Sailor Moon: Millennials

by PMSmiles

This is a fan repost of all available 33 chapters of The Judge's abandoned work. An epic length and very ambitions fic involving an amnesiac Pluto and a pregnant Usagi. Time and space travel abound in an effort to right wrongs and overcome evil.

3. Chapter 3-

DISCLAIMER: Hello. Before I go any further I want to publicly state that this work of fan fiction is NOT of my own creation. I am simply a fan of this piece and after strenuously searching the internet to read it again after 20 years I have decided to upload it here for anyone else who wants to read it. The real author (The High Judge) never finished this work, or at least never updated past chapter 33 (even though it is obvious that the ambitious plot of this story should continue much past this point). So please don't come after me for more updates. There won't be any. Rather enjoy this incomplete fan fiction for what it is and please forgive me for any formatting errors, some of the text files had to be manually edited and I did my best.

_…_…_…_…_…_…_

SAILOR MOON: MILLENNIALS

Chapter 3

Troubles Brewing; Something's in the Kitchen at the Diner

Shigeru danced unsteadily down the street, a half-empty bottle in one hand and an off-key tune on his lips.

It was either very early or very late—he couldn't really remember which. He couldn't really remember much of anything over the last few hours, except a general sense of celebration, lots of cheering, and several rounds of drinks. He did remember getting kissed by a number of very pretty ladies he was pretty sure he had never met before, and he vaguely recalled carrying on an animated conversation with a potted plant, but most of the rest of the evening was a blur.

All in all, it had been a wonderful New Year's Eve.

The party had been somewhere between the 'going strong' and 'beginning to wind down' stages when Shigeru had left, remembering that he had to open up at work the next day, and reasoning in that fuzzy, alcohol-inspired way that the sooner he opened for business, the sooner he could close and go home.

Which is why 4:39 in the morning found him fiddling with the key to his place of business, the Cafe Mocha.

And why, when he saw the general mess waiting for him, Shigeru dismissed the broken cups and spilled foodstuffs as just another mess to clean up, and the coiling growths of strange, green fungus as one more urban pest to combat.

And why, when the alien substance lashed out for him, Shigeru never even bothered to shout. He vanished through the glass door of the cafe without a sound, leaving the door ajar with the keys still in place, the half-empty bottle falling from his hand to shatter and spill its contents on the cold concrete.

A short time later, more tendrils emerged from the darkened cafe, sweeping up the broken glass and absorbing the spilled alcohol before withdrawing. The last fungoid appendage deftly removed the keys from the lock and closed the door behind it as it pulled back. Another moment passed, and the sign hanging inside the door was repositioned to read "Come In, We're OPEN."

After all, when one is serving bait, presentation IS everything.

_…_…_

"Tadaima!" Usagi stood half-in, half-out of the doorway, waiting for a response while Luna slipped past her and into the house. After a moment, she added, "Hello? Is anyone home?"

"I'm in the kitchen, dear. Try to keep the noise down; your father's upstairs sleeping off last night."

"Oh." Usagi moved aside to let Rei follow her inside. They were in the middle of kicking off their snow-rimmed boots when Usagi realized that she had been in the house for nearly a minute without seeing so much as a drop of annoyance from her squirt brother's squirt gun arsenal. "Where's Shingo?"

"He went to Mika's after lunch," Ikuko replied, stepping out of the kitchen with a towel and dish in her hands. "Hello, Rei-chan."

"Ma'am," Rei said with a polite, nervous nod. *This stupid idea of yours had better work, odango-atama!*

"So," Ikuko continued, "how many different New Year's celebrations did you girls see last night?"

"We had a couple of unexpected guests," Usagi said, "so we didn't get much further than Tokyo."

"Anyone I know?"

"Do you remember Meiou Setsuna?" Ikuko paused in the middle of her dish-drying, frowning slightly.

"I seem to recall... wasn't she the young lady with dark hair and eyes? A few years older than you, and didn't say much?"

"That's her. She called us from the airport and stopped by Ami's place a little before midnight. I'm surprised you remembered her."

"Well, we only met once or twice," Ikuko admitted. "She seemed like a nice girl, but I never really got the chance to get to know her. I never did quite understand why someone her age was hanging around with the rest of you."

"She sort of looks after Haruka, Michiru, and Hotaru," Usagi said hastily. Rei burst out laughing. "What's so funny?"

"Haruka would string you up by your pigtails if she heard you suggesting that she couldn't take care of herself."

"Well, it's the truth," Usagi stammered. "Sort of. You won't tell her I said that, will you?"

"Give me back those manga you stole from me, and I'll think about it."

"I did NOT steal any manga from you!"

"Issues 24, 29, and 30?" Ikuko asked. Rei nodded. "They're up on her dresser. She'll give them back before you leave."

"But I haven't finished reading them yet!" Usagi wailed.

"Well then," Ikuko said in satisfaction, "you can use the extra time to do some studying." Ignoring her daughter's horrified expression, Ikuko went on. "So who was the other visitor? Anyone we can expect to call on us?"

"I hope not," Usagi muttered. "I can live without more things like THAT showing up on the doorstep, thank you very much." Ikuko frowned.

"That's not a very polite thing to say about a guest, Usagi."

"I wasn't trying to be polite, and it wasn't a guest. Ami's house looks like a train derailed and went through the living room because of that thing."

Ikuko stopped polishing the plate. "I see. One of THOSE." She gave both girls a visual once-over, absently adjusting Usagi's collar. "But you're all right?"

"The doctor said so."

"Doctor?!" In the kitchen, Luna choked on her milk.

*Nice going, Usagi.* Rei looked around. "Why don't we sit down? This could take a while."

They moved into the living room, Rei taking a chair while mother and daughter took the couch. Ikuko set her dish and cloth on the table and turned to Usagi. The look on her face could have driven nails down from across the room.

"Tell me everything."

"We were getting ready to go to sleep," Usagi began, cautiously crossing her fingers and silently praying that she could keep straight the details of the story Ami had put together. "I think it was about two or two-thirty, and Setsuna was staying over as well. She and Ami got the couches downstairs, and the rest of us were in the upstairs rooms. I was getting a drink from the kitchen when we heard something explode. We went for the windows and saw the Senshi fighting this... thing... outside." Rei took up the story.

"It went on for a while, and then the whatever-it-was fired some sort of energy beam. It was facing Ami's house when it went off; the Senshi got out of the way, but the house... well, you get the idea."

"And you, Ami, and Setsuna were in the living room?"

"Yes. I was too scared to move, and Ami sort of looked like she was going to shoot lasers from her eyes or something—I've never seen her so angry—so Setsuna pushed us both out of the way before the living room blew up. Ami and I got out in one piece, but Setsuna was between us and the blast, and she took the worst of it. We tried to call the hospitals, but with the phone lines acting up... well, Ami's mother got home from a dinner party a few minutes later, and she drove the three of us to the hospital."

"The rest of us got dressed and walked over," Rei said. "Setsuna was just being moved out of the emergency room when we arrived."

"Is she all right?"

"A lot of minor burns and bruising on her back," Usagi replied, "plus a cracked rib and a dislocated shoulder. And a lot of medical gibberish. It didn't seem too serious until we went in to see her." Usagi paused, realizing that her eyes were actually starting to tear up.

"Usagi?"

"I'm okay, mom. Really." Usagi sniffled and brushed the tears aside, looking up with a smile. "See? All better."

"Setsuna hit her head when she fell," Rei explained, sparing a sidelong glance at Usagi, as if to criticize her for overacting her part. "It really didn't look that bad, but when we went in to see her, Setsuna didn't recognize us. And she couldn't remember much of anything about herself, either."

"Oh my."

"We spent a couple of hours telling her what we could, but the doctors said that it could take days or weeks or months before Setsuna really remembers anything. Or it could take longer. Or she might never remember." Usagi took a deep breath. "They'll do what they can while she stays in the hospital, but they didn't seem too enthusiastic. They'll be discharging Setsuna in about a week—maybe two, depending on how quickly she heals—and there isn't really anything else they can do to help. They said that the best thing to do is to get her back into familiar surroundings and her usual routine as soon as possible."

"The problem," Rei went on, "is that Setsuna doesn't really HAVE what you could call familiar surroundings. Michiru is still on tour in Europe; we managed to get a call through to Haruka this morning and explain what had happened, and they're all on their way back, but she didn't think they could get here for at least a week, maybe longer, and Setsuna could be out of the hospital by then. She's between jobs, she finished school years ago, and she doesn't have any family. Any friends she has besides us, she never mentioned." Ikuko looked at the two girls suspiciously.

"Why do I get the feeling this is leading somewhere?"

"The doctors said that leaving Setsuna alone would be a very bad idea," Usagi said. "The others are with her at the hospital right now, telling her what they can. Rei and I will be headed back later on, and we'll all be visiting her as often as we can, but we have school, and Setsuna needs a place to stay once she gets out of the hospital. Even if Haruka, Michiru, and Hotaru got home tomorrow, they all have school, too; Setsuna would have to spend days by herself in that house. She couldn't have stayed at Ami-chan's even if it were still in one piece, because neither Ami nor her mother are home during the day. Mako-chan lives by herself, and both of Mina-chan's parents work."

"So of course," Ikuko finished, "that leaves us or Rei-chan. And since I've met her grandfather—no offense, dear— "

"None taken."

"—that really just leaves us. Very clever, Usagi."

"I liked it," Usagi mumbled, looking at the floor.

"Oh, stop pouting. Of COURSE Setsuna can stay with us."

"You mean it? Thanks, mom." Usagi latched on to her mother in a happy hug. "You're the best."

"She is going to have to sleep in your room, though," Ikuko added with a dry smile. "I can air out the spare mattress in the attic, but we really don't have all that much extra space."

"I don't mind," Usagi said immediately.

"That may not be such a good idea," Rei observed lightly. "Are you aware that your daughter snores like a passing thunderstorm?"

"I do NOT snore!" Usagi protested, half-turning where she sat.

"She gets it from Kenji," Ikuko said, laughing. "Between the two of them, there are nights when I'm surprised that the windows don't rattle."

"M-O-M!" Usagi wailed. "That's not fair!"

"As Mina-chan might try to say, 'all's fair in love and war.'" Ikuko tweaked her daughter's nose, still laughing. Rei joined her while Usagi pouted again. Ikuko paused in mid-laugh, that vague look of dawning recollection crossing her face a second time. "Speaking of which, something came for you in the mail this morning. Hang on a minute."

Ikuko got up and left the room, taking the more-or-less dry plate and the cloth with her. She returned a short time later, having traded in the mock china and tattered dishtowel for a small parcel that fit rather neatly in the palm of her hand. Luna trailed after Ikuko as she sat down and handed the little package to Usagi.

The object, quite heavy for its small size, had a square bottom, its sides rising just a little short of twice the length, all wrapped in royal blue paper with some very intricate folding at the top. A plain white card, tucked under some of those folds and with the name "Tsukino Usagi" scrawled on it, was the only kind of identification, and Usagi felt her heart skip a beat as she looked at that card. She was no expert on writing, but the elaborate, flowing script looked too much like the calligraphy from Setsuna's mysterious letter to be coincidence.

The card came away very easily. It had not been taped or fixed to the package in any way, merely anchored by the folds of the wrapping, and when Usagi tugged on those folds, the parcel quite literally unwrapped itself, exposing the crinkled white inside of the paper and the plain cardboard box within. The 'box' was actually more of a 'sleeve,' covering something which was fixed to the black plastic base.

"What's this?" Rei said suddenly, picking up and smoothing out the paper. There were words—a poem?—written on the inside:

Eternal infinity, all space and time;
Paradox and enigma, wrapped up in rhyme.
Ending in fire and therein also to start;
The Egg of the Phoenix—keep it close to your heart.

The three women looked up at each other, down at the paper, and then back to the still-hidden object. Usagi very carefully slid the cardboard away—and came very close to dropping the whole thing when she saw what was inside. All three of them gasped in astonished wonder, and Luna's jaw very nearly hit the floor.

It was a crystal sculpture of an egg in the instant of its hatching. The shell had shattered into four large fragments, with many smaller pieces scattered about between their jagged edges, all of them little thicker than a piece of paper; the top of the egg was in perhaps a dozen different parts, suspended on wire so fine that they appeared to be floating. And there, inside the fractured shell, was the uncurling form of a strange, beautiful bird. Its wings were pressing outwards against the shell as its head rose up, beak open as if to cry out—in wonder? Any lesser emotion would not have done justice to the expression on the tiny, flickering features, and that detail was not confined to the firebird's face alone. Curling plumes rolled off its neck, wings, and tail like frozen flame; every single feather seemed to leap out at the eye. The eggshell was clear crystal, but the phoenix itself was tinted with deep reds and a bright orange so vividly reminiscent of fire that Usagi almost thought that she could feel her hand grow warm.

"I don't... it's... it's beautiful." Usagi quickly set the piece down on the coffee table, directly in a ray of sunlight which set its colors to dancing, just like real flame.

"Why did you do that?" Rei asked, half entranced by the subtly shifting colors of the egg and its occupant. *It's almost like watching the fire at the shrine,* she thought, having to fight down an impulse to extend her mind towards the effect.

"I'm afraid I might drop it." With some effort, Usagi pulled her eyes away from the glowing sculpture and looked at her mother. "Who sent this?"

"I have no idea," Ikuko replied. "It was sitting next to the paper this morning. I thought it might be something from Mamoru..." She stopped when Usagi shook her head. "You don't think he sent it?"

"He would have mentioned it in his letter if he had," Usagi said. "I'm sure of it. And besides..." She looked at the beautiful gift. "I can't begin to imagine how much something like this must cost. My ring was one thing, but Mamo- chan's still paying for his apartment at college, and... there's just no way he could have afforded it." There was also the matter of the handwriting to consider, but Usagi couldn't explain that to her mother.

"And besides which," Rei added, "Mamoru knows better than to buy anything even remotely breakable for you."

"That too," Usagi agreed without a trace of anger. She looked at the tiny phoenix again, taking a deep breath. "Mom, we have to get back to the hospital to let Setsuna and the others know she can stay here. Could you put this in my room? Somewhere I won't knock it over?"

"Of course."

"And tell Shingo that if he goes anywhere near it, he'll never get out of this house alive." Ikuko smiled.

"I'll do that, too." Then she glanced down at Luna. "And that goes double for you, Luna."

"Meow." *Talking to me as if I were Artemis... honestly!*

Usagi and Rei retrieved their coats and winter gear—and Usagi rolled her eyes when Ikuko added a scarf and a good-bye kiss, cautioning her daughter to keep warm. Then they were walking side-by-side down the freshly ploughed sidewalk, Luna keeping pace a short distance ahead.

"So," Rei said at last. "Did you recognize the handwriting?"

"Uh-huh. I don't like this. First they—whoever 'they' are—do something to Setsuna, then they send her a letter, and now I get... Luna, have you ever seen something like that before?"

"I'm sorry, Usagi. I've never seen or heard of anything quite like that little sculpture before. I AM quite certain that it's more than just a piece of blown glass and shaved crystal, but as to _what_..." She shook her furry head. "Maybe Ami can learn something with her computer."

"And maybe it'll start snowing moochi, too." Usagi sighed.

"Don't give them any ideas," Rei said. "For all we know, they could be listening right now."

"You're just being paranoid," Usagi countered. "You really should read something less gloomy than all those scrolls about snooping spirits and vengeful gods."

"It's part of my training. Besides, how CAN I read anything else when you've got all my manga at..." Rei stopped walking and blinked. "Of all the... I forgot to get those before we left!"

"Really?" Usagi's face was a study in sympathetic innocence. Rei almost bought it, except for the mischievous twinkle in those wide blue eyes.

"You little sneak! You KNEW I'd forgotten about them, and you deliberately didn't remind me!"

"Of course." Usagi grinned. "Luna's been drilling me for months on everything she thinks a princess should know, so I figured it was about time I put some of it to good use."

"Stealing from your friends wasn't what I had in mind," Luna groaned.

"It's not stealing, it's practice." She closed her eyes and started to recite. "'A ruler must employ every weapon available in matters of diplomacy. For those who are honest, truth will suffice, but against those who wield the tools of deceit, a true queen must be ready to meet them in kind, turning their own lies back on them.' If I can fool you, Rei," Usagi gloated, "I can fool anybody." Then she giggled. "Besides, this way I get to read all three mangas again before I have to give them back—and there are still those four issues hidden under my bed that Mom doesn't know about!"

_…_…_

Anon sighed. The bus was late again. If this hadn't been a daily event, he could have shrugged it off as fallout from New Year's parties, but as it was, he was going to be late to the office again. His supervisor, Ms. Norah the-h-is- silent Karenson, was not the most understanding woman in the world at the best of times, and after nearly a month of his being just barely on time or outright late... oh well.

Anon raised his head curiously as a teenaged blonde girl with unusual hair went running by at high speed, laughing and casting odd looks over her shoulder. A white blur followed her at even higher speed, before it exploded into a white bump on the side of a telephone pole. Two more snowballs followed the first in rapid succession, and then another girl—this one with very long, very dark hair—ran by, shrieking deadly imprecations and scooping up snow for another projectile without slowing down.

A small black cat bounded up atop the mailbox that stood on the corner, its eyes following the two girls and a growling, groaning sort of sound issuing from its throat. The noise reminded Anon of similar sounds his mother used to make when he and his brothers were on the verge of getting totally out of hand as kids. He had to chuckle.

"Friends of yours?" he asked the cat, not really expecting an answer.

The cat gave vent to an almost human-sounding sigh of vexation before leaping down from the mailbox to follow the two girls.

_…_…_

The Cafe Mocha was one of those places that featured both indoor and outdoor tables and served a variety of dishes which didn't quite add up to a full meal. In the summer—and some of the better days of spring or autumn—most of the clientele remained outside, placing their orders with one of the waiters or waitresses and never entering the actual cafe. During the winter months, the external tables and chairs were packed away to await better weather, while the Cafe served hot chocolate and other warm, sweet, not-quite meals to its customers as they defrosted in out of the cold.

On this particular winter day, the very first of the year, the Cafe seemed to be doing business as usual. Customers drifted in by ones or twos, taking seats and placing orders which were quickly filled, then lingering over hot drinks and warm sandwiches or pastries before paying at the counter and leaving.

But business was most definitely not 'as usual' today.

The back door connected to the Cafe's kitchen was jammed open, allowing the chilly winter air to periodically gust into the building, along with the occasional sheet of loose snow and ice pellets. Since the kitchen was separated from the front of the Cafe by several walls and doors, none of the customers complained of the draft.

Neither did the kitchen staff. Employers the world over would have paid handsomely to learn how Shigeru inspired such loyalty in his workforce. So would Shigeru, if he had been capable of enough conscious thought to muster any interest.

The owner, operator, and head cook of the Cafe Mocha stumbled around in the same vacant-eyed, temperature-ignorant haze as his employees. All of them—five kitchen workers, two cashiers, one waiter, and two waitresses— were no longer capable of anything except doing as they were instructed.

The source of those instructions hung from a web of green, fungoid-looking material in the kitchen, a roundish growth which glowed oddly, pulsed every so often, and sent a continual series of commands to the tiny, star-shaped things located just behind the ear of each of its slaves.

In response to one such order, one of the kitchen workers removed a fresh pot of coffee from the machine and started towards the door which led to the counter. As the girl passed under the throbbing sphere, it extended a questing tendril and briefly touched the surface of the steaming brown liquid.

Every so often, someone with that same glassy-eyed look would trudge in through the back door and march directly to the basement, where a good ten or twelve individuals—all recent customers of the Cafe Mocha—stood in silence as more of the ropy green substance extended itself from the floor, the walls, and the ceiling to form enveloping cocoons.

And each time a new cocoon was finished, the orb in the kitchen pulsed just a little larger.

_…_…_

"She actually BOUGHT it?" Makoto asked in disbelief.

They were in the quiet room to which Setsuna had been taken earlier—MUCH earlier—that morning. It held a second bed—currently without a patient assigned to it—various pieces of medical equipment for each bed, one small table, and a pair of chairs, placed between the two beds. Usagi and Minako had the chairs, Rei was leaning on the windowsill and looking out at the afternoon sky, and Makoto stood half-in, half-out of the doorway, one eye on the hall for any passers-by. Setsuna was sitting upright in her bed, wearing a pale blue hospital gown and an expression which came very close to that calm detachment the younger girls had always associated with her. Since the hospital didn't allow pets, both cats were somewhere outside, and Ami was curled up on the spare bed, asleep, as she had been when Rei and Usagi returned. Given that her house was only so much wreckage after the previous night's incident, the other Senshi let Ami sleep.

Besides, they had discovered that Ami was one of those people who sometimes talks in their sleep, and they were getting a kick out of some of the things she said in this subconscious state. At the moment, she was playing some kind of chess game—a game in which a certain dark-haired young knight with an uncanny ability to see the future seemed to play a prominent role.

"Of course she bought it," Usagi replied shortly. The lack of sleep was making her—all of them—grouchy. "Are you implying that my own mother doesn't trust me?"

"She probably trusts you about as much as I do," Rei muttered from the window.

"And how far is that?" Usagi asked, uncertain whether Rei was trying to be polite or insulting. Given the earlier incident with the snowballs—her odangos were still damp from several extremely precise hits—and Rei's general nature, it was hard to be sure.

"About as far as she can roll you with one hand," Minako said, grinning. The lack of sleep hadn't helped her mangled vocabulary much.

"I didn't say that," Rei objected, turning from the window.

"Then you DO trust me?"

"I didn't say that, either."

"She trusts you," Makoto interrupted, trying to break up the impending argument. "To be yourself. We all do."

"Oh." Somewhat mollified, Usagi fell silent. But only for a moment. "What do you mean, 'to be myself?' Are you saying you don't trust me implicitly, 100%, all the time?" Makoto rubbed at the bridge of her nose, trying to dispel the dull ache that seemed to have settled in somewhere behind her eyeballs.

"We're your friends, odango-atama," Rei replied, "not idiots."

"And what exactly is THAT supposed to mean?!"

"Shhh!" They looked out into the hall, where a stern-faced nurse stood, admonishing them to be quiet. Usagi and Rei both blushed in embarrassment.

"Sorry," they whispered together. Minako bit back a giggle while Makoto coughed politely and Setsuna's lips quirked into a small smile. The nurse gave them all a stern look before continuing on her rounds. There were several more moments of quiet before Rei spoke.

"So, did Ami mention where she and her mother would be staying for the next few weeks?"

"Months," Makoto corrected. "And she did talk it over with her mother for a while. Mizuno-san's going to stay with a friend until she finds an apartment; Ami'll stay at my place. She thought about asking you, but I guess she decided that Hikawa was too far to walk to school every day."

"She could have asked me," Minako said, somewhat sourly. Makoto grinned.

"I need more help with my homework than you do."

"Bah! Hamburger!"

There was a pause. Setsuna started to say something when she noticed Rei looking at her, shaking her head in a silent warning.

"So tell us about this mysterious present," Makoto suggested.

"You sort of have to see it to believe it," Usagi replied. "We asked Luna about it, but she has no idea what the thing might be for. And given the source, it almost HAS to be for something more important than sitting on a counter looking pretty." She smiled ruefully. "It almost makes me wish ChibiUsa were here; we could at least ask her if I'm still carrying the thing around a thousand years from now or if she ever heard it mentioned."

"She's here, you know."

"What? Where?" Usagi looked around hastily before glancing nervously at the ceiling, just in case another time portal was opening.

"Not like that," Setsuna sighed. "I meant that she's here." And she reached out to lightly touch Usagi's belly.

The instant her hand brushed against the fabric of Usagi's shirt, Setsuna felt as if the entire world were falling away from her, as if her brain was exploding at the same time as her skull tried to implode. To say that the sensation was unpleasant did not do it justice, but although she tried to withdraw her hand immediately, it seemed to take an eternity for that simple command to make its way from the brain down her arm. She knew that it would take precisely 0.00X seconds for the command to be received and interpreted by the muscles in her hand and arm, and another 0.00X seconds before her fingers would break contact with Usagi.

And in that minuscule instant, a huge wave of information surged past Setsuna's eyes. The wave, she understood immediately, was not a single piece, but rather, an interwoven mesh of innumerable... someTHINGS for which she had no name; most shot by in a grey blur, but two of the—currents? Paths? Yes, paths—two of the paths seemed to slow to the point where she could see details. Each was filled with information, not so much in form of precise data or vague visions, but rather a firm sense of knowing that THIS event had occurred at THIS place and time.

The first path, which to Setsuna's mind seemed tinted white, began as a narrow point and moved along in a continuous flow for much of its length. There came a point when it ended, like a thread suddenly cut short, and then began again a great distance from the first piece, still the same line, but somehow... different. Again, it moved along in a single direction, and then it almost appeared to curve back in on itself before proceeding further. And as her mind's eye traced this flow, Setsuna saw that, at its furthest end, the line disintegrated into a huge blur of lesser lines—no. Not lines. Junctions—and somewhere in that mass of confusion, the second path began, a trail of faint pink, somehow beginning in ten thousand different locations at once!

*What is this?* Setsuna wondered in shock. *How did I...*

At that moment, her hand pulled away, and the wave vanished as the real world surged back into view. And in that instant when everything went back to the way it should be, Setsuna was too busy trying to make sense of what she had just seen to tell her body to stop pulling back.

She hit the back of her head against the wall.

"Setsuna? What happened? Are you okay?" Through the stars she was seeing, Setsuna looked up at Usagi. Something clicked in her head.

"June 30, 13:05:24. That's when she'll be born." As the girls stared, uncomprehending, something else clicked—and not in Setsuna's head. "Excuse me," she added, pushing back her blankets and rising from the bed. She crossed the room with a kind of slow haste, not saying another word, and vanished into the washroom which adjoined the room, firmly closing the door behind her. After a moment, the Senshi could hear the unpleasantly unmistakable sounds of someone being terribly sick, and Usagi turned a faint shade of green as her own stomach made sympathetic twists. She had woken up a month ago with her own bout of nausea; after one morning, Usagi had decided she didn't care for the experience. Oddly enough, it hadn't happened since, but now her stomach seemed to want to make up for lost time, and it took most of the internal strength Usagi could muster to keep her last meal where it was supposed to be.

"Mmm... wha..." On the other bed, Ami began to rise, opening one bleary eye and yawning. *Why do I have this odd feeling that Ryo-kun should be here?* The train of thought and the yawn died when she noticed the empty bed. "Where's..." Another sound from the washroom answered the half-finished question, and Ami added her own sleep-rimmed, worried gaze to the vigil.

Eventually, there was quiet, followed by the sound of a toilet flushing, several seconds of running water, and a few soft splashes. Then the door opened, and a pale, damp-faced Setsuna emerged.

"Could you help me back to my bed?"

"Sure." Makoto moved to put one arm around her friend—and the instant they touched, Setsuna fell to her knees. The surge was back, blotting out the world in a weave of grey. This time, the flow which appeared in front of her eyes was an emerald green. It had the same break and the same curious loop as the white flow, but the feelings it evoked in Setsuna's mind were considerably different.

*Not again! Get out! Stop it!* She flailed with mental arms, trying to push away the confusing flood. For a moment, nothing seemed to happen. Then, as her eyes came back into focus, Setsuna realized that the green she was seeing was not in the strange flow, but in Makoto's eyes, not far from her own and looking extremely worried. Looking at those eyes, something Setsuna had seen— felt?— in the flow pushed forward, and she was speaking before she realized it.

"Four years ago," she whispered. "May 10, 10:42:19." Makoto's eyes widened, and worry was replaced by shock and the beginnings of tears. "I'm so sorry."

"Can you stand?" Makoto said roughly.

"I think so." Setsuna tried to get to her feet, but when she was finally standing, it was evident that Makoto was doing most of the work.

"What's going on? What happened?" The girls looked past Makoto and Setsuna to see the stern-faced nurse and an orderly—a medium-sized sort of fellow with dark hair—standing in the hall.

"She was sick," Makoto replied tersely. "Then she almost blacked out again."

"Then we'd better get her back to bed." The woman pressed a button on the intercom located just inside the door. "Desk, find Doctor Yotogi and tell him to get to room 303." The disembodied voice of the nurse at the desk made an affirmative reply as the intercom buzzed off. "Let us handle this," the woman said preemptively.

"I've got her." The other Senshi twitched collectively. They knew what that tone of voice meant.

"You really should..."

"I said I've GOT HER!" The orderly, who a moment before had been stepping forward, now stepped hastily back, swallowing heavily. The nurse seemed more annoyed than frightened, but she didn't repeat her 'request,' and Makoto easily supported Setsuna back to her bed. Minako and Usagi scooted their chairs back quickly as the nurse, looking darkly at Makoto, made her way around the bed. The orderly took up a position just inside and out-of-the-way of the door, doing his best to remain unnoticed as the nurse began checking Setsuna.

The woman took Setsuna's wrist to check her pulse, and frowned when the young lady's heartbeat suddenly accelerated, the muscles in the hand and the rest of her body twitching. Looking up, the nurse saw a momentary blurriness in the girl's eyes which caused the frown to deepen. Nothing in the medical file or the questions her friends had answered mentioned anything about epilepsy or a heart condition, but...

"You girls should step outside for the..."

"We're not going anywhere."

The nurse released Setsuna's wrist and faced off against Makoto with an expression that had gone from annoyed to angry; she obviously didn't like being contradicted. Caught with two hostile forces on either side of her bed and a mild headache as the last of the most recent surge—this time with a line of pale brown—faded away, Setsuna looked to the other Senshi for assistance and found only nervous faces. The orderly, for his part, did not move except to look up and silently beseech some higher power beyond the ceiling for strength and good luck. Considering that he wasn't much larger than Makoto, he was going to need large doses of both if a fight broke out.

They were all so intent on the building tension that no one noticed the two men who had appeared in the hall and were now looking in at the room and its occupants. They were both doctors. The one in the lead was tall, dark-haired, and good-looking in an ER kind of way; he was a couple of years older than Setsuna, probably only out of med school for a year or two. The second man was shorter, rounder, and likely a couple of decades older than his colleague. Most of the hair on his head seemed to have migrated south to form a short, rusty-rown beard, and the hair remaining in the northern latitudes was nearly all white, including the thick eyebrows which framed his thin-rimmed glasses.

"If this is a bad time," the taller man said hesitantly, "we can come back later."

"Quit joking around and see to your patient," the older doctor growled good-naturedly. He glanced past his associate at the girls. "You're looking well, Rabbit," he said to Usagi, speaking the last word in English. "Been eating too many carrots, I see."

"Hello, Doc," Usagi replied. "What's up?"

"Why don't we wait and see?"

"Excuse me," the younger doctor said politely to Makoto as he stepped up to the end of the bed and looked across at the nurse. "Details?"

"Nausea, near loss of consciousness, and a severe loss of muscle control in the lower body at least—she had to be carried back into bed. There was also a sudden increase in heart rate and something that almost looked like a seizure when I checked her pulse."

"We were talking," Usagi piped up. "She froze right in the middle of saying something and then pulled back so fast she hit her head. Then she said something... a date, I think."

"June 30," Minako said, "13:05:24." The doctors and the nurse looked at each other.

"13:05:24?" the younger man repeated. "What's that?"

"Thirteen hours, five minutes, and twenty-four seconds," Setsuna replied wearily. "It's when Usagi's baby is going to be born."

"I see." The nurse looked up at the doctor. "It could be an allergic reaction to the antibiotics, or just a result of the head trauma."

"Is it?" Setsuna looked directly at the woman, trying to recall some of what she had seen. "You have a daughter. She was born May 2nd, 1989, at 07:44:41. And on February 9th of this year, at 16:09:48, someone is going to ask you to marry him. I didn't see who, or whether you said yes. Does that sound like an allergic reaction or head trauma to you?"

"As a matter of fact, it does." The nurse tried not to let her surprise show. *How did she know about Megan?* "I've heard the same kind of certainty from all sorts of people, if you want to know. The nearest is a man one floor down who thinks he can fly and has to be kept sedated to stop him from trying to prove it."

"She's not crazy," Makoto said in a terribly quiet voice. "And she's telling you the truth."

"She may think so," the nurse replied, "but a few lucky guesses with some random dates don't..."

None of them were really prepared for Makoto's reaction. With a sound that was almost a howl, she grabbed the doctor standing next to her and threw him back before reaching across the bed to seize the nurse by the lapels. The doctor collided with the startled orderly, and both men hit the floor at about the same time as Makoto was bodily hauling the astonished nurse across the width of Setsuna's bed. Makoto was no larger than the nurse, and yet she lifted the woman easily, spinning around to slam her into the wall and hold her there, pinned, one arm braced across her shoulders and throat while the bottoms of her feet dangled above the floor.

"They aren't just random dates!" Makoto snarled, her face a mask of blind rage. It was impossible to know if Makoto could tell, through the red haze that filled her vision, that the nurse's face was growing darker; if she did know, she seemed not to care. The older doctor was halfway to the door to shout for security when Usagi leapt to her feet.

"Makoto! Put her down!"

The nurse continued to dangle, her face verging on a dangerous shade of purple.

"NOW!" Usagi snapped, throwing every ounce of command she could muster into that single word. Setsuna stared, shocked, while the other Senshi blinked in surprise, half-expecting to see a brief vision of their Princess appear; Usagi NEVER spoke in that tone. The older doctor seemed equally taken aback, while the two men untangling on the floor paused in the middle of picking themselves up to stare.

It worked. The set of Makoto's shoulders changed, and the nurse dropped to the floor, one hand going to her throat as she gasped for air, the other hand waving off the assistance of the orderly.

"I... apologize," Makoto said slowly. "I shouldn't have done that." Without another word, she left the room, surrounded by a two-foot space in all directions as everyone scrambled to get out of her way.

"Go after her, Mina-chan. Try to keep her from hurting anybody."

"Yeah, right. Whatever." As she hurried out to catch up with Makoto, Minako muttered, "Who's going to keep her from hurting ME?"

The doctors and the nurse looked at the orderly; the man paled visibly, gulped, and followed Minako out of the room.

"Interesting friend you have there, Rabbit. She reminds me of a hurricane I ran into when I was on vacation in Florida a few years ago." Standing in the doorway, the older doctor shook his head as, down the hall, the elevator doors closed behind Makoto; still some distance behind, Minako said something under her breath and ran for the stairs. The orderly hesitated before following her.

"Mako-chan's a bit intense," Usagi said absently, speaking to the doctor as she walked over to help the nurse get to her feet. "Are you all right?"

"I'll live." The woman laughed hoarsely. "Your friend's a lot stronger than I thought, but I've been through worse. Not MUCH worse," she added, wincing and rubbing at the base of her throat. "Does she attack everyone she comes across, or only people she doesn't like?"

"She does get into fights sometimes," Usagi admitted, "but she's never just attacked someone like that. I don't understand why a few numbers would get her so..." Usagi's voice trailed off, and she turned to look back at Setsuna. "You said... four years ago?"

"May 10th, 10:42:19," Setsuna repeated with a sad smile.

"Her parents," Usagi said quietly, voicing what Ami and Rei had both guessed. She turned to explain the situation to the three adults, but their expressions said that they'd already recognized the implications, if not the details. Hesitantly, Usagi asked, "Mako-chan's not going to get in trouble for this, is she?"

"Well..." The older doctor seemed reluctant to speak. "She *did* try to strangle Fuucho-san, Usagi..."

"She had a reason for it," the nurse replied. The doctor gave her a sharp look, and she added, "Let it go, Miko-san. I'm not hurt, and the girl... people make mistakes. And that one wasn't entirely her fault."

"If you're sure..."

"I am." The woman looked at Usagi and Setsuna. "Is your friend going to be visiting often?" When both of them murmured faint affirmatives, the nurse nodded. "All right. I'll do my best to stay out of her way." She headed out of the room, but paused at the door, looking back at Usagi. "If you wouldn't mind... pass on my apologies for my behavior."

Usagi nodded, and the woman left the room. There was an uncomfortable silence.

"So," the younger doctor said at least, facing the three girls. His face wore an expression of moderately restrained enthusiasm. "How long has Miss Meiou been demonstrating pre- and retrocognitive abilities?"

Usagi blinked. "Huh?"

Ami, having learned long ago the effect that large words tended to have on Usagi, was answering the monosyllabism almost before it got asked:

"Precognition is the extrasensory ability to see into the future; retrocognition is the counterpart ability to see into the past." She rattled the definitions off in her best textbook voice, then fixed the doctor with a suspicious look, adding, "MOST people in the scientific community disbelieve in the existence of either."

"Very true," the doctor replied, "but then, I'm not most people. You're Mizuno-san's daughter, aren't you? The one studying to be a doctor?"

"That's right. And you are?"

"Yotogi Lucas." When the odd looks arrived, he smiled. "My mother was from California. So am I, when you get right down to it."

"I don't see what that has to do with you asking questions about precag... ratrock..." Usagi made a face.

"Don't hurt yourself," Rei murmured. Usagi glowered at her.

"Usagi has a point," Ami said. Rei sighed while Usagi beamed; Ami ignored them both and continued speaking. "What kind of doctor goes around asking patients about ESP?"

"I see you've never been to California," Lucas said dryly. "I'm actually a neural specialist, but I've been fascinated by the paranormal since I was a kid. It's sort of a hobby of mine now—trying to find a scientific proof of ESP or other mental abilities. Sometimes I get a little carried away," he added, nodding apologetically at Setsuna.

"Just don't ask me to guess your birthday," she replied wearily. "After three flashes, my head feels ready to explode. NO!" she snapped, pulling one hand away from Usagi, who had been about to take it. Setsuna regretted her harsh tone immediately. "I'm sorry, Usagi-chan. I didn't mean to yell at you. It's just... I'm not sure if I can keep this... THING turned off if someone touches me."

"It's okay. I understand."

"It only happens when you touch someone?" Lucas asked.

"So far. Once for Usagi-chan, once for Mako-chan, and once for the nurse. Is that... unusual?"

"Not really. I've seen any number of cases where the person is able to pick up emotive imprints or images from items they handle. The sudden system shock is fairly common as well."

"So to be safe, all I have to do is not touch anyone?"

"That can't be right," Usagi objected. "You never used to black out whenever you bumped into someone. You must have touched any one of us a half-dozen times last night, and you didn't space out THEN."

"Does Setsuna customarily wear gloves?"

"Well... yes," Usagi admitted. It was true enough—ALL of them wore gloves in their Senshi identities, and Setsuna had LIVED as Pluto for most of the last two thousand years. "But not ALL the time."

"If her ability requires direct contact with the person she's going to... I suppose 'scan' is as good a word as any, but if that's the case, gloves would probably interfere to some extent." Lucas thought for a moment. "And the fact that she could interact with other people without triggering her ability suggests that it CAN be controlled; the amnesia's just cut out the experience which allowed her to use that control. The knowledge of how to suppress the scan is likely still in your mind," he said, facing Setsuna. "You just need some time to find it again."

"I *was* able to shut it down faster the second and third times," she admitted, looking carefully at her hands. "Usagi-chan, hold out your hand."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes." For a moment, the face, attitude, and voice were once again distinctly Pluto. Usagi reached out slowly, and Setsuna very lightly rested her fingertips against Usagi's, looking at them intently. After several seconds, a small smile formed on her lips. "Nothing but a little flicker this time." Then she frowned. "Something about falling luggage, I think."

*'There is nothing supernatural or dangerous about either the luggage itself or any of the contents, except when Usagi drops the medium case on her right foot two weeks from now.'* The words of the mysterious letter came unbidden to Rei's mind. By the expression on her face, Usagi was remembering the words as well.

"Now that," Doc said with a grin, "I can believe."

"What is your opinion on this, anyway?" Ami asked.

"I keep an open mind." Doc removed his glasses, polishing away some invisible speck of grime. He had rather startling eyes, dark blue almost to the point of being black. "I accept that there are a lot of things in this world that modern science can't explain, and leave the hunt for details up to people like Lucas. I have my hands full just practicing mundane medicine without worrying about conflicting psychic auras or the like." Both doctors' beepers went off. "See what I mean?" Doc pressed a button on the intercom. "This is Miko. Yotogi's with me."

"Call for you on line five, Doctor, a Shigawa Kari calling about rescheduling flu shots. And Doctor Yotogi is wanted for a consult in the OR."

"On my way," Lucas said. "I'll check on you later, Meiou-san. I want to refresh my memory on a few things, but I might be able to give you some advice on dealing with your ability."

"I'd appreciate that," Setsuna thanked him. Lucas nodded and left the room.

"Tell the OR that Yotogi's on his way," Miko said to the intercom. "I'll take the call in my office." Then he released the button. "Well, duty calls. Ladies, it was nice to meet all of you; Rabbit, I guess we'll talk again at that ultrasound next month. Try not to eat so many carrots between now and then, okay?"

"Are you a doctor or a comedian?" Usagi called as he slipped out the door.

"That depends," the man's reply came back. "What day of the week is it?"

"I take it you and 'Doc' know each other?" Rei asked.

"Doc's the family physician," Usagi said absently. "He was the one who delivered me, and he's been looking after me ever since. I think he's related to Mom—a third cousin or some uncle's half-brother or something like that."

"Why do you call him that?" Setsuna asked.

"He has a thing for old American cartoons," Usagi explained. "Something about a talking rabbit that goes around outsmarting hunters and calling everyone 'Doc.' So he teases me about carrots and calls me 'Rabbit,' and I call him 'Doc.' I'm not even sure what his name actually is."

"I think we can live without knowing," Rei said. "I'm more worried that he or one of the other three might let something slip about Setsuna." She looked at the older girl. "I don't mean to sound harsh, but did you really have to blurt all that out?"

"You're assuming I had any control over it," Setsuna replied coolly. "I didn't actually see any of the events I mentioned; it was more like remembering something that had already happened, and it included the feeling of the event. I had to go through the emotions of two births, a wedding proposal, a plane crash..." She cut off.

"Rei," Usagi said gently, "the first time you saw something in the fire at the shrine, what happened?"

"All right, all right, I get the point. I'm sorry, Setsuna-san. I should know better than anyone what this sort of ability can do if you're not used to it." Rei sighed. "I'm just worried that the wrong person might catch wind of this—and that includes ordinary people as much as it does supernatural monsters."

_…_…_

"Go away, Minako."

"No chance of that," Minako replied. "Usagi-chan told me to keep you out of trouble."

They were in the main floor lobby of the hospital, surrounded by a fairly large area into which no one else had stepped since Makoto had entered. She was standing in front of a large window, looking out into a snowed-over patch of grass and trees and trying very hard not to think; Minako had dragged over a chair and sat quietly, watching for any signs of another eruption. The orderly was over in the far corner, being as invisible as possible.

"Did you want to talk about it?" Minako asked hopefully.

"Not really. I made a mistake, I apologized. That's the end of it."

"Hardly. Why did you attack the nurse like that? I know she was a little pushy, but you usually give people a warning before you clobber them."

"I didn't like her attitude."

Minako waited. And waited. Finally, when it was quite clear that Makoto wasn't going to discuss the matter any further, Minako sighed inwardly. She was pretty sure that Makoto's little outburst had been set off by something the nurse had said, but if she pushed for answers right now, she might also inadvertently push a few of the wrong Britons and trigger another explosion. At the moment, it was probably in everyone's best interest if she could find a way to cheer Makoto up, and a vague idea of how to accomplish that was working its way through the gears in her mind.

"Well, you're no fun at all when you're like this. Come on." She took Makoto by one arm and started for the door.

"Let go of me, Minako. I'm not going anywhere."

It must be said in Makoto's defense that she really did TRY to stay put. The problem was that, as strong as she might be, Minako could, in a way, be even stronger. Or maybe pushy was a better word. Annoying, even. *Yes,* Makoto decided, *annoying would describe her very well, a continuous droning about the eardrums, a blonde gnat that buzzes and buzzes and buzzes no matter how many times you tried to shoo it away. This must be something like how Rei sees Usagi.*

If she could just get her sleeve free, she could get away, but of course, that simple task was suddenly impossible. Just shaking her arm to try and yank the fabric out from between Minako's fingers couldn't do it, and pulling in the opposite direction had also failed; Minako simply spun around Makoto, still holding her arm, turning her friend about in a full circle and then pulling forward once more, with a hefty dose of centrifugal force working in her favor. Repeated threats weren't doing the trick, either, mostly because Minako knew Makoto wouldn't follow through on them. Artemis—having lost a game of rock- paper-scissors with Luna for the honor of staying at the hospital or following the wandering Senshi—trailed the two at a distance, trying not to laugh at their antics. Finally, Makoto gave up.

"Where are we going?"

"Oh, just this little place I know. You really need something to help you relax, Mako-chan, and this place makes the absolute BEST hot chocolate in the city. And one of the waiters who works there is SOOO cute, although I'm not sure if he works today or not, but you've got to see him..."

Minako rambled on as 'the little place' came into view. Makoto spotted a sign in the large window next to the door just before Minako dragged her inside.

*Cafe Mocha,* she thought absently. *Is that supposed to be a joke?*

_…_…_

The zombified workers in the Cafe staggered collectively as their fungoid master twitched. For just a moment, the haze in their eyes was replaced by a glimmer of consciousness, self-awareness tinged with flecks of confusion and rising panic. Then the star-shaped devices reasserted their control, and the numbness returned.

The collector shuddered. Something very powerful was nearby, perhaps even in the building it had taken over. If it was discovered, the collector knew it had little hope to beat off an attack by whatever the source of the energy might be. It would need to use up all the energy it had gathered, violate the terms of its mission, and even that might not be enough to prevent discovery.

But on the other hand, if this new power could be added to the collector's own growing source...

_…_…_

"Are you okay?" Makoto asked as the waitress stumbled, coming dangerously close to spilling her tray of empty glasses and plates.

"What? Where..." The girl shook her head as if surprised at her surroundings, and had started to turn back to Makoto when, between one eyeblink and the next, her eyes seemed to cloud over. "I'm fine," the girl replied in an odd voice. "Thanks." And she went back to her work.

"That was odd," Artemis observed quietly from Minako's lap. "Is it me, or did that girl seem like she was just waking up?"

"We weren't the only ones to have a busy night," Minako said. "There are probably a lot of people out today who should still be in bed."

"I dunno," the white cat mumbled, looking around cautiously. "Something about this place makes my left ear twitch."

"Oh," Minako said sagely. "Your left ear's twitching. Of course. She must be a youma in disguise." Minako leaned over the table to whisper at Makoto. "He claims his left ear twitches every time he gets near sources of negative energy."

"Well, it does," Artemis muttered sullenly. "And there's a funny smell in here, too."

"That's just the coffee and hot chocolate. I've heard that the owner puts a few spices in as part of some secret recipe. Speaking of which, here comes ours now." The other waitress set two steaming cups down in front of them and walked off with even less emotion than her co-worker had shown.

Makoto picked up her cup and raised it to take a drink, noting as she did so that Artemis might be right; there was an odd sort of smell in this place, almost like... like... she couldn't quite place it, but the smell was unpleasant, and unlike any combination of spices she could remember.

When the hot chocolate hit her tongue, a taste even more foul than the odd smell filled her mouth. Years of culinary expertise had left Makoto with the finely developed ability of a master chef to discern separate dishes by flavor alone. Usagi could do something similar, though HER expertise was that of the gourmet diner, the ultimate eater. Right now, something that tasted rather like the smell of rotten meat and spoiled cabbage and soured milk all rolled into one was sending that flavor sensitivity into a five-alarm fit. Makoto reflexively spit the vile brew back into the cup and set it down on the table hard enough to rattle Minako's cup.

"What's with you?" Minako asked in surprise.

"How can you drinkthat stuff? It's terrible!"

"It tastes fine to me," Minako replied, confused. "Are you okay, Mako- chan? You look a little green around the bills."

"I need to get some air," Makoto said, grabbing her coat as she rose from her seat. The taste in her mouth seemed to befoul every breath she took, multiplying that faint, sickly odor a hundred times. Artemis was right behind her as she left. Minako pulled a few bills and coins from one pocket, leaving them on the table as she hurried after her friends.

She caught up to them amidst the snow-dusted tables filling the Cafe's summer dining area. Makoto was leaning against a lamppost, coughing roughly, while Artemis sat atop one of the tables and watched her with a worried, distinctly un-catlike expression.

"I'm okay," Makoto said immediately. "It's just that... that place... the air in there was awful."

"What are you talking about? There was nothing wro..." Minako's words cut off suddenly. It felt as if an invisible, immaterial hand were trying to wrap its fingers around her brain. The pressure built until it was almost unbearable and then, in a flash of golden light, it was gone as quickly as it had begun, leaving her dizzy and disoriented. Minako had to close her eyes to prevent a sudden rush of vertigo; when she opened them, Makoto was looking at her with a familiar, wry smile.

"You were saying?"

"Something's going on in there," Artemis said decisively. "All the staff I saw seemed to be in a kind of trance, and a lot of the customers weren't much better. Nobody looked up when we ran out."

"The drinks?"

"Must be," Artemis agreed. "I'm not sure why you'd have picked up on it when Minako didn't, though." He glanced over as the door opened. "Look!"

One of the customers, a slightly overweight middle-aged man in a long grey coat, was just leaving the building. He walked slowly, even awkwardly, and his eyes were empty. He passed the girls without seeing them, turned, and headed down the sidewalk at a slow, unsteady pace.

"Come on," Makoto said.

They followed the man at a distance. At first, it appeared that he might actually be going about business as usual—whatever it might be—but when he began to double back the way he had come, Makoto and Minako nodded grimly and reached for their transformation pens.

"Well, that clinches it," Minako observed as the dull-eyed fellow ambled into the open back door of the Cafe Mocha. "Something's up." She looked around, but they appeared to be alone in this back alley. "Let's do it."

A few seconds later, Sailors Venus and Jupiter were alone in the back alley.

"Should we call for backup?" Jupiter asked.

"Probably a good idea. We don't know what might be in there, and it's not so far from the hospital that we can't afford to wait for Mars and Mercury." Venus switched on her communicator, and Rei's face appeared.

"What's going on? Where are you?" Rei frowned, taking in Minako's now-subtly altered features and Senshi attire. "Makoto didn't do something silly, did she?"

"No, nothing like that. We're about three blocks south of the hospital, outside a place called the Cafe Mocha. There's something weird going on here—some sort of mind-control drug in the drinks, and Artemis says the place is buzzing with bad vibes. We thought it might be better to aim all guns at the bear before going in."

"We'll be there in five," Rei said, her face only slightly scrunched up in confusion about Venus' latest mangling of the language. At least THIS one actually made some sort of sense.

"Up there." Artemis pointed his nose to the roof behind them. "Mars and Mercury will be able to see us better, and we'll spot anything that comes out of the Cafe."

_…_…_

The collector gave another violent shudder. The first force was still very near, and something just as strong was approaching rapidly. There was no more time to waste.

The green orb began to throb steadily, its dull glow darkening towards red. In the basement, the assembled cocoons also began to radiate that dim light, impulses of energy coursing their way up through coiled links of ropy, fungal matter to the central growth, which was rapidly gaining in size.

Some of the less stupefied customers had just enough presence of mind remaining to look up in surprise as a hundred curling vinelike appendages burst out from the kitchen, wrapping around every warm body in the Cafe before they began sending more of the red light-pulses back to the collector

_…_.

"This doesn't look good," Mercury said nervously, comparing the readouts of her visor with the recorded data on her computer. "I'm reading a massive buildup of energy in there, and a lot of the human life-signs are dropping off. There's also a huge concentration of the same biomatter which that creature we fought last night was made of."

"Define 'huge,'" Venus asked nervously, right before the Cafe's low roof groaned, creaked, and exploded upwards and outwards in a spray of dust, splinters, and shattered plastic.

"About that big," Mercury said simply, pointing at the pulsing green mass now trying to squeeze its way up out of the wrecked building.

It was more or less spherical, a blubbery ball of what looked like tightly packed green moss, five or six meters across and trailing half a hundred loosely flapping tendrils as it floated into the air. Glassy beads scattered about the thing's bulk pulsed with dull red light, a horde of pupilless eyes staring out at the world in all directions. Unlike the first fungus-creature, the only appliances on this one were falling to earth in its wake as the thing rose higher, shedding a second skin of debris.

The Senshi backed up as the bloated green ball rose above the roofline, now totally free of the restraining junkpile below. Several of its many lashing appendages twisted around, the tiny, red-glowing spots at their tips focusing on the Senshi; the glowing intensified.

"I think we're in trouble," Venus said.

When the energy beams shot out from the thing a moment later, the other girls were too busy dodging to answer her.

_…_

*How do I get IN to these things?!* Artemis thought, leaping for all he was worth as a mix of angry red energy and falling pieces of brick rained down into the alley on all sides. Jumping back into the alley from the exploding rooftop had seemed like a good idea at the time, and now, like so many other good ideas Artemis had come up with in his time, it seemed likely to get him killed. Never mind that he'd gotten out of scrapes a hundred times worse than this—they were all in the past, and this was right now, full color, bigger than life, and twice as ugly.

There was a flash and a roar, followed by the appearance of a greasy cloud of smoke that smelled worse than most trashcans Artemis had ever met. He hadn't heard the words, but he knew that Mars was probably responsible, and that the green entity was likely on fire right now. And did it ever STINK! Artemis could clearly remember being caught up in two or three hundred confrontations with inhuman fiends bent on world domination, destruction, or depletion, and none of them had EVER smelled this bad.

He ducked inside what was left of the Cafe in search of some corner where the coiling streamers of smoke hadn't yet reached; even the unpleasant odor he and Makoto had noticed before would be better than that roast-garbage stench.

*How DID she notice it, anyway? Senshi or not, Mako-chan's nose isn't any better than the average human's, and Mina-chan didn't pick it up at all.* Artemis turned a corner, and all thoughts of Makoto's sudden olfactory proficiency flew from his mind. *Hello, what's this?*

Several large pods of that creepy green substance were scattered about the kitchen. Artemis' ground-level perspective had hidden most of them from view behind countertops and shelves when he had come in through what was left of the back door, but three of the things lay directly in front of him, glowing faintly. The white cat's eyes narrowed as he noticed the rootlike cables linking those three pods to each other and to a larger, thicker cable which went straight up through the hole that had been a ceiling. More of that faint light was pulsing up the cable.

*Now where have I seen THIS before?* Artemis bounded up to the nearest of the pods, considered its shape for a moment, and then extended his claws to scratch at one area. The rubbery matter didn't come away easily, but Artemis kept at it until he had successfully revealed a dull, staring eye, surrounded by flesh which was looking decidedly grey and unhealthy. The small patch quickly resealed itself, but Artemis had seen enough.

Now he just had to get word to the girls.

Thunder cracked sharply overhead, and a large, feebly twitching length of green mung hit the tiles just behind Artemis, its severed end black, smoking, and hissing with faint sparks of electricity. A split second later, a curtain of sizzling red beams tore up the ground beyond the shattered doorframe, and something higher up exploded. Artemis sighed.

*Right. NO pressure.*

_…_…_

The Senshi were not having one of their better showings against the bloated fungus monster. For every tendril that Mars and Jupiter sheared off with their attacks, two more sprouted from the rubbery surface; each time Venus blasted out one of the glowing, energy-shooting beads, its neighbors retaliated by laying down a volley of hissing red beams, tearing up another sizable piece of the local real estate. Whether they were eyes or not, the creature had enough of those beady growths to make it impossible to tell whether Venus was making any progress in removing them—and the losses did not impair the orb-thing's ability to track and shoot at the Senshi in the slightest.

Mercury hung back from the fight, trying to locate a weakness in this peculiar foe, but it displayed the same decentralized nature as the appliance-wielding house-buster had. Given the fact that it was at least ten times larger than its predecessor—too large by far for any of her attacks to have any hope of disabling the thing—and regenerating from any damage they did almost as quickly as it happened, Mercury seriously doubted that they could keep on throwing full-force attacks in the hopes of doing enough damage to shut the thing down. Already, Mars and Jupiter were showing signs of fatigue from launching multiple assaults in rapid succession, and Venus wasn't far behind. They were getting weaker, and the enemy was getting stronger. It was just a matter of time.

Her computer had picked up something a moment ago, a flow of energy heading into the hovering orb rather than out of it, something coming from somewhere below instead of from one of the dodging Senshi, but she couldn't get a clear view as to what...

"Mercury! Psst! Over here!"

"Artemis?" The white cat was hiding across the roof, behind a low, smoldering mass of bricks that had been the top part of a stairwell until a few minutes before.

"Keep your voice down! We don't want to attract that thing's attention." Artemis cast a worried glance around the edge of the rubble to make sure that a barrage of red death wasn't already on its way. "Good. Now listen. I managed to get a look inside what's left of the Cafe. The staff have all been wrapped up in pods of some kind, and they're all feeding energy into our friend there through a central cord. It links up into the body somewhere underneath."

"That would explain how it's so much stronger than the last one," Mercury admitted. "If we could cut that cord, the loss of power might weaken it enough for us to finish off."

"Only problem is that somebody's got to get close enough to see which of those is the real cord."

"Maybe not," Mercury disagreed. "If that cord is coming up from the Cafe, then all we need to do to hit it is..." She switched on her communicator. "Jupiter!"

"I'm a little busy," Jupiter replied tersely. She sounded as if she were speaking through clenched teeth. "What do you want?"

"Artemis found out where this thing is getting all its energy, and I think I know how we can take it out. Listen carefully." Mercury quickly outlined her plan.

"Are you sure that's going to work?" Jupiter asked uncertainly. "This thing's soaking up our best tricks like a sponge in water."

"Then there's not much point in wearing ourselves out so quickly, is there? Just be ready." Mercury put away her computer and got to her feet, taking a deep breath. "Here goes nothing. SHABON SPRAY!"

The air between the green menace and the shattered hulk of the Cafe filled with blue-white mist. Some of the bead-tipped tendrils paused their attack to turn and look down at the phenomenon, while a few others turned to seek out the source of the bubbling spray, but Mercury had already moved to a roof across the street.

"SHABON SPRAY!" The mist thickened, and then again when Mercury repeated the attack, from a rooftop opposite to the one she had started on. She was en route to the fourth and last stop in her little circuit when the roof upon which she had intended to land exploded in a shower of burning red rain; apparently, the orb-creature had guessed something of her game. Mercury shrugged, turned at the waist in mid-air, and let loose a fourth spray. By now, the air below the creature was so thick with fog as to almost be pure liquid. As she fell, Mercury shouted out, "Jupiter! NOW!"

On the other side of the street, Jupiter took a deep breath of her own. "This had better work," she muttered tiredly. "SUPREME THUNDER!"

The saturated fogbank lit up in a curious and beautiful display not unlike a cross between the Aurora Borealis and a fireworks convention—the latter effect coming from several dozen sudden explosions as the water-soaked tendrils in the fogbank overloaded on electrical current and burst asunder. Except for the smell, it was quite pretty.

None of the Senshi actually saw the power cord break, but the effect was immediately visible when the huge orb began to shrink, its eyelike growths closing up by the dozen while those tendrils which had not been splattered by the electrical surge retreated within the body. The orb also began to descend as it shrank, a few remaining tendrils lashing feebly at the air as if the thing were trying to hold itself up.

Venus finally found what was left of the thing, a green, soccer-ball sized mass with no tendrils at all and hardly any of its reddish glow. She considered the thing for a moment, then broke into a smile.

"Jupiter? Mars?" Venus smiled impishly and hefted the orb in both hands. "Do you think you've got enough left for a little target practice?"

The two Senshi traded glances, then broke into matching evil grins.

"On three," Venus said, dropping the orb. "One... two... three!" Venus sent the thing flying high overhead with a single kick, achieving a trajectory that NASA would have killed for.

Suffice to say, the "ball" burned up on re-entry.

_…_…_

In the dim, fungus-overgrown computer room of the call center, two more bodies had been added to the creeping entity's collection. All of them were now bound in thick webs and cocoons of green organic matter, mercifully unconscious, their energy serving to sustain the bizarre creature which had captured them.

The creature in question had just picked up a disturbing signal from a kindred entity. It had not been from one of the trap sites that the awareness had been instructed to build, fortunately; eight such units were now in development, and none of them would be ready for many days yet. No, the signal had been from an energy-collector. Its loss meant a disruption in other parts of the greater plan.

The awareness had grown considerably since its arrival. No longer was it a mere mindless drone, reliant on preprogrammed objectives and limitations. By feeding on the energy of its captives, it had gained a kind of sentience, and with its increasing awareness had come access to knowledge that, previously, had been locked away within itself. Now that it was wise enough to use that knowledge, the information had been unlocked and placed at the awareness' disposal.

Its own assigned task was an important one, but only one such mission among several now in progress. The loss of the collector would delay some of those missions considerably, while others—such as the creation of the testing sites—were only peripherally affected.

Still, the awareness decided to take a slower, more cautious approach from now on. The collector had moved too fast, too soon, carelessly revealing itself before sufficient defenses had been in place.

With that in mind, the awareness considered the problem of the captured humans. It could not release them. To do so would deprive it of much-needed energy, quite likely forcing it to revert back to its original mindless state to conserve power. Sentience was a luxury it did not wish to give up, but keeping the humans would also pose a problem, as sooner or later, someone would come looking for them. And the problem of the disabled communications systems would also have to be addressed.

The awareness looked at what information it had about the collector's mission. It did not amount to much, but there was enough to give the awareness an idea which might allow it to retain the better part of its newfound intelligence while dealing with the problems of both humans and phonelines. After several hours of preparation, the awareness slowly ordered one of its pods to open.

The man who emerged was one of the workers it had captured the first night, a man named Hiroshi. He emerged from the pod with a dull-eyed expression, a small, star-shaped growth fixed just below his left ear. The awareness sent a command, and Hiroshi tottered unsteadily towards the door. A camera watch his uneven progress, its green-wrapped lens serving as an eye for the entity pulling Hiroshi's strings.

That would not do, the awareness decided. Movement, appearance, speech, attitude—EVERYTHING must be as close to real as possible to avoid rousing suspicion. It reversed the flow of information, drawing memories out of Hiroshi's brain and studying the man's entire life in detail. Finally, it tried again, sending a much more detailed set of instructions, and carefully scrutinizing the resulting motion.

Much better, the awareness noted with satisfaction. It stopped for a moment to analyze that emotion, one of the first it had ever had. Very interesting, it decided. Perhaps absorbing the human's memories had contributed to the sudden development.

It was not long before another pod opened, releasing a second enslaved human, and in short order, the entire group had been sent on their way. Now hiding themselves by a careful change in their outer surface color and texture, the tiny control devices would allow the awareness to send or receive information and energy so long as the humans remained within a certain distance. As it grew, its range and capabilities would also grow.

The awareness felt another surge of satisfaction. Its sphere of influence and ability had just been expanded five, ten, perhaps even a hundredfold. The addition of the memories of its new servants had increased the limits of its intellect to an astonishing new level, and the workings of this new mind amazed itself; already, ways in which to adjust and improve its plans were occurring to it, things it would never have thought of without the addition of the unique perspective of humans.

The green, vegetative matter strung between and around the computer terminals began to fold in on itself and slither out of sight, sinking into every space and hideaway it could find, altering color where necessary, doing everything possible to escape notice. It altered its connections to the computers, using the gathered knowledge of the humans to affect repairs. In a few minutes, the machines were working better than they had before— and they were entirely under the control of...

*I need a name,* the awareness thought. *Something suitable.*

A memory from one of the humans pushed forward, a story heard once in school, a legend of a god-creature which could change its form at will. A thing repulsive to humans in its natural shape, yet able to move about and be almost undetectable in other forms.

*Yes,* the awareness decided. *That is me. I am Proteus.*

_…_…_

Seven people met in a dark room.

It might have been dark outside, or it might have been high noon on a cloudless day; in this room, without windows or clocks or any other links to the outside world, time tended to lose its meaning. The only illumination here came from seven small monitors built into the top of a circular table, about which seven seats were evenly spaced. This was a room custom-built for secrets, and the element of anonymity afforded by the shadows was central to its design. The darkness hid those who dealt in secrets, gave them a sense of power and security that was essential when one stopped to consider the nature of the reports that passed through this room.

Of course, the omnipresent gloom made the actual _reading_ of those reports a bitch and a half, but then you can't have everything.

"Ladies and gentlemen," a male voice said, speaking from the head of the table. "I apologize for having to call you together again, but as I'm sure you're all aware by now, our respite seems to be over."

"That's one way of putting it," a dry, female voice observed from the left side of the table. "Nothing personal, but I would have been just as happy never to see any of you again." The woman paused. "Not that I can actually see any of you now, but..."

"We understand completely," the first voice replied. "We all feel the same way."

"Are you talking about the attacks," a second male voice observed from the right side of the table, "or the ongoing lack of decent lights in this place?"

"I was trying to remember what it was I didn't like about you," a third man said in a gloomy tone from the other side of the table. "Now I do. But that didn't quite sound like one of your usual snide witticisms. Are you not feeling well?"

"Just a little out of practice," the second man replied. "Give me a couple of weeks to hone my edge back up to par, and you'll never notice the difference. So, do we have a complete field report yet? I've been out of the loop for the last little while."

"We do." This was another woman, speaking from the far end of the right- hand row of seats in a cool and controlled voice with all the emotional output of a rock.

"Two sites have been hit so far," the gloomy man reported. "Two that we know of, at least, and given the amount of property damage involved, I'd imagine we would have heard about any others by this time. Despite the collateral destruction, no casualties have been reported." The man's dreary tone made it difficult to tell whether he considered the lack of casualties a good or a bad thing.

"What I want to know," a harsh male voice demanded from the left side of the table, "is why my people weren't alerted to these latest attacks until after the fact. If this new detection system is everything you've been saying it is, I could have had a response team on-site within five minutes after the fact."

"For one thing," the chilly female voice replied, "the detection system isn't in place yet. We were told to refocus our efforts in development four months ago, and the sensor network was effectively abandoned until today. It won't be operational for at least a week, and even then, the range is likely to be limited."

"And besides which," Dry Voice added, "if I read the report right, five minutes after the fact would have gotten your people to either site just in time to see the Senshi reduce the perpetrator to dust."

"Then we could have dragged those pesky girls in as well," Harsh Voice muttered. "Damned vigilantes are a bunch of loose cannons."

"We still don't know WHAT they are," Cool Voice disagreed, "and in all honesty, I have to say that 'dragging them in,' as you put it, is an incredibly stupid idea. It smacks of ingratitude, if nothing else."

"Is that the protest of a fan I hear?" the curious, joking fellow said in amusement.

"Hardly. I'm merely attempting to point out that the Senshi have been dealing with these creatures with a fairly high degree of success for longer than we've been in operation. I'm not particularly at ease with so many questions about them going unanswered, but I can live with mild curiosity if the alternative is a public relations fiasco."

"WHAT public relations?" Harsh Voice snapped. "Nobody even knows we're here!"

"And how long will our anonymity last if people start seeing unknown soldiers with high-tech weaponry running loose?" Cool Voice retorted. "Or even better— suppose you actually managed to capture one of the Senshi. How long do you think it would take the rest of them to come looking for their friend?"

"It wouldn't be an issue if we caught them all at one time."

"Tell me something," Curious Voice asked his colleague. "Are you this foolishly obsessive by nature, or do you have to work at it? I'll spell it out if you're having trouble with the concept; we don't WANT to capture the Senshi, because right now, we don't have the means to pull it off, OR to reliably replace the protection their presence has given the city."

"And even if such means should become available in the future," First Voice interrupted, "the only eventuality under which they would be deployed would be if the Senshi themselves were determined to be a threat. So far, there's been no evidence of that."

"I don't know if I'd go quite that far," the seventh and last member of the shadow committee, another man, said mildly. "We know only slightly more about the Senshi than we do their adversaries, and drawing conclusions about either side could still be premature."

"Which seems to bring us back to paradox at hand," Curious Voice sighed. "We can't get more information until we ask questions, but we can't ask questions without more information."

"It remains a point for another time," First Voice said in a tone of finality. "Our main focus for now is on these intruders. The report on the second attack is quite complete; the creature behind it was using the cafe in question as a front for a Class-E operation. Medical analysis of the victims confirmed the usual symptoms of prolonged systemic depletion, correct?"

"In varying degrees, depending on the individual," Cool Voice said. "There were traces of a chemical compound not on record, something which seems to be part sedative and part hallucinogen, and several of the staff were also found to have minor scarring below either ear. My best guess as to the source would be neural override devices of some sort."

"Do we have anything like that?" Curious Voice interrupted.

"For lab mice and a few lower order primates, yes, but nothing that works on humans. Which is probably just as well."

"So in general," First Voice continued, "a standard energy-collecting operation. The question that concerns me now is what the first entity was up to."

"Blowing up houses is nothing out of the ordinary," Dull Voice said, "but I do admit to a certain curiosity as to why, out of all the buildings in the city, those particular homes were targeted."

"The owners of the first house described the creature in some detail," Cool Voice said. "From their account, it appeared out of nowhere, broke its way out of their house, and seemed to be searching for something until the Senshi attacked it. The damage to the second house could have been incidental, a result of the battle."

"Why do I get the feeling that you don't believe that?" Dry Voice prompted.

"Another report that came to my attention this afternoon has raised questions about one of the people in the second home at the time of the attack," Cool Voice replied. "Nothing I can confirm yet, but I have people looking into the matter."

"Does this 'matter' have a name?"

"Meiou Setsuna."

_…_

Setsuna awoke with a start. It was not dark, but for a moment, she was not sure where she was; then the steady sound of breathing—someone else's—reminded her. The hospital. And the other person in the room was Usagi, asleep in one of the chairs. The other Senshi had gone to pick up Setsuna's things for transport to the Tsukino household, and to help Ami and her mother pack up for their own forced move.

In the chair, Usagi shifted in her sleep, making an odd sound that made Setsuna smile and then grimace as she tried not to yawn. That had been why she fell asleep in the first place, she remembered now; Usagi had dozed off in the chair, and Setsuna, laying in the bed and watching that peaceful, contented expression while listening to those rhythmic, soothing sounds of breathing, had been lulled into sleep herself.

She yawned anyway, but instead of leaning back and letting herself drift off again, Setsuna pushed back the blankets and got out of bed. She was still very tired, but she'd also been lying down for most of the day, and her back and legs were complaining about it too much for her to sleep just yet. She walked about the room slowly and quietly to avoid waking Usagi. There wasn't all that much space, so she soon ended up standing next to the window, looking out at the city. It was late in the afternoon, and the sun was in the process of sinking behind the skyscrapers and rooftops and the distant horizon, setting the sky ablaze. One or two very bright stars hung in the darkening eastern sky, and many tinier stars were winking into life on the ground, headlights and streetlights and lamps.

*Is this home?* Setsuna wondered. Nothing was familiar, and in fact, the longer she looked at it, the more the sheer size of the city became obvious. *So many people. So many strangers.* Setsuna shivered, folding her arms as she did so— partly to ward off the chill, and partly to keep her hands confined. The thought of moving among so many people, of accidentally brushing into someone and suddenly learning everything about them, was frightening. No, this huge city was not—could never be—home. Not to her.

*But if not the entire city, what about just a part of it?* Setsuna's eyes turned away from the window to regard Usagi, snoozing soundly in her chair. *This half-grown girl, already a warrior and a mother-to-be, a friend who is but should not be a stranger—could her home be my home? Can I control this 'gift' well enough to live with her family?*

*Do I even want to?*

_…_…_

Haruka wondered idly if there was a way to get away with strangling offensive airline personnel. Whether there was or not, she was about five minutes away from taking her chances with the police.

*If I could just be sure there was a security camera around here recording this little weasel's comments,* she thought. *No jury on Earth would convict after seeing the way he acts.*

The weasel in question was one of those mean-spirited people that swims up from the shallow end of the gene pool every so often, the small-minded, self- important sorts who enjoy going out of their way to make life as difficult as possible for everyone else. At this time—January 5th, 10:32pm, local—and place—Berlin, Germany—he was devoting his attention to a scheduling conflict which had arisen after some last-minute changes Haruka and Michiru had made to their travel plans.

They had originally purchased tickets for a transcontinental flight back to Tokyo from Rome, with several extended layovers in various cities along the way; for all her cultured grace and aristocratic manner, Michiru had the compulsive flash photography instincts of a tourist. Ordinarily, they would have spent two or three weeks getting home, and filled several rolls of film along the way.

But Usagi's little New Year's call had thrown all their plans out the window. Haruka had delayed telling Michiru until the day after the concert, just to make sure she'd caught up on her sleep.

Michiru, Haruka reminded herself for perhaps the hundredth time, did not appreciate being left out of the loop, even for the most well-intentioned of reasons, and she had expressed that displeasure in terms of volume, vocabulary, and visual aid.

The only thing that had spared Haruka from hours of being on the end of suspicious, hard, and icy blue-eyed looks was the fact that Hotaru had overheard them arguing and gone all wide-eyed and scared at the news that something bad had happened to Setsuna. Michiru had spent the afternoon calming the Senshi of Destruction down while Haruka made the necessary calls to the travel agent. All things considered, finding a flight in the right direction with next to no advance notice had been no small miracle.

"Everything's been taken care of," the man had told her.

This message had obviously not reached the officious Napoleon complex lurking behind the desk. Or maybe it had, and he was ignoring it; either way, Haruka's patience was just about maxed out. She took a deep breath and tried again.

"I know we were scheduled for a flight to Istanbul on the 8th, but there was an emergency at home, so we changed to yesterday's flight HERE, and we're supposed to go on to Moscow tonight."

"And I tell you again, there is nein record of tickets issued to either 'Tennou Haruka' or 'Kaioh Michiru' for this flight." Maybe it was his mix of bad Japanese and native German accents that made the fellow so annoying. Haruka could have spoken English and at least heard two modes of speech from the same linguistic family being mangled together, but she tended to lose her grip on the language when she was irritated, and so this discussion/argument/imminent homicide was sounding like a badly dubbed feature film—one in which the principle characters had been given no-talent voice actors, while the supporting cast continued to speak their native tongue.

"Is there a problem here?" a voice asked in absolutely flawless Japanese. Haruka looked away from the source of her annoyance to another airline employee, a man who seemed to be the definition of the word 'average.' Average height, average build, average facial features; not much about him stood out, but at least he could keep two languages separate when he spoke.

"A scheduling conflict," the offensive fellow said immediately. "There is nein record of the tickets she claims..."

"May I?" The average fellow leaned towards the computer, politely elbowing the other man aside while he checked something. "Tennou Haruka, is it? Let me see... ah. Here it is. Flight 412, leaving from Gate 4 in twenty-nine minutes. Two day layover in Moscow, but after that... there." The man entered something into the computer, retrieved the tickets and placed them in a brochure with the full trip schedule and several other helpful notes in it, then handed the whole thing over to Haruka. "Sorry about the delay, Tennou-san. All the arrangements have been made and reconfirmed clear to Tokyo, so you won't have any further problems. Is there anything else you'll require?"

"No, thank you." The average fellow nodded, wished her a pleasant trip, and returned to his place behind the other counter. Haruka resisted the urge to smirk at her adversary as she returned to sit next to Michiru and Hotaru.

"How'd it go?" Michiru asked.

"Not well at first. That little pest must be either half-youma or just plain incompetent; the other fellow straightened things out in about ten seconds." She held up the tickets. "Three seats, all the way to Tokyo."

"There are four tickets," Michiru politely pointed out. Haruka blinked.

"What the... now why did he..."

"May I see your tickets, please?" a juvenile, purposely high-pitched, and frighteningly familiar voice asked from behind them. Hotaru spun around, kneeling on her seat, to get a good look at the speaker.

"ChibiUsa!" she squealed in delight.

"Hotaru!" the pink-haired time-traveler replied with a perfectly mimicked squeal. While the two friends embraced, Haruka and Michiru looked at each other. The girl had grown noticeably since her last visit, and she looked more like her mother than ever. A LOT more, the two Outer Senshi thought. The word 'uncanny' didn't do the resemblance justice.

"Welcome back," Michiru said, forcing a smile. "You're looking... um..." Michiru paused, at a loss for the right words.

"Older?" ChibiUsa supplied, grinning in a way that made Haruka's jaw twitch. Usagi had been throwing a carbon-copy of that smile around for as long as they'd known her.

*One's bad enough on her own,* Haruka thought nervously. *Kamis help us all with TWO of them on the loose.*

"I get the feeling it's been longer than six months for you," Hotaru said. ChibiUsa nodded.

"I'm almost thirteen now. After I got home from the last time, Mama decided it might be time to start with those 'princess things' she said Luna used to shove down her throat." She made a face.

"Bad?" Hotaru asked sympathetically.

"Being stuck in a room with Luna AND Mercury AND Mars trading you back and forth like a volleyball for six hours each day is something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. At least Venus and Jupiter know how to have fun while they teach something." ChibUsa looked around curiously. "So, where's Pu? She said she'd meet me here."

"She said..." Haruka began.

"...she'd meet you here." Michiru finished. Both of them were rather proud of the fact that they'd managed to get the words out in a normal tone of voice. ChibiUsa looked at them oddly.

"Yes," she said slowly, "she did."

"Could you explain that?" Haruka asked, getting another odd look.

"What's there to explain?"

"Just humor me."

"Okay," ChibiUsa said, shaking her head. "I got the idea to come back and visit Hotaru-chan for her birthday a few days ago. I asked Mama if it would be okay, and she said that whether she said it was okay or not, I'd end up going anyway." She made another face, more frustrated than disgusted. "Do you have any idea how strange it can be trying to ask something of somebody who already knows what the answer is going to be?"

"Other than Pu?" Hotaru asked with a smile.

"Especially other than Pu. You _expect_ her to be like that, but when it's somebody like Mama..." ChibiUsa shivered. "It's a lot creepier because you're not ready for it. Anyway, when I got to the Time Gate, I talked with Pu for a while, she told me where to find you, and she said she'd be on the other side when I got here. I thought she meant she'd be with you. Is she somewhere else?"

"Setsuna's in Tokyo," Michiru said. "Usagi called us on New Year's Eve to say she'd shown up rather unexpectedly."

"Oh. Well, I guess I'd better get a ticket, then."

"We've already got one," Haruka said, trying not to scowl when she got yet another of those odd looks thrown her way.

"Did you KNOW I was going to be here?" ChibiUsa asked suspiciously.

"Didn't have a clue," Haruka replied. "Was there ANYTHING strange about Pluto when you talked to her this time?"

"Strange? No more than she usually is." ChibiUsa paused, frowning. "She _was_ talking with someone else when I arrived, though, which is pretty odd since not too many people can get to the Time Gate in the first place, and Pu usually runs off most of the ones who actually make it. Will one of you tell me what's going on? You've all been acting weird since I mentioned Pu."

"In a minute," Michiru promised. "But this person you said she was talking to; did you recognize them? Did they say anything to you?"

"No and no. It was a man, sort of odd-looking. Pu said something to him when she saw me, and he just sort of nodded and walked off. I asked, and she just said he was a traveler who'd gotten a little lost."

"Odd-looking?" Haruka pressed. "How so?"

"Well, he wasn't ugly, but he wasn't particularly handsome either. When you get right down to it, he wasn't much of anything, and what I thought was really strange was that he didn't have any machinery or equipment that could have created a time portal. He looked like he was wearing a flight attendant's uniform." An image clicked in Haruka's mind.

"Medium height?" she asked quickly. "Medium build? Greyish hair and eyes, sort of a tan but not tanned skin tone? Looked like he could disappear into a crowd?"

"That's him," ChibiUsa said immediately. "Do you know him?"

"He gave me the tickets," Haruka said dryly. "He's right over... there?" She looked from one end of the service counter to the other; there were three people behind it other than the annoying little worm on the far end, and none of them were the helpful Joe Average. "Hold these for a minute," she said, handing the tickets to Michiru before walking up to speak to one of the other airline employees. After a short conversation, she returned, looking thoroughly disgusted.

"He's not here," Michiru said. It wasn't a question.

"Nobody by that description is currently working this shift in any capacity." Haruka sat down, her head tilted back to study the ceiling for a time.

"Will somebody PLEASE tell me what's going on?" ChibiUsa asked, the first pouty beginnings of a world-class whine in her voice.

"Kid," Haruka replied wearily, "I haven't got the slightest clue."

And she meant every single word.

_…_…_

SAILOR SAYS:

Minako: Hi there! Usagi's busy trying to track down the writer just now...

(Cut to a shot of Usagi, walking around with a huge magnifying glass sort of device strapped to her face and a backpack that sprouts tracking equipment and sensor antennae like a rosebush does thorns strapped to her back, intently following a trail of footprints only to get totally sidetracked by a box of donuts in her path)

Minako: ...something about leaving a door open in winter, I think she said, so I get to do today's moral! (bats her eyelashes)Isn't that just perfect?

Artemis: I could think of a few other words that might work better.

Minako (sweetly): Did you want to get fed tonight, buster? Yes? Then butter your lip.

Artemis (snapping a salute): Ya vol! (Goose-steps off the screen)

Minako: He'll do anything for tuna. Now where was I? Oh, right. Today's moral is one all Senshi already know and live by: Don't get Mako-chan angry. (stops and thinks for a moment) Actually, I could say the same thing about Rei-chan, too. And Haruka, for that matter. Or Hotaru, or... (stops and counts off names on her fingers) ...well, just about everybody, really. I have to say, it's not easy working with a bunch of people with such a scary combination of short tempers and potential for raw destruction. Makoto and Rei—especially where Usagi is concerned—can get mad at the top of a hat, and the fact that neither of them can get hold of a steady boyfriend really isn't helping.

(As Minako talks, Rei and Makoto begin to loom ominously behind her)

Minako (blithely unaware of the towering presences behind her): I mean, come ON! If our shy little Ami-chan can find time for romance, what's stopping THOSE two from finding somebody special? Mako-chan at least is looking, even if she does have this senpai complex to get over, but Rei-chan's got this cute guy who's totally devoted to her, and she doesn't even seem to notice him! Oh sure, she's kissed him a couple of times, but have you noticed that it's always just after he's been knocked out by a monster? Where's the fun in that? Honestly, I'm starting to lose hope for these two. I may be the appointed representative of the Goddess of Love, but even I've got my limits—and I've spent so much time trying to get both Rei-chan and Mako-chan hooked up with SOMEBODY that I can't even spend any time looking for a boyfriend myself! I ask you, is that fair?! Is that... (finally notices her 'friends,' and goes white) Eeep. Um... hi, guys.

Rei (looks at the camera): You. (indicates with her thumb) Out.

(The camera sweatdrops and then quickly pans to the left. Rei and Makoto are rolling up their sleeves the last we see of them. Ami and Setsuna slide into the picture, looking towards the right and wincing)

Setsuna: That's got to hurt.

Ami: Not as much as THAT.

(Usagi walks by, following a trail of powdered sugar donuts)

Ami: What are you doing?

Usagi (mouth full of half-eaten donut): Can you believe it? Shomebody jusht left all theesh donutsh lying around.

(Ami and Setsuna watch in amazement as Usagi follows the trail to its end, a double-glazed chocolate donut which, after drooling for a moment, she reaches for. The wire attached to the bottom of the donut pulls taut, and Usagi is still looking at IT in amazement when a huge, open-end-down box falls on her from above. The writer glances in from the side)

TheJudge: Did it work?

Ami: It worked. But do you REALLY think it was necessary?

The Judge: You've never tried to fight this girl. And besides, she kept trying to steal a look at my notes. There are some things I don't share with ANYBODY until the next episode.

Setsuna: Speaking of notes, who are those shadowy people in the dark room? And who sold me out to them?

Haruka (leaning in from the left):And who is that flight attendant guy?

The Judge (frowns): Weren't you people listening? NO PREVIEWS. Anyway, I've got to... (glances over to the right and gets a horrified look on his face) I think maybe I'd better put a stop to that before I lose my PG rating. (walks off- camera) Makoto, Rei, a word? Look, I know you're upset about not having boyfriends, but that's no... Hey! Ouch! Stop that! Not the face! Not the face!

Setsuna: Aren't writers supposed to be omniscient?

Ami: Apparently not, or he would have known not to say that.

Usagi (still in the box): Somebody let me out of here!

Setsuna (to Ami and Haruka): Should we?

Haruka (sitting casually on the box): Nah.

Usagi: Hey!

05/15/00 (Revised, 15/08/02)

Word to the wise—NEVER leave your backup disks lying around where your well-intentioned but functionally computer-illiterate father can 'accidentally' erase every file on them while trying to reboot your computer after it's just crashed for the fourth friggin' time...

Some of you have been paying attention may have noticed a chronological inconsistency in Episode One—namely, that it cannot be midnight in Tokyo and New York at the same time. I'm not sure how it slipped by me, but I have gone back and made the necessary adjustments; I also took the opportunity to clean up the first two episodes somewhat. However, since I intend to modify this mess-in-progress as it gets larger, and because most websites give you a limited number of chances to correct already on-line work, the corrected versions likely won't be up for a while.

Anyhoo... up next time:
-Forging valiantly ahead, hopefully into at least February!
-More dark and twisted threads in a dark and twisted plot from a dark and twisted mind;
-And one heck of a head-on collision at the airport...

One other thing: my email's been screwed up and recently changed, so if you're the kind of person who enjoys writing to authors, take note—because I usually do respond to any email I get.