Author's Note:

This story, while called 'Return of the Valkyries' is NOT related to 'Walk of Valkyries'. That's more of a short story that ended where it began: one part. My email address has changed FROM GalaxyJM@aol.com to Guardian4@atlantic.net. If you send an email to me to GalaxyJM@aol.com, I won't answer it. Please put Fanfiction or something similar in the subject line so I know what the email is about.

This story came about because I began to wonder what the Senshi would be like once Serenity I (Usagi) got off the throne. So…here ya go. Look for a sequel when this is done.

Standard disclaimers apply. I don't own Sailor Moon, etc. Also, there are no Neo-Senshi or anything. That will all be explained later in the story. There are no other Senshi other than the ones we know in this story.

Neo Queen Serenity I – Usagi

Neo Queen Serenity II – Chibiusa

Neo Queen Serenity III – Kynthia (Usagi's granddaughter)

King Endymion – Usagi's husband

King Helios – Chibiusa's husband

King Trion – Kynthia's husband

Crown Princess of Crystal Tokyo – Zoie (one-year-old)

Minako's husband – Kyle (Kunzite)

Makoto's husband – Matt (Nephrite)

Ami's husband – Zale (Zoisite)

Rei's husband – Jared (Jadeite)

Haruka's husband – Aren (Adamite)

Setsuna's husband – Cirocco (Cordylite)

Michiru's husband – Ian (Iolite)

Hotaru's husband – Raine (Rhonite)

For convenience, I named all the new Kings with the same first letter of their name. The Shitennou names I think are pretty able to figure out.

Return of the Valkyries

Chapter 2

Revelry sounded loud from the house, but any neighbors nearby weren't disturbed. Rather, they simply smiled and went about their business. They were a group and only when the other half came back was there that amount of noise. It amused the other older folks and the younger ones that came to visit simply shook their heads in wonderment and long-suffering patience.

Minako and the others all had houses for themselves to live in, but they were strategically placed for easy access to Usagi's. Never once had they been unable to make it to the other woman's home if needed in more time than a minute.

Not that there had been any call for that kind of timely arrival, true, but it never hurt to be prepared, did it?

Right then, they weren't preparing anything. They had quit preparing for any fighting a long time ago, when they put their henshin wands in that box that could only be opened by Usagi or Mamoru. Not even Chibiusa could open that box.

As a safe guard, in case the two previous monarchs couldn't or were unable to open it, Luna or Artemis could, but only under dire circumstances much worse than what would force the Senshi to arise again period.

Minako danced with all the enthusiasm of a sixteen year old at a party. She never tired of being in the retired Senshi's company. They were her family, they were part of her life, and if even one was missing, a part of her was missing. She always felt more complete with the Outers back, but they hardly ever stayed longer than a week or two. Their love of travel often kept them away, but when they came back, they kept the Inners and such in stitches with their stories, especially about Haruka and misunderstandings, as was wont to happen.

"Is this all you guys do when we're not here?" questioned Haruka, amused at seeing the Inners and their husbands dancing around gaily.

"Pretty much," answered Usagi with a smile as she sat at the table next to her.

The song ended and another started, but no one danced as they listened and grew sad. It was music that had been first heard when Chibiusa and the other children of the Senshi were 3 to 5 years old.

That year, Usagi as Neo Queen Serenity had begged for a vacation for all of them, at one time. She had finally gotten it, though it had taken months of persuading the right people to do it. All the children had come along, as well as the Outers and all the husbands. The eighteen of them had enjoyed themselves immensely as they had traveled to the Hawaiian Islands.

They had been on the beach when the 'natives' had begun to sing the upbeat song. Usagi had grabbed her Inner Senshi and danced, but soon the Outer women had been dragged in. With children running under foot, the nine women danced in their bathing suits, most of them bikinis, to music that was uplifting, amid the watching, laughing, and 'encouragement' from their husbands.

 They certainly hadn't known a reporter followed and took pictures of the women dancing. It had been pasted on every front page paper for months. It hadn't helped the Senshi husbands' tempers to see other men drooling over their irresistibly beautiful and sexy wives.

But the girls got their green of jealousy and bad tempers when they found images of their men wearing only their trunks on the beach and laughing during the other various pages inside. She couldn't tell how many times Usagi had had to…'restrain' one of her Senshi, more specifically mostly Haruka and Rei, from flaying alive some poor woman as she said something about one of the men, more specifically their husbands.

Suddenly Usagi laughed and the tension and sadness was broken as smiles stretched faces.

"I see the whole troupe is here," said a voice Minako knew well. She turned around to see Kynthia standing in the doorway hesitantly.

Chibiusa waved her in. "Kynthia, what are you doing here?"

"Well I heard that the other half of you was coming back today and I thought I'd see what they brought you this time."

Minako looked at the others, smile gone. "They brought us a few paintings," answered Usagi truthfully.

"Really? Some of Michiru-sama's?"

"No, these weren't done by her."

"Can I see them?"

They looked at Chibiusa and she stood up, wrapping an arm around her daughter's shoulders. "Oh, honey, they won't mean much of anything to you."

"I guess so, then," she answered disappointed.

"Oh come on, let her see them," exclaimed Makoto. "It isn't like it's a secret about the place. She knows that much at least."

"All right, follow me then," Chibiusa said and led her daughter to a corridor the woman had never been in before, since it was considered the 'Senshi Corridor', where most of all artifacts of them, pictures mostly, were hidden. But the pictures of Tokyo were just at the front and the corridor was dark. She'd never see any paintings of the Senshi or pictures of them.

"They're pretty. Where is that?"

Chibiusa led Kynthia back to the large living room. "That is a place we knew long ago," Usagi replied.

"How is your daughter, Kynthia?" asked Hotaru as she gave her some tea.

Kynthia's natural silver hair, much darker than Kyle's used to be, shown brighter in the light. "She's fine, but pretty rambunctious though."

"I think that's a trait of all of the children of the Serenity line," commented Aren.

They laughed, but Minako knew that Kynthia, though she laughed lightly with them, felt left out. And though the others and her tried to make her feel welcome, she felt as an outsider would. It was because of all they had gone through together that made that kind of deep relationship, even Chibiusa. If she had known they were the Senshi, knew the history of the people in front of her, then maybe, just maybe, she wouldn't feel so alone, so left out, when she was with them.

Kynthia sighed and it drew the attention of the people there. "What's wrong?" asked her mother.

"Well, I'm extremely worried lately. There was an assassination attempt—"

"On you?" exclaimed Usagi in horror.

"Yes. But what disturbs me more is that during this, they tried to kidnap Zoie."

"They tried to kidnap the Crown Princess of Crystal Tokyo?" demanded Makoto, her gray hair flying around wildly, as it always reacted to her moods. Matt had once called it mood hair, right before she nearly zapped him with her Sparkling Wide Pressure. Needless to say, he had slept on the couch for the next week.

"Uh huh. If it hadn't been for your granddaughter, Makoto-sama, I would have died." Makoto's face turned stone. "Oh, she's all right, perfectly fine."

"What about the child?" questioned Haruka urgently, who was the most attached to children of all of them, though Makoto came in a close second followed by Setsuna.

"Michiru-sama's granddaughter held off the kidnappers until help could arrive to prevent the attempt. She is safe. For now."

Kynthia was holding back tears by the barest margin and she was immediately enveloped in Usagi and Chibiusa's arms.

"Wait until I get a hold of those would-be kidnappers," Haruka growled menacingly as Makoto cracked her knuckles in anger.

Kynthia gave them a startled look, her thoughts of how useless they would be in a fight flashing on her face. It was then they remembered she knew nothing of their prowess in battle, their history as Senshi, or their constant, rather mild now, activities to keep in shape.

"But we don't need to worry. She's fine, isn't she?" Chibiusa asked a moment later when the silence went on too long.

"I hope so."

It was almost half an hour later that Kynthia excused herself and left back for Crystal Tokyo. Usagi looked at her Senshi. "Never once in the history of Crystal Tokyo have there ever been any assassination attempts on any ruling party until now."

"Could that be because there were Senshi?" murmured Cirocco.

Minako shook her head. "I doubt it. All of the ruling parties have been loved by the people, including Kynthia. It's only her husband no one particularly likes."

"Then why wasn't he targeted?" demanded Makoto.

The former leader shook her head. "I don't know. Chibiusa, we need you to be in the palace as much as possible, to let us know what's going on. I think Trion might know something about this; not that he arranged it, but I wouldn't put it past him to hear about an assassination attempt and to ignore such a thing as a farce because he's so full of himself. If that is the case, then we need to bring him down a peg to twenty."

"It seems you can take the leading away from the leader, but not the leader from the person," she commented with a lopsided grin.

"Huh?"

Ian laughed. "She means that you can not be a Senshi for nearly three millenniums even, and when given the opportunity like this you'll still act like a leader after all this time."

Minako colored a bit. "Well, it's because I did it for so long," she tried to use as an excuse.

"I sincerely hope this doesn't turn into anything," commented Usagi.

"I promise to do a fire-reading tonight," Rei told her.

Already Minako knew they were falling into the role of a Senshi, and so easily at that. What Chibiusa had said rang true: you could take the role away from the Senshi, but you couldn't take the Senshi away from the person. They had been given the slightest situation that could entail disaster and the Senshi part of them, which had been latent for two generations worth of ruling parties for Crystal Tokyo, had arisen with a vengeance. Minako hadn't realized how resentful Venus had been when she had put her henshin wand, and that part of her life, into that box, hoping never to see it open again.

And as sure as she knew it, so did Usagi. But she was worried enough about her great granddaughter to not tell Rei to not do a fire reading. With that sour note still in the air, the former Senshi, along with their husbands, left for their homes.

End Chapter 2