Written by Sean Wright

Edited by SeleneStarr

Chapter Eighteen

I

This was not happening. "You coward!" Hebe roared as she tried to lunge at Ananke. Silver bled into the young demi-goddess' eyes as her rage fueled her power. But her bonds held quick as the magic in them stopped the rash young warrior from attacking the older woman.

Calmly, Ananke met Hebe's gaze. The challenge was clear in the girl's eyes, but there were questions as well.

How could she betray their Kingdom like this?

Why did she choose the darkness over the light?

What did she have to gain?

The pained, haunted look on the girl's face almost broke through Ananke's barriers, but she ruthlessly crushed her own yearning and rose to her feet just as the Accursed One came upon them.

Ananke stepped away to allow the creature room view her captive. Hebe stifled her cry of disgust as the being hobbled into the half light. Not even Ananke was completely unaffected by the sight of the Accursed One's true self. The bones of her body shifted endlessly, never allowing her to have true features for more than second. She was tall, and then short, elegantly slender in one moment, and sickly emaciated the next.

A long, talon like hand reached out and touched the smooth brow of the Princess of Silver Millennium. Envy burned bright in the misty-murky silver, muddy brown, black, cornflower blue eyes as the supple, fine boned hand smoothed back silver-white bangs that hid the shining golden crescent on Serenity's brow.

"'Tis art she?" Chaos whispered in surprise.



"Aye, 'tis thine most afeared foe, mine Mistress," Ananke replied simply as she bowed to darkness.

Delight showed in those constant shifting eyes. "She who should hast been my mother, ere now my prisoner and host." She withdrew her hand moved back into the shadows. "Nephrenia has failed to capture the Terran Prince."

"He is no longer needed, Mistress," Ananke assured her once more.

"Yet my handmaiden…"

"I shall bring Metallia to you and restore you armies," Ananke promised again.

Chaos seemed to consider her for a moment then she nodded. "Then I shall leave you to your work, Ananke."

Ananke bowed again, "Your confidence honors me, O Great One," she said as Chaos lurched out of the room.

Once the door was closed, Ananke crouched down before Hebe, a desperate look on her normally calm features. "Listen girl, our time is desperately compromised. I need you to relay a message to our Commander, Eros," she said in an urgent whisper, her plum coloured eyes deadly serious. "Just repeat to Ceres what I shall tell you.."

"Why the hell would I—" Hebe demanded but her mouth closed with an audible snap when Ananke grabbed the front of Hebe's fuku and jerked the girl forward. Those dark wine coloured eyes were deadly serious. "This is not a game," Ananke growled. "Do as I say or so help me, I will kill you now."

The daughter of Nike was not so easily cowed, nor was she blind to the facts that were staring her in the face. Still, Hebe was reluctant to help the woman who betrayed Silver Millennium.

"Why should I help you, traitor?" Hebe asked warily.

"We don't have time for this nonsense," Ananke muttered under her breath before she stood up and moved cautiously towards the door. Chaos was nearby, but for the moment the creature's senses were contained as she communed with her reflecting pool. Now was their chance. Ananke looked at Hebe 

and said, "If you want to save your princess, then help me save mine." Then she smiled softly at the child, "The reason I gave you to Nike was because she was the only person I knew that would love you unconditionally and that would heal your soul."

"What?" Hebe cried.

Ananke shook her head before turning away, "You will never have to know the meaning of that, but when you are home, tell your mother. I finally returned her favor." She closed her eyes briefly. "Now, Juno." She called softly.

Still doubtful and more than a little scared, Hebe did as she was told. She reached out, using her link to her sister Senshi and felt Aine Sigrun's heart. "Aine," she called out desperately.

"Aine!" The mental cry was loud in her ears and it echoed in the young Venusian's skull. Aine Sigrun, Captain of the Asteroid Senshi and Leader of the Four Senshi who protected Silver Millennium's Princess, clutched at her aching head as she drew in a pained breath through tightly clenched teeth. The cry came again, this time louder and targeted at her developing migraine. Such a racket would have brought others, like their capturers or that damn demon. But no one was coming, which meant that idiot Joy was screaming in Aine's broken head.

"Damn it, Joy. Stop yelling in my blasted head!" She snapped back.

Hebe was taken aback by her Captain's tone. Aine was so imperturbable that she would even agitate Elios with her serenity. "Aine, listen." The Joven warrior appeared before her mental eye. "Tell your mother that Ananke said: 'Six destinies became three, three are now one'."

Aine stopped prodding her skull long enough to blink in confusion. "What?"

"Six destinies are now one." She then added: "The enemy has the Queen." And then she was gone.

Aine's gray eyes flew open as she pushed herself up, only to drop back down as the world danced before her eyes. She wasn't going anywhere until her stomach remembered its place was in her belly, not in her throat. That, and she was going to find out just where in the hell she and remainder of her team were.

--

It had not been easy, but Bellona was certain that she managed to reverse the the effects of Ananke's corruption in her daughter's spirit. Bella lowered her glowing hands from the brow of Sailor Vesta, and the girl fell into a deep, comfortable sleep.

Standing behind the Martian warrior, Elios said, "What did you see?"

Bella pulled the rough military blanket higher on her daughter's chest. "As I was cleansing away the last of corruption, I think Cassandra recognized my spirit."

"And?" he demanded.

Bella's hands paused over her daughter. "She bombarded me with a rush of her feelings." Bella rose to her feet with the graceful ease that Elios loved about Asian women. "She was frightened for their situation and worried that she had failed to protect your sister."

"Did she see Chaos' lair?"

His lack of regard for his friend's emotion caused one of Bella's elegant brows to move, but she chose not to comment. "No, she did not."

Elios bit back an oath.

"This is not your fight, Halcyon," she reminded him.

He turned his back to her.

Bella was going to have her say. "I know who and what you are. I know Endymion is suppressing your presence. If he did not, all hell would literally break loose within this Solar System."

Elios met her gaze over his shoulder coldly.

"You are the reason we are war now."

"How do you figure that?"

"Because this is not the first time Chaos has attempted to assassinate you, and it will not be the last, Lord Helios, son of Morpheus."

II

She was in a simply made white room. There were no furnishings or decorations of any kind. It was just an empty room, cold and empty, true reflection of her soul.

She was alone, seated in a high back chair that wasn't really there, looking at her own reflection in the mirrored wall that was not supposed to be there. She wore a white dress, and her long, pale hair pooled over shoulders, falling in to her lap as she leaned forward. Her pale eyes were focused on the mimic in the glass.

"There is so much that I do not understand." The girl in white propped her elbows on her knees as she rested in her chin in her hands. "Like my compulsion—my need to hunt you down and destroy you. Why are my first thoughts always of you? Why must I seek you out only to want to tear your heart out and feast upon your soul? Why are we like this?"

The shadow in the glass extended her left hand towards her face as she answered softly, "there exist many different possibilities and answers to each of your questions—limitless outcomes for each, varied endings for our lives."

A thoughtful frown married the girl's face as she spoke of thing that was taboo to them in these moments. "Our war began long before Helios first walked in this realm and it shall continue long after his descendents turn to dust."

"Any hope of a resolution between us ended before that immortal deity's birth and when he stepped into this dimension and decided to create life," the other whispered sadly.

"Or maybe out last battle had ended eons before his time and we are ghosts of our former selves living beyond our legends, doomed to war through eternity…"

"It is the only way of defining our existence to ourselves and the universe."

"Then what are we?" Her voice shook with suppressed tears.



"We are fantasy and we are truth," the twin stated. "We are both created out of a fundamental part of nature, yet by the same token we are pure invention. We are polar opposite of each other yet essential to the other's fate. One is the warrior of light, the other a soldier of darkness. We are contradictions."

She was hope and her counterpart was desolation.

"Order and chaos cannot exist together. For either one of us to exist the other cannot."

"It is our nature."

"Light does not exist without darkness." Hard gazes met; there was no such compromise for them.

Chaos needed to expand beyond the limits created by its madness. To do so, it needed to crush order and make everything as it once was: a void of nothingness where reality was nonexistent and pandemonium reigned. Destroying the creators of order would undo reality and bring peace to her chaotic mind. Up would be down, black would be white; it would all come undone.

It would all be void.

It would be chaos.

It would happen soon.

Chaos could not exist with order. The very definition of their souls stated as much.

He should not have witnessed that. It had been a private yet revealing conversation between two of the greatest forces in nature. It should have humbled him and left him in awe of something other than his own cunning and brilliance. Alas, this was sadly not the case.

Endy slump down further on his throne, a scowl darkening his handsome face.

Ananke had kidnapped Serena.

The Accursed One had his Princess in its clutches.

Heads were going to roll.

Elios took in Bella's serious expression and tried not to laugh. "Please tell me that you are joking," Elios demanded incredulously.

"No, I am very serious, Helios." She answered harshly.

"Forgive me, Lady Bellona." Elios gave in and burst out laughing. Between his chuckles the youth managed to get out, "Did you just refer to me as my own grandfather?"

Bella glared at him. "I had expected you to deny it…"

"Of course I deny it." Elios cried. He dropped down on the window sill, holding aching ribs. "You really don't know much about my grandfather, or my mother now that I think about it, if you can make such an absurd assumption about me!"

A muscle in her jaw ticked. Irritation flashed in her ruby eyes as she growled out, "Absurd?" She spat the word.

Helpless from laughter, Elios could only nod. He collapsed onto his side, still laughing as if Bella had told the greatest joke of all time. After a moment he regained a small measure of control, but not much, so he could point out weaknesses in her theory. "Well, for starters, immortals like my grandpa cannot be reincarnated. It defies his original existence."

"But your grandfather was killed during the war on Terra and in a car accident--" Her voice trailed off as his statement made sense to her. "Beloved Ares," she stepped back from the laughing boy, her large eyes growing wide as the impossible became possible in her mind's eye. "Helios is not—"

She never saw the boy move. One moment he was seated on the small window seat, then less than a second after that Elios was standing before Bellona. She felt nothing when he laid his glowing hands on her, Bella's eyes rolled back into her head before collapsed into Elios' waiting arms.

The sound of cloth rustling drew his attention to the other person in the room.

"Was it really necessary to trap my mother in your world of dreams, Hal?" Cassandra asked.

Elios looked over at the red-haired girl and smiled, "Your mother is fine, Cassandra. I just need her to forget a few things that she thinks she knows about me and my kinfolk. Nothing more."



Cassandra expression said rather loudly that she did not believe him, but there was nothing she could to do to stop him in her condition. However, that did not mean that she was going to let him off without promising to skewer and broil his ass alive if he caused her mother any irreparable brain damage before lying down again to sleep.

Hebe didn't know why Ananke allowed her to talk to Aine—hell, everything about the crazy witch was questionable. And what was with that message?

"For your safety, I suggest you forget that." Ananke's quiet voice drifted over from the traitor's place beside the door.

"Why should I?" Hebe demanded coldly.

"All of Ananke's hard work would be for naught, and Chaos will discover what we are up to before we are ready for her," a soft, angelic voice whispered.

Hebe eyes flew down to the incredibly beautiful small woman lying on the floor. Silk rustled quietly as Princess Serenity pushed her body into a seated position on the cold floor. She took a deep breath as she gingerly probed the back of her head.

"I trust that you are well, Princess," Ananke inquired politely. A slight smile touched her face.

"I will be once this over," Serena said as she took in her surroundings. "Is it safe to talk here?"

Ananke nodded. "For a few hours. The Accursed One is currently at her meditation, and she will not break her trance until she has rested completely."

Serena nodded. "I trust that all is progressing as it should?"

"Yes, Princess." Ananke bowed slightly to her lady. "I have relayed the message to Eros via her daughter Aine Sigrun. I know Persephone will understand, thus shall interpreting the message correctly. I expect that Eros will be moving into position in a matter of days."



They were interrupted by odd strangling noises coming from the girl on the floor. One of Ananke's brows rose in a silent question as Serena turned to face the girl.

"Are you alright, Hebe?" She asked worriedly.

Hebe pointed at Ananke, her green eyes wide. "Your Majesty, she's the enemy," she choked out.

"Yes, I know." Serena stood up. To Ananke she asked, "How much time would estimate we have before Elios locates us?"

"Less than two days," the other woman told her. "He will move faster than Eros, and he will come here. I have been shifting the stars in this area, but your son is very sharp, Serenity. Halcyon will find us soon."

"That does not give us much time then," Serena said sharply. Ananke did not miss the hint of desperation that coloured her tone. Ananke was closer to panicking than she had been in eons.

"What to propose to do, your Highness?" Ananke asked politely.

"We need to leave for Saturn immediately," Serena told her. "I don't care how you get us there, just get us there today."