FOREWARD:

Well, this demands an explanation, doesn't it? In my ever continuing crusade to read every single damned Sailor Moon fanfic, I've seen some bad ones, and I decided, "Why not simply write my own?" After all, an AP English student should be able to churn out something passable, shouldn't he? Especially compared to some of the hacks I've seen (no names, though). And thus, the fruits of my labor, which lies just a few PgDns away.

Some obligatory notes:

-I've only seen the DIC interpretation, but I really can't stand it, so I'm using Japanese names, etc. This means, of course, that I'm bound to make some errors, but I hope you will be so kind as to point them out. "Hey! You got the spelling of Juuban wrong, you f*#@ing b$#@%$d!"

-The title: I personally think it's a clever allusion. It may not be that difficult to figure out. But it's probably not the first thing you think of (and if it is, send me some mail: having someone's thought processes parallel mine is frightening!).

-Feel free to distribute this, as long as it remains intact, in its entirety, and is not used for profit (fat chance of that).

-This is my first story (so, you never been with a fanfic before, huh?), so *don't* be nice! Tear into it, rip it apart, nit-pick anything and everything so part two can be that much better. A reply would be nice too. You want an email address? Sure, you bunch of ingrates: levar@smart.net.

-Yes, I know exactly what senshi translates to, and I purposely mistranslated it in several instances. So there.

-Although it may seen like I've used a thesaurus, I never touch the things. Every word here came from my head (and Word6's marvelous spell-checker--it's a miracle Microsoft managed to do something right with it).

-Don't worry about the ending; it will be completed as a trilogy. Don't expect part two anytime soon, though. Chapters nine and ten were hard enough to finish, and even though I've already planned out what will happen in the next part, I'm not planning to actually start writing it until mid January, possibly February, after semester exams. The chapter list for the next part, as well as other information that sounded like a good idea at the time, can be found at http://www.smart.net/~levar/epreview.html.

I'd like to give some gratuitous thanks here. Thanks to Ken Arromdee for his excellent FAQ, which I alt-tabbed to constantly for those little details that, in my opinion, make this fanfic great. To Mark Latus for unknowingly teaching me the lesson that a good fanfic must mix light and dark moments. To Bryan Osborn, who had never heard of Sailor Moon but didn't laugh (aloud) at me when I told him my plans. To my entire lunch table, from keeping me from the dark, murky waters of sanity. To the makers of Sesame Street, who gave me the rudiments of the English language, and the myriad fanfics that gave me a half-dozen words of Japanese. To whoever gave me my insane biological clock that got me up at 6am on a day off to watch my first episode of Sailor Moon. From the first minutes, I was hooked (and short skirts had no small part in that). To the two Georges: Handel and Gershwin, whose music I listened to constantly during the writing of this piece. To Susan Cooper, whose books made fantasy okay in my mind. To the members of the Academy for their...oh, wrong speech.

Finally, everyone's favorite part of a fanfic. Sailor Moon and all associated characters were created and are owned by Naoko Takeuchi and a bunch of other people, of whom I am not. The same goes for the Associated Press, United Press International, Knight-Ridder News Services, Reuters, CNN, CBC, BBC, NHK, ABC, NBC, and CBS. These trademarks, as well as some others, are used without permission. To any corporate bigwigs, I just want you to know that I have no intention of making any money out of this. It's all in good clean, not-for-profit fun.

Portions of this work were taken from correspondence from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. I am unsure of the copyright status of this correspondence, but no resemblance between those associated with that correspondence and depiction in this work is intended or should be construed.

And if you're not a fan of Charles Dickens or Thomas Hardy, be warned that I'm this wordy throughout the whole piece. I think it adds to the atmosphere of the piece, but if you were one of those people who threw away _Return of the Native_ after the first two chapters, don't even bother with this one.

And now...

Character Sketches #1, Sailor Mercury - Part I, "Mizuno the Senshi"
Prologue: In which a new foe is encountered

TOKYO (AP)--Japanese authorities again denied reports of vigilante schoolgirls raging rampant in the streets of Tokyo last night.

At about 11:38pm local time, police responded to reports of a "monster" attacking several late night patrons of a local coffeehouse. Upon arrival, police found only dazed witnesses and a half destroyed business.

Eyewitnesses described the monster as "abominable," "appalling," and "frightening." They also claimed that the monster was defeated by the "Sailor Scouts," an urban legend well known in Japan.

The Juuban minister of safety said, "We see no reason to add credibility to these wild, unsubstantiated rumors. They are obviously the result of wild imaginations and too much sake."

It was the fifth such attack since January 3.

"BURNING MANDALA!" The flames engulfed the struggling youma, who was befuddled by his attackers. He hadn't been told to expect trouble. He hadn't been told to expect five teenage girls in Technicolor sailor fuku. And he definitely didn't expect them to, at last count, freeze, electrocute, blast, and burn him.

It was a typical night for the Sailor Senshi.

"Okay, Sailor Moon, nail him!" shouted Jupiter. The blond sporting two outrageous ponytails nodded, and warmed up her attack.

"MOON PRINCESS HALATION!" There was an amazing display of magic and light, and then, as the wielder of the scepter would have said, the youma was moondusted.

The senshi gathered around as the youma's ashes began to disappear. For a moment, no one said a word, but merely rested, recuperating from the battle. Sailor Moon was the first to speak.

"Good job, guys. See ya tomorrow!" And with that, the pretty suited warrior for love and justice was suddenly a flighty teenage girl wearing an abbreviated schoolgirl uniform. Her four companions could only sigh, as usual. The second to speak was the green and pink clad one.

"Sailor Mercury, have you been able to determine who's been behind these attacks?" For the past few weeks, youma attacks had increased, without explanation. The assaults were frustratingly erratic, with no pattern: seemingly no coordinating leader.

"Well, I've ruled out the Dark Kingdom, extraterrestials, the Black Moon Kingdom, and yakuza. Anything else is still possible. I'll work on it some more tomorrow, but I think--" here, she was interrupted by a yawn from Mars "--we should call it a night."

This was followed by nods of assent, and the four split up to return to their respective homes. Mercury walked on alone, concentrating so hard on the problem at hand that she forgot her appearance until she was halfway home. "Oops," she said, and she rapidly changed back into the more mundane Mizuno Ami. Hearing a clicking sound, she turned around, to find a can rolling across the well-lit street. Muttering a few words to herself on how sloppy some people were, she walked on, only to stop some minutes later outside a rather nice, nondescript home.

There, she performed the ritual of creeping through the bushes to sneak through an open window. From there, it was up the steps to her room. (Note: a heck of a lot of Ami fanboys would kill for a protracted account of Ami's undressing. You're not getting it, so there.) Changing into a night gown, she went to sleep.

A week later, Ami awoke to her alarm clock, and then looked in surprise at the well-lit walls. Normally, the room was quite dark at 5:00am, but now it was almost as bright as day. In an effort to figure out what was going on, she rose and peeked through the blinds.

A dozen flashbulbs went off in her face.

Reeling, she staggered back to sit on the bed. "What's going on?" she whispered. Was it her mother, now presumably working the night shift at the emergency room? She went to the living room and flipped on the TV, expecting to see her mother's body, raped, mangled, murdered, on the screen for all Japan to see. On an all-news channel, she found her home, followed by Usagi's. Usagi? She listened more intently to the announcer.

"...have, for the past few years, eluded all attempts at identification, have been found. For details on our top story, we go live to the home of their leader, Sailor Moon, a.k.a. Tsukino Usagi."

The scent cut to a view of Usagi's house, lit by camera lamps and flashbulbs. As the reported went on and on about intimate details about Usagi, things no-one but the senshi should know, Ami realized what had happened. She and the senshi would have to face an enemy more remorseless, more obvious, more dangerous that Beryl and Wiseman combined. An enemy they now had no hope of defeating.

The press.