Please enjoy!

Raye

=====
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http://www.thejohnsens.com/index.html

I believe in dragons, unicorns, good men
and other mythical creatures.

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Gundam Moon

by Raye Johnsen
raye_j@yahoo.com

***********
	'Kidou Senki Gundam Wing' is copyright Sunrise
Entertainment, Fox Entertainment, Viz Communications, Mixx
Enterprises, and others.
	'Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon' is copyright Takeuchi 
Naoko, Kodansha, Mixx Enterprises, DiC Entertainment, and others.
	In other words, NOT ME.
	This story contains reference to a same-sex couple. If
the Honoured Reader dislikes this, the Author recommends the use
of the delete button. NOW.
***********

In Chapter Four: Revelations In The Light...

	"I take it," the woman they had known as Lucrezia 
Noin-Peacecraft asked mildly, "that we are not what you 
expected?"

***********
Chapter Five: Silence Is Purple
***********

	/There should be a law,/ Relena reflected, /against this
sort of thing./ "No," she eventually replied. "I wasn't expecting
this at all."

	Lady Anne said nothing. Fortunately nobody was facing her
to see the broad grin she was wearing. /Endymion always *did* 
have excellent timing,/ she thought.

	Zoicite suddenly blinked. "Where's Hilde?" he asked
worriedly. "I don't see her..."

	Pluto lost her grin abruptly. /Hilde? Oh no. Oh, please
no./

	The dust and entirely gratituous smoke had dissipated
from around them (much to Mars' displeasure; he *really* didn't
like the idea of being seen in these... garments) and so they 
could all finally see around them. And they too could be seen.

	/I bet the price of leotards is gonna skyrocket,/ Pluto 
thought inconsequentially. /A generation is going to rediscover 
the miniskirt./

	Hilde was standing beyond the edge of the rubble. Her
arms were folded and her head was bowed. She stood in profile to
their group, one foot poking at a piece of broken wall.

	"Hilde?" Zoicite started, stepping forward. "Are you all
ri...."

	His voice trailed off as Hilde lifted and tilted her head
towards him. Her face was blank, and a symbol, like a curvy 
lowercase 'h' but with a short crossbar turning the upright 
stroke into a cross and the swollen curve ballooning up to the
top of the upright stroke, glowing purple over her fine black 
eyebrows. But what was most disturbing of all, and what made him
stop in his tracks, was the way her eyes were a solid lavender, 
with neither pupil nor white.

	|KILL HER! KillherkillherKILLHER!!| Neptune suddenly
screamed inside Quatre's head. |IT'S SATURN! Kill her before she
kills *us*! KILL HER!|

	Quatre felt himself moving, seemingly disassociated from
the action, as he cast a Submarine Reflection at the new soldier.
Beside him, following his lead, Trowa cast a World Shaking.

	"What in the name of all that's *holy* are you two 
DOING?!" Relena shrieked. She began to run towards Hilde, but the
two attacks outdistanced both her and Duo.

	In the teal glow of the combined attacks, they watched
Hilde smile, gently, and lift one hand... and then the two balls
of force collided against her body, and they could see nothing.

	Duo leapt over the broken table and decked Quatre. He 
bent over, grabbed his erstwhile friend by the collar and dragged
him up until they were nose to nose. "WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK 
YOU WERE DOING!!" he demanded. "She was..."

	"Oh... God... Hail Mary full of grace, the Lord is with
thee, blessed art thou..."

	Now Milliard was most definitely not among the most 
religious of people, so when he started gabbling prayers, other
people tended to stop and look. Quatre and Duo were no exception.

	Hilde smiled that mild, terrifying smile and stepped 
forward.

	"Hilde!" Duo cried joyfully, letting go of Quatre (who 
slumped to the floor with a muffled "erg" and was promptly picked
up by Trowa) and ran over towards her. Which put him in a perfect
position to catch her when she slumped forward in a dead faint. 

	Luna leapt up onto the ruins of the table from the depths
of Relena's handbag, where she had been hiding. Sitting there, 
with her fur bearing smears of three-in-one makeup stick, more 
than a hint of Relena's rose perfume on her rear left paw, and a
new resolve to get Relena to stop carrying *all* her life in her
handbag, she usurped Marimeia's role of capping the moment.

	"And I thought I had a headache this *morning*."

*********************

	After detransforming (and pointedly not commenting on
who turned away during that instant of nakedness, and who didn't)
everyone repaired to the Winner villa - on the grounds that it 
was unlikely to be bugged and everyone could stay there.

	Rashid's folded arms and unspoken 'you are going straight
home' stance as he stood beside Quatre and Trowa's limousine
probably had something to do with it as well.

	"Why the HELL did you attack Hilde?" Duo demanded, 
cradling his lover (who was still out of it) as he sat in an easy
chair in the living room of the villa.

	Quatre cast him and incredulous look. "She's *Saturn*,"
he said, as if that explained everything.

	"That explains *nothing*," Dorothy snapped.

	"She's a Sailor Senshi too," Catherine said, "as well as
being our friend. Triton, why?"

	Trowa regarded his loafers studiously.

	"Quatre?" Catherine appealed to her brother-in-law.

	Anne came to their rescue. "Sailor Saturn has but one
attack: the Death Reborn Revolution. It has but one effect: to
destroy the planet at which it is directed. She is born but for
one purpose: to annihilate civilization. She is the Goddess of 
Death, and if she lives, all will die."

	WuFei stared at the woman, who stood against the wall,
looking out the window, who had described Saturn so clinically.
"What?" he whispered.

	Anne stared out the window. "When Saturn is born, it can
only mean one of two things; the Chalice will be reformed and she
will take it up, with all that implies, or we will suffer a 
defeat so absolute that Saturn's Silence, in its speed, will be a
blessing and a relief from slow death. And there have been no 
signs of the emergence of the Talismans...."

	"Talismans? Chalice? What *are* you talking about, Lady 
Anne?" Relena demanded.

	Anne frowned. "Everything has two sides, Relena. Saturn
can be, with the right tool, either the greatest healer or the
greatest destroyer in the universe - depending on whether she 
takes up the Holy Chalice or the Silence Glaive. Her hands were 
empty tonight...."

	"It doesn't matter which she chooses," Heero spoke from
his slouched position beside the door. "If she attacks, we'll 
survive her Silence."

	Anne flashed him a glare from the other side of the room.
"Before Metallia corrupted Beryl and made her attack the Moon, it
was a beautiful, green planetoid - just like the Earth. When it 
became clear just how destructive and unstoppable Beryl's forces 
were, Queen Selenity called Saturn and commanded her to unleash
the Silence on the Moon. Its effects remain there to this day. 
Why do you *think* they have to keep replenishing the 
hydroponics? Or why Luna only has industrial colonies and no
permanent residents? Saturn's Silence stilled the Moon ten
thousand years ago, and still and silent it will remain.
Forever."

	Heero glared back and said nothing.

	Milliard looked at Hilde increduously. "The Moon was like
Earth?"

	"Yes," Lucrezia said softly. She smiled at Hilde, and 
reached up to touch her husband's hand. 

	Anne looked over at them. "I don't believe you're worried
at all."

	"I'm not."

	Dorothy gave a snort. "You're not worried? How can you
not be?" She fished a white kitten out from behind her own 
ankles. "Is this what you meant by 'Hilde. Oh dear,' when you
gave me this brooch?"

	"Oh, *Artemis*!" Luna sighed. "Can't you *ever* keep your
mouth shut?"

	The small white kitten glared across the room from
Dorothy's knee. "Yes, I can!" he returned. "I didn't tell her
*why* it wasn't a good thing, did I?"

	"I suppose you've told her all about her marriage, too!"

	Everyone turned and stared at Artemis. "Marriage?"
Dorothy asked, too softly.

	"It was ten thousand years ago. Well over. Well
forgotten," Luna replied.

	"Oh yeah, good riddance to bad-"

	"*Artemis*."

	"Thank you for that diversion," Quatre said tartly, "but
the fact remains that we can't let Sailor Saturn awaken. And she
has. So what do you say to that?"

	"No."

	"Duo?" Trowa asked.

	Duo stood up. "You're going to say something like 'kill
her,' right? Well, you're not gonna."

	"Duo..." Trowa began.

	"'Sides, you *can't*. She took your worst and she walked
away." He brushed a lock away from her face. "That's why I 
believe you, y'know. She took those attacks... why didn't she do
it with the Mobile Dolls two years ago...."

	<Because I hadn't woken up then,> Hilde said, without
opening her eyes.

	"What did she just say?" WuFei demanded of Sally.

	"I don't know, my English isn't that good, and they're 
speaking northeastern American dialect. Something about 
waking...."

	<Hilde, what the Hell is going on?> Duo demanded, 
ignoring etiquette and the puzzled looks of the rest of the room.

	Her eyes opened and Duo was staring into a stranger's
eyes. Not the sky-blue eyes he was used to seeing in her face,
nor his own deep dark blue, the colour of violets, but true 
purple irises.

	<I don't think you should call Me 'Hilde' anymore, Enma.>

	Heero choked.

******************

	Baratte frowned as she looked at the power reservoirs she
was monitoring.

	/Stupid, stupid little male,/ she thought angrily. /Not
even *bred* yet, much less made the cut *or* cull./

	*All* of them were now active - including eight that had
only activated when her late, unlamented assistant had begun his
attack. Fourteen pools of power, all accessible to two
individuals. Except for three, which were only accessible to one.

	Analysing the pattern, she saw that it was similar, in a
way, to their own power-sharing network. One circle of seven, the
stores linked to seven of the planets of this solar system, was 
connected to an eighth power source, that dominated by the moon 
of the planet they were interested in. So while each planet's 
reservoir could be called on by its Sailor, the one calling 
herself 'Sailor Moon' could bypass the planet's own Sailor and 
access that planet's reservoir herself. There were two planets, 
however, that she could not access - the second-largest planet in
the system, called 'Saturn', and, ironically enough, the planet 
on which Sailor Moon lived, that they were interested in.

	Earth itself had an interesting setup of its own. It had
five reservoirs linked to itself, but accessible by two different
people - the person each was linked to, and...

	Baratte stared and caught her breath. 

	The central reservoir and all four of the lesser
reservoirs were linked to one person. That person had full access
to all the power resources of the planet Earth....

	Baratte felt her limbs tremble with excitement. No longer
thinking about what had been lost, she scrambled for the data on
the target that had been attacked. One of those humans was the 
one they wanted.

*****************

	After Heero finished coughing, and everyone had seen
Hilde's eyes, Duo and Hilde were still arguing.

	"*I'm* Shinigami! Me!"

	Saturn rolled her eyes. "No, You are Enma. *I* am 
Shinigami."

	"Says?"

	"Says your own Japanese mythology. She who is Death is a
woman, as you and yours have ever known. I am called Hathor, 
Rhoua, Nemain, Hel; Terrans have given Me so many names."

	"Score one for Women's Lib," muttered Dorothy into her 
scotch. "The ultimate force in all the universe is a girl."

	"If this 'Sailor' thing has taught us anything," WuFei 
said archly, "it is that gender is irrelevant."

	"Oh yeah, that's right," Duo said, "Mars used to be a 
*girl*."

	"Still kicked your butt, Maxwell."

	"But *girls* don't belong in battle," Duo sing-songed.
"They're..." he trailed off as he became aware that Lucrezia,
Relena, Sally, Anne, Dorothy and Hilde were all staring, and
daggers were the least of the optical weaponry focused on him.
"Hey, *he* said it!"

	"But *you* repeated it," Heero smirked. 

	Duo subsided with a muttered imprecation against "bloody 
poker-faced generals".

******************

	The hunger was growing stronger.

	The urgency of feeding had never come upon Him so
quickly. It almost seemed as if there was no period of satiation
anymore.

	Once, it had not been thus. Once, His planet had been
much like the one He watched on His viewscreen.  Once, His planet
had been torn and argued over, its beauty slowly eroded by 
possessive, quarrelsome children who were only interested in
denying its bounty to others.

	However, He had put a stop to that. He had linked Himself
to the planet and its power, so that it fed Him, and only Him...
the sudden flow of energy had almost destroyed Him. By the time 
He had recovered, almost all the food was gone. And those whom 
had fought were still denying the necessity of sharing....

	He had been forced to rescue his people from their own 
leaders, and to prevent them ever being denied their due again,
had linked them to Himself.

	There had been no other way! They were tearing each other
apart. There was simply no other way!

	There had been peace. There had been prosperity, for a
time. The planet had given them all that they had needed.

	Until the day when it had begun to fail Him....

	How could it fail Him?

	The day had come when the planet they had called 'Earth'
simply could not sustain them any longer. They had left, and had
been no more than a day's travel away, when....

	Agony.
	Loss.
	Hunger.

	.... it blew up into so many fragments.

	And from that day on, the hunger had been a constant
gnawing in His soul.

	He turned away from the image of the glittering prize
below, and faced the door, awaiting Baratte.

	And growing hungry.

******************

	Lucrezia Noin-Peacecraft excused herself from the debate
for a moment, pleading hunger.  Quatre, apparently unaware of the
particular devastation a pregnant woman could wreak on a 
fully-stocked larder, offered her the full run of his kitchen. 
Milliard, fully aware, followed her after a few minutes.

	He found her sitting at the kitchen table, guzzling
pickles and icecream. In deference to her Italian childhood, she 
was eating pickled olives. In deference to the fact that she
didn't have the patience to chase them around the jar with 
fingers or spoon, she was using a fork. The icecream, still in
its carton with a spoon sticking out, was butterscotch with a 
butterscotch fudge and (if he wasn't mistaken) little 
butterscotch pieces rippled through it. Its smell was enough to
cause cavities.

	"Does the little one like pickles so much?" he asked
warily, as he sat down.

	"I think so. But she also likes icecream."

	"*That* icecream?"

	"What's wrong with it?"

	Milliard recognised a losing battle when he saw one.
"Absolutely nothing if you like that sort of thing," he rallied
gallantly. "I wouldn't have thought you'd find this sort of
icecream in their kitchen though."

	Noin grinned. "I bribed Trowa to take my comm on 
Peacemillion during our... confrontation with a roll of
butterscotch lollies. Offer that boy butterscotch and he'd follow
you to Mars."

	"Ah. Pass the jar, I want some pickles."

	"Have you got clean fingers?"

	"I'll use a fork. Come on, Lucrezia, I didn't get
anything to eat either." 

	They ate in silence for a few minutes, until Milliard
stood up and retrieved a loaf of bread and some sandwich spread
from the refrigerator.

	"Anchovies?"

	"Sorry." He returned the offending fish spread to the
fridge, pulling out a jar of peanut paste instead.

	"Thank you."

	"You're welcome."

	They ate, companionably and in silence, for some moments.

	"I have to ask, Lucrezia," Milliard began, "but... you
aren't worried about Saturn at all."

	Lucrezia smiled. "I know. And I know that I should be
scared out of my wits, but I'm not, and neither are you, for the
same reason."

	Milliard blinked. "Okay... you've got me. Why am I not
scared?"

	"Because she isn't going to do it."

	"But..."

	"Think about it," Lucrezia said, after swallowing a
mouthful of icecream. "This isn't *just* Saturn. It's Hilde
Schriebecker, who fought for her colony, who outflew two Gundam
pilots, who stole the blueprints of Libra and brought them to us
so we had a chance in that battle-"

	"That was *her*?"

	"That was her. The point is, this woman is not into
killing for the sake of watching everything go boom. Remember
what Anne said - she had to be specifically summoned to wipe out
the Moon, and she had to be ordered to do it and it was only 
*after* all hope was lost. If Saturn's here, it just means we
have a self-destruct button if things go too badly."

	"I hope you're right. Pass the icecream?"

******************

Author's Notes:

	1. Yes, I *know* that in canon Sailor Moon, Sailor Saturn
is not the Messiah, Sailor Moon is. However... as a storyteller,
I feel that this is wrong. Thematically and in narrative style, 
the matter of the Dark or White Messiah should and ordinarily 
*would* rest with Tomoe Hotaru, as and when she chose to be 
either Sailor Saturn *or* Mistress Nine. Saturn was the Sailor of
Healing as well as the Sailor of Destruction, and that rep had to
come from *somewhere*.
	In fact, I think there's a LOT wrong with the Sailor Moon
canon plotline, and most of it can be traced back to the fact 
that Tsukino Usagi's real name is Takeuchi Naoko.
	I've changed the identity of the Messiah here to what I 
feel is correct, because this is an AU. The changes are not 
baseless, and so, because this fic makes no claim to canonhood, I
see no reason not to change this detail.

	2. In the Japanese pantheon, Shinigami is the embodiment
of Death. Shinigami, in and of Herself, is completely 
nonjudgemental. When it's your time to die, She turns up. Enma is
the king of the underworld. He judges the souls of the dead and 
determines their destination. (Yes, the original Shinigami is 
female.)
	Ancient Egyptians worshipped Hathor, the lion-headed
goddess of war, destruction and happy marriage. (One is left
wondering exactly what constituted a happy marriage in Ancient
Egypt.)
	In Celtic mythology, Nemain was a war-goddess, one of the
quartet that also included The Morrigan, Badb and Macha of Ulster
- more than her sisters, though, Nemain appears to have had an
affinity with death in battle. She was married to Nuada, who had
a silver hand (reminiscent of the Greek Daedalus). Nemain and 
Nuada ruled over the Tuatha de Danaan (the last generation of the
Irish Gods) until they were killed in battle against Balor. 
	Hel was the daughter of Loki and Angrboda in the Norse
religion. Because of her parentage, she was imprisoned in the
Underworld, although the other Gods *did* make her its Queen (as
if that made it any better). Her realm was reserved for those who
had died of sickness and old age, rather than battle, and it was 
a truly horrible place, reflecting the ancient Scandinavians' 
warrior culture. The early Christians 'borrowed' Hel's name and
realm for their own dark underworld.
	Rhoua is borrowed from Diane Duane's Wizard Sequence,
specifically 'The Book of Night With Moon' and 'On Her Majesty's
Wizardly Service' (published in America as 'To Visit The Queen').

	4. Something that was glossed over in the GWing TV series
is the fact that the majority of characters would have been 
speaking several different languages. I'm pretty sure that when
the characters are together, they're all speaking French, or 
possibly English, because they're about the only languages that
they'd *all* know well enough to converse in.
	Heero would have spoken Japanese (native tongue) and
would likely have also spoken English (as a programmer; most code
uses English terms) and possibly also French (the international
diplomatic tongue). He would likely also have picked up some 
Arabic and Chinese (probably profanities, probably from Quatre
and WuFei. Everyone always swears in their native tongue).
	Duo would have had a head start on the computer 
programming languages, because his native tongue is English. He
would likely have spoken French also, and picked up some Chinese,
Arabic and Japanese (for the same reasons as Heero).
	Trowa is French, so of course he speaks it! He probably 
also speaks Programmer's English, and has a fair grasp of the 
major European languages (Spanish, Italian, Greek, etc.), from 
the circus folk if nobody else. It's unlikely that he speaks more
than a smattering of the East Asian languages, although his 
friendship with Quatre would probably lead him to try to learn
Arabic.
	Quatre would speak Arabic, possibly a regional dialect,
probably French (as most nations in the Middle East have it 
listed as a national language) and also English. I doubt he would
speak Japanese or Chinese.
	WuFei would *definitely* speak at least Hanyu! 
	[The spoken Chinese languages are incredibly varied. They
speak a completely different language just 100km south of 
Beijing. Everybody is taught to speak Hanyu (Mandarin, or 
Beijing's dialect) in school, though, so Chinese people can
communicate with each other. But to say that one speaks *Chinese*
is incorrect.]
	It's also likely he would speak either French or English,
probably both, and also Japanese and Russian (he *was* a scholar,
after all).
	As middle European nobility, Milliard, Relena, Dorothy,
Treize, Marimeia and (possibly) Anne would all speak their native
tongues (what *was* the national language of Sanq?), French (if 
it's not their native tongue), and English.
	Lucrezia is Italian and, being a commoner, got to the top
the hard way - by studying and working bloody hard. She would 
have spoken Italian, and been taught French and English (likely
in the military academy). Her speech patterns are always formal,
no matter the situation, which is a characteristic of someone who
is speaking a language they are fluent but not comfortable in.
	Hilde would only have spoken English, and if she learnt
any other languages, it would be to communicate with the other 
characters. She would probably only be comfortable in English.
	Catherine would likely be a bit more cosmopolitan - she
*is* part of a travelling circus. However, she would likely not
be fluent in whichever European languages she knew and would 
definitely speak French best. She would not speak any Asian 
languages at all.

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