DISCLAIMER - Sailor Moon is the property of Naoko Takeuchi, Dic, and whoever else paid for the rights. Suing me would be a waste of your effort, because I am not making a penny off of this and I have no money anyway. Besides -- isn't imitation the sincerest form of flattery? :)
Younger Queen Serenity stepped down from the crystal teleporter, her face sad and thoughtful. Around her, the Sailor Senshi stood in a rigid semicircle, waiting to welcome their ruler home. She accepted Saturn's helping hand, and cast her eyes about the room, her gaze lingering on each familiar face. Some were missing, she noticed with a heavy heart.
"How did the conference go, my Queen?" Saturn asked gently.
"Not well, I'm afraid." Younger Queen Serenity sighed. They swept out of the teleporter room, the Inner Senshi walking before her, with Neptune and Uranus as rear guard. The people in the vaulted crystal hallways bowed as the procession passed.
"The other planets are restless, wanting to move in their own circles and not bowing to Crystal Tokyo," Serenity said sadly. "I am afraid of what will happen if we try to keep their allegiance."
"Surely we cannot allow them to break their vows and betray Crystal Tokyo?" Sailor Mars' voice rose above the gentle murmur in indignation. At a glance of reproach from Neptune, she subsided into an angry whisper. "If they do not respect our power, how can we keep the Solar System together?"
Oh, Rei, Younger Serenity thought looking at the wrinkled yet vigorous face. The years have not been kind to you. But you have not changed at all.
"What can we do?" she finally responded. "We cannot risk war tearing the Solar System apart. It is better that they leave in peace than in anger."
"But Majesty," Uranus interrupted "that will mean the death of our Empire. We must do something!"
They reached the lovely frosted glass doors that led to Younger Serenity's apartments.
"I will think on this," Serenity said. She swept inside, leaving the Senshi behind. Only Sailor Saturn followed. Uranus and Mars grumbled under their breath as they left. As Saturn closed the door, Serenity heard Mars say something about Neo-Queen Serenity.
Inside, Saturn swept aside the gauzy curtains and opened the double doors that led to the royal rose gardens. She called for a maid to bring tea, and the two women went outside to sit beneath the roses and gaze upwards at the moon hanging low in the still-daylit sky.
"She shouldn't have said that," Saturn finally said. "Maybe Neo-Queen Serenity and Neo-King Endymion could have staved this off for a while, but eventually not even the strength of their legend could have kept the planets eternally under our rule."
"I know," Younger Serenity said, calmly sipping her tea. "I have worked as hard as I could to keep peace, but there is nothing left for me to do. I can only let them go their separate ways, and give them my blessing and my best wishes. I want to see them prospering on their own before I die."
Saturn started. "You won't die for a long time, Serenity."
"Please, Hotaru," Younger Serenity smiled. "Call me Chibi-usa, as you did so long ago. We have been friends for so long, and still whenever I hear someone call me Serenity, I look around for my mother."
"Chibi-usa." Saturn said. "It will be a while yet before you die."
"Yes," Serenity said faintly. She stared at the moon thoughtfully. "I noticed that neither Ami nor Setsuna were present today."
"No," Saturn gladly changed the subject. "Mercury is still travelling the outer planets, dealing with the remnants of the epidemic that swept through there so recently. I don't know where Setsuna might be, but then she is often away on the business of Time. She is not like the rest of us, not even myself."
"We have all aged so much. It isn't noticeable in you or myself yet, because we are so much younger than the others. But the other Senshi are beginning to show the ravages of time." Serenity continued.
"Setsuna always looks the same."
"Yes." Serenity put her empty cup aside. "I think I will go for a walk. It has been a while since I have had the freedom to wander around my father's gardens."
"Would you like some company?" Saturn asked.
"No, not now. We'll talk some more later." Once more her eyes strayed to the full disk of the moon. "Do you think that we will ever see the Moon Kingdom restored again?"
"Of course we will," Saturn said firmly, gathering up the teacups. "We have workmen there right now. It won't be long before the crystals they transplanted there blossom into a new city for our people to inhabit."
Serenity, preoccupied, merely nodded and wandered down the garden path. She was soon out of sight behind the curving walls of the maze of roses.
Saturn hadn't walked very far before she heard the scream. Fearing the worst, she dropped the teacups she'd been holding, and began running back to Serenity. The twisted walls of the maze of roses blocked her way and, frustrated, she abandoned her efforts at making her way through them. With a single leap, she landed on a decorative archway. Seeing a flash of pink and white among the foliage, she covered the distance between herself and her Queen in three or four effortless jumps.
Landing beside Serenity, she looked forward and was brought up short by the sight that greeted her.
They stood in a circular area, surrounded by high walls of pruned rose bushes. Tiled in pale marble, with a plain fountain in the centre, it was as peaceful and private a place as any other in the vast garden.
Before the fountain stood Sailor Pluto. She did not move, did not, in fact seem to see them. She held the Time Staff in her hand.
"Oh, Puu!" Serenity whispered, walking up to hug her old friend and mentor. Hotaru touched Setsuna's arm tentatively. It was cold and unyielding. With a start, she realized that Pluto was not breathing. She might as well have been a statue.
Hotaru could feel no traces of life in her, nothing that could respond to healing. If not for the presence of the Time Staff and the Orb, she would have dismissed it as a joke, a mannequin someone had placed there to cause consternation to the Senshi and unwary gardeners. However, Pluto would never have abandoned her Talisman. Whatever this was, it went beyond a mere prank.
"What will we do with her?" Hotaru asked gently.
"Gather the Senshi," Serenity wiped her eyes. "We will bear her to the Crystal Chamber. She will be safe there while we decide how best to help her."
"She is, I'm afraid, beyond my healing..." Saturn said sadly, her eyes straying to a small doorway leading from the Crystal Chamber. It led to a small audience hall, where they had put Pluto's likeness. None of the Senshi could bear to look at her standing there, unseeing. It was indecent, like discussing a person in a coma while standing at their bedside. "I can't even tell if it indeed is her. All I have is the feeling that this is not some joke, that somehow she has been frozen and it is her somewhere inside. I can feel no life, but..."
"Yes, somewhere inside I sense the glimmer of a soul, Puu's soul." Younger Serenity said from the "head" of the great circular crystal that served as a table. The light was cleverly refracted through the walls and ceiling to fall on her throne-like chair, giving the illusion of a golden aura surrounding her.
"What could have happened to her?" Haruka asked, her voice betraying her fear and worry. Michiru laid a calming hand on her arm. The Inner Senshi said nothing, and it was obvious that although they were disconcerted, their emotions didn't run as deep as the Outer Senshis' did.
We were always so polarized, Serenity thought sadly, putting her friend's plight out of her mind temporarily, as she had been forced to do so many times in the past. It never quite worked, but it helped to stabilize her, helped her to get things accomplished while her heart was screaming on the inside. Instead, she thought sadly about her mother, and the split between the Senshi.
They are like the old guard, Mother's ancient protectors, she thought. She looked at them, all beginning to show signs of their great age in the wrinkles and the gray-touched hair. Minako's hair had turned a silver-white, and she was reminded of her mother as she looked at it, and her mother's predecessor, the original Serenity. Makoto was holding up quite well, better than the others by far, but then her constitution had always been quite strong. Rei had suffered the ravages of time the most, although her hair was still peppered with black and her eyes burned with the force of the spirit inside.
It was amusing to think of them as the old guard, since both Haruka and Michiru were older than them and Pluto, of course, was the eldest of them all. Haruka and Michiru hadn't escaped the rough hands of time, of course, but somehow it had left gentler touches on them, perhaps because they had always had each other, through everything that they ever experienced as Senshi. And Hotaru, although the weakest of them all physically, still looked almost like the little girl she had been.
She could see the unspoken suggestion behind some of their eyes. She could use the Ginzuishou to save Pluto, the all-powerful Silver Crystal which had created this paradise.
"I might use the Ginzuishou to save her..." she voiced the idea that she knew had been floating, almost-tangible, around the room.
"But you might die!" Hotaru protested.
"For Puu, I would be willing to take that chance. However, I will not use the Ginzuishou. Not until we know what the cause of this is. It would be too easy to attempt to help, and make the situation worse instead. We must know what we are facing before we can fight it."
"I hope you will forgive me for not consulting with you on this, but I have informed Ami of the situation," Minako said. "She will be here as soon as her work permits."
"She is the most intelligent of us all," Makoto said. "If anyone can figure this out, she can."
"Yes, it was an excellent idea," Serenity agreed.
"But should we wait for Ami to arrive?" Michiru asked gently, turning away from Haruka. "If we have to wait that long, it may be too late."
"You're right, love," Haruka said. "We have to do something, and soon. Poor Setsuna..."
"We will just have to do the best we can until Ami arrives," Minako said firmly. "But I'm afraid that until she does, we probably will not make much headway." she added.
Haruka and Michiru stood in the little audience chamber, looking at Sailor Pluto.
"I wish we had spent our time better," Michiru sighed sadly. "No amount of music is going to help her now."
"Maybe it will," Haruka said. "We don't know what will and what won't help. Maybe, if you play... Even if nothing happens she may be able to hear it and know we are with her."
"I think I will fetch my violin and play for her."
"Check up on Hotaru, will you, love? This must be hitting her fairly hard. She was always so fond of 'Setsuna-mama'" Haruka suggested, giving Michiru a quick hug. Her eyes followed her lover out the door.
Serenity stood, partially hidden by a curtain, in the audience chamber. She was listening to the strains of Michiru's violin, playing Setsuna's favourite compositions. She closed her eyes and relaxed, losing herself in her memories.
She thought about her parents, encased in a giant crystal, lying together in a Mausoleum in the midst of the Main Palace Gardens. Even in death, Endymion and Serenity could not be separated. She missed them. They had always wanted to see her married, to play with their grandchildren as they had played with her. She remembered her first love, all the opportunities missed, all the responsibilities that prevented her from seeking out another.
She also thought about Luna, Artemis and Diana, as well as several generations of their descendants lying in their own crypt in the Gardens. Faithful friends all, now gone.
She thought of the restoration effort of the Moon Kingdom. There was a near- city up there now, grown from the seed-crystals brought up from Crystal Tokyo. Lately, though, the work had been slowing down, as the Colony workers went back to their own worlds to prepare for the separation and the people of Crystal Tokyo grew more self-contained. She feared that the dream was dying.
She thought of the other planets, on the brink of their own dreams of the future. She wished she could ask Puu how it would all turn out for them. Not that there really was anything she could do...
As she listened to Michiru's music, she felt as though Puu was standing beside her, and felt comfort in that presence. Yes, Setsuna was here among them, maybe not in physical form but in spiritual. Serenity opened her eyes as the music died away, noting that the physical Pluto had not reacted to it. But she knew the spiritual Pluto had. She saw that the other Senshi there also felt it.
She left the chamber as Michiru began another composition, the beautiful music fading behind her until she could no longer hear it.
Ami had not changed much since she had left Earth to help establish hospitals on the other planets. However, she had changed somewhat since the days of their youth. Her hair was still black, excepting twin shocks of white at the temples. She had shrunk, if that was at all possible, and plumped a little although her senshi form did not show it.
Now, she stood in an almost-white lab coat, somewhat tattered around the edges although she was normally a meticulous person, examining Sailor Pluto. She had set up a makeshift lab in the palace, knowing how reluctant the other Senshi would be to the idea of moving Setsuna to a more public location. She would have argued for the better hospital facilities, if she had not made a surprising discovery.
The Senshi and Queen Serenity now gathered in her laboratory to listen to what she had found out.
"This," she pronounced, cutting right to the point "is not Setsuna's body. In fact, it never was her body or anyone's body, for that matter. It's a mechanical construct." She thumped a fist against it, but it didn't make a clanging noise as she had been expecting. She shrugged, then took off one of Setsuna's gloves. She unhooked something and lifted what looked like a chunk of Setsuna's skin away. But it couldn't have been skin, because beneath it was revealed a maze of gears and springs and other, even stranger things.
"So it was never Sailor Pluto..." Hotaru breathed.
"No." Ami said.
"But I thought the Time Staff and the Garnet Orb were real?" Minako frowned.
"That is the puzzling thing. They seem to be. Not only that, but I have found something unusual." Ami said, shifting equipment around. Gently, she took the Garnet Orb from the Time Staff and moved it to a table, hooking it up to the mass of apparati. She flicked a switch, and the Orb began to glow. Deep inside it, a blurry image began to form.
"I have never been able to get it clearer than that," Ami said. She flicked the switch again and the Orb dimmed until it was back to its normal state. "I think I will experiment with this a little longer."
"I think we are left with as many questions as we had when this began," Haruka grumbled. "Who put this machine here? Why is it holding Setsuna's Talismans? Where is the real Setsuna while we have been running around, worrying ourselves silly?"
"I don't think that Setsuna is behind this. Doing this as a joke would be out of character for her," Neptune said. Her expression betrayed her inner worry.
"So an enemy -- not one of us." Makoto frowned.
"But why leave the Talismans?" Minako countered. "Surely they would be of great use to the enemy? Oh, this is making my head hurt..."
"Maybe whoever it is can't use them," Rei suggested. "Perhaps I will go and attempt to do a fire-reading. I haven't done one in a great while and am out of practice, but maybe I can find a clue."
"Don't wear yourself out," Minako said affectionately. "I'll drop in later, to make sure you're all right."
"You worry about yourself, Old Woman," Rei grumbled, but there was a smile behind the tough eyes.
"I'll join you as well," Makoto turned to leave.
"Now Ami, you take the same advice I gave Rei," Minako said sternly. "Rei has been resting in the palace, getting fat and lazy but you have been working all this time. This is important, but you must take care of yourself or we'll lose you too."
"Yes, yes," Ami waved her away. "I'll see you three later."
The Senshi all trickled out the door in small groups. Only Serenity and Ami were left behind. After a few minutes of watching Ami's frantic scribbling, she, too, left.
Rei took a long while to prepare for the fire reading. Although she was as curious about this as anyone else, she had an ominous feeling that something was very wrong.
That night, Serenity walked back into Ami's lab, noting where the old Senshi had fallen asleep among her notes and mechanical equipment. She asked the Ginzuishou to strengthen her sleep, that what she might do here would not awaken her. Then she flicked the switch to turn the apparatus holding the Garnet Orb.
A picture swam into view, this time as clear as pure water.
It was Setsuna's face.
"I was wondering when I might get you alone, Small Lady," Setsuna's image said affectionately.
Rei began to concentrate on the fire, trying to discipline her mind, to find the image that she sought among the flames.
"I thought I felt your spirit when the Orb began to glow," Serenity said, dragging one of Ami's chairs before the Orb. She perched delicately in it.
"And earlier, when Michiru played her violin. I tried to communicate, but did not have the power. I am lucky that the Garnet Orb is so powerful in and of itself, or Ami's arrival would have been too late." Sailor Pluto's voice echoed softly in the laboratory.
"Oh, Puu..." Serenity whispered, "what is going on?"
"I am afraid you will not like this, Small Lady."
"I think I already sense some of it. Please tell me the rest. Tell me why this mechanical thing is here, holding your Talisman."
"Small Lady. The mechanical thing you see before you *is me*."
Slowly, an image began to form in the flames. Rei felt her body and mind beginning to tire from the strain. But she was so close... She had to find the vision.
"I was constructed many, many thousands of years ago to be the Guardian of Time," Pluto began, pausing to allow Serenity to collect herself. "A few Senshi in the millenia before had attempted to live within the Time Gate and serve this Office, but their bodies, like all things mortal, were too fragile to withstand Time itself. The constant travelling through the Time storms, the changes between the rapid flow of Time in the World and the almost nonexistent flow of time in the Time Gate exacted a terrible price. Although they seemed long-lived to the mortals left behind in this Reality, in truth their lives were short and bitterly lonely. It was a heavy responsibility for a mortal to bear.
"At that time, I was an AI, a semi-sentient program created by one of Makoto's predecessors. She was to the Senshi of the Past what Ami is to the Senshi of the Present -- a genius. She experimented both with mechanical things and living ones, although never in a cruel fashion. She wanted me to ascend to full sentience, and under her tutelage, I finally did.
"After the current Senshi of Time came stumbling back, aged beyond what normal mortal bodies can bear, the Queen of that time had a difficult choice to make. She did not want to condemn any other Senshi to such a horrible fate, and yet the Office of Time had to be filled. No one person could be allowed to imperil the future.
"My mother finally persuaded the Queen to give me a chance. I had to grow for many more years, and demonstrate my capabilities beyond those of normal Senshi before I was trusted with the task. In the end, I believe it was my compassion and sense of responsibility that convinced everyone to allow me to take the Office. Strange qualities to be found in an artificial being..."
Setsuna's image laughed, blurred, then reasserted itself within the Orb.
"It was decided that I would need a body to fulfill this Office, both so that I could invoke the Talisman and interact with humans on their own plane of existence. My mother, with her sense of humour, made me a clockwork body. She said that it was appropriate for me to be a Keeper of Time in all possible ways. I could wind myself up with one of my Time Keys, and as long as I did that I could run eternally, not suffering from mortal decay. I would be, in fact, immortal."
"And you ran down in the garden?" Serenity asked.
"Yes. I had just stepped out of one of my portals, when I realized that my body was slowing down at an alarming rate. I realized I wouldn't be able to wind myself up again, so I used my remaining energy to put the part of me you would call 'spirit' into my Talisman."
"Then let me wind you up again," Serenity suggested. "Tell me which key to use..."
"No." Pluto frowned. "I have things that I must tell you first, things that I was originally coming here to warn you about. The future is before us, and I can only see so far. Afterwards... we will talk of my body and spirit again."
Images flooded into Rei's mind. At first, she did not truly understand what she was seeing. As the realization slowly sunk in, she could only look on in fear as the images came faster and faster.
"Listen to me, Serenity, because the future is at hand. You may call this a prophecy, but it is simply what I see, what will inevitably happen." Pluto said, her face turning serious.
Serenity merely nodded. "I know," she said. "Crystal Tokyo is doomed."
Rei saw her friends dying, one by one. Time withered their features, and they dropped like water-starved roses, wilting before her eyes. Not like Serenity and Endymion of old, their still-young bodies lying in their crystal grave, but dying of Time, ravaged and weak.
She saw the planets break away, one by one, spinning away to their own futures, some bright, some dark. She saw the city on the Moon crumble into ruins, and be covered by dust again.
She saw Crystal Tokyo die. Not by cataclysm, but the death of old age and stagnation, its youth slowly trickling to the colonies while the old gathered together, increasingly more paranoid and xenophobic, until they too collapsed under the burden of Time.
And then she had a vision of a strange woman dressed as Sailor Pluto, standing like a statue in the midst of the ruined Palace, framed by a circle of broken crystal and ruined walls.
In the middle of the night, plagued by the death of dreams and of hope, Sailor Mars' heart finally gave out.
All of the Senshi felt it. They dropped what they were doing, some of them starting out of a sound sleep to run to Rei's bedroom.
Ami stirred restlessly in her sleep.
"It begins," Pluto said in a hollow voice.
"What lies beyond?" Serenity whispered.
"There will be no more Senshi after you, not as far as I can see. None of you have children, and if your souls are destined to be reborn it will be far in the future, beyond the strength of the vision I have been granted. This planet is fated to die, a gentler death than the Moon had but a death nevertheless. The colonies will prosper, some more than others, and humankind will continue.
"Perhaps sometime in the future more Senshi will arise. Perhaps this is just a backlash of Chaos, insignificant in the long stream of Time. I believe that this is so, although I cannot see it. I do not think Galaxia will allow Chaos to overtake this system. In the end, others will come."
"Will you watch over them for us?" Serenity asked, tears in her eyes.
"I cannot. I, too am dying. Not by necessity, but by choice, to create the seed of possibility for the future." Pluto lowered her eyes. "And to make this possible, I have a request to make."
"Anything." Serenity could no longer control her emotions. Her oldest, her only friends, dying one by one until only she would be left, the last of the Senshi.
"I ask that Ami create my replacement. She knows more about computers than anyone alive, more than anyone that has lived since my mother's days. With her knowledge of psychology, she can create a worthy successor for me, to guard the Gate of Time. I know that she will do it, because I have seen her in my visions. Have her rebuild my old body, as well. I will not be there to guide the future, but someone will."
"Done," Serenity crumpled. "Will you leave me now?"
"My strength is running down. We will not talk again, I'm afraid," Pluto's image wore a sad, serene expression. "We never did have enough time, Small Lady, even though I controlled all the Time in the World. But I will not shut down completely until my replacement is ready. I will watch over you, and when I am finally gone she will watch over you as I have done so in the Past."
"Goodbye, Puu." Serenity leaned towrds the Orb and kissed it gently.
"Goodbye, Small Lady. I will see you soon." Pluto smiled, and slowly faded out, leaving a dead orb behind.
Serenity sobbed quietly for a while, then went to wake Ami. End of the World or not, there was still work to be done.