[Scene: the ruins of a hotel lobby. Dev stares at the tattered remains of the Death Phantom before picking up his sister and spinning her around.]

Dev: You beautiful genius. You've done the impossible. You've designed a weapon that can destroy a god. You're the sexiest mad scientist ever.

El: [giggling] Put me down!

Dev: Not until we do our victory dance.

[He sets her on her feet and they tango through the lobby, unmindful of their surroundings, until Dev dips El low and from her upside down vantage point she sees Neffy, Kunzite, and Jeddy staring at them.]

El: Oops.

Dev: [waves] Bye now.

[The twins teleport away]

Jeddy: What the hell was that all about?

Neffy: Where's Zoi?

Jeddy: Huh?

Neffy: [Frantically rushes to the charred pillar] He was here just a minute ago. Chained to this pillar by the Death Phantom. I was summoned here because he was being tortured nearly to the point of death. I can still smell his flesh burning

[Kunzite doesn't make a sound, but his eyes flicker as Neffy tugs at the chain around the pillar and see that it is unbroken.]

[Neffy gathers up a handful of ash and sinks to his knees with his face in his hands.

Neffy: HE'S DEAD! HALLELUJAH! I'M FREE! I'M FINALLY FREE!

[He raises his fists and howls at the ceiling like a running back who scored a game winning touchdown.]

Neffy: THIS IS THE BEST DAY OF MY LIFE!

[Kunzite walks over and whacks Neffy in the back of the head. Jeddy stirs at the shreds of the Death Phantom, gently, with one toe]

Jeddy: The Death Phantom is...dead...but...isn't that impossible?

Neffy: [To Kunzite] Hahaha! Hit me all you want! Now that your Wifey-boy is dead and I'm no longer cursed, there is nothing you can do that you can do wipe this smile from my face!

Jeddy: [holding up bits of the Death Phantom] Um, guys? Can we stop obsessing over Zoi for a minute and look at the bigger picture?

Kunzite: [shoves Neffy] Nephrite, is this your idea of a joke?

Neffy: [grinning] No. Oh no. The Death Phantom was torturing Wifey-boy. He forced me to lure you two back here so he can kill us all. Next thing I know, we're here, both Wifey-boy and the Death Phantom are dead, and a pair of teenagers are waltzing in their remains.

Jeddy: [drops the shreds] The Death Phantom is dead. The completely-unkillable-up-until-now Death Phantom? And this doesn't bother anybody?

Kunzite: [Backhands Neffy] Do a divination! Find Zoisite!

[Neffy just laughs in his face. Kunzite lifts him by the lapels and summons an energy blade]

Neffy: Go ahead and kill me. I might as well die happy, because nothing is ever going to top this.

[Kunzite shoves the blade under Neffy's chin and Neffy just laughs harder]

Jeddy: Oh, forget it, you two. I'm getting Beryl.

[Teleports away and reappears a moment later with Beryl]

Beryl: What is the meaning of this? Boys! Stop this foolish dickwaving at once and tell me what is going on here!

[Neffy and Kunzite stop their quarreling and give Beryl their full attention. She looks at Wiseman's remains and goes pale]

Beryl: What just happened here?

Kunzite: Zoisite-

Beryl: [snarls, exposing her fangs] To hell with Zoisite! Are you so besotted with him that you don't see the danger you've dragged me into?

[She summons a scepter with a huge crystal globe. She raises it and the ruined lobby glows red, except for light magic residue sparkling near the Death Phantom, and door shaped shadows of Dark Magic on the walls.]

Beryl: There were exits here that have been sealed off with dark magic, but I sense nothing beyond them.

Jeddy: I'll unseal them for you.

Neffy: No. Wait, you fool-

[Jeddy zaps the wall with energy and the doors reappear. They are open, and a crowd of people are pressed together on the other side of the thresholds. They are frozen in place, their faces masks of horror, their hands raised as if try to claw their way out.]

Jeddy: What's happening?

[Kunzite, as the tallest of them, can see over the heads of the crowd to the tableau beyond. He scans the room for Zoi, and stares, wide-eyed, past the crowd of people to the flames and bits of fallen debris that are also frozen in place. Everyone in the room appears like statues, all desperate to escape, except four figures in the center of the room: Zoi's mother, encased in ice, Zoi's father, looking overwhelmed, Mamoru Chiba, who is lying in a pool of blood, and Usagi Tsukino, who seems almost serene as she cradles his head in her lap and looks down at him with big worried eyes.]

[The flames flicker, and the crowd surges every so slightly]

[Kunzite casts sheer barricades of energy across the doorways]

Kunzite: Stay back. Someone has created a pocket dimension, presumably to rescue these people, and placed this chamber outside the normal time continuum. The dimension is rapidly collapsing, and these people will resume whatever it was they were doing before time stopped for them.

Jeddy: And by someone you mean Wiseman?

Kunzite: [shakes his head solemnly] The Death Phantom doesn't have this kind of power.