Author's Notes:
Okay, this is a crossover between Gundam Wing and Sailor Moon. I think the plot I came up with is fairly original, but that's only my opinion. I don't know practically anything about Gundam Wing, but a close friend of mine does and he will probably be reading this before I put it up on the Internet for some glaring oversights about Gundam Wing. It's like the exact opposite for him. If he writes a SM fanfiction, he gives it to me and I look for glaring oversights. Don't flame me about how I do the characters in Gundam Wing. Like I said, I'm new to the show.
This starts a month after Marie Maia's army is defeated in Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz. The Gundams have been destroyed. In Sailor Moon…well, you'll find out. I use references to and use manga attacks for Sailor Moon.
I don't own SM, or Gundam Wing so don't sue me. If you need to contact me with anything, flames, or even a one liner saying the story was good, my email is Guardian4@atlantic.net. Please put Fanfiction in the subject line.
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The End Is The Beginning
Chapter 13: Between Reason and Rage
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Venus watched in silence as Sailor Moon collapsed on the ground, sobbing. The trees sheltered them from view, hiding the hunted. Beryl still had other youma and it didn't take power to open a portal, just ability once it was already opened once. She would run out of youma eventually, but between the demoralization of the fighters and their depleted powers, none were in any shape to fight.
"What do we do now, Venus?" questioned Uranus, her face and voice emitting no other emotion except deep concentration and tiredness.
"We do what Pluto wanted us to do. We create Crystal Tokyo and awaken Endymion. Once we have established our powers, we can use that against Beryl and Metallia, destroying her once and for all in that incarnation."
"You're right, evil never is fully destroyed," murmured Neptune.
"No! We have to save Pluto!"
The fighters looked down at Sailor Moon and her tear-streaked but angry face. "Sailor Moon, Pluto did what she did because she wanted you to live. She was thinking of the bigger picture," Heero said calmly, standing in front of his kneeling Gundam, Wing Zero.
"I don't care if she was thinking of the bigger picture because I was too! And my bigger picture has her in it!"
Her voice was on the verge of screaming and the warriors immediately shushed her, looking at the tree line around the small clearing they had managed to find.
"What exactly can you do to help her?"
"Heero, stop trying to reason with her," Venus whispered to him. "Serenity doesn't think reason, she just feels. That's part of the reason we protect her so viciously. So she can be allowed to feel, whereas we all must think rationally."
He shrugged, indicating indifference. Why waste his energy if she wouldn't listen to him?
"I propose, for the time being, we rest," Quatre suggested and took his own advice, leaning against Sandrock and closing his eyes.
"How can you rest at a time like this?" demanded Jupiter. She didn't wait for an answer, instead disappearing into the trees.
Trowa found her a few moments later, using a defenseless tree as a punching bag. She was sweat-soaked from the battle and he knew she was probably exhausted, but she never once faltered, never once hesitated.
"You'll only break a leg or something that way," he commented when she gave a particularly vicious kick to the side of the wood.
She didn't act as if she was surprised that he was there. "I…don't…care…anymore…" she gasped.
"And why not? Because of Pluto?"
"No. Because…of…Serenity."
"Why because of her?"
Jupiter finally stopped moving and looked at him, her chest moving frantically to take in air. It didn't do much for his control that her 'fuku' was in near tatters. It barely covered the necessary as it was, and it was even less now.
"Serenity won't give up on Pluto. She believes she will be able to free her and save the world at the same time. We'll go in battle tomorrow and she'll use the Ginzuishou to its fullest, which will probably kill her. Then we'll be of no use to anyone, for what is a Senshi without someone to protect? How can Crystal Tokyo be created if she dies? It doesn't matter if I'm injured or not; tomorrow I'll be dead anyway."
"Rather fatalistic view, don't you think?"
"No, realistic."
Trowa approached her slowly and looked into her eyes. They were tired and empty of the life that he associated with her. She wasn't looking for a fight with him, to argue her point of view like she usually did. She was simply telling him what she thought was the absolute truth, the only future she could see.
"Trowa?" she prompted when he remained silent.
His eyes narrowed a tiny bit as he studied her. It wasn't like her to be so depressed, so lost for life. "What's the matter?" he wondered aloud.
She tried to turn from him, but his hand snaked out and gripped her upper arm. "Don't turn away from me, Mako-chan. I want to know what the matter is."
"Let go of me."
"No."
She whirled in his grasp and attempted to hit him. He dodged with near no effort and twisted her arm up behind her back. She hissed in pain and he noticed the gash on her arm that she must have gotten from the battle. It amazed him how quickly he had seemingly subdued her; she must have been extremely tired or had something up her sleeve. His best guess would be both.
Indeed, he was right. Gasping in exhaustion, she hooked her ankle around his leg and sent them toppling to the ground. His back hit a number of rocks, twigs, and branches as they rolled around, each trying to pin the other.
But Trowa was fresher than Jupiter and he finally pinned her onto her back. "Tell me what the matter is."
"What does it matter? I'm going to—"
"Die anyway, I know, you've said it before. Right now, we don't need a loose cannon, we need a warrior. What is the matter?"
She looked away from him. "Do you remember that time when I was asleep delirious in bed?"
"Yes."
"I know that I kissed you."
"You're point?"
"That was my point."
"…And this was bothering you, why? It seems a bit trivial to me."
Instead of getting angry, he felt her huge sigh ripple through him as her chest moved under his. "Perhaps."
"There has to be more than that."
"Did it bother you?"
"What?"
"Me kissing you."
He gave her a sideways look. "Why does it matter? I've never known you to care much for how other people thought you acted."
"Did it bother you?" she repeated, never once looking at him.
"Not really." He shrugged, knowing she could feel his movement and interpret as what it was. "It sounded like you thought I was someone else."
"Someone else who has been dead for 200 years."
"So?"
"You still don't get it? You don't get the way that I blush whenever I look at you? You don't get how I…never mind."
"…I'm still not getting your point."
It wasn't that he didn't get the point she was trying to make, he just didn't understand the significance of it.
"When you left the room, I knew it was you that I kissed."
"And?"
"And what?"
He gave a frustrated sigh. "There has to be more than that. This is what you're telling me: you're bothered by the fact that you kissed me, thinking it was someone else then realized it was me when I left the room. Now you're embarrassed by it, but I don't understand why that would be either. Why does this bother you so much?"
Jupiter finally looked at him. "Because I wish I could do it again since I like you a lot and you don't like me like that at all."
Trowa found he didn't know what to say to that. He had enjoyed that kiss, yes, probably much more than he should have. He had wondered what it would have been like to kiss her when she wasn't delirious, but he had never once entertained its likelihood for one.
"Could you get off of me now?"
"And let you disappear on me? I don't think so. We need to talk about this."
"Well I don't want to."
"Well I don't care."
There was a silence between them then that seemed unapproachable. Finally, she sighed exasperatedly and to his surprise, lifted her head up and kissed him. He found himself responding rather more enthusiastically than he thought possible.
Finally the need to breathe broke them apart and Trowa let her up. Silence.
"Listen," he said at last, "while this is a whole new territory to go through, we really don't have the luxury of time. If both of us make it out of the battle tomorrow, shall we pick up from here?"
"Get a chance to know each other, that kind of stuff?" she elaborated. "Take it slow…It sounds like a good idea."
Trowa nodded at her and made his way back to the camp. Jupiter took another look at the tree and followed him a moment later.
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Mars and Venus watched as Mercury frantically tried to dissuade Sailor Moon from doing anything drastic. Trowa and Jupiter returned from wherever in time to see Mercury do something so rare that it signaled the end of the world: she slapped Sailor Moon. The only other time she had ever done that had been over two centuries ago, when they had gone to defeat Beryl and Metallia for the first time after the Silver Millennium had fallen.
The pilots, especially Quatre, gaped at her. Sailor Moon touched her red cheek slowly and raised her eyes to Mercury's face. Unlike the time before, the blue Senshi's face was not remorseful nor did it soften a moment later.
"Listen to me Sailor Moon," she said, grim and stern. "What I am about to tell you, you will not like. Nor do I care. If you use the Ginzuishou, you have no guarantee to survive and defeat Metallia/Beryl. And if you fail to defeat Metallia/Beryl, you will have wasted what Pluto sacrificed to protect."
"I will not lose to Metallia and Beryl. On my life, I swear that."
"That is our whole point!" she screamed. "We don't want you to DIE! Pluto didn't want you to DIE! Can't you see that's why she did what she did?"
Sailor Moon looked away and Mercury said no more.
"Well, that was…productive," Duo commented lowly. Venus jabbed him in the ribs and handed him a slip of paper, after which she immediately moved away.
"So what happened between you and Trowa?" Venus asked quietly.
Jupiter started at her soft question. "Well, we talked, grappled, he pinned me, and we talked some more."
"And the conclusion to your 'talking'?"
"We decided that if we both survive the battle tomorrow, we'll take it slow and possibly have a relationship."
"Sounds like an excellent plan."
They were silent as they watched the other warriors. Duo passed and slipped a shred of paper in Venus' hand. His steps didn't falter nor did he look her way. That was all right with her. Even Jupiter hadn't noticed that brief exchange.
She slipped away and managed to open the note in relative secrecy. It read:
"Minako, I hardly know you as anything but Venus. At this point, a relationship is a bit much to ask for, but perhaps once this threat has been dealt with, I can see the fun-loving Minako that I sometimes glimpsed in Venus. Ask me your question then. Duo."
At least it wasn't an outright no, she consoled herself. So she had been turned down; it was understandable, considering what was ahead of them. She smiled. She could wait.
Mars drew away from her friends and into the woods for some privacy, much like she knew Uranus and Neptune were doing. It could be the last time the two ever saw each other. Even Rei, Shinto Priestess, could not tell what was to come tomorrow. It was sad, in a way, but in other ways, she was glad she did not know. It meant she didn't have to start mourning anyone she cared about early, if they did not survive the battle.
"Rei?"
She turned to see Wufei behind her. Smiling gently, she rested her head against his chest. "Please be careful tomorrow."
"…You too."
"For the same reason?"
"Yes."
They never actually said the words 'I love you' because they both knew that was how the other felt. When feelings communicated something so clearly, why try to put it into words that would inevitably change the meaning intended?
Mars lifted her head when Venus joined them. "Yes?"
"We're having a council of war now."
"We'll be there."
She left them then.
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End Chapter 13.