The Fragility of Time
BOOK TWO: "Falling Towards Apotheosis"
Chapter 29 "Objects in Motion"
Author: etj4Eagle
Email: etj4Eagle@yahoo.com

Lasted Edited: 3/29/03

Disclaimer: A reminder I own none of the characters of this story, all rights are owned by others. However, the unique circumstances of the story are mine. If you distribute the story, do only so freely and inform me of where you post it.


Chapter 29 "Ojects in Motion"

Disclaimer: A reminder I own none of the characters of this story, all rights are owned by others. However, the unique circumstances of the story are mine. If you distribute the story, do only so freely and inform me of where you post it.

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With the ringing of the bell, Usagi quickly packed her books away. It was Friday afternoon, and like all the other students with the exception of Ami, she was ready bolt and put as much distance between herself and the school. Unfortunately, she had detention this afternoon, a fact that she when Haruna moved to block her path.

"Did you forget that you had detention this afternoon?" Haruna-sensei asked Usagi as the girl stopped her dash to the door.

"Oh yeah…" Usagi grumpily mumbled as she turned around and headed back to her desk. "Detention on Friday, totally unfair." She whined under her breath.

"What was that you said?" Haruna sharply asked, having heard Usagi

"Nothing Haruna-sensei." Usagi said as she sat down. Just great, I didn't even do anything to deserve detention today. I got to school on time and even had my homework done. All I did was accidentally knock a book on the floor during class and I get hit with detention. She probably had a date bail on her and decided to take it out on me, so unfair. Focused on mentally complaining about the unfairness of her detention, she missed Haruna opening a window to let Luna in.

 "Now take out your notebook Usagi-chan, so we can get started on your lessons." Luna said.

Surprised by Luna's presence, Usagi asked "Luna what are you doing here?" while her cat hopped up onto her teacher's desk.

"Luna-san and I have been talking," hearing that Usagi dropped her head knowing that nothing good could come out of any explanation that started that way. "And have decided that you need more studies, you are a princess after all.

"On the moon you received extensive lessons from an early age that prepared you in diplomacy and other affairs of state in preparation of your ascension to the throne at age 20. Unfortunately, unlike the others, whose fighting skills are ingrained in their souls, you have to relearn all you lessons and you are already 14. Additionally except for title, you are now the Queen of the Silver Millennium." Luna added.

"But Luna, the Siler Millennium is no more. We and the others are the only survivors of it."

"That may be true, but remember that we already know that you will resurrect the Moon Kingdom. Furthermore, there are other empires out there in the galaxy. Following your final battle with Ail and Ann, I remembered about the Moon Kingdom's dealing with star systems across the galaxy. The reawakening of the power of the Silver Millennium will not go unnoticed for long and others will be drawn here and it fall upon you to negotiate with them on behalf of the Earth."

"Me? What about the nations and their leaders."

"Do you ever wonder why the others are princesses of their respective planets? A Sailor Senshi by her very nature can't help but to protect her people and can never be tainted by evil. There has never been any case of a Sailor Senshi with a tainted soul and it is because of this that people the galaxy over trusted the ultimate rule of their planets to their guardian Sailor Senshi."

"The are other Sailor Senshi?"

"Hai, there are. While not every world is protected by a Sailor Senshi, many are. And where there are Sailor Senshi, they are universally recognized as speaking for their planets. Of all the systems, ours is actually unique, in that the Sailor Senshi are subservient to another, the line of Serenity.

As Luna paused for a moment in her explanation, Haruna took a moment to chide her student, "Usagi-chan why aren't you taking notes??

Usagi wanted to argue that she hadn't yet agreed that she needed this training. But she knew that look that Haruna was giving her and pulled out her notebook. It was a look of "do this or I will stop being lenient with your other detentions."

While Usagi was pulling out her notebook, Luna searched her memories to try to get her own lessons from long ago straight. Seeing that Usagi now had a notebook out and had finished jotting down what she had just explained, she decided to continue her explanation. "Lets see how well I remember my ancient history lessons of the forming of the Silver Millennium. The Moon Kingdom was created by a group of settlers, who created the Sailor Senshi of this system. How I don't know, but in the process the Ginzuishou was created. At first, not much was thought of this artifact and following their leader's death, the plan was for the Sailor Senshi to elect one of their own to lead the colonists.

"However about fifty years after they arrived, General Serenity gave birth to a child, a silver haired girl Misako, though she had taken no lover. Examination of the child found that she was a perfect clone of her mother. Then on the 20th birthday of the new child, General Serenity was absorbed into the Ginzuishou. This caused much debate amongst the Sailor Council. The debate raged for ten years until one of them came to see the Ginzuishou as the birth of another Sailor Soldier, a Sailor Moon in essence. On that day, it was decided that the Misako would be crown queen of the fledgling Moon Kingdom and that as long as each queen gave birth to a clone princess, her line would continue to rule. On her 31st birthday Misako was crowed Queen Serenity the First."

Usagi jotted down notes as to what Luna was saying, finding herself quite interested in learning about the formation of the Moon Kingdom. While she definitely did not approve of this apparent divine right to rule that she had, one that went even above the normal Sailor Soldier divine right, she couldn't really argue with Luna's logic. Admitting her defeat, Usagi said, "Hai I guess you are right."

"That's good, now lets get started." Haruna said. "We are going to begin by examining various current and recent past events and look at the international relationships that are involved. You will need to read these books." Haruna said as she moved a stack of texts from her desk to Usagi's. "Luna knows which chapters you will need to read for each day. But for right now we are going to learn about the different forms of government."

Responding to Usagi raising her hand, Luna asked "Yes, Usagi-chan what is it?"

"How long are these extra lessons going to be?"

"We will be starting out at 90 minutes each day." Luna replied, to which Usagi just slumped in her chair seeing her day vanish completely into schoolwork. "Of course should Sailor Moon be needed, you will be excused for that.

Luna had only just finished answering Usagi's question when the door to the classroom opened. Usagi looked over, hoping to find salvation from these extra lessons. Seeing that it was her daughter, she asked, "ChibiUsa what are you doing here?"

"Diana said that I needed to come here."

"Like I said earlier, a princess is taught these studies from an early age. Therefore ChibiUsa will be joining you in these afternoon sessions."

"Nani-ka! You mean I have more schooling?" ChibiUsa exclaimed.

"Hai." Haruna-sensei replied. "It is a pleasure to have the opportunity to teach you along with you mother. Now why don't you take a seat next to Usagi, ChibiUsa-chan,"


Happy that it was Friday, Rei walked down the street. Turning a corner, the steps leading up to the Hikawa shrine and her home became visible. Only a few more blocks away and she would be back home. She had been feeling uneasy all day and seeing the entrance to the shrine lessoned that uneasiness. She was not sure what was bothering her. She hoped that the Sacred Fire would be able to tell her.

Effortlessly reaching the top of the steps, she saw her grandfather attempting to woo a gaggle of schoolgirls. Any other day she would have headed right over there to knock some sense and decorum into him. But not today, her unease was bothering her too much and she was fearful that it might have something to do with Usagi. Ever since that first vision of the future shattering, she had been hypersensitive to anything that might indicate a threat to Usagi.

Thinking about how hypersensitive she was at times, caused Rei to smirk as she remembered a scene from a couple of days ago. Shingo and his friends had apparently found some place that sold fortune cookies that contained cruses instead of the normal fortunes and of course, given his sister's appetite for any kind of food, this was a perfect joke to play on her. He had left a couple of the cookies out where she could find them, and as expected, when she did, she ate them. Later at their Sailor meeting, Usagi had whined about the bad fortunes that the cookies had given her. Jumping to conclusions, she had immediately attempted to remove the curses from Usagi, which involved amongst other things dousing her in water and covering her in ofuda.

Only the combined efforts of Minako and Makoto had saved Usagi from any more of her help. While those two attempted to restrain and talk sense into her, Ami checked on a very confused Usagi. ChibiUsa of course had been utterly useless in her mother's defense, instead having collapsed to the floor in laughter. Later they learned that the little girl had known about Shingo's little prank. After getting Usagi some dry clothes to put on she had apologized for overreacting, an apology of course which descended into a tongue war.

Reaching her room, Rei put away her satchel and changed out of her school uniform. Now clad in the traditional shrine robes, she headed to the main shrine building and the sacred fire. Entering the room, she headed over to the fire. After stoking life back into it, she took a seat on the ground and began her meditation and chants. The power of her planet quickly entered her body and from her fed the fire, telling it her wants and desires. Knowing what its Mistress desired, the flames flared even higher, however Rei as usual did not notice. Instead, her mind was now inside of the fire seeing the images that it laid out before her.

Unlike previous visions, this time she could feel the heat of the fire as it surrounded mind. However, that was not quite correct Rei realized, it was not the flames of the Sacred Fire that she was feeling, but instead the world itself was burning. Looking around, she guessed that the wasteland that she found herself in was once Tokyo, though it was only the lay of the land that suggested that, as everything else lay in smoldering ruins. Noticing some objects off in the distance, she began walking towards them. Walking through the arid air of this wasteland was unpleasant, but before long Rei got close enough to get a good look at what appeared to be statues, statues of each of the other Sailor Senshi. Though as she looked more closely at them, she realized that they weren't statues but her friends turn to stone.

That realization made her shiver with horror, however as she did so, she realized that her friends had all been staring at something when they were turned to stone. Turning to follow the direction of their gaze, she scanned the horizon to she what had drawn their attention. At first, she did not see anything, but then after a bit three hovering lights became visible. Initially the lights were dim, but they quickly grew in intensity till they blinded her to everything else. But then from one moment to the next, they simply vanished and Rei's eyes attempted to adjust to the return of near darkness. When she could finally see again in the dim red light, Rei saw that a figure now stood where the lights had been.

Straining her eyes to make out the stranger's details, she saw what looked to possibly be a young woman holding some kind of staff. Taking a step towards this person, she was forced to stop when a strong wind suddenly picked up. Turning her head to brace herself, she turned back towards the stone forms of her friends. As she did so, she was just in time to see them shatter into a million pieces and those pieces shatter again and again until nothing but dust remained.

"IIE!" cried Rei in both the vision and real life. Snapping out of her vision, Rei slowly became aware of her surroundings, while her lungs greedily pulled in the relatively cooler air of the fire room. Effected by the vision, the only thought on Rei's mind was placing physical distance between herself and that hellish vision. Getting up, Rei quickly left the shrine room.

Needing to calm her mind and body from the effects of that vision, Rei stopped by the storeroom on her way out to get a broom. Walking outside she began sweeping the leaves, letting the methodical work of her chores guide her in her calming exercises. Absently she thanked Kami that there were no visitors currently and that her grandfather had apparently gone back inside. She did not feel like having to deal with others right now and she definitely did not want her grandfather prying into what was troubling her.

Before long, her chores had calmed Rei sufficiently that she ready to begin analyzing her vision. One that that immediately struck her, was how drastically different a vision it was than those of the future shattering. As it was, she was still no closer to deciphering what those visions were warning them of. Somehow, she felt it was something far beyond the threat that Rubeus posed. And it frustrated it greatly that she hadn't been able to learn anything to help the one who meant the world to her.

Feeling her frustrations rising, Rei broke off that train of thought and returned to analyzing the current vision. The danger while bad, an Armageddon in itself, it felt less severe than those of that previous set of visions. That meant, that the danger it posed was a very immediate one. Somehow, the enemy's attempt to collect pure heart crystals was tied to this pending Armageddon. Rei, hoped that Ami might have some ideas, something that would help her make sense of these images.


A pair of teenagers sat at a table in the back of the library, though one would be hard pressed to see the second teenager given that the table was covered with massive stacks of books, some a meter tall. Or actually only half covered, as Ryo's side of the table only had a couple of books on it, his science book, a couple of reference books and his notebook.

Finishing the problem that he was working on, he put down his pencil and leaned back before stretching a bit. Deciding that it was time for a break from his work, he looked through the one gap on the table to the blue haired girl who sat on the other side. He had to admit that she looked very cute right now in those reading glasses of hers. Smiling at that thought he committed the scene he saw in front of him to memory.

Thinking about how cute she looked in those reading glasses, also caused another thought to surface: why she even needed reading glasses in the first place. When he had first admired her from a distance and only knew she was Sailor Mercury through his visions, he had no problem with her needing them. But now having learned of the miraculous healing abilities of the Sailor Senshi and having some understanding of their powers, he thought that being a Sailor Senshi should have taken care of any deficiency that might develop in her vision. Thinking about it some more, he thought that her powers sleeping until this past year could explain why she had developed the need for reading glasses, though not why she still needed them. For as to why she still needed them, the best he could guess at was that when her powers activated they took her current condition as the baseline condition.

Finishing his reasoning, Ryo realized that he was still staring at Ami. And that she had noticed as well. She hadn't said anything, instead probably even tried to focus in on the text she was reading even more so, but the bright blush on her face was ample evidence that she had indeed noticed. Reaching across the table, he took a hold of one of her hands, gaining her attention. As she looked up from her book, his eyes caught hers and he smiled, which earned him one in return.

"While you are quite beautiful studying as you are, all these book you have on the table have me worried. There must be at least ten times your weight in books on this table, what if the table gives."

Ami just smiled even more to that worry. "Ryo-chan don't worry, this is a very durable hardwood table, capable of taking far more weight than is already on it." Seeing the surprise on Ryo's face, she continued. "I guess your gift doesn't tell you anything about the past, a little over a year ago I actually broke one of their regular tables with all my books."

"Nani-ka" Ryo replied, surprised by that revelation, though given the amount of books she would go through during her intensive study periods, he realized that something like that was bound to happen.

"Yep, it was quite embarrassing. It was extremely loud, especially given the normally silent nature of the library. I was sure that the librarians were going to throw me out and ban me from ever returning. Instead they just chuckled a bit and told me to not worry about it and then a few weeks later I found they had replaced the table I had destroyed with this one."

Looking at the book she was currently studying he realized that it was not a text for any school assignment or project, probably then something Sailor related. Curious he asked, "So what has you interest so peaked that you needed to transfer the library's collection to this table?"

"Starting last week the enemy substantially changed their strategy. They have gone from stealing energy from a large group of people to stealing a single victim's life force. When they do this they extract a glowing crystal from the victim's chest." Ami began. Then continuing, Ami said, "It's this attempt to steal their victim's life force in its entirety that has me worried. Going this route verse the normal group energy drains is far more risky, as it becomes an all or nothing operation. There has to be some benefit to possessing a pure heart crystal other than just energy. And that is what I have been searching for.

Ryo nodded his understanding. He wished that his gift could give Ami some help, but unfortunately, the premonitions were rarely of anything more than a few moments into the future. Well except for exam studying, but that was because his mental approach to studying was very similar to what is required for going into battle and consequently activated his gift.

"Have you found anything of help?" Ryo asked

"I have come across some things that might be useful, descriptions of Blood Magic."

"Blood Magic?"

"Yep." Ami replied. "Apparently it is a very ancient form of magic and can be quite powerful, particularly in that it gives even the weakest mages moments of massive power. This form of magic is based on sacrificing an object and in so doing turning the less intrinsic elements of its value into energy. At its extreme the practitioner will kill a person, often young virgins, to gain a moment of immense power."

Listening to Ami describe blood magic, Ryo frowned. The thought of harvesting energy this way gave Ryo a sick feeling to his stomach, partially because her description hit very close to home. His kind had used a similar, though non-magical, method of increasing their own power, by using captured prisoners as substrates to grow their tools and weapons.

"However, I don't think this is what they are doing here," Ami continued. "Even given the immense power contained in these crystals, it doesn't make sense strategy-wise to go after them, given that it is an all or nothing operation. It makes far more sense for them to just drain a hundred people for a few minutes to get the same net effect." As Ami said that last part she picked up a pad of graph paper and turned it around so that Ryo could see it, on it she had graphed the number of people and the length of time they needed to be drained to equal the energy contained in one pure heart crystal.

Seeing that graph convinced Ryo that it was definitely time for Ami to take a break. While he knew intellectually that that calculation that Ami had done was important for them to figure out the enemy's ultimate goal, the frankness of the graph still revolted the human part of his soul.  Not saying anything, he quickly packed away his bags and then stood up.

"Come on, that's sufficient work for this afternoon." Ryo said to a confused Ami, while at the same time reaching out and taking the pad of paper she held in her hand and placing it down on the table. After which he then walked around the table and took her hand in his, encouraging her to stand up as well.

As she got up, Ami wanted to object. They still had a good half hour or so before they needed head over to meet Rei. And if they took the rooftops, they could stay even longer. However, looking into Ryo's eyes instantly killed off that idea, as he the same look in his eyes that Usagi got when she would not be argued out of a position. Giving into the futility of disagreeing, Ami took a few moments to pack away her notes before walking out with Ryo.

Leaving the library, Ryo took Ami's hand in his own and the two of them proceeded to enjoy the late afternoon sun while taking a leisurely walk towards the Hikawa shrine.


Kaolinite watched as Tomoe worked on a giant contraption that he had been building in the lab over the past few days. All she knew about it was that it was supposed to fix "a design flaw" in the crystal daimons so that the Sailor Senshi wouldn't be able to defeat them. Thankfully the professor agreed that there was a problem with the crystal daimons and that it was not her fault that the Sailor Senshi were preventing her from capturing any heart crystals, as Rubeus was very displeased with her progress. He really shouldn't be that upset, after all none of those Pure Heart Crystals contained any of the Talismans, so it really didn't matter that the Sailor Senshi had retrieved them. But he never let her point that out.

"All finished" came the triumphant declaration from the professor as he put his tools down and crawled out from under the Daimon Incubator. "This is my finest invention yet, even better than my Stargate. With this device, we will be able to create crystal daimons far stronger than any you have created before. While they are already fierce creatures, they can also be even more powerful, as Daimon eggs can merge with more than one substrate. And with this machine of mine we will be able to do that." The professor said while widely gesturing at the device and ending with a fit of laughter.

Yes, that is what I need. thought Kaolinite. With these enhanced daimons, the Sailor Senshi won't stand a chance.

"The crystal daimons as they exist already have more than enough power to destroy the Sailor Senshi. The Sailor Senshi have only been able to beat them, because they have been able to wear them down. Consequently, what the daimons need is some more armor and this hard hat will be perfect" The professor said as he picked up the hard hat that had been lying on the table.

Okay… thought Kaolinite, barely avoiding falling to the ground with the professor's very anticlimactic announcement of using a hard hat to give the Daimon more armor. How about maybe a Kevlar vest, or something with some combat strength. Kaolinite wondered, her confidence in the professor dropping a fair bit. I just hope this works for my sake.

Ready to use the Incubator for the first time, the Professor opened the chamber door and added the hard hat. Then walking over to a reinforced container that sat against one of the walls, he opened it up and removed a droid crystal. Carefully closing the box, he walked back and added the crystal to the machine as well.

As the professor placed the crystal into the machine, Kaolinite asked, "How many of those droid crystals do we have left?"

"Just 12 of them now. Too bad Rubeus doesn't know anything about their manufacture, as I am sure I could make more of them. But without some help, I can't risk using any of these valuable crystals for research." Tomoe replied. And then turning to regard Kaolinite, while the overhead lights reflected off his glasses so that they obscured his eyes he said, "And make sure you don't waste any more of these."

Following that declaration, Tomoe turned to walk over to one of the lab tables, where the nascent daimon eggs were stored, his mood returning to its normal cheerful mad scientist-self. Selecting one of the vials, he picked it up and examined it in the light. Satisfied he returned and poured its contents over the two other objects in the Incubator. With his closing of the machine's door, it activated. Then thirty seconds later the machine fell silent with the dinging of what could only be described as a dinner bell.

On one side of the machine, a conveyer belt extended away and with the dinging of the bell, the conveyer activated. Figuring that this is where the new daimon would be delivered, Kaolinite walked over to collect her tool. Seeing a large metal briefcase emblazed with a black star emblem roll out on the conveyer belt, Kaolinite reached out and picked it up. Ready to begin her next mission, Kaolinite turned and walked out of the room. However, she had only gotten a few steps before Tomoe called to her.

"Hold on a moment, with the daimon now contained inside that briefcase till its release you are going to need a new way to find the carriers of the Talismans. This device will point them out to you." Tomoe said as he handed her the daimon Compass. "The device uses a daimon Egg to locate those of pure hearts. Since it does use a daimon egg, it can be activated as well to create a generation one daimon." The professor's voice turned icy again as he gave her the final helpful hint, letting her know very clearly that she would do best to make sure she returned with all three Talismans should she need to use the compass in that manner.


Rei finished up the last of her chores as the afternoon sun graced the horizon. She was still troubled by her vision from earlier that afternoon and was wondering what to make of it. Putting the broom away, she decided that she would put it out of her mind for the evening and deal with it tomorrow at the meeting. This was a Friday night and Friday nights were meant to be spent out enjoying yourself with your friends, not worrying about visions of Armageddon.

Walking back outside she decided to just stand out on the grounds and enjoy the warm evening and the invigorating smell of nature that was on the wind that night. Glancing at her watch, she noted that Ami and Urawa would be arriving in about fifteen minutes, assuming that they did not get distracted by their studying. After those two arrived, the three of them would head out, stopping by Juuban Junior High School to pick up Usagi.

Rei chuckled a bit, imaging the scene that Usagi must have made this morning when Luna told her that she had been talking to Haruna-Sensei and that the two of them had put together a program to work on her training as a princess. Poor Usagi, while the rest of them innately remembered how to be warriors, she had received no training in that department in her past life, yet at the same time was most crucial of them all in battle given her powers. And then to top it all off, the memories of the one area that she did receive training in, did not transfer at all to the present. As much as Rei wanted to see Usagi take her studies seriously, she did feel that having these extra lessons on a Friday afternoon was cruel and unusual punishment. She guessed that if any of Usagi's classmates learned of her staying after this late today they would have just chalked it up to Haruna-sensei getting dumped on a date for the weekend. In some ways, she guessed that Usagi having a teacher who was known to be moody was a good thing.

Heavy breathing alerting Rei to a guest ended her mind's wanderings. Even before she turned to see the newcomer, she knew that it wasn't Ami and Urawa as both of those two could easily jog up the steps without any heavy breathing. Absently she wondered for a moment if anything could make Urawa breath heavy given that he was no longer human. Now facing the guest, Rei smiled warmly as she walked over to great the new arrival.

"Welcome to the Hikawa shrine, how my I help you?" Rei politely asked.

"Ah yes you are the one that I am long for. Your heart is infinitely pure and must contain one of the talismans. Now give it too me!" the last bit Kaolinite exclaimed as she threw off her full-length coat, revealing her Witches 5 outfit. Then dropping down to her knees, she placed the briefcase on the ground and unlatched it. Stepping back, she watched as a demon spirit escaped and quickly formed into the Crystal Daimon.

Stunned by the sudden actions of this guest, Rei failed to throw herself out of harms way in the few seconds of time she had. Instead, she watched as Kaolinite unleashed the demon and by the time she realized that she was in trouble, the Daimon was already advancing on her. Backing away from the Daimon, Rei moved to run, but the Daimon snaked out its hands and grabbed a hold of her. Trapped, Rei watched helplessly as a black star on the top of its head began to glow.

As the dark energy from the star reached out to her body, she could feel her energy begin to drain away. While mild at first, the pain very quickly escalated into shear agony as it felt like her insides were going to be ripped away from the rest of her body. Not a very inaccurate description of what was happening. She tried to use her training as a priestess to fight the stealing of her soul, but the Daimon was too strong. Instead, she felt her world go black as the last of her life energy was removed from her body. Finished the Daimon released her comatose barely living body, letting it fall to the ground.


Ami and Ryo were walking up the steps of the shrine when Ryo suddenly froze, no longer seeing with his eyes but his gift. The flash of the future only lasted for a moment but he saw Sailor Mars being killed and then a second flash of the future, which showed just Sailor Uranus and Neptune and for some reason caused him to feel a barely controlled desire to rip the two of them two shreds.

"Ryo-kun what is it?" Ami worriedly asked.

"Rei, she is in trouble." Responded Ryo as his body began absorbing all light that fell on it, blurring into his true form. Ami quickly followed Ryo's lead, becoming Sailor Mercury though in a flash of light as opposed to Ryo's darkness. Then regarding Sailor Mercury with his twenty-four eyes, he said, "I'll see to Rei."

"Hai," agreed Sailor Mercury. Then turning to face of the remaining steps once again, she quickly bounded up them. Unfortunately, she arrived just in time to see Rei's body collapse limply to the ground. The horror of that sight caused her to scream out "IIE!" Then a few moments later as she regained control of her emotions she turned to regard Kaolinite and said, "Hold it right there! How dare you desecrate this holy place. For this transgression, on behalf of the planet Mercury I will punish you!"

Mercury's scream had drawn the attention of Kaolinite, and she had been annoyed to find that a Sailor Senshi had already arrived. But that annoyance quickly turned to satisfaction as she realized that the blue haired soldier was the only one here. "Only one of you? You think that you yourself will be able to stop me when your whole group can barely stop my crystal daimons?" Kaolinite taunted. "While getting just one of you seems a waste of the daimon's efforts, I won't complain. Crystal Daimon Hard Hat kill her."

Knowing that without out the others present she wasn't in a good tactical position, Mercury moved quickly to try to control the pace of the battle and cast her Shine Aqua Illusion spell even before Kaolinite had commanding the demon to kill her. But to her horror, the spell just harmlessly dispersed upon hitting the creature's shell.

Shocked by the complete and utter ineffectiveness of her attack, Mercury forgot to move. Taking advantage of its opponent's mistake, the demon charged Mercury. Realizing the need to move only moments before being hit, Mercury didn't have time to do anything than to bring her arms down in an attempt to protect her chest. The move would have helped had the demon not been aiming even lower, at her stomach.

Catching her unprotected belly with its head, the daimon caused Mercury to forcibly exhale while knocking her backward. Only having started to fall from the attack, the blue haired warriors body was hit by a second attack, one that continued to pound in her for a few seconds knocking her even further backwards. However, to Ami the two attacks blurred into just one intense moment of pain as she fell over backwards. Unfortunately, for the Ice Warrior, she had made her stand not far from the top of the shrine's stairs and the demon's attacks had knocked her backwards. So far backwards, that as she caught sight of the street below Mercury realized that she had been knocked off the hill. She did not have long to ponder that thought before her back impacted the stairs and then she proceeded to painfully fall the rest of the way down, only coming to a stop when she slammed into a parked car.


Seeing the Daimon easily take care of that Sailor Annoyance, Kaolinite walked forward to collect the Pure Heart Crystal from where the demon had left it. This mission is going quite well, Rubeus will be quite pleased to learn that I have taken out Sailor Mercury. However, her self-congratulations were a bit early, as was made apparent by the appearance of a second demon.

Given her line of work, Kaolinite thought that nothing could scare her, but this creature did. It was some kind of humanoid insect with black skin and the two rows of six eyes on each side of its head that glowed an intense white. Primal fear routed her feet to the ground and prevented her from calling out for help from her own demon. Helplessly she watched as this creature knelt down to pick up the unconscious shrine girl and then reached out to grab the Pure Heart Crystal. It was not till the creature had almost reached the other side of the courtyard that she found herself able to think clearly.

"Don't even think of giving chase to that Pure Heart Crystal." declared another, who punctuated her statement with a glowing yellow ball of energy that smashed into the ground inches in front of where she was standing. Turning to glare at the newest interloper, Kaolinite found the situation quickly escalating out of control.


Escaping behind one of the shrine buildings, Ryo placed Rei down on the ground. Even though he knew the fear that his true form instilled in others, he was still a bit surprised that the witch had not given any chase, though he wondered how long that would last. With Rei down on the ground, he took a moment to examine the Pure Heart Crystal, hoping that his gift might tell him what the enemy wanted with it, but nothing came. Now ready to return the crystal back to Rei, he was stopped by Sailor Neptune.

"Hold it there Urawa-san, hand me the crystal." the aqua-haired warrior declared.

Startled by her voice, he looked up and saw that he was no longer alone. "This is Rei's life force, I need to return it to her." he said

"I know it is, but it may be much more. Now hand it over to me." Neptune demanded while walking up next to him. "If you don't then I will attack intruder."

This time Ryo's gift activated and he was able to see the sincerity in Neptune's statement. This was his last warning, if he did not give her the crystal in ten seconds she would blast him at point blank range with her Deep submerge. He might be strong, but he wasn't that strong. Either way she was going to get the crystal, at least this way the team would remain whole for now and more importantly Ami wouldn't be anguished. Giving in, he let his form return to its humon form upon which he nodded his accent and then held the crystal out to her.

"Thank you." replied Neptune as she took the crystal and examined it, peering into its interior looking for a talisman.


Flung down to street level, Mercury had come to rest against a parked car. At first she did not move, instead just staring blankly at the sky. Then slowly she began to become aware of her surrounding again. The first sensation was of how cold and hard the ground was. Unfortunately, following quickly on the heel of that came intense pain. Owe, what happened? Mercury thought, her mind finally able to put thoughts together. As she tried to remember how she got on the ground, her eyes caught sight of the top of the Hikawa Shrine's gateway. Hikawa Shrine? What am I doing here? An even more confused Mercury thought. But even has her mind thought those questions; the answers flooded back and with them the energy to return to her feet.

Not quite ready to jump back to her feet, Mercury instead rolled away from the car and lifted herself onto all fours. Unfortunately, while she had the desire, her body had taken more of a pounding than she realized. That little movement proved to be even too much for her injured body to take and she found herself coughing up blood. Not willing to give up, Rei needed her help, Ami focused all of her planetary energy into giving her body the strength to fight. The pain of her wounds vanishing, Sailor Mercury was able to return to her feet, only to see that the demon had reached the bottom of the stairs.

The daimon took only a moment to locate its prey and charged the blue haired warrior for a second time. This time knowing what to expect, Mercury leapt out of the way. Landing on the roof of a car on the other side of the street, she had to wince at the damage the daimon did to the car she had been standing in front of. Taking advantage of the momentary advantage she had while the daimon extracted itself from the remains of the smashed car, she summoned another Shine Aqua Illusion.

To her horror, the spell that left her hands was a fraction of its normal size and it splashed harmlessly against the side of the daimon. While it was more powerful than ChibiMoon's Pink Sugar Heart Attack, it was not by much. This is not good. thought Mercury. And then analyzing the situation further, she concluded, I must be using so much energy to keep myself going that I don't have any to spare for attacks.

With that realization, Mercury knew that she could no longer hope to control the momentum of the battle. Instead, the best that she could hope for was to minimize the damage and keep the demon occupied while she waited for the others to arrive. I just hope that Ryo-chan is able to save Rei. thought Mercury. Then noticing that the demon was preparing to charge her yet again, Mercury got ready to leap out of the way again.

As Mercury kept the attention of the daimon, she thought, At least this demon doesn't seem to have any attacks other than using its head as a battering ram, so if I stay in the middle of the street I may just be able to keep it from damaging anything else. Unfortunately after a dozen more of her jumps back and forth along the middle of the street (trying to keep the daimon from hitting anything) she began to feel herself tire. Realizing that she was exhausting even her planetary energy, Mercury knew that she would need to withdraw soon.

Another two jumps and Mercury decided it was time to pull out. Making one final jump out of the way before escaping to the safety of the roof tops, Mercury found she stayed one jump too many. Her timing was off by just enough, that her toe just barely caught the top of the demon's head. While her foot barely touched the demon, it was enough to change her graceful jump, to a painful uncontrolled crash to the ground. All she had time for was to curl up into a ball before hitting the pavement. Then acting on instinct she rolled with the impact and quickly returned to a kneeling position. Looking up she saw that the demon had already turned around and was getting ready to charge her again and this time she knew she could not get out of the way. Deciding to face her end as it came, Ami kept her eyes open to watch the approaching final blow.

"Dead Scream." Mercury's ears barely heard the whisper of salvation, but eyes had no trouble spotting the violet ball of energy, which shot out from a side street. Catching the daimon by surprise, the attack smashed into the daimon and flung it to the ground a half dozen meters away. Leaving the side street, Pluto looked over to Mercury and said, "Sorry about the timing."

Ami smiled at Pluto's attempt at a bad joke before she gave into her body's desires and collapsed down to the ground. As she did so, it almost seemed as if her planet's energy was happy that she was finally allowing it to do what it needed to do.

Regarding the demon, Pluto was not happy with what she saw, as the creature did not appear to be any worse for wear. Instead, all she appeared to have done was get its attention off of Mercury for the moment, which while a good thing wouldn't do her any good if she couldn't kill it. But before she had to worry about dodging one of its attacks, reinforcements arrived with the clicking of three more sets of boots landing on the ground behind her. Taking a quick glance behind she saw that the new arrivals were Jupiter, Venus, and ChibiMoon.

While Sailor Moon had jumped down along with the other three, she had caught sight of Mercury's crumpled form. Immediately she had spread her wings wide and taken back to the air. Landing now beside her injured friend, she quickly knelt down to see to Ami.

"Ami-chan are you ok?" she asked, fear in her voice.

The blue haired warrior somehow having managed to retain consciousness gave a smile of reassurance to her friend. However, when she tried to speak she found she couldn't without significant effort. Usagi saw that Ami was having trouble speaking and quickly silenced the other girl with a finger on her lips.

"Not now, just rest." Usagi said. Then seeing that Ami had accepted her advice to remain quiet, Usagi removed her finger.

 "Damn it! Why won't our attacks slow this creature down?" cursed Sailor Jupiter as the demon barreled harmlessly through one of her Thunder Dragons as it charged Venus.

Hearing Jupiter's curse, Usagi turned to look towards the battle. She looked up just in time to see the demon deflect one of Pluto's Dead Screams into Venus. Usagi winced in sympathy as an unsuspecting Venus was blown backwards. Feeling movement from Ami, Usagi turned her attention back to the blue haired girl. Seeing Ami attempting to sit up, she laid a hand on Ami's shoulder to push her back to the ground. In spite of her weakened state, Ami attempted to shake off that hand. Glimpsing the determination in the other girl's eyes, Usagi relented and instead helped Ami to sit up.

Leaning against Sailor Moon, Mercury summoned her computer and deployed her visor. While she might not be able to fight any more, she still could still make important contributions to this battle. As Ami analyzed her reading, Usagi wanted to ask the girl, if there was anything they could use against this demon. However, at the same time she did not want a repeat of what happened the last time Ami attempted to talk. For the moment, the desire to not hurt Ami any more won out.

Examining her scans intently, Ami did not like what she was seeing. As she feared this creature was heavily armored, none of their attacks were actually doing any damage to it. If that was the case, then what could they do to defeat it? While Sailor Moon was stronger than the others, her Moon Scepter would not be any more effective. About the only thing that would work would be her Moon Tier, but Ami knew that after what happened the last two times, Usagi would refuse to consider that option. Examining her scans yet again, trying to find another option, something caught her eye. A glimmer of hope rising, Ami's fingers flew over the keyboard as she ran more scans and a new set of analysis. Finding the key to defeating this creature, Ami attempted to voice her finding to Usagi. However, like the last time she attempted to speak, she doubled over as her body was wracked by coughs.

"Mercury don't try to talk. Just conserve your energy. We'll take care of this creature." Usagi said

Shaking her head, Ami forced her body to speak the words that needed to be said. "No you can't. It's too strong, you aren't hurting it at all." Each word that she spoke was a struggle for the injured warrior and she had to take rest a moment after speaking only her second sentence. Knowing that Ami needed to speak what she had figured out, Usagi instead just gently held the other girl to her chest, lending Ami her strength. Getting her breathing back under control, Ami continued, "But if everyone focuses on just one point and one point only, you'll be able to crack its armor."

Usagi continued to hold onto Ami through the bought of coughing that followed, worrying every time Ami spit up some blood. Eventually the coughing began die back down. With Ami's breathing having returned to normal, Usagi laid the other girl back on the ground. Kneeling over Ami, she said, "Now you stay here and rest." Then placing her hands on Ami's chest, the Ginzuishou reacted to her call and flowed a small drop of her energy into Ami.

As she let Usagi lay her down on the ground, Ami closed her eyes agreeing that it was now time to let her body rest and recover. As a result, she was unaware of what Usagi was doing with the Ginzuishou. But she did feel a sudden warmth that flowed into her body, washing away her troubles and with them her grip on reality. Content, she fell into a deep slumber.

Seeing Sailor Mercury's chest rising and falling now in the slow rhythm of sleep, Usagi gave a sigh of relief. Reassured about her friend for the moment, she returned to her feet and turned to join the battle. With a strong downward beat her wings, she took to the air.

Landing by the others, she called out, "Minna-san! Mercury says we need to focus on hitting the same spot, that is the only way we are going to beat this thing."

"Hai!" the others agreed, feeling energized again as Mercury's plan gave them hope again.

Quickly following Usagi's instructions, Venus and Jupiter and unleashed attacks that hit in the same spot on the demon's head, a spot which was soon hit by Pluto and ChibiMoon and then again by the foursome. While the others continued to attack the demon, Sailor Moon returned to the air, realizing that up there she wouldn't have to worry about dodging the demon's charges. As she hovered in the air waiting for the demon to be weakened enough for her to use her Moon Scepter, Usagi realized that being unchallenged up here she wasn't restricted to just giving the final blow.

Calling upon the power of the Moon, Sailor Moon let the energy she would need for her attack build up within her body. Then when she had enough, she pulled her wings in and quickly dropped down to the ground. With a quick spin, she unleashed her attack. The golden crescent moon smashed into the head of the creature knocking it backwards. As expected, the attack was insufficient to destroy the creature. But as it lay there on the ground, Usagi could see that the armor on its head was now noticeably cracked.

"You go girl!" Venus called out before blasting the creature with one of her Crescent Beams.

"What happened to the wind up?" ChibiMoon asked, wondering if she could eliminate that part from her attack as well and make it slightly less useless.

Usagi smiled in response to that question. "I just realized that even though I am stuck using this weaker attack instead of Moon Tier, I can still make use of the fact that I am now a whole lot stronger than when we were fighting the Dark Kingdom. I can pre-build the energy for my attack if the enemy leaves me alone long enough… Yikes!" the exclamation coming as she realized almost too late that the demon had returned to its feet and was charging her.

Safely back up in the air, she began to build her energy again. Unfortunately this time the demon was not going to let her go unchallenged and instead decided that it was time to show these Sailor Senshi that it did indeed have another attack in addition to just charging its opponents. Bringing up its left arm, Usagi noticed that it was hollow. Not quite realizing what that probably meant, she was taken by surprise when it began shooting rivets at her. The first dozen missed widely, passing low and to her right. However, the demon kept firing and quickly adjusted its aim, raking the sky with its shots. Not reacting fast enough, some of the rivets caught her in the stomach and even worse, some of them punched through her left wing. While the ones that hit her stomach caused intense pain, they held nothing to the sudden burning sensation she felt from the holes that were punched in her wing. No longer able to support her, Usagi's left wing collapsed and she fell out of the sky.

Seeing their princess fall out of the sky, Pluto, Jupiter and Venus screamed, "That does it!" Anger coursing through their blood, the three of them turned on the demon and in concert unleashed their powers. Fueled by anger the attacks they unleashed were already at double strength before they fused into one energy beam, crackling with electricity and temporal energy. The crackling yellow beam smashed into the wounded armor of the demon, flinging it down the street and embedding it in the retaining wall surrounding the hill the Hikawa Shine sits on.

When the daimon had brought up its rivet gun, Tuxedo Kamen left the shadows to take action. Unfortunately, for the first time his roses came too late, the demon had already clipped Sailor Moon's wings before he disabled its gun. Though while he had moved too slowly to save his love from being hit, he was in time to catch the plummeting Sailor Moon. Feeling the warmth of her love's embrace, Usagi opened her eyes and gave him a smile of thanks.

Landing, Tuxedo-Kamen placed Usagi down on her feet. The silver haired girl walked forward ready to end this battle. The burning pain of her punctured wing flowed through her link to Tuxedo-Kamen and to her daughter. Sensing the pain that her mother was feeling, ChibiMoon knew that Sailor Moon would not be able to muster the concentration she needed for her attack with her injury. Walking up beside Sailor Moon she said, "Momma, let me help you."

Usagi did not need to ask what ChibiMoon meant, looking at her daughter's eyes she could tell that the young girl was referring to the pain caused by her injured wing. She would have said that she was fine, however even as she thought about that she knew that she wouldn't be able to channel the intense power of the Moon with the distraction of her wing. Curious as to how ChibiMoon could help, she summoned her scepter and handed it over.

Given ChibiMoon's short height, the little girl had a slight problem with using the scepter (it would hit the ground on the wind up). ChibiUsa discovered this when she gave the scepter a test swing to get a feel for its weight and whacked it into the ground. "Oops," ChibiUsa said quietly to herself with a slight chuckle. Almost as she said those words, hands lovingly grasped her around her waist and lifted her up onto the top of a nearby car. Turning to look at Sailor Moon, ChibiMoon said, "Arigatoo".

Now that her daughter had sufficient clearance to use the Moon Scepter, only one issue was left: being able to summon the energy necessary to use it. ChibiMoon might be a Sailor Moon in training; however, she could not yet draw more then a little power from the Ginzuishou. Usagi, knew that she would need to provide ChibiMoon with the power to use the Moon Scepter. Placing her hands on her daughter's waist, while resting her head against ChibiMoon's back, Usagi closed her eyes and opened herself up to both the power of the Moon and to her daughter.

ChibiUsa instantly felt the moment her mother created the link, a washing her body in energy. The power was tremendous, she had never imagined that Sailor Moon was this powerful; it truly was the power of legends. As much as she would have liked to explore some more, she knew she had a job to do. Forcing her gaze outwards again, she sighted the demon and then letting instinct guide her, she summoned the power of the Moon.

She found the power that washed through her body deliciously seductive. As she turned the demon to dust, she found her will to resist the siren call of the even greater power that remained in her mother's body crumbling. Listening to that siren call, she remembered how great it felt to have that all that energy at her command when she was Black Lady and furthermore how much better it would be to have this far greater level of power at her command. A power that was right at her fingertips, all she had to do was reach over and take it. And there was nothing that Sailor Moon could do to prevent her; the foolish girl had not retained any control of this link.

With every passing moment, the buried part of her that was Black Lady became stronger and stronger and ChibiUsa began to reach across the link looking for the heart of Sailor Moon's power. Once she found that orb of energy in the other girl's soul, she could rightfully take it for herself. With it, she could finally return home and save her mother herself and with that power no one would ever question her lineage ever again.

Thinking about home and the future shattered the siren's spell. The persona of Black Lady lost its hold and vanished. With its departure, she remembered that the threat of Nemesis was now over, that her mother was safe and she was growing again. Not only that, but she was now as Sailor Senshi in training. However on the heal of those happy thoughts, came unhappy knowledge of the current situation.

But as she remembered that Sailor Moon was indeed her mother, the horror of what she almost did began to take over. Rapidly distancing herself from that alluring power, she shattered the link as jumped down off the car and ran off into the distance. Disappearing into an alleyway, she changed back to her civilian form before exiting out the other end and disappearing into the streets of Tokyo.

Focused as the others were on other elements of the battle, only Pluto saw the look of horror that crossed ChibiMoon's face before she vanished. Pluto frowned when she saw that and prayed to the Cosmos that it was not what she thought it was.

Released from her link with ChibiMoon, Sailor Moon collapsed into Tuxedo-Kamen's arms. Adjusting his hold on her, he carried her over to where the others were standing.

Seeing the unconscious Sailor Moon, Jupiter asked, "Is she going to be okay?"

"Hai, I think so. Though do you know where ChibiMoon disappeared to?"

In response to the question, the others looked around to see where the little girl had disappeared off to. "Don't know, though my guess is she went to get Usagi something to much on when she comes to again." Venus said, knowing the love the two girls felt for each other and that Usagi was probably hurt fairly badly for the two of them to have done what they just did.

Pluto remained quiet, not wanting to voice her suspicions till she knew for sure. Instead she just said, "Unfortunately we can't stand around right now, there is still the issue of Kaolinite."

"Hai" Venus agreed, "Come lets go show that witch what happens when she messes with one of us."

Nodding their agreement, Jupiter and Pluto joined with Venus and dashed up the stairs to the shrine. Tuxedo-Kamen first walked over to where the injured Sailor Mercury lay and placed Usagi down beside the petite warrior. Hoping that the two of them would be okay by themselves, he followed the others up to confront Kaolinite.


Taking the Pure Heart Crystal from Ryo, Neptune examined it. Finding no indication that it contained one of the talismans, she released a sigh of relief, happy that she wouldn't have to sacrifice Rei's life. Though a part of her was also annoyed that they hadn't yet found any of the talismans.

"There is no talisman contained in this crystal," Neptune said to Ryo as she handed it back to him. "Here return it to Rei and look after her. I am going after Kaolinite."

Getting Rei's life force back from Neptune, Ryo placed the crystal down on the priestess's shirt. As soon as the crystal touched Rei's chest, it slipped back inside of her. Immediately the color of Rei's skin improved and her breathing became strong again. Then a minute later, Rei open her eyes.

"What happened?" a groggy Rei asked.

"Your life energy was stolen by the enemy."

"Guess that explains the weird sensations that I am feeling." Rei said as she began to remember what had happened to her.

"Hey what are you doing?" Ryo asked as Rei climbed up to her feet.

"To join the others." Rei replied after her henshin into Sailor Mars. "Anyways we recover faster when we engage in mild combat."

Ryo just shook his head with that pronouncement. The others would have liked warriors like these where fighting equals faster healing. Well I better go and keep an eye on her. He thought as he shifted back to his true form and phased invisible.


Kaolinite was doing fairly well against Sailor Uranus and Neptune, keeping them on the defensive. Neptune's pronouncement that the Pure Heart Crystal was no good annoyed her. But she figured that taking out three Sailor Senshi would still make this a good mission. Uranus was barely staying in there, having been outmatched when it was just herself against Kaolinite. Neptune had barely arrived in the nick of time, a few minutes more and Kaolinite would have had a trophy to bring back to Rubeus. Though as it was, Kaolinite was now wearing down Neptune as well and before long she would have two trophies to bring back, plus the petite warrior as well.

"Hold it right there." Came an annoying voice announcing the arrival of more Sailor Senshi. "For you desecration of this holy place in the name of Venus." "Jupiter," "Pluto," and then from the other side of the courtyard "and Mars." "We will punish you."

Dang it looks like the Crystal Daimon has been destroyed. Though it appears that I did get Sailor Mercury out of the deal. Kaolinite thought as she assessed the situation. Deciding that she did not like the odds and as much as she hated the idea of letting Sailor Uranus and Neptune live when she was so close to killing them, she much preferred her own life.

"Well it looks like you brats win this time." Kaolinite said before turning on her heals and making a run for it.

Not giving chase, Jupiter and Venus instead headed over to see how Rei was, while Pluto walked over to check on the wounded Uranus who was currently being supported by a fairly beat-up Neptune. Becoming visible in his human form, Ryo looked around for Mercury. Not seeing her and fearing the worst, he ran towards the stairs. As he passed Tuxedo-Kamen, the masked warrior reached out and grabbed a hold of the distraught teenager.

"Let me go! I need to see to Ami-chan." Ryo pleaded.

"Urawa-kun you can't go to her yet. She is still in her Sailor form and I am sure that by now bystanders will have begun to return to the street. Don't worry she seems to be doing okay for the moment; I laid Sailor Moon down beside her before coming up here."

Ryo looked up at the Tuxedo-Kamen not quite certain if he agreed with his assessment of the situation.

"Why don't you head to her home and I will bring her over by the roofs. I am sure that Usagi is up and about again, she was just drained from using her attack."

Ryo reluctantly agreed to this and once again changed back to his other form and phased invisible, as that would allow him to get to her home faster.

Having taken care of that issue, Tuxedo-Kamen leapt down to street level. Landing on top of a light pole, he then jumped down to the ground and walked over to where Usagi was kneeling beside Sailor Mercury. Walking up beside his love, he placed a supportive hand on her back.

"How is she doing?"

"Not good, but she will recover. Though, right now her energy levels are very low." Usagi replied.

"And how about you?"

"My wing hurts like crazy, but I am okay for the moment. Though I won't know how much damage has been done to it until Mercury is able to look at it. Right now though, Mercury is far more important, we should get her home."

Mamoru listened as Usagi talked, impressed by how mature she was in handling the situation. Part of him expected her to be wailing about the pain to her wing she was feeling. However he knew what it came to the well being of others, especially her friends, nothing would deter this lighthearted girl. "Hai, Urawa is probably already at her home waiting for me to return with her." he said.

Then after seeing Usagi nod her head in approval, he knelt down to pick Mercury up in his arms. As he did so, he was startled to see that blood stained the pavement. What happened to Ami when she was battling that demon? I just hope Usagi is right in saying that she'll be okay." Knowing that he would have to extra careful in how he handled the blue haired girl, he carefully cradled her in his arms and took to the roofs, with Sailor Moon following not far behind.


Dr Mizuno walked over to the fridge to get a something to drink; she had the evening off tonight, not even on call for once. She wished that she could have spent her time off with her daughter, but she was not going to intrude on her daughter and friends plans for the evening, since seeing Ami with friends meant so much to her.

Walking back into the living room to sit down, she suddenly stopped, realizing that she was no longer alone. Turning around she found Urawa Ryo standing there in the kitchen.

Startled by his sudden appearance, she asked, "How did you get in here? Is Ami here?" as she attempted to get her racing heart back under control. Even though she could see that it was only Urawa, something about his presence still made her apprehensive. Looking into his eyes, she could tell that something had happened. With a growing feeling of despair, she asked, "Something has happened to Ami, hasn't it? Where is she?"

"Hai, I am afraid Ami's been hurt. There was another battle today, this time they attacked Rei." Ryo said. "Ami and I were the first ones to arrive and there was no time to wait for the others. Unfortunately by herself, Ami was outmatched. I don't know what happened, only that things did not go well for her."

As Ryo finished his reply, the sound of footsteps were heard upstairs, indicating that Tuxedo-Kamen had landed on the balcony and had entered the house. Both Ryo and Mizuno-san knew what those footsteps meant and headed up the stairs to Ami's room. There they found Usagi sitting on the bed, beside a resting Ami. Mizuno-san immediately rushed to her daughter's side.

Standing up and blocking Mizuno-san's path to the bed, Usagi said, "You may want to wait on pulling her into your arms. This demon attacked in a manner similar to being run over by a car and I don't know how many times Ami was hit before we arrived. All I know is that she could barely sit up on her own and that even talking caused her to cough up blood."

The color drained from Mizuno-san's face as she listened to Usagi. Now in her doctor mode, she stepped around Usagi to take a better look at her daughter. She could see the beginning of large bruises on Ami's arms, legs and face and could see the stains of blood on the front of Ami's outfit.

"I need to get her out of this outfit. The tightness of it will cause trouble if she has any swelling, especially with the likely internal injuries that she may have." Mizuno-san said to herself as she tried to keep herself professional for the moment.

Usagi looked away from mother and daughter to the other two in the room and caught Mamoru's attention. He understood the silent message she sent and slipped out of the room with Ryo in tow. With that taken care of, she returned her attention to Ami (it would do no good to have Ami deeply embarrassed once she recovered).

"This is one area where I can be of help." Usagi said as she placed her hands down on Ami's chest. Closing her eyes and focusing on the energy she felt in front of her, Usagi allowed the Ginzuishou to flare to life. With her birthmark glowing brightly and the silver crystal suspended in front of her chest aglow in its own light, she felt the energy of Mercury become part of herself. Giving a mental command she opened her eyes.

As Usagi removed her hands from Ami's chest, Mercury's fuku began to glow a bright blue. The glow continued to increase and then spread to cover her entire body, becoming a blue flame. When it vanished a few seconds later, Mercury's fuku had not only been dissolved, but so had much of much of Ami's civilian clothing.

Mizuno-san watched on in awe, "Well that beats using scissors."

"Figured you would need her regular clothing off as well so that you could do a full evaluation."

Mizuno-san just nodded a reply to Usagi as she bent down over her daughter and began checking her injuries. During her investigation, Usagi remembered that she had pocketed the Mercury computer when she had put Ami to sleep and took that out and gave it to Mizuno-san. Between the two of them, they eventually were able to figure out how to put it into medical mode. And while neither of them knew how to really use it to diagnose Ami, it thankfully started up in a basic scan mode. Using that information and her own training, Mizuno-san was able to determine that Ami had a handful of cracked ribs, massive bruising, a slight break in her right arm, but thankfully did not appear to have any major internal organ damage. That kind of injury would have necessitated a hospital visit, something that Mizuno-san was very glad she didn't have to deal with. And while Ami was in a very rough shape, she was able to conclude that Ami would pull through okay.

"Well it looks like she will be okay, though one thing does worry me." Mizuno-san said, that last part drawing Usagi's attention. "I can't figure out why she hasn't woken up yet. The only thing I can think of is that she has some kind of head injury or…" Mizuno-san trailed off at the end, unable to voice her fears.

"Don't worry." Usagi said in a warm voice. "I am responsible for her being sound asleep. And don't worry, it is nothing more than a deep sleep." Then seeing how Mizuno-san was looking at her, Usagi elaborated. "Ami-chan can be very dedicated when she wants to be. And unfortunately, today she did not listen to her more reasonable mind and fought long after she should have withdrawn, to the point where I am sure she was using all her power to just remain fighting.

Just a few weeks earlier, Mizuno-san would never have believed any who told her that her daughter, Ami, had fought a solo battle, much less that she fought it far past her own breaking point. However since learning that Ami was Sailor Mercury, she was finally able to see the inner strength that had been growing in Ami. A strength that was strengthened everyday just by being around Usagi.

Thinking about Usagi's explanation, Mizuno-san asked, "You have the ability to put them to sleep?"

"Hai to a limited degree. The Ginzuishou, the source of my powers, was created by pooling all the planetary energies in this system, through it I can influence the magics of those planets. However, I can only do so when there is no opposition to my control. Hence I can't command their magics if they are conscious, but if they are out, as Mercury was just now when I dispelled her Senshi magic or in the case of the battle where she was barely conscious, I do have the ability to take control of their magic to a limited degree." Usagi replied.

"I guess that makes some sense." Mizuno-san said, still not being that comfortable with the concept of magic. Walking over to the closest she took out a sheet, which she proceeded to cover Ami with. "Well the only thing we can do now is let her rest and hope that she is feeling better in the morning. At least she will have the weekend to recover before we need to worry about school. And worse comes to worse, being a doctor I can always write a long term note for her if she needs it" Mizuno-san said, believing the last part to be a distinct possibility.

With Ami taken care of, the two left the room. Walking behind Usagi as they left, Mizuno-san realized that Usagi was still in her Senshi form. "Usagi-chan if you don't mine my asking, why are you still as Sailor Moon?"

"Oh?" Usagi replied, having forgotten that she was still in her Senshi form. "Well that is a simple thing to…" She began saying as she started to let her form revert. However, she suddenly broke off both her speech and transformation in mid-sentence as a pained grimace crossed her face while she doubled over slightly.

"Usagi-chan what's wrong?" Mizuno-san asked, concern in her voice.

Straightening herself back up, Usagi replied, "In looking after Ami, I had entirely forgotten about my own injury from the battle. The enemy did something to my left wing and when I tried to pull it back into my body so that I could revert to my school uniform, the pain became unbearable. And unfortunately, I am currently wearing my school uniform and not one of outfits that have been modified for having my wings out. Because of that I can't leave my wings out when I release my transformation." Usagi said. And then after pausing for a moment she continued, "Well I could still do that , but I wouldn't be wearing my shirt anymore." She ended with a smile.

Even as Usagi was speaking, Mizuno-san had taken a hold of her arm and pulled the silver haired girl into the kitchen where the lighting was good. Then bringing in a stool, she had the younger girl sit on it. Reaching out she gently took a hold of Usagi's left wing, the one that had streaks of blood on it. Understanding what Ami's mother was doing, Usagi let her wings go limp, so that Mizuno-san could pull the left one up and examine it.

At one point in her examination, Mizuno-san sent a rather large shiver of pain through Usagi. "Gomen Usagi" Ami's mom said after the shiver died down. Usagi just sent a smile back saying that it was okay, while she let the doctor continue her examination. A few minutes later Mizuno-san finished her examination, thankfully without causing much more distress to Usagi.

Releasing Usagi's wing, Mizuno-san walked back in front of the other girl to tell her the results of her examination. "Well I have found your problem, there are a half dozen holes in your wing. Most of them are pretty clean and should hopefully heal without too much trouble. However, I am not a vet so I don't know for sure. But there is one that I am worried about." Reaching out she carefully took a hold of Usagi's wing to point out the one that she was worried about. "Here at the top of your wing, this one was ripped through muscle and may even have nicked some bone. I am going to need to clean these wounds out so that they can heal and I am especially worried about this top one getting infected. Unfortunately this is not going to be any fun."

Hearing that last bit Usagi's face went white, while she did not know exactly what Mizuno-san was going to do, she was very afraid that it might involve needles.

"Thankfully after learning about Ami's secret, I started stocking the house with various medical supplies and I do have something that I can give you." She said as she took out a case from below the sink. Opening it, she removed a couple of items before she found what she was looking for, a large cylinder and a bottle.

"Iie! I don't want any shots." Usagi cried as tears began running down her face from the realization that Mizuno-san was preparing to give her a shot.

"Don't worry it won't hurt too much. And it will make the pain in your wing go away. If I don't give you this, it will hurt even more than before when I clean out the wounds. Especially that nasty one."

Usagi considered Mizuno-san's explanation as tears continued to stream down her face. However, Mizuno-san could see from the girl's indecision that she was not buying her reasoning. Trying one last option, she said, "If you let me give you this shot I have a lollipop for you." To which Usagi's face immediately lit up. Opening a cupboard, she removed the bag of candy and took out a sucker to give Usagi. Now with Usagi content and distracted by the sweet, she quickly injected the painkiller into Usagi's wing.

Usagi's crying had attracted the attention of Ryo and Mamoru and the two arrived just in time to see Mizuno-san give Usagi the shot. Seeing Dr. Mizuno treating Usagi immediately reminded Mamoru of what had happened to Usagi that afternoon. Walking up beside Usagi, he took a hold of her right and said, "Don't worry I will be right here with you." this improved Usagi's mood even more.

"Urawa-san, Ami is going to be okay. With the aid of her computer, I was able to give her a reasonable examination and from what I understand of how much punishment she and the others can take, I am sure that she will recover. Though she is going to be bedridden all weekend."

Ryo gave a sigh of relief when he heard that. "I'll bring her over some stuff to work on tomorrow." He said knowing that she would go crazy otherwise, and knowing exactly what material she was going to want to have to work on.

"Hai that sounds good. Oh Urawa-san, if you wouldn't mind. Could you give Usagi's parents a call and ask if they could bring over one of Usagi outfits that is designed for her wings. When I am done cleaning this wound and while the pain is still numb, I think she should change out of her Senshi form and then out of school clothes into something that will be a bit more comfortable."

"Hai."


Once she had verified that Uranus and Mars were okay, Pluto took leave of the others. There was one other that needed to be checked on; one that in the confusion of the moment everyone else had overlook, not that you could fault them for that. Usagi at the time was unconscious; Tuxedo-Kamen of course had his attention focused on her. Jupiter and Venus had already been focusing on the next part of the battle. That left only her to see ChibiMoon disappear. Pluto just hoped that the expression that she had seen on the child's face was not what she thought it was. None of the others are ready to deal with the nightmares that will result if it is true. Neo-Queen Serenity and King Endymion had been barely able to deal with those nightmares and it took months to put them to away.

Hoping that it was just the stress of battle getting to ChibiUsa, Setsuna first visited the Crown Arcade to see if ChibiUsa had gone there. Not seeing her, she then walked by the Tomoe mansion, but could only sensed the energy of destruction there. Keeping her fingers crossed she headed to the Tsukino home. Of course, of the three areas this was the most likely place for ChibiUsa to go. However, even if it was just battle stress, she did not expect ChibiUsa to head straight home and so had taken the time to check the other places to give ChibiUsa the time to get home.

"Shingo-kun it is good to see you again. Is ChibiUsa home?" Setsuna asked when Shingo opened the door.

"Iie, she hasn't come home yet." Hearing that, Setsuna crossed her brows in displeasure but did not say anything. Seeing that green haired woman hadn't said anything and was making no move to leave, Shingo added, "Would you like to come in and wait for her? I am sure she will be arriving soon."

"Hai, if it is not too much of an imposition."

"Iie" Shingo replied as he held the door open for her to enter. Then closing the door, he went into the kitchen to get her some tea to drink.

Later when the phone rang, Shingo answered and listened to Ryo's request. "But she is okay, right?" he asked before hanging up the phone. Then turning to his guest said, "Why didn't you tell me that Usagi was hurt today?" venting his concern of his sister as anger.

"Gomen Shingo, I know how much you care about Usagi. I did not know that she was injured badly.  And unfortunately I am more concerned about ChibiUsa right now."

That response froze Shingo in his tracks. He cared a lot for his niece, especially since she was a great ally in taking on his older sister. "What is wrong with her?" he asked some fear in his voice this time.

"Nothing I hope. But I am afraid that she may be facing internal demons from her past. I just hope that Usagi is able to help her through them."

"Usagi, ah yes that's right. Hold on a moment Setsuna-san. That was Urawa-san calling, he says that they need a new outfit for Usagi, she's at Ami's being treated by Ami's mother. Could you bring it to her?"

"Hai." Setsuna said.

"I'll only be a minute in getting it." Shingo replied and disappeared up the stairs.

"I should have stayed with Usagi instead of staying to talk with Haruna-sensei." Luna said shame in her voice.

Kneeling down to look at the feline, Setsuna said, "Luna there is nothing that you could have done. If what I suspect is true, there is nothing anyone could have done, well other than Usagi not getting shot out of the sky, that could have prevented what has happened to ChibiUsa. I am going to go outside and get Diana. Once we have dropped off Usagi's shirt the two of us will go out and look for ChibiUsa. You will need to stay with Usagi and keep her from chasing after ChibiUsa as well.

"It is complicated, but it involves something that occurred during her previous trip back to the past. And seeing Usagi will only make the guilt that she is undoubtedly facing even worse."

"Guilt? I don't understand." Luna replied.

"I know you don't. But this is not the time to explain it. For now it would be best not to tell Usagi of my concerns and I would like you to make sure that Usagi does not go looking for ChibiUsa." Pluto told Luna. Then having said that, she went out to the backyard to get Diana.

*          *          *          *          *

End Notes:

The founding of the Moon Kingdom is the subject of the second chapter of my In the Beginningseries (though I don't think I have posted that chapter, still needs work). On the Senshi who declared that Ginzuishou was a star seed, that would be Saturn. However, Luna doesn't remember the existence of a Saturn so of course she couldn't attribute who exactly said that. Of course, one would think that she and the others could have deduced that there should be a Sailor Saturn. The second attack that hit Ami was the rivet gun attack. However, she wasn't really in a position to see that second attack nor did she really realize after coming to that she had been hit twice. Misako is a reference to the "Tales of the Younger Senshi" series. In that series, she is the second daughter of Usagi and Mamoru. I probably have the correct number of eyes for a Babylon 5 shadow wrong, however, I couldn't find any shadow pictures in which I could count their eyes. But six is a nice alchemic number, hence how I got the 24. I am afraid to say to those who have been asking Helios will not be making an appearance in Falling Towards Apotheosis. However, if I ever do write my third volume (maybe finished sometime next decade) he would appear there. He will play a rather pivotal role, beyond the normal Supers roll. But that is assuming that I get a faster chapter pace going. Sorry for the delay on getting this chapter out. But I have an excuse for at least part of the time, as I was moving from NC to OH in December to take a new job. Next chapter should be short, so maybe it'll see the light of day before the summer.