Usagi watched the papers and the news diligently for the next week, but nothing appeared. Even a few cursory glances of news websites didn't do her any good. With no leads, no weapon, no friends, and nothing to do, Usagi was getting restless.

"What should I be doing, Diana? I can't just be here to fight one little pile of goop!" she insisted, staring up at the ceiling. "Besides, even if that was all I was here for, wouldn't Mama or Papa have told me? Or at least sent me a message?"

"That does seem most likely," Diana agreed.

The strange guttural warning from the monster crossed Usagi's mind again: "More are coming…" It did disturb her a little.

"This can't be all!" she decided, sitting up, "There's some other reason I'm here! Or at least there's more to this threat that one creepy sludge-demon."

She stood triumphant for a moment before realizing she did not actually have any idea what she would do about this. She considered for a moment, before coming to the most reasonable conclusion:

"Come on, Diana! Let's go look for trouble!"

"Small Lady?" Diana asked, confused, as Usagi gathered her things.

"You have a neat sort of cat-sense, right? You should be able to sense stuff!"

"I suppose…"

"Then let's go!"

Out in the world, the sky was somewhat gloomy, but the princess of the future was undeterred. Perhaps, while she was out, she could even get a nice lunch (instant noodles were getting old). For variety's sake, she took the train a ways out of town to broaden her horizons. She made sure she wasn't heading toward any of the past soldier's turf. In this new area she did some window-shopping, careful to curb any pricey urges as she was without a paying job and wasn't really sure if she could send home for more money or not. Though she had yet to find any apparent threats, she did find a nice, cheap lunch out. Her order didn't come out quite right, but still, she could make do (it was her own fault anyway, most likely).

Reinvigorated, she had an hour or so left in her, meandering with Diana, who meowed cheerfully to passers-by. They found a nice park to sit in, but after only a few moments, the sky began to drip. They had been avoiding it all day, but the looming rain of this cloudy day had finally caught up to them. And, in her confidence, Usagi had not brought an umbrella. In fact, she considered, she may not have even packed an umbrella to begin with!

The walk back to the station was wet, her shoes growing increasingly soaked and her feet growing increasingly sore. She even managed to hit rush hour, and stand for the whole trip home among other commuters and their wet coats or umbrellas. Standing in the packed car, trying not to loose her balance, Usagi had a lot of time to lament the pain in her feet, and the dampness of all of her clothes, not to mention her heavy hair, and most painful of all the fruitlessness of her long day of wandering. Not a single monster, not a single clue, not a single nothing had come form her long, and increasingly unfortunate day.

Even as she managed to return to her dry apartment, she had barely five minutes of trying to dry off before the lights flickered, stopped for a few seconds, and went out.

"Oh come on," she whined almost involuntarily, standing half-dressed in a dark bathroom. She made a distraught noise as she tried to remember the layout of the apartment, but after only a week she was not well equipped to navigate the rooms in the dark. Even stepping into a room with windows wasn't much help, as the sun had all but set, and the thick clouds were no good for natural light.

"Small Lady?" Diana squeaked.

"Yeah?" Usagi responded, a bit more bite to her tone than was worth turning on the sweet cat.

"The power's gone out."

Usagi sighed.

"Uh-huh," she agreed, "it has." She moved forward, hands out-stretched in an effort to find furniture before she ran into it, and shuffled her way around the apartment, looking for some form of flashlight. The first thing she managed to find was her phone, lying on the coffee table, which she promptly stubbed her toe on. She used the phone's dim screen as a sort of light, but she knew the charge needed to be preserved. She checked as many cabinets as she could think to check, but found no flashlight. Defeated, she shuffled to her bed and curled up under the covers, trying to make up for her lack of real clothes. She massaged her sore toe, and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Twenty or thirty minutes into the blackout, her stomach growled sharply, reminding her that without power, there was no dinner.

"Are outages more common in old Tokyo?" Usagi asked.

Diana, somewhere else in the dark, replied,

"I do not know, Small Lady."

A clap of thunder shook the building, and Usagi cowered.

"I hate thunder," she muttered. A moment later she felt the warm, solid form of a cat curled up beside her. She pulled a hand from her pile of blankets to pet Diana, finding solace in having another living being nearby. After a few more minutes of waiting, Diana perked up, looked around a moment, and leapt lightly off the bed.

"Diana?" Usagi asked, "What is it?" she hoped the answer wasn't 'you smell' or something.

"I sense something."

"You do?" Usagi perked up. If they made some progress against the enemy, maybe today wasn't a total, painful loss.

"You should transform, and we'll go find it."

Another roll of thunder passed overhead and the sheets of rain outside the window seemed to get thicker.

"In this weather?!" Usagi asked.

Diana gave her a sharp look, all of the scant light in the room managing to reflect off her feline eyes. For a moment, Usagi could see how she was related to Luna.

"Ok!" she accepted, fumbling through the room for her jacket to retrieve the compact.

"Moon crisis, make-up!" she called, the magic washing over her.

However short the skirt of the sailor uniform, however revealing it might be on occasion, it was still warmer than her half-dressed state she'd managed before the power went out.

Diana and Usagi sprinted through the rain, in search of the mysterious whatever-it-was that Diana was sensing.

"There!" Diana shouted, coming around a corner before Usagi.

Usagi slid to a stop to find another strange, discolored humanoid, similar to the one from the streetlight. The creature, electric blue and yellow, for the most part, had its back to her, and its hand coiled up in power lines.

"Is it… syphoning power?" Usagi asked.

"I'm not sure," Diana admitted.

Usagi steeled her resolve and took a powerful stance,

"Hold it right there!" she barked, gaining the monster's attention, "I can't allow you to keep the nearby people from making their dinner or heating their homes! Pretty soldier in a sailor suit, Sailor Neo Moon is here! And in the name of the moon, past, present, and future I will make you pay!"

The creature turned to face her and cocked its head in interest.

"Energy?" it gurgled, its solid-colored eyes fixed on her.

"Huh?"

The monster didn't wait for a response. Its free hand stretched out, forming sparking cords. Neo Moon tried to dodge, but was only half-successful. A sharp crack rent the air as the charged wires made contact. She tumbled to the ground unharmed, but her bare hand hit the asphalt.

Neo Moon stared at her right hand: her glove was gone! So, for that matter, was her right boot; she had only her day-to-day shoe on that foot. Then the light hit her compact and caught her eye.

The compact was cracked right down the middle.

"Oh no," she breathed, but she didn't have long to worry about it. The cords whipped toward her again and Neo Moon ran.

"Small Lady! You must fight!" Diana insisted, racing along beside her.

"I can't!" Usagi replied, "The compact is broken!"

"You can't let that stop you!"

Usagi took a deep breath.

"Ok." She pulled to a stop, facing the monster, prepared to fight.

The monster smacked her right across the middle, knocking her to the ground.

Usagi groaned in pain. She couldn't do this. This creature wasn't even particularly powerful, but here she was, lying on the ground, with no weapon and a broken compact. She was almost resigned to whatever the charged wires flying towards her face would do to her, when the monster's arm was hit and forced away from her. Her attention shot to whatever had hit the monster, and she found a white rose stuck into the ground. Hope leapt in her chest as she turned to the owner of the projectile. Could it be-?

No. She did not find Tuxedo Mask perched atop a nearby wall, but, in his place, stood a young man clad in white, a golden mask over his eyes. He stared her down from behind the mask, and she knew what she needed to do. The monster was still glowering at the man in white when she leapt to her feet.

"Moon tiara action!" she shouted into the night, hurling the golden disk at her enemy and catching it off-guard. The monster was sliced through and dispersed into wiggling electrical wires, which, in turn, dissolved away into nothing.

She turned back to where the stranger in white had been, but he was gone. And it was still raining. And her compact was broken. And she mismatched shoes and a handful of cuts and bruises. She let her legs fold under her and sat on the concrete street for a moment, head hung low.

"What am I doing, Diana?" she asked rhetorically.

"Small Lady, look!" Diana chirped, placing a gentle paw on her knee.

Usagi followed the cat's gaze to find windows beginning to glow a warm yellow again, the streetlights on their abandoned street coming on one by one. The world hummed back into electrical life. Usagi picked up her cat and started towards home.

Later, dressed in warm, dry, pajamas and sipping broth out of a styrofoam cup while watching the news, Usagi would begin to tune out, and wonder if she was really up for this task.