----------

	The last thing Cobalt saw before passing out were the
retreating shadows and, concealed within them, a pair of glinting
eyes and a glowing green scar.

	The blackness wrapped around her, cutting off the rest of the
world and smothering her in an inky blanket of nothingness.

	In the darkness of her own mind, memory began to unspool like
film off a reel.

	"Do I look good enough yet?" young Cobalt asked.

	Ytterbium's critical eye bored into her. Cobalt had done her
best to emulate a human appearance, hiding her strange skin and her
extra limbs. Despite this, the older youma's eyes flicked from spot
to spot on Cobalt's body, quick to point out imperfections.

	"Your skin is too pale. Also, humans don't have fangs," she
said. She went on and on about the problems with the girl's disguise.

	"How about now?"

	"Close enough," Ytterbium finally acknowledged Cobalt's
efforts. "Now Hurry. We won't have much time once we're there."

	In a haze of shadow, she teleported the two of them to a
small, quiet park in the middle of Tokyo. They faded into being in
the darkness behind a small copse of trees.

	Ytterbium's injury hadn't had time to become nearly so
severe. Rather than radiating all her life energy away at once,
Cobalt could watch it spark between her fingertips as it slowly
dissipated. Occasionally, it would snake down her face, over her
body, and then earth itself from her feet. Like this, Ytterbium could
spend minutes... almost hours at a time in the outside world. After a
few seconds, the visible discharge stopped, but Cobalt could still
feel it coming off her.

	"Ahhh..." Cobalt whispered as the shadows cleared around
them. The sky was clear, bright and cool. A wealth of stars shone
down on them and the moon, low on the horizon, cast an eerie yellow
glow over the park. In the distance, she could see the beautifully
back-lit Tokyo sky-line. Standing above all the other buildings was a
wedge-shape tower. It glowed red and white, looking for all the world
like an unearthly lace castle.

	"Extravagance, gluttony, and greed," Ytterbium noted darkly.
"This should all be ours!"

	Cobalt nodded absently, hearing for the first time the sound
of small children yelling and playing in the distance. The sound was
dampened and filtered by the trees, but it was unmistakable.
Curiously, she ran towards it.

	"Where are you going?"

	"Sound and--" Cobalt sniffed the air, her nose twitching like
a cat's. "Food!"

	As they approached the source of the sound, the twinkle of
laughter and merriment was joined by the thumping of a drum and the
strains of a minor key melody played on a flute.

	"It's as good a place as any, I guess," Ytterbium noted.

	Booths lined either side of a broad walk. Humans clad in
robes and light clothes walked back and forth between them. They
sang, played, ate, and enjoyed themselves. Here, children struggled
futilely to scoop fish out of a small trough with tissue nets. There,
a young couple stuffed cotton candy into each other's mouths. It was
a cacophony of voices and discordant music, but it seemed magical to
Cobalt's ears.

	She had no words for what was going on. Only later would she
learn what a 'festival' truly was.

	Behind her, Ytterbium walked up to a noodle stand and bought
several boxes of yakisoba with fake yen coins that had been pressed
out of pure gold.

	Carrying the food under one arm, she returned to Cobalt's
side and placed her hand on the girl's shoulder.

	"Do you see?" Ytterbium asked.

	Cobalt saw perfectly well.

	"Do you see the waste here? Do you see the injustice?" the
youma demanded. "They play and laugh under and open sky while we
starve and suffer in silence. It's not fair!"

	"No, it isn't," Cobalt agreed, her nose full with the scents
of fried food, candy, and ice cream.

	"One day, this will all be ours," Ytterbium told her. "Do you
see? Do you truly see?"

	"Yes!" Cobalt assured her, her eyes locked on pretty faces,
pretty clothes, and the stars above. "We'll *all* share in this," she
said reverently. "I can see it now!"

	What Cobalt saw and what Ytterbium wanted her to see were two
entirely different things.

----------------------------------------
Hidden in Darkness

A Bishojou Senshi Sailor Moon fanstory

by Chris Jones

Chapter 6: The Neoqueen
----------------------------------------

	The memory of that early fall evening faded in Cobalt's mind.
Soon, there was nothing but inky darkness again. Cobalt felt nothing
but a vague feeling of grief.

	The darkness began to lighten. Her body was suffused with a
quiet, warm glow. The warmth grew strong and stronger. It slowly
enveloped her, suffusing her being. It began to flow down her throat.
It coursed through her nostrils, through her airway and into her
lungs. It flowed smoothly into every orifice and pore, gently
healing, gently cleansing the darkness and pain away.

	Cobalt was no longer floating. Instead she was being
supported on a column of warmth. It held her up, righting her and
helping her to stand up straight.

	The glow forced the fatigue and soreness out of her body. In
the distance, the same yellow moon seemed to rise up above unmoving
treetops.

	Indeed, rather than darkness, Cobalt now seemed to be
surrounded by a strange golden landscape with ancient trees and
sparkling rivers. It was airless and soundless, but strangely, Cobalt
didn't seem to need to breathe. The glow was providing everything she
needed. The youma stretched her limbs, all eight of them, loosening
her muscles. It felt good to flex her claws and talons, especially
after--

	Memory began to course back. She had been injured in the
fight with Silicon and Lead, who abducted Kaliborite. They were aided
by...

	Cobalt's eyes popped open. She was laying in the floor of her
restaurant-- her very ruined and shattered restaurant. The Sailor
Senshi were all around her. In fact, her head was laying in Sailor
Moon's lap.

	She sat up quickly, ignoring the dull ache in the side of her
face where she had been blasted. The world started to spin, but she
didn't care. There were more important things to worry about.

	"Cobalt, you're going to hurt yourself!" Sailor Moon told
her, trying to wrap her arms around the blue-haired woman's
shoulders.

	"It doesn't matter. They've destroyed it all," she cried,
grief beginning to overwhelm her. "They killed Chalcedony, Amber, and
Veritite! They destroyed the teleporters! Oh God, Sailor Moon,
they've got Kelly and they took her back to the Dark Kingdom!"

	Cobalt was rather surprised when the blonde grabbed her and
forcefully embraced her, crushing Cobalt's face into her bosom.

	"We'll get her back," Sailor Moon promised. "We'll do
whatever it takes to get her back."

* * *

	Because a significant portion of the police in Juuban
district were busy helping the fire departments to control the three
blazes that had 'mysteriously' almost simultaneous erupted in the
district, it was no surprise when a lone officer stopped briefly into
the destroyed restaurant to promise more policemen would along later
to help with the damage and take statements.

	Mamoru had already taken a confused, shaken, but unhurt
Shingo back to his parents' house by that time, so the rest of the
Sailor Senshi, Cobalt, Brookite, Jasper, and Achorite relocated to
Mamoru and Usagi's apartment.

	For a moment, Cobalt still felt buoyed up by Sailor Moon's
words. She wondered what the blonde haired woman was going to do to
help her recover the lost child.

	That was when the argument started.

	Haruka, the woman who was secretly Sailor Uranus, was quite
edgy. She made the comment, "Maybe if you have people who don't want
to come here, you should let them stay."

	To which Brookite testily responded. "Thank you, but maybe
some of us are tired of starving to death. I bet you've never had to
deal with that, did you?"

	Uranus, egged on by Brookite's anger, retorted, "No, I just
have to deal with all the murdering youma scum you bring along with
you."

	After just a few seconds Minako and Makoto had to jump in
between them to keep the increasingly vitriolic slurs from escalating
into blows or worse.

	Ami, having just de-transformed, was busy treating Achorite's
torn sutures. She did her best to ignore the argument, as did
Setsuuna and Hotaru, who were busy taking care of some small animals
Cobalt didn't really recognize.

	Cobalt's dark mood returned in full force. Kaliborite was
gone, abducted by youma participating in a plot directed squarely at
Cobalt's heart. The plotting youma were being assisted by another
youma-- one who could teleport and fire powerful energy blasts.

	The only other youma Cobalt knew who could teleport was-- No.
That can't be it, she told herself firmly. She'd never do that to me.
We both know how important this is-- was.

	Was... The battle was over. Cobalt had failed. On the way
over, Ami had shared her readings. As Sailor Mercury, she was
actually on her way to the source of one of the explosions when Venus
called for help. According to the data she showed Cobalt, the
explosions had been massive, more massive than the simple, disposable
teleportation portals could account for. When she saw the data,
Cobalt knew that not only had the easily rebuilt devices been
destroyed, but the real teleportation system in the Dark Kingdom had
been decimated as well.

	Cobalt and Ytterbium spent years building that system.

	Black depression washed over her as she realized how much of
her life's goals had suddenly become forevermore unreachable.

	She slumped against the wall of the apartment, her mind
running in circles. Her depression only worsened when she realized
that Usagi and Rei were on the floor next to her, doing nothing to
prevent the fight brewing across the room. Usagi was doing nothing to
help her.

	Across the room, a green-haired woman Cobalt didn't really
know was sitting in a chair, her hands over her ears as Haruka and
Brookite's argument escalated.

	"Yeah, well at least my ancestors weren't demonic monsters!"
Haruka screamed.

	"Your ancestors banished *my* ancestors to a dimension of
darkness!" Brookite shouted, railing against Minako, who was trying
to hold her back.

	"SHUT UP!" the green-haired woman, Michiru, if Cobalt
recalled correctly, screamed. "Neither of you is making any sense!"

	"This is pointless," Cobalt said emotionlessly. "I'm going,"
she announced, climbing back to her feet.

	She was about to pull away, but there was a steel grip on her
arm. It very nearly yanked her off her feet. Usagi, whom Cobalt
thought was sulking, was standing behind her with a small smile on
her face.

	Funny, Cobalt though. Her arms and hands didn't look strong
enough to stop Cobalt in her tracks like that.

	"We're *all* going," she announced. "Brooke-chan, Akie's
really not well enough to travel. Would you stay here and take care
of her and Jasper while we all help Callie?"

	Stunned by Usagi's sudden announcement, Brookite dropped her
rhetoric and nodded dumbly.

	Cobalt stared at the woman in shock.

	"The only route we know to the Dark Kingdom was destroyed ten
years ago," Usagi continued. "Are you ready to help us get there by
other means?"

	Cobalt couldn't help but nod.

	"It will all be okay," Usagi told her. "I promise."

	Hope began to flare up in Cobalt's heart once again.

	How stupid I am, she told herself. This is Sailor Moon.

* * *

	A few minutes later, Cobalt was standing on the roof of the
building with nine Sailor Senshi, Tuxedo Kamen, and Usagi's black
cat, which had followed them to the roof.

	"You should really be downstairs with your kittens," Sailor
Moon told the cat, petting her lovingly as the rest of them assembled
in a loose circle.

	With everything else that had happened, Cobalt decided she
wasn't really surprised to hear a talking cat.

	"You must be careful, Usagi," Luna replied, tears standing in
her eyes. "I don't want my babies to grow up in a world without
Sailor Moon."

	"We'll all come back just fine," Sailor Moon assured her.
"All of us. I promise."

	"Are you ready, Sailor Moon?" Mercury asked.

	The blonde woman nodded and stood up. She clasped Cobalt's
right hand and led her into the circle.

	"Listen, I know I can't teleport this many at once," she said
weakly.

	"Don't worry about it," Sailor Jupiter said, standing across
from her, holding hands with Mars and Mercury. "You show us where to
go, and we'll provide the power."

	Sailor Moon nodded in agreement.

	Someone grabbed Cobalt's left hand. She realized it was
Sailor Uranus. The tall woman's face was green and her skin was
twitching, but she gripped Cobalt's hand like a vice.

	"Don't make me regret this," she whispered in a warning tone.
"Don't hurt her."

	"I'll try," Cobalt whispered back.

	Haruka bit her lip, trying to keep the expression of disgust
off her face. She turned her face towards the middle of the circle,
which Cobalt realized was staring to glow with building energy.

	"Mercury Star Power," Sailor Mercury said, from across the
circle.

	"Venus Star Power!"

	Tuxedo Kamen didn't say anything, but he usually never did.

	"Mars Star Power!"

	"Jupiter Star Power!"

	"Saturn Star Power!"

	Cobalt realized that the shortest of the Sailor Senshi had a
short loch of blonde hair attached to the crystalline ornament on her
chest. She wondered what it signified.

	"Uranus Star Power!"

	"Neptune Star Power!"

	"Pluto Star Power!"

	Cobalt was beginning to feel really stupid for not saying
anything by this point. She began her own preparations for
teleportation, trying to ignore the massive buildup of energy all
around her.

	"MOON PRINCESS POWER!!" Sailor Moon cried, leading everyone
else. "SAILOR TELEPORT!"

	The world shattered and became a rainbow.

* * *

	"YOU IDIOT!!" Ytterbium screamed, her voice echoing off the
furthest reaches of the abandoned throne room.

	Lead cowered in front of her, her arms wrapped protectively
around Kaliborite, who was wailing loudly.

	"I'm sorry!" Lead cried, tears streaking down her face. "I
tried to do what was right. Shh..." she told Kaliborite. "It's okay.
We'll protect you. I promise."

	Kaliborite's wail of terror only became louder.

	"Shut her up!" Ytterbium commanded, raising one fist.

	"Shh!" Lead urged the child. "Be quiet, please! Everything's
okay. You'll be okay."

	Ytterbium clenched her fist, causing yellow lightning to arc
down across Lead's body. Kaliborite spasmed in her arms and hung
limply.

	Across the room, Silicon's eyes widened in shock and horror.

	"She's not dead, is she?"

	Tears streaking down her face, Lead shook her head. "No.
She's still breathing. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," she said more to
Kaliborite than her comrades.

	"Do you know what you've done?!" Ytterbium demanded.

	Lead shook her head, cradling the limp girl to her breast.

	"You've led them right to us. Cobalt will stop at nothing to
get the brat back. If she's made friends with the Sailor Senshi..."

	Ytterbium didn't even have to finish before Lead started
wailing in despair.

	"Don't make me knock you out too," the older youma
threatened.

	"Forgive me, Ytterbium. I'm just trying to do what I think is
right!"

	"Well, quit thinking!" her leader commanded. "You're not here
to think. You're here to follow orders. You can do that, can't you?"

	Lead nodded weakly. She had never seen Ytterbium so upset
before. It really did seem like the world was ending when the person
she depended on-- the person she thought was completely unshakable in
her duty-- got so upset.

	"I want everyone out of the corridors and away from the
teleporters, and I want them out now!" Ytterbium commanded. "Cobalt's
almost certainly already on her way. When she gets here, I don't want
anyone else getting in the way."

	Lead nodded and ran out of the throne-room still cradling
Kaliborite to her chest.

	"There's going to be a fight," Silicon said, her glass blade
drawn.

	"There is going to be a fight the likes of which we haven't

seen in a decade," Ytterbium confirmed darkly. "When the time comes,
*you* are my first line of defense. I can trust you, can't I,
Silicon? You won't let me down like all the others have, will you?"

	"No!" Silicon assured her. "I'll stop them... no matter what
it takes."

	"You know what to do," Ytterbium told her quietly. She turned
and strode out of the room.

	Silicon swung her sword through the air a few times,
listening to it whistle as it passed by her. She did her best to keep
the uncertainty off her face.

	"Lead was wrong to disobey Ytterbium," she said out loud. "I
won't fail you!"

* * *

	In the disorienting rainbow that was a Sailor Teleport,
Cobalt realized that which she called teleporting and what the
Sailors called a teleport were two very different things. She could
feel some vague attachment between them, but it was like scrabbling
to hold on to the edge of a cliff. It was a supreme effort for both
her and the Sailor Senshi to maintain any kind of contact.

	Eventually, after Cobalt felt herself pass into far reaches
of the Dark Kingdom, she lost her grip. She couldn't really see the
Sailors as they pulled away, but the rainbow glow around her became
dimmer and dimmer as they lost contact.

	She tried to reestablish contact with them, desperately
trying to link back up, but the glow was gone as if it had never
been.

	Off balance and disoriented, Cobalt materialized half inside
a wall in the room she used to call home in the Dark Palace. The
stone wall cracked and shattered around her, the flakes of marble and
schist transforming into a voluminous mass of paper confetti which
piled around her legs like fallen leaves.

	"Stupid..." Cobalt gasped, trying to keep from falling on her
knees with the effort she had just expended in the teleport.

	She staggered, briefly tripping over her old cot. When she
fell, she landed on the floor next to an oddly shaped sapphire.
Exhausted, Cobalt's mind wandered for a few seconds. She thought
back... back before Ytterbium had found her. Back before she even
knew what she was. The sapphire, with eight irregularly spaced
shafts, looked vaguely like a humanoid figure with four extra limbs
to the child youma. She had picked it up off the ground and treated
it like a doll. Until Cobalt learned that she could trust some of the
others, it was the only friend she had.

	She reached out and touched the sapphire fondly. It no longer
had the face or the warm, caring expression that her mind's eye tried
impose on it. It was just a lifeless hunk of crystal. That didn't
mean she couldn't remember confiding to it when she was scared or
hungry.

	Suddenly, an image of tiny Kaliborite clutching her stuffed
bear to her chest swam before Cobalt's eyes.

	"No time for this," she muttered, crawling to her feet. She
kissed the cold surface of the crystal once before putting it down on
her cot. With that, her blouse and jeans faded into the grey uniform
she wore as a general of the Dark Kingdom.

	"Some general I am," she muttered, running out of the room
and down the long hallway that twisted through the Dark Palace. Her
rank was a symbol, she realized now, and nothing more. It was a
convenient way of getting the other youmas' attention when she needed
it.

	Cobalt didn't feel worthy at all of that attention. She
couldn't manage to save any of her friends, and now Kelly was lost as
well. She began to dread finding the girl. Would she be dead like the
others were?

	Eventually, Cobalt made her way to one of the main galleries.
She was disturbed at how empty the place was. It was one of the few
areas left where youma came together for comfort, or what little food
and energy was smuggled back into the Dark Kingdom from earth.

	On one side of the room, she saw why the room was abandoned.
The teleporter-- Cobalt struggled to keep from screaming out loud at
the sight-- the main body of the teleporter had exploded. There were
bits of twisted metal and crystalline circuitry everywhere. Here and
there, there were green and red blood stains where someone had been
too close to the machine when it went up.

	Cobalt shook, her fists clenched at her side. She could only
assume that the other two teleporters had been destroyed as well. Her
life's work... everything she had ever hoped to give to her people...
everything she had ever wanted for herself was gone.

	She heard the irregular footsteps before she saw the figure
or heard the voice.

	"Ytterbium," she called out.

	The woman stepped into the room, her eyes glinting like
diamonds and the scar on her face almost incandescent.

	"Cobalt," Ytterbium replied, a harsh edge in her voice.

	"It got away from me," Cobalt said quietly. "I was trying to
hard to stay on top of everything and... and... I was betrayed."

	"I know. It's hard to deal with," Ytterbium said, stepping
closer to her student with her slow, limping gait.

	Cobalt strode closer to the wreckage of the teleportation
device. "I'm still trying to figure out what to do next," she said.
"They took Kelly. I have to find her. I also have to figure out why
someone would do this to me."

	"We'll start again," Ytterbium said. "And this time we'll do
things right."

	"You really think we can start again?" Cobalt asked, her back
turned to her mentor.

	Silently, Ytterbium pulled a long, sinisterly sharp blade out
of her robes. It was carved out of a single shaft of obsidian, almost
invisible in the darkness of the gallery.

	She shifted her weight over her good leg and leaned forward.

	"It's all over," Cobalt said, her head down and her shoulders
bent.

	"It's not too late to make things right," Ytterbium
disagreed. She leapt...

	And was met with one of Cobalt's crystalline bombs as her
victim whipped around. It shook in her face, ready to explode.

	"Why?!" Cobalt demanded angrily, her jaw clenched. "Why did
you do it? Why did you destroy everything we've worked so hard for?!"

	Ytterbium leapt back, knife still in hand.

	"Because you're weak, Cobalt! I showed you our glorious
future, but you decided to give it all away. Humans!" she spat the
word like it was an oath. "I'd rather see every youma here die than
let you turn them all into humans! I never should have let you lead.
It should have been me! Do you hear me?! IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN ME!!"

	Yellow sparks crawling over her face from her scar, Ytterbium
lunged to attack.

* * *

	"We've lost Cobalt," Sailor Mercury said as the other Sailors
and Tuxedo Kamen  settled down in a rough circle in distant reaches
of the dark cavern. The only light was a vaguely greenish glow that
seemed more to cast shadows than actually illuminate anything.

	Sailor Moon stumbled on the rocky ground in the darkness and
fell, landing on her bottom with a soft "Owie."

	"Can you scan for her?" Tuxedo Kamen suggested, leaning down
to help Sailor Moon up.

	Mercury shook her head. "No, there's too much..." she looked
carefully at the display on her computer and grimaced. "Space is
distorted here. Badly."

	"I seem to remember something about that."

	Mercury picked up a small pebble off the uneven cavern floor
and threw it as hard as she could away from the group. A few seconds
later, everyone heard a small clatter from the other direction as the
stone hit and rolled to a stop... against Sailor Uranus's leg.

	"Uhmm..." the short-haired Sailor murmured, her eyes wide at
the strange phenomenon.

	"That was grade-A creepy," Sailor Jupiter agreed.

	"Space and time flow chaotically here," Sailor Pluto noted.
"We should hold hands so that we're not separated."

	Mercury nodded in agreement. "The Dark Kingdom really is its
own pocket dimension, completely separate from our world. It's
amazing that it doesn't implode in on itself."

	"It becomes much more normal as you get closer to the
center," Tuxedo Kamen assured the group. "At least it does if my
memory's working right."

	Carefully, slowly so as not to lose anyone, the sailors
walked in a rough line, hand in hand, towards the glow on the
horizon. They stumbled frequently over the jagged terrain, but Sailor
Pluto with her staff and Sailor Saturn with her glaive did their best
to steady the group and provide anchorage.

	As they got closer and closer to the light, the rocky terrain
gave way to broken sheets of flat obsidian blocks. There were sparse
breaks in the rock that were filled with soil. One or two were even
furrowed, as if someone had tried to plant a garden. No plants grew,
however. As they got close to one of the furrowed patches, they could
see why. The dirt was thick with chunks of quartz, salt, and broken-
up gemstones. A few feet away, they could see a pile of large
gemstones that had been sifted out of the soil. What would be a
priceless treasure on Earth was seen an impediment to life here in
the darkness.

	"So much time wasted," Tuxedo Kamen growled angrily, his fist
tightening around Sailor Moon's.

	"It wouldn't matter anyway," Sailor Jupiter said. "The soil
is dead. Nothing can grow there anyway."

	"It has no nitrogen compounds or bacteria," Mercury
confirmed. "A truckload of mulch would do wonders for this place, but
you'd also need sunlight."

	More signs of meager life were evident as they got closer to
the center of the Dark Kingdom. Here, a lean-to had been built out of
sheets of slate and ruined lumber. There, a series of pens, cages,
and hutches of some kind had been burned to char and ash.

	"The slave pens," Tuxedo Kamen noted darkly

	"Is it any wonder they torched it?" Sailor Mars stated
absently, her demeanor growing more and more agitated.

	As they approached the pens, the Sailors could see the source
of the green glow. Behind the pens was a long, rutted field. High
mounds of soil were positioned around the field in short, regular
intervals. On top of most mounds mushrooms, fungus, mold, and lichen
grew thickly. Due to the lack of sunlight, the field of dimly-glowing
fungus was not broken at all by weed or grass.

	No one spoke as they walked past the little cemetery, but
tears were coursing down Sailor Moon's and Tuxedo Kamen's faces.

	"There's a spring near the palace," Tuxedo Kamen said when
the strange-looking rocky citadel became visible. "There'll almost
certainly be some life there."

	As more and more of the Dark Palace became visible, the
Sailors all tried to keep from shuddering in revulsion. It looked
like a natural feature of the place... a huge conglomerate of ruby,
quartz, and granite that joined the top of the cavern with the
bottom. It was probably originally only vaguely skull-shaped, but
centuries of carving under the direction of Beryl and her Generals
had heightened the similarity to a human skull. With thick veins of
copper and ruby roping down from the front of the edifice, the
citadel's 'eye sockets' looked like they were crying tears of blood.

	As they came nearer the palace, newer additions could be
seen. There was a small shanty-town set up around the front entrance.
Indeed, even a few youma could be seen moving around in the maze of
boxes, crates, and stone shacks that had been set up. Here and there,
children played in a quiet, somber sort of way. There was a quiet
desperation to the place. Everyone they could see who had a face
recognizable as human looked half-crazed with hunger.

	On one wall of the palace above the bulk of the village, an
unknown graffiti artist had painted 'Deliver Me From Torment'.

	Sailor Moon looked away, unable to stand the sight.

	"They drink out of this?" Sailor Neptune asked in disgust.

	The others turned around to see what she was pointing at. It
was a small crack in the ground overgrown by fungus and rot. What
looked vaguely like a rat crawled up out of the crack while they were
watching. If it was a rat, it was hideously deformed. It had only
strange bulges on its skull instead of eyes and dozens of small,
vestigial legs along its sides. It was covered in cancers and boils
and was audibly wheezing.

	"Are there any other sources of water?" Sailor Mercury asked,
scanning the small cesspool. "There are an entire chemical factory's
worth of pollutants in there."

	Tuxedo Mask shook his head sickly. "Maybe they're purifying
it somehow. Maybe Cobalt has been sending water back through their
teleporters. I dunno," he admitted, swallowing.

	"I did this," Sailor Moon said quietly tears still rolling
down her face. "This is all my fault. I doomed these people to slow
death."

	"No, Usagi!" Sailor Mars told her. "You mustn't think that!
You did what had to be done. These people are Beryl's and Metallia's
victims. Not yours."

	"It's just like Cobalt said. While I was busy playing in the
sunlight, everyone here was suffering."

	"We'll make it right, Sailor Moon," Sailor Saturn said. She
knelt down next to the polluted spring and held out one hand. The
cancerous-looking mold around the pool melted away in favor of large,
wet-looking mushrooms. The acidic chemical reek slowly faded,
replaced by the sharp tang of metal and sulfur.

	"It's purified now," the young Sailor Senshi said.

	"But for how long?" Sailor Moon asked in despair.

	Grimly, she stood and turned back towards the palace.

	To the Sailor's surprise, something was happening. The youma
were running away from the shanty-town in all directions. A few even
ran close to them before shying away and running out into the
darkness.

	"What's wrong?" Sailor Jupiter yelled. "What happened? Why
are they running?"

	The answer was soon evident. In the middle of the village, a
huge shape had arisen. It tottered slowly, kicking down a shack
accidentally, and lumbered forward towards the sailors.

	"This would be the welcome wagon," Sailor Venus noted dryly.

	"I don't want to fight them," Sailor Moon said.

	"We must defend ourselves!" Uranus cried in response. "We
can't just lay down and die! What about..." she swallowed back her
bile. "What about Cobalt and Kaliborite?"

	Sailor Moon nodded. She reached behind her and pulled out her
wand. It lengthened in her grip until it was taller than she was. On
one end of the scepter was a golden crescent which encircled a
crystalline orb. On the other was a pommel-stone shaped like a fully-
bloomed rose.

	In the distance, the Sailors could see the behemoth
approaching them. As it got closer they could see that it was some
sort of automaton or a golem carved out of solid quartz. In front of
it, carrying a long, glass sword, was what appeared to be a young
woman with curly black hair.

	Sailor Moon stepped forward, holding her scepter aloft.

	"We came here to rescue our friend," she announced loudly.
"We came here for love and justice, but we will stay here to fight
evil and hatred. I'm Sailor Moon, and unless you allow us to pass
peacefully, I will punish you in the name of the Moon."

	Silicon hesitated for a split second. Then, a sneer of anger
growing on her face, she leveled her sword at the assembled Sailor
Senshi.

	"ATTACK!"

* * *

	"You murdered them!" Cobalt screamed, throwing her attack at
Ytterbium. "I trusted you, and you KILLED THEM!"

	"And I'll kill you, too," Ytterbium growled, fading out the
way of Cobalt's attack. The shadows from her teleport obscured
Cobalt's vision for a second.

	Knowing what she was up against, the blue-haired woman
dropped and rolled.

	"METASPIKE!" she called out, launching another attack
straight up.

	She was almost shocked when Ytterbium fell over backwards as
she rematerialized, desperate to get out of the way of Cobalt's
attack. Her obsidian knife went spinning into the nearby wreckage.

	Cobalt rolled to her feet, brining another one of her
crystalline bombs to bear.

	"You think that will stop me?" Ytterbium asked derisively,
her chest heaving. She staggered to her feet, favoring her good leg.
She lunged again, almost blurring in midair.

	Cobalt dodged, but held back her attack. She was rapidly
getting winded herself. "Why? Why did you do it?" she demanded again
in an almost petulant tone. "I thought you wanted--"

	"You don't know anything!" Ytterbium screamed. "You think I
wanted to live as some human's lapdog? You think I wanted to be
beholden to the Sailor Senshi for the rest of my life? You had the
chance to enslave them all and you blew it, Cobalt!"

	"When the hell did we decide to enslave anybody?!" Cobalt
asked, backing away from her former mentor defensively. "I never
wanted that. I didn't think you did, either."

	"We should have invaded as a conquering army," Ytterbium said
advancing menacingly, one fist held high in the air, "With me in
charge so you couldn't ruin things! We should have had an eternal
empire on Earth, but you were too much of a coward to seize the
opportunity when you had it in your hands."

	"You want to become another Beryl!" Cobalt accused, tears
running down her face.

	"I would have been ten times the queen Beryl was!" Ytterbium
shouted.  "Twenty times! A hundred times. This--" she jerked a thumb
at the scar on her face-- "was the only thing keeping me from it. I
could have ruled Earth *and* the Dark Kingdom!"

	"You used me!" Cobalt screamed. "You used me, and when I did
what I thought was right, you decided to throw me away like the doll
I was."

	"That's right," Ytterbium said, her eyes wide and staring. A
fleck of spittle hung at the corner of her mouth. "And now, you're a
liability to me. You're doing more harm than good, Cobalt. For
that..."

	Cobalt tried to dodge, but Ytterbium had her fixed in her
sights. She swung her fist down. Rather than the broad wave of power
that caught Cobalt last time and knocked her out, this beam of energy
was tightly focused. It hit Cobalt in the chest0 just below her
collar, piercing her through.

	Cobalt fell back, gasping... trying to take a breath that
would not come. She collapsed on the floor, the front of her uniform
slowly turning green. She reached up to Ytterbium.

	"Good bye, Cobalt. Now I'm going to go clean up the mess you
made."

	"No..." Cobalt managed to croak out as Ytterbium turned her
back and limped out of the gallery.

	It was too late.

* * *

	"VENUS SPOTLIGHT!"

	"JUPITER FLUX TUBE!"

	"Dead Scream..." Sailor Pluto whispered, adding her attack to
those of her allies as the quartz golem attacked.

	Tuxedo Kamen was using his cane to duel Silicon. He tried
using it both like a rapier and a staff, but when it hit the youma's
glass sword, it wouldn't shatter. The youma's unbreakable sword was
balanced by her lack of skill with it. She could use it to slash and
hack, but had no concept of finesse. By the same token, however, she
seemed tireless. She attacked so rapidly and wildly that Tuxedo Kamen
could not get an opening to use one of his other attacks.

	"MARS SPIRIT-- ACK!" Sailor Mars cried, pinned down by a
spray of glass shards from the golem's fist. She managed to keep from
getting seriously lacerated, but she was now very firmly attached to
the ground in front of the Dark Palace, held in place by the long,
needle-like shards of glass that had penetrated her costume. Larger
chunks of glass held her arms and legs down like weighted shackels.

	"SINGULARITY RIBBON!" Sailor Saturn cried out, angling her
glaive at the monster's huge fist. Ribbons shot in every direction,
entangling and crushing the quartz golem's arm. Even as powerful as
the attack was, however, it was simply too limited in range to use on
the whole monster. The arm she attacked was slowly imploded, torn off
the golem's body. The creature didn't even seem to notice. It lashed
out with one of it's tree-trunk feet and kicked Saturn to one side.
Stunned, she lay where she landed.

	"Sailor Saturn!" Sailor Moon cried out as she ran over to the
girl. "No!"

	"USAGI!" Rei screamed from her prone position. "Watch your
back!"

	"WORLD SHAKING!" Uranus cried, throwing her attack at the
golem.

	"DEEP SUBMERGE!" Neptune followed, finally managing to
distract the monster from Sailor Moon as she knelt over Saturn's
prone form.

	"The vibrations hurt it," Sailor Mercury announced, her
computer out as she worked her way towards Sailor Mars. She moved
slowly, picking her way carefully over the dangerous terrain and
dodging flying glass.

	Sailor Neptune ran towards the golem, preparing another
attack while Venus, Jupiter, and Pluto readied to combine their
attacks again behind her.

	She lifted her arms to release her power, but the quartz
golem seemed to know what she had planned. It lunged, almost falling
forward, reaching out to slam her aside.

	Neptune flew over the heads of the other Sailors, landing in
a crumpled heap behind them.

	"Michiru! NO!" Uranus cried. She pulled out the Space Sword
and leapt for the monster. "SPACE SWORD BLASTER!" she cried, jamming
the sword directly into its torso.

	She was thrown back by the explosion from her attack, but she
landed rolling. She came to a rest against Usagi and Hotaru, who was
just coming out of her daze.

	"USAGI!" Rei screamed futilely as the monster, seemingly more
enraged than injured, lashed out at the three of them. She began to
struggle to free herself. Mercury was just not going to make it to
her in time. "USAGI! NO!"

	As the monster swung its massive fist at Sailor Moon and
Uranus, Sailor Mars winked out of existence, leaving the cut and torn
shreds of her costume behind. In a red, crescent flash, she
teleported back in just in time and in the right place to shield an
unprepared Sailor Moon from a killing blow.

	The monster's fist smacked against her naked body with a
thudding, meaty sound. Incredibly, Mars did not go flying. Instead,
she clung to the monster's fist.

	"MARS SPIRIT FLARE!" she cried, spitting blood as she was
swung up into the air.

	The golem erupted into flame. It's arm melted away in
seconds. Unprotected by her costume, Sailor Mars was peppered with
drops of molten quartz. She fell to the ground near Sailor Moon,
smoking.

	"Rei-chan! NO!"

	"Hah..." Sailor Mars coughed, blood running freely from her
mouth and her nose. She smiled. "I was... hahah... there for you...
*cough*... when... when you needed me."

	"NO!" Sailor Moon cried as Sailor Mars' eyes rolled up in the
back of her head. She clenched the woman's tortured body to her own,
heedless to the gagging stench of burnt flesh or hair.

	"I can help her," Saturn said, still a little stunned. "But I
can't do it alone. Please, help me Sailor Moon."

	Nodding, the blonde woman grasped Saturn's hand. The three of
them began to glow white.

	The were also completely vulnerable. Despite losing both
arms, the monstrosity still seemed to want to attack them. Already
stunned by Mars's sacrifice, Tuxedo Kamen dodged away from Silicon
and leapt in between Sailor Moon, Saturn, and Mars. He raised his
cane. When the monster raised his foot to stomp them, it halted
against an invisible barrier that seemed to spread out from the cane.

	"Protect everyone else!" Tuxedo Kamen commanded Sailor Uranus
through clenched teeth as he fought off the dismembered golem's
attack.

	Nodding. Uranus dragged herself to her feet, and launched her
self at Silicon.

	"I'm your enemy!" she shouted angrily as Silicon tried to
dodge past her and attack Tuxedo Kamen. "Fight me!"

	"Fine!" Silicon shouted, lashing out at Uranus with her
blade.

	Wildly she swung, forcing Uranus to parry with the Space
Sword. She seemed completely unaffected by the protracted fight.
Uranus, on the other hand, was still seeing double from being hit so
soundly. Only her superior skill saved her from being sliced to
ribbons.

	"Stop this!" Uranus commanded when she finally managed to
lock swords. "We never came here to hurt anyone."

	"You'll never fool me," Silicon growled. "Your kind lives to
murder and destroy!"

	Uranus was stunned by the youma's words. She didn't block
when Silicon kicked her in the gut, forcing them apart. She almost
didn't roll out of the way when the youma lunged at her.

	"That's not true!" Uranus cried, flipping to her feet. She
parried another few blows from Silicon, but was driven back by the
youma's vicious blows. Her head was spinning and she was tiring
badly.

	"You think I don't know you're a monster?" Silicon accused,
scoring a slashing hit on Uranus' arm.

	Still staring incredulously at the youma, Uranus clutched her
arm, her sword hanging limply.

	"It's not true," she cried. "I'm not a killer!"

	"I won't rest until you and everything you stand for is
dead," Silicon said, lunging, her sword angled directly for Sailor
Uranus' heart. "I will protect my people from you!"

	The sword never hit its target.

	Silicon stumbled to a halt, looking down at her own chest.
The Space Sword was lodged in it, buried up to the hilt.

	She opened her mouth to cry out, but the only thing that came
out was viscous green blood.

	Uranus' injured arm fell to her side. It had taken everything
she had to throw the blade. She collapsed to her knees, tears running
down her face and mingling with blood.

	"I'm sorry," she whispered.

	Silicon fell forward, clawing her way towards Uranus. She
vomited more blood and began to shudder. She reached out to the woman
with a clawed hand.

	"I'm sorry!" Uranus bawled, grabbing the youma's hand. "I
didn't want to kill you. I'm so sorry!" she screamed.

	Silicon's arm went limp. He eyes rolled up in the back of her
head, which drooped. The only thing holding her body up was the hilt
of the Space Sword.

	Uranus leaned over the body and wept, both for the person she
had just killed, and for herself. She didn't notice the explosion
behind her or hear the rush of ice and lightning. She didn't hear the
shouting or the screaming.

	"I'm sorry. I'm sorry this had to happen," Sailor Uranus
said, turning the youma's body over and staring into its sightless
eyes. "I didn't want this. I'll protect your people. I promise! I
promise!" she shouted again.

	Grimly, she put her hand on the hilt of the Space Sword and
pulled it free with her injured arm. She gently laid Silicon's still
body down on the ground and reached down to close its eyes.

	She stood, her fuku stained red with her own blood and green
with Silicon's. When she turned, nine pairs of eyes looked on.

	Sailor Jupiter and Sailor Neptune were closest to her.
Neptune's face was bruised, and she was bleeding pretty freely from
one nostril, but her eyes were alert and sharp. Her eyes mirrored the
grief and horror Uranus felt. Behind the two of them, Sailor Venus,
Pluto, and Mercury stood, pain, sympathy, but no pity on their faces.
Behind them, a pile of shattered quartz attested to what they had
just accomplished.

	To one side, Tuxedo Kamen was helping to support Sailor
Saturn, who was all but completely exhausted from her efforts. Sailor
Mars, naked, but wrapped in Tuxedo Kamen's cloak, leaned against
Sailor Moon. Her burns were gone, but she still looked utterly
drained.

	In Sailor Moon's eyes...

	"I'm sorry, Usagi," Uranus bawled. "I didn't want her to die.
I tried! I tried so hard to keep from killing her!"

	Neptune and Jupiter lurched forward, each of them wrapping
their arms around the distraught woman.

	Uranus felt comfort, but no solace from the dual embrace. The
two who held her had no power to forgive her for what she had just
done. The only one who could do that was lying dead, behind her.

	Slowly, her own body exhausted, Sailor Moon helped Mars to
lean against Mercury. She stepped towards Uranus and knelt in front
of her. She pulled the blond woman into her own embrace, crushing the
woman's head into her bosom.

	When Uranus looked up, it wasn't Sailor Moon or even Usagi's
eyes she saw staring down at her.

	"This is the true nature of your power and responsibility,"
Sailor Moon said quietly, running her fingers through Uranus's hair.
"This is the burden you alone are suited to bear," she explained,
tears beginning to run down her cheeks. "My heart is broken because
you have to bear this. I want to wash the blood away and make it so
this never happened, but I can't. All I can do is give you my love
and the knowledge that you did the best you could in a horrible
situation. I love you, Haruka. You did the right thing. You protected
us all."

	Haruka's eyes clothes and her mouth opened in a wordless
wail. She bawled incoherently into Serenity's chest, her eyes and
nose running.  All the time she was screaming, Sailor Moon held her
close, whispering words of comfort and forgiveness.

	"Now, Sailor Uranus, we have much left to do," her princess
said as if she were addressing a small child. "Do you have the
strength to help me?"

	Wordlessly, Uranus nodded. She stood weakly, but resolutely,
the bloody Space Sword held firmly at her side.

	"Let's go help Cobalt save Kaliborite," Sailor Moon
commanded.

	The ten battle-weary warriors ran as fast as they could
through the shanty-town and into the Dark Palace.

	"I've got a lock on Cobalt!" Mercury announced after they had
cleared the main entrance. "She's a hundred feet ahead and to our
left, and thirty feet up."

	"The galleries," Tuxedo Kamen said. "This way," he indicated,
leading the group up a damaged staircase. "Hurry!"

* * *

	By the time, Cobalt heard footsteps, she wasn't sure if she
was alive or dead. A bright light seemed to be stretching out all
around her. In the distance, she could see some of the children she
had lived with in the pens, but who had been killed or drained to
death by the olders. Nearer, she could see Chalcedony and the others
who had been killed on Earth. Closer still, she could see Graphite,
Germanium, and Silicon, who stared at her apologetically.

	"What happened to her?" Sailor Moon screamed.

	"Her lungs have filled with blood," Mercury said. "She's
dying! We have to save her!"

	Closer even than the Graphite, Germanium, or Silicon, Sailor
Moon's face stared lovingly down at her.

	"I can't help her," Saturn said. "Even if I had the strength
left, my power would roast her alive."

	"She can drain one of us," Sailor Mars exclaimed. "She's done
it before."

	Everyone around Cobalt was happy and smiling. No one was
afraid or hungry.

	"Cobalt," Sailor Moon commanded. "You have to drain my energy
to heal yourself. Cobalt! Cobalt! Can you hear me?"

	There was no pain here. There was only love, laughter and
light. Still, something felt wrong. Something felt unfinished.
Something nagged at the back of Cobalt's mind.

	"She doesn't have the strength left," Tuxedo Mask said.

	"COBALT! TAKE MY ENERGY!" Sailor Moon screamed, lifting the
woman's head.

	With one bloody hand and a smile on her face, Cobalt reached
up to Sailor Moon's cheek and brushed it lightly.

	"Sailor Moon," she said, the wound in her chest whistling
loudly. "Usagi... the children... you must protect..."

	Cobalt's hand fell against Sailor Moon's chest, leaving a
long smear of blood against the white fabric of the woman's bodysuit.
Her gaze drifted and fixed permanently on something that no one else
could see.

	Smiling, in the presence of someone she loved, General Cobalt
of the Dark Kingdom died.

	"COBALT!" Sailor Moon screamed. "WAKE UP, COBALT! WAKE UP!"

	"Usako," Tuxedo Kamen said kneeling down beside her.

	Control over her body gone, Cobalt's corpse reverted to its
true appearance. Instead of two arms and two legs, she now had eight
limbs, each more like a bird's talon than a human appendage. Her
uniform faded, leaving her clad in the tatters of a blouse and a pair
of jeans, ripped apart by the extra limbs. Her skin turned blue and
translucent. All the Sailors could see the shapes of her internal
organs where her clothes no longer covered her. Worse, they could see
her lungs, one punctured, both full of dark blood.

	"Wake up, Cobalt!" Sailor Moon shouted again. "Wake up! We
haven't found Kelly yet. We can't do it without you. Wake up!"

	"Usako... let her go," Tuxedo Kamen urged his lover.

	"COBALT! DON'T DO THIS!" the blonde woman screamed.

	Uranus, her own grief still fresh, knelt down and wrapped her
arms around the crying woman.

	"Usagi," Sailor Mars said, "She's dead."

	"No," Sailor Moon cried. "No! I won't allow it!"

	'Usako, please," Tuxedo Kamen begged. "Please--"

	"No! I won't stand for it! Too many people have died today.
No more! Do you hear me!"

	Everyone in the room gasped as her hand went to her chest.
She came away with the Silver Crystal, which she held in one hand
like a torch. Indeed, the white glow illuminated the dim room like a
bonfire.

	"Usako! No! You'll kill yourself!"

	"I don't care," Sailor Moon stated as she stood, her words
coming from between clenched teeth. Cobalt's dripping corpse began to
float in front of her. "If I had to give my life away a thousand
times, I would."

	Her costume dissolved, leaving her momentarily nude. Her body
was wreathed in light. Out of nothingness, a translucent white gown
materialized around her, doing more to make her seem like an ethereal
spirit than it did to hide her nakedness. Her tiara dissolved,
replaced by a glowing crescent mark on her forehead.

	Princess Serenity raised her other hand, holding the Silver
Crystal high in the air above Cobalt's body. A whirlwind began to
twist around them.

	"This will not stand," she proclaimed in a screaming voice.
"If I have to turn the world inside out, I will!"

	His face resolute, Tuxedo Kamen relaxed his shoulders. His
mask dissolved away, as did his tuxedo and the rest of his clothing.
Seconds later, he was clad in black crystalline armor. His hair
whipping around him, he drew his sword and touched its tip to the
Silver Crystal.

	"Please. everyone, lend us your power!"

	Uranus nodded and grabbed his hand. Her costume dissolved
away and reformed, more elegant than ever before. The fabric of her
bow became translucent and shimmering, as did her skirt. The blood
was gone from her hands, but the glove on her left hand was now and
forevermore darkly stained with green and red. Sailor Uranus was
wreathed in yellow flame. Neptune grabbed her lover's hand, as did
Jupiter. Both underwent similar transformations. Both started to glow
as well, feeding as much power as they could into Princess Serenity
and the Silver Crystal. Sailor Saturn and Sailor Venus were next,
joined quickly by Sailor Mercury and Sailor Mars. The cloak Mars was
hiding behind whipped away in the wind to be replaced with a new
costume like the others.

	Finally, Sailor Pluto strode up to Princess Serenity and
placed her staff against the Silver Crystal, undergoing the new
transformation herself.

	"Do with us as you will, my queen!" she shouted.

	Serenity nodded and gestured toward the youma general's body.

	"WAKE UP, COBALT!" she screamed.

	Cobalt's body was wreathed in white flame. It was lifted
aloft by Serenity's will and power.

	Somewhere... in a place of happiness and comfort, Cobalt
heard Serenity's voice.

	"WAKE UP, COBALT!"

	"Why? I have no real power. I can't hope to stand up to her
like you can," Cobalt answered sadly. "You don't need me."

	"I need you more than you could ever imagine. Serve me,"
Serenity offered her. "Accept the destiny I have for you. Together,
we'll save them all. We'll protect all the children... all of them."

	Cobalt didn't answer.

	"Will you serve me?"

	"I would throw my life away a thousand times if that's what I
had to do to save them," Cobalt agreed. "Yes, I will serve you."

	Her own words slammed into her like a lightning bolt.
Forcefully jerked out of the happiness and warmth, she found herself
strangely alert and aware, if incredibly overwhelmed. She could feel
the power pouring into her. It was like electricity crawling up and
down her spine.

	This, she realized, was the light of the Moon.

	It bore into her, melting and reforming her. It refracted
through every organ, muscle, and nerve. It purified her. It changed
her. She could feel her body becoming something new... something it
had never been before.

	The light bore her up, turning her body so that it hung
upright. The blood and fluid that had filled her lungs was expelled,
both from her mouth and nostrils and from the wound in her chest. It
vaporized as it flew away from her. Strangely, it didn't burn her
when it did.

	More and more, Cobalt could feel the power creeping through
her extremities. It leapt from nerve to nerve... from cell to cell,
subtly altering every fiber of her being. Every part of her was being
healed, recreated, and enchanted by the light.

	Those around her could see that Cobalt's body was surrounded
by swirling lights. Rays of energy shone off her translucent flesh,
illuminating the room around them. Her wounds healed before their
eyes and the evidence of her death disappeared as if it had never
been.

	The shreds of clothing on her body dissolved away, absorbed
by the light. In their place, new garments began to appear. Boots
covered her clawed feet. Fingerless gloves appeared over each of her
six taloned hands. A short, pleated skirt appeared around her waist.
Her translucent blue flesh was left bare from the waist up, simply
because no bodysuit could hope to accommodate all six of her arms.
Her breasts were partially hidden by a shimmering, transparent bow
and a crescent moon carved from indigo-tinted glass. A silver tiara
punctuated with a perfect heart-shaped sapphire crossed her brow.

	The Sailor Senshi looked on in awe and wonder. Her expression
intense, but unreadable, Princess Serenity stood before Cobalt, her
arms still outstretched. Energy poured out of her, spiraling into the
transformed woman's body. Finally, she raised her hands, releasing
Cobalt. The Silver Crystal faded in brightness, but didn't leave
Serenity's hand.

	Slowly, Cobalt settled to the ground, her body in a kneeling
position. She was surrounded by a firey, multi-colored aura. Each
Sailor could feel her own power, transformed and amplified by the
Silver Crystal, resonating in Cobalt's body. Each of them knew. Each
of them understood.

	"Arise, Sailor Metal Kingdom!" Serenity commanded the new
warrior, her voice low, but urgent. "Arise and join us!"

	The Sailor Senshi had gained a new sister, created in part
from their own life-energies.

	The multi-colored fire around her cooling to a dark indigo,
Sailor Metal Kingdom opened her eyes. Her violet-blue orbs locked
with Serenity's piercing blue irises. She stared expectantly at the
woman who had just done the impossible... who had just reached behind
the veil of death and returned with life.

	"Will you help us, Sailor Metal Kingdom?" Serenity asked her.

	"I will," the youma-turned-Sailor Senshi replied, her eyes
taking in the expressions of awe and love all around her. "But I want
what you promised me in return."

	Princess Serenity nodded, her exultant expression almost
eager. "We will start here," she said.

	Prince Endymion and the other Sailor Senshi had backed away
from the pair, not really understanding what was happening or what
Serenity had planned. When Sailor Moon glanced lovingly at Sailor
Saturn, however, the girl knew what was expected of her.

	The smallest, youngest, and most deadly of the Sailor Senshi
turned her face to the heavens. She opened her mouth... and began to
sing.

	It was a wordless song, but it was full of yearning and hope.
The crystal-clear tones of her voice echoed in the ears those around
her with the promise of salvation, healing, and life in the face of
certain torment and despair.

	Sailor Venus raised her voice next, as did Sailor Mars. Both
were experienced singers, but neither needed any words to express
what they felt. Venus's song spoke of joy and confidence, while
Mars's song spoke of love and undying devotion.

	My voice isn't really good enough for this, Uranus thought as
the song began to rise around her. Tears began to course down her
face. I'm a killer, not a singer. Even if I was, I don't deserve to
partake in this.

	Serenity caught her sad gaze. In a second, Sailor Uranus knew
the truth of the matter. Regardless of what she felt-- regardless of
the horrible responsibilities and burdens that had been placed upon
her-- she was more precious to those around her than their own lives.
It was a bitter, humbling realization, but one she could no longer
ignore.

	With one hand, she raised the Space Sword into the air. It
lengthened, its curved shape twisting in new directions. It narrowed
in places and grew wider in others. Six strings of wound, coiled
platinum erupted from the hilt of the transformed sword and snaked
down the  length of the growing instrument. They attached themselves
to the tip of the sword, which by now had widened into a curved edge.
They were pulled taught by the convolutions, twanging slightly over
the raised frets that had grown in the sword's surface.

	The talisman of Uranus, the Space Sword, was for the moment
no longer a killing weapon. It was a musical instrument ready to add
her feelings to those around her.

	She lowered it and brought her fingers down across the
strings, adding a saw-toothed, bittersweet counterpoint to the joyful
song around her. The chord of Uranus spoke of the dreadful burden she
bore so that the light might shine from others. It also held the hope
that enough of the light might be reflected from her so that she too
could shine.

	A similar transformation was happening to Neptune's talisman,
the Deep Aqua Mirror. It too lengthened slightly. More noticeably, it
grew thicker in the middle, bulging in front and in back. Like the
Space Sword, it too grew platinum strings. Neptune placed the
modified talisman under her chin. In her other hand a bow formed of
liquid water coalesced. She lifted it and drew it softly across the
strings. Neptune's vibrato trilling was a song of forgiveness,
acceptance, and understanding.

	Next to Serenity, Endymion turned his face towards the
heavens and began to sign a hymn of patience and power, his deep
baritone voice providing guidance and rhythm for the others to
follow.

	Mercury was the next to sing, her high, clear voice
illuminating the others and bringing them together. Jupiter was after
her. Still wordlessly, she sang of beloved duty and self-sacrifice in
the name of love.

	The last to sing was Pluto. Unlike the others, she only sang
in a whisper. Out of the entire chorus, hers was the only song that
used words. They were in a language long since dead, but the Sailors
and Endymion knew what they meant-- 'Love', 'Justice', 'Hope', 'Joy',
and 'Peace'.

	"Now, Sailor Metal Kingdom," Serenity spoke once again,
holding her Silver Crystal aloft once more. It glowed with the power
that everyone was pouring into it with their hearts and their voices.
"Lead us to where the promise will be fulfilled."

	Sailor Metal Kingdom nodded and turned. She strode from the
gallery, the assembled Sailor Senshi following behind her.

	In their wake, what few youma there were left in the palace
came out of their hiding to see the commotion or to listen to the
song more clearly. Most of them had never heard music before, let
alone music that contained such joy and hope.

	Adults and children alike began to follow the Sailor Senshi
as they worked their way deeper into the heart of the Dark Palace.
Some were whispering quietly, trying to figure out what was going on.
Some of the children began to sign along.

	All the while, the power built. It was almost impossible to
look at Princess Serenity directly. She and the Silver Crystal were
glowing with nova brightness. Every voice that followed her only
added to the energy she was carrying. The Dark Palace, darker and
darker towards its center, was being more brightly illuminated than
it ever had in its entire history.

	After some time, the growing group passed through a large,
round chamber illuminated only by a glowing crystal-- Beryl's ruined
throne room. Endymion had been here many times before. Serenity, as
Sailor Moon, had only been once.

	"This time," she whispered, "I've come not to destroy, but to
heal," she said in a whisper voice.

	Everyone around her heard what she said, even over the
continuing song.

	On the other side of the throne room, behind the destroyed
remains of Beryl's throne, was a long hallway.

	At the end of that hallway, with Kaliborite still clutched to
her chest, Lead stood. Her face was twisted in horror and shame.

	Princess Serenity and Sailor Metal Kingdom strode forward.
Sailor Metal Kingdom extended her hand towards Lead, not raised to
attack, but open in beseechment.

	"Lead, give Kelly back to me. This has gone on long enough."

	"I can't!" Lead wailed, sweat standing her her face.
"Ytterbium said that you would destroy us. You've even turned into a
Sailor!"

	"Ytterbium lied to you, Lead," Sailor Metal Kingdom told her
former ally. "I can't promise things will always be the same, but I
will always do my best to protect you. I'll always protect the
children as best I can. Sailor Moon has come here to help me do
that."

	"You're lying!" Lead disagreed, tightening her embrace around
Kaliborite's unconscious form. "I don't know who to believe any
more!"

	"You don't have to believe," Princess Serenity told her,
smiling honestly. "I'm not here to hurt anyone. Kelly-chan?" she
said.

	The little girl's eyes flicked open. She blinked several
times and turned her head towards Princess Serenity and the Sailors.
To her odd form of vision, it looked like a host of glowing angels
had descended.

	"Bunny!" Kaliborite shouted, wriggling out of Lead's grip.
She scrambled on the stone floor and ran over to Princess Serenity,
who greeted her with open arms.

	"Are you okay?" she asked.

	Kaliborite nodded, reaching out a hand to touch Sailor Metal
Kingdom's face. "I was so afraid. Everyone was yelling and
screaming."

	"It's okay now. Everything will be just fine," Serenity
assured her. She turned her face back to Lead. "Will you come with
us?" she asked.

	Lead held her hands to her face in horror, shaking her head
back and forth. She cowered before her enemies, paralyzed with fear.

	Sailor Venus knelt down to her and reached out a hand. She
grabbed Lead's hand and pulled her to her feet.

	"Sailor Moon has never done wrong by me ever before," she
said, momentarily breaking out of her song. "She won't hurt you, I
promise."

	Their way now clear, Sailor Metal Kingdom threw open the
doors at the end of the hallway.

	Endymion also remembered this room. This was the very core of
the Dark Palace. It was where he had been brought when he had been
wounded and captured by the Zoicite. It was where his humanity had
been stripped away from him by Beryl and Metallia.

	Above was the inverted glass dome where Metallia's essence
had lain dormant for thousands of years, awaiting her rebirth and
subsequent death at the hands of Sailor Moon. Below were dozens of
crystal biers like those where Endymion had been held prisoner during
his magical brainwashing. These had been mostly pushed aside. Now, in
the center of what had once been a horrible torture chamber, a
science lab had been assembled.

	The space was mostly taken up by various crystalline devices
and apparatus of unknown purpose or function. The central bulk of it
was composed of several large metal cylinders. They were batteries,
Princess Serenity realized, for the storage of the life energy Cobalt
and her peers were exporting from Earth.

	One of those cylinders had been torn open. Glowing energy was
pouring out of it like wine from a cask. Underneath the flow of
energy, a single naked figure kneeled, drinking the energy like
water.

	"Ytterbium," Sailor Metal Kingdom uttered darkly.

	Indeed, the energy flowed into Ytterbium's mouth, nose, and
eyes. It soaked into her skin, even the long scar on her face. She
glowed with the life-energy she was ingesting. She fairly vibrated
with unreleased power.

	Apparently so caught up in her exultation that she didn't
hear the doors slam open behind her or the Sailor Senshi's song of
power, she turned only upon hearing her own name.

	Her eyes were wide and dilated. Her nostrils flared. Spittle
gathered at the corners of her mouth as she breathed her deep,
heaving breaths. Her apparent age and lame leg had been wiped away by
the energy she had consumed. She looked young, strong, and
dangerously powerful.

	"You're dead, Cobalt!" she shouted, her voice distorted by
the crackling life energy that escaped her mouth when she spoke. "I
killed you!"

	"Sailor Moon brought me back," Sailor Metal Kingdom said in a
matter-of-fact tone. "Now we're going to set things right."

	"You think you can stand against me?" Ytterbium shouted. "You
think you can withstand my power? You think you can take away what's
rightfully mine?!"

	"It was never yours to begin with," Sailor Metal Kingdom
replied sadly. "You're insane, Ytterbium. The power has made you
crazy. Give this up."

	Ytterbium never answered. She raised her fist, golden energy
arcing up her arm and coalescing around her extended fingers. The
various youma who had followed the Sailors this far began to scream
and run away in fear.

	The other Sailors rushed forward, ready to respond to
Ytterbium's threatening actions, but Princess Serenity held up her
hand.

	Sailor Metal Kingdom stepped in front of her new queen and
raised her hands, palms out.

	"METAL KINGDOM SEPARATION!" she cried, her own hands glowing
with blue power.

	Ytterbium's force beam, hundreds of times more powerful than
the one that had earlier taken Cobalt's life, slammed into Sailor
Metal Kingdom... and reflected against the glowing blue barrier
between the power-crazed youma and everyone else. It impacted the
ceiling above and behind Ytterbium, where it melted through with a
roaring sound. Molten stone and fragments of metal shrapnel exploded
all around Ytterbium, but she didn't care, ignoring the burns she was
receiving. She fired another blast of energy at the Sailors, which
was just as forcefully returned as the last one, along with all the
chunks of glowing rock and metal. Ytterbium fired again. This time,
the angle of her blast as it reflected against Metal Kingdom's
impenetrable shield caused it to tear through the other batteries.
Liquid energy poured all over, reacting violently with the molten
stone.

	Ytterbium fired again, almost up against Metal Kingdom's
shield. This blast reflected back into her own body, tearing her arm
off. The burning piece of bone and meat flew back and sunk into the
violent turmoil of energy and liquid rock. It began to sizzle.

	No sound coming from her mouth, Ytterbium dropped to her
knees, clutching at the gaping wound in the side of her torso.
Instead of blood, the energy she had taken into her body began to
flow out of her devastated shoulder, running down her side like
burning oil.

	When it was obvious that Ytterbium could attack no more,
Metal Kingdom dropped her shield.

	"Now, Princess!" Endymion called out. Around them the song
swelled to a crescendo.

	Serenity turned to her newest senshi and spoke quietly. "You
know this will change everything, don't you?"

	The youma nodded, at once looking strangely alien with her
six arms and  her translucent blue skin but entirely appropriate in
her modified sailor fuku.

	"It's what I want," she said, the light of the Silver Crystal
glinting off her face and her torso. "It's the only thing I've ever
wanted."

	Princess Serenity raised the crystal once more, all the
accumulated light and energy flowing out of it in one massive
explosion of power. The dome above, where Metallia had once cast her
baleful eye on her subjects, was shattered and disintegrated. The
empty rooms and chambers above that were similarly destroyed. The
beam of power continued on until it hit the very edge of the Dark
Kingdom's warped reality. Once there, it began to radiate outwards.

	Inside the chamber where Princess Serenity and the others
stood, the liquid energy that had been spilled began to flow upwards,
slowly joining with the column of light.

	It was here that the first rays of energy began to break off
from the main column. Some of them hit the youma that were watching
the fight between the Sailors and Ytterbium. Instead of hurting them,
the youma found themselves strangely refreshed. Some of them, those
who could not ingest solid food, felt a new sensation as the light
subtly altered them-- the hunger of an empty stomach. The light
healed them and made them whole where they had once been injured or
crippled. Old scars disappeared. Cancers and lesions evaporated away.

	One streamer of light impacted Ytterbium square in the chest.
She too was healed. A new arm faded back into place where her old arm
had been torn out of its socket. The burns she had taken when the
rock exploded around her healed. The old scar on her face, the reason
she could only travel to Earth for minutes or seconds at a time,
closed. Within seconds, it was as if she had never been injured.

	Outside the Dark Palace, rays of light began to rain down
from the column of white fire, raking through the shanty-town outside
the palace like hailstones. Everywhere they hit, someone was healed.
Deformities and mutilations were erased.

	Some distance away from the palace, near the remains of the
quartz golem, a ray hit Silicon's dead body. It too began to heal.
The wound in her chest from Sailor Uranus's Space Sword began to
close. After a few seconds, Silicon sat up, blinking in confusion.
She stared at the strange white light in fear and disbelief, trying
to figure out what had happened to her.

	From where she was laying, she could see the spear of light
reaching up, changing everything. Every part of the Dark Kingdom
began to shake, from the far reaches where twisted space and time
distorted the vary rocks, to the center, the Dark Palace itself.
Pieces of the palace began to come loose, cascading in rock slides
that fell up, towards the disturbance, rather than down into the
huddled masses waiting fearfully below.

	A great lurch was felt by everyone in the Dark Kingdom, as if
the whole thing had somehow started to move.

	Inside the central chamber of the Dark Palace, the Sailor
Senshi and everyone else watched the sky-- the roof of the immense
cavern that formed the Dark Kingdom-- with growing trepidation. It
was trembling violently.

	Neither Princess Serenity, who was still at the core of the
light, nor Sailor Metal Kingdom showed any fear at all. Both wore
expectant, exultant expressions.

	To everyone's horror, the first piece of the ceiling of the
cavern broke loose. To everyone's shock, rather than falling down
upon them, it fell upwards, toward the shaft of light. It fragmented
as it moved.

	Behind the chunk of disintegrating rock... outside the Dark
Kingdom... a starry sky shone down. A crescent moon rose overhead,
shining its light down into the cavern for the very first time.

	"I thought you said this was a pocket dimension," Jupiter
shouted to Mercury over the roar of Serenity's alteration.

	"It was! She's done something to space and time," the short-
haired sailor exclaimed, staring intently at her computer. "We're
back on Earth... somehow... I don't understand what's happening!" she
shouted in excitement. "This is incredible!"

	More and more of the ceiling of the cavern began to dissolve
away in huge chunks. More and more of the starry, moon-lit sky shone
in from above. Soon there was a hole almost a kilometer wide between
Earth and the formerly Dark Kingdom.

	Slowly, Sailor Moon, no longer Princess Serenity, dimmed back
down into reality. She slumped, totally exhausted. With the help of
Sailor Metal Kingdom, she only barely managed to stay upright, but
kept a smile on her face. Sailor Mars and Tuxedo Kamen ran to her
side to help her. As the last flickers of the column of light faded,
the light from outside the immense hole began to filter in. Those
inside the Dark Kingdom could see what was for them the unfamiliar
shape of the Tokyo skyline. In the distance, the Tokyo Tower glowed
red and white, welcoming the city's newest inhabitants.

	"It is done," Sailor Moon said to Sailor Metal Kingdom.

	The newest Sailor Senshi collapsed to her knees and grabbed
Sailor Moon with all six hands. She began to cry loudly and
thankfully into her queen's skirt. After a few seconds, her
transformation reversed itself. It was no longer Sailor Metal
Kingdom, but Cobalt crying against Sailor Moon, her normal human
guise reasserting itself.

	"Where are we?" Kaliborite asked, staring up in wonder

	"We're home," Cobalt said, tears of joy running freely down
her face. "Now and forever."

----------

EPILOGUE:

	It rained gemstones in Tokyo for three solid days.

	What was once the Dark Kingdom had 'intersected' with Earth
in the approximate location of the Infinity district, the sea
reclamation project that had been abandoned due to the destruction of
the Infinity Academy. There had been some attempts by the city to
build a park there, but the land had proved far too unstable to make
any lasting construction.

	When the ceiling of the Dark Kingdom disintegrated, creating
a huge, pit-like opening in the center of the district, the gemstones
buried in the rocks were flung for miles. They rained down like hail
all over the Tokyo Metropolitan area. Traffic was halted in several
districts. Ships in the bay eventually had to resort to shoveling the
priceless diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and sapphires that fell on
their decks into the water lest they be swamped.

	For a moment, Tokyo's citizens became the richest people on
the planet. Then, understandably, all the financial markets crashed.

	The first human investigators who descended into the remains
of the Dark Kingdom found not only precious gemstones by the
truckload, but also an incredible volume of precious and semi-
precious metals. Gold, silver, copper, platinum, and even iridium
were suddenly available by the ton. Once word of the discovery leaked
from the military team that had been sent to 'secure' the strange
phenomenon, world currency prices plummeted. The financial world was
in chaos and was not likely to restabilize for some time to come.

	Even more upsetting was the sudden influx of youma into the
city of Tokyo. While a great number of them could alter their
appearance like Cobalt and Achorite,  a significant number could not.
Some had semi-human appearances, but not all. The city was suddenly
awash in aliens-- far too many for even the most serious government
efforts to control-- all of whom were looking for food and a
comfortable place to sleep. After exploring the city, many of them
returned to the pit that lead into their old kingdom and more
familiar surroundings.

	On the fourth day after the event, Rabbit Room was back on
the air. Bunny, Kitty, and Princess Puppy all made a great deal out
of their 'new guests'. Youma children, both in and out of human
disguise, were part of her audience that day. As Bunny, Usagi spoke
at great length on the importance of welcoming the new arrivals to
the city and making them feel welcome no matter what they might look
like.

	For the most part, everyone, human children and adults alike,
seemed to be paying attention to her.

	That afternoon, Ami, Rei, Cobalt, Achorite and Brookite sat
in Usagi and Mamoru's apartment watching hour one-oh-three of the
non-stop cable news coverage of the incredible event. Achorite lay on
Mamoru's couch, careful not to disturb her injured abdomen. She
simply hadn't been able to relocate back to the restaurant yet due to
the impassible streets.

	Nearby, Japser and Kaliborite gleefully cuddled the two
newborn kittens under Luna's watchful eye.

	Mamoru, Usagi, Minako, and Makoto stepped into the apartment,
carrying several boxes of takeout food from Makoto's restaurant.

	"Dinner!" Rei exclaimed eagerly.

	"Yeah," Makoto noted. "I'm just not going to be able to open
the restaurant again for a few days. None of my staff can get to
work. A couple are in walking distance, but..."

	As everyone took off their shoes as they stepped into the
apartment, they were careful to shake them out over a small bowl
Mamoru left next to the door. After four days, it was brimming full
of raw gemstones.

	"I hope nobody minds spaghetti," Usagi said. "I was really
hungry for it, so Makoto said she would make some, but I tried to
help, and I accidentally made way too much and--"

	"Spaghetti," Brookite urged Jasper and Kaliborite, trying to
tear their attention away from the kittens.

	"They'll be okay," Usagi said. "We'll warm some back up for
them when they come around."

	"So, Ami," Minako asked. "Did you ever figure out what
happened?"

	"Roughly," the doctor said. "I've narrowed it down to three
possibilities, all of which require that the pocket dimension around
the Dark Kingdom shifted along either seven or ten spatio-temporal
axes on a tangent to our own dimension..."

	As they began to serve dinner, everyone's eyes glazed over at
Ami's intensely scientific explanation for the newest addition to the
Tokyo metropolitan area. Usagi shrugged in confusion. Even though she
had been responsible for what had happened, she didn't understand how
it happened any better than anyone else.

	"By the way," Mamoru said. "We bumped into Haruka and Michiru
on our way back. That's why it took so long. They're planning on
going away for a bit. I think they've got some things to work out
between them."

	"That's good," Rei answered.

	Makoto did her best to suppress an evil grin. As soon as she
managed to get her restaurant open, she was going to leave her
assistant manager in charge and join the two on what promised to be a
very interesting island vacation. There was a lot that needed to be
said and worked out between the three of them. Despite the heartache
that was bound to involve, Makoto couldn't help but look forward to
it.

	"Have you heard from Hotaru or Setsuuna again yet?" she asked
Rei, trying to cover the expression on her face.

	Rei shook her head. "Not a peep."

	"I think someone may have heard from Hotaru," Usagi supplied
in a secretive sing-song tone. "Shingo-kun was in very nervous mood
when I went to check on him yesterday. I think somebody's got a da-a-
ate!" she exclaimed, stretching the word out into three syllables.

	"So, how is your friend?" Mamoru asked Cobalt as they began
to eat in a desperate attempt to change the subject.

	"Ytterbium? She's... kinda messed up still," the woman said
sadly after finishing a bite of pasta. "I think she went crazy when
things didn't work out like she wanted them to. I think she's
suicidal. I know I wasn't the only one she betrayed. There are
probably a lot of people looking to get back at her right now or even
worse. I talked to Silicon and Lead yesterday. They're planning on
taking her somewhere where she can't hurt herself or anyone else."

	"I hope she heals one day," Usagi said seriously.

	"Now you tell me something," Cobalt said. "Now that... what
happened... has happened..." She shuddered, realizing that she now
knew what it meant to die. Like some of the others in the room, the
rest of the Sailor Senshi, she had been killed and then been brought
back by one who loved her more than her own life. She clenched her
eyes shut, trying to put the enormity of the situation behind her.
"Where do we go from here?" she asked after a few seconds. "This is
different than I ever thought it would be. I think everyone's really
confused right now. If nothing else, I don't know how everyone is
going to react to undisguised youma walking the streets and living in
the same town."

	"We'll adjust," Rei assured her, "Just like you will. It will
be hard, and it will take a long time, but people will get used to it
after a while."

	"My mother's hospital has already opened a wing for youma
children," Ami added. "After helping Akie, she's the world's
foremost-- and only-- expert on youma physiology."

	Usagi smiled. "See? Everything really will be okay," she told
Cobalt. "One day... one day soon, Tokyo will be a city of crystal and
light." She grinned and shook a stray diamond out of her hair.
"You've done a lot to help us get there. I hope you'll stay with us
and keep helping us because, I promise you, it only gets better from
here."

	Cobalt grinned and nodded. She would follow Sailor Moon for
as long as she could.
_ _ _

THE END

Sailor Metal Kingdom Says:

"Sailor Moon and her friends belong to Naoko Takeuchi. They were used
in 'Hidden in Darkness without permission. Me, Akie, Kelly, Brooke
and all my friends belong to Mister Jones. He says that we can show
up in other people's stories if we want to. Mister Jones also said
that since he had been gotten onto in the past for asking for fanart
that he wasn't going to this time. Well... I will! I want fanart! I
want pictures of *me*! HAHAHA! I'm Sailor Metal Kingdom now, and I
*deserve* fanart! BWHAHAHAHA!"

(Achorite and Sailor Moon drag Sailor Metal Kingdom offstage. Sailor
Mercury walks up and replaces her.)

Sailor Mercury Says:

"This and all previous chapters of 'Sailor Moon: Hidden in Darkness'
are available at the author's website along with all his other
stories:

http://www.furinkan.net/fanfic/

Thank you for reading. I and the other Sailor Senshi hoped you
enjoyed reading. Author's notes and a few short omake will be
available in the next post. See you next time!"


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