The Zodiac Grand Tour - Chapter 1

Story Written By: Berk' Watkins

Sailor Moon Created By: Naoko Takeuchi

There are some things that you do that haunt you until the day you die. There are some things you don't do that haunt you until the day you die.

Chrysolite, Nephrite's prize pupil, was experiencing the latter.

Nephrite dissolved into motes of light and dust, the death of a youma.

His student watched it all from his ready room. She almost burst a blood vessel from the rage she was forced to keep under control.

"What's wrong?" Zoicite purred from behind her.

Chrysolite brought her temper under control.

"Nothing, General Zoicite..." she whispered hoarsely.

"Good, collect your things and come along," he commanded. He jumped into the air and vanished in a swirl of petals.

Chrysolite grumbled under her breath, her eyes flaring with blue energy for a moment. She fought back the urge to unleash one of her plasma blasts and went to collect her things.

Chrysolite handled the death of her teacher in a curious manner, she retreated to holdings in the Dark Kingdom and went back to her studies as if he had never died. Chrysolite tossed a fist-sized obsidian sphere into the center of the deepest caverns beneath of Nephrite's citadel.

"The stars know everything," she intoned.

The sphere hovered, glowing, several meters away from her. A holographic representation of the local star group appeared in front of her. Stars, planets, gas clouds.. all moving in their endless cycle. The Star Wheel.

Chrysolite's normally garnet-hued eyes glowed a bright blue.

A Vision flooded her mind.

Zoicite executed.

Kunzite dead.

Beryl obliterated.

The Destruction of the Dark Kingdom...

"I've got to get out of here..." she whispered in shock.

She deactivated the artifact and slipped it into a pouch on her belt that seemed too small to contain it.

The next few weeks were ones of preparation for Chrysolite. Collecting her teacher's records and storing them in data crystals and destroying any evidence of her making copies.

Then one day, she made a world-shattering discovery...

15 Nephrium YE 2035:

The Stars do not lie... I have had a vision of the future and it rests on my newest daughter's shoulders... I have found my pupil...

General Nephrite was her father...

It shouldn't really hurt a youma to know their father was dead.. but it certainly did hurt Chrysolite. She hung her head low and growled in rage, thinking dark thoughts about Zoicite...

She suddenly felt sharp pains in her hands...

She'd cut her hands with her fingernails...

She watched in detached fascination as she felt energy flow to the wounds and heal the damage...

Oh well.. Zoicite was already dead, no need to cry over spilt milk as the humans said..

The rage left unreleased seeped into her soul.

Trenchcoat Mask ran down the tunnel, doing his dead-level-damndest to avoid getting pulled to pieces by the pack of youma hot on his heels. He dove through the portal, escaping a grisly fate.

He didn't notice a shadow detach itself from the tunnel wall and follow him out.

The youma hounding him barged through the portal, spoiling for a fight with the trenchcoat-clad warrior who'd hidden in their midst.

The shadow crept along the ground following Trenchcoat Mask closely. The shadow knew Trenchcoat Mask didn't have a chance of spotting it...

After the warrior ditched his pursuers he left very quickly. Chrysolite deactivated her Cloak and shimmered back into visibility.

She teleported to Nephrite's mansion as quickly as she could.

Chrysolite frowned and brushed a rather elaborate spider web out of the way. She began a search of the house, to insure no vagrants had taken up residence in her absence.

Chrysolite smiled faintly. By human law this place was hers, as her father's only truly recognized child she inherited all his property. She didn't want her father's volcanic holdings in the Dark Kingdom, so she'd have to settle for his holdings on Earth...

"Reactivate systems, authorization: Lieutenant Chrysolite.. code: Southern Cross..."

The mansion came to life around her. Maintenance, environmental, sensory... Nephrite's greatest achievement on Earth, his base of operations, was alive again!

Kunzite glared angrily at what his spy-eye crystals were telling him. Someone that was difficult to detect with sensory magic had just reactivated Nephrite's mansion...

Difficult to detect? Chrysolite.. that traitorous little bitch...

Prince Endymion snickered from across the room. "What's wrong, Kunzite? Can't handle one, little traitor?"

"A traitor with little in the way of offensive power.. but a talent for Cloaking that would no doubt confound Metallia herself for a time..."

"Cloaking?"

"A form of invisibility... It's a sophisticated energy field that essentially renders the wielder invisible to psychic senses and difficult to spot with the eye. It can't effect a camera because the field essentially clouds the minds of everyone trying to see her. Of course if she's using a glamor *underneath*... Damnitall.. I should've had her thrown into the Wastes the instant I heard about her..."

"I sucks to be living in the Dark Ages, doesn't it?" the corrupted prince snarked. "If a little security camera's all it takes to spot her..."

Kunzite glared at his rival. "I do have ways of tracking her down.. they'll just take a little time..."

Prince Endymion laughed cruelly and left Kunzite to his plans. "What a fool..." Endymion muttered under his breath.

Kunzite frowned severely. "I'll have to do something to show Beryl I'm not being negligent, but practical..." He grinned evilly. "Morvax!" he shouted.

Soon, a youma wrapped entirely in black robes flowed through the door.

"Go to Earth and track down this traitor," he formed an illusion of Chrysolite in his right hand. "I want her dust in an urn on my desk in a fortnight!"

"Yessss, General Kunzzzite..." the shrouded youma replied. It moved out the door and towards a nearby portal generator.

"Fight fire with fire, I always say..." Kunzite remarked absently.

Chrysolite checked herself out in a mirror. "I make a pretty human.. but the hair and eyes need work..." she remarked.

Chrys was wearing a pair of her father's pants and button-up shirts. He was a bit broader through the shoulders and she was somewhat flat for a woman so the shirt was a bit baggy on her. It actually looked pretty good on her.

She thought about it for a moment and changed her violet hair to brown and her garnet eyes blue.

Her similarity to Nephrite was almost frightening.

No, someone might recognize her like that...

She changed her eye color to green and her hair to red.

That was *much* better...

She blew her reflection a kiss, winked slyly and

Cloaked.

A shadow drifted down the street, moving into an alley next to a new bookstore.

Chrystine Phobos, owner/operator of the Silkworm Book Shoppe, stepped out of the alley and went up to the door. She unlocked it and went inside.

"Father's money came in useful for something after all.. I refuse to be idle!" she swore to no-one in particular.

Morvax looked down at the bookshop, a grin splitting his unseen face. "Perfect..." he whispered. Maybe Kunzite wouldn't have him executed for being two weeks late if he brought the traitor in alive, for his own tormenting enjoyment. The youma pulled away his robe, turning into a blurry ripple in the air.

Chrys heard the bell ring on her front door and looked up from a copy of a 'Nova War' manga. There was no-one there...

Waidaminute...

A blurry *something* was crouched in the shadows near the door.

She Cloaked, just in time to avoid being sliced by an energy beam from the youma sent to get her.

Chrys' shadow moved across the wall, bumping into a trash can and overturning it.

Morvax opened fire again.

Chrys dropped her Cloak and gathered the concentration for a spell. "I summon forth the power of the Dog Star. Sirius Laser!"

A beam of red-hot plasma shot out of her hand and punching straight through the assassin. He became visible briefly before crumbling. Vaguely reptilian, backward-canted legs and a big, fangy maw. Typical youma...

Chrys frowned at Kunzite's stupidity. "Okay, so I'm not very good at using my innate attacking powers, but he should be able to figure out that some glorified chameleon isn't going to be enough to take me down... Maybe he's going senile in his old age.. that *would* explain some of his ideas on how to kill the Senshi..." She shrugged and went into the back to get a broom and dustpan. "My magic's a whole helluva lot better than he ever would give me credit for..."

Amazing.. such tremendous psychic potential.. and all the tactical skills of a chainsaw...

Chrys packed the last of her purchases into a box and staggered out of the trade show. Magic Knight Rayearth season 1 on LD... The kids were gonna eat this one up...

Youma Aronath scrabbled low along the ground, following his traitorous target. Scrabbling along the ground came naturally to him.. he *was* a scorpion from the waist down after all.. Chrysolite looked around cautiously and stepped into a hedge.

Aronath followed, and fell twenty feet straight down into a cavern.

A cavern he got lost in instantly.

Chrys sighed melodramatically. She loved Iczelion.. but it really stank that there weren't going to be any more made...

There was simply no justice in the world.

She turned off the VCR and headed into the deeper recesses of 'The Warrens,' towards the central chamber.

It was time for her daily mediation exercises.

"So, what's the fuel economy?" Chrys asked.

"Awful.. but that's typical of old, American cars.." the proud owner of the 1969 Z-28 in question answered.

Chrys nodded and sipped absently at a soda she'd gotten from a nearby machine. "How much did you pay in restoration?" she asked as she got a little closer.. and out of Aronath's hearing...

Aronath was *not* happy.. he'd spent a *week* blundering around in those damned caverns...

Chrys frowned internally.. there was something odd going on...

She extended her weak psionic talents as far as they could go.. yes.. there was someone out there... hostile...

"Pardon me.. but I need to be moving along..."

Chrys said kindly.

She knew the guy was staring at her as she left.. a pity he wasn't her type...

Aronath scrabbled after her.. and found himself falling towards the ground, very quickly.

Chrys managed to land on a solid surface.. namely a girder.

Aronath landed on the ground below.

Damn.. I was aiming for the ground... Chrys fired a plasma bolt at a bundle of steel overhead and dropped it on the youma below, crushing the life out of him and sending dust everywhere.

Chrys panted for a moment.. partly from the strain of using that much power at once.. and also due to the shock of Kunzite actually attempting to kill her again. You'd think he'd have given up by now..

True to the law of anime company stupidity.. Iczelion remained unfinished. Not that Chrys wasn't in a bad mood or anything.. she had other things to celebrate about.

Chrys grinned broadly and held up a mug of hot chocolate. "Here's to the Dark Kingdom, may it rest in pieces!" she toasted. Admitted, she was probably not a normal youma for thinking these things. Why had she decided to leave the Kingdom rather than try and prevent its destruction? Why had she set up a perfectly straight forward business rather than sit back and feed off the local human population?

It simply wasn't typical youma behavior...

Chrys snickered. There was a term for youma with an attitude like her's.. Renegade... "That's what happens when you spend your formative years with your nose buried in star charts... You don't have the spare time to define yourself," she commented dryly.

The Star Wheel levitated from its stand on the coffee table and started glowing.

"You trying to tell me something?" she asked the artifact.

Her eyes glowed blue again.

She didn't *see* anything this time, but she could *feel* *something* shifting. Almost like a slumbering giant turning in its sleep...

The sphere ceased glowing and sank back down onto its stand...

"What are you trying to tell me?" she wondered.

The stars knew everything, but sometimes they refused to tell even those who had devoted their lives to understanding their messages... Chrys finished her hot chocolate, picked up the sphere and went below.

"The stars know everything..." she intoned, throwing the sphere into the center of the room.

The most accurate model of the local group in existence formed around her.

Nephrite's voice seemed to echo in her mind as she searched for the big picture.

"The Star Wheel is the key to your own, innate ability to sense the future. This innate ability, along with a gift for magic, is a requirement for being an astrologer even approaching my ability."

Chrys sighed, she couldn't sense anything, her mind was too clouded with extraneous thought tonight...

Let the future wait for now. Now was a time better suited for one helluva party, she was rid of Beryl and her goon-squad forever!

Her reverie was short lived... Several moments later her throat closed up and she lapsed into a fit of coughing.

A funny taste in the mouth?

YUCK!

Wonderful... Something else to worry about.. a chocolate allergy...

A war...

Soul Brother fighting Soul Sister... Fighting among those never meant to fight...

Chrys snapped awake with a jerk.

That dream had the feeling of prophecy...

Chrys relaxed in her seat and watched the game begin. Admitted, humans *did* know how to have an athletic competition.. The odds of hitting a ball thrown at high speeds with a bat in the game of baseball were astronomical. It was a testament to the ability of the athletes.

What didn't sit right with her was a faint buzzing she felt in the back of her mind. What the devil was going on? Moments after the buzzing began, the temperature in the stadium started to drop.. and drop quickly.

Camera lenses shattered.

The throng dropped unconscious from the cold.

Chrys jumped to her feet and teleported into a restroom she'd spotted on her way in. She could feel the weather dropping at a ridiculous rate, in clear violation of meteorology. Chrys shifted her glamor to a Predator Cloak-like invisibility and headed back towards the field, where an active snowstorm raged.

The youma could feel the life energy swirling around her and out onto the field.. Something was leaching the energy from the fans! Uh uh, not when she was trying to enjoy a game god-damn-it! She noticed the pitcher laying unconscious on the ground next to the mound.. and a very large polar bear in a baseball uniform standing on the mound, drawing the stolen energy into itself.

"HEY YOU, TALL WHITE AND UGLY!!" The polar bear whirled around with surprising agility. "COME PICK ON SOMEBODY THAT CAN FIGHT BACK!!!" She fired a warning shot of energy from her still-blurred hand at the creature and then hopped back. The polar bear bellowed in pain and bull rushed the blurry thing that'd dared to injure it. It rushed off the field and into the halls, chasing its tormenter, who'd begun to laugh like a lunatic. "Polaris Centric Cannon!" Chrys called out, dropping the illusion and tossing a Zodiac spell at her victim. The polar bear bellowed and flashed out of existence, leaving a metallic card behind that landed corner-first in the ground.

Chrys quickly returned to the stands to see what had happened. The people were beginning to recover, and the snow had vanished. As to the excuse people used, she didn't care...

A teleport later she was back in one of the rooms beneath Nephrite's base.. watching an NHK documentary on the shrines in Kyoto.

It was yet another fine, Spring morning at Chrys' bookstore. The cherry blossoms were out, the birds were chirping, young lovers were acting like, well, young lovers...

Chrys gazed out the window by the front desk and sighed contentedly. It was days like this one that truly let her enjoy life...

Not that the local singles population wasn't a good reason to be looking outside. That one's cute.. tall, long brown hair.. well built.. and her friend isn't bad looking either...

Makoto felt someone staring at her, she turned around and looked the shopkeeper square it the eyes.

The store owner flushed and went back to reading.

"What's wrong, Mako-chan?" Minako asked.

"That woman was *staring* at me..." she muttered nervously.

"So?" the blond girl asked.

"I mean.. *staring* at me.. like she was mentally undressing me or something!"

Minako shrugged, "Take it as a complement."

Makoto sighed and slouched over a little. Good grief, I must look like some sort of butch freak..

I'll have to redo my wardrobe...

Chrys felt her heart break at the look of dejection on the girl's face. Oh no, now what have I let myself do?! She sprang up from her seat, closed the shop for lunch and followed the girls, Cloaked.

Makoto and Minako ordered hamburgers and sat down at a table as far from everyone else as they could manage.

"Mako-chan?" Minako asked, waving a hand in front of her friend's face. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine..." the taller girl murmured half-heartedly.

"No you're not... I haven't seen you this bad in ages."

"It's just.. It's just.. I m-must look like a *guy* if that woman was staring at me like that!" she bawled, slumping down onto the table and hiding her head in her folded arms.

Chrys sighed from nearby, still concealed by her Cloak. I didn't want this to happen... She deactivated her Cloaking power and made her way over to their table.

Makoto made a muffled choking sound from within her arms.

Minako tried her best to console her friend, but it wasn't working very well. "Mako-chan..." she muttered softly, most definitely worried.

"I didn't want to hurt your feelings," Chrys whispered behind her. "I'll leave.. I-I.." her expression was a study in desperate energy.

"KEEP YOUR WANDERING EYES TO YOURSELF!" Makoto snarled, moving like a blur and planting a firm punch on Chrys' nose.

Chrys staggered back, a look of shock on her face. A wet tickle at her nose? She held her hand up to her nose and came back with blood on it. She'd gotten a nosebleed from the girl's punch! If any of the blood got away from her it would revert to its natural green color!

Makoto realized she'd gone *way* overboard when the woman who'd been looking at her earlier rushed away like a frightened child.

She'd never forget the look of abject pain on that woman's face as long as she lived...

Chrys waited in her shop's washroom for her regeneration to repair the sleight damage to her nose.

Then she let herself break down.

When Makoto tried to find the shopkeeper later that afternoon, all she found was a store without a manager. The shop was open, but there wasn't a clerk in sight...

The woman's pained expression appeared in her head again, making her feel rotten all over again. "I-I'm sorry..." she whispered.

If anyone heard her, they didn't give any indication.

Life stank.

That was a good way to sum it all up.

Chrys sat behind her desk, glaring at the book in front of her, almost as if she were trying to burn a hole in it with her stare alone.

A young girl came rushing in. "Hello! Do you have the 'Sailor V' manga compilation?"

Chrys grinned, "But of course.. and if you like Sailor V you might want to check out Magic Knight Rayearth compilation next to it.. admitted the story isn't as cheery, but it's got a bit more weight to it." She pointed to isle three.

"Okay!" the girl bubbled. A few minutes later she came back with enough manga, anime tapes and posters to break the average person's budget for a month. "I've wanted these back issues for *so* long, how in the world did you hang onto them?"

"I guessed that kids might really go for them, so I bought a double order and kept the second batch in storage..."

"How'd you know what to buy extra for?"

Chrys grinned broadly. "Know thine product, saleswoman!" she said dramatically, "If I didn't know which ones were good I'd *never* get ahead, it's dull sitting here all day waiting for customers. Maybe it helps that I never *really* grew up..." Not to mention reading about some of these made up tactics of 'Dark Lord Calcite' is a full on riot.. I wonder what Calcite would do if he had ever seen them?

Probably vivisect the artist...

The girl paid the bill without flinching and smiled sweetly. "I'll be back soon! By the way, my name's Titania Hobbes, but *everyone* calls me Ti..."

"Mine's Chrystine Phobos.. but everyone calls me Chrys. That's Chrystine with a 'Y' by the way..."

"Nice to meetcha, Chrys, I think this is gonna be the beginning of a wonderful friendship!"

Chrys smiled and waved as the girl left. "There's something about that girl.. but I can't put my finger on it..." she muttered after the door closed. Who cares? That kid made my day!

Over the next several months Chrys' store made a modest profit. Considering the material holdings Nephrite had developed in the human world, she really didn't need the money. She had enough wealth lurking around in various accounts to last her a *very* long time. More likely than not more than she could spend in a lifetime.

One morning, as she wandered down the steps from her house to the street below she bumped into a woman passing out flyers for a new restaurant in town. "Four Winds... Oh well, nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?" she remarked to herself.

She headed off to work, something nagging her in the back of her mind.

Cooan snickered softly and vanished in a flash of light. Another victim for the Black Moon Family was on the way...

Chrys picked up a fork and nudged at her meal. It had a fascinating resemblance to Mealworm balls, but did it *taste* like it? Oh well, here goes nothing... She took a bite and grinned. "parallel evolution.. ya gotta love it..." she whispered. Swedish meatballs? An odd name.. did they use real Swedes? Probably not.. the last time she'd checked, most humans weren't into cannibalism...

Urk...

Tastes great going down but by Metallia's stinking breath they didn't do nice things to the youma stomach...

"I gotta go, sorrie..." she groaned. She payed her bill, walked outside and teleported the instant the coast was clear.

Cooan stared at the departing victim in shock. "She was supposed to pass out, not get sick!" she exclaimed. She pulled out her compact and started talking to it. "Rubeus, what's with this sleeping formula Wiseman gave you? A customer just wandered out of here with what looked like the mother of all sore stomachs! Even worse," she dropped volume to a hiss, "she didn't look even a *little* bit sleepy..."

All the other customers left soon after Chrys left, without even touching their food. If *one* person got sick.. did *they* want to risk it?

Rubeus frowned and scratched behind his ear, lost in thought. "That formula should've knocked out a human... Maybe *you* botched the dosage!!!"

Cooan growled angrily, sounding a lot like the cat she resembled. "I didn't botch the dosage!"

Beruche snickered in the background. "How typical, you can't do *anything* that requires prior thought..."

"YOU STAY OUT OF THIS, BERUCHE!!!!" Cooan roared.

The time travelers chalked the incident up as one of the universe's little mysteries that would drive anyone mad who ever tried to figure it out...

After all, the formula was a poison to Nemezites that acted like a time-delay acid on stomach lining. But the formula was a powerful sleeping potion to humans...

She *couldn't* have been from Nemesis...

Chrys spent the next six hours with occasional stomach cramps. She also tended to cough up blood. Wonderful, something in that meal had managed to eat away at her stomach lining... Now for her favorite game.. how long until your healing factor repairs the damage? There were some days she just couldn't win...

By the morning her stomach lining had regenerated, but she was still in rotten shape.

"Warn me next time, okay?" she asked the silent orb resting on a stand on her coffee table.

The Star Wheel, as usual, didn't react at all.

"One of these days I'm going to have to finish my training..." she remarked dully. She slowly got up and went to the kitchen to get a glass of water. Healed stomach or not, she had one helluva case of heart burn...

She didn't bat an eye as she downed an entire bottle of antacid tablets.

Chrys purposely walked by the restaurant the next day at lunchtime.. it was closed... How very odd...

The hairs at the back of her neck stood up.

Someone was watching her...

She looked around and activated her Cloaking ability at its weakest levels. Nobody here worth looking at.. Just go on about your business... and if you're scrying me, good bloody luck finding me...

Rubeus shook his head as his vision blurred for a moment.. the woman that had reacted so oddly to Wiseman's sleeping potion wasn't in the scrying mirror.. why was it tuned to that portion of Tokyo? Baah.. nothing worked right in this blasted ship anymore...

Chrys' shadow flowed along the ground later that night, finally rising up in an alley next to Four Winds and filling out as Chrysolite. Chrys was dressed in a black, button down shirt and black pants. Over that she wore a long black cloak with a hood that she had pulled up over her head. To conceal her identity she wore a glamor that made her skin an unnatural pale color, her eyes solid black and her hair as black as her eyes. Just in case, she wore a garnet-colored sash over her mouth and nose.

Hey, if the image worked for the Shadow...

Chrys looked around, swinging a black crystal this way and that. She was getting some very odd readings...

Space/time itself has been altered here.. and there's a higher level of mana background radiation here too...

How very odd...

A power surge?

Chrys ducked under a blast of blue-hued fire launched from Cooan's palm.

"I don't know how you got here, but you're going down, Twilight!" the cat-haired woman raged.

Twilight? Has she mistaken me for someone else? Well, the name sounded neat... "Are you truly stupid or merely woefully misinformed?" she taunted. She formed a beam saber out of hardened plasma and held it at the ready. She grinned inwardly.. it had actually *worked*!

Cooan arched an eyebrow in apparent confusion.

"Isn't that supposed to be black?"

Huh? Oh well, time to take the initiative.

The sword became a whip, and Twilight turned it loose on the woman who'd passed her the flyer earlier and just tried to give her a pyrotechnic haircut.

Cooan ducked out of the way and filled the air with dark fire.

When the flames cleared away, Twilight was gone.

"Got `er!" she boasted.

An eery, almost demented laughter filled the alley. "the dark soul stands out sharply in the dark of night!" Twilight purred.

Cooan got very nervous...

She suddenly staggered back as an inhumanly powerful backhand slammed into her jaw, almost sending her to the ground. The Nemezite howled in frustration and turned loose with dark fire in every direction.

"Go ahead, let it all hang out.. i'm over here!"

A tin can fell off a trash can and got slagged.

"No, over here..."

An innocent cat yowled in shock as its lair got torched.

"I'm all around you.. inside your head.. inside your soul.. you're very thoughts lie open to me..." the woman's voice continued.

Cooan vanished.

Chrysolite reappeared, snickering. "That was the most fun I've ever had with my clothes on..." she remarked absently as she formed a teleport target in her mind and vanished.

Cooan screamed, her fear pulling her out of a terrible nightmare. "She's just as bad as she is back home..." she moaned. Those solid black eyes, piercing into her soul.. everywhere.. all around her.. peering *inside* her mind like a demonic lab technician...

How could you fight a force of nature?!? But what was she doing in Japan? That black-clad demon had been making the lives miserable of their forces *halfway* around the world! All those horrible stories about the unstoppable creature born of humanity's refusal to surrender... Wiseman knew what he was talking about.. she was a horrible monster!!!

Chrysolite pulled the sash away from her face and tossed into onto the bed. She reversed her glamor, returning her features to their normal colors... "There's something to this.. but I think I'm gonna have to keep a *very* low profile. If the Senshi see me I'd probably get dusted..."

An urban legend was born, infinitely less visible than the Senshi or DKR ever were. Many people reported a sinister-looking, but somehow noble being saving them from robberies.. assaults.. getting run over by cars and so on. No one could ever get a conversation with the being, no one could get a picture of it. Eventually they dismissed the wraith-like person as the creation of desperate minds.

It certainly was *big*...

The car show that is...

Chrys had to admit, even the most pathetic car freak had a pretty good sense of ascetics..

It took her about ten minutes to realize there was a section of the car show that people weren't coming back from... She frowned deeply and headed in that general direction, hidden by her Cloaking ability.

A rather well-endowed red-haired woman with a large pair of swords was watching the area like a hawk. A large, anthropomorphic Volkswagen Beatle was behind her and to the right.

Okay.. Let the games begin... Chrys allowed her shadow to become visible and carefully strolled up to the woman. "Pardon me, have you ever danced with the Devil in the pale moonlight?" Chrys asked flippantly. She promptly cold-cocked the woman, leaving the Beatle-From-Hell to deal with... Oh Joy. Chrys created a shell of hardened energy around her body and rushed full-tilt at the creature. The vehicle staggered back and roared. A moment later she created an energy sword and sliced the monster neatly in half.

It was then a simple matter to teleport out of the way as the monster went into its 'death throes.' A true pity the woman of the hour got away though...

Chrys sat behind the counter at Silkworm, reading a finger position chart carefully.

Okay, bellows under the left arm...

Air bag under the right arm...

Fingers in place...

Away we go...

The sound of a tormented creature blared through the store.

Ti turned very pale and rushed out of the manga section. "Chrys!!!" She looked around frantically, that had sounded like a wounded graxat...

The clerk blushed furiously and put the Irish bagpipes down on the counter. "Sorrie... I guess I need to practice this thing a bit in private before I try to play them in public..."

"Bagpipes?!?"

"The Irish version of them sounds quite different from the Scottish version... The Irish didn't use them in warfare."

"Oh.. I guess that *can* make a difference..."

"Yeah, this version has a much deeper sound that isn't as painful to the ear... Maybe when I've practiced on them a bit more I won't sound like a wounded beast..."

Wounded beast? Ti looked at the clerk closely... How had she drawn the same conclusion? There was something decidedly rotten in Denmark...

Ti never got a chance to find out what seemed so odd about Silkworm's owner.. a week later she went to Earth-Beta.

Chrys had often wondered what happened to her favorite customer... She hadn't seen Ti in a very long time. Sailor Polaris had gone missing too.. what if? Naah...

A car promptly flew through the window.

Chrys ducked behind her desk and Cloaked. She reached out with her mind and practiced a few skills she'd been developing recently.

Six minds.. and something *alien*...

She glanced out the window.

The Senshi were brawling with a weird looking creature that was an odd void in her mind's eye...

Soulless...

What was the old youma'shak word for a being without a soul?

Lemures...

She rushed into her store room and pulled a garment bag out of a large shipping box marked "Chrys' Handz Off!" Several well-read Urushihara manga came out with the bag.

Chrys sighed and put things in order a best she could, while trying to change clothes...

"Moon Gorgeous Meditation" Sailor Moon shouted.

The blast of energy lanced out, streaking right at the lemures.

It dodged.

"No way..." Sailor Moon mumbled, "How can anything that *big* move *that* fast!?!"

A red rose streaked out of the blue and bounced off the lemures' tough skin. Tuxedo Mask's eyebrows shot up from behind his mask. Oh, a tough guy huh?

He held out both his hands. Heh, I haven't had a chance to use this in a while...

"Tuxedo La Smoking Bomber!" he shouted. An energy blast shot out of his hands and tagged the critter in the back of the head. The beam rebounded like it had hit a mirror and streamed off into the sky. "It's.. it's as tough as as.. AMERICAN CAFETERIA FOOD!" he shouted in shock.

The DAKAbeast roared, pounding on its leathery chest like a scaled-down King Kong.

A woman's eery chuckle floated through the air.

"Let the games begin..." she purred.

An energy whip lashed out of no-where and snagged the monster by the leg. Whatever hand was on the other end of the whip yanked, sending the monster to the ground.

A moment later a shadowy blur flickered into existence on the monster's back, using an energy sword to scratch the monster's thick hide. "Try blasting it now, Sailor Moon..." the woman's voice remarked idly. She finished it off with that creepy laugh, fading into the distance.

Sailor Moon shuddered at the sound of the laugh, but recovered and fired another blast at the monster. It skidded across the street, blasting apart in a spectacular flash of light...

"What? I didn't know it was already Chinese New Year..." Twilight remarked, unseen, from a rooftop.

"Luna, can you remember anyone like that from the Silver Millennium?" Usagi asked her cat worriedly.

Luna looked as puzzled as a cat can and finally shook her head. "No, that.. shadow.. of a person doesn't fit the description of anyone *I* can remember..."

Usagi sat down on her bed and crossed her legs. She shuddered violently at the memory of that laugh... Where had she heard something similar before?

The Princess buried deep in her psyche had the answer...

Her mouth unconsciously formed the name 'Nephrite' without actually saying it out loud.

Luna looked at her charge closely. Was it just her imagination or had she looked like her old self for a moment. Nephrite?!? "Serenity?" she whispered.

"Guardian Nephrite laughed like that..." Serenity said through Usagi's lips, "Before Beryl got to him.. he sounded like that when he was forcing himself to laugh..."

Luna arched an eyebrow. How a cat could pull something like that off was anyone's guess. "Nephrite?"

Usagi came to her senses. "NEPHRITE!?!

WHERE!?!"

Luna sweat-dropped and hung her head. "One step forward, two steps back..." she muttered.

Chrys pulled off her black shirt and replaced it with her typical, pale purple one. That fight had gone very well.

Her self-imposed training back at the mansion had paid off. Her energy sword had more cutting power than ever and her energy whip hadn't started to deform when she'd yanked back on it.

Things were starting to look up.

The damage to the outside wall was superficial,

the car had merely gone halfway through her front window. She had bank accounts the size of small defense budgets so that sort of thing was a veritable drop-in-the-bucket.

Ami double checked her computer's readings. Sure enough.. She activated her communicator and paged Rei. "Rei, I think I've got some information on our mystery woman."

"Oh really?" the priestess asked absently.

"I couldn't get any readings of her physical structure.. but I got a sensor suite full of her aura and energy saber... Her aura's a natural psychic cloaking device. Anything mana-powered, including the human mind, can't see through it at all..."

Rei said something very unbecoming a Shinto priestess.

"The sword and whip she used are real eye openers though. Solidified plasma energy."

"Why'd her energy sword get through the monster's hide when Tuxedo Mask's best shot couldn't!?"

Ami sighed. "Rei, how dangerous would your Fire Soul attack be if you took all that power and concentrated it into a confined space?"

"Eep!"

Chrys glumly stared out the window of her shop.

You could watch the whole world crawl by through a store window...

A blond girl with the weirdest hairdo wandered in, bought a copy of Nakayoshi and left.

Chrys eyed the girl as she went out. There was a very odd aura around her...

Her storefront ceased to exist as a bishounen in a bubbly, blue leotard crashed through and ran to the back of the store. He proceeded to blast a hole in the *back* of the store too, escaping into an alley.

"WHY DO I GET ALL THE WEIRDOS!!!" Chrys raged. That *had* to be a bishounen.. her instincts were howling for blood... Preferably Zoicite's brown blood, but any destructive, preternatural bishounen's would do at this point...

Moments later she'd pulled a black jacket over her shirt and zipped it up. Followed by a sash and cloak. She was already wearing black pants and shoes.

Twilight rushed after him, hell-bent of causing gross bodily harm.

Fisheye peeked around the corner. Looks like I made a few mistakes while making my get-away... He studied the rapidly fading woman in the alley.

Oh well, a target's a target. "One, Two, Three..." he murmured.

Twilight snarled in rage as she found herself hanging in mid-air, shackled by spectral chains.

Fisheye slunk up to her and put his face into her dream mirror.

Chrys suddenly felt like she was going to throw up.. someone was looking into her very *soul*.. the ultimate violation...

Fisheye suddenly backed up, a look of horror on his face. *He* looked like *he* was a few moments from retching himself...

Something vicious in Chrysolite's soul woke up.

Her eyes glowed a bright blue as she let out a bestial snarl.

The manacles twisted as strength beyond anything human yanked at them. An instant later, Twilight was crouched on the ground like a cat waiting to pounce.

Fisheye turned even paler than usual. He took off like a bat.

The berserk youma howled like an angered beast and tore off after him, lobbing needles of hardened energy after him in a blizzard of sharp, prickly death.

"A-a DEMON!" the bishounen exclaimed as he executed a forward flip and teleported away.

The warrior skidded to a halt and seemed to growl to herself as she tried to trace the teleport... Where wasss hisss mind? Yesss....

The humanic youma vanished.

Hawkseye looked at his fellow member of the Amazones Trio and arched an eyebrow. "What's with you? You look like someone's told you your death date and it was tomorrow."

"I-i think I just read a demon's dream mirror..." the bishounen wailed, looking for a place to hide.

Cold laughter, not forced, almost demonic, erupted all around the Trio.

All three got a severe case of the creeps and teleported away.

Twilight dropped her Cloak and looked around, searching for Fisheye's mind.

With a grunt, she vanished again.

Hawkseye slapped his associate on the back of the head. "YOU IDIOT! THE ONE TIME YOU BREAK YOUR FORMULA YOU SCREW UP LIKE THIS!!!!"

Fisheye did his best to hide without cover.

Tigerseye laughed coldly but didn't comment,

Hawkseye was doing a fine job of brow-beating the bishounen.

Twilight appeared with a snarl and summoned an energy saber, sharper and more vicious looking than she'd ever managed while in full control of her actions.

Hawkseye got Fisheye's attention and gestured at the searching youma. "we'll gang up on her... with a little help from a lemures..." he muttered.

The other two members of the Trio nod.

A hulking creature that looked like Swamp Thing shambled up with them.

"ATTACK!" they commanded.

With inhuman speed, the plant creature charged the youma.

"Pathetic..." Twilight muttered. She slashed at the monster with a feral snarl escaping from her lips.

The monster dropped to the ground... and reformed into two, smaller versions of itself.

The youma growled, her eyes flaring a brighter shade of blue.

She gestured, creating a plain of energy. With a downward sweep, she smashed both creatures like weeds.

She relaxed the energy's containment field and let the raw power fry the soulless being to ash.

The Trio took a quick step back.

"Now, while she's distracted!" Tigerseye commanded.

Fisheye seemed to blur as he reached the gloating youma, caught her in an armlock, and lobbed her to his comrade-in-arms.

Hawkseye pulled back his fist and slammed it into the woman's face. "Green blood? What kinda freak are you?" he wondered.

Twilight's eyes blazed even brighter.

Tigerseye put her lights out with a vicious

double-fisted chop to the back of her head.

The youma hit the ground with a dull thud.

Fisheye giggled and pulled her up into his arms.

"I say we put her down permanently..." he suggested.

Minako, who'd seen the whole fight ducked back around the corner and signaled the other Senshi. "Venus Star Power... MAKE-UP!"

Minako Aino became Sailor Venus in a swirl of golden light.

The Trio started pounding on the now-unconscious woman even more.

"Venus Love-Me Chain!" Venus called out, swinging her famous golden chain of psychoplasm at the closest member of the Trio.

Hawkseye found himself on the ground, hog-tied by Venus' special attack. "WHA!?!" he shouted.

The other two in the Amazones Trio whirled around to face Venus.. just as the other Senshi arrived.

While Sailor Moon and her entourage introduced themselves, Twilight regained consciousness, and her rational mind.

What the hell happened to me? She coughed up a mouthful of green blood. Not good.. lungs feel raw.. A pained, wheezing breath... She pulled back her stained sash and spat out another mouthful...

Punctured lungs... Damn.. they broke my ribs...

She drew in as much mana as she could withstand to accelerate her healing and stood up on shaky legs.

"Forgetting me?" she muttered, still wheezing.

The Amazones Trio... She'd had a rather unpleasant vision about these guys and their goals...

"How can you still be standing?!? No human can withstand that!!!"

Twilight laughed weakly, but it was genuine amusement. "Exactly..."

No wheezing... the extra energy she'd pulled in had finished bioregenerating her much-abused lungs... She'd have to have her ears repierced though, her healing factor had finally healed them out...

"Trust or dare time, boys! I am Twilight, last warrior of Arcadia-In-Exile, and you are DEAD MEAT!" She tossed her cloak at Tigerseye, altering its flight with a few well-placed nudges with hardened energy, and tangling him up like a caterpillar in a cocoon.

The youma laughed coldly. "Well then, Sailors, shall we fight together or against one another? I can assure you I had nothing to do with Beryl..."

"How can we be sure of that!?" Mars shouted over the frustrated shouts of the Trio. Hawkseye desperately trying to wriggle out of Venus' chains and Fisheye was trying to pull Twilight's cloak off of Tigerseye.

"Only the stars are sure, nothing else is certain!" she shouted back.

"STARS!?!" the Senshi all shouted at once.

Nephrite was the unspoken word on all their minds...

The Trio broke loose.

"I guess we'll have to sort it all out after this fight!" Jupiter shouted. She lobbed a Sparkling Wide Pressure at Hawkseye.

The high-haired member of the Trio dodged.

Twilight tried to create a sword... It flickered briefly and sputtered out. "My mana reserves are dry!" she exclaimed.

Total war fell on the area.

Energy attacks flying everywhere, Senshi, Trio and near-exhausted youma dodging, brawling and in general ruining property values.

Twilight collapsed against a wall, her glamor flickering out. I've gotta get *some* power back... She gathered up the last of her strength and rounded the corner.

FISHEYE!!!

"GOTCHA!" the pretty-boy howled, grabbing her by the arm and slamming her into the side of condemned building.

Chrysolite slumped to the ground. As Fisheye gloated, she pulled herself up onto one knee and threw the last power she had in reserve at him as razor-sharp needles.

Fisheye ducked just in time to avoid a nasty scar.

The limit had been reached. There was nothing left...

Everything went black.

"SPARKLING WIDE PRESSURE!" Jupiter called out, forcing Hawkseye to retreat. "Anybody seen Fisheye or Tigerseye?" she asked the others through her communicator.

"Nope..." Sailor Moon replied, "but I found a great deal on a pair of pink flats..."

Chibi-Moon groaned in frustration in the background. How could this twit possibly become her mother in the future? Oh well.. a thousand years can work miracles...

"No luck..." Venus responded.

"SHINE AQUA ILLUSION!" Mercury howled, sending

Tigerseye packing. "Err.. what were you saying, Jupiter?"

A building in the distance shuddered.

The Senshi arrived just in time for the final act.

Fisheye sent the black-clad woman through the building's wall and inside it. The bishounen laughed evilly and vanished.

The building shook violently and collapsed.

The Senshi gasped in shock and turned away.

"She's... gone..." Jupiter muttered in shock.

"I bet she was a Renegade.. she certainly seemed to want to help us." Venus said sadly.

"I guess we'll never know for sure..." Sailor Moon whispered.

Chibi-Moon smiled sadly, but there was something secretive about that smile...

Void.. gray mists...

Where was she?

"You are in Helcion, the Kingdom of Dreams..." a soft voice whispered.

"Who are you?"

"I am the king of this realm... You may call me Helios."

"At very least show yourself..."

The fog broke.

Chrys looked around at the sunlit paradise around her. "It's beautiful..."

A pegasus with a golden horn walked over a hill.

"Here I am!" he called out.

"You're Helios?"

"Yes... And I'm grateful to the Senshi right now..."

"Why?"

"That gray void was Dreamlessness. While I was captured all those in the Kingdom were lost in it."

"But it was only an instant or two of gray mists..."

"Time passes even more differently in Dreamlessness than it does in the Dream.. you spent six months in it..."

"Six months... Am I dead?" Chrys was worried now...

Helios laughed kindly as he changed into a young man in regal-looking, white robes. "Of course not.. though you were so badly injured you slipped into a coma... Considering your actions to help the Senshi, please stay a while..."

Chrys pondered the idea for a moment... "Only for a little while..."

Helios smiled and clapped his hands. "Wonderful! It's so nice to have visitors... Maybe while you're here I can help you get that awful dream of yours made a bit more peaceful..."

"Huh?"

Helios smiled kindly. "I cannot bear to see someone haunted by a nightmare.. please, allow me to try and heal you..."

"Why should I?"

"I lost my father too.. it's what drove me into this realm in the first place..."

Chrys winced at the reference to her father's murder.

Helios smiled as he looked over the balcony from his chambers.

He was familiar with Chrysolite... Though she rarely knew how much she helped, many people in Tokyo found it comforting to know that someone was out there in the shadows of the night, ensuring their safety...

Chrysolite was finally beginning to relax a bit...

The youma was floating in the middle of a beyond-olympic-sized swimming pool and sipping on the youma equivalent of a martini. To anyone without her preternatural constitution in would probably be lethal.

To Chrys it was very tempting to just stay here... Helios had said that her physical body had gone into hibernation and had generated some sort of energy shell to protect itself from harm...

Her peace was shattered when a seifuku-clad rear-end landed on her chest. Sinking them both.

Not that she was protesting, mind you, but having a girl land in your lap out of nowhere can be a bit of a shock..

Chrys clambered to the side of the pool gasping for air.

The plummeting girl in the sailor skirt clambered out of the pool on the other side.

"JUPITER!?!" Chrys shouted. "What are you doing in Helcion?"

"Twilight? Is that you?" Sailor Jupiter asked in shock.

"The last time I checked.. yeah..." Chrysolite replied. Apparently Jupiter could only see her as she last remembered her, meaning she was probably seeing a purple haired woman in a black uniform...

Helios walked out of a side door with a parasol-laden fruit drink. "Hello, Jupiter, wanna drink?"

"No, I want back!"

Helios shrugged. "The only way you can get back is if your body can wake back up in the physical realm..."

"That's why I'm here... My body took a massive pounding and still hasn't healed. Considering where it probably is there's no way I'll be coming back any time soon..." Chrys grumbled.

"How long could it take?" Jupiter asked, conceding to sit down on a deck chair.

"Who knows? My body could spend centuries living off pure mana energy before it can heal properly... I won't be in good shape physically for a while after that but I think I'll manage..."

Jupiter shuddered at the thought of spending centuries trapped between life and death in Helios' Dream Kingdom.

Helios, in the meantime, had somehow changed into a pair of Speedos and was lounging by the pool side, sipping on a drink that was definitely more paper umbrellas than actual drink. "You know... Not even *I* know everything about this realm... it makes me wonder what sort of link exists between you two to cause her to come here to your dream instead of her own..." he remarked absently.

Chrys flushed slightly... "Err..."

Jupiter arched an eyebrow. "What's with this defensive stuff all of a sudden?"

Chrys chuckled nervously. "Heh, would you believe I had a crush on a girl that looked a lot like you once?"

Jupiter sweat-dropped, twitched nervously and fell into the pool.

Helios chuckled. "I do see some of the most interesting dreams sometimes..." he remarked absently.

Jupiter clambered back out of the water. "Are you trying to give me a heart attack!?!" she roared.

They suddenly both made a mental connection...

Jupiter's violent reaction...

Twilight's nervous reaction...

Chrys got a familiar deer-in-a-headlight look and vanished.

"Oh God.. She was the book seller..."

Helios nodded.

"Where did she go?"

Helios sighed and stood back up, his robes reappearing around him. He pointed to a bank of clouds on the horizon. "Chrysolite, the daughter of Nephrite, has a shadowed soul. The rage caused by the loss of her father has long made her fearful of other people. Fearful of rejection. She has fallen into a deeper, darker part of her dream... Though I have done my best to heal her soul.. I doubt she will ever completely loose the storm, in her heart."

Jupiter looked at the churning, black clouds on the horizon and shivered. "It's my fault..." she muttered. "can you do anything?"

Helios shook his head sadly. "Not even I would want to face the unleashed wrath of a youma's deepest nightmares and instincts..."

Jupiter sighed rather heavily and looked back into the storm... Was it getting closer? "I don't have any choice..."

Jupiter wandered through the hellish terrain of the darker parts of Chrysolite's dream. She nearly got fried when a bolt of red lightning shot down out of the sky and blasted the ground mere meters away into sand.

"Abandon hope, all ye who enter here!" Twilight roared from high above her.

Jupiter looked up and nearly fainted. It was.. and somehow was not.. Chrysolite/Twilight.. This woman seemed a lot nastier than the Twilight she knew... A white, blank theater mask framed by a black hooded cloak. Her body was concealed by the billowing cloak. She pointed a chalk white finger at Jupiter and laughed.

"This is my turf, get lost!!!" the creature roared.

"You had better listen.. not even i can face her right now ..." a small, weak voice said from behind the Senshi. Jupiter whirled to face a transparent woman in a long, flowing gown of imperial yellow. Chrys' normally unruly, violet hair was combed out and straight, coming down to the middle of her back. A thin braid came down from each temple and in front of each ear. "she's more powerful than you can possibly imagine.." the apparition said sadly.

"GET LOST!" the dark side of Chrys' personality roared, flinging a storm of lethal energy needles at Jupiter.

"Petal Hurricane..." Jupiter said absently, sending a toned-down version of her Oak Evolution attack the youma. A flurry of rose petals intercepted the needles and continued on the slam into Twilight, sending the creature reeling.

The youma growled like an enraged beast and rushed at the young woman.

"Error..." Chrys' good half said. "You reminded her of Zoicite.. she's still more than a little sore at Father's death..."

Twilight created a sphere of 100% pure annihilating energy and tossed it at the Jovian Senshi.

"I know you can't help it.." Jupiter said sadly, as she dodged. "If I take her out, I hurt you too, don't I?" she asked the spirit. Chrys nodded sadly. "I won't try to dust her then..." A green, glowing Jupiter symbol appeared in her palm. "Jupiter..." the Senshi began. The creature reversed and started running away. "Oak..." A storm of leaves began to swirl around her. "EVOLUTION!" Twilight got caught up in gale-force winds and leaves, and was flung far across the nightmarish dreamscape. She slammed into a rock wall and vanished in a swirl of black, greasy smoke.

The ghostly version of Chrys smiled slightly and got up from the rock. "A little rest is a good thing..." she said kindly. She bowed to the Senshi and faded away.

Jupiter woke up with a bellow, the ice around her shattering in all directions. The dream she'd had already fading from her mind.

The centuries passed, and Crystal Tokyo's diamond spires rose high into the sky, a beacon of the new, magical world that had dawned with NeoQueen Serenity's counterstrike.

Makoto Kino stood up from the flower bed and wiped the back of her gloved hand across her forehead. What would the troops think? The Supreme Commander of Crystal Tokyo's defense forces tending flowers in her spare time?

She snickered at the thought. They knew, and they also knew she couldn't help it.. born to the planet that not only symbolized lightning, but also plants.

A bell chimed nearby. damn...

Makoto's work clothes shimmered, replaced by her

SuperSailor Jupiter uniform.

back to work...

Paperwork. No one really appreciates the amount of paperwork a paperless society can generate... Especially in a bureaucracy like the military...

Jupiter went over the last report and sighed rather heavily.

She knew hell would come knocking on Earth's door soon enough.. this was no time to get bored... She stood back up and looked out the window of her office.

A pair of cherry trees grew in the garden below... She'd put them there.. made them grow together with her powers... Who was it that kept edging into her mind... Why did she feel she'd forgotten something important?

Sure, False Association Syndrome could get at the worst of immortals, but if there was one thing she never forgot it was a lover's face...

Her curse...

Her communicator chose that moment to start beeping.

"Jupiter..."

It was Mars...

"An archaeology team working in what used to be the Shinjuku district's found something weird... Though Serenity herself isn't coming down, she wants us to see what's going on..."

"I'll be there in a minute..." Jupiter replied. There was no need to hurry, if Serenity had wanted her there she would've contacted her directly. That probably meant Serenity already knew what was going on...

How she'd gone from being the Ultimate Dunderhead to the Supreme Architect of a rebuilding civilization was anyone's guess...

Sailor Jupiter stepped out of her office at the palace, took a left turn and vanished, replaced by Makoto Kino in an outfit that had gone out of style about six months earlier.

Pyrite glanced around nervously. He was taking a big risk setting foot outside to palace... Thankfully, he was in disguise.

"Well, 'Dr. Sung,' what do you make of the sphere?" Calcite asked of his cousin.

Pyrite, who *was* using a glamor to look like Dr. Nunian Sung, took a look at the sphere with his own enhanced senses, frowned, checked his instruments and scratched his head. "fascinating..." he mumbled.

Azurite, who was posing as an archaeologist from Tokyo University, shook her head. "He's Trekking out again..." she muttered.

The Senshi arrived a few minutes later, marked by the suspicious absence of both Venus and Polaris.

Makoto took a suspicious look at the black sphere nestled into the excavation site like an egg in a nest. "What is that thing?"

"I'll tell you when I find a scanner setting that actually penetrates the surface..." 'Dr. Sung' muttered darkly. He was beginning to get a little impatient. He'd been out of the palace for an hour now, the odds of someone with True Sight spotting him went up by the minute!

Mars got a wicked gleam in her eye. "I say we blast it open..."

"And detonate the bomb that might be inside?" Makoto asked, her clothes shifting like liquid into her Senshi uniform. "Not tactically wise," Jupiter warned.

Dr. Mizuno peered over Pyrite's shoulder. "Have you tried boosting the gain to this?"

"Yes... It's like the sphere's absorbing the signal... Solid, matte black, perfectly smooth, totally non-reflective..."

"You're treating this as if it were made of true matter... What if it's some sort of hardened energy?"

Pyrite chuckled. "the forest for the trees..." he muttered. He adjusted a few settings on his tricorder and aimed it at the sphere again. "High mana readings... *Very* high mana readings..." he fiddled with the settings again. "This thing might've ben absorbing some of the background mana radiation around here... If I remember Lazu's report she had the University dig here to find out what was causing a mana drain and why..."

Calcite arched an eyebrow in a fine imitation of Spock. "How *is* Lazurite these days?"

Pyrite pondered his bizarre second cousin while he got more data from the readings on the sphere. "Still preaching pop magical theory with the eccentric streak I've ever seen..." he sighed, "She *is* an excellent teacher in my place at the University, however."

As if speaking her name would summon her, a youma/human hybrid stepped around a corner and waltzed right past the guards. "Howdy, Uncle Calcite!" she shouted, slapping her uncle soundly on the back.

"Cough! Hello, Lazu..." he managed to get out.

Lazurite grinned and tossed an errant strand of purplish-blue hair away from her face. "So, how's 'Bob' doing?"

"'Bob'?" The Senshi and Renegades asked at the same time.

"The sphere..." she replied.

They all looked at her like she'd sprouted horns.

"Well.. I had to call it *something*... I couldn't just go around calling it 'That Energy-Leeching Sphere In the Park' all the time..."

"But.. why Bob?" Mars asked, totally bewildered.

Lazu shrugged. "Why not?" she stated simply.

For the first time in seven hundred years Mars sweat-dropped. There was someone in this universe even *more* irritating and incomprehensible than Usagi Tsukino!!!

Lazu grinned at Mars' reaction and scampered over to the side of the excavation. "Cuz... It there supposed to be a funny glow coming from this thing?"

"Er.. no.." Pyrite reactivated his tricorder and made a sensor sweep. "It's leaking maNA EVERYBODY GET DOWN!!!" he roared.

The sphere cracked open and a massive amount of mana arced through the air, into the Crystal Points and back into the mana pool beneath the city.

"Make it with the ceasing of pain.. the hoiting the hoiting now with the ending make..." Azurite moaned.

"Headache.. Intense.. Must find.. Aspirin..."

Pyrite shatnered.

Calcite shook his head violently and got back to his feet.

The Senshi, being natural conduits of a greater level of power than that didn't even feel a tickle.

Lazurite, her tunic and pants smouldering, fell backwards. Her hair was standing straight up like the Bride of Frankenstein's and her face was covered in soot. "aisu kurimaa..." she mumbled.

Across the city, Titanite shifted slightly in her sleep, mumbled something about feeling the earth move, and snuggled up a little closer to Topass.

Minako glanced out of the window of her and Calcite's apartments at the palace just in time to see the light show. "I have a vaguely bad feeling about this..." she muttered.

An emaciated body clothed in the tatters of a black uniform fell out of the rapidly collapsing sphere and hit the ground.

The body rolled over onto its back and took a deep breath for the first time in nearly a thousand years...

"Free..." Chrysolite rasped as true unconsciousness claimed her.

Chrys stood in the center of a vast desert, the sky above filled with angry, purple clouds.

She looked down and realized she was dressed in a black uniform like Luke Skywalker's in "The Return of the Jedi"... Oh well, even if the *had* liked "The Empire Strikes Back" better, the uniform *was* cool-looking...

"Welcome back to Helcion!" Helios shouted as he landed and turned back into his human self.

Dressed like Ben Kenobi? He was certainly in a good mood...

"What am I doing back here?" she asked.

"Judging from the time you spent here, I'd guess you'll be able to step into my world whenever you fall asleep..." he said after thinking for a moment.

"Won-der-ful... I just spent nearly a thousand trying to get *out*..."

"It's called irony, Chrysolite, the universe thrives on it..."

The youma sat down on a large rock and sighed. She perked up a bit after a moment. "You still got any of those bloodwine martinis?" she asked.

"But of course..." he replied genially. He held out an arm, which she took, and the two old friends stepped across the dreamscape.

Chrysolite awoke to The Mother of All Headaches...

Maybe the tenth one was a bad idea.. no.. that was a dream...

She slowly raised a hand before her eyes.

Gaunt, pale under the natural tan... Sickly.

She was awake!

"Good morning!" a green-haired girl in a blue dress said cheerfully from her bedside.

A blond-haired man in a white suit and yellow shirt nodded to her from a chair near the door.

"My name's Titanite, but everybody around here calls me Ti..."

"My name's Chrysolite, but everybody's always called me Chrys..."

They made the connection.

"You were that manga otaku!"

"You were my favorite book seller!"

The grinned the same grin and laughed the same laugh.

They stopped at the same time and looked at each other closely.

"I can guess by your power signature that your father was a General which one was it?" they said in sentai-like precision.

"Nephrite..." they said, again at the same time.

"BIG SISTER!" Ti howled, grabbing Chrys in a big hug.

"Mrmph!" was all Chrys could get out...

Ti relaxed her grip and gestured for the man by the door to come over. "This is Topass.. Topass.. this is my long-lost sister..." she wiped a tear of joy from her eye and beamed. "Chrys, this is Topass my..."

"Lover?" she asked idly.

Ti flushed bright blue.

"Congratulations..." she said with a grin. She suddenly seemed to wilt.. her strength fleeing.

Ti smiled slightly, rose unsteadily to her feet and walked out. Topass glanced back into the room for a moment, as if looking for something. He nodded and followed Ti out.

"Helios, I'm going to go nuts..." Chrys grumbled.

"Oh really?" the king of dreams asked, "Why?"

"My body's worn out... I've got all the stamina of an infant!"

Helios looked thoughtful for a moment. "It could be worse..."

"How?"

"You could *be* an infant... I seem to remember a highly intelligent toddler coming through here every now an then... He called himself.. Ferrite I believe. This was his check-in station with the Next Life before he went back to the physical realm to be reincarnated..."

Chrys frowned. "I seem to remember some scuttlebutt around the palace about a man named Ferrite... He isn't on very good terms with anyone in the Court right now..." She thought back to some reading her niece had given her... "I read a collection of his memories recently, mostly concerning the Silver Millennium..."

"Yes... I picked up a copy the last time I was in the physical realm.. it makes for excellent light reading..."

"It's hard to believe that Nephrite and the other Generals were once the Guardians... The General Nephrite I remember was a far cry from the Guardian Nephrite that Guardian Ferrite remembers...."

"Tragedy is another constant of life..."

Chrys stood up shakily and walked over to a closet at the far end of the room. She pulled a black dress shirt and pants off hangers and tossed them onto her bed.

She paused for a moment to catch her breath.

Damn, this was *hard*...

She wasn't as gaunt as she'd once been, Ti's showing up every few hours with actual Dark Kingdom food saw to that, but she still felt very shaky and very weak.

She got dressed slowly, pulled on a pair of black, shin-high leather boots and made her way to the door.

Ti opened the door with her usual, slightly absent-minded abandon and walked right in. It took her a moment to realize Chrys wasn't in bed anymore.

"I'm going out..." Chrys said confidently.

"At least get someone to guide you. This place is like a maze," Ti said worriedly.

The door opened and Lazu poked her head inside. "Did somebody say they needed a guide?" she asked, her patented SEG plastered all over her face.

"How does she do that?"

"Don't ask me... She's had that knack from the time she could walk..."

"And this is the palace garden..." Lazu tour-guided, gesturing out of a window.

"Is that Sailor Jupiter out there tending flowers?" Chrys asked.

Lazu hid a giggle behind her hand. "It's a hobby of hers. All the Senshi live up to various aspects of their planets. Jupiter not only represents thunder and lightning, but also plants."

Chrys shifted uneasily. Part of her still resented getting pounded on by Jupiter in Helcion. Another part wanted to jump Jupiter right there and show her what a woman could do... All in all, her mind was in a bit of a whirl. "Hrmm..." Chrys muttered. She sat down on the windowsill and waited for her strength to recover a bit.

"You don't look very happy..." the hybrid remarked.

"It's this place... I'm used to the bustle of street-side markets and the occasional wide-open space... I wish I could leave here and go out to see the world..."

"Why? What's wrong with a city as beautiful as Crystal Tokyo?"

"Safe, unchanging.. and smothering to death in security..." Chrys muttered, vaguely remembering a similar line from the Weis and Hickman "Darksword" stories... "This city grates on me... The blank, blissed-out faces unnerve me... I feel like I'm trapped here..."

Lazu sighed, her aunt was enough to make anyone feel depressed.

Days passed, Chrys' supernatural metabolism and daily exercise slowly got her into a good enough condition to get around without problems. What truly annoyed her was that she'd lost the Star Wheel during her fight with the Trio and didn't have the skills to build a new one. Without it to use as a mental focus she wouldn't be able to use her precognisiant powers as effectively...

Damnation...

Then one day she got a very odd note in a spidery sort of handwriting... "'Come to the corner of 35th and 10th, at 9PM, tonight...' How very odd..." she muttered.

Chrys stood outside of a small restaurant named 'Renegades Haven.' Everything was dark inside... Curiouser and curiouser...

She rested her hand on the door handle and opened her senses as much as she could. Six minds.. humanoid.. not hostile, but.. excited?

Chrys grinned slowly and pushed open the door.

"SURPRISE!!!" Lazu, the Renegades and Topass called out.

Chrys grinned more broadly as she stepped inside. "You certainly know how to make a girl welcome..." she said cheerfully. She settled down in the midst of her fellow youma (and a hybrid and a youma's SO) and proceeded to stuff her face.

After a meal that probably would've sent the average human running for the bathroom the Renegades took the opportunity to catch up on what was going on with their lives.

Chrys gave them the run down on her life in Tokyo up to the fight with the Trio, leaving out her lingering feelings for Makoto.

The other Renegades told her about their lives in Crystal Tokyo and gave her the run down on a few of their children living in and around the city. They very carefully edited any comments about the future from the conversation.

Lazu gave her standard 'State of the University' address and attacked a third helping of dessert.

Topass talked a little about his homeworld, causing more than a few startled exclamations from around the table.

"The more you talk about Nemesis, the more it sounds like some parts of the Dark Kingdom..." Chrys remarked.

Topass shrugged.

Chrys was beginning to go slowly mad. She paced back and forth in the remaining caverns where Nephrite's mansion had once stood.

The smell of ozone filled her nostrils.

Ozone?

Sailor Jupiter appeared in a flash of thunder and lightning.. She had to wait a moment to recover from the teleport before she could explain herself. Urgh.. now I remember why I don't use that trick very often... Her brain tried very hard to flop over in her skull...

"That looks like it hurts..." Chrys remarked.

"Why do you come here? The only way in is teleportation and you no doubt know how tough it is on non-sorcerer Senshi like me to teleport..."

Chrys gestured to the back-lit stained glass windows and rune-covered floor. "This is all that's left of my father... He was more like teacher and superior officer to me.. but he was my father too.. It feels like I'm home when I come here," she muttered distantly, avoiding eye contact.

Jupiter snorted.

Chrys' demeanor suddenly changed. "So," she asked amiably, "what brings you down to The Warrens?"

Jupiter was surprised. What could cause her to change in attitude so quickly?

Chrys tried very hard not to gawk at the seifuku wearing warrior like some sort of lech... It wasn't exactly easy...

"NeoQueen Serenity wants to see you.. soon..."

Chrys' nodded. "I think I'll be able to find something to wear..." she remarked. "Wait a minute or two and I'll carry you back to the palace."

Jupiter nodded and leaned against a wall to finish catching her breath.

Chrys headed to the section of the caves that served as her home. She opened a closet and pulled out a garment bag.

Jupiter was about to see what was taking Chrysolite so long when she stepped back into the main hall dressed in her old Dark Kingdom uniform.

"Sorry, it got wrinkled," she explained.

"Alright, shall we be going?" Jupiter asked.

Chrys nodded and suddenly wrapped her arms around the Senshi.

"What are you doing?" she asked idly. Why did this feel familiar?

"I have problems teleporting with others sometimes.. the closer you are the easier it is for me to teleport with you."

"Err..."

"Trust me, I know what I'm doing..." she murmured. She smiled slightly, stood on tip-toes and rested her chin on Jupiter's shoulder.

"You're enjoying this position aren't you?"

Jupiter asked testily.

Chrys just chuckled and teleported.

Jupiter and Chrys appeared in a secluded portion of the palace garden. Chrys still had her arms wrapped around Jupiter's waist.

"You can let go now..." Jupiter muttered crossly. Chrys sighed deeply, intentionally breathing into the Senshi's ear and let go. "If I didn't know better I'd think you were trying to hit on me..."

"Moi? You wound me..." Chrys said with a 'hurt puppy' tone in her voice. She turned around quickly and headed towards the palace's central spire.

Jupiter frowned and tried to place Chrys' personality quirks. There was something very familiar about her.. something that went a lot deeper than anyone else she could bring to mind immediately.

DAMN FAS TO THE DEEPEST CIRCLE OF HELL!!!

"So, Chrysolite, how do you like Crystal Tokyo so far?" NeoQueen Serenity asked of the unaffiliated youma. Chrys, while she knew she wasn't out to get her, was a wild card. Who knew how a random factor like her could behave in the upcoming conflict?

"I'll be blunt because I have an inherent indifference to authority.. it's what made the General keep me away from Beryl in the first place. This town reminds me of a sealed vault." There were several choked exclamations from the Royal Guard behind her. "To be even blunter, this place rubs me the wrong way entirely."

Serenity actually frowned. She was intentionally trying to see how pissed off she could make her!

Serenity suddenly smiled slightly. "Well, at least I know where you stand." She stood up and motioned for the shorter woman to follow her.

Chrys followed Serenity and suddenly found herself in the palace gardens again. She hadn't even felt the teleport coming!

"Many have warned me that creating a utopia here was a dreadful mistake... The world outside was pure chaos at the time and I needed an island of.. serenity.. in which to try and restore order..."

"Methinks ye war a bit hasty thayre milady..." Chrys remarked with a *thick* Irish accent. She continued her normal, lightly accented voice. "Your Highness, I've seen the world some believe to be an ideal one... Helcion... The land of dreams isn't ideal either. There nightmares that people's minds have hidden away for millennia.. nightmares that would strip your soul bare."

Serenity shuddered, almost imperceptibly.

"You cannot create paradise. No-one can create paradise. It simply isn't possible."

"I'm beginning to realize that now..." she said distantly.

What was she thinking about that made her look so sad?

Serenity suddenly rested a hand on Chrys' shoulder. "Look into my eyes," she said in a voice that demanded obedience.

Chrys looked up and lost herself in Serenity's..

Presence.

The Renegade drew back, gasping at the sudden, throbbing headache that had formed in her head. "Wha?"

"I gave you your wish... You can now leave Crystal Tokyo without dying from mana withdrawal."

Chrys nodded to the monarch. "Your Worship, you've just done something that has set you on the path to earning my respect." Chrys bowed slightly and teleported away.

"It's best a war dog like her be outside of the city when it all comes crashing down... She wouldn't fit into the command structure very well at all..."

Chrys placed the finishing touches on her packing. Admitted, she traveled light, that might have something to do with her near-cousin's variable wardrobe invention.

She swung the dufflebag over one shoulder and formed a teleport target in her mind. She vanished an instant later.

Makoto Kino was hard at work at her favorite hobby, living up to the plant aspect of her planet...

A shishidodshi clacked against a rock below as it got weighed down by the water pouring into it.

Clack...

A teleport?

Makoto glanced up to see Chrysolite shift her hair and eye colors to something more human-like, though her hair was, as always, a few shades too red...

Clack.

"You're leaving, aren't you?" the Senshi asked.

Clack.

"Yes... Serenity gave me the ability..."

Please, tell me to stay!

Clack.

"You're just traipsing off, no regrets?" Why do

I feel sad?

Clack.

Chrys sighed faintly.

Clack.

"Are you coming back?"

Clack.

"Someday..." She's not going to say it...

Clack.

Chrys vanished in a faint surge of mana energy.

Clack.

Makoto stared at the space Chrys had occupied for several minutes, the bamboo lever still clacking away behind her. She stood up and walked slowly back into the palace. What was this feeling of loss she felt?

"Oh my life.. is changin' e-v'ry-day in e-v'ry pos-sible wa-ay..." Chrys sang to herself as she strode down a street in Los Angeles several days later. It was wonderful to be out of Crystal Tokyo at long last. That city had given her a severe case of the creeps...

Huh?

A small mob of men and women charged by, all intent on an objective.. what objective was debatable.

She set her bag down next to a tree and sat down in the shade. She pulled an apple out of her bag, polished it on her shirt sleeve and proceeded to eat.

She recalled the line from the encyclopedia...

"The Californian American Federation was founded in 2675 as a union of the former United States, states of California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, New Mexico and the then-defunct country of Mexico...

"A Concil is elected in a popular vote every five years and each Concil can serve an unlimited number of terms...

What the encyclopedias didn't tell you was that the CAF was an electoral mess because they used the Greek form of Democracy...

Every few weeks there was a major state holiday where everyone over the age of 21 took the day off and voted on various issues... In the case of a possible war, an emergency vote could be called.

Drawback: Take out the comm-lines and the CAF would collapse in a matter of hours...

She closed her eyes and took a nap.

"You know, there *are* vagrancy laws..." a man pointed out, waking Chrys out of a sound sleep.

"Bwa?"

The man probably stood just under six feet tall and was of about average weight.. Piercing green eyes and black hair... His hair was somewhat odd to look at, as it tried to be both slicked back and parted on the left at the same time...

He also looked like he was in his mid twenties.. but who knew for sure? UCLA was famous for having the #2 College of Thaumaturgy in the world. He could very well be a professor since mana slowed ageing.

"I'm not a vagrant, I'm just taking a nap..." she replied in English, sporting a very faint Irish accent.

"The last time I checked, students were the only people allowed to sleep on campus.. and even then they're usually in class at the time..."

"Maybe I'll register.. it's the right time of year..."

The man chuckled faintly. "Registering so you can sleep under a tree.. now I've heard everything..." He shook his head and walked away.

A young man rushed up to him as he walked away.

"Yes?"

"Professor, Isaac Bauer's gotten himself locked in the lab again.. I think he's summoned an elemental by accident..."

Professor David Stuart, DTS, sighed as if he carried the world on his shoulders. He muttered something in Sanscrit under his breath and pulled both his TA and himself across a bend in the fabric of reality itself.

Chrys' eyebrows vanished behind her eternally messed up hair. "That was *not* a teleport.. that looked more like a.. to sound like Ti.. 'Space Fold'..."

Dr. Stuart looked at the innocuous door with a calm expression. Never mind that it sounded like the opposing forces of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' were catching up for lost time on the other side of the door. He reached into one of his jacket's many pockets and pulled out a black crystal as long as his hand was wide. He pressed it against the door and muttered the syllable 'Shu' under his breath. The crystal chimed and stuck to the door as if it had been glued.

"I suggest you back up, Juan..." he advised.

The TA backed up, very quickly.

The professor allowed a hand to stray to his belt, where it rested on a medallion attached to it. An aura of white, protective energy flared to life around him with a mental command.

"DEMOLITION!!!" he roared.

The crystal chimed again.

Every window in the building blew out, littering the campus with shards of plexiglass and filling the air with thick, brown smoke within several feet of the building.

Dr. Stuart brushed an imaginary speck of dust off his arm and entered the lab. Isaac Bauer, one of his students, was still RLAMFing from a very angry air elemental... "That explains the shrieking.. well, besides Isaac's..." he remarked. He pulled a pur-bu dagger out of another pocket and searched his memory for the spell he'd need to send the elemental back...

The elemental noticed him.

This was a Bad Thing...

Dr. Stuart shifted mental gears and stowed his dagger back into a pocket. This was going to take a more offensive approach...

The elemental picked up a broken, granite table top and tossed it with gale force winds.

Dr. Stuart ducked to avoid the stone and shouted a single angry word.

A sphere of fire shot from his outstretched hand and detonated with fury in the midst of the airy creature.

The elemental howled in pain as its molecules sped up from the heat energy... Almost to fast for its spirit to hold together...

Bingo...

"Spirit of air.. return from whence you came!"

Dr. Stuart shouted as he pulled a packet of diamond dust put of a pocket, opened it, and tossed the contents into the elemental's body.

The elemental suddenly lost all control over its gathered substance and slipped, much to its relief, back to its home dimension.

"Isaac.. what were you doing?"

"Err..." Isaac stammered. "I-I... I was working on a private project..."

"What kind of project?"

Isaac gestured to a pair of bracers resting on an intact workbench. "I wanted to test how much force they could resist.. I botched the summoning and called an air elemental instead of an earth elemental... That's why I lost control..."

"What are they supposed to do?"

"Well.. I got some information from a guy who called himself The Golden Fool on the 'Net and I wanted to.. test out his theories...."

"You took untested information and tried to apply it? What kind of idiot are you?!?!"

"Err..."

"GET OUT AND STAY OUT, IT'S GONNA TAKE A MIRACLE FOR YOU TO PASS MY CLASS NOW!!!" Dr. Stuart roared. Damnit, this was one of the dumbest things he'd ever seen!!! That idiot deserved getting his ass kicked clear back to Salem!!!!

Isaac grabbed his creations and took off running...

Dr. Stuart pulled in some of the background mana radiation and used it to enhance his strength... He shoved another heavy slab of what had once been a tabletop and made an interesting discovery.. Isaac's notes...

He activated the computer tablet and started reading, moving closer to a window so as to see better.

His eyebrows rose slightly.

These were some of the most well-planned notes he'd ever seen! Definitely not Isaac's work...

The Golden Fool?

David laughed out loud... Fool's Gold..

Pyrite...

What *was* his old teacher up to nowadays?

Psychoplasm? No.. more than that...

Nemezite Droid Research...

Pyrite was coaching Isaac through the creation of a Droid operated by a living pilot...

Dr. Stuart had seen CNN reports concerning Droids.. he'd theorized a lot... He'd been right about some things, wrong about some others... All in all, this was the Ultimate Guide to Droid Creation..

He tucked it into a dimensional pocket and stepped across a wrinkle in space/time...

Dr. Stuart typed out a message and sent it to his old teacher at tribble@crystal.tokyo.gov...

Pyrite-sensei,

I know you're up to something that concerns droids, why recruit Isaac? He's a jar-head with so little regard for procedure it's terrifying!

David.

It got bounced back... No such address...

Damn...

Dr. Stuart pulled back from his desk and pondered the situation for a moment. Why was Pyrite's address no longer valid? He'd heard rumors that he'd been injured in an accident and couldn't go out in public but...

Why was his account no longer valid?

He tried several of Pyrite's other accounts and came up completely empty...

Wait a minute...

goldenboy@renegade.tokyo.net

David,

I have my reasons...

Do not respond...

Pyrite.

David got a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach...

One day, Dr. Stuart slipped into one of his lower classes, the one Juan usually taught, and sat down in the back. With his aura masked and his mana-induced, youthful appearance he looked just like a student.

The woman he'd seen sleeping under a tree a few months earlier showed considerable talent.. almost more talent than anyone had any right to have...

There were times he felt almost.. outdated...

After class, he approached Juan. "Chrys Phobos?"

"A prodigy..." the TA replied. "She's got a real head for magisci.. almost as good as that rough-shod maniac Isaac..."

Dr. Stuart frowned at the mention of the risk-taking magisci student. "I'm worried.. my old teacher has contacted him..."

"Why should that worry you?"

"My old teacher refuses to tell me *why* he's contacted him..."

"Wasn't your old teacher one of Crystal Tokyo's immortals?"

Dr. Stuart nodded.

"Why do I have a bad feeling about this?" Juan remarked as he packed up his books.

Chrysolite was irritated, and it wasn't the first time she'd been annoyed by this discrepancy either. While the other Renegades had undergone a slow metamorphosis into more powerful beings, of greater strength and mystic power, she'd only gained a boost in her innate powers.

The door to her apartment was jammed and she couldn't get it open, no matter how hard she pulled.

Oh well, it kept her humble. She couldn't lob a ton like her relatives back in Crystal Tokyo, but she could do a few things they couldn't... She backed up and gave the door a standing wheel kick, jarring it loose. So what if she didn't have their vast physical power? *They* didn't have her combat style...

Chrys chuckled and went inside. A moment later she returned with a toolbox and gave the door a through once over. The humidity had caused the wood to swell.. She pulled out a spray can and coated the edge of the door with some sort of petroleum-smelling chemical.

"A little WD-40 can work miracles.." she remarked absently as she closed the door behind her.

Chrys glanced at her coffee table, where the ruined remains of the Star Wheel lay.

A hollow obsidian sphere, split neatly in half..

A network of beautiful crystals inside.. A geode...

Ruined.

The Renegade frowned and headed for the kitchen, hunger suddenly taking the foremost position in her priorities.

"PAY UP BY THE END OF THE WEEK OR YER OUT ON YER ASS!" the landlord raged.

Chrys winced, nodded, and hung up the vidphone. She needed some money or she'd be kicked out of her apartment in seven days! Is this what she left Crystal Tokyo for? Greedy landlords and whacked out students? Oh well, anything was better than that overdone utopia... And the apartment was better than her old dorm room...

Her watch suddenly started beeping. Why'd she set her watch alarm? The conference with Dr. Stuart.. she'd completely forgotten about it!!! She formed a teleport target in her mind and vanished.

Dr. Stuart looked up from an essay he was grading and frowned deeply. Someone had just monkeyed around with Space-Time. It wasn't a folding like the spell he used.. in fact.. this didn't feel like a spell at all. A person was somewhere nearby that hadn't been there a moment before...

Several minutes later, Chrys Phobos rushed in.

Dr. Stuart chalked up yet another odd occurrence associated with the eventual appearance of the Irish woman with an odd last name...

"You are five minutes late..."

Chrys looked very frustrated. "I'm sorry,

Professor.. I got caught in a flood of students..."

Dr. Stuart spotted a faint eyebrow twitch. She's lying... "So, there was a reason you requested this meeting?"

"Err.. yes.. I'm broke and I was wondering if you knew anyone in the Fault Regulation Project..." Damn.. I wish the General's accounts hadn't been lost during the Great Darkness...

Veery intareshting... I'll play along... "Why the Fault Regulation Project?"

Chrys shrugged. "I have high mana reserves.. it must take some potentially powerful magic users to keep the San Andreas from leveling the city."

"What about skill?" the Doctor asked.

Chrys grinned. "I'm a quick study.. I've puzzled out more about magisci than Juan Fitzpatrick's ever known."

That tears it.. she's much more powerful than she lets on...

Dr. Stuart mentally drew a single rune and scanned Chrys' aura.

Normal? No way..

He added more power to the scan.

Dr. Stuart had to fight very hard to conceal his surprise. It was hard to see through the interference she created.. but she was *powerful*. More powerful than he was.. and that was saying a whole helluva lot...

"I'll see what I can do..." he replied. And I'll tell them to keep an eye on her too, she's got high mana reserves alright.. and the training to conceal it very well.

Chrys grinned thanked him and left.

Dr. Stuart rested his elbows on the desk and rested his forehead against his hands. Who was Chrystine Phobos?

He began a mental word association.. Chrystine-Christine-Chris-Chrys Phobos-Light..

Light?

Lite

Chrysolite.

He pulled up a list of semi-precious and precious stones, a hunch forming.

Chrysolite...

He checked her citizenship.

Japanese.. though she spoke English with a very faint Irish accent...

He remembered Pyrite's cousin.. a rather taciturn man named Calcite. A man who still spoke with a British accent, more obvious than Chrys' Irish one.

More likely than not.. she was a member of the Crystal Tokyo hierarchy in one way or another.. there were more people named after gemstones in high places than he really wanted to think about.

He made a call to his friend in charge of the

FRP.

A blood curdling scream echoed in the night.

A dark figure at a rooftop frowned deeply and jumped into the alley below.

A man wearing a black ski mask gestured at a woman with a knife, his intentions fairly easy to figure out.

A hand reached out of the shadows and grabbed him around the throat. The man began to choke as the hand began squeezing.

"Repent," a woman growled.

The would-be rapist wet himself.

The woman chuckled darkly and tossed him across the ally like a rag doll. With a soft, metallic clank she stepped out of the shadows.

The girl ran screaming, history books had taught her to fear someone dressed like that!

The man was too dazed to run. He just sat there in pain, watching the woman come closer and closer. A woman dressed in Roman-style armor, but with a tiara made of steel instead of a helmet, and no leather armor anywhere. A black 'skirt' of some sort of material stronger than any normal cloth and metal greaves and armguards, and such ornate armguards at that. Each had a complicated pattern on it, wrapping around the arm and drawing the eye to the backs of the palms. The palmback of each armguard had an hourglass on it...

"If I ever catch you out doing this again.. you will face the wrath of the Steel Senshi..." she snarled.

The man turned as white as a sheet, finally making the connection.

The alien senshi laughed coldly and vanished like a bad dream.

The metal-clad senshi snuck into a second story window in a big, old, Victorian-style home. She looked around carefully and crossed her forearms over her chest.

The armor vanished, revealing the normal senshi uniform of white and grey beneath.

A moment later the senshi uniform was replaced by a black T-shirt and jeans.

The door to the rest of the house softly latched.

The woman stuck her head out the door, her pink, braided hair showing up easily in the dim hall.

A little patch of pink, about three feet off the ground.. and a shadow beneath it.

"Laura Carter, you come back here this instant!" the woman said in a voice that demanded obedience.

"Yes, Mommy..." the little girl muttered. She hung her head and turned back to face her mother.

Rene Carter reached down and aimed her daughter's eyes into her own. "It's past your bedtime.. go to bed."

"Yes, Mommy..."

Months passed.

"Proof positive that those Global Warming twits back in the 20th had their heads in the sand..." Chrys muttered. She smiled broadly and tried to catch a snowflake in her hands.

Isaac and Rene looked at each other and shrugged. Chrys had always been a little weird...

"So, Isaac, how's that project of your's coming along?" Rene asked idly.

"So far, so good... I think it'll be finished before the end of the year..."

"T-minus two weeks and counting..." Rene warned.

The friends tried in vain to not snicker when

Chrys slipped on a patch of ice and landed on her rear.

"I'm going to be throwing a big New Year's party.. you two coming?" Isaac asked as Chrys staggered to her feet.

"Sure..." Chrys and Rene replied.

"I'd gonna have to get a baby sitter for Laura though..." Rene realized. "Sorry, I can't come."

"Oh well.. I'll save some of my mother's wonderful fruitcake for you..." Isaac jabbed.

Rene and Chrys winced.

"Okay, okay.. I'll just use it as raw material again to patch up my walls after the party's over..."

Chrys sat back and regarded the party with idle amusement. As usual, she'd drunk as much booze as anyone else, but she was still stone cold sober. She snickered as Isaac did an impersonation of the current Consul of the coffee table and fell off, onto the couch.

How so very typical...

She sighed heavily and left the party, decidedly *not* in the mood for partying. She walked down 'Victorian Row,' a street filled with restored, early 20th century-style homes, most rented out to students. She passed Rene's house and stopped to look into the lighted window. Mother and Daughter were having a quiet New Year's celebration all to themselves. That's what she envied about humans.. their families were so much more tightly knit than youma ones...

"Let all acquaintance be forgot.." Chrys said softly, a sad smile on her face. She shoved a stray lock of her unruly hair out of the way. Maybe she'd visit the hair salon in the morning, that hair was beginning to get on her nerves.

Ah, the whole point was moot.. it wasn't her hair that was really getting on her nerves. There was a nagging feeling in the back of her mind. The sort of feeling she got when all hell was getting ready to break loose.

She moved away from the streetlamp she'd propped herself on and headed for home. She had a long night ahead of her.. once again working to rebuild her life after a thousand years of waking dreams and deep sleep.