[Scene: Seattle General. Absolute carnage.]
[Mamoru, Minako, Rei and Makoto are lying, unmoving in pools of blood. Usagi is crying, while Ami surveys the scene clearly dazed, trying to make sense of it. A nurse leaps up from behind the bed and flees screaming.]
[This seems to rouse Ami from her shock. She moves from body to body, trying to find signs of life.]
[Across the room, Minako moans in pain and trying to pull herself up with one arm.]
[Ami runs to her, turning her over and cradling her in her arms, surveying her for injuries.]
Usagi: Minako! You're alive!
Minako: Yeah, I'm alive. [groans as she wipes blood from her face and screams a bit as she tried to save her bad arm] Geez you almost sound happy.
Usagi: I am happy. I thought you were dead.
Minako: [coughing up a bit of blood] Yeah, well, I don't think I'm out of the woods yet. And I pretty sure Mamoru, Rei and Makoto are a lot more dead than I am.
[She looks at her friends, her mouth in a grim line.]
Minako: You still think there is good in everyone, you ninny? Even Beryl? [Gestures at the fallen] Get a clue, slut. This is what happens when you try to find the good in people like Beryl.
[Usagi sits on Mamoru's bed and cradles his head in her lap]
Usagi: No. This is what comes from retaliation.
[Strokes Mamoru's hair]
Usagi: If everyone had managed to stay as calm as Ami, none of this would have happened.
Minako: None of this- [laughs mockingly] There is no use in talking to you. You're hopeless. That why your mother-
[long silence]
Ami: [to Minako] That's why her mother did what?
Usagi: [to Ami] That's why my mother told Venus she would never let me be queen.
Minako: [ashamed] You...knew...
[Usagi nods]
Usagi: [petting Mamoru's head] I knew. She told me. I asked her to prepare me, so I could be a good queen, and she told me that day would never come...I was too foolish...too tenderhearted...a good queen, she said, must hand out punishments without pity, as well as rewards...a good queen must make enemies...enforce unpopular laws...do things that hurt people...often innocent people...in the interests of protecting her kingdom...
[Her blue eyes look up, fierce with determination]
Usagi: But she was wrong! A good queen must simply do the right thing! ALWAYS! No matter how much her heart is breaking! A good queen must have the strength and the courage to do right by her subjects! No matter how much it hurts!
[She gazes down at Mamoru]
Usagi: Forgive me, Endymion. I told you I understood, but I didn't. I thought I did, but how could I? [cradles him in her arms] When I was Selenity, I lived a happy, carefree life. How could I understand what it meant to forgive the unforgivable? To defend the people who took everything away from you? [a single tear falls, splashing Endymion on the cheek] I'm sorry, I belittled your suffering, I told you to work past it. Now that she's taken you from me [raises her head to include Rei and Makoto] All of you from me, I finally understand what you mean when you said we were asking too much...and this suffering. This heartache. Is nothing compared to the suffering and the loss you had to endure as Beryl's slave...I look around and I don't ever want to forgive her!
[Stands]
Usagi: But a good queen must always do what has to be done!
[Raises her hands to the heavens]
Usagi: MOTHER! I KNOW YOU ARE WATCHING ME! I FEEL YOU IN MY HEART! GIVE ME YOUR POWER! HELP ME SO I CAN HELP THE PEOPLE OF THIS PLANET!
[All at once a heavenly glow surrounds Usagi and her simple dress morphs into a royal gown while a silver crystal in the shape of a chrysanthemum appears in her hands.]
[The room is bathed in prisms out light, and Minako gasps as her arm straightens and her wounds close.]
[Makoto, Rei, and Mamoru are also healed in the same manner and they stir and come back to life.]
[Usagi drops her arms, still in her princess gown and cradles Mamoru in her arms again.]
Usagi: Endymion?
Mamoru: No. Not Endymion. I'm just Mamoru now. And I remember everything.
Usagi: Everything?
Mamoru: My parents. The accident. The life I had before I lost everything. I remember Endymion, but not very well. Like he was a character in a story that gave me nightmares as a child, but doesn't have the power to scare me anymore.
Usagi: [laughing] Oh, Mamoru. I'm so happy.
Mamoru: And there is something else. I'm in love with you. Madly, passionately, irreversibly in love with you. I tried to fight it while I was being haunted by Endymion. But I'm not going to fight it any more. There isn't any need too. I no longer have to worry about polluting your life with my darkness.
Usagi: [giggling] Oh, Mamoru. I'm so glad.
[Usagi brings her lips down to his and he raises his lips to hers, and they kiss.]
[The kiss goes on for a while, then they break it off to see how the others are doing.]
[Minako, Ami and Makoto are staring and smiling, but try to look away when Usagi and Mamoru notice them. Rei is staring out the window.]
[Usagi giggles some more but stops when she remembers Rei and Mamoru used to date, and Rei never got over him, and she feels bad for her friend.]
Ami: Um...should we bow, Your Highness?
Usagi: [smiles] No, silly! And no need to call me 'Your Highness'. My mother brought us all back so we could have happy, normal lives, so no one of us is better than the others. I'm just happy that everything can go back to normal now.
[Rei turns away from the window]
Rei: You call this normal?
[She points to a maelstrom of swirling mist and green lightning just outside the window]
[The girls and mamoru crowd around the window]
Makoto: What is this?
Rei: The end of times. And there's no way we can get there in time to stop it.