Sailor Moon Aeons.
Book 2: Rebirth.
Act 12: Eternal night.
Episode 142: Peaceful days.

By Razor Knight
Last update: March 28, 2017
Last edited: June 19, 2017

Usagi looked at the tower in the distance. The Senshi Tower. A place her group was only visiting once in a while nowadays.

She was aware Pluto's sense of humor was weird, so she should have expected this. Seven years had passed since their last major war, their trip to what they had decided to call 'Dark World.'

The Senshi were still around, but they had mostly become a memory to many. Last time the group gathered was to help put out a fire that was growing out of control. That had been four years ago. No invasion fleets, no alien groups trying to find artifacts to raise their demigods, even the 'Gales' had only shown up once a year. Had evil given up? Had it run out of things to throw at them?

In any case, life had changed for the Senshi, and not just from the lack of fighting. Usagi had been happily married for four years, but most of her friends had followed her example. Rei had a little one to take care of. At five years of age, Hisako Hino was the first child born from Senshi in that era. Minako's daughter, Hikaru, was two years younger, and Ami was pregnant, two months in. Some of them could be Senshi in a near future, or maybe they would all be. A second generation of Senshi. Usagi wondered if they would be the ones they had seen images of, in their trip to the future.

Usagi herself had decided on a career path not many of her friends were expecting. She had become a writer, at first using a pseudonym, 'Susuki Nagito.' She wanted to see if people would like her stories for what they were, not because a Senshi wrote them. And they did.

She looked at the blank document in her computer screen and sighed in defeat. She wasn't in the mood for writing, so she decided to go for a walk instead.

As she walked around, with no destination in mind, she heard shouting and gunfire. She was close to a bank, so she knew it was quite likely that both came from there. She calmly walked in, noticing the five men pointing either rifles or pistols at the crowd. "I guess the Guardians are busy elsewhere," she commented.

The men didn't seem to recognize her, and one of them pointed his rifle at her. "Hey you, on the ground like the others! Don't play hero and you won't get hurt."

Usagi chuckled at that. "I never play hero."

The gang was surprised as their hostages were separated from them by a wall of light. "What the hell-"

"You really didn't recognize me? I know we barely appear on TV nowadays, but... Really?"

"Holy fuck!" one of the men said, finally remembering. "That's Sailor Moon!"

Usagi smiled. "Finally. Now, that barrier I put is bulletproof, so you are out of bargaining chips. You can either give up now, or give up after I'm done pummeling you."

The men all shot at her, and to untrained eyes, it would have seemed like Usagi was just standing there as the bullets hissed by. But with her current speed, she didn't need to dodge. She had caught all the bullets, and showed them to the very surprised gang. "What the... How the hell-"

"I could have let them hit, but your aim is quite bad. Most of those bullets would have shot through the windows, and I couldn't risk them hitting someone outside."

"You can't be human, you... Monster."

"Monster, says the guy who was waving a rifle at children and adults alike before I showed up."

"Die!"

This time, Usagi didn't catch the bullet nor dodged it. She actually sidestepped, taking the blow right between the eyes. The bullet fell harmlessly to the ground, and she gave her foes a cold smile. "Ow."

"Retreat!"

Usagi mentally commanded the barrier to change. It shrank and surrounded the gang, capturing them inside it. "Sorry, you aren't going anywhere."

With the threat gone, the hostages rose from their prone positions, and most of them surrounded Usagi. "Thank you, Sailor Moon!"

Usagi had to admit she often missed this. Writing was fun and she got a lot of fans thanking her for her stories, but it was just mot the same. Perhaps that's what had been stopping her from writing. She missed saving the world.

Earth. A world so hideously bright. Even its nights were too bright for his race. But they were going to fix that. Soon, this world would be taken over by the Nightfall.

"We are ready to begin."

He turned to the man. "Go."

To him, this was just another world to ravage, just like many before it. Norhing could stop the Nightfall.

Ami walked up the stairs leading to the Hikawa shrine. Her current job didn't leave her much time to socialize - being one of the best surgeons in the city was no walk in the park - but Rei wouldn't ask her to go to her place just to chat.

"Aunt Ami!"

Ami smiled as the young girl run to her. She lifted her and looked around. "Hi Hisako. Where's your mom?"

Rei walked out of the temple. "I'm here. You should come visit more often, you know? Hisako likes you more than her other aunts."

Ami sighed. "I know, sorry. So...?"

Rei looked at her daughter. "Show your aunt what you can do. But be careful."

Hisako smiled. "Okay!" she looked at her own palm for a few seconds and a small flame appeared in it. She then frowned as the flame grew bigger. "Uh oh." The flame burst out, catching Ami off-guard. It didn't hurt, but it surprised her.

Ami saw Hisako's eyes watering. "It's okay, see, I'm not hurt."

Rei frowned. "She could hurt normal humans with that."

Ami realized what the problem was. "You're scared."

"Of course I am!"

Hisako leapt off Ami's arms and waked to Rei. "Mommy, I won't use that. I don't want-"

Rei sighed. "No, you... What you're using is magic, and it's something you can't just turn off."

"Magic? I'm a Senshi?"

Ami smiled. "Not yet, but part of being a Senshi is knowing magic is not a toy. What happened a minute ago was just because you need to learn to control your magic."

Rei sighed. "I guess I was... Scared of her using it as a toy."

"You'll have to teach her how to get better at it, and trust her judgement."

"Guess you're right. She's not as short-fused as me so I think I can trust her."

Both Rei and Ami sensed the emergency signal in their comms. Ami summoned her visor and smiled as she saw Aiko. "Hi."

"Everyone, come to the tower. There's a potential new threat incoming."

Ami sighed and turned to Rei. "Duty calls."

Rei grimaced. "Tell the others I'm sorry, but I can't leave Hisa all alone, and I won't bring her to a battlefield, either."

"I'm sure they'll understand," Ami said before vanishing.

Hisako looked at her mother. She wasn't surprised that Ami vanished, she had seen most of her mom's friends do it. Still... "Where did aunt Ami go?"

"To take care of some Senshi things."

"And you?"

"As I said, I can't leave you-"

"What about Hikaru's place?"

Rei smiled. Hisako was quite smart for her age. "Right. We would take too long to get there, even flying, so... Ever wondered how teleporting feels?"

Minako had been ready to leave for the studio when Aiko called. The director would understand - saving the world was always top priority on her list, even though she hadn't done it for almost seven years. She had made sure to keep on training, however. And her acting career had been helped by it, and her past wars. It was much easier to make action scenes believable for someone who had been fighting for years.

She had just finished transforming when Mars and Hisako appeared. "Rei?"

"Sorry to show up like this, but I need to leave Hisako somewhere..."

Venus smiled. "It's okay. Our nanny is being paid enough to take care of fifty kids."

Mars chuckled. "If I had known that, I would have taken that job myself."

Venus nodded then turned to Hisako. "Your mom and I have to go now, but we'll be back soon. Hikaru is in the dining room, driving Ayane crazy as usual."

"Okay."

Mars looked a her daughter. "Don't use your magic here, okay? We'll practice later."

"Uh huh. Bye mom, bye aunt Mina."

Venus stared at Mars as the small girl walked out of the room. "Wait, she can use magic?"

"Yeah, she found out yesterday and got a bit scared. Good thing I was quick to absorb the flames."

Venus cringed. "I hadn't thought about them being able to use magic at such a young age. I'll have to be extra careful with Hikaru. Don't want her laser-beaming Ayane."

The tower wasn't a very tall building. It didn't need to be, as it was meant as a base, a place to train. Usagi looked up and sighed. She hadn't been inside the tower for three months. And the last time it had been used for training was two years ago, when Dragon Lilith and Dragon Mars got to Eternal level. She remembered, back when she was just done beating Metallia. Twilight power seemed so awesome to her. A decade later, all her Senshi friends were pretty much able to level a city in a matter of minutes, and she thought it normal.

"Gonna stand there looking at that thing all day?"

Usagi looked at Kim. "Hi. I was just thinking about the past."

"You don't seem surprised to see me."

"I know you've been following me for a few minutes."

"I was sure I could fool you this time around."

Usagi smiled. It was a sort of game Ky'ma played, trying to sneak up on her. But her crystal and her 'skill' let her see her no matter what form she took. "It's unfitting for a heroine like you to be so sneaky."

Kim laughed. "Heroine? I'm only hunting criminals because I need something to do on my free time."

"Keep telling yourself that, but you should know by now I can't be fooled."

The shapeshifter shrugged. "Okay, I guess it does feel good to be thanked for it, to know you're helping people instead of... What I did in the past."

Ky'ma, or 'Kim' as most called her nowadays, had followed the example of the Three Guardians - the now official name for the team Nova, Warwitch and Phase had formed - and while at first it had seemed like just some sort of game, Usagi knew her motives. Kim was still carrying the burden of her past, trying to atone for helping the Kh'Sun for so many centuries.

"You miss fighting, don't you?"

Usagi nodded. "I do. Earlier I was walking around, found a group of men robbing a bank, and basically defeated them without throwing a single punch. I'm not even sure punching them would have been a good idea - Aiko's told me any Eternal Senshi could kill a normal human in one hit."

Aiko appeared near them. "I was going to stop them, but when I saw you walk in, I decided to watch. Wanted to know if you still remembered how to fight."

"I take time to train on my own every day," Usagi said. "Sometimes I get Mamoru to help."

Aiko looked up. "Strange."

Usagi knew that meant trouble. "Peace is over?"

"Not sure. Seeing some reports of a 'cloud of dark matter' approaching our system. Let me see if I can... There."

Usagi looked at the image that had appeared next to Aiko. It wasn't hard to see what was wrong with it, a small patch of black against the background of stars. "What is that?"

"Not sure, can't get a reading on it from here. Whatever it is, it will be here in about one hour."

Usagi frowned. "I can barely sense that cloud. There's thousands of living beings in it."

"Maybe they're tourists," Aiko joked.

"I can't tell their intent from this distance, but warn the others about-"

"Already done it."

"Good, tell them to come to the Tower."

"Done that too."

"Am I that predictable?"

"It was the wisest course of action, so I assumed you would take it."

Usagi looked at Aiko for a second before chuckling. "A 'yes' would have been enough."

A/N: Those who read Cyber Moon may be wondering if I will place the 'Dark Mana' arc after this one, or skip it completely. Let's just say that, last few times I re-read Cyber Moon, that arc was the one I felt was a "filler arc."

And yeah, I kind of skipped past "a few" boring years of peace and quiet. I'm here for the magic blasts and bad puns.

Usagi's writer pseudonym is an anagram of her name. Why? Why not?