Character Sketches #1, Sailor Mercury - Part III, "Mercury"
Chapter 8: Poincaré's return

Ismene:	So fiery--in a business that chills!
Antigone:	Perhaps, but I am doing what I must.
Ismene:	Yes, more than must.  And you are doomed to fail.
Antigone:	Why then, I'll fait, but not give up before.
			-Antigone

"Creation is a marvel and
Man its masterpiece.  He scuds
Before the southern wind, between
The pounding white-piling swell.
He drives his thoroughbreds through Earth
(Great goddess inexhaustible)
And overturns her with the plow
Unfolding her from year to year."
		-First Choral Ode, Strophe I, Antigone

The sailors teleported away with haste, ignoring, for the moment, the leveling of Tokyo (again). If their plan worked, the events of today would never have happened. If it didn't, they wouldn't be around to worry about the consequences, and neither would about 7 billion other people.

Materializing in the wastelands of Greenland, Sailor Moon had the same reaction she'd had the first time they had come to the Arctic wastes.

"Brrrr! Why are these skirts so damned short?" Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, and Venus made similar comments. Pluto had declined to come, saying that she had another role in this saga to play.

"I didn't make them, Usako!" Tuxedo Kamen shouted. The winds were positively howling, and they had to strain to make themselves heard. As Mercury pulled out her computer, Moon noticed something about his apparel.

"Hey! No fair! How come you get to wear something warm?"

Kamen mumbled something about the poor insulative properties of formal wear. Fortunately for him, it was snatched away by the wind.

"Minna-san, from these readings...I don't know what to say! Everything's off the scale, direction is near impossible to find...I *think* his base is three kilometers due north, though. I can't be sure." She paused her scans to wipe some snow off the device.

"Three klicks?" Sailor Mars hugged her arms to herself. "Why does fighting evil always require going through freezing hell?"

"Because otherwise we'd have people lining up to become sailors," replied Jupiter, shaking snow from her auburn hair. "Now quit whining and get going!"

They all complied; the hike would, if nothing else, keep them warm.

2438 meters later, Sailor Mercury stopped before a curious mound of snow. She summoned her visor and peered closely. The others stopped as well.

"What is it, Mercury?" asked Venus. "Is it a trap? Some kind of bomb?"

The reply was slow in coming. "Perhaps...it definitely isn't supposed to be here, but I can't confirm that it's some kind of explosive device." She studied it a bit more. "I don't think it's harmful, at least."

Reaching out with a booted foot, she swept some of the snow off the lump, and caught a flash of blue. Glancing back at her computer, she reached a conclusion she didn't like at all, and started pawing feverishly at the mound with her hands, ignoring the numbing cold.

A few seconds later, she had revealed a sweater. She remembered it well. She had bought it for her mother as a birthday present.

Her mother had also worn it for a night on the town, before everything had come crashing down.

"That...that's Ami-chan's sweater, isn't it." Sailor Mars said it tonelessly.

"Hai."

"Where's the body?" The instant Sailor Moon said it, she regretted it.

"I don't know," said Mercury. She put the computer back to wherever she'd gotten it from. "The readings are so crazy that it's useless." She sighed and blew on her fingers. "Damn it, he should be here right now!"

"And so I am."

The man in black was behind them, with no footprints visible. In an instant Kamen had a half dozen roses at the ready, and the other senshi had assumed their fighting stances. Hastings seemed to find this amusing.

"Ah, so you've come all the way here just to see little old me, hm?"

"We don't want you, Hastings." There was definite steel in Moon's tone. The first senshi she had ever met had been killed at his hands, and she wanted revenge in a way she'd never wanted anything before. "We want the universal crystal."

"But of course. And you don't have a prayer of finding it yourself, so you're just going to follow me to it once you find it."

"Hai."

"Fine." He turned away from them, then spun around again. "Let's begin then, shall we?" Without another word he disappeared.

"Shimatta!"

"Hold on, Jupiter," said Mercury. She had whipped out her computer again in an instant, and was frantically punching buttons. "I've got a fix on the bastard...Greece. The old Boetian region...the ruins of Thebes."

"Right. Let's go!" They rapidly joined hands.

"Okay, Mercury," continued Sailor Moon, "you take the lead."

"Hai." She emptied her mind of all except the mental image of Thebes, not as it had been during its glory, in the days of Ancient Greece. Today, as it was now, a city of archeology majors and tourist traps.

"Sailor Teleport!"

They blinked in the sudden sunlight. The darkness enveloping the earth had made day and night indistinguishable when they left Japan, and snow made the sun invisible in Greenland. Here, it was day, and Hastings had not yet established full hold on this part of the world. Mercury saw it as a good omen.

Then again, she thought, as a familiar blackness swept over the western horizon, perhaps not.

"To the Acropolis!" shouted Mercury. They raced to the top of a nearby hill, where the ruins of a temple could be seen.

"But isn't the Acropolis in Athens?" panted Mars as they ran up the hill, upending vending carts and natives.

"*One* of them. Every big Greek city-state had one, Athens's was just the most famous!"

Reaching the top, they saw the Acropolis crawling with youma, undoubtedly looking for the precise location of the zenbunosuisho. The plan was clearly evident.

"Kogeki!"

Tuxedo Kamen, Moon, Mars, Venus, and Jupiter fanned out, attacking the youma with everything that they had. Taking advantage of the diversion, Sailor Mercury entered the ruins, trying to find the crystal before Hastings. She had to get past the youma inside first, though.

"Double Shabon Spray Freezing!" One youma fell by the wayside. Several shouts later, she had some breathing space. Now to find that damned crystal. She meandered through several hallways, paying little attention to the classical architecture. Finally, she came to a dead end. Pounding her fist on the wall, she cursed fate.

"Not so fast, little girl!" She didn't turn to face who she knew was behind her. "You've come pretty close, but I can't have you win now, can I?"

"Oh, you most certainly can. You forced my mother to kill my mother, scared her to America to marry my father, forced her to reveal herself to my father, thereby causing him to kill himself, killed my mother, and are currently planning to destroy the world. In the name of Mercury, I won't allow that. And so, in place of the planet Mercury, I will obliterate you!"

There was fear in that voice, but a steeliness that, more than any threats of recrimination, made Hastings just the least bit worried. "Ah, same speech, different spin. At least you're attempting novelty. That's a good thing."

She turned, oh so slowly. "Is it? Then how about you try this! MERCURY AQUA RHAPSODY!"

The overpowering force sent the unprepared Hastings flying through the stone wall that had stood for thousands of years. Sailor Mercury blinked in the cloud of dust the wall's collapse had brought about and then shook her mind clear.

The wall's collapse had also caused some rubble to fall away from the opposite wall, and she could see a doorway leading to another room. She walked towards it cautiously, not worrying about how Hastings was getting along.

One inside, she found nothing but an old stone font. It had some cryptic writing on it, and she thought idly that it might be nice to get her computer and analyze it, when she noticed that the inside of the font was glowing with a bluish-green light.

From far away, she heard a rumbling, and the cries of her friends as they desperately tried to hold off the Dark at its full tide. Realizing that time was wasting, she peered inside and nearly forgot to breathe.

Behind her, Hastings slowly picked himself up out of the rubble. Limping, he walked into the room.

"You Mizuno have a nasty habit of kicking me around," said he, flapping the last remnants of his superiority. "You and your mother were the only two beings in creation who have ever dealt me such crushing blows."

"Glad to hear it," said Mercury. Outside, the sounds of war began to wane. From the disorganized howls coming from the youma, it appeared that Sailor Moon and her friends had won the battle. The war was far from over, though.

"Looks like your guys are losing out there, Hastings."

"True," he admitted. "But I don't care a whit what happens out there." He began to sidle closer to the font, and Mercury followed his movements. "No, it all comes down to who gets the crystal at the proper time, which, if my calculations are correct, will be in twenty seconds. Feel lucky, Sailor Mercury?"

She looked into the font. A glowing spark was slowly growing. She glanced up, and her features broke into the widest smile since she had set foot in Japan. "Actually, I feel just great."

Ignoring the look of confusion from Hastings, she looked into the font again. The crystal was there, all right, and growing. Now it looked to be the size of two fists, one inside the other. It was now a brilliant blue, with white streaks running through it. Hands trembling, she reached out to take it.

"Not quite, my girl!" Hastings made his move and lunged for the crystal. Mercury couldn't do anything about it. She knew that she didn't have to.

"VENUS LOVE AND BEAUTY SHOCK!"

"MARS FLAME SNIPER!"

"RAINBOW MOON HEART ACHE!"

"JUPITER OAK REVOLUTION!"

The combined surprise attacks, along with a few silently lofted roses, slowed him down just enough for Mercury to grab it at the same time he did.

"What now?" asked Venus. They both had possession, and there were only a few seconds left before the spell went into effect. The other senshi had exhausted themselves in that final blast, and it seemed that there was no way to break the deadlock. And for the senshi, there could be no stalemate, only defeat.

"Dead scream."

Hastings flew off into the distance. Everyone looked around to see Sailor Pluto, who stood against the wall as calmly as if she had been there forever.

"I told you that I had other things to do. This was one of them. Sailor Mercury, if you please? There is little time."

Mercury nodded. Five seconds, she could feel it. Things slowed down immeasurably as she summoned the thought, and then held it.

If I make the decision to send the timeline back to what it *should* be, what will happen to me? Will I just fall into my mother's role? Heck, I already am Ami, Mizuno could be pulled off easily. Just have things go back to normal?

But my parents. I could bring them back too, couldn't I? Pluto said the thing *could* do anything, right? There has to be some timeline in which both my parents are alive and well, and so am I, and so is the world. It's a basic corollary of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics.

Or is it? Could it be that the best of all possible worlds doesn't have room for may parents to live forever? And if so, could I do what I have to do? Do I sacrifice my happiness for the world's? Serenity did. Usagi has.

But they were goddesses, silly. You're just a fifteen-year-old who's been given the most important decision in the world.

Me, or the world. What's right, or what's *right*. Athena or Minerva. Maybe I should just flip a coin.

Okay, pick a function, any function. Got it? Okay, even I save the world, odd I save myself.

Damn, it's undefined for all values of x.

Oh well, if nothing else I've solidified the stake for a name of Ami.

Humph. What would my mother do?

Yes. Exactly.

Time telescoped outward.

Mercury nodded again, more emphatically.

"I know what I have to do."

Pluto's eyes widened in surprise as she realized what Sailor Mercury was about to do.

There was a flash of light, and the universe changed.