Disclaimer/Author's Notes: I do not own anything mentioned on page 1. I also don't own Love Hina or the TV series "24". There. Also, I think I may have put myself in a bit of a pickle by including Professor Tomoe in the story. I haven't seen Sailor Moon S or SuperS at all since only the original series and the R series has been shown in England, so forgive me if I get his personality or his story from the series completely wrong. Anyway...

Chapter XIII: Break-in.

Int. Aino Residence - October 22nd 2002, 5:00 pm.

Mina's house was alive with music as the girls danced away at her twenty-first birthday party. Her house had become rather crowded with the masses of guests that she had invited. Amongst those guests included her six friends and some of her fellow team-mates from the Tokyo volleyball team.

"Hey, happy birthday Mina." The girls handed a variety of different shaped items wrapped in brightly-coloured wrapping paper to the cheerful blonde as they joined the volleyball players in the lounge. Lita kept a medium-sized white box tied with pink ribbons to herself, making her way to the kitchen to empty out the contents of the box, a white, orange-tinted birthday cake with "Happy 21st Birthday Mina!" written on the top with orange icing as well as twenty-one small orange candle-holders encircling the message.

"Twenty-one, eh? You're now a proper woman!" Smirked Serena as Mina placed the various parcels to her side.
"Yeah. And now that Amy's in Germany, I'm the eldest of the inners! Bow down to your master!" chuckled Mina as Lita returned from the kitchen.
"Hey, you may be the eldest, but I'm more important." Serena was trying to grab some of the limelight, using her 'Sailor Moon is the Princess of the moon and thus is more important' ploy.
"You can talk. You were nothing without us. Plus now that Rini's gone back to her own time, you're the baby of the inner senshi." chuckled Mina in retalliation.
"You act like it as well." Raye had seemed to have picked up a bit since the previous week, enjoying her favourite hobby, taking swipes at Serena.
"Raye..." Serena was slightly angry at Raye, but the mention of Rini had stopped her from retaliating.

Rini was someone unbelievably close to Serena, probably because of the fact that she was her future daughter in Crystal Tokyo. When Rini had first appeared six years ago, she was obnoxious and ill-mannered as well as being one to always pick an argument with Serena. Serena sometimes wondered if Raye had brought Rini up on her behalf. However, over those next few years a bond had grown between mother and future daughter, resulting in them acting more like sisters than enemies. Rini was someone that Serena cared about non-stop, to her she was almost more important that the Sailor Scouts and Tuxedo Mask. When Serena had been revived after her star seed was returned to Central by the Moonlight Knight and Ganymede, she refused to eat for several days after discovering that Rini would no longer be with her in the twentieth century, instead returning to her home era of Crystal Tokyo. Luna eventually managed to talk her round, but ever since that day Serena would freeze in emotional pain whenever Rini was mentioned, her heart crushed by those happy memories of herself and Rini getting along as good friends.

"Oh, Serena. I'm sorry." Mina had just realised what she had said to upset her friend. "Are you okay? I'll get you a drink."
"No, no. I'm okay. I should just stop looking into the past and look towards the future. I mean, when me and Darien get married and settle down, she'll probably be back, if you know what I mean." A small smile grew on Serena's face as she thought of her long-term boyfriend.
"Speaking of marriage," Lita quickly cut in to try and lighten the mood. "Amy called me the other day. She says that she and Greg are hoping to try and get married on Christmas Day. They've got the plane tickets and are flying here on the 20th December." The girls' faces lit up as the news of their friend's imminant return sunk in.

"Wow! No way! That's just under two months away!" Serena seemed extremely pleased with the news of he genius friend's return.
"The only thing they aren't decided on though is whether to have a proper church wedding or a Shinto wedding. If they decide to have a Shinto wedding, they'd like you to do the honours, Raye." Raye's eyes widened in shock. She was going to lead Amy and Greg's wedding? This seemed like such an honour to her.
"Sure. Tell her I'd love to. Anything for a friend." Raye burst out into a torrent of joyful laughter as the rest smiled at the unusually happy Raye.
"Y'know, I still can't believe that the brainbox is gonna be the first of us to tie the knot." Smirked Amara, her arm around Michelle.
"Hey, but what about you two? You're as good as married. You two've got a fairly strong relationship." Mina seemed as cheerful as ever.
"We would have been married a long time ago if it weren't for that stupid anti-gay marriage law. We're taking part in a demonstration against it in January, there's thousands from all over Japan that're gonna be there. As for a strong relationship, if you mean a balanced diet of love, care and sex, then you could say that." Serena and Hotaru giggled at Amara's comments as her girlfriend Michelle blushed.

"Anyway," Lita quickly diverted the subject yet again. "aren't you going to see what you've got from us?"
"Oh yeah. Sorry." Mina blushed as she quickly picked up a small case wrapped in yellow, red polka-dot patterned paper before reading the tag.
"To Mina from Serena. Happy Birthday! ^_^" Mina quickly ripped off the paper before she opened the case to find a beautiful golden necklace with an amber crescent pendant attached to it.
"Wow... Serena, it's beautiful!" Mina shook her head in shock, a large gaping smile on her face.
"I saw it on sale at the jewlery store Molly's mom owns and I instantly thought of you. I knew your twenty-first birthday was coming up, so I decided to splash out." Serena picked up a smaller box wrapped in silver paper and handed it to Mina. "Darien's working today, so he told me to give this to you on his behalf. He said that he'll come straight here from work." Mina quickly tore off the paper to see a box that was identical to the one Serena had just given her, bar the size. Inside was a pair of earrings, each with a smaller amber crescent attached.

"Serena, I can't thank you and Darien enough. This is the best birthday present I've ever got from you!" Mina lept up and hugged Serena as Raye shifted to the side.
"Hey, don't mention it. Just don't forget my twenty-first next June." Mina let go of Serena and sat back down on her chair as she picked up the smaller of the two red gifts.
"Happy 21st Birthday Mina! Love Raye."
"I got you that one. I only really got that by chance, but I'll think you'll enjoy it." Mina quickly unwrapped the small object, which turned out to be a Sailor V Manga.
"Hey, thanks Raye. I was planning to get that myself within the next couple of weeks." Raye simply smirked.
"Open it up and look inside the front cover." Mina slowly lifted the polythene cover and took out the book before opening it to the inside front cover.
"My goodness... That's..."
"Naoko Takeuchi's autograph? Sure is. She was signing copies in Hirose Comics at the fountain mall. I was going to get myself the latest Love Hina manga as well as the new Sailor V manga, but since your twenty-first birthday was coming up and..." Raye had to be careful not to disclose Mina's true identity while there were ordinary people in the room. "and since you know Sailor V so well, I decided to buy you a copy as well."
"Wow! Thanks Raye! I can't believe you got that for me!"
"You've still got one more thing from me." Mina turned her attention to the larger red gift, carefully tearing off the crimson paper to reveal a DVD box set of the show "24".

"Oh, wow! I absolutely loved that series! Thank you!"
"To tell you the truth I wasn't sure about what to get you. I remembered you talking about 24 so much during the summer, so I thought I'd get you the whole series." Mina stood up to hug Raye, but she was interupted by the blissful chime of the doorbell.
"Oh, I'll just answer that. Thanks a lot for the DVDs." Mina swiftly departed from the lounge to answer the door.
"Wonder who that is?" Michelle couldn't see the front door from where she was sitting.
"Can't be Darien. He usually works until five." Almost as swiftly as she had left the room, Mina returned with a typical Mina Aino smile on her face. At her side, carrying a medium-sized box wrapped in royal blue paper, was Mark.
"What the hell? What's he doing here?" Raye suddenly turned vicious at the sight of her senshi boyfriend.
"Raye! Just keep your nerve. Anyway, really he hasn't done anything wrong." Serena was trying to stop Raye from lashing out while the other women seemed bemused by Raye's actions.
"Oh yeah, he's done nothing wrong. Nothing except bring down the Silver Millenium!" The women looked even more confused as Mark and Mina made their way over towards them

"Hello ladies. Serena, Raye, Amara -"
"You have some nerve showing up here. " Mark kept a collected look on his face as Mina looked at Raye with disapproval.
"I invited him, Raye." Mark stepped forward toward the raven-haired priestess.
"It would have been inpolite to turn her down. Since you're here, I think this would be an ideal opportunity to tell you something. May I talk to you in private?" Raye began to feel the rage build up in her, angry that he had accused her of being a part of the Silver Millenium disaster.
"No. If you've got something to say, you can say it in front of my friends." Raye folded her arms as Mark got down on one knee.

"I'd like to ask for forgiveness. The story I told you that night was all one-hundred percent true, down to the letter. However, I was out of order for placing any of the blame on you. The blame for the downfall of the Silver Millenium rests squarely on my sholders and my sholders only. I-" Lita quickly cut in.
"Did... did you just say you're responsible for the end of the Silver Millenium?" Mark loked towards the floor in great pain as he searched for his answer.
"Indeed. My lack of commitment to my duties allowed Queen Metallia to attack the Moon Palace on that fateful night." The women looked around at each other in amazement, suprised as to why such a decent gentleman would admit to being respnsible for the Silver Millenium disaster.
"You're pulling my leg, right? There's no way a wimp like you could cause something that big. Tell us more." Mark was visibly beginning to shake in sadness, anger and regret as Lita dug in.
"You don't want to hear the full story, especially not at an event as joyous as a birthday party." Raye, taking pity on Mark, knelt down at his side and put her arm around him. She knew that the subject of the Silver Millenium was causing him great distress, so she knew she just had to protect him.
"Come on. I want to hear it." Raye looked back at Lita scornfully.
"Lita, believe him on this one. I've heard the story and I agree with him." Raye helped Mark to his feet. "Let's go to the kitchen. I'll talk there."
"Heh. I always knew there was something not right about that guy."

Shaken, but no longer too upset, Mark followed Raye to the kitchen before pulling a chair out for himself and Raye and slowly sitting down. This was the first time that Raye had seen Mark upset, so she reached across towards his hand to try and comfort him.
"That was a terrible thing for me to do... I promiced myself never to pass my suffering onto anyone else, and now that I've broken my promice you're suffering."
"Look, it was a bit of a shock and I've been feeling a bit down all week, but I'm not too bad with it." Mark began to shake again in sadness.
"That's because you're not the one responsible for it. You influenced the decision, but in the end you're not the one responsible. It's completely my fault." Mark paused as his breath began to deepen. "When I first discovered that I was responsible, like you I was in denial for several weeks. During that time not once did I get a good night's sleep. Every night the vision of the end of the Silver Millenium flooded to my head, the excruciating final moments of the Knights, Sailor Neptune and Sailor Uranus in that command centre. Searching for you when Queen Metallia cast her shadow over the Moon Palace. Watching you die at the hands of Metallia before I charged in head-first to my own death. Every night was the same vision, a reminder of my sins from my past life." Raye wiped away a single tear which had begun to roll down Mark's right cheek.

"Mark... I don't know what to say..." Raye edged closer towards the upset yet strong senshi.
"Please. I'm not looking for sympathy." Raye paused with anxiety for a few moments, her hand comforting his back.
"I know this probably isn't the best time, but what about your future? What happens to you on Crystal Earth?" A feint smile emerged on his solemn face at the mention of the future.
"That, I don't know." Raye leaned even further towards him in confusion.
"What did you say?"
"I don't know my destiny. About a couple of years ago the Knights took a trip to Crysal London to defeat an evil attacking the future. The only problem was that my future self was not living in Crystal London. I was nowhere to be seen, so I don't know anything about my future self. My mission here is to find out my destiny, that's why I flew out here to study at south Tokyo University. I'm looking to see if my future lies with the Sailor Scouts, and with you." Raye leant forward once more and hugged Mark as tightly as she could. She couldn't explain it, ten minutes ago she hated him, but no she was embracing him. Love could definately be strange sometimes.

"Mark... I hope it is..."
"I am hoping that is the case as well. There's also one other thing I'm here to do. I want my revenge on Metallia." Raye let go of Mark before looking at him in total confusion.
"But we killed Metallia six years ago! How can you take revenge on her when she's dead?" Mark took out his DataPad from his pocket and booted it up.
"That's no longer the case. According to my sources she's been successfully revived. And she's not the only one either."
"And what sources might these be?" Mark tapped the screen of his DataPad a few times.
"My hacking skills. I found a way of accessing the Negaverse database without being detected a long time ago." He swiftly handed his DataPad to Raye, who began to browse through the information on screen. "This is the latest log entered by Malachite. I do believe that date is just over two weeks ago, the night of October 5th."
"Oh good lord no... We've got all four of them to deal with?!?"
"I'm afraid so. Queen Beryl, Queen Metallia and Wiseman as well as some of their generals have been revived while Professor Tomoe was captured on a case study in Toronto and brainwashed back to the dark side." Raye slowly stood up and walked back towards the doorway of the lounge, the DataPad still in her hand, taking a long look at the dark-haired senshi of death. Mark slowly followed her, wondering what she was thinking.

"What's wrong?" Raye didn't turn around, still focussing on the young Hotaru.
"You see that girl over there? The one dressed in the black shirt and trousers?" Mark peered forward as Mina looked back affectionately in his direction.
"The one next to Amara? I recognise her. She's the Saturn senshi of Japan." Raye passed the DataPad back to Mark over her sholder.
"Yes. She's Hotaru Tomoe, the daughter of Professor Tomoe."
"You mean the daughter of a Negaverse leader's a Sailor Scout?"
"Yeah. Strange as it seems, that's the truth. We managed to turn Professor Tomoe good again after a long war against him, but I doubted whether he could withstand the dark forces if they captured him again. Looks like I was right."
"I haven't been able to find any plans, but I'm only presuming they want to kill us all as an act of revenge."
"I don't want to tell you my opinions just now, not at a birthday party anyway." Raye slowly turned around as Mark shut down his DataPad, kissing him on the cheek as she wrapped her arms around his waist. She knew that this was extremely bad news for the Scouts, but she knew that she couldn't start feeling depressed at a birthday party, especially with Mark by her side. "Don't want to spoil the mood now, do I? Let's just party."

Int. Apartment 211, Hiwaka view apartments - October 23rd 2002, 10:10 pm.

It was late on a wednesday night. Everyone in the apartment had decided to go to bed fairly early. All except for Mark, who was on his computer. Only the light of the laptop's screen illuminated his room.
"Okay, time to see what's happening at Negaverse city tonight." Rock music blasting in his headphones, Mark opened up an automated hacking program he had designed himself specifically to hack into the Negaverse computer network. Plugging a small satellite receiver into the back of his laptop, he placed it onto the window and pointed it towards the stars. "Time to play ball!"

The screen of his monitor went blank for a few moments as small green dots came on screen. As the satellite made contact with the Negaverse base hidden somewhere in space the screen lit up with fast-moving lines of code as the program performed its magic.
"Okay, show me what you got!" A folder-view window poped up onto the screen as Mark searched around for new files that had been updated that day. He noticed that a new folder had been created that day entitled "Tokyo Attack Plan."
"Ah, nice one. This looks like a winner!" Mark browsed through the folder to find a variety of image files and documents, all with titles referring to some sort of attack. "Time to download..." The senshi quickly selected the files and clicked a button at the top of the window.

Int. the Imperial Library, Negaverse command centre - October 23rd 2002, 10:10 pm.

Malachite had returned to the library to continue his research on the outer senshi that had appeared during that cinema attack. He had just returned from his meal and was feeling particulary tired, but still he knew his work had to be continued. He booted up one of the computers at the large mahogany desk in the corner and logged in.
"When's that Diamond going to arrive? I'm ten minutes late myself..." Malachite stretched as his computer loaded up his files. "Right, now to connect to Earth's internet..." Everything was going smoothly, the program loaded up as normal. However, Malachite stared at the screen in total confusion as an error message appeared.

Could not connect. Port Comm1 is currently being used by another application. Please click "more" for full report or try again later.
"Strange... First time I've know that to happen. I always thought that dish was put aside for the computers..." Curious as to what was going on, Malachite clicked the "more" button.
Port Comm1 is currently in use. Time of activation: 22:11 on 23/10/2002. Current status: moving 39 file(s) from N:\war on senshi\Tokyo Attack Plan\ to unknown location. Task 99% complete.
"Oh god... we're being hacked!" Malachite quickly opened the control panel window and shut down the satellite dish, flushing out the intruder.

Int. Apartment 211, Hiwaka view apartments - October 23rd 2002, 10:13 pm.

"Okay, download complete. Let's see what we got here." Mark connected his DataPad to the laptop, ready to transfer the data to the small device. "Eh? What the hell?" Mark looked up to see that the connection had been terminated at the Negaverse end. "Aww crap. I've been flushed! I'll be seriously annoyed if this stuff isn't any use." Pressing the button to begin the transfer, he swiftly made his way to the kitchen to grab a drink, returning to find the data fully transferred.

"Okay. Let's see this." He browsed through the many images and documents, a can of cola in his other hand. "Battle plans for Tokyo invasion and distruction of Sailor Scouts... Let's try basic plan..." Mark opened the document, quickly flicking through the paragraphas for something of great meaning.
At the present moment in time it is too early to give a specific date at which the attacks will commence, but we expect to commence the first stage between October 2002 and March 2003. This will depend on many circumstances.
"My God... It's already started!" Mark quickly browsed through the filenames of the files, looking for clues as to what was going to happen.

October 17th 2002:
Plan A is to send Malachite and Diamond out to place five portal beacons at strategically placed locations around Tokyo within the five days, giving us many options as to where to start. The energy of the residents of these points will power these beacons. The places where the beacons will be placed are:

*** Fountain Mall.
*** Television Tower.
*** Central Park.

Mark shoved his DataPad into his pocket and grabbed his coat and keys as he read the final two locations, rushing out of the door and out of the apartment block.

*** South Tokyo University campus
*** Cherry Hill Hiwaka Shrine.

"Oh my god! I've gotta warn Raye!"

Ext. Hiwaka shrine - October 23rd 2002, 10:15 pm.

"Come on Raye! Get up!" Mark was desperately banging on Raye's front door, hoping for a quick answer. This wasn't the ideal time of night for anyone, but he knew that her life was potentially at risk. There were no lights on bar the feint glow of the great fire in the main prayer room. After a while of no replies, he grabbed his DataPad from his pocket and called her communicator.
"Raye! Wake up! It's an emergency!" He could feintly hear the alarm of her communicator, but there was still nothing. "Goddammit! Your life's on the line! Wake up!"
"Mark! It's quarter past ten! What did you get me up for?"
"I'm at the front door. Let me in. It's an emergency."
"If this isn't good I'm gonna fall out with you big time." Raye hung up as she slowly made her way to the door. Mark waited in extreme anxiety as she unbolted the door. "What is it?"
"You're in serious danger. I'll tell you why inside." Mark glanced down at the short red night dress she was wearing before looking back up at her face in slight embarassment.
"Don't you dare get any ideas, Mark." The noble Englishman stayed concentrated on the back of her head, forcing himself to avoid lowering his line of sight.

"I've found some new information." Raye leant back against the wall as Mark stood in the doorway of the lounge.
"What is it?" Mark flipped out his DataPad quickly and recalled the information he had just read.
"You're in danger. I just hacked into their mainframe and found some quite disturbing information. The Negaverse have placed five portal beacons at different places in Tokyo. Any one of those can act as a way into Tokyo for Beryl, Wiseman and Tomoe."
"So how does this involve waking me up at this time of night?" Raye folded her arms in protest, severely annoyed by her lack of sleep.
"This place is hiding one of those beacons. It was planted here within the past week. I need to scan and find it. Here's the proof." Mark handed the DataPad to Raye, who carefully read the paragraph on the screen.
"Mark, where exactly did you get this from?"
"I told you, I hacked into the Negaverse mainframe. I stole their entire set of plans." A devilish smile appeared on Raye's face as she slowly shook her head at Mark.
"So you're mr. hacker man, eh? Is this the whole lot? Is there any more of this stuff?" Mark sighed as he pulled his necklace out from under his shirt.

"I don't know and I don't think I'll ever find out either."
"What do you mean?" Raye was becoming more anxious by the second.
"I was flushed from the system just now, seconds after I downloaded the files. I think if they had any common sense they have changed the security setings, so I don't think I'll be able to get back in for a long time."
"Go ahead and scan the place. I'll go make some tea and see if the fire knows anything." Raye left the room, handing the DataPad back to Mark on the way out.

"Time for action... MARS KNIGHT SOLESTIAL TRANSFORMATION!!!"

Int. Monitoring Station II, Negaverse command centre - October 23rd 2002, 10:20 pm.

"Hey Joe, could you come look at this?" The room was completely black, only the light of the many monitors illuminating the monitoring room.
"What's up?" The tall, skinny man in the blue uniform walked over to the smaller, fatter man at the computer.
"I'm getting a big energy reading from the Hiwaka beacon."
"What's the signiature?" The fat man tapped away at the keyboard.
"One moment..." A large tabled appeared on another monitor to the side. "Two-two-five, fifty-seven, four, one-one-nine. It's from the Moon Kingdom."
"What're you waiting for? We gotta tell Malachite!" The two men rushed out of the small room as fast as they could, heading down the hall towards the library.

In the library Malachite was trying to reconfigure the security of the mainframe to prevent other attackers from hacking in. The plans had been stolen, but there was a slightly older backup of the files on another drive.
"Malachite. We have a very important development."
"What is it?"
"We've just recorded a huge burst of energy at the Hiwaka Shrine beacon. It's got a Moon Kingdom signiature." Malachte's eyes widened in suprise. He had never expected to find a Moon Kingdom fighter so close to one of their beacons so quickly.
"Thank you. I'll inform her majesty. Prepare the beacon transporters. Our plans were hacked into ten minutes ago, so I'm presuming they've found out about the beacons. We'll have to stop them before they succeed." Malachite raced out of the room, leaving the pile of papers on his desk scattered on the floor.

Int. Hiwaka shrine - October 23rd 2002, 10:30 pm.

"You any closer to finding it?" Raye had been desperately praying to the great fire, but there was hardly any clues as to the exact whereabouts of the beacon or its shape. It had eratically flickered throughout the room, but Raye couldn't seem to make any sense of it.
"No. This thing's smart. The readings I'm getting keep changing, so I can't narrow down the area." The Mars Knight slowly walked out of the lounge, heading towards the kitchen. "I don't think it's in the lounge. I'm gonna try the kitchen."
"Okay."

After a few moments of scanning about and becomming more confused, the Mars Knight jolted as numbers violently flashed past in his sunglasses. It seemed to be a large wave of energy coming from the prayer room.
"Raye! Get out of there! Something's happening!"
"Oka- Aaaaeeeeeeeee!!!"
"RAYE!!!" The Mars Knight raced down the hallway, pushing himself to the prayer room as fast as his legs would take him.

"The Mars Knight. It is a pleasure to see you arrive so quickly."

End of Chapter 13