Subject: [Fanfic] Sailor Moon: The Chosen. Part 2: Clash. 1/3
From: David Kogan <74367.2552@CompuServe.COM>
Date: 12/7/1996, 4:25 PM
To: FFML zz_ml

Title: Sailor Moon: Light and Darkness; Volume I: The Chosen, Part 2: Clash
Author: David Kogan
Author's Address: 74367.2552@compuserve.com 


First, disclaimers:

Sailor Moon and all associated symbols, characters, etc.. are owned, trademarked,
and heavily merchandised by large companies which I do not want to sue me for copyright
infringements.  :-) This is a piece of fan fiction, and all Sailor Moon stuff is not mine.  Anything else I might have accidentally (or purposefully) stolen from anyone is also not mine.

Where was I? Oh, yes, this story, however, was written by me, David Kogan, and
is mine, mine, mine, and mine alone. You are welcome to distribute it in printed form to friends (or, if you don't like it, enemies) as much as you want. Also, if you want to post this on the net anywhere let me know 74367.2552@compuserve.com before you do it.

Once more, this is a piece of fiction.  All characters are fictional , which means
that any resemblance to real people is accidental, (or is purposeful but then not necessarily
true).

This is part two of a three part story, the other parts every bit as large as this one.  They are pretty well written (in my opinion), very well written (in some people's opinion), and no comment (other other people :-) ).  Seriously, I think it's not too bad, especially now that it's revised.  Although this part is the one that had the least work done on it, so go easy on it if you choose to flame me. <g>  Also, you might have noticed that it is also volume one of a larger series, but you don't have to worry about that because the other volumes, and there will almost certainly be at least one, are still in the earliest stages of development.  I assure you that The Chosen is a self contained story.  For that matter, parts one and two together make a self contained story as well, just one that isn't quite as.. final.

This fic has been edited a bit, and I've reformatted it, by the way, and no, it is not fifty pages longer, it just seems that way because of the lines between every paragraph.
I hope you enjoy.

I have taken somewhat of a poetic license on the Sailor Moon story line, and I do not guarantee (in fact, I doubt) that I will ever return to it.  This story takes over after the Alan/Ann episodes and changes well..... everything, basically, from there.  Basically, though I suppose you could just read this without any knowledge of Sailor Moon, I would not recommend it.

If you have a problem with any of the above, you are welcome to stop reading now
:-).  Otherwise, good luck.


Sailor Moon: Light and Darkness
Volume I: The Chosen
by David N Kogan



*Historian's Note:* Part two of The Chosen takes place right after
the first part.  Relative to the TV series, The Chosen takes place right
after the episode Treed, but before the beginning of the Negamoon episodes.

*Part II: Clash*


Ami stared helplessly at the prone man in front of her, her mind still in
shock.  Grasped lightly in one hand, her computer continued its scan,
registering no life signs.  The wound on the man's back was just too severe,
she told herself, trying to tear her eyes from the sight.  The blast had
penetrated the black clothing, then ripped the flesh below to shreds.
Everything between the waist and the upper back was a soup of red and black,
bloody and charred. There was nothing I can do, Ami's mind screamed.  Her
body ignored the command, checking for life.

Dropping the computer, she felt for a pulse, hoping that just once the device
was wrong. But she knew it was not.  Her hand moved along the skin of his neck,
feeling for something, anything that might be a sign of life, then her hand slipped
to the floor.  Forcing herself to take a breath, she looked
up into Mina's eyes, seeing the anguish within. Slowly, the blue scout shook
her head, just once, hating herself for the pain she was causing her friend.

For a few moments the room was silent, everyone too drained by the events of 
the previous days to respond.  The taking by the shadow creature, the 
bizzare rescue, the Negaverse warrior who seemed to be on their side - all
had tiered them and it took a few moments for the death of the stranger to
sink in.

For a few moments, the room was silent, the everyone's emotions drained by the
events of the days before.  The taking of the scouts by the strange shadowy
creature, the strange rescue, the warrior from the Negaverse who seemed to be
on their side, all of the things tired the people to the extent that it took
several seconds for the death of the stranger to sink in.

As the truth penetrated, the scouts remained silent, not sure what they were
supposed to do.

The computer beeped.

Ami did not react at first, her mind still numb from everything that had
occurred.  After the device beeped again though, she turned to the data pad
lying on the floor, wondering what it was trying to say.  Her hand fluttered, 
moving up to feel for a pulse again, but finding nothing.

Her other hand snaked out, clutching the computer, hoping it had something to
tell her, something that might help.



Like everyone else in the room, Greg was looking at something important,
staring ahead.

Unlike the rest, he was not looking at the man in black.  

While his eyes focused on a point far away, his mind was elsewhere,
remembering. Remembering the future.

Images flashed by in his mind, an overwhelming number of visions.  He watched,
only being able to distinguish a few, but Greg knew that was normal.  Out of a
tidal wave of information, he was only generally able to figure a few facts
out, if he was lucky.  Foggy figures formed around him, dissipating into the
darkness that surrounded him, then vanished.  A single vision appeared, more
clear that anything Greg had ever seen, an image of a battle. The man was
there, the boy noted, without really thinking how the stranger could be in the
future if he was dead now.  His mind accepted both facts without contradiction,
unable to question either the evidence in front of him, or his memories of the
future.

In the scene, another form, a shadow of some sort was looming over the
stranger, threatening him.  Greg tried to move, to help the man for a reason he
did not know, but as always in his visions, he only *saw* the future.

He could not change it.  

And he watched as the shadow fought with the man, wondering who would be
victorious.  As the battle continued, he strained his mind, struggling to see
the outcome.

And a fog as dark as night settled over the image, obscuring it, hiding the
end.  He tried to focus the vision, to understand, but it only made the veil
more impenetrable, the image vanishing into blackness.

With a start, he snapped out of reverie, his sight returning to normal,
focusing once more on the black figure on the floor.

He wondered why no one hand moved during the time he was spaced out, then
managed to focus beyond, on Ami.

She was looking at her computer, her face rearranged in an expression that
seemed fitting to her character somehow.  It wasn't anger or grief or even
sadness.

It was wonder.

Lita seemed to snap out of her own dream, shaking her head slightly. "What is
it, Ami?"

For once, the blue headed scout seemed to be at a loss. "I'm not sure."  For a
few moments, Ami continued to stare at the screen, then looked to the prone
form.  "That is, I know what is happening, but not *why*.  Or
*how*."

Greg almost spoke up, almost sure he knew what was going to happen, but
realized that he did would not speak.  If he spoke up, then the version of the
future he saw would not agree with reality, and so he couldn't speak up because
he didn't, in his vision of the future.  He had tried to change what he saw in
similar cases, but something always interfered, he could not create a paradox
for reasons he did not comprehend.  Time was funny that way. Ami continued,
still staring at the form. "He had no cardiac or respiratory activity." She
said the words in a completely calm, clinical tone of voice.

Then, realizing her friends might not understand, she sighed. "He isn't
breathing and he has no pulse. But...."

"But?"  Lita prompted her after a few seconds went by.

"I can't explain it, but he is still alive.  He has brain activity, and it is
actually higher than that of a normal human.  Of course, physically, he is not
human, but he is close enough for there to be certain similarities..."  Ami's
voice trailed off.

Rei shook her head. "Shouldn't we do CPR or something?  Call an ambulance?"
The other scouts seemed still frozen, Mina in pain and Serena in shock.

Ami shook her head, tears of frustration welling up. "It *no use*!  His
heart has been burned beyond repair.  There is glass buried in his spinal
chord, which is also pretty well charred.  Not to mention the wounds he got
before. There is nothing we can do.  He should be dead... but he isn't."

The computer beeped again, insistently.  Ami ignored it, knowing it was futile
but it did it again.  Then again, a series of beeps heightening in pitch.
Shaking her head, Ami finally looked.

Greg almost smiled as he saw her eyes focus sharply, her features changing from
frustration to puzzlement once more. "Impossible," she whispered, her lips
barely forming the words. Seeing the looks of the others, she answered their
silent question. "His neural activity is off the scale.  That is not supposed
to be possible.  It's almost as his brain is ordering his body to.."  Everyone
looked over at the man in time to see every one of his muscles spasm.  His body
jerked once, twice, then rested limply.  

As everyone watched, a choking sound came from his throat. His rib cage
expanded, then collapsed, a hoarse sound emerging from his chest, a sound that
was unmistakable.  He was breathing.

The computer beeped again, then continued regularly in the familiar rhythm of a
beating heart.  Ami shook her head slowly, then looked at the screen. Not
believing her eyes, she felt for his pulse again, her hand resting on his neck,
then looked up again.

"It's impossible, but there it is anyway."  Her voice was a whisper, barely
audible. "Pulse normal, respiration normal.  Brain activity-"  She paused,
looking down at the computer screen. "Brain activity down to somewhat higher
than normal, but what do I know?"

Ami jerked her hand away from the man's neck as he moved, the pattern of burned
flesh twisting sickeningly across his back.  To everyone else's astonishment,
he spoke, a harsh voice that seemed to come from far away emerging. "That.."

He paused while the scouts listened, trying to figure out what he was trying to
say.

The man breathed in once more before finished. "That hurt." His voice did not
seem to have any anger in it, just annoyance.  And pain.  They could almost
feel the strain on his arms as he flipped himself over, leaning against the
edge of the couch, his eyes still closed. His mouth hung open for a moment, a
trickle of blood coming down one side of his jaw. He swallowed, clearing his
throat, then opened his eyes. "I deserved that." He groaned as the scouts came
up to him.



He looked at his granddaughter, and wondered what to do next.  Grandpa knew,
somewhere deep inside, that if Rei knew he was not a doddering fool their
relationship would disintegrate. On some level, he understood that she had to
have her 'secret life', and she had to remain Sailor Mars and believe he was
unaware of it, or they would not be able to live under one roof.

The only problem was that both Darian and Greg knew that he was not just an old
senile guy, a knowledge he did not really want them to have.  But during the
time, telling them was unavoidable.  He thought about, concentrating to an
extent that would have amazed Rei, who thought him too old.  He thought he
could trust Darian, if the prince knew what to do, but Greg, with his
foresight, might see something that would change his standing with his
granddaughter.  So.... grandpa almost smiled in his thoughts.



Greg felt a hand on his shoulder.  Turning, he saw it was Grandpa, and
*saw*< >what was going to happen.  He shrugged mentally, knowing
there was no way to avoid the future.  The old man turned to the scouts. "I'm
going to leave you scouts here, you seem to be in control of the situation.  I
think I'll take Greg to the train so he can return home."

There was a general lack of reaction for a moment, then Rei, Ami and Darian
turned to the two.  Darian gave an almost imperceptible nod, with a look of
understanding on his face.  Rei frowned, probably wondering what her grandpa
was doing there. And Greg decided that Ami was looking at him.

Rei beat her friend by a portion of a second. "Wait... old man... what are you
doing here?"

"Oh, just looking for Greg," Grandpa replied in his normal slightly goofy tone.
He started moving Greg back when the boy remembered.

"*Wait*," he almost yelled.  Everyone turned to him.  "About him," Greg
said, pointing at the man.  There was something important about him, something
they had to watch out for.  And he was going to lead them all into trouble,
Greg was sure of it.  And the shadowy figure, where did that come in, Greg
asked himself, then decided to say what he knew. "He.."  suddenly the boy
faltered.

The scouts had moved aside a little, and Greg could see the man in black.  But
it was not the man himself the boy saw, but his eyes.  Dark, almost black, they
sucked him in, plunged him into their depths.  They sucked his breath away,
tugged at his thoughts, moved around his mind.

Ami broke the spell. "What is it, Greg?" She asked, unaware of the direction of
her often- denied-to-be-boyfriend's stare.

He shook his head, wondering what he was about to say.  Nothing came to mind,
so he decided it was not important.  Out of the corner of his eye, he thought
he saw the man smile a bit, but it was probably just his imagination.  A vague
uneasiness tugged at the edges of his consciousness.  With a small effort, he
ignored it, sure it was nothing.

"What is?"  It was Darian this time, wondering what was wrong.

"Nothing," he answered, sure it was not important.  He allowed Grandpa to draw
him out the door.



Ami watched with incomprehension. "Wait," she cried after the two, but it was
too late.  She exchanged a baffled look with Rei, then turned to Darian. "What
was that about?"  Suddenly the stranger groaned, distracting her, and she
turned back to the dark form, picking up her computer.

It wasn't good.  The original scan she had done was only for life signs and had
not detected all the damage that had been done to the stranger.  As her eyes
scanned down the list, she saw one item highlighted as more important than the
rest.  She gasped, turning to the man.
Before she could speak, he rose his arm slightly, stopping her.  With obvious
pain, he opened his mouth. "Mina."  The name came out harshly against his
throat and the drying blood.

Ami turned to see her friend crying. "Yes?"  The orange scout asked in a
whisper.

He shook his head. "It wasn't your fault."

Ami looked at him with surprise as Mina answered. "Not my fault!?"  The voice,
still barely a whisper, rose in intensity. "I almost killed you."  The
admission brought new tears to her face.  She moved forward a bit, then
stopped, as if afraid to approach him. "I attacked you right after you saved my
life."

He shook his head again as if it was the only part of his body still able to
move. "I drained you, took away all of your energy without warning.  You wake
up to a strange place, your mind still numb from pain.  And you see me.  Of
course you attack me.  That's what I would have done, anyway."  He slammed a
fist into the floor. "I just can't believe I was stupid enough not to
anticipate it."

It was Mina's turn to shake her head. "No... I should have.." She faltered, not
sure.  Ami was amazed at how the man affected her friend.

He changed the subject. "Could you make me a cup of tea?"  He put the question
softly, a slight smile on his lips, as if the situation was far less serious.

What? Ami thought to herself.  He had several wounds that might still be
mortal.  She did not even want to think about the damage to his back and spine.
And he was asking for tea?  Looking at Mina, Ami saw that the orange scout was
having a similar reaction. For a few moments, the answer eluded Ami, then it
hit her.  

He did not want her to know the extent of his injuries, for some reason he was
protecting her.  Ami turned back to him and tried to thank him with her eyes as
best she could.  He smiled slightly, then turned back to Mina, still standing
there.

"Please?" He asked.

She turned to Lita who silently pointed the way to the kitchen, and Mina went
there, still slightly dazed by the looks of her.

Ami picked up her computer again, taking a deep breath.  Then she had to expel
it because he raised his hand, stopping her again.

He winced, then spoke. "Wait, let me see..."  He close his eyes, as if looking
deep into himself.  Then he began to recite, his eyes still closed. "Several
minor cuts, already healing.  Severe damage to hands, including burns and
lacerations.  Deep knife wound to the side, which by the way, misses all of the
major organs.  Severe burns and lacerations of back, including damage to the
heart and major organs of the area, but not quite a mortal wound.  Shards of
glass puncturing my back in large numbers and varying sizes."  He opened his
eyes. "And several are embedded in my spinal chord, resulting in complete
paralysis below the waist."

Ami stared at him, ignoring the collective shock of the scouts behind her. She
looked down at the computer, but already knew he was right.  Gathering courage,
she answered his challenge. "If you know that, then you are aware that nerves
do not regenerate."

He smiled in answer. "Not in humans."

She wondered what that answer meant, then did a scan of him again. Shaking her
head, Ami looked up. "According to the computer, you are almost as human as we
are.  I can't quite get a precise reading for some reason, but all the main
organs seem to be in place, though there are strange things here and there.  As
far as I can tell, you are more human than not."

For a second, he stared up at her as if what she said was important somehow,
then shook his head.  "I've healed from worse."  His face twisted for a moment,
as if his words brought up a memory that still caused him pain. "If given
enough time, I will recover as is."  His expression turned grave. "But I do not
have the time. Ami, you always wanted to be a doctor, right?"

"A pediatrician," she agreed cautiously.  The girl suspected where this was
going and did not like it.  On several occasions, she had treated a scout for
minor damage, bruises, twisted ankles and the like.  She had never faced a
wound anywhere close to the proportion of his, and she was not ready.

"Close enough."  He smiled at her consternation. "Look, all you have to do is
get the glass fragments out of my spine.  And while you are at it, you might
want to get the larger ones out of my heart and lungs.  All you need is a pair
of tweezers."  He looked at her seriously and seemed to wait for an answer.

Ami shook her head in answer, unable to explain that she wasn't ready for this
sort of thing.

He merely looked at her. "Trust me," he said quietly, just as Mina came back
into the room.

She was carrying a cup in her hand, almost without shaking it.  Coming up to
the man, she offered him the tea.

He smiled as he accepted, his face turning white for a second as if he was
concealing pain. "Ami wants to look at my back, though she believes it's not
serious."  Ignoring the reaction of everyone else in the room he continued,
turning to Lita. "Do you have a table that has a good light over it?"

Lita answered slowly, still not sure what to think of him. "There is one in the
guest room."  She hesitated. "What else do you need?"

He seemed to think about the question. "Um.. a bed sheet or two that you don't
mind losing, hopefully clean ones.  Also, I think Ami will need a pair of
tweezers and maybe a scalpel."  Seeing Mina's reaction to that last, he hastily
turned to her. "To cut the clothes off, because they stick to the blood."  Mina
nodded, her face blank.

Lita shook herself again. "Sure," she answered, though she obviously wasn't.

"We'll help," Rei offered suddenly, grasping Serena's arm and dragging her away
after Lita despite the blonde's protests.

The man looked at Mina earnestly. "You might not want to see this."

"I did it, I should help."  Ami noticed that it seemed to be more than that.
It was almost as if Mina wanted to be near the stranger.  The blue scout
reprimanded herself, knowing it was none of her business.

Meanwhile, the man was shaking his head. "Trust me, you don't want to see this.
Ami wants to be a doctor, she might as well know what that entails.  You, on
the other hand, do not need it."  

Ami almost interjected that wanted to be a pediatrician, which had nothing to
do with surgery, but stopped herself.   Instead, she decided that the man's
idea was a good one, and tried to support it. "Mina, I can handle it, it's not
a bad wound."  Ami hoped that the man wasn't lying, otherwise this would become
very awkward. "But it is rather messy, and I'd just as soon not have any
witnesses when I try to mess around with it."  Ami tried to smile. "It might
not be my finest hour."  There, she thought, that was some pretty quick
thinking.

Mina seemed ready to protest, but did not. "All right.  I understand."

The man raised his hand as if to take Mina's, then seemed to notice the gloves
and stopped. "I'll be all right," he said, dropping his arm.

Rei came back into the room. "All right, it's all set up.  There is a pretty
good light over the table, and there is a bed right next to it."

Ami wondered how the man intended to get to the other room without Mina knowing
that he can't move his legs, then it came to her. "Don't move," she ordered the
stranger in her best doctor voice.  She turned to Darian. "I don't want to
aggravate the wound any more than necessary.  You think you can carry him?"

Rei interrupted. "We already thought of that.  The table is one of the type
that you can disassemble to get more space out of your room.  I have the top
right here."  She demonstrated the board.

Darian smiled, a little sickly, in answer.  With the man's help, the three got
him on the board on his stomach, and Darian lifted it with Rei.  They carried
him into the guest room, where they put the board down, completing the table.

Ami had followed the carrying and was looking down at the wound when she
realized everyone was expecting her to do something. "Um guys.." Not quite
correct, but it would do. "Could you let us be alone.  I'm not exactly sure
what I'm doing here."

Lita rebelled, naturally enough. "But then shouldn't we be here in case you
need help?"

"She won't need it."  The man's voice allowed no room for doubt.  Slowly, the
others filed out of the room, closing the door.

"We'll be outside if you need anything."

Ami looked down at the work if front of her and tried not to shrink away from
what she had to do.



He closed his eyes, forcing the muscles in his back to relax, probing deep
within his body to see the extent of the damage.  He knew how difficult it was
for the girl to believe she could handle this, and he knew she needed
reassurance more than he did.  Striving to keep any pain out of his voice, he
cleared his throat. "Don't worry.  You're a doctor."

"Not yet I'm not," she answered immediately.

Unsure of yourself as always, Ami, the man thought as he kept himself from
smiling.  It wasn't too difficult because of the pain.  He had tried to conceal
it to the extent possible for Mina's benefit, but it was catching up to him.
Swallowing hard, he continued. "All you have to do is remove the large shards
of glass.  I can heal the rest of the way, but you would not believe how
difficult it is to connect tissue with things in the way."  He didn't smile,
but the slight attempt at humor seemed to relax the tension a bit, both in him
and Ami.

He continued, not letting her pause and think, something that might make her
panic. "Cut away to back of the suit so all of the wound is exposed."  He felt
her eyes search for the scalpel, then find it.  But despite her obvious lack of
confidence, the hand that grasped the metal implement did not shiver.  She had
not changed, the Chosen thought to himself with satisfaction.

With smooth motions, she cut away a rectangle of his suit, revealing the blast
hole in his back.  He could feel her shiver as she saw his exposed spinal chord
and muscles, with char and pieces of black mixed in.

"OK, that's good.  Now try to pick out the pieces of the suit with the
tweezers."  He forced himself not to flinch as she obeyed, the cold metal
coming in contact with his exposed muscles.  The mental pain numbing technique
was working, but nothing was perfect.  He sensed her hesitate as all of the
larger pieces of material were gone.  The rest was mostly dust scattered over
the area.

"You don't have to worry about the rest."  He tried to project calmness in his
tone.

"But the-"

He didn't let her finish. "It's organic.  In a way that you might not
understand, it is part of me."  He cursed himself, realizing how condescending
that sounded. You might not understand.<  >Fool! He cursed himself.

She seemed to take no offense. "Now what?"

"You're the doctor, what would you recommend now?"

"The morgue?"  He almost smiled. "I don't know. I guess get the glass out of
the spinal chord."  She waited.

"So what are you waiting for?"

He could feel the hesitation as she raised the tweezers. "Where is it?  She
touched a vertebrae.

"The first one is two vertebrae lower.  Right there," he said as she touched
the bone over the sliver. "Can you see it?"

"Yes." Her voice wavered.

He took a deep breath. "Just grab it and pull it out.  And ignore me if I
scream, that is a rather sensitive spot."  That was putting it mildly, the
nerves going through the spinal chord led to the rest of his body.  He felt her
hesitate, then plunge the tweezers down.  The ends contacted the glass.

He managed to keep himself from crying out loud.  

Barely. His muscles bunched up around the area.  When immobile, the glass was
not too bad, but moving it was... worse.  He felt her pull back and almost
screamed at her.  In a voice that he hoped projected strength, he ordered her.
"Pull it out. Now."  Again the pain as she touched it, then even more as the
ends of the tweezers grasped the sliver.  Then she pulled.

*<Aarrgh!>* He kept himself still as the pain reached a peak, an
unbearable level, then slowly began to fade.  He realized he must have blocked
out the worst of it, otherwise he would be unconscious.

"Are you all right?"  The voice reached him from a long way off.

He fumbled for his voice for a couple of moments, then found it.  To his
surprise, it was rather high pitched. "Fine."  He realized he was not breathing
and reactivated that part of his system.  For a couple of moments there was
silence as the pain faded slowly.  He could already feel the nerves starting to
knit, the gap slowly bridged.

"All right, the other ones are not as deep.  There is one just a little lower
than that shard, embedded a bit to the right."

She moved the tweezers appropriately.  And he almost screamed in pain again.

Trying to keep himself distracted, he tried to remember the last time she did
something similar on him.  While a part of him continued to point out the
crystals, his brain flowed away with the tide of memories.



It was during his later years in training, before the attack of Queen Beryl.
Before the time had come for the Chosen to face Him.  He had been practicing
with Ami and Lita in a heavily mined field, more for his entertainment than for
any realistic aid the experience might give him in his battle.  And then he
stepped a bit to the side of the planned path.

He remembered the blast, tearing his balance apart, sending the world spinning
around him, the sky crashing down on his head.

He remembered the light of the bomb, burning its way through his retina,
blinding him.

Worst of all, he remembered his leg disappearing in a pale pinkish mist,
dissolving under him, a brief flash of unbearable pain followed by a numbness
that would not go away.

He would have died there and then if Sailor Mercury had not been there.  Now,
he would have probably survived, but in the old days, he had not had a fraction
of the training needed to stop the blood from the artery, gushing forth in a
bright red fountain.  And he would have lost too much blood to survive.  To
him, the regeneration was really the easy part, compared to the management
needed at the time of the injury.  It was surviving the first moments that was
the difficult part.

Lita could do little to help, fundamentally she was a fighter not a healer.  It
was Ami who managed to stop the flow of blood with a variation of her bubble,
one that expanded to suit the growth of his limb.  She had saved his life that
day.

That's two I owe you, Ami, the Chosen thought to himself.

And I will not get a chance to pay you back, he finished sadly.



"So how is he?"  Mina was still in shock from everything that had happened.
The scouts had changed back into their normal identities, trying to relax
without much success.

Lita frowned in annoyance. "How would we know?  They chased us out of there
before we could make sure."  The green scout, in silent agreement with everyone
else in the room, neglected to mention the severed spinal chord.

Serena turned her head at that, surprised. "But Ami told us mmmpph!"  Rei,
alert for something like that, had stopped the rest of the sentence with her
hand.

"Told you what?"  Mina asked innocently.

Luna came forward, jumping nimbly to avoid the scramble between Rei and Serena.
The black cat ignored the fight with skill born of long practice. "Nothing
important.  Now, tell us what happened with you two."  Artemis, who had been
silent before, came forward a little.

But Mina was already distracted, looking back at the door behind which the
stranger was being operated on.  They had heard no noises coming from there and
she was beginning to get worried. "Maybe I should wait for Ami, so you can all
hear it together.  It's a bit... farfetched."

Darian, who also changed back to his cover identity, smiled, seeing that it was
not just Ami the scout was worrying about.



Finally the last of the large shards of glass was gone, a bloody pile of
crystalline fragments piled on a white sheet next to him.  He relaxed, his
normal regenerative mechanisms coming into force, beginning to work.

"OK, that's the last of them."  He smiled to himself, you're good as ever Ami,
he thought.

"My scanner is picking up a-"

He finished it. "A large number of smaller pieces of glass.  I can handle
it."

Though it was obvious she wanted to argue, she agreed. "All right.  Now
what?"

"Um... Can you bandage it with something?"  After several tries, she got a
towel over the wound and made it stay with a sheet of something white cinched
tight around his waist.  The rest of his top had to be cut off and got itself
tossed into a corner with the other pieces of black material.  His belt with
the assorted pouches followed.

"All right, what about this rib wound?"  At some point, she had switched to an
almost relaxed doctor voice, one that suited her pretty well.

"It's a clean cut, don't worry about it."  Except for the fact that it was made
with a Maraki blade, he added to himself, sighing.  That made it a lot more
difficult to heal, but there was no need for her to know that.

He could feel her about to protest, then stop herself. "And the hands?"  Not
waiting for an answer, she flipped one of them over. She had made him take the
gloves off before, revealing the damaged tissue. "I don't care what you say,
these are pretty bad.  I'm at least going to bandage them."

"Whatever you say," he agreed with an inward smile.

As she wrapped strips of cool cloth around his hands, he remembered
something.

"You know, it would have been much easier to just ask Serena to do Moon Healing
on me."  He wondered what kind of a  reaction he would get, and was not
disappointed.  She froze in mid-bandage.

"The Moon Wand was destroyed."

So they still thought that Sailor Moon's power objects were the source of her
strength. That was interesting, if somewhat disappointing.  For now, however,
the crystal would do as an excuse to continue the conversation, he thought.
"The crystal can heal as well as the wand."

Ami continued to be frozen. "Why didn't you say something before?"

Because I don't like to rely on foreign objects, he didn't say, but on my own
healing. "Because it would have probably not worked on me.  It can only heal
things within its power, and I.." He paused. "I do not belong in that
category."  Which was true, even if she might not understand yet.

Ami continued bandaging.  Finished, she put his hand down and picked up the
other, beginning to work on it.

"All right, I'd say you need three months before you can get out of bed." 

"And then I won't be able to walk for the rest of my life, I know.  Just relax,
all I need is sixteen hours' worth of sleep." And a week or so to finish up. 

A long pause followed, and he felt her about to ask about him who he was. "You
will know about me tomorrow, I promise."

She stood up, waving gently from side to side.  With his arms, the Chosen
rolled himself off the table and onto the bed, conveniently placed next to it.
He rearranged himself on his back, ignoring her astonished expression at
abusing a wound like that. Turning off the light, she exited.

He ordered his body into a regenerative mode, directing the order of repairs,
then closed his eyes.  Within ten seconds, he was in a state as close to sleep
as he ever got.



Everyone rose their heads as Ami opened the door and came out of the room.
Mina rose slightly. "My god!"

Ami was even paler than usual, her eyes framed unusually by the white skin.
Much of the sailor suit had blood on it, the gloves almost completely red.  And
the hands shook visibly under the gloves.  The rest of the scouts stood up to
help, but she shook off their hands.

The blue scout swallowed. "Let's just say that it was one of the stranger
experiences of my life," she answered in response to their questions.

"Is he all right?"  It was Mina, predictably, that asked the question first.

"I think so.  It was very weird."

"What do you mean?"

"Well-" Ami paused, trying to gather her thoughts. "The damage was less than
what I expected.  And there was almost no bleeding."  Looking down at herself,
Ami almost retracted the last statement, then let it stand.  There actually had
been very little bleeding, mostly the blood had been from the impact itself.
It was almost as if he had been able to stop the blood flow to the wounded
areas.  Which might well be the case, she sighed.

The blue headed scouts concentrated, her scout uniform dissolving into ribbons
of energy, replaced by a more ordinary, and much cleaner aquamarine dress.  She
collapsed in an armchair, then had to stop the rest of the scouts from going
into the room with the stranger. "He needs to rest, I'd prefer no one bothered
him.  He said he would explain to all of us tomorrow."  Then, to distract the
rest, she turned to Mina. "So what happened with you two?"

Sighing deeply, Mina sat down, closing her eyes for a moment. "That is a long
story."  Sighing again, she began, starting with her waking up in strange
surroundings.  As she came to the one night the two had spent in a bubble
universe, Mina left out the waking up part when she had inadvertently kissed
the strange man.  She might not have even been able to tell herself just why
she skipped over that, but she did without even thinking about it.  And so she
continued, past the different obstacles they had passed, across the bubble
universes while the other scouts listened attentively.

Outside, the moon crept across the sky, marking off time while one of the most
important people in the universe slept.

*	*	*

"And the rest you know."  Mina finished her recounting, sitting back and
yawning.

For a few moments, the rest of the scouts and the two cats remained silent. 

Lita sighed. "Well, I don't know about you guys, but I'm pooped.  Anyone know
what time it is?"  The question was rhetoric since everyone had been showing
signs of fatigue.  At several places during the story, Serena had fallen
asleep, only to be rudely wakened by an alert Rei. Lita continued after a wide
yawn that threatened to engulf the whole room. "I guess you all might as well
stay here for the night."

Serena woke up suddenly. "Oh, no, what am I going to tell my mom?"  Her eyes
turned glassy, threatening to sprout tears.

Mina looked at the two cats. "I guess Luna and Artemis will have to make sure
our parents do not know anything bad has happened."

Luna sighed. "You know how we hate to use our mental powers."  She exchanged a
short glance with Artemis and hung her head. "But I suppose we have no
choice."

Artemis seemed to shake himself out of a trance he had been in during Mina's
story. "At least it's a vacation week, we don't have to worry about teachers.
And you girls will have to explain to anyone other than your families if they
are suspicious, you can make something up."  Luna sighed at this, but did not
interfere.

Darian stood up, surprising the rest for a moment since he had stayed in the
background during the story. "I think I'll head back to my place for the night.
I have a few things I need to take care of, and I believe you can handle it for
now."  Kissing Serena good-bye, he went out the door with few protests from the
other scouts.

After a few more moments of tired looks, the scouts and cats departed to
various parts of the house, dividing up the rooms with a zeal.  Only minutes
later, most of them were asleep.

*	*	*

Artemis woke up from motion around him, but ordered his body to be still.  It
wasn't particularly hard since he was still mostly asleep, and he had not wish
to move anywhere except back into the dream he was having about this golden cat
with...  With an effort, he opened one eye.

Mina had gotten up, obviously trying to not wake him up.  For a moment, he felt
anger, and perhaps a little more, but he kept still.  He watched as she padded
out of the room in an oversized outfit, Lita's old pajamas, on loan for the
night.  The cat sighed, brooding.



After a but under two hours of undisturbed sleep, the Chosen's subconscious
woke him up.  Someone was in the room with him, and his alertness automatically
qualified this as a dangerous occurrence.  It wasn't, of course, his mind
immediately recognized Mina's mental presence.  He sighed to himself silently
in the dark, then steeled his expression. This was not entirely unforeseen, but
it was also something he did not want to deal with yet, not while half
paralyzed.

A part of him checked how his regeneration was proceeding while the rest of his
mind waited for Mina to do something.

He felt her approach, a subtle pattern of air pressure playing on his skin, a
bit of rustling between fabric and skin, the smell of another person.  She
stopped by the foot of his bed, looking at him, and waited.

After a few moments, he decided that he had to do something.

"Hello Mina," he said, without opening his eyes.

He could feel her slight surprise at the recognition, but she was not overly
astonished.  That was good, he thought to himself, she was not surprised by
anything he did any more.  Or perhaps she was too preoccupied with something
else.

"I'm sorry." She sounded lone and afraid. He startled to feel her start to cry,
and cursed himself for not being able to deal with it.

"Mina."  He whispered, not wanting the others to come rushing in, but made it
intense, enough for her to listen. "Do you remember when I said it wasn't your
fault?"  She nodded, still believing that it was, but he continued
nevertheless. "I wasn't lying.  Damn it, don't you understand?"  He reached up
with a bandaged hand, gently taking one of hers. "I could have stopped that
beam.  I could have dodged out of the way, I could have explained, I could have
told you before I drained you."  He hoped he was getting through. "But I did
none of those things, I did not pay attention and that's why I'm here.  But
there was no harm done, I'm fine. I'm fine,"  he repeated.

After a few moments, she slowed down her crying. "I didn't mean to hurt you,
you saved my life, you gave me hope.  You saved my friends.  And you stopped me
from being afraid<.>"  She paused, looking directly at him. "I hurt you
when I-" She paused and he suddenly got the distinct impression that she was
about to say, I love you. And it wasn't time yet, if she did it now, she might
never forgive him when she found out.  

So he stopped her. "It wasn't your fault." He repeated, and she collapsed on
his chest, her head resting on his heart.

He comforted her with his hands until she stopped crying, then gently wiped the
tears off one eyes with a finger that peeked through the bandages.  For a
moment, she asked to stay with him silently, just with her eyes, but he
understood.

"No."  Before she could protest he explained. "It isn't right.  You.."  How
could he explain, the Chosen wondered, how could he tell her that she might
hate him in the morning? "You have to hear what I have to say tomorrow
first."

She paused, then nodded.  Reaching up, he kissed her gently on her cheek. "Good
night, Mina."

She got up, slowly walking to the door, sad.  But the tears were not longer
there. "Good night, Chosen."  The door closed behind her and she was gone.



Artemis watched under the pretense of sleep as she walked back into the room
and lay down.  Relief flooded through him, releasing the tension he did not
know he held. For a few moments, her eyes were open, staring up. Then she
relaxed, closing her eyes.  The white cat waited a few minutes, until he was
sure she was asleep, before leaping from the bed.

He walked quietly out the door, crossing the corridor and gently pushing open
another door, trying to make as little noise as possible.  It was a special
talent of cats, and he took pride in his particular ability with it.  Nimbly,
he jumped onto the table next to the bed, then down.  The white cat made a
perfect landing, in the center of the Chosen's chest.

The other did not move.  Artemis smiled internally, knowing he was awake, and
realizing that the man had learned his lessons well, he did not flinch.  A
millennium ago, he would have.

The Chosen opened his eyes. "Hello Artemis."  The cat smiled to himself at the
correct use of his name, then decided it was time.

"Hello Nakiad," he said, slurring the last two vowels and accenting the second
letter 'a'.

To his credit, the Chosen did not flinch.  He merely stared at the cat, his
eyes not revealing his thoughts.  After several moments, he sighed and answered
in a tired voice.  "I have not gone by that name for a thousand years."  He
paused, then finished in a dark tone. "You remember."

It was not a question, but Artemis answered it anyway. "Yes.  Everything I knew
before, I know now.  At least relating to you."

Nakiad shook his head. "But you don't know what happened."

Artemis frowned, surprised. "I am not sure what you mean."

The Chosen shook his head. "Tomorrow, then. I do not have the strength." Or
courage, was written on his face.  What could Nakiad possibly have done to make
him think his friends would not understand? Then the other continued, and the
expression was gone so fast the white cat was not even sure it had ever been
there. "How did you remember?  The wipe was designed for everything."

Artemis smiled as best as a cat could. "All through my existence in this time,
I have been getting a vague unsettling feeling, weird signals that came from
nowhere.  Like the kind I get from Mina, only stronger, but with no source."

The man nodded. "Yes, that link could not be broken, but it should not have
bothered you too much."

"It did not, at first.  But lately, after Mina became Sailor V for the first
time, the feelings became stronger.  They peaked three times, when you saved
Mina from death those times.  After that, I could not ignore those feeling, I
tried to track you down, but you always were elusive.  It would have come to
nothing, except.."  The cat paused for effect.

The Chosen sighed. "The trigger."

"Yes.  I was reading a book of Greek mythology while watching over Mina, and
guess what word I came across?"

The other shook his head.  "No one could have predicted that some of the lore
of the Silver Millennium would be preserved and passed down from generation to
generation.  I was aware of the phenomenon, but I hoped you would not have come
across it." Nakiad shook his head again. "It does not matter anyway."

They paused, looking at each other. Artemis broke the silence first, conscious
of the other's stare. "Thank you."

"For what?"  The Chose seemed close to drifting back into sleep.

"Mina."

The man's eyes opened. "If you truly remember, you know better than that.  I
could not have done otherwise."

"Your feeling have not changed?"

"Destiny is not so easily rewritten."

The cat sighed, settling down on the Chosen's chest. "A guardian can hope."
Artemis looked directly at the man. "If you hurt her, I..."  He left the threat
hanging, though he knew it was futile.  He could do nothing, and he would do
nothing because what must be must be.

"I know.  What must happen, must happen, you know that."  Unaware, the Chosen
was repeating Artemis's thoughts.

Slowly, the white cat relaxed. "Yes, I know."  He put his head down, closing
his eyes.

"Good night, Art."

"Artemis."  The cat grumbled softly without opening his eyes as he fell
asleep.

*	*	*

The Dark Lord sat silently on his throne.  He did not know what had become of
the Chosen and his companions, but he could guess.  He laughed silently as he
thought about the amount of energy it would have taken for the Chosen to
disassemble his love and then recreate her once more on Earth.

Now the shadowy figure knew he would win this fight.

I do not even need to lift my sword, he thought as he laughed.

Still, tradition was tradition, he thought, and looked up. "Guard."

A shadow approached somberly, obviously remembering the fates of the previous
two shadows who had the posts.

"Get the arena ready," the Lord hissed.

The other ran out of the room, fleeing the echoing laughter that suddenly
filled the great black chamber.

<Now, Chosen,> the Dark Lord thought. <It *will* end.>

*	*	*

The Chosen had ordered himself asleep until his surroundings were bright enough
to assure him that the sun was up.  Only once did he awaken before then,
something strange going through his mind.  Almost as if someone far away was
talking to him, and the words were not pleasant.  Unable to distinguish what
the phrase was, Nakiad had gone back to sleep.

At dawn, his subconscious woke him up, his eyes opening smoothly with no delay
between being asleep and being awake.  He moved his chest a little, waking the
white cat.

"I think you better return to Mina before she finds you missing."

"Right," the cat answered sleepily.  Artemis yawned as he hopped off the bed.
Coming to the door, he paused. "Was it really that bad?" Referring to whatever
it was the Chosen refused to tell.

Nakiad looked at him sadly. "Worse."  He waited for the cat to leave before
deciding to get up.

The man gave his systems a thorough examination.  His spinal chord was mended
enough to allow him to walk, though it would take a week or so to completely
heal.  His hands seemed to be doing fine, though he had yet to regain all of
the sense of touch.  The wound through his ribs, on the other hand, was taking
longer to heal because of the Maraki blade that caused it.  Still, Nakiad
thought with satisfaction, everything should be in good shape by the time he
would have to...

He interrupted his own thoughts with a somber reminder that everything would
have to go well in order for him to have enough time.  And if not..  He sighed,
interrupting his thoughts once more.

Slowly, he sat up on the bed, carefully attending his back, then put his feet
on the floor, looking around the room for the first time.

It was a mess.  Actually, it wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been, the
sheets had retained most of the blood, not allowing any to spill on the floor.
But the table was probably soaked, and there was a pile of bloody glass next to
where he had lain.  The bed was also somewhat dirty, but only from the blood
that remained on him, and none seemed to have penetrated the bed sheets.

Sighing, Nakiad stood up, feeling the wooden floor with his bare feet.  He
gathered the sheets off the bead, crumpling them up into a ball, and left the
room.  In the kitchen, he took a garbage bag from a box, stuffing the sheet
into it.  Returning to the room, he gathered everything else that was bloody
into the bag, wrapping the glass shards in a similarly bloody towel before
dumping them inside.  To his surprise, the room looked almost normal.  The only
thing left to do was to clean the table, and get his suit out of the corner,
after that everything would be fine.  Relatively fine, at least.

He switched his attention to his own outward appearance, something he had not
the time to do before.  He was pretty messy, but it was nothing half an hour
with soap and water couldn't fix.  

Flexing his hands to test for damage, and discovering no pain, Nakiad decided
to get rid of the bandages.  In a few moments, his hands were free of the white
covering, the bandages not sticking to the blood that covered his hands for
some reason.  He tossed the white material into the garbage bag, then rubbed
his hands together over it to get rid of the remaining blood. His hands were
revealed as almost completely healthy, with an almost invisible pattern of
scars on the palms.

He grinned, examining the them. "Thank you DNA." Still smiling a bit, he found
his way into the bathroom, dumping the garbage bag near the exit as he went.
He noticed that the living room could also use some cleaning, the blood stains
evident on the carpet and couch.  And, of course, someone would have to replace
a glass sculpture, the man reminded himself, ruefully feeling his back.

After twenty busy minutes with the water running, he was actually mostly clean,
the white bandage around his midsection the only thing marring his upper body.
And he needed a shave.  Closing his eyes, he concentrated on his face, focusing
his mind in a way learned over centuries.  A careful observer might have
noticed a slight drop in the temperature around him as he stared, then it was
gone.  With a swift motion, Nakiad rubbed a hand across his face.  Thousands of
frozen hairs dropped off into the sink.  After several brushes, the hair was
gone, and he turned on the water again, flushing the water down the drain.

Out of the mirror, a person who looked almost presentable stared back at him.
Then the reflection's face turned grim, wiping away any signs of enjoyment in
the sight.

<You intend to tell them?>  The voice came suddenly into his head.

Sighing, the man  turned off the water. <I was beginning to get
worried.>

<I tried to follow you into the Negaverse and He felt me.  I am not exactly
sure how, but he managed to change my orientation in mid jump.  It took me time
to regain my bearings and more to return here.>

Nakiad sighed.  He was aware that it took a while for Guardian to change
dimensions, but this time it had been taking far too long and he actually had
been worried.  He remembered the other's question, and answered it, using
normal speech this time. "Yes.  There is no other choice, it was destined for
them to know.  Otherwise, my decision would not be as hard, but it might do
damage to-"

<To everything>   Guardian finished for him.



Ami's eyes opened slowly, her mind still partly in a dream state.  Some sort of
noise was disturbing her, a beeping that seemed to come from everywhere at
once.  It took the girl several minutes to remember that she set her computer
to wake her up, leaving it under her pillow.

She sighed as she forced herself to wake up, wishing for a few more hours of
sleep.  The wish was a common one to her, despite what her friends thought, it
did take a lot of effort to get straight A's.  And now she couldn't even get
decent sleep during a holiday week. Even worse, she had gone to sleep late the
night before because of problems she could not ignore. There were basically two
issues she had in mind.  

The first was the failure of her method of killing the dark creature when they
had been captured.  She had been so sure she was right, all they had to do was
isolate its center, and it would not be able to function, but it was able to
destroy their bubble of energy and take them.

The second problem was the stranger, Mina had called him Chosen.  His whole
physiology seemed different, but she wanted to find out more about what he was
and how he was able to heal as fast as Mina said.  And how he saved the orange
scout.  And what the black creature was all about.  He had called himself the
Shadow, the Dark Lord.  Somehow, he was at the root of everything. Along with
Chosen, of course.

So many questions, Ami remembered herself sighing.

The blue scout had pored over the data for several hours without a lot of luck,
and it was close to dawn when she had finally finished.  She had gotten only
some of the answers she needed, but that was all she could do.  Setting an
alarm, then tossing away the device, she had rolled onto the bed she was using
and fell asleep.

And now, without any transition, it was morning, and she had not gotten nearly
enough sleep.  But she had to check on her patient, make sure he did not do
anything stupid.  Ami smiled to herself, realizing she was thinking like a
doctor.  Then she heard running water.

Surprised, she forced herself to hurry.  She did not think it was so late that
one of the other scouts would be up, certainly not after a night like the last
one.  And that meant... what?  She wondered as she dressed hurriedly.

As she opened the door of her room, the water was turned off.  She came up to
the bathroom door, but heard nothing beyond the door.  She froze, listening..
Then she heard the stranger's voice. "Yes.  There is no other choice, it was
destined for them to know.  Otherwise, my decision would not be as hard, but it
might do damage to-"  The voice stopped and Ami wondered what that meant.  What
would do damage?  What was destined for whom to know?  Suddenly, the blue scout
realized she was doing something very much like spying and forced herself to
unfreeze.  Hesitantly, she reached up and tried to knock.

Tried to, because the door was not fully closed and it opened completely with
the slight impact of her fist.

The Chosen seemed to be talking to a sphere of light.  He turned to her and
sighed.

"Good morning, Ami."  The light disappeared without any visible signal from the
man.

The only word that came to the scout's mind was 'what', so she decided to use
it. "What?" She asked, somewhat halfheartedly.

"I assume you mean the light. I assure-"

Anything he was saying was lost, since at that point the mind of the blue scout
began to get distracted. Ami's eyes went down a little and she realized that
his hands did not have any bandages on them.  Moreover, the hands did not seem
to be bleeding profusely, but almost seemed to have healed.  At the same time,
it hit the scout that the Chosen was standing on his own, something patently
impossible for a person with a severed spinal chord.  A high pitched squeak
emerged from Ami's lips, the only thing she could think of while her brain
attempted, in vain, to deal with the contradicting input.

The man seemed to realize what was up and he sighed again, a sound filled with
suffering.  He brushed past her into the corridor, going back to his room and
she followed on his heels, her mind still a bit dazed.  

She was almost recovered when they entered the room he had slept in.  Somewhat
with detachment, she noticed that he had cleaned up the mess, or most of it,
then a part of her brain told the rest to stop fooling around.

Meanwhile the Chosen went to the corner of the room where she had dumped his
very torn suit and lifted it to put it on.  But unlike the day before, the
black fabric was not damaged in any way, there was no ragged hole in the back
or slices all over.  The tunic looked complete, stretched between his hands.

Ami's mind, nor really ready to deal with the major problems, focused on the
minor inconsistency. "How come your suit is no longer torn?"  Her voice sounded
a bit alien, but she was getting it under control.  Somewhat under control, she
corrected herself.

He turned around. "This fabric is part of me, as is the staff.  They are alive
in a way that I am not sure your computer can read, and will recover from any
injury as long as I am alive."

Her mind processed that for a few seconds, then something clicked. "Staff?"

He looked surprised for a moment, then shook his head. "I mean my swords."

Yeah, that made sense, the scout thought in a sarcastic tone that surprised
her.  While this conversation was going on, she managed to accept the
unbelievable recovery of the man.  But he had not removed the bandages on his
back and side and her scientific curiosity got the better of her. "If you can
regenerate, how come your back is not all of the way healed yet?"

He frowned. "I might have led you a little astray in that.  I do not really
regenerate, not like a worm, for example.  It is merely that my healing is
considerably stronger than an average human's, and works a lot faster.  But
that does not mean that I am invincible, if my heart is destroyed, for example,
I will die as any one would.  And even in me, nerves take a long time to heal
and re-attach, so I haven't had time to finish my back."

OK, Ami thought with a strange degree of satisfaction, so he is not immortal.
So theoretically, she should be able to figure our how he does it, and perhaps
use that.  That, and she needed a talk alone with the scouts. "Can I take a
look at it?  Actually, I'd like to do a computer scan of the damage. "

He shrugged. "Sure, go ahead."  The expression on his face was almost
unreadable, but she thought she caught a hint of disdain, almost as if he
suspected her scan would fail.

She set her computer to do a thorough examination of all systems, especially
the immune and defense while he removed the bandages and lay down on the table.
To her surprise, the back was considerably better, and though the skin seemed
very fragile, the spinal chord seemed to have mended at least part of the way.
The cut to the ribs, on the other hand, was worse off for some reason, it had
only partially healed and was still very ragged. "How come the wound in the
ribs is taking longer to heal?"

The man sighed. "Maraki," he explained.  When she did not understand, he smiled
a little. "It was cause by a blade covered in Maraki, an ancient metal only
rarely found today.  When such a blade penetrates a living organism, it is very
difficult to heal and often results in death.  It is less potent on me, but it
is still difficult to heal.  Basically, it leaves sort of an inhibitory layer
on the tissues it touches, which stops most regenerative processes, and slows
mine considerably."  

Ami nodded absently as she placed the computer near him, executing the scan,
then had a strange feeling.  For a split second, she knew she would not find
anything.  Then it passed, and she turned to the Chosen.

"Um.. I'm going to leave this to scan you, and I'll go wake the other scouts
up."  She needed to talk to them alone, without his presence.

"Sure, go ahead."  He put his head down, closing his eyes as Ami walked out of
the room.

As she grasped the handle of the door, he opened one eye. "My hearing is
excellent as well," he added mildly.

For a moment, Ami wondered what that applied to, then thought he had guessed
what she was about to do.  She turned back to look at him, but he already
seemed asleep.

She would have been very disconcerted to know that as she turned her back he
smiled.



Through her dream, which mainly revolved around Tuxedo Mask, Serena felt some
strange force shaking her.  As the pleasant images dissolved around her, she
felt herself whining a bit.  She *really* did not want to go to school,
but the shaking was getting more insistent and her sleep dissolved.

Opening her eyes in a slit, the scout saw a face over her, though the features
were still too blurred to know who it was. "But mom, I don't want to go to
school today," she whined.

A voice came from the figure, one that did not belong to either of her parents.
"There's no school today, it's still the middle of the vacation week."

No school?  Serena's mind reveled in the sudden relief, then she grew
suspicious. "Then why did you wake me up so early?" As an afterthought, she
added another question. "Who are you, anyway?"

Another voice came from behind the figure. "This is hopeless.  Here, stand away
from her."  the new voice was imperious, commanding.

"Do you think that's wise, after all-"  A third voice asked as the first blurry
figure moved out of sight, and Serena thought she saw something coming toward
her.

Then an icy blast of water landed on her face, jerking her awake!

"What, where, whenwhywho!?"  Her vision suddenly cleared, Serena recognized the
fist figure as Lita and the second one as Rei. "Reeeeiiiiii!"  Serena yelled in
absolute fury.

"Well, it was the only way to wake you up." Rei answered matter of factly.
Seeing the other's stare, she tried to defend herself again. "It worked, didn't
it?"

"Ooooooo!"

Luna, the third voice, seeing an imminent fight, interposed herself. "Guys, Ami
has something to tell us, so come on!"

Serena decided to settle the dispute some other time as she heard the doorbell.
Remembering that Darian said he would be back in the morning, she dove into her
clothes with a speed that amazed the other two as they got out of her way.

Rei looked with grim amusement at the trail of disorder. "That energy, used for
a peaceful cause....."  She trailed off.

"Yeah," Lita agreed as the two girls followed the Princess. 



Darian rang the door, wondering if he should have stayed Lita's apartment that
night.  There was no telling what trouble those girls might have gotten
themselves into, the prince thought.  And besides, he added to himself, I
didn't exactly get a good night's sleep worrying about them.  The door opened
and hurricane Serena blew through it.

To his own surprise, Darian managed to retain some control of over his balance
as she smashed into him.  After several seconds of almost falling, he managed
to reverse her momentum and walked through the door.  The rest of the scouts
were gathered around Lita's kitchen table and he took a chair, gently
separating himself from Serena.

He noticed that the man, Mina had called him Chosen, was not there, and turned
an inquiring look toward Ami.

"He's in there," she answered, pointing at the room. "I am running a check on
him, so he can't come right now."  Darian smiled, but only to himself.  Ami was
not a very good liar, she obviously wanted to have a talk alone without the
other's presence.

After a gratuitous spat between Rei and Serena, the latter accusing Sailor Mars
of having poured cold water on her, the meeting came to order.  At least, to
the maximum amount of order the scouts, Darian and the two cats could manage.

Ami sighed, rubbing her eyes. "I have had some time to run a check on two
things that worry me, the dark warriors and the Chosen."  The blue scout looked
meaningfully at Mina. "First, the.. well, not the bad news, but not good news
either." Seeing the inquiring looks, Ami continued before the others could ask.
"All of my scans have not shown anything about him.  It is almost as if his
entire physiology is based around not being detected.  The best scan I got was
when.." Darian followed Ami's glance to Mina and wondered just how involved the
orange scout was in the whole story. "When he was wounded," Ami had meanwhile
finished.  But even that scan was barely a glance, nothing specific. Basically,
I have no clue who or what he is."

Darian noticed that Mina jerked as she heard that last. "Who he is," she
insisted.

Ami sighed. "There is not enough information to go on, so I think we should
drop that until my scan is finished."

"What about the shadow?" Lita, predictably, asked that, being the most
combative of the scouts.

Ami almost smiled. "That's the good news. I think I know why that method of
fighting the creature did not work. At first, I thought the creature was just a
kernel of power that extended energy to manipulate objects.  But from the
extended scan, it seems like the thing was taking up a lot more space than a
kernel.  More like all of it is an energy field, not just the center.  The
middle of it is merely where it is the most powerful.

"So how does that help us?"

Ami smiled a little.  "All we would have to do is confine it gradually to a
smaller area in which it would not be able to continue to function."  Seeing
the blank looks, Ami explained. "All we have to do is concentrate our power as
before, but into a larger bubble, encompassing the whole creature, then make it
shrink until it dies." As the rest of the scouts smiled in comprehension, Ami
sighed.

Darian thought about this, then wondered what he was supposed to do while the
scouts fought the creature. "Um, Ami? Is there a way for me to fight this
thing?"

The blue scout looked apologetic. "I don't think so. Most of your attacks are
more of a physical assault rather than energy waves.  It just wouldn't work
against one of those things."

Darian wondered about the rose the stranger had altered.

Serena looked up suddenly. "Do we even know what these things are?"

For a few seconds, there was silence, then a new voice cut across the room.
"They are called< >shadows."

Everyone turned to the Chosen, standing in the doorway.  In one hand, he held
Ami's computer.  Catching the girl's eye, he tossed it across the room, the
smooth arc stooped by Ami's hands.  He continued to watch her as she frowned,
tapping at the keys, then looked at him.

"It didn't scan you."

He smiled a sadly. "On the contrary, it did scan me, it just couldn't scan
me."

Darian watched the exchange, wondering when one of the girls would realize what
the Chosen had said.  Lita, next to the Prince, suddenly jerked. "Wait a
moment," she whispered.  Then, raising her voice. "Did you say shadows?  Didn't
we destroy those when we toasted Queen Beryl?"

The man turned to her, sighing. "The Shadows of the Dark Lord are the original
deadly creatures.  Made of nothing but negative energy, they obey him
implicitly.  Or so I was always taught. When Queen Beryl fought her way to the
throne of the Dark Army, she created the seven shadows out of her best
generals, an imitation of the Dark One's greatest servants. The true shadows
disappeared before the end of the Silver Millennium, never to be seen again."

Mina looked at him softly. "Until now."

He sighed again. "When you awakened in this time as the sailor scouts, you
remembered nothing of the Silver Millennium.  Over time, you began to recall
some important moments, and even now you are often finding out new things about
yourselves."  It was not a question, but the scouts, along with Tuxedo Mask and
Luna nodded. Artemis did not, something no one saw. The Chosen continued. "Many
of those memory gaps are there just because of the passage of time, things lost
to you during the period between now and then."  His voice seemed to tense.
"But... in addition to the natural memory lapses, there is also the purposeful
ones."  Before anyone could interrupt, he continued. "And a major part of the
gaps that were made on purpose were caused by me<.>"

"What?"  The question echoed through the room.

The man swallowed as he stood, facing the others as if they were opponents in a
deadly game. "It is time for you to remember."  He paused. "Guardian!"  A
sphere of light appeared over his shoulder, and the stranger addressed it. "It
is time.  Remove the suppression, set their minds free. *Now*."

The light hovered there without making a sound, but the Chosen seemed to be
listening to something.  Darian got the strange feeling that a conversation was
taking place, but he had no idea what it was.  Inside his jacket, the Prince
felt at a rose, making sure he was ready in case something dangerous happened.
He noticed Rei and Lita reaching for their transformation sticks.  Mina and Ami
did not move, strange expressions on their faces, while Serena stared at the
white light as if she was at a laser show.

The Chosen's features contorted suddenly, and he spoke out loud. "It may be
dangerous, but it must be done."

Then the light, too spoke.  A voice came from the globe of white, a resonant
baritone that seemed to pulse through the air. <"Very well.  On your head be
it.">

The man looked very sad as he nodded. "It always is."

The light moved away from him and toward the scouts.  Before anyone could
react, eight beams lanced out, one to every scout,  one to the prince and two
to the cats.  Darian's eyes widened as he noticed the beam reaching Artemis
falter and disappear, then the Prince tried to avoid his own light.  Before he
could move, however, the strange ball darkened, the beams vanishing. It seemed
to turn toward the Chosen. <"It is done.">

Serena rubbed her head. "Funny, I don't feel any different."

The man looked at the light as it vanished. "The memories were keyed to respond
to a single word, spoken by a single person." Darian wondered why the Chosen
looked at Artemis as he continued. "Apparently, it is not always successful,
but.." He paused, hen something happened to the Chosen's eyes.  Darian was sure
that the man was staring straight at him, but also looking at each of the
scouts.  The eyes seemed to pulse, increasing and decreasing in size, then
turned black.

The stranger took a deep breath as he uttered the word.

*"Nemesis."*
**
**Darian screamed silently as he fell into those eyes.

*	*	*

Lita opened her eyes.

Sort of.

Actually, as a bit of experimentation proved, she did not actually have eyes.
Nor ears, mouth, or any other part of her anatomy.  She was floating in the
middle of a strange room which did not resemble her apartment in the least.
Although she could see and hear everything going on around her, she did not
seem to be there.  The closest thing she could compare the feeling to was
watching a movie, but in three dimensions and a lot more realistic.

With a violent motion, she tried to twist herself around, failing completely,
and ended up where she started, wherever that might be.

Then she became aware of something else going on inside her. A strange process
was taking place inside her mind, information seemed to be coming in.  Images
flashed through her head, and knowledge came to her, knowledge she knew she
could not have.

For one thing, she knew that at this point in time, she had not been born yet.
And, her brain assured her stubbornly, this was the Silver Millennium.  She was
on Earth, where a boy had just passed the first Test for the Chosen.  The
information seemed so subconscious, even instinctive, that she did not even try
to argue with it because she couldn't.

Instead, she examined her surroundings to the extent possible.  She was in some
sort of room, one without any particular distinction, a room that might well be
found in a rural house today.  A large window showed green countryside outside.
It was in front of that view that the woman sat.

Lita jerked in surprise, or tried to, as the absence of a body prevented the
natural reaction to being startled, resulting in confusion. The scout was sure
that the woman had not been there before, it was as if her viewing had skipped
past time, jerking her to a moment when the woman was there.

Lita tried to ask something, and failed, quite naturally, then noticed that the
woman seemed very sad.  She had a sheet of paper in front of her with writing
on it, in a format very similar to a letter.

The scene jerked again, the woman not moving, and a young boy, perhaps five
years old ran into the room.  Lita gasped, for in that moment, she *knew*
that was the stranger, the Chosen.

The boy ran up to the woman. "Why are you sad, mother?" He asked.  Lita
wondered at his tone, for it held little of the childishness expected of
someone his age.  The voice was- for a few moments, Lita tried to qualify it,
then decided on the one thing that made sense.  The voice was mature.

The woman looked up. "Oh, Nakiad."  Her eyes got glassy with imminent tears.
"You have passed the first of the Tests."

Nakiad?  Again, Lita tried to jerk in surprise.  For some reason the name stood
out in her mind, as if she knew it from somewhere, but she could not trace the
origin of the feeling.

The boy looked surprised at the woman's sadness. "But you have always told me
that being picked as an apprentice for the Chosen was a great and honorable
thing.  You always encouraged me to make the best of my abilities and my
strengths."

She shook her head. "I know."  Her voice was barely a whisper. "But this means
you will have to go away to train.  And I might never see you again after you
leave, for.." The woman stumbled.

The boy laid a hand on her arm. "Do not worry, mother.  I will only be leaving
if I pass the next set of tests, and that's four years from now.  The chances
of me making it are small."

The woman sighed. "I know, Nakiad.  But I have a feeling that you will pass.
And I do not know what I will do without you."

The boy looked confused for a few moments, then something strange happened to
the room.

Time seemed to slow, the boy freezing in place, then everything went dark.

And a split second later, Lita found herself somewhere else.

*	*	*

Nakiad watched the six figures in their sleep, a slumber that came on them
instantly as he spoke the word.  He turned to Artemis. "Do you know what is
happening to them?"  

Mentally, he addressed the thought to Guardian as well.

<"I am not sure">, the light answered aloud. <"As far as I can tell,
they are getting their memories back, but their bodies are in a dream
state.">

The white cat jumped on top of the table. "When I was read the word
'Nemesis' in one of the Greek myths, I fell into a sort of dream state,
somewhat like the one they are in now.  I think that the overload of memories
is so great that a mind tries to cope with it by reliving the important parts
of the situation that is being remembered."

<"That fits with my diagnosis.  It is like they are witnessing a story told
to them long ago, while their subconscious is processing memories.  Almost as
if they are all sharing the same hallucination.">

The man sighed in relief. "Then they are all right."

They watched in silence for a while, then Artemis turned to the man. "I was
wondering about something.  How did the name of a person from the Silver
Millennium got into an Earth myth?"

The man shook his head. "I'm not sure.  Perhaps some of the literature on Earth
survived, and someone was able to translate it.  Or maybe the memory of Nemesis
carried over in some of the people reborn here."

The cat settled down. "Perhaps.  It seems strange, though, that a person of
such historical importance would be recorded as a minor god in the myths."

Nakiad sighed. "It makes more sense than you think.  Nemesis, the goddess of
retribution, was merely a tool for the gods, with little free will of her own."
The man's eyes suddenly took on a strange look. "And the Nemesis of the Silver
Millennium, along with all who followed her, are merely tools for the power of
the Universe.  Just as the Dark Lord is a tool for the Negaverse."

Artemis seemed about to argue with that last statement, but he merely lay down,
closing his eyes.

*	*	*

Rei wondered what was going on, for what seemed to be the hundredth time.  She
had just been in a chamber with the young stranger and his mother, and now she
was somewhere else, made obvious by the planet floating overhead.

The planet was Earth, and, as near as Rei could tell, she was on the moon.  To
one side was a fair sized city, with the royal palace in the center.  The
beauty of the scene reminded the scout *when* she was.  And she remembered
that it would not last, for she knew the attack of Queen Beryl was coming, the
attack that would destroy the magnificent kingdom.

And the red scout cursed the evil queen for destroying such beauty, Rei's home
for so long ago.

At the same time, Rei also knew that she had been born four years ago, with an
instinctive knowledge beyond her explanation.

A star approached from the blue-green planet, rapidly enlarging into something
like a spaceship gone wrong.  It landed near Rei, on a flat pad next to a
building.  The vessel turned out to be an extended sphere of energy, with
pulsing lights along its walls.  A crack opened in its side, a bright cut in
the smooth covering, and a person appeared, silhouetted dark against the bright
background of the ship's interior.  The person jumped down to the ground,
revealing another who followed.  After ten people came out in that manner, the
portal closed.  The scout, observing the procedure, noticed that the figures
were no larger than children, perhaps ten years old..  The figures turned,
watching the ship that brought them to the moon vanish over the horizon.  The
they went toward the building, entering a doorway and disappearing within.  At
the last moment, one of them turned, and Rei saw him.

Again, Rei recognized him almost instinctively, though the only time she
remembered seeing him in reality was when he was much older.  He was Chosen.
No, she realized after a moment, a piece of information uncovering itself in
her mind.  Being a Chosen was a post, so he was the Chosen.

The scene blinked again, a phenomenon that Rei was actually getting used to.
She was in some sort of audience chamber with tiered rows of seats and a podium
in the center.  Rei estimated about a hundred people sitting within the
audience, all approximately the same age.  The scout hovered over the group
that had come from the Earth pod. Then she wondered how she knew the others had
not come from the planet.

The scene blinked without changing, and Rei realized that a speaker had come up
to the podium, and seemed to be in the middle of a speech.

".... one of you will reach the end.  But do not let the competition disgruntle
you, for reaching this level of apprenticeship is almost impossible.  Each and
every one you can be proud of your accomplishments. You are the best..."

The scene blinked again, and Rei got the impression that the speech had
continued for a long time. The speaker seemed to be finishing.

"... assigned quarters.  Your guardians will meet you there and instruct you
further.  They will be your guides, your advisors and your helpers. You can
trust them with anything and everything, for they are the ones responsible for
you.  They are the best, just as you are."

The kids in the audience got up, and the scout noticed that most of them had
grim expressions on their faces.  She wondered what it was that made them as
serious as they were.  Then Nakiad passed by her, and she saw that he was one
of the few who seemed almost relaxed.  The grimness was there, but it was
hidden with such skill that Rei almost missed it as he walked by.

The scene blinked again, replaced by another.



Ami tried to shake her non-existent head as the scene vanished, replaced by a
small room.  It was pretty bare, with not a lot of space to really do anything.
A bed stood at one wall while a desk stood against a window, the two pieces of
furniture taking up most of the room's space.

The scene beyond the window was a complete contrast to the bleakness of the
room.  The palace was outlined against the horizon, rows of fountains plainly
visible despite the distance.  A huge lake of frozen ice reflected the Earth,
hanging in the air.  Beautiful buildings of all sizes and colors spread over
the landscape, lit by the overhead stars.  It was the Moon Kingdom at the
height of its prosperity.

The door to the room opened and the boy came in.  Nakiad, the stranger who Ami
had met only recently, yet she seemed to know a lot about him.  She knew, for
example, that he was the Chosen back in her own time.  That is, forward in her
own time, Ami corrected herself, quickly getting tangled up in the business of
viewing the world when she was ten years younger, a millennium or more ago.

Then a white cat entered the room, causing Ami to try to yell out because he
looked a lot like Artemis, except for being just a little bit smaller. The boy
looked up as the feline advance, jumping on the bed and facing Nakiad.

"Hello, Nakiad.  I am Artem."

The boy sat down next to the cat. "You are the guardian?"

"Yes."  An obviously uneasy silence rested between them for a few seconds. "The
Test showed that you have great promise."  

The boy almost smiled. "What about you?"

"I got my second syllable a while ago, and mostly I have had pretty good jobs.
The Council thought you had a much better chance to succeed than the other
trainees and so they assigned me to you.  If I succeed, I will become one of
the few."

For a moment, the boy seemed to think about that, then he shook his head.
"Wouldn't that be sort of a letdown? What would you do after that?"

The cat thought about it. "No, it wouldn't be.  Training each person is
different, no matter how strong they may turn out in the end."

Ami watched the two talk, wondering just what was going on.  For one thing, she
had not seen the other scouts.  And she had no clue how she got wherever it is
she was.  Her mind was telling her the scenes were real, but at the same time,
logic said that the events had happened over a thousand years ago.  The only
explanation was-

Her thoughts were interrupted as the scene blinked yet again.

This time, she seemed to be in some sort of gym.  But unlike her school gym, a
place she liked slightly less than the rest of her classes, this one seemed to
be geared toward combat.

The boy was there with the cat, Artem.  They were defending themselves from
black-clad creatures that came at them claws first.  Surprisingly, Nakiad was
doing pretty well, impossibly well for a nine year old.  But he was almost
completely ignoring the cat, who did not have much of a chance to help, and
seemed infuriated.

Then two of the attackers got smart, one attacking from the front, and another
from the boy's back.  Nakiad was able to block the front one's claws, slamming
it with a fist in the creature's face, but the one behind was too close.  But
just as its claws were about to hit, a white flash passed by the outstretched
arm.  Three lines of blood appeared on the hand, and the creature screamed.
The boy turned around to see the thing attack again, and was able to roll aside
and finish it.

He glanced at the white cat with a slight smile on his face, and Ami distinctly
knew that the two began to get along at that point. "Thank, Art."

"Artem," the cat growled, but he did not seem upset.

The scene dissolved once more.



Luna tried to make sense of the images that flashed in her mind.  After the
last scene had vanished, the period of darkness seemed to be longer.  She got
the impression of years going by.  She somehow knew that the boy was growing up
and getting closer to the cat, the cat Luna was sure was Artemis.  The youth
was acing all of the tests, physical, mental and power ones, beating the other
apprentices almost all of the time.

Then another scene formed.

The boy was sitting in his room, staring at Artem, a somber expression on his
face.  He looked somewhere around fifteen years old, his frame strong and his
body upright and relaxed.

He looked up, asking in a quiet, sad tone. "I'm going to be the one, aren't I?"
It was almost not a question, but he obviously wanted an answer.  

The cat sighed. "There are plenty of other choices, some of the others have
been doing pretty well in the....." Artem trailed off, sighing, then seemed to
resign himself toward telling the truth. "You've beaten the others in almost
every test taken, you've outlearned them and outdone them.  Yes, there is a
very high chance that you will be the one."

The youth looked at him. "Then why is it I know nothing about what I have a
good chance of becoming?"  The boy seemed to stare out into space. "When I was
young, my parents used to tell me that being chosen was one of the most honored
things that can happen to a person. Yet once I was chosen, my mother acted as
if I would never come back.  And every time I visit my parents, they avoid
talking about my training. Is it so much to ask, to know what I am doing?"

The cat thought for several moments, his tail beating rhythmically back and
forth.  Finally, he looked up. "All right.  I knew this time would come, and
now it has.  It's time you know the truth."

Luna jerked back, or would have if she had a body, as that statement was so
similar to what the Chosen said before he put them into this dream.

"Long ago," the cat began. "When the Universe was created, it was made along
with one other.  Good can not exist without evil, and so the Negaverse came
into existence at the same time."  Artem sighed. "At first, the two existed
completely independent of one another, and for eons, the inhabitants of both
knew nothing of their counterpart.  And then the populace of the Negaverse
somehow found out.  No one knows exactly how, perhaps they merely deduced our
presence from the necessity of balance, or maybe they had some way of looking
between realities.  That does not matter now.  All that is really important, is
that the denizens of the Negaverse made a choice.  They pooled a huge amount of
power, forcing it into a single form, a creature that would have the strength
to bridge the gap, and one evil enough to attack the Universe.  And so the Dark
Lord was created."

The cat paused, a sad look crossing his feline face. "It did not work, of
course.  The creature they created was too powerful for them to control, and it
broke loose, destroying the ones that gave it life.  It raged inside the
confines of the Negaverse, and then remembered what its creators told it.  And
so it began forcing the two universes together with its power, actually moving
the Negaverse through the continuum."

"In the Universe, the sudden shift of power did not go unnoticed.  The balance
had been disrupted, and both universes were in danger.  And when the Evil One
moved the Negaverse closer, this disrupted the balance even more.  So a
decision was made.  The only way to stop the Dark Lord was to confront him, and
force a stalemate.  And so the leaders of that time forced their own strength
together as well.  And they helped the Evil One in his quest to bridge the
gap."

Shocked, Luna wondered why they did it.  So, obviously, did the youth.  "Why
would they do that?  Wouldn't it have been better to move the two apart?"

Artem shook his head. "Look at it his way.  Pretend the balance is like a
seesaw, where we are on one side, and the Negaverse on the other.  If one moves
toward the center-"

"The other has to move there to equalize."  Nakiad finished. "Of course."

The cat almost smiled. "And since there is not way to move another universe
without a Conjunction, we have to move our own.  But while thus the balance was
preserved, this brought the two universes closer together, and the leaders knew
the Evil One would try to bridge the gap.  And there was no equivalent power in
the Universe fight him."

Artem looked straight at the youth as he continued. "And so the Chosen was
created.  The council of the time picked the best fighter and gave him the
strength to fight back.  And that woman, Nemesis, did it.  She fought the Evil
One."

Both Luna and Nakiad waited for the end, a silence hanging over the room.

The cat looked down. "And she died." Artem sighed. "In sacrificing herself, she
managed to destroy the link between the universes, and push them apart a
little, too far for the Evil One, damaged but alive, to travel."  The Dark Lord
was pushed out of his dimension into an immaterial state from which it took him
a long time to recover.

"But that was not the end.  After a long time, the Dark Lord regained strength,
and came back to the Negaverse.  And he had retrieved enough of his power to
come across the gap again.  And so, every several thousand years a single
person is the Chosen, a person in the hands of which rests the fate of the
Universe for that period of time."

The cat seemed to be finished, but then he looked up. "You have the right to
know this, Nakiad, though I am not sure I am allowed to tell you.  But there is
one last thing which you should know."

The cat sighed, then looked directly at the youth. "Not one of the Chosen has
ever survived."

Luna gasped to herself as she remembered.

For several seconds, a silence reigned over the room.  Then the youth looked
up, his eyes still determined. "I think I already knew.  The sadness and pride
of people when the word 'Chosen' is mentioned.  Your own sadness sometimes.  I
knew I would not live."  He paused, looking somewhere straight ahead. "Is it
theoretically possible to survive?"

The cat seemed to think about it. "There is nothing said about that, but one
thing is clear.  The balance of good and evil in the Universe will always be
preserved as it is.  And so even if you destroy the Dark Lord, you will die
even as he does."

"Wait a minute."  The youth's eyes focused. "If that is true, how could the
Chosen die?"

"The Chosen is not a single person.  When one dies, the post remains.  As long
as that is true, a single Chosen can die.  And there is one other reason."
Artem's tone made it clear that he did not want to talk about that yet.

Nakiad thought for a few more moments. "What happens if I lose?"

The cat stared straight into his eyes. "There have been...dark periods of time,
millennia from which memories are few.  Those records that exist speak of evil
and despair, of shadows dancing in the burning dark." The cat grimaced in pain.
"No one knows exactly what caused those times, but the best guess is that a
Chosen got beaten and the Dark Lord won."

"Then how could.."

"It seems that another Chosen must have come, and was able to force the Evil
one back into his own universe.  But like I said, no one knows for sure."

"The Universe balanced against my life."  The youth paused, thinking, then
shook his head. "So be it," he said in a tone of finality that spoke of no
return.

Luna tried to blink as the room dissolved into blackness.