Written by: Laura Hudson

Author's Notes:

This series is now finished. I'm done. I'll probably go back and finish THF now. Thanx to everyone who wrote to me about the first chapter in this series. There are three more now done. This is a one-shot, one glimpse into one universe.

And yes, I do realize that I occasionally (all right, ALWAYS) mix NA and Japanese names. The intention was never to confuse anyone, and I hope this is not a big problem for people. BUT- as I told my mom when she found out I went joyriding around the state for four hours with my newly gained drivers license- sometimes I do things just because I CAN.

Keep reading.

Usagi walked home, partially in shock, next to Ami, who was munching happily on an apple. Her jaw was already slack when she opened it to speak.

"I... I can't believe you did that..." she said.

"You can't believe she did what?" asked Makoto, who jogged up from behind them and began to walk at Ami's side.

"*Someone* had a little incident in school today. Let's just say it involved flying cans of cola, an all-out food fight and a teacher who can't duck. Now *someone* has detention. For the first time in her life!" said Usagi looked tersely at Ami.

"You're kidding!" said Mako grinning at Ami. "It's about time you loosened up, girl!"

"You should have seen what occurred when a fruit bowl was tipped onto the floor." giggled Ami. "Melvin skidded all the way across the room on a banana peel!"

"Is that where you got the apple?" asked Mako.

"Yup." replied Ami, taking another crunchy bite. "I managed to catch it out of the crossfire."

"Hello?" said Usagi incredulously. "Are we maybe glossing over this a little too much? And don't you encourage her!" Usagi then turned from Makoto back to Ami. "That was totally irresponsible and you could have gotten in really big trouble! You're the brains of the Sailor Senshi! We need you to be dependable and stable and stuff!"

"Yeah, and you're the poster child for responsibility, huh, Usagi?" chided Makoto. "The Senshi have never fallen apart because of your antics, and hell is not going to break loose because Ami was involved in a little scuffle. She can't be Sailor Mercury every moment of her life. She has to cut loose like the rest of us sometimes, too!"

Usagi bit her lip. "I guess... I'm just worried about you!" she said to Ami with sincerity. "I always depend on you to be... well..."

"Perfect?" volunteered Ami with a slight pain in her voice.

"I guess... And I just don't know what to do now that you're acting so..." her forehead wrinkled.

"Normal?" Ami responded.

Usagi half smiled. "I am being silly, huh? But still, I wouldn't call what you did in the cafeteria 'normal.'" she protested.

"Yeah, like you would _never_ do anything like that." said Makoto with mock seriousness. Usagi stopped in tracks.

"I wouldn't. I wouldn't! No really, I wouldn't!" said Usagi as she ran to catch up with the two girls who were laughing convulsively.

The girls walked farther and farther away toward the more residential area of town. No one noticed the quicksilver flash in between the branches as they passed them. A pair of eyes watched from a perch as Mako smiled, waved and parted in a different direction for home. Fortune had smiled on him today. The tremendous luck of overhearing the conversation!

["You're the brains of the Sailor Senshi!" "The Senshi have never fallen apart because of your antics..." "She can't be Sailor Mercury every moment of her life..."] They had practically admitted their civilian identities to him. Oh, it was truly too perfect. He knew those three were Sailor Senshi, and the identities of the other two could probably be tortured out of them. It was amazing.... They were little schoolgirls... and today that naivete carried a price. They had even conveniently split up, as though they were inviting an attack.

The blue-haired one had already been revealed to be Sailor Mercury, but the blond one... He watched her nearly trip into a telephone pole. And that strange hair! It had to be Sailor Moon.

He could not have engineered it more perfectly. Mercury was the weakest of the Senshi, and untransformed, without her tiara, Sailor Moon was lucky not to hurt herself. They were rabbits, he thought, running beneath a hawk. He leapt out of the tree without the slightest rustle.

They had been laughing. Talking. Smiling. Mercury paused suddenly, disconcerted by the cautioning hiss of the wind. By then it was too late.

His voice reached them at the same time as his fists.

"Good night, girls."

Blackness.

Usagi had never been one to lie awake pondering imponderables. Ami did so often, her quick mind racing in thousands of directions. Answers were often not found, bur Ami found that she loved simply thinking. Sometimes wondering was better than knowing. She did not remember if she had ever wondered what it would be like to wake up in Hell. Now she knew.

Consciousness foisted itself upon her, and all she could think when the images of her eyes became clear was, "Oh God, please let this be another dream."

It was not pitch black, to Ami's intense regret. Darkness would have been a blessing, if only to hide the agonies the room displayed.

Bodies stacked like reams of cloth reached from floor to ceiling, wall to wall in the room. Even at her back, against the wall she had been chained to, bodies rotted. The world seemed to be made of rotting flesh that would crumble in its decay if she touched it. [Is this the fate our captors have in mind for us?] she thought with a sudden chill. Would their bodies soon lie stacked and anonymous in the cold piles?

The floors were slick with a black grime that was oily in consistency under her feet. The room was large, and one corner in particular she could not bring herself to look at. A comprehensive collection of torture devices lay there, the cruelest twists of human imagination spawning the most gruesome ways to rend flesh. Corpses, their expressions still of agony and fear, lay in and around the machines that had killed them, like macabre explanations of each one's purpose.

Sight seemed a painful sense to Ami, who wanted to be detached from feeling and pain and the hellhole she was trapped within. She heard a quiet groaning nearby. It was Usagi! She had not seen her lying beside her, unconscious.

"Whu happen?" Usagi mumbled, half asleep.

"If you can understand me, Usagi, DO NOT open your eyes." insisted Ami.

"OK... if you say so. Why?" she asked, rapidly becoming coherent.

"There are some things your eyes should not see..." she said softly. "Now, can you transform?" Ami asked.

"I- I don't have my broach!" she said, trying to touch the front of her uniform despite the chains. "They must searched us and taken it... What about you, Ami? Do you have your transformation wand?"

"Hold on... Yes!" said Ami, grasping at the air and suddenly feeling the wand in her palm. "So pocket dimensions are accessible, even in the Dark Kingdom." she said, thoughtful.

"Whadda ya mean? Is that where we are?" gasped Usagi. Ami looked around the room, and shuddered, shivers running up and down her body like spiders.

"Without a doubt." came the hardened reply. Ami suddenly looked up, stirred to action. "We're leaving now."

"Sorry to burst your bubbles, but we're slightly chained to the wall right now. How are we gonna escape from the Dark Kingdom anyway?"

"You know there's only one way to make it out. We fight."

"But I can't transform! And you..." Usagi's voice trailed off, unwilling to finish what it had begun.

"You really have had a difficult time finishing your sentences, haven't you? I know what you were going to say, regardless. I'm the weak link of the team. I can't control fire, or lightning, or disintegrate youmas." she laughed ruefully. "All I can do is blow bubbles to hide behind. I'm the defense; I'm a team player. But what chance do I have alone?" Usagi scrambled to recover.

"No, I mean, I- I didn't, I wasn't-"

"It's all right, Usagi-chan. You saw me that way because that's the way I was. But now, I don't need to hide any more. I don't have to fight uncertainty. I know how to fight for myself, and for my friends. I won't let anything stop up from leaving this place."

The chains clinked as Ami lifted the wand into the air. "Mercury Star Power, MAKE UP!" Usagi heard the soft shake of fabric on fabric as Mercury's uniform changed. There was a series of crackling sounds, and then the shatter of twisted metal.

"What are you doing?" asked Usagi.

"Right now," said Ami, as Usagi's shackles lifted away from her skin and became painfully cold. "I'm freezing the hand shackles in a manner similar to dry ice."

"I'M FREEZING! It's coldcoldcold! Make it stop!" shrieked Usagi, her teeth chattering like plastic wind-up toys.

"Kai-YAH!" shouted Ami, shattering the restraints with a single blow. Usagi had an unusual look of curiosity, her eyebrows expressive despite her closed eyes. She shook out her freed hand.

"How'd you do that?"

"An extreme concentration of my Shabon Spray." she noticed Usagi's skeptical facial contortion. "I don't actually have to yell 'Shabon Spray' in order to use it, Usagi."

"No," explained Usagi, "It's just that I never knew you could use your powers like that."

"There are a lot of things I can do now that I've never done before. But I think our main concern should be escaping." She took Usagi's hand and led her to the door. Cautiously, she turned the handle. It was open. Checking up and down the hall, Ami saw no guards, so she crept out silently with Usagi in tow. Shutting the door, she whispered, "You can open your eyes now."Usagi's eyes dilated as they adjusted to the glow of the lit corridors. Theyseemed to be underground, through it would be hard to ascertain given how littlethey knew about that dimension.

Ami's visor materialized, from one side of her face to the other, and she began to input complicated equations into her computer.

"This is odd... I can't get a structural, topographical or geographical reading! We seem to be literally in the middle of nowhere." More numbers flashed furiously across her visor.

"We're walking blind, Usagi-chan. The architectural makeup is actually inhibiting the sensors. We'll only be able to take bio-readings in our immediate vicinity." Usagi looked back at her blankly. Ami sighed. "Just let me worry about it, OK?"

Usagi nodded happily. They began to walk down the hall, the walls of the corridor were oil-black and seeming as though they should be unctuous to the touch. But they were as dry as sand, Ami noted, and almost as rough.

A wide, arched doorway spread over an ascending stairway that pirouetted upward in an eerie spiral. It led up only one level, and Ami could determine that there was some sort of entrance beyond the stairs. The room that lay hidden seemed to exhale demonic chants that clung to their ears in moans.

There was only one exit and one way out. Her head bent upwards, Ami stared at the doorway. There could be no good behind that door, and she had to pass through it. She then turned to Usagi, her gaze direct.

"It's going to be dangerous. You can't come with me if you're not Sailor Moon. You have to promise me that you won't try to fight..." she took Usagi's arm. "Promise me."

"I promise." said Usagi, trying to oblige her friend. They both watched the door like stargazers watching an eclipse, trying to delay the inevitable with a moment of silence. Ami took a breath and spoke again.

"Whatever happens, you cannot fight while you're helpless. Even if you hear... even if you hear me being tortured, you _cannot_ come. You're too important to risk yourself, not for me." Ami's voice was adamant. "And Usagi?" Her friend gulped in response, preparing herself for more foreboding admonitions.

"I love you." said Ami, throwing her arms around her. Usagi hugged her back tightly, unwilling to let go.

"I love you too, Ami... please, please don't die." Her eyes seemed lost in empty space, unperceiving but terrified for her friend. Ami finally let go.

"I won't die, Usagi-chan. I promise." She leaned over and kissed the top of Usagi's head.

"It's time for me to go." She walked to the stairs, and began to climb them, each step a beat in Usagi's heart. Ami looked back quickly at her friend, her form small a floor below, and then disappeared through the door.