[FFML] [FanFic][SM] NETTG: Terra in Tokyo Ch.16

[Benjamin A. Oliver]

After careful evaluation, discussion, agonizing, forgetting,
remembering, forgetting, working full time, and playing World of
Warcraft until I had 8 level-capped characters, I have determined that
I've sat on this chapter for quite long enough, and it'll do nicely in
its present state to bring this series forward.

A lot of thanks go to Larry F, editor and all-around patient guy, who
helped me through this chapter rewrite.  Yup, this is the second
version.  I'll post the original version in a little bit so you can
compare the plotlines if you feel so inclined.  Larry, the perfectly
proper proud proprietor of Florestica:  http://www.florestica.com/
(It's got a cat-girl mascot now. =^.^=)

And he's got my stuff at:  http://boliver.florestica.com/

Thanks also go to Josh Temple for his POV on characterization and
story.  We had a few back-and-forth discussions on it.  His stuff's
at:

http://www.fukufics.com/

About Terra in Tokyo itself...

Chapters 1-10 are available at: http://boliver.florestica.com/tint/index.htm

Chapters 11-15... I need to post at least in the Florestica forum.
They're available by request if they're not archived somewhere close
at hand.

And NETTG Classic... well, like Ben Kenobi, it's not dead.  Not yet.
See, TinT is an alternate universe interpretation with characters of
the same name.  I still have huge chunks of NETTG Classic Ch.11 in my
fanfics-to-write folder.

NETTG:TEY, the webcomic, and the sprite comic, depend on the speed of
artist(s) who are willing to work without monetary compensation.  As
can be guessed, these are going very slow.  No sign of either picking
back up anytime soon.  Perhaps I shall have to write something
original and attempt to get it published someday instead. ^_^


In any case, that'll do for an update since I'm not that active
online.  Without further delay (as if I needed any more--^_^), here we
go!


Nuke 'Em 'Till They Glow!!
Terra in Tokyo

---Chapter 16:  Revisionist History, Part I

	The Sun and the Earth floated through the depths of the stygian lunar
horizon, their seeming motionlessness making them appear as great
buoys in the ocean of stellar space.  The stars that twinkled in the
full daylight of the morning testified to the paucity of atmospheric
depth that the capital of the Moon Kingdom could boast.

	Terra Incognita sat on a beautiful polished marble bench in the
courtyard of the royal citadel, overlooking the residential suburbs
that surrounded it like children clinging to their mother's skirts.
Not a short distance thence, tall fountains ornamented with stone
flowers softly trickled away their waters toward the lower parts of
the citadel like a pure mountain brook.

	Beside the girl reposed Queen Serenity; her tall, radiant, and firm
posture contrasting her counterpart's diminutive, wearied appearance.
A regiment of patient composure crossed gleaming swords with a ragged
platoon of frantic urgency on the deeply scarred battlefield of polite
courtesy when the monarch asked, "You wished to inform me of an
important matter, Princess?"

	"Like I said," Terra continued, "I'm not a princess."

	"Terra, despite your recent actions, your title has not been removed."

	"Yeah, about that.  I'm not technically your Terra."

	"In what sense do you mean?"

	Terra blinked.  "In what sense COULD I mean?"

	"For example," Serenity suggested, "are you, as usual, dissatisfied
with your treatment here and at last wish to sever any remaining
ties?"

	"Um, no?"

	"Are you quite certain?"  The tall woman pursed her lips and
carefully examined Terra's expression before continuing.  "Various
decisions you made over the past several days strongly suggest this to
be the case."

	"No," the redhead denied with a shake of her head.  "That's not what
I meant.  What I mean is that I'm literally not the Terra you know and
love.  I'm from Earth, probably Earth of the past or Earth of the
future, or Earth of another dimension.  But I am not this 'Princess
Terrifying' person I've heard so much about."

	"What you are saying makes little sense."

	"How could I put it any clearer?!"  Terra threw up her arms.  "I'm
actually from the planet Earth, y'know, like that same Earth you're at
war with, only different?  I've taken the place of your daughter
without her knowledge or consent.  Or mine, for that matter."

	Serenity once again appraised Terra's visage.  "What, then, do you request?"

	"I don't know!"  Terra shouted in frustration while gesturing wildly
with her hands.  "Find a way to send me back.  Find out what happened
to your Terra.  Let me have a look at your history books or allow me
to speak with a magician.  At least get me a theoretical physicist,
for Arby's sake!"  She paused, and it was her turn to examine
Serenity's face.  "Hey!  You don't believe a word I'm saying, do you?"

	The Irish girl quickly found herself being patted on the head and her
hair being lightly stroked.

	"I once thought I understood you," Serenity breathed, "and yet you
still remain an enigma."  She drew close as if she desired to give the
girl a kiss on the forehead, but then her muscles seized up
momentarily and her head turned away, as if she were reliving an
extremely painful memory.  In the end, she withdrew and stood once
again.  "I have much work to do.  Our defense will be very complicated
without... them.  I must go now."

	She turned and began to depart.

	"Without who?" inquired Terra cluelessly.

	Serenity continued moving away without a word.

	"Without who?!"

	"You know who," Serenity replied patiently.

	"No I don't!  Tell me!"

	The Queen stopped and glanced over her shoulder at the girl.
"Without Sailor Soldiers," she said.  There was not sharpness,
exactly, to her voice, but the words felt to Terra as if they should
have some deep resonating meaning specifically for her.

	"Sailor Soldiers?  You've got them too?"

	"No, not anymore.  All gone now, remember?"

	"What happened to them?" asked Terra, but the Queen had already
stepped into the palace, and doorkeepers moved to close the mahogany
entranceway behind her.  "What happened to them?!"

	The conversation effectively ended with the hollow thump of wood
against stone, followed by the clink of metal as the guards crossed
their spears over the portal.

---

	It didn't take long for the princess's personal attendants to locate
Terra, but it gave her time enough to think over what Serenity had
said.  So, this place once had Sailor Soldiers to protect everyone,
but not anymore, for some reason.

	"Princess Terra!" chirped Huggyn and Kissyn in unison as they popped
up behind her.

	"Oh," Terra said absently.  "Hi, you two."  She sighed.  At the back
of her mind, concerns welled back up over getting home.  "Say, do we
have any good libraries around here?  Scientists and professors?  Men
and women of learning and dubious personal hygiene, perhaps?"

	"Yes, yes, and yes," replied Angel.

	Dewdrop added, "Which one would you like?"

	"I want a Library," replied Terra, "where I can research the
fundamentals of time and dimensional travel.  Got anything like that?"

...

	As it turned out, they did.  Angel and Dewdrop guided her to a tall
building with large pillars that reminded Terra very strongly of a
bank her mother had once designed.  A lot of the base looked ancient
and dark, as if it had stood for a thousand years without disturbance,
but some of the upper parts like the roof looked a lot more fresh.
This building had obviously been salvaged from a ruin of some sort.

	"How old is this place?" wondered Terra.

	"I don't know," replied Angel.

	"I do!" chirped Dewdrop.  "The Empyrean Lunar Library is nine hundred
and sixty years old, built shortly after the Silver Millennium
Alliance was formed under Queen Serenity the First."

	"The stone here looks a lot more recent."

	"That's because they had to rebuild it a few years ago."

	"Why?"

	"The big cataclysm," Angel suggested, and added at Terra's blank
expression, "Y'know, that big clawed thing."

	Terra ran her hand through her bangs.  "Let's assume for the moment
that I don't know about this 'big clawed thing.'"

	"There was a monster attack," Dewdrop added slowly, glancing sideways
at Terra.  "The whole solar system was in danger.  And as usual, Queen
Serenity saved us.  She adopted you right after that, didn't she?"

	"Yeah," Angel continued, "you were, like, a war orphan or something?"

	"Whoever that was," Terra reaffirmed irritably, "it wasn't me.  That
was Princess Terra.  I'm not your princess!  Now please quit saying
that I already know things and just give me straight answers when I
ask for them!"

	"Whatever you say, Princess," Angel said with a shrug.

	"You're the boss," Dewdrop added with a smile.

	Terra groaned.  "Anyway, time travel books!" She motioned them
onwards.  "Let's go!"

...

	The librarian was a wizened old man with huge, thick spectacles and a
long wispy beard.  He reminded Terra of pictures of fantasy magicians
she had seen, especially as he leaned at his desk over stacks of books
and scrolls, scribbling with a quill pen onto parchment by the light
of a tall, wide, drippy wax candle.  He didn't seem to notice the trio
approaching.

	"The Tranquility Prophecy," muttered the librarian.  "It breaks off
at the same point.  Another dud!"

	Terra glanced around for some official way to get his attention.  She
didn't see any bell to ring, knocker to use, or string to pull.  So,
she walked up close, cleared her throat, rapped on the desk, and said,
"Hello!"

	A moment of pure chaos followed.  Ancient books flew high into the
air, tossed by the stunned scholar, and he tumbled backwards in his
chair, knocking over his desk and sending the candle spinning.  A tall
wooden shelf behind him fell sideways, toppling one rack of books
after another in a large domino effect.  A moment later, he crawled
out from under a pile of torn loose pages with the lit candle on his
head.  He found his spectacles, placed them on the tip of his long
nose, and peered at the intruders of his inner sanctum.
"P-P-P-PRINCESS TERRA!"

	"I'm not Princess Terra," replied the Irish redhead patiently.

	The librarian squinted at her from various angles, and smiled
nervously.  "Ah, of course you're not!  And I'm not Gibbous the
Librarian.  So pleased to not make your acquaintance.  How can I help
you?  And by help, I mean convince you to leave my humble archive
without you causing me severe bodily harm."

	"I'm looking for books on time travel."

	"Are you, then?  I'm afraid our material is quite limited.  Most of
the documentation of Sailor Pluto and her Gate of Time has long been
sealed and buried.  All that we have left are some volumes on the
facts of time travel and the immutability of Destiny."

	"Sure, show me to those."

^_^

	The librarian hesitantly showed her to the section that contained the
books in question.  He then bid her farewell and hurried back to his
desk, where a couple of assistants were already putting the furniture
back in order.  Terra selected a volume, found a table where she and
her companions could sit, and set about reading.

	The book she found was very interesting, if not helpful.  Apparently,
these Silver Millennium people had known about time travel for quite
some time.  In fact, one of the worlds had either created or
discovered an ancient transdimensional gateway that enabled users to
visit any time period they chose, provided they could successfully
navigate the timestream.

	"Cool," whispered Terra as she read the chapter.  "I think this time
gate's my ticket home!"  She saw a footnote.  "Ahah!  And it says here
that it's in the Moon Palace basement!"

	"Aren't we done here yet?" asked Angel in a bored tone as she and her
sister thumbed through a codex so thoroughly illuminated that it may
as well have been an ancient manga title.  "You've been at that book
for an hour!"

	"I think I'm almost done," said Terra.  "I just need more details on
this time gate thing before I go down into the basement to look for
it."

	"There isn't a time gate in the basement," Angel commented.

	"Yes there is!  It says right here!"  Terra held up the book.

	Dewdrop yawned.  "This is so you can get back home to your own 'time?'"

	Terra nodded.  "Yes, that's right."

	"You know what I don't get?" Angel began.  "If I were pretending to
not be who I was, I'd try and come up with a more convincing story."

	"Yeah," continued Dewdrop.  "I mean, if you were from another time or
another dimension, how do you know the language here?  How can you be
sitting there reading a book in an ancient tongue that for all you
know hasn't been around for a million billion years?"

	Terra blinked a few times until this registered properly in her mind.
 She hadn't paid attention to accents since her arrival in this place.
 Likewise, the book in front of her had read very smoothly.  Glancing
down at it, the letters seemed as familiar to her as the Japanese
character set.  Though come to think of it, reading left to right and
bottom to top was probably a little strange.

	The girl held the bridge of her nose, trying to sort out the reason
for this.  By all rights, she shouldn't even be intelligible to the
people around her, much less read complicated texts like this.  And
yet she was.

	"I need a second opinion," Terra said at last.  She looked through
the gaps between the shelves and the top of the books and located the
librarian, who was in fact observing the group from those same gaps.
"Ah, Gibbous!"  Terra caught the shelf and shoved it back when the man
had almost knocked it on top of her.  "Oof!"

	"Y-yes, Princess?" Gibbous replied haltingly.

	"Is it possible to travel through time or alternate dimensions with
just your mind into someone else's body, and at the same time
acquiring the language skills of the person you possess?"

	Gibbous stared at her.

	"C'mon, don't tell me you haven't read all the time travel books here."

	"I have read them," agreed the librarian, "but what you are
describing is very unlikely.  I would dare say, impossible."

	"How so?"

	"To take over the mind of another is one thing, and time travel is
indeed possible, but you can only travel with your full intact
physical form.  The Gate of Time will not transport incomplete
elements."

	"What about other kinds of time travel?"

	"Other varieties involve mimicking what the Gate does.  You cannot
travel back and forth without establishing a portal."  Gibbous paused.
 "Except possibly within your own lifetime."

	Some man stumbled by the group, muttering things like, "I know, Al!"
and "Twenty thousand years ago?!  How'd that happen!?"  Terra and the
others paid no attention to him as he walked off.

	"So," Gibbous said, "this 'time travel' of which you speak?  It
simply is not very likely."

	"And yet it is," Terra reaffirmed.  "Here I am, in Princess Terra's
body, speaking her language and wearing her way-too-bulky dress."

	"Ah-hah, certainly.  You know, if I were you, I would take a
different approach in discussing your 'time travel.'"

	"What?"

	"I would try fessing up and taking responsibility for your actions
for once.  Good day, Princess.  Please make an effort not to damage
any of my precious books during your unusual visit."  He shuffled
away, shaking his head and moaning, "What IS the Queen teaching her
children these days?  I shall never figure it out...."

	Terra rubbed her forehead.  "I tell people the truth in the most
blatant and obvious way possible, and they don't believe me.  Why?!"

	"Well you haven't exactly been the most trustworthy person in the
solar system," Angel mentioned in a manner that suggested she wished
to be of comfort.  "You've been known for the occasional prank."

	"And by occasional," Dewdrop added, "she means every other day for a
large part of it."

	"Oh really?" Terra asked.  "What, for example, have 'I' done?"

	Dewdrop didn't take long to come up with something.  "One day, you
pretended to turn over a new leaf, went skipping through the flowers
in the garden, but that was just to hide that you were keeping
gigantic mutant monsters in your room.  They came out and started
attacking people before the guards managed to stop them."

	"That doesn't sound very nice," Terra agreed.

	"Then there was this time," Angel said, "you tricked an alien
ambassador into the kitchen, shoved him into a pot, and tried to eat
him."

	Terra winced.  "Ouch.  Was he okay?"

	"He was all right, yeah.  Had a few burns and teeth marks, but
nothing too bad."

	The Irish teen nodded.  "I think I heard about that one.  Is that
what Queen Serenity was upset with me about earlier?"

	"It's okay, you can call her 'Mom,'" Angel said.  "You don't have to
play tricks on us."

	"At the risk of sounding like a broken record... I told you, I'm not
your princess."

	Angel shrugged and held her arms wide.  "All right.  I mean, whatever
makes you happiest.  But in answer to your question, no.  The Queen...
she's been very agitated today.  Whatever it is you did, it must have
been much worse than any other time."

	"Any idea what that might have been?" Terra pressed for answers.

	Both royal attendants shook their heads.

	"Why don't you tell us?" Dewdrop requested.  "Aren't we your friends?"

	The thickly clad princess impersonator let out a long sigh.  "You've
been very nice to me, and I'd like to think of you as friends, but to
be honest, I have no idea what this 'Terrifying' person did."

	Dewdrop patted her on the wrist.  "That's fine.  We still love you."

---

	They spent the rest of the day in the library, sorting through the
few remaining volumes that discussed the Gate of Time.  A lot of it
was conjecture about the gate's origins, and some of it slipped into
bad nonsensical poetry about the artifact.  However, she was able to
sift through and find out some useful information.  For example, it
was located on a slightly different plane of existence, connected
principally to this dimension through a permanent portal on the planet
Pluto, and guarded by the Sailor Soldier of that world.  This Sailor
Pluto was thought by many to be the most powerful and most merciless
of all planetary guardians.  At times, she had even taken it upon
herself to be the judge of the human race and punish those who would
dare try to alter the course of history through time travel.  After a
brief war, time travel was deemed forbidden and Sailor Pluto remained
the sole guardian and enforcer of that rule.  When the Moon Kingdom
came to dominance among the worlds, another permanent portal was
established underground, below the Moon Palace.

	Terra closed the last book.  If she was to get through the gate, she
would likely face a very difficult battle with this Sailor Pluto
trying to get back to her own time, assuming alternate realities and
dimensions were not at play.  But then she recalled that there were
supposed to be no more Sailor Soldiers, for whatever reason, so
perhaps Sailor Pluto had moved on elsewhere and she could get through
the gate unhindered.

	Angel and Dewdrop had left to attend to other responsibilities, but
they came back to retrieve her for what they described as, "An
appointment that you should never miss."

	They took her to an elegant dining hall where, at a small gilded
table sat Queen Serenity and Usagi--or rather, Princess Serenity.  As
Terra entered, leaving her attendants at the door, the blonde girl
eyed her suspiciously while the woman gazed in her direction with a
faint sadness.

	"Hello!" Terra greeted cheerfully as she sat down by them.  "How's it going?"

	"Not well," the Queen declared.  "The outer worlds Neptune and Uranus
have fallen today.  They did not last very long with their greatest
champions gone."

	"Ouch," Terra replied with a deep wince.  "I take it they were allies?"

	"The strongest," the senior Serenity replied instantly.  "Sailors
Neptune and Uranus were those who protected the entire solar system
from outside invasion.  For a thousand years they performed this task.
 And now?  Gone, just like that."

	"That bites," Terra muttered.  Beside her, the Princess flinched at
her second word, as if it had been something she had experienced
frequently enough to warrant the development of a nervous tic.  "By
'gone' and them being 'no more,' do you mean that all the Sailor
Soldiers died off, or that they just went somewhere?"

	Queen Serenity winced and cringed deeply.  It was apparent from the
woman's unhappy expression that Terra may as well have spat a giant
six-foot-long cockroach onto the table.

	"I just said something really embarrassing, didn't I?" Terra deduced.

	The Queen nodded.

	"They're dead," Princess Serenity replied softly, as if it was
something she had not yet fully accepted.

	"Thank you," Terra said, grateful to have a direct response for once.
 "And, sorry if that brings up bad memories.  I just didn't know for
sure."

	"Of course you didn't," sighed the Queen with a shake of her head.

	The three said nothing else to each other until the meal arrived.  It
was basically a big salad, with fruit and a soft sweet bread on the
side.  Terra sampled some of it, and her eyes widened at the tang and
flavor.  "Wow, this is good!"  She tried a piece of fruit that looked
like an apple and added, "Very good!"

	Princess Serenity, who had also been enjoying her meal, raised an
eyebrow at the redhead.  "But you hate this stuff!"

	"Why would I hate it?  It's got nice crunchy veggies and the fruit's
the sweetest I've ever tasted!"

	"All you ever did was complain whenever we got it served!"

	"Your sister has a point," the Queen noted.  "Are you certain that
you do not find it in the least bit... bland?  If you wish, I can
still request that the chef prepare you one of your favorites?
Something with a bit more sting and wiggle to it?"

	"I do like spicy stuff," Terra admitted, "but no thank you.  I'm
enjoying this."  She had a nibble of bread.  "Mm!  Is this cinnamon?"

	The Queen and the Princess glanced at each other.  The junior
Serenity looked visibly unnerved.

	"By the way," Terra continued, "I've been doing some reading.  I
think I'd like to visit the Gate of Time.  It's probably the best way
I have of getting back to my own time."

	"The Gate of Time is Taboo," the Queen replied, the question having
brought her back to her prior demeanor.  "No one may approach it."

	"A book in the library said that that there was a permanent portal to
it in the basement," Terra pressed.  "Maybe we could take a stroll
down there...?"

	"That portal," the Queen replied, "has been closed.  You know very
well that we sealed and destroyed it years ago.  The risks outweighed
the benefits."

	"Eh?"  Terra frowned.  "Then how about the one on Pluto?  Maybe if I
asked what's her name, Sailor Pluto?"

	The elder Serenity's eyes locked with Terra's.  "She survived??"

	"She did?"  The substitute princess thought it over, and recalled
what had been discussed earlier.  "Oh.  I guess I misspoke.  They're
all gone, right?"

	"No remains were found," replied the Queen.  "Not surprising, given
the state of the area.... I know she attempted to teleport, but since
she hadn't returned afterward to report and no more was heard from
her, I feared the worse."  She leaned closer to Terra.  "It's very
important.  Please, tell me if you know.  Did she make it?  Does she
live?"

	The girl held up her hands protectively.  "Um, hey, I just forgot for
a second.  I don't know any more than you do."  She straightened.
"But if she were still alive, do you think she'd let me use the Time
Gate?"

	The Queen coughed.  "Princess, if she did indeed survive, I do not
believe she would be pleased to see you ever again."

	"So... time gate?"

	"Stop it," Princess Serenity whispered.  "Please, just... stop it,
Terra.  Quit playing games with us.  We are tired of them!"

	"Serenity," the Queen cautioned gently.  "If there is a single chance that--"

	"Can't you see what is happening?" the Princess continued forcefully.
 "The Alliance is falling apart!  The outer worlds have been
devastated.  Jupiter is barely hanging on."  Tears filled her eyes.
"And all of my friends are gone as well!"

	"What happened to your friends?" Terra asked.  "Did they have to head
back home to other worlds to try and protect them?"

	"Terra, her friends were the younger Sailor Soldiers," whispered the
elder Serenity in a tone approaching harshness.  "Please do not bring
up that subject here.  If you insist, we can discuss it later, but not
right now!"

	Princess Serenity's eyes filled with tears.  She pushed her plate
forward, scooted her chair back, stood, then turned around and glided
out of the room.

	Terra raised an eyebrow.  "What's eating you two?"

	Serenity sighed with quiet frustration.  "Terra, your inclination for
inappropriate and unhelpful innuendo has begun to grate.  Can you not
see the great sadness that now exists here?  Is your heart still so
rigid that you cannot feel for anything you have done?"

	"Sorry," Terra apologized in bewilderment.  "I just thought I'd
strike up a conversation."  She looked at the formerly appetizing
plate in front of her, but now it didn't seem quite so appealing.
"Guess I'll head to bed or something if nobody really wants to talk to
me right now."

	Serenity pondered this, examining her expression intently.  "Yes,"
she said.  "Perhaps that would be for the best.  You... have done
enough.  I would consider it a great personal favor if you simply
stayed out of the way for now."

---

	Terra Incognita awoke the next morning to the sound of noisy jet
engines roaring nearby.  For a short time, she imagined she was home,
listening to airplanes pass, but the illusion was broken when she felt
her sheets and saw the spacious royal bedchamber.  She tossed aside
the covers and eased her way onto the floor to walk out onto the
balcony.

	She found herself greeted by an amazing sight.  The dark sky was
completely filled with what looked like very large zeppelins, each
escorted by two swift crystalline darts.  The roar seemed to be coming
from these strange ships.  The girl could only assume that they were
spacecraft, judging from how high some appeared to come.

	Terra found the Princess's attire in a nearby dresser, as well as a
hairbrush and a mirror.  She dressed in something simple and much less
restrictive than what she had worn the previous day.  The girl also
located some extra-sturdy ribbons and forced a pair of spiky ponytails
from the Princess's borrowed hair.

	She bumped into Huggyn and Kyssin almost the instant she walked out
the door.  They gazed upon her anxiously, their expressions full of
shock and disbelief.

	"Hi again you two," Terra greeted.  "How about we skip the morning
bath for today?  I'm feeling quite fresh still, thank you.  No need
for an intense scrubbing."  When the girls didn't respond, she added,
"Once upon a time, a horse walked into a bar.  The bartender said,
'Why the long face?'"

	"Huh?" Dewdrop asked, her face going totally blank.

	"It's a pun, see," Terra explained.  "I made a joke and you're not
laughing.  Ah... heh."  She ran a hand through her bangs.  "What's
going on?  Are we being invaded and nobody bothered to tell me?  The
sky's full of space ships!"

	"Jupiter's gone," Angel said solemnly.  "We're receiving refugees
from Mars and the outer worlds now."  She looked down.  "At least, the
ones who could find ships, and the ones the Alliance fleet managed to
protect."

	"Double ouch," Terra muttered.  "So we're talking about millions of
casualties from this war so far?"

	"Billions!" Dewdrop cried.  "They've sunk the Jovian continents!
Cities and nations were crushed!  Earth's Supreme Commander is a
madman!  So many deaths and his bloodlust is still not sated!"

	Terra frowned.

	"He destroyed our planets too," recalled Angel.  "He was of lower
rank back then, but Earth overlooked it as unimportant.  And now he's
in charge of the whole wretched mess of them!"

	"Man, things really aren't going well here.  Pretty soon all nine
planets will be lost, won't they?"

	"Eh?" exclaimed Angel.  "Nine planets? There are dozens of planets!"

	"Huh?"  Terra blinked, and realized that she was going to run into
yet another major cultural difference.  "I count nine.  Mercury,
Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto."

	"Um," began Dewdrop, "you're forgetting a LOT, Terra.  You haven't
mentioned a single one of the smaller worlds."

	"Smaller worlds?  What else is there?  Oh, sure, Pluto's a smaller
planet, but aside from those main nine, I thought there weren't any
other planets in the Solar system.  Everything else is just asteroids
or comets or stuff like that."

	"Of course there are more planets.  Even if you had bad tutors, they
should have taught you better than that."

	"Okay," sighed Terra.  "What do YOU classify as a planet, then?"

	Angel cleared her throat.  "Every elementary school child knows the
answer to that:  A planet is any non-stellar celestial body that has
enough gravity for hydrostatic tension to make it into a sphere, and
thus making it possible for it to generate a mystic field capable of
empowering a Sailor Soldier!"

	"And with so many worlds that are supposed to have Sailor Soldiers,"
continued Terra, "you're telling me you've run out of them?"

	Angel also had an answer to this question.  "Just because a planet
CAN support a Sailor Soldier, that doesn't mean it will.  There has to
be a population and someone with the right bloodline to be able to use
the power that is there.  This solar system has--or had, rather,
perhaps two dozen Sailor Soldiers."

	"Two dozen?  That's a lot!  What happened to them?"

	"They died in a surprise attack a few days ago," Dewdrop said.

	"All of them together?"  Terra scratched her head.  "Uh, if they're
so powerful, how could that have happened?"

	"We don't know," Angel replied.  "There were only two witnesses; two
survivors of the attack, and they've both kept very quiet on the
subject."

	Terra glanced down at her companions.  "Out of curiosity, who were
those witnesses?  I'd like to speak with them."

	"One was Queen Serenity," Dewdrop said.  "And the other...."

	"Yes?"

	Angel gave the redheaded teen a meaningful look.  "Princess Terra."

	The replacement princess frowned at that.  "Oh."

	Dewdrop suddenly appeared very curious.  "So... could you PLEASE tell
us what happened?  If the Alliance is in such trouble, I'd like to
know why."

	Terra gave a wide shrug.  "Like I said, I'm not your princess.  I
know less about it than you do."

	Dewdrop snorted derisively at that.  "Likely story."

	"Anyway," Terra tried to change the subject, "I've got nothing better
to do.  Let's pop down to where all those ships are landing and see if
I can't hitch a ride over to Pluto, eh?"

	"I don't think anyone's going to be leaving anytime soon," disagreed
Angel.  "If Earth is attacking planets, they're definitely not going
to think much of destroying a lone ship traveling that far."  She held
up a hand.  "Besides, you're forgetting the most important thing."

	"And what might that be?"

	"Breakfast, of course!"

---

	The Princess's attendants escorted Terra down to the dining hall, but
it was empty.  A servant boy explained that the two Serenities both
had urgent duties to take care of, having to do with all of the
refugees that were arriving.  Terra didn't question it further.  In
fact, she breathed a sigh of relief at not having to eat with two
people that obviously had serious issues with the girl whose body she
inhabited.

	The trio stopped next at the kitchen, where they secured some sweet
pastries to snack on.  That was when they started noticing all of the
new faces and raggedly dressed individuals lining the hallways.  They
were of all ages and had a wide range of dress, from scuffed armor to
sparkling formal attire.  Some sat against the wall, holding their
heads and moaning phrases of disbelief, while others stood proudly and
had their arms folded in defiance.  These people had obviously been
through something traumatic.  Servants scrambled to provide basic food
and drink to all of them.

	"Are these the refugees?" whispered Terra to Angel, who nodded grimly.

	"Take a good look," Angel added.  "They're probably all that's left
of a grand and ancient civilization."  She peered more closely.  "Make
that civilizations.  I see some from Jupiter--those are the ones in
animal skins and feathers.  But there are also some from Mars and
Neptune."  She gasped and pointed at one man attired in a hooded black
robe.  His deeply frowning mouth was visible, but his eyes remained
shaded.  "That one!  He's a Plutonian Scryer!  I've only ever seen
paintings of them."  She appeared worried.  "But... they're not
supposed to ever leave Pluto.  Almost never."

	Terra's ponytails seemed to perk up at the mention of the planet's
name.  "Pluto, eh?"

	"Yes.  Scryers supposedly work directly under Sailor Pluto herself to
help safeguard the gate and the timestream.  But why would one come
among refugees and not as an official envoy?"

	"They work right with the time gate?  Even better!  I'll go have a
word with him, then."

	Dewdrop grabbed her arm and held her back.  "No, Princess!  Just
leave him alone.  Don't you see?  This is BAD.  If they've started to
abandon PLUTO, of all places, like common riffraff, Earth must be--"

	Terra pulled out of the other girl's grasp and pushed forward to the
Plutonian refugee.  "Excuse me," she called over to him.

	"Yes?" the Plutonian replied in a neutral tone.

	"I'd like to go to Pluto to use the Time Gate to get back to my own
time.  Can you recommend a good way of doing this?"

	"Pluto," uttered the man emptily, "has been utterly destroyed.  The
time gate has faded into another dimension, sealed away."  He bared
his teeth.  "My world is now but a barren crust of ice and rock.  All
Alliance vessels in stellar space are attacked by countless numbers of
the Terran scourge.  My small, swift craft was the only one to arrive
intact.  My friends... my family... my PEOPLE are dead.  There can be
no return."  He reached out and gripped Terra by the arm.  "You!
Though your attire and hairstyle have changed, I cannot fail to
recognize you.  Princess Terra of the Moon Kingdom!"  His words upon
pronouncing the title were spoken as if naming an infamous historical
figure, on a par with Jack the Ripper.  "Our mistress told us what
happened to the other Sailor Soldiers."

	The refugee's manner rather startled Terra, who tried to pull out of
his grasp.  "Um, never mind?  I guess there isn't anything to visit
anymore?"

	"She told us what happened," echoed the ragged Plutonian refugee, his
grip fading as Terra withdrew.  "But seeing you now, I can scarce
believe it.  Can such innocence truly exist in the eyes and soul of
one with your reputation?  I cannot....!" As the man's voice trailed
off, it was replaced by a metallic clattering noise as a long, shiny
knife fell out of his cloak and onto the floor.

	Terra looked down and saw the man's other hand held at waist height,
the fingers loosely curled.  She gasped when she realized that a
second earlier, he had been holding the knife in a perfect position to
stab her in the heart.  The man had clearly intended to kill her.  In
shock, she yanked her arm away and hurried off, past the droves of
refugees that continued to pour in.

---

	The substitute princess went outside next, followed distantly by her
attendants that struggled to keep pace with her.

	"Princess Terra!" called Huggyn and Kyssin in unison.  "Wait up!"

	"REFUGEES ARE SCARY!" exclaimed Terra frantically.  "AND THEY'VE GOT
KNIVES!!  WHY DO THEY HAVE KNIVES?!"  Her dress, being significantly
lighter than the previous day, allowed her to remain sufficiently
agile to continue, untackled by her diminutive pursuers.

	"Pluto is gone," muttered Terra.  "No time gate.  No trip home.  No
Earth as I know it, no Ireland, no Tokyo, no Mom, no Dad... nothing.
Plus, Usagi's a stuck-up princess that hates me and everyone's dying!
Gyaah!"  She stopped suddenly in the middle of a marble-paved pathway,
Angel and Dewdrop bouncing off of her and landing squarely on their
bottoms.

	"Ow!" cried Angel.

	"Uuf!" huffed Dewdrop.

	Terra's fist clenched as she surveyed her surroundings.  The fresh
air was already turning acrid with the aroma of unwashed otherworldly
arrivals.  Since this area of the palace stood atop a hill, she was
able to look downward through an open gate to see the refugee ships
descending to a flat starport some distance away.  She could not
believe she was seeing all of this unfold.

	Yesterday, she had been able to deal with the unfamiliar life since
it was roughly as happy as a dream had any right to be.  The people
were kind, and the world was magical.  Today, everything was
different.  People she had never met despised her and wanted to kill
her.  The mother of the girl's body she inhabited seemed uneasy around
her and fairly cold towards her.  No one believed her tale of being
someone else, from another place or time.  And now, her best idea for
going home safely seemed to vanish with the destruction of Pluto.
This wasn't fun anymore.  In fact, it was spiraling into some kind of
freakish nightmare.  And Terra knew how to deal with nightmares.

	"I NEED A BIG TUB OF CHOCOLATE ICE CREAM AND A COUPLE TALL STACKS OF
TEENY BOPPER MAGAZINES, PRONTO!!"

	Angel and Dewdrop blinked.

	"Wha...?"

	"Who?"

	"I said I've had enough," Terra roared.  "It's time to end this
charade!"  She glanced at her companions.  "Angel!  Dewdrop!  Where is
Queen Serenity?"

	Panting with the previous run, Dewdrop replied, "Um, in her throne
room, holding a counsel.  She's preparing everyone for a direct attack
on the Moon."

	"Tell me which way to the throne room!" Terra demanded.

	Angel pointed at a nearby door, which was guarded by two very tall,
intimidating men.  "Over there."

	"How convenient," muttered Terra.  "You two can stop following me for
now.  Bye.  Hopefully this'll be my way out of here."

	Leaving her stunned companions behind, Terra approached the large
dual doors.  As she reached for the handle, she found her way barred
by a pair of large, sharp halberds.

	"No one is allowed entry," stated one of the guards.  "Least of all
you, Princess."

	"I'm not a Princess," flatly denied Terra.  "Besides, who says so?"

	"By order of the Queen herself."

	"Yeah, well, I don't recognize her authority or yours over me, buddy."

	"You're not going in there."

	"OUT OF MY WAY, MORTALS, OR DIE!"  That just sort of slipped out of
her mouth and she wasn't quite sure why.  The phrase seemed to put the
guards on edge, though.  She glared at each of them in turn, but
neither appeared ready to back down.  She took a deep breath, composed
herself, and said, "What I mean to say is that I have vital
information for the Queen.  Please let me by."

	"No," replied the guard on the left.  "Anything you say is likely a
lie.  None shall pass."

	Terra breathed a loud sigh, held her head, and rolled her eyes
backward to think.  The two in front of her were indeed mighty men,
the kinds that legends spoke of.  Physically, she stood no chance of
subduing them.  Princess "Terrifying" was just as flimsy as her true
body.  While her fingers felt sturdy enough to do things like open
jars, that was a far cry from knocking out two huge armored guys.  It
was time to employ some of the techniques she had picked up in her
numerous battles.

	In the back of her mind, she searched for the threads of power she
had so often employed.  There was no green power.  That was likely an
effect of Arby's cursed mushroom mark on her own body.  Black lay far
off, transparent and intangible, as if it had been recently doused.
She was left with a sturdy red and a reasonable yellow.  She took hold
of them and coaxed them out.  Finding a familiar pattern, she intoned
the words, "It's been a while.  They're probably finished by now."

	The guards relaxed.  "I suppose," said the one on the right, "that
there is no more need to keep you out...."

	"I can go in.  No worries."

	"Go ahead in," added the left guard, taking the handle of the heavy
door and pulling it open wide enough for Terra to slip in.

	Terra relaxed from the magical effort as she entered.  "Thank you!"

	Inside, she saw a long hallway, at the end of which stood Queen
Serenity, surrounded by what appeared to be military leaders, men and
women in armor or uniforms with crescent moon-shaped insignia.  They
had a table in front of them, above which a glowed a sparkling view of
what looked like a solar system with an additional few specks of white
light surrounded by motes of blue.

	Behind her, through the door, the girl heard the guards outside
speaking.  They started to argue until they opened the door again.
"Princess Terra!  Get back here!" one shouted.  Glancing back, Terra
could partially see, through the eye slits of his helmet, an
expression of extreme dislike.

	"Oh yeah," muttered Terra, "That doesn't last very long, does it?"
She turned back around and sprinted towards Queen Serenity.  "Queen
Serenity!" she shouted as she ran, waving her arms frantically.
"SERENITY!!!"

	The door guards caught her by the shoulders just as she ran into the
table, knocking it over and causing its magical image to disappear.

	"Terra," whispered Serenity with a hand over her mouth.

	"Get her out of here and throw her into a holding cell with a binding
circle!" hollered one of the shorter military advisors.  He wore blue
armor and had a long shock of blond hair and bangs that covered one of
his eyes.  "What business does this... ABOMINATION have running around
the palace free?!"

	"Hold your tongue, Captain," cautioned Serenity.

	The captain's teeth were clenched and his eyes full of rage.  "Why
should I, after all she's done?!"

	"You should because even in this time of dire need, there is still
hope," replied the Queen firmly.  "Anger will not change the past and
revenge will not bring them back.  She is harmless now."

	"Harmless?" scoffed the man.  "With all due respect, you were certain
she was harmless before, as well and look where that got you!"

	"Princess Terra bewitched us with a mind spell," growled one of the
door guards.  "I would hardly call THAT harmless!"

	Serenity's expression fell and she looked at Terra sadly.  "Did you
use magic against them?  Some of your hidden abilities?"

	"Um," Terra began, "kind of?"

	"I seal away your power for the safety of all," whispered the Queen,
"and you attack one of our soldiers with it the moment you gain a
measure of it back?!"

	Terra shrugged broadly and continued, waving her arms emphatically,
"I just wanted to talk to you!  These guys weren't letting me by!"

	"I asked you to stay out of the way while we conducted defensive
planning and operations.  Why didn't you?"

	"I got fed up with what was going on!  A refugee from Pluto just
about attacked me with a knife!  I want to go home!  I'm tired of
being ignored and hated by random people like that and Usag--Princess
Serenity."

	"That is understandable," said Serenity with a nod, and advised,
"However, it should not come as a great surprise to you."

	Terra raised an eyebrow.  "How so?"  When she relaxed her posture,
the guards eased up as well, though they still radiated a presence of
disdain.

	"You know what you did," continued the tall, regal woman.  "I have
tried to keep it a secret as much as possible, but too many know now.
Word has gotten out and I can no longer fully protect you.  And
perhaps I shouldn't try anymore.  Do you understand why?"

	Terra shook her head.  "No, I don't understand.  What is going on?!
I'm not supposed to be here!  Everything's wrong."

	Serenity's gaze narrowed.  "You truly feel nothing for what you have done?!"

	"WHAT did I do?!"

	"YOU KILLED ALL OF THE SAILOR SOLDIERS!" angrily bellowed the short
blond man to Terra's left.

	Terra stopped.  "Wait.  Killed.  All?  Me?"  It took her a long pause
to convince herself that she had not imagined the words that had been
spoken to her.  "I-I did?" she whispered in horror.  So direct were
the words that another second passed before she remembered that they
were speaking of the princess whose body she currently inhabited.  "I
mean, she did?"

	Full of fire, the captain leaned towards her and continued shouting.
"You barged in on a meeting and massacred them all!"  His face was red
and eyes burned with accusation.  "THAT is why we are in this terrible
state.  Our greatest defenders, fallen.  Worlds and kingdoms that have
stood for a thousand years, gone in a matter of days!"  He pointed a
finger in her face.  "ALL BECAUSE OF YOU!"

	"I couldn't have done that," pleaded the girl at Serenity, in a small voice.

	"You did," replied the queen.  "It came as a great shock when I saw
you.  I couldn't believe my eyes.  Then when I fought you, I stopped
you at some great cost.  But by then, it was too late, wasn't it?  The
damage had been done.  All gone, all of my greatest friends and
allies, and with them most of the solar system's hope.  The bodies...
the carnage... the sheer destruction!  And you, utterly convinced that
you had done nothing wrong.  You've made me sad beyond my ability to
express.  In all of the years we've spent together, everything I've
shown you...."  The Queen's voice was by now cracking with every word.
 "Has nothing taught you better than that?"

	Terra felt sick.  Her vision blurred and she started to get dizzy.
The nightmarish world of hate around her was awful.  She saw the glare
of the military advisors and the heavily strained patient toleration
of the Queen.  Her mind went over the events of the past few days and
it all started to make a twisted kind of sense.  A minute ago, she was
convinced of a conspiracy to keep her from the truth of why she was
here.  While this mystery remained unsolved, she now understood the
way people had acted around her, like why Princess Serenity had left
the table a night before, and why she just about had a knife shoved in
her torso by a stranger.

	She now agreed completely with those actions.  She was in the body of
a recognized mass murderer!

	The girl writhed with an intense loathing of her surroundings.  Every
breath, every step, and every tingle of every nerve ending filled her
with disgust.  She wanted tear Princess Terra's hands off and spit her
tongue onto the floor.  "I... I think I'm gonna go throw up now."

	"My Lady," said the captain to the Queen.  "I realize that you've
grown attached to her--she has been as your own daughter for
years--but knowing her heinous crime and what she is capable of...
this level of inaction and dereliction of your responsibilities to
your kingdom is inexcusable and it has gone too far!  Please end this
foolishness."

	"Perhaps," Serenity agreed hesitantly.  "In fact, quite likely.  I've
let my feelings run away with me."  She approached Terra, holding a
short wand at the ready, atop of which was a crystal, the same crystal
Terra had seen Usagi use just before this trip through time and space.
 Even the faint light emanating from it kind of stung.  "But I want to
see, one last time, if there is any chance of reaching her."  The
woman came close to the teen and turned Terra's face towards her by
the chin with her free hand.  She looked deep into Terra's eyes.

	The green-eyed girl limply gazed back into the liquid blue pools in
front of her.  With a faint touch of lavender to them, they looked a
lot like her mom's eyes, but never before had she seen such ocular
devices focused in this level of frustration and near despair.  In a
way, it felt quite certain that Serenity truly loved Princess Terra
very much, but could hardly bear what she had done.  But then, the
woman's expression turned puzzled.  She had obviously seen something
unexpected.

	"Princess Terra should be executed," argued the captain with his arms
folded.  "If only for the sake of justice!  In the name of sanity,
please end this madness!"

	"I agree," moaned Terra weakly.  "That's not the sort of thing you
should just forgive and forget.  Kill her now!"

	"Very well!"

	When Terra heard the high-pitched sound of sliding steel, Serenity
suddenly looked away from her.  "Put your sword away, Captain."

	Terra looked over and saw the three feet of gleaming steel pointed at
her heart.  She reached out and tried to grab the blade to pull it
closer so she could finish the job herself.  The man, however,
obediently stepped back and sheathed his sword.

	"Yes, my queen," muttered the Captain, and ran a hand through his
hair.  He did not seem pleased with Serenity's way of handling the
situation

	Serenity shook her head.  Her sorrow seemed to abate in some measure.
 In fact, she looked hopeful.  "No, not today.  Look at her.  Is her
manner at all familiar?"  Pointing at Terra, she explained, "This is
not the same girl that I fought but a few days ago!  Before, I saw a
glimmer and wasn't certain, but now, this is unmistakable!"

	"She's lost it," yawned one of the door guards.  "It's Princess Terra
all right."

	"Something very profound has changed.  For one, I had never before
seen a glimmer of guilt, or true unfeigned sorrow in her, in all of
the time she has stayed with us."

	"She is deceiving you!" growled the captain.  "Just like she did when
she murdered--"

	"I believe it is sufficient," interrupted Serenity, "to warrant a few
more moments of... introspection on her part."  She looked again at
the young redhead.  "Terra, I want you to go to your room.  Think more
about what you've done and why it was wrong.  I'll speak with you in
the morning."  She looked at the door, which was cracked slightly
open.  "'Huggyn and Kyssin?'"

	"Aww!"

	"She saw us!"

	The two royal attendants stepped into the room.

	"How much of our discussion did you hear?" inquired the Queen.

	Angel shrugged.  "We just saw Captain Laios point his sword at
Princess Terra and you talking about how she's feeling guilty."

	"That's right," Dewdrop agreed.  "We didn't hear ANYTHING about how
Terra's responsible for killing all of the Sailor Soldiers."  She
gasped and covered her mouth.  "I mean... yeah.  We heard the whole
thing."

	"And yet I note that you still do not look at her with fear or
anger," noted the Queen.

	"What can we say?" Angel said, and knocked on her head.
"Self-discipline and mental fortitude!"

	"Thick skulls!" Dewdrop added with a broad smile.  "It hasn't sunk in yet!"

	"Then can I trust you two with a mission?"

	The girls nodded.  "Of course!"

	"I want you to take Terra to her room.  Take shifts if you have to
during the night, but watch her constantly and make sure that she does
not hurt anyone else, nor herself.  Can you do that for me?"

	Both girls nodded solemnly.

	"Please take her now."

	"Can we go by and get supper first?" asked Dewdrop.

	"Yes, you may, but do not dally for too long."

	"MY LADY!" shouted the blond captain, bringing the room's attention
back to him.

	Serenity turned towards him.  "Yes, Captain?"

	"This is beyond madness," continued the man.  "She has murdered more
than a dozen people in cold blood, and yet you have allowed her to run
free among those of the palace.  And you have not given her so much as
a spanking!  A warm bed, baths, meals, and servants you continue to
lavish upon her while the rest of us ration our supplies."  He had
started pacing among the other gathered military leaders.  "She now
shows sign of regaining her power--the same power that has likely
doomed us all to death or enslavement at the hands of the Terran
horde!  And what do you do?  You only send her to her room!  And not
even without supper, at that!  We are in danger because of her!"

	Serenity nodded slowly at his words, her demeanor returning to her
former somberness.  "You are correct.  I understand that my judgement
must seem rather questionable as of late.  Will you have trouble
continuing to follow such a... sentimental old fool as myself?"

	"My Queen," sighed the man.  "I remain loyal to you, and I remember
my oaths sworn to you and this kingdom.  Though you may order me and
all those I command to a gruesome, pointless death, we will obey.
However, this is because we trust you to act for the greater good!  I,
and I believe everyone present, would feel much, much better about
marching into battle at your word if you could show yourself to be
more wise than you now appear."  He looked up at the tall monarch and
continued, "Please, m'lady, do we, your faithful and loyal servants
and friends, not deserve a better explanation than what we have so far
been given?  What can you possibly see in this... girl... that has
made it worth risking the fate of the entire solar system to continue
protecting her?"

	"Yes," Terra coughed, practically choking on her own esophagus in
disgust at her physical self.  "Enlighten us, please."

	"Very well," assented the woman.  "The short answer is that Terra is
a very special person.  She has such potential for good, the likes of
which no civilization of a million years has a chance to encounter.
But as you said, there have been risks.  I knew what she was when I
took her in, but I believed I could tame her more chaotic aspects,
given time and love."

	"But you were proven wrong," huffed the short officer.

	"What is she?" asked a bearded general.  "You said 'what she was' as
if she wasn't what she appeared to the rest of us to be.  We're
talking about a rebellious child with much more power than she ought
to have, right?"

	"Sort of.  She is," Serenity began, paused to think it over, and
said, "difficult to describe."  She looked to the table that showed a
map of the solar system with the blue and white dots scattered about.
Another in the room had set it back up while they were talking.  "What
remains of our fleet requires further instructions.  Will it suffice
to say that I still believe the potential benefits outweigh the
risks?"

	The captain shook his head.  "Potential for good...?" he echoed in
disbelief.  "No, there can be no redemption for crimes such as hers!
The very fact that she walks free endangers us!  At least lock her
away somewhere."

	"I will not imprison her," Serenity said firmly.  "If I am correct, I
must not force this last part."

	"It would be as much for her 'protection' as our own.  The word is
out, as you've said.  Many will desire to kill her."

	"Might you happen to be one of them?"

	The captain tossed his hair back and declared boldly, "YES!"

	"Fair enough," Serenity replied with a nod.  "I understand why I am
taking this course of action, but it would take too long to explain
all of the facts right now.  I promise you the full explanation later.
 All shall be revealed.  Perhaps I shall even publish a book on the
subject, assuming we survive Earth's onslaught.  But for now, can we
please return our attention to our world's defense?"

	The captain tensed, glancing between the princess and the queen.
Finally, he bowed his head.  "I will obey you, m'lady.  But I trust my
feelings have been made clear?"

	"Exceptionally.  The Moon is lucky to have such defenders as
yourself.  If we give it our all, we may yet make it out of this."

	Angel and Dewdrop looked at each other, shrugged, then turned toward
the gibbering princess and said to her in unison, "C'mon, we're
hungry.  Let's go!"

---

	The attendants each took Terra by an arm and led her out.  She didn't
resist.  The princess-body-snatcher limped on the way, as if she
didn't feel comfortable using her body's knees anymore.  Most of the
refugees were no longer in the hallways.  Residences or places to keep
them had apparently been found elsewhere.

	Angel looked at Terra and asked her on the way, "Were you
mind-controlled or something when you did it?"

	"Um, yeah," sniffed Terra with her head down, thinking to herself
about how those two were the only ones that hadn't hinted at any
dislike towards her.  She didn't need to make any new enemies at this
point.  "I was mind-controlled.  By... freaking unknown mystic cosmic
neon laser beams from the future... in outer space!"

	"I've heard about that," Dewdrop said with a knowing nod.  "Did it hurt?"

	"It still hurts."

	They stopped by the dining area for something to eat, but Terra
obviously wasn't hungry.  While the other two fed hastily, the teen
sat there looking down at her full plate and holding her head, on the
verge of ripping her hair out.

	"Feeling guilty about killing everyone and dooming the solar system
to eternal darkness?" inquired Dewdrop.

	"Pfft!" sputtered Terra without looking up.  "You might say that!"

	The attendants had gone into the kitchen to get their food, so the
dining hall was empty save for the three.  Unless there were unseen
eavesdroppers, which was not impossible, they were alone to speak
freely.

	"What was it like?  How did it happen?" asked Angel.

	"It wasn't... ME, exactly," replied Terra.  "I don't even know what
it looked like when the Princess did it.  There's no way I could
'remember' what happened.  But that doesn't change how terrible it is
and how everyone thinks it was me."

	"Maybe you were traumatized by it, went crazy, and developed multiple
personalities as a way to avoid responsibility and keep from feeling
the full force of your guilt," suggested Dewdrop brightly.

	"Thank you, Doctor Sigmund Freud.  The next thing you'll be telling
me is that I did it because I wasn't loved as a child or because I'm
suppressing some kind of bizarre lustful urge."  She appeared ragged
and drained by the revelation of Princess Terrifying's act.  "Again,
it wasn't me.  But I still feel really bad about it."  She pushed her
plate aside, leaned down, and banged her head against the table a few
times.  "Bad Princess.  BAD!"

	Angel caught her head on the fifth slam.  "Your mother said we
mustn't let you hurt yourself.  Come on, let's take you to your room
now."

	"Meh.  Whatever."

---

	They took her to her room and dressed her in her nightgown before
tucking her in for what passed for night on a world with a twenty-nine
and a half day cycle.  But between her vicarious guilt for Princess
Terrifying's actions and the roar of landing refugee ships, Terra
couldn't sleep.  She lay on her side, staring at a blank wall while
the princess's two chipper servants stayed vigilant over her.

	She stayed awake in bed for a full hour.  The refugees finally
stopped coming, so an uneasy silence hung over the palace.  Flipping
to her other side, Terra could see the sky outside her balcony
doorway.  She could see specks of light cruising about the space
between Earth and the Moon.  Occasionally, large flashes would signal
the disappearance of one of those points.  The girl guessed that those
must have been the Moon's space ships fighting their losing battle
against the seemingly unstoppable Terran threat.

	Terra sighed and rolled onto her back.  Jupiter, Pluto, and who knows
how many other worlds had already fallen.  The Moon, she surmised,
must have some pretty incredible defenses if it was parked so close to
Earth and still hadn't become part of the expanding planetary
devastation.  But how long would that last?  Could they hold out for
years yet, or were they doomed in a matter of days?

	More importantly, why had the other worlds been devastated so
quickly?  How could the deaths of a handful of women in colorful
magical miniskirts have been the deciding factor in a war that took
place on such an unfathomable scale?  Terra knew that Sailor Soldiers
had some rather useful skills for fighting anything up to a few dozen
monsters at a time.  Straining herself, she had managed to confront a
handful alone and nearly burnt herself out in the process.  But when
she thought of pitting herself as Sailor Chibimoon, in all her
bare-kneed glory, against a large army unit, she expected that she
would go down very quickly.  A single tactical nuke--no, make that a
very small bomb... or heck, a well-aimed handgun would make short work
of any of the Sailor Soldiers she knew.  It just didn't make any sense
why they should be considered such an enormous military asset.

	"Angel," Terra whispered to one of the twins.

	"I'm Dewdrop," replied the small young woman as she glanced up from a
colorful scroll she had been reading to pass the time.  "Or Kyssin' if
you like."

	"Right, Dewdrop.  Anyway, can you please tell me why the death of the
Sailor Soldiers was such a big turning point in this war?"

	"There's lots of reasons for that," Kyssin said.  "Like... everybody
on their home worlds adored them and would follow them to the very
end."

	Terra thought about that.  It sort of made sense, but in a time of
such dire need, surely someone else would have stepped in to fill the
gap.  "So the loss of their leadership demoralized everybody on their
home worlds and they're not fighting back at all?"

	"Of course they're fighting back!" replied Dewdrop emphatically.
"Their homes and everyone they care about are at stake.  They're
fighting to the last ragged soldier!"

	"And all the refugees we've gotten?  Seems like they're cutting and running."

	"How can you say that?!"

	Terra shrugged.  "Just trying to get some things straight in my head.
 It's what it looks like."

	Angel, who had nodded off, heard the conversation and decided to
enter in.  "Look, major planets like Jupiter and Mars have... or had,
rather, populations numbering in the hundreds of millions.  The
survivors we've taken in count up to," she looked upward and pursed
her lips in thought for a moment before stating, "maybe a few
thousand.  Think about that for a second.  Out of a diverse group of a
few billion, we have a few thousand left.  The rest are dead.  Or, at
least, in our experience, Earth doesn't take many prisoners.  Of our
worlds--Dewdrop's and mine's--we are the only two who still live."

	The not-so-plucky lass from Ireland considered the statement, sighed,
and said, "Okay, I'm sorry.  I hadn't thought about it like that.  But
that still doesn't answer my question.  What could the Sailor Soldiers
have done to stop this from happening?"

	"They could have shot down the Terran fleet when it attacked their
planets," Dewdrop suggested.

	"Or perhaps secretly teleported to Earth's seat of power to stop
their leaders directly," affirmed Angel.  "One major wave from Sailor
Mars' plasma fire would have obliterated Earth's armories and
shipyards."

	"So your Sailor Soldiers were powerful enough to shoot down
spaceships and destroy large industrial centers by themselves?" Terra
asked with a raised eyebrow.

	"Yes, with time and training," said Angel, "plus a healthy amount of
natural talent.  There was a Sailor Mercury who once froze an ocean; a
Sailor Uranus that cracked a continent, and I know that Sailor Pluto
is rumored to be able to stop time itself and alter the course of
history if she so desires."

	Terra's jaw dropped in disbelief at this news.  "How can your Sailor
Soldiers be so powerful when the ones I know can barely fight a single
man-sized monster alone?"

	"They train for years," Angel explained, "and eventually they are
able to channel enough of their planet's magical field to work
wonders--miracles, even.  Centuries ago, we had a Sailor Saturn who
was able to control her power so well that she was able to restore her
entire people--hundreds of thousands--to life after they had been
devastated by a terrible plague."

	"Okay, then!"  Terra found herself nodding along with the
explanation.  This was starting to make sense.  If the leaders who
died were capable of such far-reaching acts, then she could see how
they could make a difference in the event of a large-scale assault.
Being able to crack a continent or freeze something as big as an ocean
made them individually at least as worthwhile as large, well-equipped
army.  "Then your Sailor Soldiers are a LOT stronger than the ones I
know back home.  I know I got better with magic by practicing, but I
don't see how I could ever do anything that huge."

	"It's true that not many people have the potential to become strong
Sailor Soldiers," agreed Dewdrop slowly, "but ours were.  Ours were as
powerful as most any in recorded history.  I'm still having trouble
believing that they could all die so quickly.  How did you do it?
They say it was a surprise attack."

	"Yeah, I guess they were just ambushed," Terra added.  "Sometimes,
when taken by surprise, maybe it doesn't matter how strong you are."
Somehow, it helped to talk about it with someone that didn't look at
her with blame and anger.  "So if you still had one, her powers might
be enough to stop an army like what's rampaging through the rest of
the solar system?"

	Dewdrop bobbed a slight nod.  "Maybe.  One might not do it.  After
all, we have Queen Serenity, who is stronger than all of them
combined, and she's barely managing to keep us safe, but if we still
had, say, at least four of them still with us, they'd certainly make a
difference."

	Angel shook her head and explained, "Earth's Supreme Commander is
brash and ruthless, commanding a frightening number of ships.  Their
world's new queen is as powerful as she is evil, and her four Heaven's
Kings are each now an easy match for any of our Sailor Soldiers... but
I strongly believe that all of the Sailor Soldiers, united, would at
the very least have stood a chance."

	Terra thought back to her battle with Jadeite and the other three
Dark Kingdom generals.  She had done incredible things, as had her
friends, but she found it hard to believe that any of them could
defend an entire world, with any amount of training.  How close was
her world or time to this situation?  But that begged another
question.  She was a Sailor Soldier, back home, at least.  Did they
have anything she could use?

	"Has there ever been a Sailor Chibimoon?" the redhead inquired.

	"CHIBI-Moon," Dewdrop giggled at the name.

	At Terra's blank stare, Angel added,  "'Chibi.'  Baby, or Mini.
That's what we call a Sailor Soldier in training.  They're kind of a
joke; much weaker than fully-fledged Soldiers.  We have them so that
toddlers to pre-teens can learn to use their powers better.  Most
Sailor Soldiers never go through that stage.  'Chibi' transformation
tools are limited to the point where no one would have anything to
worry about if a child started trying to abuse their powers."

	"So... you'd never give a 'Chibi' transformation locket to a teenager
who is intent on saving a planet?"

	Dewdrop laughed out loud.  "You're joking, right?  I mean, you could,
and it might even work, but I'd only ever hand one of those out as a
prank!  They're even silly compared to the REAL training wands that
princesses new to magic get when they're older, like fourteen."

	Terra groaned ran a hand through her hair and recalled who had first
given her the Sailor Chibimoon tools.  She made a mental note to
strangle Arby when she next got the chance.  "Right then.  So, back to
my original question.  Has there ever been a Sailor Moon or
Chibimoon?"

	"Once," Angel said.  "Years and years ago, before the creation of the
Phantom Silver Ginzuishou Crystal of the Imperium, there was a Sailor
Moon.  That Sailor Moon took up the Crystal, and there has been no
need for a Sailor Soldier of this world since."

	"So they're obsolete?  There can't be any more Sailor Moons?"

	"There can," Angel continued, "but queens like Queen Serenity and
even Princess Serenity who shares in that magic, are so powerful that
there hasn't been any point to making her use the Sailor powers.  The
Crystal makes them pale in comparison."

	"But, you could have a crystal-swinging monarch plus a Sailor Moon if
you wanted?"

	"Of course you could.  They're different kinds of powers.  In fact,
you could have a dozen Sailor Moons if you wanted, provided enough of
the right rare bloodline could be found.  There just hasn't been a
need, for over a thousand years."

	Terra pointed at the flashing points of light in the sky outside.
"Sure looks like you need one now!"

	Angel shook her head.  "It would take years to train a new Sailor
Soldier to the point where she could be useful in a battle like this.
If we had, maybe, twenty years to prepare, and somehow lucked out and
found five or six girls that had the right bloodline to attune to the
Moon's magical field... and if we could find or make enough of the
rare crystal used for the Sailor transformation tools, then we'd be in
business.  So unless you've got a spare time gate in that nightgown of
yours, I wouldn't count on it."

	Terra looked back down.  "Oh.  I guess it's not such an easy thing
after all.  I did time travel once, but that was using the power
that's shut down.  It was only a few minutes' worth anyway.  Just
enough to fix a dumb mistake of mine.  Like you said, we'd need
years."

	There was silence between them for a while.

	"On the other hand," Terra continued, "what if someone inexperienced
tried to act as a full-blown, non-chibi, planetary-scale-magic Sailor
Moon?"

	"How inexperienced?" asked Angel.

	"Oh, just random Jane Princess off the street.  Y'know, maybe toyed
with a Chibi transformation tool, but nothing really special.  Someone
like that."

	"First of all," Angel replied, "a Chibi transformation isn't really
much preparation.  It's nothing like the real thing.  Second, it
wouldn't work.  It requires a tremendous amount of skill and power
just to get it to activate at that level."

	"And even if you got it working," Dewdrop continued, "the sheer river
of power would burn you to ASHES in minutes if you didn't know how to
control it."  She paused.  "Why?  Are you wanting to go out, join the
fight and try to make up for past misdeeds?"

	"Maybe," Terra admitted.

	"Only a fully trained Sailor Soldier could make a difference now,"
Angel said.  "Whatever happens, I'm afraid we're just going to have to
wait and see."

	"Besides," muttered Dewdrop, "you already tried using a
transformation tool.  It didn't work."

	That caught Terra's attention.  "So, you have one?"

	Angel nodded.  "They have the original Sailor Moon locket and wand
hung up somewhere.  Dewdrop was curious, brought it out and had you
say the words, but nothing happened."

	"Where is it now?" Terra pressed.

	Dewdrop looked at Angel, shrugged, and replied, "It's sealed away in
the main armory as a decoration.  Actually, it's more there as a
museum piece.  Like, as a monument to the idea that all weapons will
eventually no longer be needed."

	"Can you get it for me?" the girl in the bed requested.

	Angel shook her head.  "It's night and it's locked up.  Plus,
everyone's on high alert and they're actually treating it like an
armory now rather than like some kind of curiosity museum.  Only the
low security let Dewdrop even get close before."

	Terra hurriedly slipped out of bed, stepped into some slippers, and
grabbed a puffy dressing robe.  It was green.

	"Going somewhere?" Dewdrop asked.  "We're not supposed to let you out."

	"Just a quick trip to the little ladies' room," Terra said with a
forced bright smile.  "Be right back."

	"The lavatory's that way," Dewdrop said, and pointed at the small
room adjoining the bedroom.

	Terra examined the two, who had blocked the door.  The only other
ways out would be the balcony and the window in the bathroom.  It was
time to pull out another one of her tricks!

	"Yes, yes, very astute," she said, then raised her arms and
exclaimed, "SLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!!!"

	Angel and Dewdrop looked at her, then looked at each other, and shrugged.

	Terra asked, "...Don't you feel the least bit mind-controlled and
feel a sudden, overwhelming urge to fall unconscious?"

	"Nope," Angel said.

	"Not even a little bit," Dewdrop added, suppressing a fairly weak
yawn.  "So you want to fight the Dark Kingdom of Earth?  That's fine
by me.  Do you think you'd stand a chance against a fleet of starships
and an evil Supreme Commander of immense, unholy power?"

	"Maybe if I got really lucky," Terra said hopefully.  She recalled
her experiences in that one space pilot video game and imagined she
might not do too terribly.  Video games were kind of like real life,
after all, weren't they?

	"How about fighting Queen Beryl and her four brainwashed Heaven's
Kings?" wondered Angel.

	"If I can get past the starships, I'm sure they'll be no problem at all."

	"And Deviate Demon Goddess Queen Metallia, the Deceiver and Defiler,
Corruptor of Worlds and Darkener of Solar Systems?" asked Dewdrop
fervently.  "The being who masterminded the Terran takeover and whose
prophesied goal is the complete and total perversion of all humankind
into a race of servile half-sentients???"

	"Piece of cake!" Terra said absently, intent only on finding an exit
to the room.  Then, all at once, the words registered in her brain.
"Er, what?"

	"That's who's rumored to be behind all of this," Angel said, and
looked at her sister.  "There's no proof that she exists."

	"Then why even bring it up?" Terra sighed.

	"Just trying to let you know how difficult all this is," Dewdrop said
with a bright smile so broad she had to close her eyes to maintain it.
 "Remember why we're here with you now and not back home in the Royal
Asteroid Circus where we belong.  Earth's Supreme Commander destroyed
our home worlds, not long ago."  Her expression returned to normal.
"And now it looks like he's a million times worse."

	"Indeed," agreed Angel.  "You wouldn't stand a chance.  Even if you
got the locket, it wouldn't work for you, and even if it did, it'd
kill you.  We've been asked to keep you safe."

	"Yeah," said Dewdrop, "So go back to bed and we'll talk about this in
the morning, 'kay?"

	"Talk," muttered Terra derisively.  All this talk was starting to
grate on her nerves.  She wanted to do something--ANYTHING that could
help get rid of this slow burning agony that was her sorrow over what
her body's true owner had done.  If all she could do was throw
Princess Terrifying's body onto an enemy sword, that would have to be
enough.  But she had experience with Sailor powers.  If only she could
get her hands on that locket, she KNEW she could use it.

---

	The substitute princess grudgingly returned to bed, where she fell
asleep, dreaming about swimming through a lake of stinging, acidic,
boiling hot water.  Through the rising mists on the shore, she caught
a glimpse of a mirror image of herself, whose cruel green eyes
virtually burned at her with disdain and frustration.

	"Hah!" Princess Terrifying let out a short defiant laugh.  The vision
progressed no further, as Terra awoke to the rumble of distant
explosions.

	Disoriented, she felt like she had been asleep for hours, but it
couldn't have been very long.  When her vision came back into focus,
she saw Huggyn and Kyssin, fast asleep in their chairs with their arms
folded.

	The rumble of faint detonations continued.  Terra skulked out onto
her balcony, shivering at the sudden cold, and witnessed yet another
marvel.  A thousand gigantic spacecraft orbited above the world, each
throwing off a continuous barrage from their massive guns towards the
Lunar surface.  But the deadly ordinance never reached its target.
Instead, huge bursts in an enormous fireworks display exploded at
random points into a great blue barrier, a hundred thousand feet into
the air, which rippled like a pond during a heavy rainstorm as it
intercepted every strike.  Fully-armored soldiers marched hurriedly
through the streets on their way to their posts.

	"Oh... my... goodness!"  Terra realized that this must be the Terran
fleet everyone had been so concerned about.  The Moon must have lost
the space battle, because the attacking ships continued their
bombardment unopposed.  The only thing between this world and certain
death seemed to be that last protective shielding.  She could only
assume that some powerful magical device in the area was generating
the defensive screen.  It seemed to be holding up okay for now, but
there was no way to tell how long it would last.

	A wide rectangular image appeared in the sky, projected against the
Lunar barrier.  It was of the head and shoulders of a tall,
frighteningly thin woman with dingy red hair and a revealing purple
dress.  She also had fanged canines and wore a narrow, predatory
expression.  Behind her stood four very familiar men.

	"Jadeite, Nephrite, Zoicite, and Kunzite," Terra breathed, instantly
recognizing them.  "But who's that lady?"

	"I AM QUEEN BERYL!" boomed the lead figure's voice.  "YOUR PITIFUL
ATTEMPTS TO STOP US HAVE BEEN IN VAIN!  MERCURY AND VENUS NOW LIE IN
RUIN, DESOLATE FROM OUR INVINCIBLE FORCES!  NO ONE IS COMING TO HELP
YOU TO FIGHT.  YOU'RE ON YOUR OWN!  YOU HAVE NO FRIENDS!  YOUR BARRIER
IS WEAKENING AND WILL SHORTLY FALL.  KNOW THAT THOSE WHO REFUSE TO
OBEY ME WILL SHARE THE SAME FATE AS YOUR ALLIES.  AT LAST, EARTH WILL
TAKE ITS RIGHTFUL PLACE AS MISTRESS OF THIS SOLAR SYSTEM!  SURRENDER
AND I MAY GRANT YOU MERCY.  YOU HAVE UNTIL YOUR WORLD'S SHIELD IS
GONE!"

	"Queen Beryl," whispered Terra as the image vanished and the
bombardment resumed.  "So that's what the Queen of the Negamafoozles
looks like.  Looks like a challenge, but I guess... ya gotta whack 'em
all!"

	Somehow, Angel and Dewdrop had not been awakened by the grand sound
and light show, nor her monologue.  But, looking at where they slept,
the angle of the balcony view wouldn't have reached them, and it was
actually only a fairly faint rumble.  Terra slipped past them in her
bare feet and nightgown, nudged the door open, and walked out into the
deserted hallway.

	After reaching a fair distance from her room without being followed,
her first thought was, "Yes!  In the wild confusion, I can sneak in
and snag the Sailor Moon transformation thingy!"  If their tools here
were that much more powerful than the ones back home, she bet she
would stand a chance against these Negamafoozles.  Then her mind
recalled the bit about how inexperienced people trying to become
Sailor Moon before they were ready would get burned to ashes in a
short while.

	"Hmm."

	In the end, she decided she didn't care.  At least then, it would end
the sting of living as this awful murder princess.  With the doubts
washed away, she mumbled to herself, "Gotta get to that armory."

	She looked around the bare corridor.  "But where is it?"  Only the
occasional painting or golden decoration illuminated her view.  She
sighed at her incompetence.  She would never reach her goal without
help, and she could not count on the help of the soldiers that would
be around.  No one would trust a planet-busting Sailor weapon to a
known murderer.

	Random searching and dumb luck.  That's all she had left.

	Terra made her way around the wide darkened halls.  Occasionally, she
would see a soldier dash from one hallway to the next, but none of
them paid any attention to her.  Bad little Princess "Terrifying" must
have seemed like a much less immediate threat than the doom looming
above them outside.

	She saw the flashing light from outside through a nearby doorway.
Coming close and glancing around the corner, she saw two people
holding each other in a tight embrace on a very romantic balcony.  One
of them was Princess Serenity--and Terra simply could not get past how
much she looked like Usagi--and there next to her was Tuxedo Kamen, or
what looked like him.  Mamoru.  Yes, that was his name.  He wore a
limited suit of black and grey armor and a black cape with red lining.
 A sword was strapped to his side in a leather scabbard.  Terra could
also just barely overhear their conversation.

	"Endymion," pleaded Princess Serenity of the man that looked very
much like Mamoru.  "What are we to do??"

	"There is not much left to do," replied Endymion.  "Beryl has
brainwashed most everyone on Earth.  She's been possessed by an evil
energy called Metallia."

	Serenity withdrew from him a step and looked out at those on the
ground who were preparing for battle.  "All these people... I know so
many of them.  We're not going to stand a chance, are we?  Earth's
fleet.... They'll destroy us from orbit!"

	Endymion shook his head.  "No, they'll want a ground battle.  I was
able to gather that much information before they discovered I hadn't
been brainwashed.  Your mother, understandably, took my information
with a grain of salt when I escaped here and plead for asylum.  The
Supreme Commander insisted on not delivering the final blow with his
fleet.  It was strange, coming from him, since that's exactly what he
did to all of the other worlds.  He's convinced Beryl to land an army
once the shield goes down."

	"How long will that be?"

	"I don't know how strong your shield is.  All I know is that, when it
drops, there will be hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of my
people--my poor brainwashed people, twisted by Metallia's evil
energy--attacking hand to hand.  Beryl likes the idea.  She wants to
gloat in person over the Moon Kingdom's fall.  She's probably in the
command ship as we speak."  He pointed into the sky.  "Yes.  There!  I
can see it.  Twice as big as the others, with spikes.  The Supreme
Commander's favorite ship."

	"So close.  If only Mother or I had enough strength left," said
Serenity, "we could stop them all right now!"

	Endymion sighed.  "I'm afraid Beryl and my former guardians are too
powerful now even for the magic of Moon Kingdom royalty and your
Crystal.  I doubt if even a Super Sailor Soldier of legend would stand
a chance.  Metallia's energy is the most horrifying thing I have ever
seen.  It was all I could do just to keep my sanity!"

	"Surely you cannot say we have no hope!"

	"There is always hope.  In the coming battle, we may surprise ourselves."

	Princess Serenity threw herself into his arms, weeping.  "Endymion!"

	Endymion returned her embrace.  "Serenity...."

	Terra let out a long sigh and turned away.  So, there was a chance
the city area wouldn't become a crater the instant the shield fell.
That gave her a little more confidence, since she would at least be
able to see her enemy when she started to fight them.

	But... something else bothered her now.  Several people here seemed
to look a lot like people from back home.  There was Princess
Serenity, who looked like Usagi.  Terra noticed that the body of
Terrifying was very similar to her own, and now this Prince fellow
bore a striking resemblance to Tuxedo Kamen.

	"What is this?" she wondered aloud as she turned a corner down a
staircase.  "The Wizard of Oz?"  Terra shook her head.  "Does that
make me Dorothy?  If so, where's Toto?"

	Right then, Arby the ArbyFish popped up on her shoulder and greeted
her in his cheerful cockney, "G'day!"

	Terra looked at him.  He waved.  She closed her eyes, clicked her
heels together, and chanted, "There's no place like home!  There's no
place like home!"

	A moment later, she opened her eyes and, much to her dismay, found
that she was still here in the Moon Palace and Arby was still sitting
on her shoulder.  "Darn."

	"'Ello sez Oye ta yew ta me n' yew back in return," Arby re-greeted.

	"Hi... Arby."  Terra ran a hand through her hair.  She was filled
with a mixture of fear and relief.  The emotions sort of cancelled
each other out.  It might be said that the view of the familiar
creature allowed her to achieve a momentary Zen state of nonexistence.
 Everything went totally black.

	What seemed to be a second later, she discovered that she was on the
floor with a dull pain in the back of her head and her left shoulder.
Realizing she must have fainted, she noticed that Arby held a steaming
mushroom under her nose.

	"It's a Waking Sniff-Um-Up Shroom," Arby explained, putting away the
fungus.  "A Roasted Rousing Ramekin!"

	"Blargh," Terra choked at the foul scent.  "That reminds me.  I
really need to strangle you sometime."  She slowly sat up and asked,
"Okay, quick question, are you really Arby, Arby?"

	Arby nodded a strong affirmative.  "Oye iz!"

	"Yes, but which one?  My Arby from the future or perhaps a warped
younger version from the distant past or an alternate dimension?"

	"Oh," Arby began in a very pleased tone.  "Yew's been studying!"

	"So, who are you?"

	"Oye's an ArbyFish!"  He hopped up and perched on her head.  "Oye iz
wot is, and that is that--wot's thought of me is key.  Gravy trains
and badger boats which cross the sea for free, meddling mushrooms
jumping over fleas for lemon tea!  Pony up and duckling down then
place ya bets on the canary-go-round!"

	Terra shook her head at that.  "That means absolutely nothing.  Are
you my Arby?"

	"Oye could be if ya really wanted me to be, y'see."

	"Then let me put it this way," Terra continued as she got back up and
brushed herself off.  "Would you believe me if I told you that I'm
really Terra Incognita, girl from the future and secretly Sailor
Chibimoon, admittedly sucky soldier for love and justice, sent
backwards in time or through alternate dimensions by unknown mystical
cosmic laser beam mumbo jumbo for random and perhaps meaningless
purposes?  Would you believe me if my mind has replaced that of
Princess Terra, murderer and bad girl extraordinaire?"

	"Oye moight," Arby said with a firm nod, not losing his smile.
"Gotta go toime travelin' in otha' peoples' 'eads.  Wouldn't be
proppa' if ya didn't!  Can't very well use ya own 'ead.  It'd get
squished!"

	"So you believe my story?"

	Arby perched in the palm of her hand which she raised for the purpose
of holding him, "'Course!"  Then he started bouncing up her arm to her
shoulder.

	"Speaking of which, how could this have happened?  The guy in the
library seemed to think this sort of thing was impossible!"

	"Well ya see," Arby said without missing a beat and started balancing
his head atop Terra's head, "ya was prolly havin' too much fun."

	Terra strained her eyes to look up at him.  "Fun?  How so?"

	"It's Relativity, y'see.  Everyone knows that drivin' fast is fun.
The faster ya goes, the more fun it is."  Now he was tottering back
and forth.  "But time floies when ya's havin' fun, so the faster ya
go, the more fun you have, and the more time flies.  If ya's 'avin'
LOTSA fun, toime floies so fast it starts going backward."  He
fluttered in front of her face.  "And that's how toime travel works."

	Terra stared at him.  "You're just making that up."

	"Oye moight be," admitted the ArbyFish.

	"Anyway," the girl continued, "are you from the future come back to
try and save me, or are you from the past just playing along with bad
old murderous Princess Terrifying?"

	"Oye plead the nointh," Arby affirmed without changing his demeanor.
"Thou shalt not bear false or undocumented badgers in your knapsacks,
and the enumeration of this badger, or of certain squirrels, shall not
be construed tew infringe on the mushroom retention, or fungus, of
this 'ere bramblebush!  It's in the guide of socio... dynamic...
political etiquettal lawbooks, y'see."

	"Ahah!" Terra raised a finger.  "Those are corrupted modern
references from the Constitution of the United States of America and
from the Bible!  Don't ask me how I remembered that, but I just do,
okay?  You MUST be my Arby from the future!"

	"Nope!" Arby shook his head gleefully.  "Oye's from the past!"  He
balanced a mushroom on his left flipper.  "Which makes its way through
the future by way of the present and ends up at last Tuesday."

	Terra gave up.  She had learned all too well that she should not
attempt to combat the illogic of an ArbyFish.  Her situation was
plenty illogical enough without Arby butting in and adding to things.
"I'm going to ignore all that and I'll treat you like I normally do,
okay?"

	"Roight!"

	"I'm on a secret mission to combat the Negamafoozles," Terra explained.

	"Negamafoozles?" Arby inquired.

	Terra nodded and pointed out a window toward the continuously
bombarded shield.  "Negamafoozles.  Gotta whack 'em, y'see."

	Arby looked quite satisfied with the explanation.  "Well a'course!
Makes perfect sense.  Continue."

	"Quite right!  And for that, I need the Full Sailor Moon
transformation equipment.  I'm told it's in the armory.  Could you
please show me the way there, good sir?"

	"Oye shall," Arby declared, and fluttered in front of her face.  "Follow me!"

	It unnerved Terra to see Arby so overtly helpful.  On the other hand,
he always scared her, so she decided to just deal with it.  He led her
down the stairs, across a hall, around a corner, and down some more
steps.  Finally, they reached a large, ominous metal door.  The seams
glowed with a pink sealing power, and in the center was a place to fit
a short, nondescript rod.  As they approached, two guards fled the
area without seeing the two.  Terra could only guess that they had
gone to join the defense force outside.

	"Is this the armory?" the girl inquired.

	Arby nodded.

	Terra couldn't find a handle, so she reached for a seam.  It zapped
her hard enough to make her withdraw her hand immediately.  "Ugh.  I
guess it's locked.  How do we get in there?"

	Arby shrugged.  "Oye dunno.  We could pick the lock, we could nick
the key from the Captain, we could set up charges and blow it apart,
or we could stand on our heads and recite poetry backwards!"

	Terra glanced at the ArbyFish.  "Standing on our heads.  Will this
open the door?"

	"Nope!  But it'd at least make ya look funny!"

	The girl nodded in complete acceptance of the assertion and examined
the keyhole.  It was really just a smooth nondescript metal slot
without anything to turn.  "Is this a magical lock?"

	"Moight be."

	"If I could get the right energy pattern into it, would the door open?"

	"Could be."

	Terra stuck her fingers into the slot.

	Arby grinned.  "Or it could mash down and chop ya fingers off!"

	The girl jerked her hand back.  "A distanced approach, then?"

	"Moight work."

	"Okay then."  Terra took a deep breath, tilted her head back, and
closed her eyes.  It was faint, but she could sense the tendrils of
power in the door.  She also felt her own reserves, red and yellow.
Black was still utterly useless.  She coaxed out some yellow and sent
it towards the lock aperture.  Seeing the power receptors, she tried
to make her power intersect with them and link around with them.  She
had to admit to herself, she really did not know how this kind of
magical lock would function.  Did she need to link the nodes, or did
she just need to activate them all?  Attempting a couple of
connections, she failed to make any progress.

	Terra opened her eyes and saw the door was just as solidly shut as it
had been a moment ago.  "Hoo-kay, that didn't work.  Arby, what do you
recommend?"  She glanced around, but didn't see him.  "Arby?"

	Then he came back, through the darkened hallway, carrying an object
that looked exactly the right size to fit into the keyhole.  He
fluttered up and dropped it into her waiting hands.  "There ya go!"

	"Oh, thanks, Arby," Terra said in relief.  "Nicked the key from the
guards, huh?  What do I owe you?"

	"Oye shall extract me proice at a later date," Arby replied ominously.

	"Hah," Terra laughed ironically.  "Going to make me run naked through
the streets, curse me with foul green magics, and steal all of my
clothes over and over again?  Been there, done that."

	Arby smiled.  "Hey, them's great ideas, they is!"  He flew up, patted
her on the forehead, gave her a written certificate of sale on a
scroll, a face full of mud, and he pulled out a mallet bigger than he
was and conked her on the head.

	"WAAH!" cried Terra, holding her head and scraping the mud off her face.

	"Yew's good at that," complimented the ArbyFish.  "Anyway, moie work
'ere is done!"  He fluttered off, singing a nonsensical ballad about a
mushroom.

	"Oye met a mushroom, down the street,
	 He took me pillow and me sheet,
	 He left the springs an' that was awl,
	 So that is whoie Oye's two feet tall.

	"Oye met a mushroom down the street,
	 He ate me cabbage and me beef,
	 He left the stew, but that's not awl,
	 Oye got a bill for beck and call.

	"Oye met a mushroom down the street,
	 He tipped 'is hat an dressed real neat,
	 But when he rounded up his band,
	 They awl were squelchers just as bland."

	"That guy," Terra sighed and shook her head.  "So what did I forget?
Oh yeah, I forgot to strangle him.  But that's neither here nor
there."  She held the key tight.  "Let's see if this works."

	The girl stuffed the key into the lock.  It was a perfect fit.  The
magical seal seemed to evaporate and the door slid open like a
vertical hatch, leaving a doorway big enough to run a platoon through.

	"Amazing!  Actually putting the key in worked.  Imagine that."

	She walked inside.  At first, Terra wondered why no alarms went off,
but then she noticed that the armory was barren.  It looked like
everything worthwhile had already been taken.  A lot of what remained
shone with a faint magical power, but that only included a few
miscellaneous pieces of armor that remained, as well as a few bent
swords.  Nothing around there looked like it would help her confront
people that were a match for wielders of ocean-freezing,
continent-cracking uber-magic....

	Except that great big wand and the locket contained in the glass case
up high in a pedestal in the center of the room.  The locket was about
four inches in diameter, hung up by a golden chain, with a yellow case
with pink inlay and a gold crescent moon in the center.  The wand was
two feet in length with a pink handle, topped with a riveted red metal
globe held in a gemmed golden crescent, and capping that was what
looked like a tiny red velvet and gold renaissance crown.  White wings
decorated the gemmed section connecting the handle and the top.

	There was a golden plaque on the pedestal that read:

	SAILOR MOON

	THOUGH BY FAR THE WEAKEST OF THE GREAT INNER SAILOR SOLDIERS, IT WAS
SHE THAT DISCOVERED AND CREATED THE FAMED SILVER GINZUISHOU CRYSTAL OF
THE IMPERIUM.  NOW CONSIDERED LITTLE MORE THAN CURIOS, THESE OBJECTS
SHALL FOREVERMORE BE DISPLAYED AS TOKENS OF OUR HOPE THAT SOMEDAY ALL
HOSTILITY WILL BE ENDED.  MAY WHAT WE HAVE DONE HERE LAST A THOUSAND
YEARS.  MAY HISTORY FOREVER REMEMBER THIS AS THE BEGINNING OF A NEW
MILLENNIUM, A SILVER MILLENNIUM.

	"Nice words," Terra remarked, "but not very useful."  She checked
around the pedestal for instructions, but found none.  She slipped the
glass case open and waited for bells or klaxons to go off.  None did,
so she reached inside and pulled out both the wand and the locket.
Both objects felt ice cold to the touch, totally devoid of any power.

	The girl closed her eyes and tried to focus on any latent energy
inside the devices.  Again, there was none.  So, she tried reaching
into the locket with a bit of yellow energy.  The device's core
reacted a little, but didn't spring to life until she fed it a little
of her red power.

	The gems on the locket lit up somewhat.

	"Good," Terra whispered.  "Was afraid for a second I couldn't really
use it."  She took a deep breath.  "Let's get started, then.  Moon
Prism Power!"

	The locket responded with a glow, but it faded shortly afterwards.

	Terra raised an eyebrow.  "Not strong enough for you, huh?"

	It was like the object was alive.  Its irregular flashes hinted that
it wanted something greater.

	"What's that, locket?  You want more human life energy to eat?"

	The object gave off a slow, negative blink.

	"No more life energy.  Maybe a louder transformation phrase?  I said
'Moon Prism Power.'  It wasn't that?"

	She got the same negative response.

	"What, then?  If you're alive, tell me what you want."  The girl
shook the locket.  It clicked open and a scrap of paper fell onto the
floor.  "A written response?  Even better!"

	She picked it up, unfolded it, and read aloud, "In case needed again:
Trained and experienced users can activate the powers of Sailor Moon
with the phrase 'Moon Planet Power.'"  The paper was very old and
crispy, but Terra could make out a signature below that.  It was a
name that she wasn't quite sure how to pronounce, but beneath it in
what passed for this language's quotation marks, it read, "Serenity."
Flipping it over, she read an afternote, which was barely more than a
scribble, "'Moon Crisis' for dire times."

	The locket resonated strongly when she had whispered "Moon Planet
Power," and it had let out a short but noticeable pulse when she said
"Moon Crisis."  Based on her experiences with the Sailor Chibimoon
equipment, she felt pretty certain that it would actually activate if
she were to speak the phrase again purposefully.

	"Now we're getting somewhere!"  Terra held the locket aloft and
declared boldly, "Moon Planet Power!!"

	Oh, it worked for her all right.  She began to feel the power of the
Moon's mystic field instantly as the surrounding area seemed to go
bright in a bath of blue and pink prismatic light.  But as the
unrestricted transformation took place, she soon found herself
reflecting quite soberly on why Angel and Dewdrop had gone on and on
about the years of experience it took to train a real Sailor Soldier.

	"GWAAAAAH!" Terra screamed.  "THE BURNING--IT HURTS!!!"

	She felt the weight and pressure of the Moon's strength bearing down
upon her.  It was as difficult as holding up a mountain with her back,
and at the same time like trying to catch a hurricane in a net.
Rather than easily harnessing the energy and bending it to her will,
it felt as if she were being crushed under a planet and hurled to and
fro in an unyielding maelstrom.

	The girl also thought, "Hey, this really is nothing like turning into
Sailor Chibimoon!  No wonder they don't bother using Chibi tools much
anymore."

	Unfortunately, all of this meant she was woefully unprepared for the
torrent of energy flowing her way.  She may as well have tried to
stand up in a raging river.  Perhaps if she knew more about how the
flows went, she could figure out a way to divert them to suit her
needs.  But, doing so would take all of her strength and
concentration, constantly, for every moment she would attempt to use
the Lunar force.  It seemed blatantly impossible to her that anyone
could ever learn to master this magic without going insane and burning
out within minutes.

	Unless, of course, she had missed something fundamental about how
this Moon Planet Power was supposed to be wielded.

	The white-hot searing of her nerve endings dampened the outside
world.  It occurred to her to panic and abandon herself to what seemed
an inevitable demise, but then another part of her took the
opportunity to review the facts.

	Fact One, human beings, albeit special ones, did use this power
somehow.  Two, those humans obviously lived long enough to rule entire
planets.  That means they lived for years or decades, and possibly
longer, so when used properly, full-blown Sailor powers aren't
supposed to cut your life short.  Three, most people required years to
prepare with lesser devices before picking up the kind of tool that
she had just switched on.

	Therefore, in all likelihood, she was just using it wrong.

	"OH, GEE," cried the poor engulfed Irish girl at herself in pain,
"YOU THINK!?!"

	The previous analogies in her mind, she thought, had to do with
trying to wrestle the power to the ground and having her way with it.
She clearly did not have the strength to do that.  In fact, if she did
have that kind of ability, there would be no reason whatsoever to
attempt to tap into the Moon's planetary magic.  It would be much
easier to just do it herself rather than force the Moon to do it.

	"HOW DO I USE IT AT ALL, THEN!?"

	On the other hand, if she were to let go entirely, she would still
have the problem of being swept away in the torrent.  And yet, since
the other Sailor Soldiers were able to channel their abilities to
break continents and things, there must be a way to control it.  The
next logical step would be to attempt to ride the energy, using a
small amount of control much as a horse rider might use a bit and
bridle.  The horse still had all of the power, but a tiny amount of
force in just the right spot would turn the entire beast around.

	"OKAY, I'LL TRY IT!!"

	Terra quit trying to pin down the Moon's entire mystical field and
rummaged around for some of the theoretical control points her mind
had mentioned.  Soon enough, she found them scattered about inside the
flow, and reached out to them with the smaller threads of her own
yellow and red power.  Her energy threads locked snugly around the
major lines of force like yokes around oxen.

	Soon, she noticed the more familiar effects of a Sailor
transformation.  Solid energy in the form of red nail polish covered
her fingernails.  Translucent pink ribbons burst forth from the locket
at her chest, wrapping around her core body and tightening into a sort
of sleeveless opaque white leotard with a blue sailor collar.  The
Sailor Moon locket affixed itself to the front of her chest,
professionally tying a large red bow across that area.  White
elbow-length gloves appeared on her next, followed by knee-length
elevated-heel red boots.  She reached up and felt the traditional
Sailor tiara appear on her forehead, but this one had a metal crescent
moon mark instead of a gem.  Red gems appeared in her hair beside her
ponytails.  Seemingly as an afterthought, a pleated blue miniskirt
appeared at last.

	It would have been nice if she had felt up to striking a pose at the
end of this sequence of events, but when the pain died down, she fell
to her knees, red-faced and panting with the strain of wielding so
much energy.  The immediacy of having to direct every last thread of
power vanished for the moment, but the Sailor Moon object at her chest
almost burned at the touch.  Whether it was only hot from the
difficult transformation, or was working hard to keep her from
spontaneously erupting into flames, the magic seemed to be stable for
the time being.

	"Yeesh," Terra, now Sailor Moon, muttered, and picked up the wand
that had fallen when she began the transformation.  "Usagi, you never
had to go through all of this, did you?  You would have complained a
whole bunch if you did."  She rubbed her aching joints as she stood.
"But, I guess, you were using training wheels just like I was.  Only
you had a sparkly ten-speed and I had a busted-up TRICYCLE!"

	"Right, then!"  She patted her bare knees, stood up straight, and
began walking out purposefully.  "Let's go whack some Negamafoozles!"

<^_^>

	While the newly minted Sailor Moon marched outside, she soon realized
that she had no idea how she would go about engaging the Dark Kingdom
army.  The shield was still up and no ships had landed, though they
continued their bombardment.  Continuing that thought, while she
certainly felt an immense power at the ready, she also had no
traditional named Sailor attacks thought out for dealing with the foes
she would encounter.

	"Look, mind," Terra responded to herself, "there's no way I can think
through every last possible detail.  I'll make it up as I go along!
Besides, I don't want to be practicing with this kind of power with
people around.  Someone could get hurt.  I'm thinking... I'll just get
into the middle of the enemy forces and go wild."

	"Go wild," she found her own mouth mocking herself.  "Hah!  You're
barely keeping this planetary energy stable enough to not instantly
kill you.  What makes you think you're going to be able to actually
use it when the time comes?"

	"Because," Terra began to reply, and stopped.  She gave her cheek a
light slap.  "Because I just WILL, okay?!"  She waited for another
response.  Finding none, she finished by saying, "Good!  I'm sure
it'll work."

>^_^>

	The miniskirted girl tried to avoid direct contact with as many
people as possible.  However, as she passed a random soldier, he
halted abruptly at the sight of her, and slowly saluted before
hurrying on to his post.  One of the people in animal skins and
feathers--the ones from Jupiter, Terra remembered--took off her large
headdress and bowed humbly.  They obviously had not recognized her as
that infamous murder princess.  In fact, they seemed quite surprised
to see a Sailor Soldier at all.  Word had probably gotten around that
they were supposed to all be gone.

	"Guess I'm the last one," Terra supposed.

	The Last Sailor Soldier decided that she may as well join the crowds
outside.  She stepped into the open and caught sight of the soldiers
making their war preparations.  They made barricades for some of the
more vulnerable parts of the palace.  Swords were sharpened and armor
tested.  The blond captain had been going over swordfighting
techniques with his helmeted subordinates, but he brought this to a
stop when Terra stepped out.  He motioned his comrades to wait, and
came close, holding his helmet under his arm.

	"What is this?" the captain inquired with a cautious expression.
"You're obviously glowing with the Moon's power.  Factoring in the
dress, you must be Sailor Moon.  But we have not trained one.  Who are
you?  Princess Serenity... is it you who has attempted such a rash
thing?"

	"Nope," Terra admitted.  "It's me, the Killer Kid, remember?  Red
hair?  Ponytails?"

	The officer scowled.  "You!  How did you get a hold of the powers of
Sailor Moon?!  Only one of the blood of the royal house could ever--"

	"Wasn't I supposed to be a princess?"

	"You were adopted!  An alien from far away.  Some said Jurai, some
said Vegitasei.  I say you came from the cold black depths of
Tartarus!"  He pointed at her outfit.  "What is the meaning of this
insult?!  Now you dare defile the powers of the Moon with your
taint?!"

	Terra groaned.  She was going to have to put this into believable
terms.  And since nobody believed that she wasn't really this
Terrifying person, she was just going to have to act the part.
"Captain, look.  Hard as it may be to believe, I've had a change of
heart.  I'm here to help, and I can use these powers.  I think I can,
at least.  I'm planning on going out into the Negamafoozle army and
taking out their leaders, like Jadeite and Beryl and stuff."

	The weary officer hung his head.  "Even if what you're saying is
true, which I doubt, the powers that Beryl wields were only just
barely kept at bay when every last one of the Sailor Soldiers worked
in unison.  Alone, Sailor Moon in ancient times was never all that
exemplary in battle, even when she herself was a top-notch
enchantress.  A greenhorn like yourself would get slaughtered."  He
glared at Terra.  "Now if you could just ambush Beryl, her four
Heaven's Kings, AND their fleet's Supreme Commander at once and kill
them, yes, kill them like you did our Sailor Soldiers, then things
might even out somewhat."

	"Maybe I can do that," Terra suggested.

	"Indeed."  The man placed his helmet firmly atop his head and drew
his sword.  "And I'm supposed to let you just walk out of here and run
into Earth's army.  It seems more likely to me that you'll want to
join them to save your own wretched skin while the rest of us in this
city burn.  That's not going to happen.  Prepare yourself!"

	The soldiers gathered around gasped as the captain prepared to
attack.  The thrust came faster than Terra could see.  It was like the
man blurred and the next moment the attack had landed.  Moreover, she
could feel the energy behind the strike.  It was stronger by far than
any attack that she had ever done back home, as Sailor Chibimoon.
This fellow was no man to be trifled with.

	And yet that sword technique, for all its speed, power, and
intricacies, glanced straight off of the material of her sailor suit
by her ribs.  The blow registered to her nerves as a mere touch.  In
fact, it kind of tickled a bit.

	Terra curiously touched the now stationary blade with her fingertips.
 The edge did not cut her.  A thin but sturdy energy field protected
her skin.  "Cool!"  She grabbed the sword, pulled it out of the
captain's grasp, and tossed it to the ground.

	"I guess you're not going to be able to stop me," the Sailor Soldier noted.

	"So it would seem," the officer grudgingly admitted.  He let his arms
drop and puffed his chest out.  "I suppose now is where you make some
snappy comment and kill me before going about the rest of your
dastardly plans."

	Terra folded her arms.  "No."

	"Not going to kill me?  Saving me for later, I presume?"

	"Captain, what's your name?"

	"You know very well that it is Laios."

	"Okay, Laios.  Now is the part where you tell me where I can go to
face the Dark Kingdom."

	"If you must know, wait just a moment.  The Queen is going to make an
announcement soon.  I assume it's an update about our shield."

	"Hmm?"

	"She's been speaking regularly.  But, I imagine that if you've been
in your bedroom, you probably wouldn't have heard it.  It wouldn't
have been necessary to project there."

	"Ah."

	Queen Serenity's voice suddenly became audible.  "People of the Moon
and our guests from afar," she said, "this is another announcement on
our defensive situation.  Our distress signals to other solar systems
have been heard.  Jurai, the Asgard, and the Vorlons are sending many
ships immediately, but even at their best speed it will be three days
before they will be able to arrive in force.  It will be difficult for
us to last that long.

	"However, I believe we can make it.  In order to buy more time, I
have ordered our smaller townships to gather in to the area of the
main citadel so we can consolidate our shield's strength and allow it
to be maintained for longer.

	"I announced this plan hours ago to the rest of our world.  They have
had that long to bring that which is most important to them here.
They will begin arriving shortly.  Please retreat within the walls of
the citadel and prepare to receive our guests.  It will be somewhat
tight, but we have enough room for everyone on this world, and we have
sufficient supplies to last us all several days.

	"The cutoff line will be about five feet from the outer wall.  Please
do not go outside after we have taken everyone in, since then you will
be left totally unprotected against the Terran assault.  We have
reason to believe that they will not destroy us from orbit, but will
attempt a ground battle.  If true, this will be good news because if
our soldiers are ready, we may be able to hold them off for just that
much longer until our allies can arrive.  What Beryl said earlier was
a lie.  Our friends ARE coming to help us.  Hang on, and together we
can make it through this."

	The soldiers around them looked fairly relieved.  Or rather, as
relieved as they could be in the presence of the infamous Princess
Terrifying.

	"First good news I've heard all week," muttered the captain.  He
turned towards Terra.  "Okay, let's say you do want to fight the Dark
Kingdom directly.  You will have to be outside the city walls when the
shield is tightened up."

	Another idea occurred to Terra.  "Or!  Um, how about I use all of
this Sailor power to buoy up your shield?"

	The captain shook his head.  "Queen Serenity alone controls the
world's defensive screen.  What battery there is to charge is not
compatible with the powers of a Sailor Soldier.  And even if it was,
you'd probably blow it up trying to charge it!  No, you're not going
anywhere near that thing.  Get lost!"

	Terra looked around at everyone.  They stepped aside to allow her
through the main exit into the city.  "Okay.  Straight ahead?  See you
all later, then."  She jogged through the open gateway and into the
city streets.

v^_^v

	The new Sailor Moon made it outside unopposed.  In fact, many of the
soldiers and civilians seemed to reverence her as she passed.  Also,
she had to ease past a large number of people who were coming in from
the outer gate.  She supposed that they were the rest of the world's
inhabitants, coming in for the protection the Queen had promised to
give them.  The city was starting to look very, very crowded.

	It took her a couple of hours, but Terra finally made it outside the
city walls.  Unlike the well-maintained and groomed palace grounds,
the dirt in the surrounding wilderness was bare, with rare patches of
grassy vegetation.  Small rocks dotted the surface.  This was starting
to look a bit more like images of the Moon she was familiar with.

	The girl went a short distance away from the city walls, away from
the line of people going in.  Finally, the last group abandoned their
slow-moving wagon and rushed inside.

	Again, Terra heard Serenity's voice.  "We are adjusting the shield
now.  I notice that a small number have opted to remain outside, and
have not even attempted to come towards us.  I would have urged you to
reconsider, as this will leave you unprotected, but time has run out
and we must act.  It will be one minute before the adjustment takes
place.  I've ordered the gates closed.  Everyone, gather inside the
city walls.  The countdown begins now."

	Sailor Moon took a deep breath and counted the seconds, checking her
resolve and desire to do this.  All manner of thoughts went through
her head.  The first involved a vivid recollection of how everyone
told her that she would stand no chance against the Dark Kingdom's
leaders.  But then she remembered the dark acts of Princess
"Terrifying" and why she decided to take up this fight at all.  She
was going to fight and win or make sure that the princess died trying.

	The tense minute ended and the outside shield dropped, a rounded
cylinder springing up in its place around the huge city and palace.
The atmosphere remained, but several shots passed through the open air
and blasted into the terrain below, creating huge craters all over the
world's surface.  Soon, many ships stopped firing and moved to land,
while the rest regrouped around the new barrier and continued their
bombardment.

	As Terra watched the landed Terran vessels open and troops pour out,
she came up with a sketchy plan.  She would either get to a ship and
fly it up to the big command vessel in the sky, or cause enough damage
to the ground army that the Negamafoozle leaders would have to come
down and deal with her personally.  If she figured out how, maybe she
could even start shooting down those ships.

	The girl hefted her wand and began her sprint towards the nearest
troop carrier.  "On to glory or the grave with you, Princess!"

---End of Chapter 16

And now it's time for... MIND YOUR MANNERS!!! with Sailor Nuke.

(Princess Terra goes insane and kills all of the Sailor Soldiers while
they're having tea)

Sailor Nuke:  Today, we learned that a preemptive strike is WAY more
effective than just acting cute all the time!

(Queen Serenity zaps Princess Terra and seals away her power.)

Sailor Kawaii: But that didn't really work.

(Terra looks at Serenity with big hurt puppydog eyes.)

Sailor Kawaii:  It would have been MUCH better to just act cute until
an even better opportunity showed up.  That way, you don't have to
worry about getting taken out by your one greatest weakness when the
critical time comes!

(Arby hops around gleefully and dances with a mushroom held in his flippers)

Sailor Nuke:  Meh.  Whatever.  Even if you've had a huge setback, it's
all about getting the kind of power you need to do what you want.

(Terra nearly explodes when activating the full Sailor Moon powers)

(The Captain's sword glances off of Sailor Moon's sheer power, and she
yanks away the blade and tosses it aside)

Sailor Nuke:  So, your main attack plan failed but you're still alive?
 Great!  Find a new power source and beat up the rest of your enemies.
 Sailor Nuke sez.  BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!




There, that wasn't so bad, now, was it?  It's Revisionist History,
y'see.  Much betta' than regular history because it's been preread and
revised!

Comments are welcome.  Negative and positive, it's all good.  The fact
that I rewrote this chapter completely at the advice of others shows
that, even though this story has been written from start to finish
(though I do owe the original prereaders an epilogue), there's still
room for change.  It just costs a bit extra time, is all. ^^

I'll post the original version in a day or two for comparison purposes.

As for the part after this... Well, it'll probably have to be
rewritten, too.  Could take a bit, and I'm working on something else
before I get back to it.  Time is an illusion.  Lunchtime doubly so.

Thanks for reading!

-- 
Benjamin A Oliver
benjamin.a.oliver at gmail.com

Technical Writer / Translator
M3 Engineering & Technology

Master of Science in Management Information Systems
Eller College of Management
University of Arizona

Writings: Fan Fiction
http://boliver.florestica.com/

Webcomic: Nuke 'Em 'Till They Glow!! The Early Years
http://nettg.com