Sailor Moon Aeons.
Book 2: Rebirth.
Act 12: Eternal night.
Episode 143: Dark invasion.

By Razor Knight
Last update: April 3, 2017

Last edited: June 20, 2017

"They've just flew past Mars," Phase said. "But they're slowing down fast."

Moon could 'see' that. She could also see things Aiko couldn't see. "I can sense their intentions. They're going to invade us."

Pluto appeared near them. "They will strike all over the world. Their main 'weapon' is one which causes no direct damage, but will still cause chaos and destruction."

"Hi Setsuna. Nice to see you again."

Pluto saw the way Moon was looking at her. "I... Hello, Usagi. It's nice to see you too."

Moon smiled. "I knew it, you can be polite."

"So their main weapon causes chaos," Warwitch said, "considering how their vehicle looks like, I'll make a guess and say it's darkness."

"That's right. These creatures come from a planet shrouded by dark matter. They left their planet after it was destroyed by a 'rogue planet' crashing into it. They cannot survive under any type of light for too long, so they first cover any planet they seek to conquer in darkness."

"I'm not afraid of the dark," Dragon Lilith said.

"Not everyone is immune to it, and... This darkness is fueled by mana. It can drown out the brightest lights. Mankind will be paralized, unable to fight back."

Mercury frowned. "So we have to-"

Moon looked at Mercury. "You shouldn't fight."

"What-"

"Ami, you're tough enough to take on those invaders, but what about the baby? They could kill him before he's born."

Mercury flinched. "I- You're right, Usagi. I don't like this, but I guess I'll wait inside the tower."

Phase was looking up. "There's countless pod-like ships coming out of the cloud. There's at least a thousand of them."

ChibiMoon looked at Pluto. "I know you enough to know you're not telling us something."

Pluto sighed. ChibiUsa was right, but should she... "If watching over you all taught me something, was to not be afraid to follow my heart. Here's what I see of this war: There's no happy ending for us. Sooner or later, the enemy will overrun us."

"We should call the youma-"

"They're getting ready, and so are the Demon Hunters. But even their help won't be enough."

"So what?" Moon said, surprising many of her friends. "I will not give up. I don't care about what you see with your power. We will win."

"You already showed me that in our fight with Sailor Sun. That's why I'm telling you about what I saw. Maybe it's the Ginzuishou, or maybe it's you, but I'm pretty sure you may be able to ignore your destiny and forge a new one."

"They're starting to land," Phase noted, then looked around. "Oh fu- Uh, sorry. Those things work really fast. Almost forty percent of the planet is in darkness."

Moon saw one of the pods land near them. A bubble of darkness started expanding quickly from it, and soon the area was pitch black. "Let's just destroy-"

As Moon said that, a group of robed figures came out from inside the pod. They poured out of the pod, their forms becoming solid after their mass had gathered. They were almost as black as the darkness around them, and their eyes were as featureless as everything else about them, and a very dark shade of green. They saw the Senshi and started shooting black bolts of energy at them.

The Senshi shot at the creatures, and blasted them apart easily. "That was easy," Earth commented.

Pluto walked to the large pod. "As for these artifacts," she noted before hitting it with her staff, breaking it to pieces, "they are easy to destroy. Moreso, the creatures need darkness to survive."

"So, destroy the pod and they die," Mars guessed. She then looked at Venus. "We should actually bring our girls here."

"This is the only part of the city not affected," Phase said, "but there's no more pods coming."

"They need time to build more," Pluto explained, answering the question most Senshi were asking themselves. "We may manage to clean up the city-"

Moon looked at Phase. "Tell the youma how to deal with these things. Also Emi and the others. If we can see through their darkness with our magic, they should be able to do the same."

"So we keep Tokyo safe, and our allies can-"

"No," Moon said, interrupting Nemesis. "We split and try to take down as many of those things as we can, all around the world."

Mercury appeared near them. "I'll help you from here, along with Aiko."

"Is it wise for us to split up?"

Moon looked at Uranus. "Maybe not. But us staying here and only helping Japan would look bad to the rest of the world. And I won't be happy knowing there may be thousands of deaths out there, and we could at least minimize them."

Uranus smiled. "Sorry, I forgot how selfless you can be."

Moon suddenly turned back to normal and vanished. The others wondered what she was up to for almost one minute, but then she reappeared, along with all the parents of the Senshi and Guardians. "I can be a bit selfish too," she noted.

"Mommy!"

Neptune smiled sadly as Venus and Mars tried to calm their kids down. There would be millions of children, out there, scared and unable to see a thing. Moon's actions had really driven her point home. "Why did you power down?"

"I wanted to see how the world right now looks to non-mages. It is... Unsettling. Heck, someone not used to magic nor able to fend it off should feel much worse. That's why I brought them all along."

Yukiko's mother looked at Moon, then at the other Senshi, in turns. "It was terrifying. I know the layout of my house and could probably walk around with my eyes closed and not knock anything down, but... My body was frozen in fear. I could not see my own nose, couldn't see my hands on front of my face."

Moon sighed. "Aiko, you are the only one who can do this, so... Please transmit this message to as many people as you can reach."

Phase did as requested, translating it to many different languages and spreading the word around. "This is Phase, one of the Three Guardians. I know you can't see me but please, stay calm. I'm speaking on behalf of Sailor Moon herself. There is an alien race attacking the Earth, they want to cover our world in darkness, but we won't let them. We will defeat them, drive this darkness away. Stay calm. Stay safe."

Jupiter looked up at Aiko's face on the sky as the message ended. "Deja vu."

"Are you sure you reached every human out there?"

"Any who could hear the message," Aiko admitted. "I have skills that I don't quite like to use. I avoid using them."

"Like me," Nova said.

"Yes. See, I learnt to interface with most electronic devices, and to be able to interact with them through satellites. It's a hacker's dream, but it's too easy to be tempted into using it for... Less noble goals."

Moon looked at her sadly. "I'm sorry I forced you to-"

"Usagi, you didn't order me to do it. I could have said no. But this isn't a time to be holding back on my skills when they can help people."

"Anyhow," Mars said, "let's go kick some alien rears. Been too long since I had an excuse for that."

Venus and her Dragon had chosen Europe, along with Lilith and Earth. It had been almost too easy, teleport in, destroy the pod, wait for either Ami, Aiko or Kim to tell them where their next target was. Almost too damn easy.

Earth sighed as Venus lasered their latest target out. "Maybe Pluto was overestimating this threat."

"Enemies always keep their best for last," Venus said. "Must be a rule of evil."

Just as Venus was saying that, they got a call from Aiko. "More pods incoming. They won't give up yet."

"Well, there goes the weekend."

Earth looked at Venus. "It's Monday."

"I know."

ChibiMoon looked around and sighed. Whenever it looked like they were pushing the enemy back, more pods fell from the sky to replace the lost ones. It was worse because of scenes like the one she was seeing. A massive pileup of cars, of people who had been caught by the darkness while driving. She wanted to tell Saturn to leave it alone, but at the same time, she couldn't force herself to stop her. "Are you okay?"

Saturn nodded. "My endurance is no longer an issue. I could revive hundreds of civilians before I start feeling-"

"Not what I meant."

"... I'm not okay with this. We can't save everyone, and while Usagi's idea is spreading us thin, it's also the right thing to do. And yet, those assholes up there keep sending pods down."

"I don't like this either. Last time I heard Pluto say we couldn't win..."

Saturn gave her a hug. "We can win this."

The pink-haired Senshi smiled sadly. "Such a lousy Sailor Moon I am, losing hope so easily."

Saturn smiled back. "I'm sure Usagi feels hopeless too, at times. She's just very good at hiding it."

"I'm still not sure if I should be amazed or freaked out that you can keep resurrecting and healing people while hugging me."

Saturn broke the hug and shrugged. "Join the club."

Neptune looked around. "New York is free of darkness, again."

Uranus frowned. "For half an hour."

Nova appeared near them. "This is pointless."

"We are helping-"

"Shouldn't you guys just go kill the final boss and stop fooling around?"

Neptune stared at Nova. Uranus and her had grown closer to the group in the last few years, even the 'Guardians.' She had never heard Nova sound like this. Bitter, scared. "What's wrong, Hana?"

Nova looked to the side. "I went to check on my parents a while back. Mom looked so hopeless, so scared... I hate this war. I want to go find the asshole leading them and turn his, her or ts mind into jelly."

"I would help you with that if I could," Uranus admitted.

Moon stood on top of the Tower. She could see most of the city was free from the darkness, but she knew that wouldn't last. "Pluto, I need to talk to you."

Pluto appeared next to her. "What's wrong, Usagi?"

"This whole war is. Can't we just go to their ship and kill their boss?"

"You being so eager to kill is-"

"I hate hearing the reports. So many dead just because of these aliens... I liked it better when they targeted only us, really. At least back then we didn't have collaterals."

Pluto looked up. "Unfortunately, you can't go to their ship. It's out of range even for the Sailor Teleport, and even if you could go, you would be jumping blind."

Usagi cringed at that. She had once asked Ami about teleporting blindly, as in, teleporting to an area you didn't know. Ami had given her several examples of what could happen, so she knew better than trying. "Can't you take us there?"

"No. The inside of their ship is completely dark. It would be quite similar to blind teleportation."

Moon thought about their options for a minute. "So we can either keep on fighting them all over the Earth, or focus on Tokyo and hoping their boss will get angry at us for not letting them take over."

Pluto nodded. "There's one thing I know from looking at that race's past. They won't share. They use any life form on the planets they conquer, sentient or otherwise, as food. Think of the Kh'Sun, but they don't drain planets out of resources. They instead consume all life in them."

"I know what to do to win this war, then. Aiko?"

Phase appeared near them. "Hi."

Moon smiled. "Hi. Please tell the youma and the Hunters that we're going to focus on Tokyo. I think we may make the aliens' leader come fight us personally that way."

"Want me to tell the Senshi too?"

"No, I'll do that myself."

"The Earth mages keep on resisting the Nightfall."

The leader looked at the screen showing the Earth. It looked much better now, but there were still patches of light in the large ocean of darkness. "Tell the Zealots their time has come. We need to defeat those mages if we want to take over."

A/N: Things just couldn't get worse, right? So that means they will.

Readers of Cyber Moon may make an educated guess. Yep, time for some sand in your eyes...