A/N: Here it is – the first chapter of my new fic I know it's short, but it's a work in progress. I haven't gotten much feedback on it yet, but I hope somebody out there likes it. Please, read and send me reviews, or email me telling me if you like it or not. Ja!

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters here. Just my own insanity :D

Chapter 1: Shadows

    Serenity sat up in the middle of the night, panic gripping her heart. Silence wrapped around her, the heavy air almost seeming to smother her. Shadows coalesced, gathering and growing, surrounding her. Terror swept over her as she sprang from her bed and ran across the room toward the bassinet. The baby hadn't made any noise since she had woken so suddenly.

    For a heart-stopping moment, Serenity didn't see her baby when she pulled back the blanket. A scream was rising in her throat when her vision seemed to clear a little and she saw the infant, a peaceful smile on her face as she slept. Picking up Usagi, she spun around, a hand raised to the open room. Confusion clouded her mind as she saw the perfectly clear, empty, moonlit room. Her hovering hand went to cover her mouth as she balance the sleepy-eyed and gurgling baby on her right hip. How can this be, she thought. I saw them! I saw...something. Endymion was sitting up in bed, the sheets gathered at his waist as he watched her closely.

    "Is something wrong?" He still sat calmly as Serenity's eyes rolled around the room. The baby yawned, nuzzling against her mother. Serenity's knees slowly seemed to come unhinged, and she began to slump down to the floor. In a flash, Endymion was there, catching her deftly with one arm and supporting the baby with the other. He stood up with them, set the baby back in the bassinet, picked up Serenity, and carried her back to the bed, setting her gently amongst the sheets. She felt his fingers brushing the hair back from her face and realized that tears were trickling from her eyes and running down her face.

    How can this be? I know I saw them...

    "Who did you see?" Endymion's voice seemed to come from down a very long tunnel. Serenity started a little when she realized that she had spoken aloud. She put a hand to her forehead, trying to clear her mind.

    "I..." her voice was weak and shaky, even to her own ears. She attempted to calm herself. "I'm not sure what it is I saw. I was having a dream...I think I was dreaming that Crystal Tokyo was under attack by the Black Moon, only it wasn't the Black Moon." She laughed a very clipped, humorless laugh. "Of course it wasn't them; it couldn't be...they aren't due for almost a century." Her voice began to pick up an urgent fervor. "I don't know who, or what it was. I just knew that they were after her, after our baby Usagi, our little princess. I couldn't let them take her. I couldn't let them take my baby!"

    Endymion pulled her close, and she trembled against him. She could smell his musky scent, and it comforted her, but she couldn't stop shaking. She had never been surer of anything in her life as seeing something coming for her daughter. Yet even now, her memories began to fade a little, and she started to doubt herself. Maybe it was a part of the dream...I wasn't fully awake in any case...

    Endymion held her close, smoothing her hair back and kissing the top of her head. In his warm embrace, the icy fears spiking in her heart began to melt away. She knew that together they would take care of anything – and after all, there wasn't anything to be worried about, now was there?

    It was only a dream.

    Mercury sat in her laboratory, typing away at a computer. She yawned and stretched, feeling a few bones pop in her back. She looked over at a clock on her desk and gasped. She had been up all night working on analyzing the strange substance that had been found the night of the meteor storm. She had obtained a few more blobs of it, and was running all sorts of tests. It seemed she had blown through an entire night trying to figure out what she was dealing with.

    Oh well. It isn't the first time. She stood up, stretching again, and began to turn off lights in her lab. She paused for a moment over the samples of the mystery substance. It puzzled her, this strange phenomenon. It was unlike anything she had ever seen, in her years of service and scientific research. Even through her medical training, she hadn't heard any word of a substance such as this. It was all so unexplainable, so unpredictable. She bit her lip. It almost seemed too random.

    Out of curiosity, she picked up a piece of the substance in each hand. She studied them each with her naked eye, noting that their colors were slightly different, as were the textures. Still, they both seemed to have a rather shape-able feel to them. On a hunch, she began to bring them together. They got very close, and she started to feel a weird sort of pull.

    Suddenly her door was thrown open and she dropped the pieces with a cry. She grabbed at her heart as Mars came running into the room, slowing only a little as the blobs bounced away against the wall. Mercury sank into a chair, gasping for breath as Mars came charging up.

    "Mercury, we've got a huge problem. We need you now." Mercury gave her an incredulous look. "Ok, sorry for scaring you there, but this is important. Look, I'll even help you clean up." She went to chase after the little blobs, picking them up and putting them on the table where the computer was.

    "This had better be as good as you think it is. I think I need a new heart. Urgh." Mercury took her lab coat off and slung it over the back of her chair, running her hands through her hair. Mars grabbed her wrist, yanking her off down the hall with her as she began to run.

    Jupiter raced up, having been called by Luna. She stopped outside the doors to the Royal Suite. She could hear muffled voices inside the room, so she paused to straighten herself before knocking and walking inside. She pushed open one of the doors, walking calmly in. Her calm didn't last very long.

    Serenity, Endymion, Luna, and Venus stood in a tight circle inside the room, near the balcony entrance. They all talked in hushed tones, turning toward Jupiter as the door opened. Serenity beckoned her over, and she began to walk, until something caught her eyes. Something was on the bed – no, someone was sitting on the bed. A small, pink-haired girl, to be exact.

    Usagi, later to be known as Chibi-Usa or Small Lady for the rest of her life, the heir to Crystal Tokyo, sat on the bed, waving at Jupiter as she walked in the room.

    On the balcony, four of the five senshi and the royal couple talked about what had happened. No one knew what made Usagi grow so quickly into the Chibi-Usa they had all known in the 20th century. Serenity had been awoken to the small girl pulling lightly on her hair in the middle of the night. Chibi-Usa herself remembered nothing, and everything.

    Chibi-Usa claimed to have woken in the night, having memories from the time she was an infant, yet knowing that something had gone amiss and that she had changed very rapidly. Venus had gone to talk to Pluto about the ordeal, to see if she had any insight. The rest had gathered to try to make sense of it all. Serenity's account of what had happened to her the night before also seemed strange and only added to the confusion. The murmurs slowly died out, and the group of six stood in silence. Nobody really looked at anyone else; they all just stood, lost in thought.

    Serenity grasped Endymion's hand. She wasn't quite sure how she should be feeling right now, or what she should be thinking. In a way, her baby had been taken from her, but now she had the child she had long ago come to love. Memories of her past flooded her, consuming all thought. She felt so lost, and it felt wrong. She felt as though she should be strong in times like these, but that old part of her was just so unsure.

    Her thoughts came to a halt as Venus entered from the hallway. She walked out onto the balcony, and everyone immediately turned to her, searching for something to latch onto. She cleared her throat before beginning.

    "I went to see Pluto, but I didn't learn much." Serenity tensed when Venus looked directly at her. "Serenity, Pluto doesn't know what is causing this. She doesn't know anything about what has happened, she only has theories. It's possible for Chibi-Usa to have grown up so quickly under certain conditions. The fact that she has memories of things that haven't happened yet can be attributed to the fact that later on in life, she makes several jumps through time. Doing this apparently causes some sort of loop to happen sometimes. Since Chibi-Usa was prematurely stimulated into growth by something unknown, it can only mean one thing." Venus paused, biting her lip as the tension rose.

    "For some reason or another, we need Sailor Moon again."