events all over again as though
they hadn`t happened yet." said Minako.

"Sailor Pluto did mention there were some strange time distorsions
before she sent me here. Maybe something more dangerous than my mother
following me here is going on." he theorized.

"Say, until we can figure this out, would you like to catch a movie
or something?" asked Hematite who then received her mother`s elbow
in the ribs.

"We`ve got problems, young lady, we don`t have time for romance right
now." said Minako who couldn`t believe she`d actually said that.

* * *

Lost in a spinning whirlwind of unrelated events, unsequenced moments
and mismatched places, Nephryte looked at his detector crystal,
waiting for a sign. He quickly got it and entered one of the
countless realities offered to him.

"You can run but you can never hide from me, young girl. Your crystal
shall be mine and so will your life!" said Nephtyre in a sinister
voice.

He was getting closer, he could almost feel the smooth silver crystal
in his hands.

* * *

Chibi-Usa hugged her mother very tight; she was afraid that the
universe could be destroyed because of her impatience to return to
the future.

"Darling, it`s not your fault, you only wanted to come back to me.
I missed you very much too." tenderly said the queen to her
daughter.

"But what if Sailor Moon can`t help us? What then?" asked the
cute pink-haired girl.

"That will not happen, I promise you." said the queen.

Sailor Pluto looked into the orb on her staff and seemed worried.

"The situation is getting serious, majesty. If this keeps up, the
omniverse will achieve a state of critical convergence very soon."
said Setsuna.

"I trust Sailor Moon, she can help us, save us all once again."
said Queen NeoSerenity.

* * *

A second time portal opened in Tokyo a few hours after Ryusenshi
returned to the old city of Tokyo. This time, a seductive huntress
entered the ancient ancestor of Crystal Tokyo, ready to give chase
to the only man capable of ruining her carefully constructed scheme.
She looked back into the portal and promised to Sailor Pluto that
she would capture her son and make him pay in blood for his horrible
crime. With this, the pink portal closed. She was lying through her
teeth, of course- she had killed the queen herself and framed
Ryusenshi for the crime.

"Morons, all of them. They`ll believe anything I`ll tell them." she
thought.

She looked around and noticed she had emerged into one of the many
parks of the city; this one had a lake over wich she could see the
sun rising into the sky. Ami remembered this place to be the exact
spot where Chibi-Usa dropped in from the future when the wiseman
chased her across time.

A small pink vortex spontaneously formed close by, dropping off
Rubeus from his cosmic roller coaster ride into the fresh morning
air of the peaceful Tokyo park. She looked at him and immediately
recognized the dark moon denizen she fought all those centuries ago;
he was exactly as she remembered him.

"Rubeus! It`s been a long time since I`ve seen you." said the
dark Ami.

"You! Are you responsible for this insult to the great Rubeus of the
dark moon? Because if you are, I`ll make you pay!" he growled.

"Get off your high horses, it was a freak accident. There`s an
unusually strong distorsion field engulfing spacetime right now,
things like that are no real surprise." she said.

"Wait a minute, I know you... you`re that kid Sailor Mercury!"

"I`m not a kid anymore, I`m over a thousand years old. Besides, I
haven`t been Sailor Mercury in centuries, now. I`ve... changed."

"How so?" asked the curious Rubeus.

Ami revealed her dark moon symbol to Rubeus`s great surprise.

"You`re one of us, now? I`m impressed! It looks fabulous on you,
I must say. Not to mention you look much better without that stupid
sailor suit."

"You`re quite pleasing to the eyes yourself, with that fiery red
mane of yours."

"You know, Mercury, you`re much more beautiful than those foolish
sisters I drag around."

"Call me Ami. Besides, if you think I`ll fall for your emotional
manipulation like they did, then you`re the foolish one." said Ami
with a seductive smile.

"Beautiful, clever AND deceitful too! A woman after my own heart."

"You got that right! Let`s get to the point, Rubeus honey: I know
you`re looking for the silver crystal, right? And that little RAT
Chibi-Usa? Well I don`t need them- all I want is to find my traitor
son Ryusenshi so I can silence him and five minutes alone with my
past self to... shall we say, make her see things my way. What do
you say we team up for the occasion?"

"I never could say no to a sexy cold-blooded killer." said Rubeus,
smiling.

Ami got closer to Rubeus and placed her arms around his waist as he
placed his hands on her shoulders; they moved their lips together
and kissed passionately for what seemed an eternity to them both.
For that brief moment, nothing around them mattered, only the raw
energy surging through their lips had any importance.

Suddenly, a small object fell out of the sky and hit Rubeus squarely
on the head without hurting him. He saw the item on the ground-
a red transformation pen adorned with the alchemical symbol of mars.

"Where did this come from?" he thought as he looked up to the sky.
Ami, however, was still entranced by the power of their long kiss
and was hanging on to the moment, eyes closed, moving her lips
forward to meet Rubeus`s once more.

Yet another freak time vortex formed above the evil couple and,
without any further warning, dropped Celeste right on their heads.
She landed straight on Ami who fell down on her face while Rubeus
caught the disgraced Sailor Mars in his arms out of reflex. The
flaming red haired Celeste looked at the drop-dead handsome hunk
and smiled.

"Hello, good looking, thanks for catching me!" she said.

Picking herself up from the dew covered grass, Ami felt a burning
fit of jealousy coming up. She was beginning to see a recurring
pattern in the way events unfolded in the universe and felt that she
was the unwilling victim of a cosmic running gag that had once been
aimed at Usagi.

"Back off, Celeste, he`s mine!" she barked.

"Not any more, girlfriend! Say, Mercury, you`ve sure changed your
look over the past few centuries! About time, too." replied Celeste.

"Look, why don`t you just go away and fry your Sailor Mars successor
or something... that`s why you`re here, as I remember." said Ami,
obviously irritated.

Rubeus put Celeste down and remained silent, letting the girls
settle this among themselves. He learned quickly from the sisters
never to stand in the middle of an argument involving violent women.

"Well, yeah, if I have to. All I want is to be Sailor Mars again, so
I`ll give her a chance to stand down, you know. She WAS my sister
in a previous life, after all, that`s gotta mean something."
said Celeste.

"I have news for you: she`ll refuse flat out without a second
thought. You want the job back? Create your own opening by removing
the competition."

"That`s what I`ll do, then. Say, mind if I stick around you two
lovebirds until we take care of this sailor scout business?" asked
Celeste.

"All right... but stay away from Rubeus, got it?"

* * *

A portal opened in downtown Tokyo from wich emerged Usagi and her
three friends from various parts of the multiverse.

Usagi knew instantly she was home at last. Ami thought the
architecture of this era had tremendous historical value. Rei was
happy to see a city that hadn`t been destroyed by three decades
of civil war. Makoto saw cars and thought magic was involved.

"We`re really close to the epicenter, I should be able to get a fix
on the exact location any minute now. In the meantime, I can tell
the general direction is... this way!" said Ami.

"Hey, Ami, what do we do once we find the origin of these
troubles?" asked Usagi.

"I thought YOU knew how to take care of it!" replied Ami.

"I never said anything like that!" said Usagi.

"We`ll have to wing it, then." said Rei.

"Master Tsukino, look! In that store display- huge crystals that
show us images of faraway places!" said Makoto who had never seen
television before.

"There`s a lot of things you don`t know about this world,
Makoto..." said Usagi.

On the roof of an adjacent building, Esmeraude was watching them
closely. The spacetime portal had grabbed her attention and she was
now certain that these girls had something to do with the wiseman`s
vision somehow. Even if they didn`t have any connection with the
vision, they still came from another dimension and that in itself
was worth a look; she decided to follow them for a while.

Maybe her sleepless night hadn`t been a washout after all.

* * *

Prince Endymion stared at the night sky, all alone as usual. He
found it easier to concentrate on his thoughts without Kunzite
constantly putting him down or questionning his loyalty to Beryl.
Why was such a powerful man so afraid of him? It couldn`t be simple
fear of competition; the dark kingdom thrived from its generals
backstabbing each other for Beryl`s favor.

No, it had to be something else.

Maybe there was a connection to the name that Sailor Moon insisted
on calling him... what was it again? CHIBA MAMORU. It had a familiar
sound, almost comforting to think about. Unfortunately, he didn`t
have any more time to spend wondering on such things. The conquest
of earth was all that mattered; the capture of Sailor Moon and her
crystal was everything.

At that very moment, he was somehow transported to another world
without ever knowing why, but he didn`t care- Sailor Moon was right
there in front of him!!!

"Mamoru, how did you get here?!?" she asked, surprised.

"Stop calling me that, I am Prince Endymion! Now hand over that
crystal of yours..." he said as he unsheated his sword.

* * *

After a few minutes of walking into the world where she truly
belonged, Usagi received a call on her communicator.

"Hey, who could this be?" she wondered, thinking how she could
possibly explain to Luna and the girls the presence of three
extra scouts.

Minako`s face appeared on the screen.

"USAGI! Where have you been? We`ve been looking all over for you
and now I can`t make contact with any of the other scouts, Mamoru
or Chibi-Usa! Even the cats seem to be gone!" she said.

"I did vanish for a while, I was stuck in another dimension where
I met some... hum, friends." said Usagi.

"You`ll never guess who came by my house last night and you wouldn`t
believe it if I told you, so you better come over here pronto!"
urged Minako before cutting contact.

* * *

"RYUSENSHI???" said Usagi in total disbelief. "Why are you here
again?"

"I never came here before.. the timelines seem to be seriously
warped." said the warrior.

"Warped, you say? They`re totally bent!" added Hematite.

"And who might you be?" asked Usagi to the Minako look alike who
was holding Ryusenshi by the waist.

"I`m Aino Hematite, Minako`s my mom. Well, she WILL be, in an
alternate timeline." she said, leaving the Jedite part out not to
upset her mother again.

Although Usagi was completely flipped by the presence of the two
travelers from the future, Minako was even more baffled by the three
alternate scouts, even with Ami`s explanations on divergent
histories.

"So, if events had been just a little different in this world, we`d
be you and not us, right?" asked Minako.

"Right!" said the three alternates.

Ami got a signal on her computer; she figured out where the
disturbance originated.

"It`s in your house, Usagi- in Chibi-Usa`s room!" she said.

"I can`t say I`m COMPLETELY shocked..." said Usagi. "So she`s
responsible?"

"Not necessarely, she could have just catalysed a phenomenon that
was inevitable in the long run. I can see the epicenter is located
in-between dimensions; Sailor Moon will have to use her crystal`s
power to reach it and defuse it. I`ll have to charge it with the
right type of energy to focus the time stream into a workable
portal." said Ami.

"Why not just use your gizmo?" asked Makoto, convinced that this
Ami was every bit as great a magician as the first daughter of house
Mizuno in her own world.

"Because the spacetime is already too contrated upon itself to be
wedged open like I did before. This time, it`ll take something extra
to do it and your crystal`s the ticket. Can you show it to me now,
Usagi?" asked Ami.

"Sure." she replied.

Spying in the distance, many pairs of evil eyes waited for just
that moment when Usagi opened her locket to reveal the silver
empirium crystal in all its splendor. Rubeus, Ami and Celeste felt
this was the time to strike while Esmeraude decided she could use
the power of that trinket herself.

So began armageddon.

The silver empirium crystal radiated light of all colours and shades
as it charged itself with the energy of Ami`s time dilatator. It was
a truly awesome sight that did not miss to attract the attention of
Rubeus and Esmeraude who both strived to capture the precious
artifact for their master.

"Now what do I do?" asked Usagi.

"You must enter the time vortex and put an end to the contraction
of spacetime at the heart of its epicenter. It will be dangerous,
though." explained Ami.

"No sweat, I kicked some evil butt plenty of times before!" boasted
Usagi, full of self-confidence.

Of course, none of the sailor scouts had any idea that they were
being watched from a distance by several of their enemies.

"What are they talking about over there?" asked Celeste who wished
she could read lips right now.

"Does it matter? She`s about to leave to another plane of reality
with the crystal! We must intervene now!" said Rubeus who leapt out
of their hiding place into the open air where he floated unnaturally.

"Men. They`re all alike deep down inside." commented the dark Ami
with resignation.

"Welcome, everyone, to your glorious deaths! I have come for that
silver crystal and I`m not leaving without it!" said Rubeus, issuing
his challenge to the girls and Ryusenshi.

"Rubeus? Aren`t you dead?" asked Usagi.

Esmeraude wondered the same thing as she abandonned him to die on
his crashing spaceship.

"No, I`m not, but you will soon be if you don`t give me that silver
crystal!"

"We`ll see about that... MOON CRYSTAL POWER... MAKEUP! " said Usagi
as she transformed into the champion of love and justice. "I am the
pretty soldier Sailor Moon and in the name of the moon I will
punish you... again!"

Her friends followed her example and each did the same in their own
unique way.

"MERCURIUM TECHPOWER ARMOR! " said Ami. She was covered in
self-assembling metallic components that merged into an ocean blue
battlesuit complete with a wide array of high-tech weapons. Dressed
like that, she seemed to come right out of a futuristic anime video.

"JUPITER POWERSWORD STRENGHT! " said Makoto. Her twin katanas and
armor glowed with the intense green halo of the raw energy that
infused her body and soul with all the power she needed to destroy
all who dared stand against the leader of clan Jupiter, first
daughter of house Kino.

" MARS POWER... MAKEUP!" said Rei. Of all the variant scouts, she
looked the most like her equivalent in this universe with only
slight alterations to her uniform. Could this remarkable similarity
hide some major difference in disguise? That`s an ace rei kept up
her sleeve.

"VENUS STAR POWER... MAKEUP!" said Minako. As the only scout
originating from this universe along with Usagi, she transformed
into her scout persona with great pride, determined to show to the
others the true strenght of this reality`s sailor scouts.

"VENUS POWER... MAKEUP!" said Hematite. Following proudly her
mother`s lead, she quickly changed into the mighty Sailor Venus
as well. Fighting alongside her mom was a real thrill to her.

Ryusenshi drew his chain whip, ready to strike swiftly as a cobra,
and just as dangerous.

"Seven against one isn`t really fair, now, is it? Let`s even things
out! Come on out, girls, join the party!" invited Rubeus.

Kuromizuno Ami jumped out of hiding with her whip slashing towards
the scouts; the blow narrowly missed Minako who fell back from the
shockwaves created from the chain coming in contact with the
concrete sidewalk. Celeste joined in the fight as well, sending
several fireballs that fried a few hairs of Sailor Mars and Jupiter.

Responding without hesitation, Ryusenshi lunged at the dark Ami
while the scouts divided in two groups to face Rubeus and Celeste
at once.

Still out of range from the fighting, Esmeraude thought this
situation had potential. She pulled a small vial from her pocket
and uncorked it. A thick dark blue liquid that looked alive oozed
out.

"Droid Hydranor, go over there and fight the scouts along with
Rubeus and his allies. When they triumph, kill them too." she
explained.

"Yes, mistress." said Hydranor with great difficulty. Speaking was
not his strong suit as he had been created for combat exclusively.

Explosions wracked the street as one high power attack followed the
other, coming from both sides at once.

"JUPITER THUNDERBLADE..." screamed Makoto as her swords charged
with an incredibly powerful burst of power. "... SHOCKER!!!"

She jumped in the air and landed swords first. The blades sunk deep
in the ground and released all the energy in a spontaneous
earthquake that took everyone by surprise, knocking them down like
bowling pins. Being the only one in the air at the time, Rubeus
wasn`t affected and responded immediately by spraying Jupiter with
dozens of small fireballs, all of wich struck her armor and detonated
on impact.

She was killed instantly.

Getting back up as this happened, the scouts were helpless to save
Jupiter`s life; seeing how they were all distracted, Celeste
realized this was her opening. She decided to use her own special
surprise on Sailor Mars.

"MARS INFERNAL..."

A circle of flames formed around Rei`s feet, warning her of impending
doom.

"... FIRESTORM BLAZE!!!"

Being from the future, Rei had already lived through this attack move
once and barely survived. She did not care to repeat the experience
and leapt out of the circle a splitsecond before a scorching pillar
of fire arose where she stood.

"Not twice in one lifetime, sister!" said Rei. "BURNING MANDALA!"
she yelled, sending searing rings of heat to cut down this evil
Sailor Mars facsimile.

"Sailor Moon!" screamed Mercury between to shots of her arm cannon.
"You have to go to your house and find the source of the time
distorsion; it`s getting too strong, it could rip reality apart
and destroy everything!" she said, trying to get herself heard
despite the terrible explosions that were turning the neighborhood
into a warzone.

"But what about you? You need me here to fight!" she argued, getting
ready to throw her tiara at Rubeus.

"If the multiverse collapses, we all lose, so go! Go! NOW!!!"

Usagi reluctantly started running towards her house. Just before
getting out of sight, she turned back a moment. She then ran home
even faster.

* * *

Nephryte took a quick gaze at the battle ravaging the Tokyo street
and rejected it as trivial. He knew that the real prize laid
somewhere else and went on his way to find it, leaving the furious
combat to follow its course.

* * *

Adrenaline pumping wildly through his veins, Ryusenshi fought the
dark Ami one on one, with no outside interference whatsoever from
his allies or his enemies- just the way he liked it.

"You`ve done a lot of evil, mother!" he said as he lunged in her
direction.

"Means to an end, I assure you." she replied, dodging the heavy
chain whip slash.

"I`ll make sure that the queen punishes you for every act of treason
and murder you`ve commited!" he told her, standing ready to avoid
whatever counterattack she might be planning.

"Too late for that- she`s already dead." she said simply instead
of swinging her whip.

"What?!"

"That`s right, dead. The beauty part is that they think YOU did it
since she has marks on her neck that match your whip!" she said, a
wicked grin on her face.

"MONSTER!!!" he screamed in anger and pain.

"It`s a good thing I silenced her when I did, `cause she didn`t
believe you were a traitor. When I crushed her throat with my whip,
I could even read your name on her lips. She called out for you,
but I made sure nobody heard!" she added with vile pleasure.

Ryusenshi`s feelings for Queen NeoSerenity were powerful, more than
anyone suspected; to hear of her savage murder drove him over the
edge in an instant. "RAIN DRAGON FURY!!!" he yelled, unleashing
without any restraint his strongest and most destructive attack.

The raging whirlwind caught everyone by storm and injured them more
or less seriously depending on just how close they were; standing
right in the middle of this energy vortex, the evil Ami did not
survive the intense shock and died before she hit the ground. Her
son joined her a moment later, drained of all his precious life
force which he expended in his blood fury. For a few seconds, the
street experienced a soothing silence as all the remaining warriors
were knocked senseless by the dying energy storm.

Sailor Mars was the first to get back on her feet; looking around,
she tried to figure if any of her friends were in need of medical
attention. Aside from the deceased Sailor Jupiter, they all looked
fine. She then felt a hand grip her throat from the side; blood in
her eyes had allowed the injured Rubeus to blindside her.

"Where is Sailor Moon? I want her crystal! Tell me now or I`ll kill
you right here!" he said, blood dripping from his bleeding nose.

"You couldn`t catch her if you tried. You`re nothing, Rubeus." she
said, spitting some of her own blood on his face.

"You`ll regret doing that, sailor brat, but not for very long..."
he said, beginning to tighten his grip around her neck.

For some reason, however, he was incapable of crushing the life
out of Sailor Mars; her neck was too hard to squeeze.

"Let me show you WHY the bandit gangs fear me..." she whispered,
her eyes flashing blood red. Her smile suddenly had more, bigger,
sharper teeth (or fangs, as any biologist would call teeth of
this size).

The very feminine looking Sailor Mars began to change- her body
structure turned into a rougher, more brutal, animalictic form. She
grew in size, gaining a full two feet in height as her shoulders
enlarged and her muscle mass tripled. Her skin covered itself with
coal black fur and her face changed into a human-lupine hybrid.

"This can`t be good..." thought Rubeus, feeling the werewolf`s warm
breath on his face.

"Now..." she said in a deep growling voice, "wich one of us is
going to regret his actions?"

She grabbed the terrified Rubeus and threw him twenty feet away
like a ragdoll; brutally hitting a brick wall, his spine broke in
several places. The hulking lyncantrope that was Sailor Mars turned
around to notice that Ami was still out cold from the whirlwind and
that both Sailor Venuses were struggling against some sort of
blueberry jello monster.

If Rei hadn`t been a sailor scout for so long, she might have been
surprised by the droid`s viscous form.

She wanted to help them fight, but she also noticed Esmeraude
sneaking up near the battlefield. Although she never met the dark
moon lady before, Rei was pretty sure she was trouble.

"Hello, you big Sailor Mars you, I`d love to make a coat out of your
hide!" said Esmeraude, laughing at how easy she`d have it to destroy
the scouts who DID look very much like caricatures of themselves
like the wiseman said.

Fighting by herself Esmeraude and Celeste who was waking up from
her whirlwind shock did not scare Rei, but then things got seriously
out of hand as the outlines of seven warriors formed a few feet
away from the scouts, Esmeraude and Hydranor. Sailor Mars
immediately recognized THESE creatures as she fought them all
before a very long time ago. The seven shadows of Queen Beryl were
there and they looked very nasty as a team.

Further away from the action, two girld observed the battle and
thought that the situation looked very bleak for the scouts.

"I believe they could use our help." said Sailor Neptune, taking
Sailor Uranus`s hand in hers.

"I agree, our quest will not be served by letting the scouts be
defeated by these abominations." said Uranus.

"Mind if I join in?" asked a third voice behind them. Sailor Jendra,
dressed in a silver and white sailor uniform, walked up to the other
two and pointed at the shadows. "The girls could use another fighter
or three to defeat them."

"Well let`s join in, then, shall we?" said Sailor Neptune.

* * *

Usagi ran as fast as she possibly could and finally made it to her
house. Just as she was about to enter the front gate, a silhouette
formed from out of nowhere and turned into Prince Endymion.

"Mamoru, how did you get here?" she asked.

"Stop calling me that, I am Prince Endymion! Now hand me over that
crystal of yours..." he said as he unsheated his sword.

"Oh no, you`re under their control, aren`t you?" she asked.

Endymion rose his weapon, ready to strike Sailor Moon.

"GIVE IT TO ME NOW!" he said, boiling with anger.

A red blur slashed his hand and the sword fell down. Standing atop a
streetlight in the rising sun`s bright rays, Tuxedo Kamen had thrown
his trademark red rose to stop his evil counterpart from hurting
Usagi. "Stop where you are, Endymion, you don`t know what you`re
doing." he said.

"Oh yes I am, my destiny is to capture the silver empirium crystal
for the glory of the dark kingdom and that`s just what I`ll do!"
he said, reaching down to pick up his sword.

Tuxedo Kamen jumped between him and Usagi, blocking with his cane
a lethal blow that could have killed Sailor Moon.

"Why are you opposing me?" asked Endymion. "You are myself!"

"Why, you ask? For the same reason that you`ve interfered with
Kunzite so many times, so he wouldn`t hurt Sailor Moon. For the
reason I`ve come to her rescue ever since she started fighting
evil... BECAUSE I LOVE HER!" he explained with passion.

Usagi couldn`t believe her ears- Mamoru really DID love her! He
actually said it!

"I`ve seen the future and I won`t let you or anyone else take away
the woman I love ever again!" said Tuxedo Kamen.

"I can`t possibly love her, you`re lying!" snarled Endymion.

"Look in your heart and you`ll see he tells the truth " softly
whispered Sailor Moon.

Prince Endymion closed his eyes, engaged in a raging battle with
his own conflicting emotions. He dropped his sword and shed two
tears; his healing had begun.

"What am I doing? Why am I serving such a vile empire?" he asked,
not expecting any answers. Suddenly, his whole life seemed like a
huge lie.

Sailor Moon opened her locket and revealed the moon crystal once
again. "Moon crystal power... bring back the good man so hideously
warped by Beryl`s magic!" she said. A soothing glow radiated from
the crystal and purified Endymion of the dark force that held his
soul captive. He gazed at Usagi`s pure blue eye and smiled before
fainting.

"The whole of existence needs your help right now, Sailor Moon, but
I`ll be right here caring for my other self and waiting for your
return. I want you to be a part of my future." said Tuxedo Kamen.

"I love you Mamoru."

"And I love you, Usagi."

They kissed for a very long moment and Usagi entered the house. The
end of this conflict was drawing near, but wether it would be good
or bad remained to be seen. She went straight for Chibi-Usa`s room
where she saw a time vortex that had the exact shape and size of
Chibi-Usa as though she had run too fast and punched a hole through
reality. It was too small to accomodate anyone else but a small child,
so she used her crystal to increase its size. Ami had done a great
job because Usagi had no difficulty to get the portal to form.

Unfortunately for Usagi, the portal was also large enough to allow
Nephryte to follow in a few minutes later.

* * *

Only one shadow warrior remained, the demon beast that had once been
Rei`s grandfather. A dark tribute to the shadow warriors` evil, he
was killing Sailor Uranus viciously by beating her over the head
with the armored right arm it had ripped off Sailor Mercury.

"JENDRA CHROMATIC BLAST!!!" screamed Sailor Jendra, a lethal beam
of multicolored light shooting out of her hands to destroy the horrid
beast. Laurella usually enjoyed very much being Sailor Jendra,
though not today. Not only had she been taken away from her lover
Kitechnum Jendra seconds before he was about to kiss her, the sailor
scouts also seemed incapable of recognizing her for some reason-
those who were still alive anyway. Only Sailor Neptune and the two
Venuses remained with Minako weakening rapidly from a deep cut to
her tigh.

"Where the hell did all these monsters come from?!?" asked Minako to
anyone who cared to listen.

At the same moment, more reinforcements arrived on both sides: the
dark moon sisters, the moonlight knight, Sailor Saturn, Mistress 9,
the death busters, more alternate sailor scouts and several versions
of Tuxedo Kamen that included a ninja warrior, a tiger-like jungle
fighter, a knight in full battle armor, a samurai and a powerful
wizard.

"This makes no damn sense!" said Laurella before being stuck by a
fire buster blast; her heart crystal popped out of her chest and
she fell down as Eudial reached for the precious crystal. Sailor
Neptune tried to recapture it for Sailor Jendra, but was quickly
cut down by the swift slashes of Mistress 9`s razor sharp glaive.
Both sailors died a few moments later and the battle raged on with
more fighters joining in from hundreds of different realities.

* * *

At the same time, on a space station in orbit around one of the many
moons of saturn, a different kind of battle was taking place. The
Technum guardians were facing a problem greater than any other they
had ever witnessed before, one wich they had hoped would never
happen.

The excessive number of sailor scouts and evil beings fighting an
all-out war on earth was creating an immense drain on the normal
Technum flux of the solar system; this catastrophic drain was
compensated by the source of all power, the sun itself.

Unfortunately, this kind of intense use was not meant to be and
the health of the Prime was degrading quite rapidly- his death,
should it occur, would mean destruction to the entire solar system.
Technuma Saturn, assisted by Litechnae Venus and Technara Mars,
was using the full extent of his medical knowledge to keep the
Prime alive until the battle stopped. Only then would his health
improve and apocalypse be avoided. Although Technuma Saturn had
been created by the Prime to be the greatest doctor who ever
lived, the strange physionomy of the alien being was just too
complicated to be fully understood.

He desperately fought a lost battle.

* * *

Usagi floated for a few seconds in the swirling mass of nonsequential
events just like the first time she jumped in, except this time she
had her attuned crystal to guide her through. Her surroundings
solidified and took the appearance of what looked like the throne
room of a beautiful castle.

"If I had a castle of my own, it would look like this one." she
thought.

"Sailor Moon, you came!" said Chibi-Usa who ran to her.

"Where is this place, Chibi-Usa? How did you get here?" she asked.

"This is my home in the future!" she answered. " I got here with the
key Pu gave me, but everything`s been going haywire because of me..."

"It`s not your fault, little one." said Sailor Pluto who arrived to
meet Sailor Moon. "Some evil force is using using your return to
manipulate time."

"What can I do about it?" asked Usagi.

"You alone can do nothing. You will need help from someone." said
Setsuna.

"You`ll be coming along, then?" asked Usagi.

"No, not me... her." said Pluto, pointing to Chibi-Usa. "She holds
great power in herself and she knows more about this situation than
she realizes. Go forward, now, time grows short." she added,
turning away and vanishing in the shadows.

"Wait a minute! Can`t I at least meet the queen before I leave?"
asked Usagi.

"The queen had judged preferable for you not to see her now, but
rest assured, you WILL meet her soon." said the fading voice of
the guardian of time. Usagi was now alone with Chibi-Usa and
the portal.

"So it`s up to you and me, Sailor Moon!" said the pink-haired girl
with great enthusiasm.

"Oh, that`s just great." thought Usagi, dreading the idea.

A powerful battle cry resounded from the portal and the charging
Nephryte blasted out suddenly, violently hitting Sailor Moon in the
jaw with his stone-like fist, sending her flying back into a marble
wall; she landed brutally on the floor, blood seeping out of her
mouth. Chibi-Usa screamed in terror, but the dark kingdom warrior
paid no attention to her. He was there for the crystal.

"Pretty clever, Sailor Moon, pretending to be searching for the
crystal so we wouldn`t think you had it all along... we should have
known you`d try something like this!" said Nephryte.

Sailor Moon picked up her tiara with her shacking hand; a strong
blast of dark energy knocked it down before she could throw it.
Nephryte walked over to Sailor Moon slowly, assured of his victory.
She was breathing hard, barely capable of moving, let alone defend
the crystal. The evil man grabbed her locket and ripped it from her
chest. Sailor Moon reverted back to Usagi in a flurry of magical
ribbons.

"You`re Naru`s best friend, aren`t you? That must be why my crystal
reacted to her presence; she picked up residual energies from your
presence. Naru apparently couldn`t hide them the way you did. It`s
been nice to fight you, Sailor Moon, but now our conquest of the
universe must resume. Beryl will reward me handsomely for..." said
Nephryte, suddenly interrupting his gloating.

A trickle of green blood began to flow from his mouth and his limp
fingers let go of the locket wich dropped down with a metallic
clatter. Nephryte fell down on his face and Usagi saw the sharp
crystal shard imbedded between his shoulder blades.

"Well, Nephryte, you didn`t think I`d let you hog all the glory,
did you?" said Zoisite, moving out of the shadows into plain sight.

"Zoi...site..here?" mumbled Usagi, barely recovering from Nephryte`s
brutal attack. She desperately extended her arm to try and reach for
her locket, only a few inches away from her grasping fingers.

Simply by pointing at it, Zoisite made the locket fly to his hand.

"Thank you for keeping this warm for me. I can`t believe a twit like
you could defeat every one of our schemes for so long... but you
never learn from your numerous mistakes so it was just a matter of
time. Ciao!" he said.

He turned to go back through the portal, but couldn`t. Since the
crystal had left Usagi`s possession, the portal had shrunk back to
its original Chibi-Usa shape, leaving Zoisite stranded.

"Tell me how to open this gate again." ordered Zoisite to Usagi.

"NEVER!" she said, trying to stand up.

"ZOI! " said Zoisite, sending a blast of deadly flower petals to
the struggling Usagi who fell down again, battered but unbowed.

"You won`t beat this secret out of me, monster!" she said, tears
coming from her eyes.

"You`re right " said Zoisite. He pointed his hand at the terrified
Chibi-Usa and smiled. "Perhaps SHE can help me, then?"

"NO, DON`T! I`ll tell you, just don`t hurt her" replied Usagi.

"Usagi, don`t tell him!" implored Chibi-Usa.

"I have no choice..." said Usagi, resigned to the situation.

"Damn right, you don`t! Now tell me!" snarled Zoisite.

"First, open the locket to reveal the crystal." instructed Usagi.

Zoisite did so and was amazed by the colored sparkles radiating from
within the silver crystal.

"Look at it intensely." explained Usagi. "Let the colours fill your
mind, concentration is critical."

"It`s making my eyes tired." complained Zoisite, incapable of
removing his eyes from the wondrous crystal.

"That`s normal the first few times, just concentrate on the crystal,
don`t let any other thoughts cross your mind!"

"Yes... concentrating... on the crystal..." said Zoisite whose voice
was starting to sound like a zombie`s.

"Let the sparkling rainbow of colours enter your mind, let it
expand in all direction and take over your will!"

"Yes.. the colours... the beautiful colours..." mumbled Zoisite.

"Your eyelids are getting heavy, aren`t they?" asked Usagi with a
smirk on her lips.

"Yes..."

"Then close them. You are sleeping, Zoisite, sleeping. Your willpower
is nonexistent before mine, your mind is under my control!" said
Usagi who now held Zoisite in a deep mesmeric trance. His face was
devoid of expression.

"So I`m a twit who can`t learn a thing, am I?" said Usagi with a
vengence. "Give me the locket, now!" she ordered.

Zoisite mindlessly gave her the locket wich contained the precious
crystal; she transformed back to Sailor Moon and urged Chibi-Usa to
follow her into the portal that she reopened easily.

"Usagi, how did you do that?" asked Chibi-Usa, bewildered at the
sight of the mindless Zoisite.

"I read it in a book called HYPNOTISM FOR FUN AND PROFIT. Don`t
look at me like that, I DO read a book once in a while aside from
comics!"

With this last comment, they both left the harmless dark kingdom
warrior and his deceased comrade behind to go meet with their final
challenge.

* * *

"Come on, don`t die on us like this!" begged Technuma Saturn to the
dying Prime whose body was just about to give up. With the rate at
which new fighters joined the earth battle from other worlds
increasing exponentially, there was little more he could do than
delay the inevitable. The Prime couldn`t take this kind of strain;
one moment he was living, the next he was dead.

Technuma stared sadly at Litechnae and Technara, tears flowing from
his eyes.

His failure to keep the Prime alive had sealed the fate of the solar
system.

* * *

Back on earth, Minako fell down after more than an hour of non-stop
fighting against the ever increasing hordes of monsters and villains
flowing into Tokyo wich now looked like the remnants of a Godzilla
family reunion. Despite the sheer number of victims, the bloody
combats still raged on.

Minako`s leg wound had drained away a lot of blood and she was
feeling very weak; she knew she wouldn`t live very long. She looked
at the corpse of her fallen daughter and shed a tear.

"I`m coming soon, darling. I`ll be right over with you and your
father in a few moments."

She heard a ghastly noise coming from the sky as did everyone on
earth. The combats stoped immediately as they all looked up to see
the sun blackening and shrinking rapidly, plunging the world in
near total darkness.

"We`re all coming now..." whispered Minako in tears, realizing she
was a witness to apocalypse.

A raging solar shockwave of a magnitude never seen in this quadrant
of space since the big bang erupted from the collapsing sun and
plunged the entire solar system as well as a few nearby star systems
in a bright, scorching inferno for a brief instant, wiping out all
solid matter in an instant.

Then darkness fell, permanently.

* * *

Usagi and Chibi-Usa floated in the space in-between dimensions;
this was not the chaotic spacetime vortex they had traveled
through before, but rather a peaceful collection of infinite
universes, each one miniature in size and sparkling from life
within. This was the most beautiful sight they had ever witnessed.

"Where are we, Usagi?" asked Chibi-Usa.

"Everywhere at once, I think." said Usagi.

YOU ARE RIGHT LITTLE USAGI YOU ARE EVERYWHERE AND EVERYWHEN

"What was that?" asked Chibi-Usa.

"I don`t know..." she replied.

DON`T PRETEND YOU DON`T REMEMBER ME CAN`T YOU FEEL THE FORCE WITHIN
ME SURELY YOU REMEMBER FEELING IT AS YOU BATTLED MY SERVANT BERYL

"Queen Metalia?!?" said Usagi with surprise.

Chibi-Usa had heard of the evil force that had destroyed the moon
kingdom and killed her grandmother- she was scared like never
before.

A shapeless mass of pure darkness formed around them, oozing
between the miniature worlds and greedily grabbing them.

HE HE HE YOU DO REMEMBER MAYBE YOU REMEMBER THIS FACE AS WELL

The shapeless body of the evil force used part of its surface to
form into the face of Queen Beryl. Even though no sound came from
her mouth, Usagi could read her lips; she was begging Sailor Moon
to release her from her horrible fate.

SHE FAILED ME SO SHE MUST PAY THE PRICE JUST AS YOU WILL FOR
OPPOSING ME YOU AND YOUR PATHETIC FRIENDS THEY ARE ALREADY DEAD

A tiny world floated in front of Usagi`s face; she immediately
recognized it as her own. It glowed intensely for a few seconds
and blackened into total darkness.

"What have you done, you vile creature????" she screamed.

WHAT I WILL DO TO ALL THE OTHER WORLDS LIKE THIS

Another one of the worlds was destroyed in a similar fashion.
Then another. And ten more, a hundred, a thousand. There seemed
to be no limits to Metalia`s thirst for destruction and death.

HA HA HA YOU CAN`T STOP ME YOU WILL JOIN BERYL AND THE OTHER
LACKEYS WHO FAILED ME IN THEIR TORTURE FOR A THOUSAND MILLENIA
AND I WILL RULE OVER THE ASHES OF THE OMNIVERSE HA HA HA

"No, I will stop you with the power of love and this crystal
given to me by my mother so I could destroy you once and for all!"
bravely said the champion of love and justice.

LET`S NOT BE HASTY MAYBE WE CAN WORK SOMETHING OUT

"I don`t cut deals with evil, you should know that by now!"

YOU LOVE TUXEDO KAMEN DON`T YOU I COULD UNITE YOU WITH HIM AGAIN

"What are you talking about?"

YES I CAN CREATE A SMALL WORLD WHERE THE TWO OF YOU CAN SPEND YOUR
LIVES WITH NO MORE EVIL TO FIGHT NO MORE IMPOSSIBLE STRUGGLES TO BE
TRAPPED IN

"No more monsters..." whispered Usagi as the small pocket universe
glithered in front of her, shining brightly as Metalia`s promise.
She wanted to defeat this horrid creature but she also loved Mamoru
so much...

"Snap out of it, Sailor Moon!" said Chibi-Usa. "That thing is lying,
it`s just trying to stop you from destroying it!"

NO I WILL NOT LET YOU RUIN THIS LITTLE GIRL I`LL KILL YOU FIRST

Several black tentacles surged from the shapeless mass and reached
for Chibi-Usa. A bright glow from the crystal melted them away
before they could reach the girl.

"She`s right, your empty promises and your lies cannot stop us
from doing what we were meant to do!" said Usagi. "Are you with
me, munchkin?"

"Yes, I am!" replied Chibi-Usa with pride.

A golden moon crescent appeared on the forehead of both girls and a
fantastic surge of golden light radiated from them both. They held
their hands together, holding the radiant silver empirium crystal
in the final battle against Metalia.

"I love you, Usagi!"

"And I love you, Chibi-Usa!"

NO NO NO THIS CAN`T BE I CAN`T LOSE TO THESE PUNY HUMANS NOOOOOO

The intense golden light born out of love rekindled life on every
world decimated by Metalia`s evil and reinforced the barriers
between alternate realities that had been forcefully removed
by the evil force of darkness. Slowly, all returned to normal.

AAAAAAAAAARRRGH

Metalia had been destroyed forever.

* * *

Usagi stared out of her bedroom window at the stary night, dreaming
about her precious Mamoru. She had been very disappointed to find
out that only Chibi-Usa and herself had retained any memory of the
strange events that had taken place- since they had wiped clean
these events BEFORE they had actually happened, they were now
reliving the same day where Chibi-Usa had attempted to return to
the future.

The pink-haired girl entered the room, her luna ball hovering
behind as usual. She was concerned about Usagi being depressed
once again.

"How are you feeling now, meatball head?"

"A bit sad. It`s a shame we went through all this and that Mamoru
doesn`t remember saying he loves me... I guess he won`t be coming
back to me right away "

She looked at Chibi-Usa and had a brilliant flash.

"Say, since this is the same day all over again, this means there`s
still a bucket of double chocolate ice cream in the fridge!" said
Usagi with that hungry look in her eyes.

"Yeah, let`s go eat!" said the little girl who disappeared down the
stairs.

Usagi left her room, but just before she went down to the kitchen
she heard a noise coming from her room. She rushed back to see a
shadow leaping out of the open window into the night; a blooming
red rose was waiting for her on her bed.

Although Mamoru didn`t remember visiting the future, he still had
a vague impression that he and Usagi were destined to be together
no matter what his visions said.

He was determined to find a way to return to his one true love.


The End