Author Notes: This would have been out awhile ago but due to a series of misfortunes, it kept getting delayed. Anyway, it's being updated now due to the whole fiasco of misunderstandings that kept elevating due to a friend's story. So in short… this is actually being updated for Jay Ficlover. Thanks for the inspiration, Jay. And one last thank you to Tenshi no Nozomi for editing this for me. I tend to have a lot of grammar issues and she's been a real saint in dealing with my stubborn self. So thank you. One last note, I'm going to reply to the last chapter's reviewers at the end of the story rather than the beginning from now on. Enjoy, and feel free to review whether you like it or not.

Chapter One:

Beryl sat in her throne and eyed the kneeling kings for a long moment. "Explain to me why that even with you four working together we're still lacking the power needed to free Metallia." Her eyes scanned the men and stopped on the blonde. "Jadeite, you've been in charge of destroying the senshi. What's your progress?"

Jadeite kept a fist pressed to his heart as he kept his eyes averted from his liege. "All but the leader and Tuxedo Kamen have been captured by the supposed ruler of Earth. The other two are useless without the others. The death of the captives has been scheduled and will be carried out soon. Without them, the other two will fall by my hands."

Beryl narrowed her eyes at the report. "This is your last chance, Jadeite. I've been lenient since you've managed to supply us with some energy, but if you fail in killing these final two pests, you know what will happen to you." At Jadeite's solemn nod, she turned her attention on the next in line. "Nephrite, report."

"So far we have five of the seven known nijioushi. Of the warriors only Veena is left; the rest the senshi managed to destroy. Tuxedo Kamen has one of the crystals, and Sailormoon has the other. I'm sure that once Jadeite has finished them off that the remaining nijioushi will be recovered and the Ginzuishou will be ours."

"Forgive me for interrupting, Beryl-sama" Zoicite glared at his fellow king as he bowed. "But I think Nephrite has failed for far too long in his search for the Ginzuishou. He's already managed to lose six of our most valued allies and delayed our plans."

"And do you have another solution, Zoicite?" Beryl's expression strongly reminded the men of a frog that was waiting for a fly to land beside it. "Well?"

Zoicite glanced nervously at Kunzite before nodding. "Indeed I do, Beryl-sama. I won't even put Veena in danger with my plans. Instead of waiting for the nijioushi to fall into our hands, I'll take the fight to our enemy and get what is ours by force. With all of the nijioushi in our grasp, the Ginzuishou will appear."

"And you know the identities of our enemy?" Beryl smiled. She wanted all of the senshi crumbled to dust beneath her feet–including that annoying leader of theirs. "Nephrite, continue your studies to learn how to call the Ginzuishou from the nijioushi. Zoicite, you may proceed with your plan but are restricted to only your own personal youma."

"Thank you, Beryl-sama." With a bow and a flurry of cherry blossoms, the feminine man vanished from sight. His task was clear; discover the identity of the remaining warriors.

"As for you, Kunzite. How goes your search for the Moon Princess?"

Kunzite slowly met the eyes of his queen. He was quite aware that his theory wouldn't be a welcoming one. "Beryl-sama, I believe I may have discovered the secret behind the Moon Princess. After a thorough search on this planet's background and history I have come up with only one solution. The princess of the moon is Tsukino Usagi."

"Excellent; bring her to me at once and we'll bend her to our needs long enough for her to form the Ginzuishou. If anything goes wrong, she'll be the one to die from it." She noticed Kunzite shift and her eyes narrowed. "Is there more, Kunzite?"

"Yes, Beryl-sama. I believe that the girl could possibly be Sailormoon. She has none of the traits of the Moon Princess, but remembering the wiles of Queen Serenity, I believe that the girl has been hidden under a warrior guise in an attempt to fool us."

Beryl's lips tightened and her eyes shone with anger and blood lust. "Are you telling me that the only one I can use to form the Ginzuishou is the weak little fly that has been interfering with my plans this entire time?" she shook her head at this notion, not wanting to believe it. "Keep an eye on her, Kunzite. Don't let the others kill her if it turns out your information is true. However, if you're wrong about this, I'll have your head decorating my wall."

Kunzite merely nodded and vanished from her sight. A meeting would have to be conducted before any more plans were created. The warrior–no she was merely a girl; she would have to realize that it was futile to go against the Dark Kingdom when she was so badly outnumbered. She would have no choice but to bend to their will.

Trunks watched as Usagi paced from one side of the room to the other. "Usagi, this isn't a good idea. I know you're upset right now, but if you do this my father won't take pity on you. He'll kill you where you stand as soon as you confess. You can't throw your life away like that."

Usagi glanced at Trunks from the corner of her eye. "If I don't, my friends are doomed to die. I can't abandon them; I've worked really hard to prove that I care about them, Trunks-sama. I don't want the thought that I betrayed them to be the last thought on their minds. I know I don't have much to offer, but maybe I can reason with Vegeta-sama. I could try exchanging myself for their safety?" she suggested.

Trunks almost snorted at the thought. "That's not going to happen, Usagi. You probably won't even get in to actually see my father. Nappa or Radditz would kill you before you got into the inner palace. You can't help the senshi by getting yourself killed. I don't think they'd want that. Luna wouldn't have wanted that." He normally would have felt guilty for using the dead feline, but this was a vital mission and he was sure the cat would have agreed with him. "We'll figure something out. I promise."

"Maybe…" Usagi pulled out the lone nijizuishou she possessed. "We fought really hard for this… Tuxedo Kamen has another one, but the Dark Kingdom has the last five fragments." She paused and turned on her heel. "Trunks-sama, did you know that Luna was convinced that the nijizuishou would lead us to the Ginzuishou, which in turn would find the princess?"

"You were looking for a princess?" Trunks scratched his head as he tried to follow the blonde's path of reasoning. "I thought you guys were out to destroy my dad. That's what everyone believes…"

"No," Usagi slowly shook her head as she looked away from the prince. "That's not it at all. We were only born on this planet in order to stop the Dark Kingdom from awakening. Luna never said anything about Vegeta-sama to be honest. She just told me that I had to find the Moon Princess and that she would put an end to the Dark Kingdom once and for all." Usagi sighed and suddenly slumped in a chair. "We've tried so hard, Trunks-sama. We've really done our best and all we've managed to do is find one piece of the Ginzuishou… We didn't even save that artist; she's still being used by the Dark Kingdom as one of their youma."

Trunks had to stop from tearing his hair out as Usagi insisted on using his title against him. "So if you find this Moon Princess, what happens? Does she defeat the Dark Kingdom and you can go back to being an ordinary girl?"

Usagi frowned at the question. "I'm not sure… Luna only told me that the princess would end the Dark Kingdom, but now… Luna's gone. I won't ever be able to ask her for advice again." Her lower lip started to tremble and it was only with extreme effort that she managed to hold herself together in front of Trunks. "If I could only find her, I'd be able to rescue the senshi, I know I could."

Trunks took a deep breath. He shifted his weight from foot to foot as he pondered his next question. He didn't want to hurt her; she'd been hurt too often already. But the question had to be asked if he was going to figure out a way to help her. "Usagi-chan, you said this princess was from the moon, right?" he waited for her slight nod. It hadn't really dawned on her yet, and that made the question harder than ever. "You're talking about the same moon that was destroyed years ago, and is no longer in our sky?"

"She has to still be out there, Trunks-sama… I fight in the name of the moon, so she still has to be out there too." For once she actually believed her words, and it showed in her rock solid posture. "I'll find her no matter what. It might be the only chance to save everyone else… and if that fails, I'll go to Vegeta-sama myself and arrange a deal. What else can I do?"

Trunks really had to fight the urge to bash his head against the wall. The house had held up for a long time and had been a great place to play and meet, but it wouldn't be able to take much of his frustration before it crumbled to pieces. "I already told you that would be pointless. You won't even get to see him."

"But…" slowly Usagi looked at Trunks and tried to fight her panic. She was already clutching the arms of the chair as if they were a lifeline, she couldn't break down like this. Not again. "Isn't there anything I can do to save them?"

Gohan stretched out as far as his limbs would allow in the confines of the craft. Frankly, he was disappointed that his race hadn't managed to find a bit more advanced technology after all this time. Frustrated, he tapped a query to the computer and waited half a heartbeat for an answer. He was still several hours from Earth. He was closer, but wouldn't be arriving for quite some time.

Gohan attempted to stretch the kink out of his neck as he growled at the computer in a low warning note. Vegeta-sama, prince of what remained of the sayians, was well aware of his arrival and would be sending one of his chief sayians out to meet Gohan. That is if Gohan ever actually managed to make it to the stupid backwater planet.

With another low growl, Gohan pulled up a folder stuffed with details about the plan. Taurus himself didn't seem to believe in too much organization, but Gohan had always felt that things seemed to run smoother when he was aware of what he was dealing with. There wasn't much info on Earth itself, just a few random bits about how Taurus had visited years ago and ate some sort of fruit that had powered him up. Besides that the records were pretty spotty.

To be honest Gohan was almost interested in the history of the strange little planet. Not because of the life on there, they'd do for his needs, and they seemed to be decent slaves according to the report, but what Gohan was interested in was the supposed surge of life that had broken out over the dust ball. According to the papers he had, Earth had gone from a rancid desert, into green valleys and raging rivers; all within a span of years instead of centuries. Planets weren't supported to spontaneously bloom with life like that, it wasn't probable and he had never seen anything like it documented before.

Gohan set the file aside and picked up the report of one of the first sayians to the planet when it had been a desert. Nothing that Radditz had mentioned, which admittedly had been a bit on the slow side, had anything to do with greenery or water. It had just been some figures of what part of the population on the planet was left. Considering that Radditz's little brother who had been sent to the planet as an infant, had not finished his job, Radditz had taken it upon himself to finish humanity once and for all.

Gohan paused to once again check the time on the computer and fought the urge to bellow at the machine to move faster. With a grunt of impatience, he went back to his files. He had moved past Radditz's reports and was investigating Vegeta-sama's own reports.

Vegeta had heard about Earth from Radditz's initial reports. If it hadn't been for his order for Radditz to wait, Earth wouldn't have had a single human being left on the planet. As it was Radditz had managed to deplete the human population even further by the time Vegeta and Nappa had arrived. After his first inspection of the small planet, Vegeta had seemed to find the place a perfect position for him to slowly form an army of rebels to take out Frieza.

Gohan yawned and rubbed his eyes. As important as being prepared was, reading reports written by others? Not a fun way to spend your time traveling, especially if said others were a bit egocentric. Close to the point of being bored to tears, Gohan closed the files and stashed them away in case he needed to research them later. He had studied maps of the area, and memorized the anatomy of the humans. If any happened to get in his way he knew the quickest and most painful ways for them to learn their error. He had also learned that the female part of the population was a lot more accommodating to his tastes than many other races he had ever slaughtered. It would be interesting to get a first hand experience.

The computer beeped once, drawing Gohan out of his thoughts. A smile flashed across lips as the numbers shone brightly in the cockpit. Only an hour left before he touched down on the planet and would be able to make further observations. He could hardly wait.

He paced restlessly back and forth, wearing the grass down. He probably shouldn't be there, but that was a given. He felt drawn to the area anyway. He knew what had happened. He had witnessed the girl leave in shock with her furry burden clutched so closely… And yet he didn't want to-- No, he couldn't believe it. She wasn't gone. There was no way she could be gone. Not her too.

He paused in his pacing and took a deep breath. His eyes were glistening with unshed tears. This was no time to grieve, he was the only one left now. It was his duty to watch over the girl and protect her. He slowly turned his back on the house as much as it hurt, it was time to track her down and take up his position. It was time to fulfill their mission.

From the corner of his eye he spotted a pale blur. His superior vision gave him a better view when he turned to look. It was the girl's brother; Shingo. What was he…? Alarm appeared in his eyes as he realized the boy was motioning to him frantically. His eyes followed the path of the boy's frenzied pointing and saw her killer staring coldly out at him of the downstairs' window.

He felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up as a wave of fury rushed through him. He would get revenge with both of them; in time they would pay for what they had done to Luna. He'd make sure of it. Once more he continued on his trek with his mind set; he had to find Usagi.

It didn't take long for him to pick up the trail. He didn't have quite as good of a nose as a canine, but it was good enough to pick up on Usagi's faint scent. He followed the trail quickly, but kept an eye out for danger. He didn't want to be intercepted before he reached his new charge. Luna was counting on him.

The girls were scattered as well as they could be in the small cell. They had fought hard together but friendship wasn't something any of them embraced. The world out there was too harsh for those thoughts and ideas. All four were badly bruised and beaten; some had limbs broken, while others cradled their shattered bodies.

Rei glanced up from her position at the door of their prison. It had been as she thought. Usagi wasn't among them; the girl hadn't even been hurt in the surprise attack. She winced sharply as she took a breath and felt the radiating pain from her bruised ribs. She was finding it impossible to even sit up. She had no doubt that if she hadn't been in her senshi persona at the time of the assault, it would have killed her. Vegeta was a monster.

"Rei-chan," Ami tried to smile weakly at the girl as she heard the hitch in her breath. She herself had gotten away lucky compared to some of the other girls. She merely had a fractured ankle and it hurt but wasn't anywhere near as painful as she figured the other girls' injuries were. She scooted a bit closer to the raven-haired girl and tried to shake off the impression she got of a rabid animal snarling at her. "Let me scan you with the Mercury Computer, if those ribs are broken…" her words trailed off and she fought off the thought. Their transformations helped to protect them from some harm, but she didn't want to think about the possibility of Rei's ribs being broken.

"Leave me alone," Rei snapped and gasped sharply at the pain her words brought.

"Rei-chan…" Ami tensed for only a moment before letting her expression harden. "Stay still," she snapped straight back and scanned the glaring girl. She breathed a sigh of relief as she realized that the girl's internal organs were still in good shape, especially considering the beating she had endured.

"Ami-chan."

Ami looked up from her current patient to the shivering Makoto. She bit her lip as the girl's tortured emerald eyes locked on hers, a look of pleading in their depths. She couldn't help her; she couldn't stop the pain of a shattered leg. "Mako-chan." She left Rei's side and hobbled over to the shivering girl. She enfolded her into a tight hug as she fought tears of frustration.

If only things had been different. If only the sayians had never come to this planet and ruined it. If only their maniacal ruler hadn't decided to use their world as a stage for his own means. It would have been hard but the human race would have survived and flourished again. Now everything was turning into ashes.

Oh, how Ami wished she could curl up into a ball and have her mother there for her to wipe away her tears and just hold her. It had been so long since she had last seen her mother… too long.

Makoto held the smaller girl as she saw the tears glistening in her eyes. She couldn't move, let alone transform back into her stronger self. There was no hope left for them at all. They had failed in their mission and they were going to die… They were going to die either by Vegeta's own hand or down in this dingy cell all alone. Considering they had been down here for two days without any other human contact… it seemed highly possible he was going to let them to starve and dehydrate.

Ami heard her name being called but curled closer against the warmth. She didn't want to leave her mother's side. Not now, not ever again. As she felt a hand smoothing her hair away she looked up and saw Makoto's pained smile. That was right… she wasn't safe at home with her mother caring for her. She was the closest these girls had to a doctor; she had to do whatever that was in her power to save them.

Minako called again and smiled as Ami hobbled closer. "Ami-chan. Do you think she's okay? Do you think… she'll take care of Artemis? There's no one else left to feed him. I'm worried about him." Minako tried to giggle but the sound died on her lips. Her arm was broken and Ami had told her she was also suffering from a concussion and should stay still.

"I'm sure he's fine, Minako-chan," Ami answered with the warmest smile she could produce. "As for Usagi-chan…" she let her voice trail off as she thought of the girl. She still had a lot of doubts and mistrust where the blonde was concerned but she had never betrayed them before, even when given what seemed like opportunities to do so. "I certainly hope so."

"She's the reason we're here," Rei growled from her position, her eyes blazing with fury and pain. "She's the reason we're here!" She gasped and crumpled as the pain took over.

"Rei-chan…" Makoto couldn't find it in herself to reprimand the girl's harsh words as she writhed in agony. Besides she could barely find the breath to do anything but fight the waves of pain the flooded her like an endless tide. "Usagi… I don't think she betrayed us."

"I don't think so either," Ami agreed as she hugged Minako and stroked the blonde's hair thoughtfully. "Usagi-chan wouldn't do this to us. I think if she had been the one she would have at least have the mercy to kill us all quickly rather than let us suffer like this." She nodded to herself as the idea took hold. "I'm sure of it. Maybe she can find the princess at least… so our mission won't be a complete failure."

"Ami-chan."

Ami turned to see which girl had called her this time when her eyes widened. There was a woman at the cell door. For one wild moment her heart felt like a drum as she thought the stranger was her mother. But as she stepped a bit closer she realized this woman was a stranger. "Yes?"

Bulma had to smile at the cautiousness of the girl. These poor children were going through so much pain and suffering. It was almost more than she could bear. Why couldn't things have gone differently oh so long ago? As these thoughts always did, she was reminded of her friend and she fought to strain tears at the memory. 'Goku…'

"Yes?" Ami's voice was a bit harsher this time. She was the least injured out of the girls; she had to protect them to the best of her abilities. This woman didn't look like a threat, but looks were always deceiving.

"Sorry," Bulma apologized and unwrapped a small bundle hidden in her flowing coat she had donned for just this occasion. "Your mother asked me to give you a few things." It wasn't much and it wouldn't help the girls for long… but Bulma hoped the four appreciated the danger the other woman had braved to achieve such a feat.

"Mom did?" Ami could hear her voice crack but didn't care. Her mother still cared about her! Even after all they had been through and who she was, her mother still cared. All of her pain and suffered was erased for one brief moment as she positively beamed. Her mother loved her still.

Bulma was taken back by the sheer happiness in the girl's expression and tried to shake off the feeling of dread. It was a good thing that Vegeta felt hatred for these girls. It would crush the elder Mizuno if she realized her daughter was shaping up to be Vegeta's preferred type. "Yes," she confirmed as she shoved the small packages through the cell's bars. These poor girls weren't even afforded any privacy. She had to hide her blush as she realized what they had to do to ease bodily functions. Children shouldn't have to suffer like these did. "It's not much but it's the best she could do."

Ami, as the girls' temporary leader, took the items and stared at them in mixed awe and wonder. Food… medicine…. Even some things that would ease their embarrassment of their current living quarters, it's true it wasn't much, but it was far more than they had ever hoped for. She saw Bulma starting to leave and cleared her throat. "Is… is there any news?"

Bulma shook her head sadly. "Not yet… I think he plans to leave you four down here to rot. At least until he finds the last of you… You girls are kind of lucky, he's been distracted lately by the arrival of another Saiyan warrior. Or rather by the anticipation of his arrival, he's not here yet but due soon. All of his attention is on that instead."

Ami shook her head lightly, that wasn't quite the news she was questioning about. "We know we're going to die," she softly confirmed with a sad smile. "It's only a matter of time, but he hasn't found Sailor Moon or Tuxedo Kamen yet?"

Bulma was surprised at the confession and the question. How easily these girls accepted defeat… She couldn't blame them entirely, they had been through a lot, but her friends… ah, they would not have accepted the end so easily. They would have fought until the very end… they had all fought until the very end. "No news," she nearly snapped as the memories once again assaulted her, so many memories of happier times. She didn't wait to hear anymore questions from the girls and fairly fled the scene as she was overwhelmed with memories from another time, and what was seemingly like an entirely different world.

Author Notes:

Yeah I know some of you will want to wring my neck for portraying the senshi in this light. But the way I figure it, is if environments are different, if different life altering events happen to a person, they'll be a slightly different person than if they had never gone through so and so events. It's why the senshi here are slightly bitter, and yet hopefully still retain a bit of their core characterization.

Now onto replies…

Sporanox: Glad to hear the prologue passed the norm, though sorry it took such a horribly long time to update -.- I appreciate your critique as it actually challenged me to work on filling in plot holes and really rethinking the way I'm going with this whole thing. Yep, my grammar is horrible; it's why I hired a beta to help me with it.

Yeah that plot hole… is going to need some work. I tried to address it in this chapter, but if this doesn't help, I'm going to attempt further work on it.

While I agree with you about Gohan characterization, it's something that has kind of intrigued me and a reason why I'm altering it (hopefully within limits though) within the story. The idea of an altered world and the results of that altering are fascinating to me at this time, and under the right circumstances it does seem plausible that Gohan could be raised to be a ruthless killer… It is in his blood after all though I agree I think I skated over any real details in the prologue about just what he's been through. I think I'm going to address that as soon as Gohan hits the planet, because no matter how deep his first few memories are locked inside him, it seems likely that his birthplace would revive those events.

galexz: heh, yeah I'll finish it… eventually. And thanks for the compliments, compared to the original of this? Yeah, I've grown quite a bit. I would be horrified to repost that -.-

Miss Beltful: Heh, I could still work on polishing some more parts, but yes, this story actually has a plot compared to the original that… well it was just fluff really.

Alexandria the Great: Well… it will be similar in some aspects, but then again a lot of stuff is obviously being changed. For example the old fic was dragging while relying only on fluff and minor conflicts; this however will up the ante a bit by having the Dark Kingdom involved.

simba-rulz : considering the original's main idea? Yeah, it was meant to be Light of Love. But thanks for bringing it to my attention

Jay Ficlover: The fic you're referring to isn't actually a sequel, but the previous version of this fic. And I'm rather fond of Mirairi so chances are she'll be making her appearance once again in the future. As for your question, well I'm revising it because I really didn't like how I was going with it. No I haven't finished it, but considering how much fluff I had in the previous version, it won't take long to reach and surpass that same point. Also, I will be reviewing your fics, just the weekend I was planning to, a lot of things happened and delayed me quite a bit. But don't worry, I'll be giving you a review shortly and telling you my thoughts on every chapter.