Chapter 10: Replay

Jupiter Knight stepped out of the bedchamber. He looked exhausted. The emotional turmoil his princess exerted made him just as drained as her. Stepping into the hallway he put his back against the wall and put his head into his hands, rubbing his eyes while attempting to get past the order she just gave him. Being loyal, he accepted his task, but he knew it was going to be painful when the time came to execute said order. He was distraught.

Outside in the hall by the door were Guardians Venus and Mars. They stood by as they guarded the door to make sure no one else entered while they talked. It was such a hard sight to see, watching the Knight come out the door and try to suppress his bitter feelings. Guardian Mars approached him and spoke softly, "Are you going to be okay?" She watched the Knight close his eyes and sigh. What just took place was most likely the worst thing he had ever heard in his life. Him not becoming a Ghostbuster again actively doomed the world to the point Eduardo and Kylie were killed, and Roland was the genesis of the freezing of the Earth Lita told him about which also resulted in his life being ended in a horrible way.

As hard as it was to hear, it was but another instance of things in his life being too strange for anyone else but him. He took a deep breath and nodded at the Guardian's question. The two Guardians began escorting him back to the control room as Guardian Mars started explaining, "Ever since she sent the message back to you almost a year ago she's been so unhappy. She did it because she couldn't remember what you looked like when you were young; she never had any pictures of you. After she saw you…" "Yeah," Guardian Venus agreed, "All she had of you was a piece of a dress shirt you had that was ripped up in an attack. It was the only real date you two ever had." He knew of the dress shirt she spoke of. His mother gave it to him to use on dates with girls. His mother never knew…

"Hey," Guardian Mars saw the look on the Knight's face and stopped him, "there's nothing you did wrong in any of this. It was a different timeline; it was a different set of circumstances. Next to His Highness, you were the most loyal man I've ever known. I just wish…" she hung her head and blushed in guilt, "I just wish I met my Knight; hoped to have the same thing Jupiter did." The Knight gently put his hand under her chin and lifted her head to look at him. He looked into her violet eyes, "Maybe with my help, I can change that, but you may feel differently after it happens." She saw it in his eyes. There was a distress that was radiating out, like he knew what was going to happen.

Guardian Venus also saw the stress become apparent before her. She broke the awkwardness and got their attention, "Come on, guys, I'm sure everyone's waiting for us." She began walking back toward the control center leaving the two of them. Guardian Mars heard him sigh and looked back to see him looking where her fellow Guardian was walking. She felt the pain spike in the Knight. Something was clearly hurting him, "Dan, are you sure you're…" "Yeah," he cut her off, "Mina's right; we better get back." With that he broke into a brisk walk himself to catch up with the other Guardian. The remaining Guardian felt a horrible chill come over her from her questioning.

She looked beside her and found Guardian Jupiter standing beside her. She saw her friend so distraught and hurt, "Jupiter," she asked, "what did you say to him?" Her green eyes started to well with tears again as she went back into her bedchambers, slamming the door behind her. The reaction screamed anguish. She looked back and forth to the hallway and the bedchambers. Something dark just happened.

"So, the moment the crystal activates," Doc was clearing up the situation after being told more about the Ghostbusters' second visit to Tokyo, "it'll send a memory locking pulse that will close off not only his current memories, but also the memories you were trying to awake?" "The human mind is a very unusual thing, Doctor," the King explained, "It can recall things from previous lives; it can imagine the future; it can see other's thoughts. Because it will activate when the DeLorean hits the temporal field, it will echo back to that moment. When the time comes, you'll also know when and where to send it back and unlock everything again."

Doc sighed, "It still doesn't make it right." The clanking of footwear down a hallway came from one of the access corridors as Jupiter Knight accompanied by Guardians Mars and Venus came into the control center. Doc saw the look on the man's face as he turned to face his newfound cohort in time. It was very troubling, "Dan, are you okay?"

The Knight sighed coming to a stop at the console in the room, "I'll live. Where are we at here?" The King turned to the man in the armor and saw that his princess gave the order. In order for that order to be properly fulfilled he had to blank his mind. He only wished he could outright say to those in the room what he had to do, but it was for the Knight and the Knight alone. After a moment and feeling sympathy for the man, the King started dialing up something on this console, "How much do you remember of your recruitment?"

The Knight thought through the revived memories he did have and shook his head after a moment, "Not much. All I remember was I was already her Knight." "You don't remember the Generals, do you?"

"You mean Beryl's generals?"

"Not just," the King stated, "We learned somewhat on the recent side that the Generals were not originally of Negaverse origin."

Jupiter Knight blinked harshly, "Huh?!"

"They were my most trusted advisors," the King lamented, "Back when I was just the Prince of the Earth Kingdom the Generals were part of my guard. They were the Four Heavenly Kings. They were meant to protect the Earth Kingdom and acted as my bodyguards. A few of them even…" he sighed a moment before saying it, "were in love with the Scouts."

A cinder block in a pillowcase swung across the face. That's what this information felt like to the Knight.

"I beg your pardon?!" The Knight of Lightning was outright starting to panic, "Are you telling me…" He heard what sounded like a pained inhale beside him. He looked to Guardian Mars and saw her looking to the floor, her hand on her upper arm like she was trying to guard herself. She looked to have been embarrassed by the information revealed. It was a red flag, "No…" the Guardian clammed up harder after he spoke. He looked back to the King, "That better be a fucking joke, Darien. Even if it is, that's not funny!"

The King had woe in his eyes. Even behind his mask the Knight could see that the King didn't take this lightly nor wanted it to be true, either, but it was the truth, "Jedite and Neflite were best friends in their time being my Generals. At the time of the looming war on the Moon Kingdom, Queen Beryl had already started to amass power and was starting to turn those in my court. There was a sense of paranoia amongst those in the kingdom itself and they were becoming afraid the Moon was going to attack in its place. Queen Serenity was feeling the same sense of panic starting to overcome her own subjects as well. The paranoia reached even my own Generals who often complained and warned me of the tensions between the kingdoms starting to grow. I felt that it was time to bargain with the Queen and offer her a means to help those of the kingdoms trust each other again."

"So what you're telling me is," the Knight surmised, "Beryl was making everyone tense, so you created the Knights as a means of calming both sides down?"

"Correct," the King stated as he again started to manipulate the controls on the console in the room, "You see, the Kingdom of Earth was isolated from most of the people of the planet. There was a prophecy that told of the coming kingdom after a time of strife…"

"Serena told me," the Knight interjected, "Supposedly this time of strife was the means of retraining the Knights."

The King nodded, "The reason you had to be the first to become a Ghostbuster was because of the need to be trained by the best. The reason you had to return was to learn leadership. Of course, it was because of the issues that were had when you first became a Knight back in the Silver Millennium. You were more afraid of magic than anything, being of Medieval Scottish descent at that time in history. Anything of the sort made you all hesitant of using your powers believing they were evil. It didn't make you as effective a fighting force as both myself and Queen Serenity believed."

Jupiter Knight looked to the floor in a shame he knew he should have had. If he knew history, that made the most sense. Guardian Venus walked beside him and wrapped her arms around one of his, "Hey, you don't need to feel guilty over that. It was only natural at the time."

"Correct," the King again stated, "When the Solar Knights were created they were to act as the Inner Belt protectors. When you and Mars Knight made contact with your princesses…" he had a small laugh in his voice, "Well, let's just say nature took its course."

"You mean, all of that shit that came out of Jedite's mouth on the roof of the tower…"

"...Unfortunately," the King said with slight hesitation, "When Beryl sentenced him to Eternal Sleep, Jedite's soul was ejected out of his body, as he said."

"Remarkable!" Everyone had forgotten Doc was still in the control center, "A genuine out-of-body experience!" The Knight sighed as he looked to the scientist, "Doc, I was there when that jerkoff got his body back. It wasn't 'Remarkable' as much as it was terrifying." Guardian Mercury spoke up as well, "I can vouch for that statement."

"As I was saying," King Darien stated flatly to get everyone's attention back on the subject, "you assessed correctly: Jedite was in love with the Princess of Mars as you were in the way of Neflite's love, the Princess of Jupiter. When I assigned you all to your princesses, my Generals felt betrayed and aligned themselves with Queen Beryl and the Negaforce. She placed a powerful spell on all four of them and made them do her bidding. When they were enchanted, they lost their memory of their lives as my bodyguards, advisors… and friends. After they killed the Scouts, they lost what was left of their wills and became Beryl's puppets. When Jedite's soul became detached and the spell was broken he vowed to find the two of you and destroy you."

The Knight was missing something, "Hang on," he took a step forward, "Jedite killed Sailor Jupiter. Are you saying Neflite killed Sailor Mars? Why?" "Isn't it obvious?" Doc asked the man in the armor, "It's logical; they killed each other's lovers to make sure they went through with it." The Knight snapped his head back to the good doctor after saying that. If the man didn't get the point yet, Doc put an epitaph on the concept, "It was to make sure each other's feelings for the two of them didn't get in the way of making sure they were properly killed. Clearly, from what I've heard, this 'Jedite' still felt some of those corrupted feelings after he came back."

The Knight began to think back to the day he died on Mars. With this new context, he remembered what Jedite said:

"I need to ask you something, Sir Knight. Were you trying to reach the Moon to save your princess? Valiant effort, but pointless. You see, I was the one to kill her. Retribution for her betrayal to one of us. The other was taken out by another of us for her betrayal to me…"

It all made sense, "Holy shi…" "When I learned what happened back then," Guardian Mars approached his other side and spoke up, "everything he said on the roof of the tower made sense to me and made sense to… Jupiter." He looked to the Guardian Princess beside him as she spoke, "She said when Jedite had her captured he was rambling on about the two of us being the worst. He said Beryl erased their memories once they were under her control, but it was partially the Silver Crystal that was responsible for that. It was to shield us from having to feel those emotions again."

She reached up and tried to nonchalantly clear a tear from her eyes. She tried to keep her voice steady through all of it but by the end there was a waver. It made him feel guilty, "I'm sorry, Raye. I guess this was as much my fault as it was Mars Knight's. I wish I didn't…" "Don't blame yourself, Dan, and don't say you wish you didn't meet Lita," she looked back up after clearing the tears, "You loved her dearly, and she loved you. Just because someone else was jealous doesn't mean you should feel shame for that. Although…" She stopped and hung her head again.

"'Although' what?" The Knight caught that. She continued in her silence, but now turned her head away. It made him want to press, "What?" She looked up with her violet eyes and saw she was afraid to say it. She knew a truth about something that had to do with this whole thing and it was raising his hackles, "Raye, if you know something…" She looked across the room at both the King and the other two Guardians. He saw the panic starting to exchange between the four of them. He looked to Doc and spoke candidly, "You ever get that feeling there's something going on you should know, but everyone is keeping you in the dark?"

Doc shrugged, "Usually, I'm on the other side of that equation."

Jupiter Knight started to scowl, "Doc, don't make me slap the shit outta you."

"It's not that we're keeping you 'in the dark' as you say," the King stated, "While you were talking with Guardian Jupiter, we looked into this missing Knight; this Garrett Miller. We found something we knew you needed to see, but…" After a beat the Knight growled, "Will everyone stop cutting off their sentences? Get to the point!"

"Geez," Guardian Venus stated, "I don't remember you being this irritable."

Guardian Mars didn't agree, "I do."

The King saw the Knight start to fume from the commentary and did as the man asked, "I want you to look at this. Mercury?" The two of them started manipulating the panel again and called up a piece of video footage. There was a preview of the footage on the face of one of the crystal displays allowing the two of them to make sure it was properly cued up. It looked like Jupiter Knight laying on rust-red soil. It was Mars. The Knight blinked at the image, "Wait, is that…?"

Another door opened off to the side of the control room. A bright light shined out of the door grabbing the man in the armor's attention. King Darien walked beside him and motioned toward the door, "Please, step into the imaging chamber." He looked to the King and back at the open door. He swallowed. After putting his Blackhawks hat on the console he began walking through the door, crossing the threshold into the light…

Jupiter Knight's eyes adjusted and he found himself on the surface of Mars. The winds were still and the ground was nothing more than fine sand-like granules. It was barren and bleak, "Jesus, this place took a beating." "It most definitely did, Sir Knight," the King said as he again walked to the Knight's side, "This was the city of Syrtis Major. The Silver Crystal - at the time being used by Queen Serenity to help you all become reincarnated - also transmitted knowledge of the planets to the Earth's best minds in the future to properly name everything as we knew it. Unfortunately, this was all that was left. The city was beautiful, the polished steel of its towers laid up against the Isidis Basin. I know it hurts to mention this, but this city once looked like your city of Chicago along Lake Michigan."

"I remembered all that was left was the rust powder," the man in green knelt down and examined the ground, "this was all the steel and iron of those towers." "The Shadow Warriors burned everything to the ground," the man in the white tuxedo said to him, "the fires were so hot it turned everything to slag and the final explosion atomized the molten iron into the air. It consumed all of the oxygen that was in the atmosphere." The Knight looked up from the ground and saw a familiar sight before him. He knew what it was in the distance. He stood and started walking toward the object…

Toward his former self's dead body.

The two of them approached the lone body. Just as he remembered it, the Knight again knelt down at the previous incarnation of himself, the crystal spire that Jedite used ran through him bypassing his armor. He reached out and attempted to roll his other self over only for his hand to pass through. He tried a couple more times before the King stopped him, "You're seeing a hologram projection. We're not really in the past. These images were gathered after sending nanobot recorders to the past to document the war." He looked back before looking at the holographic image before him, "Huh. Spiffy." He stood, turned, and looked at the leader of Earth, "So, what's the point of this? I see I have a beard and a rattail," he stopped a moment as he thought to himself, "Maybe that was why Kylie liked me. She could sense me being older with a rattail."

"No, Sir Knight, that's not why." He looked at the King for a moment before the King pointed to something beyond where they stood. What looked like smoldering rocks or heavily ground down bricks started to move as someone was seen crawling over them. The hands were covered in chainmail gloves, what looked like a tattered crimson red long coat trimmed in a dark violet color covering the body with a contrasting dark blotch on the back of the coat. The man approached on his hands, his auburn hair in a tussle on his head. Blood was trickling out of the man's mouth as he approached closer, only pulling himself forward on his arms. His legs looked to be dead behind him. The man stopped when he finally rolled over the side of the pile of rocks he was trying to overcome, rolling to the foot of the hill.

After a few moments the man groaned in agony as he lifted his head up and surveyed where he was when he spotted right where Jupiter Knight and the King of the Earth stood. The man's eyes went wide as he saw the green armor on the ground. Jupiter Knight could see the color of the man's eyes; could see he had steely blue eyes.

It was Mars Knight…

It was Garrett.

Jupiter Knight put his hands to his head, "Oh, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, no!" As Mars Knight approached with his hands, Jupiter Knight saw more clearly that the blotch of dark on the man's back was stained with blood. What looked like singed fabric tatters were made around the wound. It was clear Neflite hit Mars Knight in the back with an energy pulse. He continued to crawl to the body, unwavering will giving him the strength to make his way to the corpse. Mars Knight crawled and crawled, his useless legs dragging behind him leaving a trail of disturbed iron-embedded soil behind him. Jupiter Knight watched as the man got closer enough to notice the scrapes, bruises, and cuts on his face and body.

The Knight on the ground reached his peer's body and rolled him over to look at his face. He saw Jupiter Knight's eyes still open. His breathing pattern grew uneven as he grabbed the green armor chest plate and started shaking the man, speaking in a British accent, "Daniel? Thy stupid wog, what have ye done?! Why art thou bleeding on Mars?! Ye got us murdered! The Princess hath been killed! Thy Kingdom destroyed! And for what? Thou not have a single word for your incompetence?!" He coughed hard, blood splattering out of his mouth. With each passing moment Mars Knight's skin looked paler and paler. The sweat pouring from his body was telling Jupiter Knight all he needed to know.

Mars Knight's voice started to get softer as he spoke, using his last bit of strength to keep shaking the dead Jupiter Knight's body, "What does thou have to say for thou-self? Thou wretched… filthy…" with that Mars Knight collapsed beside Jupiter Knight. The rest of his strength was starting to wane as he spoke one last time, "The Princess Raye of Mars. Her radiant beauty hath been taken. I shalt see thee in… Hell…" The Knight's last words were one of scorn and bitter hatred. Jupiter Knight - Dan - had heard it many times before. He realized more and more what had happened. Giving his death rattle, Mars Knight rested his head on the ground and died beside Jupiter Knight.

"Mars Knight was in the Palace of Mars when the city was attacked," King Darien said as he broke the silence, "When the Shadow Warriors were attacking the planet Mars Knight attempted to protect the royals of Mars. After Neflite struck him in the back in the courtyard he brought the whole palace down on top of him. The stone of the palace walls trapped him but also protected him from the heat and fire of the destruction. It took hours for him to crawl out."

"Why was he so mad at me?" the Knight asked, "Why was he cursing me?" When he got no answer he turned to the King and saw he had his head down and was remorseful. He asked again, "Darien, why was he angry at me?" "You ordered the Knights to return to the kingdoms and protect them," the King answered, "It wasn't just you going to protect the kingdom of Jupiter, you forced all of the Knights to do the same. He argued with you and hated to take orders from you. It was because he…"

"Let me guess," he interrupted the King, "He was English and I was Scottish. This was before the First War of Scottish Independence, wasn't it?" The King looked the Knight in the eye and nodded. After a moment of looming over the prospect the Knight finally spoke, "That is Garrett. From the eyes and the sheer hatred he has for me, I feel like all of this carried over into the new world." He sighed, "I guess Neflite's energy bolt damage carried over with Garrett and caused him to be born with the deformity in his spine, too."

"Don't put the guilt on yourself, Sir Daniel," the King said, placing his hand on the Knight's shoulder, "You knew your first duty was to the kingdoms. As much as you loved the Princess of Jupiter, you knew you had to protect her family and by extension the rest of the Moon Kingdom's domain. That was why you and her met in secret on the Dark Side of the Moon. You knew you weren't trusted because of your Earth-born status so you did what was asked of you with no question, but the one that did trust you was the very Princess you were charged to protect. You didn't want to let her down."

The Knight sighed, "Yeah, but not everyone agreed with that, did they?" After a moment of awkward silence the King escorted the Knight out of the imaging chamber, "Come. It's time to get you back to your current task." As they walked to the door to the chamber, the last of the recorded information played out behind them. Jupiter and Mars Knight's bodies were suddenly encased in energy bubbles and were cast to the skies of Mars into the heavens, both of them joining the rest of the lost souls that died that day to be reborn in the future.