A/N: Hey gang. Its me, SakuraZane! This is my take on LOTR, with some Sailor Moon thrown in. Yeah, I know it sounds like a weird combo but just bare wit me. Besides, they're both fantasy, right? RIGHT? ::crickets chirp:: Oh, just read it!
Disclaimer: Do I HAVE to put one of these here? grumblegrumble Oh, alright. I don't own LOTR or Sailor Moon. They belong to their respective creators so PLEASE DON'T SUE ME!!! Serenity-Zane is MY character, though. So NO STEALING. I'll have to get serious if you do! ::points finger o' death::
Allrighty! On with the fic!
Chapter 1: Starcrossed
Serenity-Zane Starcatcher stood on the icy wasteland, filled with horror and sorrow that threatened to devour what little remained of the young girl's reserve. Her slender, supple frame was bowed over in the frigid wind. Numerus cuts and bruises marred her once smoothe skin. And she was alone. Dead. They were all dead. Amy, Lita, Mina, Rei, Serena . . . All the Sailor Scouts, slaughtered by the nefarious Queen Beryl in a final, failed battle for Earth and all her inhabitants.
Serenity-Zane fell to her knees in the snow, heedless of the cold seeping into her flesh. Her long waistlength silver hair fell forward to hide her face, black-dyed bangs flutting with every shivery breath. Tears fell from her sapphire blue eyes and rolled down her smooth cheeks, freezing in the arctic chill. Queen Beryl . . . the evil witch had destroyed them all! And they'd fought so hard, down to the last. Serena had been the last to fall, even transformed into her most powerful incarnation she'd been unable to deflect the awful blast of immense power sent hurtling towards her by the Negaverse Queen's hand. Serena was supposed to have been the Universe's savior, the one who would blot evil from the world and bring about the Silver Millenium, the era of peace. But it was not to be. Sailor Moon had fallen with the others. Fallen like the lonely flakes of snow in this barren waste. And soon the world would fall with her.
"How pathetic," came a voice over the driving wind. Serenity-Zane jumped slightly at the gloating voice that was emanating from the fallow depths behind her, and turned around. "The oh so powerful Sailor Scouts, thinking they could defeat me! Ha! The fools!" Queen Beryl stood behind, her red eyes like orbs of hellfire in the evilness of her vile, smirking face. "But what have we here? The infamous Sailor Starcatcher, Wielder of the Galaxystar? Galaxystar indeed!"
Serenity-Zane looked down at the aforementioned object. Resting right over her heart, sparkling like starlight on the bow of her silver and black Sailor Suit, was the Galaxystar, the powerful locket from which her powers came. It was round and made up of a base cut from the blackest, most highly polished obsidian. On its surface were nine shards of crystal arranged in the shape of a star, and they sparkled and shone as if the very stars of the Milky Way were caught within them. In the very center of the crystal star was another crystal, this one black, round and very smooth, and bordered with silver. In the spaces between the crystals and the edge of the locket was a graceful tracery of script in a strange language that no one seemed to know. The writing looked as if it had been wrought in silver, but the fine lines glimmered and flashed like no metal she had ever seen. It was almost white, like trapped moonlight. It had been given to her long ago by her mother, just before she died. She remembered her mother's words so clearly, even though she had only been a child at the time. "Take this locket, my precious child," she'd said. "It will aid you in your most desperate hour, and light the way when darkness seems to cover all. Do not try to open it, for it will unlock itself when the right time comes." Soon after, her mother been mysteriously killed. No one knew why or how, and the Galaxystar was all that Serenity-Zane had left of her. She remembered when she found the lifeless, bloody body of the woman that had given her life. All the memories of that horrible day came flooding back to her, melding with the new raw reminiscences that would be left behind by this bloody day.
Queen Beryl cackled menacingly. The red-haired sorceress'ruby red eyes snapping gleefully. "That cheap little piece of jewelry may have protected you thus far, but your time is running out. Too bad that useless bauble couldn't save your friends. Or your mother."
"W-what?" Serenity-Zane gasped.
"Oh yes, I remember the day that pitiful woman found that trinket. She originally intended to use it as a weapon to defeat me. She knew those silly Sailor Scouts were too weak to hold off my power for long, so she found an object that supposedly gave great power to it's wielder, enough power to purify all the evil in this Universe. But she couldn't use it. She didn't have the power. However, she discovered that you did. You were one of the Lost Sailor Scouts, chosen to use it to its full power. She passed it on to you as protection until you were old enough to be taught its history and its true purpose. Haha! To bad she died ever so mysteriously before that time came."
Serenity-Zane watched as an evil smile came to the malicious witch's face. "Y-you . . . you killed my mother?!" Queen Beryl's answering laugh filled her with loathing and hate.
"You should have heared your mother scream! She begged me to spare your life. The sound of blood chocking her throat as she died was marvelous."
Serenity-Zane felt the sorrow and the anguish being pressed away, forced down by a wellspring of anger and rage. Rage at all she had been put through. Rage at what had been done to her friends. Rage for her mother. Her crystalline eyes flashed angrily, their dark ocean blue depths becoming an icy blue so light they were almost clear. She struggled to her feet in the glacial wind, her silver hair whipping in the wind. Her usually carefree face was transformed from its usual soft expression intoa one of pure fury, a cold flaming wrath so frightful that the heaven's themselves would've fled her formidable countenance. The Galaxystar, as if awakened by the raw swelling of emotion welling up from its owner, began to glow and pulse in time to her heartbeat. Queen Beryl's laughter died in her throat as she watched the scene before her. Sailor Starcatcher was drawing on the power of the Galaxystar, and the Galaxystar was in turn drawing on the power of its owner. They were one.
"No," Queen Bearyl hoarsely cried. "It can't be."
Serenity-Zane Starcatcher stood like a phoenix of silver fire burning furiously upon the snow. Her eyes burned like white crystal coals, their cold heat piercing anything they gazed upon. As if summoned by the sheer power of her rage, the howling winds about her began to circle around her form, escalating in force thanks to the awesome power of the Sailor Senshi in their midst . Queen Beryl drew back and shielded her face with her arms as the winds began to buffet and lash against her. The very air pulsated with energy. The ire within the young girl seemed to take corporeal shape, as if her anger were a living thing. "I WILL DEFEAT YOU!!!" she screamed. She pulled the Galaxystar from her uniform and raised it to the sky. She cried out in a loud voice, "Y'ADOS LA PETRONIA SK'DAN EA!" There was a deafening boom and an effulgent flash of silver light so bright that even the sun would have been beaten back by its blazing radiance. Queen Beryl was thrown to the ground, cursing and spitting. Through the halo of illumination, she could see the outline of the girl, her lithe and sinuous form backlit by a spherical nimbus of silver rays. She seemed to float there, bathed in a living glow, while smoky wisps and tendrils of sparks and light spiralled around her, wrapping around her figure as if clothing her in stardust. There was another brilliant flash of light, and then silence. Queen Beryl opened her eyes, and the sight that met them filled her with awe and terror.
Serenity-Zane stood in the same place, but she was changed. She was both fearsome and beautiful, like a burgeoning storm in all its ferocity and glory. Even the scraping winter winds had died down in obeisance to her splendor. Gone was the silver and black Sailor Suit. In its place was a gown of black silk, velvet and gossamer, dark as the space between the stars and sheer and light as mist. Its edges were knitted with silver thread in elaborate star-shaped patterns, and studded with diamonds and crystals. Around her slender waist was a wide belt made of of silver fabric, attached by silver hoops and chains and strings of pearls and crystals that flashed and twinkled like tiny galaxies. Her hair was no longer silver, but white, billowing and flowing around her head like a pale nimbus of moonlight seen through a pool of liquid crystal. The two long bangs of black still hung down on either side of her face, but they were braided now with twine of silver string with pearls, crystals and star- shaped charms hooked into it. Her skin had taken on a pale ivory cast, smooth and perfect as polished marble, umblemished as a newborn's. All of the cuts and bruises had disappeared Tiny little pinpoints of light shone on the skin of her arms and face, as if she had been annointed with precious oils spangled with glitter dust. Even her fingernails reflected her newfound power, for they were long and smooth, and in the center of each nail was set a tiny crystal jewel. Her eyes were large and dark, her irises like looking glasses reflecting the deepness of space. Stars and galaxies and rainbow-colored nebulas swam within them, as did Infinity, and the wisdom of eons past. On her forehead was an elaborate star-shaped mark that seemed tatooed in metallic ink, and in the very center of the mark was a small round jewel. A tine star-shaped mark rested on the skin just beneath the corner of her left eye. Each ear had four piercings and earrings of silver, pearl and crystal dangled from her ears. In one hand she held a long staff made of ivory and carved with delicate patterns and star-shaped runes. The top of the staff was mounted with a large jagged clear chunk of crystal which had a perfectly carved black crystal which seemed to float inside it. It was the Staff of Polaris, the energy of the Guiding Star made tangible. Around her slender neck and shoulders she wore a large intricate silver necklace of delicate chains and large hoops studded with crystals and pearls, created by hands infinitely more skilled than any living human's, and hanging from this masterpiece, blazing and resplendent as a supernova, was the Galaxystar.
Serenity-Zane called out in a voice that wasn't her own, but seemed more powerful, more ageless, as if all the knowledge and power that had been gathered throughout all the ages of all the worlds were laden behind that voice. "I am Neo-Queen Serenity-Zane Starcatcher, Senshi of the Milky Way, Wielder of the Galaxystar which is the Crystal Flame of Cosmos, Weaver-of- Stars, Bearer of the Staff of Polaris and Holder of the Silver Thread of Heaven. I am drawn by Evil, and Evil flees my Light. Queen Beryl, your evil has gone on long enough. Too many have suffered at your hands, but I have come to put an end to your reign of terror." The dark, caliginous eyes drilled into her very being, and in them Queen Beryl saw Eternity. And Death.
Queen Beryl babbled inchorently, struggling to scramble away from the holy wrath being directed at her, but she didn't get far. Serenity-Zane pointed the Staff of Poloaris at the floundering sorceress, and from it came a magnificent pall of silver light and a blast of energy. It shattered the earth whereever it touched, and struck the queen with incredible force.
"NO! I CANNOT BE DEFEATED LIKE THIS!!!" She threw out her own blast of power to deflect Serenity-Zane's attack, but she could not hold it off for long. "Fool! You may think you have beaten me," she growled over the roar of the two combatting energies. "But there is another time, another place where I will rule supreme. You may destroy me here, but I live on elsewhere, and you can never follow me there. I'll return to wreck my vengeance, mark my words!"
"Be silent, foul, fork-toungued creature! I shall vanquish you in the name of the Cosmos. For my mother! For my friends! FOR EARTH!!!" With a last angry force of will strengthened her blast, and finally Queen Beryl dissappeared in a pall of white light, her final scream of rage and defeat echoing across the land.
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Well, that's the end of chapter one! You like? Of course you do! Gimme good reviews, and I shall be eternally yours! ::bats eyelashes::