All characters within are copyright of someone else.

I realize that it has been far too long since my last installment of this
fic series, but it was dropped (for a while) due to apparent lack of
intrest, and other things that required my time.  For part 1 I would
suggest that you talk to Shannon Richmeyer (trichm@iu.net), as I had a
major crash of the hard drive variety.  Part 2&3 will be posted, and that
contains the majority of the good stuff, 1 was just background stuff and
sub-plots.  Don't know if I'll get into the sub-plots, but who knows?  On
with the show.

The Trial

        Ten more bullets had hit her, four square in the chest, the other
six on her arms and legs, and she reeled back, passing out, or dying, from
the sheer pain.  At first the Sailor Scouts could only watch in horror as
their princess, whom they were sworn to protect, fell to the ground in a
heap of blood, torn flesh, and sailor suit.  However, before they could
react, someone made the next move for them.
        "NOOOOOOOO!!"  All heads swivled in the direction of the scream.
It was Tuxedo Mask, and he looked, well angery would have been tame.  His
head turned in the direction of the two shots, and he picked up who and
where they were immedietly.  Tuxedo Mask jumped into the air, and after a
brief light show, Prince Darien landed.  More to the point he landed *on*
one of the snipers.
        The impact just jarred the human, knocking him off balance, but
that was enough of a distraction for the Prince.  For one who was trained
to be leader of the human race, such battles were to be expected, so one
was trained.  In one swift move, his sword was drawn and sliced off the
man's hands at the wrist, all in one motion.  Seeing this, the man could
only scream at his sudden dismemberment, and the Sailor Scouts at the act.
They couldn't belive that this happened.  Seeing his opponent was going to
provide no more of a threat, he turned to the other sniper, and burned the
image of his face into his mind, never to be forgotten.  After a moment,
his common sense kicked in, and he ran to the fallen warrior.
        He crouched down, crying, and seeing the damage up close and
personal, something clicked in his mind.  It was as if the image of his
love bleeding to death had shut a mental switch in his brain.  He
remembered one of his long-forgotten abilities.  He grabbed the edges of
his cape, and swirled them around him, and the limp form in his arms.  Just
before the cape had settled down, the two of them vanished from sight.
Teleported.  Rubieus, while thrilled at the partial success of his plans,
was unhappy about the thought of being left in that room with the four
remaing warriors.  His human minion beat a hasty retreat, and Rubieus
decided that it was in his best intrest to follow suit.  He simply faded
from view.
        The Sailor Scouts now started to understand their situation better.
They looked at one another, and all started to babble at the same time.
        "What was that all about?" Sailor Jupiter asked, and the others
couldn't see any point in telling her the obvious, for it was clear that
her mind was frazzled by the events and couldn't think straight.  After a
few seconds of whimpering, Sailor Mercury asked the intellegent question:
        "Where did he take her?"  The others couldn't think of a better
idea than the nearest hospital, but they severly doubted that, as it would
be hard to keep a secret identity after that.  But they had to find out for
sure, and set off in a frantic sprint.
****
        The second he appeared in the lobby, with the wounded Sailor Moon
in his arms, he started to make demands.  He ran up to the front desk, and
shouted at the various nurses, "Help her!"  Some of them looked up from
what they were doing, and tried to comprehend what was going on.  I'm a
grown-up, each of them figured, so what do I do about this?  It's only a
fairy tale some kids made up, right?  Apparently their lack of action only
fanned the flames of his enragement.  "Help her, or so help me god, I'll
KILL all of you!"  It only took one look at his bloodied sword to
understand that he meant it.
        Soon their medical training kicked in, and they took her, placing
her on a cot, and started preliminary diagnoses.  They took her to the ER
operating room, and started to work on her.  When he tried to follow the
wheeled table, a husky male nurse blocked his path.  "I'm sorry, but you'll
have to wait here."
        "Get out of my way."  It was so quiet that only the Sailor Scouts,
who just burst into the lobby in time to see their injured leader wheeled
away, could hear it, and that was only with their enhanced hearing.
        "I'm sorry, what was that?"  The nurse asked, wondering what this
idiot in a cape could do.  'I have a black belt in three different martial
arts!  There's no way he can beat me, the weakling.'
        "Get out of my way."  It was marginally louder than last time, but
it did not loose it's edge of steel.  'What was he thinking?  I could take
him and he wouldn't know what hit him!'
        "I'm sorry, sir, but I can't do that.  That would interfere with
the doctors, and that may cause her death.  Do you want that?"  He asked
smugly.  The smugness died when the anger that passed in the young punks
eyes suddenly moved in and stayed there.  'I pushed it a little to far...'
he couldn't complete that thought, because one of the silly-suited girls
walked up a placed a hand on the caped punk's shoulder.
        "Prince, let it go," was all she said.  Mars didn't know what she
was doing, but it had to be done.  She had seen what he had done to the
sniper, and didn't was this nurse, who was simply doing his job, to die.
He jumped at the touch on his shoulder, but after looking at the conviction
in her eyes, he relaxed, turned on his heel, and walked to the bank of
elevators.
        People who had been waiting for some time to get on them, saw him,
and gave him a wide berth.  He was the sole occupant in the elevator all
the way up to the floor where Sailor Moon was undergoing surgery to extract
the bullets from her riddled body.  He didn't know how long he was alone,
looking through the window the hospital designers had so thoughtfully put
in, before the others had walked up and joined him.  He barely noticed
their presence, and the hours passed, but he didn't change position, arms
crossed, eyes hardned to what may have to be done, cape, no longer
billowing, but subdued.
        The Sailor Scouts knew well enough to leave him alone.  At one
point, they all tried to talk to him, but it seemed to them, that he simply
didn't notice them.  They all had their turns at the coffee pot, just to
stay awake.  At long last, the doctors looked up from their work, having
completed the sewing up of her broken body, and shook their heads.  They
had done all they could do, and the damage was just too extensive.  At this
news, all the Scouts broke down into tears, but Mars only cried enough to
see the look in Darien's eyes.  In that moment, she prayed to the gods to
have mercy on the snipers' souls, for it appeared that Prince Darien would
give them none.
        Without saying a word, he started to walk into the operating room,
but the male nurse stopped in front of him.  "I'm sorry, sir, but they did
all they could do."
        "Get out of my way."  Again, it had a steel edge on it, but this
time, the steel was laced with venom.  The nurse sighed, and stepped in
front of the idiot again, this time putting his hands on the boy, and
settling in for a little martial art action soon enough.  He knew that the
doctors didn't approve of his abusing some of the more...emotional
patients, but it did keep them out of their hair, so the nurse was
tolerated.
        "I'm sorry, sir, but I simply cannot allow you to do this."  By
this time, all the Scouts, and everyone else in the room, had focused all
their attention on the developing situation.  The Prince looked in the
man's eyes, and saw that the nurse clearly thought that he had the upper
hand.  'So he's studies martial arts.  I can see all the flaws that he's
making right now.  If I were to just place a little pressure here, a little
there, all his bones would break...'  He left the thought uncompleted
because the nurse was getting more aggressive, and ACTUALLY tried to bodily
move him out of the room.
        Jupiter, meanwhile, was just staring at them.  She could see the
muscules bunch up under that black cape, and she knew at least one reason
as to why Sailor Moon was hooked on him.  'What a hunk!' entered her mind
before she could quash it and remember the reality of the situation.
"Prince, stop before you hurt him."
        "Hurt me?  This little punk?  I don't think so!" If you make them
mad, they're prone to mistakes.  The words of his sensei were of much help
to him.  Mercury spoke up next.
        "Don't do it.  If you waste the time to deal with him, she'll be
dead by then."  The bunched up muscles relaxed, or so it seemed...  The
nurse relaxed his grip on the punk's laughable costume, and therein was his
mistake.  As soon as he relaxed, Prince Darien flew into action.  First was
a fist to the Solar Plexis, to drive out the oxygen in the man's lungs.
Next was a knife-hand to the trachea, and it caved in under the pressure.
Lastly, he stepped into the man's legs, lifted with his hips, and tossed
him across the room.  All in less than three seconds.  Then he walked into
the OR, took one of the fallen's hands in his, and placed his other hand on
her forehead, and focused his mind to a razor-sharp point.
        Jupiter, Mars, and Venus where either appaled or impressed.  They
knew, that as the fighters of their group, a well-trained fighter when they
saw them.  From previous experience, Sailor Jupiter knew that he could
fight, she just didn't know how well.  'He was holding back!' Her mind
brefly fled back in time to her fight with him when he was part of the
Negaverse, and she was trying to give Mercury and Greg some time to get
away.  'That turned out to be a disasterous attempt,' she recalled.  Then
Sailor Mercury spoke up:
        "What's that glow around his hands?" And indeed, there was a faint
glow around his hands, and getting brighter with each passing second.  She
took out her pocket computer and started to analyse the data.  It took a
second for her advanced intellect to summerise it.  "It appears to be a
high-wavelength/ frequncy form of electomagnetic energy..." she answered
her own question.
        "You lost me."
        "Me too."
        "Don't forget about me."  Sailor Mercury sighed, and figured this
to be long explanation, but it filled the time of waiting.  Three hours
later, with only slightly less dumbfounded looks on their faces, she
finished.  'He hasn't changed position at all, I wonder, what's he doing?'
Sailor Venus noted with some amusment.
        "Ya'know, when he stops that, he's going to need some serious back
medication, after spending so much time bent over like that!"  The humor
lasted only a few minutes, but it was a few minutes where the four
surviving Scouts could forget the gravity of their situation.  But, all to
soon, the moment had to end and they remembered where they were and what
was going on.
        After an eternity, Prince Darien finally slumped onto his princess'
limp form with a grunt.  All heads turned in his direction as he sagged to
his knees in exhaustion.  "What's going on?" One of the doctors, who was
attending the injured nurse, looked through the window and started to
stutter.  "W..w..w..w..what d..did he d..do?"  Then he ran in, and his
colluges soon followed.  The Sailor Scouts also ran in, but only to get
Prince Darien out of there.  He was dead weight in their arms, but the four
of them managed to muscle him out into the room.  By then he was up on his
own wobboling feet.  A doctor ran out from the OR.
        "What did you do?  She's going to pull through!"  Prince Darien
drew himself up to his full, very impressive, height.  He looked down at
the shorter man.
        "What I did is of no importance to you.  What is important to you
is that you and all the others live.  Had you failed, I would have killed
you."  The Scouts blanched at this frank and calm revelation and backed
away.  The doctor paled, and looked like he wanted to crawl up and hide
under a rock.
        Sailor Mars whispered something to Sailor Jupiter.  When Prince
Darien started to turn around, Jupiter spoke out.  "I'm afraid that we
can't let you do this, Prince.  What you are going to do is wrong."
        "Wrong?  What, then, did they do?  Is what they did right?  No, I
don't think so.  And they will be punished."  When Sailor Jupiter refused
to move, his eyes grew into steel.  Mars walked over to her and crossed her
arms.  "Look over there."  He indicated the male nurse who had a tube
passed through his shattered cartalidge and another through his chest to
keep his heart beating.  "Now move, or be moved," his voice dropping in
pitch a few notes.  Mars and Jupiter looked up just in time to see the
venom in his eyes to fade slightly, then spike up again tenfold.  They
hastly got out of his way.  "Meet me at my apartment in three days," he
told all the Scouts.  And then he was gone.
        Sailor Mercury spoke up.  "What was that all about?  And where is
he heading?"
        "He's got a score to settle."
        "With whom?" Sailor Venus asked, joining in the conversation.
        "You have to ask?  The snipers."
        "He's only going to scare them, right?" Sailor Mercury's voice
faltered a little.  Sailor Venus blanched at Jupiter's next comment.
        "Oh, he'll talk to them alright, talk with his sword blade."
****
        The next four hours passed in a breeze, and the Sailor Scouts
turned on the TV that was in the waiting room for distraction.  The doctors
kept up with regular health reports, but it appeart that her body was
alright, but she was in a coma.  Then thr real bombshell dropped on them.
They where on the evening news and the announcer was just handed a
late-breaking story.  "I'm sorry about this, but I've jsut been handed a
new story.  It appears that the police have found the remains of a man who
has been recently murdered.  It appears that the murderer just did his
thing and left.  We take you to the scene live.  Jerry...
        "Thanks Dave.  I'm here with Metropolitan Police Cptn. Bob Kinsman.
Captian Kinsman, what happened?"
        "We're not sure, but what we do know for sure is that one or more
people killed somebody in a very horrible way."
        "What do you mean 'horrible'?"
        "Well, it appears that he was first taken apart by a blade of some
sort, and then torn to peices, by the look of things, by hand."
        "What was the victim's name?"
        "We don't know.  There wasn't enough left for dental record
matching.  The only reason that we know of one victim is that there was
only enough eviscerated body parts to account for one person."  The camera
then walked into the building and got a good shot of the body...so to
speak.  All it could show was that the room took a lot of collateral
damage.  Blood was coated on all four of the walls, chairs, and furniture.
ME's were still running around, trying to place all of the body parts in
evidence bags, while not getting themselves coated too much.  Then one of
them screeched out for the Captian.  The camera, reporter, Captian, and
several police dectives all came running to see what was going on.
        It was a letter, written on the wall.  It was the only section of
the room that had no blood on it, and that means that the killer used his
finger, or whatever, to write it.  "Ladies and Gentlemen, this is strange.
It appears that the killer left a message.  It reads: "This is an example
to what I'm going to do to you."  It looks like there will at least be one
more attempt on a human life in this city."

end part iii