Sailor Moon: Shades of Light and Darkness
Volume II: Perchance to Dream
Part 3: Hope
Author: David Kogan - dnk@cmu.edu
Editor: Odango - odango@usa.net


-Disclaimer
Sailor Moon and the characters and plotlines associated with that trademark are owned by large companies with which I have no wish to fight (because I would lose).  This piece of fanfiction, however and all the characters created within are mine.

Please visit the SLD web site at http://sld.home.ml.org for
information on the SLD universe and the fanfics in it.

For more information, see the readme file.



Sailor Moon: Shades of Light and Darkness
Volume II: Perchance to Dream
Part 3:  Hope


Swords made millenia back
One dark as night, the other white
The two may join 'gainst attack
But still be weapons of the night

_	_	_


The door creaked open slowly, but no one came into the room.  The 
resident of the chamber was busy.

Just outside, Nakiad and Mina were kissing.  Seconds stretched.

Finally, Mina broke off, smiling slightly. "I really do have to go," she said,
then kissed him again.

Another minute passed.

Nakiad broke off this time, also smiling.  "Really?" he asked.

"Yeah," she nodded, moving away.  He let her go reluctantly, and she reached
forward to kiss him again. "See you at the ice party."  She disappeared 
down the corridor.

Nakiad backed into his room, a bemused smile still on his face.  The door
closed softly behind him with a push of his hand, and he collapsed on the bed,
staring up at the ceiling.  His eyes moved around the room, drifting past the
view of Earth in the window, to his table.  What was visible of the table, what
was not buried under various objects.  Then his eyes slipped to a drawer.

The drawer.

His eyes narrowed as memories flashed through his mind.  He had almost
forgotten.

Almost.

He got up and jerked the drawer open, then ruffled through the pile of papers
inside.  Moments after, he jerked out the letter into the light.  The creases
were almost gone from it, having been pressed out by the weight of other things
over the years.

Nakiad sat down to the bed without paying attention, and again, his eyes
scanned down the sheet of paper.

For long moments, his face was expressionless.

Then his eyes flashed.  Anger knotted his forehead as he opened another drawer
and took out a crystal.  The red stone sparkled peacefully as his hands
tightened about it.  Then it flashed.

Out of one side, fire emerged, slowly stabilizing into a single blue-green
flame.  Without hesitating, Nakiad thrust the letter into the fire.  He waited
until the sheet of paper was well burning before putting the fire crystal back.
For a minute, Nakiad watched the flames eat up the letter, the fire reflected
in his eyes.

His hands did not shake as he moved the burning letter over the empty
wastebasket and dropped it in.  He continued to stare until all of the paper
was gone.

Then, slowly, he sat back, and relaxed slightly.  His breath escaped slowly and
his eyes closed.

Outside, the Earth shone ominously.  His act did not really matter.

He had memorized the contents of the letter long before.

Two days later, Guardian came.

_	_	_


The groan penetrated Raye's body, shook her bones.  It took her several moments
to realize that the sound was her own, and she tried to focus her thoughts.

Memories came slowly, distorted by pain and shock.

She remembered the wave of red approaching her, an incredible tsunami of
energy, and she remembered thinking that it was more powerful than the previous
blast.  Then it had hit-

Then there was only darkness.

The red scout forced her eyes open.  Everything around her was a massive blur
of gray and white with patches of red.  She closed her eyes, trying to focus,
but the melange of colors remained.  It took her a few more moments to realize
that her face was flat against some surface, too close to focus her eyes.

The rest of her body suddenly snapped into clarity and she groaned again at the
sudden aching.  It felt as if she had been sent through a combine, she thought
painfully.  Pain spread over most of her body, a mixture of ice and fire she
did not like the feel of.  

Then the world refocused.

It was quiet.  Somewhere in the distance, she heard something like crying,
though she could not tell if it was one person or many, but there were no
sounds nearby.  That either meant that Nakiad had been defeated or that he was
gone.  She frowned, ignoring the pain the action caused.  Given the situation
she remembered, it seemed unlikely that the scouts had won.

She forced her arms to move despite their protests, and managed to prop herself
up slightly, getting her eyes off the floor.

She was lying on a bed of broken glass, a bed that had red stains on it that
were, all too obviously, her blood.  As rapidly as she could manage, Raye 
got her feet under her body, and got up, only swaying slightly.

She was inside a toy store, one that looked like a hurricane had been through
it.  Cases were overturned, partially destroyed, and everything was charred
black.  She squinted in the darkness, the lights were gone, destroyed by the
blast.

Raye looked down at herself now and frowned again, wincing slightly.  The scout
uniform was stained with soot, but the black did not hide the blood coming out
of several cuts.  She looked accusingly at the pile of glass on the floor and
examined herself more carefully.  Most of the cuts were minor, there was
nothing there that might be at all life threatening.  She sighed, removing a
splinter of glass from one wound.  She should have felt a rather large amount
of pain now, she thought with surprising calmness, but she did not.  There was
only that burning sensation at the back of her mind.  It was about time all
that pain suppression training started being useful, she thought with
annoyance, remembering that the suppression technique did not last long.

She looked around again, curiously looking at the store.  She was facing the
outside, looking at the patch of dark sky outside the shattered window in front
of her.  The red scout wondered how she had gotten in the store in the first
place.

Then she wobbled as her memories returned in a flash, and she remembered that
the toy store had been behind her when she had been blasted.  Which meant-

She spun around, remembering everything.

"Serena," she said painfully.

The part of the mall she saw in front of her was dark and silent.  Quickly, the
red scout moved forward, ignoring the now increasing pain in the cuts.  She
grasped at a surviving part of the balcony's rails for support and looked
across the gap.  A blue shape there seemed to move a little.

"Amy?"  The red scout asked, panic beginning to rise.  The situation did not
look good.

She heard a slight groan. "I'm fine," a faint voice answered.  "Be with you in
a moment."

Raye nodded, not having time to argue, then closed her eyes.  She prayed that
her scout powers had not given in to the injuries and jumped over the
balcony.

Her powers were still there, though the landing jarred her and sent fire
through her body.  As she landed, a black form raised itself off the ground,
and she flinched, then relaxed.

Darian sighed, also relaxing in the recognition.  His clothes seemed to have
protected him from the blast, though there was a rather nasty cut along one of
his cheekbones.  It added to the existing cut across his forehead, making him
look like an actor from a bad action movie.  He glared at the red scout.
"Serena," he said shortly, then came out from under the balcony and jumped up.
Raye followed.

The red scout winced when she saw the princess.

Serena was lying in the middle of what had once been a display of fine china
dinnerware.  

Darian picked the girl up with one motion, though he groaned slightly under the
weight.

The blonde scout opened her eyes for a moment, looking up at her love with
bleary eyes. "My tiara," she whispered, shivering.

Raye nodded, not saying anything, and jumped down to the floor.  In the middle
of the mall was a clear space where the tiles were cracked and distorted by
Mercury's ice.  And in the middle of that space was a circle of black, of floor
burnt to ashes with the fire of Mars.

Raye shivered unconsciously as she stepped within that circle.  The image of
the flames passed briefly in front of her mind, then a shadow coming down made
the scout turn.

Amy slammed feet-first into the floor next to the red scout, shaking herself.
A ring of flesh around her neck was pale, but the blue scout seemed all right
otherwise.

Raye nodded to her friend, then bent to pick up the fragile seeming tiara.  The
scout's fingers brushed a small pile of dust, sending ashes spraying in a
gentle arc.

She shivered slightly again.  That pile had once been the rose.  She frowned,
wiping the unwanted thoughts out of her mind and her fingers grasped the tiara,
picking the small golden half circlet up.

Amy touched the priestess's elbow. "Raye."  Amy pointed down the mall.

Raye turned slowly.

The blast had taken out the lights in a large part of the building, leaving
darkness running for a hundred meters in both directions.  Beyond, the normal
lights were working, eerily lighting up the silent, empty mall.

Just within the edge of the darkness, hidden within the contrast of light
and dark were several figures.

"Mina," Raye breathed out, not quite believing.  The blonde scout was sitting
on the floor, cradling a black figure.

"And Nakiad," Amy finished, "and Lita, there, lying in the shadows."

"What happened?" Raye breathed out.

A dark shape landed easily on the floor next to them.  Darian looked up from
the princess in his arms and turned to look down the mall. "Something evidently
did," he said with characteristic understatement.

Serena moved in his arms and he let her gently to the floor.  Absently, Raye
extended the tiara toward the princess, and the blonde girl put the golden
circlet on her forehead. 

"Let's go," the scout of the moon decisively, starting toward the others.

Amy, Raye, and Darian followed.



"Mina."  

She ignored the insistent voice.  It came from far away, it did not really
matter.  She continued to stare at Nakiad, her will drained.

But the voice came again. "Mina," it protested, and someone was shaking her.

The orange scout came slowly out of her stupor, and raised her head.  Serena
was staring straight at her.

Mina blinked and opened her mouth. "You're all right?  I saw the blast, and
thought-" she started.

"We're fine," the princess assured quietly despite the red all over her
uniform.  Raye touched Serena on the shoulder and pointed to one side, and the
princess went there.

"Mina," Raye said, "what happened?"

The orange scout turned her head slowly, looking around.  She was sitting,
facing the same way as before, and Nakiad was lying on the ground in front of
her.  To one side, Serena and Amy were bent over Lita.  The green scout was
moving, but slowly.  Next to them, Artemis seemed to be waking up.

"Mina, we need to know what happened."

She turned back to look at Raye. "Darkness gone," she whispered.

The red scout frowned. "What?"

Mina shook her head and tried to get up.  Someone's hands helped her to her
feet.  "He was about to hurt Amy, but then he stopped, and he came after me,
and-"

"And?"  The male voice from behind her startled her and she turned quickly,
then sighed. 

Darian repeated gently, "And?"

"I'm not sure.  He started slashing at me," she raised her hand to feel the
slight cut on her throat, and the dry blood there. "But then he stopped and
screamed, and-" She swallowed. "He seemed to split.  Like dark away from light,
and then the shadow was over him and it went away and he collapsed and now he
does not answer and I don't know what to do-"  She realized she was babbling
and stopped.

"It's all right, Mina," Darian assured her, "it's all right."



"Is it really?" the new, harsh voice asked.

Lita turned to face it, shaky on her feet, helped by Serena and Amy.  Next to
her, Artemis was also wobbly on his feet, having just come to.

The green scout blinked, watching the figure that had come out of a 
darkened store. "You again," she said.

"Yes," the officer said, "me again."  He leveled his gun at the scouts. "Now
will someone kindly explain to me what is going on?"

Lita felt Serena scowl next to the green scout. The princess turned her head
slightly. "Amy," she said quietly, and Lita was surprised at the commanding
tone.

The blue scout, on the other side of Lita, nodded.



Williams breathed calmly, keeping his aim steady, pointed at the one who
they had called Mina.  They were not answering, but neither were they 
doing anything.  Then the blue scout moved.

He switched his aim, too late.  Fog came out of nowhere, surrounding him,
blocking out his senses.  He moved the gun slightly, pointing at faint shadows,
but unwilling to shoot.

"Ice!"  He heard the scream through the fog.

And a wave of cold slammed into him, carrying him back.  Shocked, he felt the
ice drain the energy out of his body, felt blackness rush into his mind.
Through the fog, he hit the wall behind him hard and collapsed to the floor,
shivering from the energy wave that had chilled him to the bone.  His right
hand, the one that had been holding the gun, was numb, and the numbness was
still spreading.  It halted slowly at the elbow a moment later.

The fog drifted to the sides and disappeared as suddenly as it had been
created, but everything was still blurry.  He blinked, but his eyes seemed
frozen, moving slowly, unresponsive.  Everything he saw was distorted, he was
not sure of anything.

His sight drifted down to one side and he saw his gun.  It was encased in a
layer of ice that had to be at least an inch thick.  He tried to extend his
hand to touch it, but shivers wracked him, and he stayed still, only turning
his eyes to the group.

"We have to go," a voice said, drifting slowly to him.  The numbness of his arm
was starting to go back down to the hand again, as if he were thawing, and
needles burned into the flesh that had not felt anything at all a moment
before.

He tried to focus his eyes again, then shook his thoughts.  It almost seemed as
if that cat with them had been the one to speak.

"Right," another voice agreed.  

Williams focused his ears, but could not feel the direction well enough to tell
who was talking.  All the voices were distorted, and his eyes were not working
well enough to tell whose lips were moving.

"Wait," someone else said, and he thought he recognized the voice of the girl
who had blasted him. "I forgot something."  She disappeared somewhere and her
voice seemed to come from a further distance. "It's scrap now, but it would not
be a good idea for the cops to find it.  Got it, let's go."

The standing man bent to pick up the black creature, lifting it off the floor,
then the whole group drifted out of Williams's thoughts.  Then a white shape
approached him.  It was the cat, he thought with surprise, the act of focusing
his eyes much easier now.  And the animal had some sort of shape on its
forehead.

The cat opened its mouth. "I'm afraid we can't let you remember all this.  You
heard Sailor Venus's name, after all," it said in a clear male voice.

Williams tried to say something, anything, but his voice failed.  The shape on
the cat's forehead flared, and was clear suddenly.

It was a crescent moon.

The golden symbol burned into Williams's mind.



"Now what?"  Serena asked as they ducked out of the dark side of the mall.

The noise hit them just then, dozens of sirens going all at the same time,
people shouting.  Inside, the sounds had seemed subdued, and the scouts had not
noticed them, having been otherwise occupied.

"I don't know," Darian answered quietly, "but we'd better get out of here.
They aren't going to stay on that side of the building forever.  And Nakiad
isn't particularly light."  He hefted the weight, grateful for the
strength-enhancing Tuxedo Mask form.  Nakiad weighed a lot despite the way the
Chosen could move.  At some point, Darian thought he remembered the Chosen
saying something about a higher muscle density.  Certainly, Nakiad weighed a
lot more than his frame would have suggested.

Raye nodded. "There's someone coming, already, look."

The shadow came out of the bush, landing on the dimly lit pavement.

"Luna," Artemis sighed with relief.

Lita blinked. "What are you doing here?"

The black cat looked around quickly. "I came as soon as I could, come on.  The
van's parked several streets over."

Darian sighed with relief, rebalancing the weight. "Great.  Come on."

Luna nodded and the group melted into the dark air.  Behind them, the sirens
doubled their efforts, and several people ran around the back of the building,
shining flashlights everywhere, but they found nothing.



The small black van loomed suddenly, appearing out of the darkness, and Lita
sighed in relief.  Her side was bothering her again, the running was making it
worse.

The doors slid silently open.

Serena turned to Darian. "Go," she said quietly.  He ducked into the back,
propping Nakiad up as well as he could in the middle of the back seat, and
sliding himself all the way to the left.

Amy jumped in after them, her visor already up as she sat down next to Nakiad
and looked at her computer with worry.  She dumped what was left of her blaster
unceremoniously on the floor of the van.

Meanwhile, Luna had jumped into the driver's seat, and Raye followed the black
cat.  Lita sighed and sat down to the right of them, leaving Serena and Mina
for the middle row of seats.

The van's doors closed smoothly on their own, and Lita relaxed, silently 
thanking Nakiad for the darkened windows.  The vehicle started moving.

The green scout looked over to the right and saw Raye staring at the wheel,
which was moving on its own.  "Hey," Lita exclaimed, "who's driving this
thing?"

Luna looked up for a moment. "The computer."  The cat jumped into the rear of
the van, which was rapidly becoming overcrowded.  "Artemis?" The black cat
asked.

The other guardian reappeared under the jumble of people. "All present and
accounted for," he said, but his voice was strained.  Lita remembered that he
had stayed with Mina while they had been fighting, and that could not have been
easy on him.  And he had lost Nakiad.  Twice.

"All right, everyone quiet!" Raye yelled suddenly, ending the jumble of
conversation in the back.  The black-headed scout turned around, apparently
trusting the computer to drive the vehicle on its own. "Everyone calm down.
Amy, first scan all of us for damage."

The blue scout nodded, looking up from Nakiad long enough to focus her visor on
the others. "Raye, you have a large number of cuts on the exposed parts of you,
from the glass.  None of those are too dangerous, and I think you have no glass
still inside you, but you're going to need some attention.  Minor bruises, some
energy stuns and minor burns.  Nothing a little healing will not cure.  And you
have glass in your hair."  Raye almost smiled but did not reply as Amy shifted
to the green scout.

"Lita-" Amy sighed. "Well, your side is still very much damaged, you won't be
in full fighting form for a while yet.  Also some bruises, nothing else major.
Serena, you're basically in the same shape as Raye, except you have pieces of
china in your hair as well as glass."  The princess glared at the blue scout,
but the slight humor relaxed all of them a little. "Mina."  Again, Amy paused
for a few moments. "The cut on your neck is nothing.  The bullet damage is
remarkably healed, but you are in no more fighting condition than Lita is.
Both of you can, theoretically, fight, but it would not be hard to stop you."

Amy turned to Darian, then paused, turning back. "Artemis, you're bruised, but
fine."

"No thanks to Lita," the white cat replied, looking at the green scout.  The
girl smiled, remembering her landing on the cat.

Amy turned to Darian. "Well, let's see. Your uniform protected you from most of
the blast, but that cut on your cheek's not too nice.  It will heal, though.
Also the minor concussion from before, but that ought to also be all right in
time.  Nakiad-"

Raye frowned. "Come back to him later, first check yourself out."

"I'm all right.  He only cut off oxygen to my brain for a few seconds, it isn't
anything important."

"Few seconds, my-" Raye stopped herself. "You were out for as long as we were,
and you were in scout form."

"Nakiad," Amy said, not replying.

Raye nodded. "All right, N-"

Serena suddenly glared at the red scout, cutting the priestess off. "Wait a
second, why are you in charge all of a sudden?"

Raye sighed. "All right, you go ahead."  Lita blinked at that. Raye had to be
tired indeed to give in so easily.

Serena nodded with dignity, then caught Mina's broken eyes and sighed. "Amy, go
ahead."

The blue scout nodded with the air of long suffering. "Physically, he's not
particularly well off," she said with fine understatement.  "There are three
bullets embedded in his chest.  One managed to miss all vital organs, how, I
have no idea.  One of the others, however, is in the middle of a set of gills,
and the other is too close to his heart for my comfort."

Mina shivered. "Is he-?"  She could not finish the question.

Amy shook her head. "There is a lot of healing around those wounds, he is not
in danger from them.  I would guess that the reason we caught him in that
abandoned house was because he was concentrating on healing."

Lita closed her eyes, remembering how she had found Nakiad.  He had been
standing in the middle of the room, motionless, and there had been almost no
reaction when she had come in.  "Yes," she said quietly. The other scouts
turned to her. "I mean, that's what it looked like," she amended.

Amy smiled grimly. "That's not, however, the extent of the damage.  He has ice
damage, probably from my blast, over parts of him, but they are not life
threatening.  He also has minor burns over some of his body, major ones in the
vicinity of his chest, where the tiara had struck."  Serena flinched but said
nothing. "He also has a puncture wound around the same place from the rose, but
that's perfectly cauterized and does not quite touch his heart."

The blue scout stopped and waited until Serena asked. "So what's your
verdict?"

Amy sighed. "Well, he's certainly got major problems, and if I could, I would
take him to a hospital.  But-"

"But what?" Mina asked vehemently.

Raye answered for the blue scout. "But it is going to be kind of hard to
explain to the doctors how he could have survived the damage in the first
place.  And we don't exactly look very normal, I'd not place any bets on
doctors actually agreeing to treat our sort of company.  Did I cover
everything?"

"Almost," Amy agreed quietly. "The other problem is that I'm not sure how good
modern medicine would work on his physiology.  It might kill him instead of
helping him."

Mina did not seem to have heard the last statement. "So you think his life is
not important enough to risk getting discovered for?"  She seemed to be on the
verge of breaking down.  Serena, sitting next to Mina, put a hand on the orange
scout's shoulder.

Amy sighed. "Like I said, I don't think modern doctors would be of much help.
More importantly, however, I think he will make it on his own.  The darkness
seems to have enhanced his healing powers, and the damage is remarkably
isolated.  If it had been one of us, that person would be dead now, but he's
alive, and getting better."

Mina looked at the blue scout without comprehension. "Then why," she whispered
tightly, "is he unconscious?"

"I do not know," Amy answered quietly. "Maybe you and Lita should tell us what
happened after we split up.  Lita had called only minutes before the fight and
said that you were still in the coma."

Lita looked down. "Artemis, maybe you ought to tell it."

The white cat nodded.  He had managed to win the space next to the sliding
door, and seemed content to lie, looking back and forth between Nakiad and
Mina. "Lita arrived, and let me in, but Mina was not moving, and there was
nothing we could do.  Then, right after she called, there was something weird
in the room, like a shadow that lifted off Mina and floated up and disappeared.
And then she woke up."

Luna, sitting on Serena's lap, blinked. "Just like that?"

The guardian nodded. "We tried to call you, but the communicator was busy, I
guess that was the time you started fighting and large energy discharges tend
to interfere with those things.  So Lita and Mina transformed and we rushed
over to the mall, following the tracer in the communicator."

He sighed. "When we arrived, we saw Nakiad up on the third floor balcony,
barely visible, and none of us did anything, we couldn't really see what was
going on.  Then he seemed to actually feel us somehow, and he turned, and we
saw Amy slumping to the floor, and we thought something bad had happened, so
Lita got in front."

Mina blinked. "And he attacked us," she said quietly, seemingly lost somewhere.
Then her eyes cleared a little. "He went after us, and he hit Lita, and I
couldn't move, I couldn't do anything, I couldn't try to hurt him."  She looked
up. "Lita told me what he had done, but I could not do it.  And he stopped."
Tears were trailing down Mina's cheeks.

Amy waited for a moment before prompting the orange scout gently. "What
happened?"

"It was-" Mina paused. "I'm not sure.  He got really tense, and he screamed as
if he were being torn apart.  And then he was pulled apart, like someone took
the darkness away from him, and ripped it off.  It was like- like if someone
could take away your shadow- a part of you that has never been away from you-
Then he screamed, and it hurt, I felt it, through the link between us,
incredible pain."

She was breathing hard, her eyes bright. "And the darkness seemed about to
attack me, but then it disappeared like it had been called somewhere.  And
Nakiad-  I felt him, just a little.  He just collapsed."  She shivered. "And
that's all."

For a few moments, no one spoke, then Raye seemed to snap awake. "Why did he
collapse?"  The question did not seem to be directed to anyone in particular.

Amy looked down at the Chosen. "Two things.  What Mina described might have
been Nakiad actually fighting against the dark energy within him, and because
of that fight, because of the conflict, they could not stay in one place.  The
dark and light energies were too close together, I think.  So the blackness was
forced out.  I have no idea where it could have gone, though."

Lita frowned. "What does that have to do with him being unconscious?"

"The stress," Darian said calmly.

Amy nodded. "The shock of such a ripping apart of what he is could have damaged
his mind in a way my computer simply can not read."

Mina looked at her love. "Could you repair the damage?"

The blue scout looked sadly at her friend. "I do not know.  I can not even scan
that sort of harm, much less repair it.  Unless there is something at Nakiad's
I can use.  That is the other reason I think we are better off driving to his
house than to an ordinary hospital.  He might have instruments that would work
on him."

"Guys," Luna interrupted from Serena's lap. "We are here."

The van pulled up to the front of the house and stopped.  The doors opened.

Raye started to get out, then turned to look at the back of the minivan. "Amy,
you said there were two things that might be making his unconscious.  The
stress of the separation was one.  What was the other?"

The blue scout looked at the priestess with serious eyes. "My scanners picked
up a shadow of dark energy around him.  The same kind that was around Mina 
when she was in her coma."

Darian picked up Nakiad and the group walked into the complex.



"Thanks," Williams told his friend, accepting the blanket.  Chills still
wracked his body, but he was getting better quickly.  The blast seemed to have
been more of a way to keep him down for a few moments than a measure designed
to get rid of him permanently.

He looked around the mall, which was now full of police uniforms putting up
yellow tape around the scene and checking out the evidence.  What there was of
it.  A pile of dust, a circle of burnt floor and a few damaged tiles.  Nothing
else, not even a scrap of clothing.

Someone touched him on a shoulder and he twisted around.  It was Mike again.

"Do you have the satellite data?"

The other nodded. "Yeah.  But you aren't going to like it."

Williams frowned. "At this point, any data we have will be good.  It's taken
you twenty minutes just to get a goddamn picture for-"  He stopped himself.
"Sorry.  It's been a rough day."

Mike grinned. "It's not getting any better.  According to the satellite data,
the signature is no longer present."

"What?"  He forced himself to breathe out and relax. "Is that possible?"

"Of course.  They could be out of the satellite's range, which is quite
possible, given that they aren't exactly ordinary people.  Even a human might
have been able to get clear by getting to a plane or a helicopter.  Twenty
minutes is a long time."

The detective shook his head. "I don't think so.  No, they were not going
anywhere."  He shivered a little, not because of the cold, and tried to
remember again what had happened inside the mall.  He remembered seeing the
scouts, then everything was blurry and cold.  The next thing he remembered was
waking up with several cops around him. "What else?"

"Well, someone could be messing with some part of the information gathering
network.  They could have hacked into the satellite, or the computer receiving
data from the satellite, or even into the phone lines.  And probably into a
dozen other vulnerable places I do not know of."

"Possibly.  And?"

"They could be shielded somehow."

Williams became alert. "What would that take?"

Mike sighed. "Not much.  The signatures aren't exactly very powerful.  Any
large underground structure could do it.  Even going into a tall building might
be enough.  There are hundreds of commercial locations that would do it in the
center of Tokyo alone.  Twenty minutes- they could be anywhere."

The detective blinked, remembering the giant holdings of the Shaw family from
the information he had received a few days before.  That seemed to have been so
long ago.  "All right," he said tiredly.  "I don't think we can do much more
right now.  I'm going to go back to the office, check a few things out."  For a
moment, his eyes stopped on his gun, encased in that mysterious layer of ice.
He wondered how he could possibly not remember that happening. "And I'll need a
new gun, I doubt that one will be of any use to me now.  Even if it released
from the evidence freezer eventually."  He grinned.

Mike nodded, then frowned slightly. "What about the girl in the hospital?
She's missing, her parents don't know where she is either."

"Who?"

"Mina.  The girl."

Mina, the detective thought.  The name rang a bell inside him, something that
had to do with the scouts.  He dismissed it as unimportant after a moment's
foggy thinking. "Her.  Well, put out a picture of her to all cops.  Standard
procedure for missing cases."

"Right."  The other seemed doubtful for some reason, but did not protest.

Williams turned around, walking out of the building.  There were a few things
he needed to think about.



"It's in there," Artemis said, and they crowded into the door.  Inside, the
room was actually rather large, with several beds in a row.  The beds were more
like tables than places to sleep, they were obviously meant for examination.

Darian dumped the Chosen on the middle one and sighed. "He has got to lose some
weight."

The scouts crowded around, sitting down on the other beds or standing.  Amy
tossed the chunk of metal that had once been her blaster on the floor and sat
down at the edge of the table Nakiad was on.  Mina sat down at the foot of the
same bed, her face neutral.

Luna sighed. "I'm going to check the news."

Artemis turned to her for a moment. "Need help finding-?"  The expression on
his face said clearly that he did not want to come.

The black cat shook her head. "I'll ask the computer, thanks.  You stay with
the scouts, keep them from fighting."  She tried to make it into a joke, but
did not quite pull it off.  Sighing, the black guardian slipped through the
door.

"Amy?" Darian asked.  He was sitting on one of the beds, the blood from the cut
on his face marring his features.  Though his query had obviously been about
Nakiad, it drew attention to the minor injuries of the group.

The blue scout looked up. "Um, Serena, maybe you should tend to Raye and
Darian.  Not to mention to yourself."

The princess seemed to snap out of her own thoughts and looked down at herself.
"I suppose I have enough strength for that."  She closed her eyes. "Moon
healing," she chanted slowly.

A white light appeared around the crystal within her brooch, and a wave of
golden energy spread through the room, passing over everyone.  It was not very
powerful, but it brought relief from the aches of the fights, from the pain of
the minor cuts.

The atmosphere in the room seemed to lighten with that burden taken off, with
the pain no longer a problem.  But the healing was not powerful enough to take
away the knot in Lita's side, nor the hardened muscles in Mina's chest from the
bullet.  And Nakiad was motionless still.

Amy frowned, looking back at Nakiad.  "First, I think we should worry about the
physical problems," she said quietly, speaking more to herself than to anyone
in the room.  The others, seeming to sense that she was not talking to them,
faded back and quieted, allowing her to work.  "Let's see what this computer
can do," she said in the same tone. "Computer."

"Yes."  The mechanical tones of the machine were small in the room.

"Show me a scan of the physical damage to Nakiad."

Serena and Raye yelped and jumped off the examination table they had been
resting on as something appeared on it.

For several moment, Amy looked at the hologram of Nakiad that seemed to be an
accurate duplicate of his condition, clothes and gauntlets and everything.
Blotches of incomprehensible red and green covered the image in strange places.
Slowly, the blue scout walked over to that table, moving through the others.
She shrugged and seemed to decide to experiment. "Computer, wireframe."

The hologram flickered and shifted, and Nakiad's body changed to a three
dimensional wireframe representation, a jumble of lines that somehow conveyed
his shape better than the actual image.  At the same time, the patches of color
were visible more clearly, though still were difficult to understand.

Amy thought for a few moments. "Computer, remove the top of his gi from the
representation, and make that part of the image transparent."

The image flickered again, and the scouts gasped slightly, moving away.  Amy
merely looked on with a satisfied expression. "That's more like it."

From the waist up, the wireframe showed his internal organs, a mix of colors
and shapes.  More importantly, however, now they could actually see the damage,
in a way.  Most of his body was green, with patches yellow around the
surface.  But around his chest, three trails of dark red led deep inside.  A
path of gray was in the middle of those trails, and larger patches of gray were
at the ends, inside his body.  Another, shorter trail of red was in the very
center, and the whole surface of his chest was a mix of crimson.

Amy nodded. "Computer, explain the coloring."

The mechanical voice replied easily.  "Green is areas that are functioning
within ninety five percent of normal.  Various shades of yellow are for damage
that decreases function, down to thirty five percent.  Red designates areas
that are no longer working correctly, under thirty five percent of normal.
Gray or black stands for either areas that have been destroyed or nonorganic
items present in the scan."

Amy nodded again. "This is incredible," she whispered slightly.

Lita frowned. "Is it just me, or is that thing moving?"  She pointed to an area
of yellow.

The scouts leaned closer, and saw it as well, green was slowly moving along the
yellow lines, consuming them.

Amy jerked back. "Incredible," she repeated. "This is in real time.  I mean,
that is actually his healing process at work."

Lita blinked. "Oh.  So his healing is unaffected by his unconsciousness."

The blue scout thought for a moment. "I think I remember him saying that he can
consciously direct it, but it would make sense that it would work anyway.
Otherwise, if he were unconscious because of a head injury, he might never wake
up without the healing talent.  And if he had woken up, he would be able to
heal himself enough to wake up."  She paused. "I'm not making much sense, am
I?"

Serena smiled. "No less than usual.  You have to go slow with us dense
people."

Amy nodded, ignoring the tease. "Computer, what is Nakiad's status?"

"He has received moderate damage to several parts of his body, and will require
two or three days to recover full combat readiness."

Amy frowned. "What about his being unconscious?"

The computer paused for almost a full second. "There is insufficient data to
answer the question."

The blue scout narrowed her eyes. "Why did you just pause?"

The computer paused again. "Please restate your request."

Amy shook her head slowly from side to side. "I don't trust you."

"Please restate your request."

"All right. What is the most probable cause of his being unconscious?"

The computer paused, this time for at least a full second, long enough for Amy
to glance at the other scouts, who seemed interested in the discussion. 

Finally, the voice came.  "Interference by another power."

Everyone went silent.

Finally, Amy blinked. "Well, at least we have that," she said quietly, then
turned back to the other scouts.  

Raye nodded. "So it is the same as it was with Mina."

Amy nodded.  "Most likely.  My scan agrees with that."  The blue scout paused.
"What now?"

Mina blinked slowly.  She was staring at the metal gauntlets. "Guys, can we get
those things off.  They give me the creeps."

Lita glanced at Amy for confirmation and the blue hair girl nodded.  The green
scout grabbed one of the gloves and Raye took the arm.  They pulled.

Nothing happened.

"Guys," Amy interrupted, "I don't think you should do that.  If I read this
correctly, you won't be able to get those things off anyway.  And you might
hurt him, they seem to have fused with his flesh.  And they do not scan like
they are causing the problem.  In fact, I think they are enhancing some of his
powers."

Lita and Raye relented, letting the arm drop to the bed.

Amy sat down in the middle of the hologram, shocking the other scouts.  The
image flickered, distorting because of the object in the middle of it.  It was
a true hologram this time, not a reflection which would have been destroyed by
such interference.  The blue scout put her computer away into its dimension for
a moment and focused on Mina.  "If the computer is correct, then what is
happening to Nakiad is the same thing that happened to you.  Maybe if we knew
what woke you-"

Mina shivered. "I know.  But you don't understand-"  Her wide eyes flickered as
her voice fell into a whisper. "I don't remember anything."  She was staring at
the Chosen as if she could not look away. "There was a pain when the bullet
hit, and then it was as if someone had thrown a dark bag over me, and then I-
Next thing I remember is waking up with Lita and Artemis staring down at me.  I
don't know how I got out, I didn't even know I was under until Lita told me
what was happening.  I don't know anything."  Her eyes were dry, but she seemed
to be crying. "I don't know how to help."  Her voice was quiet.

The others sighed, and Amy nodded sadly. "It's all right, Mina.  If you got 
out, I am sure Nakiad will, also."

The orange scout looked up gratefully for a moment, then the door slammed
open.

Luna looked at the group. "Guys, you might want to look at this."  The urgency
in her voice was very real.

Amy got up with a jerk, and the hologram rippled as it was restored.  Then the
blue scout looked back at Nakiad and Artemis sighed. 

"I'll stay with him," the white cat said quietly. "I don't think he'll try to
run away in his condition."

The others followed Luna out of the room, and only Mina hesitated at the door.
She looked back for a moment. "Take care of him, Artemis," she said softly.
Her eyes were very tired when she turned back.



For a while, Artemis did not move, merely standing in the same place and
staring at the door.  Then he turned around and leapt up on the table Nakiad
was lying on.  The white cat hesitated for a moment. "Computer, hologram off,"
he said.

The disturbing image disappeared.

Artemis lay down next to Nakiad, looking up at his former tutor.  They had
spent years together, learning from each other, fighting together.  The white
cat sighed, closing his eyes.  Even Mina was distant from him now, everything
was collapsing.  The Chosen in a coma, influenced by unknown powers.  Mina was
hurt, retreating into herself.  The guardian sighed.  And they had not even
come close to finding out anything about the source of the problems.

For a moment, Artemis opened his eyes. "If you wake up now," he said quietly
with a slightly bitter smile to his friend, "you may call me Art whenever you
want."

Nakiad did not move, did not reply, and the cat sighed.  The humor was not
enough.

Several minutes later, the door opened softly.

_	_	_


"What is it, Luna?" Serena asked, a little annoyed.  They had come through
several corridors typical of Nakiad's complex in that they seemed to be built
haphazardly.  The princess was beginning to get dizzy because of all the
turns.

The black cat sighed, finally entering a room.  Inside was a somewhat strange
juxtaposition of ancient furniture in the background of a large projection TV.
There was a news reporter on the screen.

"Now, here it is, live footage from the scene of the attack."

The image jumped and every human in the group gasped.  Luna turned to them with
satisfaction.

On the screen were five figures in white uniforms, stark against the night
scene.  The clothes were sailor uniforms, each slightly different in the fringe
colors.  And the five figures differed from each other in hair styles and sizes
and weapons.

The resemblance was unmistakable.

They were the Sailor Scouts.

Serena blinked slowly. "Huh?" She asked coherently.

Raye frowned. "I think someone's about to trash our reputation."

A flash of light on the screen confirmed their fears as the fake orange scout
generated a beam similar to Mina's standard attack and blasted a car.  The
innocently parked vehicle joined a row of fireballs lining the street.

The fake scouts turned forward down the street, demolishing objects in their
way, and the view followed them jerkily.  It was shot from the air, probably
from a helicopter.  The pilot seemed loath to approach the group, and the
vehicle moved back and forth, making the camera's focus distorted all the
time.

Lita frowned. "Two things you guys should know.  One, they are heading
downtown."  The others, having already noticed, nodded. "And two, I've seen
enough movies to know that the only way to show the public that someone is
impersonating you is by appearing there and facing the fake."

Darian nodded, smiling grimly. "In other words, you think we should get down
there.  I agree, and I'm coming as well, of course.  It will seem more likely
that you are the real ones if I am with you."

Amy sighed. "Lita, Mina, I do not judge that you are ready for combat yet."

Lita grinned wildly. "The hell you say.  I'm going."

"So am I," Mina said.

Amy sighed. "Look, guys, we need someone to stay behind with Nakiad in case he
wakes up.  While I trust Artemis and Luna explicitly, if the Chosen comes out
of that coma fighting, they would not have a chance.  Mina, you're the only one
he will stop for, you know that.  And the bullet wound is not healed, you are
even less able to fight than Lita is."

For long moments, the orange scout stared angrily at her friends, then her eyes
fell. "All right," she said heavily.

"Thanks," Amy said simply. "Lita-"

"No," the green scout replied. "I'm coming.  You are going to need my help, and
Serena's healing is strong stuff.  You said yourself that I'm in a better
condition than Mina is-"

"Which does not mean you should get yourself killed." Amy said with surprising
strength.

Lita swallowed. "I'm coming," she said, her face hard. "If you don't want me,
you will have to knock me out and tie me up."

Raye sighed, interrupting. "Guys, we don't have time for this.  Even in the
van, it'll take fifteen minutes to get-"

Amy smiled. "All right.  But you stick close to one of us, and don't stick your
neck out if you can help it."

Lita nodded fiercely.

Amy turned to Raye. "We'll take Nakiad's portal, of course.  That means we have
to come back on foot, but so be it."

Luna frowned. "When was it decided that I'm staying?  Or Artemis, for that
matter?"

Serena looked at her mentor. "Come on, Luna, you have to stay.  You're our
guardian, what'll we do if anything happens to you?"

The black cat stared at her ward for a few moments, then relented.  "Go, then.
I'll tell Artemis, spare you the trouble."



Eurtholl grinned, his attention divided between the situation and the black
crystal in front of him.  Both objects of attention gave him glee.

The scouts were distracted, and if energy readings were correct, they were on
their way to the battle now.  And Nakiad now had something of his own to occupy
him for a while at least.

And the black energy, the black fire of the Dark Lord was Eurtholl's at last.
Soon, he would have the power to absorb it into his own being, and soon, he
would have the energy of the planets as well.

Soon.

He grinned in the silent darkness.



"What?"  Williams exclaimed and sat back in his chair.  He had only arrived to
the office a few minutes before, and had spent time requisitioning a new
computer, getting a new gun, and trying to put all the pieces of the puzzle 
of the Sailor Scouts together in his mind.  The first two tasks had been 
difficult because of the miserly police department.  The third task had 
turned out to be impossible.

He could not concentrate, could not think.  Every time he tried to focus on the
situation, the milky fog around his thoughts returned, and he lost his trail of
ideas.  And he did not realize it at first, it took minutes to realize that he
was thinking about something else.  Then he tried again, and the cycle
repeated.

So he was happy to be distracted by the phone ringing.  At least, he had been
happy until he heard the news.

The scouts were attacking the city.  This should have been hard to believe, but
he had just been blasted by them several times, and he was in no mood to
question the veracity of the attack.

"All right," he answered into the phone. "Contact Doctor Miron.  Tell him to
get all the darts he has left and bring them to the scene."

"Sir," telephone static distorted the other voice, "the doctor was provident
enough to leave the weapons with us."

"Then get out there, and wait for me."

"I'm sorry, we can't do that, detective.  We have orders from higher up to
capture them now, as fast as we can."

"Orders from whom?"

"We are not allowed to discuss that.  Sir, I was not even supposed to inform
you of this, I could get in trouble for that.  But Mike is a good friend of
mine, and-"

Williams sighed, interrupting. "All right, I understand.  Thanks.  I'll be
right over."

He tossed down the requisition slip and ran out of the door.  Well, he thought,
running down the stairs again, at least those idiots upstairs were doing the
same things he would have.



Mina opened the door softly, pausing for a moment to let Luna through.  The
orange scout looked straight ahead, not really seeing anything.  Her mind was
whirling.

To one side, Luna made some sort of gesture and Artemis leapt off the
examination table onto the floor.  The white cat padded over quietly, and the
door closed silently behind the two guardians.  Mina sighed, realizing she had
been left alone. Slowly, she walked over the Nakiad.

Everything had all happened so fast.

Like a hammer, it had hit her side, smashing her down to the floor.  She
remembered a sharp pain from the bullet's penetration, but brief, very brief.
Nakiad's hands had caught her, and they had given her the strength to resist.
She remembered looking up at his face, her thoughts full of surprise and
anguish and pain, and then darkness had washed over her, and when she had
opened her eyes, he had been gone.

The pain had returned, burning in her side, burning through her, and she
remembered screams of people.  And she had called him.

And he had come.

Then there had been a dark cold shadow wrapping around her, around her mind and
thoughts, keeping her from speaking, from feeling.

Mina shivered again and opened her eyes.  Looking down, she realized she was
holding her side where the bullet had hit.  She forced her hand down and looked
again at Nakiad.

He was peaceful as he lay there.  The anger and pain that had covered his
forehead with invisible furrows was gone, wiped away by calmness.  The age that
had spread invisible knots through his body was gone.  Even his eyes were
closed, covering the incredible sadness within, the weight of eons of
experience.  The pain that had always been buried within now seemed gone.  He
was calm, relaxed as he have never truly been in life.

Lita had told Mina what Nakiad had done.  Killing the assassin, taking him
literally apart piece by piece.  Attacking them, hurting Lita.  And Mina
herself remembered him choking Amy, as if the blue scout were nothing.  And the
Chosen had almost killed the scouts.

The blonde sobbed silently and sat down on the table next to his, trying to
figure out her emotions.  There were so many, in her mind, too many.
Attachment and hatred at the same time, repugnance at the creature that had
attacked her and love for the person he had been before.

A silent tear slid down her cheek. Whom can I trust?  she asked the still form
silently.  He had never told them all that he knew, he had never told them
everything they needed.

She looked at his closed body. "Why do you never tell us the truth, the whole
truth?"

He did not answer, did not move.

Slowly, she leaned over to look at him, and paused over his face.  She
remembered fairy tales she had been told as a child.  Everything had been so
simple then, so easy.  Even after Artemis had joined her, the choices had not
been hard.  There had been the evil she had to fight against, the evil of the
Negaverse, and the people she was protecting, people who deserved to live.
Having to give up her life as a teenager had been hard, and had hurt, but she
had known what she had to do.

Nakiad had made them question all of that, made her question everything she
believed in. He and the Dark Lord, together in one mind.  He had spared
Jadeite, he had allowed Malachite and Zoicite their love.  He had honored
Kaneth, who was an enemy of the Sailor Scouts still.  He had turned the girls'
world around.

She was a better fighter now because of her training.  But she was no longer 
sure of what she was fighting for.

Once again, her thoughts drifted to the fairy tales of her youth, to happy
endings, and she leaned forward, placing her lips on his.  For several moments,
she kissed him.  His lips were warm despite his being unconscious, and she
remembered the time she had woken him up that way, in a bubble universe.

But nothing happened, he did not move, did not wake up.

Something inside snapped and tears came unhindered now, free to flow as they
wished.  She lay slowly back on the bed next to him and turned to look at him,
placing both hands under her head.  Golden hair spread around unnoticed,
casting a halo around her.

She looked at him and cried because she did not know whom to fight or how to
fight.

_	_	_


In a flash of light, the roof of the building collapsed, showering the ground
below with chunks of concrete.  The scout laughed with glee, then another
greenish flash of lightning lanced straight up.

Amy gasped as the bolt hit the news helicopter overhead.  The whir of the
vehicle's rotor actually stopped for a moment amidst the flashing blast of
electricity, then restarted.  But smoke was coming out of one side, and the
machine turned slowly, away from the scene.  In the distance, sirens were
approaching.

Amy looked at Darian and the other scouts.  The group had appeared on the
concrete only moments before, and it had taken them a few seconds to recover
from the somewhat nauseating transport effect.  Nakiad had worked on the
problem, but had been unable to fix it, he had said that the effect was
inherent in that form of teleporting.

As soon as the scouts had recovered, they froze in surprise.  The section of
town they were in had been demolished completely.  Giant walls of buildings
were crumbled into ashes, flaming cars lined the street.  Fire was everywhere,
lightning the street in the middle of the night, banishing the stars.  And five
fake scouts walked confidently toward a bank through the burning rubble.

Serena took a deep breath.  "I am Sailor Moon," she yelled out in challenge,
"the champion if justice.  On behalf of the moon, I shall right wrongs and
triumph over evil, and this means you!"  

Amy winced a little at the speech, remembering the times Nakiad had told them
that surprise attacks were generally more useful, but the challenge was
certainly appropriate in this case.

It certainly got a reaction.  The lead fake scout turned slowly, followed by
the others.  Amy breathed out softly, realizing that the leader was a perfect
fake of Amy herself, a replica of the scout of Mercury.

"Ah," the fake said harshly. "If it isn't the sailor brats, come to challenge
us?  Have you come to fight, or only to talk?"

Next to Amy, Darian frowned. "I am _so_ tired of talking," he said vehemently,
and five roses lanced out at the fake scouts.

They leapt up out of the way and forward, toward the scouts.  And battle was
joined.



Darian dodged instantly out of the way of the first green-tinged blast,
ignoring the heat that passed by him.  The energy slammed into the pavement,
burning a hole in it.  Before the afterimage of the attack dissapeared from his
retina, another flash of green was headed for him.

He leapt, this time straight up, and landed on top of a street lamp, balancing
easily on the high perch.  The fake scout paused for a moment, and Darian took
the time to glance around himself.

The only scout he could still see was Serena confronting her counterpart, but
they seemed to be talking rather than fighting.  The other scouts had
apparently split off.  The prince smiled a little, relieved.  He fought better
when he did not have to worry about others.

A greenish blast cut his footing from under him, and the prince barely caught
himself on his way down.  Concentrating, he halted in midair, then leaped
straight up at the fake scout.

"Is that the best you can do?" he asked, lashing out with his cane.  

The creature merely grinned and dodged. "I don't need to try harder," it
answered, and another blast launched straight at Darian's face.

He dodged backwards as quickly as he could, and lost the focus needed for
flight.  The attack missed, but he slammed into the pavement half a dozen
meters below him.  He forced strength into his muscles and leapt up and away
from another blast.  But now the previous hit to his head made itself felt and
he groaned a little, flexing his stance.  One of his hands touched his hip for
a moment, and he wished he still had his sword.  Then the prince erased the
distracting thoughts from his mind and focused on the creature.  He circled it,
moving with greater care.



"Who _are_ you?" Serena exclaimed.

The other creature grinned. "I want you dead."

The princess shook her head. "Yeah, right, I know that.  I mean, how did you
get my form?"  She glared at the other with false bravado, but the absence of
her friends made her less sure of herself, so she did not attack immediately.
The talking was giving her a chance to adjust to the strange experience of
having to fight herself.

The fake scout shrugged. "That will have to remain a mystery, I'm afraid."

"Oh yeah?"

The creature shrugged again and leapt forward without warning, its foot
extended in a potentially lethal kick.  Serena moved easily out of the way of
the strike.

And the thing grinned and twisted in midair, turning its attack.  At the last
moment, Serena realized her mistake, and a beam of light lashed out at the
fake.  But the moon power missed.

The white glove of the fake scout slammed into the princess.



"Come on, catch me if you can!"

Raye grinned, flexing her gloves. "Face me, impostor!"

The fake smiled. "If you think you're the only one in command of fire, think
again."  The creature took on a stance identical to Raye's own attack form.
"Mars fire," it chanted. "Ignite!"  Red fire streaked through the night.

The red scout dodged out of the way of the flames. "How did you-?"  She began,
then forced herself to calm down.  She had defeated her own power before, she
could do it again.

The fake scout smiled again. "You foolish scouts.  Your offensive attacks are
so easy to copy that you don't even realize it."

Perhaps, Raye thought, dodging another stream of fire.  But Raye had something
new, unanticipated.  Her gloves flexed, and she felt the air pressure waves
arrange according to her wishes.

Two lances of fire appeared in the air and were thrown forward by an invisible
force.  The fake dodged, then screamed when the attacks changed course in
midair.  The fake disappeared behind a fireball.

Raye blew on the gloves. "One down, four to go," she said calmly, but worry was
in her mind.  The other scouts no longer had Nakiad's gifts, except for Serena
who had probably already forgotten about the crystal spiders, the red scout
thought with annoyance.  The priestess frowned and leapt away in search of her
friends.



"Darian!"  

He glanced to one side and saw Serena on the ground, holding her
side.  He froze for a moment, afraid for her.

Then the princess lifted her eyes, and red light flashed briefly inside.  In a
frozen moment, the prince felt himself blinking, and he started turning back to
his opponent, to the fake orange scout.

He was too late.  The blast slammed into him, carrying him to one side,
smashing him against the pavement.  The world started getting all blurry.

"Morons," he heard one voice say. "It's a wonder they survived Beryl."

"Just luck, probably," another voice, remarkably like Serena's answered.

Darian remembered feeling astonished at the similarity between that comment and
what Nakiad had kept telling them through their training.  Then the world got
all blurry, and Darian's head pounded once more and blackness blocked out all
senses.



Serena!

Darian!

"Mars FIRE!"

The two gleeful creatures turned in time to see two fireballs streaking toward
them.  Both dodged, but the missiles turned in the air, following them.  Raye
concentrated, forcing her concentration to continue despite the strain.



"Take my powers, will you?!"  Lita yelled rhetorically, and a flash of
lightning lit up the street ahead, answered by a similar, greenish blast.

"Sailor Jupiter, wait!"  Amy yelled desperately, following her friend.  The
green scout was in no condition to fight, the girl thought frantically.  Lita
had attacked her counterpart immediately, and she were already separated by
several city blocks from the rest of the scouts.  Here and there, people were
beginning to appear, generally running away at the sight of the bolts of
lightning. "Jupiter!" Amy yelled out again.

A train seemed to smash into the blue scout's side, the incredible force
sending Amy flying.  Automatically, she curled into a ball, and her legs
extended on their own.  She smashed into the ground hard, but was on her feet,
and had a moment to thank Nakiad for all the training before turning to face
her opponent.

Somehow she was not surprised to see the fake blue scout. "What do you want?"
Amy panted out.

The counterfeit grinned. "Just wanted to have a little chat.  You're an
annoying brat, you know that?"

Amy shrugged. "C'est la vie," she said calmly, and sent a blast of ice at her
opponent.  The creature disappeared behind the fog.

The voice cackled with humor.  "Interesting."  The sound came from a different
direction and Amy whirled to face it. "I would have thought the resident genius
would want to know why she especially was annoying."

"Fine," Amy bit out, surprised at the ineffectiveness of her attack. "So tell
me."

The creature laughed, appearing out of the fog. "Just like that?"  It leapt
forward and started circling the blue scout, but did not attack. "All right,"
it said, obviously enjoying itself. "The thing is, you're a bit of a kink in
all the plans.  You with your stupid computer and your stupid powers."

"Why?" Amy asked.  "What's wrong with my powers?"  She frowned, suddenly
suspecting the answer.

"Oh, I can see that brain working already," the fake said with glee. "You see,"
it suddenly dropped into a confidential whisper, "all the other scouts have
offensive powers, very basic, easy to duplicate at the lowest level of
complexity.  But you, on the other hand, you have this fog, and all that
freezing stuff, very annoying."

Amy smiled. "In other words, your master couldn't figure out a way to give you
those powers?"  Mentally, she was calculating.  Something was still missing,
something was wrong.

"Not exactly," the creature said, then stopped in its circling.

Amy also froze, suddenly aware of police sirens close by, very close by, and
she turned to face the sound.  A black and white car turned the corner and
screeched to a stop, and several cops jumped out.

The blue scout turned back to face its opponent, and a fist smashed into her
face.  Through a dazed maze of colors, Amy saw the creature take out a small
black crystal.



Lita panted heavily, fading back from the fake's attacks.  Only her own
ferocity had kept her from going down, but the pain in her side was growing
fast, limiting the green scout's strength.

Then the other scout paused and closed its eyes briefly.  When its eyelids went
up again, it was grinning.  A small black crystal appeared in one of its hand,
and dark energy surrounded it.

It vanished.

Lita blinked at the empty air, then a faint scream tore through the air, and
the scout recognized it as belonging to Amy.  With a curse, she realized how
far she was from the others, then sighed and started running back as quickly as
her side permitted.



Raye forced herself to move out of the way of the two blasts, and they missed,
but they had been too close for comfort.  She had been hit once already, the
two creatures too powerful for her to handle on her own.  The blast had glanced
off her, and had been generated too quickly, so it had not carried full power.
But it had been enough to hurt her even through her scout uniform.  To one
side, she thought she had seen Serena moving slightly, but the blonde was not
recovering fast enough to help the red scout.

Raye focused on her enemies, clearing her mind of the pain.  To her surprise,
they were not attacking, not pressing their advantage as they should have been.
Instead, they were exchanging a glance.

Raye concentrated, and fire started to burn around her gloves.  The two
creatures did not move, but she saw black crystals appear in each of their
hands.

With a stifled cry of pain, she let the fire go, and it threw itself forward,
at the two creatures.  Raye was even too tired to guide it with the gloves, but
it seemed unnecessary; the two fake scouts did not move.

Just before the fire hit, she saw the black crystals flare, and the creatures
turned dark like the night.  

A moment later, the flames slammed into empty pavement.

And for a moment, Raye felt something strange, a flare of energy that was very
different from anything she had ever sensed before.

Then it was gone, and she sank to the ground with a sigh, focusing herself,
then she, too, heard the approaching sirens.  Forcing strength into her limbs,
she moved over to Darian and Serena.



Lita ran straight through a line of fog that had to have been generated by Amy,
then screeched to a halt.  Several police cars were standing around the slowly
faltering blue scout.

"Amy!" Lita cried out.  Through the fog, she saw the policemen turn toward her,
and several raised rifles into the air.  With shock, the green scout saw Amy
collapsing to the pavement.  "No!"  Lita cried out, starting to move.

Something hissed through the air, and Lita felt a small sharp pain in her arm.
She looked down slowly and saw a dart sticking out of her biceps.

The tall girl looked at the blue scout and for a moment, a wave of relief
washed over Lita when the green scout realized her friend was merely asleep.

Then the relief turned into darkness, and the Lita felt the earth come up and
slam into her head.

_	_	_


Serena woke up slowly, and Darian sighed, sitting back for a moment and
relaxing.  He turned to Raye. 

"How are you doing?"  The prince asked calmly.

Raye had woken him up moments before and together they had gotten Serena up to
the roof of a nearby building.  Below, sirens were flashing wildly as hordes of
cops investigated the area of the fight.  In the distance, helicopter blades
were approaching.

The red scout flexed her hands experimentally. "A little burned, but otherwise
all right.  I'm more worried about the police.  We will have to get out of here
soon if we do not want to be caught by that chopper and appear on the eleven
o'clock news."

Darian nodded, his mind turning with worry to Amy and Lita.

Raye seemed to read his thoughts. "I'm sure they got away all right."

"Then why can't we raise them on our communicators?"

For long moments, Raye did not answer, then Serena moved.  The princess sighed
softly. 

"Hi guys, did I miss much?"  Her voice was very quiet.

Darian turned to her. "Just a battle for the world, meatball head."

The blonde smiled sleepily. "Oh, that's good," she replied through her closed
eyelids.

"Sailor Moon," Raye said sharply, and the princesses' eyes snapped open.

"Oh, hi, Raye."

"Sailor Moon, get up.  We have to go, and we have to go now."



Williams got out of the car slowly, then smiled and walked over to the two
fallen scouts.

Mike was already there, and he looked up. "Hey, Pete.  You recognize these
two?"

"Yeah," the detective said with satisfaction. "The tall one threatened me,
which I didn't mind so much.  But the other shot me at least once, and I think
the second time a well."  He closed his eyes for a moment. "I can't quite
remember what happened at the mall."

The other nodded, but seemed distracted. "Listen, Pete, I don't like to tell
you like this, but you've been overridden on this case."

Williams nodded, not surprised. "I know," he answered sadly.

"You still have access to them, of course, but any conversation will be
monitored, and they are being taken to a more secure holding facility than the
one that the creature was taken to."

Again, he nodded. "I understand."  He closed his eyes again, sighing.  It did
not really matter, he forced himself to think.  They were caught now, something
was being down about them.

Then he shivered.  If this was right, then how come he felt so wrong? he
wondered silently.



Mina's communicator beeped and she flinched, waking up with a start. "Yeah?"
She asked the device sleepily.  The expression on Raye's face forced the orange
scout's mind to focus. "What's wrong?"

"Mina, we have a problem."  Raye shook her head with obvious anger. "Amy and
Lita are missing."

"Missing?"  Mina blinked. "What do you mean?"

The other shook her head again. "Believe me, I'm not sure myself.  We got split
up in the fight against the fake scouts, and then the police came, and the
creatures disappeared through some sort of teleport and now we can not find
Lita or Amy.  We can't even raise them on the communicators."

For a moment, Mina looked over at Nakiad and her heart slowed.  Two more people
close to her gone.  Then she shivered out of the dark thoughts and turned back
to Raye. "Do you think-?"  Her voice caught.

The red scout frowned. "We do not think so.  We can not even read the positions
of the communicators, which we would be able to do with Amy's modifications
even if they could not respond.  They must be someplace heavily shielded."

Mina forced herself not to think about the possibilities. "What are we going to
do?"

Darian's voice came across distantly, he seemed to be standing to one side. 

"You have to tell Artemis and Luna, and you have to try to figure out where
they are, or, if you can not do that, where they could be that is shielded
enough that we could not read them.  We are going to look for them, but we
don't think we'll find much.  Tell the computer to send the van out."

Mina nodded, the weight of the circumstances pushing the dark thoughts to the
back of her mind.  She could do it, she had to. "I'm on it.  Sailor Venus,
out." She said shortly, and the communicator went blank.  "Computer," she said
aloud.

"Yes?"

"Where are Artemis and Luna?"

_	_	_


The world spun slowly in a whirlpool darkness, things coming into focus slowly,
too slowly.  She blinked her eyes rapidly, forcing her mind to focus, and the
melange of colors faded.

"Sailor Mercury?"  The voice was familiar, and she tried to place it.

Then everything came back with a rush, and she snapped fully awake, glancing at
her arm.  She would not have thought that any human-made drug could knock her
out like that.

"Hi, Sailor Jupiter," she said weakly.

The green scout sighed in relief, rocking back on her heels. "Mercury, where
are we?"

She sat up slowly, sighing, and looked around.

It was a prison cell of some sort, but a very unusual one.  There were no
windows in it, and the walls and floors and ceiling were made of a smooth
unbroken material that covered everything.  One wall was open, with a series of
very thick vertical bars blocking off the corridor on the other side, which was
made of the same stuff as the walls.

"I don't know. Some sort of police prison, I'd guess, given what I remember."

Lita nodded.  She seemed to be distracted by something. "We have a 
serious problem."

"Yes?" She forced her voice to be calm.

The green scout's eyes narrowed.  "I can't use my powers.  I've tried, but it's
like- I don't know.  Like something black and cold dampens anything I try to
do, drains me out.  Look."  Lita crossed her arms in front of her. "Thunder,"
she whispered.  

A flicker of electricity passed along her tiara, then was gone.

"Interesting." The blue headed girl did her best to think.  Her mind was still
spinning, too rapidly.

The green scout's voice was frightened. "My power is still there, I can feel
it.  But I can't do anything, I can't attack, I can't defend.  Something here
is sapping it.  Mercury, you think you can do anything?"

"I can try," she answered, then pointed one finger and closed her eyes.  

Nothing happened and she opened her eyes slowly, looking at her hands.  Then
she concentrated again, feeling into a pocket dimension.  With the edge of her
mind, she realized that the computer and the communicator were there.  Then she
opened her eyes and stared at Lita.  "I can _feel_ them,"  her voice was also
frightened, she realized, "but when I try to get them-"  She paused, breathing
heavily.  "Nothing.  It's like they are no longer mine, I can not control them.
I've lost-"

Lita's eyes widened as she extended a hand. "Wait, Mercury, it's just drained,
like I said, something is-"

"No, you do not understand."  She breathed softly. "There is nothing.  It's not
just being drained, I can't even generate any attack, it's all gone."

For long moments, the blue scout stared straight in front of her. "I've lost my
powers," she breathed softly.



"Master?"  Aneres walked in.

Eurtholl smiled slightly, amused again at the naming of his fake scouts. "Yes,
Sailor Moon?" He asked with glee.  "How did everything go?"

Aneres smiled as well, but kept her eyes pointed down and the expression on her
face was slightly worried. "Almost exactly according to your plan, master.
They were captured by the police."

"They?"  He frowned slightly.

"Sailor Jupiter as well."

Eurtholl thought this over for a moment, then shrugged. "Even better.  The
damping crystal was configured to drain other scout's power, it should work
fine.  And the interference blocker should work to keep her communicator
unreachable and undetectable as well."  He leaned forward slightly. "Now, then,
that was the bad news.  What is the good?"

The other smiled fully. "The crystal worked perfectly, master."

And Aneres brought one hand forward.  A circle of energy glowed, and a single
object appeared in the air.  The object floated inside the sphere of power and
moved slowly through the air.  A moment later it landed on the stone pedestal,
next to the crystal burning with dark energy.

Eurtholl leaned over it and smiled.  "Excellent," he said with relish, and
Aneres smiled again.  Eurtholl looked up. "And the communicator and
computer?"

"She has it, but-"

"Good," Eurtholl nodded understanding. "You are dismissed."

As Aneres left, Eurtholl bent over the pedestal again, staring with a wide
smile on his face.

Amy's transformation stick lay silently against the black stone.



"There are no radio reports of the missing scouts' locations on any frequency,"
the computer answered tonelessly and Mina sighed.

Artemis and Luna were sitting across from her on the floor of the chamber where
Mina had found the two cats.

Mina's communicator beeped and the orange scout snatched it out frantically.
"Yes?"

Serena's face was tired and sad. "Nothing," the princess answered. "There is no
trace of them anywhere.  There are cops all around, and helicopters, and it is
beginning to get hard to search without being seen.  What about you?"

The orange scouts shivered. "Nothing on this end either.  Nakiad's computer
says that there are three likely possibilities.  The two scouts could be in
another dimension, or they could be shielded somehow."

"Or?"

"Or," Mina replied softly, "the communicators have been destroyed, along with
every other object of power the scouts have."

Serena nodded, then Raye's voice came through. "You said those were the likely
possibilities, what are the unlikely ones?"

Mina shrugged helplessly. "Well, it could be that all our instruments are
wrong.  Or we could be in a different dimension.  Or we could be in a virtual
reality simulation.  Or we could be hallucinating.  Or-"

Raye sighed, interrupting. "We get the idea.  The computer has a good
imagination.  Look, the cops are too many, we have to withdraw and regroup.
The van arrived several minutes ago, so we'll be there soon."

Serena glanced to one side and nodded, then looked back. "Mina, what about
Nakiad?"

The orange scout glanced at her love.  "I don't think he's even moved.  We
ought to return to the med room to keep an eye on him though, see you there."

"Right."  The viewscreen went dead again.



Lita sighed, sitting back against the wall.  The cell was completely bare,
without even a bed to lie down on.  Despite the clinical precision of
everything, it also seemed new, and hurriedly constructed.

"Jupiter."  Amy's voice interrupted the green scout's thoughts and Lita looked
over to her friend, wishing that they could call each other by their true
names.  But there was no doubt in her mind that the cell was bugged.

"Yeah?"  The green scout started to get up.

She saw that Amy was standing next to the bars. "Listen to this."  The blue
scout struck the metal lightly with her tiara.

A quiet deep sound filled the room for a moment, and Lita shrugged. "What about
it?"

"Well," the other answered. "Whoever built this cared a lot about strength.
These bars are not iron, they're some sort of incredibly strong alloy.  And
look at the width of each bar."  Amy looked over seriously.  "This cell was not
designed for humans."

Lita sighed, sinking again to the floor. "I sort of figured that it wasn't an
ordinary prison, yeah.  I'm more worried about the loss of our powers."

Amy blinked and nodded, coming over to sit next to Lita. "I know, I'm trying to
distract myself.  You think it's safe to talk about this, knowing that this
room is certainly bugged?"

Lita shrugged.  No one had appeared for what she estimated was at least half an
hour, no one seemed to care about them.  She looked over at the blue scout.
"You're the genius, you tell me."

Amy looked up at the green scout with a raised eyebrow and Lita sighed.

"Sorry," she said quietly. "This is getting to me."

The blue scout nodded.  "I've been thinking about it," she said slowly, "and
there are several questions I can not answer.  But the person who is blocking
your power and has taken mine is probably responsible for our imprisonment as
well."

"The police, you mean."  The Lita frowned.

Amy nodded, but without conviction. "Most likely, but given the situation, I
don't want to jump to that conclusion yet.  But they probably know more than we
about this whole situation, so I don't think talking will hurt us, and it may
help us."

Lita sighed with relief. "You're right."  She almost smiled.  The silence that
had been pressing in on her retreated a few steps and she turned to her
friend.

The blue scout adjusted her position against the wall.  "First of all, your
powers are being blocked."

Lita nodded, shivering a bit.  The fear was not as close when she was not
trying to use her scout powers, but she could still feel it.  She wondered how
Amy felt, with no powers at all, but the blue scout's face seemed to hide
emotions behind a mask.  The green scout sighed slowly, aware that she was
doing much the same time.  If they were to reveal how they felt, they might
drive each other to hysteria.

Amy continued. "And my powers are completely gone, including the ability to get
the computer out of its pocket dimension, even if it is still there.  I think I
can feel it, but I could be wrong.  It's like I am human again.  More than
that, however, whoever is keeping us here is either blocking off everything
about us, or we are no longer in the same dimension.  I think the others would
have been able to locate us otherwise.  And Jupiter-"

"Yeah?"

"We have not transformed back to normal."

Lita looked down at herself and realized that Amy had noticed something the
green scout had screened out subconsciously. 

The brunette blinked. "We should be human again.  Remember, when Sailor
Moon's locket failed, she had changed from back to normal?"

Amy nodded quietly.  "Of course.  And although it is possible that the power
operating on you is draining offensive energy only, my powers are completely
gone.  I should be human, and I am not."

Lita thought for a moment. "Maybe that means that your powers have been taken
away, not destroyed."

The blue scout brightened for a moment. "Then there might be a chance for me to
get them back."

The green scout laughed bitterly. "Except that we are trapped in a prison,
probably by the police, and we have no clue where we are nor how to get out of
here.  I tried to force the bars apart, when you were still unconscious.  No
luck with that, my scout strength is also gone."

Amy looked back down. "No escape, no powers, no hope, no clue."  She hit her
head lightly against the wall.  The strange material absorbed the sound as if
mocking her. "If I l had my computer-"

Lita nodded. "No use wishing for the impossible.  Do we know anything else?"

For a moment, Amy frowned. "There is one thing," she said slowly.

"Yeah?"

"When I was fighting with that fake scout, it talked to me."

"Really?  Mine just threw lightning bolts."  Lita tried to put a note of humor
into the statement, but Amy did not seem to notice.

"I know, I was following you.  But mine was very weird.  It said that-"  The
blue scout's forehead furrowed. "It said that I was a 'kink in his plans.'"

Lita thought about that for a moment. "In whose plans?"

The blue scout smiled. "Good question.  Also, it said that there was something
about my powers, they could not duplicate them or something, because they
weren't directly offensive."

"Anything else?"

Amy thought for a few moments.  "I don't think so, that was it.  I asked if the
reason I was a problem was because the 'he' could not give my fake my powers,
and it answered: 'not exactly.'"

Lita blinked. "I don't understand."

"Nor do I.  But maybe that is the reason that my powers were taken away,
however that was done.  Because of some plan, or something I could have found
out using my powers."

"The computer."

Amy nodded. "My thoughts exactly."

Lita closed her eyes for a moment, going over the information.  Finally, she
shrugged. "Who's 'he'?"

"I'm not sure," Amy answered, even more slowly than before. "But I think maybe
we've been concentrating too much on the results of someone's actions, and not
the causes.  The assassin, Nakiad's transformation, Mina's coma-  Someone had
to have arranged them.  And we've been trying as hard as we could to fend those
attacks off, but maybe we should have concentrated more on the source of the
problem."

"And you think the 'he' is the source, a single person."

Amy shrugged. "It stands to reason.  The different things seem too well
organized to be mere coincidences.  We barely get out of one problem before
another strikes, distracting us.  Those scouts, for example- they stopped us
from thinking about Nakiad.  Someone, somewhere seems to be playing with us,
keeping us off balance."

Lita looked at her friend seriously, thinking. "And we've been playing right
along."

"Yeah," the blue scout answered softly.

Lita nodded. "Well, now I know why your powers have been taken away," she
said.

"Why?"

"Because, Sailor Mercury , you are entirely too smart for your own good."  Lita
smiled, trying to make it into a joke.

Amy looked up at the green scout, her eyes completely serious. "I think you're
right," she answered calmly.

Lita closed her eyes and sighed, feeling cold, and hoped that Amy was wrong.

If she were not, then the other scouts were continuing to play into a very
large trap.



Mina looked away from the wall at the noise of the door's opening.  "Hi guys,"
she said to Raye, Darian and Serena, her mind still occupied.  Then she saw
their condition. "What happened to you?"

Raye winced, sitting down on the edge of one of the beds. "We ran into some old
friends." One side of her uniform was charred badly.  Serena and Darian looked
slightly better off, though both were bruised.

Artemis leapt up on the bed next to Raye. "Did you find them?"

Serena shook her head.  Darian and she were leaning slightly on each other. "No
luck," the princess answered softly.

Luna, still on the floor, frowned. "Serena, I think maybe you should use your
healing."

The let out a deep breath. "Yeah, I you're right."  She shook her head slowly.
"I'm just tired, Luna."  The girl closed her eyes and concentrated.  Once
again, white light surrounded her and permeated the room, focusing on the
others' injuries.  But the healing was visibly weaker this time, and ended 
sooner.  Serena went limp in Darian's arms.

"I can't do this much more," she whispered, then closed her eyes.

Darian smiled tenderly at her, and carried her to a bed, laying her down.
"Thanks, meatball head," he said softly.  She nodded a little.

Raye sighed, flexing herself a little. "Yeah, thanks, meatball head."  For once,
the edge was gone out of her voice, but her face grew controlled again as she
turned to Mina. "Any progress with the computer?"

The orange scout sighed, wishing the beds had backs so she could lean against
something. "No.  It can not locate the scouts, and it can not do anything for
Nakiad."

Darian looked over at the Chosen. "Any change in him?"

Artemis shook his head. "No.  He's the same as Mina was.  We checked with the
computer, and he is continuing to heal, physically.  But his mind's not
there."

Raye frowned, looking at his still form. "Shouldn't we try to get the bullets
out or something?"

"No," Artemis answered sharply, then softened his voice. "I don't think so.  We
don't really understand how his healing works, but trying to remove the bullets
would damage him more than keeping them.  Watch."  The guardian looked up.
"Computer, show the damage again."

The hologram appeared on the bed again, slightly different.  The green had
spread over most of the damaged area, and only light yellow was at all
widespread.

Artemis pointed to it. "We've played with this again while you were gone.  As
you can see, the trails of damage the bullets left are healing very quickly,
and so are the rest of the injuries.  It is only around the projectiles
themselves that the damage is slow to heal, but he is repairing himself even
there."

"In other words," Raye said, "to remove the damage, we'd have to open those
wounds again, and in the end that would be counterproductive."

"Right."

Darian frowned. "So what will happen to the bullets?"

"Either he will get them out when he wakes up," Artemis answered with a shrug,
"or they will be dissolved, eventually, by his body's healing process.  He's
done that before, in the Silver Millennium.  And when-" the white cat glanced
at Mina for a moment. "When Mina hit him with that glass, I doubt Amy was able
to remove all of the pieces.  He had to have destroyed some on his own."

Darian's eyes narrowed. "So we should do nothing?"

Artemis sighed, looking straight at the prince. "I don't see what we can do."

"What about Moon Healing?" Raye asked, glancing at Serena's still form.

The princess opened her eyes slowly, waking up. "I'm afraid not, guys," she
said softly.  She slowly sat up on the bed, shaking off Darian's help. "First,
I don't have the strength to do it, not now.  Second, it did not help Nakiad
any."

The orange scout touched her side. "It did heal most of the damage of the
bullet."

"But not all of it," Serena continued seriously. "And it did not do anything
for that mental attack.  And I do not think the power works on Nakiad."

Raye raised an eyebrow. "Why not?"

"Because," Serena said calmly, "I used Moon Healing twice in this room without
focusing it on any particular person.  It should have healed everyone equally,
and it did not affect Nakiad at all."

"Well, he did heal a little," the red scout began, then sighed. "But that is
his own healing, yes, I understand.  But why did he do his best to avoid 
you healing him, when he fought the Dark Lord, with Nephlyte, why 
was that?"

Serena thought for a moment. "I guess he was weak back then, and he is not, not
anymore.  Although the dark power left him, the light energy probably remains.
He is still outside my power, outside our laws.  In a way, he is not even a
part of our universe."

The others stared at the unusually perceptive speech, and Serena blushed and
smiled. "Or so I'd guess."  Then she grew serious again. "We need Amy.  And
Lita.  And Nakiad."

Darian turned slowly to look at Nakiad, then frowned. "You know," he said
slowly, "we keep dancing around this, but we never really get to it.  Nakiad's
mind is blocked, the dark power inside him went away.  We keep saying it like
that is naturally occurring, but somehow I doubt all of this is a coincidence.
We have to remember that we have a real enemy here, the one who is causing all
this."

Raye nodded. "I know, but we have no idea where he is, or who he is."  The red
scout yawned suddenly, then looked around. "We are all very tired, we have to
get some rest."  She glanced down at her clothes. "I've lost track of the last
time I haven't been in scout uniform."

Serena smiled a little. "For once, I agree.  We won't be able to think well if
we do not get some rest, and soon."

Artemis exchanged a long glance with Luna. "We've had enough sleep for now, and
we have another problem that we haven't talked about," the white cat said. "All
of your parents are getting very worried about your absence.  We've been doing
our best to keep their worries subdued over distance, but we really have to get
close for our powers to work fully.  So we are going to take the van and go
through all the people who are panicking and do our best to reassure them.  If
we have the time, we'll also see if we can get some information on where the
other scouts are."

Serena looked at the two cats, her face suspicious. "You two planned this,
didn't you?"

Luna smiled. "Just get your rest, scouts.  You are going to need it."

Darian nodded. "I'll make sure she does, don't worry."  He avoided the
princess' glare with skill born of long practice. "Just be back in several
hours."

The two cats nodded. "We will," Artemis answered.

Mina came out of the trance she had been in during the whole conversation.
"Guys, I think I'm going to stay here for a while, I've had enough sleep."

Artemis looked at her with worry. "Mina, you have to get rest.  Nakiad will be
fine, I've instructed the computer to tell us if anything at all happens to
him."

Mina looked at him with a flash of anger, but the anxiety in the guardian's
eyes stopped her before she said anything.  He had been very close to Nakiad as
well, she remembered, and she herself had not been great company to him of
late.  And the cat had accepted Nakiad's role in Mina's life though it had to
have been hard.

Her mind blurred a little as she remembered that the cat had always been there
for her, he had always been part of her life.  In the Silver Millennium, he had
guided her into her destiny, and on Earth, he had watched over her since she
had been a little girl.  

How could he not worry? she asked herself, sighing.

"I will, Artemis," she said softly, "I promise.  Just a few minutes more,
please?"

The white cat's eyes lightened a bit at the implied need for his understanding.
"Of course, Mina," he answered, his voice as soft as hers.



For long moments after the others had left, Mina did not move, thinking about
the pain that Nakiad's absence was causing everyone.  Then she remembered her
parents.

They were probably sick with worry for her now, despite the cats' interference.
And she had not even thought about them since she had woken up with Lita
staring frantically down at her.  Mina frowned at herself silently for that.

There was nothing she could do about that, she had to hope that the guardians
could take care of her parents' worry on their own.

Slowly, she turned to Nakiad, looked at his still form.  Of all the times for
him to be absent, a conflict like the one they were in was the worst.  The
scouts needed his advice.  She needed his advice.  Even more than that, they
needed his age, his wisdom, something they could lean against.

"Damn it, Nakiad," she asked his still form, "where are you when we need
you?"

Sighing, she walked out of the room, and behind her, the overhead lights
dimmed.  Only the Chosen was still lit by several focused beams, and he lay
motionless on the patch of white in the midst of darkness.

_	_	_


The world focused slowly, very slowly.  At first, the darkness was complete,
surrounding him, cutting off his senses.  Nakiad wondered for a moment if he
were dead again, placed into the same limbo he had remained in for millennia.
If so, thousands of years might have passed, and he would never have known it ,
never have realized the passage of time.

He tried to remember.

He was Nakiad, the Chosen.  But he had completed his job, he had faced the Dark
Lord, and-  His thoughts blanked and faded.

He could not remember.

He saw clearly the first time he had fought the Shadow, the hesitation, the
incredible pain when he had realized that he had betrayed his Universe.  And he
remembered the conversation with Queen Serenity, one of the few thing that had
kept him going during the times afterwards, the centuries on Earth.

Then more time in limbo, unknown time, unaffected time, motionless time.  It
had been millennia at the least, but he knew not even how many thousands of
years had passed.

He had found himself on earth at the end of the first millennium by the human
calendar.  And everyone was fighting, all the time.

He remembered the gauntlets.

Pain tore through the memories, and he forced his thoughts aside.

Time blurred in front of his eyes, and he saw Beryl destroyed again, almost a
thousand years later.  Then he had gone to face the Dark Lord, and Nephlyte had
imprisoned the Shadow, and he remembered coming back, his purpose
unfulfilled.

And the Dark Lord had broken free, and Nakiad had gone back to fight once more,
almost relieved in a way.  His life had meant something once more.

Then nothing.

The world wavered and focused more quickly, then became clear with a snap.

And Nakiad wondered where in the infinite number of universes he was.

_	_	_


Lita turned her head slightly, trying to make something out.  It was a slight
sound, and the green scout turned to her friend. "Mercury, I hear something."

Amy nodded. "Footsteps.  It seems that someone has finally taken notice of
us."

The person stepped out in front of their cell from one side of the corridor and
stopped.

Lita's eyes widened. "You!"

For a long moment, the detective looked at them without any expression, then he
nodded. "Indeed."

The green scout sighed and sat down against the wall again.  Amy remained
standing.

"Forgive the lack of furniture," the detective said, "but I was not the one
doing the planning."  He paused, seemingly realizing that he was not getting
anywhere with that trail of thought, then sighed. "Well, it is ironic, I
suppose, that you two are the ones who got captured.  The same ones who
protested by presence so wildly.  I believe you are Sailor Jupiter?"

Lita did not reply, continuing to stare sullenly.

He sighed again. "And you threatened me once, though you haven't done anything
to me yet."  He looked at Amy. "You, on the other hand, were rather rough with
me.  Twice, I think, but my memory of the second time is not particularly
good."

The scouts stared at him sullenly and he breathed out softly.  "Look," he said,
"can one of you just explain to me who you are, or what you are, or what you
are doing, or where you came from?  Just explain something to me, anything."

Amy glared at him, then came over to Lita and sat down next to the green scout,
facing out.

The detective smiled slightly and walked out of their view.  He was back in a
moment, carrying a stool, and he sat down on it. "Now that we are all comfy,
maybe we can talk."  He rubbed a hand down an obviously tired face. "From the
looks of you, you haven't exactly had an easy day either."

Amy glanced at Lita, and seemed about to say something, then stopped.  The
green scout realized that it was up to her to do something.  Amy had never
enjoyed confrontations.

The brunette closed her eyes for a moment, trying to remember the detective's
name.  Finally, she remembered. "Detective Williams?"

He smiled. "Well, that's something at least.  Yes."

"Well, detective," she continued, "you don't know what you are dealing
with, you do not know whom you are dealing with, and you have no idea what kind
of trouble you are creating by keeping us imprisoned."

He sighed again, and settled back. "I thought you might say something like
that.  Actually, I wasn't the only one who predicted that reaction, that was
why they allowed me in here. I'm here to soften you up for the big boys."

Next to Lita, Amy seemed to smile a little. "Good luck," the blue scout said
softly.

Lita looked over at her friend with surprise, then looked back at the
detective. "Look, surely you know that we're the good guys.  There must be
dozens of reports of us saving people from monsters."

He laughed shortly. "Reports, yes, but nothing conclusive.  And you were
attacking the city just now."

"They were fakes, surely that must have been obvious to you," Amy said.

He laughed shortly again, his voice tired. "Perhaps.  Or maybe not.  After all,
you did attack me, personally, why should I believe you?  And all those
previous fights could have been a hoax to make us believe you."  He rubbed his
eyes again. "The funny thing is, I don't think you are lying.  Or that you are
telling the truth.  I don't really know what to believe anymore, you see.  I
don't know if you are good or bad, or evil, or what.  So tell me."

Lita sighed. "This is what we've been risking our necks for, Mercury, you
know."

Amy's eyes narrowed. "No, we were risking our lives for something better,
something worth fighting for.  It does not matter whether anyone believes we
did it or not does not matter. As long as there is someone to believe, we have
done our job."  She raised her head. "You hear that, detective?"

He nodded slowly. "I'm listening."

Lita smiled to herself, leaving the arguing to her friend.  While Amy was not
particularly good at arguing, she was very convincing when she got down to
debate.

Amy sighed. "Are you?"  She shook her head. "Listen well, then.  We did not ask
for this job.  We did not ask to fight, we did not ask to be chosen as Sailor
Scouts.  We were just ordinary people, doing the best we could to lead happy
lives.  And then Beryl attacked us, again."

"Beryl?"

"Queen Beryl, leader of the Negaverse."

He smiled. "The Negaverse, yes, I see.  You are aware of how this sounds, of
course?"

Amy nodded. "Of course.  I am not stupid.  But it is true, and from where I am
sitting, it does not seem any more improbable than anything else you could come
up with for explaining what has been going on."

"Go on," he said calmly. "Like I said, I'm listening.  So are other people, of
course."

"Of course," Amy answered.  The blue scout seemed to gather her thoughts.
"Beryl attacked Earth once before, millennia ago, but no record is left of that
time.  We were there back then as well, and we fought against her then.  And
now, she came back, and we had to fight again, after thousands of years of
rest.  And we fought.  We were not given a choice, we were not paid to do it,
we did not get anything for it.  We fought because we had to, because the
Universe was in danger, because we could not let Beryl have her way."  Lita was
surprised at the fire in the blue scout's eyes. 

Amy did not even pause, her voice gaining strength with every word.  "We put
our lives on the line every time some monster came and attacked the world, and
we beat them back, all of them.  The five of us defeated Beryl herself, we
saved the Universe.  And since then, whenever something goes wrong, we are
there to fight, because we have to."  Amy's eyes flashed. "We put our life on
the line every day for people like you.  Just so you can go and put us in
prison and ask us questions, just so that you would have the chance to live."

For a long moment, Williams stared past them. Finally, he sighed. "And that's
it?"

Lita watched the anger fade from Amy's eyes as the blue scout answered.
"Yes."

"No take over the world plan, no enslaving of the human race?"

Lita forced herself to remain still.

Amy answered. "Only by the other side."

The detective nodded. "What about your powers?"

"They were given to us so we could fight."

"By whom?"

"By our destinies," Amy answered calmly.

Williams sat forward in his chair. "What about the man in black?"

Lita closed her eyes.  This was getting too complicated.

Amy's voice remained calm. "He's on our side.  But that's too hard to explain.
We are the good guys here, we do our best to do the right thing."

The detective remained silent for a few moments, then he sighed. "I believe
you," he said slowly. "I don't know why I believe you, but I do."

Lita opened her eyes with a snap and looked at Williams.  He seemed to be
telling the truth, his eyes were clear.  And the tired expression on his face
was genuine.  

The green scout forced her voice to be soft. "Then let us go," she said.

He sighed. "I can not."  He suddenly stood up and picked up the stool in one
hand.  "I must go."  He started walking away, then stopped and turned back.
"Why don't you just use your powers to break loose?"

"You said you were listening to our conversation," Amy said quietly.

He sighed. "I was hoping you were making it up, to confuse us."  He started to
walk away, then stopped again. "We did not take away your powers," he
whispered.  Then he was gone.

Lita let out a long sigh.  "Well, at least we know not everyone in the police
department is a complete idiot," she said.

Amy smiled. "Maybe not."  Then the blue scout's voice became calm again.
"Jupiter, we can't trust him, or anyone else in this place."

Lita nodded, slightly surprised at her friend, but agreeing. "I know.  Do you
think he was telling us the truth about the police not having taken our
powers?"

"Maybe.  I doubt they have the ability to do that anyway."

Lita smiled a little, forcing humor. "Well, now do you still think we're in
another universe?"

Amy smiled grimly. "I have to admit, being in a real police station does make
escape more feasible."

Lita sighed. "I wish we could."

"As do I," Amy said and leaned back against the wall, closing her eyes.

Lita followed suit.



Slowly, the darkness receded, relinquishing its hold over the cool night air.
Black gave way to dark blue, blue that pushed away the stars, and the clouds in
the east started to boil with color, the first light of the day.  The sun rose
majestically over the horizon, turning clouds of vapor into beacons of fire.
All over Tokyo, shadows fled from the rays of the sun, and the dark gray of the
city turned white on one side with the rising of the sun.

Everywhere, people rose, got out of beds, went to take a shower.  They awakened
slowly but unfailingly, pushed by the rising of the sun, by the slow but
unstoppable passage of time.  Breakfasts were made, clothes thrown on.  As the
shadows grew shorter, the few people in the streets were joined by more, and
more, and crowds gathered, all going somewhere, to work or to school, going on
with their life.  Laughter and cursing filled the streets, a thousand voices
pledging their faith in the new day, a million voices that had been silent for
many hours.

While the streets ran with color, Lita slept quietly, leaning against the wall,
the light of the new day blocked out by the seamless walls of her prison.  Next
to her, the blue scout's shape moved slightly, then was still as well.

Williams slept fitfully back at his house, the light blocked out by heavy
curtains.  He was exhausted, and even the events of the previous day had not
kept him awake.

The light shone over Nakiad's property, over his house, but it did not
penetrate the walls, did not go through the meters of steel and concrete.  Deep
within, scouts slept, exhausted by fighting.

The light of the new day did not penetrate inside the house, but one girl
seemed to feel it touch her, seemed to feel its presence.  Mina turned in her
bed, unable to fall asleep.

In the medical chamber, under the probes and sensors of the computer, Nakiad
did not move in his coma, did not turn.  His body remained as it had been
before, calm, quiet.

His mind was another matter.



He was at the bottom of an immense depression in a seemingly infinite plain.
For as far as he could see, black ground stretched out, rising steadily as it
got further away.  He was in the very center of a basin, with rows of ebony
earth all around him.  But it was not earth, it was not any kind of natural
covering.  It was black and hard and seamless, a stone monolith extending to
the dark horizon.  Above, an equally black sky seemed to tear ineffectively at
the scenery, trying to rip reality apart.  What seemed to be reality, anyway.

He stabilized himself slightly, lowering his center of balance.  He was not
alone in the plain.

Shadows flickered out of the infinite darkness around him, figures appeared
around him.  They faded out of blackness into physical existence, then faded
back, vanishing in the cold air.  A few were stable, remaining there permanently,
but even they flickered.  And the faces of all of them were dark, impossible to
distinguish.

A whisper rose from the flickering population around him, each of the figures
saying something, each inaudible.  But together, somehow, they made themselves
understood, and he flinched away from the onslaught.  The shadowy voice
repeated, around him and in his mind. 



More of the creatures appeared and each figure remained for longer periods of
time, the crowd extending slowly back and up away from him.

He looked around himself and struggled to remember.

He had gone to face the Dark Lord, and he had gone with a plan of some sort.
The gesture seemed suicidal, but there had been a purpose to it.

It was gone now, erased from his memory.  And everything after that was pure
darkness.

He wondered if he were dead.

The ground shifted suddenly, and Nakiad fought to retain his balance.  Next to
him, the ground slid and rumbled, and a second depression began to form.  The
earth moved slowly, flowing into the new gap for long seconds.  A moment
later, the black surface froze, and Nakiad looked at the new basin. The ground
between him and that depression rose slightly, separating them a little.  But
he could still see across.

A shadowy figure wavered in the air there, but was it was impossible to see any
detail.



The voices echoed in his mind and he whirled to face the crowd of shadowy
figures.

He concentrated, forcing his voice calm. "Who are you?" He asked aloud.



Now the whispering was mocking, surprised.  Nakiad's eyes closed a little,
focusing.  One of the figures was closer to him than any other, and that figure
was stable, it did not flicker in and out of existence like most of the others.
That figure seemed to lead the lashing thoughts, it seemed to be the leader.

"Should I?" He asked, addressing that figure specifically.

Then the shadow around that creature vanished, and he gasped.  

In his youth, during all his training, he had seen many paintings and
sculptures of artists trying to capture that graceful strength, that courage.
The resemblance was unmistakable.

The paintings did not do her justice.

She was Nemesis.

The first of the Chosen.

_	_	_


Mina sat up, her eyes wide open, then sighed and looked around.

The chamber the computer had led her to was surprising normal for Nakiad's
compound.  The only peculiar thing about was its haunting similarity to her
room back in England.  It was not anything physical, as the actual furnishings
were very different, it was just a general feeling, a strange atmosphere.  It
was comforting, somehow.

Yet she could not fall asleep.

Slowly, she got up, tossing the covers to one side.  She was dressed only in
the pajamas that had been in the closet.  For several minutes, she walked
slowly around the room, pacing, thinking.  Finally, she sighed and walked out
the door.

"Computer."

"Yes," it answered.

"Take me to Nakiad's room.  The one Amy was in?"

"Get into a lift," it answered.

She nodded and did.

_	_	_


Nemesis glared at him, her expression severe, and he looked back with wonder.

She was easily as tall as he was, and was built similarly, with a subtle
strength.  She wore a sleeveless leather shirt and pants, both blackened in
places and very worn.  Strong arms were at her sides, curled slightly, tense.
Her eyes, pure silver, seemed to cut through him, and short blonde hair curled
slightly in the windless air.  Her face was cast in sharp relief with anger,
but somehow he knew that she was always like this, strong and hard.

She had to be, he had seen the same expression a hundred times in mirrors.  But
there was something else, something in her eyes and her expression that he had
seen in himself, but could not interpret.

He continued staring at her, at the silver eyes, and felt coldness at the base
of his spine.  This was the person he had been supposed to replace.

She smiled grimly. "You recognize me."

He nodded, aware that it was not a question, but he answered. "Yes."  His voice
was surprisingly stable.

She nodded, the hard expression never leaving her face. "Then you know who they
are."  With one strong hand, she gestured around her.

The shadowy figures all around him intensified and cleared, became more solid.
The disappearances grew slower, and more and more of them remained for moments.
Nakiad forced himself to remain calm. "They are the Chosen," he said quietly.
She made no gesture to agree or to disagree. "How can this be?" he asked.

"It matters not," she answered shortly, then a whisper seemed to rise from the
crowd.  For moments, she allowed it to go on, and the wordless sound bore down
on Nakiad, seemed to press into his heart and soul.  He clenched his teeth and
kept his ground against the onslaught.

She threw up one arm and the sound stopped.  For long moments, she remained
quiet, then her eyes tightened. "You are strong," she said.

He swallowed, thoughts coming slowly to him. "As are you."

It was the wrong thing to say.  Her eyes flashed angrily. "We are dead."

He nodded. "I know.  But Guardian-"

"It matters not," she cut him off in mid sentence. "Our souls are dead, our
hearts are dead, our _purpose_ is dead."  Deliberately, she stared at him. "You
betrayed us."

He nodded again, dumbly. "I know.  I wanted to live, so I hesitated-"

She seemed surprised. "What?"

"I-"

She did not let him finish again. "You do not remember?"

He looked around himself, at the plain, the shadowy crowd, the wavering form in
the other depression, then back at her. "Remember what?"

She raised a strong arm, and pointed at the wavering figure in the other
depression.  Nakiad's eyes followed that direction, seemingly on their own.
And as he turned, he knew what he was going to see, his mind was sure.

The figure in the other depression stabilized and formed fully.  It was dark,
and the barrier made it hard to see and the figure was covered in a cloak and
looking down.

It did not matter, he recognized it anyway, and his hands tightened on their
own.

It was the Dark Lord.

He collapsed to his knees, remembering, and time blurred.

_	_	_


Mina breathed in the dark air slowly, carefully, and remained still.  She had
arrived to the huge black room several moments ago, but had not gone in,
remaining at the entrance.

She was not exactly sure what had prompted her to go there in the first place.
At first, she had thought it was only the insomnia and the constant thought of
him.  It might have been that which made her want to see the place Amy had
described.  Or perhaps, Mina thought, it was Amy's absence that had reminded
the orange scout of the room.

Mina shook her head slowly from side to side.  They were reasons, and they
justified her actions, but they were not the thing that had pushed her here.
Something inside the dark of the room seemed to be almost alive, it was drawing
her in.

She breathed out slowly, finally accepting that conclusion, and her heart
lightened slightly at the certainty.  Slowly, she stepped out into the
blackness, letting the tiny pressure in her mind guide her.

The dark closed in on her fast, cutting off all sight of everything else as she
continued through the room.  To her sides, she thought she saw shadows of
objects, but they vanished when she turned toward them, disappearing like
ghosts.  Breathing in slowly, she continued each time, forcing herself to 
relax against the impulse in her mind.

A row of shapes appeared from the darkness, like large boxes at first, boxes
slightly less black than their surroundings.  She walked toward them with
greater confidence, speeding up a little.

The dark fog cleared suddenly in a sphere of visibility, and she saw them.

They were display cases.

Mina shivered, remembering Amy's recount of the blue scout's experiences.  The
cases held weapons that had once severely injured the Chosen.  Spellbound, the
orange scout walked along the cases, staring at the deformed bullets, broken
knives, damaged swords.  The row seemed to extend forever in the darkness,
another case appearing from the darkness each time one faded away behind her.

With a jerk, she forced herself to move aside from the grim display.  Once
more, something pressed against her mind, guided her.

The fog parted.

To one side of her was a low bed, only inches off the ground.  In front of her
were two wooden stands.  She paused, looking at the weapons on them.

The other stand held the Dark Lord's sword, but her eyes slipped away from
that dark blade, and came back to Nakiad's ancient weapons.

One of his swords was on its stand, but the other was on the floor where the
Chosen had thrown it, she remembered.

Slowly, she reached out with one hand, toward the one weapon on the stand.
Somewhere in her mind, she wondered if she, too, would be thrown back by energy
like Nakiad had been.  But she could not seem to stop, her hand was acting on
its own.

In slow motion, her bare fingers brushed the perfect blade, and her body froze,
her mind flashed with pain.

A wave of images tossed into her thoughts, washed through her brain and heart.
She was in the darkness, in Nakiad's room, but she was also somewhere else.
Though the cold blade of the sword, another place was rushing into Mina.

The images were fast, too fast to see.  Faces flashed by her, pictures of
people in all situations, descriptions of things and people she had never seen.
She shivered silently.

Then one scene froze, and her eyes widened.

It was Nakiad, alive.  He did not seem to see her, and she knew that she was
not really there.  Her body was back in his room, standing alone in the dark.
But her mind was gone, trapped in the cold steel, and she was looking out
through the crystalline perfection of the weapon.

A long time ago.

She wondered where that thought had come from, but she knew it was right.

He was standing in the middle of a desert of gray, of pure powder that
stretched out for infinity.  In the background, breaking apart the landscape,
were ancient structures, shattered by some incredible force, destroyed
buildings of white marble.  Overhead, a sphere of blue and green hung
peacefully.

Nakiad bent, slowly, one clean hand reaching into the dust, and puffs of powder
reached up from his hands into the black sky.  His fingers combed through the
gray, then came up to his face.  In his palm, something glinted, a tiny object
like a transparent locket.  Around it, a golden chain fell through Nakiad's
fingers, covering his hand in a gentle cascade.

Mina flinched at the sight, the object somehow familiar, but she could not
connect it to anything.  Though her mind flickered, her hand could not move
from the cool steel of the sword, and her mind twisted around the strange
world.

The image turned, and it was Nakiad again, in the same place, the same time.
But the object in his hand was black this time, a sphere of darkness.

Gently, it fell to the ground, a puff of dust exploding from its impact.
Nakiad turned in slow motion, and he looked straight at Mina.  The orange scout
felt her heart slow at the sadness in his eyes.

Then pure light filled the scene, erasing him and the gray dust and the
buildings.  Everything gone.  As the energy vanished, Mina saw up for a moment
again, and she saw the sphere of blue and green again.

It was the Earth.

Then everything sprang into motion once more, and images flickered past her
mind, images she could not comprehend again.  The pictures flickered through
her mind and were gone.

Then they slowed, and the assault lessened.  She felt her lungs slow.

She was seeing the future, the near future.  Her mind widened.

But though the attack had lessened, she could not distinguished the mental
images thrown at her.  Vague concepts formed in her mind, then disappeared
without a trace, impossible to capture again.  They faded like a midnight's
dream, and she clutched at them desperately.  She had to know-

There was something about a staff and a sword, then it was gone.

A bright blue crystal flickered past her thoughts, and she felt weakness
associated with it, desperation and pain.

Then she gasped, and her hand almost left the sword.

The images froze on one, a single picture in perfect focus.

From the new reality, Nakiad stared straight at her, his eyes glazing into her
mind.  He was wearing his gi, but it was strange somehow, changed in a way she
could not quite pinpoint.  

But she did pay attention to his clothes, her mind was too focused on his face.
His eyes were hard and strong, his eyes looking straight at her.  And inside,
pain and hatred and age danced around freely, lashing out at her.

But despite the forces tearing at him from the inside, he looked like a man who
had finally found his way, had accepted his fate.

Behind him, a brilliant light shone, outlining his dark shape sharply against
the background, making his features a contrast of light and darkness.

Then that image twisted, and she shivered.

Darkness washed over her, pain that was not part of the image, but was at the
same time,  carried by the future that she saw.  And even more than that, the
single flash was surrounded by impending doom, a sense of all being lost.

An end.

The pain smashed into her mind, tore at her, and she felt herself yell as she
jerked back, and her hand flashed with pain as she tore it from the ancient
weapon.

And just like that, she was back in Nakiad's room again, and the images were
gone.  She sighed with relief, the pain dissipating in the darkness of the
room.  The black did not seem foreboding any more.  Instead, it was like a
womb, surrounding her, comforting her feelings.

Then she forced herself to look back at the sword, and she shivered again.
The urge to touch it was gone, replaced by a dark dread.  The image she had
seen was of the future, she knew that.  And somehow, she knew that she had not
learned enough.

But she could not face that future again.

She looked away, toward Nakiad's bed, and the image of his face, hard and
unrelenting flashed by her again, and she wondered how he was involved in
everything.

For a moment, she saw the sword on the floor again, and she knew she 
should pick it up, put it where it belonged, on the stand.  But she could not,
she could not face more images like the ones she had seen.

Slowly, she sighed and turned away in the direction the exit was supposed to
be.

Then a shape came out of the darkness and Mina gasped.

A moment later, she relaxed again. "Serena," she sighed quietly.

The princess smiled. "Who'd you expect, the big bad bogey man?" The blonde
stretched out her lips, making a face that almost made Mina laugh.  Serena
glanced around. "So what are you doing here?"

Mina shrugged. "I couldn't go to sleep, and I wanted to check the place out,"
she said, wondering why she was not telling the truth.

The other was looking around, oblivious to Mina's thoughts. "Nice place."
Suddenly, the princess' expression became serious as she looked into the orange
scout's eyes. "What's wrong?"

Mina glanced toward the swords, now almost hidden by the darkness, then back.
For a moment, she debated forgetting the whole thing, but she knew the images
had been important somehow. "I don't know," she finally answered, speaking
slowly. "Something made me come here, and made me touch one of the Chosen's
swords, and-" She stumbled.

Serena waited a moment before prompting. "And?" She asked softly.

"I got this image-" She stumbled again, "images rather, and I'm not sure about
all of them, but one has Nakiad standing and something bad is going to happen,
I can just feel it."  She stopped, realizing she was not being coherent. "It
sounds stupid, doesn't it?"

Serena looked at her friend seriously, then sat down on the bed. "I do not know
about that.  My mother-" The princess paused, her eyes looking somewhere far
away as she continued. "I remember my mother telling me about the powers of the
Chosen's weapons, and that no one, not even the Chosen themselves truly knows
what they are capable of."  Serena's eyes focused and looked at Mina. "Prophesy
is entirely possible."

Mina swallowed. "You mean-?" 

"I do not know," was the soft answer. "But I remember also that such prophesies
must never be taken as the truth, for they are often misleading.  And even when
they are literal, often the very knowledge of these predictions will change the
outcome.  And sometimes, the act of trying to escape the outcome brings the
prophesy true."  Serena sighed. "That is why I was told never to rely on such
things, and to avoid them at all costs.  They are too dangerous, sometimes even
more dangerous when they speak the truth."

The orange scout blinked, nodding. "So I should do nothing."

"Yes."

The orange scout felt her mind darken.  They had spent too much time lately
doing nothing, and it had not led to anything good.  "Then what," Mina asked
softly, "made me come here, what made me touch the blade in the first
place?"

Serena looked up, her face calm and clear. "I do not know.  All I know is that
no one can live their life according to what they think their future holds.
That is why I sometimes fear for Raye, she is far too dedicated to her destiny.
She is strong, but even her strength will wear out eventually."

Mina looked at Serena, surprised at the change in the princess.  Serena was
composed, almost as if she were her old self from the Silver Millennium
again.

Serena suddenly grinned, aware of the scrutiny, and her face became light once
more. "What?" she asked, turning he head.

Something on her meatballs flashed, and Mina looked closer. "What are those?"

They looked like crystal spiders attached to the funny round parts of Serena's
hair.  Mina looked at them with curiosity, glad for the distraction.

The princess glanced up, then frowned in annoyance when the objects moved with
her head, avoiding her sight.  "Oh, didn't Lita tell you?"

Mina blinked, looking at the tiny crystals with curiosity.  "Tell me what?  No,
she didn't have enough time for more than a brief summary of everything that
had happened."

Serena smiled strangely. "Nakiad left us all stuff in case something like this
happened.  I forgot all about that, there's something there for you too."

"What?"

Again, there was that mysterious flash in the princess' eyes. "I don't know
what it is, they're all keyed personally.  You should go check it out."

"Wait, first," Mina stared at the crystal, "what are those things?"

Serena grinned, wiping away the seriousness as she leapt up. "Here, I'll show
you."  The princess closed her eyes and whispered. "Moon Crystal Power."

Bright light surrounded the girl, pushing back the darkness as Serena
transformed into Sailor Moon.  Mina watched with interest, never having gotten
over the way the scouts changed.  When she transformed herself, it seemed
natural, but seeing it on another was always impressive.

Serena smiled again, in her Sailor Moon form. The crystal spiders did not seem
affected by the transformation, they remained on top of the red circles on the
princess' meatballs. "All right, let's hope this place can take a little
earthquake."

Mina blinked. "Earthquake?  Wait," she yelled, "Serena, are you sure-" She
never got a chance to finish.

The crystal spiders pulsed with power, and the air blurred.  Mina clapped both
hands to her ears as an impossibly loud shriek slammed into her, and the ground
under her feet blurred.  She struggled to retain her balance.

Then the sound was gone, and everything was stable once more.  Mina got back on
balance, glaring at Serena.

The princess laughed nervously. "Um- oops.  I sort of forgot, these things do
have a rather stronger effect on humans than they do on scouts.  Sorry,
Mina."

"Sorry?"  Mina continued to glare, not really angry, but glad to have some
distraction from the images she had seen.

"Uh.. yeah." Serena nodded comically, her pigtails bouncing.

Mina could not help grinning at the sight. "Oh, forget it."  She grew serious
again. "Wait, what do you mean, Nakiad left these for us?"

Serena frowned. "He put them in safes only we could open, that would only be
revealed to us by the computer if we were in trouble."

Mina sighed. "Typical," she whispered.

The princess put her hand on Mina's shoulder. "What do you mean?"

"Don't you get it?" Mina turned, pushing her friend's hand away roughly. "He
doesn't trust us."

For a moment, Serena seemed confused. "Who doesn't?"

"Nakiad.  Every time we turn around, there's something new he's made up for us,
something we didn't know before."

"Is that not a good thing?"

"No.  He tells us what he thinks we should know, not what we want to know.  Not
what we need to know."  Mina sighed. "I don't know what it is, but something-"
She paused, trying to gather her thoughts. "When I think about him, about all
the experience that he has, I just can't help thinking that he is so much older
that he has no reason to trust us."

Serena looked at her friend seriously. "Perhaps his experience tells him that
he should believe in us.  Mina, you know we need him.  Before him, we were just
a disorganized group of teenage girls who knew nothing of true combat.  Now we
are a team, we know how to fight, we are sure of ourselves.  He has given us
his strength, his confidence."

"But not," Mina said bitterly, "the ability to survive without him."

Serena's eyes flashed. "You're wrong, Mina.  That is one thing he has made sure
to teach us: how to survive, how to keep going.  How many times has he told you
never to give up, even if the situation is hopeless?"

Mina blinked, surprised at her friend's vehemence. "I-"  She paused. "I'm not
sure.  Serena, you know I love him, but sometimes, the things he does-"  She
looked up seriously. "Sometimes he scares me."

The princess nodded, the anger fading from her eyes.  "Darian and I do not
always see something the same way either, but that does not mean we do not love
each other."  Serena smiled, relaxing. "I think you should go and see what he
left you."

Mina sighed. "What did he leave the rest of you?"

"Weapons, mostly, in one form or another."  Serena smiled again, and something
about her face made Mina think the princess knew something.

The orange scout did not press the issue. "Then I guess I can expect the same."
She started toward the door. "Are you coming?"

"Naah," Serena answered. "I think you should see whatever he left you on your
own. Besides, I want to check this room out, it is way cool."

Mina nodded quietly and walked out.



For a long time, Serena stared at the orange scout's back, the she looked up at
the invisible ceiling. "I had better be right about this," she said quietly.

Slowly, she turned to one side, attracted by the sword on the floor, and
she finally surrendered to the impulse, bending and picking the weapon
up.  For a moment, as her fingers first touched the smooth handle, she
froze, almost expecting something, but nothing happened.  It was just
an ordinary weapon, a sword.

Easily, she put it next to its mate, on the stand, then her hand flinched
away.  She turned to another door and went out, not stopping to look at 
anything else.

_	_	_


The door opened smoothly and Mina stepped into the brightly lighted room.
Behind her, the weapon gallery was cut off by the closing entrance.  She
ignored the door, looking around.  To one side of her were several panels with
symbols on them, all of them dark but one.  The last, still brightly lit,
caught her eye immediately.  It was the sign of Venus. Her sign.

Mina turned away from the panels, looking at the rest of the room, loath to
find out what was beyond the panel, then turned back.  She shrugged, realizing
she had to do it, and putting it off would not make it any easier, then sighed
and walked forward until she was directly in front of the panel bearing her
sign.

The symbol of Venus flashed brightly, then paled again, and Mina crouched into
a fighting stance as the air in front of her flickered.  A figure appeared in
the air, forming out of patches of light, and for several moments, the orange
scout stared with disbelief.  It was Nakiad.

Slowly, she reached out one hand to touch him, but her fingers passed through
the surface of the image without resistance.  As her hand penetrated inside the
projection, black shadows scattered through it and she realized it was a
hologram of some sort.  She pulled back her arm slowly, watching the shadows of
her fingers grow small and disappear, the darkness erased from his inside.

Mina glanced at the panel briefly, but it was still closed, so she looked back
at Nakiad.

"Sailor Venus," he said, startling her slightly.  He was in his black gi, and
his face was fully serious.  Darkness seemed to flicker even behind the
hologram's eyes.

But his voice was the same as ever.

He closed his eyes briefly, and the image flickered. "There are many weapons in
my arsenal, just beyond the door you came though," he said slowly.  "Many of
them are very potent, and all can cause severe damage.  I have even more
weapons in my mind, things that I might be able to build if I had the wish to.
But in terms of sheer power, there is little I could give you that could match
the strength of your meteor shower attack.  A few weapons put out more energy
than your crescent beam, but even those are difficult to make."

He looked down for a moment and sighed. "I am either dead or useless now, so I
guess there is no harm in me talking about anything that I might not want to
ordinarily." He was looking at her, and yet past her, the holographic eyes
unfocused. "All that is left of the Moon Kingdom is dust now.  But not
everything has been annihilated."

He looked up, straight at her. "Millennia ago, you lost something, something
precious and powerful.  It is one of the few things that survived the
destruction of the Silver Millennium, one of the few things capable of
surviving."  The edges of the panel glowed briefly, then the cover warped and
twisted somehow, disappearing.

Nakiad looked at her again, and a strange look was in his eyes. "Do not fear
fate, Sailor Venus," he said softly.  "For I love you, and will be with you in
your heart, always."

Then his image disappeared, but for long moments, Mina continued to stare
straight ahead.  There was no way he could have know what swords would show
her, she told herself quietly.  But his statement seemed to fit the
circumstances too well for it to be mere chance.  She sighed.  Again, he would
not tell her what was truly going on, again she wondered just what it was that
drove her.

Unconsciously, she wiped the tear off her cheek.

Then she forced herself out of her status and stepped forward to the gaping
hole in the wall where the panel had vanished.  A tray appeared out of it,
seeming to react to her proximity.  On top of the tray was a simple small
box.

Mina blinked and reached out, picking it up.  In her hands, the wood seemed
fitting somehow, a simple rectangular box, almost seamless.  It was like Nakiad
in a way, a simple exterior in seamless, flowing motion.  Slowly, she opened
it, and a strange wave passed over her.

Inside was a silver chain necklace with a clear crystal stone on it.

She had seen it before.

Her mind flashed slowly, but she could not remember, she knew she would not,
for the memory was not from her lifetime.  She had experienced similar feelings
when she had first met the scouts, and when she had seen Artemis for the first
time.  But it had been nothing like this, this feeling went far deeper into her
heart.

She reached out with one faltering hand, and her finger brushed the stone
surface softly.  At her touch, the crystal ignited into a soft blue color and
she jerked back, surprised.  The blue burning seemed to flare, and spread out
without intensifying, until everything around her was glowing the same gentle
blue.  Then the color turned and dove into her eyes, into her mind, and her
thoughts dissolved into the past.

_	_	_


She jerked straight up in her bed, her eyes suddenly wide open against the
familiar room.  She was covered in cold sweat, and her heart was smashing hard
against the inside of her ribcage, trying to get out.  Only slowly did the icy
grip of terror relax and she sighed, looking around her room, the chamber
unchanged as always.  Outside, the Earth was just over the horizon, outlining
the rest of the imperial palace with its deep blue

At the sight of planet, she felt tears come to her eyes again.  The pain had
subsided slightly over time, replaced by a dull ache around her heart.  Around
her, everyone was solemn and quiet, only increasing the pain she felt,
deepening her loneliness.  And although her friends had done their best to lend
their strength, she did not think she would ever recover.

No one talked about it, but the change in the air was all too visible.  Even
right before the time had come, though everyone had been serious, hope had
been in all hearts.  But after Nakiad failed to return, everyone knew what the 
future held, and a shadow settled over the kingdom.  Slowly, the heavy truth 
sank in.

The Silver Millennium was coming to an end.

After the first day after the time of the battle, things returned to normal.
Every night, the fireworks still lit up the sky in dazzling colors, and people
gathered in the palace to dance.  But their faces were no longer carefree,
their hearts no longer light.  They stared at walls more often than at the
spectacular Earth, and those looks that were directed towards the blue-green
planet were filled with suspicion and fear.

Mina felt the change in the people around her, and knew they needed her, needed
the Sailor Scouts.  But the pain was too great, and she drifted through the
days like a ghost, not really noticing the passage of time.  She had thought
that the first few days were the worst, with open pain tearing at her all the
time, but it was no better now.  The tightness around her heart remained with
her every waking moment, and she could not escape the utter helplessness that
gripped her.

Her friends had tried to help her, but it did not matter to her, the pain was
too great.  Even Artemis, himself very hurt, had suppressed his own feelings
long enough to try to help her, but she had closed herself even to him.  The
hurt look in his eyes when he retreated out of her chambers had only added to
the coldness in her heart.

After that, she had sent everyone away, allowing only servants to bring her
what little food she ate.  Outside, the sun turned slowly in the horizon, but
time's passing meant nothing to her.

For long moments, Mina remained sitting upright in her bed, not moving.  Her
eyes, blurred by tears, roamed over the room, not focusing on anything for what
might have been seconds or minutes.  Then she blinked, feeling her eyes stop.
She was looking at the top drawer of her table.  It was the place where she
kept all the things dearest to her, including the gifts Nakiad had given her.
They were not many, and not very remarkable.  They were mostly things he had
made on his own, or stones or artifacts he had found on his combat training
tours.  Crystals from faraway places, things that could be easily duplicated on
the Moon.  But their distant origins made their value.  To Mina, that Nakiad
had given them to her made those things more precious than anything in all the
universes.

She had not opened the drawer since he had left, the pain too great for her to
bear.  But she had to do it sometime, she thought quietly.  The ache in her
heart would not stop.

Mina shivered slightly, then forced her hands to tense.  Slowly, she got up,
her hair getting in her way for a moment, then she was standing up, swaying
slightly.  She sighed, wondering what time or even what day it was.  She had
stayed in bed for a long time, certainly, and time had become of little
significance.  With the Earth motionless in the sky, judging the passage of
time was difficult at best.

She crossed the room with silent footsteps and reached out for the handle of
the drawer, opening it.

Her eyes filled with tears again when she saw its contents.  A bracelet made
out of a jovian fire-eel hide, one of the most dangerous creatures in
existence.  It was also one of the most beautiful, its hide glowing a
spectacular red long after the creature itself was gone.  Nakiad had been
attacked by one while training in Jupiter's higher gravity field, and he had
been forced to fight the hideous thing.  Mina's eyes blurred.  There was a
stone from the bottom of Mercury's deepest oceans, where sunlight never
penetrated, where only the deadliest creatures could survive.  Nakiad had been
utterly exhausted when he had come back from that ordeal, but he had survived.
He had always survived.

Until now.  It was not possible to see because of her tears, but she did not
really want to.  Slowly, she began to close the drawer, feeling her soul
sinking again, then something caught her eye.

It was a box.  She blinked her sight clear of the tears, the pain retreating a
little, hovering at the edges of her conscious mind but not attacking.  She
focused on the object.

There were several boxes in the drawer that contained the more fragile things,
but she did not remember this one.  It was a simple cube of dark wood with no
visible seams.  She reached out to pick it up and it was so small that it fit
on one of her palms easily.  She backed slowly away from the drawer, then sat
down on her bed once more.

Mina breathed in, and the smell of wood filled her nose, cleared her mind.
Nakiad had liked working with wood.  He had told her that it was one of the few
nonviolent things he knew how to do.  The scent of the box reminded her of him,
but there was something more, an unmistakable aura of him about the box.

Her eyes wide with wonder, her pain briefly forgotten, she pulled the top of
the box up.

It opened smoothly, a seam appearing halfway down the smooth wood, and the
cover came off.  Inside was a small, orange-stained velvet bed.  And on top of
it was a simple golden chain with a crystal in the center.

She breathed out slowly, looking at the simple stone.  It was an elongated
crystal, completely transparent, every edge was perfectly cut.  With one
finger, she reached out and touched it.

In that moment, it turned a haunting blue color, lighting up the rest of the
box.  Surprised, she jerked her hand away.  But in that instant, she had felt
something in her heart that she had not felt for a long time.

Not daring to breathe, Mina touched the stone again, and it turned that strange
blue once more.  But she did not withdraw her hand, and the stone dimmed
slightly, its color shifting.  The blue turned into a dark purple color, a
color that matched her sadness perfectly.

But at the same time, the crystal sent warmth through her finger, warmth that
went straight to her heart.  The pain that cut at her mind relaxed and
loosened, retreating another step.  

For long moments, she stared at the stone in wonder.  The edge of the pain was
gone, just like that.  The sorrow was there, but it was no longer torture just
to exist.

She breathed in slowly, drawing in as much air as she could and her eyes closed
on their own.  The pain melted from her mind, retreating at the warmth of the
crystal, standing back.

And when she opened her eyes, her mind was clear as it had not been for days.

Nakiad was gone, transformed into Guardian like all the other Chosen before
him, and she had lost him forever.  That pain would remain with her forever,
she knew.  But she was a Sailor Scout, she could not let others down because of
her loss.

Mina looked down with wonder at the small crystal, its dark purple brightening
a little, shifting toward the blue.  With steady hands, she lifted the necklace
over her head and put it on her neck, moving her hair out of the way.  The
crystal glowed reassuringly above her heart, continuing to warm her.

Mina walked the few steps toward her door, then stopped and came back to the
mirror, examining her face.  She looked horrible, not having had the will to
even change her clothes for several days.  For a moment, the scout debated
changing, but she did not feel like she had the time.  Outside the walls of her
building, people were afraid, sad, in pain.  She had no right to indulge
herself in cleanliness, not after abandoning everyone the way she had.
Quickly, she smoothed her clothes down and wiped the tears off her face.  She
was not really presentable, but it was certainly better than the way she had
looked before.  And her eyes were bright again.  She might not be able to smile
yet, but perhaps, she could walk out into the world.

Nodding with new strength, she walked out of her room and headed for the center
of the palace.

Around her, people passed by, all of their faces grim.  Occasionally, one would
turn to look at the rising Earth, and their eyes flashed with fear.  She
hurried, wondering what was going on.  Even when she had retreated into her
room, things had not been that bad.  Or had they been?  she wondered, almost
running toward the main palace.  She cursed herself for her self-pity.  Nakiad
would have never condoned it.

She glanced up at the majestic main building, her face going toward the sky,
then she stopped.  A small white light was coming from one of the towers, the
tower she knew to be one of the forbidden rooms, where only the Royal Family
could go.  Frowning, she ran up the stairs into the large room that served as a
sort of hallway.

"Mina!"

She stopped, turning toward the yell, and saw Serena.  The princess was in her
white dress, but she looked like she had been crying.  The look on the girl's
face when she saw Mina, however, was one of joy.

The orange scout felt tears come to her eyes again. "Serena, what's going
on?"

The blonde girl grinned foolishly. "It's terrible," Serena said through the
grin, looking a little ludicrous. "I mean, it's great to see you are back- you
are back, aren't you?"

Mina's hand came up to the crystal, then came down and she nodded. "I am.  Now
what's happening?  Why is everyone so grim all of a sudden?"

Serena nodded, her eyes still shining with happiness, but her face serious.
"Someone called Queen Beryl has taken over the Negaverse, and we think she is
launching a strike at Earth even now.  Sources tell us that there has been
betrayal there.  Prince Darian is going to arrive in a few days to explain, I
think."  Serena flushed at that last.

Mina's breathing stopped. "Princess, how long have I been gone?"

Serena closed her eyes. "Almost three weeks have passed since Nakiad's
departure."

Three weeks? Mina screamed in her mind.  She could not have been gone three
weeks, she thought frantically, and tried to remember.  The days on the moon
were so different from those on Venus that time's passing was difficult to see-
Mina paused in her thoughts, realizing it could very well be true.  "Princess
Serena, can you ever forgive me?" she asked quietly.

The other girl blinked, then nodded. "Your behavior is understandable, given
the circumstances," she replied in her best princess tones, then grinned. "It's
good to see you back, Mina.  The scouts aren't the same when not working as a
team."

The orange scout nodded, then remembered the necklace.  "Serena, I need to talk
to Queen Serenity."

The princess' face turned worried again. "She isn't seeing anyone."

Mina blinked, taken aback. "She is not-?"  The orange scout stopped.  Queen
Serenity was always glad to talk to any of her subjects at almost any time.
And even during the most important meetings, the scouts' concerns took
priority. "Why not?" Mina finally asked.

"I don't know."  Serena sobbed. "She's been in one of the forbidden rooms for
over eight hours now, and she ordered everyone to stay away."  Mina's heart
melted when she saw the look of pain in Serena's voice. "Mina, she's using the
Imperium Silver Crystal."

Mina gasped. "But wouldn't that kill-?" She stopped herself.

But Serena's eyes did not blink. "No, she isn't using it in that way.  But she
is using it, and that means that something is wrong.  I do not know what or
why, but the crystal's power-" She sighed. "It's too dangerous to use unless
the act is absolutely necessary."

Mina nodded, her hand falling away from the crystal on her neck. "I understand.
When do you think she will be finished?  I really need to speak to her."

The new voice rang clearly through the chamber. "I am finished."

Mina felt herself relaxing slightly as she turned. "Queen Serenity," Mina said
to the figure that came out of a hallway leading into the large chamber.

"Mother," Serena sighed. "You are all right."

"And why would I not be, daughter?" Serenity answered calmly.  But the Queen's
eyes were focused on Mina, and the orange scout was acutely aware of how tired
Serenity looked. "Sailor Venus, I am glad you are back."

Mina bowed. "Thank you, Queen Serenity.  Forgive me for my lack of control,
but-"

"No need to explain, child."  Mina looked up and saw a look of pain pass behind
Serenity's eyes. "I, too know the pain of losing someone dear to me."

Mina shivered, remembering again the pain of Nakiad's absence, but it was
sorrow now, behind her. "Thank you, my Queen."  A tear slid down her cheek.
"Please, could you tell me what this is?" She asked softly, and raised the
crystal in one hand.

Serenity came up to the orange scout quietly to look at the crystal.  

The Queen breathed out.  "Indeed, I do know what this is," she said.

Mina shivered involuntarily. "Nakiad left it for me, I think."

"I know, Sailor Venus."  Serenity's eyes were sad. "This is a Dailous stone,
one of the few in existence, and one of the most valuable crystals in the
universe.  I do not know where the Chosen could have gotten it, but I had been
taught that the last of the Dailous stones had been long discovered.  Nakiad
could not have gotten one of those, for I would have heard of it, so he must
have found the one you hold on his own.  That he was able to speaks volumes for
his ability, for every accessible place in the known Universe had been searched
for such treasure many millennia ago."

Mina breathed out softly. "When I touched it, it started glowing and it is warm
without being warm-  Queen Serenity, what is it?"

The Queen put her hand on Mina's shoulder. "The Dailous stones are ancient and
their secrets are long buried.  But whoever has one close by will never truly
be alone, will never know despair.  There a fire in human hearts that burns
with a hot fire and keeps you going no matter what. Somehow, the Dailous
crystals serve to keep that flame alive, to keep you warm during the coldest
ice storm."

Mina looked down at the necklace. "It must be very valuable then."

"Indeed," Serenity answered quietly, and her eyes shone with old memories.
"Sailor Venus, I know that Nakiad loved you more than anything else in the
world, but he had his duty.  I wish it were otherwise, but he did what he had
to do."

Mina looked up, letting the crystal drop into its place over her heart again.
"I know, my Queen.  And I will do no less."

"Nor I," a male voice interrupted, and Mina turned once more.

"Artemis!" She exclaimed, her heart leaping at the sight of the white cat.  The
guardian looked exhausted, but his eyes were full of hope.

"Sailor Venus," he answered quietly.

She scooped him off the floor, hugging him as best she could. "Artemis, I'm so
sorry," she sobbed out, tears coming to her eyes again.

He laughed, his voice as tired as the rest of him. "It matters not, Mina, it
matters not."

The orange scout nodded, and looked up for a moment.  Through the window, the
night glittered with stars, and behind it, the Earth loomed in the sky.
Somewhere out there was Nakiad, neither alive nor dead, now part of history.

She would let him, she promised silently.

The sorrow would burn in her heart until the end, but it was not pain, only
sadness.  And faith.



She screamed when the shadow's blast slammed into her, and Mina felt herself
lifted off the ground.  Above, the hideous shadowy figure raised its dark arm
again, and the orange scout yelled as another blast hit.  She saw her friends
separated from her by the impact, felt the laugh of the four generals.  Then
the energy slammed into her again, and she felt the cold darken her heart.

Her eyes were closed, but she somehow saw the chain about her neck shattering,
saw the crystal fly off in a separate direction, following its own fate.  The
stone landed softly in the moon dust, half buried in it, and the chain raised
dust as it collapsed around the crystal.

Then the darkness hit her again, and she remembered nothing more.

_	_	_


The blue of the crystal faded slowly from her mind, from her memories, and Mina
sighed, staring into the glowing stone.  Unnoticed tears rolled slowly down her
cheeks.

The chain was different, silver instead of gold, finer somehow, more refined.
And the box was different, made out of a darker wood.  But the crystal was the
same, unchanged after millennia of waiting.  For long minutes, she only stood
there, crying silently, letting her pain drain out of her eyes, then she
breathed out and looked at Nakiad's hologram.

"Thank you," she whispered quietly to the image.



The scout of Venus slept silently, her face smooth and silent, her mind at
rest.  And the crystal over her heart glowed blue again, its power awakened for
the first time since the end of the Silver Millennium.



Outside, the sun traveled through the sky, and the shadows of buildings moved
with it, avoiding its deadly rays.  In the west, it touched the mountains and
set, and night was in Tokyo again.

_	_	_


Darian sipped his molash, wincing only slightly.  When he had first tried the
stuff, he had agreed with Lita's first assessment, it did not taste at all
palatable.  But now, months later, he was actually used to the burning taste.
And it did serve to wake him up.  Even, he thought, after a day of sleeping in
all his clothes with Serena turning in his arms.  He smiled ruefully, glancing
at his love.

Serena was drinking tea with her eyes closed, apparently not completely awake
yet.  He was not surprised at that, even though she had assured him that she
was up.  Across from them, Raye's eyes were fully bright, she had been
meditating rather than sleeping.

Mina walked in, and Darian raised one eyebrow.  The night before, the orange
scout had looked horrible, now she seemed impossibly recovered.  There was a
trace of sadness in her eyes, but the pain seemed to be gone.  His subconscious 
registered something strange about her appearance, but he couldn't quite get 
it.  The prince drained the last of his molash, placing the cup on the table before 
he realized what it was that was different.

She was wearing a silver chain that was visible on her neck before it
disappeared under the white gi all of them were wearing.  If he remembered
correctly, she had never worn a necklace before- He frowned, stopping his
thoughts.  The thing did look a little familiar, but he could not quite put a
mental finger on it.

"Hi guys," she said calmly, looking around at the group.  All of them looked
ordinary in the gis, none having had the strength or need to transform yet.
And the gis seemed to be the most popularly used forms of dress in Nakiad's
compound, anything else was hard to locate.

Serena groaned. "Morning, Mina.  Why is it that we had to wake up this early
again?" The princess asked.

Raye snorted. "It's late, not early.  We've slept through all of the day, the
sun has set almost an hour ago."

Darian sighed, wondering if he would ever switch to his ordinary schedule
again.  "What'll you have, Mina?" He asked, forcing his voice bright. "We have
tea, coffee, lemonade, molash, ten molar sulfuric acid."

She frowned at that last.

The prince smiled. "I don't know why he keeps it in that fridge, but it's
there.  Maybe he uses it to wake up."

"Wouldn't surprise me in the least," Raye grumbled softly. "Where are the
guardians?  They ought to have been back by now."

Mina smiled, sitting down with a cup of tea. "They'll be back.  We have to get
Lita and Amy back," she added in a matter of fact tone.

Darian smiled, sitting back. "Easier said than done.  Where are they?"

"I don't know," the orange scout answered.

"But we do," Luna said from the doorway.

"Artemis," Mina yelled out, turning. "Where have you two been?"

The white cat leapt up to the table. "Going around your parents mostly, trying
to calm them down.  No mean task when they are going out of their mind with
worry.  More importantly, however, do you remember Peter Williams?"

"Yeah," Serena answered, "he was the cop, right?"

"Who?" Mina asked almost at the same time.

Luna sighed, jumping up next to Artemis. "He's the detective who's been 
stalking us, the one who's been going after Nakiad, the one at the mall.  
The cops have even managed to capture the Chosen at one point." Mina 
nodded. "Anyway," Luna continued, "we found out where he lived and 
came there, and he was just getting up.   We did out best to read his 
mind, and something serious is worrying him."

Darian blinked, realizing what the guardians were saying. "You mean," he said
slowly, "that you think he knows where the scouts are, and he feels guilty
because he helped capture them?  Don't you think that's jumping to
conclusions?"

Artemis grinned. "Of course.  But we don't exactly have any other leads.  We
haven't been able to read anything more than his surface thoughts, our mental
powers weren't really made for that sort of thing.  But we were thinking, if he
is feeling bad about the situation-"

"Then maybe," Serena finished, "he'll tell us if we ask.  Great idea."

Raye sighed. "If it works," she said sullenly. "You do realize the amount of
guesswork you all are doing?"

Darian smiled to himself. "Of course we do, that's the way we work best.  Like
Artemis says, we don't have many options."

Raye just sighed, annoyed.

Artemis looked around. "So are we going?"

"Yeah, sure," the red scout nodded.

"Wait," Mina said suddenly. "Yesterday I-  Serena knows part of it, but I
think-"  She halted, confused.

Darian glanced over at Serena, but said nothing.  She had gone out at night to
check up on Mina, and had come back some time later, but the princess had been
unusually close-mouthed about the whole thing.  He turned to Mina, listening.

The orange scout sighed. "I couldn't sleep, so I went to Nakiad's room, the one
Amy told all of us about before I got shot.  But it wasn't just sleeplessness,
something was pushing me there, and I am not sure what it was and when I came
there, that something made me touch one of Nakiad's swords."  Mina closed her
eyes. "I saw what I think were images from the past and the future.  Serena
told me that such prophesies are not to be trusted, but it seemed so real- The
image I remember the most was that of Nakiad, standing against a really bright
darkness.  And I got really bad feelings about that scene, like something
really horrible was about the happen."

"Mina," Serena said after a moment, "I told you that prophesies like that are
often false."

Raye nodded. "For once, I'm with Serena.  Things the fire tells me are always
true, at the time that they are being told.  But the very telling could change
those things.  That's why it is not a good idea to rely on predictions alone.
Destiny is one thing, but a brief image is another."

"I know," Mina answered. "But it is still scary."

Raye turned around in her chair to face Mina. "You said you saw other images,
what were they?"

"They are all kind of fuzzy.  I saw Nakiad, in the middle of the some ruins,
picking up something from the-" She gasped.

"What is it, Mina?" Artemis asked, concerned.

The orange scout grasped the chain around her neck and pulled out a lightly
glowing crystal.  Darian frowned, narrowing his eyes.  It was similar to stone
Nephlyte had been using to locate the Imperium Silver Crystal, except this 
one was only half that size and transparent.

Artemis breathed out softly. "A Dailous crystal.  Is it the same one?"

Mina nodded. "That image must have been Nakiad getting it, so those ruins were
the ruins of the Moon Palace."

"Of course," Darian interrupted, "with the atmosphere destroyed by Beryl, the
ruins should have survived almost indefinitely.  There would only be meteors to
damage them further."

Mina's eyes widened. "So the images had been true.  Then- I saw him standing
up, and he was holding something dark in one hand, and the next feeling was one
of destruction. And-"

Darian sat forward, getting an idea. "A bomb."

The orange scout looked at him with wide eyes. "Yes, that's what it felt like,
and the next image was one of total destruction."  Her breathing softened. "He
must have destroyed what was left of the palace to keep it from being
discovered.

Darian sat back, satisfied. He had wondered why none of the space probes had
discovered the ruins.  What Mina had seen did not explain how Nakiad had gotten
to the moon in the first place, but with the Chosen, just about anything was
possible.
 
Luna frowned. "When was this?"

Mina shrugged. "I have no ide-" She stopped, her eyes unfocused. "No, there was
a feeling like it happened in the past, not long ago, but-  Before any of us
were reborn, almost certainly, but long after the end of the Silver
Millennium."

Serena blinked, and Darian turned a little, wondering how long it would take
her to get it. "Wait," the princess finally said. "We were _there_.  When Queen
Serenity explained to us what was going on with Beryl, and when she made us
remember.  And then again, when Serenity gave me the Moon Scepter-  or was that
in my mind?  I'm not sure."

"Certainly the first time, we were there," Raye said sharply. "And there were
ruins there."

Darian smiled. "I suspected that it was an illusion when you first told me, the
amount of energy required to teleport you all to the moon would have been
enormous.  And without an atmosphere there, there was no way you ought to have
survived.  And the spacecraft launched by Earth would have detected the
ruins."

"Oh," Serena said faintly.

The prince looked back toward Mina. "I'm more curious about that crystal you
are wearing.  What is it?"

Mina smiled, reaching up with one hand. "It is a gift from Nakiad, long ago."
She sighed. "I guess you don't remember."

Darian blinked.  It looked familiar, but he could not quite place it. "No, I do
not."

Artemis smiled knowingly. "I do."

"I hate to interrupt this, guys," Luna said suddenly, "but I think maybe we
have business to attend to.  He was getting up when we came, he might be on his
way out, and we don't know where he works."

Raye nodded, getting up. "We should take the van instead of the portal, we may
have to get out of wherever the others are being held rather quickly."

"Right," Mina said, "and you all can fill me in on exactly what happened while
I was in the hospital on our way."

_	_	_


Williams sighed, picking up the briefcase.  He had thought that a full day's
sleep would help him, and it had, to an extent.  But the sleep had been fitful,
and he had woken up battered and confused.  Sighing, he stabbed the lights
shut, knowing that he could not change the past.  But if he could, he might not
have pursued the scouts as diligently.

There was a slight sound outside his window and he paused.  He lived on the top
floor of a twenty story apartment building, the only things he ever heard that
close were birds.

And that had not been a bird.

His window opened and his briefcase dropped to the floor with a dull thud.

The scout paused at the entrance. "Hi," she said, her voice unfriendly. "We
need to talk."

Two more like her jumped in, followed by two cats and a man in black.  For
several moments, they formed a semicircle around the detective, silently
staring.

Finally he sighed, and one of his hands fumbled to the light switch.  The group
did not react at all to the brightening of the lights, they merely remained
standing there.  The two cats glanced up at their companions as if prompting
them, and Williams noticed the curious crescent moons on the animals'
foreheads.

The scout with blue and red on her white sailor uniform stepped forward. "Are
you going to say something or not?" she asked.  Somehow he got the impression
that she was not very used to leadership.

He sighed, and sat down.  Fortunately, his subconscious had known of the chair
behind him, since the rest of his mind was slightly busy. "Hello again," he
said, and was surprised at his own calm tone. "I suppose you want to know where
your friends are."

The four exchanged quick looks, then the leader looked at him again. "So you do
have them."

He shrugged.  Lying did not occur to him. "Yes," he answered.

The man came forward to stand next to the leader.  He was dressed in a black
tuxedo with a cape. "Both of them?" The man asked.

"Yes, both of them.  The blue one, the one who knocked me out twice," he said,
glaring as best he could at them, "and the green one."  He shifted in his seat,
acutely aware of how vulnerable he was.  He was very sure that any one of them
could take him apart limb from limb before he could reach the gun under his
left arm.  On the other hand, they did not seem hostile, which made sense if
they wanted information.

The leader looked back at him calmly. "So where are they?"

He sighed. "Why should I tell you?  You people are a menace to society.  Just
with the last incident at the mall, you injured dozens of innocents.  Some of
them are still hospitalized."

They exchanged another look, and the one with red on her uniform seemed to
realize something. "His blast, it must have hit the windows, and there was a
crowd outside."

The man in black nodded. "Of course."  He turned back to the detective. "Are
any of them in serious danger?"

"No.  But a police officer is in the hospital in critical condition because of
you.  Or rather, because of your friend.  He was hurt severely when that
creature attacked me in the mall?"

The red scout's eyes widened visibly. "He attacked _you_? Why?"

The detective forced himself to remain calm. "I do not know."  That was not the
whole truth, but it would do. "But Hawkins is in a coma.  He's young, he's got
a wife, he's got kids.  What are they going to do if he dies?"

"It wasn't his fault," the orange scout said.  She had remained silent until
then, and Williams flinched from her eyes.

"I do not know whose fault it was," he answered slowly, "but it was the
creature who injured the officer."

The man in black sighed. "We know."

"Then why-" Williams almost yelled, "do you expect me to help you?

"Because you must." The red scout whispered intensely. "Because if you do not,
countless lives may be lost.  Because the Sailor Scouts are on your side,
whether you like it or not."

He stared at them, and reluctantly felt his defenses go down.  They were right.
He had to tell them, or he would never be able to live with himself.  From the
very beginning he had known that the scouts were on the side of good, it was
the creature he had not been sure of.  He sighed. "If I do, will you explain
what that dark creature is?  Will you tell me who you are, and where you've
come from?"

"We can not do that," the man answered, looking down.

Williams nodded.  He had not expected another answer. 

_	_	_


Nakiad opened his eyes slowly, forcing the black sky to focus, to stop
whirling.  Groaning, he forced himself to his feet.

He remembered.

He had gone to face the Dark Lord, but not to fight.  Instead, he had melted
with the Shadow, and they had become one, along with all the Chosen.

Then what had happened?

"So, you are finally awake?"  Nemesis asked.

He shook his head, staring through her.  He had been successful, and remembered
returning to Earth.  But there his memories blurred once more, staggered into
different directions.  He knew that time had passed since then, but he had no
idea what had happened.  Then a wave of nausea passed over him, and something
began to burn in his heart.

He raised his head, staring at the first of the Chosen. "What is happening?" He
rasped out.

She grinned, and darkness was in her silver eyes. "For eons we have fought
against the Dark Lord.  We sacrificed everything for that battle, our lives,
our loves, our hopes.  And then you come along and you decide that maybe
fighting is not good enough for you, maybe you should make peace."  Her voice
rose in strength. "You took our lives, our battle, and made it meaningless.
You had no _right_."

He shivered under her voice, trying to keep his stance stable.  "You don't
understand.  We are all-" He gasped for air. "We were all created as tools,
just to fight, for no more reason.  It is not enough-"  He paused, and felt the
burning sensation in his heart grow, and he looked up. "What is happening to
me?"

She continued to grin, and his eyes widened, for she no longer looked normal,
no longer looked even human.  Her eyes, her whole body burned with despite.
"You can feel it.  It is we-" She gestured at the crowd of dark souls around
them, "the Chosen.  It is the hatred of the ones you betrayed."

He drew in air painfully, feeling his thoughts turn to anger, and looked over
at the silent figure of the Dark Lord.  The Shadow had not moved since it had
appeared, it was merely standing there, the cloak concealing its face.  But
Nakiad could feel hatred in his heart against that figure, an irresistible urge
to kill.  He forced his eyes away from his ancient enemy, back toward Nemesis.
"Why?" He gasped, forcing his hands to unclench.

Her eyes flashed darkly. "Why?" she asked incredulously. "Because you betrayed
us!  Because we hate the Dark Lord, and he must die for his crimes."

"Then-" he gasped, "do you own dirty work.  This anger is not mine, I do not
want it. I am finished with hatred."  He forced his eyes to focus on the first
of the Chosen, but his hands were tight again, and he needed a weapon.  The
fire burned through his mind.

"Ah, but we can not," she spat out. "We can never fight, for we are dead.  No,
Chosen," and she said the title as if it were a curse, "our hatred is yours.
Our pain is yours, you must be the one to avenge our deaths."

He stared at her, his mind wild. "Vengeance," he whispered.

And the hatred of a thousand Chosen flooded his mind, took his soul.  An axe
appeared in his hand, a blade of pure white, and his fingers spasmed around
it.

He turned as if in a dream, and leapt up into the air.

The axe flashed down toward the Dark Lord, and the Shadow did not move aside.

_	_	_


"How long do you think they are going to keep us here?"

Amy shrugged. "I don't know.  I'm not even sure why no one other than the
detective has come to visit us.  Surely they want something."

"Probably," Lita agreed and sighed, thinking.  Something about the whole
situation did not add up in her mind.  The police were almost certainly the
ones keeping them here.  And yet Williams obviously did not want them to
remain, since he had as much as asked them to break out.  Then, after the ones
imprisoning them had heard all of their conversations, nothing had happened.
Something very peculiar was going on.  Lita sighed and glanced at Amy, but the
blue scout seemed to be lost in thoughts of her own.  The tall girl smiled.
Amy was far better equipped for that sort of thinking.

The blue scout opened her eyes. "Did you hear that?" She asked.

Lita listened for several seconds, but there was nothing.  Then a faint sound
did reach her ears, kind of a smashing sound, like something large being
destroyed.  The sound was familiar, but she could not quite place it. "What is
it?"

The blue headed girl smiled strangely. "You do not recognize it?"

Lita listened for a few moments more, then shook her head. "No."

Then she yelped and jerked away from the wall she had been sitting against.
The tall girl leapt up to her feet, facing the wall, which was turning red with
heat.  In a moment, it flashed white and exploded into a cloud of debris.  On
the other side, Lita could just make out an orange-white shape.  The green
scout glanced at Amy, who was also on her feet.

The blue scout only shrugged. "I think the cavalry's here."  Then she leapt
into the smoking hole, and the ringing alarms finally reached Lita's ears.

"Come on!" Amy yelled.

The green scout jerked herself into motion, surprised at Amy's initiative,
especially given the other scout's loss of her powers.  Then Lita remembered
that her own powers were gone as well and realized that the fact was easy to
forget.  All of them had gotten used to their abilities.  Without them- Lita
forced that thought away.  She could not afford to think about that.

The cloud of smoke parted in front of her as she passed through the tunnel and
she leapt out into the middle of glaring lights and sirens.  Around her, the
other scouts crouched, and she counted quickly, then sighed.  Everyone was
there for except for the two guardians, who generally stayed clear of combat,
and-

"Nakiad?" Amy yelled out over the sirens, finishing Lita's thought.

Raye shook her head. "Still out of it.  The van's nearby, come on!"

Lita grasped Amy, stopping her, then yelled to be heard over the noise around
them. "Guys, our powers are gone!"

The others halted, then Serena gestured to one side, and Lita turned her head.
Like ants, people were pouring out of the large building they had been held in,
and the crowd looked like they meant business.  Certainly their submachine guns
were not just for show.

"Well," Raye said grimly, "so much for escaping under the cover of fog.  We're
going to have to make a break for it.  Go!"  A spotlight hit her, illuminating
the flames in her eyes as she put up both hands in front of her, interlocking
her fingers. "Mars-" Her voice leapt. "Fire!!"

The others started running just as the lance of flames lanced out at the
soldiers and slammed into the pavement in front of the cops, stopping them.
The now-small figures disappeared behind the wall of fire.

"That ought to hold them," Raye said with satisfaction, barely audible behind
the sirens, then she followed the scouts.

Mina spun around briefly and a lance of energy leapt out from one of her
fingers, seemingly unaimed.  Lita did not turn around this time, concentrating
on running, but the spotlight holding them disappeared, and they were covered
with darkness.  The sirens faded slowly as they continued to run through the
night.

The green scout grinned, looking around. "So how's it going?"

"About the same," Darian answered with faked nonchalance, then he ground to a
halt. "There!"

The black van stood there, partially hidden by a tree, and Lita sighed with
relief.  Few things would have looked more pleasant.  Now all she needed was to
get her powers back.

People were yelling in the distance, but the fire had slowed them down, and
without the spotlight, it would take a while to find the scouts.  Lita grinned,
jumping in the van.  The security would never know what had hit them.



The phone rang as he expected it to, but he jumped still, then forced himself
not to move while it rang a second time.  He picked up the phone. "Hello."  He
did his best to simulate a sleepy voice, though his mind was wide awake.

"Is this Detective Williams' residence?"

He smiled, glancing at the window through which the scouts had come through
only minutes before.   "Yes," he answered aloud, then wondered why he sounded
so doubtful about the fact.  Somehow, the scouts' visit had made everything
unreal, like he was trapped inside a dream.

"Sir, you are wanted at the holding compound where the subjects are being
held."

Williams raised an eyebrow as the phone line went dead and looked out the
window again.

I hope I did the right thing, he thought silently to the night.



Darian thanked whatever powers there were for darkened windows as another
police car with flashing lights passed them, heading back to the compound they
were running from.  Fortunately, the cops did not seem to have had enough time
to prepare a blockade, because no one had stopped the scouts, and they were 
well on their way back to Nakiad's compound.

"What do you mean, your powers are gone?" Raye exclaimed, and Darian turned.
Nakiad had demonstrated that staying a silent observer was often more
productive than arguing, and the prince had taken that advice to heart, staying
out of most of the debates that had risen over the past several days.

Lita sighed and turned to Amy, apparently relinquishing the chair, and the
other nodded.

"Well," the blue scout said, "it's like this.  We don't know."  She sighed.
"Neither one of us can use any powers at all, including strength enhancements.
For Lita, this problem seems to be caused by some form of draining, she can
feel her power is there, but nothing happens, like she is being blocked."

Darian blinked, realizing how similar this blocking was to the type that kept
Mina asleep, and the type that seemed to be keeping Nakiad from helping the
scouts.  He laughed bitterly to himself.  This also certainly explained why Amy
and Lita had not been able to break out.

"My problem, however, seems much worse," Amy continued.  "Not only is my
strength drained, but it seems like I have lost all of my powers all together.
It is as if I were simply human again.  I can not access either the computer or
the visor, and I have no idea why I still remain in scout form."

Luna frowned. "Do you know what is causing this?"

Amy shook her head. "Lita and I thought it might be the police, since they were
the ones holding us, but we are away from there now, and nothing has changed.
Besides, I think if they knew enough about the Sailor Scouts to drain our
powers, they would not have made our escape that easy.  So I am guessing that
it is, after all, the same enemy who has been attacking us before."

"Do you know how the actual taking away of powers could be accomplished?" Raye
asked.

After a moment, Luna answered for everyone, shaking her head. "Not a clue."

Next to her, Artemis seemed to be thinking. "Well, the draining part is
possible, if difficult.  Nakiad had demonstrated his energy draining ability,
this would be similar, though far more refined.  Still, I believe there have
been instances of that sort of ability manifesting in rarely talented
individuals, both in the Universe, and, if I remember correctly, in the
Negaverse."  The white cat sighed. "What has happened to you, Amy, I can not
explain, however.  Technically,  the scout powers of a given person do come
from their power sticks, so it is possible to take that power away, if one
could unlock the pocket dimension that holds that stick.  But if that were
taken away and neutralized somehow, then you should have reverted back to your
old form.  From the evidence, it seems that what is happening to you is very
similar to what is happening to Lita." Artemis looked straight at the blue
scout. "Are you sure your powers are truly gone?"

Amy sighed, shrugging. "You know I don't have enough experience to answer that
question.  I do remember being only human, and this is what that felt like.  I
suppose it is possible that my powers are being drained as well, just with more
attention, but that does not explain my inability to access my computer and
visor."

Artemis blinked. "Lita, can you get your power stick?"

The green scout shook her head. "No."

Amy breathed out softly. "Oh.  Then I guess it is possible."  She frowned and
seemed to remember something.  "Also, back when we were fighting the fake
scouts, the one fighting me said that I was hindering the enemy's plans, or
something."  She sighed. "It's hard to remember exactly, but it was something
along those lines.  I suppose it is possible that the draining is focusing on
me because of whatever danger I may pose.  But it still seems a bit unlikely.
I think something is still missing."

Darian frowned to himself, thinking about the situation.  He agreed with Amy,
there was something wrong about everything that was going on, something they
were forgetting.

"What about the enemy?"  Raye asked, cutting through the silence.  "We keep
ignoring him, one of his powers is the control of minds, if what Nakiad said
about his conversation with Kaneth was correct."

Darian noticed that Amy raised an eyebrow at that statement, but the blue scout
did not comment.

Lita laughed ruefully. "We're too busy, we keep forgetting him."

Amy nodded. "Yes.  Have you noticed that?  Every time we try to figure
something out, another problem rises.  Whoever planned all this, whoever this
enemy is, he is doing an excellent job of confusing us."

Artemis sighed heavily.

"What is it?" Mina asked immediately.

The white cat shook his head. "It's just too hard," he said slowly. "There've
been too many injuries among us, too many partial healings.  We don't know what
we are fighting, and why we are fighting, but we have to keep going.  We just
don't know how to attack the focus of the problem."

Luna nodded. "And we're forgetting the fake scouts.  If they, too, were sent by
the same person, then they could come back at any moment.  If experiences are
correct, it will be at the most inconvenient moment."

"Too many enemies," Raye whispered intensely, and the others nodded.

Darian frowned, surprised at the easy acceptance. "No," he said, and the others
flinched at his voice.  He smiled inside. Apparently, his ability to fade into
the background was more developed than he had thought. "We have only one enemy.
The other problems are set up by him, made by whoever is controlling this whole
situation."  He sighed. "Our real problem is that we do not how to fight him,
do not even know where or who he is."

Mina nodded. "In other words, we need Nakiad."

The others exchanged silent glances, but there was nothing to be said.

The van continued through the darkening night.



The fire of a thousand hates burned in his heart, and Nakiad did not hesitate.
Above, the axe flared with a brilliant white fire, illuminating the ground as
the last of the Chosen whistled straight toward the Dark Lord.  A moment, and
the enemy would be dead-

Then the Shadow rippled, but he was not stepping aside.  The heavy hood that
covered his face rose slightly, moved away, revealing his face, and his eyes.

They were eyes that had lived for eternity, that had seen more than any mortal.
And the Dark Lord's face as he looked at approaching death was not filled with
hatred or pain.  It was filled with peace.

Those dark, bottomless eyes focused on Nakiad in a single frozen moment, and
the Chosen felt the arm about the axe handle lighten slightly, relax.  The
Shadow's calm gaze flowed into his soul, set the dark hatred afire and turned
it to ashes.

Nakiad hit the ground a meter away from the Dark Lord, and the last of the
Chosen stared at his dark enemy.

There was no hatred or darkness in the Shadow, there was no despite, and no
fear of fate.  There was only peace, a peace that existed because Nakiad had
given his enemy a chance.

And now the Dark Lord was paying Nakiad back.

The axe disappeared from the Chosen's eyes as he turned to look at the crowd of
dark souls, all hating, hoping that the Shadow would die, hoping that their own
deaths had not been wasted.  But they had not been wasted, they had led to
peace.

He looked at Nemesis and slowly, deliberately, he smiled at her cold eyes. "It
ends," he whispered.

And he stepped into the Dark Lord.

Again.



Lita breathed in the air of Nakiad's house gently and sighed with relief.
Somehow, here, she felt safe.  The green scout watched as Raye touched the
panel that opened the passageway leading down into the main compound.

Nothing happened.

Serena frowned. "Isn't this thing supposed to open?" She asked with
annoyance.

Raye pressed the panel again, with no result. "Computer."  There was no
response, and she also frowned. "Computer, this is Sailor Mars.  Why have we
been denied access to the main facility?"

For a second, nothing happened, then the computer's voice came on, echoing
through the room. 

"Two members of your group do not match the body patterns of authorized
personnel."

Lita raised an eyebrow and looked around. "Huh?"

Raye looked back at the green scout with surprise. "Which members?"

"The ones who match the general body patterns of Sailor Mercury and Sailor
Jupiter."

Lita blinked, and realized what had happened.  She opened her mouth, about to
speak.

Amy beat her to it. "Of course," the blue scout said.  "The computer was
programmed to recognize us in our ordinary form, with all our powers.
Apparently it senses that we are different."

"Terrific," Luna grumbled. "This is not something we need right now."

"What do we do?" Mina asked.

Artemis smiled. "I do not think this is a problem, Nakiad did give you full
access.  I think all we need to do is have one of you say that the others are
all right."

Serena nodded. "OK.  Computer, I give the two members of our group you spoke of
earlier full authorization in accessing this facility."

The machine paused for a split second before replying. "The two individuals
show traces of negative energy around them."

Lita blinked, thinking.  Amy had talked about the computer acting strangely, as
if it were controlled from the outside, and this certainly fit the description.
"Guys, is the computer supposed to do that?"

Artemis shook his head. "Not to my knowledge.  It should have informed us of
the energy if we had asked, of course.  And it is very possible might have been
programmed to tell us automatically if such energy showed up.  But to do so
instead of granting access- I do not know.  Serena?"

The princess shrugged. "Computer, that is understood.  Grant authorization
now."

This time, there was no hesitation.  "Acknowledged."  The floor slid away,
revealing the staircase below, but the scouts did not start down immediately.

"Guys," Mina said. "What about Nakiad?"

"What about him?" Raye asked.

"Well, he is also under the influence of dark energy, and yet the computer did
not say anything about him."

Artemis nodded slowly.  "You're right."  The cat seemed to be thinking. "I
really do not know how to explain that, certainly it should not have
preferential treatment, unless something strange was going on."  He looked at
the blue scout. "You know, Amy, your idea about outside control, or at least
influence, is sounding a lot more plausible.  Do you think it is true?"

The blue headed girl shook her head. "I am not sure of anything anymore," she
said quietly, and Lita was surprised at the perplexed tone.  The green scout
wondered if there were other discrepancies that the blue scout had noticed and
was thinking about.

Before Lita could ask, Amy was following the others down the staircase.



Lita sighed.  Somewhere deep inside, she had expected something to have changed
despite what her friends had said.  But Nakiad still lay on the same bed, in
the same position, unchanged.

"Computer," Serena said in a surprisingly confident tone, "display the medical
hologram thingy."

Lita smiled at the phrasing, but the computer seemed to understand the command
without problems.  The green scout raised an eyebrow at that, adding to her
list of things that did not quite add up about the machine.  She glanced at
Amy, but the blue scout seemed too preoccupied, staring at the hologram that
had appeared.

Lita turned as well, then frowned.  It took her several seconds to figure out
what was wrong.

"Well, at least physically he is healing fine," Mina said.

The change in the image was what had bothered Lita for a moment.  The hologram
was almost completely green.  The only places where damage still remained were
areas of flesh around the embedded bullets, bright patches of color.  But they
were very small, though still there.

"The inner damage is slower to heal," Amy pointed to the areas of gray and
red.

"But it is still going, and it does not seem to be hampering him much," Raye
added.

The blue scout nodded. "But he is unchanged otherwise."

Darian sighed.  "In the way that counts.  Damn it, Nakiad, we need you."

But the Chosen remained lying, deaf to their words.  Forcing herself to relax,
Lita sat up on one of the low beds.  The other scouts followed her example
slowly, settling down.  Meanwhile, Lita closed her eyes, thinking.  An idea was
hovering at the edges of her conscience, but she could not quite get it.  The
green scout sighed with exasperation, not used to this sort of struggle.  She
forced an internal smile, glancing at Amy with new appreciation.  Bulling
through a problem with sheer strength was a lot easier than thinking things
through, the green scout thought ruefully.

"So," Raye asked, "anyone have any ideas as far as waking him up goes?"

The others shook their heads.  Artemis glanced back at the red scout. "Have you
tried asking the sacred flame?"

Raye shook her head. "I haven't had time since he collapsed.  But I did it
before, and got nothing.  And knowing how badly my talent works when it comes
to Nakiad, I doubt I'll get anything more."

Artemis sighed, lying down. "Anyone else have any ideas?"

Lita shook her head, busy thinking.  There was an idea somewhere in her head,
it was just slow to come out.  A silence settled on the room.

"What about Greg?" Darian asked suddenly. "Amy?"

The blue scout looked up as if he had interrupted her thoughts.  "Um?" she
asked.

Lita smiled and looked up. "Are you thinking of some genius idea to get us out
of this?"

The blue scout shook her head. "No.  I was just thinking about the computer.
It was kind of-"

"Of course!" Lita interrupted out loud, then swallowed when everyone looked at
her. "Sorry, Amy."

"It's all right," the blue scout answered. "Do you have something?"

Lita shrugged reluctantly, not used to saying her ideas out loud, especially
not ones this crazy. "Well, I was thinking," she said slowly, "maybe we should
ask the computer."

The others reacted just as she had feared they would; by exchanging weird
glances.

"Lita, how are you feel-?" Raye started to ask.

"Wait a second, Serena," Artemis interrupted. "The thing has been acting very
peculiar lately."

Lita nodded. "Yes, that's what I mean.  Amy suggested that it might be
influenced by an outside agency, and I say we should try it out.  From what I
have seen, this person, whoever he is, is on our side."

"How so?" Amy asked.

Lita closed her eyes, concentrating. "Well, it stopped Nakiad the first time he
went mad, in the simulation, remember?"

Raye frowned. "But the simulation was also created by the computer, so you
could say it caused his becoming dark in the first place."

Lita nodded, not giving up. "The computer allowed us to bring Nakiad in with no
problem."

"But it also tried to stop you two," Raye answered.

"Because whoever is controlling it thought we were evil," Lita said, her voice
defensive.

"Guys!" Darian interrupted.  The prince sighed. "Maybe we should ask it and
then decide on whether the person controlling it is good or evil.  Even if he
or she exists."

"What if the advice is bad?" Raye finally asked.

Serena shrugged. "We don't exactly have much of a choice.  Again."

The room was silent for a few moments, then Raye nodded. "All right.  But I
don't trust anyone who hides behind a computer."

Lita smiled to herself in victory, then looked down, remembering what they were
talking about.  This was not a game.

"So are we all in agreement, then?" Artemis asked.  No one objected.
"Computer." The guardian said.

"Yes."  Did the metallic voice sound more human?  Lita asked herself.  The
green scout shook her head, realizing how paranoid that was.  Even if there
were a person controlling the machine, the voice would not change.

Artemis looked up carefully. "Do you have any information that would help us
awaken Nakiad?"

The reply came without hesitation. "No."

The other scouts sighed.  "Well, so much for that idea," Raye muttered.

Lita looked down.  She had been so sure, she thought angrily.  Out of the
corner of her eye, the green scout saw Mina getting up.

"I do not know if you can hear me," the orange scout said sincerely, looking up
at the ceiling.  "I do not know even if you exist.  But I believe you do, and I
believe that you can help us.  Can you not see the trouble the world is in?
Think of the danger this enemy poses to us all.  We need Nakiad to help us, we
can not save the world on our own.  Please," a tear slid down Mina's cheek, "if
you can hear me, please help us."

Nothing happened for a moment, and Mina just continued looking up, the
expression on her face painful for Lita.  The green scout sighed and looked
down again.

Then the lights around them flickered, just a little, as if power had been
diverted somewhere for an instant.  Lita looked up and saw the other scouts
looking around as well, for nothing had changed.

Then Amy pointed towards one wall. "Look!"

Lita turned to the wall, where a computer screen was lit up.  At the bottom,
three lines were written in clear green type.

"What does it say?" Mina whispered.

Artemis leapt up to the screen.  "It says, 'The dead and living joined in one
will that day healing bring for all.'  And it is signed, 'Nive.'"

The white cat sat back, his eyes staring through the screen.

The scouts exchanged glances. "Is that it?" Raye finally asked.

Artemis did not reply.

"Yeah," Darian answered finally.  "Who is Nive?"

"Apparently," Lita said, "it is the person controlling the computer."

Mina shook herself free of her trance. "What does the phrase mean? Amy?"

The blue scout shook her head slowly. "I- I do not know."

Luna blinked. "I do not remember it either.  There is something faint, as if
someone had said something similar when I was young, but it is too faint.  I
might be imagining it."

Artemis turned around slowly. "No," he said, his voice slow. "You are not."  He
came toward the scouts slowly.  "It is a piece of a poem that is-"  He paused,
and his eyes flickered with age.  "Very old.  It is the only piece of
information that was believed to have survived from the time of the first
Chosen.  Once, it had been taught to all the Queen's court, but you were too
young, you do not remember."

"What did it say?" Darian asked quietly.

Artemis sighed. "It has been so long," he answered, his voice almost a whisper.
"I no longer know if I remember it, but I shall try."  He paused. "A dark
scythe-" He stopped.  Slowly, the white cat's eyes closed, and he recited, his
voice getting stronger with each line.


A Dark Scythe gathers like a storm
Attacking people with no end
An Evil cloaked in a black form
Someone must defend.

A hero rises from earth's dust
The greatest warrior in the world
Fighting the Shadow as she must
Facing the darkest, blackest cold.

For victory she paid a price
Destroyed forever by the dark.
The creature frozen in time's ice
None thought it ever would be back.

But Crystal told of times it cursed
Spoke truly of the Dark's return
More champions come after the first
For light those heroes will fight on.

For ages must the Chosen come,
Confronting evil till its fall
The dead and living joined in one
Will that day healing bring for all.


Silence filled the room for long moments, then the spell of the ancient poem
dissolved, and the scouts started moving again.  Slowly, Artemis opened his
eyes and met Luna's gaze.

"I do remember," the black cat said quietly.

The white guardian only nodded.

Lita shook her head slightly, trying to puzzle out what the poem actually
meant.  Some of it was clear enough, an account of the creation of the Chosen
in response to the Shadow's threat.  But the ending did not make any sense.

"What does it mean?" Amy asked quietly.

Artemis sat back, away from the screen. Remembering the poem seemed to have
pushed him back in time, into his memories.  His voice was still deep and old.
"When the Dark Lord was created, the rulers of the Universe had created the
Chosen as a weapon to fight back."  The guardian sighed. "I can not judge that
decision.  It is possible that without them, the Universe would not have
survived, and the choices they had had to make could not have been easy.
Still, many have wished that another way had been found."  Artemis's eyes
darkened. "The first of the Chosen was Nemesis, and she died after fighting the
Shadow, as has every Chosen before Nakiad.  But from the poem, it seems that
the return of the Dark Lord had not been expected, and the Crystal's prediction
had come as a surprise."

Serena swallowed softly. "The Imperium Silver Crystal?" She asked softly.

Artemis's eyes merely darkened. "I do not know.  No one knows, truly, what had
passed in the beginning of the Universe.  What history we had was passed down
from generation to generation, pieced together from bits of information.  This
poem is the only truly sold piece of evidence we had to support our hypotheses.
And even that-" The cat's breath escaped softly. "Too much time had passed.
Certainly, the poem was translated and passed down many times, and the original
information might have been lost.  There is no way to know how much of what I
had been taught had actually happened."  The guardian's voice faded out.

Softly, Mina put a hand on his side, caressing the fur softly. "What about the
rest of the poem?" she whispered.

Artemis nodded, and started speaking again, his voice sad. "Something had
apparently predicted the future of the Chosen.  Whether it was, in fact, the
Imperium Silver Crystal, we do not know.  That long ago, we do not even know if
there were such a crystal, we do not know if the Kingdom of the Moon existed.
Some say that those in the Negaverse have preserved the legend better, but even
that had never been confirmed."  Artemis moved out from under Mina's hand,
lying down on a cold patch of floor, alone. "The last stanza-" His voice caught
for a moment. "The last stanza has always been the one most puzzled over.  It
is the only part of the poem that truly acknowledges the plight of the Chosen,
the unending struggle.  And at the same time, the last two lines seem to speak
of hope for the future."  The guardian shrugged sadly. "None have been able to
figure out what 'dead' and 'living' means."

Silence reigned over the room for long moments as the scouts absorbed the
poem.

Finally, someone moved.  Unsurprisingly, it was Serena.  Surprisingly, she had
something to say.

"Guys," the princess said, "could 'dead' refer to the Dark Lord and 'living' to
Nakiad?"

Artemis laughed softly, the sound filled with bitterness as he looked at the
Chosen's motionless form. "And what kind of healing has their joining brought
them, Serena?"

"I-" She stopped. "I'm sorry, it was just an idea."

The cat seemed to realize his rudeness. "No, Serena," he said quietly. "I am
sorry.  You are right, almost certainly.  Nakiad and the Dark Lord did join in
one, and they saved the Universe, and that brought them peace.  Or should have.
I can not think of any other ideas."  He sighed. "I am not sure there are
any."

"Live and dead," Darian whispered.

The others turned to him.  Only Artemis stared straight ahead, oblivious to
all.

"You have an idea?" Luna asked.

"I-" He started, then stopped. "I am not sure.  But there is a pair of objects
associated with the Chosen that could be considered 'alive' and 'dead.'"

Slowly, Artemis turned to him. "Objects?"  The white cat's voice carried a note
of clear astonishment.

"Oh," Amy said, very quietly.

"The staff of the Chosen," Raye started.

Lita finished for her. "And the sword of the Dark Lord."

"Yes," the prince said, his eyes flashing with satisfaction. "The wood could be
considered alive, and the iron-  yes."  He grinned suddenly. "So, does anyone
care to investigate Nakiad's place of residence?



Nakiad passed straight through the flesh of his former enemy, and the two
melted together into one form, joined once more, embracing each other's power
and pain and wisdom.  Moments later, the timeless haze dissolved, and a new
person stood in the depression, surrounded by the countless Chosen.

The new person turned to look at the shadows.  He was Nakiad, he looked like
Nakiad, he acted like Nakiad.  

But he was also the Dark Lord.

Then memories came back, and Nakiad closed his eyes, shivering.  He remembered
everything.  Joining with the Dark Lord, the year that had passed since that
time.  The darkness that had taken him again.

He remembered the new enemy, influencing his mind, pushing him until he lost
control.  And he remembered what he had done after turning into darkness.

Steeling himself, he raised his head, raised his eyes again.  The past could
never be undone, he had learned that.  The future and the present were what
mattered.  He looked at the crowd of lost souls, at Nemesis.  "You have to join
me," he said calmly.

The ground shivered, but the first of the Chosen answered for them. "Why should
we?"

He smiled again. "You can not live in the past, no one can.  The Dark Lord is
no longer evil."  He looked around himself. "But most of all, because we are
one and the same, we are the Chosen."  His voice softened. "I need you.  This
enemy who lays siege to this world, he must be stopped, and I can not do it
without you.  The power within me is too strong to be controlled by one person
alone."

For long moments, he looked at Nemesis. "Please," he said quietly.

And slowly, her eyes relaxed, the steely color fading from her glare.

She smiled.

Around him, the shadows flickered and moved, the dark shadows fleeing their
outlines, their true selves revealed once more.  Women and men and aliens,
warriors all, with hard faces and tired eyes.  But they had each other, and
they had hope.

The mass flowed forward, all the Chosen joining together into one stream, into
a cloud of pain and fear and hope, and that mass dove into Nakiad, joined him
as one.  Their faces blurred in front of him as more came toward him, and he
closed his eyes, focusing.  Each person added himself to the one mind that was
all of them, and each person made the whole stronger.

Then the flow stopped, and Nakiad was almost complete.

Slowly, he opened his eyes, and he was staring into the eyes of Nemesis.  She
was looking at him with strange eyes, her face soft.

"Thank you," he finally whispered.

"No," she answered quietly.  "You have freed our minds, our souls from hatred,
twice now.  No, it is we who should thank you.  Chosen."

"You are the ones who have returned to me."

She smiled. "We were never gone."  He looked at her dumbly for several moments,
but she simply smiled again and looked into his eyes. "Now, it is you who has
to fight."

And with that, her features melted and flowed into him, and he felt ancient
strength in his heart, for all of the Chosen were together again.  And both
they, and the Dark Lord, were at peace.

Below him, the ground shifted, straightening, and the twin depressions
disappeared, the plain shifting into flatness.  For as far as he could see, it
continued, melting at last with the sky.  He could see no way out.

He looked up at the black sky and closed his eyes, attacking it silently, but
nothing happened.

Something was still missing.



Serena breathed in the cool dark air of Nakiad's room gently, keeping close to
Darian.  For some reason, the darkening effect of the air weighed on her
heavier than it did when she had been talking to Mina.  The princess tried to
figure out how long ago that had been, and blinked when she realized it had
only been a day.  It seemed far longer than that, somehow.  She counted even
further back, to Mina's shooting, and her mind clouded to think that everything
had started only two days before.  A lifetime had happened since then, far too
much.

She sighed to herself and forced her mind to focus on the problem at hand as
she followed Artemis into the black room.  Around her, the scouts were also
hushed, obviously feelings the heaviness of the situation as well, and that did
a little to make the princess feel better.

Around her, the fog parted suddenly, the dark evaporating from their immediate
surroundings as they reached Nakiad's bed.  And as the fog cleared, two
pedestals appeared, contrasted against the black, two weapon stands.  The
scouts made a loose circle around the two.  The three swords gleamed sharply
against their background, two on one stand, one on the other.  The metal 
reflected light in a strange way, tinting the color of the blades. Though 
the material resembled steel, no one could confuse maraki with anything
else.

Serena cleared her throat carefully.  "Um. Now what?"

Artemis shrugged. "I assume we just have to put them together.  I am surprised
Nakiad never did it, though I believe he has not touched the weapons too often
since coming back as a meld of Chosen and the Dark Lord."

Serena nodded quietly.  Somehow, she had expected that, but she did not answer.
She had picked up one of Nakiad's swords before, to place it back in its place,
but to touch it again now seemed like sacrilege.  And even more than that, now
there was a fear in her stomach of the two weapons.  Nakiad himself had
cautioned the scouts to trust their gut instinct.  She shivered away from the
metal. "Um-" She started, looking up, and realized that the other scouts were
similarly thoughtful.  With shock, she realized they were thinking the same
thing.  Maybe this is not such a good idea after all, the princess wondered
quietly.  But they needed Nakiad.  "Who wants to do it?" She asked.

Mina shivered visibly. "When I touched the blade the other night-" She shivered
again. "I do not wish to live through that again."  Her gaze was dark somehow,
sad. "Perhaps it is better that the future remains unknown."

Serena nodded quietly and glanced further down the circle.

Amy frowned strangely. "I do not think either I or Lita should do it.  There is
no telling how the energy in the weapons would react to the dark energy around
us.  And I do not wish to give the enemy a chance at getting anywhere near the
weapons."  Amy glanced at Lita, then continued. "I do not think you should
touch the weapons either, princess."

Serena blinked at the use of her formal title, then realized that it was a
reminder.  She glanced down at the brooch on her chest. "I see what you mean,"
she said slowly. "No telling how the crystal will react to those things."

For several moments, no one spoke, then Serena sighed. "So who-?"

"Oh, for heaven's sake!" Raye interrupted, obviously disgusted. "I'll do it."
She stepped in front of the pedestal and picked up both of Nakiad's swords,
lifting them easily, then she paused. "OK, so what?" She looked at Artemis.

The white cat blinked. "I think first you have to make the swords into the
staff."

She nodded and spread the weapons apart, and the scouts around her scattered.
Raye turned the blades so the blades extended to either side, hilts facing each
other, then brought the two handles together with a crash.

Nothing happened.  Raye sighed and lowered the two swords. "Artemis?"

Serena frowned at herself mentally for flinching at the crash, thinking back to
the one time she had seen Nakiad put the two weapons together.  Raye had done
everything correctly, as well as the princess could remember.

The white cat was thinking. "Maybe it can only do it for Nakiad."

"Then we lose," Raye said angrily. "Without these we can't wake him up, and
without him we can not put these together."

"You know," Darian interrupted, "maybe we are going at this a little wrong."
Serena turned to the prince and was surprised to see him smiling.  "Look,"
Darian continued, "that is the staff of the Chosen, which has been around for
no one know how many years.  As far back as any record dates, if I remember my
school days correctly.  Perhaps we should treat it as if it were as old as it
is."

Serena blinked, not understand. "What do you mean?"

"Oh," Raye said quietly, understanding coloring her eyes. She looked at the
weapons in her hand. "Staff of Chosen, I am the Sailor Scout of Mars.  I ask
you on behalf of Nakiad and all the Chosen to transform back to your natural
state."

Serena gaped as the metal melted soundlessly and liquefied in the red scout's
grasp.  The two rivers of fluid power found each outer and joined,
straightening, taking on a new form.  In a moment, the staff of the Chosen lay
quietly in Raye's grasp.

The red scout blinked.  "Well, that worked."  She hefted the weapon with one
hand easily, then walked over to the other pedestal.  Raising the heavier two
handed sword, she looked at the other. "Guys, you may want to stand back a
little."

To her own surprise, Serena faded back without argument as Raye lifted the two
weapons in her hand and brought them together.

The wood and metal touched, but nothing happened, and the red scout sighed.
"What must someone do to get some service around here?" she grumbled. "Just
_do_ it already!" she yelled to the weapons.

A sun ignited in the room.



Serena flinched against the wave of energy that crashed into her. Waves of
power colliding and refracting in the room tore at her, and she felt the
crystal on her chest hum gently with the powers raging outside.  For a moment,
the princess feared that the crystal would react, but then the energy around
her faded into darkness, and the light vanished.  Serena opened her eyes.

Surprisingly, she was still on her feet.  Even more surprisingly, so was
Raye.

The red scout's head was turned away from the weapon in her hands, and her eyes
were tightly closed.  But she was still standing, and her hands were tight
around the staff she held.

Serena breathed in softly, looking at the prefect object.  

It was similar to the Chosen's staff, but smoother somehow, more liquid.  The
outside had the organic look of wood and the strength of pure maraki.  The
shape was also slightly different, the material curving inward slowly as it
approached both ends, until it finished in a single point.  Just before that
point, part of the material narrowed into a sharp edge on one side of the
smooth staff.  The whole thing was elegant, as if were made to be perfectly
aerodynamic.

It took Serena a few moments to realize that it was a weapon.  It was pure and
staggeringly beautiful, but also lethal.

Slowly, Raye moved, breathing out, and the red scout opened her eyes.  For long
moments, the priestess looked around at the other scouts, then she looked at
the weapon in her hands.  Then she laughed shortly, startling Serena. 

"The command to bring the two most powerful weapons in the universe together
was 'just do it already'?" Raye asked.

Artemis sighed. "I suspect it was more your intention to bring them together
that did it, not your words.  That might also explain why Nakiad did not have
the same problem, as he would not have tried to join them."

"Ah," the red scout answered, then looked at the weapon in her hand.  He eyes
were shining. "This is-" She paused, breathing in softly, and the others came
toward her slowly. "This is incredible," she whispered.  "The sheer power of
the thing, I can feel it pressing down on me- watch!"

In her hands, the staff melted briefly, compacting, and reformed as an axe.  It
shifted again, into a sword, then into a staff.  The staff seemed to break in
many places at once, and Raye was holding a chain, the metal cascading down to
the floor.  Then the links flexed, straightening, and reformed into the
original staff again.

"That might not be such a good idea, Raye," Artemis interrupted.  "The weapon
was not meant to be used by anyone but the Chosen, I can not predict the effect
of such power on anyone else."

"What are you talking about?" The priestess asked, her voice reasonable. "This
is incredible, if you could only feel the power of it-"  Her eyes unfocused
slightly. "The things I could do with this- the number of people I could help.
This staff has the potential to save millions of people undue suffering, I-"
Raye suddenly snapped out of it. "What am I saying?"

Artemis swallowed. "I think the less time you hold on to that thing, the
better."

Raye breathed out slowly. "I think you are right."  But Serena frowned, seeing
the red scout's knuckles whiten about the weapon as the priestess pulled the
staff instinctively back.

Serena swallowed. "I think we better go and wake Nakiad up, guys."

"Let's do," Amy said, looking at the staff strangely.



Mina watched the sharp end the staff come close to Nakiad.  The orange scout's
mind was confused about something, but she could not quite pin it down.

"Here goes nothing," Raye said, holding the staff as far away from the point of
contact with Nakiad as possible.

"Wait!" Mina yelled, suddenly remembering.

Raye pulled back, turning. "What is it, Mina?"

The orange scout sighed. "Guys, from what you have told me, Nakiad was not
particularly logical the last time he had awakened."

"But he did stop himself from killing you," Amy said.

"I know.  And we saw the darkness go away from him, if that is what that shadow
was.  But I am not sure-" Mina paused, not really sure what she was trying to
say.

"In other words," Darian continued for her, "you think he might not be
perfectly content when he wakes up."

Raye looked around. "Is there any way to tell if he is still dark, or will be
dark when he wakes?"

Artemis exchanged a glance with Luna, and both cats shook their heads.

"If I had my computer-" Amy began, then sighed.

Mina remembered again the state of the scouts, and sighed.  "Even if he is
completely cured, he might still be confused at first when he wakes up, and we
don't know what has been happening to him while he had been in his coma.  I do
not remember anything at all, but with his abilities, he might."  She was
holding back tears as well as she could.  The very idea of her love being
restrained by her cut into her heart.

Amy shrugged. "Computer, restrain Nakiad."

Mina jerked back as a bundle of metallic rope-like tentacles emerged from under
the table.  The cables tightened around Nakiad, moving over him for a moment,
then they were still.  The orange scout reached out and grasped one of them,
pulling as hard as she could, but it did not even budge.  "Do you think that
will hold?" She asked the others quietly, her heart hurt again at seeing her
love humiliated like that.  Nakiad's still face was peaceful and calm,
unaffected by the restraints.

"Will anything?" Darian asked.  "Remember, he has that rather potent red
stuff."

Artemis shrugged. "Without the dark energy, that should be nullified.  It
seemed like that latent talent was focused by anger, which, hopefully, is
gone."

"Except that he still has his gauntlets," Mina said quietly, looking at the
metal gloves.  She had almost forgotten about them, but they still covered his
hands with that perfect razor-sharp steel.

Raye sighed. "In other words, we do not know what we are doing.  Are there any
other precautions we can take?"

Luna shook her head. "I do not think so.  All of us are in scout form-"  She
paused and glanced at Lita and Amy. "Sorry.   Stay alert for any danger or the
like.  If he starts to attack, do your best to hold him down.  Other than
that-" The black cat shrugged. "We do not know if the staff will cure him, or
even if the mere act of touching him with it will do anything at all.  So maybe
it will all work out."

"All right," Raye said, changing her grip on the staff. "Final objections?"
The red scout looked at Mina.

But the blonde girl was lost in thought, looking at Nakiad.  She shook her head
silently, suddenly realizing how much she was depending on this to work.  If it
did not, she would be devastated.  And yet, a part of her heart hoped he would
not wake up, for if he did-

If he did, then he might still be dark.  And she would have to do her best to
stop him.

"Here goes," Raye said, interrupting the orange scout's thoughts, and the
red scout touched Nakiad with the staff.  Just like that.

Nothing happened at first, then Mina blinked.  

Around Nakiad's chest, a patch of slightly brighter air was forming, as if the
staff was generating light.  But the weapon was unchanged, still majestically
deadly.

The brightness in the air increased quickly until the light became clearly
visible, a sharply defined sphere against the darker black of Nakiad's gi.
Mina's heart started beating faster as she felt the energy in the room
intensify.

But the sphere did not brighten any further, and did not expand.  For a few
moments, it remained there, a pulsing ball of light, then it began to fade.
Slowly, the light started to receded, and Mina blinked rapidly, her heart
falling.  

And across the room, Serena whisper floated gently. "Please," the princess said
to the dark, "let this work."  

The brooch on the girl's chest ignited with the pure white power of the
Imperium Silver crystal.

Mina's eyes widened as the sphere of light on Nakiad's chest responded to the
new energy.  The brightness increased and spread for a moment, then seemed to
burst.  Energy poured into Nakiad, settling over his features, then light beat
from his clothes, illuminating the scouts in stark shadows.

Then the light was gone, and Raye froze in the air for a moment, then withdrew
the staff from the Chosen's chest.

Mina's heart burned as she looked at her love for any signs of life.



A flash of light appeared over his head, splitting the midnight sky,
illuminating the plain.  He looked up at it, but it remained far above him, an
unreachable sphere of energy.  It brightened slowly, then a limit was reached
and he felt the power begin to fade.  Helpless, he watched as it started to
disappear.

Then a wave of energy passed through the entire plain, through his body, old,
familiar energy.  

The power of the Imperium Silver Crystal, the power of the Moon.

Overhead, the light brightened with the new power, and ignited into clean
white.  The globe twisted the space around it as it grew larger, then burst
overhead, and the pureness dove down, surrounding Nakiad.



He was lying down.

For long moments, he remained motionless, his body slow to obey him, then he
felt the fingers of his hand moving against the hard surface of some sort of
bed or table.  He also felt something restraining him, but his mind was not
surprised.  The flimsy structure would not be able to hold him anyway.

Slowly, he forced his eyes open, and bright light slammed against the insides
of his eyes.



Mina felt herself stepping close to Nakiad, but her body was not under her
control, she was too busy looking at him.  Then she breathed out in wonder.

The fingers of one of his hands moved slightly against the table, an
insignificant motion.  

Her heart leapt.

Then he opened his eyes, and she saw his pupils narrow to tiny dots as he
blinked to get rid of the light in his eyes.  Slowly, he moved his gaze across
the room, resting on each of the group in turn.

He had started on the other side of the table, and she saw him look at Lita,
then at Serena.  The scouts smiled down at him, having also come close, but no
one spoke.  Nakiad panned across the room, his gaze passing by Raye and Darian,
then his eyes rested on Amy.

Mina felt her heart beat once, loudly.

And a flicker of darkness passed over Nakiad's face, his pupils dilating, his
eyes slamming open.  A look of sheer hatred crossed his figure, and Mina 
jerked back from him as the metal gauntlets ignited with pure red fire.  The 
metal restraints shrieked against his muscles, then shattered into loose 
threads of steel and Mina lurched back another step, watching in horror 
as the Chosen leapt up on his bed.  The other scouts stepped back, stunned 
by the sudden and silent display, and Nakiad threw both fiery gauntlets
forward.

Pure crimson blast of light focused in a single beam and leapt forward.

Mina's heart stopped as she watched the blast leave his hands, and remembered
the others' recount of the power of that energy.  Now it was focused into a
single lance of power, a hundred times as potent as before.

And Mina watched with horror as the beam hit the center of Amy's chest and
slammed the blue scout against the wall, the fire tearing through flesh and
uniform alike.

Time froze, a heartbeat not coming again as the beam died, cut off when the
others slammed bodily into Nakiad, bearing him back.

Mina saw Amy slump to the floor, the blue scout's eyes closed, and the front of
Amy's uniform was black.

And Mina knew that Amy was dead.

Killed by Nakiad.


.
.
.
.
.
.
Thus ends Hope, part three of volume two of Sailor Moon: Shades of Light and
Darkness.



To be continued..............


Send all comments/questions/flames to dnk@cmu.edu

Please visit the SLD web site at http://sld.home.ml.org for
information on the SLD universe and the fanfics in it.

For more information, see the readme file.

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