Chapter 1:
A New Day
Los Angeles, California
11:37 PM
12/31/99
It
was crowded, it was wild, and geezus it was loud. By Serena’s watch, they
had just twenty minutes left in the millennium. Twenty minutes to leave
behind the year and the 20th century and the second millennium of the current
era.
“Thank God the square has a counter or we’d never hear it over the noise.” A tall man with black hair and blue eyes shouted. This was Darien; Serena’s boyfriend. He was referring to the countdown, of course. He was right, the crowd was damn loud.
“Where’re the others?” by some miracle, Serena was heard over the commotion.
“I don’t know They should be along at any moment.” Darien replied. No doubt Mina had dragged the other Scouts off in search of a supply of booze. The city at New Year’s Eve had it’s perks for teenagers. If they weren’t back in fifteen minutes, they’d miss the ball drop.
Mina had coaxed a group of UCLA frat boys into believing she was drinking age (she was sixteen, but easily passed for twenty-one) and they let her join their little party.
“Here, Ams.” Mina offered the short, blue-haired genius. “Try it.” In the plastic Dixie cup there was a yellow concoction smelling like oranges and ether.
“What is it?” Amy’s elegant English accent only served to amplify the disgust in her voice. She took the drink as if it were diseased and gave it a smell. It was pungent and she wrinkled her cute nose.
“It’s called...” Mina’s glazed eyes went blank a moment, “Um...screwdriver. It’s made of orange juice and vodka” One of the frat boys came up and put his arm around her waist, drawing her close. “Well,” she smiled drunkenly, her cheery voice slurred, “Hello.” She turned back to Amy and said, “Try it, Amy. You’ll love it. I did.” Then she was carted off.
“Unbelievable,” Amy smirked, dumping the mixture of orange juice and vodka in the street. Amy the conservative little Catholic did not drink. She took Greg’s hand and looked at him with her soft, sad navy eyes. “You would think they knew better.”
“They will in the morning.” Greg assured her, “Trust me.”
“Hey!” a light voice called, “Ami-chan!” Amy looked up and was immediately disappointed to see Rei stumbling toward her. She paused only to take a swig from a bottle of cheap beer, but the raven-haired temple maid got more on her shirt than in her mouth. It took Amy a moment to notice Rei clung to a familiar and equally drunk boy by the wrist.
“Amy, this is Chad.” Rei’s violet eyes wouldn’t quite focus as she introduced them, “Chad, Amy.”
Amy arched her eyebrow, Spock-like. “Reiko, I know Chad already; from the temple, remember?”
“Oh,” Rei blinked, vexed, “right. Well...did you know,” she poked Amy in the chest, accidentally sloshing Natural brand light beer onto Amy’s blouse, “at midnight, Chad and I are gonna do it.”
“Your going to what, Rei?!” Amy drew back.
“You know,” the Japanese girl winked, “Right Chad?”
Chad, equally drunk, was too busy trying to capture some insect only he saw. Rei had to jab him in the side and ask again. “Uh,” he replied in his surfer-boy voice, ”right. Whatever.”
“Okay.” Amy made a grab at the bottle, “You’ve had quite enough.”
“No!” Rei shouted, protective of the booze, “Go and get your own...damn it!” Suddenly, she dropped the bottle and it shattered on the pavement. “Damn. That was my beer.”
“See what I mean?” Amy returned her gaze to Greg. He didn’t answer. His brown eyes were locked on the shattered bottle. “Greg?”
“Oh,” he snapped back into reality, “Yeah.”
“Are you alright?” Amy asked.
“I’m fine.” he saw that she didn’t believe him. “Really.” he assured her, and kissed her on the forehead.
“Remember what we were doing a thousand years ago, Luna?” the white one asked.
The black one answered in her elegant British accent. “Yes, unfortunately I do. At this very moment,” Luna paused to look at the counter, “well...ten minutes from now a thousand years ago, the Negaverse first invaded the Moon Kingdom. Why, Artemis?”
Artemis cleared his throat, “Well, now that Queen Beryl has been defeated and the Doom Phantom has been destroyed, it’s like old times again. Big happy celebration bringing in the New Year.”
“Do you really think the Negaverse is through?” Luna wondered.
“Well, the Scouts haven’t seen action since last spring, so maybe.”
“I hope so. It’ll give the girls a chance to be normal for once.”
“I might need to get Mina to an AA group, though.” Artemis chuckled in embarrassment as he spied his mistress throwing back her head to take a long guzzle from a bottle of Jagermeister.
The white sailor tunic with black ribbons and pleated skirt marked her as a Sailor Scout. The black stone in the golden tiara and the six-foot key-shaped staff identified her as Sailor Pluto, the mysterious controller of time.
She had protected the gate of the space/time continuum since the creation of the Sailor Scouts a thousand years before by Queen Serenity of the Moon Kingdom. Pluto had led the moon refugees to a new future on Earth after the Negaverse attacked. She stayed behind to keep Queen Beryl’s minions from passing. She stood there still, ever the protector of Princess Serena.
“You still refuse to leave your post.” A voice called. Shocked, the woman turned to face the intruder.
He was tall, with a blue face and glowing red eyes. He was dressed in the gray slacks and jacket of the Negaverse Army.
“Flute!”
“Your memory serves you well.”
“I locked you in the past. How did you escape?” To answer her question, two other figures approached. One was male. He was slim and had short blonde hair and brown eyes. The other, a female, was tall, with strange yellow cat’s eyes. Her incredibly long raven hair was kept in a large bun leading to a braid that fell to her toes then went back up through the band again before returning to the floor.
“Sailor Pluto, may I present Jekter and Meredith. They had the compassion and the boldness to brave your domain and rescue me from your prison.
“I will put you back, you bastard!” Pluto growled.
“We’ll see.” Flute grinned. Pluto hoisted her staff and prepared to blast him with temporal energy but stopped when her held his hands up. “Now how unfair is this?” he said, “You would be so dishonorable as to use your weapon on an unarmed enemy. I wouldn’t have the proverbial snowball’s chance in Hell.”
Pluto remained stiff for a moment. He was right. She lowered her staff and set it down. “I do not need this to defeat you.” Before she could react, a bolt of negative energy shot from Flute’s hand and struck her in the stomach. She was knocked flat, away from her staff.
“Oh, such a pity.” Flute smiled, “You were so foolish as to forget my powers. Tsk, tsk.” He aimed at her again, “Perhaps we’ll meet again, someday.”
“In the darkest, coldest bowels of Hell.” Pluto spat in defiance.
“Maybe so.” Flute shrugged, “But until then...” He fired again. This one struck her in the throat, burning through. Sailor Pluto gurgled and fell back, limp. She was dead in moments. “I was lucky.” Flute told the others, “Had she kept that staff she would have easily deflected my attack and killed me.”
“But your superior intellect allowed you to be the victor, my master.” Jekter said.
“True.” He approached the Scout’s body. He knelt down to slide the golden V-shaped tiara from her forehead and wrenched the black jewel from it. The Pluto Star Crystal was now his. With the powers it would give him, he could finally take over Earth and destroy the deposed Princess Serena. He clenched the black stone and laughed.
“This is going to be a great year.” Darien said. Serena laughed in pleasure and kissed him.
Not one person knew how hellish the year would actually be. Well...one had a feeling, but Greg was all too liplocked with Amy to do anything about the feeling.