So more revisions during finals week. Expanded the chapter a little bit this time, since I personally can't stand stupid short chapters. Means I just have to sit down and write some more before I can try to pass it off as done.
Further not owning of the Sailor Moon; further desire for feedback. Thanks.
O.o.O.o.O.o.O.o.O
In their nightmares they visited it often.
Uranus and Neptune looked at the slightly charred mark on the floor of Galaxia's throne room. That spot was all that remained of their two closest friends. The two friends they had betrayed and killed.
It was for the greater good, they reminded themselves. It was to save them in the end. Surely their partners understood. They would have done the same had they been in the same position.
Except, they remembered, they had been in the same position. They had been given the opportunity to save themselves. And their friends had turned the offer down. They had chosen death over damnation.
It would work out in the end, they reminded themselves. They would see then that it was not a sacrifice in vain. It would all be ok!
And if it didn't, they mused, at least they would go to hell together. There was nothing else that mattered.
In their dreams they turned as one to their new master. They bowed before her. They flattered and worshiped her. In the real world they could let themselves think it was all an act. In their dreams it never seemed the same. There was a darkness lurking in the subconscious that threatened to devour them. In the light of day it slumbered.
"Sailor Neptune. Sailor Uranus." Galaxia looked deeply into their eyes, as if trying to read their thoughts, a faint smirk playing about her lips. One could almost detect a hint of insanity in her voice…
"How goes the search?" Her tone is casual, friendly even. For a moment they forget she is the devil. But there is a weight that binds them and they cannot forget.
"There is nothing, Galaxia. We are sorry." Uranus know this is a sign she is whipped like a dog. She is never sorry, unless it's Michiru. But she can ignore that when she isn't dreaming.
"I want the seeds, ladies." Her fingers lightly gestured them forward. Slowly, they inch forward, forgetting those light and playful fingers are dangerous. "I grow weary of your failure!" Faster than the eye could see, her hand whip out and strike Neptune across the face. Galaxia almost didn't notice the infinitesimal move Uranus made to go to her partner's side or the horror upon her face.
"See that it doesn't happen again." There was no lighthearted mocking in her voice now; it was a outright threat. When they dream, they see the devil red of her eyes glowing in the dark. In the daylight they cannot bear to meet her eyes.
"Galaxia," they called in one voice. "We will serve you to the end."
Very few would guess that the small purplish tinged planet would hold as much life as it did. From space it appeared cold and inhospitable, but looks could always be deceiving, as Saturn knew quite well. After all, she appeared to be a sickly little girl to most people, but in truth she held the power to life and death in her frail hands.
Pluto had masks as well; too many to count or ever hope to glimpse the truth through. Even now, Saturn still was not certain of how they had escaped death. All Pluto would tell her was that she had settled it, she had paid the price, and they were safe.
Safe seemed to be a relative term in this case. There was still danger; Galaxia still lived and their teammates still wanted them dead. And then there was the matter of the princess. She was here, somewhere, on this strange new planet. How she had managed to get free Pluto could not say. Or did not say – it was the same. But her guardians had been destroyed, leaving Pluto and Saturn as her only defense. And she would not even have had them if they had gotten their way.
Even after a week of chasing the trail of their princess, the bitterness towards their former partners had not lessened. If anything, it had driven Saturn to strive harder to find their princess and prove they – unlike their associates – were capable of loyalty to their leader.
And so they had ended up here.
"Are you sure she's down there, Setsuna-mama?" Saturn need not have asked. There was a glow around the planet it seemed, a sort of warmth that was visible. It was uniquely her. It was like Chibi-usa, only more mature, aged to perfection.
"Yes, Hotaru." Saturn supposed Pluto knew she had not seriously doubted her assurances. Pluto was nothing if she was not endlessly patient with her, Saturn always thought. "Come, let's go."
Together they moved towards the surface of the planet. It was not entirely different from their own home on Earth – which was gone, Saturn reminded herself sharply – but there were key differences. Unlike the inner senshi she had never been given the chance to see her future in Crystal Tokyo when the Black Moon Family had attacked. Once, Pluto had described the main city to her with it's crystal towers reaching to the sky. She imagined this must be what it looked like. There were glistening spires of some reddish stone everywhere she looked which appeared as though they had grown jaggedly out of the very ground, as if they were a natural part of the land. Everywhere she looked, people walked blissfully unaware of what lay outside their system.
At the center of a circular ring of stone lay the castle itself, its central peak spiraling into the sky. There was power there, Saturn knew. She could feel something within her responding to such power.
With a start, Saturn realized how blind she had been all those years she assumed they were alone. She had stupidly thought there was one princess and there were four guardians and there was Haruka and Michiru and Setsuna and that was it. Out in the wide universe, she was not singularly special as she had thought. She supposed it should have occurred to her, what with Galaxia and all, but things went sour too fast for her to ponder the implications of a foreign sailor senshi's presence.
It was amazing when she thought about it. Hundreds – no thousands of senshi out there – each one defending their own princess, each one giving their lives wholly for what they believed in.
In theory.
Pluto settled herself into normal clothes once she set down on the surface of the planet. Saturn tried to follow suit, but she had not the discipline of her powers nor the years upon years of experience. She supposed she would never have the control Pluto did. Not with Saturn's power breathing down her neck, demanding instant results, demanding immediate destruction. It never demanded things like finesse. Stupid powers…
Setsuna patted Hotaru on the head, as if to say, "Someday, perhaps." Saturn doubted it.
They were in an alley somewhere in what seemed to be the main city. Setsuna took Hotaru's hand in her own and walked out into the busy pathway, appearing for all the world to be a mother and child out for an afternoon walk. Hotaru let herself sink into the content feeling it gave her, believing for a moment there was only Hotaru Tomoe.
Setsuna gazed sadly down at her young charge. It was almost as if she knew exactly what the girl was thinking.
Michiru looked at her reflection for the twentieth time that morning in the mirror.
There was a bruise. Michiru sighed and opened her compact make-up to try once more to reduce the appearance of the ugly purple mark on her cheek.
Haruka was not going to be happy.
Michiru left the bathroom, face down, hoping to avoid being noticed for as long as possible. Once in the kitchen she could hide behind breakfast. If she could just make it…
"Michiru," Haruka called from their bedroom. "Come back to bed." There was promise in her voice, promise of relief and passion. But Michiru could not go back there now. She must hide in the kitchen. If she could just make it through the morning without Haruka seeing the bruise then maybe they could avoid an ugly encounter. Maybe by this afternoon it would fade.
"It's getting late," she answered. "I have work." She stood behind the stove cracking eggs one by one. She would leave some food out for Haruka when she felt like getting up, but right now all she could think about was getting out of the house.
Haruka stumbled heavily into the kitchen and rubbed her eyes blearily. "What's the point of work?" Haruka asked. "Stay home with me instead." She smiled sleepily at Michiru's back.
"You have work too, so don't try that one with me." She dished out a portion of eggs for Haruka and a small amount for herself. Haruka came up from behind and took the plate offered to her. She planted a light kiss on Michiru's cheek. Michiru flinched away. The bruise hurt when touched.
She suddenly had no appetite for her eggs. She needed a breath of fresh air, she needed to get away.
"I'll see you later tonight." She picked up her coat off the hook by the door and closed the door behind her.
Haruka watched her go, eyes intense. She had not missed the bruise after all.
"It will not be easy to find the princess," Setsuna said.
They had stopped at a small store which sold a brew remarkably similar to coffee. Saturn had been hesitant to try some at first, since she had never liked it back home when…well, when someone had bothered to make some. But Setsuna had suggested giving it a chance and, as usual, Setsuna was right. It was more like hot chocolate, and Hotaru thought that she could maybe get used to this galaxy if it meant drinking something like this everyday. Not that she really had a choice in the matter; it was here or nowhere.
And the Princess was here. That was what was important.
"I know," she responded. "It's an awfully big city."
"It's no bigger then Crystal Tokyo will be." Setsuna took a sip of her drink. "Provided it will come to be, that is, and all that depends on how quickly we find the princess in this adequately-sized metropolis." She smiled a little to make Hotaru feel better about the seemingly-impossible task which lay before them.
"Where are we going to start?" Hotaru asked. If it were up to her to search for one person in a sea of millions, she wouldn't know where to start. But Setsuna always had a plan; mostly always, that is. Foresight must be very convenient, she thought.
"She will be at the palace. We must go to her there. The pieces will fall into place as time goes on." She turned an evaluating eye on Hotaru. "A maid, I think, will do the job. You are just old enough to get a job around the palace."
"Old enough? Setsuna-mama, I don't even know how old I am…I was a baby only a little while ago. How am I supposed to convince people at the palace to give a job to a girl who looks like they're ten years old? They'll never hire me."
"Then you'll have to convince them otherwise, Saturn," Setsuna calmly states.
"Convince them otherwise…? How am I supposed to…Saturn Power? But I don't really know how to use it. No one ever explained things to me, back when I was – " Saturn cut off abruptly. She hated remembering back in the days when she should have been dead. No one had come to her in those days and explained why she felt things no one else did, or heard voices whispering to her in the dark. No one told her how to control this power which threatened to overflow everyday. Sheer willpower had forced it deep within herself, to the point where only some days she would wake up screaming about nothing and everything and her father would cradle her until she cried herself back to sleep. It was the reason she was sick all the time; the Saturn Power didn't like being shoved deep inside, and neither did the old Saturn. She would hiss angry words in Hotaru's ear if she wasn't careful to ignore the vengeful spirit. But it was no use; either Hotaru let them both loose to take what they wanted from her, or she locked them both up tight. The last few months had been good for all of the angry forces within her; the last few months she had been among people who seemed to understand what was wrong and how to fix it. But there was only so much they could do. And there was even less they could do now that they had betrayed her.
"You will simply have to start learning. It is dangerous to everyone, especially yourself, to have such power and not understand it." Setsuna rested a comforting hand upon the younger girl. "I will help you in what way I can, but you are going to have to help yourself a great deal more. There is only so much I can teach you about a power which is not mine."
Hotaru smiled weakly, thinking it was much, much, much easier said than done.
"For the time being, I will go ahead and begin our search. I cannot see how it will all come together, but the only thing to do now is meet the problem head on. Just how much work we have will become clear when we set this path in motion."
"Are you going to be a maid too then?" Hotaru asked.
"No, Royal Education System." There was a distant look to Setsuna's eyes, almost as if she was remembering some event from years past.
"School?"
"It's been many, many years since I was a student in any school, but it think I might be able to pass for a teacher well enough. What do you think?"
"I can't tell which one of us got stuck with the worse job," Hotaru said, grinning.
A small smile flickered across Setsuna's face, which she hid behind another sip of her coffee-like substance. "No need to be smart with me."
Hotaru just smiled sweetly; it had always gotten her out of trouble before when Michiru – well, she thought, there's another happy thought ruined by them.
Setsuna noticed the slight dip in the girl's cheerful appearance. She cleared her throat, as thought not used to the frankness which with she was about to speak.
"Hotaru, I am sorry it had to be like this."
"What do you mean Setsuna-mama? That I got stuck with the bad job, 'cause I really don't think it's that awful, I mean, I hate cleaning and all, but this is important, I can deal with it, it's a lot better than me trying to be the teacher and all, 'cause let's face it, I haven't even finished middle school yet, and with being sick an all I missed so much anyway, and then there was the whole time I was a baby which certainly didn't help things in that department, and then, you know Galaxia came just in time for me to have grown up and all so I didn't get to go to school this year, so really, being a maid is – "
"Saturn." Hotaru falls silent at the strange tone in Setsuna's voice. "I meant about them. I'm sorry you had to go through that. It was all supposed to be different, but something went wrong at some point in time and I missed it."
Hotaru's back had gone stiff and there was a strange buzzing in her ears. She didn't want to hear what Setsuna was saying. Hearing the words meant thinking about how it had gone wrong and she was trying her best to do the exact opposite.
"Hotaru, I don't often admit this to anyone, but I think that this might be a special circumstance; it's not often that something gets the better of me." Setsuna breathed what Hotaru thought might have been a sigh, if Setsuna was prone to such displays of mood. "I made a mistake, and it cost the both of us something valuable. I will set it right, but I am going to need your help the whole way. It's just the two of us now against a great many, including two people we may know very well. I need you to forget them; they are no longer who they were. All that matters now is finding the Princess."
"I know Setsuna-mama." Hotaru wondered if they every really knew they were in the first place.
"Will you trust me?"
Hotaru looked at Sestuna's face, open with honesty for one of the few times in her life. Some may have accused Pluto of being cold and uncaring, but seeing something fierce glinting in the dark depths of her old eyes, Hotaru thought that maybe living in that house with Haruka and Michiru had meant something intensely important to the older woman.
"You would never betray our family, Setsuna-mama; I know that. Through whatever it takes to find the princess, I am with you always."