Mercury Twilight and Executioner's Law

by KingofMercury

Executioner's Law begins on Chapter Nine. Chapter Eighteen is now up. Sailor Moon and Executioner square off in a high-stakes main event. The prize? The future of Tokyo!

2. chapter one

CHAPTER ONE: DARK MERCURY CLOSES IN! "Paper, or plastic?" asked Serena, as she finished swiping the groceries across the bar-code scanner.

The customer was a belligerent, old, fat man, with food stains on the front of his white tank top. A potbelly protruded out over the man's belt line. The distinct smell of beer on his breath told her just how he acquired that belly.

"I'll take plastic," the man replied gruffly. "I'd like to take a piece of gum from the rack, too."

"Well, don't talk about it, give it to me and I'll swipe it for you," Serena snatched the gum from his fat hand. She was beginning to get really tired of all the last minute changes in items this man seemed to come up with. Already a long line was forming up behind him as he dallied around, and of course all the customers thought it was her fault.

She swiped the gum and quickly threw the items into the plastic bags, wanting nothing more than to get rid of this disgusting guy. She threw the bags into his cart and waved him off hastily, and said, "have a nice day," in a not so nice tone.

He looked about to protest, then seemed to think about it and left, smiling slyly. Serena wondered what he was so happy about all of a sudden, when she felt a light touch on her shoulder. She turned to see her friend Melvin, who worked as a clerk in the supermarket.

"Uh... Serena," he stammered, "you didn't take that man's money."

Serena bolted out the door, not thinking about the shoppers who now began to complain bitterly about the wait. Melvin wanted to chase after Serena and call her back, but he instead took over for her, or at least he tried his hardest to. He was a clerk, not a cashier, and he botched the job badly.

Serena meanwhile was out in the parking lot, shielding her eyes from the sun as she scanned the parking lot for the man who took off. She didn't think he got far, but she couldn't spot him.

"Uh... sir?" she called out to no one in particular. "You forgot to pay for your groceries!" She didn't realize how absurd an exercise that was, until a young man in a business suit pointed that out to her.

Blushing furiously, Serena stormed back into the store, fuming at herself for being so careless. What greeted her in the store, however, was the worst humiliation yet. Melvin was fumbling around the cashier, looking overwhelmed by all the complaining shoppers. Standing next to him was the store manager, Mr. Funikochi, who tapped his foot and crossed his huge arms in murderous frustration. Boy was she going to get it now!

Serena made it back to the register, but Mr. Funikochi blocked her path with his large body. He ordered poor Melvin to close up the cashier line and get back to his regular duties. He did this all in a rumbling voice that echoed in Serena's frightened mind. It was like the voice of a wrathful god. Melvin visibly shrank from the man as he turned off the register, took out the drawer with all the money, and fairly scampered back to wherever it was the clerks worked.

Funikochi then whirled on her and went on in a tirade about neglecting responsibility and allowing perfectly good food to be stolen from his establishment.

"I could be fired by the board for all your screwing up," he roared. "And do you know what I do to screw-ups?" he paused for an answer.

Serena had to take up the cue, lest he grow angrier. "You fire them?" she squeaked. Tears came to her eyes as she realized the direction this conversation, if it could be called that, was taking.

"That's correct," he replied without lowering the volume. The uproar drew stares from nearby workers and patrons, making Serena turn a darker shade of red than she already was. Getting fired was one thing, but getting humiliated in public was the worst punishment in the whole world. She was glad no one but her closest friends knew she was Sailor Moon, otherwise, no one would ever take her seriously again.

"That's why I have no choice but to fire you," Mr. Funikochi continued. He seemed undaunted by all the stares. "I want you out of this store within the hour, and I don't want to see you, even as a customer in here again! Understand?!" Serena nodded, whimpering, before taking off like a thunderbolt for the changing room to get back in her street clothes.

She was out of the store in less than ten minutes.

* * * *

Raye emerged from her bedroom, yawning sleepily though she had slept nearly until noon. She hadn't gone to sleep until four in the morning because she was hanging out with her newest crush: Jeremy. She smiled as she recalled the movie they saw with Molly and Andrew. She remembered staring at Jeremy the whole time, instead of the movie.

He was soooooo hot! She thought to herself, as she got dressed. Maybe today I should get up the nerve to kiss him.

She fantasized about him all through her morning routine, making sure to put on some extra perfume for her math class, when she sat right next to him.

She went to the kitchen at a relaxed pace; her class was not until two o'clock. She saw her housemate and best friend, Amy, sitting at the table, munching on a slice of toast, and, of course, studying intently some science formulas that rocket scientists would be afraid of. She and Amy both attended the same college in downtown Tokyo so they decided to room with each other in Amy's off campus apartment. They got along as well as they always had. But sometimes, just occasionally, Amy's perfect study habits got on her nerves. It wasn't like Raye was jealous. Heck no, she got along in school just fine with lest than twenty-four hours of study. It was the fact that Amy was so hard on herself when she must have known that she could get just as good grades with only half the effort. When she studied, Amy was off on another world entirely!

"Good Morning, Amy," said Raye as she opened the cupboard for a cereal bowl.

"Mm Hmmm," said Amy in reply.

Raye felt a growing irritation at her friend's obliviousness to the outside world. There was a time when Amy knew what a little fun was, now she was just plain unbearable! The only time she "Hung out" was on Saturdays, the one day of the week she allowed Raye to take her away from her studies.

"I had a great time with Jeremy last night," she said a bit louder.

"Mm Hmmm," was the only answer she got.

"What did you do last night?"

"Mm Hmmm."

Now Raye was REALLY getting mad! Leave it to Amy to ruin a perfectly good morning with her 'I'm struggling to be a genius, even thought I don't really need to' attitude.

"I saw Serena in the master's level math class yesterday."

"Mm Hmmm."

"Oh, who was that hunky guy I saw you with last night?!"

"Mm Hmmm."

Raye couldn't stand it anymore! "HEY EINSTEIN!" She shouted at the top of her lungs, slamming Amy's science book closed at the same time.

Amy blinked, then calmly looked up at Raye. "Is there something wrong?" she asked mildly.

"GRRRRRRR!!!!" Raye snarled in reply. "Did you not hear a single word I said?!"

"I'm sorry," said Amy, "but I really do need to study for this science final, if it isn't important, I'd really like you to allow me to."

"Just one question, Ames," said Raye, Keeping her blood pressure down only through the greatest effort, "how many times have you studied for this test?"

"Huh?" asked Amy, "a few times, why?"

"A few times! THAT'S a laugh! What chapter are you on?!" asked Raye, picking up the textbook and tearing through it, mentally wincing at the complicated formulas on every page.

"Fifteen. Raye, I'd really like to know what you're thinking just now."

"Just proving a point, Amy dear." Raye flipped to chapter fifteen. "Can you recite to me the formula for the speed of light, as pertaining to the chart on page 327 on black holes and their effects on the quantum speed of a light ray?"

Amy rolled her eyes as she thought a second, then rattled off: "Speed equals the square root of velocity cubed, times the sine of 64, over gravity minus energy, divided by the mass of the light particle, times ten to the twelfth power."

"Umm... very good... Amy," Raye said with a humongous sweat-drop on her forehead. She could never, in a million years, remember a formula like that, particularly with an exam looming. "Now, what about the formula for the gravitational pull of a Pulsar?"

"Raye, I don't see your point here."

"YOU'RE A GENIUS, AMES! YET SOMETIMES YOU CAN BE SO DUMB! I'M TRYING TO TELL YOU THAT IF YOU KNOW THE INFORMATION COLD, THEN WHY ON GOD'S GREEN EARTH ARE YOU STILL STUDYING FOR IT?!" After her tirade, Raye panted as if she'd run a marathon.

Amy had no reply for that. She simply looked at her friend, and then blushed as she realized what Raye was driving at. "I see. You're right. I guess it does look like I study out of habit and not out of any need."

"Thank you!" said Raye, letting out her breath in relief. Amy was finally looking at the bigger picture.

"But I don't have what you'd call a social life," said Amy. "So there's really nothing to do besides clean the apartment and study all day."

"But you always hang out with the gang on Saturdays."

"That's because I like to talk to Serena and the others occasionally. I don't really have any real friends outside you eight."

Raye began to feel sorry for Amy. "Well guess what? Tonight, after you get home from your exam, get dressed for a wild night, cause we're gonna cruise the nightclubs! And you can meet MY friends, what do you say?"

Amy looked as if she were going to protest about how she did need to stick with studying and this it was only a Thursday, but then she seemed to catch herself and think about what Raye was just saying. "I guess I could let up on myself... a little bit," she said dubiously, "but don't think this is going to happen every night now."

"Girl, after tonight, you won't ever want to study again!" said Raye.

Amy looked alarmed upon hearing that, and was about to protest when there came a knock at the door.

"I'll get it," said Raye. "However, both girls went into the living room to answer the door.

They received quite a shock upon opening the door. There stood Serena, tears welled up in her blue eyes, looking quite disturbed.

"Don't tell me," said Raye, exasperated, "you lost another job!"

* * * *

"I fail to see how the rubbing of two sticks together will start your fire," said Hotaru, looking at her friend, Amara, who was indeed rubbing a pair of sticks together to create a campfire.

"Admit it, Amara," said Michelle smugly. "You don't know what you're doing."

"I know what I'm doing, now leave me alone!" Amara rubbed the sticks even harder and faster, but there was no sign of any sparks, let along the slightest hint of smoke. The other girls laughed at her then went off to another part of the campsite.

Amara, Hotaru, and Michelle were camping in the woods on the slope of Mount Fuji. This was a place Amara had discovered, with plenty of peace and quiet, and a great view of the city of Tokyo. The nearest road was more than a mile away. This wasn't a public campground; Amara hated those, so there was no one to disturb their weekend of fun. For the next four days, it would be just the three of them.

Building the campfire was the difficult part. Amara had forgotten the butane lighter, so of course the girls were left with no means to build a fire, and plenty of bags of uncooked marshmallows in the trunk of Amara's car. It was Amara who decided to try the "old fashioned method" of lighting fires, much to the amusement of her two companions who insisted it couldn't be done. For the last half-hour, nothing had happened, and her arms were beginning to burn with the exercise. Even more agonizing however, was the fact that her friends were being proved right with every minute that passed.

Finally, Amara smelled smoke. Excellent, she thought, breaking into a smile. Now I'LL have the last laugh! She redoubled her efforts, sweating from the extra effort. Suddenly, she heard giggling from over near the car.

"Shut up, guys," she said. "I almost got it, can't you smell the smoke?"

"Yup! We sure can!" Hotaru was nearly rolling on the ground.

"What is so damn funny?!" Amara exclaimed, looking up from her work. She saw Michelle, sitting on the edge of the open trunk, with a box of matches in one hand and a lit match in the other. She had a gigantic grin of amusement on her face.

"You forgot about the matches, dear," she said, then burst out laughing. Hotaru was now lost in a storm of giggles, and for several moments, the woods were filled with that sound. A giant sweat drop appeared over Amara's head as she realized she should have looked for those.

"Where did you find them?" she asked sheepishly.

"In the trunk..." Michelle shook out her match, and tossed the box to Amara. "Here, this MIGHT be useful."

Amara began to turn bright red. "Yeah, and you're both a bunch of comedians," she said sarcastically, dropping the sticks and lighting the fire with a match. Hotaru had been laughing so hard she had the hiccups now. In minutes, the campfire was roaring.

Amara straightened up, wiping the sweat off her forehead and flexing her sore back. Michelle didn't even ask, she walked right over and started giving her partner a massage.

"We were just teasing you, Amara," she said, gently kneading Amara's lower and middle back.

"I know that," the other replied, "and I deserved every minute of it. I was just being foolish."

Michelle stopped rubbing and put her arms around Amara. "I like it when you're foolish sometimes. Just like a man, you are."

"Hey, is that only reason you like me?" Amara said sardonically. Hotaru, still hiccupping, was now rummaging around in the bags for some water to drink. Of all of them, Hotaru was the only one still in high school. She was here, on a Thursday, because her school was off today and tomorrow for some conference or something.

"It's in the navy blue sack, next to the cooler," said Michelle, releasing Amara and resuming her rubbing.

Hotaru found the water and, hiccupping even harder now, made her way over to the fire. "It's a (hic) pity that the rest of the (hic) gang couldn't be h(hic)ere." She sat down heavily and started to gulp water.

"That's not going to help," Amora muttered. Michelle nudged her, and Amara fell silent. "I think they all had tests," said Michelle, moving to Amara's shoulders and neck. "I know Serena told me she had to work every day this weekend."

"Hmmm, that's (hic) right, all their finals are starting up this week aren't (hic) they?"

"Yup," said Michelle. "And if I know them, especially Amy, they're going to be studying their pretty little butts off."

"Pretty?" asked Amara, with arched eyebrows.

"Jealous?" Michelle shot back, mischievously. Hotaru simply stared at the fire. "Yeah, but it's still a (hic) pity."

"I think it's appropriate," Amara piped up. "That it's just us three." Hotaru looked at her questioningly; her hiccups were beginning to slow. "What (hic) do you mean?"

"I mean," said Amara, "that the others have their own lives to live. I mean we've all been friends, but ours is a pretty large group of friends. And the original five seem to be in their own little tightly knit group, while Trista and we have our own. That's just an observation. That's not to say I would mind having one or all of them with us. Especially Serena-"

Michelle stopped massaging, and smacked Amara on the side of the head. "Ouch!" Amara said. "Oops, did I say that out loud?"

"Verrrrry funny!" said Michelle, moving over near Hotaru.

"Hey, I had to pay you back for the match thing somehow."

Michelle gave Amara a mock glare, then embraced Hotaru. "Hotaru still cares about me, don't you, Hotaru?" The Senshi from Saturn blushed a bit, and gave a small hiccup in reply.

Amara got up and walked over to the car. She began to get out some of the marshmallow bags. "Might as well start now," she said out loud.

Hotaru's hiccups finally stopped. "Well," she said. "I wonder what Trista is doing right now?"

"What else could she be doing, but guarding the gates of time, as always," Amara's distant voice replied.

"That's not what I meant," said Hotaru, staring at the dancing flames. "I meant, I wonder if she's thinking about all of us."

"I'd say it's a probability," said Michelle, also hypnotized by the fire. "I feel really sorry for her. I wouldn't trade my life for hers on my worst day."

"Yeah," said Hotaru. "But she would probably give up a thousand years just to experience our WORST day. I feel bad, thinking this way."

"I'm sure she'll visit now and again," Michelle replied. "She's not obligated to be on the job EVERY second of eternity. I'm sure the powers that be will allow her to drop on by when she feels like it."

The two fell silent as they thought their own thoughts. Suddenly, out of nowhere, Amara came up behind them and yelled "OLLEYOLLEYOXENFREE!" at the top of her lungs, while grabbing Hotaru's shoulder. Hotaru jumped about ten feet off the ground, screaming, then crashed to earth again.

"Well? Did I fix your hiccups?" Amara asked. "I heard that scaring people helps."

Hotaru suddenly let loose with a storm of hiccups. "You (hic) stupid idiot! (hic) You just brought (hic) them back (hic), and now they're (hic) worse than (hic) before!"

"Oh well," said Amara, shrugging. "I thought I'd try."

Michelle only glared at her, having been surprised herself. Then, out of the blue, she let out a tiny hiccup of her own. Amara pointed and laughed. Hotaru and Michelle looked at one another, then got up and started chasing Amara around the campfire.

* * * *

"Child?" said the old woman from behind Lita. "Child? Will you please refill my glass of water?"

Lita turned around, putting on the tender smile she used when working in the elderly wing of the Hidiro Yamaha Hospital. The old lady was named Beatrice, and she was a nice old woman who had suffered a stroke. That was why she was here. She always called Lita 'child,' because she could never remember her name. Lita had given up trying to make Beatrice remember her name, because sometimes she didn't even remember her own.

"What is it, Beatrice?" Lita asked in a kind voice.

"I need some more water, child," said Beatrice, holding out her empty plastic cup in a wobbly, wrinkled hand.

"Of course. I'll get some more," was Lita's reply as she took the cup and headed for the water jug near the back wall.

Lita worked in the Hospital as part of a community service program within her Society club, at college. She had joined up with Society because she'd been told it would get her points toward her major and count heavily on her resume. She knew almost all the names of every person in this wing, and made it a point to accustom herself with any new ones who arrived. She knew she was observed at times without her knowledge, so she put forth the best efforts of any of the assistants at all times.

Many of the elderly were quite gentle, like Beatrice. But there were a few of them that absolutely made her uncomfortable. Old Stan was a case in point. Old Stan was a nasty old man who still thought he was twenty years old, and he constantly hit on, or harassed the younger nurses and students. Lita felt her heart begin to pound when she saw Stan sitting next to the water cooler.

Great, she thought, just perfect. I get to wrestle with an eighty-year old gigolo!

The harassment she expected occurred as she bent to tap the cooler. Stan took his cane and lifted Lita's skirt and began to admire the view silently. Lita didn't know what he was doing until she felt a draft on her thighs. She whipped around; catching Stan red handed, and turned very red in the face.

"STAN!" She cried, "I could press sexual harassment charges against you if you keep up these shenanigans!"

Stan only laughed at her. He knew he was far too old for anyone to do anything seriously about him. "You can press yourself up against me anytime, young lady," he chuckled. "I may be old, but I'm not dead. Now wipe that look off your pretty little face, and get me my heart medicine."

Lita wanted to substitute his heart pills for rat poison, but she knew better than to kill a person; even if he was a male chauvinist pig! Instead she stormed off with the cup of water.

It was about time that everyone got their medications anyway, so she got out a cafeteria tray and began distributing the pills in their tiny cups to each person. When she came around to Stan, she kept her body well away from his hands and her skirt away from his cane. The position looked perfectly ridiculous, but she didn't care, as long as he couldn't get his slimy hands on her.

Another nurse, at the behest of one of the patients, turned on the television hanging from the ceiling. The Channel Six news came on, and Yogi Hirami, the news anchor for the station, came on, reading some tidbit of news. Lita left the room to take her fifteen-minute break; she didn't care to watch the news a lot. There was never any good news on TV.

* * * *

"Oh, you poor dear!" Charon bent over Sailor Moon's broken body with pity. "I wish there were time to heal your body! You look so fragile now! So different from what you usually are!" There was no reply from Serenity. She was unconscious. "There is not much time, so I have no choice but to carry out Sailor Pluto's wish. I'm getting you help, Sailor Moon. Don't you worry. I'll send you into the past, where your past selves can protect you from Dark Mercury's evil until we can think of something! Please hang in there. You're our last hope, my Queen."

Charon stood up and went over to the control panel and punched a few buttons. She turned and watched as Sailor Moon's body vanished into thin air. "To the late 20th Century I'm sending you, Sailor Moon! To the year 1999! Until we meet agin."

* * * *

At approximately twelve-thirty in the afternoon, lunch hour for most people, the traffic in downtown Tokyo becomes clogged at every intersection. The clogging creates an atmosphere of lingering car fumes, short-tempered drivers, and of course the occasional fender benders. It was at this hour, at the corner of Main Street and Jyuban Mall Road, that something that doesn't normally occur, happened.

Mrs. Shino was just about to pull through the green light and make a right turn, when a bright blue orb filled her windshield. She was so surprised by the unexpected flash that she slammed on the brakes, thinking it was an explosion of some sort. The chaos that resulted caused a thirty or so car pileup in the center of the intersection. Instantly, the curses and the car horns erupted from those who were inconvenienced by the accident.

The commotion stopped as quickly as it had started as others saw the same thing that Mrs. Shino saw. The light continued to flash in the air, then, to everyone's shock and horror, the limp body of a woman fell through the light, and landed right on top of Shino's car. As suddenly as it had flashed to life, the orb died away, leaving everyone at the intersection staring at the spot it had been hovering, or looking toward the white Honda that the mysterious woman had crash landed on.

Mrs. Shino got out of her car to see if the girl was all right. She recoiled in horror as she saw that the poor creature was most definitely NOT all right. Her body was all covered in bruises and gashes; blood oozed out of almost every orifice on her body; her clothes were tattered so badly they hardly covered her at all. It looked like the remnants of a sailor costume! Was she a schoolgirl of some sort?

Others got out of their cars and began to utter curses and cries of shock as they too laid eyes on the broken girl on Shino's hood. Mothers tried shielding their children's eyes, dozens ran over to get a closer look at the carnage, some down to earth people began dialing on car and cellular phones for rescue squads.

Shino tried to move the girl's body and noticed her hood had been dented from the girl's fall. She winced as she wondered what further injuries the impact alone must have caused!

"Let me through... please, let me through," she heard from a man's voice behind her, "I'm a Doctor!"

At that moment, the girl's limp body tensed, then slowly, she began to move. Her every movement was punctuated by a gasp of pain. "W-where... am I...?" She asked in a weak voice, filled with agony. "W-ho... is there?"

The doctor, a lean, dark haired man in his forties, made it to Shino's side. "Don't move," he commanded her, "you're hurt very badly. Let me examine you."

"N-no... I c-can't let... you," she replied, rising to her hands and knees. "Th-there... is n-no t-t-time!"

"What?" asked the doctor. "What are you talking about?"

The girl did not reply, she seemed lost in thought as she gazed painfully around. "I... m-must be in the past... the-the twentieth century it looks... like," she mumbled to herself.

"The past?" asked one bystander to another. "What's she on about?"

"Who knows? Is she a nutcase?" asked the other.

"I think she's probably just delirious," murmured a third.

The girl flew into a fit of coughing just then, and with each tearing hack, she passed blood out of her mouth.

"I was afraid of this!" said the doctor. "She's bleeding internally! We need to get her to a hospital, stat!"

"I-I told-d you..." she stammered, "there... is... n-no... time!"

"What do you mean, no time?" Mrs. Shino asked her.

"Don't talk to her!" said the doctor to Shino. "Look, lady," he said in a forceful tone. "I can certainly understand your urgency. But you DO need a hospital! You'll die if you don't get some help!"

"M-my... life... not imp-portant," said the girl, struggling to her feet. "Only... the past...!"

"Amazing! She can still stand after all she's been through?!" gasped one of the bystanders.

Suddenly the girl collapsed into the Doctor's arms, unconscious. Her breathing was ragged, and her chest heaved with nearly every breath.

The ambulance arrived five minutes later, but it took an extra ten minutes to clear a path through the traffic enough for the squad to get the truck through. Paramedics jumped from each door, and opened up the rear, grabbing a stretcher. In virtually no time flat, they had the girl's body strapped to the stretcher, and they wheeled her into the back. The press was already flying overhead with various news choppers. One station, Channel Six news, actually got a clear shot at her bashed up body before she was wheeled into the ambulance and driven off.

* * * *

Mina got home from her computer lessons, breathing a sigh of relief as she dropped her book bag from her shoulders. Her laptop was really a load to carry around sometimes. Today was a hot day, so the weight felt particularly heavy. As her eyes took in her bedroom, she saw her cat, Artemis, snoozing, curled up on the end of her bed.

"At least YOU don't have to go to computer classes and listen to a teacher drone on and on about micro-technology for three hours," she snapped at him, feeling jealous of his carefree existence.

"Well, us Cats try to stay humble, but Lord knows it's hard," said Artemis sardonically. "I suppose I'll forgo asking you how your day went."

"Oh, no," said Mina, "please do! I need to scream and whine at someone and get all this frustration off my chest."

"If you feel the need to scream," replied Artemis, "please do it somewhere a few miles from here. You have a piercing voice, and I do need my beauty rest."

"Oh yeah?! So SORRY for disturbing you, your majesty!!" asked Mina, as she chucked a pillow at the white cat.

"Yow!" cried Artemis as he was hit with the pillow. "Stop that!"

Mina sat down on her bed and opened up her book bag. Getting out her laptop, she plugged the adapter into the outlet near her alarm clock, opened the monitor up, and flicked the switch to activate it. Despite the weight of it, she really enjoyed her laptop. She had downloaded a few games from Lita's PC, and she also had a diary on it. She logged on to the diary just now, and began to type.

Artemis, meanwhile, cleaned himself with his tongue, stretched and yawned, and leaped off the bed. "If you're home, then that means it's time for the news," he said lazily.

He padded over to the remote control on the floor, and stepped on the "ON" button. The television in the corner of Mina's bedroom clicked on.

"Keep it down," Mina muttered, "I have homework to do."

"What?! Your teacher assigns you diary homework? Oh, no!"

"Shut up, Arty!"

The Channel Six-news network came on, with the host, Yogi Hirami, reading the top story of the afternoon off a sheet of paper.

Artemis watched with general disinterest as Yogi glossed over the NATO bombings of Kosovo, The American national team beating the Japanese nationals in the Little League World Series, and the opening of a new shopping mall in downtown Tokyo. Artemis already knew these things. He watched for any new news that came on over the airwaves. Stuff of interest. But there didn't seem to be any today. He was just about to flick the station off, when someone off the screen handed Yogi a new sheet of paper, and he cried out excitedly, "THIS JUST IN!"

Artemis' ears parked, a feline sign of interest, and his foot came away from the remote.

"Just when we thought that anything was possible in rush hour traffic, city drivers were given quite a shock today," Yogi began. "Seemingly out of the blue, eyewitnesses claim that a young teenage girl dropped out of the sky and landed atop a vehicle. From the looks of her body, claim eyewitnesses, she seemed to have been severely hurt BEFORE the accident! We take you now to the scene in downtown Tokyo!"

The screen changed to a middle-aged woman, with brown hair tied back in a bun, and horn-rimmed glasses, next to a news correspondent and a mike.

"I was just taking off through a green light," said the woman, who was labeled by the subtitles at the lower side of the screen as Mrs. Shino. "When this light filled my windshield and darn near blinded me! I put on the brakes and created an awful traffic jam, but then this young woman falls onto my hood, creating a huge dent with the impact!" Mrs. Shino pointed to a white Honda behind her. Sure enough, there was a large dent in the good of the car. The white car paint was stained red in some areas.

"Fell out of the sky?" Mina asked interestedly. "Did I hear them right?"

"That's what they say." Artemis turned the volume up.

"She was dressed in this tattered schoolgirl uniform!" said another bystander. "She had blonde hair that was tied up in pigtails. And. I'm not sure how to say this. but I think she had a tattoo on her forehead."

"A tattoo?" asked the newsman with the microphone.

"Yeah. It looked to me like a Crescent Moon!"

"What?!" Mina dropped her laptop on the floor. "Blonde hair, pigtails, and a C-C-Crescent Moon?! ON HER FOREHEAD!??!"

Artemis was stunned into silence.

The view switched to a lean, tall man in a blue blazer, that the network identified as Doctor Phillip Saiba. "That's right," he said, agreeing to the statements made by Mrs. Shino. "She would have been in better shape if she'd been hit by an eighteen wheeler! She was all covered up in bruises and was bleeding all over the place. Every time she coughed, she'd spit up all this blood! I knew she had to be bleeding inside, so I tried to get her to stay and wait for the ambulance. It was tough. She kept trying to stand up and was mumbling some nonsense about the future and how this was the past or something like that."

"Did she say anything else?" asked the journalist.

"Oh, yeah! She did," the Doctor replied. "She said the there was a deadly force coming to trash Tokyo, and it was something more powerful than she'd ever faced. Yep! She was definitely delirious. Poor girl."

The last words were not yet out of the Doctor's mouth, when Mina ran over to the phone, and began dialing. She needed to tell the others about Serena's situation.

The station jumped back to Yogi, who began to add to the story. Mina stopped long enough to hear that the girl was being carted off to the Hidiro Yamaha Hospital in midtown Tokyo. At the same time, a photo of Sailor Moon's broken body being loaded into the rear of the ambulance wagon was shown. Mina's heart sank as she recognized her immediately! Definitely Serena!! She was in transformed mode too, which meant she had definitely been fighting someone. or SOMETHING!!

"This was a photograph taken by one of our photographers in out news chopper as it arrived on the scene. Unfortunately, no further news has reached us as to the current condition of this girl. Authorities are looking into her possible identity."

The show went on, interviewing various other eager eyewitnesses who wanted to put their two cents in. Mina paid no attention as she dialed the number to the elderly care unit of Yamaha Hospital, where her friend Lita worked. She had to know about this! After that, she would call Amy and Raye, who she hoped were home from their college courses right now.

The phone rang for what seemed like an eternity before a secretary with a whiney voice picked up. "Elderly Care Unit," she said. "Can I help you?"

"Yes," said Mina, in a trembling voice, "I'd like to speak to Lita Kino, please? Is she in right now?"

"Hold on a minute, I'll check," and there was a click, followed by soft corporate rock in the background. She was on hold.

"C'mon, Lita, hurry up," Mina whispered aloud.

"Another eternity seemed to pass as Mina waited for Lita to get her tall butt to the phone. Finally, she heard Lita's deep voice on the other line say: "This better be good, because you're interrupting my break."

"Lita! Thank God," exclaimed Mina. "Where on earth were you?"

"I was in the break lounge," said Lita, her voice sounding taken aback by Mina's sudden outburst. "Why, what's wrong?"

"Have you been watching the television over there in the past five minutes?" asked Mina.

"Huh? No. Whenever the old timers watch the news, I go to have my break."

Mina saw the story being repeated for those who just joined in watching. "You better get to a TV, fast, because you might just be interested in what's on."

Lita stayed silent for a heartbeat, then said: "alright."

"Okay, I gotta go, so I can call Raye and Amy. "I'll call you again if I need to."

"Uh... Okay." Lita's voice sounded confused, but Mina already had the phone redialing for Amy's apartment.

After about three rings, someone finally answered. But it wasn't whom Mina was expecting.

It was Serena's voice that said: "Hello?"

* * * *

Dark Mercury watched from a different dimension entirely as events on 30th Century Earth continued to unfold. The famed System Defense Fleet had arrived in orbit and investigations were continuing on the surface. Every fool that was there wondered just what had happened. Tokyo was in ruins, as were several other cities around the world. This attack, in their eyes, had been random and inexplicable. Every news station on the planet was buzzing about the "Alien Invasion". None of them could explain why the attack was aborted however, and as the bodies of the Sailor Senshi were discovered amidst the rubble of Crystal Tokyo, she reveled in the sound of despair in everyone's voices.

"It's almost perfect," she said softly to Commander Zinc. "Almost! Sailor Moon escaped my grasp! This was supposed to be my date of ultimate victory and I got cheated!!" She slammed her fist on the side of her chair.

Commander Zinc was pale, but he tried valiantly not to show his fear. "Milady. I don't know what to say. Sailor Pluto couldn't possibly have interfered. She's still stuck in the Fifth Dimension! Our tracker doesn't lie!"

"But even trackers can be fooled," said Dark Mercury. "Show me what it sees, NOW!!"

An image on the screen directly before her switched to a view of Sailor Pluto, standing on a chunk of solid mass floating in the void of the Fifth Dimension. "She hasn't so much as twitched since you left her there," said Zinc.

Dark Mercury narrowed her eyes. "What is it, Sailor Pluto? What did you pull that I didn't take into account?! What tricks do you yet have up your sleeve, my most persistent adversary?!"

She turned back to the images of the 30th Century and saw rescue workers starting to move rubble aside. "Stand by, Commander. I will return after tying up a few. loose ends! In the meantime prepare for attack again."

"Yes, Dark Mercury." Zinc bowed.

Dark Mercury pushed a button on her right arm and disappeared from the Gorgonite.

* * * *

Serena sat at the kitchen table in Amy's apartment, with her head resting in her folded arms, bawling her eyes out. As usual, Amy and Raye looked on, the crying making them feel sort of awkward. However, they had run out of things to say, and only watched as Serena carried on about the unfairness of her life and how she was never going to be Queen of the world if life kept biting her in the butt this way.

Amy sighed and turned to put a pot of tea on the stove. Raye just folded her arms and shook her head. No matter how old she got, Serena never grew out o that habit of crying at the drop of a handkerchief. While she sympathized with her longtime friend, she also knew the difference between reacting naturally and going overboard. And Serena was going way, way overboard about this.

So when Raye finally said something, it was this: "Are you quite finished yet?"

Amy looked up from her kettle in surprise at Raye, but remained silent.

The sharp tone of Raye's voice snapped Serena momentarily out of her theatrics. She looked up, in shock, with tear filled eyes. "W-what," she stammered?

"I asked you if you were finished acting like a big baby," Raye snapped.

Serena was shocked once more, and looked about to go into another round of crying, before Raye interrupted her momentum.

"For God's sake, Serena!" said Raye. "How old are you?"

"Uhhhhh... 19," said Serena.

"Really? You could have fooled me. The way you act, you'd think you were still in elementary school!"

Serena continued to sniffle, though it looked like she had her undivided attention.

"Okay, let's start with why you got fired," said Raye, slowly regaining her patience.

"I-I was checking out groceries," said Serena in a watery voice, "And this man I was checking out kept getting all this extra stuff at the last minute, and made me have to redo the checkout. The line was getting long and all the people waiting there were looking to me to hurry it up, so I packed his bags and sent him on his way, wanting nothing more than to get rid of him.

"A few minutes later, Melvin, he works in the supermarket too, came over to me and told that I hadn't gotten any money from that man. I panicked and didn't really think about it, I just ran into the parking lot, looking for him, but he'd taken off. Poor Melvin, he had to take over while I was gone, and he was terrible at the register. The commotion caught Mr. Funikochi's attention, and he came over to see that I had left the register in Melvin's hands. I know Melvin didn't want to get me in trouble, but he had to tell the Manager the truth.

"Mr. Funikochi was very angry. I knew I was fired from the way he stood, with his shoulders bunched up, and his nostrils flaring. He told me to get out of his store and to never come back, not even as a customer." Serena looked bout to cry, but this time it was Amy who cut her off.

"Now, now, Serena," said Amy, in a sympathetic voice. Raye rolled her eyes and went into the living room.

Amy continued: "from how you explained it, Serena, it sounds like it's no one's fault but your own. So you lost one job, there are plenty more out there. You simply have to get over the embarrassment and move on."

"This is the FIFTH job I've lost in a year, Amy!" Serena protested. "Sooner or later people are going to know me by only one thing; that I can't hold a job and I'm an undependable worker. No one will hire me then."

Amy felt truly sorry, but she also understood Raye's pessimism. "I think, Serena, that if you had taken more initiative in high school, then you wouldn't be worrying about jobs right now, you'd be studying for a test or doing homework."

"You make that sound so fun," said Serena, in a sarcastic voice.

"I'm not saying it is fun, I'm only saying that working in a low level job may be your curse for not doing well when you should have. You have got to grow up Serena, because someday, if you do become Neo-Queen Serenity, you will have to deal with a massive amount of responsibility."

Serena sighed in depression. "I've been such a meatball head lately. Maybe the world would be better off without me as Queen."

"Nonsense," Amy chided.

"NO really," Serena insisted. "If you think about it, I would make a lousy Queen at the rate I'm going. The world wouldn't go to Hell if I didn't become the ruler."

Amy knew that Serena was getting down on herself too hard, and if she kept going, she'd begin to cop out, and that was unacceptable. "Now listen to me, Serena," Amy said sharply. "If you don't become Queen, the world would be overrun by the Negaverse, and everything would become Hell. And do you know whose fault it would be? Yours. Just because you let a few lousy failures weigh you down. That's not the kind of future I want for my children, if I have any, and you wouldn't want that for yours either!"

Serena was quite surprised by Amy's assertion, but actually began to stop whimpering and looked as if she was thinking about her friend's words. At that moment, the phone began to ring.

Before she moved to answer the phone, Amy said: "The future can't happen by itself, Serena. You need to make sure that it does." The phone rang again.

Serena jumped up. "Let me get that," she said. Amy looked confused, but sat down again, watching her friend move toward the wall phone.

Serena picked up the receiver and answered the call, "Hello?" But something was obviously wrong, because Serena's face became first confused, and then slightly worried.

"What is it," asked Amy, "who's it for?"

* * * *

"Hello?"

Mina could have sworn it was Serena's voice on the phone, yet it couldn't possibly be, because Serena was just on TV being carted away by an ambulance.

"Who is this?" asked Mina.

"Mina? Is that you?"

There was no mistaking Serena's voice, but the impossibility of the situation made her head spin. She tried to speak, but nothing could come out of her mouth.

There was a pause, then the person on the other line did a very "Serena" thing, she hung up. Mina hung up also.

"What was that all about?" It was Artemis.

"There was a girl on the other line," said Mina, "and she sounded just like Serena. But that's impossible!"

Artemis looked at her a little funny. "Of course that's impossible, why don't you try again?"

"Right." Mina nodded and began to dial again, but she couldn't shake the feeling that there was something extremely wrong. Her routine afternoon suddenly seemed like ages ago.

The phone rang at some length before it was picked up again. "Hello?" It was Amy's voice this time. Her voice was unmistakable.

"Amy, who just picked up the phone a moment ago?" asked Mina.

"Oh, that was just Serena. She said that you got disconnected or something, cause when she answered no one was on the other end."

Mina's head was truly spinning now. Were they playing head games with her? NO. Amy was not the type to do that, and anyway, if she had any idea what had happened, she wouldn't be joking with her about it.

"Amy," said Mina. "That's not possible."

"Huh?" asked Amy, "of course it is, I'll put her on for you, if necessary."

"NO!!" Mina suddenly panicked. "Something is wrong!"

"Mina, are you alright?" Amy sounded worried now. "You're beginning to scare me."

"Amy, stay there," said Mina. "And keep 'Serena' there as well! I'm coming over right now! Oh! And turn on the news also. Channel six. You'll see what I'm all weirded out over."

She jammed the phone back in its cradle before Amy could say anything else.

"C'mon, Artemis!" she shouted as she flung open her front door. "You're coming with me!"

"Shouldn't we contact Luna?"

"That sounds like a good idea, though we may not have much time!" Mina replied, sprinting down the hall. In her head, her memory flashed back to the cryptic statement make by the doctor on TV. Serena had said: "There was no time!"

* * * *

Amy walked into the lounge, puzzling over the mysterious call, and saw Raye flipping through the channels already.

"Raye," said Amy. "Mina just called, she sounded really freaked out. She wanted us to watch the Channel Six News for some reason."

Serena walked in as Raye was changing the channel. "Hey, Amy, where do you keep those instant chocolate muffins you keep in your kitchen? Getting fired sure makes me hungry!"

"Shhh!" Amy shushed as the news came back from a commercial break. The scene cut to a traffic pile-up at an intersection in downtown somewhere. A voice narrated over the scene, saying: "For those of you just joining us, we are at the corner of Jyuban and Main, where just twenty minutes ago, the ambulance carrying the beaten body of a young girl left for the Yamaha care center." The inset photo showed a clear picture of what definitely looked like Sailor Moon being toted away on a stretcher! She looked beaten to a pulp!

"WHAT?!" exclaimed Raye, upping the volume.

"We're still interviewing most of the bystanders, let's take it to our correspondent Lyle Yoshii, on the scene of the accident."

As the picture changed to a grizzled looking man, with a channel six microphone in his hand, Serena walked up to the screen and exclaimed: "Waitaminute!! I'M Sailor Moon! I'm just fine!"

"Move outta the way, meatball brain!!" Raye shouted, looking just as shocked as any of them.

"Quiet, both of you," said Amy, moving Serena back with a hand on her sleeve. Serena didn't struggle, she looked as pale as a ghost.

"Thank you, Yogi," said Lyle. "I have interviewed over a dozen people, and though each has his or her own take on the incident, they all agree that a bright flash appeared in the sky over the intersection, and then this girl apparently fell out of that light and landed on the car of one Mrs. Shino."

"F-fell. out of a. b-bright light?!" Serena, for once, was speechless. She just sat down on the couch, her mouth open as if to speak, yet nothing came out.

Amy didn't catch the remainder of the report. Her mind was already in motion. She glanced over at the shocked Serena. Or at least, someone who looked very much LIKE Serena! Her mind flashed back to the days of the Negaverse, and their battles with them. Zoycite had disguised herself as Sailor Moon once. Could this Serena be an evil doppelganger? It wouldn't be the first time. Though this time was slightly different. This evil clone of Serena was a far more clever pose than Zoycite had ever managed. More like the real thing.

Serena seemed to get over her shock, and she threw down a pillow in anger. "Make a copy of me, huh?" she fumed. "That's the last straw! No one makes a copy of me and gets away with it!" She stormed toward the door. Amy jumped up, remembering Mina's words on the phone: "Keep Serena there, I'll be right over!"

"Umm, Serena, it might be a good idea to stay here!" She got up to bar the door.

Raye tore her eyes off the TV screen, and watched the two at the door.

"Amy!!" Serena whined. "Isn't it obvious? The Negaverse is loose again! And this time their letting loose evil Sailor Scouts clones on Tokyo! Well, I'm gonna stop them right now!"

"I don't think that's a good idea," replied Amy. Yes, she thought to herself, a very good copy, this. "Mina's coming over, and we'll clear up this whole thing."

"Clear it up?" Serena looked stumped. "We need to go to wherever this fake Sailor Moon is to get to the bottom of this." Suddenly, a light went on behind her eyes. "Oh," she said. "You think... I'M this fake. That's logical I guess, but c'mon Amy, how could it be anyone but me?"

Amy felt a lump form in her throat. "I'm sorry Serena, but if you try to leave on your own, you'll only prove that you're the fake."

"AMES!!" Serena looked shocked and hurt. "You know it's me!"

"I'll handle this," said Raye, standing up and fixing a concentrated stare on Serena.

"What are you doing, Raye?" asked Serena.

Raye only frowned, then moved up until she was practically face to face with Serena.

"Raye, stop that!" protested Serena. "You're really freaking me out!"

"Hmmm," said Raye, frowning. "I don't FEEL any Negative vibes..."

Serena grew hot with frustration. "THAT'S 'CAUSE I AM SERENA YOU GUYS!!!"

"Nevertheless," said Amy, "I feel it would be the lesser of the two evils to just stay put until Mina gets here."

Serena fell over in disbelief. "Oh... whatever, I give up! I'll stay!"

* * * *

Lita felt as if she would need to be carried from the room. Her legs turned to jelly as she watched one of her best friends being carted off to the very hospital she was currently in! Lita gritted her teeth as she imagined what she would do to the evil bastard who had hurt Serena so badly. But first, she needed to see if Serena was going to survive. No wonder Mina had been up in such a fit!

She knew it was wrong to do such a thing, but Lita found the opportunity to sneak out of her station and run down the stairs to the entrance. There she would wait for Serena to arrive. She hoped the others would get there soon as well.

No sooner did Lita get to the bottom, panting from running down all those flights, than did the stretcher carrying Sailor Moon burst through the front entrance. A huge crowd of doctors was crowded around her, and a few news cameras followed them, but were soon shooed away by the security guards for the lobby.

The doctors and paramedics pushing the wheeled stretcher were all chattering at once. Lita caught snippets of their words: "...need an OR stat...", "...massive internal hemorrhaging ...", "Somebody contact doctor ...," and so on. Lita ran toward the elevator that was being held open for them, and got on first. A burly looking orderly grabbed her and gently shoved her back out, saying, "Sorry miss, but there's an emergency situation here."

"I know that," replied Lita. "I'm one of her--" she cut herself off as she realized that telling the orderly she was a Sailor Senshi would not be a good idea right now. No one would believer her. All she could do was watch as Sailor Moon was carted onto the elevator, and then was taken up to the ER. Lita gritted her teeth again. The ER was on the fiftieth floor! Time for another sprint up the staircase, she thought grimly.

"Hello, is Serena there?" asked Mina, with Artemis sitting at her heels.

Serena's mother, Karen Tsukino, was a beautiful woman, with blue-black hair hanging to her shoulders. She appeared at the door wearing an apron, and carrying a small dust buster vacuum cleaner.

"No, not right now. Please, though," said Serena's Mom. "Come right in. Serena's due home from work in a few minutes."

Not likely today, thought Mina darkly. But she kept her mouth shut. They weren't here to get Serena anyway, and it would not be wise to complicate the issue by bringing Mrs. Tsukino into all this just now. Luna was inside somewhere. She was the reason they were here.

"Sure, I wouldn't mind," said Mina, in a falsely cheerful voice. "But I only have a few minutes. Then I gotta run."

"Oh? Where to," asked Mrs. Tsukino as she let them in.

"Umm... Just a. sorority meeting." Actually, Mina hated sororities, all the stuffy snobbish girls got on her nerves, but she needed an excuse, and that was what she came up with at the moment.

"Oh! I had no idea you were in a sorority!" The other exclaimed. "You know, I was in one myself, once! Are they still as fun as they used to be?!"

Oh, boy! thought Mina, breaking into a sweat. Here we go...

Artemis, meanwhile, was at the foot of the stairs. Before going up, he winked at Mina. It was up to her to distract Serena's Mom, while Artemis briefed Luna on the situation.

Artemis crept into the bedroom where Serena slept normally. The interior was almost exactly the way it was when they'd all first met. Boy, did that bring back memories.

"Artemis! What are you doing here?" asked a familiar voice from the top of Serena's dresser.

Artemis looked up at Luna, and said: "We have a Sailor Scout emergency! We need you to come with us."

"Now hold on a second, just what kind of emergency are we talking about here?" asked Luna.

"It's the Negaverse, Luna," Artemis replied. "I'm sure of it!"

"Oh, Artemis," said Luna. "We just finished the Negaverse off almost seven years ago."

"That's what we were led to believe..." Artemis began.

"Are you sure you're not seeing the Negaverse under beds and in dark closets?"

"I'm serious, Luna!!"

"Alright, alright," Luna hopped down off the dresser and sat down next to Artemis. "What seems to be the problem this time?"

"Sailor Moon has been hurt badly!"



"What?!"

Artemis nodded his head. "Yup. It was all over the news. Serena dropped out of some kind of white light and fell in the middle of traffic."

"She's been in an accident?" asked Luna.

"Not necessarily. The doctors and bystanders at the scene all insisted she looked like someone beat her up. The cameras didn't get too good a shot, but I think they're right."

Luna was silent, staring off into space. "I could have sworn 'Shadow Galactica' was the last of our worries. Could we have forgotten someone?"

"That's not all," said Artemis. "Mina tells me someone posing as Serena is at Amy's apartment right now. Whoever this may be, we're probably dealing with an evil genius."

"A doppelganger?"

"Or a clone, whichever," said Artemis. "But as far as we know, the injured Serena is at the Hidiro Yamaha Hospital. Lita's there, so we can be certain she's probably getting to the bottom of that as best she can. For all we know, the clone could be the one who just fell out of the sky."

"Good thinking, Artemis," said Luna, beginning to run. "In that case, we should rendezvous at Amy's place."

"Yes," replied Artemis.

As they sneaked out the front door, he allowed Mina to catch him out of the corner of her eye, winked at her, and then bolted before he was spotted. Serena's mother had a photo album in her lap, and chattered cheerfully away. Mina, who had endured the five longest minutes of her life, was very glad it was over. She pretended to look at her watch, and said: "Yikes! Look at the time! I need to get going!"

Serena's Mom stopped short, but smiled and said, "Okay, Mina, I'll tell Serena you stopped by." She had no clue as to their real mission, which, for her sake, was a very good thing.

Mina ran down the street to the bus stop, with Luna and Artemis on her heels. "Next stop," she said to herself. "Amy's house."

* * * *

Vanishing Point.

A place located in the fifth dimension, where normal rules of physics or chronology no longer apply. Here, it is impossible to time travel. Impossible to escape if one does not have the proper gate key. Only two people in reality have the ability to move in and out of time with impunity. One of them materialized on a chunk of solid matter, floating in the predominantly anti-matter dimension.

Dark Mercury activated her computer, the one object from her Senshi days she was glad she hadn't discarded. Right now, she scanned for the tracker Zinc had dispatched here to "keep an eye on Sailor Pluto." She snorted derisively to herself as she remembered just how well that particular plan had worked.

It took several minutes, but she located it about two kilometers away from her current position. She paused momentarily to reflect on the incorrectness of her computer's locator. For of course, there was no such thing as normal rules of physical distance in a non-physical plane. Oh, well, it was only a computer. And a much limited one at that, but useful.

She homed in on the cloaked tracker, and deactivated its cloaking device. Then she examined it and found no malfunctions whatsoever. So Sailor Pluto had escaped. Zinc's precious tracker had failed to follow Sailor Pluto wherever she went. Still, it was reading her presence here. And since it wasn't malfunctioned, someone who read the same energy presence as Sailor Pluto was within Vanishing Point.

It did not take long to home in on the unique energies belonging to Sailor Pluto. Hers was a unique power source. Nothing in the Universe was as intricate and as complex as the Garnet Rod. Sure enough, Sailor Pluto stood on another chunk of solid matter that had somehow ended up here. She stood, holding the Rod in her hands as one would a quarterstaff. She was expecting Dark Mercury.

Dark Mercury touched down on the same rock, less than ten meters from her nemesis. For a moment, neither one moved or spoke.

"So, Sailor Pluto," said Dark Mercury. "I hear you've been messing around in my plans lately. Considering you're still here, how did you manage that trick?"

"I have my ways," Pluto replied coldly. "You didn't seriously think you could completely inhibit my movements, did you? You're in MY house. There's no way you can ever completely stop me!"

"I see," said Dark Mercury. "And knowing that I would come here first, you returned to this place to do battle with me? How utterly foolish on your part. You know my power is far too strong, even for you."

"Your hatred blinds you, just as it has since the first day you betrayed the Sailor Scouts," said the other. "For your tracker was unable to track me, because it thought I was in here the whole time."

Dark Mercury was momentarily confused by Sailor Pluto's comment, then, suddenly, she understood. "The penny drops. You aren't the real Sailor Pluto then."

"Oh, I'm just as much Sailor Pluto as the next one. I'm simply a version of her pulled from exactly fifteen seconds from when she first encountered you in the time stream. The present Sailor Pluto is even now taking steps to counter your force."

Dark Mercury felt frustration boiling up. She should have suspected someone with time capabilities would try such a thing. Given a reversal of the situation, it was what she would do. As it was, her chronometer was not accurate or powerful enough to do that sort of thing.

"Tell me one thing," said Dark Mercury through clenched teeth. "Before I kill you, I just have to know. When I betrayed the Sailor Senshi, why didn't you warn them ahead of time? You could have stopped this whole cycle before it happened."

"It is not my place to dictate the direction time flows in," said Sailor Pluto, obviously stung by the comment.

"Then why is it that you choose to interfere now?" Dark Mercury accused.

"Because your current rampage through time is not what was intended to be the natural order of things. With every day you demolish the Earth, you take a sledgehammer to the space-time continuum. And as the Guardian of Time, that is something I am sworn to put and end to. By any means necessary."

"Well then," said Dark Mercury, as she launched her attack. "That only means I should have killed you when I had the element of surprise. A little oversight I plan on correcting as soon as I find the real you!!"

Sailor Pluto had expected the onslaught the whole time. But even then, she just barely countered Dark Mercury's moves. She moved with such speed that the Guardian of Time could not anticipate any of her moves in time to stop them. It was pretty even fight from the standpoint of skill. As to power, however, this was unbalanced from the start.

Sailor Pluto's carefully erected defenses fell apart within minutes. Although she did land a few blows, Dark Mercury was too powerful for a mere reflection of the original Sailor Pluto to stop. After twenty minutes, the fight was over. Sailor Pluto was bleeding on the ground.

"I shall have fun killing you," said Dark Mercury. "Over and over, just like the Sailor Scouts, if I have to. You cannot outrun me forever, Trista! You and I both know this!"

Sailor Pluto spat blood and glared at her enemy. "It was all to delay you, Amy. Time is something that, thanks to Princess Serenity being sent to the distant past, you no longer have as an ally. And as long as you don't know when in time I have left her, you will continue to fight blindly. Even if it kills me." With that, the future Sailor Pluto vanished, her job done. Leaving Dark Mercury to stand alone, fuming silently.

* * * *

"Serenity. Serenity!"

Princess Serenity's consciousness stirred for the first time since she'd slipped into that awful stupor from the hospital drugs. She had only a vague recollection of everything that had occurred since her beating at the hands of Dark Mercury.

Dark Mercury! She didn't know what hurt her more; the physical pain from those blows, or the betrayal. The agony of knowing that one of her most trusted friends and confidants was also her greatest enemy. She had the faintest image of lying at the feet of Dark Mercury, waiting for her impending death, then, the fall. Falling through fog and darkness. She thought she could hear soft words. Someone was speaking to her, and then the blinding light as she fell from the sky and onto the hood of someone's car. And she remembered the people, huddling close over her. The man with the beard who'd said he was a doctor. She was delirious then. She knew somehow that she was in the past, though she had no idea what year, it did look like the late twentieth century, which meant that there were Sailor Senshi that needed to be warned about the coming threat. It all seemed like a horrible nightmare. Her injuries had not yet registered on her mind. When they finally did, she had passed out.

After that... nothing, save the darkness, with the voices of the doctors and nurses floating in the background. She couldn't remember when she'd started dreaming. Now, she kept hearing the voice. It sounded so familiar...

"Serenity!" the voice continued to call.

The scenery around her shifted. Suddenly she was standing on the surface of the Moon, looking up at the beautiful, blue planet Earth. A shimmering city stood proudly around her, as the stars in the very heavens twinkled and sparkled at her. The Moon Kingdom glittered in crystal magnificence behind her.

"Serena!!"

She finally found the strength of mind to answer back. "Who is there?"

"You know who I am, my beloved Serenity. Look behind you."

Serenity turned and suddenly she was standing in the courtyard outside the Moon Palace. Standing on the steps leading to the front doors, was Queen Serenity, her mother from the Silver Millennium.

"Mother!"

Queen Serenity smiled sadly. "I wish we were speaking under more pleasant circumstances, my child," she said. "But circumstances, I fear, are more dire than they have ever been before."

"You're telling me," said her daughter. "So you know of what's happened?"

"Of course," the Queen replied, "for I am always with you, in your heart. I am so sorry you had to go through such torture. Sailor Mercury had such a bright soul! Not even I can comprehend why she would turn to the ways of darkness."

"Is it truly Amy, mother?" asked Serenity, her voice breaking.

"You already know the answer to that question, deep down, in your heart. That is how I know for certain."

Serenity began to weep. "Why?" she sobbed. "For pity's sake why?!"

"I cannot tell you more than this, for my time grows short," said Queen Serenity. "Seek out Sailor Pluto. Only she will tell you why, though you may not wish to know."

"I already have an idea of why, but I need to know the entire truth!" Serenity gazed at her mother, a great longing filling the recesses of her soul. "It may be the only way I will ever understand."

"Tell the Sailor Senshi of the current time period," said the Queen, beginning to fade along with the scenery around her. "In your condition, you need their help more than anyone else right now." Serenity, and the rest of the dreamscape, vanished into the mist once again.

That's when Serenity awoke.

* * * *

Sailor Pluto allowed her concentration to relax. Her job was done. The dream she sent Neo-Queen Serenity was created by her in order to ease the chaos in her mind, and to remind her that she had a mission to accomplish. Queen Serenity's spirit had also wanted to speak to her one final time. Sailor Pluto felt the tiny voice in her head say "thank you" before fading away.

It was the least I could do, my Queen, thought Pluto. We all need to help each other now, more than ever.

Lightning flashed from cloud to cloud. Every so often, the mists of time would shudder and the wind would howl at hurricane force. The Time Stream was in so much turmoil right now! Dark Mercury must have taken into account the irreparable damage she was causing in the fabric of reality, unless she was so far gone that she didn't care about anything but revenge!

Never before had she seen the time stream in such death throes. It was all she could do to keep herself in stasis, her anchor hold on time's flow was gradually eroding. Soon, even the Garnet Rod would be unable to traverse the ages as she once could. Sailor Pluto wasn't worried about that though. Time itself would unravel and implode long before that happened.

Sailor Pluto now reached out with her ESP and contacted Charon. "Charon! I trust things went off without a hitch?"

"Trista, Neo-Queen Serenity is safe as long as Dark Mercury has no idea where in time she has been placed. However, I fear Dark Mercury can very easily find out where she is. All she has to do is take control of the Watchtower on Pluto!" Charon's voice was deeply concerned.

"Listen, Charon," said Pluto. "We've worked together for eons. There is no one I trust more to guard that tower than you. Be strong, Charon. As we speak I can feel Dark Mercury coming my way. I will do my best to side- track her as long as possible, but I DO need to get on with my plan! The 20th Century Sailor Senshi are even LESS capable of beating Dark Mercury than the 30th Century models! They need my help more than ever! Hold down the fort. with your lifeblood if you have to!!"

Charon was silent for a few heartbeats. "I understand. As long as I draw breath Dark Mercury will not set foot upon the Watchtower!"

Pluto sighed. "Thank you, Charon. Good luck."

"No, Trista. God Speed to you!"

Trista felt sick. I just don't know if she can hold someone like Dark Mercury off! she dreaded. Charon, my old friend, I am SO sorry! But without the precious time I need I'll never be able to stop Dark Mercury. Maybe someday you'll forgive me for sacrificing you like this.

* * * *

Time was short, but salvageable.

Charon sat in the seat occupied so many times by Sailor Pluto. The giant computer screen of the Chronometer, the device by which one could peer into the ages, was showing a predictable, yet frightening event taking place! Starting at the end of the Time Stream and moving steadily backward was a void!

"A Zero Event!" Charon shuddered. "Dark Mercury, what have you done?! In your thirst for revenge you're undoing all Creation!"

All of a sudden, a chime on the Chronometer's keyboard caught her attention. Something had tripped the proximity alarm set up around the Chronal Watchtower!

"She's here!" Charon gulped.

She felt the presence of Dark Mercury behind her. It was a powerful presence to be sure. And one composed entirely of evil.

"You have no concept of the havok you wreak," said Charon, without turning around.

"What makes you believe I care what you think?" asked Dark Mercury, snidely.

"You would do well to listen to someone who knows," Charon adopted a tone of condescension. She was barely able to hide her fear. "I was guarding the Gates of Time before your earliest ancestor learned to walk. This war you wage on your own troubled past has its repercussions. Look around you." Charon motioned to the chronal chaos on the monitor. "Time is falling apart, like a broken clock; and it is doing this because of you!"

"Don't you think I know that?" asked Dark mercury. "Of course I know exactly what I'm doing. You think I didn't plan for this to happen?"

"In your hatred for everything you once loved," Charon countered, "You're doing more than just destroying time. Reality itself cannot function without time's flow!"

"Fool! Reality itself is my target," said Dark Mercury. "Killing my enemies over and over is just the means to an end."

"Just what are you after?!" Charon finally turned around. "Destroying every shred of reality is madness!!"

"Madness is NOT part of my agenda," said the other. "Look beyond the destruction, consider the possibilities!" Dark Mercury glowered at Charon. "But now is not the time for explanations. For you, sadly, are not part of the agenda either."

Charon narrowed her eyes and took out a staff that bore a striking resemblance to Pluto's Garnet Rod, brandishing it like a weapon. "You don't know how much that breaks my heart, TRAITOR!!" She said angrily.

Dark Mercury flew into an all out attack. Charon only smiled as she parried the vicious strokes of her enemy. "Go ahead, try to strike me down. Know that with every second you waste here, Sailor Pluto furthers her ultimate plan to destroy you once and for all!"

"When I'm through with you, there won't be enough left of you to fit on the head of a pin!" Dark Mercury continued to strike hard and fast. Charon felt her brow break out in a sweat. She couldn't hold off this attack forever, she needed to create a diversion and make her move.

"I call upon the power of Pluto!" she shouted, diving out her opponent's way. "Lend me your darkness!"

A cloud seemed to settle over Dark Mercury's eyes.

"AAARGHHH!!" she shrieked, stopping in her tracks, and trying to shake the sudden blindness that impeded her.

Charon uttered her next ability silently so as not to give away her plan. Within seconds, all was ready. She attacked her blind opponent, "Silent Strike!" a beam of purple light shot out from her staff and hit Dark Mercury in the side.

Pain was not a familiar feeling to her, so Dark Mercury was shocked to feel a wound open in her right side. Warm liquid now began to pour out. As she hit the ground, her blindness went away, and she saw Charon standing over her defiantly.

"Your rage blinds you more than my powers ever will," she said, smirking.

"You'll pay for that... you stupid SLUT!!"

Dark Mercury went on her most savage offensive yet. Charon did a fine job dodging for as long as she could, but her attacks were ineffectual. She didn't have time to call up another blind, nor would it have made much more of a difference in the outcome. The battle went on pretty evenly for a few more moments, then...

"Having fun yet?" asked Dark Mercury, suddenly smiling evilly. "I hope so. I went to all the trouble of holding back for you. Now I feel it's time you experienced my true power!"

Dark Mercury's speed and power increased tenfold before Charon could totally process that message. All of a sudden, she was on the receiving end of a brutal onslaught that she was powerless to fend off. Each blow opened a wound, or broke a bone. She felt her left kidney burst, and a lung deflate in a rush of vacuum. Her ribs were all cracked and broken, her legs busted, her skull smashed in. But still Dark Mercury went on and on, until she felt no more life, no more warmth, in what was now the corpse of Charon, the Messenger of Chronos!

"And now to keep my promise," said Dark Mercury, vaporizing the body with a gigantic blast of energy. Even the imitation Garnet Rod shattered and turned to dust. For all intents and purposes, Charon may as well have never existed!

"Now to complete my mission." Dark Mercury teleported again. Now she had to find out where in time Sailor Pluto had drawn Sailor Moon back. And the only place that information could be gleaned was on the Chronometer itself.

* * * *

Mina arrived at Amy's apartment at about 12:30pm. She knocked on the door, Apartment 1a, and waited for a few seconds. It was Amy who opened the door.

"Oh Mina, hi," said Amy, sounding relieved. "I'm glad you're here. Serena is in the living room right now. I almost had to physically restrain her from leaving."

"Did you just say: 'Serena's in the living room right now?'" asked Luna, as they entered the house. "Artemis told me Serena was terribly injured and in the hospital."

Amy nodded, "She is, but... ah... there's been a... complication. You'll know what I mean once you see it for yourself."

They all entered the living room, and saw Serena sulking in an easy chair near the picture window. Upon seeing the two cats and Mina walk in, she leaped up and began chattering like crazy. "Guysguys! Imsogladyourehere! Willyoutellthiscrazywomanthat itsmeSerena? Imeanshe hasgonelikecompletelywacko! Amythinksthatimsomeevilclone fromtheNegaverse! Evenafter checkingmeshethinksso! Pleasepleasepleasetellhershes makingabigmistake!!"

"Serena!" Luna chided. "Take a breath before you pass out on the floor!" Serena began to gasp, as she attempted to catch her breath.

"That was a little too fast for me," said Mina. "Could anyone translate that dialect for me?"

"Very... funny... Mina," said Serena, taking deep breaths to get her wind back.

She's been protesting for a full twenty minutes now," said Amy. "Basically what she's trying to tell you is that I'm completely nuts, and that I think she's a doppelganger from the Negaverse. This is all true, well, except for the nuts part, but I also checked her out with my computer, and scanned for any negative energy, but there weren't any anomalies. My computer insists she's the real Serena, but I kept her here just to be safe."

"I didn't pick up anything bad with my ESP," said Raye.

"Then there's no reason to suspect her," said Luna. "She's obviously the real thing. But what I would like to know is how this all came about. Will somebody tell me what's going on from the beginning?"

"I can, Luna," said Mina. "I had just come home from school and was doing my homework, when Artemis turned on the news. We saw a report that said that Sailor Moon had fallen out of the sky, and she was terribly hurt. They brought her to the hospital, and that's when I decided to call the others. While I was calling Amy, Serena here answered the phone, and I suspected that she may not be the real thing. I mean... remember when Zoycite disguised herself as Sailor Moon? Anyway, we went to get you, then we came here, and, well it looks like the real Sailor Moon is right here with us, but if that's the case..." she trailed off.

"Lita's at the Hidiro Yamaha Hospital, checking things out, but if the Sailor Moon there is the fake, then she could have problems," said Artemis.

"Somehow I don't think that's right," said Raye. "I didn't feel any bad vibes from the news report. Besides, I'm a little disturbed about what the witnesses were saying. Didn't that doctor say something like 'no time', or something?"

"Time is short," murmered Amy to herself. "Why is that statement striking a chord?"

"She could just as easily be a version of Serena from the future," Luna conceded.

"At any rate, we need to get over to that hospital," Amy said. "Lita can take care of herself, so there's no rush. If things do escalate, then she'll probably call us on her communicator."

"Great, let's go," said Serena, stamping her foot impatiently. "I wanna get to the bottom of this!"

Moments later, they left the apartment, and went off in the direction of the hospital.

* * * *

At the Hidiro Yamaha care center, Lita made it onto the fiftieth floor. Just in time to see the stretcher carrying Serena's limp body roll into the ER. Lita tried to follow, but found her way blocked by a security officer just before she reached the swinging doors.

"I'm sorry," said the officer, brusquely. "But minors are not allowed in the ER."

Lita opened her mouth in protest, but shut it again, facing the same problem as she did at the elevator on the first floor. She looked at her watch and saw that her break was long past over. She would get in serious trouble, but that was not important right now. All she cared about was that a good friend of hers was hurt in a bad way.

She needed to find a way in there. But how to do it? The doctors and nurses would be in there for a time working on her immediate difficulties, then hooking her up to all the gadgets that sustained life. It would be an hour, maybe more, before she could even think of getting in to see her.

An hour passed in the lobby, longer than any hour Lita ever experienced in her life! But finally, the excitement died down. The doctors and nurses stopped running back and forth excitedly. Talk of the injured girl faded into the background as other ER cases took precedent once again. Her condition was finally stable.

Lita walked up to the front desk and cleared her throat politely. The nurse at the counter put her phone down and looked at Lita. "May I help you?" she asked.

"I'm a friend of Serena Tsukino," said Lita calmly. "I just saw her accident on the news and came over to see if she was doing alright. Tell me, can I go in to see her yet? Is she stabilized?"

The nurse asked Lita to hold and quickly concluded her phone call. After putting the phone down, she went over and talked to nearby Doctor who was thumbing through some data sheets. The Doctor looked up at Lita, smiled, and walked over.

"Hello, young lady," said the Doctor. "I'm Doctor Yamada. You aren't by any chance a friend of that girl who was involved in that accident downtown, are you?"

"Yes, that's exactly who I'm talking about," said Lita emphatically.

"So her name is Serena Tsukino?" Yamada asked. "Very well. Thank you. Now we at least have an ID. Your friend was dressed up in some kind of elaborate costume and had no wallet or identification on her body. We've been wracking our brains trying to figure out who she is so we could contact her parent or legal guardian."

Lita's heart skipped a beat. Contacting the Tsukino Family would not be a good idea at this point! She realized she shouldn't have mentioned Serena's name, especially since she was still dressed as Sailor Moon, but it was too late, and the good Doctor probably would have asked her eventually. There was no helping it. "No problem," she said finally, trying to calm her nerves. "So can I see her?"

"Well her condition's stable for now. She's not out of the woods by a long shot, but I think I can let you go in and say a few words to her as long as you don't touch her or any of the equipment inside the room. Just keep in mind she's heavily drugged so she won't be in any condition to talk back to you." Doctor Yamada turned to leave.

"Thank you, sir," said Lita. "What room?"

"Room 311," waved Doctor Yamada. "Down the hall and the third door on the right."

"Thanks!" Lita was gone through the hall doors in a flash.

She came to room 311 and opened the door. She was greeted by the usual medicine smell of hospital rooms, the sound of a respirator rasping rhythmically, and a heart monitor beeping regularly. Sure enough, Sailor Moon, still in uniform, lay in bed, looking for all the world like she was better off dead! The scars and bruises were covering nearly every inch of her exposed skin. There were a few fairly serious burns in a few places as well! They still hadn't washed off the dried blood, but there were a fair number of stitched up gashes, and bandages!

My God! thought Lita, as she took in the scene. Someone really did a number on you, my friend!

Lita walked to the bedside and gently took Sailor Moon's hand in hers. A nurse walked in just then.

"Will she be alright?" Lita asked her.

"Well," said the nurse dubiously. "She was critical a while ago, but she seems to have stabilized now. I honestly didn't expect friends or relatives to show up so quickly."

"There are others on the way," said Lita. "Please let them in once they arrive?"

"I'll direct them down this way if I see them," said the Nurse, smiling.

"Thanks."

"I'll just leave you two alone now," the Nurse quietly shut the door behind her.

Lita waited until she heard the footsteps fade, then, she got up and shut the curtain and tapped a few buttons on her wrist communicator. "Mina?" she called.

There was a slight crackling, then Mina's face appeared on her watch. "Lita, is that you?"

"Yeah. I'm in."

"Great! How's she doing?!"

Sailor Jupiter pointed her watch at Sailor Moon's body. "She looks like shit! How she's still alive is beyond me!"

"Stay right there, and contact us if anything unusual happens," said Mina. "There's been a few... developments on our side here. We'll explain it all when we get there."

"We?"

"It's Luna, Artemis, Amy, Raye, and... a friend... just now," Mina hesitated.

"Who's our 'friend'?" Sailor Jupiter asked.

"You'll see," was all she got in reply, and then, silence.

Strange, thought Lita, what was that all about?

At that moment, Sailor Moon stirred and opened her eyes for the first time.