It's that time again... time for another update... haha.

Again, there is more violence in this one, but it's been pretty tame, right? Nothing too serious? Nothing that'll give you nightmares, anyways. ;)

So, Takeuchi still hasn't called. I've pretty much given up on ever gaining the rights to Sailor Moon. :'(

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Joining up with the rest of the Sailor Team, once united, they performed a Sailor Teleport to the Satian moon. The Inner Senshi had just recently learned of the new power and the art of performing Sailor Teleports. It was scheduled for a later time in their training, but was moved up due to the delay of their arrival during the last battle on Uranus- a delay they could not afford to have again.

Once they arrived on Ymir, a fairly good-sized moon orbiting the planet Saturn, they found that King Saturn's troops, along with the King himself, were engaged in combat with the Dark Kingdom. Ymir was the farthest out from Saturn, but held the largest of their weapon-bases. It was rich in natural minerals needed for interplanetary trade, among other things. Most importantly, it was in a strategic location.

These new daimons were of a different breed than the ones they had fought on Uranus. They were slower, but tougher, and more grotesque, with sharper features and disproportioned bodies.

"Truly a nightmare," King Saturn huffed as he approached the newly-arrived senshi team. "We've no time to spare." With that, he returned to the melee.

"This is Saturn," Mars commented quietly. "Why isn't Hotaru here? Her training on battle combat has been completed."

"The King requested she stay put, regardless of that factor," Mercury replied.

"Could you imagine your daughter on the same battlefield as you?" Venus wondered out loud.

Nobody answered, but somehow their eyes fell upon Sailor Moon.

The senshi followed King Saturn's earlier command and wasted no time in helping the Satian ground forces combat their deadly opponents.

Also new to this battle were humanoid Dark Kingdom officials, much like the scout Uranus and Neptune had discovered earlier in the year, that acted as lieutenants, commanding small groups of daimons and providing direction in the form of hand gestures and shouts. They were quite skilled and faster than their daimon underlings, and seemed to possess some sort of power similar to the senshi's planetary powers, although it felt somehow wrong. After scanning it with her supercomputer, Mercury confirmed that it was dark energy, its source unknown, but seemingly unlimited.

Uranus found herself fighting next to the blonde-haired, sturdy king of Saturn, and several other tall, thin warriors dressed in dark, royal purple coats with silver armor. They were not unlike her Uranian fighters from home, but perhaps not as tall, and definitely not as fast. But despite combat not being their main focus, as with her fighters, she found herself impressed with the effectiveness of their fighting technique.

However impressed she was, though, did not make up for the loss of so many of her fighters from home. She broke away from the front lines and pushed forward, her speed being the key factor in her defeat of so many daimons.

Within minutes she spotted a transport bearing the royal symbol of Neptune on it. It streaked quickly across the blue-hazed sky and landed quite gracefully on the ground in a cloud of rocks kicked up from the whirling air. The hatch blew open, and charging loudly down the ramp came a cavalry of reinforcements wearing dark aqua uniforms and bearing Neptunian armor.

Quite surprised, the senshi wondered at this random supply of help from the planet Neptune.

"Hah! Perhaps the old ironhead has finally realized that if we lose this battle, it will only be a matter of time before his planet is next!" King Saturn laughed. Because of the speed and orbital plane, Neptune and Saturn were closer in orbit than they had been in a few thousand years.

Neptune blasted a daimon with her mirror. "My father," she exclaimed over the roar of battle to the other senshi. "Couldn't come to help us himself. Consider that his gift basket. At least his timing is good."

With the arrival of the small band of Neptunian warriors, Saturn's forces began to advance, gaining ground over the Dark Kingdom's daimons.

Uranus was lost in her own private world. She knew and saw nothing but a daimon's face before she hacked it down with her talisman. Revenge, now, was more important to her than victory, more important than life. Her only thought was to take as many of the daimons out with her.

Kayle's death would not go unavenged, she would swear it.

Neptune saw her partner plunge into the thick of the battle, once again outnumbered but seemingly holding her own this time since there was no energy-draining offense as there had been on the blonde's home planet. Still, she did not like being separated, and it seemed to her that Uranus was almost trying to die.

No, not trying to die. Determined.

Neptune began to fight her way over to her partner.

Uranus smiled as she tore through daimons again and again. It was almost a maniacal grin, but she knew she was sane- she could feel pain, she knew she was not invincible, she knew her time was coming.

'This battle is ours,' she thought. 'They won't need me, anyways…' She cut down another daimon. 'Neptune said I was hopeless… well, here's one less senshi for her to worry about.'

"Stand aside," a male voice commanded, and instantly the daimons surrounding Uranus parted to reveal a tall man with short, dark brown hair, and dressed in the gray and blue Dark Kingdom uniform. He unsheathed a pair of twin short swords, each about a foot and a half long.

"So, the senshi of Uranus thinks she can go head-to-head with the Dark Kingdom," he chuckled. "If you want to die so badly, I'm sure I can arrange to make your wish come true."

Uranus laughed boldly. "I'd like to see you try, filth," she spat. "Anything you can dish out, I'm prepared for."

"HA HA HA," he roared. "We'll see about that. HYAHH!" He leapt forward suddenly, his swords cocked and ready, but Uranus was too fast.

She could have easily evaded him with her superior speed, but instead, she brashly met him head-on, her sword making a loud CLANG as it connected with his two.

They fought gruelingly, neither of them putting forth any kind of sportsmanship. The brown-haired Dark Kingdom lieutenant was not trained in the art, and Uranus could care less at that point.

After a particularly jarring connection, the brown-haired man broke away, pulling back to quickly fire a blast of dark energy in Uranus's direction. The blonde dodged and returned a blast of her own golden planetary powers, and their swords once again met between them, Uranus's free hand alternating between planetary energy blasts and reinforcing her sword.

Finally, Uranus landed a somewhat fatal cut to the lieutenant- a spurt of red blood mixed with a slight neon green-colored fluid came from his chest. He staggered back in disbelief.

"How can this be?!" he demanded. Angrily, he gestured the earlier diamons to attack, which they did so eagerly.

Uranus was prepared for the daimons, but not for the coming blast of dark energy from the lieutenant's direction. She dodged and it hit the ground at her feet, but exploded into a spray of small embers, one of them touching her bare leg. Instantly she felt pain shoot through her entire body, becoming most intense at the sight of her previous shoulder wound.

"It was too much to hope that you'd been stabbed before," the lieutenant chuckled, a small trickle of the strange red and neon-green blood dripping from the corner of his mouth. "You fought well, but in the end, the Dark Kingdom will always prevail."

Uranus made an effort to fight the agony invading her body from the energy igniting all her nerve-endings. She struggled to her feet, brandishing her sword weakly. "Spare me your Dark Kingdom crap, it's not over yet," she coughed, her muscles shaking uncontrollably. She could barely keep her grip on her sword, her muscles were shaking so badly, the pain so intense.

"It is now," he said solemnly, raising his arm to hit her with another dark energy blast.

"Haruka!"

Just as he released the blast, Uranus felt herself being pushed violently to the ground. She heard a scream of anguish and as she landed hard, realized that Neptune had taken the hit for her and had landed painfully beside her, writhing uncontrollably.

"No!" she cried angrily. "Neptune…"

"Ha…ruka," the aqua-haired girl said through gritted teeth. Her blue eyes squeezed closed and she cried out again.

Uranus, all pain forgotten, slowly got to her feet. "Stop!" she commanded the lieutenant. She raised her sword threateningly. The lieutenant shrugged, indifferent.

"She shouldn't have gotten in the way," he said hoarsely.

"You're right," she said dangerously. "But now there's nothing in the way to stop me from killing you."

With one deft moment, she ran her sword through his chest, putting an end to him. She watched in satisfaction as he slid off of her talisman and fell to the ground, his body crumbling into the same black powder she had seen before, which melted into the puddle of green ooze, burning into the ground.

Quickly, the blonde turned to her fallen partner, who seemed to be recovering slowly. With the lieutenant dead, the dark energy's effects had begun to wear off, and Neptune tried to sit painfully up.

Uranus slid to her knees beside Neptune, taking the aqua-haired girl in her arms. "Neptune?"

Neptune lifted her head, her deep ocean blue eyes meeting Uranus's teal ones. She smiled weakly. "I'm okay," she said.

Uranus breathed a sigh of relief and quickly scanned Neptune's body for any sign of injury. She frowned and furrowed her eyebrows when she noticed a series of deep gashes running down Neptune's right side, arm, and thigh. She was not bleeding too severely, but she was, indeed, bleeding.

"You're wounded," Uranus stated, slightly down. "Why did you do it?" she demanded. "Why did you push me out of the way and take the hit for me? You could have been killed, or permanently injured."

"I-" Neptune turned away. "I care about you, Haruka."

"I care about you, too, Michiru, but…"

"No. I care about you… as more than a partner. More than a friend. I--" she cringed, her body shaking violently as the final effects of the dark energy began to wear off.

Uranus held her comfortingly, tenderly. Though a little taken aback by Neptune's confession, she did not have time to think about that now. She looked up and noticed that though there were still a few daimons here and there that were still fighting, most had dissolved, been cut down, or fled. The ground troops of Saturn were regrouping to conduct a clean-up and a further lunar scan, and the Neptunian cavalry had already gathered to assist them. Uranus noticed that while there were a number of Satian warriors lifelessly littering Ymir, there was not a single Neptunian warrior among them.

The senshi were approaching her.

"We have to get her back," Sailor Moon said as she noticed Neptune slipping into unconsciousness.

Uranus nodded and lifted Neptune in her arms.

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Wow- that's it? I'm sorry this chapter was so short. The next one is short, too, but after that they may or may not get longer. I dunno. I just wanted to break it up nicely. :)

So, with that being said- see ya next time. :D