[Scene: The inner circle of Metalia's Inferno. Metalia looks up from the Go board.]
Metalia: I feel a strange sensation.
Kunzite: Oh? How so, Mother?
Metalia: I'm trying to focus on the game. But all I can think about are those two little brats in the chamber on beyond that archway. They are so close. I want them to show themselves so that I can kill them and be done with it, but they are moving so slowly. And the closer they get, the more time seems to slow, though I know that is merely an illusion, born of my mind. Have you anything experienced anything like that, boy?
Kunzite: Yes, Mother. It's called "fear." You've been invincible for so long you've never had to experience it, but now you are facing a credible threat for the first time in many thousands of years.
Metalia: I don't like it.
Kunzite: I don't like it either.
Metalia: You don't like fear?
Kunzite: I do like fear. Fear breeds wisdom. I don't like it that YOU are afraid.
[Kunzite abandons the game and stares at the archway.]
[A quarter mile away. Metalia's inferno. Thetis approaches Heltry twins]
Thetis: I would estimate that the traps are now 25% contains, based on the Shitennou's schematics.
[Drapes his arm around El and pulls her close]
Dev: Glad to hear it, excellent work.
Thetis: I am a bit concerned that you are satisfied with the pace this is progressing.
Dev: The humans have a saying, 'Slow and steady wins the race.'
Thetis: Yes, but every second of delay is a second you put yourselves at unnecessary risk.
El: [shrugs] Who is there to stop us?
Thetis: Nobody, Praise Metalia, but as the Dark Kingdom's most loyal servant, I'd feel remiss if I didn't propose a way to do this faster.
Dev: Of course, Darling Thetis, My sister and I are always open to suggestions.
Thetis: I'm certain this would go a lot faster if you didn't concern yourself with potential casualties.
[El's jaw drops]
El: What are you saying!
Dev: [smile benevolently] Yes. What exactly do you propose, my dear Thetis?
Thetis: I think we should march the most expendable youma, linked hand in hand, through in a broad line, to arm the traps, and repeat the process until all the traps are gone, or until we have taken enough casualties to where this plan is no longer feasible. But in any case, it will buy us some precious time.
El: [bristling] What the HELL, you blackhearted SEAHAG! Those are YOUR OWN PEOPLE!
Thetis: [nods] We're youma. We are designed to be disposable.
El: Would you listen to yourself? I ought to punch you right in the face! No wonder Jadeite thinks its okay to just walk all over you!
Thetis: [bows] I live only to serve my betters in the Dark Kingdom.
El: YOUR BETTERS? REALLY?
Dev: [chuckles] Allow me. [disengages from his sister and pulls Thetis aside with his arm around her shoulder] You'll have to excuse my sister. She's always had a soft spot in her heart for your kind.
Thetis: Why?
Dev: Don't really know, exactly. I think it had something to do with way we were raised, or because she's been the scapegoat often enough to want to stick up for the little guy. But an any case, I find it endearing. Especially given all the times your kind tried to hunt us down and kill us when we were toddlers-
Thetis: Why would the youma try to kill you as toddlers? [narrows her eyes] You are Queen Metalia's children, aren't you?
Dev: [chuckles nervously] Uh...That was a joke...merely a figure of speech...I didn't mean that...the way it sound...at all...
El: Ok! Enough schmoozing...[Barges in] Look, lady! We're from the future! We won't be born for another decade or so! So we can't send your people on a death march, because any youma who's alive fifteen years from now, but dies today, creates something called a 'temporal anomaly', and we're trying to avoid those at all costs. Ya dig?
Thetis: [Nods and smiles] Yes. I understand perfectly now. Why didn't you say so to begin with?
[Meanwhile, in Seattle General]
[Makoto looks out the window and the gathering green gloom]
Makoto: I don't like this. Whatever it is, it seems centered right over us. Like a dark cloud of doom.
Rei: Artemis thinks it's a temporal rift opening up.
Ami: Why here?
Rei: It's not just here. They will open up wherever destiny is being altered.
Makoto: Destiny?
Rei: Artemis said to think of time like an ocean, and people like ships. By traveling back in time, the Heltry Twins, who he said are Metalia's children from the future, stirred up a huge storm that blew all of the surrounding ships off course. Now the storm is about to end, so the ships are all sailing back to their original paths. That's why we don't remember the Heltry Twins. But not all the ships can get back to where they were supposed to go, which is wrecking havoc with the fabric of the reality.
Usagi: In other words, they're changing history, and the universe doesn't like it.
Rei: Yes. Exactly!
Ami: And if they do something really major, like kill a goddess before she can give birth to them?
Rei: We'd better not find out.
Usagi: Then lets go stop them!
Makoto: You have a plan?
Usagi: Yes! Of course! My plan is to rush in and save the universe by any means possible!
Makoto: Sounds good to me. I'm in.
Minako: Me, too.
Usagi: Yay! C'Est la Vie Girls, forever!
[Puts her hand out and Makoto puts her hand over it, then Minako, then Rei, then Ami]
[Minako gives Mamoru a sidelong look and shimmies the group closer to Mamoru's hospital bed so that Mamoru can join in.]
[Mamoru crosses his arms and raises his nose]
Mamoru: I want nothing to do with this. And neither should you, traitor.