The Senshi Files: Silver Warden (OLD VERSION)

by Irritus185

NEW VERSION WILL BE POSTED. SENSHI FILES FORUM ADDED.

7. File 07: Silver Memory

WARNING: This chapter exists solely for backstory/world-building purposes. We will reference it from time to time, but you don't actually NEED to read it to understand the rest of the fic.

But please read it anyway, we worked very hard on it.

Disclaimer: I do not own Sailor Moon nor Dresden Files. If I did, Moon would not be so useless, and fans would burn me at the stake for destroying Harry's awesomeness.

The Senshi Files: Silver Warden
File 07: Silver Memory
By Irritus185/Raithe

Small piece of advice: never let a fallen angel manipulate your senses to visually implant the Spark Notes version of over a thousand years of history; it's not worth the nausea and vertigo.

When I finally overcame the sensation that I was falling through a tunnel of stars and flashing colors (and the migraine that came with it), I found myself floating in a star field, overlooking the Earth. From high above, the planet looked like a blue-and-green marble, wisps of white clouds rolling over it.

"It's quite beautiful, isn't it?"

I looked to my side. Lasciel floated next to me, hand to chin, a serene smile on her face. She didn't look at me as she talked, eyes firmly locked onto the earth.

"I'd almost forgotten what it looked like from up here. It's been so long since I've had the freedom to enjoy this view, virtual though it may be."

I noted the nostalgia in her voice, wondering if it was genuine, or just another ploy to appeal to me. "...Do you miss it?"

"A little," she admitted. She admired Earth for a few more moments before she turned to me, the smile melting to the more flirty one I'd come to know. "But that was in the past. For now, it's time for me to explain to you what happened so long ago, and how it relates to what's happening in Azabu-Juuban now." She took a deep breath and started to explain. "Long ago, when your ancestors were-"

"Wait, where's my text crawl?" I interrupted.

She blinked, startled by my seeming non-sequitur. "...Your what?"

"My text crawl!" I insisted. I crossed my arms and jutted out my chin. "You're telling me about a story long, long ago in a galaxy very, very close by, and you're not starting off with a text crawl? C'mon, you should know me well enough by now! No way can I ignore an obvious tie-in to Star Wars like this."

The look Lasciel gave me would've fit perfectly on Murphy's face, so pure was its exasperation and consternation at my idiocy. She didn't even have to say anything to get me to back down before I got hurt.

I gave a smarmy if awkward grin. "Could I at least get a sweeping orchestral score?"

Lasciel pursed her lips, gave a small sigh of disgust, and lazily swept her arm around in front of herself.

Music swelled up all around, trumpets blaring their call to battle, and then the most bored-sounding rendition of the Star Wars opening theme petered its way out. It sounded like the instruments were stuck somewhere between outright falling asleep and needing to go watch paint dry. I think one trumpet just gave up halfway through and went home.

My enthusiasm immediately drooped. "Spoilsport."

"Thank you," she said primly. "May I continue now?"

"Go right ahead. You've already ruined my fun."

"Perhaps this might change your surly demeanor." She swiped her arm in front of her again. A small circle of light opened in space in front of us. The light hole rotated, a curtain of light following until it created a cone with the wide end facing up. The funnel flickered, and some three-dimensional image was laid over it. However, it was too small for me to make out.

"Color me impressed," I drawled. "You spent all your phenomenal cosmic power to make an out-of-focus hologram."

"Look closer," she simpered.

I sighed and rolled my eyes. Stepping closer, I bent over to get a better look. "Please, nothing you show me could possibly..." My eyes slowly widened and my jaw dropped, leaving me gaping at the sight before me. "Holy hell, it's a starfleet."

There was no other way to describe it. Dozens, hundreds, maybe even thousands of starships filled the hologram. Ships of every conceivable size and shape - from one-man dogfighters to mindbogglingly huge planet busters - moved in tandem with one another. More and more appeared until finally a truly massive ship breached into normal space.

My eyes were inexorably drawn to what was clearly the flagship of the formation. Larger than any of the others by far, and with a design that almost screamed 'class' even in the vacuum of space, it gracefully moved along its way. The area around it was abuzz with smaller vessels taking off from it, landing in various ports, and generally flitting around on some mission of importance. I couldn't help but think of a queen bee with all of her drones obediently doing their orders in her majestic presence.

"Are you quite all right, my host?" Lasciel asked. Her tone had a smug edge to it. "You appear to be in some form of shock."

"Not now," I replied in faint delight. "I'm in the middle of a nerdgasm, here."

She giggled, the sound like the tinkling of bells. She closed my mouth with a light touch and then swung around me, one arm firmly coiled around my neck. "Then I take it you enjoy my little spectacle?"

I was going to say something, but then my geek-out stalled when I recognized one of the larger star ships. I tilted my head, not believing what I was seeing. It couldn't possibly be, but... no, no, it absolutely was. "Is... is that a Star Wars star destroyer?"

Lasciel moved off me and crossed her arms, her lower lip slightly jutted out. "Phooey, I had hoped you wouldn't notice."

"How could I not?" I threw my hands up. "It's a hells' bells star destroyer. I wouldn't be a fan if I didn't recognize such an iconic spaceship." My eyes narrowed. "Wait, is this another of your tricks? I warned you that anymore funny business and I'd-"

"Oh don't be so paranoid, my host," Lasciel said airily. "There is no chicanery involved; I had merely hoped to keep the atmosphere appropriate." She planted her hands on her arms. "I was trying to make this as realistic as possible without taxing your mental acuity."

"What do you mean?"

"Did I not say that if I did not take care with the memory process it might irreparably damage your brain? This is part of it. I might have 'phenomenal cosmic power' as you put it, but I still require leeching off your brain's processing power to do this." She gestured at the hologram. It suddenly tripled in size. Now that it was larger, I could clearly make out the rest of the ships. My eyes slowly widened and I turned to face her.

She smiled cattily. "See anything else familiar?"

Like hell I didn't. With the star destroyer sparking off old memories, at least half of the fleet quickly became recognizable. Recollections of old movie posters, comic books, and pulp novel covers floated up to the forefront of my mind, each highlighting one of the many spaceships shown. It was like a convention of my childhood and teenage (okay, adulthood, too) love for science-fiction. I wouldn't be surprised if any of the ships sported those campy, bubble-like ray guns.

Lasciel continued over the blatant cries of my nostalgia. "I couldn't create everything from whole cloth, lest I chance severely straining you, so I instead borrowed from your memories to fill in the gaps." She shrugged. "I felt it appropriate."

So that's why I didn't get my text crawl and awesome theme song? Because it would make my neurons explode? ...Admittedly that was a good reason, but it was the principle of the matter, damn it! "So why even bother with this if it's just going to be rehash after rehash? It seems like a lot of trouble for little return."

"I had thought to just show you a slideshow." Oh, ick, never mind, I'll go with the super dangerous mind meld. Lasciel must've noticed my change in expression and obviously agreed. "But that would have been tedious and not entertaining in the slightest. Besides, having complete control over your senses makes it so that you cannot ignore me." She pursed her lips and sighed softly. "I have seen you almost fall asleep listening to the skull. Do not think I would suffer such a derision so lightly."

On instinct, I spun around. She was there, along with the hologram. I tried again. Both still there. I did it again, this time flipping up as well as around.

She was waiting for me, a pleased smirk clear on her lips. "Having fun?"

I tipped an imaginary hat and snarked, "Touché. You win this time, devil lady."

"I should have gone with the slideshow," I heard her mutter under her breath. "And a stick to poke you with when you became distracted. A really big stick, with a spike at the end of it." That part was meant to be heard. Lasciel cleared her throat. "Now that I have your undivided attention, allow me to expound upon our intergalactic visitors." She flung out her arm to introduce the incredible spectacle.

"Say hello to the Silver Galactic Empire, a civilization that was old when your primitive ancestors were still in trees, performing questionable actions with their... leftovers."

I leaned back from the hologram. "Who were they?"

"I suppose the best word to describe them would be 'aliens'."

I was floored. I've dealt with monsters, mad sorcerers, fairies, zombies, werewolves, and vampires, and yet none of that prepared me for the knowledge that aliens were honest-to-goodness real. My inner child was bursting at the seams, and it took all my restraint to stop myself from gushing.

I bit back a squee. "Where did they come from?"

"Not very far," she said. She tapped her lips. "Well, relatively speaking. They come from the same galaxy as you, just much closer to the galactic core."

I had to wonder at her nonchalant attitude towards aliens travelling millions of light years to our comparatively backwater arm of the Milky Way, but then I remembered the whole 'former angel' deal and decided to keep my mouth shut. Instead, I asked, "Why did they come here?"

"War," was her succinct answer.

"Gotta be a little more descriptive than that." Surely they weren't going to declare war on us. Though, some races did have a good track record taking on highly sophisticated and technologically advanced armies with just rocks and sticks.

That is, if the army didn't just nuke them from orbit.

"They were in a war." She nodded at the fleet. "They were on the losing side."

Something piqued my attention, and I examined one of the ships that was in better focus. There was nothing fresh, but I could see signs of recent repairs to all of the ships - uneven surfaces that had been haphazardly welded shut, ship appendages that looked like they'd been cobbled together from spare parts, ships that had obviously cannibalized their brethren so that they had some form of working order.

This was not a triumphant exploration of space and new lands; this was a collection of ships limping away from some great loss.

I turned to Lasciel. "This is the losing side? Their 'losing' make the Empire at its height look like a bunch of jokesters. How many were there to begin with? And who were they fighting?"

Her lips curled. "Chaos."

"'Chaos?'" I raised an eyebrow. "They fought against the embodiment of entropy? Or was their enemy just really hard-up for an intimidating name and looped all the way back around to stupid?"

"Chaos is much more dangerous than its juvenile name may imply. A corruptive force, as old as the universe itself. Some angels said it was some nameless sludge that seeped in through the cracks of reality when Father was crafting existence, a creature much like your Outsiders and yet so very different at the same time."

I held back a gulp. "And what do you think?"

She flipped her hair. "I believe only in what I see. He never said anything, and the only angels who ever witnessed Chaos' origins and true nature have either fallen and are not willing to share, or are amongst the highest of His armies and thus just as unwilling to tell a 'pitiful failure' like myself."

"Uh-huh," I said, chewing my lip. "And you just happen to not know anything about this... thing. Even with all your 'ancient knowledge.'"

"Oh, I never said I didn't know anything about Chaos, just what the being really is." She raised her arms above her head. "I am quite aware of the atrocities it has committed, including the fact that it nearly wiped out the empire like they were nothing more than a gnat." Something blossomed between her hands, a miniature star coming into sight.

"The Silver Galactic Empire, a civilization that spread across all four quadrants of the Milky Way and was comprised of nearly ten thousand star systems. A power than could tap into the primal and innate energies of stars and planets themselves, and yet they were destroyed by something that never quite showed its true self, always hiding in the darkness of time and space."

The star grew brighter before it showed itself to be a model solar system. The planets inside were slowly swallowed one by one by some darkness that oozed over them like a sentient blob.

"Thousands of planets, trillions of lives, all wiped out without even a chance of fighting back. Chaos was brutal and efficient in its manner of destruction."

A miniature city and its inhabitants were trampled on and engulfed by a vaguely humanoid (and rather cartoonish) collection of shadows. Their squeaky cries for salvation greatly diminished the gravitas of a situation where planetary genocide was involved. The fact that their mouths moved out of sync didn't help matters.

"Really? You ripped off Godzilla and Sparky's moon comics?"

"I felt it apropos considering we are, as you so eloquently put it, inside one of her venerated literary works."

"So you're saying that I was right."

She didn't answer. Score one for me, then! And the score card said 'Harry: 1, Ancient Pseudo-Deity: Infinity'.

She clapped her hands together, the image disappearing between her palms. "What you saw is all that was left - a mere pittance of their once glorious civilization."

"And you have no idea why this 'Chaos' tried to destroy them in the first place?"

"That has been lost to the annals of time and shrouded in the shadows forever."

I was going to call bull on her supposed lack of knowledge on the subject, especially about something as a supposedly as big as this 'Chaos,' but held my tongue, figuring she'd pull the 'portion of her true self' card. She'd promised to stop bringing up the coin, but there was no way she'd ignore a big, fat slider over the plate like that.

The way her eyes sparkled with anticipation as she waited for me to respond helped support that theory. No way was I going to give her a set-up like that. Bit of a stubborn streak, remember?

"So why'd they come here? Some secret super-weapon that would turn the tide?"

If Lasciel was disappointed by my avoiding the topic, she didn't show it. "Nothing of the sort. Chaos quite thoroughly trounced the empire, leaving its remnants to lick its wounds and try to start again. After much searching, they arrived in a backwater system they would be able to colonize and that was far enough on the outskirts of Chaos' awareness to avoid detection."

"Ours."

"Very good," she cooed, snaking around me again.

I rolled my eyes. Shaking her off me, I turned to face her. "So, were they surprised to find intelligent life already on Earth?"

"I wouldn't call the humans of that time 'intelligent.'" Lasciel crossed her arms, a hand 'covering' her sardonic smirk. "At that point in your history, you were still trying to figure out how to ride horses without having your faces kicked in." She gave a malicious giggle. "It took another several centuries before you managed to."

She shook her head, cutting off my witty retort. "No, they were not surprised. They'd come into contact with many types of sapient life as their reach spread over the galaxy. Finding your scattered tribes of hunter-gatherers gave them no more pause than the explorers of your history. This, however, did."

Lasciel made a twisting motion with her hand, and the Earth rotated until we were looking down at a spot somewhere in the Pacific Ocean.

I didn't know what it was that I was supposed to be looking for this time. It was just the same old (very old) Earth as usual. Nothing much was out of the ordinary - a whole bunch of water and a giant landmass smack-dab in the middle of it. It wasn't exactly-

"...Why does the Pacific Ocean have an extra continent just floating around?"

My eyes weren't deceiving me; there was an extra chunk of land in the middle of the Pacific just a little south of the equator. It looked to be as big as (maybe bigger than) Australia, and was full of rolling plains, forests, and a few scattered mountain ranges in the northern and western quadrants. Unless Hawaii had gone on a few hundred-thousand square-mile diet and sneaked several thousand miles north, there was some unknown continent chilling where it had no right to be.

If that wasn't enough, there were large clumps of lights scattered all over the island. These weren't the flickering bonfires from the nomadic tribes that were indigenous to the time period. No, this was indicative of settlements, and advanced settlements at that. From this far up, it looked like the photos satellites took with their strings of lighted cities.

"This, my host, is what grabbed their attention so fiercely." Lasciel flicked her wrist again, and the planet slowly turned in response. All across the Earth, there were smatterings of signs of life from small collections of fire, but nothing so grand, organized, or alive as the ones on that unknown continent. "When the empire arrived, they were not surprised to find intelligent life on the planet. What did surprise them, though, was to find such a large disparity in societal advancement between what was essentially the same race." The planet stopped with the continent facing us again. "The civilization was millennia ahead of the rest of the planet. The empire had to know why."

"What did they find?"

She laughed, as if amused by some oblique joke. "The Golden Kingdom of Mu."

I didn't see the gag. "You mean the legendary civilization of Mu? The civilization said to be the birthplace of modern man? The lesser-known Pacific knock-off of Atlantis?" I raised an eyebrow. "That Mu?"

She giggled again (why, I had no idea). "Precisely."

"I don't believe you."

"Oh?" That same smarmy grin that could've been a ringer for mine was plastered on her. "And why not?"

"Various reasons."

Not the least of which was the White Council declaring it was an impossibility. The Council made it a priority to hunt down all things mythical if there was even a chance of them being dangerous to mortals, magical and normal, and then either spread out knowledge of them to dilute their power or bury them completely because even awareness was deadly (Outsiders being a good example of the latter).

Mu was one of many legendary, 'advanced' civilizations the Council had researched and then deemed 'irrelevant' and 'harmless' over the centuries. Not only was the idea that 'enlightened' humans had fled the crumbling continent to mingle with the 'lesser' humans of the time just plain insulting, the logistics of an extra continent up and disappearing was ridiculous, both scientifically and magically.

Had it really been swallowed up by the sea like the legends said, deep sea explorers would've found the sunken remains. Since that hadn't panned out, magic was the remaining explanation, but not even magic could vanish an entire continent without consequences. Even if magic did involve bending the primordial forces of nature to the caster's will, it was still reliant on basic laws of physics. You could create a fireball with your mind, but without oxygen to sustain it, it would peter out before it could actually do any damage.

Who would have the power to remove a continent in the first place, and what did they do with it?

And then there's the fact that completely wiping out an entire island would have grave ramifications that would change the entire surface of the planet. Just removing a huge chunk of land would cause havoc with the sea, probably causing the likes of tidal waves and undersea earthquakes, not to mention cutting out a portion of the Earth's crust would make the ring of fire look like a science experiment. Even if someone did move it somewhere else, where the hell would they put it? The Nevernever?

I shuddered at the backlash of that idea, both political and in terms of sheer power.

Lasciel shrugged and tapped her fingers together, completely ignorant of my internal debate. "I can assure you, Mu did exist, though it was wiped out in the same cataclysm that destroyed the Silver Galactic Empire."

I glanced at Lasciel, looking all sincere and honest. There was no point arguing with her now. I had asked for her help, even though I knew it would be troublesome, so it was stupid to start calling bullshit. I would just continue to take anything she said with a grain of salt like I always did.

"So, did they find out just why there was such a discrepancy?"

She held out her hand. "I'll do better. I'll show you personally."

I eyed her outstretched hand like it was a venomous creature but sighed in resignation. "Well, I've gone this far already." I took a hold of it.

Lasciel smiled appreciatively and closed her eyes. Our surroundings blurred, shifting from the deep darkness of space to an empty street in the middle of the day. Only, this wasn't the asphalt jungle of cities I was accustomed to, or even your classic suburbia. No, this was something completely different.

We were in the middle of a street that was bordered on both sides by stone pillars and walls, cobblestone running under our feet. The buildings on either side were only one to two stories tall, and the windows and doors were open to the air. Wooden boards leaned at angles to the walls, creating an awning that granted shade to anyone who lingered around the various shops or residences that line the street. However, what made me look twice were the thick veins of crystals that snaked their way through the stone and protruded out every so often. They didn't look to be decorations for the buildings; instead, they appeared to be directly part of their infrastructure.

Despite the odd mineral additions, it was hard not to equate the architecture of the place to anything other than Rome, especially as it looked extremely similar to the few time I'd been near the Vatican for official White Council business.

It was too hard to believe that the buildings of an ancient, super-advanced civilization would be so similar to such iconic architecture as Rome. I turned to Lasciel, who was running her long, delicate fingers up a building's wall. "Let me guess, also from my memories?"

She didn't look at me, instead focusing on rubbing her fingertips together. "Your freshman history class, during the ancient history portion."

"Oh yeah, Mrs. Kreapple." A kind, doddering old woman, with a huge hearing aid I kept frying accidentally as I learned to deal with my blossoming powers. "I liked her."

"Yes, it was one of the few classes you didn't skip to go play hanky-panky with your girlfriend."

Elaine and I were a pair of delinquents in that regard, weren't we? "In my defense, she was hot."

"Raging teenage hormones notwithstanding, it is fascinating how Mu's architecture was reminiscent of Greco-Roman, though the Mu were much less garish in their colorizations." Lasciel walked down the street, and I followed after her. "There are minute differences, of course, but the similarities are overwhelming. Intriguing that two major societies separated by thousands of years and miles could be similar in ways."

She turned to walk down the street and I quickly followed behind her. As we walked, the street opened up a larger one that bordered a river passing through the large city. I took the time to look around, taking in everything I saw.

"So, where are we, and where are we going?"

"We are currently in Elysion, the capital of Mu. And where we're going is to see the source of the Mu's power and the reason it is so ahead of its time."

I quietly followed her, seeing no reason to ask any more questions until she showed just why we were here. Minutes passed as we traveled the streets, Lasciel strangely quiet as she just admired the scenery. I guess even a fallen angel could appreciate a beautiful city for what it was, and Elysion was beautiful.

Eventually, we turned to climb a series of steps that went up a large, steep hill. When we got to the top, we were in front of a large, hexagonal temple, multiple lines of pillars arranged in geometric patterns around it. The back of my neck itched suddenly, and I scratched it as a feeling of slight trepidation suddenly hit me.

"Where's this?" I asked.

"The Great Temple of Mu," she responded. "It's the place of worship here, and also very off-limits to the common citizenry. It is in here that you will see all that Mu has to offer. Now, come." She grabbed my hand and pulled. "We're wasting time. Time still passes at the normal rate here, so unless you want your daughter to come home to find you passed out on the floor, I suggest you hurry up."

I was going to argue that if we had to be quick, she should've just brought me straight to the temple instead of taking a leisurely stroll through the city, but felt it was pointless to mention the hypocrisy of a fallen angel.

With that, I let her drag me into the temple. The pure-white stone was laced with that same crystal, though much more of it, as well as lines of gold. I passed through the main arch into the foyer of the temple. The itch had come back, this time slightly tickling in the back of my head. I ignored it and moved forward.

We passed through a few antechambers, each more ornately decorated and strewn with riches and religious artifacts than the last, before we finally came across a wide doorway that only stopped entrance with a thick tapestry with many sigils stitched into it.

I hesitated as I went to reach for the tapestry. Lasciel tugged on my shoulder. "Well, what are you waiting for? Go."

"Yeah, yeah," I muttered. I took a deep breath and pushed the barrier aside.

That niggling sensation in the back of my head intensified as I entered the sanctuary. The room was richly decorated with beautiful tapestries lining the walls that illustrated events of historical significance and various runes inscribed in gold and silver along the floor, walls, and ceiling. The center of the domed roof was open to the sky, allowing sunlight to filter in and illuminate the large, orb-like object in the center that was surrounded by scrolls hanging off of thickly entwined ropes.

I walked towards the obviously sanctified object. It was at the bottom of a wide, shallow pool, the lip of the crater raised. Ducking underneath the ropes, I carefully slid down the slight decline. The niggling swelled to a light headache, but I pressed on.

The holy relic was big, nearly a dozen feet in diameter. It was made of the same crystalline material that composed the majority of the temple and surrounding structures, though of a much purer quality. It looked like it had sunk into the floor, seemingly melding with it, cragged tendrils of gold-flaked crystal creating fractals every which way.

Something glinted on the relic, structurally different from the rest of it, and I moved to get a better look. Immediately I leapt back, falling on my ass in the process and splashing water all over. I stabbed a finger at the thing that caused my shock, voice trembling (but in a manly way).

"The hell is that thing?"

What looked back at me was something that would make Bosch break down into pants-wetting gibbering. I think it might've been a face, but it could only be described as that the same way a tomato could be described as a fruit - very, very technically. It had eyes, a nose, a mouth - but they were insectile and too large and unnatural and melted and all the things that a face should not be. What was even worse was that it looked like was it leering at me, like it knew something, deep in the pit of my soul, that I did not want anyone to find out.

Lasciel leaned on my shoulder, he body floating horizontally. "That, my host, is Metallia."

I stared dumbly at the abomination grinning malevolently back at me. "That's Metallia? The ultra-demon those whack-jobs are trying to wake up? What is it doing here?"

"Why, she's the guardian deity of Mu! Didn't you know?" She tittered as I pushed myself back to my feet. I threw her a look. "She's the one that granted them their immense magical powers that allowed Mu to become a civilization far beyond its time." She slipped over to my other side. "If it wasn't for her, the empire wouldn't have taken enough interest in your race to make contact." Lasciel curled her arm around my neck. "Then again, if it weren't for her, Mu wouldn't have been wiped from history and the empire wouldn't have been reduced to a few little girls playing dress-up and a talking cat."

"I'm sensing there's a story there," I drawled.

"You would be right." Lasciel extended her hand to one of the tapestries. It was a stylized embroidery of some divine being, feminine in stature, looking at the Earth from the blazing core of the sun. Larger, much angrier-looking versions of it surrounded the being. "Metallia was a goddess born in the depths of the sun. Over time, she became interested in the lives of mortals, something taboo to the infinitely greater and more perfect gods and goddesses."

She lowered her hand slightly. Below that embroidery was another one, that one illustrating that same being being flung from the sun to crash into the earth. Around the impact site were lots of little people either running around in a panic or bowing in devout prayer. "For breaking the ancient laws and aligning herself with humans, she was exiled to their base land to forever sleep in an eternal slumber."

I looked at her cynically. She smiled. "Their legends, not mine. Amazing, the stories you humans make up to explain things, isn't it?"

Okay, couldn't fault her for that.

Lasciel flicked her wrist, and the room rotated around us to show another tapestry. At the top of this one, a person was touching Metallia with one hand and producing a large crystal like hers out of the other.

"The nomadic tribe present at her landing discovered that being in close proximity with her granted them superior magical abilities, specifically centered around creating and manipulating crystals and various minerals." The next picture down showed a generic shaman-type magic user conversing with some non-descript supernatural creature. "Up until that point in your history, magic was a rare and minor occurrence, manifesting in maybe one or two individuals per tribe and nominally relegated to spiritual and religious matters."

The tapestry shuffled to a new one. This one showed a city being built around Metallia, workers creating buildings from crystals, earth, and gold while figures in religious garb paraded down the streets. "Using their newfound powers, the Mu tribe constructed a great city that would praise their all-giving goddess, named Elysion for the bliss she granted, that would become the capital city of Mu."

The city was soon filled by throngs of supplicants funneling into the city from all directions. "Over the centuries, the tribe started converting or conquering the surrounding ones, creating a force that wouldn't be seen for thousands of years in the rest of the world. Eventually, the once scattered tribes became a bustling and powerful collection whose reach covered the entire continent. The Golden Earth Kingdom of Mu had spread across the land, protected by their eternally sleeping sun goddess, Metallia."

Metallia stood behind the now completed and impressive city, her arms lovingly and protectively encircled around it and its people with the sun shining brightly behind her. Knowing what I did, the juxtaposition of the maternal aura that tapestry-Metallia exuded and slimy corruption the real it did made it even worse.

"And the empire never thought to ask them about their 'goddess'?" I asked.

"Oh, they did," Lasciel said. "But they merely assumed 'Metallia' to just be some magical lodestone that Mu divinized. In their travels, it had become commonplace for the empire to find large crystallizations of magic that granted abilities to those who came in contact with them. To the empire, Mu was simply a civilization that had taken worship of such anomalies to the next level."

"Bet they regretted not looking further into it, huh?" I muttered ironically.

"The dead do not regret, my host. That is a privilege solely unique to the living." She put a hand to her lips. "But yes, had they not just assumed, they might have had a better chance of preventing what happened to them, or at least not have been caught so badly off guard."

I felt a knot form in the pit of my stomach. Assuming you knew what was best and writing things off because of that… It was something I was familiar with and had paid for myself. My bad hand painfully tightened. I shook my head. No time to focus on the past… well, not on my past, anyway.

"So, anyway, the empire saw Mu, saw what they were, saw how they were really ahead of the curve. What happened next?"

Lasciel nodded and flicked her finger, bringing up the next history tapestry. This one showed several tall, slightly shining figures in a ring around the planet. "The empire decided to try a first-contact experiment with Mu. They saw that Mu was far more advanced than the rest of the planet and wanted to make sure that they would continue on such a path. So the empire thought it in their best interest to guide Mu along the right path, to educate them so that they would not destroy themselves like so many young, barbaric cultures did."

"This is starting to sound pretty pretentious to me."

"Oh, it's no different than when the Europeans arrived in the New World, saw the people already living there, and decided it was best to heel them for the 'greater good'."

"Yeah, really not leading me away from my original idea."

"I wasn't trying to," she laughed lightly. "In any case, the empire did make contact with the people of Mu, explaining themselves to be people from beyond the stars that arrived at their world to share their knowledge and experience." The embroidery showed one of those tall, almost elfin figures standing across from a stouter, darker skinned human. A beacon of light was in the sky behind the Silverite (hey, they needed some name), obviously their space shuttle, and a golden hand behind the Mu.

"And how did Mu take the Silverites' offer?"

She quirked an eyebrow at my nomenclature for the empire's people but chose not to say anything about it. "Oh, they were quite pleased, though not for the reasons that the empire assumed."

"And what was that?"

Lasciel giggled. "They though the Silverites to be minor gods that had followed in Metallia's footsteps and chosen to leave their home in accordance with their leader's last will." Her eyes gleamed wickedly. "The Mu took a civilization that once ruled the stars and made them servants of their deity. The irony is delicious."

Okay, heh, that was a bit funny. Must've been a slap in the face when the empire actually figured out how they were viewed. "So their relationship was wonky, but worked?"

"Yes. Thus started the Silver Millennium, a thousand years of cooperation and peace between the Golden Kingdom of Mu and the Silver Galactic Empire. It was tenuous at times, with neither side desiring to be seen as lesser to the other, but it did work. The Mu's already accelerated magical skills and culture jumped ahead even more, and the empire had a new system to call home and neighbors that, while perhaps young and naïve, made them feel like they were no longer alone."

"So, what happened next? It couldn't have lasted, right?" Not if both parties had been wiped out.

"Patience, my host, patience," Lasciel crooned. She rotated the room again. "I have yet to explain to you how the senshi came into being." On the tapestry was a crude facsimile of the solar system.

My lips twitched. "You mean they didn't already exist?"

"The type of soldier that the senshi are did exist, and was actually the main force and power of the empire's troops, but the senshi of now didn't exist until the empire started to terraform the system's other planets and moons."

They even had the ability to terraform completely desolate planets and planetoids? ...What was I saying, of course they did. If they had the ability to travel all the way from the galactic core, they had the capability to alter places that couldn't sustain life so that they could. What kind of super aliens would they be if they couldn't? However, that didn't explain how the senshi came to be.

"So they had tons of new places to live. What does that have to do with Sparky and the others?"

"Do you remember what I said about their ability to tap into the natural energies of planets and stars?"

"Yeah, but what does that have to do with…" I trailed off, my eyes widening as the realization of her implications hit me. "You don't mean that…"

She smiled and lazily gestured. The picture showed a young woman, curled up in the fetal position, at the center of what was obviously Jupiter. An aura of electricity crackled around her.

"The empire's special brand of magic was based around directly connecting themselves to places of powers – an entire civilization that literally became one with the leylines of planets and stars. Your daughter's magic essentially has the power of an entire planet backing her."

I… I didn't know what to say to that. Leeching off of leylines was a common, if dangerous, way to boost your power during spellcasting. There was always the risk of drawing too much or having the process backfire on you, but the advantages outweighed the risks if you were desperate enough.

To think that an entire civilization worked off that idea – that they absorbed power from leylines as the norm rather than as an exception… Not to mention they used entire planets! A network of places of power was… was… No wonder those fetish suits could keep powering up the senshi like they were plugged right into the sun – they practically were!

…but wait, that was still very little compared to what they were drawing from. I had been able to deep fry an entire cabal of vampires and the mansion they were in by drawing from the spirits of the vampire's victims. That was peanuts compared to what the senshi were drawing from, and yet they only seemed to be about as powerful as myself at best. So where was all that supposed 'ultimate power'?

Lasciel must've seen the pondering expression on my face, because she cut me off before I could say anything. "Before you ask, no, I do not know why the Senshi of now have been diminished so. Perhaps my true self would know, but even I doubt that she would." She lightly shrugged. "I did promise, and I find there's no point in making allusions that I would know."

Well, that was… different. Either Lasciel was honestly abiding by the agreement we made, or she really just wanted to move along and get the rest of this story out.

…she must've been really tired of explaining things by now.

I sighed. "Fine, fine, let's just move on. You want to tell me how Metallia came to destroy both Mu and the empire?"

The room had finished its rotation and was now back to its original orientation, Metallia's ugly mug yowling right in front of me. I held back the grimace at how obviously evil the thing was, absently wondering how the Mu didn't immediately discern the thing's corrupted roots. Lasciel swiped her arms against each other, and Gregorian-like chanting started to fill the room.

All around us, people phased into existence. They were garbed in religious robes and adornments, several holding urns of burning incense that swung back and forth and filled the room with a pleasing, drowsy scent, others hoisting up banners with mystic runes inscribed on them. The priests and holy people formed a ring around Metallia.

At the head of them was a beautiful man in white and golden robes, stylized in a manner between Greco-Roman and Christian. His hair was almost pure white, though it couldn't have been from age. However, the closer I looked, the more I noticed the slight age lines in his face. He was clearly the head of the order, making regimented gestures above an acolyte that was kneeling in front of him with one hand, the other holding a glowing, golden lotus blossom.

Said acolyte raised themselves to their feet when the head priest ended whatever ritual he was performing. They turned around and then dropped the light toga that had been completely covering their body.

Long, wavy, fire-red hair framed a sharp, angular face befitting some noble and cascaded down the acolyte's back and front, covering their... Turned out that said acolyte was a young woman, and a very pretty one at that. Now she was very naked.

I leaned away, averting my gaze like the gentleman that I was. "Did you bring me to something kinky? Should I even be watching this?"

"Do not be such a prude, my host." Lasciel glided up across the room, snaking around the naked woman. She, as well as everyone else in the room, had frozen in place like a photograph. "What you are seeing is the initiation ritual for becoming a full priest or priestess of Metallia." She cupped the woman's face, brushing aside her locks to reveal dull, coppery eyes. "This lovely acolyte will soon become one of the higher levels of religious personnel, directly connecting to her beloved goddess to receive her blessing."

"Ookayy…" I pushed down my feelings of shame at ogling a naked woman. It wasn't helped by Lasciel draping herself over the woman, molding herself to every curve. Damn it, I knew I'd regret giving her free reign like this! The fallen angel was going to drive me to sin by barely trying. "So why am I watching this? Unless you really just like seeing me flustered."

"I must admit, it's a bit of a bonus, but not the main reason. You wouldn't recognize her, so let me introduce her." Lasciel took a hold of Beryl's hair and let it fall through her fingers before giving a sigh and backing off. "This is Beryl, leader of the Dark Kingdom."

Huh, she looked… less femme-fatale than I would've thought. Most 'evil' women I'd come across were much more 'bow before me' than the whole 'reverent disciple' look this Beryl had.

"She doesn't look like the kinda person that would cause solar system-cide. Then again, when I first met you, I didn't peg you for an immortal terrorist, so I guess I don't have the best track record there."

"You do have the tendency to regress into a grunting Neanderthal around a pretty face."

Hey, I resemble that remark.

"She wasn't exactly a mad sorceress when this all began," Lasciel said, gliding away while examining the other frozen people. "She was just a minor noble that wanted to worship her goddess as best she could, and made some very poor choices in her quest for her heart's desire."

"You make it sound like she wasn't all that bad," I said blandly. "Her actions directly wiped out two civilizations, and she's currently trying to top that."

"We all have the capacity in our hearts to become monsters, don't we, my host?" She craned her face at me, eyes briefly flashing bright jade green.

My mouth snapped shut, leaving me to stew momentarily. "Fine then," I relented. "Why don't you show me her great downfall?"

"Gladly." Lasciel floated back over to me, and then time reasserted itself to tick along again.

Beryl trekked the naked meters towards the pool Metallia resided in, pausing only briefly for the priests to lift the ropes so that she could continue. I peered down the slope to see this so-called 'initiation.' Though if it was anything like the ones that other cults following mad gods performed, there was about to be a lot more screaming and messiness involved.

Beryl slowly made her way to the center of the pool and lifted a hand. She made to touch Metallia, but hesitated at the last moment, holding her hand to her chest. She took a deep breath and then placed her palm against the orb.

Metallia released a pulse of negative energy, one so putrid and foul I barely managed to resist retching, bile rising in the back of my throat. It released another, then another one. With every pulse, each growing quicker in succession, the water around Beryl grew darker and more crystalline. The crystals crowded around Beryl's feet before slowly crawling up her legs, encompassing every square inch of her skin from the tips of her fingers to the crown of her head.

She gave a small gasp of pain mixed with a paradoxical amount of pure ecstasy as the crystals tightened around her before they shattered, turning into shining dust and flecks. Beryl fell to her knees, panting lightly, arms hugged around her shoulders.

Her eyes suddenly widened, and she flicked her head side-to-side as if looking for something. She opened her mouth to speak but then closed it, eyes widening further and almost glittering with tears.

I wondered what had evoked such a reaction, like she was talking to someone who wasn't there. Something at the edge of my perception yanked me to the answer.

There, at the corner of her shoulder - hardly viewable, a mere smidge of a thing – was a tiny speck of a shadow. It moved like a living creature, gliding between her sides, leaving a psychic sludge trail across her bare back. It said something to Beryl, some incomprehensible string of madness, but whatever it was, the woman ate it up, her face lighting up like nothing I'd ever seen.

The shadow grew bigger, an imperceptible amount, but the feeling that it did… Then it shivered, like it was… laughing.

Beryl rose to her feet and climbed out of the pool. She was greeted by a couple priestesses with a new robe, one that was more decorous than the one she'd removed, obviously a sign of her new position. She languidly donned the apparel. Beryl looked up from her feet and smiled.

Her beautiful face, once somewhat naïve if tempered by rigorous training, now had something darker to it. A shadow crossed her eyes. Her lips deepened.

The people vanished from the room, leaving only Lasciel and me once again. I turned to her. "What the hell was that? How did those people not notice how… how evil that thing was? Do they all have that, some… some little piece of Metallia hanging onto them, whispering into their ears?"

There was no way that shadow was anything else other than Metallia. In a terrifying way, it reminded me of Lasciel's shadow. Only… I knew the fallen angel's true nature; I don't think Beryl really had a clue what she was carrying around with her.

Lasciel tilted her head to the side. "Why would they think it evil?"

"How could they not?"

"My host, they've been inundated by the psychic feeling of Metallia's presence for centuries. If all you ever knew was that, and you were always taught it was the presence of your loving goddess, why would you ever equate it to something evil?"

So this was literally before the book on evil was written. Great. "So, what about that mini-Metallia?"

"That is not so common. Her presence did cause people's innate magical abilities to either manifest or magnify, but that was the first occurrence of her awareness reaching out to make actual contact." She waved her hand, and the room melded back into the dark, murky reaches of space. "Something made her awaken, and it was Beryl's fortune to be the first one who touched her after her awakening."

"And 'something' that was…?"

"Honestly, I'm not quite sure." Lasciel absently swept her around. "Maybe enough people had drawn on her powers, sharing their life energy, to break her from her slumber. Maybe the empire's presence and lingering connection with Chaos clicked something in her. Maybe it was the Silver Empress, said to be born from the galactic core of the Milky Way itself, and her powers that were antithetical to Metallia's that activated her self-preservation instincts. Whatever it may be, Metallia awakened, and with that came the downfall of both their worlds."

A series of still-shots flashed in-between the two of us. Pictures of Beryl leading congregations, making public speeches, arguing with what looked like a senate of sort, and other high-exposure events appeared.

"Beryl quickly rose through the ranks of both the religious order and the political arena, espousing her stand that Mu gain independence from the empire, newly dubbed the Moon Kingdom since the start of the Silver Millennium, now officially stationed on Earth's moon." The slide-show stopped briefly on a picture of a great palatial estate, shaded pure white and silver with exquisitely crafted columns and other mixed architectural parts. The Earth was a blue-and-green jewel in the background. "She said it was the Mu's right to be free, to not be shackled by their 'benevolent' overseers."

"That must've gone over well."

"It was an opinion that was held by many of Mu's citizens. Though the two societies did profit from working with one another, there was still a great deal of tension in all of their shared works." A row of Silverites looked down on the Mu condescendingly. "With their long-standing history, the empire believed themselves to be superior to the earthlings, even those as advanced as Mu's. Because of that, there was an official decree that Mu could not make contact with the empire unless the empire initiated it, and relationships between the two were strictly forbidden. Thus, the Mu were seen as little more than labor by most of the Silverite nobles."

The scene shifted to several Mu politicians grumbling and seething as they passed by the Silverite embassy. "As for the Mu, they eventually came to realize that the Silverites weren't minor gods, simply a society even more advanced than their own. Their culture as a whole developed an inferiority complex, and was quite adamant in proving themselves the equals or betters of the Silverites."

"So, like any other kind of politics, only with world-destroying magic and aliens involved." It sounded like this Silver Millennium was just one very long and formal cold war between the Mu and Silverites – neither side was inherently right, but they were just too stubborn and set in their ways to try anything else. "So where does Metallia come into this?"

The slideshow (wasn't the whole point of the mind-meld to avoid a slideshow?) stopped on Beryl making an impassioned speech in front of the Mu's senate, her voice booming, her gestures bewitching. Metallia's shadow was now big enough to comfortably rest on her shoulder like the world's most nefarious parrot, a sort of leering face etched in its features.

"Metallia fed into Beryl's sense of jingoism, propelling her to seek more and more radical actions to satisfy her political beliefs. Beryl was not only one of the minor noble families of Mu, said to be the descendent of one of the tribe members that first discovered Metallia, but she had also shot up the ranks of the continent's religion, vying for the head priest seat with the current one, Helios, because of the overwhelming power Metallia had granted her." Lasciel pursed her lips briefly. "With those qualifications, it became easy for her to gain support from those that followed her family, her ideals, or her spiritual accomplishments."

"So little miss believer became little miss mover and shaker." I rolled my shoulders. "I'm not seeing how this is much of a tragedy for her. She's more like a zealot than anything else, and that's pretty common for crazies listening to the mad god in their ears."

"The difference, my host, is that Beryl's quest for Mu's independence wasn't just for her peoples' sake, or because she wanted to do as her goddess commanded," Lasciel said. "She had a much more personal stake in the matter."

"And what was that?"

"Love."

My face went deadpan. "She started a war, unleashed a demon, and killed everyone because she was in love?"

"A crush that became an infatuation that became a desire that became an obsession that toppled two kingdoms." She laughed harshly. "Love can make us do terrible things, especially when you feel there's no other way to fulfill it."

"Who's the lucky guy? I can't imagine it ended happily for him, especially if he already had someone else in his life."

"That's the fun part," she giggled. The slideshow shifted again, and I blanched at the sight.

"Now you're directly copying Sparky's books."

The image was a cartoon that matched the style in Makoto's moon comics. Two figures - one male in a dashing formal suit and one female in a flowing gown - were caught in the middle of a passionate embrace, their lips tenderly pressing together while the rest of their faces were shrouded in shadows. They were in the middle of a garden, flowers falling everywhere around them and yet also somehow 'caught' on the edge of the shot like a florid border.

"I thought it was a nice addition."

"Any reason you keep changing the visual motif?" I asked wryly. "This must be the fourth of fifth time you've changed how you show things."

"To keep your attention so that you wouldn't get bored and wander off."

Okay, I didn't have ADD or anything. This was getting stupid!

Lasciel pouted at my sardonic expression. "Oh, fine, it's so I won't get bored. I'm condensing over a millennium worth of history and personal experiences down to a form your mind can absorb without getting an embolism. Forgive me if I flick through the channels."

I was beginning to sincerely enjoy getting her all flustered... which was a problem because it probably meant I was getting sucked into her flow. Damn it. Breaking out of that line of thought, I hooked a thumb at the embracing couple. "Moving on, who're our little lovebirds?"

"Crown Prince Endymion of Mu and Imperial Princess Serenity of the empire."

Huh. "Well, that's just all kinds of bad, now isn't it?" The heirs to two extremely powerful kingdoms that were proverbially sharpening their fangs in response to one another? That was the Shakespearean-level of nasty quirks of fate. "How'd that happen?"

"Oh, the usual ways. They met at social galas, political meetings, royal events. Similar ways of life and hormones paved the rest of the way." She laughed. "They were very passionate despite the age gap."

"Yeah, he does look a lot older than her." Despite the moon-style illustrations, the man looked to be in his early-to-mid twenties and she in her early teens. Then again, large age gaps weren't really as big of a thing a while back, so this wasn't that scandalous (besides the whole 'warring countries' thing).

"My, my, he's not the one robbing the cradle," she snickered. "More like pillaging the grave."

I snorted. "She barely looks older than Sparky."

"Looks can be deceiving. I believe she was around a hundred when she first met him."

"How can that-" I cut myself off. "This is like wizards living a long time, right?"

"Excellent deduction, my host." Lasciel clapped her hands together in mock praise. "Much like the wizards' extended shelf life, the Silverites' lifespan was greatly enhanced because of their magic. Their present ruler was actually alive before they arrived in this system."

A life measured in millennia... What kind of existence was that? "Prince-boy really got her little, old engine running, huh?"

"She had spent a hundred years pampered, sheltered, and bred for her role as heir to the throne, treated by all as their next beloved leader but not as herself. He was the first man to actually treat her like a woman." She smiled slyly. "The little prince approached her like a kitten and got a tigress instead. The stories about their affair..."

"Cute," I said. "And how was Beryl involved? Jilted lover?"

"Nothing of the sort," Lasciel replied. "She was just one of many noble girls who was eligible to wed Endymion. Like all young girls of the disposition she held a torch for him, hopes of a handsome prince on a white horse whisking her away fanning the flames. So when he was 'stolen' by Serenity, her inner fire was tinged by jealousy..."

"And Metallia took advantage of that," I finished. Awesome, a love triangle with super-demons mixed in - always a fun a time. I was beginning to see how Beryl fell so low; she was basically the result of black magic corruption and mental tampering by Metallia. Not exactly what she wanted, but ultimately the end of a path laced with her most base desires. "How'd she even find out about the two? Didn't they at least try to hide their relationship?"

"As powerful and educated as they were, the two were still but children. As much as they tried to conceal it, their affair was a public secret to the higher-ups of both sides."

"Which led to its own host of problems."

"Indeed. The empire viewed it as a tainting of the royal bloodline; the Mu as an attempt to annex the country's leadership when Endymion took the throne and passed it to Serenity, as the Silverites followed a matriarchal rule."

Lasciel flicked her fingers. The screen cycled through more scenes (still in moon style) of political upheaval in Mu - rallies, marches, trials, senate hearings. In each of them, Beryl was at the forefront, provoking the citizenry further and further into a frenzy, Metallia growing larger and clearer as the chaos and already tightly-stretched tension increased.

"Beryl continued her crusade, both to separate Mu from the 'clutches' of the Silverites and her precious prince from the moon princess. Eventually Mu split into two factions - the Loyalists, the party for independence who believed that suffering under the Silverites' yoke was slowly killing Mu, and the Imperialists, who believed that coexistence with them was the better and more profitable choice. Like any wildly diverging groups, things only got worse between them. Lines were drawn and crossed. Bad blood that had simmered for decades, even centuries, made itself known at the surface."

Small fights became full-blown riots in the cities. Flashes of assassinations of the leaders of the two political parties shot up. As more and more scenes blinked before me, it became more and more obvious that something had cracked in Mu, and blackened ichor was seeping out. Mu had become a roiling powder keg, ready to blow at just the sight of a spark.

Lasciel gladly provided me with the scorched match.

A middle-aged man that exuded regality and grace lied still in his lavish and elaborate bedding. His face was shadowed, a simple circlet of gold crowning his salt-and-pepper hair. All of him was monochrome except for the splash of red on his chest, where a jagged crystal shard pierced his heart. Despite the brutality of his death, what features he did have made him look peaceful, almost like she was sleeping.

"King Seregios was found murdered in his bedchambers, and what little civility Mu had remaining immediately dissipated. The king had made it a point to stay neutral in matters regarding the Empire to try and cause no more civil unrest, but his murder did the exact opposite. Both sides quickly came to accuse the other - the Imperialists blamed for attempting to set up the soon-to-be-coroneted Endymion as a puppet ruler, the Loyalists for denouncing Seregios as a soft-hearted and weak-willed ruler who needed to be replaced by someone with more backbone."

Lasciel laughed, a mixture of pity and scorn. "Sad, little Seregios wasn't even in the ground when the nation erupted into war."

Scenes of battles, soldiers killing with magic and steel, flashed by. I grimly watched the atrocities perpetuated by both sides, already somewhat desensitized after the things I'd seen and the few pitched battles I'd witnessed or been a part of since I'd joined the Wardens against the Red Court. The blood, the carnage, and the ferocity from everyone involved...

I absently wondered if Beryl had had a direct hand in Seregios' murder. Sure, her actions had instigated the whole sequence of events, but I knew all to well what a lot of humans would do with the wrong mindset and given a gun - Beryl wouldn't have even had to give the order to pull the trigger. But I guess it didn't matter now; by this point the reason didn't matter, only the result did.

"Beryl got what she wanted," I said wearily. "Metallia still hasn't made her full appearance, though. I'm still waiting for the other other shoe to drop."

Lasciel gave a dainty curtsy. "As you wish, my host. Let me skim though the events until the spectacle occurs." She coughed lightly. "Instead of following in his father's footsteps, Endymion chose to abdicate the throne and elope with his lady love back to the Moon palace. The boy was always more of a lover than a fighter," she chuckled derisively.

"In the power vacuum his absence left, Beryl took the opportunity to instate herself as Mu's ruler, the Loyalists happily backing her ascension. The Imperialists were thus driven from the capital city and into the outlands of Mu, forced to resort to guerilla warfare while Beryl solidified her position and power base. She made multiple decrees to cut off all contact with the empire, declare any Silverite sympathizer traitor to the crown and therefore to be executed on sight, and demand Endymion be released from his brainwashed imprisonment by the imperial princess witch. The propaganda and reign of terror that woman weaved," Lasciel sighed. "Such a far cry from the devout and lovelorn apostle she once was."

Wow, it was like Beryl was the perfect textbook example for why not to traffic with demons and dabble in black magic. Use your powers maliciously, become the next Robespierre-Hitler!

"However, Endymion had not been idle while Beryl usurped his country. Pained by the suffering of his once-citizens under Beryl's thumb, he entreated Serenity to ask her mother, the Silver Empress, to grant him an army to take back his throne. Of course, love-struck moon child that she was, the princess did so. Her mother readily agreed."

Lasciel conjured up an image of the Silver Empress, a larger-than-life and hauntingly beautiful woman that naturally glowed in never-ending variations of silvers and whites, outstretching a hand. Hordes of soldiers marched forward, led by a pillar of flames with the silhouette of a person inside.

"The Silver Empress saw it as killing two birds with one stone - she could garner good will with the Mu sympathetic to her and stamp out the ones what would threaten her people's wellbeing. Her army - led by the senshi of fire, her commander general - joined up with the Imperialists and, with their superior magic and technology, quickly routed the Loyalists, forcing them to hole up in Elysion. The Imperialist's, and consequently the empire's, victory was all but assured except for one major event that altered the entire flow of the war and spelled doom for Mu and the empire both - the Massacre of Alnus Hill."

She created a much larger image this time. This one was of a wide, open, and rolling plain with forests lining one side and a long, meandering river cutting through it. On each side of the river was an army, one clearly more well-equipped and numerous than the other. Judging from their silver moon motif, the larger one had to belong to the empire and Imperialists, and the crystal-crossed sun one to Beryl's Loyalists.

The image zoomed in on two parts. The first showed Beryl sitting on a throne made of gold-flecked crystals. Her face had become more angular, enhancing her already sharp beauty to that of a knife ready to slit you open. Metallia's shadow had grown to a full-sized, humanoid form. It draped itself over Beryl, looking more like a lover than an invader of her mind and virus to her soul. Deep, empty holes where its eyes should've been tracked the field, the inhuman hunger in them making me shiver.

However, what drew my attention away from the unreal abomination in front of me were the four young men positioned in a square around Beryl. I didn't recognize three of them, but there was no way I'd misplace the fourth. Even with the majority of his face shadowed, that poncy haircut and douchey smile clearly revealed his identity.

"I wondered where Zoe'd pop his crazy ass up. I'm guessing the others are his whack-job friends?" I asked snidely.

"The Four Generals. Kunzite, Jadeite, Nephrite, Zoicite," she pointed out in turn. "Prince Endymion's closest friends and personal bodyguards."

"Guess he was either a poor friend or they got real cruddy health benefits."

"They were of the first to defect to Beryl's side and a major reason why she took over so easily. Perhaps they legitimately believed in her ideals; were swayed by her mass wealth, looks, or power; or she just strong-armed them into submission. Regardless, they were and are very much under her thumb." She gently took a hold of my chin and swiveled me. "However, I believe you'll be more interested in their opposition."

I made to slap her hand off but stopped. I blinked. "Would you look at that."

Standing at the head of the empire's vanguard battalion was an exotic beauty of a woman. Her raven hair and piercing eyes, as well as the pure power she radiated from every pore of her being, struck me to my core. Everyone around her seemed cowed, frightened, emboldened, and awed by her presence all at the same time.

Her outfit looked like someone had combined one of the numbers from Sparky's more tasteful moon books with centurion armor. Thick iron boots and gauntlets covered her extremities, seemingly melding into the metallic dress/suit that covered every inch of her body. Ribbons of flame licked from the back and waist of her armor, and she held in her hand a glaive made of concentrated fire.

Silver Empire Commander General Mars was ready to unleash an unholy beatdown on the one that had annoyed her empress. At least her choice of dress was more practical than the current one's.

"She looks a lot more composed and... competent," I awkwardly noted. Mars barked off an order to a fidgety aid that was fumbling with her banner of command. "Though still just as feisty."

"Oh, that's not your Mars you had that lovely firefight with. That would be her mother." Lasciel snapped her fingers, and a crimson star blazed its way into existence in the general's chest in response. "The senshi's planetary powers pass on down the bloodline, from mother to daughter, whenever the current holder expires or relinquishes their station."

I thought about the senshi. They all looked and acted like young girls thus far, so... "Then that means..."

"All of the original senshi perished. Quite gruesomely, in fact..." She smiled winsomely and leaned forward. "Would you like to see?"

The scene burst into motion. The Imperialist and Empire's army surged forward, Mars at the front of it, a blue corona of light and flames trailing behind her. In turn, Beryl's army was completely still. They didn't even seem to be steeling themselves to defend against the oncoming tidal wave of steel and flesh. It was almost like they were expecting something to happen.

My eyes shot to Beryl. She was leaning forward in anticipation, an inordinately and childishly cruel smile on her lips. I swung up to Metallia's shadow... and froze.

A single line appeared in the thing's chest. The line widened, split apart, and then opened to reveal a single blood-red eye with the pupil and iris reversed.

Metallia had fully awoken.

I was actually glad Lasciel had shown the scene in moon style. I might've just passed out in a pool of my own vomit if I had to witness it as though it was really happening in front of me.

Have you ever seen someone gouge out their own eyes? Claw out their throats? Dig through their guts like they were searching for treasure? And all with their bare hands? I saw all of that and more, and I'd gladly never have to see it again. The worst part?

It was happening to both sides.

The expressions of absolute horror and emptiness on the troops' faces as they committed mass suicide was grim enough, but the look of betrayal on the Loyalists was gut-wrenching. They were forced to end their lives by a malicious and sadistic queen, who even now watched with sparkling eyes.

Soon all that was left was Mars, bathed in the spilt blood of ally and foe alike. She struggled against the all-consuming urge Metallia had enkindled in her, but even she ultimately succumbed, plunging her hands into her chest and... I'm not going to say anymore. Afterward, all I heard was her ruined corpse striking the ground with a sickening 'plop.'

The world was deadly still. Then, like gas emerging from a decaying swamp, something bubbled and formed out of the sea of blood and flesh that had once been an idyllic plain. Grotesque humanoid abominations climbed out of the shells of their former corpses. Fangs, claws, spines, tails, tentacles - all sorts of unnatural appendages grew from their broken, misshapen bodies. One creature, larger than the rest and with an actual identifiable figure, a female, rose to its feet, tendrils of flame licking its naked bronzed skin. It eyes held a steely flare I quickly recognized.

Hell's bells, was that Mars? Metallia had just transmogrified an entire battlefield into those youma things, including a literal planet buster! What the hell was it?

As one, the new eldritch army turned to their leader and raised the battle cry. Beryl stood up, her four personal guards taking position around her, and raised her arms in triumph. Behind her, a smile that was too large for its face formed on Metallia.

The scene faded away, and Lasciel began lecturing again. "The Massacre of Alnus Hill struck a huge blow against everyone involved. Both the Imperialists and Loyalists were wiped out except for a few small groups who were quickly run down, and though the empire barely lost a fraction of its military capacity, the loss of one of their greatest warriors was both a tactical and moral disaster. It was made worse that all were now extra pawns for Beryl and Metallia."

"How did Metallia wake up at just that time?" I asked. "That seemed a bit too convenient."

"Beryl had been planning to use Metallia's awakening in the battle for a while. To make sure it worked, she had been... feeding her any Imperialists they had found, as well as any Loyalists who had little to give to the cause." She shrugged at my disgusted expression. "Well, not so much 'feeding' her as having her suck up the sacrifices' life force. One good reason for Metallia's partial awakening was due to the slow and steady absorption of life energy she received every time someone touched her to gain power or simply from being in her general proximity."

"So Beryl even went so far as to sacrifice anyone she didn't need or want?" I wasn't really all that surprised. Warlocks had a tendency to use others in any way, shape, or form as long as they got what they wanted. But the extent of her crimes... It was horrific. "That's just..." I shook my head. "Never mind. What happened next?"

"As much as you'd expect from a power hungry warlord who had an unstoppable force of vampiric monsters under her heel - Beryl soon went to conquering, enslaving, and destroying the rest of the planets in the solar system. With Metallia constantly providing magic and creating new youma out of the people they defeated, her youma army always growing, and the four generals at her beck and call, Beryl had little trouble doing so."

Graphic representations of Beryl's army sacking, pillaging, raping, and burning surrounded me. Entire cities were laid to waste in mere hours instead of days or weeks. People were transformed into youma, though not as en masse as the armies on Mu had been. It seemed that, without Metallia nearby, they had to do so in smaller amounts rather than just change an entire population in one go. And most of the ones changed were citizens and low-ranking soldiers. Warriors at or slightly below the senshi's level appeared resistant or even immune to the force transformation.

I guess being so close to ground zero had taken Mars off guard.

I watched as the generals individually fought entire battalions of soldiers to a standstill. The magic they threw around could level entire battlefields, and it looked like it was barely a drop in the bucket to them.

"Zoe was not nearly that strong when I fought him."

"That's what happens when you're sealed away for ten thousand years and essentially starved the entire time, living off dregs to survive." Lasciel tossed her hair over her shoulder and turned up her nose. "Had you fought him in his prime, he would have needed less than a thought to wipe you from existence." The way she looked at me told me all I needed to know about how she felt about that.

"Super," I glibly said. I looked around at the battlefields, noting that they all took place on different planets or moons. "How come there was no evidence of this anywhere on Earth? There would have to be something showing this all happened."

"Beryl appeared to have put the earth off-limits while she conquered the rest of the empire." She shrugged. "Perhaps she wanted to save the best for last, or assumed it would be better to have someplace left over that wasn't completely overrun by youma. Either way, the rest of your planet was virtually untouched for the entire war, and Beryl and the others were sealed away before she could turn her greed on it."

"Guess we can call that a stroke of luck. Though I think historians would froth at the mouth if they had the chance to see what I'm seeing now." I was silent for a few moments. "Hey, what about Mars? She got turned into some ultra youma, right? Were the other senshi able to defeat her, or is she still..."

"You have nothing to worry about that, my host. Mars is dead and gone."

"How'd they accomplish that? I mean, she was the strongest senshi to begin with, right? Getting a boost from Metallia probably made her even more ridiculously cheaty."

"She was a formidable fighter, yes, but I never said she was the most powerful senshi. In fact, she was only number two to the most dangerous warrior of the empire." She placed a hand to her chin and smiled slyly.

I rolled my eyes. "Can't wait to hear this."

"The most powerful senshi was actually Senshi Saturn. In your own words, she was the nuclear deterrent for the empire - a last resort to use because of how dangerous and destructive her powers were. Even among the other senshi, she was one to be feared and ostracized." She harrumphed sorely. "A poor way of treating the one who saved their collective rears more times than I could count. The way she wiped out Mars and a large portion of Beryl's youma was... well, amazing."

"Why do you say that?"

Her eyes glittered. "Let's just say that, ten thousand years ago, Saturn had a lot less rings and a lot more moons."

...well, that completely destroyed anything I knew about astronomy. Also, what the hell? I shook my head, my face in palms. I groaned. "Uhh... let's just get to the end of this story before you obliterate anything else I know to be fact."

"As you wish," she simpered. "Beryl's army continued to wipe out all of the empire's settlements until all that was left was the Moon Palace on your moon."

A picture of said palace popped up, and then shifted to show inside. Princess Serenity was surrounded by girls even younger looking than her, all in outfits that looked similar to their mothers and yet more... childish? By my count, there were only four. It didn't look like Moon was there. Maybe she had been the princess's body double and that 'Serenity' wasn't even the real one? Sure, that sounded believable. Endymion stood at the very front, ready to lay down his life for his love.

"By that point, all of the original senshi had died in combat, bravely but futilely fighting off the youma scourge. All that was left was their daughters, who had inherited their powers but not their experience. All they had done so far was act as bodyguards for Serenity, and hadn't even seen one speck of actual combat outside of sparring."

Battle broke out, and I couldn't bare to watch as youma and guards slaughtered each other, culminating with the senshi, prince, and princess being slain after putting up a good fight, even managing to lay several hard blows on a few of the generals and Beryl herself.

"The day was over, the night had begun. Beryl and her army had won, though not without suffering grievous wounds. The Silver Empress, seeing that she had no other choice, decided to enact her last resort. She used the Silver Imperial Crystal."

"And that was...?"

"A holy artifact that had belonged to the empire ever since its creation. Legend said it was pulled straight from the galactic core and granted anyone who held it the ability to alter the very threads of reality itself." She shook her head. "I'm not sure as to the veracity of those claims, but suffice to say it was an extremely powerful magical artifact that had the ability to do things most people couldn't even dream of."

The Silver Empress raised the crystal, a multi-faceted gem that had way too many sides and seemed to exist both inside and outside of space. I had to shift my gaze because my stomach started to do backflips and my eyes strained looking at it. It flashed, and then everything went dark. The scene faded away.

"The Silver Empress sacrificed her life to fuel the Silver Crystal, using it to seal away Beryl, Metallia, their army, and the entirety of Mu in a separate dimension." She raised a hand to cut me off. "Do not ask me how they did this without completely destroying the earth's ecosystem. I assume that the Silver Crystal had something to do with it, but even I am not one-hundred percent certain on that matter. Suffice to say that it did, and let us leave it at that."

Soon, everything faded away, and we were left back in the inky darkness of space. Lasciel looked at me carefully. "And that is what I can tell you about Mu, the Silver Empire, and the Dark Kingdom. Well, my host? Does that satisfy you?"

I was silent, not sure how to response. What Lasciel had shown me was terrifying, beautiful, mesmerizing, and saddening all at the same time. I wasn't sure how much of it was true, or even if any of it was true, but it was the best information I'd had to go off of since this whole crazy adventure had started. The best I could do was accept it as is for the time being, use the upcoming days to confirm what I could with Luna, and maybe do some basic inferring from that.

However, it was a start, a start that would slowly but surely help me make sure that Makoto, no, all of the senshi would get out of this stupid battle with nary a hair on their head harmed. It was all I could do and all I had to do.

I finally looked at Lasciel. She perked up at the strange look I gave her. "Thanks, Lasciel. That was... thank you."

She seemed surprised I had actually used her name, but her face quickly morphed into a pleased smirk like a cat getting the canary. "You are very welcome, my host. I assume that you have a plan where to go from here?"

"You could say that..." I scratched the back of my neck. I had a lot of thinking and planning to do, but now that I had something to work off of, it should make things easier. "But before I can, would you mind giving me my brain back now? I kinda need it."

"As you wish." She bowed. "I so look forward to working even more with you, Harry. I think it shall be absolutely marvelous."

With that, the world shifted, blurred, and fell to pieces. It was time to wake up.

A/N (Irritus): And there's the huge flashback chapter. Before I run from all the flames that are sure to come for us 'defiling' canon, let me say a few things. One, I did this so as to fit it into Dresden canon, because SM canon is insane. Two, I like the SM mythos, but it makes everything I know about physics, astronomy, biology, history, anthropology, and other sciences want to hide in a corner and cry (even more so that what we just wrote). Third, the person telling it is Lasciel! Why are you taking her words at face-value? Harry sure as hell isn't!

Next chapter, which had been mostly written already, should be up within a week or so. (This chapter took forever because we were writing the next chapter at the same time; they were meant to be one, argh.) Back to the actual story, huzzah!

A/N (Raithe): Fun fact: When we started writing this flashback, we expected it to last about ten pages.

And in case it wasn't obvious, all deviations from SM canon (and there are lots) are intentional.