Chapter 8

"Sailor Mercury! Get your but over here! We need you to assess this man's injuries!" Shouted Mars as she shielded a burned man with her body by standing in front of him.

The water senshi immediately was by his side and began to scan his injuries. "Sir, can you hear me?"

His breathing was ragged, but he opened his bright blue eyes, as blue as Sailor Venus. He grabbed his side and groaned. " Please be still, sir," requested Ami in her uniform, " Our healer will arrive in a few minutes."

He nodded, his black wool hat slipping off his head. Wavy locks of blond hair fell out of the hat, perhaps long enough to pull into a small ponytail to keep hair out of his face, but not longer than that. He could easily passed as Minako's sibling.

"What was that thing?" Asked the man.

Ami used her visor to look in the distance as both Venus and Mars were attacking the monster. Jupiter just ran to the scene and was generating as much electricity she could. Mercury prepared herself for a loud crash.

"You may want to cover your ears sir." When he did, Jupiter's attack made a fatal blow to the creature. Thunder crashed loudly and shook the area violently. The monster was already dust.

Sailor Mercury finally was able to see all the wounds the man sustained, and was quite surprised he still was alive. "Sir, did the monster attack you first?"

"Y-yes," he gritted out, "it stabbed my side just as your friend with the red skirt came to help."

Mercury was puzzled why a monster would come after a human like he. Usually they would try and enslave the humans, but not physically harm them.

"Did you fight the monster?" She asked.

"I had to, or it was going to kill an innocent person who was trying to run away.

"May I see?" She asked.

He allowed her, and she winced at the bruising when she pulled back the outer coat, inner coat, and dress shirt collar. Nasty bruising and a few bleeding puncture wounds were visible on his neck, chest, and stomach.

Not good.

Sailor Mars, Venus, and Jupiter came over to assist. They grimaced at the sight.

Mercury looked to Mars, "What did you see?"

"This crazy man was fighting that monster. It was an unfair advantage considering he had nothing to use as a weapon against the beast. But he held up rather well for someone with no training or past experience."

Mercury began typing in her computer seeing data flash up on the screen. "Sir, if I may have your name?"

"Jefferson...Jay." She nodded her head in acknowledgement and continued typing. "Mr. Jefferson, the process for your healing is simple. Sailor Moon will be arriving shortly with a crystal that will glow light. It's normal. She will use her power to bring healing to all your injuries. I promise, you will be feeling ten times better than you ever did."

"I'm here!" exclaimed Sailor Moon as she neared the injured man. She was already briefed via communicator on the situation and pulled out the crystal. The man closed his eyes surrendering to the healing taking place in his body.

Ami scanned the healing making sure there were no complications or surprises. She saw each of the wounds closing up rapidly with new fresh skin covering the gaping holes. Several minutes passed and the man was reawakened. He had fallen in some trance or dream her computer told her. As he came to, he looked up to all the women before sitting up and testing where he was injured. He glanced over to Sailor Moon and smiled, "Thank you Serenity."

All senshi froze at his comment. How did he know who she was?

" I see you made your permanent residence here on earth. Did you find Endymion?" He asked her as if they were old friends.

She nervously looked between her warriors and stammered, "How do you know who I am?"

He furrowed his brow, "You would sneak to earth to visit my master. Is he not here close by?"

"Uhhhh..."

Sailor Mercury could not believe her ears...wait was this...no it could not be. What was she thinking? This couldn't be Zach's business friend, right?

He looked at the water senshi, "Miss Ami right? Zachariah told me a lot about you. I don't think he had his memories about you yet though. I'm sure when he gets them back, he will marry you on the spot. You remember your marriage to him, don't you? How you both moved to a frozen part of the earth in the south to live in a land resembling Mercury?"

Mercury's eyes widened the size of saucers. She couldn't believe her ears. She was married to WHO?

He looked up to Venus, "Has my leader, Kunzite, come discuss strategies with you yet?"

Venus became alarmed looking at all of us with concern. 'Where was that name from? Was there something we were missing?' thought Mercury.

When he didn't get a reply from her he looked at Jupiter. "What about Nephrite? Has he come to discuss with you..." She gave a deer in the headlights look. He then turned to Mars. His face softened as he reached his gloved hand out to her. "Firefly, do you remember me?"

This was definitely one for the books.

And the reaction Rei gave to this comment.

Sitting at the temple, the women cautiously stared at the blond man. All were still bundled up in their coats, gloves, scarves, and hats as they warmed around the fire in the middle of the room. Rei began to meditate. Makoto and Minako sat on either side of the man, resisting to begin polite conversation due to orders from their Moon Princess. Ami continued typing in her palm computer trying to figure out what the heck was going on. It didn't help matters that he looked like an old enemy, Jadeite who was long dead.

So far… she determined that Jay Jefferson was somehow related to Mamoru in the past. She doubted he was a relative. From what she gathered, he was a friend that once saw Mamoru as a brother from another mother.

She gazed up at the blond as he looked around the temple, eyeing the fire for a moment before looking at all the different symbols and trinkets. He nodded his head no doubt assessing the situation before speaking out loud. The senshi's reaction was no doubt one that he did not dare wish to repeat. They all were figuratively walking on eggshells.

Ami noticed when Luna stepped into the room. The feline had already been briefed to this strange turn of events.

The water senshi noticed when Jay's eyes turned over to the cat entering the room. None of the women dared to speak a word as they waited. Jay smiled as Luna neared Usagi, "Good day Luna."

The cat with the crescent moon looked up at the man, her memories sparking of a long dead enemy as well. Her natural response to a human unknown to her was made.

"Meow," she vocalized looking up at him with cautious eyes.

The man gave an amused look. "Seriously Luna. I know you can talk just fine. Do you really think I'm that dumb?"

The Lunarian raised an eyebrow. This was new. The cat looked to Usagi, then to Minako, Makoto, Rei, and finally to Ami. They all nodded. Her attention returned to the blond man. "How do you know I can talk?" she asked him after several seconds of silence.

He smiled, "We used to always have conversations when Endymion would meet with Serenity in secret on Earth. You'd sometimes help us drag our prince back to this planet when he'd try and visit her on the moon."

Usagi's advisors' eyes became really wide. "You-you remember the Moon Kingdom?"

"Yes Ma'am," he answered back almost diplomatically. His eyes looked back at the mediating priestess, a fire beginning to burn brightly as old passions began to grow once more inside of him. His gaze was not missed by the majority of the women. "I remember it as if it were yesterday…"

Luna's jaw became slack. "How do you remember?"

Ami closed her computer and allowed her visor to vanish. "He was badly wounded. Some monster began attacking, and he distracted it to keep people from getting hurt. It made him the new target. Usagi used her crystal to heal his injuries."

Luna looked back at the man, "And his memories returned."

"How can it be that a random guy from the park who gets injured is somehow linked to our pasts?" questioned Makoto. "Why don't I remember him?"

"Same here," uttered Minako curious looking to the blonde. "You could almost pass as a Lunarian or a Venusian…"

Jay smirked, "Ah, my commanding officer would agree with you too, though I was born on the planet Earth."

"Commanding officer?" questioned Minako suspiciously.

He nodded his head. "Yes, and if I remember right, Venus, you and I both teamed up on numerous occasions to make my Commanding Officer's life that much more difficult because he was a stick in the mud."

"Oh really?" she asked curious now. "Tell me more."

Jay smirked, "One of your goals in life, after meeting him, was to make him laugh."

Minako blinked several times trying to process this new information as the other women silently listened, extremely intrigued in wanting to know more about their past encounters with these men Endymion used to call 'friends'. Or so Jay claimed…

"Why would I want to make him laugh?" the senshi of love asked.

"Because you had never seen him laugh before," answered Jay in a matter of fact tone. "None of us had ever seen him laugh. I only saw an occasional smirk if something amused him. He was very stoic."

"Is he alive today?" questioned Ami, curious to know more about this man, the one who Jay noted as his leader under the Prince of the Earth.

Jay paused thinking, "I believe Kunzite is still really good friends with Zoisite."

All the senshi's eyes flashed as a memory of their past enemies from the Dark Kingdom crossed their mind once more.

Ami nodded her head mentally. That's right! It all came back to her. She remembered fighting all four of the Dark Generals. Jay, who sat in front of her was the first to be defeated followed by Nephrite, Zoisite, and finally Kunzite. Wait… if Jay claimed to be Jadeite… then did that mean the other Dark Kingdom Generals were actually once GOOD? Were those the men who were originally assigned to protect their future king?

"Whoa whoa whoa," voiced Makoto. "So… we actually killed our brainwashed allies?"

The blond paused and thought for a moment. "I don't ever remember dying… well, there was this period of time a few years back where I had been in a coma," muttered Jay, "My family tells me it lasted several months. They were hours from pulling the plug on the life support machine in the hospital when I woke up. I had the strangest dream during that time though…"

All the women looked at each other immediately having an idea of what that dream may have referenced to.

"What about your friends… did the same thing happen to them?" questioned Ami with a new intrigue.

Jay pondered that thought before nodding his head, "Yes… now that you mention it… they did as well. The day before we all fell into a coma, we all enjoyed an evening together drinking beers and enjoying bar-b-que. The doctors deemed it severe food poisoning."

"Or the Dark Kingdom keeping captive your souls till it was defeated…" uttered Rei under her breath.

Jay glanced over not comprehending her comment, "I beg your pardon? I didn't catch your words."

She merely remained silent and went back to meditating.

"I wonder how the other Generals are…" uttered Jay, his eyes becoming cloudy with thought and wishful thinking. "I wonder if they regained their memories yet…"

"If they have not," spoke Luna for the first time in a while, "We cannot disturb their peaceful lives. When the time comes, they too will be awakened and their memories returned."

The man's blue eyes were filled with understanding as he nodded to the adviser to the Moon Princess. "Then perhaps I may return to Endymion. I am compelled to begin my service under his leadership. He is soon to become king, correct?"

"He already is King," spoke Minako. "And our princess has become Queen—although they are not technically married…"

"I see."

A cell phone began ringing.

All girls turned to Ami as her pocket sounded of cheerful music. She pulled it out and looked at the caller ID. Her face paled.

"Who is it?" asked Makoto leaning towards her friend to look at the cell phone screen. Ami pressed a button to silence the phone and then shove it back in her pocket.

"No one," she quickly replied.

The women looked at each other and Jay smirked. They all knew she was lying.

"It's got to be that photographer," commented the Love Senshi.

"Zach?" Jay asked looking at Ami.

She looked to the side shaking her head, her face becoming a brighter red.

"You seriously need to call him back," urged Rei peaking open her eye, "before his memories return, or you're going to be hounded by him even more than what you see now."

She groaned and covered her face. "Please don't tell me that…"

Jay nodded his head leaning closer to Ami, "If I were you, I would not play hard to get."

"I'm not playing hard to get!" she countered with a bright red face.

"As Zach's life-long friend, he's going to see your actions as playing hard to get. It's just going to fuel the fires in him to pursue you even more," stated Jay in a matter-of-fact tone. He swiped back some of his hair as if fell in front of his blue eyes. "Once he decides he going to do something, not even hell can hold him back."

Ami kept her face covered as anticipation began to swell in her belly. Zach had already told her he wanted to marry her! But she didn't even KNOW the man! Wasn't there supposed to be some rule that men couldn't even think of marrying a woman till at least a year of dating? The water senshi remained quiet not wanting to dig herself into a deeper hole.

The phone began to ring once again.

She squeaked as she felt it vibrate against her skin.

Her friends began smirking and pulled out their notebooks, pens, papers, and other writing utensils.

"Answer it!" urged Minako.

"We'll help you talk to him!" confirmed Makoto.

"Let us help you! Put it on speaker phone!" suggested Usagi.

Rei continued her meditating.

Jay watched curious to see the young women and their schemes. Were they seriously helping Ami think as she spoke to Zachariah, his smooth-talking, baby-faced friend?

Ami groaned one more time before flipping open the phone, and turning it on speaker phone. "H-Hello?"

"Hey Ami. How are you today?" It was Mr. Pemmington.

Jay watched as Minako held up a written message saying 'I'm doing well. Yourself?'

Ami shyly spoke those exact words as she read them off of the notebook before the man on the other line began speaking once more.

"I was thinking about you, my little snowflake."

All the women's eyes widened. They had to either shove a pillow at their mouth or cover their faces so they didn't scream out in awe. The water senshi's face became as red as a tomato. Her silence egged him to fill it with his thoughts.

"Do you like to ice skate?" he asked over the phone.

She did, very much, but was still too shaken to speak from the nickname he gave her.

Rei finally wrote on a piece of paper 'YES' in bold letters. Ami finally squeaked out, "Y-yes!"

"That's great! There is this place down close to the park that I would like to take you that has an ice skating rink for the winter. Would you be interested in going with me?"

All the women furiously wrote and held up 'YES!'

Ami squeaked out another "Y-yes" after reading the words from all her friends.

"How about this evening?"

It was then the ice senshi seemed to regain control of her thoughts and mouth. She turned away from her friend's prompts and began speaking on her own, "I-I would like that very much."

"Great! I will pick you up at your home in thirty minutes—"

"Wait!" she quickly spoke knowing she would very well not get back to her home in time.

"Yes?"

"I-I'm at my friend's temple. The Shrine… you can come get me here if you'd like," she suggested.

"Even better. I will see you in thirty minutes. I love you."

"Bye," she squeaked out.

"Ah. Remember our game? When I say 'I love you', what do you say back?"

Ami could feel her friend's eyes on her back. She had a feeling he would not let off the phone with her if she didn't say those words. But her friends were going to hear her say them!

"Let's try it again. Ami, I love you."

Ami mustered up all her courage and shyly squeaked, "I love you too. Bye!" and she hung up the phone.

The girls either screamed or hooted cheers.

The blond man was stunned at what he just witnessed. "Wow. Do you women help each other out like this with every man who asks you out on a date?"

"Only with Ami," smiled Minako, "The last time she tried talking to someone who was interested with her over the phone, she stuttered and sputtered WAY too much. That loser decided he didn't want to date our dear Ami."

"So after that," added the lightning senshi, "we began to help her."

"It's been successful thus far!" Usagi pointed out.

Jay shook his head and ran a hand through his hair. The things he witnessed with this unique group of women definitely took the cake for strange efficiency. They truly were like sisters. He knew… he had three of them who harassed him every time he visited home, and all because he was the baby of the family.

"So, Zoisite will be coming in 30 minutes," uttered Jay thoughtfully, "yet I cannot remind him of his past."

"Not yet," urged Luna as she curled next to Usagi, "Zoisite, from what I remember, was extremely intelligent and cleaver. He usually figured things out and kept them to himself until the timing was right. Ami, you need to be careful around him. We don't want his memories to waken prematurely, or for him to find out you are Sailor Mercury. We aren't quite sure how he will react to that information."

Ami nodded her head in understanding, not remembering her words the night she drank too much wine with Mr. Pemmington.

"So, who should be the next General to awaken?" questioned Rei, not liking the concept of strong buff men joining their ranks as super warriors that once tried to KILL them and destroy the planet.

"Probably Kunzite," suggested Jay, "He was our leader and the most level headed of us all."

Minako nodded her head. "Yes… that's how it happened with us, the Sailor Senshi. I woke first, then Serena, and the rest of the girls. Your king is already awake, but Kunzite would be able to help strategize and set the playing field for you and your friends, Jay. Maybe one day you could bring him here and introduce us to him?"

The blond male shook his head. "I am not good friends with Kunzite. Zoisite, or Zachariah I should say, is good friends with our once fearless leader. I believe they work together. I also think that Kunzite is partners with Nephrite too, but not with Zach. I happen to know Zach because we grew up together in the same neighborhood as children."

"What was he like as a kid?" asked Ami, quite interested at this bit of information.

Jay took a second to think. "He wanted to become an astronaut. He has the brains for it too. He went to a special school that began teaching him to be a rocket scientist at 14 years old. At 17 years of age, he began to despise his work at the space agency."

"Why?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "Ask him. He had a camera his mother gave him and started taking pictures of the neighborhood, the parks, downtown… and then he began to venture out more into the country. Then out of the country, to the islands, to the oceans, and to other lands across the world. His love for this planet never died. He just decided to express it in a different way. The rest is history. I'm sure you can find information online."

"We already did," smirked Minako winking.

Jay smirked too, "Oh, how I miss the two of us trying to play matchmaker with our teammates Venus. That was the most fun I ever had."

"I wish I could remember it," Minako sighed, "Alas though, more memories are yet to be unlocked in this day and age."

The conversation between the awakened General and the Senshi continued. Usagi took that time to call Mamoru and asked that he would come to the temple. Jay was thrilled to know his former prince, now King of the Earth, was making his presence known.

Conversation ran very smoothly. Most of the women didn't realize twenty minutes had passed. Their only indication that the time elapsed was when Mamoru graced his presence at the temple. He sat down beside his princess, and kissed her cheek. Usagi smiled brightly and kissed him back.

The eyes of the prince settled on the man who comfortably rested in the room between two senshi. He immediately recognized that face. "Jadeite."

Respectfully, Jay gave a respectful bow which Mamoru verbally put him at ease.

"How are you here?" questioned the prince, his blue eyes wary of seeing one of his former advisers. After the Dark Moon Circus appeared, his Generals vanished. He was no longer able to summon the spirits of his trusted men. It now made sense… perhaps the souls or spirits of his men were stolen from their human bodies but found a way to be returned.

And one stood before him, with memories restored from times past.

Jay's blue eyes sparkled. "I fought some monster. It attacked me, and Sailor Moon healed me with her crystal. My memories returned after her healing."

Mamoru nodded his head, "Welcome back Jadeite."

"Call me Jay."

"Mamoru." He glanced down at the black cat, "We decided it would be best to first find your leader Kunzite and awaken him next before we go out searching for the other Generals."

The king smirked. "Sounds like a good plan."

There was a sound from behind and soft walking heading towards them. No one noticed the new man in the room, till he stood in the line of light.

Author's Note: I guess you can call this a filler chapter... I promise the next chapter will be action filled galore! Not many more chapters left. I'm considering making this a four part story with the other Generals and Senshi but along the same story arc.

What do you think? Should I or shouldn't I?

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