Author's Notes/Disclaimer: Naoko Takeuchi owns the Sailor Scouts. I own the Knights and nothing else. There.

Review Replies:

Rei: Glad you like this story! Thanks for the support.

Princess Ren: My most loyal reviewer returns! ^,^ I'm glad you're still enjoying the story. How Tomoe brainwashed Raye probably won't be officially mentioned in the story, but he used the usual Dark Kingdom tactics of bombarding her with hateful propaganda after using a device to "lock away" her happy memories of her friends in the back of her head. Hope that's cleared everything.

Oh, and Sailor Mars is about to get a whole lot nastier in the coming chapters. Watch this space! =))

Fanfiction Fanatic: Hey, glad you like the story so much! Just don't die! I don't want to be arrested for murder by fanfiction! :(

Lord Vulcan: This bit of the story doesn't focus on Chad, but he does return in this chapter. I've also got a big surprise in store for Chad in the near future. Watch this space.

JadesRose: Glad you like the action! Raye has been completely brainwashed by the Dark Kingdom, so she feels no emotions and has no mercy for anyone, not even for a friend she's known for nearly seven years, let alone her boyfriend. Don't worry, Chad will be happy in the end, but the reason why you'll have to wait for.

Chapter XVI: Times Like These.

Ext. Arts Department Buliding, South Tokyo University - 24th October 2002, 8:15 am.

"You're late." Lita, wearing Jeans and a somewhat tight pea-green top, leant against the wall of the multi-storey building as Mark came into view.
"Hey, I'm a good half hour earlier than usual. I don't see any reason to complain."
"You're here. That's a good enough reason to complain."
"Ah, just can it for once. We've got a mission to complete. We're here early so we can plan." Smirking at Mark with victory, Lita folded her arms and looked to the sky.

"So what d'ya know?" Lita looked down at her watch, seemingly uninterested by Mark.
"She'll get here at quarter to nine with Chad, Sarah and Jack. I'll follow her around and keep you informed of where we are. If she does act suspiciously, I'll call you. How far's your lecture theatre from here?"
"Not too far. It's the buliding with the clock tower."
"Good. We can both follow her and if no-one's around we can transform and take the beacon by force." Lita burst out into laughter at Mark's idea.
"Heh. What a half baked plan that is! You know Sailor Mars has turned psycho! She's already whooped your ass once before, and she'll do it again. Leave this to the professional." Mark simply smirked at Lita's big-headded comments.

"You can't be talking about yourself then. Anyway, what makes you so certain she won't kick your arse too?" Looking at Mark at slight anger, Lita clenched her fists.
"Because I'm nowhere near as much of a loser as you. You're a computer geek who fights like a panzy and likes to bring his own kingdom down." Hearing Lita mention the Silver Millenium in that light sent a surge of rage up his spine, but he had to keep control.
"Hey, just because I'm doing a course in computing doesn't mean I don't have a life. Anyway, we're supposed to be discussing what to do, not tearing each other apart." There was an anxious silence for a few moments as the pair sternly stared at each other. It was Lita that spoke first afterwards.

"There's one thing I don't get about you. Your girlfriend's been taken by the Dark Kingdom, brainwashed and sent to attack you, and you know that we'll have to fight and probably injure her to get her back onto our side, yet you don't seem upset at all." Mark took a deep, lonesome breath before continuing.
"I've already had too much sorrow in this lifetime, knowing about the truth behind the Silver Millenium, losing Terri before I got the chance to tell her I loved her, leaving my friends in England behind to come here and not knowing my destiny. I've learnt how to cope with it and not let it show since it's best not to get too upset in times like theses when there's a chance to change the situation. Anyway, as far as I'm concearned we're not fighting Raye. She's got Raye's body, but she hasn't got Raye's sweet personality." Lita just shook her head in pity.
"Geeze, you're starting to speak like Hotaru, gloom and doom etc. I'm guessing that's why you're an emotionless bastard then?"
"Yeah. On the outside I show nothing, but on the inside I'm very pained. It's very hard, but the thought of my destiny and Raye is what keeps me going." Lita was astounded by how he could just conceal his emotions like that, but she still could not let herself show any sympathy for him.

"Can't say I feel sorry for you. I've been through a lot in my life as well, and I'm not gonna tell you what." Mark began to smile as he began to realise he was managing to get through to Lita's personality. He decided to try a bit of reverse psychology on her to learn a bit more about her.
"Come on. It can't be any worse than my life. I mean, I'm stuck with the weight of the Silver Millenium on my shoulders." Lita began to tremble as Mark continued to question her.
"No, to me it is worse."
"Try me." It was apparant that it was working. Lita looked towards the floor in sadness before taking a deep breath.
"This is a personal weight on my shoulders, nothing to do with the Moon Kingdom, in fact, nothing even close to the scale of that. Tell me, are both of your parents still alive today?"
"Yeah." Lita looked back at Mark, her eyes beginning to water.
"Mine aren't. They were killed in a plane crash eight years ago when I was only twelve. After that I lived with my grandma for a year until she died in her sleep. I've been living on my own ever since. I'm hoping to invite my boyfriend to move in with me soon but I just haven't been able to decide whether I should or not." After realising what she had just said, Lita exploded in a fit of rage and grabbed Mark by the collar.

"You little shit! I can't believe you! You tricked me into telling you my past! I could kill you!" Mark seemed slightly surprised, but he simply smiled.
"Hey, just checking you were human. Anyway, I don't know how to get along with you if I know nothing about you." Lita was becomming more enraged by the second at Mark's tactics.
"What make you think I'll ever get along with you?!"
"Oh, nothing. I just like to think optimistically. I like to think that everyone can get along well with each other if they try."

Lita was struck by his philosophy. She knew he was right; Back in the days when they were last fighting evil, she had sometimes whether Serena and Raye would ever get along. That question had been answered in the weeks after Raye's suicide attempt when Serena did all she could to help her best friend on the road to recovery. Mark had an extremely good point, but she could not let it get to her. She still seriously distrusted him, and that view would remain strong for now.

Moon Kingdom Central Tokyo Branch - 24th October 2002, 8:25 am.

That morning Serena and Darien had successfully take the portal beacon from the mall, but arrived back at Central that morning to discover that Raye had beaten the outers to the beacon at the top of Television tower. A boquet of flowers in hand, the pair had made their way to the medical room to see how their friend Mina was fairing.
"Welcome back you two. You've done a good job getting that beacon back." The black cat rushed up to the pair as they slowly walked down the long corridoor.
"Thanks Luna. How's Mina?"
"She's become stable within the past half hour, but she did have quite a nasty blow to the head. We're not expecting her to be back in action until about mid-November, and we don't know if she'll end up with any brain damage. According to our analysis, she's very lucky to be alive. We don't know what exactly she was struck with, but we're presuming it was cylidrical since there are no cuts or gashes on her head." Serena seemed extremely shocked by the seriousness of her injuries.

"My god... I never thought they'd be that serious."
"You can go see her if you want. She's in bay three. Just don't expect any replies, we don't think she'll come back around for another eighteen hours at the earliest." Serena and Darien livened their pace as they made their way towards the third recovery room.
"How are the outers? I heard Hotaru and Michelle were hit pretty hard by Mars."
"They're okay Darien, but Michelle was extremely close to falling from the tower. She was pushed over the edge by Mars and only just managed to hold onto the platform. Had she not got a grip, she'd be dead right now."

"She definately means business then. That's two senshi she's nearly killed in less than an hour and a half. There's no way we can get her back without a fight. We can only hope that we don't end up killing her." Serena looked back at her boyfriend in great worry at the mention of both Raye and death in the same sentance.
"No Darien! Don't talk like that! We can get her back without harming her!" Starting to panic, Serena looked down at Luna. "What's the latest on the Mark and Raye theory? Are they tied by the red string of fate or something like that?"
"I'm afraid red strings of fate is something we don't deal with. It can be extremely hard to track down so many destinies, so we don't bother. Sailor Pluto's compiling a report of destinies at the moment, and it should be ready by tomorrow lunchtime. Apart from that, we have nothing."
"Are you serious? There's absolutely nothing on them at all?"
"Nothing at all apart from the Silver Millenium story. The reason we're suspecting Mark ahead of anyone else is that on the eve of the Silver Millenium Princess Raye invited Prince Mark to the Silver Millenium ball." Serena quickly interupted the black cat.

"Yeah. I've told Darien about this. Mark leaves his post to join Raye at the ball, the pair get along very well leaving us all to wonder if they had a secret relationship. If that's anything to go by, that's pretty firm evidence in favour of our theory."
"My thoughts exactly. It seems a pretty strong argument, but we can't be certain about anything. Here we are..." The trio reached the fairly large medical room before Serena dashed to her friend's side.

"Mina... Oh lord..." The blonde senshi of love seemed very peaceful in her sleep, the crown of her head tightly wrapped in bandages. At her bedside a monitor bleeped in time with her heartbeats. Small tears began to form in Serena's eyes as she reached for her friend's hand.
"She seems so peaceful..." Darien approached the bed, putting a comforting arm around his girlfriend's shoulders.
"Artemis has temporarily transformed into a human to set up the equipment, and all the information of Mina's health is being fed into the main computer. He's keeping a close eye on a lot of things here while I'm out and about keeping tabs on what's going on." Darien stepped back from the bed and looked down at Luna with anxiety.
"He must be under a lot of stress then. Should I go to the control room and help him out?"
"Please. I don't know how he'll react, but it would help a lot. This crisis has taken its toll on him."
"Thank you Luna." Darien swiftly left the room to find Artemis as Serena sat down.

"I just can't believe this is happening. We're already weakened as it is without Amy, Rini and Trista, but now we're being swatted like flies. Those pieces of trash in their Dark Kingdom palace are just so cowardly, sending others out to do their dirtywork, yet I don't think even they anticipated how effective Mars would be. She's gonna completely clear the way for an invasion in weeks at this rate." Luna seemed quite worried at Serena's unusually philosophical comments, but knew that Sailor Mars was not as powerful on the dark side, despite early impressions.
"Mars may be a skilled fighter, but she is by no means powerful, especially when fighting for the Dark Kingdom. Galaxia was the most powerful being in the Universe, and only she had the power to take the star seeds, so I doubt the new Dark Kingdom alliance will be able to repeat Galaxia's feat." Serena suddenly began to violently shudder for a few seconds, letting go of Mina's hand.

"Luna, please don't say that name. I still get nightmares from the final battles. The visions of losing my friends make me wake up in the middle of the night with a cold sweat."
"Oh, I'm sorry Serena. I didn't realise."
"It's okay." Serena sighed deeply as she looked back down at Mina. "This reminds me so much of Raye last september... It's Mina this time though..."

Ext. Arts Department Buliding, South Tokyo University - 24th October 2002, 8:35 am.

"They must be late..." Mark impatiently looked down at his watch as Lita leant against the wall, a rather thick reading book in her hand.
"Have you no patience? The busses are nothing like the bullet train. They usually end up stuck in the traffic jams." Lita didn't look up from her book, which she seemed to be deeply absorbed in.
"Well, it's a matter of national security, so I'm starting to get a little anxious about the whole situation." Mark seemed quite worried, but Lita simply shrugged her shoulders.

"Mark, do you read books often?" Mark looked up at Lita, who still seemed absorbed by the book in her hand.
"Yeah, fairly often. I'm in the middle of reading a book I got at Heathrow airport last month when I was about to fly here. It's called The Moonlit Pegasus. It was written by someone called Tomoko Takase, so I think it must have been translated from Japanese." Lita looked up from her book at Mark in a fair deal of surprise at the mention of the author.

"Did you just say Tomoko Takase?"
"Yeah. Why d'ya ask?" Lita looked at Mark as if she'd seen a ghost.
"What language is the book in?" Mark seemed slightly confused by Lita's questioning.
"English. Why are you asking so much about this book?" A large smile emerged on Lita's face as she remembered her childhood friend.

"I knew Tomoko Takase. She was my best friend at Junior High before I moved to Juuban." Lita reached inside her black shoulder bag and pulled out a small book. Inside on one of the pages was a series of photos of herself with another girl. That girl was fairly tall, although a little shorter than Lita, had long, platted, dark blue hair and wore a pair of thin-rimmed circular glasses. Mark instantly recognised the girl.
"Woah. You're not kidding. That looks like a younger version of the woman inside the front cover."
"Yeah. I don't want to sound like I'm boasting or anything, but I was the one that read it by chance one day in '95 and told her to submit it to a magazine -" Mark quickly cut in with his own thoughts.
"And over five years later she's a best-selling author in four countries." Lita seemed extremely surprised at Mark's comment.

"Four countries? How many translations have there been?"
"Just to English at the moment. It's been number one in Japan, the United Kingdom, Ireland and the USA according to the sticker on the front." Lita bust out in to a fit of joyous laughter at her friend's achivement.
"I don't believe it! I called her to congratulate her when it got to number one in Japan back in '97, but I never thought it'd be so popular around the world!" Lita seemed overjoyed at the news, but Mark quickly interupted her moment of joy.

"They're here." said Mark as Lita looked towards the road in the distance to see four figures emerging from the green and white bus - Jack, Sarah, Chad and Raye.
"Time for action - wait a minute! Are you seeing what I think I'm seeing?" Mark peered wide-eyed in the direction of the four as Lita stared in total disgust.
"Raye's got her arm around Chad..." Lita seemed to become enraged by what she was seeing.
"That bitch! Why's she even thinking about being near him?! She's practially all over him!" Lita almost exploded while Mark seemed pretty calm as usual, although he had a slightly hurt expression on his face.

"She's not in control of her true self, remember? She's got the mind of a Negaverse soldier, and it looks like she's trying to wreck the civilian lives of the Moon Kingdom senshi as well as fighting them in battle. Like I said, this isn't Raye we're dealing with. Anyway, Chad doesn't look very happy at all." Lita was trying to keep her composure, but instead started to dash in the direction of the four students.
"Who cares? There's one person I hate more that you, and that's Chad!" Mark ran after the fuming senshi of the forest, trying to avoid causing a riot. After chasing her for a few moments, he evetually caught up with her and grabbed her arm.

"We can't just go dashing in like that Lita! We're supposed to follow her around discretely and let her lead us to the portal beacon before we fight her. We just need patience." Lita promptly slapped him for grabbing her arm so tightly.
"Look! You don't know how much of a monster Chad is! It was a reflex reaction!"
"But we don't want to attract any attention. You keep a lookout while I chat to the others. I'll keep you informed. The lectures don't finish until half eleven, so the hour after that will be our key time." Lita was red in the face with anger, but she knew she had to keep her cool.
"Whatever. I'm going. Call me if something's up." Lita hurried back to the arts building as Mark approached the four.

"Hey Raye!" The raven-haired woman looked up in surprise and quickly removed her arm from around Chad. Jack and Sarah had fairly worried expressions on their faces as Mark dashed towards them. Chad was the first to speak.
"Hey Mark, my man! What're you doin' here so early dude?" Raye looked slightly confused at Chad as Mark simply smiled back at the mop-head guitarist.
"Oh, just came here to admire the morning view. Stuff like that usually gives me inspiration for compositions." Chad nodded in agreement as Raye stepped forward.

"What did you just say then? I didn't quite understand that in English." Mark was astounded by Raye's beauty as he always was everytime he saw her, but he knew he couldn't let her get too close to him; For the moment they were still enemies.
"Oh, I was just saying that I came here early this morning to watch the sunrise. It gives me inspiration for my music." replied Mark in Japanese. Mark knew there was something up with Raye, and not just the fact that she was a Negaverse soldier. She had a very anxious look on her face and was biting her bottom lip.
"Mark, there's something I want to tell you." Mark knew that this was going to be bad news just by the look on Raye's face. Behind her, Chad translated what was being said to Sarah and Jack.
"Be my guest."

"Mark, it's over. There's no way I can possibly go out with you in this present situation. It's been a good month, but I just want it to end." Mark knew she was going to say something along the lines of this. There was no way that Raye could be friends with the enemy, so this wasn't so much of a blow for Mark, but it was still very saddening and hard to take. For several moments Mark froze while Chad tried to rid the shock from his own mind and tell Sarah and Jack what was going on.

"Guys, she's just dumped him for, like, no reason. She's saying something about the present situation, but, like, not much else." Sarah and Jack looked back at Chad in shock before focussing on the face of a seemingly heartbroken Mark.
"What?! I don't believe it! How could she dump him there and then? He's one of the greatest guys I've known!" Jack seemed very outraged by what was going on as Mark gave his reply to the brainwashed Raye.

"What present situation are you talking about?" Mark spoke slowly and quietly as Raye listened carefully.
"You know perfectly well Mark Davison, or should I call you -" Mark realised that she was about to give away his true identity, so he quickly interupted before Chad could hear.
"Okay, I know what you're talking about. Just don't..." Raye slowly turned her attention to Chad as Mark watched in utter disbelief.

"As for you, Chad Kumada, I'd like to apologise for my bad behaviour towards you this past month. As a token of my appreciation, I would appreciate it if you became my boyfriend." Chad had unintentioally found himself there and then in the middle of a huge moral dilemma. On the one hand he was now faced with the situation he had so longed for, Raye offering to go back out with him. However, he couldn't help but look at the look of sheer dejection on the face of his new best friend. This was a situation that he didn't ever want to find himself in.

"Raye... I don't know what to say..."
"Please?" Raye gave Chad a longing, hungered look, but Chad's mind was focussed elsewhere, focussed on his pity for Mark.
"Raye. I can't. I don't see any good in going out with a girl that has just dumped my best friend less than a minute ago. I don't know about you, but I have morals. I can't bear to see one of the only friends I have left go through this. I also have a word which describes women like you, and I think I'm too polite to say it in public." A surge of anger shot through Raye from Chad's refusal to accept her.

"Chad! Please!!!" The mop-head guitarist folded his arms and took a tough stance as he walked over to Mark, ignoring Raye's pleas.
"No! Do us all a favour Raye and go away! Can't you see you've broken the guy's heart?!" Raye was very tempted to grab the transformation pen from her bag and turn into Sailor Mars, but she decided that it was too early in the war to give away her identity to civilians.

"Whatever Chad. You'll never get the chance to be with me ever again." Chad seemed unaffected by Raye's comments. He had just seen Raye in a completely different light and was not too sure whether it was ever worth persuing her again. The degradation of his friend was just completely out of character for Raye.
"I don't think I'll ever want the chance to go out with you again after today! Just get lost!" Raye walked off in the direction of the arts building in a rage as Chad tried to comfort Mark.

"Dude, I don't know what was up with her just then, but I have all the sympathy for you."
"That was just not like her..." Mark looked down at the ground. He knew this was probably going to happen, but the actual effect was harsher than he expected.
"I know. I've never known her to be, like, plain nasty. She's been a bitch at times, but never like that."
"Yeah... Look Chad, I just need to hand an assignment into the ICT block. I'll see you in the lecture." Mark began to slowly walk away as Chad followed.
"Dude, are you sure you're going to be okay?" Chad seemed genuinely concerned for the polite Englishman.
"Yeah. I never could be better..."

Mark quickly continued walking until he was out of sight of his flatmates. He then grabbed his DataPad and quickly opened the communicatior program, calling Lita.
"Lita here. What've you got Mark?"
"Very bad news. She's just dumped me because of the present situation and she tried to ask Chad out. Luckily he turned her down." Lita shook her head in disbelief, taking no notice of Mark's hurt expression.
"Finally the guy's got some honour to his name. Where's she headin'?"
"Your way. She'll be at the arts block in about two minutes."
"Got that. I'll follow her around. See ya, chump!" Lita closed the link as Mark shook his head in continued sadness.

"Geeze... Hasn't that woman got any repect for the feelings of others?"

End of Chapter 16