Princess Temperance watched with a dispassionate gaze as her older sister's folly ruined the once beautiful Moon Kingdom. The silly girl had fallen for an engaged man...specifically the Earth Prince Endymion. She should have known that he had already been engaged to another woman, a noble who had to have fought hard to get the engagement. Lady Beryl had been so furious that the silly chit had stolen her husband that she had allowed an evil Queen Serenity had sealed away centuries ago to take hold.
Princess Aurora Temperance, second daughter of the goddess Selene (also known as Queen Serenity) and younger sister of Princess Serenity, observed the destruction of her former home from the tenth planet of the solar system, a dark world that had been called Nemesis. Unlike her sister, her court at least knew how to fight and trusted her to support them in battle.
Uranus, Saturn, Neptune and Pluto made up the forgotten Princess' Senshi court, not that her mother remembered this fact.
Her mother had been angry when the Outer senshi refused to protect her kingdom and the reminder that she had two daughters, not just one. Temperance's refusal to help save her mother and older sister's home had infuriated the Queen so much she cursed her youngest child to a half life. In order to save it's true master, the Silver Crystal encased the girl in a clear crystal until her reincarnation came to Nemesis and took over as Princess of the Dark side of the Moon.
While Serenity was the darling of the bright half of the moon, Temperance had only known the dark side, which many considered to be the slums.
It was a fact that while the bright half of the moon was flashy and jeweled, the dark side was more conservative, similar to the rural areas of Earth where the people had only heard of Endymion in passing.
And so the Outer Senshi, bereft of their Princess, went to the Moon to find the portal to Nemesis in order to learn what happened. Serenity's curse, still in full effect, forced Saturn to set her Glaive down and make the Outer Senshi go into the reincarnation cycle, when they were supposed to stay behind and guard the universe from afar.
Melody Potter is a girl who had nothing to live for. It was her fifth year as a witch, and she had recently learned by accident that her friends weren't her friends at all. So she decided a change of scenery would do her some good.
Several hours later she was in Japan, and quickly discovered a rather minor issue compared to what her life had been like before.
The Japanese Aurors, or Temple Guardians, had captured her upon arrival and gave her an ultimatum once they learned where she was coming from.
She could either leave voluntarily, or become a Political Prisoner who couldn't leave the limits of Tokyo for two years or until her visa cleared. They weren't taking any chances with Voldemort back. She chose to become a prisoner until her status was upgraded to 'refugee', and in exchange they did all the paperwork for her to be a resident of the country and everything she would need in order to become a transfer student at no charge.
She quickly fell into a routine, and her owl had been returned to her within a week once the vaccinations were done with.
She learned who to approach and who to avoid within days of her first foray into middle school, an experience denied to her thanks to magical education. Fortunately she had been keeping up on her mundane education on the sly. Within three days she had befriended the lonely bookworm Ami and learned to avoid Usagi, the ditzy blond.
For some reason she couldn't stand Usagi, though the girl was perfectly friendly...if a bit of an idiot.
Her magic teachers had been thrilled to anger Dumbledore when they showed her how to cast magic without a wand, though she would have trouble with overpowering for weeks. According to them, she had a large magical center, but it had been bound for some reason in concerns for wand magic.
This, they explained, was why she was so good at attack and defensive magic, since overpowering wasn't nearly as big an issue as it was for Charms or Transfiguration. She had always wondered why her charms and transfiguration practical work always fell apart on her within minutes. She was either overpowering the spell, or vastly underpowering it.
It took them two weeks to remove the block, and after that she had to stick to wandwork until she could relearn how to control the magic output.
Then her semi-peaceful existence fell apart like shards of glass when she ran into a cat being tormented by a pack of brats.
Melody, who had disguised herself as Sirena Black, removed the band aid that the brats had cruelly placed on the cat. Later that night when Hedwig had been out hunting, it came to her house.
A short explanation of the history of the Moon Kingdom, the fact she was now a magical girl complete with ridiculous outfit (she barely tolerated the skirts that the girls at Hogwarts had to wear, and this was half that size!) and she was left running out in the middle of the night with no idea of what the hell she was supposed to be doing in the first place. Really, this whole endeavor was more half-assed that her yearly run at the death trap that was Hogwarts.
Finally she made it to the jewelry store that she had avoided because she knew Usagi would be going, sale or no sale.
Something about that girl rubbed her the wrong way, though she had no idea what as Lavender and Parvati had been by far more vapid than Usagi was.
At the jewelry store she saw Naru, a girl she had limited contact with, backing away from the obvious monster in her mother's form.
By the time she left, she had her hackles raised by three things.
One was the rather idiotic magical girl Sailor Moon, who was clearly a civilian forced to fight who had no idea what she was doing...as evidenced by the fact the cat had to tell her to shut up and use her tiara to kill the thing. The second was the costumed pretty boy with the flower fixation...he had the feeling of a stalker. The final thing was the sheer volume of Moon-girl's voice...she could definitely screech like a harpy. As someone who prided themselves on their singing voice, Melody could never let such an atrocity go unpunished.
As evidenced by the fact she quickly figured out that Usagi was the new magical girl if only for the presence of the same cat she rescued.
Melody made an even bigger point to avoid the brat after she figured that out.
Melody was pulled aside by the principal, who had heard from the grapevine about her musical talent. Apparently she had been 'scouted' by someone from the Infinity Academy after someone heard her singing the hardest song from 'Carmen' and had tracked her down. So now she had to get permission to attend the school (it was just out of the jurisdiction the Guardians had put on her) so she didn't get thrown out of the country for violating her parole.
Surprisingly, they decided to just give her the new visa instead, stating she had proven that she wasn't an immediate threat and could leave the city freely.
Melody moved into the Infinity Academy dorms, where she ran into the current top student of the high school, Michiru Kaioh. Just a few minutes into seeing her with the tomboy Haruka and she knew the two were an item. Not that she really cared. Lavender and Parvati had a similar relationship and she helped cover for them from Hermione.
"Hello Rena, this is..." said Michiru.
"You're girlfriend, right? Don't look so alarmed, I could honestly care less about your orientation so long as we can work together," said Melody pleasantly.
Michiru and Haruka had a slightly startled look, before the short-haired blond grinned.
"You like racing runt?"
"If you mean can I handle going really fast in a vehicle, then bring it on Tenoh," smirked Melody. While she missed flying at breakneck speeds on her broom, she had heard that Tenoh was quite a speed demon on the track. Besides, she was almost old enough to get her license.
Haruka grinned wildly. She could grow to like their new roommate.
Melody cackled as she said to the nutjob driving (Tenoh) "That the best you got?"
Haruka's grin deepened as she put her foot to the gas pedal even further, going over three hundred, and her passenger wasn't even looking bothered! Sure Melody had been a bit put out by having to wear the helmet, but the sheer adrenaline rush she got from the car's speed made up for it. Up in the stands, Michiru was looking over Melody's homework as they had been partnered for music class. She had been very surprised when the timid girl took Haruka up on the chance to ride along while she practiced for her next race.
Melody, as she told them to call her, was a mage. she had told them right off the bat once they learned of Hedwig, and the two accompanied her to her extra classes once as a joke. They quit laughing once they found out that they were magical as well, but something had hidden them from the Japanese Ministry.
Fortunately Melody was more than happy to make a compromise. She would help them with magic homework if they helped her with the mundane.
However, she did enjoy taking breaks...like riding with Haruka around the track for practice.
Tenoh finally slowed down into the service station where her usual attendants were waiting.
"Your time improved by 0.5 seconds. You might actually win the next race if you keep this up," said her manager.
"I have to thank my co-driver for that. She kept egging me on," said Haruka smirking.
"What a rush! You have got to show me how you do that!" grinned Melody. This was infinitely more fun than flying, because she didn't have to hide her skill at it.
"Once you get your permit, then we'll talk. Don't you have to practice with Michiru later anyway?" asked Haruka.
Melody made a face.
"I've had to sing Ave Maria so many times I can repeat the words in my sleep," she said with a grimace.
"That bad?"
"The teacher who originally trained me in classical opera music was obsessed with the damn thing. It's not that I hate the song, it's just I would like something different."
"Look at the bright side...at least you don't have to cram in the lyrics?" said Haruka.
"True."
"So are you going out patrolling again tonight?"
"Yes. If only to keep Moon-girl from unleashing that damn shriek of hers again. I mean the last monster was a total wimp, and she had a hell of a time killing it with that tiara of hers! And she has groupies now! How the hell is anyone supposed to take her seriously with groupies who dress like that?" complained Melody.
Haruka and Michiru had been following the new magical girl Sailor Moon like most of the city. Learning their new roommate Melody could do the same transformation (though she changed her scandalously short skirt to a part of knee-length shorts the first chance she got) with similar powers had been a shock. Learning she had to get a new wand for her magical girl form for her magic to be used was a nasty surprise.
Melody had a rather low opinion of these Sailor Senshi. According to her, they had no idea what they were doing, and it annoyed her greatly.
Sailor Venus stared at the girl who had a similar uniform to theirs, only infinitely less embarrassing thanks to the shorts.
"Who are you?"
"Just call me Sailor N," said the girl. Her black hair was raven black, not unlike Sailor Mars.
"Sailor N?" said Sailor Moon.
"I'm not part of your inner court. In fact you might consider me a half-outsider considering who I am. I'm sure Luna had many nasty lies to tell of me, if she even recognizes me," said N.
"Who are you really?"
"Ask Luna who the Princess of the Dark Side was. Though I can only remember my previous incarnation while transformed, it's better than the alternative," said N.
Fun Fact she had learned while transformed (which was rarely if at all), she remembered everything of her past life, something that would have normally caused the two personalities to either clash (resulting in insanity) or merge to the point where it was impossible to separate the two without killing them.
Temperance believed it was another little surprise her mother had left for her when she realized her other daughter had survived the attack and had ended up reborn with Serenity. Fortunately she had set a limiter on the memories, so Melody only remembered who she was before and her powers when transformed instead of all the time.
While Melody knew at a base level that she and Temperance were once one and the same, their more subtle part of their personalities were different.
Temperance was forgiving and willing to overlook obvious problems to avoid fighting, Melody was stubborn as a mule and while she forgave after a certain time she most certainly never forgot. She also wasn't above dragging problems to the forefront so that they could be resolved one way or another, and most likely would have confronted her 'Sister' in her past life about the whole incident with Endymion before it had escalated as quickly as it had.
Melody most certainly would have raised a stink once she learned of Serenity's stupidity ruining a political match, true love or not. The idiot girl had swooped in right before the final contract was to be signed and stole Endymion from under Beryl without even talking it out.
Frankly Melody was of the firm opinion that Serenity had been fully to blame for the fall of her precious kingdom. The fact the idiot had killed herself rather than escape and lead her people to counter attack only cemented this opinion. Temperance had at least removed her people from the threat and insured that they could survive even though every other planet was completely wiped out.
Nemesis was considered a dead planet, one that was invisible to the naked eye, and that was exactly what Temperance had counted on. Metallia would have little interest in a dead planet after all, so her people were safe.
As the scouts debated on what to do with the mysterious Sailor N, who refused to name her planetary origin for the simple reason that it was the only one that had survived the initial purge of the Moon Kingdom and she wanted to keep it safe from Beryl, they had no idea that they were about to get a very rude wake up call in terms of their lack of training.