To make life easier for the readers, "journal entries" are marked with -#- at the start and end.
-#-
The ginzuisho. Source of all power.
Ah, the source perhaps, but is that in itself any great thing? Which is mightier? The sea, or the creeks that are its origin? Are even all the rivers of the world as great as the oceans that they feed?
Over and over and over again, from the Senshi, from the assorted monsters and from the various aliens - the would-be 'conquerors' of Crystal Tokyo, it comes; a myriad litany: 'true power comes from...'. Whether it be 'true power comes from love', or 'true power comes from fear', 'true power comes from caring for others', or perhaps 'true power comes from controlling people'. True power this, true power that.
True power? Better to say, is there any truth in power at all? How can there be, when 'truth' is nothing but what is accepted as correct - and not all that is 'true', after all, is truly correct.
Well, whatever. I've heard it all before - 'you must be mad to be trying to kill the Neo-queen', 'the ginzuisho will destroy you in the end', and 'for one such as you, it is defeat, and not death, who is your constant companion.'
People can be so negative. The ginzuisho is the most powerful artifact in a world of power. I am out of my league when I take on anymore than one of the Senshi. Serenity is more powerful than me while she exercises such an experienced command of the ginzuisho. I am the enemy of an entire city, even if it is a city of spineless youma-feed whose idea of 'bad' is to pick a flower from the public gardens.
Young members of the Royal Guard make each other brave by saying how they will one day capture me, while the younger children are told of me as some sort of moral tale: 'see what would have happened if not for the Purification'. I am the being that comes closest to inspiring dark emotions in a people who appear to no longer have any access to them. As much as it is possible for those insipids, I am feared, I am hated, I am reviled. I am, as Venus put it the last time I visited Crystal Tokyo, 'not invited to any of their parties'.
I never wanted to be hated. I never wanted to be loathed. I never, EVER wanted to feared. But then, I never wanted Crystal Tokyo to exist in the first place. Life is not, as I have often found out, about what I want.
After all, if it was about what I wanted, then the ginzuisho would never have existed at all. For not only is it a source of power, but to me, at least, it is also a source of pain. Why, without it there would be no Crystal Tokyo, no Purification... ah, and no Serenity...
No ginzuisho? Perhaps that is what 'true power' should be - a world without such tools of domination, a world free to continue without worries of brainwashing and behaviour modification: 'purifications' and 'healings'. A world... a world free...
Perhaps... perhaps the truest power is no power at all.
But then again, perhaps not.
- Monologue taken from 'The Smallest Boy', a south European tale originating from the early 27th century. The story, about an ordinary boy who braved danger and distance to recruit 'The Sadman' to save his village from a terrible Oni, contains several conversations between the idealistic boy and the bitter Sadman. Strangely grim, considering the prevalently uplifting legends of post-Ice literature, it still ends happily, with the terrible Oni defeated, the village saved(and bolstered by Royal Guard reenforcements to replace the original small garrison killed by the Oni), and the boy admired and thanked by his peers. The Sadman, in a typical literary device, leaves the village the next day after refusing any reward beyond some food (and, as the man curiously puts it, the 'glow that I gained from defeating the creature'). Whether the tale is at all historically correct is unknown, beyond the fact that SOMETHING did destroy the original protectors posted to that area.
-#-
He faded into view, lips slightly parted in a snarl, his uncovered eyes glowing slightly - but not enough to lighten the dark of the shadows. His fists were clenched, and they trembled slightly from repressed fury.
He stayed in the darkest shadows, his centuries-toned body tensed just enough for the deadliest of actions, but not enough for mistakes. His senses and instincts were wide open, ready for attack - be it against him, or by him.
Emerald looked around, taking stock of the situation. Five Senshi - one of them only semi-conscious, two cats, and some rubble. Nothing else; no Dark Kingdom flunkies, no Tuxedo Fashion-Horse... and no Serenity.
She was gone.
The energy in his eyes faded, and his snarl relaxed into an angry frown, but his body remained as prepared for attack as it had moments ago.
She was gone. Her aura didn't sing out anymore. She was nowhere near here. She was not here. This place - it was a parallel dimension; connected enough to the real world for him to have felt Serenity's aura, but distanced enough to have made teleportation a real mess. He'd lost precious time getting in. The metaphorical fallen tree on the metaphysical road of teleportation had ruined it for him, apparently.
But still and damn it all, where did Serenity go!?
He blinked, and looked down at his crystal, which hung uncovered against his chest. "What's wrong?" his voice was so low it could barely class as a whisper, low enough that not even the lunar cats' hearing detected him.
"The ginzuisho?" He blinked again, before looking up. The feel of its power was still in the air; it tingled against his skin like a light acid. His crystal was right, the ginzuisho was here... he frowned... but it was not here too. His eyes narrowed before he made sense of the energy sensations. Ah... those little pocket dimensions where the Senshi kept their henshin sticks, communicators, purses and all their other miscellaneous junk; it must be in one of those. Still... why did the Senshi have it, and not Serenity?
He resisted the urge to bury his head in his heads. The ginzuisho. The bloody ginzuisho, already! This was right up there on the top of the list of things he didn't want to happen, right alongside Pluto stepping up behind him.
He looked over his shoulder, just in case, before turning his attention back to the Senshi. Ah well, there was no use in worrying about the Imperium Crystal. If the Senshi had it, that meant that Serenity herself did not, and that, as small as it was, was something.
Emerald edged around the room until Sailor Mars was the closest person to him. The girl... in fact, all the girls looked a little sad. Perhaps they were missing their newly found neo-queen already. No doubt quite the event for them, since the poor children seemed to have decided to let distant past lives take over their present ones. That, of course, was if they were even right in their beliefs of resurrection.
Serenity had appeared once, she would appear again. And when she did, he would be there, he would gauge her power and experience, and he would choose the best way to get the task done. If she wasn't here now, she would be tomorrow. Or the next, or the one after, or a year after that. The only place rushing got you to quickly was the grave, and there was always a next time.
His face relaxed from the frown. Sailor Moon, the semi-conscious Senshi, would be fine. She was just a little drained, just looking at her aura told him that her life wasn't threatened. Still, it wouldn't hurt to show a little concern. The girl hadn't really deserved to die as young as she had, and it wouldn't kill him to be nice and give a bit of compassion to her while she still lived. He stepped out of the shadows, his face a mask of concern. "Is she all right?"
Sailor Mars was in no mood for surprises. They were still in enemy territory, their princess, finally found, was unconscious, and the man she had been dating, the man she had loved was taken - both from her heart and from her presence. How could she have had any hope of competing against the love of a princess and her prince? How could Queen Beryl have ruined even this bittersweet moment - the reunion of prince and princess - with something as low as abducting Mamoru? The way this day was going, Emerald would appear any minute now.
Emerald appeared, stepping out of the shadows as if he'd always been there. Perhaps he had, she thought in a fit of annoyance. With his way of rarely interceding in their fights with the Dark Kingdom, maybe he had just sat by while Mamoru was taken.
"Is she all right?"
"She'll be okay. If you cared, why didn't you get here soon enough to do some good?" Mars winced as soon as she'd said it. It was not the best time for her, and he brought out that worst need in her to lash out, but there was such a thing as being too harsh. He had sounded truly concerned... Still, pride demanded that she not back down from her outburst.
He winced slightly, and then he smiled, before he said, "Ah, just like old times. I'm not En... Tuxedo Kamen, I can't be there for you like... he... always..." He slowed and then paused, noting the wincing coming from the Senshi. "I've said something that's going to prove embarrassing, haven't I?"
"Tuxedo Kamen has been taken," Luna noted as she padded the few steps from Sailor Moon's side to Sailor Mars's.
"Again?" the man asked before he could stop himself. "The Dark Kingdom has stooped lower yet again?" he added to cover his gaffe. Perhaps this time, he thought, one of the Senshi's enemies will actually manage to keep Mr Swank. But time had shown him before that he wasn't usually that lucky... "And... and Serenity? I thought," I know, "that I felt her presence..."
Luna hesitated for a moment. The awakening of her princess had triggered some of the feline's dormant memories, and she still couldn't remember this man from the Silver Millennium. Perhaps it was unjust to doubt the man, but there was just something about him that didn't inspire her trust. Perhaps it was the way he so often stood on the sidelines in a fight, perhaps it was the way those strange eyes of his seemed to bore through her when he looked at her, or perhaps it was just the fact that she found him personally irritating, but she couldn't quite bring herself to trust the man with the whole truth. Besides, if she was wrong she could always apologise to him later.
"Princess Serenity is gone for the moment," Luna said.
"But she's--" Sailor Venus began before Sailor Jupiter 'accidentally' elbowed her in the stomach.
"Princess Serenity is gone for the moment," Luna repeated, giving the Senshi of Love a glare when she thought that the green-haired man wasn't looking.
"Oh," Venus gasped, wincing when she remembered all those times that Luna kept on about how they couldn't trust this guy. "Oh yeah. Right, that's what I was going to say."
They all looked at her as she chuckled weakly. The loneliness of a solo career wasn't looking so bad all of a sudden...
-#-
'And peace did settle upon the Earth as the euphoria of the Purification settled over as all. The last of the dissenters had chosen to remove themselves from our planet, and a new age dawned bright and clear before us. Surely this shall turn out to be a Golden Millennium...'
What, excuse me, huh, and are you kidding? My, the quality of authors has certainly suffered since the Purification, if this 'history book' is anything to go by. This particular author, unfortunately, has seemed to have forgotten to put a paragraph or two in. Perhaps the historian should have thought to include these ones:
'With the Purification finished, a complacent lull covered the planet. Most thought, quite naively, that an eternal peace had taken the Earth, and so humanity - if they could still be called that after the changes wrought by the ginzuisho - breathed a sigh of collective relief.
A few short years passed, and then it started. A chance glance of shadow here, an overheard growl there, and unusual, non-human tracks in another place. Rumours rippled through the towns and villages as word spread of these pseudo sightings. Finally, stealth was abandoned, and a new generation of monsters revealed themselves to the world.
The first of the post-Ice conquerors had unleashed their troops.'
I can't remember the name of the leader of the first wave now, somehow it really doesn't matter; over the centuries Crystal Tokyo has attracted its fair share of would-be conquerors. And each conqueror brings an army. Oni, youma, kappa, whatever they end up being called, they come to serve their masters. And as their masters are defeated or retreat, these creatures find themselves stranded upon our little planet.
It is safe to say that most of the creatures are less than pleased about their new accommodation.
Of course, they can't stick around Crystal Tokyo - to do so would be their own death sentence. And so they spread out, going to ground, populating the world. Crystal Tokyo gets its peace, the rest of the world gets to deal with its problem.
After all, as long as a problem is out of sight, it is not a problem. It seems to me that such thoughts have often been a central part of the Crystal Tokyo psyche.
Golden, eh? A near-useless, overly bright material which inspires greed and coveting in those that look on? Why, how appropriate after all! They must be right, it must be a Golden Millennium coming! After all, with technology having moved away from conductors to crystals and other materials, there aren't that many uses for gold besides as an expensive ornament...
- Personal notes found in a very well stocked library in Southern Europe. Estimates put this note as originating somewhere around 2570.
-#-
He wanted to reach down her furry little throat and rip the information out. That damnable flea-ridden excuse for roadkill had obviously decided that he wasn't quite trustworthy yet. Annoying, arrogant, stuck-up little feline! What, was trust a black-tie only event with them!? Did he have to take lessons in foliage throwing and meaningless speech-making before this glorified rat gave him a break!?
This was really unbelievable. If the Senshi didn't trust him, they at least accepted him. Hells, he'd claimed to be Mars's past-life lover and they'd swallowed that! Having Pluto try to stop him he would have easily accepted, having the Senshi not accepting him as an ally he wouldn't have blinked an eye at. But being delayed (ah, but only delayed, he thought to calm himself) by a talking hairpile had not been high on his expected scenario list.
He smiled. "Well, such a pity I missed her." You smug little piece of dogfood... "She'll be back eventually, I'm sure." And to think, if I remember correctly, I used to like cats when I was young.
"Ah well, there's always next time. Please give my regards to Sailor Moon when she feels better," he noted as he turned to leave. Damn right there was a next time, especially if he started tailing the Senshi twenty-four hours a day. He'd have preferred to have left them the dignity of their privacy but, quite frankly, blow that idea. He needed to find Serenity and he'd let himself freeze to death before he let such a minor moral quibble ruin everything. Rei didn't know it yet, but she was about to get a second shadow.
The man walked over to the shadows, rubbing his chin. There was something he'd forgotten, he was sure of it.
"Hey! Hold up a minute!" Jupiter's voice rang out.
He turned as Jupiter and Venus jogged up to him. Mars looked on, suspicious, but didn't move. Sailor Moon seemed to be waking up, and more than anyone else, their leader probably needed to see a brave face from her when she opened her eyes.
"I know you guys seem to like your mysterious exits," Jupiter whispered, "but Sailor Mars could really do with a bit of help."
Ah, he thought, mentally snapping his fingers. That's what he had forgotten to do, annoy Sailor Mars. "Help?"
"She told you that she was dating, right?" Venus continued, looking over to make sure that Mars was still on the other side of the room.
"Yes."
"Well, it turned out that she was dating Tuxedo Kamen," Jupiter added. "And now... well, she knows it ain't going to be. He's destined for another."
"Kamen? She was dating him?" He didn't know whether to laugh or cry; nobody really deserved Mars's luck with love. Then again, Serenity did marry Endymion. Perhaps there was sometimes poetic justice after all.
"His civilian side, anyway," Venus elaborated. "She didn't know until tonight that they were one and the same."
"Look, green guy," Jupiter took over the conversation again, "Sailor Mars doesn't need anymore grief right now, not from you, not from anyone. You've got to say something to her. Anything! You can't just leave her like this!"
He looked over at Mars, who was looking at them. "Alright," he said, nodding once.
Sailor Mars grimaced as Emerald left the two girls and walked over to her. Here we go, she thought. 'Oh I am so sorry', he'd say with that tone of his that makes you wonder if he was telling the truth or lying. Go on, pour on the pity, that's really what I want right now.
He stopped in front of her, and blinked. Then he blinked again. He hesitated, his lips slightly parted as if he was going to say something, as he looked into her eyes. But then his mouth closed, and he blinked yet again.
She was about to ask him if he'd gone mute when he opened his mouth.
"There's really nothing I can say that won't sound utterly smarmy or insincere, is there?"
"No. Not really," she admitted quietly.
"A peace between us then. Be well," he nodded, turned, and left, fading into the shadows. Mars blinked as he disappeared before she turned back to her friends.
Artemis looked around. "We'd better get out of here. Unless the rest of you have shadowy lover boys scheduled to turn up."
Luna responded by whapping him over the head with her right forepaw.
-#-
It is said that love is the greatest power in the universe.
Not true. Hope is the greatest power.
Without hope comes despair. With despair, death. With death, no more chances to make a difference.
Have I truly made a difference? I've tried every trick I can think of to combat Serenity. Propaganda doesn't work, anyone with the free will of a gnat wouldn't live in Crystal Tokyo, and even those outside were affected by the Purification. While there are some around the world who don't view me as an enemy, none of them have enough power to help me fight.
A citywide 'solution' hasn't worked. The world's nuclear arsenal was completely neutralised by the enemy in the final fights before the Ice. More conventional weapons are easily blocked by the city shield that the Senshi are capable of raising. Satellite weapons, the few I could find out about, were either taken down by the final enemy, or were destroyed in orbit degrades while we were all trapped in the Ice.
Poison? No, no it wouldn't... it wouldn't be right. It wouldn't get me what I wanted anyway, the Senshi's physiology, like mine, could almost certainly handle something as petty as poison.
Sabotage? It had limited effectiveness, and Mars had usually started our 'game' before I could do anything useful. Besides, as much as I loathe the city, nothing is served by destroying parts of it or killing off its citizenry. To kill the snake by chopping at its tail is a fool's way, after all; you have to go for the head.
On a more individual level, it's not easy to get close enough to Serenity to make an attempt at taking her down. Jupiter and Mars are pretty thorough in their organisation of security. With me around, after all, they have had plenty of practice.
But sometimes I get close. Sometimes, even with her power, I penetrate her defences. Sometimes I get so close... so close!
And hope never dies. And until it does, or until my hope is fulfilled,
neither will I.
- Part of a far lengthier discussion between the pre-Nemesisian rebel,
Emerald, and the Chaos worshipper, Lady Discord as the then neo-allies
exchanged personal histories. Her followers, the Discordians, were
known for attacking in random places at illogical times, which caused
serious problems for the Crystal Tokyo defence forces during late 2589
and early 2590. Due to Emerald's nigh-immunity to scrying, information
such as this was gathered physically, in this case by a Discordian who
later defected after being healed. Sailor Mars couldn't believe that
he actually joined Discord's cause, after decades of him acting alone,she had thought that it wasn't his style.
-- I thought you said you'd keep these notes impartial.
--- I just catalogued over three thousand documents for you, Rei, I guess I felt like cutting loose. You can always go through and redo them all yourself, if you want...?
---- No, no. That's okay.
-#-
Dark Kingdom Youma are an eccentric lot. Living in an isolated dimension that was ruled by a woman of questionable sanity and intelligence, where you manifested powers that would, on Earth, sometimes be considered plain silly, it was hard to keep a completely rational perspective. Millennia of isolation, inbreeding, and of controlling an invasion instinct which couldn't, thanks to exile, be exercised were bound to produce fascinating psychoses and other emotional problems.
Confidence was a good example. Youma, as a general rule, were overconfident. Why wouldn't they be? The only great loss they had ever suffered - the exile from the Silver Millennium - had come after they'd won, as a last-ditch sacrifice from a near-totally beaten enemy. They were the supreme lifeform in their dimension... in fact, they were just about the only lifeform in their dimension, except for some foodbeasts. There were thousands upon thousands of them, each worth an Earth's platoon worth of soldiers, and that didn't even take into account the powers offered by Beryl and Metallia.
No-one, after all, would be stupid enough to try and invade them, for it was they who were the invaders.
He faded in, the darkness of shadow rapping around him almost like the cloak he had left behind in the park. Into the belly of the beast, he thought, as he looked around, hugging the wall of the large, ill-lit cavern that served as Queen Beryl's throneroom and audience chamber. And a rather cliche and tacky beast at that, he amended to himself as he noticed the darkly ornate throne that Queen Beryl was sitting on.
Tracking down Endymion here wouldn't be easy, there was a pervading aura that tinged the place, making it hard to sense individual auras. It must be that energy being that Beryl served, he thought as he eavesdropped on the queen's audience. What was its name again? He shook his head, he just couldn't remember, he was going on legends from centuries in the future, how could someone with his memory be expected to remember every petty little detail?
Eyes were the windows to the soul, it was said. That little saying had always made him wonder, what exactly was it that people saw when they looked into his multi-hued orbs? And what was it, he wondered, that he had seen in Mars's eyes that had caused him to attempt this foolishness. It must have been damn good, he thought irritably, because this was damn stupid.
Gods help him, it had come to this. He was actually wasting energy to rescue Endymion. If only he could say that it was to worm his way into the Senshi's confidence with a good deed. If only it was out of some perverse desire to have Endymion owing him his life. Those were understandable, easy motivations to deal with, he wouldn't have felt this bad if he was driven by desires such as those.
No, he was driven by something far worse. A desire to help Sailor Mars. A thrice-damned desire to help his most frequent enemy! Someone who had more than once roasted the skin from his flesh! A woman that he had once sent into a three month healing sleep from the amount of damage he had done to her! They were blood enemies, the only thing he should be helping her to was her grave!
But still... the girl was hurting. She was alone and discarded and hurting and there would be no way in all the hells that the stubborn bitch would ever show it.
Perhaps it simply came down to this: it was no fun kicking someone when they were down. The idea was to help them up and then kick them again.
Or maybe he was hoping that Sailor Mars would beat the living hell out of Endymion for dumping her when next she saw him. He'd pay a year's worth of good energy to see something like that.
Besides, what if... wait a moment. For a pitch-dark corner of a room it's certainly getting bright. And why is my crystal growling!?
He looked down, to see that his crystal was glowing a shade of green that he couldn't help but think of as 'angry'. And the glow was, he noted, rapidly brightening.
"You absolute idiot," he calmly said to the crystal as every youma in the throneroom turned to look at him.
He stared at the crystal for a moment before he turned his gaze to the youma queen. His face had settled into a sort of fascinated understanding, and when he spoke his voice was tinged with surprise. "It hates you. It actually really, really hates you. It doesn't hate anything, not besides the ginzuisho. It doesn't even hate Serenity. But it hates you. It loathes you.
This... oh this is fascinating."
"Who do you think you are?" Beryl's words grated through clenched teeth. A spy, an actual gutter-worm spy! Only the Senshi would dare to try and oppose her in this way.
The youma, hearing the tone of their queen's voice, and having at least some survival instincts, started to shuffle away, leaving a clear path between the intruder and their leader.
"Would you quiet down, you idiot!" the man whispered to his still glowing crystal. The crystal blinked once, twice, and then faded back to its normal dull sheen in a way that could almost be called embarrassed.
"Who am I?" the man continued after the crystal quieted down. Even without its glow, there were now still no shadows anywhere near him, he noted as his eyes flicked between avenues of escape, and the youma. Just his luck, he needed the shadows to teleport, and one of the youma must have used its powers to light the area. The bastards didn't deserve to get this lucky in limiting his retreat options.
"I... am Bauxite. During the Silver Millennium I served under General Jadeite. Sadly, I died when the Senshi did, but fortune allowed me to reincarnate, much as they have. Recently I recalled my true destiny, and came to offer my humble services to you."
"Bauxite eh?"
He nodded.
Beryl raised her hand and unleashed a power blast at him. "I don't believe you."
The blast slammed into a hastily erected shield. If he hadn't already been leaning against the wall, he would have been knocked off his feet by the force of the blast. "Pity," Emerald noted after the blast petered out. "Whatever happened to exploitable naivety?"
"So you have some power," Beryl mused, not particularly impressed. She couldn't help but stare at the crystal hanging at his neck. There was something about that rock that nagged at her time-eroded memory.
"Power enough to know better than this." He glanced down at his crystal, and hissed "No, we're not going to try and kill her." He paused for a moment. "I don't care that you're willing to help, she's the most likely to bring Serenity out of hiding. If you're so eager to help for once, help get me out of here. If you want to kill Ms Bad Hair Day so badly, we'll do it, but when we're in a more advantageous situation."
"Oh 'Bauxite'?" Bauxite indeed. Beryl remembered Bauxite, the silly little toad was one of the ones who got roasted by that Sailor V girl. Attending to gutter-vermin like this lying little spy should be a youma's job. Still, she mused, by spying in her throneroom this man had made a direct challenge to her power. Ignoring her as he talked to a gem was just an added insult. It was best that she kill him in order to set the right example for her troops.
He looked up from his crystal. "Yes?"
"Goodbye," she noted, bored, as she brought both her hands up. This time, she was ready for an energy shield.
He smiled as the crystal began to steadily glow. "Goodbye," he agreed as he faded out of view, the crystal overcoming his own teleportation limitations.
Queen Beryl blinked. She blinked again, muttered "Coward," and then turned to the horde that surrounded her throne. A coward and a spy. Perhaps this wasn't worth her personal time after all. "That crystal. I want it. Now. And I don't want the man carrying it."
-#-
People often wonder just how powerful my crystal is, and why if it has power, does it not aid me more often? Is it at all intelligent, or am I merely so far gone into loneliness that I feel I must talk to a green rock?
The answer, simply, is
- This is where the note (which was found stuck in a book on philosophy in the main Crystal Tokyo library) cuts off. Found by an observant librarian in 2719, the note was obviously put there to be found.
-- The taunting bastard. As a sidenote, no journal entry has ever been found that does more than hint at his crystal's abilities, origin and intelligence. It's the one card he has constantly kept close to his chest.
-#-
Usagi lay on her bed, her eyes still red from crying. On her nightstand, the opened star locket played its mournful tune.
It was funny, it hadn't seemed mournful until Tuxedo Kamen had been kidnapped. But now, with him corrupted by the Dark Kingdom, she couldn't help but think how much she missed the days when that music hadn't knotted her up inside.
She raised herself to her elbows. No! No, that wasn't the way to think.
They'd get Tuxedo Kamen back. He was still a good man, she was sure of it.
He just forgotten or something; he'd been made to forget.
He'd come back to her, and they'd listen to their locket together, and he'd smile at her...
She smiled, lying back on the bed as she fought against the despair with dreams and hope.
Kunzite was not happy. Dark Kingdom politics had never been a weak youma's game, even Beryl had at least some reason to fear usurpation. But this... this was intolerable! Out of nowhere, Beryl had decided to make one of their enemies into her lovetoy; a lovetoy that might very well topple him from his once nigh-unassailable point as the second most powerful under Metallia's direction.
Within only a couple of days of Endymion's awakening into Dark servitude, the signs had already become clear. Kunzite's supports of power were being driven out from beneath him by the puppet upstart. If he didn't do something soon, then with Endymion having the queen's ear, he might find himself joining Jadeite in eternal imprisonment. He needed a victory, a public sign that the failure of the other generals in no way meant that he would be a failure too.
The general looked at the youma scurrying around. Three days now and they'd still not found the intruder. It was all obviously a waste of time, if the spy could get in he could get out; he must be safely back on Earth by now. These overeager drones would never find him.
But he knew something that the beasts around him didn't. After every one of Zoicite's Earth trips, while he lay in Kunzite's arms in their bed, he had always whined about the hardships he had faced. Being swarmed by rats in a sewer, having this Senshi or that ruin his plans, he went on and on about his 'horrible days'.
At the time Kunzite hadn't been sure why he'd put up with it all. But now. ah, now he missed Zoicite's whingeing and ranting. Especially the ones about a man with non-human eyes, a man who possessed a green crystal, a man that had seemed to enjoy going out of his way to annoy the third general, and to...
Ah yes. And to talk to the Senshi known as Mars. Zoicite, despite the appalling flaws that led to his death, was a man of intelligence. He had seen through Nephrite's traitorous acts long before anyone else. One last time, Kunzite thought, one last time you were able to aid my plans, my Zoicite. How had he put it?
'I'd like to rip Sailor Mars open before him, just to know that behind that stupid hood and goggles there wasn't some kind of arrogant smirk...'
Perhaps this was one wish of Zoicite's that could come true.
Marachus was, like most Dark Kingdom youma, an upwardly mobile sort. Promotion was good, unless it brought you directly to the attention of Queen Beryl. Nobody wanted to be a general these days, for example.
But chances for promotion were achingly rare; all the youma jumped at the chance to go to Earth because if they weren't killed, it was one of the few ways to rise on the rungs of success.
Capturing this spy was another way. Competition was fierce, especially since each youma had limited time with which to hunt - Beryl had directed that the search was not to interfere with preparations for the impending invasion of Earth.
Marachus, quite frankly, would have given anything to be the one to find the infiltrator.
Or so he had thought until a moment ago.
Emerald smiled, keeping the youma's arms entrapped with one arm as he kept his other hand around the creature's throat. To say that this was not the first time he had been chased would be like saying that lukewarm water was sometimes wet. He had laid low for a couple of days, to ensure that the youma weren't quite as fervent in trying to find him. He'd even avoided teleporting, on the very small chance that they could trace it, but he couldn't really afford to waste any more time.
"Telling me about how I can never win and all such boring humus would not be a life-extending manoeuvre," he noted. "You get to live, if you get to talking. It occurs to me that Endymion is not the only thing I may find here. A library, a loremaster, an elder with passed-down knowledge; there must be some of such callings here, if only to teach whatever young your people have. Wrack your brain, my new friend, and tell me where any of these might be found."
He brought the creature closer, never losing the lock he kept on its arms. "Talking sooner is healthier," he suggested, as his eyes stared into the youma's.
"My queen," Kunzite began with the usual faux-respect that Beryl seemed to be unable to live without, "I have come up with a plan that will advance our attempts to retrieve the ginzuisho." He resisted the urge to grimace. Getting the queen's permission to do anything these days seemed impossible unless it dealt with the Senshi or the Imperium Crystal.
"I do hope it's better than your last plan Kunzite," Prince Endymion murmured as he leaned against a nearby pillar. "I'd just hate to see you fail miserably, it's embarrassing for all of us."
"Oh, it's simple enough for even you to understand Endymion." Kunzite glared at his rival. "Divide and conquer."
"Explain," Beryl interrupted, leaning forward ever-so-slightly.
"The Senshi's strength lie in their teamwork. Simply, we split one of their number from their main force and capture her. If the girls do not give us the ginzuisho as ransom, then we simply kill the girl, thus reducing their strength. Either way we win."
"And you had a specific target in mind?" Endymion smiled. "You do realise that the others will probably protect Sailor Moon with their lives, making your gambit pointless."
"I wasn't thinking of targeting Sailor Moon," Kunzite returned the smile, wishing seven kinds of painful death on the Earth prince. "No, they'd expect their leader to be the target of our attacks. I was thinking of another. Sailor Mars." Two birds with one stone, was that not the quaint little saying?
Emerald looked at the fragile, ancient scrolls that sat in small alcoves along the caveside. He was almost disappointed, it appeared that the youma he had spent time having such a lovely chat with didn't set him up for an ambush. Well, perhaps his informer would appreciate that there was value in telling the truth when it woke from the blow he had given it. If it ever woke up.
"Is anyone here?" he called, more to be polite than to actually find out if the large cave was occupied. His aura senses had told him that long before his eyes or ears could.
"Ah, yet another eager seeker of knowledge, no doubt to help destroy our foes. Or did you think this was the way to the mess hall like the last one?"
He looked down at the wizened, red-furred youma that shuffled to a stop before him. From the little he had seen, from the legend of this place he had read in the future, the youma were a soldier race; an army exiled. But then, this legend had been from Crystal 'Slap-of-Whitewash' Tokyo. Every army had its cooks, its advisors, its hangers-on. And most armies made during a magical time - such as in the future - tended to have a loremaster or two. After all, when you faced magic in a battle, who knew when you'd need an obscure piece of knowledge? It seemed that a similar practice had been adopted when the Silver Millennium was supreme.
"Loremaster," Emerald bowed very slightly, "I am in sore need of your aid. I need to know of the time of the so-called 'Silver Millennium'."
"The Silver Millennium?"
Emerald nodded.
"You're sure you don't want to know how to focus your power into a beam of death-dealing energy?" the loremaster asked, putting a timbre in his voice which indicated that death-dealing energy was a lot more interesting.
"I know how to do that already."
"Perhaps some lore on how to instill gibbering fear in your enemies?"
"No."
"What sort of youma are you anyway?" the youma asked, suspicious. If this was the youma youth of the day, it made him glad that he rarely left his sanctum. No death-dealing energy? Really! He considered switching to speaking the Dark Kingdom language, just to remind this young upstart of his roots.
"The sort who will quite gladly crush everything breakable in your body, leaving your windpipe until last so that you can still scream out your enduring agony; if you don't stop stalling." Emerald lied. Sometimes the best threat was the most graphic, and when dealing with youma it was best to threaten a lot, lest you lose their respect. "Tell me what I truly want to know 'elder', or I'll show you just how much lore on pain-giving there really is."
The loremaster smiled. It appeared he was mistaken, the boy showed promise after all. It raised his hopes for the future if there were still young youma like this one around. Ruthless, yet with a proper desire to know exactly what had brought them to this desolate land. "Very well. What do you want to know about the Millennium?"
Emerald smiled back. "Tell me, what was the relationship between Serenity and the Senshi?"
"...finally, with his very dying breaths, the spacesword still lodged in his torso, the great soothsayer Bunbou didst slay the Senshi's leader, the warrior Venus. A great sadness didst ripple through yon righteous masses to see the last of the seven great demons fall. But the grief was mixed with emotions most glad, for their sacrifice had bought us the deaths of all of the Senshi from the inner planets."
Emerald fought the urge to yawn. It was always nice to see that Crystal Tokyo didn't have a monopoly on ill-balanced propaganda. He hesitated as the loremaster's speech settled into his brain.
"Wait a moment."
The youma stopped his rather graphic description of the sacking of the Moon's capital, looking up from the crinkled scroll that he had been reading from. "Yes?"
"All of the inner Senshi? What about Sailor Moon?"
The loremaster scanned through the scroll. "I see no mention of a Sailor Moon in the chronicles of our glorious victory," he admitted after a few minutes.
"None?"
"No. I never pay much attention to individual characters, personally, they
all die just as well at the end of a blade. Do you believe that this 'Moon'
should be mentioned?"
"I don't know... there are a great deal of potential paranormals at this time. But... why would the others follow someone who was not reincarnated like them? It doesn't make sense. I... Military documents; spy reports, evaluations on Senshi strength, that sort of thing! There must be those sort of records here!"
"Some."
"Then please search them. I want to know how Sailor Moon met her end if it wasn't in this 'final fight' thing on the moon."
"Nothing? Not one mention? How can there be nothing!?" He slammed his fist down on the gnarled, blackened wood of the loremaster's reading table before he turned away in frustration.
"This Sailor Moon must not have been an important power back then," the lore-youma surmised. "It means nothing." The reading table collapsed, the damage from Emerald's blow finally catching up with it.
Emerald folded his left arm across his chest, resting his other elbow on it so that his right fist rested against his lower lip. "Nothing? I can't afford to be that dismissive. There's something very wrong here."
After a few minutes of musing he shook his head, moved his arms to his side, and turned to the youma. "You've been most helpful."
The youma waved an arm. "I be no fool. As humanic as you are, you're obviously one of the general's get. Why, without those eyes you could probably walk through an Earth village with no need for glamour at all. By helping you, I'm sure I'm helping myself. Correct?"
"Yes, I suppose. It would also be of great aid to me if you could supply me with a map or two of this place. I have... lived in seclusion until recently, gathering my powers so that I could lend what glory I could to our common cause." Now, if he was really lucky he'd be able to get his hands on a map that would give details on Beryl's castle. That would make it easier to find Endymion now that the he'd given some time for the hunt for him to diminish.
"Map? We've never had any real need to put the maps to vellum. A few years in the wilderness of the Kingdom teaches you as much as any map ever could."
He fought the urge to sigh. Ah well. "Then just a verbal description of anything you feel important will do. Beryl's castle, for example."
-#-
Sailor Mercury could, given a short bit of time, bring an arctic winter to the Sahara. Jupiter could have powered the pre-Ice Tokyo grids with her electricity. Mars can call a firestorm that could easily blanket Crystal Tokyo. Venus rivals... even exceeds the ancient killer satellites with her laser strikes. My own powers and abilities can and have matched theirs, one-on-one. Pluto, for mercy's sake, can manipulate time itself! And Serenity is beyond us all. We are power.
So what?
Really, so what? Why does it always have to come down to power? How does having wings and an annoyingly powerful crystal make one fit for rulership? How does curious tricks with electricity and plants, along with a... brash. attitude make one the bodyguard of a 'queen', and leader of an entire Royal Guard of paranormals? How does one transfer being able to throw roses, and having a snappy tailor, into being a king? How, HOW could any one person be entrusted with time itself?
Does a small green crystal and a few... bad experiences make me any saviour of the world? Hells no. I couldn't save my friends, let alone the world. And yet I still try...
We are so arrogant. Oh so very arrogant. And as others age, and whither, and die, we are the ones who live, who continue, who swagger through our immortal lives.
Sometimes, I have to wonder what a world without all these powers would be like. Mundane? Of course. But would such mundanity be a very bad thing? Certainly, it's all very nice and all to be able to crush steel between one's fingers like so much soft butter. Teleportation definitely beats having to walk. Who wouldn't want to come back from wounds that would kill a normal person? But in the end, what has all this power and energy given to the world?
Pain. Arrogance. Fear. Intermittent struggles between this power and that. The emptiness of soul and spirit that is Crystal Tokyo. And, thanks to several cases of immortality, a promise that things may never change.
In my youth, I dreamed dreams of power. But now, I find that I dream of a life most ordinary, for all the world's people. I wonder, if these dreams were fulfilled, would they leave the same bittersweet taste that the ones of my youth did?
- Words taken down directly from Emerald himself in the year 2678. The woman who scribed the words was an elder for her town, which is situated approximately 200 kilometres northwest of the pre-Ice city of New York.
-#-
He couldn't help but be fascinated. Before him lay crystal after crystal, within each someone or something was entrapped. The crystals were scattered across the dead sands of a small desert, like seashells on a beach after a storm. When the loremaster had mentioned this in his rambling description of the Dark Kingdom's landscape, Emerald couldn't help but visit.
As far as object lessons went, it seemed a little extreme. Each and every power-grasper had their own little way of keeping the faithful in line. Serenity had her mass-brainwashes, many of the others such as The Wizards Five just killed a follower if they failed, and Beryl, apparently, had this.
Eternal Sleep, the youma archivist had called it. The most feared punishment a Dark Kingdom resident could ever have the misfortune to suffer. At least being given to Metallia as an energy-sacrifice had some sense of honour about it, and didn't involve forever torment.
He peered through the near-opaque surface of one of the crystals, seeing the same expression on the trapped creature's face as every other beast here. Horror.
"Just like the Ice," he breathed, troubled. He looked around, slowly walking from one crystal to another. Who knows why some of these creatures were imprisoned here. Dissidents? Ones too powerless to be of use, put here as warnings to grow strong? Creatures too berserk or dangerous to trust?
Who cares? "You'll all be free. All of you," he promised. After walking past another four crystal traps, he stopped, turned, and walked back to the gem he had just passed.
"Starting with you," Emerald noted as he stared into the face of Jadeite, first of the four generals.
Jadeite, lowest of the four Generals of the Dark Kingdom (and the way Beryl was going through them, soon to be only general) was screaming. It was a rather pointless scream - no-one, after all, could hear it; not even himself. But then, perhaps that was the point in itself, perhaps he was trying to be so loud that it could pierce this immobilisation, pierce through this crystal into the outside world.
Perhaps the worst of it for him, however, was that Beryl believed in a Dark Kingdom saying: 'What was the point of punishment, if it was not punishment indeed?' As she had entrapped him, she had removed the dark taint of Metallia's energy from his soul.
Just as he was entrapped forever, he became truly free.
Jadeite was, for the first time in ages, truly himself again. And he remembered it all: his betrayal of his vows, of his sworn prince, and of his love - his princess of fire, Mars. He remembered the last days of the Silver Millenium, the look on Endymion's face, and he remembered the betrayal in Mars's eyes.
And he screamed.
Emerald considered the puzzle before him. "Amazingly complex, is it not my friend?" he asked his crystal. He cocked his head, before he said "Yes, well, just because Beryl made it doesn't mean I can't appreciate it. And would you please forget about this fascinating hatred you have for a moment? I need your help."
He hesitated for a moment, before he added "Say, if you loathe Beryl, why didn't you mention it before I 'ported into her throneroom?" After a few seconds, he shook his head. "Didn't recognise her until you saw her aura? Oh, all right. Just don't put me in situations like that, would you?"
"And to think I thought Jade boy here got killed by the Senshi. Perhaps I sorely misjudged the man, if he ended up imprisoned in this." He paused for a moment, considering. "But then again, I recall that he was using ridiculous amounts of energy in that last fight. Perhaps he knew that this was his fate if he failed; perhaps he had nothing to lose in using all the energy he had. Perhaps desperation clouded his judgement."
He scratched his neck. "Then again, perhaps he really was just an idiot." The man looked down at his necklaced crystal, and smiled as he wiped his hands against his grimy shirt. "Why don't we ask him?"
He ran his hands over the imprisonment crystal, his face a mask of concentration. "Well, it would take someone without a special affinity for crystals years to break this. And since I don't see Serenity around..." He pushed against the prison crystal, his hands sinking in as if the mineral was a liquid.
After a half-minute, he started pulling his hands out again. They moved through the gem silently, not even making a sound as they left the crystal, slowly pulling Jadeite out with it. He improved his grip on Jadeite's shoulders, and then fully pulled the general free, leaving the imprisonment gem whole, undamaged, and empty. Emerald lay the man on the ground, and then stood, looking at his semi-enemy.
He grinned as Jadeite pulled in a huge, shuddering breath. "The amount of people who know crystals like me could be counted on one hand," he told the general. "Serenity is the only other one who could have done that for you, you know." After a second, he looked down at his own crystal and said "Yes, yes. You helped too. Don't be petty."
Jadeite let out his first breath in months, and then he screamed.
And kept screaming.
"Jadeite? Jadeite?" Emerald looked down at the screaming man. He knelt, and looked into the general's eyes. After a moment, he sighed, reached forward, and snapped Jadeite's neck.
"You're free now," Emerald whispered, looking down at the corpse. "No second chances for you, I guess. And in a way, the Ice claims another..."
He stood, and looked at the other crystals. No, this was far worse than the Ice, if Jadeite had been that far gone in only a couple of months. He had a promise to keep; they would all be free.
And once that was complete, there was a matter of a nagging little question involving Sailor Moon. And he still had to start that twenty-four surveillance of the Senshi.
Emerald looked at the crystals. There were hundreds of them; clearly Beryl had not been the most forgiving of leaders. This would take a short while.
And who knows? Perhaps some of them would still be sane. "Perhaps," he noted to himself, "but probably not."
She was in real trouble, she just knew it.
Sailor Mars dodged the youma's swing, scrambling away from the monster as she reached for an ofuda. Her fire attacks hadn't done more than singed the fur of this beast; it had proven to be highly fire resistant.
Almost as if it had been picked just for her.
She couldn't believe it, she'd been deliberately tricked into this fight. Kunzite had attacked three places in quick succession, waiting to see which Senshi came first. When it had been her, he had unleashed this thing on her and left to delay the others.
She brought the spirit ward out, brandishing it in her right hand as she began her prayer. "Rin... pou... aahhh!"
The youma grinned as she started to crush Sailor Mars's ofuda-carrying hand. Kunzite had said alive, after all. He hadn't said anything about intact. "Pyrox!" she cried out, using her name as a battlecry. Just because it was good in a fight didn't mean it was a sparkling conversationalist.
Mars gritted her teeth as she tried to kick the youma away. Unfortunately, she didn't have the leverage she needed to do more than a couple of ineffectual taps. She tried stamping her heel onto the beast's foot, but it just skittered the appendage out of the way.
Her vision was starting to blacken at the edges as she fought the pain. She focussed on her hand, trying to concentrate on keeping conscious. Her bones felt like they were going to give any second.
And then the pressure was gone. Sweetest mercy, the pressure was gone! She looked up from her aching hand.
Emerald looked back. He was even dirtier than last time, she noted irrationally, as she saw that he was holding the youma back. The youma's crushing arm was, she noted almost absently, completely crushed.
"Release it from its suffering Sailor Mars." He seemed far more subdued than normal as he kept a low drain on the creature, to stop it from firing any sort of power weapon.
She nodded, brandishing the prayer strip in her uninjured hand.
"I have to get to the others," Mars pronounced as the youma's dusted remains blew away. She cradled her right hand as she looked in the direction that Kunzite had left in. "Kunzite said he'd be making sure they wouldn't be here to help me, they might need me."
"They'll be safe now that you've destroyed the youma. The Dark Kingdom general won't stick around now that his plan, whatever it was, has been disrupted." He looked at her. "Your hand?"
"It'll be fine. I'd still better--"
"Alright, I understand," he interrupted. "But before you go, could you honestly answer a question for me?"
She looked at the spot where the youma had fell. He had once said that he would only help if she truly needed it. Until now, she had half thought it was an excuse to keep out of fighting. Now... now she wasn't so sure. She really had been unfair to him for the longest time now...
"Okay. What's the question?"
"It's something I've been meaning to ask for a while." Emerald rubbed his neck for a moment before he continued. "It's Sailor Moon. I have to be honest, I don't remember her from the Silver Millennium. I wasn't going to say anything; I know she fights for our side, but it's eating away at me. Do you know why I can't remember her?"
She looked at him. He didn't know, he truly didn't. And he couldn't stand it. She tossed around the idea of not telling him, he deserved that. But he'd just grappled a seven foot tall youma just so that she could get the shot she needed. She'd trust any of her teammates, couldn't she trust him? Besides, the Dark Kingdom already knew who Sailor Moon had been in the Silver Millennium, if their recent ploys to trap Sailor Moon were any proof.
Sometimes, you just had to trust. Maybe it was time she did.
"Can't you figure it out? Sailor Moon is Princess Serenity. That's why you can't remember Sailor Moon from the past."
He stood there, frozen. "Sailor Moon?" he whispered, his face draining of colour.
Sailor Mars nodded.
"Serenity?" he breathed, barely audible.
She nodded again.
"You must be mistaken. Sailor Moon?"
"I know it's hard to believe. I mean, she's a clumsy, whining," Mars waved her hands, trying to find inspiration and finally failing, "odango-atama, but she is our moon princess." She looked at him, waiting for his response.
"Sailor Moon?"
"Yes!"
"Sailor Moon?"
"YES, SAILOR MOON! YES YOU IDIOT! SAILOR MOON!"
His left eye twitched once. Then it twitched again as his hands slowly curled into fists, and then uncurled again "You didn't have to tell me that," he noted. "Why did you tell me that?"
"Because you deserved to know, no matter how much you're ruining my life. And you saved my life. What sort of bad guy would do that?"
"...Yes. Yes, what sort? I... have to go now." His left eye twitched again, sweat beading on his forehead as he fought to stay in control.
"Are you okay?"
"I... am... ecstatic to find my... queen and feel a little overcome. That's all, dear Rei. Excuse me." He ran for the buildings, and the shadows they provided.
"Hmph. Rude as always. Didn't even acknowledge my thank you," Sailor Mars noted before turning to leave.
He teleported onto a plain in the Dark Kingdom, only a kilometre or two from Beryl's castle. His body was trembling violently, and green energy was beginning to arc like jade lightning around his tightly clenched fists.
"Six hundred and fifty years, not counting the Ice," the words hissed through clenched teeth.
A scattered group of youma, seven in all, edged towards this newcomer, curiosity on their faces.
"It could not, it cannot be... Mars must have lied. And yet... and yet..."
One of the youma finally realised something. If it looked human, it wasn't Kunzite or Endymion, then that meant... "The spy! Queen Beryl will reward us well for his death!"
"They actually played me like a fool for centuries...!"
A couple of the other youma silently cursed their loudmouthed 'friend'. They had hoped to get the spy alone, so that they could be the only ones to get the queen's reward. Now it would have to be shared between all of them.
The man seemed to notice his onlookers. It was typical, he went to the one place he could get to quickly where he could completely lose his temper without regrets, and this happens! He wasn't at all in the mood to be nice.
"You leave," he paused as his eyes started to glow as brightly as the energy arcing around his hands, "or you die."
It took the youma reinforcements five minutes to reach the area. When they got there, however, there was nothing left except the ashen remains of their brethren, and a few words carved... more like blasted into the ground.
The youma looked at the dust piles, and then at each other. For once, overconfidence wasn't enough. Right now, they were very, very glad that they hadn't reached here in time to meet the thing that had done this.
They looked at the blasted writing, one scratching her head. While Japanese had become the main language spoken in the Dark Kingdom, due to the long planned invasion, not that many of the youma had bothered to learn the written language. Finally they gave up, turning away from the words as they looked again at the dusted remains of their comrades.
'IT ENDS, SERENITY. IT ENDS.'