Mamoru, Luna, Artemis and Motoki sat, waiting for the four silent girls to tell them what had happened, the café was empty, and Motoki had waved his cook into the kitchen so that they could have the privacy of the whole place to speak.  But even the milkshake in front of Usagi failed to bring her out of her reverie.  Large tears formed at her eyes, the fat droplets breaking and sliding down her cheeks as she tried to steady herself, and put her experience into words.  The other girls were equally somber, and obviously waiting for Usagi, their leader, to speak of the tale.
    Usagi took a huge breath, with a wavering voice, she started, “we saw Ami there, she is now… the mistress of the place and she….

Flashback
    Their jaws nearly touched the floor when they found her shyly blushing, smiling at them in her usual demure way, “so, what do you think of my acting skills, did I do alright, or do I need some lessons from Venus?”
    SailorMars struggled to regain some composure, “you… you mean… you mean… you aren’t… you mean you aren’t brainwashed by the Negaverse?”
    Ami brought a finger to her lips to indicate for them to keep their voices down, “It’s not the Negaverse, the Negaverse is only a branch of the Kuriverse, this is the center of the whole Dark Kingdom.  I guess my acting skills are on par then.  He didn’t try to brainwash me, he wanted me to turn to his side on my own accord; so I pretended that I did, and to prove it, I ended up using this blond wash through my hair to ‘fit in’, luckily, it washes out with water, or my mother will faint when she sees me like this.”
    “You were… so cold… just then though.” SailorVenus shuddered.
    “After seeing Queen Beryl do her job, I had some idea of how to imitate her.” Ami laughed nervously, “by the way, this will give you something to laugh about, it seems that SHE is only a leader of one of the branches of this sector.  What we have here, is one of the five main sectors, the power is controlled by a crystal, called the Kurozuishou, separated into 5 parts.  The fifth part is kept in a high security system in here and I have to get it out.”
    “How?” SailorMars, the ever-practical one asked.
    “Being Lady Takeuchi does have its benefits, I can find out everything I want under the guise of being curious as to the workings of being the lady, the mistress of this sector, no one will question me, and no one is suspicious- other than Avarice.  Well, except for access to the crystal that is.”
    “You had to go to the extent of marrying him?” SailorJupiter asked in surprise.
    At the word ‘marry’, SailorMoon leapt up at her friend, “you are married, where’s the ring, oh my God, you are married!  I am going to give Mamo-chan a hint about this, and he better get the hint!”
    “Shhh!! We don’t have time for small talk, you heard what Avarice said just then, he’s keeping a close eye on everything I do, one step in the wrong direction, he’s going to report and restrict my access.  I’m not married, I just have an official title right now.”
    Reaching into her pocket in the cape, she pulled out their communicators and their henshin sticks and returned it to them.  Giving SailorVenus a slip of paper, she looked at them urgently, “keep them in a safe place, don’t let them find it, and keep hold of your communicators, I will send you a signal when the security system is disabled, the directions here will help you get out before the alarm is raised, you will have 10 minutes to get back to where you teleported from and get out.  Even the monitoring system of the teleport room will be disabled, unless bump into some people that you can’t deal with before they raise the alarm, but 10 minutes is plenty of time.  Leave the cell door opened when you leave, so when the security system is enabled once again, the cell will be found empty.  Understand?”
    “Isn’t that dangerous for you, Ami?” SailorMoon asked.
    “No, I planned this whole thing, I have to get Avarice out of the way, and everything is in place for him to be blamed, for breaching security and letting you in.  With him around, I can’t just leave, that’s why you were caught today, I had to do something to shatter his reputation.”
    “Can’t we take you out now then, if you can pull all these strings…”
    “Jupiter, this is the test that Deus was talking about, I have to retrieve a part of the Kurozuishou Go, it is one part of the five crystals to make up the power of the Kuriverse, I can’t leave without it.  If I can get Avarice out of the way then I can control the full security system, even that of the crystal, and then all of you can come back and we can leave with it, just remember, next time, you will be fighting against the whole colony, even if you are going to take them by surprise, you have to be prepared for it.”
    “Ah-Me… are you sure that your staying has no other reason, like no... oh what’s that word again? Oh that’s it, ulterior, are you sure you have not ulterior motive at all?” SailorMoon looked at her with sly eyes, she was still partly Usagi after all, jumping at every shadow of love.
    “No, this is strictly senshi business.” Ami said, blushing, despite the fact that it wasn’t that hard to fall in love with… she shook her head, had to get THAT image out of her mind, he was the enemy!
    SailorVenus, easily led to the ideas of love being the senshi of love could not help but nudge her friend, “ooo… but just then, you seemed to enjoy it, and he seemed to like you, he’s pretty good looking - you have to admit that, maybe when we cleanse him, he might be just and nice and…” *nudge nudge wink wink* “who knows?? Ami might even find herself in love with the guy.”
    “Guys, back to business, the longer we talk to Ami, the more dangerous it gets for her.” SailorJupiter retreated back to where they had been kneeling before, and the others quickly followed suit.

…so she’s still in that place, and… all we can do is just wait…” Usagi finished, her tears practically clouding the whole café, while the other three girls sat silently at the memory of what had just happened.
    “Shush!” Luna jumped into her lap, “at least we know that she safe, and she is being treated well by these people.  Although I never expected that she would go to such an extent to get the crystal, she is right, we have to be strong and wait for her directions, she is the only one inside the whole structure, we can’t endanger her life by doing anything else.  Let’s just hope that her plan worked.”
    “Wow!” was all Motoki managed for a while, until his mind caught up with him, “that does not sound like Mizuno-san to me, I remember she used to blush at every look she got from a guy.”
    “At least we know that everything is under control and that she is going to be fine.  Ami-san is smart enough to manipulate the situation to her favor, and it seems that she is doing it well, there is no reason why her logic won’t work, especially considering what you’ve told us about that man’s reactions to her smiles.  This might even be a chance for her to learn how to loosen up and all.” Mamoru reached out to hold Usagi’s hand and gave her his patented Tuxedo-kama smile, “it’s alright, she obviously has confidence in what she is doing, and…”
    He was interrupted by the door banging open and Urawa running through the doorway. “Usagi-san! I have to speak to you about something urgent!”
    Usagi stood up awkwardly at the sound of her name being called. “Urawa-kun!”
    “Well, you see… Someieichi-kou said that I wasn’t allowed to tell you about Ami’s future, but this is about you, so I just have to warn you.” Urawa lowered his voice to a whisper beside their table, “be careful when you teleport to their realm tonight, Ami has changed, she is now the lady of the realm, she…”
    He stopped at the sign of Rei’s hand being raised up. “Urawa-kun, I thought you see the future, not the past.  It’s already happened, we teleported there today.” Rei paused, seeing his fists clench tightly, “she is operating under the pretence of being the lady of the Kuriverse Go, but she still knows her identity as SailorMercury, she is not our enemy, we know that... from today’s experience.”
    “Damn!” Urawa’s fists hit the tabletop as the cutlery seemingly jumped from their positions, “Someieichi-kou knew that I would do this, she deliberately mixed up my powers and… how could she do that to jeopardise the safety of her own daughter?” he trailed off as the door opened once again to reveal Dr. Mizuno.
    “Motoki-san! How are you?” she smiled in his direction, seeing him nod, she continued, “a coffee please? With two sugars.”
    “Of course, Doctor Mizuno!”
    Sitting down on a stool beside the counter, she turned to face them, “I knew I couldn’t trust you.  You should be grateful for my interference, otherwise I would have had to resort to punishments afterwards.  If you did come and tell them earlier, they would have gone there in preparation for a battle, spoiling all of my daughter’s plans and endangering her life in the process, no matter how innocent your motive was. You,” she stared into his eyes intently, “are the one who is endangering my daughter, not me, remember that Ryo-san.”
    She turned around at the sound of a jar sugar crashing on the ground, “oh, I’m sorry, I won’t be a moment with your coffee Doctor Mizuno, you just kind of shocked…” Motoki hurriedly pulled out another bag of sugar and a new jar to contain it in from a cupboard nearby..
    Dr Mizuno smiled, and put out her hand, the broken pieces of pottery and sugar on the floor disappeared and a whole jar appeared on her hand.  Motoki dropped the bag of unopened sugar in response and bent down to pick it up, banging his head in the process which left him sprawled on the ground.  The girls couldn’t help but laugh at him.  “Did I forget to introduce myself?” she smiled, “I happen to be the infamously cruel, cold and unloving, which is what I suspect they told you, Someieichi-kou that you have been hearing about. I take it that since you know so much, it wouldn’t hurt for me to tell you the whole of it.  Although I am not so sure about the bump on your head just then.”
    She looked at him kindly, but he shook off the embarrassment.  Taking the jar from her hand, he added two spoons of sugar into the steaming Styrofoam cup and handed it to her, waving away her payment at the same time. “You saved me my sugar jar, I think that about covers for the coffee, Doctor, er… Mizuno-sama.”
    Her hand covered her mouth as she laughed lightly, “Doctor will do very well for me, thank you Motoki-san for your coffee, I appreciate that. Oh, and one more thing, Ami-chan’s plan worked as she had hoped, I think that she should be home quite soon. Now, I mustn’t impose on your hospitality any further, and you all can continue telling him about what a horrible mother and person I really am!”
    Urawa blushed, “I didn’t mean it quite that way about your…”
    She waved his apology aside his apology and left the café.
    “See?” Motoki grinned at the people staring at him, “I told you she was easygoing!”
 

Next