Chapter 1

 

Kunzite! What progress have you made?" "Berylsama, I have a plan that will eliminate Sailormoon and the sailor senshi as a threat." "Bold words. However if you were as cunning as you are arrogant We would not feel ourselves so poorly served." Kunzite felt his face heat as snickers echoed from the darkness. In the Dark Kingdom failure and death were written with the same brush. Keeping his voice and visage composed Kunzite answered his Monarch.

"As you say Berylsama I have been more arrogant than cunning." This drew a his of surprise from the throne. "I have learned from my failures. More, I have learned from the failures and success of others. With Nephrite's aid you will have all the energy you need." Kunzite paused. "Energy and no senshi to interfere with your plans This I pledge with my life." The silence was absolute. Kunzite had either signed his death warrant or just made himself the most powerful General in the Dark Kingdom. Kunzite could feel Beryl bending her formidable will upon him, probing, testing, searching. Suddenly the pressure disappeared and Kunzite fought not to sway with relief. "My plan is simplicity itself. Eliminate Sailormoon BEFORE she becomes a senshi. Without her the other senshi will pose little or no threat."

 

"An interesting proposal." Beryl nodded thoughtfully. "However We are puzzled by a few things. Sailorpluto guards the Gate-of-Time, and while she can not leave the time gate neither can we approach without her permission. Unless of course you intend to awaken the outer senshi." Beryl turned a basilisk gaze on Kunzite. "We can of course see how awaking Sailorneptune, Sailoruranus and of course Sailorsaturn will help Our cause. Most especially waking Sailorsaturn and the Silence-fucking-glave." This last was said in such a conversational voice that Kunzite did at first not understand her words. He could not misunderstand the rage in Beryl's eyes. "Do you think Us a fool, Kunzite? Do you attempt to cover your incompetence with. . ."

"Berylsama" Kunzite dropped to his belly in front of the throne. No one interrupted Beryl on her throne, at least not twice. As Beryl raised her hand to blot him from the universe Kunzite knew his life was measured in heartbeats, and he had only a few to convince Beryl of his plan's merits. "Berylsama, I have a method to time travel WITHOUT the Gate-of-time. We can by-pass Sailorpluto."

 

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Kunzite stood in his laboratory with Queen Beryl. To be more precise, Kunzite lay on his belly; Beryl stood, her booted heel grinding into Kunzites spine. He could feel her mental had around his heart, waiting for him to misstep. If he were lucky and Beryl were feeling charitable she would rip his heart from his chest and choke him with it. If she were feeling otherwise he might live for centuries, regretting that his grandparents had ever met each other.

"As you know Berylsama, Serenity" Kunzite winced as several vertebra suffered catastrophic compression under Beryl's heel. "Serenity the Usurper" the pressure lessened "Serenity the Thief, Coward and Back-stabber." Kunzite suppressed a groan of relief as the pressure against spine and heart lessened and almost disappeared. Almost. "As you know when S. . .as you know when the Nameless One and her Moon Devils stole the tokens of power and locked them away from you they also placed constraint upon their own use of the powers." At Beryl's impatient nod Kunzite hurried on. "In the instance of the Gate-of-Time, while it is true that no one may use the Gate without Sailorpluto's permission, the ward prevents even Sailorpluto from using the gates full potential. There are paths through time that Saiorpluto can not see or travel. I have found one of those paths and devised a means to use it."

 

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"A bee?" Kunzite gave a small cold smile at Nephrites astonished tone. "All of this" Nephrite waved a hand at the equipment that filled the cavern and spilled over into the next and the next for over 20 kilometers across and at least that many more in depth. "for a BEE!" "A single grain of sand can tip the balance. Properly placed this" Kunzite held out the insect on the palm of his hand "is more than enough to eliminate Sailormoon and the senshi. I have made the 'gun', all you have to do is aim it and fire." "Oh no. This is your mess, you clean it up. You've squandered over thirty percent of our energy reserves. When Berlysama finds out. . ."

"When Berylsama finds out that you were too cowardly and incompetent to do your duty . . . When Berylsama finds out that you had Sailormoon in your sights but refused to pull the trigger. . . well I don't think she'll be pleased." "You bastard!" "Quite possibly. Actually I've always thought that mother killed and ate father after mating; rather like a spider." Kunzite's expression resembled a smile only insofar that his teeth were showing. " Should you fail, I'm sure we'll have lots of time to discuss my parentage or lack thereof while we share accommodations with Jedite."

"All right!" Nephrite was in a rage. "What do you want?" "It's very simple. Merely stand there" Kunzite indicated a fine-mesh wire cage, open on one side "and concentrate on Sailormoon." "That's all?" "No need to be so suspicious. I know that you have your guard surrounding this chamber, ready undoubtedly to do very unpleasant things to me should you fail to leave unharmed. I am sure you realize that nothing they, or you, could do to me could possibly compare to what Berylsama will do to me, to us, should this fail."

Nephrite narrowed his eyes in thought, then nodded and stepped into the cage. "You see, every living thing makes a path through time and space. While I can detect this path, I can not see any details. That is where you come in my dear Nephrite." Kunzite place the bee in a small chamber of ebony crystal and closed the lid. He the passed a hand over a seeming blank panel. As he did so the panel began to glow and the cavern began to vibrate with a subsonic thrum.

"What's happening?"

"I have activated the time displacement engine." "Ouch! Something bit me." "Just a static discharge. Now concentrate on Sailormoon. My time engine will make you much more sensitive to the forces you normally use. You will be able to see into the past, Sailormoon's past." The thrum had increased to painful levels. The walls and floor were shaking themselves to pieces and the air flashed and flickered with static discharges. "The engine is primed and ready. When you find the proper moment, it will take but a thought to discharge the weapon."

Nephrite could barely hear Kunzite. Places and faces raced past him in a blur. A torrent of power flooded his body like a typhoon in a shoe box. He was filled to bursting and still the power came and came and came. Red hot hooks fastened into his head started rIpping out chunks of his brain. He couldn't scream, he couldn't move he could only endure. As his flesh sizzled and split like a roast pig on a spit. . . he saw it. The moment. The cusp of all that was or all that could be. And as suddenly as thought, the weapon discharged, and Nephrite was released to fall unconscious to the floor.

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"This was a wonderful vacation dear. I'm so glad you could get away form work." Tsukino Kenji glanced from the road to his wife Ikuko in the passenger seat, half shadowed by the full moon. "I'm glad I could get away too. It's been a long time since we could all go away. Are you glad too Usagichan?" Kenji called to his daughter in the back seat." "Shhhh. Papa." Usagi scolded. "You'll wake Shingochan."

Eight year old Tsunkino Usagi was an Oneesama and she took her duties very seriously. She stared at her sleeping brother and thought again she'd never seen anything more perfect. As always she counted his fingers and toes, to make sure none were missing. As soon as this vital inventory was complete she sat back to watch him breath. As she did so she went through an entire catalogue of everything they'd done that day from the moment Shingo had awakened to the minute his eyes closed in sleep. First she had to make sure Shingo had been properly amused. If he had missed some treat, Usagi saw it as her duty to make up for it the next day.

Usagi also went over the things he didn't like. She'd try to make sure they never happened again. She'd tried to explain how important it was that Shingo never be upset or unhappy but mama and papa didn't seem to understand. Mama told her that was impossible. That sometimes people were upset or unhappy but that didn't make any sense. From the moment she'd seen Shingochan in the hospital she'd loved him. She left his side for school only under the awful threat of not being allowed to tend him during her free time. While Usagi was around, Shingochan was never allowed to be hungry or unhappy. Diapers were changed almost before they were soiled. Mama said that she'd grow out of it, that as she and Shingo grew older things would change. Usagi couldn't understand that. Nothing in the world was more important than love and family.

Usagi had always known that; she had known that before she'd known anything else. And Shingochan was love. And the more Usagi loved him, the more love she got back. Just like the way mama and papa loved each other, or she loved them, or they loved her and Shingochan. When they did that Usagi could see a big warm light. And Shingo's light was the biggest and warmest, because there wasn't anything else in him but love. Grownups were funny. They didn't talk about the light. They didn't seem to know what Usagi meant when she talked about it. And that was just silly. Grownups knew about everything. Right now she was content to love Shingo, and watch his light grow bigger and brighter. When she was big, she'd find more people and make their lights bigger, just like Shingo and mama and papa. She'd love everybody, then no one would cry or be upset. The tiny pop of displaced air was inaudible over the hum of tires.

Materializing within millimeters of it's target the small insect sank its stinger deep into Tsukino Kenji's left eye. Kenji screamed and involuntarily jerked the wheel as he clasped both hands to his face as the poison sac pumped formic acid directly into his eye. Usagi was just adjusting the blanket around her sleeping brother when her papa screamed. She jerked around, eyes wide and uncomprehending. She had a brief vision of her father clutching his head in pain. Her mother's desperate grab for the steering wheel. The world became a mad strobe of moonlight and dark . . .light . . .dark . . .light . . .dark, as the car tumbled down the cliff and Usagi bounced and tumbled inside the car until the world ended with a screaming smash of metal, flesh and bone. Usagi swam through a thick mud of pain, fear and loss until she reached a light. Not her warm comforting light, but a cold bloodless light of deep shadow and anemic black and white images. The nasty hiss and pop of cooling metal was a ghastly counterpoint to the horribly normal whir and buzz of night flying insects. Usagi struggled to get up and fell back in a sudden blaze of pain. Half blinded by pain and nausea she looked down to see her smashed legs, splintered bone gleaming whitely against the black of blood soaked clothes. The fact she could see out of only one eye went almost unnoticed against her other hurts. "mama, papa." The cry came out as a whisper. "mama, papa, where are you!"

Then she remembered "shingo!" As hard as she tried, she couldn't make a sound louder that a horse whisper. "shingo!" Frantically she began pulling herself along the ground with her hands, crawling like a broken backed snake. Dragging her broken legs it took her almost an hour of desperate crawling to find her baby brother. Pinned in the smashed rear of the small car. Crumbled in a space that was small even for a two year old body, Tsukino Shingo breathed with a horrible bubbling rasp, pink foam frothing his nose and lips. Usagi pulled and beat on the crumbled door until her hands were raw and bloody but the twisted metal was too much for her tiny strength.

Finally she pulled and twisted as much of her upper body into the wreck as she could. "Shingochan! Shingochan. It's me. Oneesama. Oneeama is here. It's going to be all right." She could see his light, small now . . . so very small . . . where she couldn't see her mama or papa's light at all. Suddenly the light flickered. " Don't leave me Shingochan." Usagi was frantic and squeezed her hands tightly around Shingo. "Please Shingochan. We'll go the park again. And you can have ice cream. I'll let you have mine too." The light dimmed to almost nothing. Shingochan was going to. . . "NOOOOO!!!" Usagi screamed her denial. She gathered all of her love, her hope, her light into one large ball. . . and pushed. Pushed her own life and light into Shingochan.

 

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It was late the next day before someone noticed the broken guard rail, and several hours after that before rescuers could reach the car at the bottom of the ravine. When they did reach bottom they were amazed and horrified. Amazed that anyone at all had survived, horrified at the injuries the surviving children had sustained. They couldn't pry Usagi loose from her baby brother. Awake, she fought them so desperately they were afraid she'd kill herself. And drugged into unconsciousness she still held onto her brother as if glued to him. They finally had to treat her injuries at the bottom of the ravine even as they cut Shingo from the wreck. They had to carry them to the top together and transport them together to the hospital. It took a hospital administrator, far more clever than a mere medical technician, to think of dislocating her fingers to loosen her grip. .