Zagato's Fortress was best described as a deserted floating city. It was sheer black, which says a lot about his common sense. Everyone knows that black absorbs heat and should therefore be avoided on any type of buildings, especially floating cities.

That aside, it was indeed as magnificient and forboding as the next evil fortress. High glassy walls impossible to scale, the latest in laser weaponery, everything and anything you can imagine, all in the same glossy shade of black. Looks like Zagato spent his entire fortune on it. And oh, what a pity!

A series of silent explosions rocked the great empty city. Orange and red circles expand outwards from the base, putting together a spectacular display of fire and light. Lina Inverse, ever the showman. Showgirl. But it ain't over 'til the fat lady screams!

As the fortress dipped dangerously to the right and sank to her knees figuratively, triggering off yet more chains of destruction, a spine-chilling, goose-pimpling laughter echoed across the crumbling towers. Dramatic Caldina the White Serpent who refuses to let Lina take all the credit joins her new friend on the knoll, cloak flapping out majesticly behind her. They made an impressive picture silhouetted against the artificial sunset, fresh rubble and settling dust.

A little to the west, a jade green six-winged roc played with an orange horned and lion-maned puppy and milk white Gummybear-rabbit cross. A blonde Swordsman stretched his neck a mile long searching with his eyes for someone among the debris. A tiny whimper of despair started in his throat, but whether it was over what Lina and Caldina did to the impregnable fortress or something else leaves to be verified.

A dragon landed before the two girls. His head drooped tiredly, but the eyes were fevered, bright with excitement.

"Great job, kid!" Caldina slapped his greenish gold neck.

"Not ba..."

"Ascot!" Lina didn't get to finish her compliment as Ferrio had charged for them the moment he spotted the dragonokyn landing and now trampled all over her in order to get closer to his beloved. "You had me all worried!"

It was a very stupid thing to do, as he soon found out.

Zagato didn't know what hit them, but he surely knew who. He had thought she would find some way to the gate and demand entrance, or even a duel or something. He had imagined a thousand scenarios for their showdown, but not once in any of those thousand daydreams did she drop in on the fortress and sabotage the anti-gravity spell. It just wasn't done!

But then it started dawning on him that nothing Lina had done so far was exactly 'done' until she came along. He crawled out of the pile of broken marble.

Oh my fortress. He groaned. Maybe his insurance company hasn't gone out of business yet. It would be terrible if it did.

Princess? A cold fear clutched his heart. What if the bubble didn't hold out? What if they find her? What if... ... A note of desperation creeped into his passive voice. Emeraulde! "Emeraulde! Where are you!"

Lina was just finishing beating Ferrio to a pulp, having learnt from Caldina how much more gratifying it was dealing solid physical contact than merely seeing your fireballs fry him.

"Un~hand him, villianess! I will not allow you to terrorise these good citizens any longer! In place of Cephiro, I, Sailor Cephiro, shall punish you!"

All eyes turned to the source of the voice. Rumpled, dirty, masked and dress torn in several places, the little girl stood on a piece of what used to be Zagato's fortress striking a tasteless pose with what she considered a massive amount of maturity.

"Eh?"

"Huh?"

"Good citizen? Me? Ohohohoho!"

FINALLY! THE CALVARY!

"F'nk Mmof! Ah mif emmif'te mmfika adenfon!" This was, in fact, Ferrio trying to say "Thank God! I need immediate medical attention!" through a bloodied nose, broken lip and a couple of missing front teeth.

"Whose kid is this?" Caldina shrugged to the question and dug a toe into Ferrio's side. Ascot turned back to human form and gave his unwanted admirer a full-hearted kick.

"Can't say I know."

"Ascot? Caldina?" A bright smile of recognition. The girl bounded off her perch and landed flat on her face. Zagato's two ex-followers exchanged Do-You-Know-This-Baka and No-I-Don't-Do-You looks.

"It's me, guys! Don't you recognise me?" She got back on her feet exclaiming, apparently needing someone to state the obvious.

"No."

Princess. You should not be troubling yourself with this... trivialty. The villian appears and lifted the girl off her feet.

"Fadapho!" Ferrio tried again to reach for his sword and again Lina stepped down hard on his hand. Everyone else tensed.

Ah, I see I am known. He looked highly amused as an adult would cruelly be by children's all-out attempts to prove themselves. Allow me to introduce the Princess Emeraulde, Pillar of Cephiro.

"Zagato! You're not supposed to reveal my secret identity! I am Sailor Cephiro! Protector of the Good and Upholder of Justice!"

"That's not her, she sounds... less squeaky!" Ascot protested. Caldina frowned. Lina readied a fireball. Zagato sighed and waved a hand. A bubble appeared around the girl as she continued to protest. It buffled her voice to a more comfortable decibel. Lina toasted Ferrio with the fireball instead.

"Eh, what was all that about?"

Too much Sailor Moon. Zagato sighed. Should never have bought her that T.V. Lina and Co. (minus Ferrio) nodded sympatheticly despite the fact they had no idea what a 'T.V.' was.

There is no way I can bring her safely into public in this state, He lamented, breaking down. "There's too much at stake! Nobody can keep faith with a clumsy kid who fancies herself a superhero! And nobody hesitates to attack a nation with a ruler like her! Politcs, you know how it is..." He sobbed uncontrolably. Caldina offered a hanky. One wonders where she keeps it in that scanty outfit of hers.

THERE THERE, OLD CHUM. Windam patted him on the back. I UNDERSTAND. Even Mokona and Rayearth looked concerned. Zagato took a shuddering breath.

"So that's why I decided to call the Magic Knights, to come and finish it so Cephiro can have a fresh start. Then you came along, Lina, and messed up the spell and got caught in it instead then became the Messiah and all, we're doomed, I tell you, doomed!"

"Gomen." Lina looked chagrined. So she was aware that she wasn't going by the books. "Is there anything I can do to make up for it? What is it that I'm supposed to do anyway?"

Zagato had taken off his impressive mantle and headdress during the course of his lamentation and now looked to Lina no more than a teen around her age, maybe even younger, and wasn't exactly bad looking either. He looked up at her, surprised. "You don't know? The mission of the Magic Knights or Messiahs is to slay the Pillar."

"WHAT??? You never told me that, To-chan!"

You didn't pay attention during history class. Snooze and lose, Emeraulde.

"To-chan?" Lina grinned at the nickname. Caldina howled with laughter. Zagato blushed. Ascot peered into the bubble and blushed too, for a different reason. Somehow the plain princess made his heart race and cheeks boil. There was something very special about her that made him want to do the craziest things. Like think someone beautiful besides himself.

Suddenly, he knew what he must do. Drawing a hairpin from his long, teal-stained gold hair, Ascot burst the bubble, caught the Princess in his arms, transformed and fled. Everyone else was too stunned to do anything, including the Princess. When she realised what was happening, though, Emeraulde went into a swoon. It's only proper when being rescued.

"Now, who would have thought..." Caldina nodded knowingly behind them.

"Afkod! Komm faak!" (Translaton: "Ascot! Come back!")

"Well, that's one way of doing it." Zagato blinked, picking up the que to ignore Ferrio from the girls.

OH NO! NOW WHAT DO WE DO? Windam whined between Mokona and Rayearth running circles around him. Lina had an evil hungry look that she shared with Caldina.

"For starters, we can finally see what that fluffball tastes like." Out came fork and knife and napkin, from where only Lina knew. "Then," She smiled warmly at Zagato. "You can teach me all about this place."

Zagato blushed and started a reply, but she was already gone, chasing Mokona and Caldina across the empty hillscape. "Amazing, isn't she?" He picked up the yawning Rayearth and smiled a genuine, glad smile from the bottom of his heart, Windam circling overhead and sqwaking undignifiedly after them.

He must've been four or five when they sold him to his lordship as a serving boy. He didn't hate them, there was just too many mouths to feed and in his new place, at least, he had plenty to eat and a warm bed.

That wasn't all he got from his master. Having discovered his talent for figuring and eloquence, his lordship gave him the finest education a boy could hope for and a place in Court besides. At age eleven he was single-handedly juggling Internal State Affairs and by thirteen, External as well. He was a genius, a prodigy, but he was also never a child or teen. Ninteen years old and never seen a party. A real, high-strung, teen-affair party.

Then suddenly, it all snapped back and hit him smack in the face, the whole full pack of Life itself. Plus a special bonus of Lina Inverse. It would be a welcome change.

It already was. Lina blocked out the sun with her own radience and took the blade of grass from between Zagato's teeth.

"What does this do?" She sketched the rune in his face. Quickly he slammed up a shield around the both of them as the lingering sign exploded. "Oh."

"Why don't you tell me what you want to know? Something to make your way home?" It wasn't good for the heart living each day in fear that she might blow them to the eighteenth hell and back without realizing what she was doing.

"Everything! I want to know everything there is to know about Magic in Cephiro that you can teach me, then learn some more."

And it wasn't good for the heart to melt repeatedly each day.

She flopped herself down on the grass next to him, caught in her passion for magic. "There's so much here! It could take a lifetime to learn!"

I'm sure you'll manage in less. You've already covered more than what would usually take a year to learn in the past two months. He pointed out matter-of-factly, hiding a trecherous trace of emotion. It was becoming increasingly hard to stop his mind from wandering off into daydreams featuring, surprise, Lina; especially when they're just chatting, like now.

She supported herself on one hand to look down at him. "You really think so?"

For some reason over the days, his opinion had grown more and more important to her. Compliments especially thrilled her, and it wasn't all because he always means them thrice-fold. At first she was confused, but now she was sure of what it was. And the more distant he became at times, such as now, the surer she was of what she wants to do. Of what she must do.

I know so. She would leave Cephiro once she's discovered there's nothing more to learn and he would never see her again, he knew. But he could not begrudge her the truth.

"Then I'm staying a while." Lina looked into the distance where Caldina was teaching Ferrio, Windam and Rayearth to do circus acts. A while, then forever. Smiling shyly at Zagato, she wondered how he ever thought she didn't notice his secret affections and why he never guessed hers. It was painfully obvious, according to Caldina.

"Besides, shinaida," And leaned down to kiss him on his pale, tensed lips. "This is my home."

And the moral of the story is...
Hey, get real! You can't expect someone without
morals to write a morally inspiring story! =P
"I pride myself on the fact that my work has no socially redeeming value."
~ Some really wise guy whose name I forgot