We do not own "Sailor Moon" nor any of the characters.

"SAILOR MOON ETERNAL"

The 6th Season of the Sailor Moon Saga

Chapter 52

"Holding onto the Dream"

Thousands of miles away from the dark European scene, back in Tokyo's just as dark night…

"Hello."

Startled from her introspective thoughts by the sudden voice, Serena turns her pensive stance at the window of Rei's temple to see a very, very pregnant Susan Starr's face suddenly blink onto the screen of a—

-Luna P?!

"Huh?!" The scared rabbit Moon Princess pulls back from the darkening window for a few seconds at the abrupt appearance of the very familiar, big indigo cat face robo-drone friend of Small Lady from the future.

"Princess. Forgive me for startling you." There was only a faint trace of a smile on the dark green long haired female's serious lips as she appears on the small screen of the large right eyeball on the cat head transmitter. The beautiful, yet ancient caretaker of Time then rises slowly stand up from where she had been perched on the edge of a misty cloud bed her resourceful Time Lord had erected for his wife to rest upon while he was gone.

"Susan. Is something wrong?" Jumping up at the sound of this generally reticent and reserved gentlewoman, Darien quickly leaves the computer he was working diligently at with Luna. The dark haired man allows Sailor Pluto's interesting feline android messenger into the window he opens nearby Serena.

"I was made aware that your husband had requested for you to stay completely quiet and resting within the safe confines of Time's Doorway while he was away on his imperative mission. Why are you not doing so, Sailor Pluto? Please lie back down." Through the cat eye's viewscreen, Darien raises his own authority with eyebrows down at Susan, crossing his lanky arms.

He knew he would wish for Serena to listen to his every word when he was not present at such a perilous time, for her own safety and welfare. And Darien's young wife wasn't even with child…not yet.

…Rini…gulp…

The college student's usually stoic mind was temporarily covered in a haze of cotton candy pink.

Ehem.

Besides, Terry had expressly given the Prince of the Earth responsibility to ensure that his beloved Susan obey the strict instruction to stay unstressed in the locked Doorway, no matter what. After all, never very robust, the two thousand-year-old woman expecting a baby at any time was not to be disturbed, unless she was experiencing an emergency, i.e. such as her water breaking early or her contractions beginning without him present. Whereas, protective mate Terry had already entrusted Darien with a spare key which the astute man had ingeniously forged to the Time Doorway just previous to his departure to England this afternoon.

And Susan, good little wife she was (often to Alex's dismay), would have obeyed her husband without question, however—

"I would have, truly, Prince." Susan meekly, guiltily looks down to her bulging tummy under Darien's reprimanding gaze through the mini computer screen her husband had set up for her to communicate to the Prince and Princess, via Pluto and her ward Rini's infamous 'Luna P'.

She gives her stomach and the child within a comforting rub, knowing that her time was drawing extemporaneously near, better than anyone. The quiet woman prayed and willed that her beloved Terry would be back here and safe at her side when the little girl they had decided to name 'Giselle' did arrive.

Please God, please, I need him with me when this miracle You have permitted this forgotten soldier happens...

"But, you see those four little girls have disappeared from our house, so without Terry to check up on them, I –" Having used this Luna P left at her disposal in the Starr's rural mansion—prior to sending it here to the temple—Pluto had tried to peer in on their visiting charges, only to find them all missing. Anxious, Susan looks deeply with matronly concern into Serena's softly smiling eyes which were peering over Darien's shoulder at her.

"Oh, yes. We presumed you knew. We know precisely where the Amazoness Quartet went, Susan. They're doing fine out there. You mustn't worry yourself. Just relax now, as Terry wished." With a dismissively male smile to the pregnant woman's anxieties, Darien returns to his own secondary computer where he and Luna were currently tracking the still vital and unharmed, colorful blips dotting the map. They represented the Quartet in their brave travels to the Amazon Rain Forest. The central computer was monitoring them, as well as the rest of their rainbow of Sailor scouts team's worldwide whereabouts.

"We have no word of Terry yet, but I'm sure he's fine, Susan." Serena reaches out to the emotionally fragile, trembling woman on the other end of the communication with a comforting smile. The compassionate, young meatballhead hoped her words were true on that Starlight's behalf also during this crazy day filled with danger for all her beloveds. The Moon Princess had just experienced some contact with Star Maker's compatriot Star Fighter, emotionally devoting her moonlight through Uranus' plea to help save Sayer's life which Serena, through their bond, had already sensed was in grave danger.

So this empathetic Eternal Sailor Moon knew deep inside that she would've felt something about Terry too, if it were not so.

Terry Starr was counted as one of her dearest, dearest friends now. And friends meant everything in the world to this special child of the Moon who brought them all to combine their strengths together as wise Sailor Star Maker once taught her at a crucial moment in time.

"You really think so?" Susan asks, biting her lip, her fear for her husband, perhaps still facing dangerous combat, made her feel sick inside. Lost without him even for a second, now more than ever, she also did intuitively feel when her Terry was out there in danger. Pluto had sent him all her love and sailor energy strength also through their intimate link, praying to the Lord God who blessed their love to see him through his struggles on the other side of the world on this most demanding day. Through their connection in Time's vast quantity, from its beginning to its end, Susan was certain her Time Lord had been both safe and successful, she always so proud of how capable, heroic and brilliant her genius Star Maker was inside and out.

But Time had also told Pluto that she should make contact with the Princess here right now in this moment for some inexplicable reason. She had been drawn to send her Luna P drone to the Sailor Scouts' base at Rei's Hikawa Shrine to speak to her leader.

"Ahhhhh!" Out of nowhere, a silently mouthed scream erupts from Susan Starr, suddenly erasing her calm, satisfied smile into a heart wrenching look of pure pain on the viewscreen that terrifies Serena.

The long green haired woman's body spasmodically jerks up from her time mist perch, her shaky hands rising to her throat.

Serena, too, jumps up from her seat in concern, her scared blue eyes trembling at seeing Susan's sudden paleness and ghostly shock across their communication, her friend so far out of her reach.

"Susan?! Is this it!? Is it baby time?! Ohh! What do we do if it is, Da-ri-en?! How do we get there to help her!?" Panicking that it was Susan's pregnancy, Serena grasps her husband's shoulders, shaking them and trying to think of some way to help the tremulous woman on the opposite side of the viewscreen in that secluded Doorway of Time only very few had permitted entry to.

"No! Tara! Ohh, Terry! You must do something! Tara! Tara! Terry –!" Fear, pain, torment on her normally tanned, now sheet-white face, her husband's adored name on her lips, Susan as well collapses to Time's misty ground, all alone, in a heap of her own deep green tresses.

"Pluto! Hold on!" Darien does his best to calm the situation as he rushes over to speak through Luna P beside his wife, worry on both their faces for the usually quiet pregnant woman's sudden outburst and collapse. None of it was very clear until—

"Susa—!" Serena begins to cry out when she witnesses the tall, normally sedate female's descent. "AHHH!" But then, just as unsettling, the yellow bunhead lets out an ear-splitting squeak less than one second later. Serena holds her pounding head, her hand on her heart in utter pain as Darien also feels a sense of something horrible happening while he tries to steady his own young bride to the couch.

Something terrible inside of Serena Shields starts throbbing wildly. She sinks to her hands and knees on the floor at the intense silence abruptly engulfing her heart…

"Oh no! Eternal Sailor Saturn's in real trouble! Serena! Darien! Come quickly!" Luna, her paws furiously tapping at the computer screen's control with a look of sorrow on her furry face, calls the pair over. An alerted, tense Serena forces herself awake, concern for another of her Sailor soldiers evident on her face as she runs to the indigo cat, Darien right on her heels.

The three of them overlooking the computer now realize what Susan had intuitively, heartbreakingly felt before the communication tracker could even register what had happened.

That was when that overwhelmingly lethal assault in the Arctic region of Norway had exploded into an energy level straight off the scales just before—

-the tiny bluish violet blip on the screen that represented Eternal Sailor Saturn—Tara Tomoe—had suddenly gone out on this still and silent Christmas Eve night…

On the edge of the crashing waves against the rocky Gulf of Finland, just beyond the Neva River that led to the Volga's Baltic Sea, Eternal Sailor Neptune stands, breathing hard and perfectly hushed.

Blindly, the beautiful young woman knew not what had called her here to this place. She was aware of nothing save the sensation pounding inside of her mind, the raw emotion palpitating in her fluttering chest that told everything in her to jump…

But that's when her glazed over blue eyes flash open, her deep bond with someone else was the only thing keeping this lost young female from diving straight into the icy waters below.

Oh! How did I get here? I'm certain I was just with Amara a moment ago. Why am I –! Ungh! Just then, psychic Sailor Neptune's mind felt like it was imploding inside her head again.

Maddened by the falling pale green starlight streaking across her senses, she then becomes blind and oblivious to all things of this reality. The labyrinth of her deep soul blocks out everything else as she grasps onto the one soft whisper, so precious and so dear, lost to all the world, save she.

In the next insensible moment, this strikingly stunning Sailor soldier of Neptune dives head first into the deathly frozen waves. Unconsciously, she was still protected somehow by her innate control of the seas, the ocean itself holding this child of the water so dear within its currents' embrace.

The mysterious deep sea carries her encased body—this aqua mermaid energy driven by numbed, insane devotion—with amazing speed from beyond this planet. She crosses many an ocean and waterway sea to seek out and locate the source of these small, almost indistinguishable whispers pervading her soul that resounded all the way into the depths of her hidden heart:

"Come to me."

"DAMN! DAMN ME!" Silently crying inside, a man who never swore damns himself for allowing this tragedy to occur as Eternal Sailor Star Maker materializes from his star form to humanoid on this northernmost Scandinavian continent. Terry blamed himself entirely for letting his responsibility slide, for not putting his foot down and stopping a little girl from going straight into a battle that would ultimately take her life.

Hearing his Susan's weeping internally echoing at the same time, a heartbroken Star Maker's gentle heart already knew long before he arrived seconds later on this again still and peaceful Arctic frozen plain that they had lost something so tenderly dear to their souls.

"Tara." Eternal Sailor Star Maker races across the ice covered plains into the heart of a town. Tearful eyes overflow with his worst fears in the last rays of the sunset as his wisteria orchid pupils dilate at the sight of sweet Sailor Saturn lying still and motionless in the arms of the enemy.

"Tara! TARA!" His low voice cracks in the frozen air as he falls to his knees in the ice, grasping the small girl's delicate body away from the wide-eyed boy holding her.

"She – Sailor Saturn made right what I did wrong. She gave her life to save all these people here. She—" His arrogant pride evaporating, with shaking eyes Garnet's formerly evil embedded cold heart melts at the sacrifice this pure girl had given for total strangers – and for him too, even at the cost of her own life.

Barely hearing the boy, Maker only recognized that the words he spoke were all too terribly true, that this little firefly had given up everything she was in order to save others. For Terry knew that small, fragile bodied Tara Tomoe's beautiful heart was big enough for everyone in this world except for herself, as he weeps openly on her tiny frail form, all life gone from her no longer beating heart.

Blaming himself intensely, Maker gazes down at the peaceful smile still etched on Tara's lips as her sweet face was captured in its final breath with an almost celestial, beyond human understanding look.

"God! Please, don't let this be! Why her?! She's just a child! An innocent little girl who should've been spared from this carnage! Please, I beg of You. Please take me instead! She's the special child of second chances. After sacrificing herself time and time again, Tara has barely begun to live, to dream. My Susan will be devastated to lose her. Please bring her back for us to cherish! Please, I know You can find a way…" Star Maker's heart wrenching cries begged the Lord above to reach down to little Tara here on the earth He created which the sacrificial little lamb had sworn to protect with her life and was called to do so. But her perfect heart's calling was too great this day for her form too weak to withstand the incredible cosmic forces bestowed upon her as Sailor Saturn.

Eternal Sailor Star Maker's eyes overflow as the freezing cold whips around him and the still dead body of the young girl he would give anything to see alive again held in his paternal arms. The chilling bleak air dashes away every other Northern Lights star in the sky that may have tried to peek through the veil of darkness that clouded the earth.

It leaves this lost world in total frozen darkness, cold and silent on this Christmas Eve night as the icy winds whistle through this shaken star's entire being.

The same frozen winds chill the soldier of it to the bone as she also realized the loss of that clear-eyed, shining crystal this day. Gritting her teeth as she soared on starlight enhanced currents through the dark skies, Eternal Sailor Uranus' passionate heart masks its pain with unmatched determination to never lose another precious one again.

For each sailor soldier, no matter how far scattered across the world on this terrible day, also felt the ripples of one of their own passing on what was supposedly a joyous Christmas Eve.

Hiding her tears at little Tara's loss, Alex clenches her fist, focusing her distress into finding Michelle now. She was determined to locate where her beloved had disappeared to in order to stop her from falling right into that duplicitous monster's trap. Uranus was sure to precisely whom Neptune was heading towards, despite the mindnumbing Negaforce psi block affecting her innate gut feeling. Nonetheless, Uranus' deep bond with Neptune was beyond strong enough for her to know where her beloved had blindly traveled into danger.

If only this pensive woman could just stop thinking of the heartbreaking loss of the tender child they had raised together–

Focus! You're a soldier first! Uranus bangs upon her forehead with a palmed fist hard, grunting in frustration. The winds that were hers respond in aggravated kind, dropping her and Star Fighter angrily in confusion to the ground below.

"Are we there, U?" Eternal Sailor Star Fighter asks inquisitively at the unannounced, ignominious deployment. Though the agile star soldier was immediately back on his feet, after unceremoniously landing on his head, with a rolled backside flip to scan the area for imminent danger – and finding nothing but desert looking back.

"Which direction do we go, Uranus?" Fighter inquires more seriously. "You okay, Ally?" Noticing her quiet in the already hushed night, Sayer then looks down to where Alex was still crouched on the ground, touching a gloved hand to the desert sand. Though her eyes were tightly closed, Fighter knew instinctively that she was physically intact. But maybe not emotionally, as she was doggedly tracking the ground and the winds which encircled it for any trace.

"Neptune's in trouble! And it's all my fault! I should have watched her better! I should've protected her! And Tara, as well. Now, I can't even locate where…damn it all!' Uranus pounds the sand beneath her fists angrily as her finely honed senses were disturbed askew by her other fellow outer scout's demise.

"Ally!" Sayer drops down to his lover, taking her strong shoulders with both hands to look right in her troubled, deep green eyes. "Stop blaming yourself for everything! You can't do it all, U! There are other people, you know, who are doing their part, too!" Fighter says with conviction, trying to convince Uranus of the importance of team delegation.

"But Tara was my responsibility as the Outer Sailor Scout leader. Michelle is my responsibility! Don't you understand!? Tara is dead now because I let someone else take that responsibility from me! I should never have trusted either of those stupid, unwanted intruding men with my beloveds–" The cycle of endless blame begins again, her jumbled brain hadAlex lashing out at 'those men' whom Fighter was very personally familiar with.

He also knew his headstrong Alex well enough—and loved her profoundly enough—to look past the hurtful words, to want her to stop this self-defeating attitude that only could cause further pain.

SLAP!

Fighter looked more surprised than Uranus at his involuntary action that was none too gentle, the two equal Sailor soldiers staring each other in the eye with guarded looks.

"This isn't helping Neptune either! You're just angry that you weren't able to play 'big protector Alex-papa' for all the girls today! I'm sure it wasn't Maker's fault! I know he would have done anything possible—and even some impossible stuff too, knowing Ter—to save that little pipsqueak! But this war is hell. As a fellow soldier, you should know that by now, Uranus. You can't put it all on yourself, all the time. You gotta believe in something else. Like family. Like friendship. Like love. Other people who care. I believe in you, Sailor U. Please don't be so hard on yourself. I love you too much to just stand by and watch you hurt yourself like that, Ally." With a quickly spoken, little morale boosting speech, Fighter lets go of Uranus' shoulders and stands at the unreadable expression on her face. But after a moment he believed all his talking did not get through her thick skull one iota.

"Are you through?" Uranus says suddenly, her voice cool and calm again as she too stands to her full, tall height, looking Fighter direct in the eye. Her long legs then suddenly break into a run, sand flying beneath her reenergized, speeding white boot heels as she races away like the wind.

"I'll never be through with you, U." With an adoring smirk etched on his pretty features, Eternal Sailor Star Fighter dashes after her as only a laser-like Sailor Starlight could. Sayer could swear he caught the faint trace of a smile on her lips beside her reddened cheek as Uranus slows her incredible pace ever so slightly enough for him to catch up.

"Thanks, Fighter. Maybe you are more a 'perfect soldier' than I gave you credit for." She remarks to her companion as they run equally side by side. Alex gives her partner's extended hand a quick squeeze, feeling a little better after his little pep talk to her had supplied all the drive and conviction she didn't know she needed in her clearing up mind.

Suddenly, all truly did become clear as Neptune's presence now was able to shine through to Uranus' unclouded mind. Her sailor partner's location slowly becomes more obvious in the direction Neptune had disappeared off to now in this mid-east desert, now that Alex's mind was not shrouded by inner anger and regret.

Sayer couldn't help but smirk to his Ally, glad she was back to her old self when he smiles to hear her voice fill with her usual sarcasm aimed at her favorite target—

Him.

"And don't you ever slap my face again. Or you'll be a goner next time, Ankle Wings."

And with those disparaging parting shots, Uranus was off again, Fighter marveling that no one could ever keep up with his soldier the sky. Because there was no one else who could match her in the entire world – for she was the wind beneath his wings.

And after all they had been through already this day, he knew that the two of them, combined together, were unstoppable.

Flying across the chilling desert as night begins to fall over the mid-eastern skyline, Eternal Sailor Neptune's blind racing journey carried by the seas which brought her here, abruptly ends.

They had led her indomitable soul to this sacred ground that had been fought over since the beginning—and prophesized to be the final battleground at the ending—of this world.

Her purely focused body had traveled to the east of the ancient city of Jerusalem, where innumerable wars had been fought over for the rightful occupation of this holy of holiest places on earth. Here, history and religion mingle as relations between the many races and creeds of peoples surrounding this tiny swathe of land clashed.

Jerusalem—'the peaceful city'—quite often ended her days with bloodshed and violence of a holy war that the trial of seemed unending.

But of all this internal religious turmoil she was concerned not. Michelle Moreau Starr right now cared for nothing more than seeking out and finding the source of her painful torment—and also of her enduring love–as Eternal Sailor Neptune races into the unknown beneath the dark clouds covering over the evening skyline.

"Robin dearest." Neptune stops suddenly with a jolt, awakening from her reverie breathlessly, his name on her lips, his presence on her soul as Michelle could still hear his voice calling to her in her head.

Are you here, dearest? Why else would I come to this place? Glancing around her unfamiliar surroundings, both of Neptune's questions seemed to spring an answer, the latter in the form of row upon row of human bodies lying prone in the street.

Horrified beyond words, Neptune runs through the uncommonly quiet main avenue littered with fallen people. With withheld breath caught in her chest for one heart stopping moment, Michelle was relieved to find that the entire group was simply in a powerfully induced catatonic state. Though some of the weaker, older and younger, were barely hanging onto precious life.

The soldier of embrace scoops up one tanned skin child who, like many of the others, was lying there in a devout kneeling pose, with hands folded up in a praying gesture, the abrupt look of unknown fear striking upon his small face.

Michelle's emotional heart weeps soft tears when she realizes the force behind this terror could only be hers – Metallia's evil hand at work once again. And maybe, just maybe, it showed signs of someone else's inherited sinister grip, too, though Michelle's deep soul prayed for this misgiving not to be true.

But the voice calling out to her, beckoning her exactly here to this place could only be his…

From somewhere behind her a dark silhouette wisps as quick as the dark breeze. If not for her psychic abilities and deep inner senses, Neptune could have sworn the sleek movements and stealthy, swift qualities of the being slinking behind her was –

"Oh!" As fast as her own reflexes were, Sailor Neptune was still taken by surprise by the skulking shadow whose black appendage wraps around her neck in an unforgiving stranglehold…

"Put that child down, immediately." In heavily accented English, the threat was whispered in all preciseness right into Michelle's ear. Neptune's dazed eyes just were able to sneak a glance at the profile of a dark short-haired woman.

Dressed in a tight black leotard, the woman was strong, beautiful, slender, and obviously from her trained, no-nonsense drop on this seasoned soldier – very dangerous.

Slowly acquiescing as her assailant requested, Sailor Neptune allows herself to be dragged back to a stone wall and shoved hard against it.

"Please! I wasn't going to harm him! I'm here to help, if I can –" Michelle only manages whisper out before the woman's fast hand covers her mouth with a quick glance back and forth, as if she actually was the one frightened of something far greater than this aqua haired beauty.

"Be quiet. Who are you?" The short-cropped hair woman whispers as her eyes tensely continue to dart around the area. Neptune equally wonders who this darkly clad in skin-tight black catsuit female was, deciding only the truth would do for this tough warrior.

"I am Eternal Sailor Neptune, the soldier of embrace, an outer Sailor soldier of the legendary Moon kingdom. Please tell me what has happened to these poor people, so I may assist you." Instantly Michelle could tell that they two were on the same side with a quick mental scan of the obvious warrior's good intentions.

"Sailor Neptune? Strange codename—and even stranger uniform— for a soldier. But as you can see there is nothing to embrace here—nor anywhere in Israel." Swift judgments came along with the job of this Israeli female as she finally eases her chokehold to let Michelle breathe.

The combatant backs away to get a better look at the pansy thin, fancy curled hair, elegant woman standing in front of her who looked like no soldier before she speaks again.

"I am Katsa Mair Selah of the Israeli Mossad forces. Invisible invaders from parts unknown blew in on a dark blast of air from the south approximately forty-five minutes ago, striking terror which emanated from the city center to all regions without. From Hebron to Gaza and beyond." The elite national security intelligence officer Katsa Selah points in various directions of her nation under this bizarre, intangible enemy's assault.

"That strange shadow first spread over the children—Jewish and Muslim alike—playing in the street after evening prayer, just before their meals and they fell as they are now, unconscious, though without exhibiting any physical signs of stress. Their screaming mothers and fathers and siblings who soon joined them outdoors, with a mere touch of the wraithlike dark creature, also fell comatose under the dark shadow invaders. Next, those elders still in synagogue, some who believed it to be the foretold arrival of the coming Messiah moment, opened the temple doors with welcome, only for that deceitful dark shadow leader to enter even the holy place, sapping the life from all within, as well. It would not please the ascetic Hasidic to know that the bodies lying beside them, likewise trying to flee the Temple Mount/ Mosque Shrine were that of Palestinians and other non-Jewish unbelievers, all indiscriminately succumbing as human beings." Too down-to-earth to get involved in petty infighting, Selah comments with a sardonic expression on her straight lips that might be viewed as a tiny smile.

"But I have studied both terrorism tactics and rabbinical law since I was a youth. I feel that this is indeed an otherworldly force. But NOT the Messiah, nor the returning Elijah, nor do I believe this to be Jehovah's judgment that has brought this plague upon us, His chosen people."

Throughout her soldier perfect, unemotional accounting of the horror, rather than prophetic, scene playing out before her, Michelle watches Selah's hardened, untouched by makeup, but lovely from within, face untraceably go through first sadness, then pain, then anger as her fists clenched.

"Every group within Jerusalem has been affected?" Eternal Neptune asks with utmost compassion and concern, despite her own aching heart.

"And beyond Israel. It has been reported through many sources that this unseen shadow had imperceptibly spread over our troops in this past half hour, across the Gaza Strip, down to the West Bank, even affecting nearly all the Arab nations around our perimeter—Saudi, Jordan and Iraq, as well as Egypt in the last fifteen minutes. And on top of everything, our so-called leaders have all disappeared, sending everyone in the mid-eastern nations into a situation of disarray. Every person—no particular race, nor gender, nor creed—on this side of the hemisphere appears to be targeted, and the affects are only widening." Selah shakes her head, her jaw set in a way Neptune found quite reminiscent of another female warrior she knew quite well.

"Then tell me, Selah, how are you not –?" Neptune inquires out of curiosity, for it seemed the rest of the city had fallen under this shadow's mind-bending influence.

"I am Mossad. That is enough to know." She states evenly without guile, her eyes flitting behind so wholly arrogant that Michelle could not help but admire the soldier who definitely resembled another.

"If I am one woman alone, as Esther led her nation to freedom then, I will be the one to bring my people to salvation. I must find a way to return their still breathing bodies to the world of living. The only thing I do not know yet, is where to start." Selah somewhat admits in frustration as she checked the pulses of the scattered bodies of men, women and children lying at her and Neptune's feet on the normally busy sidewalk avenue, so soon after evening prayer. "It is as if their minds have been simply shut off." She idly comments of their catatonic state, looking into the blank eyes, some closed, some open, even though physically perfect in shape otherwise, it was as if their souls had been – "

"No." Michelle whispers, her heart catching in her throat at Selah's conclusion. "He wouldn't." She speaks in hushed disbelief at the sudden implication.

"Robin. How could you? " She concludes sadly, realizing it was his power signature alone, which she had personally experienced, that could be able to do such a thing.

All these innocent people, Oh, how horrible you've become, my dearest. Michelle's heart aches, the horror of turning off someone else's free mind was one of the most despicable things under the disposal of only a few beings in the universe.

And she and Robin Starr could be counted among those very few who were able to accomplish the feat from the astral plane they both often visited.

But to this far-reaching a magnitude? What have they done to you, my dearest one?

"Who is this Rob–?" Selah's keen mind begins to question Sailor Neptune's ghostly pale face, but Michelle cuts her off before she could finish uttering his name aloud.

"Selah, I know who has caused this to befall your country. And I believe I know where to find him. I just pray that this time I can get through–-"

Or, perhaps, have the courage to do what I must, Robin. Give me the strength, oh, Lord. Michelle's soul cries out as easily as her mind reaches across the ethers to find her adored one again.

But this time his presence becomes apparent fairly quick and readily to her, loud and clear for he was that nearby. And knowing this was her do or die moment, Eternal Sailor Neptune recognized she must do everything in her power to stop this madness no matter how much it hurt—

Neptune steels herself for this painful duty pledged to the Moon Kingdom long ago, now again, in order to protect the people of this world; to the Outer Sailor Scouts of this solar system she represented, with the vow which she and Alex had committed to when they first discovered their sailor soldier duties reborn—

Even if it meant every piece of her already shattered heart had to die this night, crushed in the exchange of good and evil.

Within the most sacred of sacreds, the Holy of Holies at Bēt haMīqdaš-–the Temple Mount—at the top of the heart of the city of Jerusalem, a lone figure stands.

Entering through the Golden Gate, he now casually steps over the fallen bodies of those humans his mental shadow leeches had rendered uselessly unconscious, a fully darkened creature of evil strides through the hallowed chamber.

He leans his silvery head to peer outside the window, through the opaque blackness enveloping the ancient city that his Chaos shadow had cast subjugation over.

From the Courtyard's ablution fountain below to the south, to the garden cisterns and Well of Souls that lay beneath the Dome of the Rock to the north, the self-described Western Wall, and Solomon's Stables to the east, the dark shadows had spread evilly over all equally alike.

How uninspiring this allegedly holiest place that these stupid earthlings all have fought so much over for so many centuries truly is. The Heir sneers, ignoring every broken tradition upon entering the Temple Mount that had been forbidden to even the Jews who originally built it in this contentious, 'promised' land, in accordance with a halakhic prohibition against temei ha'met (impurity by defiling holy ground). Robin Starr's own, once meteoric rising star of a shining heart had gone dim and ice cold as he scorns anything and everything to do with this presently conquested temple which had been simply built over by another theoretically sacred human shrine.

Spiteful creatures, these earthlings. And they call us 'evil', hmph.

Antique scrolls of the chapters of the Jewish torah, cherished and followed by so many rabbinical religious of the day and since centuries past were now idly rifled through, with parts of the sacred talmut tossed aside arrogantly by this impious star man whose corrupted heart believed himself to be a god.

No, I am far more.

"But what is to be expected of such simpleminded humans who believe so devoutly enough to kill each other over something they cannot see." Metallia's Heir scoffs irreligiously, sticking his nose in the air at an elderly Rabbi holding some sacred rabbinic writings still up over his chest as he would a shield or precious treasure when the shadows came, although the holy man was long unconscious.

"Do you really think so, Robin? Is there nothing you feel deeply for enough that you need not view it in this physical plane? Have you forgotten how a truly devoted love can be so perfect in all of its intangible beauty?" Suddenly permeating the otherwise silent building on this once again invaded Temple Mount, a woman's soft, calm voice startles this all-knowing man for half a second.

His cat green eyes slitting, the Heir was shocked that anyone could ever sneak up on a psychic of his power level. Until in the next half a second he realized the only person on the planet who could even come close was indeed here in the room with him.

"I heard that once a man of great power came to a holy temple such as this and the most devout shunned him away from entering here, just because they didn't understand the undisclosed powers He held. But they could not stop me, because I made my powers clearly understood by all. So who is the greater Heir now?" Arrogantly high and mighty, Robin does not even deem to turn around to pose the philosophical question to the approaching young Sailor soldier. For he already sensed her arrival from where he was idly fingering several consecrated artifacts he had collected from behind some silly, 'sacrosanct' veil.

The powerful, dark force telepath had deduced that her keen mind could easily distinguish what he was saying in that bored, dull, scratchy voice of his, even from a distance.

"The One who did not glean His majesty from the chaotic depths of darkness, but from His own sacrificial devotion, born of light and love." Neptune responds in a quiet, yet convicted voice as she walks several careful steps up the stone-hewn staircase which led to the Mount. Unafraid, she moves closer into the under assault Temple towards him, still believing this defiantly cruel, black leather clad man could not really be the end result for her sweet, adorable one.

"Ah, Sailor Neptune. Ever the optimist. Have you come here to join me? Or perhaps stop me this time? As you can see, you're just a little too late for that, then. Devotion is for the weak. These sorry weaklings' minds, always full of silly hope and endless questions for some revered Deity they cannot possibly please, for the mistake of a free will He supposedly endowed them with, are justified to merely be shut off. They are the empty shells without souls they deserve to be now. I did them a favor." To make his heretical point, Robin gives the head rabbi a nasty kick in the head as if to prove his haughty position.

"'Deserve' to be like this?! For Heaven's sake, Robin! They're human beings with souls! The chance to live and worship as you choose, with the freedom to have your own beliefs is a precious thing! Why have you taken their minds away? Why?! How could you?!" Neptune shouts at him in appalled disbelief at how her once sensitive soul love could now be so perverse, as she takes a less tentative step closer.

"Why? Simply because we require this final boost of energy. And, as you well know, what is more pure than that of the innermost truth of a believing soul? When Metallia receives this stiff-necked people's vast spiritual energy, our world domination will be complete—" The Heir tightens his radiating lime green fist, Michelle cowering at the look of pure evil flashing in those once beautiful green eyes now glowing with intense hatred for humanity.

"But that's the most cruel way to die! It's as if you are killing each person, slowly, excruciatingly, without ever letting their trapped souls even soar liberated to their reward of peace! Don't do this, Robin! I beg of you! Set them free again—or at least allow me to try! Please don't let them die this horrid way–" Eternal Sailor Neptune outbursts, running directly to her beloved, clutching at his arm with the earnest plea for these innocent lives.

"Don't. touch. me." The cold calmness in his scratchy voice was more frightening to Michelle than his next action as he shoves her white gloved hand away disdainfully from his black, suddenly burning hot lime green one.

"DARK POWER!" The dark emissary easily batters Neptune's body and beseeching mind away hard and callously with a blast of cold, dark Negaverse energy.

"Where's that beautiful star that I fell in love with? Can't you set him free from this chaos and give him back to me?!" This Sailor of the deep waters continues to hold her visions mirror up to block his incoming chaos beam it had blocked. Her powerful psychic mind was still able to fend off his dark power attack borne of Metallia enhanced dark fear had lashed out against her.

"I am no LONE Star anymore! I AM CHAOS! There is no part of me that belongs to you!" Again that echoed voice fused with Metallia's evil darkness booms throughout not only the Temple synagogue, but deep into Michelle's shaken soul, also.

"Then why did you call me here?! Why?! Don't you love me anymore?" Ending in a small, small, quivering voice at the sadistic response in her beloved's deeply frigid eyes, Michelle sobs on temple floor. For the pain in her own heart ran so deep, so cutting and desperate that she wished this nightmare would all end before the man she had fully given her heart and soul to could hurt her so vilely again.

Her already tender, weakened, cracked mirror, rather than deflecting his vicious beam, adversely absorbs its leeching worm effect, soon turning blazing hot in neon green evil.

But Eternal Sailor Neptune's precious talisman rejects the corruption as it slips from her scorched hands to fall futilely ineffectual to the ground.

"The answer is simple, Neptune. I didn't call you here."

Relentlessly heartless in both word and action, the ghastly sound of shivering glass rings throughout Neptune's already shattered, distressed soul in the absolute darkness where she could no longer see herself reflecting back in her increasingly crackled mirror where it lay on the temple floor.

"And I don't love you."

In her hand, Neptune's pure heart talisman completely shatters in over a thousand pieces.

His nasty boot adds insult to injury when the Heir crunches down so hard on the precious mirrored glass shards until they were no more than shiny, crushed bits of sand.

With a snide smirk down at her crumpled form, Robin releases a new torrent of cold fire energy upon her as he calls one of his shadow warriors to come and claim yet one more soul for Metallia's dark cause – and an extremely powerful one at that.

Broken and traumatized, Eternal Sailor Neptune, disheartened to her core, allows herself to remain motionless on the ground and just let the Heir of Metallia's evil shadows take the remainder of her shattered, splintered spirit away…

I just…I can't try anymore, Amara…I'm sorry…

SWISH!

A rush of air and a pair of strong arms carry Neptune away to the opposite end of the temple just in the nick of time. Michelle was reminded once again of Uranus as she looks up to Selah's dark eyes.

"It even professes there is no love left in it. This vile creature must be destroyed, Sailor Soldier Neptune. I heard you say that you can retrieve the victims' souls. Can you not?" Katsa Selah looks into the fragile beauty's tearful blue eyes, seeing in them something special beyond this world. Something preordained that the aqua haired young woman who would come to this certain place at this certain time had been bestowed with a certain gift from the Lord God Jehovah above for this certain purpose.

"Can I…?" Neptune's voice and confidence wavers, the breakage of her talisman mirror so dreadfully causing this already emotionally damaged woman to doubt her own powers on the psychic plane even being viable anymore.

"I can see it in your eyes why he fears you. You are the only one who can stop this evil one. You can destroy him from the inside. Why don't you?" Selah was a soldier who only saw logic in all things, listening carefully to the exchange between the two and sensing that this fated Sailor of Neptune may not have been loved by this wicked 'Heir' anymore, but she was certainly feared by this villain for what she could do to him.

"How can I destroy what I love most? I love him so much still, Selah, I can never let go of the other half of me…" Believing she came here with the intention to be tougher, Michelle's tender heart cries out in a small whisper again, weak against her Robin's eyes, even yet in this state of chaos.

But through that tender, unfailing devotion, Selah now understood the pain that she also glimpsed behind that powerful, soulful gaze.

"Yes. But sometimes love must make the hard choices. Sometimes you must do what's right for the sake of another, no matter what you feel, to benefit the soul of the one you most love. We have been taught that we must 'Love God with all our heart, all our mind, and all our soul.' That special kind of Love has no limit. So pure a love for another filling a soul must not be left tainted. It must be cleansed in order to be set free and be proclaimed beautiful again." As if speaking from personal experience, this tough Israeli soldier gives Eternal Sailor Neptune the extra push she needed, her own duty as a Sailor soldier, as a protector of this world on the edge, to rid it of this offspring of Chaos –

Instinctively shielding herself and Selah from the evil cold shadow that had found them, descending over the pair of women to drain them of their very souls, Neptune determinedly stands up from behind the centuries old stone table they were hiding behind, revealing herself.

'I have to end this now, Robin, dearest.

Along with all these innocents you have entombed in your mental purgatory, I must also set your soul free…'

Michelle sends out one last silent thought to her love whose Chaos closed mind had already sealed off whatever mental connection they had been sharing previously, even through these past three months' wild storm.

Closing her eyes at the last possible second as she spies the shadow doggedly racing towards her again, Eternal Sailor Neptune raises her arms to the incensed air instead...

"NEPTUNE SUBMARINE REFLECTION!"

Neptune prays for her mirror to appear to stop the shadow about to overtake its prey. In her hands, her talisman indeed materializes. But as it was in her last foray with Robin earlier, its mirror face was still cracked and splintered to powder, no shining glass left ther, reflecting nothing save the empty state of her heart.

The incoming. translucent black shadow seemed to laugh vindictively at her malfunctioning talisman's inadequacy as it closes in heartlessly for the kill...

Coldly, the Heir's released shadow warrior swats away the sad, meager shell of a mirror with its evil clawing, dark hand out, now about to wrap its icy fingers around Neptune's broken soul. Metallia was determined not to let this one go, as Neptune's tormented and shattered mirror, along with her fragile soul, was about to be cracked, from side to side…

"URANUS SPACE SWORD BLASTER!" From out of nowhere, Eternal Sailor Uranus calls into the temple, her deep voice echoing through its hallowed halls as her own talisman blasts straight across into the shadow beast, sending it careening backwards with a sliced asunder ear-shattering, high-pitched scream.

Racing to Neptune, Uranus gets to her just in time to catch her friend's collapsing form.

For the soldier of visions' soul had already left her physical body in order to take on the powerful form of another combatant on the psychic plane, as the most difficult struggle of Sailor Neptune's life was about to begin…

It's so dark in here. Neptune feels chills even reach into her soul as she floats through the pitch black interior of what was once a bright vivid and shining soul she had visited so many times in the past, making it her own. It was a glorious place she once embraced so fully, adoring the man who owned its pale mint sparkling radiance.

Robin, where are you in here? She wonders, the feeling of exploring this soul usually like being afloat in the ocean, especially on the waves of this beautiful sea of stars she was so familiar with.

Please…Where are you now?

The sound of her questions reverberating across the dark emptiness echoes her waves of thought which once cascaded into this Healer star's prismatic splendor that was no longer present here in this place–-not anymore.

Instead, the total deafening silence of stark utter bleakness which forebode the evil pervading every corner of this destroyed soul, was nothing short of chaotic.

Oh, Robin! What have they done to you? Michelle cries inside the depths of gloom surrounding her without one shred of the light which had attracted her to him in the first place so long ago it seemed remaining. Shaking off her tears to be more hardened like Selah had advised, Neptune knows just where to go within Robin Starr's soul that was once an open book to her.

Michelle had believed then that their never ending love story would last forever.

That is, until this moment when she realized that there was only one way to stop him, for she alone who possessed the knowledge on how to turn off this Dark Healer's tremendous control all over all those victimized souls. Because he had allowed her, once upon a time, to explore his innermost sanctum, to a secret place within his star-powered, sensitive being—which was both intensely powerful and yet so fragile and rare—that Star Healer had entrusted its knowledge of only to her.

Trusted and freely given, because of the fathomless depths of the love that began to be shared when Michelle showed Robin he was never to be alone again.

But in this heroic process of freeing all of these innocent people of the city, that same loving oceanic maiden was also aware she was the soulful guardian of Neptune. Who understood, that in so doing, she would have to, like a sweeping tidal flood, turn Robin Starr's soul off as well.

And in doing so, perhaps flush away his very special life force forever, even as a song in the hidden corners of her melodious heart was still quietly holding onto the tattered dream…

Lost inside the past, promises once made

Peaceful calm sweeps me, whenever I think of your smile.

In the evenings, this dream won't let go of me!

But when our gazes met, your beautiful shine was gone…

With a sorrowful song on her heart as she begins sifting through his tortured psyche, the ardent telepath digs deeper as only she could. For what seemed forever ago now, Robin Starr had given this special woman the key to his innermost parts. Neptune sheds both tears and smiles as she floats through the chaotic memories of Healer's soul, starting at his beginnings.

There was that tiny little spark of wonder at his extraordinarily beautiful and every bit as soulful mother's first soft brush of baby Healer's silver hair that mimicked her own; the depth of emotion that ran the gamut in his father's lime green eyes that lightened to a shade of mint whenever he gazed at his once former chaotic heart's improbable curative treasure in a star healing wife and tiny twin boy and girl twinklings; the squalls of sheer terror as that bloodied and left for dead in the rubble youngster who crawled away from her killed parents and deceased twin caught in the crossfire, leaving the small child to feel all alone in the world; scattered remnants of childhood days on Kinmoku where young Healer was brought to join two other orphaned little stars to musically grow up with Princess Fireball and her mother Queen Melodia; until, years later, amid the renewed Sailor Wars that had first taken them away from their Star homelands, the adolescents were again visited by chaos and tragedy in the form of Sailor Galaxia, who destroyed Queen Melodia and the new world of these three teenagers who had been raised to be a trio of Sailor Guardians of Princess Fireball called 'Sailor Starlights', sending them off to be wandering shooting stars once again.

Why have you stolen away?

Loneliness inside me!

Unable to speak a word, suddenly all had disappeared

And I am so lost!

And then there were other memories she now sees through his eyes of falling to the Earth and the unwanted transition sensitive Healer was forced to undertake to become a young man like his more willing 'brothers'; their struggles to find his missing Princess and meeting with Sailor Moon and eventually the destined meeting when the true love between Neptune and her soulmate Healer blossomed and he would embrace his new form fully as the other half of Michelle's soul…

Whisper in my ear, that you love

Serenade me…

Turning down another corridor that led to another door of his mind, a darker road less traveled, Michelle then steels herself for this next, less desired phase of his life. On the astral plane, the sailor soldier of Neptune reaches her psychic hand for the most guarded part of Robin's mind—the secret door behind where Chaos' infinitesimal bad seed had been unlocked.

When did they day come?

Our promise became a faded memory!

And yet I need to know if the dream is still close at hand…

But in your cold eyes, the distance is so clear

Without a reason.

Though well hidden, new barriers had been erected to stop any intrusion, any threat to Metallia's stranglehold over Star Healer's entire being. But Neptune knew she was the only one in this universe who could attempt to alter the powers of an evil mind of this enormity.

Always your gentle spirit

The you I came to know

I cannot escape, I cannot let go!

Anxieties take hold of me!

So with determination, focus, and utmost love, Eternal Sailor Neptune's mind beats down on the last barrier doorway that Dark Healer had kept securely locked.

And finds it firmly bolted, an inky thick blackness steadfastly locking away all of those poor souls filled with faith energy. No matter how hard she tried to open it with all of her well endowed cosmic psi energies glowing in every shade of teal and aqua within her, Neptune could not–-

'Michelle? I need you…'

Interrupting her mental barrage, a small, minute whisper could barely be heard in the din of her telepathic blasts striking at the deafening silence of his chaotic mind.

'Robin dearest?!'

Michelle heard it clear as a bell through her frustrated attempts to open that last sealed doorway. Though the whisper was so weak, it was akin to a voice from the past that Michelle remembered so unmistakably from that first time a far-flung, lost star had called to her in a distant vision that had forged both their destinies for all time.

Your whispers I hear in my ears

Serenade me!

Healer had whispered her name then—or did I whisper his name first?—in just the same manner that still reverberated throughout Neptune's soul again now. For that single calling had changed the two of them irrevocably to be linked together as soulmates.

Throughout my soul rings the words

But I see your eyes just don't care!

'Be careful. This could be a trap.'

Even though she hears Amara now plainly in her mind warning her to be careful, Michelle rushes towards the source of that voice headfirst nonetheless.

It reached all the way through to the deepest, deepest, most well hidden crevice in the wide expanse of his intricate soul. And from there in the total bleak, pitch darkness, a small, minute, tiniest beam of mint green light flickers.

It was the most miniscule sparkle of pale mint, dim and forgotten, weak and trembling in his otherwise bleak heart with that one last piece of the dream which Robin Starr had fought so hard to hold onto for one reason—her.

Michelle's own heart explodes with joy at the mere glimpse of his dimmed radiance. It was so fragile and small like a vulnerable baby kitten as she tenderly takes that gleam whispering to her into her mental hands.

It was you who called me, wasn't it, little one? Oh, my dearest, serenade me again! She caresses that small light's faint warmth with tears overflowing her heart when she feels her true love close to her once again.

I knew it! I knew you wouldn't leave me! Michelle kisses that diminutive light lovingly to her heart, her physical hand about to mimic the embracing gesture as her heart sings in response to her thought lost love's.

Our times together have become only whispers now

But dreams rely on the you whom I will wait for

Forever…

"Don't you touch me! Leave me alone!" From behind her, an extremely scratchy voice commands as if in sheer pain, as it batters that infinitesimal sparkle of light away from her astral hand.

"Oh, no!" Holding onto the dream, Michelle cries out as she reaches back for its precious treasure, watching in horror as it melts into the nothingness of the dark shadows surrounding as she was shoved hard against the black walls of his psyche instead.

She sees in this Robin's detached eyes a rancid evilness filled with pure despise—or was that fear?—ablaze in those lime green orbs glaring back at her. The Heir, backed into a corner of his consciousness as he did not wish to be, was growling and hissing like an angry cat.

Viciously, the son of Chaos buries that now exposed and susceptible point of light beneath layers and layers of darkness he kept piling on relentlessly, as if to squelch its tiny flickering flame under a concentrated candle snuffer.

But, try as he might, that tiny pale green light would not be extinguished.

"Robin dearest! I know you're still here! Can you hear me? I will always be with you when you need me! You are not alone! When I am with you, I'm not alone anymore either! I love you!" Michelle cries out emphatically to that tiny flash of star light she recognized as her dearest one with the parting words that were secretly whispered to her on that terrible day she had lost him to the sea of darkness.

It was then all happiness had changed into such emptiness.

When will the day come? Promise it again, not only memories!

"Get out of here! I don't want you anymore! Can't you understand?! I was born to be alone! I don't need anyone else! Not my mother! Not my father! Not my twin brother! I don't need any Queen or any Princess, nor Fighter or Maker! And I truly don't need YOU most of all! I am better off, ALL BY MYSELF!!

Ah, inside your whispers now more

Please won't you serenade me?

Reach out your hand!

From your lips, say you'll return to me!

Forever…

Holding his silver head as if in a fierce mental struggle within himself against the unwanted music of her melodic pleas, Metallia's Heir launches a torrential tornado of screaming, seering psychic flames aimed unswervingly into Neptune's core. Long ponytail flipping in the chaotic winds surrounding him, Dark Healer makes a direct strike right through to Eternal Neptune's most vulnerable place, where direct soul to soul contact was painful if your companion was callous about your mental welfare…

Our second meeting, promise it to me!

But the way it seems, the day has come to say goodbye.

A tragic sad end to our love story

Within my heart, I will not be born again…

"Ohh!" Neptune feels thoroughly pounded by his harsh words and that unyielding torrent of pure psychic energy smashing against her glowing dimmer aqua psychic celestial form.

"DARK STAR CHAOS FLUX BEAM!" Though he knew he probably could not shut down his dominant psychic opponent's brain synapses, Dark Healer could use that wicked beam's flux relay to envelop Neptune in four magnetically electrified cage walls. And with the Negaverse's dark magic at the same time employed to simultaneously bury her astral warrior, trapped in his lime green glowing flux cage, the Heir was determined to destroy this annoying female with his black chaos, smothering her pleas and sweet song of longing in its utter darkness…

Dear friends,

May God shine His face upon you and bless you all throughout these darkest days.

Love and prayers,

HarukaKou

"For by wise counsel thou shalt make thy war: and in multitude of counselors there is safety. - Proverbs 24:6