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.

30. Chapter 30

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 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.

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SAILOR MOON: MILLENNIALS

Chapter 30

Sometimes Family Matters, But Sometimes They Just Make Life Difficult

Once again, Janus and Jenna stood before the rounded window in the outer wall of the city, waiting for something to appear from the dark depths beyond. There were no soldiers this time, nor were Archon or Lilith present at the side of the Imperial twins. Lady Istar stood with them to serve as a translator during the encounter, but the only other being in the hall was Talos, who was as ever a seemingly motionless statue behind the royal persons.

They had only been waiting a few minutes before one of the robed mindwalkers of the Deep Ones appeared in the waters outside, its hands folded in that prayer-like stance.

*Your mission did not go as planned.* The watery psychic voice seemed to be that of the mindwalker which had done most of the talking during their initial meeting.

"The mission did not go as well as it might have," Janus corrected, "but neither was it a failure. We successfully gathered a sizable reserve of energy, which even now is allowing our plans to advance at an increased pace. More importantly, we were able to acquire a considerable amount of information on the abilities and tactics of our opponents. And most importantly of all, we achieved this with a minimal loss of resources."

*Resources which were assembled over many days of effort,* the Deep One replied in a detached tone. *Resources which you would have put to other, better uses had your original plans not suffered such severe setbacks. This one success does not change the fact that you have fallen into a fast current and are being carried farther away from your destination. Enslaving daimons will not give you the support you require to succeed, no matter how well you control them.*

*Do I detect a note of grudging envy, there?* Janus thought with an inward smile. To the best of all Atlantean knowledge, the Deep Ones were a race of psychics, and *human* mentalists had never enjoyed a particularly high success rate in any dealings with daimons. He might not be able to understand what the sentient octopoids felt, but Janus knew that the Atlantean ability to raise and control daimons weakened the Deep Ones' own offer of support, and that made it a political concern rather than an emotional one. Politics, he could do.

"Daimons have never been our first choice as allies," the Prince said. "However powerful they may be, it's rather difficult to reach any lasting agreements with creatures whose only vested interest in this world is as a plaything, to be toyed with before they break it. But that having been said, it has also never been our way to ignore any potential source of support—only to exercise the appropriate caution in its use."

*Caution is a luxury you may soon be unable to afford,* the emissary noted. *You have had time to test your strength, to use your mindless ones, daimons, and warriors against the Senshi, and in all three cases you have been stalemated. You have had time to consider our proposal and all your options; now you must give us an answer.*

Jenna took control for a moment. "There is one final thing we must ask before we give you an answer."

The squid-like face remained implacable. *And this is?*

"That if we reach this agreement, and work together against the Senshi, no lasting harm must come to them. They oppose us now, but only out of two and a half thousand years of ignorance and suspicion. This may or may not change in the near future, but if the Senshi are killed or damaged beyond usefulness, we will have lost a powerful potential asset."

*Easily done,* came the mindwalker's reply. The twins both blinked; that had been too easy.

"Then you may tell your people that we agree to the terms," Janus answered, keeping his voice calm and smooth. "Your information and assistance in... delaying the Senshi, in exchange for the safety and sanctity of your domain."

*It is done. When is your next mission to take place?*

"In three days' time."

*We will be ready.* With that, the Deep One shimmered like a heat mirage and vanished. Lady Istar narrowed her gaze on the empty spot in the cold water, then looked at the twins and nodded once. With that confirmation of the creature's departure, Janus reached across and pressed a bracelet on Jenna's arm, teleporting the small group back to the great hall.

Draco was waiting for them. Although he now wore the robes of a Lord, garments whose color shifted from crimson to orange in much the same manner as his armor, this attire did not hide the fact that Draco was a warrior through and through. His tall, broad-shouldered physique was obvious through the fiery robes, and his dark hair was cut rather shorter than was the fashion amongst men of this rank, a deliberate choice to keep it from getting in the way when Draco wore his dragon's head helm. He had the dashing good looks one would expect of a knight, but by far his most outstanding feature was his gaze; there were subtle shadings in Draco's mostly brown eyes that often made them seem to glow, particularly when he was intent on something. Right now that fire was at low burn.

"Your Highness," the Lord said, bowing with his left arm across his chest. "I trust all went well?"

"Perhaps a little too well," Janus replied as he and Jenna passed Draco and ascended to the throne, while Talos took its place behind them.

"Your Highness?" Draco asked, a frown creasing his brow.

"Their emissary agreed to your added condition, Draco," Jenna explained, "but it did so without any argument. It didn't even try to point out that holding back against the Senshi would make things more difficult for us whenever we fought them."

"That *is* peculiar," the knight agreed. "The Deep Ones have never been satisfied to just leave their adversaries alone."

"No, but *exploiting* those enemies for their own ends is another matter," Janus finished. "The emissary may have agreed so readily because the Deep Ones *want* the Senshi alive and able to fight."

"That also doesn't sound like them," Jenna said.

"Oh no? You heard that comment it made about controlling daimons. We know the Deep Ones can observe the city even at this distance, and if *we* were able to analyze the summoning spell that Archon's apprentice cast *before* he spoke to her, we have to assume that the Deep Ones could do the same. In which case..."

"...in which case," Jenna continued, understanding her brother's point, "having the Senshi around to counter our potential army of tractable daimons would keep the Deep Ones useful to *us.* All right, I see what you mean." The Princess paused. "You don't *really* believe that's why it agreed so quickly, though, do you?"

"Oh, it's a very good theory," Janus said with a crooked half-smile, "and it explains the creature's behavior quickly and simply. But we both know that when it comes to the Deep Ones..."

"...nothing is ever simple." Jenna nodded glumly. "So we'd better pay even closer to attention to them than we already were."

"Without falling behind schedule again." Janus glanced at Draco, who had been waiting patiently while the twins conversed. "How's the arm?" the Prince asked, nodding at Draco's left arm, held immobile across his chest by a smooth grey 'sleeve' that ran from his shoulder to his wrist.

"Most of the feeling has come back, Your Highness," Draco replied, looking down at his disabled arm and flexing his fingers. That was about all the movement the brace allowed him. "Lord Triton believes it will be fully restored within another two or three days."

Janus nodded. "I hope you won't take it amiss if we decide not to include you in the next operation."

At that, Draco chuckled. "Oh no, Your Highness. I understand completely. Although," the knight added, his humor fading, "I would like to know who *is* to oversee the operation."

"All things considered, I plan to send Lord Stone."

That appeared to relieve Draco to some degree. "And what about Cestus?"

"Yes," Janus agreed, sitting back on the throne with a sigh. "What about Cestus?" After some thought, he shook his head. "We can't afford to have him pursuing his grudge against Jupiter right now. Until further notice, Cestus is to know *nothing* about the Aegis. Understood?"

"Of course, Your Highness." Lady Istar bowed her head.

"Understood, my Prince." Draco's bow was deeper, but he came up from it wearing a frown. He hesitated only briefly before he asked, "And Lilith?"

"We'll deal with her," Jenna said grimly. "In the meantime, I have an industrial overhaul to see to..."

"...and I must therefore request that you take over the planning for the next mission, Lord Draco." The twins' shared mouth switched from one voice to the other with perfect smoothness, not wasting a breath.

"As you say, my Prince. I'll have a preliminary battle plan for you in the morning."

"In the morning," Janus agreed, closing his eye.

As soon as the Prince's eye was closed, the right side of the twins' shared body began to flow and shift disturbingly. The effect was a little like melting wax and a bit like a heat mirage rising in waves off of a highway on a hot summer day. Everything about the body that was Janus changed: the skin softened; the muscles were redistributed; some of the bones even altered visibly, producing barely audible creaks. And those were just the changes that could be seen from the outside.

When the shifting had ceased, Jenna opened her right eye and let out a slow breath. "I hate that part," she noted, slowly shifting her jaw and right limbs in much the same way that Draco had flexed his fingers a few moments before. When the worst of the soreness had passed, the Princess rose from the throne and took a step forward, only to stumble as her right leg refused to live up to its part of the bargain. Draco and Istar were there immediately, the Lady catching her friend and the knight offering his good arm to help them both up. Jenna looked at the pair with undisguised annoyance. "I'm not a cripple, you know."

"Of course you're not," Istar replied calmly. "What you are is very stubborn, and acting entirely too much like your brother."

"Force of habit," Jenna murmured, pushing down her embarrassment at having to be led around like a child as she allowed Draco and Istar to help her stand and descend from the dais. Walking was very different when you were stuck in a body that was half-male and half-female, and Jenna knew it would take a little while for her to get used to walking on her own again. It always did.

As the trio made their way down the steps, Talos followed, silent except for the slow creaking of the dark armor and the heavy tread of enormous metal boots.

Despite having been kicked in the head the previous evening, Ami was able to get to work on Tuesday morning with plenty of time to spare. Unfortunately, Calypso came with her, disguised as a shirt and wholly convinced that her sister would be unable to get through the day without suffering some kind of trauma unless she was there to warn her. The Nereid's resolve had not lessened over that day, nor on the next, nor on the day after that, but determination to keep Ami out of harm's way didn't interfere with Calypso's curiosity or her sense of humor. It had only been with a great deal of arguing that Ami had managed to keep her sister from playing all manner of pranks on her co-workers, and with her humor denied, Caly had fallen back on curiosity.

*Didn't you already do this yesterday?* Calypso asked as Ami opened a cabinet and began stacking boxes of surgical gloves inside. *And again this morning? Twice?*

*Those were blankets, beakers, and disinfectants,* Ami replied, *and this is part of my job, Caly. A hospital goes through a lot of these things, and they have to be replaced.*

*I know, but it seems like such a waste of time compared to everything that could be done during the Silver Millennium.*

*Well, it is, but there's nothing we can do about that right now. And it's not like Moon Kingdom technology doesn't have its own shortcomings,* Ami added, thinking more to herself than to Calypso.

*Now don't start that,* the Nereid chided. *A three day wait while your visor fixes itself is much more agreeable than losing it forever, isn't it?*

*You know that isn't what I mean.* Before the running battle on Monday night, Luna had been preparing to scan Makoto's mind in order to make some sense of the Aegis and whatever it was they were doing to the girl, but after Draco had smashed Mercury's visor—essentially eliminating her ability to make sense of the vast amounts of information the Caduceus was capable of collecting—Luna had chosen to delay the probe. That was a problem. It left Makoto at risk, with little definite knowledge about the Aegis other than what she had been able to puzzle out through trial and error. The delay also raised the possibility that Makoto might decide to change her mind about the entire procedure.

Ami knew firsthand that it was tricky to get used to feeling things with your mind. She and Makoto had discussed it several times, recently in company with Calypso and Luna, comparing the similarities and the differences between Ami's Nereid-like telepathic talent and Makoto's empathic gift. The sudden addition of whole new worlds of sensation had taken some getting used to, but Ami personally thought that they were both holding up well: apart from Ryo, she hadn't accidentally scanned someone for almost a week; and Makoto had finally achieved a measure of equilibrium in her sleep time, leveling off at about ten hours a night. They still weren't sure if that fatigue was because of empathic pressure or the unexplained actions of the Aegis, but it was good to see that it was no longer worsening.

But if Makoto had accepted and progressed in her own mental abilities, she still retained her fear of others reading her mind. The quick, errant flashes of insight that Ami or Calypso could pick up didn't bother her, but the deep-searching technique Luna had described filled Makoto with dread. Better than anyone else, Ami could appreciate why that was, for she had her former life's memories of and instinct for the many stages of telepathic contact, as well as the same general upbringing and social mindset as Makoto, a 20th century girl for whom mind-reading had been just a plot device in novels and movies until it had suddenly jumped off the page at her.

Half of the reason Luna wanted to search through Makoto's memories was because the Aegis had already done the same thing, perhaps leaving behind clues to its own workings in the process. There were, however, parts of Makoto's life that she did not allow even herself to see very often, memories that it had taken her years to quietly hide away in the deep corners of her mind so that she could get on with her life. The Aegis had managed to access those memories without her being aware of it, but Luna's abilities worked differently, and Makoto would be fully conscious of anything that the probe revealed.

Agreeing to let Luna inside her mind must have taken nearly every ounce of courage Makoto could muster, and however great she knew that reserve to be, Ami could not help but worry that it might falter if they had to wait much longer.

*She'll be fine,* Calypso said, following Ami's line of thought without any difficulty. *Mako-chan may be afraid of her memories, but a part of her knows that the only way she'll ever be free of that fear is to confront it.*

*Maybe,* Ami replied dubiously as she closed the cabinet and guided the push-cart out into the hall. *But that sort of thing is complicated enough to begin with, and I *know* there isn't a term to describe the combined psychological impact of reincarnation, life with a secret identity, and the tampering of a semi-sentient collection of electromagnetic marbles.*

*I'd have to agree with you on that one,* Calypso admitted. *Still, I'm sure Mako-chan will...* She stopped speaking suddenly, and Ami frowned.

*Caly?*

"Ami?"

Ami jumped and quickly turned around. "Mother!"

Mrs. Mizuno blinked, a little startled by the sudden reaction. "Are you all right, dear?"

"Yes, I'm fine. You just surprised me, that's all." Although she had not done anything to provoke the situation, Calypso was still giggling in appreciation of it; Ami made mental noises for her to stop. "Did you need something?"

"Actually, I seem to have stumbled into a few moments of peace. I thought I'd use them to find you and see if you wanted a ride home."

Ami smiled and brushed a strand of hair away from her face. "I'd like that. Just let me return this cart and go sign out..." Ami fell silent as her mother shook her head and flagged down a passing orderly.

"Uematsu, is it?" Mrs. Mizuno said with a cursory glance at the man's nametag. "Here." She rolled the cart to him. "Take this back to storage, would you?"

"Mother!" Ami protested, but the man was already nodding and wheeling the cart away down the hall.

"Diligence is one thing, Ami, but there are times when it's okay to take a shortcut or two. It's the only way to do this job without burning yourself out inside six months. Besides," Mrs. Mizuno added, raising her arm and indicating her watch, "your shift ended five minutes ago."

"Well, yes... but that's not the point!" Ami objected, as her mother herded her towards the elevator. "What would you say if I stole the answers to an exam as a 'shortcut?'"

"This is a hypothetical scenario, I trust?"

"Mother."

"Just checking," came the murmured reply. "And to answer the question you were about to ask, my response if I caught you doing something like that would probably be highly illegal. But Ami, that's a completely different situation."

Ami put her hands on her hips. "How so?"

"Because education is all about bettering yourself by pushing your limits," Doctor Mizuno answered as the elevator door slid open and they entered the car. "A job, on the other hand, is about doing what's *required* of you; no less than that, and no more. If a task is within your capabilities, you do it as completely and as efficiently as you can and then move on to the next one; if you need help, you ask for it; and if you're completely unsuited to a job, you stand aside and let someone else do it. Anything else just wastes time and energy that could be better spent on other tasks—in particular, the ones where you don't *know* what's required, and have to be able to put in all the extra effort you can to have a hope of succeeding. And even then..."

The doctor caught herself on the verge of an outburst. This was important, something Ami needed to understand if she was going to work in a hospital, but in her drive to get the point across, her voice had slipped from a neutrally lecturing tone into an emotional urgency she recognized all too well. For the most part, Mrs. Mizuno strove for a calm rationality in her work and her life, but sometimes that led people to misinterpret the restraint in her voice, leading them into thinking that whatever she was talking about wasn't that important. When it *was* important, she came back with full heat, and the yelling started. And that never helped. So she cut herself off and took a moment to calm down. Yes, this was important, but she knew Ami could see that without being yelled at.

As a matter of fact, Ami already had the answer. It came to her from painful memories that rose briefly to the surface of her mind: the fall of the Moon Kingdom; the battle in the Arctic; a stand against Galaxia; and many other moments, less extreme perhaps, but still painful. Makoto didn't have a monopoly on that sort of thing, after all.

"And even then," Ami finished quietly, "sometimes it's not enough."

"No," her mother replied in a very similar voice, "sometimes it's not." She sighed, the tension fading to weariness, and added, "That's part of what it means to be a doctor, Ami. We don't have the resources to give every single person the full attention they really deserve, so we have to do the most we can with what we have. Sometimes, that means making a difficult decision like risking one life to try and save another. That's one reason why there aren't enough doctors in the world; a lot of good, caring people who have all the other qualifications just can't bring themselves to accept that kind of responsibility."

They were both silent for a moment after that, Ami thinking of lost battles, her mother thinking of lost patients. The doctor recovered first, shook her head, and looked up in time to catch the introspective expression on her daughter's face.

Like many parents, when Mizuno Rikou thought of her daughter, she inevitably pictured the child first—in this case, a sweet little blue-eyed girl who was curious enough to always ask questions and perceptive enough to find new questions in the answers. Seeing the look on Ami's face, though, the doctor realized as if for the first time that the child she remembered had matured into an intelligent, sensitive young woman, one fast leaving childhood behind as she advanced into the rest of her life.

Rikou suddenly felt old, old and tired and somehow empty. Since she had been a schoolgirl, her entire life had revolved around her work, first in her grades, then her ambition to become a doctor, and then her determination to be not just a doctor, but the best one she possibly could. Along the way, she had lost touch with her friends; she had tried to make room for love and a family and come near to failing completely; she had rededicated herself to her work, for the sake of her dream and that wonderful little girl, only to find her daughter slipping away. Rikou would have given up anything to see Ami happy, safe, and with everything she could ever need or want, but now she wondered if she had perhaps given up too much. Her daughter would soon be moving on with her life, and once she was gone, all that would remain were fleeting contacts, insufficient memories, and the job. Rikou's work might have satisfied her, once, but now it just did not feel like enough.

But whatever state her own life might be in, Rikou was enormously proud of Ami. She had achieved the same academic excellence as her mother, but without sacrificing her health or her social life in the process. She had a touch of the artistic temperament Rikou had by turns so admired and so regretted in her ex- husband; in Ami, that trait had resulted in an intuitive grasp of complex situations which only made her a better problem-solver, as well as moments of creativity that allowed her to fill up those little notebooks of poetry her mother wasn't supposed to know existed. She'd made good friends, begun to shed that perennial shyness, and even snared a nice young man for herself—though in all fairness to Ryo, Rikou had to admit that she suspected the 'snaring' of working both ways.

*My little girl is all grown up,* Rikou thought with a mix of joy and sorrow. *And I missed it.* She sighed as the elevator slowed to a halt and opened its doors.

Absently stretching and flexing a lean, arm-like appendage, Proteus watched through a security camera as the two Mizunos left the registration desk and headed into the parking garage. The entity was beginning to think that it might have to extend its small network and add extra biosensors in the elevator shafts if it was ever to figure out the odd puzzle they presented. Neither had been inside its testing area within the past two days, but in the last scan, the daughter remained at zero percent infection, while her mother was at fifteen- point-six.

The only problem was that Proteus wasn't certain how much more biomatter it could create within the hospital before the Senshi located it. After some of the news footage that had been flying around since Monday evening, it was less eager than ever for such a discovery, or the confrontation it would almost inevitably lead to.

*Not now,* Proteus thought. *Not when I am so close to completing this new body after so much effort.* The entity stretched, briefly swelling the long spinal column and three pairs of shoulders—or hips—its form possessed. Study of the remains of second-generation units had enabled Proteus to reshape its conventional biomatter from stringy green fungus into more flesh-like muscle tissues and solid bone, greatly strengthening this new form. Though still incomplete, it was nonetheless almost strong enough to carry its own weight and the awkward added mass of the half-dozen human captives in their stasis pods. It was heavily armed and well protected, and—perhaps most importantly of all—part of it functioned like a miniature factory, producing different forms of biomatter and fusing them together into whatever new shapes Proteus could devise.

Proteus was proud of that quasi-organic assembly line, but it was also a little confused by it. Every cell in the entity's original body had been capable of self-replication on a massive scale, allowing for rapid regeneration and expansion. If new units were required, all they could simply be grown from the body and separated upon completion; if the worst occurred and all of Proteus's body and reserves of biomatter were to be lost, all it needed to recreate itself was a single cell of basic type-one biomatter, and time.

The entity had incorporated that tremendous asset into this new form, but then something had spurred it to create this secondary means of replication as well. And it still did not understand why. Granted, the device could generate advanced biomatter somewhat more quickly and precisely than the original process of cellular fission, but it was only able to produce one or two units at a time, and not on a very large scale. The two-score ratlike units scurrying around in the nearby tunnels were proof of both the versatility and the limitations of its new system.

Shaking its head, Proteus set aside its puzzlement for the time being and turned its attention to other matters. As it body drew nearer to completion, the entity had resumed its experiments in combining human genetics and unit technology, making small adjustments to one subject as time allowed. That one, Samoru, was only hours from readiness, and Proteus wondered if it should go ahead with the test, or wait. Testing the humans in pairs gave the former unit more results to work with, and the last test, run with one male and one female, had proved an excellent reference to compare and contrast the benefits and drawbacks of each gender. Proteus, however, only had access to two unmodified women at this time, both of them on the surface; with an unknown and heavily-armed force of humans roaming the city tunnels, Proteus could not risk bringing either of them below ground to begin the enhancement process, and beginning the procedures above, by remote, would carry its own difficulties.

Idori was one of the workers taken at the call center on the very first night, and she would be the fourth test subject from that locale if Proteus used her now. Half the purpose of collecting additional humans had been to avoid using too many from one location, and that remained a priority even though Proteus had long since moved on. It could contend with the investigations of the local authorities, but if the Atlanteans heard about a series of hybrids emanating from the site where their lost watcher unit had originally been based, Proteus knew it would be in trouble.

Mariko was also connected to the call center, if only by the fact that her ex-roommate had worked there. Proteus had been able to block out the young woman's recollection of what had happened to Nanako, but the 'mysterious disappearance' of her friend had frightened Mariko, and she had temporarily moved back in with her family. There were too many people in that house for Proteus to have the time to conclude an experiment with Mariko; seizing control of the entire family might have been an option, except that they had gone on a two-week vacation a few days ago, and weren't even on the same island anymore. All Proteus could do from this distance was monitor Mariko's movements and thought patterns, and gnash its teeth in frustration at the wait—figuratively speaking, of course, since its new body didn't even *have* a mouth.

Eventually, the balked unit-mutant had no real choice but to accede to the whims of circumstance and begin laying plans for a solo test.

Ami spent most of the drive to Makoto's apartment enjoying the chance to talk with her mother, but perhaps two-thirds of the way there, she started to worry about how she was going to keep from inviting her mother up for a few minutes. She lucked out; her mother's beeper went off just as the car halted by the curb.

Rikou said something under her breath and gave the offending device a dark look as she pulled it from her pocket and checked the message. Then she sighed. "I'm sorry, Ami. I need to get back."

"It's all right." Ami smiled and waved her own pager, which hung on the strap of the bag that held her uniform. "I've been beeped a few times myself this week; I'm starting to understand what a pain it can be."

"And you still want to do this for a living?" her mother quipped as Ami got out of the car. "I'll try to call around eight, okay?"

"Okay," Ami agreed, closing the door. "Talk to you then." Her mother waved before she drove away, and Ami waved back, watching the blue compact until it turned a corner and disappeared. Then she started for the apartment.

"Home already?" Makoto asked from the kitchen as Ami opened the door.

"Mother gave me a lift." The words were no sooner out of Ami's mouth than Makoto leaned out of the kitchen, looking worried until she saw that Mrs. Mizuno was not in the apartment. "That was my reaction," Ami said with a sympathetic expression, closing the door and slipping off her shoes. Calypso was already in her cloud-like intermediary form, a fake shirt well on its way to becoming a human. "Has there been any change?"

"No," Makoto replied as she returned to the kitchen. "Putting the winter blinds back on the window and keeping them closed doesn't seem to have slowed their growth like we were hoping. I'd say we've got another three days before they start scraping the ceiling."

"Three days," Ami sighed.

"Tops," Makoto added. Ami shook her head and glanced into the living room, at the source of their concerns.

The dryad sapling had been growing constantly since Monday night's massive electrical disturbance. Thanks in part to the extra height of the pot, the young tree was now as tall as Makoto, its branches covered with leaves and tiny vines. The overgrowth was not limited to the tree; the bizarre network of roots it had established with Makoto's other plants had apparently passed on the sapling's urge to develop, and its partners were growing at a no less-accelerated rate. The girls had managed to move the pots into the back end of the room, in front of the balcony where no one would accidentally trip over them, but that had been on Monday night. The plants were twice as large now, and Ami couldn't look at them without the image of the Makaijou flashing through her mind—in particular, the moment when the alien tree had exploded through the upper levels of Ail's and Ann's apartment building.

"Have you reconsidered planting it?"

"No," Makoto said firmly, not looking up as she put the finishing touches on a pair of peanut butter and grape jelly sandwiches.

"Just checking," Ami sighed. Makoto had been dead-set against the notion of getting the sapling into the ground since the night the growth spurt started. Makoto refused to say exactly why, and Ami wasn't ready to press her on the issue just yet, so she let the subject drop. "Aren't you overdoing it with the snacks?" she asked, glancing at the plate of sandwiches. "It's only a couple of hours until supper, and we *do* have practice tonight."

"I can't help it, Ami. I'm starving." Makoto suited her words by raising part of one carefully-prepared sandwich and taking a large bite.

"For the fourth day in a row," Ami said, sharing a long look and a line of thought with Calypso. Makoto noticed the exchange, drew her own conclusions, and swallowed the sticky mouthful in order to voice them.

"Sho..." She paused and swallowed a second time. "So you think the Aegis are *making* me hungry? To try and help restore all the energy I've burned up using them, or something like that?"

"That's a *possibility,*" Calypso admitted dubiously, "but I'm not sure if it's the answer. If the Aegis wanted to re-energize you, they could do it much more quickly and efficiently by just drawing energy from the environment and transferring it into your body."

"Except that Makoto isn't able to safely absorb large amounts of electricity when she isn't transformed," Ami pointed out. "That could make a recharge by the Aegis harmful."

The Nereid tapped her chin with one finger and then nodded. "I didn't think of that." Calypso smiled and rolled her eyes. "But that's hardly a surprise. We *all* know what that sort of electrical exposure would do to me."

"Mmmm," Makoto replied, keeping her mouth closed around another hefty bite of peanut butter and jelly-rich bread.

"Be nice," Calypso chided.

Lord Stone was meditating in his quarters in preparation for the night ahead. It had been months since his last field assignment, and the previous missions had merely been reconnaissance; tonight's task would undoubtedly involve combat, and the dusty-haired Lord wanted to be as ready as he could possibly be. After this afternoon's briefing, however, he was finding it difficult to keep his focus.

He had not been certain why Their Highnesses would have wanted to see him until they began explaining more of the details of the events in the target city than he and most of the other Lords had been privy to. Lord Stone had not been insulted that the Prince and Princess had kept the identity of their opponents hidden, nor had he been overly surprised to learn that the Senshi of the modern world were working against them. Once he had been told these things, he understood why his liege-lord and lady wanted him to oversee the next mission.

The names of the Great Houses of the Empire had not been selected by whim or ego—not entirely, at any rate. In the ancient days of Atlantis, the first Emperor had ordered powerful magic set into motion around his most loyal retainers, bonding each of them to a specific element most suited to their natures. The enchantment had carried over into the descendants of the first generation, giving rise to families with a natural inclination towards one of the natural forces of the universe. In the case of the forebears of House Stone, the specific element had been the earth: the life-giving essence of fertile soil; the unyielding power of the mountains; the terrible fury of the earthquake.

As the leader of his House, Lord Stone was adept in several forms of earth-magic. His physical size and strength were due in part to his natural affinity for the element, as was his patience and his skill with his hands. He had the uncommon gift of being able to understand and use both science and sorcery comfortably and with skill, and while he did not have the aggressive nature or powers of, say, Lord Draco, he could certainly hold his own in direct combat. All of these were good advantages, traits which Janus and Jenna would have been drawn to for a mission on which neither Cestus nor Draco could be sent, but Lord Stone knew the real reason the twins had selected him:

There was no Senshi of the Earth.

Sages and scientists had come up with a dozen different theories to explain that curious vacancy in the ranks of the Senshi, and Stone was familiar with them all, but it did not matter which was correct, or even if they were all wrong. The fact remained that in the entire ten thousand year history of the Empire, there had never been a Senshi whose powers came from *this* planet. That was a weakness, and no one in the Imperial City was better suited to exploit it than Lord Stone.

The door to his chamber opened with a faint whisk of sound, and Stone's granite-grey eyes opened as well as a lady in a dark green dress stepped through the portal. Her brown hair was done up about her head in an intricate mass of braids that resembled a crown, and which was adorned with a dozen small, clear stones to enhance the image. The face below that crown was the sort that gets called "expressive," a well-nigh fluid medium for conveying emotion in every possible way. Her eyes were large and colored a rich shade of brown, flecked with green about the pupils, and the nose in between was small, straight, and just slightly upturned at the end. The mouth below that nose was small but full-lipped, ideally shaped for pouts or kisses, and the faint dimples in the cheeks around that mouth added a devastating impact to its smiles.

The Lord smiled. This was one of his other advantages; someone to fight for. As the woman walked over, he greeted her with a simple, "You've heard."

"Laraea informed me," the lady replied in a low but melodious voice. Had Lord Stone been on his feet, the young woman would not have come up to his shoulder—as it was, he could almost look her in the eye—but anyone who judged her as small and slight would be in error, for the lady was in peak physical condition. Her body was an unusual mix of delicate beauty and sculpted strength; she was muscular without being bulky, graceful without being frail, and forceful in both appearance and attitude, yet still feminine. Right now, though, the forceful aspect of her personality was in full swing. "Were you planning on telling me about the mission before you left, or after you came back?"

"I was going to speak to you before I left," Lord Stone said honestly, trying to read the expression before him, "but I hadn't counted on Lady Istar. How much did she tell you?"

"Not everything," the woman said shortly. "However good her intentions, I know Laraea too well to believe that she'd ever breach a confidence, particularly an official one—but what she did tell me was still more than enough to make me worry."

"You always worry, Gemmaline."

"And you don't worry enough, you big lummox!" Gemmaline retorted. "Gamaliel, it's no secret that Draco was injured in the last mission, and anything that could do that to *him* in a battle is too dangerous for my tastes." One of her small hands came to rest on Lord Stone's broad shoulder. The hand was soft, but her tone was hard as she added, "I don't want to lose any more family members."

"Not even your big lummox of an older brother?" Lord Stone asked in an innocently teasing tone. By now he was convinced that his sister's show of anger was just a facade to cover her concern, but Gemmaline almost proved him wrong when she lifted her hand and swatted his arm.

"No," she said, smiling around her annoyance, "not even you."

"I'm glad to hear it. Now," Stone continued, reaching up to grasp his sister's arm and give her a slow, light shake, "stop worrying so much. I'm not going out there to start the Ninth Galactic War. It's just a short energy-gathering mission. Draco and Their Highnesses laid out the plan themselves, and secrecy and defense are its top priorities. And I will be being very careful on top of that."

"But why *you?*" Gemmaline asked. "Can you just tell me that much? Why do *you* have to be the one to go?"

Lord Stone considered the question very carefully. "There are... certain aspects of the mission that Their Highnesses wished to keep confidential for the time being. They needed someone they could implicitly trust with some very sensitive information, but Draco won't be able to lead a mission until his arm heals, Archon can't be spared from his duties in the city, and Lilith..." He paused and made a face. "Lilith would just be a bad idea."

"I can imagine," Gemmaline said dryly. "What about Cestus?"

Stone shook his head. "The nexus will be set to draw upon earth-energy. If someone starts throwing large bursts of electricity around near it..."

Gemmaline winced at the conclusion to that unfinished statement. One of the most basic lessons in magic was how the different elements interacted with each other, and while lightning and earth were not especially dangerous in combination, many minerals—aspects of earth—tended to conduct free energy very readily. Around a power-absorbing and amplifying device like a mana nexus, that would be a *very* bad thing, which was one reason why the weather in Atlantean cities had always been so closely controlled; one stray lightning bolt could have wiped out an entire district. So no, Cestus could definitely not go.

"They could still have picked someone else. You're not the only one around here who knows how to use earth magic."

"Granted, but how many of the others are as loyal to the throne?" He asked the question without arrogance. They both knew that despite the unity imposed on all the Lords by the urgent necessity of the Rise, there remained in some quarters a feeling of resentment towards the Prince and Princess. House Imperator was descended from the original Emperor, whose line had dominated Atlantis for the first thousand years of its grand history. Subsequent generations had lost that rule and reclaimed it on several occasions, so that in the end, the family had held the Imperial Throne for some three thousand years, more by far than any other House. Imperator had performed many glorious deeds and committed as many dark acts to hold their place in Atlantean society, just as had every other House, and there were ancient grudges in plenty, minor insults and outright feuds alike. All of the old arguments had been suppressed after the Fall, but no one believed for a moment that they had been forgotten, just as no one had forgotten that it had been an Imperator on the throne at the time of the catastrophe.

If these secrets were as troubling as her brother and Lady Istar had both hinted, Gemmaline knew that Gamaliel would have been one of the few confidants the Imperial twins would have had. Like the other great families, House Stone had its share of Emperors and Empresses, but they also had a history of loyalty to the throne, regardless of its occupant. Moreover, Gamaliel, Mikael Draco, and Prince Janus had all attended the same classes at the Imperial War College. They knew one another, understood how each of the others thought, and would trust each other with their lives. If none of Janus's advisors could be spared for this mission, Lord Stone would be a natural alternative.

With that, Lady Stone had to sigh and nod her reluctant acceptance of her brother's explanation. He had been selected to lead the mission because he was simply the best candidate for the job. But even so...

"You're still not convinced?"

"No. I mean, no, I'm convinced. I just..." Gemmaline looked down at the floor, holding her arms tightly across her stomach and squeezing her eyes shut. "I just have a bad feeling about tonight, Gamaliel. Since we got back, so many things have happened that I don't understand, and now you're going out into the middle of them, and..." Her words trailed off into a sigh, after which Lady Stone set aside any notions of dignity or reserve and gave her brother a hug. "Promise me you'll be careful," she said.

"I promise," Stone said as he returned the embrace. Not for the first time, he was struck by the sheer ridiculousness of the difference in their physical sizes. Gemmaline could not have gotten her arms to encircle her brother's chest for any reason, so she had them around his neck instead, and she was almost standing up straight in the process. Stone, on the other hand, could have wrapped his arms around his sister twice, and *this* while he was sitting down. If he were to stand right now, Gemmaline's feet would have been left dangling at about the level of his knees. That had in fact been one of their standard games when they had been younger, when their mother had been the head of the family. Just a few short months ago. In another age. But no longer.

After a time, the pair separated. Her hands resting on her brother's shoulders, Gemmaline cleared her throat. "I have... work to get back to. Some of our friends still don't seem to have a firm grasp of the concept of rationing."

"I'm sure you can make it clear to them. Even if you have to talk to them by hand." They both smiled more than the feeble joke was worth, and Gemmaline began to walk away. One of her hands lingered, trailing down to her brother's hand for a final reassuring squeeze. Then she was gone from the room, the door whispering shut behind her.

Lord Stone sat in silence and watched the sealed portal for several minutes until a small alarm began to beep, informing him that it was time to leave.

It was perhaps an hour after sundown, and the Senshi were training again. After some discussion with Mercury about the state of her visor, Luna had decided to hold off on the planned mental probe for one more night, and instead allowed Jupiter to take part in the physical exercises. Considering that her balance was still acting up because of the Aegis, Jupiter was not doing quite as well as she would have otherwise. Uranus was too busy with her ongoing lessons in swordplay to take advantage of Jupiter's less-than-perfect situation, but Venus and Mars had both seized the opportunity to pay Jupiter back for a few of the bruises she had given them on previous nights. She was making them work for their revenge, though.

"OW!"

Heads quickly turned to the blanket-covered patch of ground where Usagi was sitting. She was sucking on her hand and glaring at Rooky, who stood across the blanket from her, next to the Book of Ages. Calypso had been reading the warping pages, but she stopped to watch the little drama unfolding in front of her.

Usagi looked up and took her hand out of her mouth to say, "Your stupid bird bit me, Rei."

"Fool!" Rooky squawked. "Fool cannot read pretty Rei-di's Book! Tries to steal pretty Rei-di's glowing worms! Awp!"

"I was doing no such thing! I was just looking! I..." Usagi stopped and made a sound of disgust. "I'm arguing with a feather duster..."

"Fool!"

"You call me that one more time, bird-brain, and..."

"She's in a wonderful mood tonight," Neptune noted as Usagi and Rooky started calling each other names.

"She's not the only one," Pluto replied with a glance at ChibiMoon, who stood rubbing her forehead as though the squawking match was giving her a headache.

"Something they ate, maybe?"

The eldest Senshi smiled faintly and dodged the straight punch Neptune threw at her head. "More like something they *didn't* eat. They both had one serving at dinner, then said they weren't hungry and left the table."

Neptune blinked and stopped in the middle of winding up for a kick, leaving herself completely open to a counter. "Usagi... wasn't hungry?" Those concepts were almost mutually exclusive under normal circumstances, let alone since Usagi had become pregnant.

Pluto shook her head. "We were all quite surprised, but they both said they felt fine—just not hungry. Ikuko put the leftovers in the fridge, in case... is something the matter?"

Neptune was frowning. "Saturn didn't have much to eat tonight, either."

"Is that unusual?"

"Not nearly as odd as it is for Usagi *and* ChibiUsa to skip a meal," the Ocean Senshi admitted. "Hotaru's like everyone else; some days she eats more, other days, a little less. I didn't think too much of it at the time, but now..."

They looked at each other. Three separate people deciding to eat less at one meal wasn't exactly an event of cosmic significance, but when all of those people were Senshi... and two of them Usagi and ChibiUsa...

They called a halt to the exercises. There were some curious looks when Neptune explained the reason, but it turned out that Venus hadn't felt at all hungry at dinner, either. In fact, hours later and after over sixty solid minutes of training—many of those sparring against Jupiter—she still wasn't hungry. Neither were Usagi, ChibiMoon, or Saturn, and ChibiMoon at least was willing to admit that her less-than-sunny mood was due to the fact that she'd *wanted* to eat supper, but hadn't had the slightest pang of hunger to allow it. On the other hand, Jupiter had eaten more than usual, and she was *still* hungry. Venus, Saturn, Usagi, and ChibiMoon all looked at her suspiciously when she admitted that.

Mercury got her computer out and scanned her four friends, and as she compared the results, she began to nod. "I don't see anything unusual in Jupiter, but the others have a slight anomaly in their life-signs. It's more pronounced in Venus, but it's present in all four of them just the same. It seems to be..." Mercury blinked, then groaned and began entering commands into her computer again.

"What?" Venus asked. "Are we sick or something?"

"No, you're not sick." The Mercury Computer beeped, and Mercury sighed. "I was afraid of that."

"Afraid of what?" Venus pressed.

"There's a mana nexus somewhere in the city, but I can't get a fix on its position with my visor broken. Neptune?" Mercury asked, looking up from the display. Neptune nodded, produced the Aqua Mirror, and began turning through a slow circuit, looking over her shoulder via the reflection.

"Am I hearing this right?" Usagi said in a slow voice. "One of those dumb *towers* is the reason I couldn't eat supper tonight?"

"I don't know," Mercury replied, her face creased by a puzzled frown as she studied her computer's display once more. "To be honest, I'm not sure why this nexus is affecting the four of you to begin with, let alone what about it is suppressing your appetites. The energy is all wrong."

"What do you mean? I thought you said you couldn't detect it."

"I can't detect the nexus itself," Mercury explained, "or any of the radiation it's producing. But the cloaking devices our friends use don't hide the effects their nexi have on local energy fields, and *something* is affecting the lines of earth-energy in this region. If Mamoru-san were here and feeling weird, it would make sense, but the four of you shouldn't be reacting at all."

Artemis and Luna looked at each other. "Maybe not," Artemis said slowly. "Nobody used them for centuries, so we don't really know for certain what sort of effects exposure to mana nexi might trigger in different Senshi, do we?"

"Something like that would have been so common in the Atlantean era, it's doubtful anyone would've given it a second thought after the first thousand years or so," Luna agreed. She paused and shook her head. "We'll have to worry about it later. Neptune, have you found anything?"

"Sorry," Neptune apologized. "I think I need to try from a different location; being this far back from the front of the hill *and* under all these trees makes it hard to actually see anything."

"Let me try," Pluto offered, summoning her staff. Looking at the not-hungry Senshi, she started to ask when they had started feeling odd, but then paused and shook her head. "There's a faster way. ChibiMoon, give me your hand." ChibiMoon did that, and Pluto called up her time-sight. Instead of looking into the future, on this occasion she looked back, trying to see if the pink-tinted line of events held some trace of the physiological disturbance Mercury had detected.

It did. There was nothing Pluto could *see* that revealed the difference, but as she pushed back several hours, something in the *feel* of the vision changed. She needed only a minuscule fraction of a second to track down the instant when the change had occurred, and then she forced the vision away and released ChibiMoon's hand.

"5:19:55 this afternoon," Pluto said.

"Three *hours?!*" Uranus burst out in dismay. "You mean they've been running that thing all evening?"

"It seems that way," Pluto replied calmly. "Pardon me a moment." She lifted her gaze to the Garnet Orb, which immediately glowed with a myriad of soft, shifting lights. Staring into that apparently random collection of colors, Pluto could make out an overhead view of the city from the same moment in time that ChibiUsa had been afflicted with a lack of hunger. Nothing about the view stood out at first, but Pluto studied it closely for several hour-long instants, fixing the details of the landscape in her mind as she used the Garnet Orb to push the image back. When a small detail changed a moment later, she was aware of it.

The image zoomed in, and Pluto blinked. "The mall?"

*The mall,* Proteus thought in satisfaction as the escort of rat-units lowered the incubation pod into place in the service tunnels below the complex. This task complete, one of the rats made its way over to a row of pipes along the wall. From city plans, Proteus knew that these 'pipes' actually contained telephone wires and some fiber-optics cables, and its subordinate unit easily burned a small hole into the back of one of the protective metal sheathes, allowing a small tendril of itself access to the electronics within. The rat- unit metamorphosed, dissolving itself into a nearly liquid state so that it could pump its substance into that hole and through the meager space inside. It followed the wiring to a junction box above ground, and from there, it only needed a few minutes to locate and interlink with part of the mall's security system.

Proteus saw no need to go to all the trouble of creating its own surveillance equipment when it could simply use what was already there, and the mall had cameras in plenty. Not all of them connected to the same stations, of course, but that was no problem; Proteus merely had other rat-units follow the first one. Inside of ten minutes, it had the entire mall wired, and with only a minuscule fraction of the biomatter it would have had to expend in creating its own system.

As soon as all was in readiness, the pod in the tunnel hatched, and the Samoru-unit emerged. Proteus had put everything it had learned into this design. Many of the non-human components had been fashioned from second-stage biomatter, animal rather than vegetable or fungal, and this more specialized construction had allowed superior musculature to be implemented. The Samoru-unit was nearly as strong as the Tetsuo-unit had been, but it was only slightly larger than the Hana-unit, and just as fast. Its exterior was much more human in appearance than its predecessors—although the smooth, featureless outer shell would still not be mistaken for human except at a distance—and its 'flesh' could harden into tough armor or produce an array of bony plates or spikes at a moment's notice. Proteus had not fully removed first-generation biomatter from this design, either; the capacity for unrestricted growth and adaptation was too useful to do away with just yet, and special sub-organs within the unit held small stores of the fungoid mass, plus biochemical compounds that would greatly speed their replication.

*Now to see if all these fancy toys are worth the trouble,* the entity said to itself with a touch of irony as its progeny headed up into the main structure.

A moment later, there was a brilliant flash of light, and Proteus, nestled in its lair several dozen blocks away, swore in astonishment.

Saturn, ChibiMoon, and Jupiter weren't happy when Luna told them that they were staying behind with Usagi, but she put her foot down.

"A nexus gathering earth-energy will draw electricity like a magnet," she said to Jupiter. "You can't be anywhere near it. And you two," Luna continued, looking at Saturn and ChibiMoon, "aren't going near it either. Not until we have a better idea why it's even affecting you in the first place."

"Then why does *she* get to go?" ChibiMoon asked indignantly, pointing at Venus.

"It's a calculated risk. She's the only one of you whom we know for certain can safely shut down an active nexus without tapping into its energy."

Saturn, for her part, looked at Uranus and Neptune. They nodded firmly, and she acceded to their wishes with a minor sigh before opening the dimension door. Pluto gave her a little advice, using the Garnet Orb to show Saturn a safe place to put the other end of her little hole in the fabric of reality.

As the portal widened, Mars and Neptune both experienced a sudden inexplicable chill. Mars took it to mean that there were daimons waiting somewhere on the other side, and—after a quick warning glance to tell her four feathered followers to stay put—she was the first one through the gate. Neptune's reaction was different; she knew instinctively that what she was feeling was not the presence of daimons, but something else that might be just as dark. Her fingers tightened around the handle of the Aqua Mirror.

"Something wrong?" Uranus asked.

"Keep your eyes open, Uranus," Neptune said. "Something's not right."

"When is it ever?" The tone was wry, but the tip of the Space Sword led the way as Uranus passed through the dimension door. Neptune followed close behind her. Calypso traded a glance and a nod with her sister before Mercury stepped into the rift; once across, she turned and monitored Venus as Artemis helped her through. That left Luna and Pluto. Pluto looked calmly at Luna, who returned the gaze evenly.

"It took six of us to bring down the last two," the Senshi of Time said.

Luna nodded, adding, "Don't get carried away."

"I wouldn't dream of it."

They passed through the dimension door, and Saturn shut it behind them, leaving four glum Senshi to share a sigh. Jupiter's stomach growled a moment later, and her human friends treated it *and* her to dark looks; Calypso just smiled.

"Sorry," Jupiter apologized with a shrug.

"It's not your fault," Usagi mumbled grouchily, folding her arms and sitting back against the tree behind her.

The landing zone Pluto and Saturn had selected put the Senshi on the second-to-last level of the mall's adjacent parking garage, far enough back from the open front to avoid notice by anyone who was standing on or near the invisible tower.

"Did they actually put it on *top* of the mall?" Mars asked.

"No," Pluto replied. "It's in the parking lot, up against the side of the building."

"I see it," Neptune added. She studied the reflections in her Mirror. "We'll have to cross the street, the parking lot, and about half of the mall itself to reach the nexus. There's nothing to use for cover."

Uranus looked at Venus. "How close do you need to be to chop that thing down?"

"Probably right next to it," Venus admitted. "And while we're on the subject, should I hit the spires at the top first, to shut it down and buy us some time? Or should I just go for the hole in chilled water?"

"That's 'the whole enchilada,'" Artemis corrected.

"Burritos to you too."

He didn't even *try* to make sense of that one. "And to answer your original question, I'd go for the top. It may take a while to clear out whatever units they've got defending the place, and there's no sense in letting them keep on collecting energy if we can help it."

"Right." Venus cracked her knuckles, then looked around. "Everybody ready? Great. Let's throw this pop can away."

"I believe that's my cue," Neptune said as she raised her Mirror, smiling in spite of her ongoing feeling of waiting danger. Venus was like that sometimes. "SUBMARINE REFLECTION REVELATION!"

The attack flew out over the half-empty parking lot and impacted against the narrow perimeter of the cloaking shield with a bright flash of conflicting blue and green energies. The nexus suddenly appeared, leaving Neptune with a look of surprise on her face. That had been far too easy.

The vague feeling of dread that she and Mars had both been keeping in check increased sharply, right before the air was split by a piercing screech. With that sound came an explosion of pain.

Calypso had gone back to her reading, sitting on empty air with the Book open across her lap. As was her habit, she traced each line with one finger as she read it, although thanks to the Book's bizarre script, her hand was currently on a trip through a wide spiral of shifting characters.

Calypso found the Book fascinating. Since she was not restricted to the same perceptual spectrum as her sister or other humans, the Nereid could discern things about the Book that their eyes could not, countless additional details that turned each tiny character into a story in and of itself. Find the "word" for a person's name, and their entire life story was laid out within it; find the symbol that represented a location, and it would show every single event that had ever transpired there. Provided, of course, that you could read fast enough.

That, Calypso suspected, was one reason why the Book's words were constantly fading in and out. If someone *could* discover everything about everything, they would be unable to be surprised. You would be unable to look forward to the good things, and there would be no way you could avoid the bad; it would be like a story that you had already read. The joy of discovery would go out of it. You could reread a good book many times and still enjoy it, and if it ever did come to bore you, you could at last put it down. Life did not work that way. Without the occasional surprise, there would be only endless tedium, a slow, unceasing crawl along a bleak road that led from beginning to end. No deviation, no rest—no sightseeing.

*What a terrible notion,* the Nereid reflected. *Perhaps...*

Her line of thought came to an abrupt halt as Calypso suddenly picked up a brief telepathic flash from Mercury. It was a jumble of impressions, an instinctive calling-out, and within it the Nereid sensed pain. Intense pain, but without physical injury. Pain of the mind.

Calypso realized that she wasn't the only one who knew that something was wrong. The four crows had been relatively quiet for the entire training sessions, but now they were cawing in extreme agitation, even the normally reserved Thrax. The Book was reacting too, the words on its two open pages writhing and swirling into each other in a nonsensical garble.

"What in the..." Usagi began, staring at the crows.

"They're in trouble," Calypso said. The Book fell to the ground with a thud as the Nereid changed shape, becoming a hovering blue sphere with a brilliant sheen along its surface.

"What are you..." Usagi tried again.

*I'm going to help,* Calypso replied. *Stay here.* She shot up through the trees, ripping a few of the new spring leaves away from their branches, then executed a sudden, perfectly perpendicular turn and streaked away through the air like a bullet.

For once, Mizuno Rikou was not spending the night working on something. Events had conspired to throw her a break in her schedule that included a few extra hours besides the usual nine allowed for sleep, food, and the other essentials of life, and she'd opted to use that rare gift to put in a little time at the community center pool. An enjoyment of swimming was one of the many things Rikou had in common with her daughter, although she'd never been quite as devoted to it as a sport as Ami was—nor had she been as fast!—and her busy schedule seldom allowed her to get to the pool these days.

While she was in the pool, Rikou managed to forget about most of her day- to-day worries. Concerns from work drifted out of her thoughts altogether as soon as she hit the water, and even the issue of the still-unrepaired state of her childhood home only stayed with her for a few laps. Before long, Rikou wasn't thinking of anything except herself and the water.

For no apparent reason, Mrs. Mizuno found her rare moment of utter relaxation dissolving in a sudden flash of worry about Ami. The feeling was bad enough that she climbed out of the pool and went back to the locker room, got her cellphone, and dialed Makoto's number. The phone rang four times before the voicemail kicked in; after a brief debate, Rikou hung up without leaving a message. Then she stood there, dripping, looking at the phone in her hand as her mind tried to explain what *that* had been about.

Ryo was in his room, reading, when he felt a sudden chill emanate from a corner of his mind. He was used to bizarre mental and/or physical sensations hitting him from out of the blue, but this one caused the young seer more concern than most because it was coming from a part of his mind that typically radiated nothing but warmth. Somewhere, he knew, Ami—or more likely, Mercury— was in some kind of trouble.

In another corner of his being, Ryo felt a different sort of chill as a dark, malevolent presence awoke in its prison and laughed what it too could feel—if only vaguely—coming through the mindlink between its unwilling host and one of its hated enemies.

*Shut up,* Ryo told the thing.

The youma just laughed.

The pain was intense, and all the worse because Neptune could not tell for certain where it was coming from. The penetrating shriek had been brief, and it had not been so loud or properly-pitched that it could have triggered this, yet there had been no other indication of the cause. There had only been that sense of fear, the hideous scream, and then—the pain.

Although she was shaking all over because of the thought-crushing ache in her head, Neptune found that she could tolerate it. She had suffered worse in her life, experienced physical, emotional, and mental agonies even greater than this. Realizing this made the pain lessen, as if the memory of those past experiences—and overcoming them—were forming some kind of shield. It did not entirely block the pain, but it did lessen it to the point where Neptune could think and exercise some degree of control over her body, which had collapsed in a limp heap when the shriek struck. Neptune pushed herself up from the cold concrete floor and opened her eyes.

The first things Neptune saw were her friends, all of whom had obviously been hit by the same attack that had hit her. Mercury, Artemis, Venus, and— Neptune felt her heart skip a beat—Uranus were all down, either knocked out cold or simply disabled by the pain. Luna and Mars were on their knees, but clearly fighting off the worst of the effect as they struggled to get back up, and Pluto... Neptune felt a simultaneous flash of relief and envy when she saw that Pluto was standing in the middle of the group, her eyes closed and the heel of one hand pressed hard against the side of her head.

Reassured by the knowledge that she wasn't the only one still able to function, Neptune looked around for the source of the attack. She saw nothing, but the sense of dread had not lessened. She *knew* that whatever had hit them was still here—somewhere.

*Invisible?* Neptune thought, glancing at her Mirror, which had fallen face-down on the floor next to her. She picked the Talisman up and held it face- out, projecting its illusion-revealing power into the parking level and thinking, *I can deal with...*

What the Mirror revealed a moment later made the blood rush from Neptune's face. If she had been standing instead of kneeling, she would have fallen again. Only a few meters away, in the shadow of one of the support columns, there stood a... the only word her brain could offer to describe it was *thing.* It was as tall as a human, and wore dark blue robes that would have fit a human, but it was not human. Four-fingered hands were held folded before its chest, the tips of the fingers just lightly touching, and above them was a face out of a nightmare, a tentacle-ringed mouth set between two huge, milky-white eyes without pupils. Above that was the rest of the head, a bulbous, fleshy mass that disappeared into the shadows of a hood.

Neptune wanted to scream, but her throat had closed up. She wanted to crawl away and hide, but her legs refused to work. She couldn't make her arms move, to get the Mirror's revealing light off the thing so it would vanish; she couldn't even pull her eyes away, or close them.

It wasn't the ugliness of the thing making her feel this way, for she had encountered other beings just as hideous, and destroyed most of them. Nor was it the aura of cold malevolence radiating out from the creature; every monster Neptune had ever encountered had given off similar sensations, and she had long ago learned to steel herself against such psychic weaponry. It wasn't even the fact that this thing had knocked down most of the Senshi in one shot, for that had been done often enough in the past, by opponents that were no longer an issue.

What had Neptune so terrified was a feeling deep in her soul, in the place from which her powers sprang, of recognition. The essence of who and what she was instinctively *knew* this thing, knew exactly what it was—and was horribly afraid of it.

"What... what *is* that?" Neptune heard Mars say in a tone of revulsion. "Luna?"

"I think it's..." For Neptune, the rest of Luna's response was lost in a rush of sound as something hit her. She couldn't see what it was, but it felt like a flying wall, and threw her backwards into Uranus, who didn't even respond to the impact. That lack of a reaction from her partner scared Neptune as much as her internal terror of the thing that she knew had somehow just knocked her over. Not just her, either; Neptune could see the others, and Luna and Mars had both fared the same as she herself. Even Pluto had been pushed back, although she had somehow managed to stay on her feet and not step on anyone.

She wasn't long about responding, either. Pluto raised her staff with both hands, her left arm reaching across her body to grip the weapon just below the ornate setting of the Garnet Orb, while her right held the staff much farther down. The jewel glowed, and Pluto, standing with her left side towards the creature, lowered the staff until the radiant stone atop it was pointed directly at her target. "STASIS BOLT!"

The staff bucked like a rifle as the Garnet Orb shot a twisting bolt of deep red energy at the squid-faced entity. The attack was fast, but its target was even faster, flickering right out of existence before the Stasis Bolt could touch it. Neptune saw the dark blue robe reappear beyond Pluto, deeper within the parking garage. Pluto must have seen or sensed it as well, because she was already turning to face her opponent.

There was another rush of invisible force, and this time, Pluto was too far off balance to resist it. She was hurled into the waist-high wall surrounding the edge of this level of the garage; the impact surely bruised her, but between the wall, her own feet, and the staff, Pluto kept her footing. Then something ripped the staff from her hand so hard that she was yanked along in its wake, and had to catch herself as her weapon clattered along the concrete. Before she had even recovered from that hit, Pluto was smashed backwards along the wall by another of those invisible strikes.

A second of the robed entities, in every visual respect a twin of the first, appeared not far from where Pluto's staff had landed, and at that point, Neptune let out a frightened whimper and covered her head with her arms. She was appalled at her own behavior, but she just couldn't help it.

Then she heard a scream. It was not the piercing cry the two creatures had given off at the start of their attack, but neither was it the sound of a human overcome by fear or pain. It was the kind of shriek a girl might make when she was so angry that words failed her, and Neptune did not hear it with her ears. Startled by that noise, she managed to peek through the gap between her arms in spite of her fear.

A bright blue blur shot in through the gap between the outer wall and the ceiling and smashed into the newly-appeared creature's chest. However impressive their powers, these creatures were spindly, and the impact drove this one backwards, its arms cartwheeling wildly and the hem of its robes hissing across the concrete as it struggled to regain its balance.

The blur did not allow it the time. It pursued its target and struck it hard across the left shoulder, spinning the creature halfway around. It blurred around and smashed into the disoriented being's back, and then zipped back and flew straight at its head, forcing the thing to raise its arms to shield its ugly face. It crashed into the side of a car and was spilled back along the hood, laying there with its hood down, the entirety of its slimy, soft-looking head exposed.

In the middle of circling around to hit its enemy from above, the blue object suddenly stopped. The halt revealed the high-speed attacker's shape to be a perfect sphere, one which shook back and forth as if caught by unseen forces from which it was struggling to break free.

The first of the squid-creatures had been standing in the same location to which it had teleported, and except for a sharp turn of its head when its companion had come under attack, it had not visibly moved since, save for its bulbous eyes. Those were fixed directly on the offensive orb, half-closed in a squint. The ball's shaking abruptly ceased, and for a moment, the garage was silent. Then the blank eyes opened wide as the robed creature staggered backwards with a shrill shriek and clutched at its head with both four-fingered hands. A split-second later, the ball shot through the air and delivered a smashing blow to this enemy as well, driving it back into a pillar with a soft thump.

Both squid-beings abruptly vanished, and without them, the head-splitting pain diminished to a dull ache. The heavy aura of dread that had been haunting Mars and Neptune since Saturn opened the dimension door had also ended.

*Good riddance,* a familiar mental voice said disgustedly. *Filthy creatures...*

"Calypso?" Mars ventured, looking up at the hovering sphere with a pained expression. "What are you... erm..." She broke off, rubbed at her aching forehead, and then tried again. "What are you doing here?"

*What I'm doing here is saving the whole lot of you,* the Nereid replied in grim amusement. She floated down next to Mars, whose face quickly relaxed. *Better?*

"Much. Thank you." Mars looked at the others, specifically those who were still out cold.

*It'd be best if we let them come to on their own,* Calypso said in response to the unspoken question as she moved on to Luna, and then Pluto. *They'll be up and around in a minute or two. Probably with some nasty headaches, but nothing serious.*

"Good. We still have to take care of that nexus." Mars glanced out at the unwholesomely green tower, its spires capped by a shifting mass of rich brown energy.

*One thing at a time,* Calypso said as she moved towards Neptune. Halfway there, the Nereid paused and resumed her human form, looking down at Neptune with a concerned frown on her face. Neptune was huddled against Uranus, looking very small and frightened. "Neptune?" Calypso asked, floating down next to her and touching her on the arm. "Michiru, it's okay. They're gone."

"I... I couldn't move," Neptune said softly. "When I saw them, I just... I froze..."

"It's okay," Calypso said. She settled on the ground next to Neptune, both hands resting comfortingly on her friend's shoulders. "It happens."

Neptune shook her head. "You don't understand. I've been afraid before, Calypso. *Me.*" She pressed one hand to her chest. "Kaioh Michiru. Sometimes it's my fear, and I can deal with it. Sometimes it's something I think Larissa was afraid of, and I can deal with that, too. But this time... it felt like..."

"Like what?" the Nereid pressed gently.

"*Neptune* was the one that was afraid," the Senshi said, closing her eyes. "That's something I've only felt a few times, and *this* time... it was so bad... it was worse than anything..."

Calypso sighed and gathered Neptune into a hug, stroking her hair and patting her soothingly on the back. At the same time, the Nereid looked over her friend's shoulder at the others.

Pluto was openly sympathetic, but Mars was even more than that, for she remembered occasions when something inside of her had felt as Neptune had just described, when something had appeared that was so powerful, so dangerous, so purely *evil,* that even the core of a Senshi's essence was shaken. Luna's face was grim, and she met Calypso's questioning gaze with a short nod. The Nereid's eyes closed after that, and she sighed a second time, as if Luna had just read *her* mind and given her an unpleasant answer to an unspoken question.

"Unnhhh," someone groaned. It was Mercury, and although she was still laying on the floor with her eyes closed, her face had assumed an expression of pain. "Ugh... why... urk... does my head feel like..."

"Easy," Mars said, kneeling and holding out a restraining hand as Mercury began to rise. "You might want to take a minute before you try to sit up."

Mercury opened an eye, instantly shut it, and then reopened it very slowly. "Mars? What... what happened?"

Sitting with her arms around Neptune, Calypso almost smirked at Mercury. "You got mindblasted by a couple of unfriendly mentalists, that's what happened."

"Calypso?!" Mercury blurted, opening both eyes and sitting up straight to stare at her sister. "What are... ohhhh..." Mercury closed her eyes, put her hands to her temples, and leaned forward until her head was almost between her knees. "Gaaaah..."

"Mars did *warn* you against trying that," Calypso said sweetly.

"Shut up, Caly," Mercury said in a low tone, as she turned sideways, laying down on the cold concrete with her head touching her curled-up knees. "Oh, kamis... that hurts. Mars, could you hand me my computer? I'd like to make sure nothing's broken..."

"Are they *all* going to wake up feeling like that?" Pluto asked.

"Oh, no," Calypso answered. "Only Mercury. Telepaths always take this kind of abuse worse than those with closed minds. That is, when they're as foolish as my sister and leave their defenses down..."

"Knock it off, Caly," Mercury repeated.

"...which is something that never would have happened if she'd just stop arguing with me all the time and practice with her mental abilities a little more," the Nereid continued relentlessly.

"Caly," Mercury pleaded. It came out almost in an Usagi-class whine. "Please, just let me suffer in silence." Calypso did not reply either verbally or psychically, but Mercury sighed in relief. "Thank you."

Not five seconds later, the mana nexus exploded. Mercury groaned and turned over where she lay, swearing into the concrete.

Lord Stone could hardly believe what was going on.

He had been waiting here for the Senshi for over three hours, and for that entire time, the Lord had literally stood his watch, only breaking from his post every half-hour to walk a circuit of the roof on which he stood. He had the patience of a mountain and the utmost trust in any plan Draco, Janus, and Jenna had all collaborated on, but Lord Stone was also at some unease because of the unseen presence of the Deep Ones. Only one of the creatures had appeared to him when he arrived, informing him that it and its companions were ready, but saying nothing of their numbers or strategy.

*We are here. We are prepared to assist you.* That had been all the emissary said before vanishing, leaving Lord Stone to shake his head in helpless disapproval. Having one-half of your defensive troops off working by their own rules was no way to conduct an operation, but while Draco had included some suggestions on how the creatures were to fit into the overall battle plan, whether or not they were following that plan was beyond Stone's ability to determine.

The damned deliberately mysterious behavior of his 'allies' wasn't the only thing that had bothered Lord Stone. For some reason, he found that Gemmaline's plea for caution kept coming back to him. He had been teasing her when he said that she worried too much, but they both knew that a lot of the time, Gemmaline's concerns proved true. Of course, she was also wrong a lot of the time, but Lord Stone had a nagging feeling that his sister was right about tonight, that something was going to go very wrong.

When the Senshi had arrived at last and begun their assault on the nexus, Draco's plan had unfolded perfectly. The too-sudden collapse of the deliberately weakened cloaking shield had left the Senshi momentarily confused, a perfect frame of mind for the Deep Ones to attack and overpower. The emissary had reappeared and informed Lord Stone that its companions had six Senshi and two Nekoron subdued, and were taking steps to suppress the remaining resistance, yet even with that knowledge—that this non-Nereid Mercury had been fully overwhelmed, and that even Athena was being neutralized—Lord Stone could not shake his suspicions.

For all of his—or his sister's—concern that something was going to go wrong, Stone had been taken totally by surprise when the Nereid appeared. One of the first things the Atlanteans had done upon their return was to try and seek out their old allies, only to discover that in their long absence, the other races of the solar system had apparently been exterminated. Mercury and Venus had been obliterated, and the Lunar, Martian, and Jovian colonies had been reduced to a few useless piles of rock, with no clues as to the time or cause of the destruction. That had been as far out as the Lords had dared to search, with the city's reserves so low and so much work needing to be done, but they had investigated Earth as well, on the chance that some of the old races had survived here. All they found were humans, a few scattered hints of dragons— which was really worse news than better—and then finally the Deep Ones.

For all intents and purposes, the other peoples were lost, including the Nereids—so then where in the Abyss had this one come from? The Deep Ones clearly hadn't expected its presence any more than Stone had; the emissary's reaction had been to actually turn its head towards the Nereid's furious approach and assault, a gesture that, for a member of this supremely self- controlled race, was an indication of the most extreme shock.

Considering that reaction, Lord Stone wasn't too surprised when the emissary indicated that its companions had been forced to withdraw. The Deep Ones had potent telepathic abilities, but those of the Nereids were stronger. The Deep Ones were armed with psychokinetic attacks that could crush even the strongest humans or blow apart buildings; Nereids lacked such powers, at least to the extent of affecting matter outside their own bodies, but their control over their bodies was absolute, overpowering even the Deep Ones' best efforts to smash them or scatter their molecules. Physically, the slender mentalists of the squid-like race were no match for the Nereids at all, not even one who remained in her human guise, and while the Deep Ones hated the Nereids, the Nereids hated the Deep Ones even more, being grossly offended by the sadistic uses to which the creatures put their powers, and outraged beyond words at their eagerness to exercise those abilities on creatures that couldn't fight back. Humans in particular.

Lord Stone had allowed himself to take a moment to wonder how Laraea Istar would react when she heard that one of her distant—by now VERY distant—kinsmen was still alive. And that was when the top of the mana nexus exploded above him.

As he ducked to shield his face against the glare and heat of the fireball, Stone expected to be incinerated on the spot; an influx of that much fire magic into the nexus would trigger a blast sufficient to flash-burn everything within half a kilometer. And yet nothing happened. Cautiously, the Lord looked back up, and then he understood. At least, he understood why he was still alive.

The nexus had not been struck by a magical fireball, nor by a bolt of lightning. Instead, something had caused the spires at its focal point to be pulled widely apart, shattering the delicate balance of forces and killing the nexus. Its connection to Atlantis severed, the energy remaining within the nexus had to be released somehow; it could not be returned to the earth in the same manner that it had been drawn out, and so it exploded its way to freedom. Lord Stone could see the golden-brown shockwave radiating outwards through the air, trailing a bizarre rain of dust-like energy over much of the city. The Lord smiled wryly, picturing the uncontrollable plant growth this region was likely to experience in the next few days thanks to that enriching rain, and then he tried to figure out what had just happened. Because whatever it was, it was still happening.

Lord Stone had never seen anything quite like it. The nexus was shifting around on its base, slowly rocking one way, then another. The sound it made was not the rumble or grating of repositioning building stone, but a peculiar slow ripping that had many elements of creaking and popping. Every few seconds, something would produce a bubbling liquid sound, and this would usually be accompanied by a small but very real rippling along the outer surface. Some of those ripples were very short, and others rose clear to the shattered peak, pulling the bent and twisted wreckage of the apex further apart.

*Human.* Lord Stone turned to the Deep One, which had resumed its impassive stance. *This is not part of the plan.*

"No," Lord Stone agreed, "it is not. The mission ended the moment the nexus was disabled. You may remain or depart, as..." *As you wish*, the Lord had intended to say, but he was interrupted as a green shape moved suddenly towards the Deep One. A unit!

Stone was not particularly given to the notion of shouting a warning, but it was hardly necessary. The unit slammed into an invisible barrier of force, hung in the air for a moment, and then was hurled violently away from its intended target. Flames ignited over its entire body, and the burning wreckage struck the nexus. It hung there for a moment, burning in itself and blackening the biomatter around it, before it was encased within a pocket of the stuff, which pressed down on it tightly as it was drawn into the body of the twisting tower. Stone knew that the fire would shortly consume all of the available air within that pocket and die, as the unit already had.

Out of the corner of his left eye, Stone saw movement. He turned, chanting a single word of magic, and slammed his fist into the midsection of the unit—another first-generation unit—that had tried to attack him from behind. A small spark of brownish energy went off as tanned flesh struck green biomatter, and the unit was thrown clear across the roof. Lord Stone used the brief moment to send the auto-destruct command to all of the remaining units, then gathered a sphere of solid-looking grey energy between his hands as the downed unit metamorphosed its way into a standing position to attack again.

Detecting the energy and recognizing an attack, the unit attempted to evade; Stone faked a throw to trick his not-very-bright opponent into a rush, then released the spell when his target was in too close and moving too quickly to dodge. The grey orb struck the unit in the torso and carried it back the way it had come, spreading itself out along the organic automaton's body and turning the greenish substance a solid grey. When the totally-grey unit hit the roof a second later, its leg split off with a sharp snap, and the rest of the body toppled, shattering into grey dust on impact.

Stone was already looking around. No units in sight, and no sign of the Deep One. Whether it had departed thinking that it had been betrayed, Stone could only speculate. He doubted it, though; the creatures understood the situation, that the Atlanteans could not afford to alienate any allies at this point. Besides, had the creature believed that treachery was behind the brief ambush, it would have attacked him for certain.

That settled, Stone checked the bracer on his left arm, and more specifically, the display mounted within it. Of the twenty units he had been assigned, twelve had acknowledged the destruct command and dissolved themselves. That left six—and the nexus itself, he added, hearing a weird growl unlike anything in his experience. It was deep, loud, and very uncomfortably *behind* him.

Turning about, Lord Stone released a breath. "This would be Gemmaline's bad feeling," he said to himself as his eyes traced the lines of the thing now towering above him.

Proteus was not too surprised when its capture attempts failed. From the look of him, the Atlantean could probably tear one of the feeble first- generation units apart with just his bare hands, and he radiated strong magic on top of that. The other creature, whatever it had been, had given off much lower readings in both mass and magical radiation, and seemed an easy capture right up until the instant it halted the unit, threw it aside, and set it afire, all of this while producing not the least trace of any energy that Proteus was able to detect.

*Interesting. Not human, not a unit, not a daimon. Cephalopod? No such species recorded in any available reference.*

Ah well. The attempt had been unsuccessful, but shed some light on the unusual being. Proteus made a note to be alert for similar biosigns in the future, then turned its attention to the matter at hand.

When the flash had gone off above the Samoru-unit, Proteus had been stunned to see a mana nexus shimmer into view only a few dozen meters from its chosen—and now hastily abandoned—test site. Ordinary humans, it could handle, and the entity wanted to face the Senshi again, to further its tests and gather more data, but it would *not* risk discovery of another hybrid unit by the Atlanteans.

Yet, as it withdrew the Samoru-unit for a later date, Proteus had not been able to resist sending several rat-units to the surface, to see what could be gained from observing the other units that it could sense in the area. One of the rats had, quite accidentally, come into contact with one of the other units, and the result had been an instantaneous fusion between the two, with the rat-unit's more advanced biomatter entering into and spreading through the body of the other almost like a virus. In seconds, Proteus had control of the unit, and began to eye the nexus, thinking of what it could do with that much biomatter. It seized several other units, then threw most of them into the nexus, leaving two to attempt to take the Atlantean and his most unusual companion. With unfortunate results.

The explosion of the nexus had been unanticipated, but Proteus's understanding of these devices was limited to how to build them, and a few guesses at their actual workings. Regardless, the takeover attempt had been successful, and the hasty reconfiguration plan Proteus had put together was proceeding well. The Atlantean would almost certainly try to stop it, if his people's previous response to a 'malfunctioning' nexus had been any indication, and the Senshi—whom Proteus knew must be responsible for the burst of energy that had so suddenly revealed the nexus in the first place—would *definitely* try to stop it.

This, as far as Proteus was concerned, was all well and good.

"Okay," Mars said slowly. "I know I said it already, but I'll ask again: what *is* that?"

She, Luna, and Pluto had been the first to the wall, seeking the source of the explosion, and perhaps a clue to its cause. Calypso and a subdued Neptune had joined them, and then Mercury had managed to stagger up and over as well, replacing her sister at the wall as Calypso moved back to tend to the others.

What those looking over the low wall were seeing bore a faint resemblance to the development of a chrysalis, but compressed into a few short moments. The nexus was turning into... into... into a thing that looked a bit like an insect, but wasn't. Parts of it were covered by large and darkening plates, while others were still green and stringy like all the primitive units the Senshi had been fighting since New Year's Eve. It had six bulges that might be intended to become legs, a vague head which bore horns and big red eyes, and a many- segmented tail. The thing was alien and repellent to behold, but most of all, it was *big.* It was some four stories tall and thicker than the nexus had been in most places, except for its neck and developing tail.

"It's trouble," Pluto said, her eyes flickering briefly to the glowing Garnet Orb. "I think we'd better call Saturn and..." She stopped, frowning at an image. "Now that's something I didn't expect."

"What?"

"Look there." Pluto pointed with the head of her staff to a disturbance in the parking lot, ripples of energy pulsing out from a glowing spot on the concrete. With a sound like a gunshot, a great circular crack appeared around an area that encompassed a hundred or so parking spaces; cars in that area shuddered on their shocks as a large lump of dark grey stone rose up in the center of the effect, dragging the disc of tar—and more than a few of the cars parked on top of it—towards itself with a great slithering rumble. As more of the parking lot was stripped away, the general lump got bigger, and when one of the cars touched it, it absorbed that as well. And then another one.

The end result of this grand theft auto and destruction of private property was a thick chunk of greyish stone five meters high and about five thick, covered with black pavement and decorated in places by bits of metal—and what looked like upholstery on its low, lumpish head. There was another loud crack as heavy stone pillars burst from either side, forming what were most definitely arms, with massive shoulders that seemed to squeeze in on the creature's head. It was almost amusing to see two clusters of headlights emerge from the otherwise featureless front of that rocky skull and click on.

"That's an elemental, isn't it?" Mercury asked.

"An earth elemental, yes, although it's absorbed a lot of additional materials to supplement its core. But if it's assembling here, then the summoner must... there." Luna pointed to the figure her sharp eyes had spotted, a small- seeming man who stood atop the roof of the mall, not far from what had been the nexus. "Mars should be able to burn that other thing now that it's no longer a nexus, but if we want to get rid of the elemental short of calling Saturn, we'll have to take out its master."

"Hold that thought for just a moment, Luna," Pluto said, raising a hand. "You may want to see what happens next."

Luna was about to ask what Pluto meant by that when a deep cracking drew her attention back to the parking lot. The elemental, fully formed, had taken a step—towards the massive green bug. The elemental's legs were thick and stumpy, but this now appeared to be because they were buried to the knee in the gravel and dirt. The otherworldly creature waded forward like a man slogging through thick mud, the ground giving way before its legs and then sinking back into place behind. Speed was not even in it—from the look of things, a person could walk faster than the stone behemoth could 'run'—but the elemental's movements conveyed a sense of patience, tremendous physical power, and unyielding determination.

At the moment, all of those qualities appeared to be fixed firmly on the towering insectoid, along with the light of the elemental's bright eyes.

"I think that we've been here before," Neptune said faintly.

"I think you're right," Mars agreed, remembering her encounter with the fire elemental that had known who she was. The elemental that had been sent to destroy a violently active mana nexus.

As it slowly advanced on its target, the pavement-skinned and upholstery-haired elemental raised its left arm. The vaguely-shaped hand warped and shifted, exposing a metallic gleam in the center of the palm, and Luna let out a yowl of feline surprise as a streaming jet of flames suddenly roared forth from the elemental's hand.

If Luna was surprised, the mammoth bug was outraged at its fiery bath. It let out a deep, hissing roar and fell back from the flames, with two of its legs and a section of its underbelly on fire. The creature's long neck arced around and opened its mandibles to spray the burning areas with a yellowish liquid. The substance hardened on contact with the body, instantly smothering the flames, and after a moment the stuff shattered, leaving the damaged areas able to move freely again. Then the giant insectoid snarled and turned its congealing spittle against the approaching elemental, which was too big and slow to get out of the way, and was soaked from head to foot—or knee—in an ongoing blast of the stuff. In seconds, the elemental had been halted within a transparent yellow shell, and the enormous unit-mutant ceased its attack.

No sooner had the spray ended than the elemental shattered its prison, with no apparent effort beyond a flexing of its rocky shoulders. Its outstretched hand again sent forth a wave of fire, although this time the attack was met by a focused spray of the fast-hardening slime. The billowing flames proved more effective, washing around the edges of the insect's defensive attack to lick at its flammable body, but the jet of fire ended abruptly, which gave the unit time to spray itself once more. As soon as the flames had been extinguished, the bug shattered its glittering salve and then backed away from the lumbering elemental, faster than the stone creature could follow.

Pluto lowered her staff and unleashed a Stasis Bolt at the retreating insect. One of the massive legs suddenly went rock-hard and immobile, and the rest of the creature's body toppled over with a screech and a loud crash. The green mutant tugged uselessly at its time-frozen limb, then simply snapped the paralyzed section off at the lowest possible joint and continued on its way, moving more slowly but growing a new leg as it went.

A second Stasis Bolt caught the enormous bug across its carapaced back. This time, the creature didn't even struggle; it just released the disabled portion and continued on, regenerating as it went and leaving a large piece of soft green and hardened brown biomatter hovering five or six meters in the air, lines of reddish energy flowing around it.

"Damn," Pluto murmured. "Mars, I'm going to need your help."

"Hang on a minute," Luna began.

"No time," Pluto replied, launching into the March of Time. She quickened herself and then repeated the technique, aiming at Mars. The two of them conversed for about ten accelerated seconds before they both took off, leaping over the low barrier on their way to the street. The others saw them zip across the parking lot, ignoring the elemental in favor of getting around in front of the transformed nexus. A fireball exploded in the monster's face, and it fell back with an angry shriek.

"We should help them," Mercury said.

"You're in no shape to fight just now," Calypso replied. She was hovering next to Venus, who was beginning to groan her way back to consciousness. "Pluto and Mars know what they're doing, so just let them do it."

Mercury wanted to glare at Calypso, but straining her eyes that way did unfortunate things to the throbbing pain in her head. Closing her eyes, Mercury had some highly unflattering thoughts about her sister.

"I love you, too," Calypso said.

The March of Time had worn off as soon as they started using their attacks, but at this point, Mars and Pluto hardly needed the extra speed. Their opponent was so big that they could hardly *not* hit it, and that size made its responses unavoidably slow. True, a normal person probably wouldn't have been able to avoid the hissing sprays of fast-hardening goo, or the massive blows from those armored green legs, but the two Senshi were another matter. Mars had learned how to avoid attacks from smaller and faster opponents, and Pluto... was just Pluto.

A pod-like growth along the giant insect's armored spine flipped open, revealing row upon row of glistening points, and Mars leapt out of the way as a volley of high-velocity spikes no larger than her finger came shooting out of the creature's body. She ducked a second wave, then burned up the third round with a Fire Soul, which flew on to explode against the pod.

Screeching as its weapon was destroyed, the unit raised its right foreleg for a sweeping blow at the source of the damaging flames, only to be pulled up short as that limb was struck by a paralyzing bolt of dark red energy. The long neck swung around in search of the other enemy, but Pluto was ready for it, and the monster took a Dead Scream right in the face. The impact caused a large part of the creature's ugly face to darken and sag and then fall to dust, but the great hole was quickly filled by fresh green biomatter. The same thing was happening to the other wounds, as the mutant replaced those segments of itself that had been sacrificed after Pluto's Stasis Bolt froze them.

Realizing that Fire Soul wasn't doing enough damage, Mars briefly considered her options, then drew out an ofuda and jumped at the nearest part of the giant insect. "Evil spirits, be GONE!"

Her ward slapped against the spongy green body... and did absolutely nothing. Mars was stunned. Even *daimons* had been at least momentarily affected by her prayers, and units were nowhere near that powerful...

She jumped clear more on instinct than conscious effort as a blow from one of the monster's remaining legs crushed the roof and windows of a nearby car.

*Is it because of the size of this thing?* Mars wondered as she used another Fire Soul to char the leg up to the lower of its two joints. *Is it just too large for my wards to affect?*

"Your plan isn't working too well!" she called out as Pluto dashed by.

"Just keep it distracted for a few more seconds!" Pluto returned, jumping and spinning to fire off a Dead Scream in mid-air. The attack blasted out a part of the insectoid's stomach, and when it roared and lowered its head to discharge another constricting spray, Mars shot flames in its face again. Staggered and without the use of two and a half of its limbs, the beast fell back, trying to preserve its balance.

A huge grey hand clapped down on the unit's shoulder, and another snaked across its wounded stomach. The elemental had finally caught up to its target.

Initially, Mars thought that the stone entity was merely trying to crush the giant unit, an act she guessed would prove rather futile, since all that the unit had to do was sever its trapped sections, scurry away, and regenerate. On the heels of that thought, she wondered *why* the unit wasn't doing so, why it was instead snarling and flailing with its remaining limbs as if trying to shake itself free.

Then she saw the greyish tinge spreading across the green body. Wherever the biomatter was in contact with the elemental's rocky form, its color was fading to that dull grey. It was even more than that, Mars realized, as she spotted the cracks that were beginning to form in those regions of solid grey. The elemental was not just gripping the unit; it was turning it to stone with nothing more than a touch, and pulverizing its handiwork.

"You saw this?"

A few feet away, Pluto nodded. "But we're not quite done yet. When the middle of the unit is completely petrified, the upper and lower portions are going to break free and get away from the elemental again." Stepping away from Mars, she added, "You get the top, I'll handle the bottom."

"Right." Pluto began firing a series of Stasis Bolts at the unit's lower body, and Mars drew out another ofuda. "FIRE SOUL BIRD!"

It was so easy. Stuck in the middle of being squeezed in half by the elemental, the giant unit could do little to avoid the incoming attacks. The blazing firebird swept down over it from head to toe, igniting every portion of the flammable green biomatter and causing several of the toughened brown plates to crack and burst apart. When Mars's attack touched the ground, it transformed into a rising pillar of flame, burning away Pluto's Stasis Bolts and consuming the lower portion of the unit's body in a raging inferno that lasted only a few seconds.

When the magical fires died, their energy spent, all that remained of the tower-sized bug were dwindling heaps of ash and a large piece of stone pressed between the elemental's arms and torso. The only visible damage to the elemental itself were some sooty burns along its lower extremities, and the tiny tongues of flame dancing among its singed and blackened 'hair.'

Ignoring its purely cosmetic damage, the elemental flexed its arms and shattered the petrified remnants of the unit against its chest. It looked down and around, sweeping the battlefield with its headlight eyes in an apparent search for any remaining pieces of its foe. Only now did the two Senshi see that the snapped-off sections the unit had left behind were no longer present; instead, smaller piles of dust and grit covered the ground over which they had stood—or floated—testament to the elemental's thoroughness.

Seeming to have satisfied itself that the unit was fully destroyed, the elemental turned its attention to the Senshi. It did not advance on them or raise its hands, but at some fifty times their size, the otherworldly being was threatening just standing there. Pluto tightened her grip on her staff, and Mars readied herself to move.

"Enough," a deep, unfamiliar voice said from just overhead. It added a word which meant nothing to the Senshi, but which caused the elemental to sink down into the pavement with a slithering rumble. The shape went out of the stone and tar body, and the eyes switched off, leaving a pile of torn-up pavement and the smashed wreckage of a few cars laying in the middle of the parking lot. Something in Mars's mind told her that the creature was truly gone, and she looked up at the source of the voice.

A tall, powerfully-built man with brown hair was stood on the roof of the mall, looking down at them both with a deep frown. The stranger wore plain grey pants, a loose-fitting white shirt, and thick brown boots; the only visible armor he wore were elbow-length brown gauntlets and a stiff leather vest which included a heavy pad over the left shoulder. There were a great many silver markings worked into the backs of the gloves and the front of the vest, and he had a metallic-looking bracer on his left forearm, over the glove.

"Hello, Athena," he said politely, facing Pluto. "You look well."

"Thank you," Pluto said flatly. The stranger's only reaction to the harsh tone was a small nod; then he turned to Mars.

"What did you do?"

"What do you mean, 'what did I do?'" Mars returned.

"To the nexus—or whatever it had become. What did you attack it with at the end?"

Mars frowned. She wasn't always the most sensitive person by nature, but years of dealing with visitors to the shrine had honed her instinct for what other people were thinking or feeling when they said something, particularly when they were trying to hide it. He hid it well, but she still had the distinct impression that this huge man was nervous.

*About my attack?* "It's just one of my powers," she said cautiously, trying to get a reaction. When the stranger relaxed, Mars tensed. He'd been expecting... he'd been *afraid* that she'd say it was something else...

"You were worried it was the Phoenix, weren't you?" Pluto asked suddenly.

"I take it that means you've seen it," the man replied after a long pause. "And *that* means that you either have it already, or you're going to go get it as soon as I leave."

"Something like that," Pluto said. She smiled, and not in a friendly manner. "Sorry if that makes things more difficult for you..."

"Stone. Lord Gamaliel Stone. And in a way, this actually makes things a little easier." Folding his arms, Stone looked down at the two Senshi. At length, he said, "I don't suppose you'd be willing to give me the Egg, would you?" It wasn't much of a question, and the flat looks Mars and Pluto gave him made the answer plain. Stone nodded. "I thought as much. Very well, then; keep it. But for Heaven's sake, whatever you do, DON'T let it near any sort of free energy. *Especially* not fire."

Stone's voice was deadly serious, and somehow, that made Mars and Pluto take him at his word.

"All right," Mars agreed. "We won't. Now, since you seem to be in such a chatty mood, would you mind explaining to us just what you people are doing with these"—she tilted her head towards the remains of the nexus—"things?"

"Perhaps another time," Stone apologized. He disappeared in a haze of brown and grey light. Mars and Pluto didn't bother trying to hit him on the way out.

"I don't suppose you can track him?"

"It doesn't seem so, no. Sorry."

"It's not your fault." Mars sighed. "And as much as I hate to admit it, you get used to it after a while." She glanced at the wreckage in the parking lot and shook her head. "Come on. The sooner we get back to the others, the sooner you and Saturn can try to save some poor soul's auto insurance."

Pluto eyed the shattered cars doubtfully.

People who are experiencing frustration or depression sometimes try to take their minds off of their problems by going out and doing something stupid or dangerous, in the hopes that the embarrassment or peril of the situation will distract them from their other problems. Some people gorge themselves on ice cream, while others go out and take up bungee jumping. It can only be hoped that no one has attempted both at the same time.

The term 'people' can with only minor tinkering be applied to dragons, and a high-speed plunge into the perpetual storm that is Jupiter qualifies as stupid AND dangerous without any adjustment whatsoever. As for frustrated and depressed, those words would quite accurately describe Alexandra's emotional state as she drifted along in the uppermost reaches of the gas giant's atmosphere and contemplated a sharp dive into the world-sized hurricanes raging below. It was not a question of concern over her own safety which held Alexandra back; it was the distinct possibility that even Jupiter's acidic clouds, shrieking winds, massive thunderbolts, and crushing air pressure would not be enough to take her mind off her other problems.

From the moment she realized that the intruder in her lair was a real human, Alexandra had known that word of the encounter would eventually spread throughout the entire planetary system. Dragons liked to talk—even gossip—as much as the next sentient species, and something as remarkable as a human from Earth walking around on Ganymede would have been the talk of the locals for the next season all on its own. But, just like a human, Alexandra's intruder seemed not to have been satisfied with that; the loss of the Aegis would be talked about for years to come—*Jovian* years—and the storm the Senshi had kick-started during her departure had insured that every being on the moon knew instantly that something was up.

Even that disturbance was a pittance when compared to the upheaval that the return of the Senshi had caused in draconic society. After the storm had passed, Alexandra had been called before a conclave of the elders to explain what exactly had been going on to raise such a violent tempest out of season. Slowly, reluctantly, she had described the encounter in her lair, the contest of wits and the subsequent battle. Nobody interrupted her or questioned her words; indeed, from the expressions on some faces, Alexandra suspected that her humiliatingly quick defeat was neither as impossible nor as unique as she had originally feared. During that meeting, there had been some fifty elder dragons arrayed in the wide crater where the conclaves were held, the least of them twice as large and as powerful as Alexandra herself, yet by the time she was done speaking, she was convinced that they were ALL nervous.

She had been dismissed shortly afterwards, and the conclave had been going on ever since, as the elders tried to decide what to do, and the story—carried by elders who went apart from the meeting in order to hunt and think—had spread to every moon. Alexandra doubted that there was a dragon anywhere in the solar system that hadn't heard of her shame by now. The elders didn't overly concern her, given the chagrin she had noticed at the conclave, and the younger drakes were like children everywhere; they might taunt and tease, but they had no real idea what had actually happened, and that made their posturing as empty as their skulls. Besides, if by some astonishing twist of fate it actually came to a challenge, Alexandra knew she could handle any five of those pups.

It was the dragons her own age that had her worried. Regardless of the circumstances, Alexandra had been beaten. She had lost to a human AND lost her family's greatest heirloom at the same time. That implied weakness, and it was a rare dragon that wouldn't have some reaction to a thing like that. Her friends had taken to regarding her with a certain pity, and her more distant peers with scorn. Her rivals wouldn't hesitate to try and wring some advantage from it; one or two of them might even be considering a challenge. As for her family...

Alexandra lifted her eyes from their study of the storms below as she felt a familiar presence approach. A moment later, another thunder dragon emerged from the clouds, a male who was easily half again as large as she, and who moved through the shifting updrafts with the skill of long experience. His triple-horned crest was longer and fuller than hers, except for the left horn, which was only about two-thirds as long as it ought to be and ended in a jagged hollow rather than a shining tip. Closer, it would be obvious that his metal-green scales had lost some of their luster at the edges, a sign of age in this breed and therefore a warning to be respectful, but Alexandra hardly needed the reminder. This was the one elder she did *not* want to meet right now.

"Hello, Father," she said, bowing her head respectfully as the thunder dragon commonly known as Tyrus approached. Though they were still too far away to converse normally, magic easily made up the difference.

"Daughter." Tyrus returned the formal neck-bowing greeting, but did not immediately rise from it. Instead, he considered the shifting tops of the clouds below. "Contemplating another reckless dive into the storms, I see."

"I wasn't going to go down that far, Father," Alexandra said with a twinge of annoyance. After all, she wasn't a foolish hatchling anymore.

"I seem to recall you saying that once before," Tyrus said with a hint of parental amusement. "You came home with your sails in tatters and your hide etched from acid rain. Your mother was in a taking for most of the next quarter-season."

"How is the conclave going?" Alexandra asked, changing the subject as her sire coasted into normal speaking range.

"Slowly," Tyrus replied. He flew past Alexandra and banked into a different current for a moment, swinging back around until he was flying in the same corridor, a quarter of a kilometer or so to her right. "Marruk and several of the other sulphurs called for a flight to Earth, to hunt down the Senshi before they cause us any more problems, and the carbons shouted them down in favor of staying put and well out of the way. Draxus actually put forward the idea of establishing peaceful contact, but he got hungry and left before he could make any serious motions in that direction, and nobody else took it up. Marruk and one of the carbons—Kholath, I think—were still posturing and rumbling at each other when I left." Electricity crackled out of Tyrus' nostrils as he huffed in amusement. "You know; the usual."

Alexandra shook her head, leaning her body to the left and tipping her wings back as the wind shifted. "Honestly, Father, there are times when I can't tell which is worse: a conclave of you elders; or a flight of young drakes out looking for trouble."

Tyrus twisted his neck to the right in the draconic equivalent of a shrug as he climbed alongside his daughter. "We all have our little failings."

The comment had been neutral, but Alexandra winced. "You're disappointed in me for losing," she said dejectedly.

"Nonsense," Tyrus snorted, shooting out two more crackling plumes of energy. "Everyone gets beaten at some time or another."

"I didn't just get beaten, Father!" Alexandra burst out in frustration. "I lost the Aegis! To a HUMAN!"

"You lost to a Senshi," Tyrus corrected.

"Is there a difference?" Alexandra asked bitterly.

"Oh, yes. A very great difference. When you spoke to this Jupiter, did she seem afraid of you?"

"Not... precisely," the younger thunder dragon admitted. "She seemed surprised at first, and a little nervous, but not really afraid. Not even when we were fighting."

"A fight that she didn't start," Tyrus pointed out. "A fight which she *could* have avoided completely by teleporting around you and going right to the Aegis. From what you described at conclave, the Weapon's reaction supported Jupiter's claim that the Aegis belongs to her, regardless of who holds it. That being the case, she could have simply taken it, and you would have been bound by draconic law to let her and the Weapon go. Instead, she greeted you respectfully, made her challenge, and gave you a fair chance to prove your own claim to the Aegis. She showed you courage, honor, and mercy; would you have expected such behavior from a human?"

"There are *dragons* I wouldn't expect that from," Alexandra muttered. The wind carried her words away before her father could hear them, but he nodded anyway, taking the apparently grudging silence as her reply.

"So, instead of having to suffer the disgrace of the Aegis being stolen out from under your nose, you have instead a defeat in honorable combat. And without any permanent damage to anything except your pride, I might add; more powerful dragons than you have fared a lot worse against the Senshi in the past."

"Well... there is that." Alexandra's mood brightened a little, but then she sighed. "Father... she knew Mother's name..."

"Mmmm," Tyrus rumbled. "Your mother never mentioned having shared her name with her human friend, but I think I can see why she might have. Before they met, your mother felt the same as you and most others of our kind do about humans; afterwards, she always had a certain fondness for them. Anyone who could bring about that kind of a change in someone as stubborn as Alexia must have been very remarkable in her own right. As for this reincarnation business..." The elder's voice trailed off into a long, considering pause before he shook his head. "To be honest, I'm not really sure what to make of it, but it makes my scales itch. I'll say this much for humans; they always seem to find ways to keep life interesting."

"My life was interesting enough before all this."

This time, Tyrus's snort was less amused than it was exasperated. "Are you going to mope about this for the next whole season, Alexandra?"

"Well, what else *can* I do?"

"You *could* go reclaim your honor," her father replied.

"Father, the only way I could do *that* would be to get the Aegis back, and..." The Jovian winds and not-so distant cracks of thunder were suddenly the only sounds in the sky, and it stayed that way for a very long moment as the two dragons soared along, Alexandra staring wide-eyed at her father.

"The Senshi defeated you in honorable combat," Tyrus said patiently, "and she didn't extract any sort of pledge from you, even though she would have been well within her rights to do so. Since the conclave hasn't reached even a tentative decision yet, there's nothing under draconic law to stop you from going to Earth if you want to. And even if we vote while you're away and decide to forbid all travel to the planet, you won't know about that decision until you get back, will you? No one will be able to hold you to account for violating a decision you weren't properly informed of, particularly not when a point of honor is in question."

"You sneaky old lizard," Alexandra said slowly.

"I'll take that to mean that you like the idea," Tyrus said with a toothy grin. He banked away to avoid the halfhearted tail-slap of annoyance his daughter launched at him, then drifted back in, his expression and demeanor sobering. "Alexandra," he said seriously, "when you do go, remember that there *are* conventions in draconic law that apply fully even on Earth."

"I'm aware of the rules, Father."

"Yes, but you've never been to Earth before, have you? In point of fact, who was the last dragon you'd spoken to who had? And when was that?"

"Mizuryuko," Alexandra replied after a moment's thought.

"A water dragon, I take it?"

"She has a brother who lives somewhere along the east of the Asian continent, and she started worrying about him after the humans rediscovered fission and blew up a couple of cities in the area."

"That was close to five of our years ago," Tyrus reminded his daughter. "Almost sixty human years. A lot has changed since then." The elder dragon spoke a word, and an eight-sided green crystal small enough to fit neatly into a dragon's front paw appeared in the air before them.

"What's this?" Alexandra asked, studying the flat faces of the green diamond as it drifted along just ahead of them.

"I took the liberty of collecting some information from the archives before I came to find you. The memory crystal contains all the official reports from the conclave on Earth for the last fifty Earth years; everything from cultural and political data on the humans to the territories and lineages of the dragons." Tyrus glanced at the crystal himself. "Naturally, it doesn't make mention of the Senshi even once, but I suppose that only makes sense. There aren't nearly as many of us living on Earth as there used to be."

Alexandra reached out and plucked the stone from the air with one hand, holding it for a moment to acclimate its magic to her own. That done, she dismissed the crystal and eyed her father curiously. "How'd you know I'd be going?"

"Your mother would have, in a Saturnian second. And speaking of your mother..."

"I know, Father." Alexandra sighed. "I give you my word, when I leave Earth, the human will be in the same health she was when I arrived."

"Good. Alexia would never forgive either of us if the girl was killed." A pause even dragons might find uncomfortable followed that statement.

"Are Tyranthus and Auroria still looking for a good site for their nest?" Alexandra asked abruptly.

"They are." Tyrus chuckled. "And quite frankly, your brother's starting to look a little frustrated with the whole business. The last time I saw him, he asked me why your mother and I had to raise him to be so flaming traditional. Why do you ask?"

"Would they... I mean, do you think... would either of them be insulted if I... offered to let them use my nest?" Tyrus gave his daughter an odd look, and Alexandra began to talk. "I don't know how long I'll need to take care of things on Earth, do I? Their nesting could be over by the time I get back, and I really should give them *something*... and besides, it was Mother's nest first. She always wanted one of us to use it someday, and Tyranthus *is* the oldest... and honestly, it's not like *I'm* going to be raising a family any time soon..."

"I'm sure your brother and his mate would be honored," Tyrus interrupted smoothly. "If you like, I'll go find them for you."

"Thank you, Father." Alexandra flapped her wings more vigorously and climbed away from her sire, towards the clearer Jovian sky above and the dark space beyond.

Tyrus watched her go with a paternally proud smile, and just a hint of regret on his broad, scaly features. "Just like her mother," he said to himself, with a sound that started out as a chuckle and ended as a sigh. Then he also began to ascend, heading in a different direction.

Neither of the two thunder dragons happened to see the creature that rose slowly from the storms below after they had separated. It was another dragon, noticeably shorter and leaner in the body than Alexandra, and the reason it had gone unnoticed was immediately obvious, for its hide held a yellowish-orange hue very similar to some of the swirling clouds. This dragon's scales had a softer, slicker appearance than those of the departing thunders, and its crest was limited to two short, worn-looking horns that protruded almost straight out to the sides of its skull. Those horns were a dirty shade of white, as were the dragon's claws and teeth, but neither they nor any other part of the creature's body showed any immediate signs of having been damaged by prolonged exposure to the acidic vapors.

The sulphur dragon, Hessh by name, watched with interest as Alexandra and Tyrus went their separate ways. That had been a most enlightening conversation; Hessh had never suspected that thunders, with their fixation on pride and honor and all that rubbish, could be so straightforwardly sneaky. Like most sulphurs, Hessh was something of an adept at shiftiness and manipulating the letter of the law to escape the grasp of the law, and he was very impressed with Tyrus's maneuverings. He was also very grateful, since it gave him information he could use to solve a problem that had been plaguing him for ages.

Hessh waited patiently among the clouds until he was sure that the thunder dragons were well on their way to their respective destinations, and then he too began to climb up through the stormy atmosphere.

Several hours later, a weary Hessh was flying along the surface of the moon of Io, his home. Around him was the cold void of space, filled with the faint tingle of Jupiter's powerful magnetic field, and below him raced an orange-yellow ocean of sulphuric ash, the leftover ejecta of Io's numerous volcanoes, piled hundreds of meters deep and blown up again endlessly over the moon's billions of years of life. This place was home to dozens of sulphur dragon clans. They nested far below the ash, down on the ever-shifting true surface of Io, and spent their days navigating through the dust-sea, reveling in the feel of electrified sulphur and bizarre acids sliding around their slick bodies as they half-swam, half-tunneled along in search of the acidic jellies that also called this moon home.

As Hessh soared along now, he could make out a number of his fellows flying through the plume of a nearby volcano, frolicking in the superheated sulphur being spewed up from the core of the moon. Although he could have done with a good hot bath himself after the hurried flight back from Jupiter, Hessh pressed on towards a shapeless smudge of black on the horizon. At this distance, Hessh's eyes could just catch hints of a dull red glow among the darkness, and beyond them, an elevated shape. It took him nearly an hour to get close enough for that shape to resolve into the broad, smoking cone of the volcano that was his destination.

This volcano was not like most others on Io. It was surrounded by a cracked and broken plain of once-molten stone, and above it hung the thick, well-nigh perpetual black cloud created by the mountain's own violent activity. Rather than blasting high and dispersing into space or as a wide rain of sulphur, that cloud spread out low over the surface, forming a warm, dark pocket of actual-atmosphere. Once he got that far, Hessh had to land and continue on foot, for the unnatural volcanic cloud was rife with electrical activity that occasionally blew smoking craters into the black rock, and generally made flight a hazard. As if being randomly shot at wasn't bad enough, Hessh knew that he had a fair chance of running into a river of lava, flowing down from the volcano along some unpredictable course. Or perhaps it would be a rain of those accursed lava bombs, hot masses of molten stone that flew out through the sky before falling to the ground, crushing and burning whatever they hit.

After navigating his own personal hell for another half an hour, Hessh finally reached the base of the volcano. There was a large cave here, its dark interior lit vaguely by the lake of lava that fronted it and was fed from within by a continuous stream of molten stone. Hessh stopped well back from the mouth of the cave.

"Great one!" he called out in a slightly quavering voice. "It is your miserable servant, Hessh! I have news!"

After a pause, a voice that was deep even by draconic standards rumbled out from the cave. "Speak, worm. What is this news?"

"It is of your enemies, O Lord of Destruction! The family of Alexia!" The stone beneath him shook, and Hessh glanced nervously towards the cone. On past occasions, mention of that name or the names associated with it had been enough to trigger spontaneous eruptions, from which the sulphur dragon had little choice but to flee as fast as his claws could carry him. Today, it appeared that the volcano's lord was in a calmer mood, and Hessh hurried to continue. "Alexandra travels to Earth, mighty master! She goes to reclaim her honor and her inheritance from the human who defeated her!"

There was another deep rumble in the cave. "You listen to too many rumors, Hessh."

"Of a certainty, great one," Hessh said humbly. "But this is no rumor!" He quickly related the gist of the conversation Alexandra and Tyrus had shared, then finished with, "I flew here as fast as my meager wings could carry me, lord, to inform you."

There was a long pause, during which Hessh waited anxiously and sweated under his scales. Then he heard a low, rumbling sound, a noise he mistook for the beginnings of another tremor until it grew into deep, thunderous laughter.

"T-the news is good, master?" Hessh ventured cautiously.

"The news is excellent, Hessh!" the powerful voice roared gleefully. "It is most excellent indeed! The old bitch's daughter has finally made her mistake!"

Hessh felt a rush of excitement at those words, but he hid it and asked, "Mistake, great master?"

"She's put herself in the open! Alexandra's no match for me without the Aegis, and now she's headed away from her family and those fools in the conclave! There'll be no one for her to hide behind when she reaches Earth! Perfect!"

The voice had been growing louder as it spoke, and Hessh could make out a large shadow moving within the cave, blocking the glow of the lava pits within.

A long, thick snout emerged from the darkness first, a muzzle tipped with short, thick spikes above the smoke-trailing nostrils, and armored by heavy red scales that darkened to black around the dragon's powerful jaw, looking almost like lips. The eyes were large and dark, a black lit from within by a deep orange glow, and the brow above them was ridged with more of the short spikes. A crest of six long black horns rose from the back of the beast's massive head, the shortest two near the base of the jaw and the others sprouting almost directly above, forming the arms of an intimidating 'V' when the dragon looked down at something—such as Hessh, who was cowering before the much larger dragon in undisguised fear.

"I can't catch her in space," the magma dragon rumbled to himself, "not with the head start she has, but it'll take more than oceans and human cities to hide her from me. And when I find her..." The black-lined mouth creased in a deadly smile as the rest of the body emerged from the cave. The dragon was enormous, fully twice as long in the body as Hessh, and far more heavily built. His armor was heavy and deep red, except around his black claws and the bases of the row of dark spikes running down his powerful neck and broad back; here, the scales started with the same black hue as the deadly spikes, and only gradually faded to the same red as the rest of the body. His spike-topped tail ended in a point not unlike a spearhead, hard and spreading out behind the tip, and his wings were tipped with wicked talons.

"Do you go to hunt, Lord Pyrogar?"

"I go for revenge," the magma dragon corrected with a flat look that had Hessh curling his head beneath his forelimbs and wings. "And then perhaps for some light entertainment, afterwards. I've heard that humans can be... amusing at times." Pyrogar bowed his head to the surface of the lava lake and drank several mouthfuls of the stuff as though it were lukewarm water. When he raised his dripping maw from the molten stone, the dragon ran a thick black tongue along the edges of his mouth and teeth, then spat a mass of half-cooled lava and slate back into the bubbling lake. "That should keep me until I reach Earth," Pyrogar said with a contented sigh. He chuckled once. "How thoughtful of Alexandra to fly to one of the few other planets where I can get a good drink before I kill her."

The magma dragon walked away from his cave and made his way up the nearby slope of the volcano, climbing along a well-worn path that shortly brought him to a wide ledge. Here, the massive beast spread his wings and launched himself into the air, to fly away through the storm without a care for the lightning or any parting words to Hessh. The sulphur dragon was just as glad for that, since Pyrogar's idea of a dismissal tended to involve fire.

*And speaking of which,* Hessh thought, uncurling himself, *I'd better get moving before His High Flaming Furiousness starts to think that I'm trying to sneak a look inside his lair.* Walking as quickly as he could, Hessh left the volcano, considering what he'd just done.

Pyrogar had lived on Io for over a thousand years, longer than the dragons of Hessh's generation had been alive, and he had been a terror to the sulphur dragons that entire time. He was the largest, toughest, and most violent member of a breed noted for being all of those things, and to those already formidable traits he added a lust for power, a streak of pure viciousness, and a particularly chilling tendency towards cannibalism. Working for such a monster was unpleasant in the extreme, to say the least, but there were some benefits. For one, as long as Hessh kept his master well-informed of events on the other moons, neither he nor any member of his immediate family would end up as Pyrogar's latest meal. Any number of female sulphurs were suitably appreciative of a male who could guarantee safety for their potential offspring, and that in turn made Hessh the utter envy of his rivals. Of course, Hessh knew that the day he failed to live up to his end of this devil's bargain, Pyrogar would kill him and probably half his family as well, but he'd held this job for over a century now, which was a century longer than he *would* have lived had he turned the 'offer' down.

And now, after all these seasons, it appeared as though there was one other benefit, one that Hessh had never before dared to dream possible: he might just have gotten rid of Pyrogar for good.

The brutal magma dragon was not what one could call the talkative type, but over the years of their association, Hessh had picked up a few scraps of information about his evil employer. Pyrogar was not fond of any other dragons, but he had a special hatred for the female thunder dragon Alexia, who had apparently slain his father centuries before. It was not a sense of filial devotion that fueled Pyrogar's thirst for revenge, since, had his father lived, the two of them would surely have ended up trying to kill each other in a battle for dominance. No, the reason Pyrogar had always wanted to kill Alexia was because she'd taken away his chance to fight his father and prove his superiority; the reason he had never tried to follow through on that grudge was because of the Aegis, the powerful and unpredictable human-made weapon that Alexia had acquired not all that long after killing Pyrogar's father. Between that strange device and her own powers, Alexia was simply too strong for Pyrogar to challenge with any degree of certainty.

When Alexia had gotten herself killed destroying a rogue comet, Pyrogar had transferred his hatred to her family, and most particularly to her eldest daughter, who had inherited the Aegis. While Pyrogar was confident of his ability to kill Alexandra even with the Aegis, he knew better than to try and hunt her down where she could get quick reinforcements from her family or the conclave of dragon elders. But, as Pyrogar himself had just said, now that Alexandra no longer possessed the Aegis *and* was on her way to Earth, far out of the range of any support...

Hessh supposed it was just vaguely possible that Pyrogar might have underestimated Alexandra. Thunder dragons could cross interplanetary space rather quickly, so Alexandra *could* reach Earth, reclaim the Aegis, and be ready to fight Pyrogar when he arrived. It was far more likely that Pyrogar would catch her and kill her before that happened, but even if he was bigger and stronger, thunder dragons were no pushovers themselves; killing Alexandra would take a certain measure of effort on Pyrogar's part, and might just leave him weak enough for something else to pick off. The dragons of Earth, possibly, or maybe even the humans, although Hessh had his doubts about that. He was much more confident that a stone dragon would take offense at Pyrogar's intrusion. Or better yet, a water dragon; Earth was a planet of oceans, the natural habitat of the serpentine water dragons, and there was ancient enmity between that aquatic breed and the fiery magmas.

Knowing Pyrogar's strength as well as he did, Hessh did not dismiss the notion that the brutal magma might just be able to take on a water dragon when he himself was only at partial strength. On the off chance that this happened, or that Pyrogar killed Alexandra with no trouble at all and came directly home, Hessh decided that he had better take some additional steps. This was the first opportunity there had ever been to get rid of Pyrogar, and there were dragons all over Io who would gladly lend a claw to that effort, if properly approached.

Saturn was yawning as she stepped through the dimension door and into the foyer. She closed the portal and reverted to Hotaru, then yawned again as she switched off the lights and started up the stairs.

*What a night,* she thought sourly, replaying in her mind her performance as an auto mechanic. The restoration of the ruined vehicles had taken about ten minutes in real time, but she and Pluto had worked beneath one of Pluto's domes of accelerated time. How much time that totaled up to be, Hotaru wasn't completely sure, but it had felt like hours, and she was ready to crash.

*I may never do another jigsaw puzzle as long as I live,* she said to herself as she reached the top of the stairs and headed for the master bedroom, to collect her goodnight hugs and kisses.

What Hotaru found instead was an unhappy scene. Michiru was sitting up in bed, her knees pulled up to her chin and a miserable, frightened expression fixed on her face. Haruka sat next to her, talking quietly and not looking any happier. Hotaru ducked back into the hall before either of them looked up and saw her.

"...wasn't your fault," Haruka was saying. "You can't help the way you feel. Based on what Luna, Ami, and Calypso said, I think you have plenty of cause to be afraid of these 'Deep Ones.'"

"I froze, Haruka," Michiru replied. "I put everyone at risk."

"No more than *I* did by blacking out when those freaks blasted us."

"That wasn't your fault."

"And neither was what happened to you. You were surprised, you were confused, and you were up against something that could get inside your head and use that against you. Not to mention that they were god-awful ugly bastards to boot. I can't think of anybody who wouldn't have been scared in the same situation."

"That doesn't excuse what I did," Michiru insisted.

"Maybe not, but you know how Usagi and the rest of those creampuffs are; they forgave you the second it happened. They'll be rallying around to help you the next time we run into those things, and if you freeze up again, they'll forgive you again." Haruka's voice softened as she added, "And so will I, Michi." There was a light rustle; Hotaru guessed a hug was being exchanged. "You know that, right?"

"I know," Michiru replied quietly.

"Good. Now how about we get some sleep?"

"But Haruka..."

"I know." There was the faint sound of a kiss. "The dreams. I'll be right here, Michi. I'll always be right here." Silence. Then, in a less understanding tone of voice, Haruka added, "And it seems like I'm not the only one."

"Ara?"

"I know you're there, you little voyeur," Haruka called out.

Blushing, Hotaru turned around and stood in the doorway, her head bowed and her hands behind her back. She looked up and meekly asked, "How'd you know?"

"Sixth sense," Haruka quipped. "I suppose you heard all of that?"

Hotaru nodded. "Most of it."

Haruka sighed and slid over a bit, gesturing as she did so for Hotaru to scramble up and join them. Hotaru transformed her clothes to pajamas and did that, and they settled down as a family to sleep, Hotaru snuggled in little-girl fashion next to Michiru, Michiru with her head pillowed on Haruka's shoulder, and Haruka reaching for the lamp.

"Thank you," Michiru said softly. "Thank you both."

"We love you," Hotaru said. "It's the least we can do. Right, Haruka-papa?"

"Yeah. The least." About to switch the light off, Haruka paused and looked suspiciously around the room.

"Is something wrong?" Michiru asked.

"Just making sure Calypso didn't decide to sneak in here, too," Haruka replied, before she turned off the lamp.

_…_…_

SAILOR SAYS:

(It's just as late in the Tsukino house as it is at Michiru's, but a light is on in the kitchen. Usagi and ChibiUsa are sitting at the table, eating their way through a large but shrinking pile of food; Setsuna and Luna—in housecat form— are standing by at the counter, watching to make sure that they don't overdo it.)

Luna: No matter how many times I see this...

Setsuna: I know what you mean. (She glances at the screen) Did you want this one?

Luna (pulling her eyes from the feeding frenzy): I suppose I might as well get my turn over with. (She assumes her instructive pose.) The central theme of this episode is family, and how it—or they—can impact on a person's life in good ways and bad ways. As just one example, Calypso rushes in to help Ami when she gets into trouble, but then after the immediate danger has passed, she takes the time to get on her case for being careless. Hotaru shows another example; first she eavesdrops on a private conversation, but then she and Haruka pull together to comfort Michiru.

Setsuna: And there are numerous other examples that we can't mention, since we're not supposed to know about the people or creatures involved.

ChibiUsa: Hmm-phmmm-mmm, eph-mmmm phmm-mmuph hmmph. (Luna and Setsuna look at her, confused, and she swallows her food and repeats herself.) I said, in which case, it's right up your alley.

Setsuna: True enough. But then I wouldn't tell you anyway, would I?

ChibiUsa: Rrrrmph.

Setsuna: Don't talk with your mouth full.

(Fade to black)

26/05/02 (Revised 22/08/02)

So, score one for the Nereid, and keep watching the sky for dragons...

I'd like to take a moment (one of the few I have to spare) to ask any of my readers who happen to have my address in their email address books to please remove said address. I'm a little nervous after a near brush with one of those *blankety-blank* email viruses, and I'd like to avoid the problem in the future.

In future episodes:
-Somewhat neglected story components get a new lease on life; and
-Here there be dragons.