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 to Guardian4@atlantic.net. Please put Fanfiction or something similar in the subject line so I know what the email is about.

Standard disclaimers apply. I don't own Sailor Moon, etc.

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 5

Uranus rubbed her temples to relieve some of the pressure as she sat down next to Neptune. They had been searching the forests around Crystal Tokyo for the last week, convinced that was where they would be hiding Zoie. Not one single person in Japan would dare let them in with the child; they loved the Royal Family too much. Perhaps not Trion, but Kynthia was as loved as her grandmother and grandfather had been, and her mother and father after that. Trion was the only ruler of Crystal Tokyo that Uranus remembered that the people didn't like. But they did love Kynthia and if Kynthia loved the man, they would tolerate him.

"Find anything today?" Iolite asked tiredly.

They had split up by twos when searching and always reconvened at sundown, except today. Pluto had gone through one of her portals back to the palace after a communication from Venus, but was due back any time now. Cordylite had searched by himself, but had been carefully ordered to come back if he saw anything. He could not handle twenty guards alone obviously.

"No."

If Uranus had been expecting Saturn to come stumbling back into camp like the other times, she was shocked when it didn't happen. Rhonite entered, carrying his wife who was sleeping with her head pillowed on his shoulder.

"What happened?" demanded Adamite.

Rhonite grimaced, his blue hair falling into his face. "We were searching when we came upon a steep incline. I slipped and fell with my back to a tree. It was actually keeping me from falling down to what were probably sharp rocks at the bottom. Saturn was trying to help me get back up, which I nearly was, when she twisted her leg and broke it. She spent the better part of an hour to heal it. When she was finished, she collapsed."

"Wonderful," muttered Iolite.

"Let her sleep; we're fine for tonight."

They turned to find Pluto standing there. "I just came from the palace, as you know. Venus broke out the headsets to make it easier on us."

"I don't want you doing anymore of those portals, Pluto," Cordylite told her severely. "They take too much out of you now that you don't officially guard the Time Gate anymore."

Indeed, she did look gaunt, Uranus decided silently. "I agree. We don't need you collapsing on us."

"Any news from the palace? Any hint on where to look?" asked Iolite wearily.

"No. Jadeite and Mars, who are in charge of looking for clues and such, haven't found a single thing."

"Anything else of interest?" commented Rhonite as he laid his wife down on his jacket. He really was a pushover for her…

"Jupiter and Nephrite are in charge of training the guards and it isn't going well."

"Why? Isn't their granddaughter captain of the guard?" asked Neptune in a puzzled voice.

"Yes, but they haven't told her who they are. They haven't told any of their grandchildren that work in the palace who they are. Asnee's lessons with Makoto and Matt when she was younger didn't sink in well apparently, since she taught the guards all wrong and Jupiter and Nephrite have to re-teach them. Now she resents Jupiter for telling her that she isn't as good as she wants to be."

"And the others?" prompted Uranus.

"Zoisite and Mercury have their hands filled with trying set up barriers to the computer system and such. The computers have been in such disarray and poorly managed that they have to nearly wipe the entire system to do something.

"Venus and Kunzite are having their hands full doing palace security. From 6:00 in the morning to 7:00 at night, either Jupiter or Nephrite, depending on the rotation, has most of them. It kind of makes it hard to put people on security if they're too busy being trained to do their job right in the first place."

"Sounds like they got the hard end of the job, if you ask me," murmured Iolite with a smile to diffuse the tension.

Small grins flittered around the warriors there.

"Maybe we're looking in the wrong places," suggested Saturn as she woke. "Maybe they're hiding in the city."

"I don't believe for a moment that they're in the city," answered Adamite. "No one in Crystal Tokyo would take them in when they found out they kidnapped the Crown Princess."

"We're not discounting the fact that perhaps they are hiding in a city, but not in Japan," Neptune reproved. "They could be in one of the other countries. It would be easy to hide there, especially with a small baby. The leaders wouldn't necessarily know that it was the Crown Princess and the people there don't love the Royal Family of Crystal Tokyo like its own people do."

"I think that we're entirely on the wrong track with the other countries theory," Pluto said, sitting down. "I have this unexplainable feeling that she's here, in Japan."

"It's logical, yes, that she's here," her husband answered. "They would want her close to the country she's a princess of if they need to use her as a bargaining chip." His red hair had twigs in it and he began to pull them out. He was trying carefully not to pull out his braid, which was started at the nape of his neck and went down to the middle of his back.

Pluto smiled at him and they locked eyes, gray brown to garnet. They seemed to have a timeless moment until they shattered it by looking away. Uranus could understand why; it wasn't right to be feeling good when the Crown Princess was in danger.

"What are we going to do tomorrow? We can't keep searching like this. It'll get us nowhere and get someone hurt eventually," argued Rhonite with an admonishing look at his wife. She just shrugged at him.

"He's right. We're wasting our time doing this. They could have moved their base five different times by now," Uranus said sullenly. She didn't like this, not at all, and she could feel the weight of her oath hanging on her shoulders. They all could. The longer it took to find the princess, the more danger to her and them.

"What about Mars? Can't she do a fire reading or something?" recommended Iolite.

Pluto shook her head. "She's been doing fire readings left and right and hasn't been coming up with a single thing."

"Then what do we do?"

"I say we question Trion," Adamite said at last. "I don't trust that he doesn't know something. And we do it quietly, make sure that no one knows."

"Do you really think that he arranged the kidnapping?" asked Saturn, mildly shocked that he had proposed it.

"I don't know, but I don't trust him."

"I agree," Rhonite and Cordylite said simultaneously.

"All right, we'll do that in the morning. We'll travel back to Crystal Tokyo, sneak in stealthily. If Venus and Kunzite don't have the guards to post, it should be easy, especially if Zoisite and Mercury can't get that dratted computer working before then. At sundown, we'll sneak into his bedroom and have a talk," outlined Uranus.

"What about Kynthia? Won't she be there?" Neptune murmured, worried.

"I don't think so," responded Pluto. "Because she vouched for Usagi and Mamoru to temporarily take the throne, they don't talk much, according to Venus. She even heard them fighting and then a door slam. Apparently that night Kynthia slept in guest room."

"If we're lucky, she'll sleep in a guest room again." Uranus certainly hoped what she said was true. It would be much harder to question Trion if his wife were there.

"What if he tells Usagi and Mamoru the next morning?" prompted Saturn.

"I don't think he will," Rhonite told his wife. "True, anything to slander Usagi he would do it, but I don't think he would tell her about this. He's too proud, for one, and for another if he said that she had ordered the Senshi and Kings to question him, it would make him seem like he had something to hide. The people like Usagi better than him. If he came to complain that he was questioned, it would seem like he did indeed have something to hide. And whether or not the Royals denied that they sent us, it would cast suspicion on him. People would begin to wonder why he was being watched and questioned…if perhaps Usagi and Mamoru suspected him. They would suspect him too and he would lose credibility in their eyes. And he knows he needs any and all credibility to deal with the nobility and foreign dignitaries that come to the palace."

"You have him analyzed pretty good," commented Iolite.

"I've waited for this opportunity for a long time. I've wanted to talk to him ever since he called Mamoru a whipped pretty boy."

"What? When did that happen?" demanded Uranus.

"Only Usagi, Mamoru and the Kings were there when he said it," Adamite explained, his jaw clenching in response to his anger. "It was a long time ago, when he had just taken the throne. Usagi had suggested something about one of his policies and Mamoru had seconded it. Because he did, and because he obviously didn't have a 'leash' on his wife, Trion called Mamoru a whipped pretty boy that had to let his wife do all the talking because he didn't have enough common sense to think for himself. We had to restrain Rhonite, Kunzite, Jadeite, and Iolite from breaking his neck."

"Don't forget about you too," Iolite muttered. "You weren't exactly calm either."

Adamite shrugged, a bit jerkily. "And they had to restrain me as well. There, you happy?"

Iolite smiled.

"And does he have a 'leash' on Kynthia?" growled Uranus, ignoring what was going on between the two Kings.

"I doubt it," was her husband's dry reply. "She's Chibiusa's daughter, and Usagi's granddaughter. She's too proud to let him 'put a leash' on her. I think that's part of his resentment of Usagi and Mamoru."

"Well, now I can see why you all are never in the same room as Trion," commented Neptune. "It's amazing Kunzite and Jadeite are."

"Yeah, but they have Nephrite and Zoisite to restrain them, though I'm sure they would rather like to see him with his neck broken."

She flitted from shadow to shadow in the city, feeling her husband's reassuring presence behind her. Her green eyes glinted like a cat's in the night. The Crystal Palace loomed like a patient parent over them.

Uranus gripped Adamite's hand and he paused. "Yes?"

She turned to him, trying to make out his features in the dark. "Before we go in there, I just want to say that I love you."

"I case we don't make it out?"

"Among other things."

She could practically feel him smile. "And I love you too." His lips descended on hers for only a moment before pulling back.

"Let's go."

"All right, he's in his room and Kynthia is nowhere to be seen."

Uranus tilted her head to the voice in the earpiece, listening intently to Saturn's report. "Proceed?"

"Yes…no, wait, something's happening."

Her head snapped up as Rhonite jumped next to his wife. "What's going on?"

"There's a light, like a teleportation spell in his room…A man has appeared…He's rugged, wearing clothes that are little more than rags. He's got a fairly recent scar over his lips and a tattoo on the back of his hand of a dagger crossed with sun…Trion's annoyed at something…Now he's rubbing his hands almost gleefully…The new man is talking, obviously reporting…He's gesturing to a map on the wall…Trion made a small mark to the east of Crystal Tokyo…They're arguing about something, the man is gesturing to his scar…"

Saturn paused and she could almost hear her leaning forward to see better.

"Trion gave him something, some sort of crystal, I can't see it great from here…The man bowed, Trion obviously ordered him to do something…He's smiling, rather sickly like and Trion's backing away in revulsion…He's said something not to the King's liking…Trion hit him…The man glared at him…He's started his teleportation spell…He's gone…Trion's getting ready for bed…"

Uranus could see the lights go out and a moment later Saturn and Rhonite joined the rest on the ground. They ran back out of the city.

"I'm betting my entire powers that that man was not a palace guard," Saturn told them grimly.

"What kind of man was he?" asked Iolite thoughtfully.

"A crude kind of man, if you ask me," growled Rhonite. "I would be just about anything that he's part of the kidnapping of Zoie."

"Let's not jump to conclusions," Cordylite told his close friend. "Anyway, we have a lead we can check on. Let's head east of Crystal Tokyo, all eight of us. I have a feeling…we'll need all of us for this."

They nodded and tried to get some sleep for the next day, but it was long in coming.

End Part 5.