Sailor Moon Legend..
Feel free to skip down to the story. I'm just going to start with a little intro on the background of this story.
The idea for this story came up while I was doing the final editing of Sailor Moon: World Rebirth (smwr). The latter part of that epic got a little complicated with all of the time travel going on and at one point I mentioned something about the beginnings of the Silver Millenium, and introduced a character from that time. From there I went to the first season of the Japanese sailor moon to find out the story of the moon kingdom that turns out to be quite different from the dub and adjusted my original plans for this story.
One of the main things I've been working hard to work into my story is a sense of time frame fitting into the real world. In the dub of Sailor Moon they say that there's a 1000 years between the end of the moon kingdom and the beginning of the story. I followed this timeframe in smwr. However, in the original sailor moon the cats just refer to it as existing in 'ancient times' (They also say that the moon people were immortal). In order to keep continuity I'm going to keep this set date of the end of the Silver Millennium. Since Legend starts off on earth I wanted to take an ancient civilization from our past and my first thought - Atlantis. Unfortunately, after doing some research I found that Atlantis existed ten thousand years before the supposed end of the Moon Kingdom. So thus, I've moved the timeframe back over ten thousand years. At first this doesn't really fit with 'Silver Millennium', but this doesn't really need to represent 1000 years. In the Japanese version they use those same words rather than their Japanese equivalents. Anyway, back to Atlantis, there are many different theories on when and where Atlantis existed and I've chosen one that is different but detailed. [1] This places Atlantis in Indonesia, which was a huge land mass connecting Asia and Australia since the ocean level was 50- 100 meters lower. The only problem with picking a civilization that existed so long ago is figuring out the state of the rest of the world. This Atlantis existed during the last ice age, so northern Asia, Europe, and North America are nearly uninhabitable except for some nomadic groups. I've taken a second ancient civilization, that of the Aryans, to exist alongside Atlantis. Considering the amount of religious evidence it's more likely that the Aryans existed in this sense rather than Atlanteans, but since this is a fictious story anyway it's all good. In this story the Aryans have civilizations in Iran and India, Aryanavarta being in India. [2-3] In theory they should also be in north-western Asia in Germany and Russia although not as far south as the Mediterranean since they don't go there until the fall of Rome. That place gets its first major inhabitants from the survivors of Atlantis. The history of the Aryans dates back to before the beginning of the ice age and helps give insight into why they resent the empire of Atlantis. Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself before even beginning to tell the story so now then:
Sailor Moon: Legend Prologue
It had taken Julius the length of a planting and harvest seasons to convince R'har to allow them to bring an archaeology expedition into the depths of Atlantis to research the beginnings of its civilization. The Atlanteans were right to be suspicious, since they were going there to get knowledge needed to wage a war against Atlantis, but that was beside the point. They _needed_ permission to go in due to the amount of equipment they wanted to bring in.
Upon arriving he and his 'assistant researchers' set-up around and began to analyze the first set of ruins they found. After that he and his fellow researchers conveniently got 'lost' in the further depths of the ruins.
It was clear that his Atlantean counterpart suspected trickery, but in the interest of peace between their two nations he said nothing. It was clear that he was not aware of the great secrets that the ruins held. It took weeks, and a few relocations of the main base research point before they found what they were looking for. It was while R'har was present overseeing their work that one of his assistants found the ruins they had come for. Although he couldn't leave his work there, he instructed for them to start transporting the equipment there as it appeared that it was quite far away from their current position and he wanted to leave there as soon as possible. That evening R'har returned to the city which allowed Julius to make the journey to the wall himself.
It was even deeper down than he had expected it to be. It was necessary for them to navigate several treacherous caves and to climb down several ropes. As he misjudged a distance and fell farther than he would have liked at one point he cursed the fact that getting all of the equipment down this far would be a horrible ordeal. The fact that most of it needed to arrive intact jeopardized all that he had hoped to achieve.
After a couple of hours of treacherous climbing and sliding they came upon the 'wall of the Gods' that he had not seen in years. The familiar pale red runes on the white stone immediately identified it as what he had been looking for. Of course, this was not his first time at finding this treasure.
Ten years ago in his youth he made the journey to find out more about the ancient origins of Atlantis. He had been alone that time and just snuck into the ruins on his own. At that time this wall had been much closer to the surface, so he suspected that the instability of the earth in this area had caused the caves to shift. The security had also been a lot lighter at the time. He had only been able to take one piece of the wall, just enough that he could carry it then, but it possessed the knowledge he needed to return with the rest of the wall.
"Excellent," he said to his assistant. "This is exactly what we're looking for." He wove his fingers along the grooves in the rock until they ended about a quarter of the way across the rock face. The remaining portion of the wall was empty. "How much of the equipment has been transported down here?"
"At the rate it's being moved it should be ready to set-up by the end of the week," the man responded.
"Good. I'd tell you to hurry up the pace but we've been working on this project for too long to risk making any mistakes. Have the others take the utmost care in making sure that R'har doesn't notice what we're doing down here." He took a look around the wall to see how much they could get out of there. Pointing at the wall he gave some instructions, "I want everything from here to the end. We'll have to suspend the crystals from the ceiling in order to retain the correct dimensions. Keeping the wall together is of the utmost importance."
"Understood!" The man turned away to direct a couple of men who had just arrived with more of the teleportation crystals. Everything was falling together just as Julius had planned. Before the Atlanteans suspected anything the artifact would be back in Aryanavarta and he would be on his way back there.
Over the next few days Julius expressed the pretense that his team had found all that they expected to find and that they would be leaving shortly. There was not even a speck of a clue that R'har doubted his words so the plan proceeded as planned. Everything went perfectly up to the evening of the day planned for the teleportation.
At that time Julius was observing the scientists make the final adjustments to the crystals. The researchers in Aryanavarta had been notified of the artifact's impending arrival. Each of the twelve crystals had to be _exactly_ the same distance from the others as the corresponding crystals back in Aryanavarta. If the shape formed by them wasn't exactly the same as the shape formed by the corresponding ones back home then contents of the teleportation would be distorted during transit. It had taken them years to perfect their methods for aligning the crystals, as anything less than perfection could lead to disaster.
Everything was going fine until there came a ruckus from the floor above them. Julius was about to question what was going on when everything went silent. The silence was pierced by an only too-familiar voice.
"Julius, we know all about your operations down here. Come up here and back with me now and we can talk this out rationally."
Curses! How did they find out? Had they suspected it all along or had they infiltrated his team with one of their own? Regardless, he had to make decisions quickly. He turned to the head scientist.
"How close are you to having the crystals full aligned?" he asked quietly.
"We're working on the final alignments, to a thousandth of a unit. Eight crystals to go."
"Good. Keep on working. Activate them as you finish each alignment. We have to get these back to Aryanavarta at all costs or everything will have been for nothing." As he stepped over to where he could view the upper floor the quiet humming of resonating crystals entered his ears. It would not be until the final stages before it became loud enough to hear above.
"Surely R'har there has been a misunderstanding. A few of my assistants who couldn't accept that we had not found what we originally expected to find decided to go exploring on their own and one of them got hurt. We're merely treating his broken limb and preparing the equipment to hoist him out of here." Julius spoke calmly, as if one of the most important goals of his life was not about to be completed.
"Don't avoid the matter," R'har stated. "We know your goal is to gain knowledge of the abilities from the ancient days of Atlantis. There is a reason why this area is in ruins, and its cause should remain sealed down here for all of eternity."
Julius glanced back at the scientist. He held up two fingers signaling that they had two more crystals remaining. "Surely you don't believe that we would-"
"Julius, either you come up here right now or in the count of five we're all coming down. 1."
Julius knew that he could go and the scientists would be able to finish the process. However, he doubted that he'd be able to get away from Atlantis alive. The Atlanteans were extremely strict in these types of situations and in the past they had not hesitated to execute every single member of the teams he had sent to investigate this place in the past. After all, in a world controlled by Atlantis, every decision and act the Atlanteans made was the correct one. It was not worth sending these artifacts back to Aryanavarta if he would not be there to learn their secrets.
"2."
"Just let me grab my papers-"
"3."
The humming was quite audible now. He walked back over the scientists. "Just send it now," he said.
"But the last one is not yet in alignment-"
"4."
"It doesn't matter! Just get it out of here." There was a delay after the '4'. Julius was certain that they could now hear the crystals resonating with each other up above. His beliefs were confirmed with Atlantean soldiers dropping into the room.
Making decisions in an instant Julius decided what he was going to do. There was no way he was going to remain in Atlantis to die for his nation and he was willing to risk a 1% chance for this mission to succeed. Pushing the scientists aside he stepped into the teleportation field in front of the wall, reached back and tapped the final crystal to complete the resonation process. He tried to get away from that out-of-alignment crystal but it was already too late. To him, the entire world began to vibrate. Everything went white as the matter in the cave was exchanged with the empty air back in Aryanvarta. His surroundings vanished.
When his vision returned he was looking at the scientists he had left back at home. He could not move yet, but everything seemed to be all right. Maybe the scientists had managed to complete the arrangements in those last few seconds. Everything seemed all right, that was until the crystals stopped resonating together. Suddenly a splitting pain shot through his arm and across his face. Splitting-literally. His major arteries had probably reformed intact but everything else was damaged and distorted. Although he was in horrible agony his still-rational part of his brain told him that it appeared that the damage stopped right at his face, so although it was bleeding the rest of his head was most likely not damaged. He collapsed to the ground as the researchers rushed around him doing their best to keep his blood inside his body. Behind him the stone wall broke into a few pieces and fell apart -it appeared that another of the crystals had not been completely in sync with the alignment. But the important thing was that he had gotten it there with himself, and a minor setback such as a life-threatening injury was not going to stop him now.
A little short, but there's a jump in time to the beginning of the adventure. If you're reading this please review and let me know what would be better, a fic with girls with the same personalities as the anime, or original characters. [Either way, the name of the main character is still Usagi]
References (just the directories since ff.net doesn't allow web addresses.
[1] www.atlan.org/ [2] www.meta-religion.com/World_Religions/Zoroastrim/ [3] www.geocities.com/gambanreidi.geo/
Feel free to skip down to the story. I'm just going to start with a little intro on the background of this story.
The idea for this story came up while I was doing the final editing of Sailor Moon: World Rebirth (smwr). The latter part of that epic got a little complicated with all of the time travel going on and at one point I mentioned something about the beginnings of the Silver Millenium, and introduced a character from that time. From there I went to the first season of the Japanese sailor moon to find out the story of the moon kingdom that turns out to be quite different from the dub and adjusted my original plans for this story.
One of the main things I've been working hard to work into my story is a sense of time frame fitting into the real world. In the dub of Sailor Moon they say that there's a 1000 years between the end of the moon kingdom and the beginning of the story. I followed this timeframe in smwr. However, in the original sailor moon the cats just refer to it as existing in 'ancient times' (They also say that the moon people were immortal). In order to keep continuity I'm going to keep this set date of the end of the Silver Millennium. Since Legend starts off on earth I wanted to take an ancient civilization from our past and my first thought - Atlantis. Unfortunately, after doing some research I found that Atlantis existed ten thousand years before the supposed end of the Moon Kingdom. So thus, I've moved the timeframe back over ten thousand years. At first this doesn't really fit with 'Silver Millennium', but this doesn't really need to represent 1000 years. In the Japanese version they use those same words rather than their Japanese equivalents. Anyway, back to Atlantis, there are many different theories on when and where Atlantis existed and I've chosen one that is different but detailed. [1] This places Atlantis in Indonesia, which was a huge land mass connecting Asia and Australia since the ocean level was 50- 100 meters lower. The only problem with picking a civilization that existed so long ago is figuring out the state of the rest of the world. This Atlantis existed during the last ice age, so northern Asia, Europe, and North America are nearly uninhabitable except for some nomadic groups. I've taken a second ancient civilization, that of the Aryans, to exist alongside Atlantis. Considering the amount of religious evidence it's more likely that the Aryans existed in this sense rather than Atlanteans, but since this is a fictious story anyway it's all good. In this story the Aryans have civilizations in Iran and India, Aryanavarta being in India. [2-3] In theory they should also be in north-western Asia in Germany and Russia although not as far south as the Mediterranean since they don't go there until the fall of Rome. That place gets its first major inhabitants from the survivors of Atlantis. The history of the Aryans dates back to before the beginning of the ice age and helps give insight into why they resent the empire of Atlantis. Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself before even beginning to tell the story so now then:
Sailor Moon: Legend Prologue
It had taken Julius the length of a planting and harvest seasons to convince R'har to allow them to bring an archaeology expedition into the depths of Atlantis to research the beginnings of its civilization. The Atlanteans were right to be suspicious, since they were going there to get knowledge needed to wage a war against Atlantis, but that was beside the point. They _needed_ permission to go in due to the amount of equipment they wanted to bring in.
Upon arriving he and his 'assistant researchers' set-up around and began to analyze the first set of ruins they found. After that he and his fellow researchers conveniently got 'lost' in the further depths of the ruins.
It was clear that his Atlantean counterpart suspected trickery, but in the interest of peace between their two nations he said nothing. It was clear that he was not aware of the great secrets that the ruins held. It took weeks, and a few relocations of the main base research point before they found what they were looking for. It was while R'har was present overseeing their work that one of his assistants found the ruins they had come for. Although he couldn't leave his work there, he instructed for them to start transporting the equipment there as it appeared that it was quite far away from their current position and he wanted to leave there as soon as possible. That evening R'har returned to the city which allowed Julius to make the journey to the wall himself.
It was even deeper down than he had expected it to be. It was necessary for them to navigate several treacherous caves and to climb down several ropes. As he misjudged a distance and fell farther than he would have liked at one point he cursed the fact that getting all of the equipment down this far would be a horrible ordeal. The fact that most of it needed to arrive intact jeopardized all that he had hoped to achieve.
After a couple of hours of treacherous climbing and sliding they came upon the 'wall of the Gods' that he had not seen in years. The familiar pale red runes on the white stone immediately identified it as what he had been looking for. Of course, this was not his first time at finding this treasure.
Ten years ago in his youth he made the journey to find out more about the ancient origins of Atlantis. He had been alone that time and just snuck into the ruins on his own. At that time this wall had been much closer to the surface, so he suspected that the instability of the earth in this area had caused the caves to shift. The security had also been a lot lighter at the time. He had only been able to take one piece of the wall, just enough that he could carry it then, but it possessed the knowledge he needed to return with the rest of the wall.
"Excellent," he said to his assistant. "This is exactly what we're looking for." He wove his fingers along the grooves in the rock until they ended about a quarter of the way across the rock face. The remaining portion of the wall was empty. "How much of the equipment has been transported down here?"
"At the rate it's being moved it should be ready to set-up by the end of the week," the man responded.
"Good. I'd tell you to hurry up the pace but we've been working on this project for too long to risk making any mistakes. Have the others take the utmost care in making sure that R'har doesn't notice what we're doing down here." He took a look around the wall to see how much they could get out of there. Pointing at the wall he gave some instructions, "I want everything from here to the end. We'll have to suspend the crystals from the ceiling in order to retain the correct dimensions. Keeping the wall together is of the utmost importance."
"Understood!" The man turned away to direct a couple of men who had just arrived with more of the teleportation crystals. Everything was falling together just as Julius had planned. Before the Atlanteans suspected anything the artifact would be back in Aryanavarta and he would be on his way back there.
Over the next few days Julius expressed the pretense that his team had found all that they expected to find and that they would be leaving shortly. There was not even a speck of a clue that R'har doubted his words so the plan proceeded as planned. Everything went perfectly up to the evening of the day planned for the teleportation.
At that time Julius was observing the scientists make the final adjustments to the crystals. The researchers in Aryanavarta had been notified of the artifact's impending arrival. Each of the twelve crystals had to be _exactly_ the same distance from the others as the corresponding crystals back in Aryanavarta. If the shape formed by them wasn't exactly the same as the shape formed by the corresponding ones back home then contents of the teleportation would be distorted during transit. It had taken them years to perfect their methods for aligning the crystals, as anything less than perfection could lead to disaster.
Everything was going fine until there came a ruckus from the floor above them. Julius was about to question what was going on when everything went silent. The silence was pierced by an only too-familiar voice.
"Julius, we know all about your operations down here. Come up here and back with me now and we can talk this out rationally."
Curses! How did they find out? Had they suspected it all along or had they infiltrated his team with one of their own? Regardless, he had to make decisions quickly. He turned to the head scientist.
"How close are you to having the crystals full aligned?" he asked quietly.
"We're working on the final alignments, to a thousandth of a unit. Eight crystals to go."
"Good. Keep on working. Activate them as you finish each alignment. We have to get these back to Aryanavarta at all costs or everything will have been for nothing." As he stepped over to where he could view the upper floor the quiet humming of resonating crystals entered his ears. It would not be until the final stages before it became loud enough to hear above.
"Surely R'har there has been a misunderstanding. A few of my assistants who couldn't accept that we had not found what we originally expected to find decided to go exploring on their own and one of them got hurt. We're merely treating his broken limb and preparing the equipment to hoist him out of here." Julius spoke calmly, as if one of the most important goals of his life was not about to be completed.
"Don't avoid the matter," R'har stated. "We know your goal is to gain knowledge of the abilities from the ancient days of Atlantis. There is a reason why this area is in ruins, and its cause should remain sealed down here for all of eternity."
Julius glanced back at the scientist. He held up two fingers signaling that they had two more crystals remaining. "Surely you don't believe that we would-"
"Julius, either you come up here right now or in the count of five we're all coming down. 1."
Julius knew that he could go and the scientists would be able to finish the process. However, he doubted that he'd be able to get away from Atlantis alive. The Atlanteans were extremely strict in these types of situations and in the past they had not hesitated to execute every single member of the teams he had sent to investigate this place in the past. After all, in a world controlled by Atlantis, every decision and act the Atlanteans made was the correct one. It was not worth sending these artifacts back to Aryanavarta if he would not be there to learn their secrets.
"2."
"Just let me grab my papers-"
"3."
The humming was quite audible now. He walked back over the scientists. "Just send it now," he said.
"But the last one is not yet in alignment-"
"4."
"It doesn't matter! Just get it out of here." There was a delay after the '4'. Julius was certain that they could now hear the crystals resonating with each other up above. His beliefs were confirmed with Atlantean soldiers dropping into the room.
Making decisions in an instant Julius decided what he was going to do. There was no way he was going to remain in Atlantis to die for his nation and he was willing to risk a 1% chance for this mission to succeed. Pushing the scientists aside he stepped into the teleportation field in front of the wall, reached back and tapped the final crystal to complete the resonation process. He tried to get away from that out-of-alignment crystal but it was already too late. To him, the entire world began to vibrate. Everything went white as the matter in the cave was exchanged with the empty air back in Aryanvarta. His surroundings vanished.
When his vision returned he was looking at the scientists he had left back at home. He could not move yet, but everything seemed to be all right. Maybe the scientists had managed to complete the arrangements in those last few seconds. Everything seemed all right, that was until the crystals stopped resonating together. Suddenly a splitting pain shot through his arm and across his face. Splitting-literally. His major arteries had probably reformed intact but everything else was damaged and distorted. Although he was in horrible agony his still-rational part of his brain told him that it appeared that the damage stopped right at his face, so although it was bleeding the rest of his head was most likely not damaged. He collapsed to the ground as the researchers rushed around him doing their best to keep his blood inside his body. Behind him the stone wall broke into a few pieces and fell apart -it appeared that another of the crystals had not been completely in sync with the alignment. But the important thing was that he had gotten it there with himself, and a minor setback such as a life-threatening injury was not going to stop him now.
A little short, but there's a jump in time to the beginning of the adventure. If you're reading this please review and let me know what would be better, a fic with girls with the same personalities as the anime, or original characters. [Either way, the name of the main character is still Usagi]
References (just the directories since ff.net doesn't allow web addresses.
[1] www.atlan.org/ [2] www.meta-religion.com/World_Religions/Zoroastrim/ [3] www.geocities.com/gambanreidi.geo/