Meanwhile, Rei stood before Mars as Zoisite watched over her unconscious body.

Mars nodded at her in approval. "You've been wise."

She raised one eyebrow at him and asked, "You trust Satoru? I thought you hated him."

"I was merely making sure he knew his place. For future reference, if I don't kill someone the moment they discover where you live, it means I don't hate them."

Rei laughed at that. "Yeah, Jadeite screamed at Sapphire after it was all over."

"How did Sapphire take it?"

"Like someone who knew they screwed up. It annoyed Jadeite since it seemed like Sapphire wanted him to be pissed at him. He felt it took some of the fun out of it."

Mars shrugged, "My guess is secretly Jadeite's glad that Sapphire came to you first, only since it acknowledged your abilities."

"If he is, he hasn't said anything to me about it. Right now, Jadeite calls him "that fucking blue-haired moron."

"I really do like your werewolf," Mars praised. "He's protective of you and values your strength."

Rei blushed. "He is more than I thought to ever hope for."

"I've been looking into your past together –carefully."

She looked at him, surprised. "There's danger looking into our past."

He laughed, "Yes, but not the kind you think. I try to avoid the X-rated parts — it's tricky. You two tended to go from talking about important information to sex at the blink of an eye. I see you like a daughter, and that has been quite disturbing."

Rei blushed even redder. "Why look then?" The idea of him seeing her like that was mortifying. She returned his feelings and saw him like a father.

"Beryl, that horrid bitch is the only reason I looked into your past any more than once. I have a time I'm going to send you back to, but just know I didn't get far enough to find out if it helps at all. It seemed promising, though. I got as far as you kissing him, and I stopped. I've learned my lesson." He then full body shuddered.

Rei blinked, and instead of looking at herself and Jadeite holding hands in the woods, she was in the other Rei's body. Knowing the way the two acted now when they were outdoors in the woods, she was glad Mars didn't watch any further than a kiss.

"You seem bothered," she found herself saying. She was completely controlled by what had happened in the past.

Jadeite nodded and squeezed her hand. "Sorry. It's Beryl. She's exactly what you warned us to be wary of."

She internally laughed when he leaned in and gave her a deep kiss. Mars really didn't make it far into this memory. Still, quickly she got lost in the kiss. It was a really good kiss, after all.

He pulled her into his arms and held her tightly. "I'm worried, she's obsessed with Endymion, and she doesn't care that he's in love with Serenity. And on top of it all, she has that goldish liquid sludge thingy you hoped she didn't have."

Rei felt herself sigh, and the memories of that information floated through her head. Suddenly she was sure it was the exact same thing that Rubeus used on Naru. She remembered telling him how it worked. It needed to be poured over the skin by the person who wanted to control another. It caused total obedience once it took hold. Something it hadn't had time to do with Naru.

She racked her brain over why Beryl would have given something to control Endymion to Rubeus to use. All that came to mind was that she wanted him to control him long enough for her to arrive, kill Rubeus, and then use the potion again on Endymion herself. That was her best guess, at least.

She found herself responding, "Then his amazing Generals better keep her away from him." She kissed his throat and whispered, "There is one of his Generals who's particularly sexy. I bet he would be able to do anything. I think he's kinda amazing."

Jadeite grabbed her ass and squeezed. "You always see the best in me."

She carded her fingers through his hair. "Because I love you."

Rei then frowned. "I am worried about Beryl, though. She's not going to back down, and she has a hell of a lot of evil power. I'm a strong witch, but she has such a depraved mind. She's going to be hard to predict."

Suddenly she felt herself pressed to a tree. The rough bark, instead of bothering her, excited her. Jadeite's hard cock was pressed against her core, and the desire in her was singing in her ears.

He nibbled her ear and said, "There are some things I know in this world. Beryl needs to be stopped, Endymion and Serenity are devoted to each other no matter what gold potion she has, and I adore you. And right now, with everything going on, only one thing can be addressed immediately." He rocked his cock against her. "Do you have any idea what I want to do right now?"

"Fuck me against the tree?" she asked, hoping, already fisting her skirt and pulling it up, exposing her legs.

He stepped back and pulled off her panties, and then helped her remove her dress. Once it was off, he pulled down his pants and boxers. "You're brilliant."

SssssssssssssssS

Rei was left blinking in shock when suddenly she was standing in front of Mars again. She smiled, "It was good you didn't watch much longer. It would have been…." she trailed off when she noticed he looked sad.

"What happened? Did something go wrong while I was in my memory?"

"Nothing happened here. I just wanted to find out what you learned."

She eyed him wearily. She knew something was up. But she answered his question. "Beryl had that potion that Rubeus used on Naru and an obsession with Endymion. I remembered how the potion worked, and it has to be the same one."

He nodded curtly, "She used it. In your memory, do you know how it works so you can try to counteract it?"

"Yeah! Don't worry. She won't be able to use it on Mamoru."

He frowned. "I'm worried about how she used it in the past. We need to work on stopping her."

Rei nodded, confused. "She used the sex potion on him?"

Shaking his head, he said, "It's a mind control potion. It has nothing to do with sex or romance. It can be used to make someone submit to anything. She didn't use it on him. I looked into other portions of the past. She used it on his Generals, all of them."

"I'm confused. Why? She used it on Jadeite?"

He nodded, "Five days later, yes. She did." He got choked up when he said, "That was the day you all died. She forced the Generals to kill you, girls. Then she tried to kill Serenity, and Endymion got in the way. He died, and in her grief Serenity killed herself."

Tears rolled down Rei's cheeks. "Which General? Which General killed me?"

"She forced them each to kill the woman they loved. Jadeite did."

Mars actually grew nervous looking at Rei. Her hair was floating around her, and magic sparked from her fingers. Then she physically transformed. Her eyes were pitch black, and her skin grew pale and translucent, and the visible veins in her body were black. "That whore-bitch! I'm going to rip her apart, piece by piece! I was pregnant with Jadeite's child, and she made him kill us!"

He blinked and tried to keep a calm facade in front of the very scary Rei. "You need to come up with an antidote for the potion."

A bit of lightning zapped between her fingers. "I need her dead. How do I find her?!"

"Calm down."

"No! I was pregnant, and that witch bitch had us all killed!"

"You're tapping into evil magic right now!" he yelled back. "You need to stop before it taints you!"

"If it helps me kill her, what's the problem?!"

"It will taint you like it did her! If you let this go, it can also prevent you from ever getting pregnant again!" Mars reached out tentatively and put a hand on her arm. He hoped it calmed her. "Don't let her ruin your future."

"I will choose my future!" She screamed in a low disconnected voice. The wind had picked up, and she was now floating a foot and a half off the ground. "She killed my child! She has to pay."

"She will! She will pay, but not like this. Please!"

Rei focused her black eyes on Mars. "It hurts." A tear slipped down her face. "I was so happy. We were married, and I was pregnant. Everything was just perfect."

He held out his hands in front of him slowly so as not to spook her. "You need to let this power you have go. It's evil."

She cocked her head, "She's evil, and I can stop her like I am now."

"You can stop her as Rei! You don't need to let her destroy you to kill her." He reached out quickly and grabbed her arm to get her attention. "You can't give Jadeite a child if you continue down this path! Do you hear me? The child he wants with you now can be destroyed before you even conceive!"

Rei looked at him, and her eye flickered from black to her normal purple color and then back to being fully black. "How can I tell him we had a child that was killed? How can I explain that Beryl forced him to kill us? I can't."

Mars shook Rei gently. "This won't make it better. Losing you to this darkness won't fix the past. How can you take away his future?"

She looked at him, and tears poured down her face. "This will hurt him. It will hurt them all. I don't want to be the one to tell them."

Mars nodded and said, "And it will be hard, but you will all come through it together. You're not the only one who will need to take revenge on her over your past. Don't take this from them."

In a flurry of wind and tears, Rei collapsed in his arms, weeping. He breathed a sigh of relief when her color returned, and the black veins disappeared. He held her close as she sobbed all over him, devastated over the loss of the child from her past.

When Rei returned to her body, Zoisite was standing there nodding at her, and he looked over her shoulder with a very serious expression on his face.

Rei turned to follow his gaze, and Jadeite was standing there looking very grim. It was Zoisite who said, "When you grew pale, and your veins turned black, I called him."

Jadeite gave her an intense look and asked, "Are you okay? What happened?"

She looked down at her hands. The light from the Great Fire flickered and cast shadows over her. "I kinda almost pulled the sorta thing Usagi did but different. I found out some…" She paused, and her lip trembled. "Some news and I almost gave into dark magic."

After she had stopped crying, Mars explained to her that she almost flipped a switch on her source of magic. Now she was powered by the Earth, but she got close to pulling her energy from evil and hate. Unlike Usagi, it was something she wouldn't have been able to come back from.

Jadeite walked forward and pulled her into his arms. "Remember all that reading I did while you were unconscious? It means I know what almost happened, Rei. What was so bad you almost gave up our future? Don't you want a child?" He wasn't mad. He was scared that he almost lost her. When Zoisite had explained over the phone what was happening, he instantly knew what it meant.

Rei burst into tears again. "I-I want a ch-child!" She wailed.

"What happened?" He asked kindly.

She trembled in his arms. "Beryl happened. She's wicked, and my desire to kill her almost turned me." with watery eyes, she looked at him and said, "The potion Rubeus used on Naru…." She sniffled. "She used that in the past. It controls people and makes them do as you command. She used it on Endymion's Generals, all you werewolves. Beryl commanded you to kill us. She forced you each to kill the woman you loved." She kept it broad since she knew Zoosite was listening too. "When you were forced by that bitch to k-killed me, I was pregnant with our child."

She felt him cry in her arms and suspected Zoisite was doing something similar. She said, "When I found out, all I wanted more than anything was to kill her, and that was why I almost flipped."

"We were having a child?" he asked brokenly.

"Yes."

He pulled back slightly and gently took her face in his hands. "I will kill that monster, and we will dance on her rotting corpse."

She nodded in return. "She has to die."

As Jadeite held Rei, he looked over at Zoisite and said to him. "It's time we all meet and get proactive. I'm sure you're livid too."

"I'm texting everyone for a meeting." He looked sadly at Jadeite, "How do I look Ami in the eye?"

Rei pulled out of Jadeite's arms and rounded on Zoisite with a furry. "Don't you dare! It's going to be upsetting enough for Ami without you pulling that crap!"

Jadeite was glad he'd stayed quiet because he was thinking the same thing. After all, didn't he kill her and their child? He didn't want Rei to yell at him, though, so he stayed silent and listened.

She continued, "It was Beryl's damn potion! If Rubeus had gone further, would you have considered anything he did with Naru to be consensual? No! It would have been rape. Just because she wouldn't have screamed didn't mean it wasn't against her will.

"In the same way, you had no choice then. You were essentially a meat puppet that did her bidding. Everything I know about you proves you would never be able to hurt Ami. Remember, it's a spell that can work well enough that even Usagi believes it could get Mamoru in bed with Beryl!"

Jadeite, against his better judgment, whispered, "The last face you saw was mine, and I killed you."

She turned and looked at him. Her anger died when she saw the grief in his eyes. "I promise I would have known you did it against your will. I wouldn't have blamed you. The moment I found out, I was furious at Beryl. She's the monster. She's responsible."

Jadeite pulled her back into his arms and held her tightly. He knew the path ahead was hard. He just felt so grateful he was walking it with Rei—a woman whose love for him astounded him daily.

Please be patient. I promise things will get happier.