Author's Note: I really hope you guys enjoy this installment... it starts to maybe get a little complicated now...
I always love to hear what you think.
Serenity's apartment Early Tuesday Morning
Setsuna walked through the pitch black office building to find Serenity sitting at her computer completely engrossed in the project before her. "Majesty."
"Hmm. Puu don't call me that."
"Sorry Lady, its a habit."
"A habit it maybe, but you know I hate formalities. Not to mention I am not a Majesty in any capacity here." She looked up from the screen, "I assume there is a reason you are here."
"I was hoping to persuade you to go to bed. Or at least get something to eat."
"I've slept far to much in the past years. But maybe a light snack would be nice. Why what time is it?"
"3 A.M."
"Oh." Serenity continued her typing. "Sorry something came up today. It needs my attention as soon as possible."
"Something in the office?"
"No. Something in the throne room." Setsuna raised an eyebrow so Serenity continued, "Do you remember Endymion's generals and what happened?"
"I remember they loved the Inner Senshi. I remember that during they final days they were missing, assumed dead. That is until they killed their loved ones at the final battle."
"Yes. Then mother punished them."
"I thought they were simply locked in the Negaverse with the rest of Beryl's minions."
Serenity frowned when the computer showed her something she didn't like. "Thats true. However, they were human when they joined Beryl's forces if they should ever be killed then they, like my Senshi, would have a chance to be reborn to regain their powers and their lives. Mother sealed all of that. She punished them because she felt they succumbed to easily to the powers of the Dread Queen."
"And how does this pose a problem now?"
"I think they may have been punished unjustly."
"Oh my."
"Oh yes."
"Why do you think this?"
"You remember Zoicite?"
"Of course, Mercury's lover."
"There was a battle tonight. Nephrite called me out, he'd found my identity." Serenity paused still confused by the nights progression. "Apparently he hadn't told they False Queen of my where abouts, he wanted to negotiate."
"What did he want? And what has Zoicite got to do with it?"
"I never found out Zoicite showed up and killed him." She paused in her typing and her brow creased with thought. "Its not the battle that bothers me. They used to be close friends, but years stuck in a dimension of hatred can change that. What the dimension can't change is your genetic make-up. Even being fused with magic..." She thought. "Even being fused with magic you can't change the core of a person."
"I don't understand."
"I knew Zoicite very well, saw him naked with Mercury far too many times for my liking, but I know he was a man. And tonight, he was a woman."
Setsuna's eye's bulged, "What?"
"Exactly what I thought. Even weirder Nephrite died, his blood spilled all over the battle field, and even being infused with magic wouldn't have made it green. I took some samples, got them into a controlled setting before all of the evidence could be erased by they Dark Kingdom."
"So your..."
"Examining the blood. Its a well designed creature. And from what I can tell... It thinks like Nephrite. It had the memories of Nephrite. The beliefs of Nephrite even, though they were over ridden by a mind meld. It has the genetic code of the man, or at least matches what I could find in the records. It is, at least on the genetic surface, 100 Nephrite." She bit her lower lip.
"And below the surface."
"Exactly. It looks like its a plant. A highly sophisticated plant. That started out as it was, mimicked what it knew of him, and eventually became that very man."
"But if thats the case, Beryl grew her own general's what happened to the other ones a thousand years ago?"
"I don't know. I just have to finish this program."
"And?"
"I will find them, and I will ask them myself."