Los Angeles
6/4/00
        The Hollywood sign had overlooked this city for a long time. Now, Los Angeles lay in a shattered and decaying mess. The tops of the sign’s famous letters were now aflame, the fire never consuming and never going out. Below, the area of L.A. once known for its movies, its TV shows, and fabulous mansions was ruin. An entire fifth of the city had been burned out. Another sixth of it had been flooded.

        In the flooded area, about three hundred yards from shore, a freighter had run aground atop a submerged building. She had snapped loose of her moorings when the waters of the pacific ocean rose and had been thrust into the structure were she now rested, half floating, half lodged.

        Close examination would reveal that the gangdoor on the side of her hull was open. And from that opening, light; someone was living here. One of them had just awakened.

        Her blue eyes, once deep and cheery, were now dull, dark, and aged beyond her years. Her skin was coated with a layer of grime that wasn’t plainly visible but she could have sworn was always there. Her rapidly growing blonde pigtails, now over eight months since last trimmed, now reached the muscles in her calf. Even though they grew over an inch a month she refused to cut them. Her body, still somehow shapely, was bruised in a dozen places and scarred in a dozen more.

        Serena was still satisfied as she gave a perfunctory glance in the shattered mirror. It was not that she was beautiful. No, her ability to achieve that and her will to even care had phased out a long time ago. It was that she was alive.

        She breathed a sharp sigh and turned away from the sickening yet somehow inspiring view in the mirror to step out into the corridor of the Starlight Asylum and made her way to the galley. The grounded freighter, though small, was spacious enough for her remaining friends and the two cats. It had been hauling food when the Negaverse attack had leveled Los Angeles and placed the Asylum atop a building in the flooded zone.

        “Good morning, Serena.” Amy looked up from the can of beans she was eating for breakfast. Her blue-black hair was uneven and had split ends from being cut with a Ginsu knife. Her indigo eyes, once just sad, were now both sad and weary. Poor Amy had actually lost weight during her life here and was losing her swimmer’s form.

        “Hey, Ams.” Serena greeted, sitting down at the metal table.

        “Do you want something to eat?” the Catholic asked in her English accent.

        “No,” the other shook her head, “It’s too hot to be hungry.” She was right. Aside from the refridgeraton and freezing bunkers on the freighter, there was no air conditioning. It was terribly hot in many places on the metal ship, making the Scouts question their wisdom at coming here.

        “Hey guys.” Lita came in from the galley’s kitchen. Sweat drops ran down her face from the oven heat. One only dared go into the kitchen if hungry because it was the hottest in there, especially when the equipment was running.

        The tall brunette collapsed into a seat next to Serena and wiped her forehead, “Any chance of us getting an air conditioner?”

        “I’m afraid the bloody thing’s freon seal is busted.” Amy shook her head, “Even if I could get that fixed, where am I going to find more freon? And what happens when that runs out?”

        The three sat silent for a long time, watching the cats come and go. Artemis was almost back to his normal self again. He had finally realized that Mina would have wanted him to take care of himself instead of wasting away. He and Luna were spending a lot of time together now, and Lita was suspicious that they had been stealing some of the fish meat.

        “I wonder where Rei is?” Serena inevitably asked. She said this every morning since Rei had left over two months ago in a fit of rage. Her birthday had been on April 17th, so she had long since turned seventeen. For several weeks, they had hoped she would return. That hope had now faded.

        She had journeyed for over a month to reach San Fran, living off the grapes and other things she found at wineries along the way. Unfortunately, she had found the city entirely destroyed. Even the red towers of the Golden Gate bridge had fallen into the bay. Rei had gone from one shelter to the next for the next few nights, eventually settling in a camp around the Fisherman’s Warf. She had stayed there for a week before deciding to leave the filthy and disease-ridden place.

        Rei then heard that there was a small community on Alcatraz. She stole a rowboat and went out to the forboding island prison only to be turned away by the residents. Well, she wasn’t so much turned away as given a choice between going back or providing a few “favors” to the men.

        After that fiasco, she had spent every night sleeping in someplace different, from overturned cablecars to looted homes. Finally, she went to the outskirts of SF and found an inhabited railyard. It was here that she intended to stay.
 Rei still had a blanket, most of her clothes, and some food. She had stopped at the Cherry Hill Temple to visit Chad before leaving L.A. He had sent a pair of sai with her. She kept one in her bag and the other tucked into her belt. She wanted one ready just in case. She had already used them once.

        Finally, at the end of the long row, Rei had found an empty car. The floor was covered with straw. Rei supposed that had been the cargo and most of it had been stolen for bedding. She threw her bag up into the rusting Chessie System boxcar and climbed aboard.

        It was nice and temperate inside. It would keep her warm during the winter, and cool during the summer. She spread her blanket down on a thicker pile of straw and proceeded to create a home for herself.

        The economy everywhere had turned to barter, and certain things were more valuable than others in certain places. For instance, fresh water and fuel to boil it and cook with were precious in most places. Next to a lake, however, fresh water was seen as less valuable than clothes or tools. Rei would have to find out what was most valued here.

        Most of the people here seemed peaceful, and they all had hunting tools, so this was a good place for food and not so for bartering weapons. Water, too, was in abundance here from the overturned boxcars that had collected rainwater. And Rei did’t have much of that. Containing the water didn’t seem to be too much of a problem either. Fuel was definately provided by the surrounding trees. If they had fuel and camping skills, they could start a fire. Everyone had probably traded something for that.

        “I’ve got some sewing skills,” Rei said to herself, “maybe I could fix clothes.” She then dropped that idea. She had no needles and no way to make them. Nor did she have any thread. Thinking of thread, she brushed her thigh-length black hair back. “Nah!” she smirked, dropping that idea too.

        “Well, welcome.” A voice pulled Rei from her thoughts. She looked up to see a woman about in her sixties standing outside the car.

        “Uh..hello.” Rei greeted, unsure what to say.

        “I saw you come into town and settle in this car.” the woman said, “I came to be the first to greet you.” She lifted a metal bucket full of water onto the boxcar’s floor. “It’s kind of a tradition here. We welcome the newcomers with some stuff to help ‘em out. We want ‘em to stay as long as possible. What’s your name, sweetheart? And where you from?”

        “My name’s Reiko Hino.” the Japanese girl answered, “And I’m up from Los Angeles.”

        “Angeles?” the woman raised an eyebrow, “That’s quite a journey. Well, Reiko, you can call me Maggie. My husband and I live down a few cars. It’s a green Burlington Northern with a yellow graffiti tag next to the door. You got any skills?”

        “Well,” Rei forced a giggle, “I can sing, I can do self defense, and...” she added with a very guarded smile, “I can make one helluva fire.”

        “It ain’t much, but maybe you can do something with it.” Maggie shrugged, “Now come on. We’re a community here and you have to meet everyone else.”

        His throne! Once it had belonged to Queen Beryl, Mistress of the Negaverse and Weilder of the power of the Negaforce.

        The Negaforce had been defeated and its power was gone. Apparently that’s what the rotted orange membrane on the had platform held. No matter. The Negaforce had served Beryl just as poorly as her generals. Flute had his crystal, his army, and his followers. He needed nothing else. Well, maybe one thing.

        He tapped a button on the throne’s arm. “Jekter?”

        “Sir,” his lieutenant answered.

        “How is our new portal comming?”

        “Slowly sir.” Jekter answered sullenly.

        Princess Serena, in the vile guise of Sailor Moon, had trapped them in this place with the Imperium Silver Crystal. Sealed here, Flute had no way to send his army to invade Earth. Over the past months, he did get some good news. Several of the asp warriors and a few predatory devourors had been left stranded on the wretched planet. These minions would further demoralize the already depraved humans.

        The workers were slow and not very intelligent, Jekter noticed. Meredith had not seen any need to make them thinkers for they were made only to follow orders. This was just one of the many problems that plagued the project.

        There was a lack of resources with which to make the machine. Simply designing the thing had taken most of their time here. The workers were all very stupid and quite incompetent; none of them knew the difference between a nut and a bolt.

        The portal they had been using from the Space/time continuum had been created by Sailor Pluto to allow passage for NeoQueen Serenity to visit the past. They were, however, in the Negaverse now and all the portals to Earth had been sealed. The ones that Jedite, Nephlyte, Zoicite, and Malachite had all used were closed to passage.

        In the past two months, Jekter had taken the time to explore the area. Outside this vast cave they were in was a vast tundra. Around the opening crater to the cave there were many ice sculptures. Inside each of these, to Jekter’s surprise, he found the frozen corpse of a Sailor Scout and one or two female Negaminions. He reported this back to Flute, who had no idea how to explain this.

        Not too far from their base was another cave leading to a series of dead-end passages. One of them still held residue from the Imperium Silver Crystal and chroniton particles were also highly concentrated.

        One spot that most interested Jekter was a tall spire of ice with a platform on top overlooking a crater. Both Negaforce and Silver Crystal residue were highly concentrated here. This must have been where Beryl met her final defeat.

        “Blast!” Jekter slammed his fist down on the chair that had once belonged to Lord Malachite, “This is taking so damned long!”

        “Patience, my love.” Meredith touched his hand. “Our master knows what he is doing.”

        “Sometimes I wonder.” the young man shook his head, “He was far to cautious in his initial attack and look where it got us. We are several months behind schedule.”

        “He had to learn the Pluto Star Crystal’s powers first.”

        “He could have waited to send any attacks until he learned.” Jekter pointed out, “But he didn’t, and those damn Sailor Scouts knew we were coming and were prepared for it.”

        “But with the loss of Darien and Sailor Venus, they have been demoralized.”

        “That didn’t stop Princess Serena from sending us here, did it?” Jekter stood up to pace, “I still don’t see why he wants that miserable planet. It’s in ruin. What can he possibly gain from taking it and defeating the Scouts?”

        “Maybe he just wants to.”

        “That is the most insane reason of all. I sure as hell hope it’s not true.”

Chapter 2: Consolidated