Amy clicked off her communicator, and turned to Lita and Serena. "I got a hold of Raye and Mina and it's all set. We're getting together after school, as usual, for our Scout meeting. However, it's acknowledged that we're on emergency statis."

The three scouts were sitting in a secluded part of the school garden, under a large oak tree. A mild breeze blew through the tree's green leaves and rustled the girls hair. Ami was sitting on her knees, looking worried, while Serena was sprawled on her stomach with her legs kicking in the air, her hand supporting her chin. Lita was leaning againist the tree, her knees brought againist her chest.

Lita brushed her brown bangs away from her face, and frowned. "We're on emergency statis...for similiar nightmares?" she said. She shook her head, and added, "For youmas or new alien enemies, yeah, I can understand. But this was just a bunch of crazy dreams..."

"A bunch of crazy dreams that we ALL had, and set in the SAME place. There is something about all of this that just rubs me the wrong way..." countered Ami worriedly. She shuddered, remembering Malachite's cold eyes, and his biting tone.

Lita rubbed her arms, almost expecting to find the slashing marks from Zoeisite's attack. She sighed and said, "I don't know...I guess you're right, Ami..." and turning her head to Serena, asked, "What do YOU think, Serena?"

Serena was fiddling with the end of her blond pigtail, apparently out of it. Lita and Ami sighed, frustrated. Serena was playing the airhead again. As she ALWAYS did when things got serious. Lita briefly wondered if Serena was daydreaming about Darien, or food. Probably both..."Earth to Serena!!", yelled Lita, hoping to jar their 'leader' out of her daydream.

"I'm thinking, Lita, please don't yell so loud.", said Serena thoughtfully. Lita looked at Ami, whose mouth dropped open. Serena, thinking?

'The sky must be falling' thought Ami ruefully. She looked up, saw the beautiful blue sky still remained intact, then said out loud, "Well Serena, what DO you think about all of this?"

Serena stopped twisting her pigtail, and looked over at her friends. "It seems to me....", she paused and collected her thoughts, "That this dream was some type of message..". Being awake half the night, she had a lot of time to think about this, and it seemed the only reasonable answer.

Lita looked thoughtful and said, "A warning, you think?"

Serena frowned. "I don't know...mystical meanings are NOT my department." she said quietly. She turned over and sat up, cross legged.

"Not much IS in your department, Serena," joked Lita. Serena gave her a dirty look, and stuck out her tongue. Lita just grinned, while Ami shook her head.

"That would be, however, Raye's department." said Ami calmly. She brushed a blueish strand of hair from her eyes.

"You think that we should ask Raye to do a fire reading?" asked Lita. She twisted her brown ponytail around her index finger. A serious look flickered over her face.

"It would be the rational thing to do..." Ami said, as a distant bell went off. "What bell is that? A church bell?", she asked nonchanlantly.

"Noooo, too piercing. It seems more like a fire engine, or an ambulance..." said Lita. 'Trouble already?' she thought, frowning.

"Oh, you two sillies. That's not a fire bell. That's the late bell." said Serena abstractly. She smiled slightly. She ought to know the difference by now, being late every single day.

"Oh.", Lita and Ami said together. Then all the three girls looked at each other, and screamed together, "THE LATE BELL!!!! AUUUUGGGHHHH!!"

The three girls jumped up and ran for the outside door. Yelling goodbyes, all three set off to their own classes. Serena skid through the door, past desks filled with giggling students and into her seat, only to find a *very* angry Ms. Haruna standing over her. Serena took one look at her teacher's face, and slumped in her chair. It was going to be a looooong afternoon.

Erkyte walked into the Throne Room, and went immediately over to the stairs. He sat down, put his elbows on his knees, and steepled his fingers together. He sat in apparent meditation while the three Generals came in behind him. He felt drained after all the energy he used bringing these three back. Also, their petty bickering grated his nerves.

'You've been away too long, Erkyte, if the normal political backstabbing is annoying you...' he thought to himself grimly, 'You're going to have to get them to work together, and that's going to take patience..'. He let his eyes flit over the generals, trying to gauge their emotions.

Jediate held back an involutary shudder as he entered the Throne Room. This was the room he was promoted in, where Beryl had made him the First.... but it was also the room where he had recieved his public dressing downs. This is the room that Beryl had encased him in that damned crystal hell. He could see himself standing there, throwing up his hands againist the crystal shards as they enclosed him in. His face was neutral, but inside he raged with anger and loathing.

'I hate this room...' he thought to himself, 'I want to destroy it, turn it to rubble...with Beryl sitting on that throne, watching me...watching me destroy her..'. He sauntered into the room and moved over to the Throne.

As he entered the room after Jedaite, Malachite's thoughts ran to the last few days of the Negaverse, when he and that bastard Prince Darien had vied for Beryl's favor. He gritted his teeth together. Darien, pretty prince Darien. Darien, who, even when under Beryl's spell, remained faithful to his Princess. He remembered standing there, toe to toe with the obvious traitor, as Beryl looked on, amused.

'Oh how she loved it, to watch her faithful dogs fighting for favor as if it was a worn out old bone...' he thought bitterly. His lips curled into a sneer, as he stood several paces from Jediate.

Zoeisite's face became a deathly white as she re-entered the cavern that had brought her so much pain and agony. She closed her eyes, she could still see Beryl standing over her, screaming enraged over Zoeisite's failed attempt to kill Tuxedo Mask. Was Beryl mad because she failed? No, she was angry because Zoeisite tried. She could see Beryl reaching for her, her clawlike hands shooting that blast of power, the sickening sound of the crystal hitting her body. She could feel the falling sensation as she hit the floor. She remembered Malachite's arms around her in her final moments. Her green eyes snapped open.

'Oh ye gods...I can't stand in this room....my death is lined in every shadow..Damn you, you sadistic bitch!! Damn you Beryl!!" her mind screamed as she walked unsteadily next to her lover. Malachite took one look at Zoeisite and grabbed her arm, steadying her. Zoeisite shot him a grateful smile, and saw Jediate glancing over at her. His stature was rigid, but his eyes flashed empathy. Both of them understood what was going on in her head; they both felt the same way.

Erkyte looked at them and smiled. Perhaps it wouldn't be so hard to convert them after all. 'Beryl, you're finally going to get what you deserve....', he thought to himself satisfactorily.

A soft *Ahem* brought him from his thoughts. The generals were standing there, completely composed. Well, Jediate was ALWAYS composed, as was Malachite. However, Zoeisite was now as calm as her companions. "Yes?" he asked calmly.

"We have a few questions.." Malachite said, stepping forward. He was always the natural leader for the Generals. Erkyte made a broad gesture. "Ask away.." he said with a smile and a flourish of the hands.

"These are more of conformations than anything else...Beryl is dead? And the Moon Princess killed her?" asked Malachite. Erkyte folded his palms together, and looked at Malachite. "Yes, and yes again. Well, on the latter, the Princess had a little help from the Scouts and Prince Darien.", he answered smoothly.

The generals seemed to absorb this information. Erkyte could almost swear he saw a small smile flicker across Jediate's face. Both Malachite and Zoeisite's eyes glowed. Erkyte smiled; he could see the next question coming from a mile away . Just as he guessed, Jediate stepped forward and asked, "What happened to you? Why are weren't you destroyed like the rest of the commanders and youmas?"

"It's an interesting story, Jediate. You'll remember that I was 'reassigned' to the outer regions to conquer other worlds for energy.." said Erkyte. The three generals nodded. They knew what had happened....

The Four Generals, all revived, stood with Erkyte standing in the back of them. Beryl sat in her throne, looking as deadly as she had over a thousand years ago. Her first command was to demand that the Generals and Troops gather energy to feed the Negaverse.

"My Queen...." said Erkyte, stepping forward, "Shouldn't we be looking for the Scouts? Or the Princess and Prince? We should know the postion of our enemies before we set off to gathering energy."

That little comment, said with such blatent "disrespect" slowly floated through the now silent room. Beryl had obviously gone mad in her long imprisonment. Why else would the mere mention of the Princess trigger Beryl's anger? She, with a maddened snarl and a wave of her hand, banished him to the outer regions of space. "Leave, Erkyte, and do not let me see your face again!!" she screamed.

Erkyte smiled again, menacingly, "Very good...your memories are still sharp. Let me tell you of what happened to me after being...'reassiged'"

He began softly, his voice echoing off the quiet cavern walls, "I spent over a year wandering around the dead regions of space. I meditated a lot. Thoughts of revenge filled my mind. My anger for being so unrightly punished clung to me. Then, one day, wandering around in my spaceship, I felt it. A scream of agony, the dying of a powerful, evil being had occured. I knew it was Beryl, because I could feel the dark forces of the Negaverse being sucked back into it's prison...through the Doorway....".

He watched the generals reactions. Jediate made a small noise. Malachite looked down at the ground. Zoeisite's face was grim. They understood perfectly.

He continued, "I was, for the a moment, scared that I would be sucked back in, Beryl being the focas of the Negaverse, and her dying meant that the Negaverse had been cut off from the Universe. I also felt regret, I would never savor the feeling of avenging myself. Beryl had managed to escape my rage by dying. Suddenly, sitting in the cockpit of my ship, waiting for the inevitable feeling of being pulled through a wringer, I felt a presence. A dark senitent being called me.... " and here he paused to grin slightly.

"That is when I meet the force brought me back to Earth...that saved me from being sucked through the Doorway. The one who is going to make us all an offer we can't refuse...I think you all know 'her'..." he said quietly. The generals stared at him, not believing what they were seeing.

A whisping dark mist began to cling to the air around Erkyte. It swirled around his body, forming a head of a demon like creature with blood red eyes. The three generals gasped and all fell to one knee. "Metallia..." they muttered respectively...

Serena muttered curses as she banged erasers together for detention. "Why does Ms. Haruna ALWAYS pick on me? It's not like I try to be late...." she muttered under her breathe, as she created huge clouds of chalk dust. Her angry thoughts of forever being her teacher's favorite scape goat continued till she looked up and realised she was now lost in a dense cloud of chalk dust.

She looked at all the dust and groaned. "Now I have to get all of this outta here!!", She quickly opened the window and began fanning the dust outside. She coughed quietly, and tried to wave as fast as she could. It was working, just not fast enough.

She turned to the sound of a door opening. Dreading Ms. Haruna coming to check up on her, she cringed, and tried not to notice the still large cloud of dust floating in the air. Two figures walked through the dust, coughing slightly. 'Great!' Serena moaned to herself, 'It's Ms Haruna..and she's brought the principal with her!'

As the dust dissapated, Lita's voice could be heard. "Hey Serena, you in here?"

"Lita?" said Serena, as she finally saw the two figures clearly, "And Ami!! What are you guys doing here? I thought you'd be half way to the temple by now."

Ami and Lita looked at each other and sighed. "We got detention...for being late back from lunch..." said Ami with a pained look in her eyes. She had never gotten a detention before, it weighed heavily on her. She sat down in a desk, looking depressed.

Lita was less perturbed, as she was annoyed. "Yeah, talk about bad timing! We've got a meeting in 30 minutes and we're all going to be late!!!" she growled. She kicked a wall, frustrated.

Serena grinned. "Oh, don't worry about it Ami, it happens to me all the time! One detention won't ruin your pratically perfect record. We will, however, have to break the sound barrier to keep Raye from screaming bloody murder!! We're all going to be soooo late!!", she said with a groan and a roll of her blue eyes.

Lita and Ami had to giggle. They had seen Raye turn into a volcano too many times at Serena's tardiness not to. Serena smiled that smile of hers that just said 'Trust me, it'll all work out'. And it usually did. She passed her friends a pair of erasers and said, "All right, I'm the official detention expert around here, and I say, the sooner we get these erasers done, the sooner we get outta here!"

The two other girls grinned, and took the erasers. "Perhaps...we should open the windows first?", said Ami with an innocent tone, but a wicked look in her blue eyes. Her answer was an eraser aimed right at her head by Serena. Lita laughed, Ami grinned mischiviously, and Serena frowned, then giggled. They got down to work, pounding erasers together.

An hour later, standing in Raye's temple, all three girls wore puzzled looks. "Where could they be?" asked Ami worriedly. She was sitting on the floor, her legs crossed.

Serena bit her lower lip. "I don't like this...Luna isn't here either. Luna is NEVER late, well, not on purpose, anyway...", she said, blushing, thinking of all the times Luna had to chase her out of the house because she had slept in.

Lita stood at the rice paper door, and looked out. She turned to them, with a worried look on her face. " I don't see either of them anywhere. Do you think-----AAKKKK!!", she screamed as she was bowled over by the last two scouts, and the two Guardian cats, panting heavily.

Mina leaned againist one pillar, while Raye leaned tiredly on her, both of them panting for breath. They both looked like they had run all the way there. "Sorry....gang..." panted Artemis, as he and Luna collapsed to the ground, "Didn't...mean to be...late.."

Ami ran over and helped Raye and Mina sit down. Serena ran out to Raye's kitchen to get them water. Lita groaned, and pulled herself up. Ami looked over at her, concerned. "Are you quite all right, Lita?"

"Fine...I just wanted to know what was the license plate number of the tank that hit me..." Lita grumbled. She glared at Mina and Raye, who had finally caught their breath. Light flushes bloomed on both Mina and Raye's cheeks.

"Sorry..." they chorused together. Mina grinned weakly, while Raye inpected her shoes. They didn't really want to incur the wrath of Lita.

"What made you all so late?", asked Ami. Raye and Mina looked at each other and sighed.

"Detention for falling asleep in class...." they said in unision.

Ami looked surprised, then grinned. She looked at Artemis and Luna. "And you two? Don't tell me they have a kitty detention somewhere in Tokyo!"

Mina and Lita laughed, while Raye covered a smile that covered her face. All three of them had the most ridiculous image of Artemis and Luna having to smack together erasers with other cats.

"Nooooo. WE spent the better part of the afternoon running from the ASPA..." grumbled Luna, with a vicious look at Artemis. "You and your tuna fettish...."

Artemis looked embarassed, well, as much as a cat can look embarassed, and said, "Well, how was I supposed to know that they were stalking us out in the back of that seafood restaurant?"

Luna was about to make a smart remark, when she caught herself. She turned her head to Amy and said, "I am sorry, were you three waiting long?"

"About twenty minutes..." said Lita. She blushed at the shocked looks from Mina, Raye and the cats. They obviously thought they had been here for an hour and a half, waiting. Luna's eyes asked for an explanation.

"We had detention too..", she added with a wry smile. Mina began to giggle, and then Raye joined in. Artemis chuckled, and Luna started.

"Don't tell me irresponsible behavior is catching from Serena!" she commented dryly. This caused all of the Scouts to laugh hysterically.

Just then, Serena entered with two glasses and two bowls of water. She stopped in the doorway, while the girls and the cats began to chortle with laughter. "What?" she asked, surprised. When no one answered except with hysterical laughter, she just shrughed.

With amazing grace, she served her two now semi calm friends and the cats. She leaned over and looked at them, concern shining in her eyes. "Are you guys okay? Was it the Negaverse? Did you get the youmas? Should we transform, Luna??", she asked in a hurried tone.

"Slow down Meatball Head!!" growled Raye. She took a gulp of water, amazed that Serena hadn't mananged to pour the glass all over her head. 'Serena has really improved', she mused. Not like Raye would admit that. Ever. She knew if she was going to insure Serena stayed a good leader, she'd have to be pushed every inch of the way.

Raye looked at Serena and retorted, "We're not running from the Negaverse, Dummy! I was late, like you ALWAYS are, and decided to run. I ran into Mina while running, then into Artemis and Luna. We all ran over here." She crossed her arms and managed to look haughty.

Serena's eyes widened, and a evil grin plastered on her face. "You had detention...didn't you?", she said in a oh-yes-am-I-going-to-get-you-now tone. Raye glared at her.

"What's it to you?" Raye said, wacking one of Serena's meatballs. Serena just smirked. Ami looked at Mina and Lita with a, 'Uh oh, here we go again' look. Luna and Artemis sweatdropped.

Serena stood up slowly, the smirk still plastered on her face. Did she want to use this NOW, or wait till later? She could milk this one for sure; get off a half a dozen good insults in her constant battle with Raye. Then she caught Luna's dissaproving look, and decided to drop it.

"Nothing Raye. Just curious." she said calmly. She looked around and surpressed a grin.

Mina, Lita and Ami's mouths dropped open in shock. Raye looked at her suspiously. Artemis raised a furry eyebrow. Luna was pleasantly surprised. She nodded her head in approval. "Now, let's get this meeting started, shall we?"

Mina frowned. She knew something was up with Serena...she was never like this. Backing off from Raye? Not tripping on the floor, spilling things everywhere? Serena was acting serious, which meant she was seriously disturbed. The dreams? She knew hers was particularly horrible. She hadn't been able to shake that hunted feeling all day....

She shook herself. She had to pay attention. She'd talk to Serena later. NOW, she had to focas on Luna and her description of what 'seemed' to be going on. She sighed, and looked around at her friends. All of them were tired and worn. 'God, I hope we're ready for this....' she thought worriedly....

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