Warning: While this is not a lemon piece, there are definite adult themes throughout. I would give it an R rating, or at least a PG-13.

Another Warning: This story is based heavily on events from the whole Black Moon Family storyline of Sailor Moon R. It is written assuming knowledge of the events therein, and much of it would be considered Spoiler information for SMR, for those who have not seen that run of episodes. When this was written, the US Sailor Moon 1st season ends at about the half-way point of the Black Moon Family storyline.

Many thanks to Mark Latus for the use of the Dark Kingdom Renegades (DKR).

Note about the DKR characters: I have been coordinating with Mark so that our two series will both fit together, without us contradicting each other, particularly when it comes to the DKR. To this end, he has provided me with details of a number of the things he plans to do with the characters in his future stories. These elements have been incorporated into this fanfic, and will be part of the rest of the DKR's part in the Crystal Tokyo saga. I will go into a little more detail on this in the author's notes of this piece, but for now, I'll simply say that some of these facts may be considered Spoiler information for future DKR stories from Mark.

by Andy Combs

Part 1 - Full Circle

Serenity looked down from her throne, carefully keeping her face neutral. She knew that she could not afford to let her face show any of what she truly felt. Because her true feelings were shaped by knowledge that she should not know. Knowledge of the handsome young man who knelt at the foot of the steps. Knowledge of his true nature and motives. Knowledge that she could not let him realize she possessed.

For the day that she had known would come had arrived. The day that she had hoped might never come. The day that she knew was inevitable.

For kneeling before her in supposed respect for her was a young man that she had met before, but who had never met her.

A young man who was speaking formal greetings of respect from one monarch to another. Serenity knew he held no such respect in his heart.

A young man who commanded immense power.

A young man who she knew would bring great pain and suffering to her and those she loved.

A young man who would grow to love her, and when that love was not returned would eventually seek to possess her.

A young man who would lead an invasion that would leave Crystal Tokyo all but in ruins.

A young man who, for all his evil, would in the end sacrifice his own life to save hers.

A handsome young man who was known as Prince Demand of the tenth planet, the Black Moon, Nemesis.

She wanted to hate him. For all the pain and suffering he would cause. But she found she could not. Even after all these years, his final sacrifice still weighed heavy in her consideration whenever she tried to hate him. And besides, it just wasn't in her nature to truly hate anyone. Even an enemy, though she couldn't let him know that she thought of him as an enemy.

Serenity did dislike having to be deceptive. Again, it just wasn't in her nature. But she knew how critical it was. For she, and several of those close to her had knowledge of the future that was soon to be upon them all.

She sighed lightly and looked out over the rest of the Black Moon entourage. They were all there, just as she remembered them.

Rubeus, eyes alight with quiet confidence.

Esmeraude, arrogance flashing through her eyes as she lightly fanned herself.

Prince Saffir, nervously watching his older brother.

About a dozen others were clustered behind these, including the Uncanny Sisters.

Serenity half-listened as Demand continued his introduction. She nodded when appropriate. Looking for something to distract her thoughts from matters of the dark future ahead, she began a light scan of the city. And it was because she was actively scanning that she was able to pick up a quiet flaring of powers, raised in anger, from a distant part of the palace. Someone was about to fight with powers, and she had a good guess who. This needed her presence. The fact that this gave her a valid excuse to escape from Demand's presence also crossed her mind.

Serenity rose from her throne. "I'm sorry, Prince Demand, but I have just been made aware of an urgent problem. I hope you take no offense, as none is intended, but I am needed elsewhere. Good day." And she vanished from the throne room.

Serenity materialized high above the combatants, on a small balcony above a small courtyard, from which the clang of metal on metal already rose. A glance was all she needed to confirm the identity of the combatants.

Serenity watched the two figures below her as they fought. Both wielded blades created by their own power, and both were masters in the use of those blades. Serenity had to suppress a wave of nervous fear, since to all appearances, the two below her were fighting a no quarter given, fight to the death. Serenity might have been tempted to interfere, as both of them were close friends, but she knew that such interference would be unwanted. By both of them.

The two might look like they were trying to kill each other, but Serenity knew better. These two might share an animosity that went back nearly a thousand years, but they also shared something else that went back almost as long. Fights like this between these two were not a daily, or even yearly occurrence, but they had happened occasionally for a very long time. Serenity watched as one of her oldest friends, the original Sailor Senshi, Aino Minako, AKA Sailor Venus, fought with her oldest enemy, the man who had been her arch enemy in her days as Sailor V. The Dark Kingdom Renegade, Calcite.

The man, Serenity sighed, who was also Aino Minako's husband, if in name only at the moment.

The relationship between Minako and Calcite had been a rollercoaster from the very start. It's said that love and hate are two sides of the same coin, and that it's very easy for one emotion to switch with the other. Minako and Calcite were living proof of this. Their emotions for each other had been flopping between the two extremes for a millennium.

Shortly after the creation of Crystal Tokyo, Serenity had finally sought out the Renegades, who were nearly immortal in their own right, and brought them into her circle of advisors. She had promised them before that she wouldn't hunt them down, but after the creation of Crystal Tokyo, and Serenity's enhanced new link with the city as a whole, she had found it impossible to ignore their presence anymore. Their existence as beings of power shown to her enhanced sight, and she decided something had to be done about them. And being who she was, the easiest solution had been to accept them publicly for who they were, and legitimize their status.

The Renegades had been very suspicious at first, but Serenity had won them over with a single action. As it turned out, the modifications to their bodies needed to allow them to survive outside of the Tokyo area were easily performed (assuming one had access to the Silver Crystal) and this Serenity did, informing them that this was done, and that while she would prefer them to be at her side, she had no intention of holding them there against their will.

That had done it. Titanite had been willing to pledge on the spot, but then she hadn't been that suspicious in the first place. Pyrite had seemed convinced, and Calcite was swayed, but he had said that the group needed to think about it. The Renegades had retired from Serenity's presence.

The next day, only Calcite and Titanite had returned. The two swore loyalty to Serenity, explaining that Azurite had refused to believe in something "Too good to be true", and had left the city. Pyrite had gone with her.

Azurite and Pyrite had returned about a hundred years later, Azurite making a big show of the fact that their final acceptance of Serenity came because Calcite and Titanite had been treated well, proving the sincerity of Serenity's words.

They had much later explained that they had felt the need to split up the Renegades. If something should happen to Calcite and Titanite, then Azurite and Pyrite would be able to start a new race of Renegades independently.

The reasons for Calcite and Titanite having remained behind were as diverse as they could be. Titanite had never had any real fear of the Senshi, and had in fact fought alongside them quite a few times as Sailor Polaris. Calcite, on the other hand, would not have been able to explain why he remained, though most of the rest of the palace would have. While the Renegades were guests in the palace, the relationship between Calcite and Minako had been blooming, to the notice of almost everyone in the palace except for Calcite and Minako themselves, who hadn't quite realized what was happening.

Calcite and Minako's relationship had grown quickly from those first seeds, eventually becoming a full-blown romance. The two had thought the romance a secret, but were actually the talk of the palace rumor-mill. Eventually, when they went public and announced their engagement, the whole kingdom had cheered, with Serenity cheering the loudest.

They were married less than a year later, and, with a little magical help from Serenity and the Silver Crystal, were able to overcome the racial incompatibilities and have several children, all of whom shared enough of their father's longevity that they were still alive today. The oldest was starting to show some gray, as the Dark Kingdom blood was diluted with Minako's human blood, making them not necessarily immortal, just very long-lived. In fact, Minako and Calcite were multi-great grandparents, though the Dark Kingdom blood seemed to loose its effect after the third generation or so.

The problems between Minako and Calcite had started to develop shortly after the last child of their first family had grown up. Serenity suspected that it had been building for a while before then, and that the two of them had held a truce for the sake of the children. Soon there were regular fights between the two, the precursors to the fight going on below Serenity right now. Within a couple of years, the two had divorced, and gone their separate ways.

They still loved each other, Serenity knew now, but they were beginning a cycle that would continue until today. For all their love, it turned out that they could only stand to live with each other for limited periods of time at a stretch. After twenty years or so of living together, the love would swing almost to hate, leading to a deterioration of their relationship. What had been a storybook romance would be shattered.

The two would breakup and go their separate ways, only to run across each other ten or twenty years later, after all the hurts they had inflicted had healed, and they would pick back up where they left off. Marriage would come soon after that, and the cycle would repeat. At their fifth marriage, Serenity had declared that she had had enough. She made an official proclamation, making the marriage unbreakable this time. Later she had privately explained her actions to them. While she had no intention of forcing them to remain together when they were at the lows of their relationship, all three of them knew that the cycle would eventually bring them together again. As proof, she pointedly asked them if either of them had taken a lover while divorced.

Had either of them even *considered* doing so?

Neither had. The idea of being with anyone other than each other, even when at the height of hatred for each other, was unthinkable.

And so the cycle of their relationship had continued, but with the new twist. And this had unforeseen side effects. The marriage/divorce cycle of the two had become a staple for the tabloid journalists. Now, while the tabloids still fed on the cycle, they no longer had the spectacle of regular marriage ceremonies to focus on, bringing at least a slight decline to their attention.

Serenity might not like the tabloids but she understood the fascination that she and her friends held for them. This was an unforeseen side-effect of the creation of Crystal Tokyo. While Usagi had enjoyed the fame of being Sailor Moon, she had always been able to hide as simple Usagi, and not face the media unless she wanted to do so. Serenity and those around her could not do so. They were public figures now, the ruling class of the city.

And besides, the status of the few Immortal relationships in the world was of intense interest to psychologists, as well as the media. While there were quite a few among the Crystal Tokyo nobility who were either naturally immortal, or who had been close enough to the Silver Crystal often enough to gain immortality from it, there were only a very few actual couples among those immortals.

Immortality might be nice, but it made it hard to gain lasting relationships. Relationships with non-immortals would leave the immortal partner to watch the other age and die, while relationships among immortals were very difficult to maintain over the long haul. Few relationships between immortals lasted more than 100 years or so, and only two had publicly lasted close to a millennium, making them of special interest for study.

Neo Queen Serenity and King Endymion were one of those relationships, and while the stability of their relationship fascinated the psychologists, it bored the media. Minako and Calcite were another matter. It didn't help things that Calcite was basically a private man. But both these relationships had been thoroughly studied over the years. Numerous Master's Thesis' had been done contrasting the two relationships.

But locking the two of them into a permanent marriage had helped to take some of the worst attention off of them. And the fact that the love/hate cycle was actually fairly predicable helped as well. Eventually the breakups and reunions between Calcite and Minako were accepted by the media as routine. Newsworthy, but not headline material anymore.

Minako and Calcite had more children after their first family, and always managed to stay together long enough to bring the children to maturity within a loving household.

Serenity's attention returned to the fight. Both of them had immense powers, and both were using only a fraction of those powers. Both knew that if they were to truly open up on each other, one or both of them would likely wind up dead. And so they limited themselves to psychoplasm, potentially deadly enough, but again within a number of self-imposed limitations. No exploding blades, no ranged weapons, just self-created weapons and personal skill in wielding them.

Calcite was a master at the use of psychoplasm, and while Minako wasn't in his class for full manipulation of the stuff, she had more than enough ability that she wasn't at a disadvantage under the limitations. Besides, she had learned about manipulating the stuff from one of the best, Calcite himself.

Calcite had been surprised when reports of Sailor Venus throwing around chains of light had started to surface a millennium ago. He had investigated, and managed to witness her in action himself. Sure enough, while she obviously had no idea of exactly what she was tapping into, Sailor Venus was generating and manipulating psychoplasm for her Venus Love-me Chain. Calcite had shuddered. With the right teaching, Venus would become devastating if she learned how to manipulate the stuff right.

Later, when they were married, they had taken to sparring with each other. At first no powers were used at all, then they had made the mistake of sparring during their first breakup. Tempers had flared, followed soon by powers, and the two almost killed each other before Serenity had arrived on the scene and shut their powers down. Calcite had later admitted to the other Renegades that that had been one of the most terrifying moments in his life since he had escaped the Dark Kingdom, to first find himself at the receiving end of Minako's power, and then find himself helpless in Serenity's power. It was then that he realized a bit of what Serenity had become.

Serenity had held them both in her power, as the life bled out of both, and had then done what might have been the most malicious thing she had ever done, but in the end might also have been one of the most compassionate. Ever so briefly, Serenity had forged a telepathic link between the two of them, to allow them to see the full measure of what they had done to each other. Anything else they learned about each other during that link, they had never revealed.

The link had done its job. Since then, they had never let their full powers fly when contesting with each other. Not that psychoplasm weapons were any less deadly, in the end, but they were not as immediately deadly, particularly when in expert hands, and healing magic was available in plenty in Crystal Tokyo for the loser.

And the fights were generally only to first wound, with an unspoken acceptance of the win given at this point. If this had not been the case, then the wounds would likely add up, as neither would surrender otherwise, both of them being very stubborn. There would again be a chance of one killing the other, an outcome that neither truly desired, no matter how they might claim such a desire when the hate was at its height.

Serenity didn't know what was the cause of this specific fight, but she could guess. The two had broken up only a couple of years earlier, still much too recently for a reconciliation. They had probably run into each other, and tried to get back together way too soon. The hurts hadn't healed well enough yet, and one or two misspoken words would have been enough to ignite the conflict. She sighed. This meant that their eventual reconciliation would likely be put off another few years.

Usually when they broke up, one or the other would leave Crystal Tokyo for a number of years, putting a distance between them to allow the healing to occur. Most often that was Calcite, as Minako had more regular duties in the palace, but she had been the one to leave on more than one occasion.

But that was impossible now, with the Black Moon Family finally showing itself. Serenity needed every one of her friends around her for the coming days, and that meant that, when she saw the breakup coming, she had had to tell both of them to stay. She still remembered the pained, haunted look in Calcite's eyes as he realized that he had to remain in the same place as Minako.

But it had worked out well, until now, as Serenity had given Calcite quarters at the edge of the city, while Minako remained living in the palace, and Serenity had kept an eye on their schedules to make sure that there were no chance encounters. Purposeful encounters were none of her business. If they wanted to meet, that was their problem. But she had made it as easy as possible for them to avoid each other as long as that was what they wanted.

As the fight wore on, Serenity prepared her healing magic. She had seen enough of these fights to know that this was an especially bad one. The two of them were looking for blood, and might not stop at first wounding.

Again, Serenity considered bringing this to an end, but she knew that she shouldn't. For all its ferocity, this was a part of Minako and Calcite's relationship. These fights served as a vent for much of the emotions between the two of them. Without these fights in which to vent their anger with each other, it might not be possible for them to eventually come back together.

As much as it pained her, if these two friends felt the need to hurt each other in this way, Serenity knew she had to let it happen. The physical hurts had a way of cleansing some of the emotional hurts for these two.

And so, when Calcite finally scored a long, shallow gash down Minako's arm, Serenity prepared herself. But as she was afraid would be the case, Minako refused to yield, instead she quickly added another foot of length to her own weapon, returning with a vicious slash that would have gutted Calcite if he had been just a little slower.

Serenity sighed and sat back down, preparing her magic in another way. While it might be painful to watch her friends hurt each other, she would and could do that. What she would not do is allow them to kill each other, if it came to that. And with the first blood point come and gone, Serenity wasn't sure how else the battle could be resolved. No, Serenity readied her power, prepared to stop the fight the moment a truly serious wound was taken. The two of them could yell at her later, but there was only so much she would allow.

The fight continued, but the end was nearing, one way or another. Both combatants were weary from the long fight, but Minako had it worse, as a steady stream of blood flowed down her arm, sapping her strength. Minako seemed well aware of the fact, and began a series of desperate moves, each more risky than the last, trying to win the battle before her strength ran out.

Serenity sat ready, prepared to intervene at a moment's notice.

The moment, when it came, was too fast for Serenity to respond in time. Minako had just completed a wild series of thrusts and slashes with the weapon in her good hand, all easily blocked by Calcite, when suddenly she materialized another blade in the wounded hand, stabbing at Calcite with it almost before it was done materializing. Calcite barely saw it coming, much too late to block, before he was run through the chest. Calcite's eyes glazed over and he slumped to the floor.

Serenity sent out her power to him at once, but she could tell she was too late. There was no trace of life within him even as he hit the floor. Serenity fought back a scream.

Minako, meanwhile, was quickly realizing what she had just done, and had dropped her weapons, both of which evaporated before they could hit the ground. She dropped to her knees at his side, gathering up his lifeless body. A pitiful whimper escaped her lips and she began to sob.

Serenity just stared into space in shock, wondering how this could have happened.

"You know, as often as we fight, it's a surprise that it doesn't end like this more often."

Minako and Serenity both startled. That was Calcite's voice.

"If you truly want to kill me, Minako, you've got to remember that my heart's not in quite the same place as yours."

"But you were dead."

"When you didn't yield, I decided to do a little dirty fighting myself.

I set my body to do a brief, total shutdown at the first major wound. That would look pretty close to death, I think. But I'll be weak as a kitten for a few days after that trick."

Minako chuckled. "So you'll be stuck in bed for a couple of days, hmm?

I think I can help to keep you from being bored during that time."

Calcite sat up, his regeneration already closing the wound on his chest. "You know, Minako, I think one of the reasons we keep returning to each other is that making up is so much fun."

Minako nodded, a glint in her eyes. Then she embraced him and began to kiss him deeply.

Serenity let out a long sigh. Well, that's one problem solved. Or was it? More likely just delayed. Minako and Calcite had only been apart for a couple of years. Not nearly enough time to heal their emotional scars. No, they might get back together for a few months, maybe a year, but it would all fall apart again soon enough. And Serenity needed her friends in top shape for the upcoming war.

Suddenly, a grin split Serenity's face. Minako might never forgive her for what she had in mind, but Serenity decided that the needs of Crystal Tokyo were too great. She send out a light probe to Minako. Yep. Perfect timing. Serenity then reached out to the Silver Crystal in its display room, drawing power from it, and sent that power into Calcite, making a well practiced, temporary modification to Calcite's genetic code.

Minako and Calcite would be doing a lot of "making up" in the next couple of days. And Serenity had just added an extra wrinkle to the equation. She had brought Calcite into genetic compatibility with Minako. In other words, Minako would soon be pregnant with her first totally unplanned child. Her first child in over a hundred years, actually. Motherhood had always had a way of mellowing out Minako, and Serenity had never seen the two of them fight when a child was in their life.

Serenity hoped she had done the right thing, since this would mean that they would have a young child to take care of right as the Black Moon Family was invading, but having them united for a child's welfare would be infinitely better than having them divided in hatred at the wrong moment.

She sighed, hoping they would be better at protecting their child than she knew she would be at protecting Small Lady when the time came. Oh, she would do her best to keep Small Lady out of the action, safe from the coming war, but she also knew that she was fated to be struck down. Encased in crystal, helpless, while her daughter fled through limbo to the past, pursued by those who were intent on killing her.

Not for the first time, Serenity cursed this foreknowledge that she had. She would welcome the day, a few years hence, when she was beyond those events that she had knowledge of, and could remain blissfully ignorant of the future.

Serenity's tampering had not gone unnoticed. Although she didn't know it, Calcite had grown much in power over the years, and while he knew he was still no match for Serenity in a direct confrontation, neither could she have managed to simply neutralize his powers like she had been able to do in the early days of Crystal Tokyo. And she was not able to slip past his personal defenses unnoticed. Had he been uninjured, she would not have been able to do what she did at all without his cooperation, but he was injured, his normal shielding in tatters, and she had been able to slip in and do her meddling.

Calcite understood at once what Serenity had done, but couldn't understand why. Unlike the Sailor Senshi and King Endymion, he had no knowledge of what was to come, and thus no knowledge of the importance Serenity placed on his and Minako's presence. He did, however, put it together with her order a couple of years back that had forbidden him to leave the city. Serenity almost never gave orders. She had no need to do so. Most things she wanted, she would simply say "I would like this" or "Wouldn't it be nice if that" and things would get done.

Not with this, however. Serenity hadn't bothered with niceties. It could be like how she had handled Minako and himself before. Serenity had apparently long ago decided that it did no good to use kid gloves when he and Minako were acting like kids, and for the most part, he understood exactly why she had done what she had done each time she had interfered. But not this time. There was no obvious reason to keep him and Minako together this time. First ordering them to stay in the city together, then trying to saddle them with a kid.

Something was going on. He had caught other whiffs of it in the air, and he didn't like it. Serenity hid it well, but something had her scared. Had all the Senshi scared, actually. Suddenly Minako's actions fit in with the rest. It wasn't like her to lose control like that. Whatever was up, she knew about it as well, and she was scared to the bone.

But, as Minako assisted him up to her apartment, his mind came back to the problem at hand. Serenity had adjusted him. And if she had done that, then Minako was probably fertile, or Serenity wouldn't have bothered. So if the events went as they were looking like they would, Minako would be getting pregnant, and all hell would break loose in a couple of months. Serenity might think she was helping, but he knew Minako too well. She would not take a surprise pregnancy well at all. No, she would be furious, would almost certainly figure out that Serenity was behind it. Hell, there was no other possibility. They had tried to have children without Serenity's help, to no avail. No, Minako would resent Serenity's actions, and with whatever was looming over them all, might even come to resent the child itself, though Calcite though that a remote possibility. Minako was too loving a mother for that.

No, either he had to avoid having sex with her, or he had to tell her the truth, and let her choose for herself. And besides, maybe if he confronted her with his knowledge that *something* was up, she would share with him what was happening. Probably not, though. Minako was stubborn, and very loyal. If she shared a secret with Serenity and the other Senshi, she would keep that secret, even from him. It was one of the many things he loved about her that made her impossible to live with at the same time.

Calcite could think of no way to avoid making love to her without shattering this small bit of reclaimed happiness they had managed to grab. He had no illusions about how long it might last. Calcite had long ago learned to treasure the happy days with Minako when they came. He would not waste an extra opportunity. Which left telling her, a thought he did not relish, but that he saw as necessary.

Minako had helped him into her bed, and was about to leave. To put on something more comfortable, he suspected, like a negligee. He grabbed her wrist as she started to rise from the bed.

"Don't go, Mina, we've got to talk first."

"Hush, Cal. You're spoiling the mood..." she noticed the seriousness in his eyes, and stopped.

"Darling, I'm afraid it's been spoiled already, through no fault of our own. And now we need to see if we really want to recreate it. No, let me finish," he added as Minako started to respond.

"I'm not going to ask you to tell me what, if you don't want to, but I know something is up." Minako looked puzzled. "Something has you, Serenity, and the rest scared." Minako gave a start as she made the connection. "You guys obviously don't want to talk about it, and that's fine, especially when the two of us are separated. We may be husband and wife in name, but when we sleep apart then it is in name only, and I have no right to make demands of you. Besides, I know you too well. If you decide to clam up, nothing I can do will pry the information out of you, so I have no intentions of making things between us even worse by trying."

"But I want you to know that whatever is going on is now impacting me as well. I suspect that it is because of this secret that Serenity forbade me to leave the city two years back. For some reason, she wants the two of us both close by. Can you at least tell me I'm right in that much?"

Minako nodded almost imperceptibly. Her skin was almost white as a sheet.

"But now it's more than that. It now looks like Serenity has decided she not only wants to keep us close, but to make us a couple once more as well. For a while, at least." Minako looked a little puzzled.

"Minako, Serenity was there today, at the fight. I didn't notice her at first, but she was there." He chuckled lightly. "I bet I gave her as much of a scare as I gave you."

"But what does that have to do with..." Calcite placed a finger to her lips.

"Afterwards, just after I woke up, Serenity hit me with her magic.

Adjusted me."

"But why would she..."

Calcite nodded. "Minako, I'm in tune. If you and I make love tonight, I think you will get pregnant."

Minako went even whiter. "No. I can't. Not now. Not this close to..." She cut off suddenly as Calcite embraced her. "Damn you, Serenity," Minako said quietly. She began to sob softly into Calcite's shoulder. After a few minutes, Calcite realized that she had actually dozed off from her crying. Chuckling softly, he lay back in the bed, letting Minako end up with her head pillowed by his broad chest. He quickly dozed off as well.

Calcite woke to find Minako still on top of him, only now there were a lot less clothes between them. In fact, Minako was already nude, and was working on removing his sword sliced shirt.

"Minako, are you sure about this?"

"We're both going to have a talk with Serenity about what one should and shouldn't do to one's friends without asking, but for now, yes, I think I want this. I would never have picked this as the time to have a child, but now that the opportunity is here, I don't think I can pass it up."

"You always were a wonderful mother."

Minako nodded. "You know, I'm puzzled about one thing, though."

"Hmm?"

"You and I both know that we are about to commit to stay together for the next twenty years or so. Considering that we were trying to kill each other a couple of hours back, how come neither of us is hesitating?"

"I've never really thought about it this way, but if you look back on it, I think we are generally the happiest when we have a family. When there's a little someone there to depend on us, we never really fight."

"You're right. I hadn't really thought about it that way."

She fidgeted with the blood soaked buttons on his shirt that refused to budge. Finally she materialized a small knife blade and neatly sliced the buttons away, not even touching his skin a few millimeters below.

Calcite idly said, "You know, we ought to try something. For the next, oh... hundred years or so, let's plan to have at least one kid growing up at all times. At least one child every ten years or so should do it."

"You're kidding, Cal. You know we won't be able to put up with each other for that long."

"I think we would be pleasantly surprised."

"That's a subject for a couple of years from now, but yeah, that might be worth a try. There's only one more thing puzzling me."

"And that is...?"

"If me getting pregnant and restarting our family is the key to happiness in our marriage, why did it take us so long to figure it out?"

Calcite shrugged. "Forest for the trees? We were never before forced to consider having a child except when we were already blissfully happy."

"And it took dear, bumbling Serenity's meddling to make us realize this."

"Well, I for one still plan to read her the riot act, but yeah, I think she deserves the ultimate credit for this one." He stopped talking and took a long, lusty look up and down her nude body. "Dear, what did I ever do to deserve you?"

Minako gave him a stern look. "Nothing. You don't deserve me." She paused briefly, then continued with a grin, "But then, I don't deserve you either, so we're even."

With that, she collapsed across him in a fit of giggles. Calcite brought his arms around her, bringing her head up to a kiss, and the evening's festivities began.

Three days later, Calcite called a meeting of the Renegades.

"Well, well. The love bird emerges," Azurite quipped as Calcite entered.

Calcite frowned at Azurite. Azurite knew he hated when she called him and Minako that, which was why she did it.

The meeting was in Azurite and Pyrite's apartment. The two of them had remained a couple throughout the last millennium, though Calcite would have loved to know how they avoided the media spotlight. It probably had to do with the fact that they had never been as closely linked with the palace as he or Titanite were. And speaking of Titanite...

A swirl of cherry blossoms appeared in mid-air, and out of the center materialized Sailor Polaris.

Azurite began to swat cherry blossoms out of the air, coughing a little at the smell. "You get to clean those up, not me, Ti."

Titanite stuck her tongue out at Azurite, and then all the blossoms vanished at a wave of her hand.

"What's with the sailor-suit, Ti? This is supposed to be a meeting of the Renegades, not the Sailor Senshi?" Calcite was frowning.

Calcite might not totally approve of the lifestyle his sister had adopted, but it could have been a lot worse, he supposed. Sailor Polaris was an official Sailor Senshi, one of the elite rulers of Crystal Tokyo. In fact, she was in charge of the press office, which let her play the media darling, a job she reveled in. She had a public personality that fit right in with any major vid-star that one could name. Arrogant, vain, flighty. And she was a vid-star in her own right, having made a good number over the course of the past millennium.

But Calcite knew that the media personality was just a front. When gathered with the other Renegades, she was usually just good old Ti again.

"Oh, this?" She tapped a bracelet and the Sailor Polaris costume was replaced by a much more casual outfit. "You called the meeting so suddenly, I didn't have time to rearrange my schedule. I had a public appearance just before this, and had to port straight here from there."

Calcite nodded. "Very well. I've called this meeting because I've just put together some of the pieces of a very large puzzle, and I don't like the picture that's taking shape. To put it bluntly, something is up. It's got Serenity and the other Senshi scared, and acting a little rashly."

"If skewering you is rash, I'd hate to see Minako *really* lose control," Azurite murmured.

"*How* do you know about *that*?"

"Umm, Cal? You've been the headline story of the tabloid vids for the last three days," Titanite said meekly. "Yesterday we had to confirm most of the real story, as the fictions arising from it were getting out of control."

"Oh," Calcite responded quietly.

"In fact, a public appearance by you, with Minako if possible, would be helpful..." Titanite shut up at a glare from Calcite.

"Cal, you were talking about something being up?" Pyrite tried to steer the conversation back to safer ground. Calcite did *not* like the media.

"Yeah. I don't know what it is, but it's almost as if they know something is coming, and know they can do nothing about it. But what I can't figure out is how they would know. Mars gets visions, but nothing detailed enough to explain this. Neptune and Uranus are supposed to have the sight, but they haven't been seen or heard from in centuries. It's almost enough to make me believe Pluto actually exists. Some of the legends about her might explain some of this, but no one has ever been able to prove that either her or Saturn ever actually existed."

"Cal. Pluto's real. Very real," Titanite spoke softly.

"How do you know that?"

"It's my job to dispel false rumors. To do that, I have to know a lot more about the history of the Sailor Senshi than is normal public knowledge. Unfortunately, I'm sure there's a lot more I've never been told, and nothing I do know explains what the others might be afraid of. Also, remember that I've been alive through their whole career, avidly following any details I could get. I know that Sailor Pluto exists. Or at least she did at one time."

"Tell us what you know of her. The pieces of this puzzle may not fit together yet, but each one gets us closer."

Titanite nods. "Understand that I really shouldn't be telling you this, since it *isn't* public knowledge, but I don't see much choice at the moment. Pluto really existed, and actually fought alongside the Senshi for a while, though she was more often linked with Neptune and Uranus than the Inner Senshi. She vanished in a helicopter assault on the base of one of their enemies. They wouldn't say what happened to her, but I get the idea that she didn't die in that helicopter. The only other thing I can add is the titles that are generally associated with her by the rumor mill. `Guardian of the Gate' and `Mistress of Limbo'."

Pyrite pondered. "Limbo, hmm? Well, the ancient god Pluto was the god of the Netherworld, so I guess that could explain that one. But Guardian of the Gate? There's nothing in the Pluto myths about a gate."

"So we have a legendary Senshi, maybe dead a millennium past," Calcite sighed. "The legends mention her having control of time, and maybe even able to travel it. Did the others ever say anything about that?"

"Nope. I don't remember anything ever being said about time travel, except by legend and rumor. Oh, be right back." Titanite vanished, no blossoms this time.

"What the..." Calcite began, but Titanite was back before he could complete the thought.

"Found it. My old scrap-book." She spread it out across the table for all to see. "The Senshi couldn't be photographed well, and memories of their facial details tended to blur, but still, fairly good artists representations were created in spite of this fact." She turned to a picture of a tall, dark clad Sailor Senshi. She held at her side a huge key, fully as tall as she was.

"Well," said Pyrite, "We now know where the gate reference comes from."

"Huh?" replied Titanite.

"The key. I think we can safely assume that the `Gate' is whatever is opened by that monster."

"Yeah. You're probably right." Azurite peered at the portrait.

"Abysmal sense of taste in uniform, though."

"Hmm. Whatever. I'm not sure what this gets us, though," pondered Pyrite.

"Pieces of the puzzle, cousin. Pieces of the puzzle," answered Calcite.

"I think I've got a piece, lover," came a husky voice from the doorway.

"Eww. Who let the cat in?" Azurite tossed off.

"Margrave? What are you doing here? I thought you would be watching the palace," Calcite scolded.

"Palace boring. Margrave come back to find some action. Smell all of old friends in one house. Know something up. Margrave listen. Margrave know piece of puzzle."

Calcite glared at Titanite. He still hadn't quite forgiven the day that Titanite had introduced Margrave to anime. Ever since, Margrave had loved to talk in that Chinese-accented, broken Japanese that she had picked up from some purple haired girl on one of the shows. Margrave knew full Japanese, she just didn't use it if she had a choice.

"Okay, Margrave. What do you have for us?"

Margrave pressed up against Calcite, her desires obvious to all in the room. "Margrave hear love girl cut you." Calcite glared. "Margrave think, if love girl cut Calcite, maybe Calcite finally want rid of love girl." "Love girl" was Margrave's scornful pet-name for Minako, playing off of both Minako's family name, as well as her Senshi planet.

Calcite glared. "Give it up, Margrave. You know I'm not going to dump Minako for you, so why do you bother."

Margrave gave Calcite a playful lick to his cheek, then pushed away from him. "Margrave know, but never give up hope. Someday Calcite and love girl tire of each other once and for all, and Margrave'll be right there for you when that happens."

Calcite sighed. Sometimes he regretted the decision made long ago to support Margrave in this world. But it was either bring her under his wing and keep an eye on her, or cut her loose, and watch her create havoc until the Sailor Senshi stepped in to execute her. No, he hadn't had all that much choice.

Margrave might not be a true Renegade, but she had taken the primary objective of the Renegades to heart. Survival above all else. In practice that meant subjugating one's normal desires and objectives to the desires and objectives of the society that one found oneself in. For the Renegades, in the Dark Kingdom, that had meant acting as ruthless as those around them in order to hide their true natures.

For Margrave, in Crystal Tokyo, surviving had meant something quite different. It had meant living within the rules imposed by the humans who were in charge. Margrave had studied those rules, and come up with the damnedest loophole that Calcite had ever seen. It was a loophole that had allowed Margrave to not only live, but thrive in this place. In fact, it allowed Margrave to not even need to hide who she was. She could revel in being a Youma.

The rules regarding the handling of Youma were all unspoken ones. They were not codified like the more normal laws that the humans used to regulate each other. But they had similar basis, most of which built off of the need to protect one individual from the malicious, undesired action of another. And that brought up the loophole that would come to allow Margrave to regularly dine on human energy, all the while remaining untouchable by the Sailor Senshi, who would be unable by their own code of ethics to do anything to her. The loophole that Margrave discovered centered around the definition of "victim". Is a person a victim if they willingly submit to something?

And so Margrave had to find people who were willing to allow her to feed off of them. And this turned out to be easier than one would think, when one remembers that Margrave was literally a sex kitten. So Margrave began her career of giving nights of exotic sexual ecstasy in trade for daily snacks of human life energy. She never drained too much from one person, though most were bed ridden for a few days afterwards.

Margrave's setup had gone smoothly at the start, until one customer had decided to try to blackmail her for extra favors, without extra pay. Calcite had been amazed when he heard how Margrave had handled the situation. First, she had simply refused to comply with the guy's wishes. When he threatened to go to the Sailor Senshi, she told him to go ahead. He had, secure in the knowledge that a fine young member of the community would be believed over a Youma any day. The Sailor Senshi had raided Margrave's apartment, and had Margrave put up the slightest bit of resistance, she probably would have been killed on the spot.

They found her sitting on the floor, quietly meditating. They asked if she was a Youma, which she admitted to, and they had demanded that she surrender. At this Margrave had stood, letting her limbs be seen. She was wearing a pair of handcuffs on her wrists, and was manacled at the ankles. These were obviously intended for sexual play, normally, but they worked as well for normal restraints.

"The keys are on the table over there. I place myself in your power, asking only one thing, I would like a hearing in front of Serenity-sama herself."

And, because of the uniqueness of the situation, she was easily granted her request, and brought up before the Queen. When given a chance to make a statement, Margrave had looked Serenity directly in the eye.

"Your Majesty. I believe I am accused of many things. A few are true, most are lies. Am I Youma? Yes. But is that a crime in itself? I don't see how that can be. That is who I am, by birth. Should I be punished for how I was born?" Serenity looked uncomfortable. "If that is a punishable crime, then I would think that the rest of those who were born in the Dark Kingdom should be under similar sentence. By birth they are the same race as me, and that even includes one of the Sailor Senshi themselves, and the husband of another."

"Your point is acknowledged. Your simply being a Youma is no crime."

Margrave continued, "Have I been draining human energy? Yes." There was a murmur from the crowd. "I admit that I have no need of human energy for my survival, but having it greatly enhances my quality of life. Now, were I stealing this energy, taking it from those who had no say in the matter, my actions would be evil. But I assert that every single person I have drained has come to me knowing what would happen, and willingly submitted to it. I am simply involved in a barter system."

"Have you any proof?"

"Your Majesty. I have heard many stories of your powers. It is said that you have the ability to forge links of the mind. I would ask you to link with me and see for yourself that I intend no evil by my actions. I have nothing to hide." It was a bold plan. If Margrave had any doubts about what she was doing, if she truly had *any* evil intentions, a probe by Serenity would find them out.

Serenity appeared startled by the idea, thought about it for a few moments, then nodded her head.

"No!" came a voice from the side, and Sailor Mars stepped from her spot. "Serenity, it's too dangerous for you to link with her!" she continued more quietly, "Please let me be the one."

Serenity stared down at one of her oldest friends, and then nodded.

Mars walked over to stand in front of Margrave. Mars pulled out one of her wards, and made a few modifications as she spoke, "Normally, this might destroy your kind. But with these modifications, it will simply lock away all your powers as long as it is in contact with you. I warn you not to try to remove it, though, as you would likely lose your hand in the process." Margrave simply nodded.

Mars finished her work and activated the ward, attaching it to Margrave's forehead. Serenity had reached their sides by this time, and asked Mars if she was ready. When she was, Serenity had produced the Silver Crystal and placed her hands on both girls' heads, forging the link.

After only a couple of seconds, Serenity removed her hands, breaking the link. Mars' brow was covered in sweat, and surprisingly enough, Margrave didn't look much better.

Mars took a few moments to recover, then reached up and removed the ward in one fluid motion. "I... will not talk about most of what I saw, but the important things are this: Margrave's ruling philosophy now is survival, followed closely by fulfillment of her personal desires and pleasures. While I may find it personally disgusting, this unique `barter' system that she has set up, I can find nothing innately evil about it. She possesses a high degree of control over her pheromones, which she can use to heighten male responses. She uses this in fulfillment of her bargains. But she could have also used it to help entice men into the bargains in the first place. She has not done so. In truth, every single one of her so called victims did come to her of their own free will, and with full knowledge of the price she would exact. And this includes the young man who brought the false accusations against her. I would recommend that the young man be brought up on charges of blackmail and perjury, and that Margrave be released. She has done nothing that would demand our attentions."

"So be it," spoke Serenity, and the shackles on Margrave vanished at a wave of her hand.

Margrave had later spoken to the Renegades a little of what she had seen in Mars' mind during the link. "Whatever else the Sailor Senshi are, to those of our kind, they always have been, and always will be, judge, jury, and executioner. I will never willingly do anything to bring that judgment down on me." She would say nothing more on the subject.

And thus had Margrave began her status as the officially tolerated Youma of Crystal Tokyo. Calcite had hired a secretary for her. A human to screen those who sought her favors, and to make sure that the costs were understood. An impartial witness, should someone ever try to blackmail her again. No one else tried. Margrave had proven her knowledge of the human's system, and none tested that knowledge again.

One side effect eventually surfaced. Once Margrave had outlived the normal Youma lifespan, Calcite had had Pyrite give her a thorough examination. Youma were not normally particularly long lived, to say nothing of immortality. One of the "powers" granted by the Renegade gene was near immortality. It was closely related to their regenerative abilities. Renegade cells were constantly repairing themselves, restoring any age based deterioration almost as fast as it occurred. While the Renegades were not strictly immortal, by Pyrite's estimate they had the potential to live for tens of thousands of years before showing signs of aging. Calcite suspected that he and Titanite were true immortals now as well, as both had had frequent contact with the Silver Crystal, which was exactly how the Senshi had gained their immortality.

But Margrave had no regenerative abilities, and should thus not be particularly long lived. After quite a bit of study, Pyrite had pronounced that Margrave's cell structure was being kept at a constant, highly energized state because of her regular diet of human energy. While she would not regenerate like the Renegades, and could be killed by illness or disease unlike most immortals, as long as the diet continued, her cells would never deteriorate with normal aging. Thus she had found her own version of immortality.

After the encounter with Serenity, Margrave no longer had any real need for the Renegades. She had needed them for protection from the Sailor Senshi, and with her status now legitimized, she no longer needed that protection. Calcite had thought that she might forswear her loyalty to him with that need gone. She never had. She had stayed just as loyal to him as she had been when her existence depended on that loyalty. Calcite had never been quite sure why. The surface reason was obvious, Margrave wanted to win Calcite away from Minako, but Calcite had never fully believed it. For all her talk about taking Calcite from Minako, it had always been just that. Talk. While he was married, she had never tried to seriously seduce him. Well, once during his first divorce, but he had rebuffed her, and she had never repeated the attempt, even during his future divorces. She had also never made any sort of move against Minako, though Calcite had guarded for such a move for years. Margrave had never even threatened such a move.

No, trying to win him back couldn't be the reason, but what other reason there might be, he could not guess.

Had she not been pure Youma, he could have easily chalked up her actions to one of a number of emotions that humans and Renegades shared, that the Youma did not. Friendship, caring, or a true sense of loyalty. But these were all nicer emotions. Emotions that Youma just didn't share. So it couldn't be any of those.

One other interesting aspect of Margrave's personality had come to the forefront shortly after her shapeshifting powers had manifested. It was unusual for a Youma to manifest new powers so late in life, but not unheard of. Her shifting powers were not all that great, but she began to take a single alter-form regularly, and soon was able to shift between that and her natural form almost at will. Her chosen form was of a small, purple-white cat, taken from the same anime, in fact the same character, from which she had taken her speech patterns. After the powers manifested, Margrave began to spend much of her time in the palace itself, in her altered form. This allowed her to get the information necessary to fulfill another of her personal desires. Margrave was an incurable gossip. After that, the Renegades were always up to date on recent goings on in the palace. Titanite had found this particularly helpful, as it was her job to sort fact from fiction among the media coverage of goings on in the palace, and having an invisible ear around the palace had proved an invaluable asset many times.

Margrave had considered it one of her crowning moments when she had run into one of the two Moon Cats of the palace. Luna and Artemis were well known to have incredibly sharp normal senses, as well as unmeasured psychic senses. Margrave-neko had been dismissed by Luna without a second glance, however. Margrave had been crowing for days. If the Moon Cats couldn't differentiate her from an ordinary house-cat, then what did she have to worry about from anyone else. Calcite had warned her about overconfidence, but she had nodded, saying that she knew, and had no intention of letting her guard down, but that she still wanted to enjoy this small victory.

Calcite returned to matters at hand in the present. "You said you had

some information for us. And stick to normal Japanese, please"

Margrave stuck out her tongue, another irritating thing she had picked up from Titanite. "Spoil sport. Okay, I was up in my normal spot in the throne room a couple of days ago, sunning on one of the high windowsills, and I saw something very interesting. A new monarch was presenting himself before Serenity. All formal pomp and circumstance. Stuff both Serenity and I find quite boring. Normally. But there was a difference this time. This young monarch had Serenity's full attention, for one thing, and I could almost swear I saw a brief look of fear for a fraction of a moment, quickly hidden. I had almost dismissed it as my imagination, when I heard you mentioning similar hidden looks of fear among the rest of the Senshi."

"Are you sure of this?" Calcite demanded.

"Darling, I've watched Serenity's face for hundreds of years. I know every expression she makes. I've seen her bored, happy, giddy, stone serious, even angry a couple of times. But I've never seen fear in her face. Until now."

"Describe this young man."

"Well, he was a total hunk, for one thing, but totally outa my class. He called himself Prince Demand of the Planet Nemesis. He was tall, with a full head of silver hair. He was dressed all in white with a black trim. Oh, and he had a strange mark on his forehead. It was a black moon crescent. Sorta like a counterpart to the one on Serenity's forehead, except inverted."

"A black moon. Now where have I..." mused Titanite, staring off into space.

Margrave continued, "The other major thing I noticed about him was his power. He has immense personal power, easily in Serenity's class. And he couldn't have been trying to hide it, if *I* could sense it, so Serenity had to notice it as well. That might explain the look of fear on her face, but somehow I don't think so. I can see Serenity being impressed by that type of power, but fearful? No. I just don't see it.

"Anyway, he was perfectly cordial, and did nothing that one would not expect done in a formal first meeting. Serenity did cut that meeting short, and vanish from the room, but I later put the timing together with your fight with Minako, so she must have left because of that."

"So Serenity is scared of Demand, but for some other reason than simply his power level. Hmm," Calcite mused.

Titanite suddenly jumped up from her chair and rushed over to the table, grabbing the scrapbook. She began quickly leafing through. "It's here somewhere. I know it is... Found it!" She set the scrapbook back down on the table. The page was opened to a newspaper article on a weird UFO event right over Tokyo. One shot showed four blurry shapes being pulled into the UFO, obviously some of the Sailor Senshi, their magic obscuring the photo. But it was another shot that Titanite pointed to. This one showed a figure with loose red hair, standing in mid-air right below the spiky spaceship. The figure had his hands stretched forward, and energy could be seen cackling around his fingers. But the most shocking feature was the inverted black moon on his forehead. "I knew I had seen a mark like that before."

Margrave appeared to be trying to turn pale, which wasn't easy for one covered in fur. "Ti. When was that taken?"

"Hmm?" She examined the dateline. "1993 or so, I think. Why?"

"Because that man there was with Demand in the throne room. Dressed just the same. He was part of Demand's entourage. I believe he was introduced as Rubeus."

"Curiouser and curiouser. So it appears that at least one of this new group of nobles fought the Sailor Senshi a thousand years back."

Azurite was shaking her head. "That makes absolutely no sense, Cal. If these people fought the Senshi back then, why are they here, now, presenting themselves to Serenity as if she's never seen them before? And if she has seen them, and recognizes them as old enemies, why do she and the other Senshi not denounce them for who they are? Why meet them in peace like they are?"

"As I keep saying, pieces of the puzzle. We don't yet have enough information."

Pyrite had been casually flipping through the scrapbook. He stopped on one page. "Ti, who's this?" he pointed to a portrait of a strange, pink-haired Sailor Senshi. The strangest thing about her was that she appeared to be little more than a child. Not to mention that it was no one he had ever heard of before.

"Oh, that's Sailor Chibi-Moon. The so-called Sailor Senshi of the Future. Sort of a Sailor Senshi in training."

"I've never heard of her before," Pyrite puzzled.

"I'm not surprised. She wasn't around for long."

"What happened to her?" asked Pyrite.

"No idea. She came out of nowhere, and eventually vanished just the same. Oh, while she was here she was living with the Tsukinos under the name Chibi-Usa. Supposedly Usagi's cousin, but I looked and could never find any record of her before she moved in with Usagi."

"When did she first appear?" asked Pyrite.

"Well, Sailor Chibi-Moon first appeared shortly before Pluto appeared, though I tracked Chibi-Usa back at Usagi's house to shortly after the Magnesite incident."

"Right about the time the rest of us stopped actively monitoring the Senshi. 1993 or so, right?" Calcite mused.

Titanite nodded. Calcite continued, "And the same time-frame in which the picture of Rubeus was taken." Titanite's eyes went wide at the implication.

Azurite mused. "Umm, guys, loony theory time. Wouldn't a lot of this make more sense if we toss time travel back into the mix? Pluto, the Senshi's knowledge, these Black Moon guys, then and now? Even this so called Sailor Senshi of the Future might fit in somehow. Maybe some sort of time traveler as well..." She wound down as she saw the looks of horror on the faces of the others. "Umm, guys? It's just a theory, okay?"

Calcite shook his head. "No it fits. Too well. Not everything, but it just seems too right...." Titanite was tapping his shoulder. "What, Ti?"

Titanite seemed shaken to the core of her being. "I just figured out who Sailor Chibi-Moon is, and you're not going to like it. They've already begun tying her hair in little ponytails just like in the portrait. I should have seen it earlier. Her name is this final key. Chibi-Usa."

"Who, Ti? Don't keep us hanging," Calcite pressed.

"Cal, `Chibi-Usa' works as being short for Little Usagi. Sailor Chibi-Moon has got to be Small Lady. Princess Usagi," she finished at barely a whisper, "Serenity's daughter."

Everyone just stared at Titanite.

Azurite was the first to be able to speak. "Ho-ly shit."

Calcite spun to face Margrave. "If you have ever obeyed me, obey me now. None of this must leave this room, do you hear? None of it."

Margrave just nodded, still in shock.

Titanite was on the verge of a panic. "Cal, this is too big for us.

We're obviously not supposed to know about this. What do we do now?"

Margrave's ears suddenly perked straight up, and Azurite seemed to notice something as well. "Guys, I think we have more immediate problems. There's something else in here with us."

Calcite immediately went into full defensive posture, as did Titanite.

Margrave hissed softly.

A voice spoke, "I had hoped I wouldn't have to do this, but I'm afraid you leave me no choice. You know too much, I'm afraid, and have become dangerous to the stability of the timeline. I'm afraid that I must now correct that." And with that, Sailor Pluto stood before them.

At least, she stood there for the fraction of a second it took for Azurite's plasma wind to envelope her.

Pluto vanished in a hurricane of plasma. Calcite and Titanite shielded themselves from the heat, while Pyrite dived behind a sofa. Margrave had vanished and was nowhere to be seen.

When the plasma subsided, the floor where Pluto had been was scorched, but Pluto herself was... untouched.

Pluto looked right at Azurite. "Was there a reason for that?"

Azurite's jaw was about on the floor.

Calcite regained enough composure to speak, "I believe she thought you were threatening us. And I can't say that I really disagree with her assessment of the situation."

Pluto responded, "Hmm? Oh, my entry speech. I guess it could be taken that way. But nothing of the sort was intended. While I admit that eliminating you would be one solution, it would be a bad one, for you have parts to play in what is coming as much as anyone else. Besides, there are much better ways to handle this situation."

Azurite was starting to mumble, "But I hit her... and she just... but that's..."

Pluto smiled. "Azurite, there was only one flaw in your attack." Pluto reached out her hand, and passed it through a table. "I'm not really here. This is just a projection."

Titanite seemed to burst. "So Azure just toasted her floor for nothing." She sat down, barely containing the giggles.

Azurite frowned. "I'm glad someone finds it funny. We still don't know what the Limbo Lady here plans to do with us."

Titanite was grinning. "Yes we do. I know exactly what she's about to do. After all, I do it all the time. It's my job. It's called Damage Control." Titanite looked to Pluto, who nodded. "We've just put together a large part of our puzzle. And we were going to start acting on what we had. And based only on what we now know, Pluto considers us loose cannon. So she has come to fix the situation. Kinda like my job. The media puts the pieces together about what's going on in the palace. Except that when you are working from rumor and gossip, things get distorted very quickly. That's when I have to step in and clear things up. How close is that?"

Pluto nodded. "Pretty close, except in one aspect. I'm not so much bothered by you acting on false information, but rather you acting on true information, or rather too little of it. As I said, you now know enough that you have become dangerous. I intend to give you enough additional information to make you... useful."

"But not enough to make us dangerous again," Titanite added. Pluto nodded.

"While I like to think of myself as on the side of good, I answer to a higher calling. I have to concern myself with higher things than which side wins each fight. My concern has to be over the stability of the whole timeline. All of the knowledge that you have put together tonight was ultimately available to be gathered because of the reckless use of time travel by a few individuals."

"These Nemesis people, right?" asked Pyrite.

"Right. Their proper title is the Black Moon Family." Pluto paused. "The problem is that the actions of the Black Moon Family have left quite a few people with knowledge of what will soon happen, and those people are struggling to deal with the fact that they cannot act to change things."

"Serenity and the Senshi," Calcite said.

Pluto nodded. "Endymion as well. And now you five. Very well. Let me give you a few specific requests, then I will answer questions. But be warned, if I refuse to answer a question, please let it be. You cannot know the answer, and I ask you not to seek answers to such questions elsewhere."

Calcite responded, "Fair enough."

"You are right that the Black Moon Family is the enemy. While they are not totally evil, they are ruled by their darker desires. I would say that there are a good number of parallels between them and your own Dark Kingdom. Within a few years, they will begin a full scale invasion of this planet. Most of the planet will fall within the first couple of months, with one major exception."

"Crystal Tokyo, right?" asked Titanite.

Pluto nodded. "Crystal Tokyo will resist them, and appear an uncrackable nut. Frustrated and impatient, the Black Moon Family will use its newly acquired time travel technology to go back to the twentieth century in an attempt to alter the past to prevent Crystal Tokyo from being created in the first place."

Azurite repeated her earlier expression, "Holy shit."

Pluto continued. "The Senshi of the twentieth century were able to hold off the advances of the Black Moon Family in that time, and eventually chased the Black Moon Family back to this time. I cannot tell you of the events that happened while they were in this time, as you will be in a position to interfere, while the rest of the Senshi already know that they will be unable to interfere.

"After a time, the twentieth century Senshi will return to their own time, where the final battle against the Black Moon Family will be... was... fought."

Titanite chuckled. "I guess even you, a Time Lord, can't keep your tenses straight when time travel is involved."

"What did you just call her?" Azurite asked.

"A Time Lord, like in that _Dr. Who_ video that Pyr used to watch so much of."

Pluto actually laughed at that. "I guess there are some similarities, but you are correct in that time travel wrecks havoc on the tenses."

"But back to business. I will tell you this much, before I make a few requests. If you do as I ask, and the timeline is preserved intact, then Crystal Tokyo will win out in the end. The Senshi know this as well, and it's probably the only thing holding them together."

"So we'll get through this okay." Titanite was relieved.

"Don't read too much into that statement, Ti. Just because the good guys win, doesn't mean every single good guy survives," Calcite said.

Pluto nodded. "The Senshi don't even have that assurance. Serenity and Endymion have reason to believe that they survive, but none of the rest of you do. If you knew that you would survive, you might start thinking yourself invincible, and taking chances you would not ordinarily take. So, while I'm not implying that even a single Renegade or Senshi will die in the coming conflict, neither will I say that you don't."

Calcite nodded.

"Now, before I make my requests, I will make one concession to gain your cooperation. I will give you a piece of information that even the Senshi do not have. A piece that will allow you to maximize your preparation for the days to come."

"Hold on. How can you risk giving us more information than the Senshi have?" demanded Titanite.

"Because, I know what you are supposed to do in the future. While your future actions do not directly imply your having this knowledge, they are right in line with how this knowledge would tend to lead you to react. And the knowledge is this: In the days leading up to the invasion itself, the Black Moon Family will study the leaders of Crystal Tokyo very closely. By the time they are done, they will know much about all the public figures of the city, including powers and weaknesses. This includes Sailor Polaris and the great Lord Calcite, two of the city's more prominent members."

Titanite shivered.

"But unless you expose yourself, they will have no knowledge of the rest of you. If you are careful, they will not even know of your existence until you choose for them to learn of it. Use this to the best advantage you can. Consider the other three of you your trump cards, if you will."

Calcite nodded gravely.

"Now to my requests. I will not call them orders, but cross them at your own peril. I have told you that Crystal Tokyo wins in the end in the correct timeline. Ignore my requests, threaten the timeline, and all promises are off. Even I do not know what would happen then, but the possibility of the Black Moon Family winning is quite real. In the current timeline, their defeat is by the narrowest of margins.

"First, I must ask that you launch no preemptive strikes against the Black Moon Family. Not even scouting missions. The Black Moon Family must be allowed to make the first move. If you move against them before that, the possibility is that they might never reach the point of trying to change the past, which *would* change what is now our past. For better or worse, their attempt is a part of the timeline."

"But, they went to the past in frustration for not being able to take Crystal Tokyo. If we frustrate them earlier, and they don't go back, the invasion might not happen at all," Titanite protested.

"No. It was the trip to the past that sowed the seeds of their ultimate defeat. That brought the Sailor Senshi of the past into the equation, and those Senshi were able to deal with the rulers of the Black Moon Family on an individual basis. The Senshi of the present, and you as well, will not have that luxury. You will be too busy dealing with the invasion to also have the bulk of the royal family in direct opposition to you."

"Very well. I assume that this first move of theirs will be hard to miss?" Calcite asked.

"Let's just say you'll know it when it happens, and leave it at that."

Pluto paused. "Well, I will say that it is not the invasion itself.

This is treachery on a much more... personal level.

"Once the Black Moon family has shown its true colors, then with a few exceptions, you are on your own to react as you will. I will leave the exceptions to another time, except for what is probably the most important one. In the days when all is darkest, when hope is almost gone, watch for a dragon in the skies of Crystal Tokyo. This will be your sign that the Sailor Senshi of the past have brought the battle to the present. At that time, cease all operations. Launch no attacks for two days. It is vital that you not disrupt the Senshi while they are in our time. And whatever you do, don't contact or interfere with any of the Senshi of the past, or anyone who comes with them. After two days, the Senshi of the past will be gone, back to their own time, and you will be past the point of knowledge, and free from any threats to the timeline. Now, before I go, I will take a few questions, though I promise no answers."

Calcite began, "Let me start by trying for some confirmations on the stuff we had figured out earlier. You are the same Pluto that was lost in a helicopter a millennium ago, correct?"

Pluto nodded. "But I can assure you, that incident had no connection to the present events."

Calcite continued. "Now, about this Sailor Chibi-Moon person. Was Ti correct? Was she the Princess?"

Pluto nodded again. "I can give you no details, but at some point in this mess, Small Lady will join the Senshi of the past in their time. I would ask you not to interfere in this matter, but it's not that important. Serenity will do her best to protect Small Lady. Contribute to that effort as you will. She will not, however be able to alter Small Lady's destiny, and neither will you. Eventually, after this mess is done with, Small Lady will return to this time. But when she begins to come into the power that is her birthright, Serenity will decide that she should learn to use that power from those who are already using similar power, the Sailor Senshi of the twentieth century. Thus will Sailor Chibi-Moon come to be. And besides, she has several other critical roles to play in the past. Eventually she will return to her rightful time for good."

"And you allowed Serenity to send her daughter back to the past? I thought you wanted to avoid contamination," lightly scolded Azurite.

"The contamination from Small Lady's second visit was minor. She carried no new news of the future, except for confirmation that Serenity and Endymion survive this mess. And I said that she had roles to play back then. In the end, she belongs there. The end result is that her actions in the past are a part of the timeline, and thus are part of what I must protect, whether I agree with Serenity's decision or not."

"I'm not sure what you mean by `belongs there'," said Pyrite.

"To explain that would require a few lessons in temporal mechanics. There are few able to follow such lectures from me. Do you really want to try?"

Pyrite responded, "I believe I do." He glanced at the others around him "But at another time. I'm not sure if I'm up to it, but I would like to try."

Pluto looked him over, as if seeing him in a new light. "I think we may both be pleasantly surprised. When you are ready, just speak my name. I am particularly tuned to this era, with all the time travel that originates from around now, and am particularly sensitive to the sound of my office name. That's how I found you in the first place, from your discussion of me."

"Figures," muttered Azurite under her breath.

Pluto just gave her a knowing smile, then faded from sight.

Calcite began speaking as soon as she was gone, "Okay, folks. For better or worse, we've passed a point of no return. With what we now know, we have a decision to make. Do we play ball with Pluto, or play our own game?"

All the others were silent in thought for a time.

Titanite finally spoke up, "I think we have to trust her, and do what she asks. At least that way we have some assurance of the eventual outcome. Anything else, and we have no assurance whatsoever."

Azurite shot back hotly, "That's assuming that that whole spiel she just gave us wasn't one big snow job! A figure out of legend appears from nowhere, tells us this far out story of time travel, and the Sailor Senshi of a thousand years ago being able to do what we and the Sailor Senshi of now will fail to do? And we are supposed to simply believe her, and be good little boys and girls and sit on our hands, letting a group of Queen Beryl clones have free reign for years? I'm sorry, but it'll take a lot more than *her* word to convince me."

Calcite nodded. "I think I'm more inclined to believe her than you are, but I am very skeptical as well. Fortunately, there's a very easy way to get confirmation." He stood. "I've been needing to speak to Her Majesty on unrelated matters for a couple of days now, and I think this would be an excellent time for me to pay a visit to her. Besides, she deserves to know that we know what's coming, and I think she'll need every bit of support she can get." He turned to face Azurite. "If Serenity confirms Pluto's story, will that be good enough for you?"

Azurite deflated. "You know it will. Serenity's the best thing that ever happened to us, and we all know it. And anyway, I don't think Serenity could lie if she wanted to."

Titanite smiled. "Oh, she can lie all right. I've seen her tell the typical little white lie, saying she likes someone's outfit, when she obviously doesn't, that sort of thing. But if it's at all important, then no, I've never known her to lie about anything that counts."

"Very well. We'll put off any decisions until after I meet with Serenity."

Margrave finally spoke up again. "Margrave going back to palace. Try to dig up more information." She started to shift forms.

"Umm, Margrave, I don't think that's a very good idea," said Titanite.

"Why not. Afraid Margrave'll get caught? No worry. They no catch Margrave in last hundred years, they no catch now."

Titanite spoke a little sheepishly. "Margrave, that's exactly the problem. I'm not sure how to say this, but... you were spotted quite a while back."

Margrave's eyes went wide, and now it was Azurite's turn to laugh. "But... no one's ever said a thing!" Margrave stuttered, her accent gone again. Azurite was about to fall out of her chair with laughter. "If they knew, why did they let me stay?"

"Margrave, in most any other palace, there might have been a problem. But when they discovered you snooping around the palace, it was taken to Serenity. And she decided that as long as you were only gathering gossip, not actively spying, then there was no harm being done. Those who needed to know were informed that nothing of any real secrecy was to be discussed in front of a certain white cat, and that was that. Only a few people actually know about you, though that includes all the Senshi, and Luna and Artemis."

"Which means that Margrave's great victory over the Moon Cats was a sham as well," whooped Azurite.

Titanite frowned at her, and she subsided a bit. Titanite continued, "The point, Margrave, is that as long as you are just after gossip, the palace doesn't care. But if you start actively spying on those in the palace, looking for secret information, they're going to know. And they are going to react. I doubt you will be executed simply for spying. Actually, I don't think they could execute you anymore at all, barring a full fledged Youma rampage from you, or something of the sort. It's one thing to kill a nameless, faceless evil demon that's wrecking havoc. It's quite another to kill someone you know, and have worked around for hundreds of years. And they do know you quite well, if only as a friendly cat that's been alive for hundreds of years."

"Margrave, you do know that the normal lifespan of a cat is only ten to fifteen years. Even if they hadn't spotted you otherwise, don't you think they would have become suspicious at that?" Azurite said with a chuckle.

"Actually, no. There are plenty of Immortals in the palace, immortal from exposure to the Silver Crystal. Humans are not the only ones affected. I know of at least three other cats in the palace that are well over 100 years old, but none quite my age, the Moon Cats excepted, of course." She sighed. "I think I'll head over to the palace anyway. It looks like I need to have a talk with Sailor Mars."

"Why?" asked Titanite.

"Because, I've based my survival on living within the rules of the humans. What you say about them not executing me makes sense, but I don't think I can depend on such things. I can't afford to. No, I broke their rules, and thought I got away with it. I didn't. They had simply rewritten the rules around me. But that means there is a new set of rules, of limits on me that I don't know. And I can't live with that. With not knowing the rules. Either I abandon the palace, which I would rather not do, or I go to the head of palace security, Sailor Mars, and make sure that these new rules are defined."

"She may just throw you out, you know," said Titanite.

"I don't think so. I'm not sure what she'll do, but if she's known I was there for hundreds of years, I doubt she'll toss me out because I admit the fact to her. If she was going to do that, she would have done so long ago."

Azurite spoke softly, "Be careful, Margrave. I might actually find myself respecting you, the way you're handling this."

Margrave gave Azurite a strange look, then suddenly she was in motion. The next instant found her in cat form, landing on the nice perch that was the top of Azurite's breasts. An impossibly long tongue snaked out, giving the stunned Azurite an incredibly sloppy lick to the face. The cat then leapt away, a fraction of a second before Azurite's fist swept the spot she had been in. Margrave was back in her natural form when she hit the ground, landing on all fours. "That's enough of *that* nonsense." And she shifted back to cat once more, and was out the window in a single leap, just barely being missed by an Azurite Special wind blast.

"When I get my hands on that little hussy... I swear. This time I'll kill her for sure!" Azurite fumed.

Titanite and Calcite just laughed. Some things never changed.

Serenity rocked quietly in the chair, Small Lady nursing softly at her breast. Small Lady was an amazingly even-tempered baby. Especially when one considered how much of a brat she had been when Serenity had known her as Chibi-Usa. Serenity watched her daughter nurse. She knew she wouldn't be able to do this much longer. Her daughter would soon be walking, then talking, and Serenity knew she would have to wean Small Lady soon after that.

A light tone sounded, signaling that someone had arrived in the transport chamber. The transport chambers were arrival points specifically enchanted to simplify teleportation. They also served to let someone arrive unexpectedly, without actually barging in on the person they wanted to visit. Arriving in a transport chamber was a lot like ringing the doorbell on a normal house. It allowed the one visited to receive or not receive the new arrival.

This particular transport chamber was Serenity's private one. While Serenity was a very open monarch, not generally minding unexpected visitations, there were still not a lot of people who would just arrive unannounced like this. Serenity rose from her seat with practiced care. She crossed the room to Small Lady's cradle and transferred her daughter to it. Small Lady accepted the interruption of her dinner with her normal calm. Serenity then carefully adjusted her clothes to make herself publicly presentable, and crossed the room once more, returning to her seat. "Enter, please," she called out.

Calcite entered. Serenity sighed. She had been expecting him to show up soon. Minako had already talked with her about her actions. Minako had actually been a lot less upset than Serenity might have expected, and rather than scolding Serenity, had exacted a promise for Serenity never to try to make such decisions for her again. Serenity had agreed, and Minako had forgiven her, which was good as Serenity's conscience had been raging within her over her actions. Before she left, Minako had had Serenity scan her, and Serenity had confirmed what they both knew. Minako had indeed conceived, and would once more bear a child in approximately nine months. Minako had been satisfied at the news, and had left.

Calcite, Serenity knew, would be another matter. Minako had never mentioned her husband's reaction, but if one knew, the other knew, and Calcite would not likely be as forgiving. It also didn't help matters that she could not explain her actions to him. That would mean telling of her knowledge of the coming invasion, and that was knowledge that had to be kept to as few as possible. Serenity had tried to think of some excuse for her actions, but short of an all out lie, there was nothing she could offer him in explanation.

Calcite gave a respectful bow, then without a word he crossed the room to Small Lady's crib where Small Lady was idly batting at the mobile hung above her. He gave Serenity an inquiring look, and at Serenity's nod of approval, he gently reached into the crib and removed the baby with the skill of a many time father.

"I thought I should remind myself what this is like. It has been quite a long time since I last had one of my own."

Serenity was silent.

After a few more moments, Calcite placed the child back in her crib, then turned to face Serenity. "But there's another, much more important reason I wanted to look at the Princess." He paused. "Serenity. I'm sure you are expecting a lecture from me about what you did. But that's not needed. I think that Minako said all that needs to be said on the subject. But I have something much more important to speak to you about." He crossed to where Serenity sat, and knelt at her feet. "Serenity. Whatever may come, know that I, and the rest of the Renegades, will stand with you."

Serenity was puzzled. "I'm glad to hear that, but I'm not sure why you feel the need to say it. I know it already. You swore to me ages ago, and I know you intend to keep to that. Why would you feel the need to reaffirm this?"

Calcite reached up his hands from where he knelt, lacing them across Serenity's hand where it rested on the armrest. He looked Serenity straight in the eyes. "Because we know what's going on, Serenity. We know why you and the rest are worried." He finished softly, "We know the future, Serenity. Just like you do."

Serenity's eyes were wide with shock. "How? How could you..."

"A full answer will take some time. The short answer is that we figured much of it out on our own, and then we received a visit from Sailor Pluto to prevent us from running around like loose cannons."

Serenity was still recovering. Her eyes had taken on a glazed look.

"Pluto..."

Calcite just nodded, and let the room fall silent, the only sound the soft mutterings of Small Lady as she amused herself in her crib. Serenity needed a little while to recover, and Calcite gave it to her.

Finally Serenity sighed. "We've kept the secret all this time you know. Just the six of us. A horrible secret, of the end of paradise. We've had a thousand years of peace, and we all knew that it would end. Most of us were able to put it from our minds. A thousand years is a very long time. But for those of us who knew, the birth of Small Lady was like a signal flare. And now, after all this time, of protecting the secret this long, it's now out. I'm not sure whether I should be horrified... or relieved."

Calcite spoke up, "Serenity. You have no need to be horrified. If what Pluto said is true, then I think I can speak for the rest of the Renegades to say that we will take no actions to disrupt the timeline. And that's in part why I'm here. We need to know if Pluto can be trusted. I needed to see the Princess because, unlike Ti, I've never really taken a good look at her. But I've seen the paintings of Sailor Chibi-Moon that Ti keeps, and now that I've seen the Princess, I know Ti was correct. They are one and the same. Pluto spoke of other things, of the Black Moon Family invading the planet, traveling through time, and fighting you a thousand years ago. She also said that if we don't disrupt the timeline, that we will win over Nemesis in the end. Serenity, for better or worse, we have to know how much of this we can trust. If Pluto is to be believed, then we won't... no, we can't afford not to do as she says."

"Cal. Pluto may not say much... usually she says almost nothing... but when she does say something... you can trust it to the ends of the earth."

Calcite nodded. "That was the impression I got, but I had to have confirmation." He rose from where he had been kneeling, and moved to take a seat in another chair. "Let me give you the long version, then, and then we need to talk a bit about plans."

"Plans? How can we plan for something we're not supposed to know about?"

Calcite responded, "You mean to say that you have no plans at all for how to handle the Black Moon Family?"

Serenity shook her head.

Calcite continued, "No wonder you guys are worried. I get the idea from Pluto that you and the Senshi actually have a fairly good idea of the specifics of what is in store for you in the coming crisis."

Serenity nodded.

"Well, she gave us Renegades no such knowledge, which is all for the better. The fewer restrictions we have on our actions, the better. And if we don't know what we are supposed to do, it's hard to do it wrong. We will follow Pluto's instructions to the letter. But beyond them, we will do whatever we have to do. She told us not to do anything against the Black Moon Family until they make the first move. Very well. But we will not be just sitting on our hands, waiting for that move. Pluto has said that once they make that move, we are free to act, and we intend to be ready to act." He wound down as he saw Serenity staring off into the distance.

Serenity mused, "I just wish I had such freedom. You are able to see this as a call to arms. I'm afraid that I am imprisoned by the knowledge. Locked into a course that I would avoid if I could." She sighed, then looked at Calcite again. "I would like to hear the long version, if you don't mind."

Calcite nodded. "Very well. It began with your actions after my fight with Minako, and I began to see a pattern. A picture puzzle, if you will..."

Titanite was wandering the palace. She didn't really know where she was going. She didn't really have a destination in mind, she just felt the need to be moving while she thought things through.

She had sorted most of it out in her mind. She had called out for Pluto shortly after returning home, and had asked a few questions of her own when the dark-clad Senshi had appeared. Pluto had answered most, in more detail than Titanite had expected. A few she had refused to answer, which was expected. Titanite had learned that when the invasion came, Serenity and Endymion would become unavailable, and that the Senshi, or rather the original four from Silver Millennium, would end up linking up to the palace's defense grid to serve as human batteries for it in Serenity's absence. Polaris, for all that she was accepted as a full Senshi, was of different origins, and was thus incompatible with the system.

Titanite was of mixed feelings about that. She hated to be left out, but the thought of being a semi-conscious, magical battery wasn't too appealing. Not that things would be much rosier for the rest of them, but she preferred to be able to act, rather than being stuck in a fixed role like that. No, she wouldn't have really enjoyed joining the other Senshi.

Which left her lost in thought, trying to figure out what her role *would* be. Pluto had refused to even hint. She wandered the corridors, not really paying attention to where she was going.

She was very surprised, then, when she suddenly bumped into someone else, sending them both crashing to the ground.

As Titanite sat back up, a female voice came from above her, "Swift move, bro. I know I keep telling you to get a girlfriend, but that's not quite how to go about it."

The young man that Titanite had sent sprawling quickly scrambled to his feet, and extended a hand to assist Titanite to hers. "I'm so sorry about that. I guess I wasn't watching where I was going," he apologized.

As she regained her feet, Titanite got her first good look at the two. The young man she had collided with was about a head taller than she was, with yellow hair slightly darker than Serenity's. His hair reached his shoulders, except for one ponytail lock that dropped down about another foot. He looked well muscled, but not overly so, as would one who worked out regularly, but not excessively. Titanite put his age at eighteen or nineteen.

His sister looked quite different. She appeared to be of similar age to her brother, probably twins. She had long black hair that tinted strangely. Titanite was used to black hair with unusual tinting. Rei-chan's tinted red. Ami-chan's tinted blue. Even Pluto's was black with a green tinting. But the tinting on this girl's hair just wouldn't stay still. One moment it looked green, then there was a flash of blue, soon replaced by yellow then red. Titanite found herself staring.

The girl spoke up, "You must have really hit her hard, bro. She's in a daze of some sort."

"Baka," the boy quipped, then shook Titanite's shoulder's gently. "Hey!

Are you all right?"

Titanite turned her attention back to the boy. She was about to answer, when she spotted one more feature about him. On his forehead was a large black crescent moon pointed downward. A glance at the girl showed that she bore the same mark. Recognition flashed through her. These were part of the Black Moon Family. She recovered quickly from that shock, though, as she remembered that she wasn't supposed to know of these people, let alone be afraid of them. She quickly shoved those thoughts away for later, and prepared to respond.

Except that she again found herself speechless. This time it was his eyes. The two of them locked eyes, and suddenly the rest of the world was gone. She felt like a moth drawn to a flame as she stared into those eyes. Emotions whirled within her, and all reason was lost. She just stood there, eyes locked on his.

It was his sister's voice that broke the spell. "Bro. I know she's pretty, but we really don't have time for this." As Titanite and the boy broke off their gaze, the girl addressed Titanite, "I'm really sorry to bother you, but I'm afraid we're a little lost. We're supposed to be in the diplomatic quarters, but... um..."

The boy finished, "We wanted to look around a bit, and got lost. Would you mind pointing us in the right direction back?"

Titanite had regained her composure during the talk. "Sure. In fact I'll show you. I'm Ti." She wasn't quite sure why she didn't give her full name, but "Titanite" was easily put together with "Sailor Polaris", and Titanite somehow didn't want him to realize that she was one of the Senshi.

The girl responded, as Titanite began to lead the way back. "Good to meet you. I'm Opal, and my brother is Topass." Titanite nodded. She was finding herself liking this talkative young girl. And her brother.

Titanite let Opal carry most of the conversation as she led them back to the diplomatic wing. Titanite's thoughts were in a total jumble when it came to Topass. <Why am I acting like some lovesick schoolgirl?> she berated herself. Lovesick? Titanite wondered if it was possible.

Titanite had had her share of lovers through the years, and had even had a few kids with Serenity's help, though not nearly as many kids as Calcite and Minako had. Her kids shared the Renegade regenerative longevity just like Calcite's, and all but one were still alive, that one lost in an accident long ago. She had never married, though, and while she had been in love a few times, it had never been quite like this. Love had always been something that grew gently within her, a lasting caring for someone already close. This was a torrent, sudden and unstoppable.

She might have tried to dismiss it as pure animal attraction, simple lust, except she was familiar with that as well, having let herself ride that emotion a few times for one hunk vid costar or another. No, this wasn't that either, not to say there was no physical attraction involved. There was plenty of that, but it was on a different level from the attractions she had experienced in the past.

Without really paying attention to it, Titanite managed to maintain a conversation with Opal as they made their way through the palace. It wasn't that difficult, as Opal did most of the talking, and Titanite mainly just responded where appropriate. Topass remained silent the whole way back.

When they reached the entrance to the diplomatic wing, Opal thanked Titanite for her help. Titanite fell silent. She wanted to say something, but she didn't quite know what. Topass appeared to be in a similar situation, almost speaking a couple of times, but stopping each time before he actually spoke. Once again, Opal was the one to break the stalemate.

"Ti, do you mind if I ask you another favor?"

Titanite's train of thought was broken. "Hmm? Oh... no. Ask."

Opal chuckled knowingly. "We're going to be here for a few more days while the others negotiate. Topass and I don't really have any official business here, it's really just a big vacation for us. You obviously know your way around here, so would it be possible for you to show us around a bit tomorrow?"

It was the "us" that most rang in Titanite's mind. She quickly reviewed her schedule for the next couple of days, and mentally shoved a couple of things around, leaving a couple of large blocks of time free. She still wasn't quite sure about what she was feeling, but she knew she couldn't pass up an opportunity to spend more time with Topass, especially when the opportunity was handed to her on a silver platter like this.

Titanite nodded. "I'll pick you up right here at noon tomorrow. How does that sound?"

"Great! It'll be fun. Us youngsters have got to stick together, you know," Opal said.

Titanite was surprised. Youngsters? She was almost a thousand years old, for goodness sake. Then she realized the reason for Opal's comment. Titanite hadn't aged physically since she had matured. Neither had she picked up that knowing look of maturity that many immortals did, Serenity in particular. Serenity might have the same physical appearance of youth that Titanite had, but there was something about her, mainly in the eyes, that instantly gave away her great age. Titanite had never picked up anything like that. She suspected it was because of her views on life, and how she had never felt the weight of those years. Titanite lived from day to day, and had done so as long as she could remember. To one who didn't know her, she would simply appear to be in her late teens or early twenties.

Outwardly, Titanite just smiled in response. She glanced at Topass, who was busy studying his feet. She chuckled. Obviously she wasn't alone in her feelings, which both simplified and complicated things at the same time. She waved goodbye and headed back down the corridor, returning to her chaotic thoughts.

While she knew that his reactions didn't guarantee that he was feeling similarly towards her as she was towards him, she was pretty confident. He had been just as locked by their initial eye contact as she was. So she was able to dismiss the normal apprehension about reciprocal feelings. But there were bigger problems. Topass was no ordinary young man. He was a member of the Black Moon Family, which carried various implications.

First, he and his sister likely had a fair measure of personal power. Titanite wasn't the type to be intimidated by such powers, but the fact that he likely had them, and that she had no idea what they were, raised concerns when combined with the second implication, namely, that she and Topass were likely to be enemies within a few years. The threat of the coming invasion began to take on new overtones for her. It was one thing to think about fighting some faceless, evil enemy. It was quite another to have one of those enemies as a potential lover. That thought made her stop dead in her tracks. Lover? Was she already thinking of him that way? She shook her head. She was losing control of herself fast. Titanite might seem quite wild at times, but in reality she was always in total control of her actions. Now, she felt that control slipping away.

A soft meow from around her feet brought her back to the real world.

She looked down and saw Margrave-neko sitting on her haunches, watching. Titanite crossed her arms in front of her, creating a little perch which Margrave quickly jumped up to. Titanite glanced around her to make sure there was no one else around, then bent her head down to whisper in the cat's ears, just in case.

"Margrave. I need to talk to someone, desperately. Got a bit of time?"

The cat gave Titanite a quizzical look, then nodded.

Titanite got a good grip on the cat, and teleported home.

Serenity was tired. She and Calcite had talked for a long time, settling many things. Serenity had provided no details, but confirmed that she, Endymion, and the four Inner Senshi would be incapacitated for much of the duration of the invasion, leaving the defense of the city leaderless. Unless someone else was available to assume that leadership, namely the Renegades. Serenity had agreed to speak to the head of Crystal Tokyo's defense forces, Sailor Jupiter, ASAP to arrange to work Calcite into the command structure. Calcite would spend the next couple of years working with the troops, getting to know them and, more importantly, letting them get to know him. That way, when the time came for him to assume command, they would be ready to follow him without question.

Once she had time to analyze the situation, Serenity found herself quite relieved to have the Renegades sharing the knowledge. Whereas she and the Senshi had had to live with the knowledge for a millennium, and had long ago resigned themselves to what was to come, the Renegades had no such resignation. They were preparing themselves to act when the time came, and apparently Pluto had placed very few restrictions on those actions. Serenity trusted the Renegades to act in the best interest of Crystal Tokyo. Thus she found comfort in their knowledge.

Their knowledge also answered one of the nagging points that had bothered Serenity all along. She knew that she, Endymion, and the Inner Senshi would be out of the picture. Which had appeared to leave no one in charge of Crystal Tokyo. Calcite's knowledge changed that. In addition to the military arrangements, Serenity prepared for Calcite a small power crystal. This crystal was specially tuned to map Calcite's bio-signature and replace it with Serenity's own. With it, Calcite would have the ability to access any of the palace's magic as if he was Serenity herself. All the defenses of the city would be at his disposal if he needed them. He could probably even wield the Silver Crystal itself with it, but Serenity knew that the Silver Crystal would be just as unavailable as Serenity herself when the time came.

Whereas anyone else might have hesitated to hand over control of so much power, Serenity had no hesitations. She trusted Calcite to do the right thing, and that was all the justification she needed.

Serenity sighed and sent out a mental call. For better or worse, the others had to know of the Renegades' knowledge.

Calcite lay in his bed, staring up at the ceiling. He knew he would be getting little sleep tonight. It wasn't just that he had a lot to think about, though all that had happened today would have been enough to make him lose sleep by itself. No, there was also the fact that Minako was due home from work very soon, and he would have to have a long talk with her as soon as possible. This wasn't something he could keep quiet about.

He was concentrating so hard that he almost missed the soft whisper of magic that accompanied his wife's return. She materialized at the side of his bed, a serious look on her face. The look, combined with Serenity's signature on the teleportation magic that had brought her here, revealed instantly what had happened. Serenity must have called the Senshi together, which made the issue of how he should tell her what he knew moot.

He sat up in bed. "Mina, I..." She shook her head, and simply began to undress. Calcite understood. Talk would wait. Now that he knew what was going on, he could see the signs of it in almost everything Minako had done over the last few years. She didn't bear nearly the weight that Serenity bore, but she carried quite a load of raw emotions none the less. They would talk in the morning. For now, what she needed was a violent, raw, emotional release, totally in contrast to the slow loving sex they had made the past few nights. For Minako, a full session of passionate lovemaking, followed by a night of blissful sleep, was what she needed for a soul-cleansing. To wash the weight of the world off of her. Calcite prepared himself. From the looks of things, he was in for a wild ride.

Titanite materialized in her quarters in the palace, and casually tossed Margrave across the room. Margrave easily twisted and landed on all fours on Titanite's bed. She morphed back to her normal form at once.

"Okay, Kitten. What's up?"

Titanite smiled at the private nickname. She and Margrave had a longstanding private relationship that even Calcite was unaware of. In a way that Titanite always found hard to put into words, Margrave was almost a surrogate mother for her. A shoulder to cry on. A pillar of support when times got rough. An ear when a confidant was needed. And a source for advice on topics she could never go to her brother about. Topics that had at times included how to deal with men.

When Titanite had her first lusty crush, on a dreamy costar in one of her vids, it was Margrave that had encouraged her to make a move on him, but cautioned her to not expect anything long term. Thus Titanite had not been particularly upset when he dumped her after about a month.

When Titanite had found herself falling in love with her long-time agent, it was Margrave that had suggested that the man would make a perfect father for Titanite's first child, but had also cautioned against going as far as marrying him, as Margrave just didn't believe it would last. Titanite had heeded her words, and begun a slow campaign to win his heart, a campaign that took three years before they even kissed. By that point she was in what at the time she thought was total love. She had finally gone to Serenity, and then born the first of three children to him. He had never asked her to marry him, and when she had finally broached the possibility of asking Serenity to grant him immortality so they could remain together, he had declined, saying he had no interest in living forever.

Titanite had been devastated, and they had had their first major argument. Afterwards, Titanite had raged to Margrave about the man, until Margrave had finally had to tell her to shut up and stop acting like a child. A child over a hundred years old, but a child none the less. Margrave had given her a long talk, after which she had returned to the man, shortly thereafter to conceive their third and final child together.

And the advice had never been one way between her and Margrave. Just as dealing with her baser emotions didn't come naturally to Titanite, dealing with the finer ones didn't come naturally to Margrave. Titanite was probably the only person who even knew that Margrave had any finer emotions. But Margrave did have them. Margrave was no Renegade, of that Titanite was sure, but just as one didn't have to be a Youma to be of an evil nature, a Youma didn't *have* to be a Renegade to be of a basically good nature. Her lack of sexual morals and her taste for human life energy would have many a religion labeling her as evil, not to mention her occasional violent rages. However, Titanite knew that in the ways in which it really counted, Margrave was of a good heart.

Unlike most Youma, Margrave had very little personal drive beyond her pleasures, and even there her drives were easily held in check when necessary. And, in one of her most redeeming traits, Margrave had no drive to advance her desires at the unwilling expense of another.

Margrave hadn't needed assistance nearly as often as Titanite had, but when she had needed it, Titanite had been there for her. Love and lust were flip sides of the same coin. Margrave knew lust well. It had been her first venture into love that had been one of the toughest.

The problems had all centered around Calcite, of course