I'm back! This chapter was originally going to be part of a longer chapter, but I decided it was strong (if short) enough to hold its own. More notes are at the end of the chapter.

Disclaimer: I wish I had thought up Sailor Moon and all of her subsequent manifestations, but I didn't. So there.

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In the previous chapter, Serenity and Endymion found Linnaus' corpse. Orleana found them. Jupiter and Mercury found Orleana. The prince and princess relived Linnaus' life and released his soul.

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Light of Love: Red Moon
Chapter 24: Surprise Landings

A yelp, a shriek, a howl and a whoop unofficially announced the arrival of Minako, Ami, Rei, and Makoto on the Earth's surface.

The girls were unaccustomed to teleporting. In their official positions as senshi apprentices, the four had only used the teleporter on scant occasions when duty called for hasty travel to far-off locales. Usually, the girls accompanied their mentors or the Moon court on official business, which warranted more leisurely travel on Necatris, the lunar cruiser ship.

Sailor Venus once joked to Minako, after the latter fell gracelessly on her backside in front of a mass of dignitaries during an emergency teleport to Mars, that landing on one's feet from a teleportation was a skill that took many years to master. Recalling her mentor's words, Minako silently observed—in the dim light cast by the sliver of moon in the night sky—that she was the only one in her group of friends who had not managed to stay on her feet.

"That looked like it hurt!" Makoto cheerfully observed.

The towering Jupiterean offered her hand to Minako. The Venetian gratefully accepted; she squealed with surprise when Makoto easily hoisted her from the ground. Minako muttered her appreciation and rubbed her backside with her gloved left hand. She forgot that her friend, like all Jupitereans, was extremely strong.

"You're getting as clumsy as Serenity," Rei muttered with amusement. A wind gust caught the Martian girl's loose hair and blew it into her face. She blinked her eyes shut. She pulled the strands delicately from her mouth tucked her hair behind her ears. She crossed her arms over her chest.

Ami, always the most sensible of the quartet, had already extracted the mini computer—Sailor Mercury's backup—to calculate their position. Her face was illuminated by the monitor's glow; the lighting cast odd shadows that made the blue-haired girl's normally pretty features appear diabolical. She absently glanced up from her busy work and acknowledged Minako's fall with a nod.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

The Venetian, slightly embarrassed by the extra attention, shrugged.

"It didn't hurt too much," she answered with a dismissive giggle. "Luckily, it's pretty sandy here."

She heard Rei gasp beside her.

"Sand?" the girl whispered. The Martian squatted down and scooped the dry, powdery granules in her hand. The sand fell between the fingers of her white glove and was blown away by the hard wind. She turned in a full circle, attempting to identify their position in the dark. Even with the slip of moon in the sky, their surroundings were still cloaked in the shadows of night.

The sound of crashing waves filled the darkness with noise. The girls, unaccustomed to the sound, flinched with surprise. Makoto peered to her right and noted that the Moon's light was reflected in a body of water located near them. She lifted her right hand and pointed.

"Is that an ocean?" she pondered out loud.

Minako heard another sharp breath catch in Rei's throat.

"Ocean?" the Martian repeated. This time, her tone sounded incredulous. "Why are we near an ocean?"

Minako rolled her eyes. The Venetian didn't have to be psychic to realize that her friend was already on the brink of losing her temper. The blonde sighed and shuffled her feet in the sand. Inhaling the salty ocean air, Minako suddenly realized why Rei was apprehensive. Before they teleported from the Moon, the Martian had described the locale in her vision, and sand and water were not a part of it.

"Ami, just where are we?" asked Minako, rubbing her brow with the back of her hand.

"On the Earth," the blue-haired Mercurian absently stated.

Her fingers still plucked and punched the keypad of her micro computer. Minako silently regarded her, wondering if Ami had bothered to survey their surroundings with her own eyes.

Beside her, Rei exhaled loudly. The Martian's voice cracked with impatience when she spoke. "Please tell me that you didn't have to consult your computer to figure that one out!"

Minako, already weary of their trip to the Earth, motioned for Rei to hold her tongue. She blinked her eyes and rubbed the bridge of her nose with her left hand. She, as the future leader of the senshi, had to assume a role of authority. Inwardly, she wished someone else was in charge.

"Where," the Venetian said, clearing her throat, "on the Earth are we, exactly?"

Ami typed frantically into her computer. Minako and Rei impatiently watched. Makoto turned in a circle; her eyes peered at the surrounding area.

"I think we're at the beach," the Jupiterean concluded.

"Beach?" Rei repeated. Her voice increased in volume while she spoke. "We're at the beach? Ami, why in Selene are we at a beach? I specifically told you that I saw snow in my vision, not an ocean!"

Her last words came out in an ear-splitting shriek. Minako and Makoto winced. Ami, still typing on her computer, bit her bottom lip. She shrugged. Her blue eyes, caught in the light of her micro-computer's monitor, glowed.

"I tweaked the coordinates slightly," she finally admitted, "just so that we could get to Serenity and the others in time. I must have changed them more drastically than I thought…"

Rei placed her hands on her hips. "How drastically?"

Ami kept her focus on the screen of her computer. She then pinched the blue stud on her right earlobe, causing a clear blue visor to materialize over her eyes. She lifted her gaze and scanned the horizon, typed something into her computer, then looked up and scanned more of their position with her visor.

An irritated growl emanated from Rei's throat.

"How drastically, Ami?" the Martian pressed. Her patience gone, she attempted to pace in the sand; however, her red heels sunk into the soft granules, causing her to stumble back. Rei muttered under her breath—Minako, not recognizing the dialect, assumed she was swearing in Martian—and madly waved her arms in the air. Her voice was loud and strong when she again spoke. "I told you how important it was that we be on target with this! For all you know, we could be on the other side of the planet, or perhaps on a completely different planet…"

"Rei!" Minako sternly interjected. She may not like being in charge, but she knew that her friend's bullying would not accomplish anything but make Ami cry. Minako could easily admit that she was also annoyed by the Mercurian's folly; she also realized that chastising the girl would not get them any closer to locating Serenity. She inhaled a deep breath and spoke.

"Yelling is not going to change the fact that we are not where we are supposed to be." More optimistically, Minako added, "We just have to figure out the fastest way to get there…" She shifted her attention to the Mercurian. In a gentler tone, Minako said, "Ami-chan, can you tell how far we are from the others?"

The blue-haired girl shrugged and shook her head. She shifted her gaze to Rei and answered, "We're not on the other side of the Earth, but we are far away."

"How long would it take us to get there?" Makoto inquired. "On foot?"

Ami again shook her head. She scanned the area behind them—away from the beach—with her visor. She frowned. "We're too far to walk. Even with transportation, the journey would take a week, at least."

Rei opened her mouth to speak, but Minako, mindful of her friend's quick temper, silenced her with nudge in the arm.

"Okay," the Venetian said, sucking in a deep breath of salt air. "We won't walk." She thought for a moment, and then brightened when an idea entered her mind. Minako reached for the crescent-shaped pendant chained around her neck. "We teleport back to the Moon; Ami, you can switch the coordinates to what they originally were, and then we teleport closer to Serenity and the senshis' exact location."

Rei and Makoto reached for their pendants. Ami hastily shut and pocketed her computer, but instead of joining her friends' suit by taking hold her own crescent necklace, she announced, "We can't go back."

The three other girls hesitated. Ami pinched her earlobe. The blue visor disappeared. The Mercurian cleared her throat to explain.

"If we return, there's a good chance we waste our only opportunity to save the princess, Mercury, and Jupiter."

"What are you talking about?" Rei demanded. Minako again elbowed the Martian in the arm.

"We barely got into the Teleportation Room this last time," Ami elaborated. "If we go back and get caught, then we have no chance of returning to retrieve the princess and the senshi."

"Ami does have a valid point," Makoto agreed, nodding her head.

Rei scowled. "But you just said we're too far away to get to them!"

"I said it was too far to walk or to use conventional transportation," Ami pointedly corrected.

"Then how else are we going to get there?" Rei demanded. "Fly?"

"Yes!" Ami answered with enthusiasm. She wrinkled her nose as she frowned. "Well, sort of. We aren't going to sprout wings or anything like that."

"Fly?" Makoto chirped, incredulous. "I don't remember flying being a part of our regular senshi training curriculum."

"No, it's not literal flying," Ami insisted. "That's not what I meant."

"What exactly are you talking about, then, Ami-chan?" Minako questioned.

"We teleport."

Rei grumbled with annoyance at Ami's response. "You're talking in circles! You just said we can't teleport…"

"I said we couldn't teleport from the Moon," Ami interrupted. The normally-composed Mercurian sighed with frustration. "That doesn't mean we can't use the same principles. Since we are already on the Earth's surface, we'll hover above the land instead of dropping like we did from the Moon. It's the very same thing, really."

The girls were silent for several moments. Minako finally cleared her throat.

"How do we teleport without the teleporter?" she inquired.

"Senshi don't need machines to travel short distances," the blue-haired girl explained. "We use our own power. Look. Remember all of those meditation lessons we have where we sit in a circle and share energy?"

A collective groan emerged from Minako, Rei, and Makoto.

"Lessons?" Rei laughed. "I thought it was punishment for not mastering our attacks fast enough."

Makoto giggled. Ami rested her head in the palm of her right hand and massaged her temples with her thumb and forefinger. She felt a headache coming on.

"I should have known you would make fun of it," she muttered. She lifted her chin and peered at her friends' shadowed faces. She dropped her hands to her sides. "The meditation is the first step of a group teleport. We are connected to Serenity. If we join our energy together and concentrate on her, we can not only locate her but our collected power will take us to her."

She clenched her fists and her jaw, anticipating another of Rei's snide remarks. In the dark, it was difficult to see their faces, but Ami thought she witnessed her three friends nodding their heads. The surf of the ocean crashed and the wind howled, drowning her ears with noise.

Minako, taking up the reins of a future leader, was the one who eventually spoke.

"Are you certain this will work, Ami-chan?"

The Mercurian exhaled. She nodded. "Meditation is the key. Sailor Mercury said to me, just the other day, that our sessions are getting better. She even said…"

"Yeah, that's great," Rei interrupted. "But if we're gonna do this, we need to do it now."

"Of course," mumbled Ami, clearing her throat. Mercurian was accustomed to her friend's hasty interjections; Martians were not known for their patience.

"So," Makoto said. "What do we do first?"

"We stand in a circle," Ami stated. She stepped forward to be closer to the other three. Minako stood on her right, Makoto was her left, and Rei was positioned directly in front of her. Ami extended her arms out and said, "Then we hold hands."

Ami felt both Makoto and Minako take hold of each of her hands.

"Then we close our eyes and concentrate on Serenity," she whispered, closing her own lids and focusing her thoughts on the princess.

The wind picked up. The volume of the crashing waves increased in her ears.

Ami's energy coursed through her veins. She felt a sting of power in each of her palms as Minako and Makoto's energy fused with her own. She felt the symbol of Mercury at the center of her forehead glow. Ami opened her right eye halfway and noted that her friend's tiaras had dissolved and had been replaced by the glowing symbols of Jupiter, Mars, and Venus.

Their combined power created a small glowing tempest. Peering past her feet, Ami observed that the wind blowing through her hair and into the skirt of her fuku was caused by their altitude. Already, the combined meditation had lifted the four girls from the sandy beach and hoisted them into the sky. Ami sucked in a deep breath and concentrated harder.

Closing her eyes, she squeezed Minako and Makoto's hands tighter and whispered, "It's working."

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End of Chapter 24

I think this is the shortest chapter I've written so far. I hope you all liked it. After the last one, I wanted to provide a little comic relief. Also, it's been a while since we last checked in on the senshis-in-training.

Thanks to EmeraldSong, nauti-pandachan, lucky, bebe 1984, chibi J, Carla, Infinite, and ChibimoonEmEm for reviewing. I don't like being a writer who whines and frets about reviews (or lack of them), so I apologize if I sounded too needy in my last update. I feel very fortunate to have reviewers who provide good, thoughtful feedback. Thanks, everyone!

…that being said, I'd love to hear from you, so please let me know what you thought of this ridiculously short chapter by reviewing.

The next chapter may take me longer to write. If I don't post for a couple of weeks (or longer, knowing me), you'll know why.

Until next time!

Hollie