A.N.: I'm overwhelmed by the compliments I received after the last chapter. Y'all are amazing! I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Well, this isn't going to be the most exciting of chapters, but I promise that more action will be coming in the future.

I do need a beta for this fic, though. Anybody stupid enough to volunteer? Or, I should ask, are any of my other long-suffering betas willing to take on more?

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Chapter Two: Die, Malachite, Die!

"He's back," Mina told them, voice whisper thin and twice as faint. "Malachite is back."

The last hour had been pure chaos. Once the shock had eased enough for the senshi to start thinking coherently again, they'd done what they always did when faced with a problem of this magnitude: they'd started arguing.

Lita and Raye had immediately voted to hunt down the Malachite-look-alike, unleash their combined might on him before he even knew they were coming, and essentially blow him to Kingdom Come. They'd rounded on Amy, insisting that she use her senshi's computer to locate their resurrected villain, and then almost blown Amy to Kingdom Come when she'd refused.

"We don't know enough!" Amy had cried out as she dodged the strikes of the two most violent senshi. "What are his plans? Who will he be attacking next? What if he's not working alone?" She'd stopped running long enough to glare at them for missing what was so obvious to her. "Don't you want to know what he's doing back, or how he's even alive? You can go off and kill him if you like, but how do we know he won't just come back?"

Neither Lita nor Raye had bothered to answer that. As far as they were concerned, the only good Malachite was a dead Malachite. They didn't really care if he'd suddenly discovered or been given the ability to bring himself back from the dead—if he came back after they'd killed him this time, they'd just kill him again.

And again, and again, and again, if that's what it took. Everybody needed a hobby, and they were fine with making kill-the-general theirs.

Serena had been arguing just as loudly as the others at first, siding against Raye out of habit alone. Still, about the time that Raye had started physically attacking the tiny genius, she'd finally decided to actually think on the matter. She watched in silence as Amy nimbly dodged her fellow warriors, her brow slowly wrinkling in thought. "Guys," she finally muttered, her voice so unhappy that the others finally stopped chasing Amy, "what if he's not evil?"

That certainly caught their attention, though it wasn't something that had occurred to them until now. Not evil? Difficult concept. In their eyes, if a man had spent a few centuries working for a psychotic witch bent on taking over the world, he was automatically proclaimed evil for the rest of eternity. And if he was evil, he should be killed as soon—or as painfully, if they were in that kind of mood at the time—as possible. Why complicate the matter by trying to prove him otherwise?

The senshi liked to keep things simple…or maybe they just liked taking their anger out on the bad guys, and they were loathe to classify Malachite as anything else if it meant they couldn't beat on him. Whichever it might be, Malachite was going to stay evil in their minds, and that was all there was to it.

And yet, Serena was still their princess. They could at least consider her idea, couldn't they? Didn't they respect her at least enough for that?

Raye didn't. "Only you," she muttered, rolling her eyes at her blonde friend, "would try to find some good in a schmuck like Malachite." She waved a dismissive hand in Serena's direction. "I still say we go with the 'Die, Malachite, die!' plan. It's easier."

Lita nodded in agreement, though her eyes had sharpened a little as she considered this new idea. She certainly gave it more thought than Raye had, even if that wasn't saying much. After only a second or two, she shook her head. "This is Malachite we're talking about," she finally said. "Of course he's evil."

Serena still looked thoughtful, which was scary enough in itself. "Right," she muttered, sounding completely unsure. "But what if he isn't?"

Raye snorted. "All right," she snapped, "if you're so bent on this, we'll give you a chance to prove your theory. What makes you think Malachite could possibly be good, especially after all he's done?"

Serena shrugged, though she still looked unhappy. "Anybody can change, Raye," she answered quietly, "no matter how bad they seem. Look at Nephrite, or Diamond. They were good in the end."

"Doesn't count," Raye instantly retorted. "Both of them changed for a girl. For love. Malachite will never have that kind of motivation, because no girl could ever love him."

"Zoicite did," Serena commented absently.

They stared at her.

"You say that like it should count in his favor," Lita muttered incredulously. "You've met Zoicite; you should know better." She paused, considered. "Actually," she added, "I think that counts as two points against him, just because it was Zoicite. That girl was such a b—" She caught herself, cut off the word. She'd made a New Year's resolution to stop swearing, and with the next New Year's coming up in just a matter of months, she knew she probably ought to get started on that.

Amy was still thinking, her own eyes shadowed in thought. "No," she finally said, breaking the silence that had fallen over them. "Serena may have a point. Not about Zoicite," she hastened to add, "but about Malachite not necessarily being evil." She pursed her lips, tried to find the right words. "We know that the generals were once on Darien—Endymion's—side, right? They were his advisors, his friends. They must have been good at some point, or Darien wouldn't have put so much trust in them."

"Or maybe they were just pretending," Lita broke in. "You know—double agents or whatever. Maybe they just tricked Darien into thinking they were good."

Serena turned to glare at the taller senshi. "Darien's not an idiot," she broke in hotly. "He'd have known if they were lying to him."

Lita's turn to roll her eyes. "Right," she muttered. "Silly me. We all know Darien is perfect."

Serena actually smiled. "Yes," she smugly shot back, "he is."

Group eye roll, at that.

Amy gave a discreet cough, bringing their attention back to more important things. "Whether or not Darien is perfect," she suddenly tossed out, "we all know that he's a good man." She fell silent, losing herself in her own thoughts.

They looked at her, waiting.

She caught their looks, blushed and started again. "My point is, Darien once served Beryl, too, didn't he? He's good as they come, but he still fought against us."

Serena was looking indignant again. "That wasn't his fault. He was brainwashed!"

Amy nodded. "Exactly. Beryl brainwashed him. And if she brainwashed him, couldn't she have brainwashed his generals?"

Raye was frowning. "Darien never really tried to hurt us," she pointed out. "He even tried to help us a couple of times. He fought the brainwashing. The generals…didn't." She paused, scowled. "Jedeite tried to run us over with a plane, remember?"

That had been years ago, she'd faced infinitely worse, but she was still mad about the plane. She'd never bothered to give a reason for it, and the others had never asked. Raye held grudges, and they'd learned to leave it at that.

Amy wasn't about to give up. "Yes, but how long was Darien under her control? A few weeks?"

They nodded, though it had seemed so much longer.

"And how long did she have the generals? Centuries?" She cocked an eyebrow at them, her expression suddenly flinty. "Don't you think the job Beryl did on the generals was a little more thorough than the one she'd done on Darien? Of course they couldn't fight it like Darien did!"

Lita looked confused. "So, what you're saying is that you don't want to kill him? Just on the off chance that he's not such a bad guy?"

Amy nodded, though she'd become hesitant once again. "I just want to know more about him," she answered softly. "Is that so much to ask?"

"Yes." Raye's voice had become harsh. Whatever she'd thought of Amy's argument, she obviously wasn't buying it. "How will you feel if he starts killing people while we're trying to figure him out? What will you do then?"

Amy opened her mouth to answer, sighed and instead said nothing.

And, from across the room, providing the answer Amy couldn't, Mina spoke for the first time since all of this had started. "We'll deal with it," their blonde leader said quietly. "It's a risk, but we can't stay what we are and not take it."

They'd all turned to stare at Mina, only now remembering that she was even with them. She hadn't moved from the place where she'd fallen an hour ago, had simply tucked her legs under her slight body and crossed her arms over her chest, never said a word the entire time they'd been arguing. She'd been so silent and so still that they'd completely forgotten her, and that stunned them, a little. Mina had never made her position as leader too obvious, but it wasn't like her to pull herself into the background, either.

And it certainly wasn't like her to hold back. She would usually have been the first to attack…what had changed?

Mina looked them each in the eye, her own impassive. If she caught their surprise, she didn't react to it. "My vote is with Amy."

Mina's face didn't change as her entire team gaped at her, but she didn't seem as uncomfortable with their stares as Amy had. "Look," she started, voice quiet but still full of authority, "I want to kill him as much as you do—maybe even more—but we can't. What if Amy's right, and he was just brainwashed? Now that Beryl is gone for good, he might be free of that." She shook her head, though the movement seemed almost regretful. "We don't kill innocents."

Lita didn't look convinced. "What do you want us to do, then, Mina?"

The blonde shrugged. "We follow him, watch him, wait to see what he does. If he's evil, we'll know soon enough."

Raye was frowning, though for once she couldn't fault Mina's logic. "And if we find that he is? What then?"

Mina's lips twisted in a smile both very sudden and very cold. "Then we hunt him down and execute him," she answered easily. "Of course."

And that settled that.

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They'd decided to work in shifts. Mina hadn't wanted to be first, as she'd already had a memorable enough encounter with the man, and she didn't want to risk further exposure. "If he's innocent," she'd sensibly pointed out, "he'll have forgotten me in a few days, and then I can take my turn watching him. If he's evil…well, he'll be looking for me, and he'll be on his guard. Better wait."

Raye had volunteered to go first, her offer quickly followed by Lita's, but Mina had simply rolled her eyes and ordered Amy to take the first shift. The blonde had ignored Raye's protests, tiredly reminded the priestess that Amy was the only one who could be trusted to just watch Malachite rather than immediately try to kill him.

Raye hadn't been pleased. "Is that supposed to be a good thing?"

It hadn't taken Amy long to find Malachite, and that was a surprise in itself. Mina had remembered his mortal name from the billboard, but they still hadn't expected to find much on him. The man wasn't human, after all, wasn't even from this century, and yet Amy was able to dig up more information on him than she could on any of the senshi. Within minutes, she had everything from his work place and home address to his social security number. She'd even found the name of his seventh grade teacher, and how could a man who'd grown to adulthood over a thousand years before even have a seventh grade teacher?

To all appearances, he seemed a normal enough man—they'd found a birth record, his college transcripts, a list of the bestsellers he'd written over the past few years, even a few fangirl-created websites. He was a little eccentric, by all reports—he stayed out of the public eye and absolutely refused to take advantage of his near-celebrity status—but that was all. He was a bit of a recluse, but as far as fronts went, his seemed decent enough.

Raye was the first to point out that none of that meant anything at all, and even Serena had to agree with her on that one. Professor Tomoe and Maxfield Stanton had been recluses, too, and they'd caused more than their share of problems.

Amy, of course, had been careful to keep the real details—addresses and such—from everyone but Mina. Raye and Lita were too bloodthirsty to be trusted with it just yet, and while Serena had been the first to speak in Malachite's favor, she was utterly incapable of keeping secrets. Only Mina was deemed worthy of knowing, though the blue-haired genius hadn't entirely trusted Mina, either. The blonde had been acting oddly ever since all of this had started; she'd been too calm, too emotionless, and it just wasn't like her to be this quiet. Still, Mina was the leader, and since she'd also voted to delay Malachite's execution, Amy hadn't felt that she should keep anything from her.

They'd arranged to put him under twenty-four hour surveillance, or as close to it as they could get. They still had classes to attend and shifts to work, after all, and until Lita or Raye could be trusted, they could only do so much. Artemis and Luna would take the longest shifts—they doubted that Malachite would notice a stray cat or two—and Serena had persuaded the Outer Senshi to pitch in when they could. It was the best they could do.

"I still liked the 'Die, Malachite' plan better," Raye muttered as the meeting finally ended and the others began dragging themselves back to their own homes. "It really would have been easier."

They were all too tired to offer a reply, and none of them noticed Mina's slight nod of agreement or the shadow that passed over her face as they left.

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Venus Smurf's Jokes of the Day:

Courtesy of Randa-Chan, who, I should mention, lives in Australia and deals with some major water restrictions. She saw this on a T-shirt:

"Save Water. Drink Beer."

Courtesy of Isis Aurora Tomoe:

"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe." (Albert Einstein)