As always, C&C would be very much appreciated.

Dark Chronicles:
Chapter 2.

        "Viko! Viko-Chan! Oh Kami, no! Not you; not like this! NOOOOOOOO!!!"
        The agonised scream tore through the overwhelming crash and roar of
wind and storm like the final cries of some tormented thing, driving yet
another spear of horror through his already shattered heart.
        Turning with frantic desperation, knowing with a numbing, paralysing
certainty that as always he would be too late, he watched helplessly as the
shattered, broken body burned and melted before his eyes, even as the red-clad
figure leaped away, her demonic screams of insane, maniacal triumph melting
into the howling and shrieking of the wind as she vanished into the fiery
heart of the maelstrom that was now so much a part of what she had become.
Frozen, tears of rage and terror all but blinding him, he watched in sickened
fascination as the remaining figure, a laughing, leering parody of the girl
who had once been more precious to him than life or warmth or all the
happiness he could ever have conceived, moved swiftly to reach for the man
Viko had given her life to protect. And still he could not see his face.
        Still laughing, she lifted the broken, bleeding form in her arms,
bending low, her blood-covered lips parting in a languorous smile of triumph
and appetite as they reached almost gently to touch his own.
        "Such a tragedy!" She purred softly, her smile widening still more as
the veiled figure fought in vain with the last of his strength to turn his
face away. "To think that after so much, it should have come so easily to
this; and with such powers as both of you believed yourselves to hold. But
then, we cannot flee our destiny; the future is ordained and cannot be
changed. Did you not tell her this, even as my paramour did I?"
        She laughed again, a wild lost sound of madness and content. "Oh Greg
are you both not vindicated; and with such ironic perfection. But we must not
tarry now. Mistress desires that we be swift, and my complement grows
impatient, as do I. After all, I still must take *your* complement and my
darling, must I not?
        "Are you ready?" She called suddenly, her tone abruptly one of
clipped, businesslike impatience as she turned for a moment from him.
        In the next instant, two figures stood before her, and he gasped. One
could have been a mirror, so perfectly did she match her counterpart, yet of
the other, cloaked and hooded, he could discern nothing save for the fact that
it was a man, not the smallest indication as to the face the sable hood might
conceal.
        The storm seemed to have faded with the vanishing of the red-clad form
and a chill, frozen silence stretched around them.
        "Such a fine soul," Purred the mirror softly, reaching with almost
gentle fingers to brush lightly at the form's broken cheek. "and so defiant
still. So perfect and so fitting a prize."
        She turned towards her companion, her languorous smile widening to
match that of the first. "Your completion my darling; at last!" She continued
softly. "The life for which we have waited. Take it well my love, and allow
him to scream."
        Then turning once more to her counterpart. "I cannot thank you as
befits you here my complement; my precious. But later?"
        The other's lips parted still more in savage anticipation.
        "Later." She murmured. "But now--?"
        "Yes, now." Said the other softly, turning once again to the veiled
figure. "Shall we?"
        A long low laugh came from beneath the hood.
        "I could not be more prepared." Came the low voice softly. "Let us end
this, and return."
        And with that, the figure was reaching for the form the blue-clad
figure held, the body seeming to dissolve and vanish even as his last,
despairing scream was lost beneath the sudden wild, triumphant laughter of the
hooded figure and his two companions. For one frozen moment a darkness seemed
to conceal him, then he was standing tall, his head thrown back as his
roaring, insane laughter reached a terrible, shattering crescendo.
        "*FREEEEEE*!"
        The cry tore skywards, his empty arms lifting as he turned, hands
reaching to throw back the hood. "Free at last! Free and *one*!"
        And with that, the hood was cast aside; and Urawa Ryo felt the madness
leap to engulf him as he stared at last into his own face. For one impossible
moment of nightmare he teetered upon the knife-edge of sanity, then he was
plunging down into oblivion and he began to scream, a scream that had no
beginning and would last until the uttermost end of eternity. And they looked,
and thought that it was good.
                                     * * *
        "World Shaking!"
        "Deep Submerge!"
        The twin attacks crashed into the place in which she had been scant
moments before.
        "Where--?" Was all Uranus had time to gasp before the whispered: "Dead
Scream!" sent both her and Neptune spinning headlong to crash in a painful and
undignified tangle of arms and legs in the sand.
        "Better." Came Pluto's calm, quiet voice as she hurried to where the
two lay half stunned. "Better; but not good enough. You're still hesitating,
assuming your initial attacks will at least come close to finding their mark.
Do you truly believe the enemy will stand and wait while you stop to wonder
why he's still alive?"
        Growling, Uranus disentangled herself from Neptune's prone form,
moving to help the other woman stand as she rose swiftly to her feet and spun
to glare at their teacher.
        The sudden and intensive training had begun at her own request. The
growing uncertainty culminating in their helplessness against Neherenia and
the near-catastrophic defeat Galaxia had dealt them had frightened her far
more than she was willing to concede, even to Neptune, and time was growing
short; of that she had begun to feel ever more certain. Just when the final
battle and the cold that would cast the Earth into a frozen stillness for
perhaps a century would come, Pluto would not say; perhaps she could not; yet
even Uranus, unused to brooding upon such things, felt increasingly of late
that it would be soon, a sentiment she was almost certain her quiet,
turquoise-haired companion shared, although she had said nothing. It was not
something either of them seemed eager to discuss.
        Staring now at the tall, implacable figure of Pluto as she stood
calmly waiting for one of them to speak, Uranus felt a momentary savage
resentment at the green-haired Senshi's seeming indifference to the troubles
of the world about her, as though at a whim she might choose within a myriad
of possibilities the one that best suited her purposes, leaving them to fend
as best they could while she stood cold and aloof and watched and waited and
said nothing. Then Pluto's cool appraising regard softened and the illusion
was banished as she shifted to become Meiou Setsuna once more, vanishing as
though it had never been.
        "You can't do this alone Haruka."
        Her voice was little more than a murmur, almost lost in the gentle
surging and sighing of the sea as she studied the other Senshi's set, almost
savage face. "It's time to go back, if only for a little."
        For a long moment Uranus made no answer. Then with a short, almost
vicious gesture she detransformed and turned quickly away.
        "We failed; *I* failed her." She said simply, her voice hard-edged
with tension and something almost akin to self-loathing in the sudden quiet of
the sea.
        Beside her Neptune shivered suddenly, even as her Senshi-self slipped
beneath the surface and Kaiou Michiru reached to touch Haruka's hand.
        "We couldn't have done more." She said softly, her own voice tense
behind the sudden tightness in her throat, as much for Haruka's pain as for
her own uncertainty. "We did all we could."
        "And it wasn't enough."
        Abruptly Haruka whirled on them, eyes blazing; yet the anger seemed
turned against herself rather than her companions.
        "It's *never* enough!" She snarled, the pain now roar in her voice
although her face remained a savage stoic mask. "How long?" She continued low
and tight. "How long before the next enemy, and a greater; and always we
arrive too late and do too little. Damn it, we owe her for this; can't you see
that? We; *I* betrayed her; I gambled everything on a fool's hope; and for
what! If it hadn't been for her and one hell of a serving of good luck we'd be
finished; forever! And it's down to me. If I'd held on, fought to the bitter
end--!"
        "No!" Michiru's cry was fierce and demanding. "We stand and fall
together, you and I; so it's always been. It's our way, you yourself told her
that. If you really want to blame yourself, to believe you were not strong
enough then I can't argue with you, but at least accept the truth; that it was
all of us who failed her and both of us who agreed to that last desperate
plan. Do you think I didn't know what you were trying to do? Do you think I
didn't understand that there was no other way!"
        "I could have held on; fought to the end; until I had nothing left;
but for you I betrayed her. Can't you see! I was lying to myself, *and* to
you. I wanted to live Michiru, or at least some small part of me did; and I
didn't care what it cost. I wasn't wholly lying to Galaxia in those last
moments. Don't you understand! We can't go on like this; not after Galaxia.
We; *I'm* a liability to her and I *won't* have that; not again. I care too
much damn it; for you; for the princess; for Hotaru; for the others; yes damn
it, even for you." She said suddenly, turning for a moment to Setsuna, a
sudden wry smile quirking for a moment at her face. Then it was gone and the
fierce mask was back once more. "I; we have to sort things out in our own
minds before this can happen again; before we fail her again and their are no
more miracles left. I have to know that what I can give is enough."
        Abruptly she whirled away, her sudden brisk, savage strides carrying
her from Michiru's suddenly reaching hand to vanish quickly into the gathering
darkness of the glowering late afternoon.
        For a long moment Michiru remained, one hand reaching with seeming
helplessness in the direction in which the taller woman had disappeared, half
turned as though to call or to try to follow her. Then a gentle hand touched
her arm and she turned surprised to catch the sudden look of mingled pain and
understanding in Setsuna's dark eyes.
        "Give her time." The voice was uncharacteristically soft and gentle.
"She's afraid and it's tearing her apart inside. Let her walk for a while; a
few minutes; then find her. I'll wait with Hotaru in the kissaten. But don't
be too long." She ended with a sudden full smile and a lighter bantering edge
to her voice. "That storm won't wait and I'd prefer to be back in the city
before it hits."
        Abruptly Michiru reached for the hand on her arm, squeezing it with a
sudden intensity of warmth she had not been sure she possessed for the cool
aloof senshi.
        "We'd have fallen long ago without you Setsuna." The words slipped
into the sudden stillness between them almost before she had realised the
absolution of that sudden piercing truth in her own heart. "We'd have failed
and she'd be gone and the future so much ash but for you. You know I can
never--."
        "Shh." Setsuna said softly, her own hand pressing the younger girl's
in return. "You underestimate her Michiru; I think that's a mistake everyone
makes at least once; yes, even I." A wry smile tugged at the corners of her
mouth. "She may be frail on the surface but within that golden heart lies a
core of savage steel. None have learned that to such cost as those who would
dare challenge the good in her, and in the future she has vowed to bring to
pass. She has enough strength and faith and love for all of us and some to
spare; never forget that. Now go on; I think a certain senshi's had long
enough."
        And pressing Michiru's hand once more Setsuna slipped almost silently
away, her face once more its calm, almost inscrutable mask as she vanished in
the direction of the kissaten and the waiting and exhausted Saturn.
        For a moment Michiru watched her as she disappeared, then with a smile
and a gentle shake of her head she turned swiftly away.
        "We see that too little Setsuna, the kindness beneath the guardian."
She murmured softly.
        Then pulling herself abruptly from the sudden introspection she turned
her eyes along the shore and began to walk, hurrying in the chill of late
afternoon to bring Haruka home.
                                     * * *
        Darkness; warm and reassuring. As always, that was the first thing of
which he became aware as the familiar yet terrifying nightmare faded and he
opened his eyes with a gasp of relief. For a moment they continued to smart
reflexively with the remembered agony of such terrible, all-engulfing
brilliance as they had seen, the phantom torment of the agonising burns he had
endured coursing for one horrifying moment through his head. Then the gnawing
chill bit into him and he sighed and shifted on the low pallet, shivering a
little in the gentle darkness as he drew the thin Kaiha fur closer about him.
Kalleth had forgotten to charge the brazier again; not that it would make much
difference. The land, like everything else, was dying and with its death the
last of the magic that maintained the ruins of a realm that he, like all its
many denizens had once believed unassailable. Every enchantment; every power
and ability no matter how small grew ever more difficult to manifest as each
day raced inexorably towards the final dissolution, the final death of the
last pale shadows of the Dark Kingdom.
        Uranite sighed again. As the last high mage, the last trained by
Nephrite and Kunzite themselves - not that that was likely to count for much
now - he, more than any of the six who had taken this last gasp of power after
the terrible disaster of the fall, understood just how desperate had become
their situation and how vital it was that they prepare as swiftly as they
could to flee what little remained of the last surviving stronghold of Beryl's
once mighty realm to the dubious safety of the dimension and the world they
had once called their own. To Uranite as to the others, it was a desperate and
he was certain, all but hopeless plan. Granted they could sacrifice some few
broken shattered youma, their minds so numbed after the impossibility of what
had happened that they were useless for anything but conduits for the mana
their brothers and sisters so desperately needed, their final destruction
giving them and their followers a short respite in which they might draw upon
the natural mana of the earth to sustain them until they could gain the life-
energy from humans they would need; but in the end it was he believed a lost
battle unless they could be almost inconceivably fortunate. They had no
kingdom to draw upon in any confrontation with the senshi, no kingdom and no
Metallia. The force that had once sustained them and the land they had come to
call home was gone, wiped from the very fabric of reality as though she had
never existed; and it was this more than anything else that had prompted
Uranite to attempt his latest desperate proposal, a proposal of which even
Terranite dared not speak beyond the confines of the chambers that had become
their personal domain lest it be heard by even the most loyal of their troops;
the faintest possibility of at the last a plea for clemency from the
terrifying, dreadful leader of the senshi.
        They had laughed at first as he knew they would, called him a fool and
a dangerous one at that. Even fierce yet honourable Emerite had glared at him
and demanded to know when he had caught the Ginzuishou fever, a suggestion
that could in itself have earned his death had Beryl still existed to hear it.
Sapphite had mocked him openly, but then he had expected no more of her, while
Halite had remained stoic and as always kept his own council. Of all, only
Chalenite, herself a healer and closer to the mage in nature than the rest,
had maintained at least an outward calm and listened uncommenting while he
outlined the barest inklings of that last fool's hope.
        Yes, it was a desperate plan. No, he did not see it as anything save
the last desperate gasp of a people with nowhere else to turn. Yes, he agreed
that they should try at first to take by force and in one stroke that which
rightfully belonged to them, faint though that chance might be. But energy was
at a premium and the number of broken youma were few. They simply could not
afford to sacrifice even the least of those who could still be of use to them;
their population base was already near-critically small.
        It had been a long council and all of them had been exhausted and in
ill-temper by the time Terranite decided nothing more could be achieved
without rest and brought it to an end with the sealing of the chamber lights
and the releasing of the collective enchantment that kept out unwanted eyes
and ears and prying minds.
        Uranite shivered again. The days were growing swiftly more chill and
in a realm without seasons the gathering cold was killing what little flora
and fauna had survived the cataclysm with inexorable swiftness. If they did
not escape within the next quarter-month and before the festival of Metallia
at its end they would be finished.
        "High-Lord Uranite-sama?"
        The sudden soft voice by the door almost caused the mage to start in
surprise. He had not sensed Kalleth's approach and that was not good. Very
foolish and *very* dangerous, even though he did not doubt the sleek felinoid-
woman's loyalty. Even now there were those too stupid to comprehend that any
attempt to seize from one of the six, even should they manage by some miracle
to survive the attempt, a share in the power of the new Kingdom, it would
spell its end, as assuredly as if they had set out to destroy it themselves.
Only with him and his companions did any hope remain for their species. They
were the last, the last of a vanishingly small few that had ever been, who
could survive even if only for a little without a constant background of mana,
powerless though they would swiftly become without it. Uranite was still
postulating as to why and how they and the thousand or so other survivors had
managed to weather the obliterating wave of the Ginzuishou. The most popular
theory was simply that they had been far enough from the epicentre of the wave
to escape the worst of its cataclysmic power. For himself, Uranite doubted
this to be the case. With what little he had been able to glean from the
watcher-crystals Beryl's paranoia, not to mention that of her generals, had
ensured were concealed in myriad locations throughout the realm, distance
simply did not matter to the reality-warping powers of the terrible crystal.
It's destruction had been as absolute in the farthest reaches of the realm as
in the very throne-room of the insane queen's palace. For Uranite, another
possibility seemed more likely, if less palatable even to at least some of his
companions. The crystal sought out and destroyed evil, and in this case more
specifically the evil inspired by and created of Metallia. Only should one
possess, even if in the smallest of measure, some inherent defence against
that influence could, he suspected, one survive its touch; in which case a
curious philosophical point was raised, that being why they had not changed to
become what would remain after that influence was no more, perhaps revert to
their original base form. For that question Uranite had no answer. Perhaps it
was something as simple and indefinable as an instinctive protection of the
soul, a recognition by the Ginzuishou of some long-buried remnant of what they
might have been. Perhaps the Ginzuishou did no more than re-awaken that latent
potential for good in those few Metallia's long influence had not yet utterly
overwhelmed. Whatever the answer, it gave Uranite the faintest flicker of hope
that they might in some way be able to bargain with its wielder and the
terrible warriors who served her, as vanishingly small as that hope might
prove.
        "High-Lord?"
        Kalleth's timid inquiry brought him once more from his introspection,
a state into which his mind seemed to fall of late with ever greater ease.
That also was not good.
        Sighing, Uranite allowed her to help him from the pallet, then sat
calmly on its edge as she drew water and filled the low rock basin on the
farther side of the small cavern. Even he as a member of the High Circle was
allowed only two servants, one to be on hand whenever he wished; they simply
could not afford the energy wasted in a retinue attending to their needs.
Still seated, he watched silently as the cat-like woman heated the water with
a murmured incantation that expended a little of her daily allowance of mana,
then felt a faint smile trying to touch the corners of his mouth as she turned
to move swiftly to him. As always, she bowed low, baring her small sharp teeth
in a smile as she reached to help him to his feet, purring low in her throat
in a fashion she had learned soothed him despite his insistence that it was a
singularly irritating sound; but then, he was determined to keep at least this
distance between them; he had already allowed her too much and from the
beginning she had misinterpreted perhaps wilfully his gentler treatment as
carrying intensions he could never have. For him, only chill, self-assured
Emerite could reach the something within him that he was almost certain his
agonised encounter with the power of the Ginzuishou had touched into blazing
fire. Only she could set his usually steady heart to racing wildly and his
ordered mind to turmoil as he watched her drive herself day after day in her
determination to overmatch even Terranite in the finest control of her mind
and of her powers. If any of them could survive the Tartarus their future had
become it would be she, of that he was sure. Even in those last heady days of
the Kingdom when Beryl's absurd propaganda had even him believing that their
birthright was ripe for the taking, Emerite had remained coldly sceptical,
risking an agonising end should her views become known to any save the five
with whom she had shared her childhood and whom alone she trusted and whom
trusted her and one another in return, as diverse as each of them might be. Of
all of them, Sapphite, an impulsive and viciously unpredictable dichotomy to
her elder sister's cold self-control, had been the most certain that they
could not fail, that their glorious queen would lead them to Earth and to
victory. Uranite could recall with terrible clarity their gathering upon that
last night before the end, their spirits save for Sapphite's crashing with
Kunzite's death in a sudden terrifying realisation of what until only days
before had seemed utterly inconceivable, that the terrible wielder of the
Ginzuishou might bring the war to the Kingdom. Even then, Sapphite had
insisted that there was no cause for alarm, that no matter what powers Sailor
Moon had displayed she and her accursed court were after all no more than
helpless human girls with no hope of challenging the might of the Kingdom.
Emerite had laughed openly and suggested that her impetuous younger sister
present herself as part of the vanguard, perhaps as Kunzite's replacement if
she was still so sure of victory, let alone the sanity of the queen. As
always, Sapphite had erupted in a furious burst of infantile temper that had
left her sister laughing all the harder as she had held her at last pinned
beneath her and waited while the younger woman struggled and screamed and
swore that she would see them all in the chamber of eternal sleep when this
was over and the Earth was theirs; and as always they had paid no more heed to
her threats than ever they had done since they had become old and wary enough
to know that she was as much a part of the `Circle' as they had called
themselves even as young children beyond the hearing of others, as any of
them. The struggle had ended as it always did with Sapphite's rage dissolving
into frustrated tears as she wound her arms around her elder sister's neck and
buried her face in her emerald hair in a gesture Emerite seemed to tolerate
although she knew well her sister's attempt at affection was far from
innocent. Such behaviour had always revolted her, though such liaisons were as
accepted as were most things within the Kingdom. Only in the matter of
breeding was a certain genetic distance demanded; after all there was little
use for the cumulative faults such progeny were likely to possess. Emerite had
waited with long-practiced patience until her sister's infantile sobs had
ceased, then summarily disentangled Sapphite's arms from around her and moved
to rise. Then the first tremors had struck and moments later their universe
had exploded in light and terror and searing, agonising pain.
        Uranite started, wrenching his mind with difficulty from the horror of
that terrible night to focus on the tall sleek form before him. Kalleth was
studying him intently, her vague telepathic sense granting her but for an
instant and dimly the merest shadows of the echoes of his remembered fear; and
she needed no more to understand as a moment's terror at her own memories
caused a catch in her gentle purring and a momentary flashing of her jade
eyes. For a moment she tensed, baring her teeth in a low snarl as her head
darted from side to side, eyes slitting savagely as she searched for some
unseen foe. Then Uranite's hand touched her arm and the memory was only a
memory once more.
        "Peace." He said simply, his tone pitched to soothe. "It's passed
Kalleth. Let it go.
        "Now," He continued more brusquely. "unless you intend to explain to
the others why I was delayed before this morning's council, shall we proceed?"
        Gulping, the moment lost as to her it always seemed to be, Kalleth
leaped swiftly to attention, moving with fluid grace to help her master from
the simple gown in which he slept and to the now steaming basin to bathe
before his breakfast of Kigha, the pale fungi the only staple that remained
viable in the dying ecology of the Kingdom.
        "It begins today High-Lord?"
        It was a transparent attempt on her part to make conversation since
everyone knew what was to happen that morning, but he allowed it to pass and
answered with his mouth full, watching as she busied herself with stripping
the pallet of its woven covering, fascinated as always at her efficiency as
she re-absorbed the silk-like fabric she could create and began to spin more
very much in the fashion of a spider though no obvious source was visible and
the silken stuff seemed simply to flow from her long taloned fingers.
        "Vedris and Alaegra are preparing now." He told her, not needing even
to concentrate to feel the subtle shift in the dying mana of the Kingdom to
know that the two were still drawing from it in a now-rarely permitted frenzy
of feeding for the journey they would soon begin. "They should be ready by the
time I reach the council chamber. Speaking of which, the others are gathering;
I must be on my way."
        With that he rose swiftly, turning for a moment to regard his
reflection in the tall copper mirror by the brazier. The roguish, angular
features stared intently back at him, the dark eyes regarding his own with
cool, unnerving appraisal, the dark hair swept severely back in a fashion he
knew added to a chill, ruthless demeanour he found it increasingly more
difficult to cultivate.
        Sighing again, he moved swiftly to the entrance, turning only to
remind Kalleth to seal his chamber when she had finished the task with which
she would be occupied until noon and her daily battle-training, that of the
continued cataloguing and packing of those scrolls he had been able to salvage
from the ruins of the palace library in preparation for a departure he above
all knew must be soon. For this, Kalleth was ideally suited. Literate yet
limited in the nature of her powers although not in using what she possessed,
she could gain nothing by reading of techniques she could never hope to match.
        Smiling and shifting in a seductive stretch that left him unmoved, she
assured him that today she should manage to catalogue and seal the last of the
scrolls. Uranite did not doubt her. She had been an astoundingly valuable find
since he had first discovered her wandering dazed and half witless only days
after the cataclysm in the farthest reaches of the realm. She had tried to
tear his throat out, half mad with pain and fear as she was and he had assumed
her to be beyond help, but Chalenite, reaching them in time to down the crazed
cat-woman with a single touch that had frozen her in mid-thought, had assured
him that her mind was intact beneath the pain and terror and together they had
wrenched her back to awareness and her right senses; they could not afford to
waste time with coaxing and nothing more was expected in the Kingdom.
Chalenite had dismissed her immediately, but something in the unusual
sincerity of her gratitude had caught Uranite's interest and he had accepted
her bond-oath as slave to master and had not regretted the decision save for
the problem of her increasingly overt infatuation.
        Now he remained by the unsealed entrance for a moment, watching
silently as she settled at the low stone shelf that served as his desk, her
head already down and a quill-pen moving between hand and teeth as she
alternated between writing, reading and sealing the scrolls with a quick,
fluid flick of a fine silken thread. Then he felt the impatient touch of
Terranite's mind, coupled with the fainter echoes of Sapphite's irritation and
turning swiftly he left the chamber, reaching back to touch the seals with his
own awareness even as he hurried through the passages towards the council
chamber and those that awaited him.
                                     * * *
        "Huhhuh! Senshi! Can't catch me!"
        The taunt, as it always did, drew a snarl of frustrated rage from the
tall humanic youma-girl as she lunged furiously at the darting, illusive form
of her younger brother as he flitted in and out of the deeper shadows amongst
the rocks of the narrowing canyon. Magnetite had begun to use it almost as
soon as the first tales of the re-arisen Senshi had reached the Kingdom
whenever he wished to annoy his elder sister, despite her warnings that he
would die and slowly should anyone save herself be close enough to hear him.
He had ignored her of course, something the little veshka was particularly
good at doing and she was certain it had been the cataclysm alone that had
saved the imbecilic little fool's life.
        Galenite cursed vehemently under her breath and bared her teeth in
growing fury. They were not supposed to be here; would not have been here had
it not been for his continual determination to try her patience, not to
mention that of the Circle guard, the new title for those few their
diminishing mana could ensure were fully active and prepared at any time of
the day or night. The thousand or so who had survived, it had been decreed,
must remain within the immediate environs of the stronghold-palace save by
direct command of the circle upon pain of death for any who disobeyed; the
rest of the realm was simply too dangerous a place to wander with their final
departure so imminent. And still the Ginzuishou-cursed little fool slipped
away to explore, even daring the shattered strongholds of the generals and the
gutted ruins of the mad queen's palace itself, venturing even to the very
throne-room that had until so recently held all save the bravest or the most
foolish in stark, unrelenting worship; or terror; to Galenite the distinction
seemed at best a dubious one. It was towards one of these strongholds he was
leading her a merry dance now, determined she knew to climb as he had done
before to the very summit and enter once more the shattered star-chambers of
the disgraced Lord Nephrite that stood upon the very margin of the realm in
the vain hope of touching again the power he had just begun to realise before
the cataclysm had brought the old world to an end.
        "Magnetite!"
        Her tone had long ceased to be conciliatory and her sapphire-blue eyes
seemed to blaze with their own inner fire as she increased her pace and began
at last to close the distance between herself and her wildly running quarry,
her long jet-black hair streaming behind her as she prepared to do something
foolish and let loose a pulse-shock of air to knock him from his feet and
hopefully into better sense before he fell or worse brought a decury to
investigate the forbidden stirrings of power far beyond those parts of the
realm still believed to be inhabitable.
        At nearly thirteen she was just beginning to realise the full
potential of her maturing abilities while he at a little under four years her
junior was still small and wary enough to dominate, even discounting the fact
that neither of them were typical; after all, she troubled to care what
happened to him and he for his part knew he could trust her to take care of
him for the little time remaining until he was considered adult enough to fend
for himself, something that was both rare and frowned upon and one of the
reasons he was certain he could test her patience within limits. Youma were
expected to survive or perish on their own merits save when they were very
young and any sentimentality on the part of another was likely to be rewarded
with death should it prove advantageous to the growing child. There had simply
been no room in Metallia's scheming for such defeatist traits as warmth or
compassion.
        "Magnetite!" Her voice was now a low vicious snarl that was usually
sufficient to demonstrate that he had pushed her far beyond her limits, yet
today he was proving unusually intransigent. "I warn you, I've far passed the
limits of my patience!"
        "You gotta catch me first Senshi!" He grinned, turning to poke his
blue tongue out at her, then back-flipping with a telekinetic boost to land
upon the first of the ledges at the canyon's farther end that could prove as
steps for one with his natural abilities to the high plateau and the ruined
stronghold beyond.
        Cursing him and herself aloud for not subduing him before it came to
this yet grinning inwardly with a sudden surge of relief, Galenite gathered
herself, then with a single bound leaped to the ledge upon which he had been
standing a split-second before and to which he had only managed to leap by
using his growing powers. Now she had him. As nimble as he was, he was far
from a match for her in strength, only managing to reach each successive ledge
by expending some of his daily allowance of mana. He had lost himself in the
chase and would have nothing left by the time he reached the plateau, while
she was expending nothing but physical reserves as she kept him at a frantic
pace, letting loose the occasional snarled curse to keep him racing and too
frantic to realise what she was doing. He had at last begun to understand that
she had long ceased to be amused by the game and real fear had begun to
replace the self-assurance of only moments before as he realised that he was
in for the beating of his life when she finally caught up with him.
        "That's right, keep running you little Vaghrae!" She hissed to urge
him faster, her fury evaporating as she smiled inwardly with smug satisfaction
at her regaining control of his little game. "When I get my hands on you
you'll wish I'd *fed* you to a Senshi! I'll make what Moon did to Metallia
herself seem like brazier tales before I properly start with you!"
        He was frightened now, she could sense it and she had to force down
the sudden moment of guilt before driving him still faster with another snarl.
He had to learn and learn swiftly. The days of their games far from prying
eyes and probing minds were at an end. His foolishness was endangering all of
them with the needless waste of precious mana, little though it was and better
that she beat and terrify him a little now than that he should be taken before
the Circle and perhaps his very soul wiped of everything to become nothing
more than a conduit for the mana he could channel and hold.
        Whimpering now, his breath coming in desperate gasps and his mind a
sudden surge of near-panic to her acute senses, he hurled himself from the
final ledge, struck down upon the plateau and stumbling forwards, collapsed
panting to his knees, half-incoherent sobs and pleas pouring from his mouth
and mind as she reached the final ledge and made to close the distance between
them. Then she felt him start and raise his head. And then he began to scream.
        For one heart-stopping instant Galenite was numbly certain a Circle
guard or worse, one of the High Circle themselves had found him. Then she was
soaring to land at his side and a moment later she too was frozen, staring in
incomprehensible terror at the black nothingness before them, a black
nothingness where the ruins of Nephrite's stronghold should have been.
        "Oh Serenity's Ginzuishou-cursed *palace*!" She gasped, her voice a
broken whimper in her own ears.
        It was as if they looked into the final darkness that awaited all and
of which night-tales told, a darkness that had no beginning and that would
stretch until the uttermost end of eternity.
        For a moment she remained, head up, sapphire eyes wide and starting in
horrified fascination at the impenetrable wall of uttermost night as it moved
inexorably towards them, devouring all before it, land and sky and mana and
the very fabric of reality. Then she was seizing Magnetite in an iron grip and
a moment later she was leaping wildly from ledge to ledge, screaming and
screaming silently for any Circle guard who might be able to find them while
she kept her mouth tightly closed lest she begin to scream aloud and never be
able to stop. For one brief instant an image of the stronghold and the chamber
of the High Circle flashed clear in her mind. Then with a cataclysmic
detonation of unchannelled mana she was spinning in wild, helpless confusion
and a moment later she tumbled headlong from the unfocussed teleport into the
very hall before the chamber, seals shattering around her as she managed in
her terror what should have been impossible, a leap into the very heart of the
High Circle's domain.
        For one stunned moment Uranite, who had himself prepared the seals and
to whom they were most atuned, reeled in agony in the midst of a chill retort
to one of Sapphite's more sadistic barbs, barely keeping his senses as he
staggered from his place almost to his knees. Then the six were on their feet,
leaping as one to the doors, the inner seals falling away as they hurled them
wide to face the enemy; and froze at what they saw.
        "What in Metallia's name!" Terranite gasped while Chalenite was
already moving to the two prone forms.
        "The boy is dead." She said simply although there was no need.
        The small body was already beginning to dissolve, fading and
dissipating even as they watched. "The girl is drained, but she will live
should I be swift. Do we save her?"
        "And have the little witch do something like that again?" Sapphite
snarled.
        She showed no overt concern for Uranite although she would have
trusted him with her life, but the thought that a half-grown girl could smash
down seals created of someone of his potential sent sudden chills of terror
racing up and down her spine. This girl was dangerous, the more so because
they did not know how typical she was and whether she might not try something
more subtle should she recover.
        "She's completely helpless" Chalenite assured her coolly. "and if you
don't trust me by now to ensure she remains so then you never will.
        "Well?" She inquired, turning to the others.
        "Obviously she has tremendous potential." Terranite observed, his cold
grey eyes turning to regard the limp, huddled form.
        "Besides" Emerite added as she moved to kneel at Chalenite's side. "it
would be absurd to allow her to die before we discovered what drove her to
this and what she hoped to achieve, if anything."
        "A surprise attack; that's obvious." Sapphite responded immediately.
"Perhaps that boy possessed temporal or spatial abilities for which she
assumed we would have no defence. Let the little traitor die; we haven't time
to waste with her."
        "Oh come; don't prove yourself any more of a fool than you can help."
Emerite laughed derisively, earning her a glare of murderous rage from her
younger sister although she like the rest knew that Sapphite was too
helplessly enamoured of her to hate her for more than a fractional moment. "Do
you seriously suggest that she leaped from the margins of the realm with the
boy, expending almost the last of her mana and *all* of his I might add, in
the hope that we'd be so startled by her sudden menacing appearance that we
might perhaps all die conveniently of apoplectic collapse? A battle-plan the
finer points of whose subtlety utterly escapes me I must confess; but then
incomprehensible and machiavellian over-complication was always your strong
suit."
        "Why you; you serenity-damned bitch!" Sapphite screamed, launching
herself bodily at the tall emerald-haired woman who remained smiling amusedly
up at her.
        She waited, holding perfectly still until Sapphite's sharp nails were
within a fractional distance of her throat. Then her hand blurred towards her
and an instant later the smaller blue-haired woman was beside her, her face
turning the colour of her hair as Emerite held her impotent and unable to
breathe.
        "Yes my precious?" She inquired quietly, a sudden deadly purr in her
cold clear voice. "We can continue this comedy of infantile play if you wish
but be assured the end of the game will be mine, check and mate. Do I make
myself perfectly clear?"
        Sapphite could only gurgle something incoherent in answer, her
sister's mind having already wrapped her own in a smothering cocoon that made
even a telepathic response impossible.
        "All right; enough!" Terranite snapped impatiently, his tone hard and
furious. "We haven't time for this."
        "Yes?" Emerite said simply, not relaxing her hold for a moment even as
her eyes flashed to his own in fierce challenge. "I don't recall giving you
authority to dictate to me Terranite. I will deal with my sister as I see fit
and without your interference. I will not have her continual infantile temper
endangering the lives of all of us."
        Terranite made as though to answer, then abruptly he whirled away with
a savage twist; but Uranite had caught the unease and knew that even
Terranite, powerful as he was, knew better than to challenge the fierce, self-
assured fighter on something so close to her heart as this.
        He made as though to say something himself, then Chalenite's voice cut
through the sudden silence. "Emerite, you're hurting her; let her go."
        Uranite turned at that and gasped as he saw real terror in Sapphite's
starting eyes as tears streamed helplessly down her cheeks, and suddenly he
understood that Emerite was pushing the limits of her sister's trust and that
the look was very close to one of horrified and hopeless betrayal. Then
Emerite had relaxed her hold and the smaller woman was curled up in her arms,
whimpering and shivering and clutching at her in a nauseating display of
melodramatic distress and the illusion was banished, for the moment.
        "One day you will push too far."
        Chalenite's thought to Emerite was quiet and chill but Uranite caught
it. "She won't change; you're wasting your time expecting it of her. She's as
much a part of us as any and you're perfectly aware we can trust her."
        "Damn you." Sapphite gasped, not relaxing her hold. "Damn you to
Tartarus Emerite."
        Then she pressed her face into her sister's hair and tried to force
more tears.
        "Ginzuishou, Serenity and Millennium!" Halite's sudden savage curse
cut through the absurd moment like a knife. "Can we forget Sapphite's cursed
melodramatics for two Beryl-damned moments and get back to her!" He jabbed a
finger in the limp humanic's direction, then froze as did the others as they
sensed Chalenite had already begun the flow of mana that would give the girl a
chance at healing.
        "She would have been dead a score or more times and then some had I
waited for this stupidity to end." She said simply. "I assumed she should live
at least until we discovered what she was trying to do."
        "It seems the decision has been taken out of our hands." Said
Terranite coldly.
        "What did you expect me to do," Chalenite demanded, her own voice
acidic. "wait and do nothing, then listen to your collective complaining later
when we lost the chance to question her, not to mention the potential she
seems to possess?"
        "All right." Terranite snapped, in no mood to argue with her. "Can you
probe her?"
        "She's in no fit state for an intensive interrogation." Chalenite
answered. "I can probably pull the last few moments before she arrived from
her mind without doing any lasting damage but any more--."
        "Then that will have to suffice." He said brusquely.
        "Give me a moment then. Uranite, you might want to see this."
        "Mm." The mage nodded, glancing for a moment to where Sapphite stood,
her eyes fixed still possessively on her sister in a way he did not like at
all. As usual, Emerite was ignoring the stare, her attention fixed on his
cousin as she reached to lay a slender hand on the young youma's head.
        "This should only take a moment--, Metallia's black soul!"
        The exclamation brought Uranite to her side and into contact with the
probe in an instant. A moment later both were on their feet, Uranite whirling
desperately to face the others.
        "Have Vedris and Alaegra here now!" His voice and eyes brooked no
argument. "Get the warriors prepared and the rest fed and ready."
        "What in Tartarus are you babbling about?" Sapphite demanded, although
her suddenly ashen face told him that she had at least begun to guess.
        "Collapse." His tone was cold and final. "We have perhaps an hour to
escape before there is nothing left of this reality, or of us. The Dark
Kingdom is finished."
                                     * * *
        "Usagi, you *really* are impossible!"
        Rei glared down in exasperation at the hopeless odango-atama as she
pulled herself to her feet, then stared down miserably at the remains of her
ice-cream cone, the expected tears already beginning to shimmer in her blue
eyes.
        "It wasn't my fault; I can't help it if they let the grass get like
this."
        She pointed down at the hump that had tripped her and prepared to let
loose with a full-fledged wail.
        "And stop that noise; everyone's looking at us, not that that ever
seems to make any difference to you."
        "Rei-chan!" Usagi began, then abruptly the tears vanished as though
cut off with a switch.
        "Mamo-chan!" She shrieked. "Where did you get to!"
        In the next instant she had nearly bowled over a man, his wife and
their three children in an effort to reach him.
        Stifling an exclamation of despair, Rei hurried to catch up with them.
        "Honestly Usagi, can't you at least look where you're going?" She
demanded, knowing already that it was a waste of time.
        Usagi had already latched on to Mamoru's arm and was paying about as
much attention to her as to the ground before her feet, evidenced a moment
later when she tripped again and would have fallen headlong had not Mamoru
caught her in time.
        It had been Usagi's suggestion to visit the new theme park on its
first day, the others agreeing despite Rei's assertion that it would be packed
and that they'd be better waiting a few days for the excitement to die down.
But patience was not one of Usagi's or Minako's more notable traits and she
had at last capitulated rather than endure Usagi's pleading, not to mention be
the only one left behind, since the others had convinced Ami that a single day
away from her seemingly ever-increasing study schedule would do her no harm.
Usagi had even asked Hotaru, and by extension the other outer Senshi, but
Hotaru had apologised and said that they had something else they needed to do.
There had been real regret in her voice but all Rei had been able to see was
the outers' distancing themselves yet again.
        "If they want to be like that, forget them." She had snapped none too
charitably when Usagi had continued to harp on the matter that morning, the
resulting tears and accusations concerning her ill-temper doing nothing to
improve said temper as the day progressed.
        Now she sighed as she watched Usagi manipulate an unresisting Mamoru
into buying her another cone. She had started out in a particularly
accommodating mood, determined for once not to quarrel with the girl she loved
as a sister (though she would never admit it) and spoil the day; but Usagi
could be just so infuriating and as always her resolve had come to nothing.
Almost as soon as they met Usagi had mentioned the outer Senshi and the
arguing had started.
        "Stupid Odango-Atama!" Rei muttered, far more angry with herself than
with Usagi. "Why do you always manage to do this to me?"
        She sighed again, a faint smile trying to touch her mouth as she
watched Mamoru capitulate and Usagi beam as she hurried beside him towards a
stand, seeming utterly oblivious to Rei until suddenly she glanced back with a
full beckoning smile that brought a sudden choking lump to Rei's throat.
        "Oh Usagi-chan you really are impossible." She said softly once more.
        Then hiding a secret smile of her own, she moved swiftly to take her
place once more at the side of her princess, and her friend.
                                     * * *
        "*Yes*!" Minako exulted as the last ball sailed perfectly through the
centre of the hoop and struck the pin to send it falling with a satisfying
ping, turning for a moment to flash Makoto a triumphant grin as the stall's
proprietor sighed good-naturedly and moved to lay yet another furry bundle in
her arms.
        He glanced helplessly for a moment at the considerable pile she had
already accumulated as she gestured for the game to be reset once more,
casting a pleading look towards her taller companion before he moved back
behind the counter to begin retrieving the balls.
        "Um Mina-chan don't you think--?"
        Makoto gestured with the same helplessness at the pile of stuffed toys
and shook her head. "How are you going to *carry* all these?"
        Minako turned, seeming only then to become fully aware of just how
large the pile had become.
        "Oops!" She blushed, giggling nervously as she turned to the harried
but still-smiling man, her expression suddenly apologetic as he placed the
refilled container before her once more. "Um, sorry. I suppose I wasn't really
counting."
        He smiled easily and made as though to answer, then abruptly he
turned, glancing at what seemed a momentary disturbance at some little
distance from the stall. At the sudden movement, both girls turned to follow
his example. For a moment nothing definite could be seen. Then suddenly people
were moving hastily as though shoved aside and a moment later a youth of
perhaps sixteen burst from the mass of moving bodies and stumbled frantically
in their direction. For a moment he looked wildly about as though at a loss,
then spotting the two girls he gave a cry of relief and came tearing directly
towards them. For an instant both stared bewildered, then Minako started and
waved.
        "Urawa-san!" She exclaimed in surprise, grinning and gesturing as he
pelted the last few steps and stumbled to a halt, panting for breath as he
regarded them intently. "Ami-chan didn't tell us you'd be coming."
        "Where--?" He choked off, still gasping. "Where is she? I have to find
her."
        His tone was wild and urgent but Minako seemed not to have noticed,
half turned as she was to help the stall's proprietor as he began to push her
prizes into three large plastic bags.
        "Whoah, calm down." Makoto tried to reassure him. "What on Earth's
happened?"
        "Where is she?" Urawa demanded again, his usually easy warmth buried
beneath a mask of savage haste. "I have to find her now!"
        "She said something about the science hall." Minako answered, at last
catching something of his agitation as she flashed the proprietor a grin of
thanks and turned fully to face him once more. "What's the matter anyway?"
        "No time!" He exclaimed frantically. "The science hall you say? I
should have guessed. Thanks."
        And with that he turned and bolted headlong into the crowd once more.
        "Come on." Makoto said decisively, turning away. "We're going to get
to the bottom of this."
        "Hey!" Minako cried, struggling to gather up her packages. "Mako-chan!
Who's going to help me carry these!"
        But Makoto had already disappeared.
        "Damn!" Minako said feelingly as she fought with the bags.
        She shot another quick smile of thanks to the bewildered proprietor,
then turning she began to move as fast as her burdens would allow in pursuit.
        "Mako-chan, wait up a minute!"
        Cursing again she tried to move more quickly. Then abruptly she
stumbled into someone and sprawled headlong.
        "Why don't you look where you're going?" An irritated and vaguely
familiar voice began, then stopped short. "Minako-san?"
        "Naru-chan?" Minako gasped a little dazedly, struggling to gather up
her bags yet again while trying to stand at the same time.
        Smiling suddenly the other girl moved quickly to help her. "I didn't
know you'd be here today, though I suppose I might have guessed. Is Usagi-chan
here too? She didn't call."
        There was a sudden momentary tightness in her voice and a flash of
pain in her eyes, quickly masked behind the return of her smile as she helped
Minako with the last of the packages. "Um, what are you going to do with all
these?"
        "Yes she's here." Minako answered quickly, ignoring the second
question in her haste. "Sorry Naru-chan I'd really like to stop and talk but
I've really gotta find someone. Do you know where the science hall is?"
        "I just left Umino there." She answered. "Is it Ami-san you're trying
to find?"
        "Her boyfr...um well sort of boyfriend. He was in a real hurry to find
her and I told him that's where she would be. Mako-chan went after him but--."
        "Come on then." Naru moved to take one of the bags. "It's not far."
        Moments later they were hurrying through the milling crowd, Minako
keeping up a quick pace despite the people moving all about them and it was
only a little later that they passed through the denser throngs and she caught
sight of the sign directing them towards her destination.
        "Thanks Naru-chan." She grinned, reaching to take the last of her
bags. "If you're looking for Usagi-chan--."
        "She'll be where the food is, I know." Naru finished for her, a warm
nostalgic smile flickering for a moment across her face.
        She waved to Minako as the other girl hurried towards the entrance,
then sighing she turned away, brushing for a moment at the wetness that seemed
to hover at the corner of her eye before shrugging sadly and moving swiftly
away into the milling crowd.
        Minako spotted them almost as soon as she entered the hall. Makoto was
standing by a table that held a large glass fish-tank in which Minako caught
glimpses of some unidentifiable creatures as they glided beneath the rippling
surface of the water, while Urawa paced frantically back and forth, his eyes
seeming fixed on a point near the hall's farther end.
        "Hey thanks for giving me a hand with this stuff!" Minako complained
as she hurried towards them. "Where's Ami-chan?"
        "She's um...busy." Makoto pointed towards the sign that indicated the
conveniences beyond the hall's farther end. "This baka here was going to go
charging right in there to talk to her."
        "Hentai!" Minako exclaimed, turning to glare at Urawa in mock-
indignation.
        He did not smile in return.
        "Come on Ami, come on!" He muttered urgently, his expression darkening
still more as he continued to watch the farther entrance as though he might
will her to appear.
        "Look, what *is* this all about anyway?" Minako demanded, at last
beginning to lose her patience as she stalked to stand directly before him.
        Urawa opened his mouth as though to answer; and it was then that they
heard the first screams begin.
        "That." He said simply, his tone grim and final. "It's begun and
there's no more time."
        And with that he whirled away from them and plunged with wild
desperation into the suddenly panicked crowd.
                                     * * *
        Agony, an agony he knew even through its haze simply could not be. For
one impossible moment, this was all Vedris could know or understand as he
stepped from High-lord Uranite's perfect gate and into a sea of searing, soul-
rending pain.
        It had been a desperate and terrifying minute or two from the moment
he and Alaegra, still drawing desperately on the precious mana they would
need, knowing they must take all they could in the hour permitted them before
their mission whilst not destroying the shattered minds of the Youma they were
using as conduits to hasten the process, had been torn violently from their
feeding by the frantic, wrenching pull of the call of the High Circle.
        Racing desperately for the inner domain, they had reached the council
chamber to find all six waiting impatiently, their faces as grim as they had
ever seen them. Only then, as they listened in growing horror to High Lord
Terranite's urgent instructions, did they come to understand the dreadful
enormity of their situation.
        "You have but half an hour." High Lord Terranite had ended as the
high-mage prepared the gate and nodded to him that he was ready. "That is all
we can give you. If we hear nothing within that time we must assume you to be
dead or beyond our aid. Understand also that there is to be no deviation of
*any* kind from the instructions we have given you. Make no mistake. Our
future depends upon the success of this reconnaissance. Should you feel a need
to indulge yourselves in pointless heroics or a sudden desire for vengeance
and so jeopardise our escape before the collapse, your reward should you
survive shall be both swift and terminal. Do I make myself perfectly clear?"
        "Yes High Lord Terranite-sama." Both had answered with a shudder
although the idea of engaging the dreadful wielder of the terrible crystal in
their present condition could not have been farther from their minds. The few
months since the fall were still too vivid in their memories for them to have
any illusions concerning what would happen to them should they fall pray to
some pointless quest for revenge.
        "Very well." High Lord Terranite had ended. "Go, and good luck.
Uranite?"
        The High Mage had gestured and the gate, visible only to those at
least latently sensitive to the subtleties of mana, had appeared before them.
        "Do not fail us." He had said simply, and nodding they had stepped
forwards and entered the shimmering portal.
        All had been perfect until the very instant they had passed from the
council chamber into what should have been a deserted Juuban alley. Then the
outer edge of the gate, invisible even to High Lord Uranite's limited sight
within the collapsing reality of the Kingdom, had twisted horribly and Vedris
had stumbled out into screams and light and blazing, agonising torment.
                                     * * *
        "What! Where!"
        It had been as always impossibly swift. In one moment Usagi was
reaching for the cone Mamoru was holding out to her, in the next the screaming
had begun. For one stunned instant the shock of the sudden spreading panic
caught all three of them utterly by surprise. Then abruptly Rei was whirling
wildly away, staring in astounded disbelief towards a building only twenty
yards or so from where they stood.
        "Youma!" She shrieked above the rising tide of pandemonium all around
them. "Gods how!"
        "What!" Usagi almost screamed, trying to be heard over the sudden din.
"But that's impossible!"
        "I know the evil of a Youma Usagi!" Rei snapped savagely in return,
already turning wildly this way and that as she sought desperately for a place
in which they could transform. "Quickly, the stand!" She screamed.
        The others needed no further urging. In moments all three were racing
wildly for the icecream stand, it having been vacated the moment its
proprietor had heard the first of the screaming.
        Diving desperately behind the concealing counter, the two girls burst
forth a moment later in senshi form, Tuxedo Kamen only an instant behind them.
Then they were standing atop the little kiosk, searching desperately for the
source of the trouble.
        "There!" Mars shouted, gesturing swiftly to a point less than twenty
yards from their precarious perch. "Almost by the far end of the science hall.
There's only one I think, although how it survived undetected all this
time--!"
        "Let's worry about that later." Moon cried with uncharacteristic
venom. "I'm sick of having every outing we arrange ruined by whatever enemy
decides it's time to show up. Come on! This thing's moon-dust!"
        With that she leaped to the roof of a larger stand, the others beside
her as they closed the distance with frantic speed.
                                     * * *
        The pain was inconceivable, beyond anything Vedris could have
imagined. Dimly he understood what must have happened; that somehow the Senshi
must have been aware from the beginning and had diverted the gate's exit-point
beyond Juuban and the precious few miles protected by the capped mana-source
that existed beneath its centre, the few miles in which a Youma could survive
for any length of time without swift death brought about by mana starvation in
the hostile environment of the mana-sealed Earth.
        Screaming, fighting with everything he had to hold his leaking mana to
him and avoid immediate disintegration, Vedris lashed out blindly, knowing it
was in vain, pulling hopelessly with a savagery born of the terror of death
and the darkness that lay beyond at the desperately-needed life-energy of the
panicking humans that surrounded him, hoping that by some miracle he might
gain enough to teleport back to the Kingdom before the last of his shielding
broke down and his body was torn apart by the mana-hungry Earth. He knew
before he began that it was hopeless. Even should the Senshi not appear in the
next few moments to kill him outright, he would not last another half-minute,
let alone the frantic moments he would need to gather the energy to return
unaided to his dying home. Then the hated words reached him through his pain
and despairing, all-engulfing rage replaced all that he might have become and
nothing mattered but to try in his last moments to see the destroyers of the
Kingdom pay in some small part for the ruin they had wrought. Where was
Alaegra?
        "Stop!"
        The dreadful voice seemed to overwhelm him with its malevolent hatred
and his last hope was gone. "A park is--."
        Through the haze of approaching oblivion Vedris saw the nemesis of his
people and releasing everything, his body already beginning to vanish around
him, he launched himself blazing towards her, his only thought to burn and
rend and destroy; and something horrible and impossible lurched and twisted
sickeningly in the very fabric of reality around him and in the next instant
Vedris erupted in a brilliant blaze of flaring, shrieking mana gone insane,
and chaos ruled supreme.
                                     * * *
        "Damn it, let us through!"
        Makoto twisted violently, shoving a burly man aside as though he
weighed nothing as she fought desperately to clear a path to the farther
entrance and the rooms behind where they could transform unseen. It was no
good. People were running wildly this way and that, most surging towards the
nearer entrance and away from what seemed to be the centre of the panic,
perhaps believing the hall on fire, the most likely reason for the screaming.
Both girls new better. Whatever it was, Urawa's behaviour at least had
convinced them it was something for the Senshi to deal with.
        "It's hopeless!" Minako shouted, using her bags to ward off yet
another racing form.
        "Get out! Get out!" He was screaming again and again as he tore passed
them. "Oh Kami, something's trying to kill people back there! Out! Out!"
        He raced on, his cries becoming half-incoherent as he barrelled
through an electronics stand and all but fell through the entrance,
disappearing into the growing madness.
        "To hell with this!" Makoto snarled, spinning out of the headlong rush
and diving towards an archaeological display and the relative concealment
behind the heavy cases.
        Minako was only a moment behind her, reaching concealment just as
Makoto finished her transformation and shot to her feet.
        "Venus" Jupiter heard Minako begin, then all other sound was
overwhelmed in a sudden shattering explosion.
        Jupiter half turned, glimpsing for a moment Minako's lips moving as
she completed her transformation phrase, then a sudden blinding pillar erupted
from the place in which Minako had been but a fractional instant before and
Jupiter heard her own voice scream. Soaring, roaring with a thunderous howl,
the golden column leapt up, punching straight through the steel and concrete
of the roof of the hall as though it were nothing, the howl rising to a nerve-
shattering scream, the very air seeming to turn to blazing fire in its wake as
the screaming soared and waxed until it seemed that it was all and nothing
else could be. Stunned, half blinded and agonised, Jupiter stared stupidly at
the maelstrom that should have been Venus's transformation. For one impossible
moment, energy seemed to flare wildly around her whilst at its roiling heart
Jupiter thought she caught faint glimpses of Minako's writhing form, her body
arched as though in agony. Then with a sickening tearing sound a fleeting
something, a shadow glimpsed but for a fractional instant, seemed to split
from the surging vortex that was Venus and Minako's voice screamed, a high
keening sound, but of pain or pleasure or both Makoto could not tell. Then it
was gone and the pillar was falling, plunging down and out and Jupiter had but
one instant to gape in helpless numbing horror before it smashed into her,
lifting her as though she weighed nothing to send her hurtling up and away
with the speed of a missile. Fortune alone saved her life as the surging front
of the blast smashed the glass and brickwork of the nearer side of the hall to
powder before sending her spiralling headlong into the screaming crowd beyond.
For a confused, dizzying instant, lightning seemed to dance insanely about her
as she whirled. Then something smashed into her from above and the world
exploded, disintegrating swiftly into tiny pin-points of brightness until the
blackness closed about her and she knew no more.
                                     * * *
        "Oh *Kami*!"
        Gaping, Mars stood transfixed, staring stupidly with Sailor Moon and
Tuxedo Kamen as the youma literally exploded before them, the shattering
concussion pitching people headlong like leaves. Then they were leaping
desperately clear as the front smashed the stand upon which they had been
perched to kindling and ploughed on, bringing down the icecream stand and too
others before its energy was at last exhausted. Barely had it died when the
rising thunder of a second explosion had them whirling just in time to see the
science hall erupt in a titanic pillar of golden light. For a moment they
froze, watching stupefied as people and debris were hurtled into the sky. Then
the front struck them like a tsunami and Mars found herself hurtling end over
end, somehow impossibly held within the folds of Tuxedo Kamen's protective
cape while a sudden scream shrilled beside her.
        "It's burning! Oh *Kami* the Ginzuishou! It's *BURNING*!"
        Mars turned her head, and her mouth opened in a silent rictus of
terror as a great white light seemed to leap to engulf Sailor Moon at her
side, her form blazing as though with some inner fire before seeming to
fracture and dissolve before her eyes. She drew breath to scream; then they
were slamming down upon the roof of another stand and the dreadful illusion
was gone as Sailor Moon's head came into sharp contact with her own, even as
Tuxedo Kamen cried out in pain, having angled his body to take the worst of
the impact.
        For a moment, too stunned to move, Mars lay still. Then slowly she
became aware of the near-silence that had taken the place of the thunderous
noise of a moment before, a silence broken only by groans as people,
impossibly unhurt in the twin blasts, dragged themselves dazedly to their feet
and stared stupidly about, wondering how it was that they could still be alive
and thanking every god and goddess they could think of before beginning to
move slowly away.
        "What--!" Was all Mars could manage, shivering from head to foot as
she lay still wrapped in Tuxedo Kamen's protective cape, uncertain as to
whether she was imagining Moon's shaking at her side or whether it was her
own. "What *happened*!"
        Tuxedo Kamen groaned softly and shifted a little.
        "Mars," He said quietly, his voice tightly controled. "I don't wish to
be discourteous but do you think you might possibly refrain from moving on my
arm. I don't think it will do the break much good."
        "Mamoru!" She gasped, using his name in her agitation as she lurched
convulsively into a sitting position. "Oh Kami I'm sorry! How bad is it? Here,
let me take Sailor Moon.
        "Hey Odango-Atama," She hissed, her voice far harsher than her anxious
expression as she gathered her into her arms to lift her from atop Tuxedo
Kamen's prone form. "Snap out of it! Tuxedo Kamen's hurt and all you can do is
lie there with your mouth open?"
        "Uh...wha'?" Sailor Moon moaned softly.
        Then she groaned and her eyes fluttered, trying for a moment to focus
on Mars's face before turning to where Tuxedo Kamen lay.
        "'nother fi' min'ts Luna!" She muttered, still barely aware. Then more
clearly. "Darien? Wha'...where?"
        "Kami! Usagi we haven't time for this!" Mars exclaimed with growing
urgency, not comprehending the meaningless sounds she was making.
        Tuxedo Kamen was trying to move but another gasp of pain had Mars
wondering whether a broken arm was the only injury he had.
        For a moment Sailor Moon remained, her eyes roving wildly, then at a
second cry from the prone form she seemed to come at last to full awareness.
        "Mars?" She gasped, her eyes fixing at last on Mars's increasingly
agitated face. "Oh my head! What happened?"
        "What!" Mars demanded, now frightened as well as anxious at the
incomprehensible sounds. "Sailor Moon! Usagi! What are you babbling about?"
        "What?" Sailor Moon demanded in her turn, her eyes sharpening at last
to fix intently on Mars's own, her expression suddenly confused and a little
frightened.
        And Mars saw, saw with the sudden certainty of the sight she
possessed, and suddenly she was on her feet, her eyes blazing as she glared
down at the thing before her, the unnatural thing in Sailor Moon's form.
        "Who are you?" She hissed, the power already gathering in her hands,
ready to send this abomination to oblivion.
        "What!" Sailor Moon gasped, her eyes widening in sudden horror as she
gazed helplessly at the sudden death in the eyes of her friend. "Mars...Raye
it's me, Sailor Moon! What's the matter with you? It's Serena!"
        And Mars snarled and let loose the fire.