ALL THAT GLITTERS

Chapter 4: "Present Tense"
A Neo-Sailor Moon fanfic

By Bill K.

"I should have known!" Sailor Moon said bitterly, turning on her heels and retreating from the room and her perceived humiliation. "I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN!"

"Usa!" Endymion snapped, but stopped when he felt Serenity's hands around his elbow.

"I THOUGHT IT'D BE DIFFERENT THIS TIME!" Sailor Moon roared, turning back to them. Her face clearly showed her feelings of betrayal. "I THOUGHT YOU'D FINALLY STOP THINKING OF ME AS THE FOUR-YEAR-OLD WHO MESSED UP AND GOT THE WORLD INVADED!" She turned and ran out. "I should have known!"

"Usagi!" Endymion called after her. He started to follow, but a gentle hand restrained him. Frustrated and angry, he turned questioningly to his wife holding him back.

"Let her go, Endymion," Serenity said gently. "Let her calm down."

He wanted to ignore her, to go after his daughter and make her understand that he wasn't doing this to be mean or arbitrary, that he was genuinely concerned with her welfare and with the world's. But those big blue watery eyes were always so difficult to reason with.

Seeing that her parents weren't going to go after her, Sailor Saturn broke from the rest and followed Sailor Moon's path out of the room.

"You were a little harsh," Serenity whispered, fearing hurting him.

"She has to understand," Endymion countered, for now it seemed his wife didn't understand his side either. "What she did was reckless. Sure, she pulled it off, but it could have been disastrous for everyone."

"I understand your side, Endymion," Serenity told him. "You just could have been - gentler."

"Does that work? Does anything? I try to be patient and understanding with her and she walks all over me. I try to be firm and set limits and boundaries and I'm a ogre who's holding her back. I just don't know anymore."

"If it makes you feel any better, neither do I," Serenity smiled weakly. "She's exasperated me as much as she has you. I guess all we can do is love her and trust her to make the right decision," and Serenity put her head against Endymion's chest, "and pick up the pieces if she doesn't."

"And you always wondered why I never had kids," Venus murmured to Jupiter. That drew a knowing smile from Jupiter.

"Oh," Serenity said suddenly, pulling away from Endymion and turning to Sailor Pluto. "Where are my manners? Setsuna, it's so good to have you back." She glided over to Sailor Pluto and, though she was still dwarfed by the lanky senshi, she flung her arms around the woman's neck and hugged her with a little assistance from Pluto herself. "Are you back to stay?"

"Who may see the future?" Pluto replied, almost in jest. "I have, as yet, no plans to leave."

"Cryptic as usual," Sailor Neptune gently chided as she approached. Serenity gave way and the two outer senshi embraced. "It was devastating to hear you were thought dead. Thank you for making my period of mourning brief."

"It was not my intent to cause you grief," Pluto said. "And it was not my doing which ended it but I am glad for this reunion just the same."

The two broke away from each other and Pluto addressed the entire assembly.

"Indeed, I am very happy to be reunited with each and every one of you, my friends and fellow senshi." Then she smiled mysteriously to herself. "And I am heartened that my final wish was granted."

"Um," Mercury began shyly. Something obviously bothered her, but the gravity of the matter was making her too timid to bring it up. Pluto locked her gaze on Mercury.

"You worry that my return has created an anomaly in the flow of time," Pluto proclaimed.

"Yes. Did you foresee my concerns?"

Pluto smiled to herself. "Knowing you as I do, it was not hard to guess. Your concern is justified, Sailor Mercury. Intrusion into the past is quite dangerous. Previous visits by the Princess were permitted only with my strict supervision so I could act should something happen to alter what was to come. Without that supervision, the risk of altering the past and obliterating the future we all now reside in is just too great."

"Then that poses the big question," Mars ventured. "Did she?"

"The Princess is a remarkable young woman," Sailor Pluto replied. "Her theory in this instance was sound. To pluck a person from the past and bring that person to the future permanently is quite dangerous, for it erases everything that person was destined to do. And the ripples from that action could become chaotic. Even to pluck someone from the moment before they die would alter what was to come, for it would leave no body to bury or mourn over." She glanced back at the Royal couple with a hopeful smile. "But if there is no further evidence of that person's existence from that point on, not even a body, who is to say that person died at that moment or merely disappeared into the currents of time?"

"Utterly logical," nodded Mercury.

"That girl has to be the luckiest pup I've ever known," mumbled Uranus, shaking her head.

"What did she say, Juno in words I can understand," Vesta whispered to Juno.

"The Princess was right THIS TIME," Juno told her.

Sailor Pluto walked up to King Endymion. She bowed reverently, then looked at him.

"Your concern was justified, Your Majesty," Pluto said with a pained expression, as if she was committing heresy by even thinking the things she was about to say, "but perhaps your reaction was a bit animated?"

"OK," Endymion sighed in resignation. "I get the message. I'll apologize to her."

"Thank you," Serenity smiled warmly. "You're doing the right thing."

"I'll remind you of that the next time YOU call her a brat," Endymion replied. Serenity stuck her tongue out at him.

Elsewhere, Sailor Saturn walked cautiously down the hall, almost on tiptoe, transforming back to Hotaru Tomoe as she went. Her euphoria over the return of her Setsuna-Mama was completely dampened by her concern for her friend Usa's feelings. Hotaru heard the anger and disillusionment in Usa's vehement retort, as had the Asteroid Senshi, and empathized with it in a way the adults no longer could. Her heart went out to her friend and her only thought was to be there to console Usa and let her know that she wasn't alone.

A maintenance worker passed her in the hall and nodded warmly to her. Word had spread quickly among the maintenance staff of the palace about the budding romance between the son of one of their own and the dark young waif with the soulful eyes who was a member of the royal couple's inner circle. It seemed to draw everyone in the palace a little closer and Hotaru had quickly become a favorite among the maintenance staff. Hotaru returned the nod with a quick one of her own. She didn't mean to be rude or brusk, but her concern was with Usa.

Sighting the door to her quarters, Hotaru hesitated. Would Usa be embarrassed by her presence? Perhaps she wanted to be alone. Shaking her head and forcing her courage to the front, the slight girl approached the door and touched it to signal the environmental control computer of her presence.

"These quarters are currently unoccupied," the computer reported.

"Where could she be?" Hotaru wondered aloud.

"Insufficient query," the computer replied. "Please rephrase."

Hotaru shook her head. "Current location of the Princess Usagi."

"Working," the computer responded. "The Princess Usagi is not in the palace."

Hotaru grimaced.

"Usa, please come in," Hotaru said, engaging her senshi communicator. "This is Hotaru." She waited in vain for a response, wandering down the hall as she waited in case there was a blockage of the powerful communicator's signal. "Usa? This is Hotaru. Please answer me!"

No response came. Fighting back growing concern, Hotaru engaged the communicator's tracking feature. It engaged and, after several moments, returned its report. Usa was nowhere to be found on the planet Earth.

"Oh, Usa, where did you go?" Hotaru sighed in frustration.

Unconsciously, though, Hotaru's mind reached out across the universe from Earth, fanning out from the planet in search of her friend. Oblivious to this, Hotaru wandered absently down the hall trying to figure out where her friend could have gone. Then her brain picked up a thought on a sympathetic harmonic across the inter-dimensional expanse. The girl stopped in mid-stride. Her eyes glazed over for a second. Then she returned to normal.

Only now she knew where her friend had gone.


At that moment, Usa, in her Sailor Moon form, was crossing the inter-dimensional void between Earth and Elysian. As she traveled, she didn't think about the swirling rainbow of colors that passed by, colors that signaled different dimensions and different energies connected with those realities. All she thought of was one single-minded thing: Helios. Helios would understand. Helios would accept her for who she was, not what she had once been. Helios would always trust her and never hold a mistake OK, mistakes against her forever. Helios loved her.

The Princess grimaced at the thought. OK, her parents loved her. She wouldn't go that far. But Helios trusted her, trusted her with his life again and again. Her parents didn't even trust her to be out after twenty-two hundred hours. Well, fine she'd be with the one person who did trust her. And maybe she'd stay there. That way her parents wouldn't have any reason to worry about trusting her ever again.

She'd miss Hotaru, though. But maybe she could talk Hotaru into living in Elysian with them.

"Maiden."

It was such a faint call Usa nearly missed it. Stopping, Usa circled back. Even though inter-dimensional space was very tiny by our standards, once inside perception of distance was warped and the trip elongated. A vast expanse of dimensional portals were compressed into a tiny space and to one inside the warp it seemed as huge as space itself sometimes. Because of that it took a few moments for Usa to backtrack until she caught it again.

"Maiden," she 'heard' the call in her mind.

"Helios?" she asked, a futile gesture because sound could not pierce the dimensional portals. The Princess turned to the direction the thought cast had come from.

It wasn't the portal to Elysian. Why would Helios be here? Was he in trouble? His thought message didn't sound distressed. Overcome by curiosity, Usa shot forward and passed through the dimensional portal.

Instantly she materialized in a pastoral sea of green. Waves of grass knee deep surrounded her. In the distance to one side were thickets of trees and to the other were crystal blue lakes. Overhead the sky was a sapphire blue unblemished by clouds. It was as if she had stepped onto one of the perfect vistas of Elysian yet it wasn't. For one thing, she seemed completely alone. No person could be seen. There weren't even animals on the ground or birds in the sky and Elysian teamed with life. She wasn't afraid she had no reason to be but it was very, very strange.

"Helios?" she called out. "Are you here?"

For a moment she wondered if it had all been some sort of illusion. Then she sensed it from above. Looking up into the sapphire sky, Sailor Moon spotted him flying down. He was in his Pegasus form and something within her tightened with longing. Helios in his human form was quite handsome, but there was something equally thrilling to witnessing him in his equine form. To see that powerfully muscled, exquisitely sculpted, divinely pristine creature soar down from the heavens, his wings majestically spread and his crystal horn gleaming in the sunlight - well that alone was enough to give a girl material for a month of pleasant dreams. As the winged unicorn ever so gracefully landed a few feet from her, barely kicking up a puff of dust and pollen from the grasses, Sailor Moon felt her cheeks flush and her heart skip a beat.

"Maiden," Helios smiled as he shifted from equine to human, "this is an unexpected surprise but definitely a pleasant one." He gathered her gloved hand in his and pressed it to his lips. Sailor Moon could feel her temperature rise a little more.

"I'm glad to see you, too, Helios," Sailor Moon whispered to conceal the tremor in her voice. "I was coming to Elysian to see you. What are you doing here?"

"Merely tending to my duties as Guardian of Pleasant Dreams," Helios assured her. "It is a maintenance duty, nothing more, and can easily wait."

"What is this place?" Sailor Moon asked, looking around. Though the placid vista seemed normal enough, there was a nagging curiosity about it.

"A world, like yours, with its own life and its own dreams," Helios responded.

"I don't see any life. The place seems deserted."

"To you, perhaps. Not all life can be seen by the human eye. But all life that dreams is visible to me." His hands gently locked behind the back of her neck, his forearms lightly resting on her shoulders. "Do not concern yourself with it, Maiden. Why did you seek me out? Has something happened or did the longing in your heart finally equal that which fills my own for you?"

Sailor Moon's eyes shyly sought the ground. "I've always had you beaten in that department," she said. Then her features clouded over.

"What troubles you, Maiden?" Helios asked compassionately. "Please tell me, for the sight of your sadness is as a knife in my very heart."

"Oh, I had another fight with my parents," Sailor Moon admitted reluctantly. "Mostly my Dad. Why can't they see, Helios? Why can't they trust me and believe in me?"

Sailor Moon felt herself shiver in the presence of her love. Her trouble seemed so petty now. Would he look down on her? Would her angry, defensive retort and her immature flight bring scorn to him where before there was adoration? The girl in pink and white suddenly wished she had kept her own confidence.

"I do not know, Maiden," Helios replied sympathetically. "Perhaps they cannot see what I see. Perhaps they are blinded by the image of the helpless infant they held in their arms and cannot see the vibrant and impressive young woman I see blossoming. Do not rebuke them harshly, my Maiden. They do love you, in their own way. though not as much as I, for no being in this universe could love you as much as I."

"Right answer," Sailor Moon sniffed.

Tearing up, she pressed to her love's chest and felt his supple arms encircle her. A euphoria began to build in her body and her mind. She could swear she was tingling.

And in that moment she reached an epiphany she would never leave this never. She was his now and forever, and if she could spend her entire life like this, it would be a life lived fully.


"She's not in her room?" Queen Serenity asked as King Endymion entered her drawing room. The Queen sat with her four guardians and closest friends nearby, ready to tend to her emotional needs. Though Serenity projected an outer calm, they all knew inside she was desperate for everything to be mended and happiness to once more rule the palace.

"She's not in the palace," Endymion scowled. "I even tied it in with the city surveillance monitors. She's not in the city."

"Again?" Makoto gasped with incredulity. "What is it with that girl and running away?"

"You don't suppose she went back into time again, do you?" Rei asked.

"She has not," Setsuna answered, entering the room at that moment, as if on cue. The tall woman bowed to the King and Queen. "Forgive my intrusion, your Majesties."

"Not even as an act of rebellion?" Rei persisted. "Just to say she can?"

"I would know," Setsuna stated and that was that.

"Then where would she go?" Endymion asked. "She's not with Hotaru and the Asteroids. They're all accounted for."

"Oh, Endymion, you can be so dense sometimes," Serenity spoke up. Everyone noticed that her inner calm seemed to be coming back in line with her outer calm.

"That's the pot making value judgments on the kettle's hue," Endymion retorted. Serenity wrinkled her nose at him. "All right, I bow to your wisdom. Where is she?"

"No doubt on her way to Elysian to cry on Helios' shoulder."

"Of course," nodded Makoto.

"Duh," mumbled Minako.

"Makes sense," added Rei.

"Very logical," Ami concurred.

"How can you be so sure?" Endymion demanded.

"She feels hurt and betrayed, Endymion," Serenity told her. "She accomplished what she thought was a triumph and it was snatched away. So she's seeking someone who she knows will love her unconditionally. Since we're the ones she feels betrayed her, she'd naturally seek out Helios or Hotaru. We know she's not with Hotaru, so it must be Helios."

Endymion looked down, chagrined. Thank whatever being guided the world that his daughter had someone as gentle and trustworthy as Helios to turn to when he blundered and failed her.

"Well, there's one way to test your theory," Endymion replied.

He turned toward the heavens and cleared his mind. Reaching out to Elysian, as only he as guardian of Earth and possessor of the Golden Crystal could, Endymion sought out its guardian, Helios. After a moment he felt contact.

"Your Majesty," Helios greeted him respectfully. "You grace me once more with your presence. Why, if I may ask, do you call?"

"Just checking, Helios," Endymion thought back. "Is Usa there in Elysian? If she is, don't tell her I was looking for her, please. I don't want to intrude on her."

"Your wish is my very command, Your Majesty," Helios said. "However, I fear you are premature. Your daughter is not in Elysian. Is she destined here?"

A sick, nameless dread began to trickle into Endymion's heart.

Continued in Chapter 5