Disclaimer: I own nothing about Sailor Moon or Kamen Rider. I only own my original character.

Second Step – To Write a New Legend

"I can't believe the nerve of that guy! He swore right in front of the Princess and the Queen within two minutes of waking up!" exclaimed Mars while she and the other Inner Senshi kept a watchful eye on Princess Serenity who was taking a walk through the palace garden.

"Aren't you being a bit too harsh there?" countered Venus while leaning against the gazebo's railing.

"Such a reaction is only natural if one were suddenly transported to an alien environment," explained Mercury. "I would have been more concerned if he didn't react that strongly."

"Still, he popped up at exactly the same time as that strange phenomenon just over a day ago. There has to be a connection." The intuition of the Fire Senshi rarely failed her and she was certain of at least that much.

"Perhaps if we were able to know exactly what those cards of his did earlier, we might have a better understanding of things." A thought then came to Jupiter. "Hey, maybe he can help fix that problem! Does anyone know where he went?"

"Her Majesty is accompanying him around the palace for the time being," replied Sailor Venus, letting a little discomfort show up on her face.

"By herself?" Mars looked a bit alarmed upon hearing that.

"Well, she does have Luna and Artemis with her…"

There was a long pause before the raven haired Senshi responded to her blonde teammate's remark in a flat tone. "That really doesn't make me feel any better."

"Her Majesty will be fine. She can look after herself. Besides, didn't you report that there were some 'noble spirits' inhabiting that young man's cards?" asked Mercury with her sharp memory bringing up that conversation from earlier. "So you shouldn't have any reason to believe that he's a spy or some other secret enemy agent."

"That's true," admitted Mars before sighing once. "I guess I'm just being cautious."

"Well, you wouldn't be you if you weren't cautious," snarked the Senshi of Lightning causing the other female to glare.

"Can it, Jupiter."

Luna normally didn't disagree to the ideas of the Queen however this latest idea was definitely one that she made her objections clear on. She can understand that her Majesty wanted to demonstrate to the boy that this new world he arrived in was not hostile to him in any way and that he should have nothing to fear from them. But giving a palace tour to a possible enemy spy was probably not the best way to go about it.

"Luna, you're over thinking things. If the Queen and the Princess feel that he's not a threat, shouldn't you give him the benefit of the doubt?" asked her fellow feline companion, Artemis.

"Not everyone is as easy going as you." At least, the tour areas were chosen carefully with plenty of guards posted around.

"It's not a matter of me being easy going. You don't trust their instincts?"

"What if the boy has a sleeping evil inside of him just waiting for the right time to awaken and strike her down?" countered Luna, wishing Artemis would see her view point properly.

"That's really stretching things there…"

While the two advisors bickered in the background, Queen Serenity concluded the castle tour. "So you see that you have nothing to fear from us. There is no need to be nervous, Togashi Katsuo."

Katsuo, who now wore his student uniform, fidgeted a bit. "To be honest, my nervousness is driven more by a feeling that I don't belong here. First of all, I'm a commoner so mingling with royalty is already mind boggling. Second, I'm not a native of this world or this timeline!"

A thoughtful look appeared on the monarch's face. "So you come from the future?"

"Sorta…" He took a deep breath to calm his thoughts down a bit. "In any case, I was hoping I could make a visit to the Time Gate and see Sailor Pluto. She's my best chance of returning to where I belong."

"You know about the Time Gate and Sailor Pluto? That's not exactly common knowledge." If Queen Serenity had been surprised, she hid it very well with her tone still sounding as normal as ever.

"I only knew of it thanks to a certain iconic story popular in my time." He made a note to himself that when he got back, he would treat his little sister for the rest of her life to any dessert she wanted. "Perhaps we can make an exchange of information?"

"I'm listening." She was hooked so all he needed was one last push to buy her over.

"If you take me to the Time Gate and let me speak with Pluto in person, I'll tell you what I know of the Moonlight Legend that's told in my world." Katsuo paused briefly to let everything hit home for the Queen. "About the one called Sailor Moon."

"By Sailor Moon, you mean…?" The elder Serenity took a bit of time before she finally started piecing it together. "You mean Princess Serenity?"

"Correct. Tales about her life and her heroic deeds were told and spread throughout my country and eventually the world. As I said, I am willing to tell you more about them once I have a chance to speak with Pluto. Do we have an agreement?"

"You certainly know how to put an intriguing offer on the table." A faint smile appeared on the monarch's lips. "Very well. I accept."

Within moments, he was led deeper into the Moon Castle and soon found himself in some strange dimension before noticing the silhouette of a door in the distance along with a Senshi. The door was decorated with the phases of the moon and had a giant elaborate frame around it.

Sailor Pluto looked pretty identical to her anime version with black being her dominant colour on the choker, collar, the glove elbow fittings, skirt, and boots. The accent colours were garnet (spotted on the tiara gem, earrings, and gem attached to choker) and dark maroon (bows, which were a much darker shade of brownish purple than her garnet accents). Her earrings were shaped like a thick downward-pointed arrow. Her collar did not have any stripes. Her choker had a garnet gem dangling from it. She didn't have any shoulder pads. As for her eyes, they were red while her long hair was dark green. And of course, she had the Garnet Rod by her side.

"Your Majesty? Is there something the matter?" Pluto's eyes immediately darted to the boy. "Who is your guest?"

"If anything, I would say he is Princess Serenity's guest. She's the one who helped him when he had arrived unexpectedly in the palace during the spatial phenomenon that took place not too long ago." The Queen went on to introduce him. "His name is Togashi Katsuo. As you can see, he is not from around here."

Pluto immediately caught on. "An alternate timeline if I'm not mistaken."

"Would you be able to determine a way to return me back to my timeline?" asked Katsuo in a hopeful tone.

"If you're already aware of the concept of multiple timelines, then you should realize that navigating the Corridor of Space-Time is no easy task. Even if all of the palace's computer systems were dedicated to isolating one timeline out of an infinite number of possibilities, the task may never be complete."

He knew this had been a long shot but still, there had to be something he could do. Another thought came to him, thanks to his inner Kamen Rider fanboy reminding him of that particular possibility. "Maybe you could grant me the ability to travel between timelines and let me search for home?"

"Even if the rules allowed me to, I cannot do that in good conscience," replied the Time Guardian. "There is a fairly high possibility that during your travels, you may enter hostile and dangerous timelines. It would be safer if you remained here."

"B-but I can't! I don't belong here!" shouted Katsuo as some of the stress started getting to him. "I… I don't want to interfere with the natural development of the story!"

Pluto looked puzzled. "Story?"

"He's referring to something called the Moonlight Legend which is told in his timeline, which apparently describes events in Princess Serenity's future," explained the Moon Queen.

There was a brief pause before Sailor Pluto spoke again. "May I have a word with the boy in private, My Queen?"

Seeing the need for privacy, Queen Serenity headed out. "Once you're done, please send him to me."

Now that they were alone, Pluto spoke to Katsuo in a disarming tone to put him more at ease. "What exactly do you know about the future?"

"Not specific dates. Just general battles and how they progressed." He was still being a bit vague there but she could understand that now that she had a better idea of his position.

"So you're aware of the Dark Kingdom's future attack on the palace?"

Katsuo nodded numbly. "Did you tell Queen Serenity about that?"

"She knows about the event and is taking action in a discreet manner." It made sense that the monarch would want to keep this a secret and avoid worrying her subjects and her daughter.

"Whatever she does won't be enough. It was written that the Dark Kingdom's assault was successful and it resulted in Queen Serenity being forced to use the Ginzuishou to seal them away. She also sent everyone who died in the attack to the future to be reincarnated. That included all of her subjects, the Senshi and even her own child and the Prince of Earth. The seal she placed on the Dark Kingdom wasn't fully perfect though and they eventually reawaken and start causing havoc in the modern time. That's when the reincarnated Princess Serenity takes up the mantle of Sailor Moon to fight them, guided by Luna."

'I see. So the Silver Millennium will be…' Pluto then noticed the posture of the boy had slipped a bit. "What's wrong?"

"If I disturb the flow of history, won't I be rejected by the world? I'm an abnormality here." He remembered seeing Decade face this at one point in that TV show and the fact that this is happening to him for real scared him silly. "Will you be the one who erases me?"

The Time Guardian on the other hand was a bit alarmed at the boy's thought processes. "Why are you saying something like that? I don't know about the world, but we have no intention of driving you out."

Katsuo blinked in surprise. He had been certain that he pegged her character as a well-intentioned extremist who would be willing to take one life to save others. Or maybe he had been reading too many of those fics on the internet. "You don't think I'm a disruption to…?"

"The fact is that you are essentially Princess Serenity's responsibility. As much as you wish to deny it, you are a part of this current timeline." She paused for a moment to let this sink in before continuing. "Now you have two choices in front of you: Either live a quiet life in the Silver Millennium and let things unfold naturally or you can put forward your best efforts to save the Silver Millennium from destruction if what you say is true."

Katsuo shook his head rapidly, while mind boggled at what Pluto had suggested to him. "I can't do that! I'm just a normal kid! I get up in the morning, I put my pants on one leg at a time, I study hard at school and train hard at the dojo, and I go to sleep at night. I am nowhere near qualified to be deciding whether one timeline is more proper than the other!"

"Nonetheless, you have been put into a very unique position, young man. I am bound to my post and cannot aid Serenity when the time comes. It is up to you to decide on what you want to do." And with that, he found himself transported back outside to the surface levels of the Moon Palace and where Queen Serenity was waiting.

"I trust your discussion was productive?"

"She gave me some things to think about." Katsuo then bowed in front of the Queen. "Thank you for letting me speak with her. It was very helpful. Now I'll uphold my end of the deal."

"You don't have to tell me right now-"

"Please. I would rather get this done sooner rather than later. And I would rather keep this conversation between the two of us."

"… Very well. We can discuss this in one of my private dens."

A moment later, he found himself sitting down at a table in a fairly large room which stored a variety of books and study material. There were also a few portraits around of both Princess Serenity and Queen Serenity.

After Katsuo made himself comfortable, he began to speak. "Well, I guess I would begin by saying that it took a good amount of time before she got comfortable fighting evil by moonlight. Then again, you can say that about anybody just starting out learning how to be a warrior. Her skill level took time to develop and she faced powerful adversaries from day one. She fought the Dark Kingdom, the Black Moon Clan, the Death Busters, the Dead Moon Circus and even Chaos itself and she still pulled through."

"So the other Senshi trained her well?" asked the Queen.

He shook his head. "No. She virtually did this all by herself. Luna provided the initial transformation gear but that was it. She basically learned by experience and it was her heart that drove her forward. It was what bound the Senshi when they woke up and if anything, it was what set her apart from other people on Earth."

"Earth?!" Her maternal instincts began to stir at that thought but she forced herself to stay calm.

"At the time, the world wasn't as kind a place as one might expect. There were many problems and many people were cynics who relied on logical solutions, calculating acceptable losses. With Sailor Moon though, she projected such a strong sense of idealism. As flawed and naïve as it is, it's something wonderful to strive towards even in the face of doubt. For example…" Katsuo's memories drifted back to a particular favourite episode of Sailor Moon. "During the conflict with the Death Busters, there was an evil that possessed the life of a little girl. Uranus, Neptune and Pluto were in favour of eliminating her in favour of saving the planet. They were willing to live with that but not Sailor Moon. She strongly believed that having the world saved at the expense of that girl's life would have been a mutilation of her soul and that of humanity's. There's not much else to say other than after resolving the situation with Chaos, she found her happy ending. That's pretty much the condensed version of the legend and I bet you must have a ton of questions."

Queen Serenity took a moment to digest this information and organize her questions. "What did you mean earlier by the Senshi waking up? Why were they put to sleep?"

He took a deep breath before continuing. "You can say that there's a bit more to this tale that you need to know about. I remember a particular quote that accurately summarizes things. 'Creation cannot come without destruction.'"

"Yes, I'm familiar with that concept. It's even in place in the Moon Kingdom with Saturn being the agent of destruction to pave way for new life and…" She trailed off, starting to connect dots together.

"The legend of Sailor Moon was born from the remains of the Silver Millennium. Every inhabitant died from the Dark Kingdom's attack and got reborn on Earth thanks to your final sacrifice. In Princess Serenity's case, she was reborn as Tsukino Usagi and even though she eventually regained her memory back as the Princess, she embraced being a normal girl able to live with her friends and loved ones."

The elder Serenity held her hands in her lap. "So that's how it is."

"But now that I reflect on what Sailor Moon did in her story, I want to find a way to write that legend without sacrificing all of this. If Usagi were here in my shoes, I would think she would be willing to do this, even if success meant that her life would not exist as she knew it." Katsuo stood up from his spot, now seeing things fall into place. "I guess this is what Pluto meant by me making that choice."

A knock at the door interrupted the conversation, followed by a court messenger's voice. "Excuse me?"

"Yes, what is it?" Considering the heavy discussion earlier, the reprieve was welcomed by the Queen.

"Sailor Mercury would like to see you, Your Majesty. This is in regards to the encrypted folder. It's starting to act strangely."

Katsuo looked puzzled. "Encrypted folder?"

"Yes. The strange cards you had with you vanished into data streams and entered our systems," explained Queen Serenity, recalling what she had been told earlier.

Well, that explained the missing cards. "In that case, can I come take a look at this as well? If my cards are causing this, then I have a responsibility to try and fix it."

Within moments, the pair made their way to the room which housed the Moon Kingdom's servers which was massive. Katsuo had been expecting to enter an intensely warm environment here but instead, he still felt comfortable at room temperature. 'It must be their magic at work keeping things cool.'

It didn't take long for them to reach the primary server where Sailor Mercury was hunched over a workstation. Her hairstyle and colour seemed more natural compared to her look in the live action Sailor Moon show but her face definitely had some resemblance to the actress who played her. Come to think of it, didn't that actress start showing up in a recent Kamen Rider show?

Upon detecting her guests, Mercury took a moment to step away from the station and greet them. "Good day, Your Majesty. Young man, I'm glad to see you up and about."

"Thank you for your concern."

With the pleasantries exchanged, Mercury immediately brought up a status screen which displayed a simple prompt for a password. "This occurred only a short moment ago. We haven't even touched it since those strange cards entered our systems directly. It must have been some automatic executable program, set to go off at a predetermined time."

"So my Rider cards caused this?"

Queen Serenity then noticed a pair of icons to the blank field with one looking like an arrow and the other a question mark. "Try clicking on the question mark icon. It could be a password hint."

Mercury did so and a sequence of numbers popped up. '453145? What could that mean?'

"Wait a second!" Katsuo's exclamation interrupted Mercury's train of thought. "That's the password hint I use on my current computer at home! May I…?"

"Go ahead. Just place your hand on the crystal and it will generate an interface for you to enter in your password," said the Intellectual Senshi while making room for the boy. Once he got a holographic keyboard much like the one at home, he typed in his password:

DECADE2009

The password prompt closed before the entire screen changed to show two giant windows side by side with one displaying an advanced looking technological handgun along with data on how to manufacture it. The other window showed a full blue and black suit with barcode armour covering the front part of the helmet and the upper torso. The suit looked like it was linked to a card that would act like a key by the way the technological specification drew the connection to the gun on the other side of the screen.

"These are weapon specs?"

"No…" Queen Serenity turned to the boy who looked completely in shock. "It's the DienDriver. Those are actual specs for the DienDriver! Whoever has that would be able to transform into Kamen Rider Diend!"

"Is that so?" After some thought, the monarch turned to Mercury. "How soon can we construct this DienDriver for Katsuo?"

She briefly scanned the specs with her personal visor before responding. "There doesn't seem to be anything in here that would be difficult to replicate or obtain. I would estimate 3-4 days at most to assemble this and create the card key."

"Are you serious, Your Majesty? You're going to…?"

Queen Serenity turned to Katsuo with a smile. "If you're serious about finding another way to create that legend, then you will need the proper tool to help you accomplish your task. What do you say?"

There really was only one answer here in his mind. "Hell yes!"

"…" One awkward silence later…

"… Oh, wait. I just swore in front of royalty again. I am so sorry!"

And this was met by an amused laugh from the Queen while Sailor Mercury merely gave a tired sigh, already knowing that they were in for an interesting time with the boy around.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Wow, that took forever to get out. To be honest, I had the rough scenes in my head but laying them out to a point that I could see as acceptable really took me a while. Hopefully, things can get easier as I go along.

Instead of the classic/cliché toy becomes a real Driver, the Driver is actually built in the Moon Kingdom. Considering that they were able to build Mercury's visor and minicomputer, the DienDriver shouldn't be too farfetched for them.

Also, pondering on whether to give a Decade card to Katsuo as an alternate transformation. If Decade can go cyan by using the Diend card in the DecaDriver, then the reverse should be true with Diend going magenta. Question is, how will his abilities differ using the Decade card with the DienDriver?

As usual, this story will be considered low priority and worked on when I feel like it. The only way to possibly change my mind on this is to leave plenty of reviews so if you want more of this, click that button and type away.