Author's Notes/Disclaimer: I don't own anything except the Knights. There.

Chapter XVII: Follow The Leader.

Int. 14 Atherton Street, Knightsbridge, London - September 23rd 2002, 10:00 pm GMT.

"Hi. Is Ben there please?"
"Speaking. Is that you Anna?" Another long day had passed for Anna, she was beginnning to get on top of her university work, but she had something of much more importance to share with a certain friend. That day she had taken a trip to her local travel agents and had on her desk a folded-up piece of paper.
"Yeah. I've got something very important to ask you. Do you have a passport at all?"
"Yeah. What's this all about Anna?" Ben sounded slightly confused at Anna's questioning.
"I just booked plane seats for us to go to Tokyo at christmas."
"You're joking! We're going to Tokyo?" Ben sounded completely stunned as the pitch of his voice rose.
"This ain't no joke Ben. My Dad would only let me have enough money for four tickets, so since you were Mark's best friend I decided to ask you first." The short blonde grinned as Ben became lost for words.

"Anna, I owe you big time! When's the flight?" Anna picked unfolded one of the pieces of folded paper on our desk before scanning through the table printed on it.
"We leave from Berlin on December 20th. We'll be staying at a humble little B & B in the Cherry Hill area of Tokyo, about a quarter of a mile from where Mark lives."
"Did you just say Berlin? Why can't we catch it from Heathrow?" Ben seemed very confused by Anna's logic.
"I need to visit my Aunt and Uncle in Berlin first since we'll be in Tokyo this Christmas. They only visit us at Christmas time, so I guess I'd better see them for a day or so before we go."
"Okay then... I guess a couple days in Germany wouldn't be bad. Who else are you gonna ask along?" Anna paused for a few moments as she unfolded another piece of paper.

"Well, I wanted all eight of us to come along, but since my dad only gave me enough for four people it's been pretty hard choosing. My dad's paid for the stuff so I'm coming along, you're coming along because you're Mark's best friend, Lucy can speak a bit of Japanese so she'll be useful and Jay's the best cook out of us lot. I'm gonna ask Lucy and Jay before I go to bed."
"So, when do we leave for Berlin?"
"My Uni splits on the sixteenth of December, so I'm thinking about catching the morning flight on the seventeenth from Heathrow. Is that fine by you?" Ben, lying on his bed, nodded in agreement down the phone.
"Yeah. I'll bunk off on the final day to get my stuff sorted. If I can get the midday train from Southampton to Kings Cross, would it be okay if I stay over at yours? I don't have any relatives in London."
"Sure. My parents have already agreed. Jay has to stay overnight anyway 'cause he lives in Plymouth."

"Thanks Anna. What about this new war in Tokyo though? The Dark Kingdom's been back for over a month now and Mark's told me he's on the front line." Ben sounded quite anxious, unlike Anna.
"That's another reason why we're going. Ganymede says that the Sailor Senshi are dropping like flies. Sailor Pluto is stuck guarding the gates of time, Sailor Mars has been kidnapped and brainwased onto the side of the Dark Kingdom, Sailor Venus has been hospitalised by Sailor Mars and the rest are being beaten all over the place."
"Woah... Now that's bad."
"I'm going to call Mark in the morning. He's on a half day today, so I'll call him as soon as I get up. I want to keep this whole Tokyo trip a surprise from him, so don't mention a thing, okay?"
"Yeah, secret's safe with me. I'm starting to get bored with the lack of action anyway. We've got more chance of being attacked by Bin Laden on a flying broomstick." Anna chuckled at what Ben had just said before pulling herself back together.

"Whatever Ben. I'll give you the final details tomorrow. See ya."
"Yeah. Goodnight Anna."

Music Hall 3, South Tokyo University - September 24th 2002, 1:30 pm local time.

Raye had somehow managed to avoid Lita completely that morning, so the first chance for Mark to catch up with her was the music lecture. Mark sat next to Chad that morning, trying not to draw suspicion to himself from Raye. It was nearly the end of the lecture, so Mark booted up the DataPad in his pocket ready to call Lita.
"I hope I've explained everything clearly. Also, to the foriegn students, if you wish to have your assignment brief given to you in a different language, I've managed to get the language department to translate this into several languages, so collect a sheet in your language as you leave. I'm expecting nothing less than an A for this, so your challenge has been laid down. That's all, so class dismissed." The quiet music lecturer arranged the sheets on her desk as the students in the hall packed their pencil cases and folders away.

"I'll be a bit late back to the flat Chad. I've fallen a bit behind my Computing work, so I'm staying here for a while. I'll probably be back about half three." The mop-head guitarist looked back at Mark understandingly as he slung his rucksack over his shoulder.
"Okay man. Just don't let Raye get to you." Mark jogged down to the desk, picking up an English version of the assignment before searching through the other piles of papers, waiting for Raye to exit through the double-doors before following her.

The corridoor was awash with students making their way towards the canteen, parking lots and bus shelters. It was very crowded and it Mark found it very hard to move, but about ten metres ahead of him he could see the raven-haired senshi of fire. Keeping his distance, he took out his DataPad and started to type a message.
"Okay Lita, time for action..." As Mark sent the message he looked up to find Raye turning to a corridoor on her left. Mark translated the sign hanging above, he began to get a slight idea of where she might be going.
"Okay, either ICT, the library, Science or Mathematics... Gotta keep on her tracks..." As he continued to follow her down the enduring, crystal white corridoors the somewhat haunting tune of the Eternal Melody started to play from his mobile. Quickly putting his DataPad away, he grabbed his phone from his rucksack while continuing to persue Raye.

"Davison."
"I got your message. I'm in the library at the moment. Where's she heading?" Mark instantly recognised the voice as Lita's. She sounded fairly rushed.
"How the hell did you get my number?!" Mark had absolutely no idea how Lita had managed to call his mobile.
"I took Raye's personal phone book when I left the temple last night. I though it would be handy to prank call you with." Mark seemed slightly angry, but though this would be an ideal opportunity to explain the present situation.
"Stay where you are. She might be heading to the library."
"Yeah, gotcha. Anything else?" Mark saw this as an ideal opportunity to try and confront Lita's personlity further.
"Yes, there is. Do you always act this coldly towards all men?" Lita gave a small, egoistic laugh down the phone.
"Short answer, no. I think most guys are cute, just like any other straight woman of my age. It's just you and that asshole Chad I've got a problem with, okay?" Mark shook his head as he noticed Raye disappear into a room on the left. The sign hanging from the ceiling read Onna.

"Er, Lita, you're gonna have to move from the library after all."
"Why? What's up?"
"She's just disappeared into the Ladies' room. It's the ones by the steps leading up to the library bridge." Mark could hear the scraping of a chair and the rummaging of paper as he looked up towards the stairs.
"I'll be down in a moment. You wait there and see if she comes back out." Lita hung up as Mark put his phone back in his pocket and took out his DataPad, black tape covering the symbol of Mars on the back. Opening up the location scanner, Mark tried to lock onto Raye's signal.

"Okay, so this should be fairly simple." Thought Mark to himself as he input what he thought was the current energy signiature of Sailor Mars. "If she was brainwashed onto the side of the Dark Kingdom, her signiature should be the inverse of what it normally is..."
As he clicked the OK button, a map of the first floor of the arts building appeared on his screen, a red square marking his location. A clock flashed in the bottom-right corner as the computer carried out its scans.

"Come on... Hurry up..." Mark anxiously stared at the map as a green star appeared on the stairs leading from the library and moved in his direction.
"Mark. What's the plan?" Mark looked up from his map to see the electric brunette, seemingly less aggrevating than usual. A small bleep sounded from Mark's DataPad as a red cross flashed on the blue map.
"Raye's in there. I need you to go in there and make sure she doesn't escape through a window or something. I'll stay here just in case she come out through the door." Lita seemed unimpressed, but kept in mind the seriousness of the mission.
"Whatever. Just get ready for battle. If we're following her, she's gonna turn nasty at some point." Lita disappeared into the Ladies' room as Mark casually made his way to his locker nearby, carefully studying the points on the map.

Inside, Lita carefully browsed around for any open windows and doors, trying to find any possible escape routes for Raye. However, all the windows were closed and the doors sealed. She grabbed her phone and called Mark, looking for any other way to spy on Raye.
"Davison."
"Mark, it's Lita. Where exactly is Raye?" There was a slight pause as outside Mars flipped his Datapad to find Lita's bearings.
"Erm..." Mark searched carefully for the red cross on the map. "Toilets at the far end, third on the right." Lita quickly made her way there, locking herself in the cubicle to the left of Raye's. She stayed silent, her phone to her ear, as she heard a voice whisper to her right. It was Raye's.

"It's too dangerous. I've already got Jupiter and the Mars knight on my tail. I can hit hard when I sneak up on them, but I don't stand a chance in full battle."
"Don't talk so foolishly. They can't harm you. You're still a friend to them. All you need to do is grab the portal beacon and teleport back to command central with it."
"Yeah, but how am I supposed to get to the roof of this building without being spotted by anyone, let alone those two?" Lita had just found the information she needed. As quietly as she could, she spoke to Mark down the phone.

"Mark! It's on the roof of this building! Go! Go! Go!"
"Roger that. I'm on my way." Mark terminated the call as Lita continued to listen in on Raye's conversation.
"Did you just hear something Malachite?" Lita started to panic as she got ready to unlock the door.
"Yeah. This transmission data's picked up a second voice. I'm terminating this call." Lita slowly unbolted the door as shuffling could be heard from Raye's direction. One hand on her transformation pen, Lita looked up to see Raye's face looking down on her.

"I knew it! You're listening in on my conversations! MARS STAR POWER, MAKE-UP!!!" Raye began her transformation as immense anger built up inside Lita.
"Two can play that game! JUPITER STAR POWER, MAKE-UP!!!" Lita began her transformation as Sailor Mars finished hers. Sailor Mars wasted no time running as fast as she could out of the Ladies' room and up the stairs in hot persuit of Mark. Sailor Jupiter followed suit, hoping her more athletic build could help her catch up with the renegade scout.

On the seventh floor of the building Mark was searching his map for the stairs leading up to the roof, all while running at an almost olympic pace. A legend in the corner showed that Mars and jupiter were in persuit, with Mars on the third floor and Jupiter on the second.
"Okay, where are you?" Mark managed to pinpoint the stairs as he tugged out his red pendant from under his shirt. Barging open the door leading up, Mark screamed out his transformation key.
"MARS KNIGHT SOLESTIAL TRANSFORMATION!!!" Mark piced up speed as he became engulfed in the red ball of light. As he ran up the steps at an increadible pace his black and red Mars Knight battle attire materialised over his now naked body. As he slammed open the final door leading onto the roof, the Mars Knight tried to open a channel with Central.

"Central. Are you there? It's the Mars Knight." After a few moments a picture of a white cat appeared in the top right corner of the screen.
"Artemis here. How may I help?"
"Artemis, could you send me the energy signiatures of the portal beacons that have already been recovered? I'm trying to locate one on the roof of Tokyo U." Mark gazed anxiously at the locations of Sailor Mars and Sailor Jupiter as he waited for Artemis' reply. They were on the same floor, so he hoped that Sailor Jupiter could delay Sailor Mars.
"One moment please. We've only recovered one, so we don't know if they all share the same signiature." A few anxious moments followed as Sailor Mars and Sailor Jupiter reached the sixth floor. He called up the map of that floor to see the red cross of Sailor Mars stand still before seemingly being blasted into a wall by the approaching green star of Sailor Jupiter.

"Go on Jupiter... Hold her off a bit longer..."
"Okay, sending the data to you..." An envelope appeared in the bottom-left corner of the Mars Knight's screen. Double-tapping the envelope and dragging it off-screen, the message opened in his sunglasses.
"Thanks Artemis. That's all."
"Okay. Just don't forget to bring it back here when you've got it. Sailor Jupiter will lead you back to Central." As Artemis closed the channel, the Mars Knight wasted no time in entering the details into the scanner. However, he noticed that Sailor Mars and Sailor Jupiter were now on the seventh floor. He had to find it quickly.

As the cursor whirred about on the map, searching for the beacon, he could hear the voices of Sailor Mars and Sailor Jupiter coming from the stairway. He held his hands ready to fire his Mars Fire attack, attaching the DataPad to his hip. The atmosphere was filled with anxiety as he waited for the two senshi to emerge from the stairwell.
"Come on... Hurry up and find that bugger..."

It was too late by that time. Sailor Mars had emerged from the stairwell and seemed enfuriated.
"I've found you now! You'll never get that portal beacon! MARS FIRE -" The dark senshi of fire was cut short as she was rugby-tackled to the ground by Sailor Jupiter.
"Don't think you're getting away with this Sailor Mars! You're one of them now, a worthless piece of Negatrash! We're here to put an end to this!" Sailor Jupiter seemed as tough as ever with her speeches. The Mars Knight pointed his clasped hands at the senshi of fire, ready to fire at any moment should she try to escape. However, he was promptly interupted by his DataPad.

As he grabbed the DataPad to find the location of the portal beacon, Sailor Jupiter was distracted by the siren of the DataPad, giving Sailor Mars the opportunity to free her hands.
"MARS FIRE IGNITE!!!" Sailor Mars promptly sent a fireball directly at Sailor Jupiter, sending her flying into the air condioning outlet.
"Sailor Jupiter!" Sailor Mars made her way back to her feet and brushed herself off before laughing at the plight of Sailor Jupiter.
"Heh. What a weak sap you are. You're supposed to be one of the toughest!" Mars Knight instantly saw what had happened and knew that now was the time to attack.
"Hold it right there Sailor Mars! If you think you can just attack your friends like that in the name of the Dark Kingdom, you can get the hell out of here right now. If you want to stay and fight, I can assure you that in the name of Mars, I will punish you!"

"Fine. If you want it that way, so be it! MARS FIRE IGNITE!!!" The Mars Knight dived behind some pipes, avoiding the fireball, before raising his hands to the air.
"Time to play defensive. MARS FIREWALL!!!" As he put his hands to the ground, an impenetrable wall of fire rose between himself and Sailor Mars. He used the extra time to check how badly hurt Sailor Jupiter was. The front of her Fuku was completely charred by the fireball and her arms slightly red from the heat. However, she was still concious.
"Mars..."
"Are you okay Jupiter?"
"Yeah. Could you help me back up?" As the Mars Knight knelt down to help Sailor Jupiter, a fireball cruised past the top of his head, narrowly missing him. He quickly dragged the senshi of the forest back to her feet before turning back towards the wall of fire he created.

"Right, that's it! MARS FIREWALL DEACTIVATE!!!" The firewall faded away into a line of ash on the ground, giving him a clear view of Sailor Mars. Enough was enough. Love or no love, he had to do it. "MARS FIRE IGNITE!!!" A stream of fire emerged from his fingers and hit Sailor Mars hard, sending her slamming into the stairwell. She collapsed as she fell to the ground, but was trying her best to get back up. The Mars Knight grabbed his DataPad once more and dived towards the pipework in the middle of the roof, reaching inside to grab the crystal, pyramid-shaped portal beacon.

Meanwhile, Sailor Jupiter was unable to control her anger. She had limped her way over to the struggling Sailor Mars and dragged her up by her red collar. As Sailor Jupiter got the renegade senshi on her feet, she wasted no time in headbutting her.
"That was for Sailor Venus!" Once again, Sailor Jupiter headbutted Sailor Mars, whose nose was beginning to bleed.
"That was for the outers!" Once more, for the final time, Sailor Jupiter headbutted Sailor Mars.
"And that was for me, you bitch!" The Mars Knight had realised what was going on and dragged Sailor Jupiter away from Sailor Mars.

"What the hell are you doing?!" The anger was all too apparant in the way Sailor Jupiter acted. Her movements were very quick and she was breathing deeply.
"Something called revenge! Revenge for everyone she's hurt in the past twelve hours!" The Mars Knight went to protect Sailor Mars, only to discover she was no longer there.
"You can't hurt her anymore now. Looks like she teleported back to Negaverse command." Sighing deeply, the Mars Knight put his DataPad away while carrying the protal beacon under his left arm. "Where's Central? Artemis said we needed to bring this thing back to Central." Sailor Jupiter walked back towards the stairwell, transforming back into Lita.
"The Crown arcade in Juuban. It's north of Cherry Hill, about three miles from here, so I think we should get the bus there. As far as I can remember, the 3A and the 8 go past there." The Mars Knight removed his sunglasses to transform back into Mark, following Lita. "By the way, you're not so bad after all. You're a pretty good fighter." Mark smiled as he closed the stairwell door behind him.
"Thanks. Does this mean we're gonna stop arguing from now on?" Lita turned back at Mark and devilishly smirked at him.
"Hell no! Now just shut your mouth and follow me." Mark couldn't argue with that. He just shrugged his shoulders and continued to follow Lita.

Int. Moon Kingdom Central, Tokyo Branch - 24th October 2002, 2:20 pm.

News of the victory against Sailor Mars had filtered through to Central, but that was not as important at that moment. In the conference room the two cats, Serena and Darien sat around the table awaiting Sailor Pluto to deliver her report into the destinies of Mark and Raye. At the far end of the table stood the guardian of the gates of time herself, tidying a golden dossier on the table.

"Right, I guess I'll begin. This report I have here contains the results of an investigation into the destinies of Raye Hino, also known as Sailor Mars, and Mark Davison, also known as the Mars Knight. For the past sixteen hours I have been looking through the gates of time at the past, the present and the future and a number of deciding events to find out what probablity there is of Mark and Raye being together for both this lifetime and the era of the Crystal Earth. I'd just like to warn you now that who they are destined to be with in this lifetime can bear absolutely no relation to who they will be with in the next lifetime, and the fact that some anomalous situations can change the way destiny thinks and can make it change its mind.

"I'd like to begin with Raye. For this I have mainly relied on the two months leading up to the Silver Millenium tragedy and the time between when she discovered she was Sailor Mars and now. The picture is fairly clear, but there are a few strange results I can't quite explain.

Mark Davison does have the greatest possibility of being destined to be with Raye in this lifetime with a forty-one percent chance. The chance of Raye having no true love and remaining unmarried for the rest of her life here is thirty-nine percent. The probability of Raye ending up with Chad Kumada is fourteen percent, although it was nearly eighty percent before September 9th 2001." Serena shuddered at the fact that Chad even stood a chance, albeit a small chance, of getting back with Raye.

"Here are the three strange results. Raye has a four percent chance of being married to Darien Chiba in this lifetime -"
"WHAT?!" spluttered Serena in total rage. The fact that Darien could be married to Raye was worse than knowing that she could be married to Chad. Darien looked slightly worried, looking back at Sailor Pluto with a say it isn't so expression.
"Serena, please. This only goes on the basis that you die prematurely, one of the anomalous situations I was talking about. Destiny does not intend for you to die so young, so I believe you have nothing to worry about. You two at the moment have a 95 percent chance of being together." Serena calmed down slightly at Sailor Pluto's explanation, but still seemed slightly annoyed.
"I seriously hope you're right."

"Where was I?... Ah. There's something I can't quite explain whatsoever. According to this, Raye has a one percent chance of being Mina's lover..." Serena couldn't help but laugh at what Sailor Pluto had just said. Raye and Mina lovers? This was hillarious! "... and a one percent chance of being Serena's lover." The smirk instantly vanished from Serena's face while Darien and the cats couldn't help but laugh.
"This isn't funny!!!" Serena was the only one not laughing. Even Sailor Pluto found the report funny.

"I guess I'll move onto her future then." The room instantly fell silent as Sailor Pluto moved onto the second page. "Up until now, the princess of Mars has had no reported lover in the Crystal Tokyo era. However, I have noticed that in some destinies the prince of Phobos is living with the princess of Mars, in some instances they are even married. However, I have seen very few possibilities which contain this. Overall, the chance of the Princess of Mars and the Prince of Phobos is estimated to be around ten percent. It's a slim chance, but it's the only chance considering she has a ninety percent chance of being alone." Luna seemed slightly relieved by the findings, but had to put one question forward.
"So basically, if anyone's going to bring back Sailor Mars to our side, it's going to be the Mars Knight?"
"Indeed. Her friends, the other inner senshi, might be able to do it on their own, but if we look back to Queen Beryl's first campaign, or the day of destiny to be more specific, it was Sailor Moon that managed to get back Prince Endymon from Beryl with the locket that he gave her. If a similar type of brainwashing was used on Sailor Mars, the Mars Knight would definately be our best bet."

A small buzzer could be heard from the control panel by the door along with a flashing green light. Darien stood up and walked over to answer the call.
"Darien here."
"Darien. It's Lita. We've got the portal beacon."
"Okay. I'll get to the lab in a moment." Darien turned back to Sailor Pluto, who was placing her papers beck into the dossier. "I'm afraid I have to go. Lita's come back with the University portal beacon."
"Oh, that's okay. The briefing's finished anyway. You don't realy need to know the statistics for Mark anyway. You already know the probability for Mark being with Raye, so there's nothing more to say on the matter."
"Thanks." Darien swiftly left through the doors and dashed down the pearl-white corridoor to the lab to meet Lita.

End of Chapter 17