Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon
The Second Story

AN: So I was talking Sailor Moon with my friend Midnight, and we were bitching about the general lack of PGSM outers fic. So we decided to write one. Enjoy.

London, Autumn, Three Years Ago

To tell the truth, Michiru was not surprised when she encountered the first creature. In a sense, she'd been waiting for months for the initial attack. The dreams had to have lead somewhere and she was sure that it was only a matter of time until the images that she saw in her dreams became a stark reality. She didn't like to admit that she was playing a dangerous game, or that she didn't really want to know what lay on the other end of the endless tunnel of bad thoughts and even worse dreams. She was curious, as she suspected anyone would be, when faced with such circumstances. She wanted to know why she was so desperate in the dreams, so terrified. She wanted to know what the silence that she was dreading actually was.

She was on her way home, cutting through the park near her apartment building. She'd been sleeping better recently, but the dreams still haunted her every waking minute. They plagued her thoughts as nothing else did, but simply accepting them somehow made it seem better. Sure, Michiru slept a lot less than she had before, but at the same time, she was able to say that she no longer felt filled with the sensation that she was going crazy. No, the dreams were now less frequent, but more intense. She had been given the gift of a few precious hours of sleep a night and that was all she really needed. She'd taken that strange woman on the tube's advice and had started to actually attempt to listen to what the dreams were telling her. She didn't know why she'd even bothered to listen to that strange woman, but somehow she felt a lot less like she was going crazy than she had in the past few weeks.

Haruka was out of town at a race in America and she was alone in the small apartment they shared. Michiru didn't like sleeping alone, but she knew that this was a part of their relationship - the long periods of apart were simply something that she had to deal with. Even if it felt like her head was slipping open and her heart was breaking every time Haruka left.

They were like two halves of the same coin, and while it was frustrating to not see so much of each other during the long periods of absence that both of them had to endure because of their opposite schedules and careers.

Still, she walked alone at night with her head held up high. She was proud of who she was and what she did. The fact that she'd spent most of the summer feeling as though she was going insane simply made her stronger. Michiru was starting to get the feeling that the dreams she was plagued with had nothing to do with who she was and a lot to do with the circumstances of her life. They were just too well-presented and terrifying to mean anything else.

The silence, whatever it was, was approaching. She had to fight against the urge to vomit everything that she'd eaten today just picturing the images of destruction that her dreams showed her.

Something rustled in the bushes to her left and Michiru flinched instinctively. It was probably just a bird or a stray cat. She was so on edge because of the dreams; constantly waiting for the prescribed moment that she knew was coming eventually. She had to be ready, prepared for what was going to happen.

She had to listen to what the beautiful woman in her dreams was telling her.

Neptune...

Michiru closed her eyes and stood stock-still, listening to the sounds of the busy city around her. Her coat swirled around her in the gentle breeze that had picked up earlier that afternoon and the hair that had wrestled itself free from the tight braid she'd pulled it into that morning danced across her face. Something was about to happen, something big.

She swallowed.

Was this what the dreams were talking about? She didn't know what they'd wanted her to be ready for, but the feeling of dread that welled up in the pit of her stomach was nothing to trifle with. She opened her eyes and looked around, wondering what exactly it was that she should be looking for.

This all seemed so crazy, but Michiru was no fool, she knew better than most people what it meant to feel crazy. This was logical and a natural progression of events. She was ready for it.

The sound of clapping reached her ears.

She turned quickly, her fists clenched as she tried to figure out what exactly she was going to do should she actually have to defend herself. She had no skill for fighting, that was Harukas territory.

"I have to say, I did not expect you to take my advice to heart, Kaioh Michiru." From the shadows came that same woman from the Tube all those months ago. The tall, rather enigmatic woman that was completely implacable in age and origin.

Michiru felt her breath catch in her throat; the woman was undeniably beautiful, if you liked them tall, dark and exotic. Michiru's tastes ran a little more down to earth, but she could not help the indignation that came from the woman calling her name in the wrong order. She'd thought that she'd recognized the woman's accent and it turned out that she was correct. Japanese and still messing with her life. She hated that place, the language and its people. The only good thing that had come had come from that place was that Michiru had met Haruka, which was something that sang of many wondrous futures together. "My name is Michiru Kaioh. I am not Japanese."

"You are half, young one." The woman laughed, a mysterious and distant smile crossing her painted red lips. She raised her hand to cover her mouth in one of those outdated ladylike gestures that did nothing but make her look old fashioned and foolish.

Michiru folded her arms and huffed, turning away from the woman. She hated being followed like this - it came with the territory of being somewhat famous in some circles, but this was getting ridiculous. Still, this woman seemed to know more about her than most of her fans did - enough to push buttons in Michiru's subconscious that had not been pushed since grade school.

The woman made an expansive gesture with her hands and shrugged. "That, however, has nothing to do with the current situation."

The rustling in the bushes slowly grew louder, and Michiru spun to find herself face to face with a creature that she could not even begin to describe in words. Was it a monster? She didn't think so. It was large and wormlike, with a centipedes numerous legs and the mouth of something like a dung beetle. It was terrifying and reeked of everything that she'd been dreaming about for years.

She raised her hands to protect herself against the creature, but it did not move. It was like it was watching her, curious as to her move.

"Oh my..." Michiru brought a hand up to cover her mouth as she tried to keep the bile that had welled up in her throat from causing her to vomit. "What is this?"

The creature sprung forward then, and Michiru threw herself out of the way, grateful that she was not carrying her violin with her at the moment, for it would surely be destroyed as she rolled through the dirt of the trimmed-down-for-the-winter flower beds. She groaned, getting to her feet and looking around for the woman who had been talking to her a moment ago. She had to have something to do with this, Michiru was positive.

The woman was standing off to one side, under the light of a lone street lamp, looking oddly untroubled by the fact that Michiru was being chased by a creature that looked as though it had risen from her nightmares without so much as a second thought to the constraints of reality.

"What are you doing!?" Michiru shouted, stumbling over her shoes - fashionable but not at all practical for running in the dark - as she headed towards the light. "You can fight it! You can kill it!" She didn't know how she knew that fact to be true. She couldn't stand watching that person just stand by and let the battle happen once again. This time, yes, this time, she would fight and die along with the rest of them. It was their way and their duty in life.

The woman smiled and held out her hand to Michiru, a small, aqua-colored rod in her hand. "Take the power inside you and force it outwards, Neptune."

"Why won't you fight!" Michiru demanded, slapping the hand away and grabbing the woman by her collar. It was so out of character for her to be the aggressor - she blamed it on too much time around Haruka - but the sudden presence of whatever that monster was, along with the inaction of this woman was enough to push Michiru towards violence that she had not believed herself capable of.

"This is not my fight," The woman said calmly. Her eyes were hard, angry, and defensive. Michiru had always good at reading people. This was hard for her to do. Why?

"Then why involve me?" Michiru demanded, their faces inches apart. She could feel the woman's breath on her face. The monster would not come into the light - she somehow knew. She was safe here.

"Because this is your battle, Neptune." The woman took Michiru's fingers in her hands, carefully untangling them from her shirt collar and pressing that aqua rod into her hands once more.

Michiru looked down at it and almost threw it away in disgust. Somehow, she knew, however, that she would not be able to do that. This creation of seemingly peaceful energy that reminded Michiru of the waves crashing against the coast was attached to her even when nothing else was. It troubled her to be attached to something like that, for she and Haruka had promised each other long ago that they would always live for each other's dreams and nothing else. This was sounding dangerously like a commitment that she wasn't prepared to make. "What did you call me?"

"Do you not remember yet?" The woman raised an amused eyebrow.

"No!" Michiru didn't feel anything but frustration and annoyance with this cryptic woman. "What do you want me to know?"

"Then this will be much harder for you." The woman closed her eyes and raised her hand to the sky. She shouted something indecipherable in a language that Michiru did not understand and was encased in an eerie greenish black light. The light fated in a matter of seconds and the woman was wearing something that Michiru had not seen out of shoujo manga (not that she read it, mind you). A grown woman in a miniskirt and leotard with a sailor collar and bows attached. She looked foolish, dangerously foolish. "My name is Sailor Pluto, the guardian of time and space. Prepare yourself Michiru, this will be a long, hard fight."