Shattered Skies: The Morning Lights, Chapter 15

Chapter 15: Detours

-VERTEX ONE: 15.556984-

Underneath Game Center Crown

In other, more normal circumstances, the sight would have been comical: two adult cats, one black and one white, pressing frantically at strange keyboard interfaces as they shouted complex streams of information back and forth at each other in perfect Japanese. A much smaller grey kitten dashed across the room, to and fro between them, attempting to assist in any way she could.

The circumstances, however, were far from normal: according to their sensors, all of the Sailor Senshi and Tuxedo Mask had vanished off the face of the earth.

"- sectors four through nineteen, no readings. That covers all of Shibuya," said Artemis, his furry face bathed in the cool blue glow of the monitors. "I'm moving onto Shinjuku!"

"Don't bother, Shinjuku's readings are negative," said Luna, tapping away on the opposite end of the console. "Scanning Chiyoda, coordinates-" Luna rattled off a string of numbers.

"Damn!" Artemis whacked a control crystal with his paw in frustration. It chirped petulantly at him in response. "All right, Shinagawa district, quadrant one, sector one through five, scanning…"

The kitten stopped in the middle of the control room, lost. "Mother, Father, what can I do?"

"Just stay where you are. Chiyoda, sectors three through nine clear. No sign of them."

"But I want to help-"

"What about our allies? We should call the Sisters, Helios, even the Star Lights if we have to… are any of them responding? Any signatures at all?"

"Comm frequencies are blank. They're all blank…"

"Mother!"

"What is it, Diana?" Luna rubbed her eyes. Staring at the constantly shifting cluster of holo-readouts was tiring under the best of conditions, but this-

"Mother, someone's coming!" said Diana, pointing to the top of a staircase that appeared to be made of glass. Vague shadows moved on the outside of the command center's starry domed ceiling.

"Stay behind us." The older cats' hackles rose as they abandoned their keyboards and drew close together. The identical crescent moon marks on their foreheads shone… and Diana had to crane her neck far upwards, for her mother and father weren't cats any longer. Luna was a stunningly beautiful young woman with wavy black locks and a yellow sundress, and Artemis was a strong, confident man dressed in light grey, his ivory hair flowing halfway down his back.

At the top of the stairs, the hidden doorway slid open. Luna and Artemis took each other's hands…

"You're kidding," said a familiar voice with an Osakan accent, in stupefied disbelief. "This was where their base was all along?! Underneath the... Oh no, stairs-"

"Careful, Naru!" The young man with thick glasses took hold of her hands. "One step at a time-"

"Naru…?" Baffled, Luna gaped at them. "Umino? What are you doing here?! How did you even get in?"

"We led them here, it was an emergency!" Squeezing past the couple making their way slowly down the stairs came two identical twin girls dressed in leotards of sorts, one in red and one in violet, their long black hair giving the impression of feathered wings as it rippled in their wake. It was the red-clad one who spoke, in a harsh, almost abrasive tone. "I know, I know, 'No civilians in the control room,' but they were in the area when the Senshi disappeared, and that field was swallowing up the whole-"

Now it was Artemis's turn to gape. "Phobos?" he said, looking from one to the other. "Deimos?"

The twins nodded in unison.

"I suppose you've never actually seen us in humanoid form in person before," said Deimos, the twin in violet, just as sharp as the other. Even their voices sounded the same. "We changed because we couldn't feel Princess Mars's energy anymore-"

"- and we felt it when those things were unleashed-"

"- but now there's nothing, no sign of Princess Mars or any of the others, so-"

"Um," said the heavily pregnant redhead from the corner. "Th-thanks for getting us out of there, but who are all of you people? Are you all Usagi's friends...?"

This, at least, Diana could help with. She smiled up at Naru and Umino as cordially as she could as she introduced herself, her tail swishing with nervous excitement. "Greetings! I humbly apologize for the confusion. My name is Diana, these are my parents, Luna and Artemis…" She indicated the transformed cats with her paw. "... and these other two ladies are Phobos-san and Deimos-san, the guardian crows of Sailor Mars."

Umino adjusted his glasses. That didn't help; he still saw it. He adjusted them again. "Naru," he said, trying desperately to keep calm, "I think that kitten is talking to us."

"Luna and Artemis? Wait." Naru's head spun, and she had to lean back against a pillar for support. "You… you guys are Usagi and Minako's cats?!"

"Yes, exactly! And I belong to Princess Usagi Small Lady Serenity Tsukino, whom you know in this time period as Chibi-Usa. We both come from the 30th century city of Crystal Tokyo," said Diana from the floor. Her crescent mark also began to glow, and with a soft pop, she stood up… and up, and up. Now she was a little girl in a frilly skirt, her clothes and hair the same color as the kitten's fur. With the same cordial smile, she bowed to them. "Please excuse my rudeness, I beg your pardon." Diana turned and left them to support her parents… the baffled couple saw that she still had a cat's tail for some reason, one that poked out of the back of her dress and twitched faster than ever, in a way that indicated that it was indeed a real tail, and not a decorative addition to her costume.

"Naru," said Umino. "Pinch me."

She did. It still didn't help.

"I don't understand this at all." The young man took off his glasses and scrubbed his eyes. "A hundred monsters attacked our store and tried to kill us. Usagi, our Usagi, is Sailor Moon." Out of necessity, Naru had let him in on that secret once the twins came to lead them to safety… he was taking it well, under the circumstances. "Her friends are all Sailor Senshi, and their cats can talk and turn into people. There's a secret base under the Sailor V game at the arcade. Chibi-Usa is a princess from the future. And those two girls are crows… this is a dream, right? Tell me this is a dream…"

"I don't think so," said Naru, shaking her head. "Unless I'm having the same dream you are."

"Sailor Moon. Usagi is Sailor Moon." Umino had been coming back to variations on that sentence for the last half-hour. "I was in her fan club back in school, I had posters and everything! And she was right there in our class all along! Clumsy, scatterbrained, Bun-Head Usagi Tsukino, the girl I was in love wi-" Umino's mouth clamped shut like someone slamming a door. His face burned scarlet. "Um. Never mind."

Soft lips pressed against his cheek. "Was in love with." Naru giggled. "That's all that's important."

Somehow, Umino turned even redder. "Naru…"

They watched as confusion reigned… now five people darted around the control room, manning panels on the computer consoles, shouting coordinates to each other. Now that they had time to get a good look, the room was hardly what either of them imagined the Sailor Senshi's headquarters to be… It looked a bit like a piece taken out of an ancient Greek temple, a floating circular stone platform with marble pillars lining its edges, pillars that stood connected to nothing, reaching into an artificial night sky. The bank of consoles itself also looked to be carved out of marble, or some kind of stone at any rate… but the appearance of Greekness was defied by crystal keys set in the surfaces, the curved monitors inlaid in the stone, and the holographic screens that floated over and around its user interfaces. The floor was inlaid with irregular patterns that reminded Naru of tiny streams flowing between smooth stones in a dry riverbed… but instead of water, glowing lights raced through the "streams". Umino was the computer guy, not her, but if she had to guess, it was some kind of circuitry. Pretty, though… it had already given her an idea for a new line of jewelry.

A storm of chatter, very little of which made sense to the couple:

"Deimos, if you would begin checking the outer districts for energy signatures, please."

"Yes, ma'am. Scanning now..."

"Excuse me, how does this control work?"

"Press the blue diamond to bring up the screen-"

"Ah, understood."

"Mother, you look tired. Do you need anything? Water, or tea perhaps?"

"No thank you, Diana. I'll be fine."

"Nerima and Adachi districts, both clear."

"Now checking quadrant two of Arakawa…"

Naru and Umino exchanged worried looks. Whatever was going on, it sounded bad. Very bad.

Diana's tail stiffened in alarm. "Mother, Father!" she called from her console. "I've detected a nearby teleportation… Incoming energy signature, closing fast!"

"Is it the enemy?"

"No, it's-"

Once more, the doorway at the top of the stairs slid open. A tall shape staggered down the first few steps… then fell the rest of the way, to the accompaniment of Diana's horrified scream. Artemis and Deimos rushed to help. Who it was, Naru couldn't quite make out… the details of her face and form were blurred, as if looking at her through clouded glass. She knew a Sailor Senshi when she saw one, though, there was no mistaking that aura surrounding her. A mysterious power surged from within her body, a serene grace, a gentle calm… and a particular cool, salty scent that reminded her of her family vacations to the beach at Atami.

"Blessed Queen Serenity," Luna whispered, extending a hand and sucking in a breath. "Neptune…!"

Sailor Neptune. So that was who she was. Naru was only personally familiar with Sailor Moon and her four guardians, but there were a whole lot of other planets… she supposed that each one had its own Senshi, or something like that. The tone of Luna's voice, though… Again, Naru couldn't make out any clear details about Neptune's appearance, but the panic in the transformed cat's words was impossible to miss. She was hurt, and it sounded bad…

"No time." The words were hissed through Neptune's clenched teeth, her features were twisted with pain. Luna saw that one arm hung limp at her side, and rivulets of blood trickled down her arm from an unseen wound covered by her fuku's shoulder pad. "Where is Sailor Moon?"

"Not a clue," said Artemis. "As of right now, you're the only Senshi still on Earth, as far as we know. Moon and the four… five Inner Senshi went to take care of the monsters in front of Osa-P, there was some kind of interference, and-"

"And they were gone," finished Neptune. "It's happening to us, too. We need to find the Prince and Princess immediately, they can't-"

Deimos shifted her arm, securing it around the wounded Senshi as she guided her to lie with her back against the computer console. "You're badly hurt, you need to rest!"

A dry, bitter chuckle. "I would if I could, little one, but-"

"Oh, Serenity…" The twin in violet gasped and withdrew her arm. Her hand was painted red and dripping. "Sailor Neptune, who did this to you?!"

Neptune didn't answer. A flash of aqua light, and she changed…

Her face jumped into clear focus as her Senshi fuku disappeared. Naru couldn't help goggling; apparently, Sailor Neptune was none other than Michiru Kaioh, the world-famous concert violinist… she knew those noble features from seeing them on countless album covers.

"I'm sorry," said Michiru, leaning back against the console. "We were careless. Caught off guard."

"Michiru…" Luna knelt at her side, her face pale. "Where's Haruka? What happened to her?"

Michiru shut her eyes tight. Her fingers gripped her wounded arm so hard that the flow of blood from her shoulder began again in earnest.

That expression sent a dreadful, icy chill through all three of the cats. Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune, Haruka and Michiru, were the inseparable pair of the Outer Senshi. They were partners and lovers from almost the first moment they awakened their powers and began their fight against the powers of darkness. Everyone knew that neither of them would abandon the other if there were even the slightest chance of saving them. The fact that Michiru was here and Haruka wasn't meant that the unthinkable had happened…

"S-stay here," said Luna. Her voice was hoarse, and her lip trembled. "Just get some rest and focus on healing. We'll… we'll find out what's going on. Artemis?"

"Right. Resuming scan." Artemis hunched over one of the monitors. "This just doesn't make sense. If they were anywhere on the planet, or anywhere in the Solar System for that matter, we should be able to track them!"

Michiru raised her head. A fine sheen of sweat glistened on her brow. "It's no coincidence. Whoever is behind this is somehow jamming the planetary sensor systems."

"How, though? This is Silver Millennium technology, nothing on Earth should be able to do that!"

"They're not from Earth." Those lovely features hardened. "They're not even from our universe. This enemy… they should never have been able to come here. The damage they're doing is catastrophic..."

Luna's eyes moved over one of the monitors, showing footage of the mob of their former enemies. She opened her mouth to speak-

"No," said Michiru, shaking her head. "Not just the monsters reviving, though their presence is bad enough. There's something wrong with the world, haven't you felt it?" Sea green eyes bored into the cat's…

In the back, Naru and Umino took each other's hands.

At the console, the twins did the same, and Diana moved to clutch at Artemis's trouser leg.

None of them understood how, but they sensed the truth in Michiru's words. All around them, permeating the very air, was the feeling that something was… off, and now that they were aware of it, it was unmistakable. Something was wrong with them, with the control room, with the city, with everything. They felt it, as certainly as they would feel someone staring at them from behind, raising the fine hairs on the back of their necks...

"Just before we were attacked…" Michiru drew an oval shape in the air as she whispered, her voice husky with grief. An ornate hand mirror materialized for her, bearing the glyph of Neptune on its back. "Haruka and I both sensed it. Something wrong, monstrously wrong. Setsuna felt it as well… an anomaly in space-time, on an unprecedented scale. She left to investigate at the Door, and she never came back…" Tilting the mirror showed the others the turbulent waves reflecting in the glass. "An omen of disaster. I contacted Chibi-Usa and Hotaru and managed to warn them, but-"

Clutching the edge of his console, Artemis winced. "We lost contact with them as well, just before we picked up the readings from the shopping district."

"Mars," Luna gasped. Her hand flew to her lips. "There were two of Sailor Mars, remember, Artemis? We saw them both during the fight, but we didn't... Why didn't we notice anything strange about that?!"

"It's not only you." Shakily, Michiru tried to pull herself upright. "All of us are missing something, something on a far larger scale. We-"

She stopped. Despite her injury, despite her heartbreak, Michiru Kaioh rose to her feet and turned on one heel… and in that moment, Naru understood. She believed. Even before Michiru transformed, she looked every inch the Sailor Senshi.

"Neptune Planet Power, Make Up!"

A column of water surrounded her in an instant, and fell back just as quickly. Now, for the first time, Naru beheld Sailor Neptune without the distortion of whatever energy had blurred her features before. She stood tall and proud in shades of blue and teal and green and aqua, a noble and beautiful warrior, determined to let no harm befall anyone else. The mirror's face pointed at-

Everyone stared: three cat-people from Mau, two crow-girls from Coronis, a Sailor Senshi, and two human civilians. There should have been only eight people in the control room.

Now there was a ninth.

The stranger bore a slight resemblance to Sailor Moon… it was her long blonde pigtails that did it. More than a passing glance confirmed that she was someone quite different: younger, dressed primarily in white, in a frilly uniform accented with pale, pastel springtime colors. There were two pink ribbons in her hair in lieu of Sailor Moon's odango. And she wore such a sad, quiet smile, like someone in mourning… there was a haunted look in her honey brown eyes…

"Who are you?" said Neptune, unmoved. "How did you get in here?"

The stranger in white stepped to one side… to reveal a door. Not a sliding panel like the one in the arcade above them, but an ordinary wooden door, with a dented brass knob and peeling white paint. It stood by itself, connected to nothing at the edge of the platform.

Neptune's fingers tightened around her mirror's handle. "I will not ask you again. Who are you? What is your purpose here?"

The stranger shook her head sadly, pointed to each of them in turn, then gestured to the door.

"N-Neptune, I-" said Phobos, moving to hold her twin. "I don't think she can speak…"

"Then it seems I'm left with no choice but to reveal the truth myself." Bringing the mirror to her breast, Neptune's voice echoed with an invocation: "Submarine Reflection."

Light filled the mirror's glass and bathed the stranger in an aqua glow. Neptune expected her to draw back, cry out in pain, try to shield herself from it… but no, she stood there and waited, smiling that sad smile at her. Even Neptune, the picture of calm and unflappable, was unnerved by that expression. She looked down to see the images playing across the mirror, and- Her eyes went wide with shock. "Oh my."

"Neptune?" Deimos stepped forward. "Neptune, what is it? What do you see?"

An alarm chimed on the console. Luna and Artemis's heads turned toward it.

A sound from above, a terrible wrenching sound of tortured metal, snapping wires, and breaking glass. It came from the top of the stairwell as the hidden door panel exploded inward in an eruption of smoke, dust, flame, and debris… There was a cry from Naru as she fell into Umino. Something sizzled as it blew past her, hot and deadly, brimming with power, shaking her to the bone and missing her by inches. It skidded across the strange tiled floor, scoring a deep, angry mark in it before it rose again and slammed into Deimos.

The crow-girl jerked backward, her limbs at odd angles. She made no sound, but her twin's scream was enough for both of them. Deimos fell apart, her body scattering into glittering dust. Only a small crystal was left behind where her heart had been seconds before, a transparent violet octahedron that enclosed a tiny, intensely bright light…

"Deimos!" Phobos's wail echoed in the small space as she rushed for that crystal, reached desperately for it… "DEIMOS, NO! D-"

With little warning but a rush of air, a second sphere followed the first. This one swallowed Phobos in radiance and heat. Her twin's name was still on her lips as she fell… but she never hit the floor. Like her twin, she dissolved into stardust, leaving behind a second crystal that was deep red to match the violet of Deimos's.

No time to grieve. No time for shock. No time for anything but action. A bolt of pain from her injured shoulder lanced through the length of Neptune's arm as she gripped the mirror with both hands. A barrier, she had to put up a barrier, and buy just a few precious minutes…

Two voices screamed in concert, most likely Naru's and Diana's.

The stranger in white threw open the disconnected wooden door, revealing a tunnel of swirling, eye-crossing light and color. Without waiting for an invitation, she seized Naru and Umino by the hands and pulled them through. The tunnel swallowed them, shrunk them down to pinpricks…

Now there was only one voice screaming. "Mother!" It was Diana, separated from her parents by the smoke filling the control room. "Father!"

Raw panic choked Luna's words. "Diana, run! RUN!"

"But I can't-"

A third sphere, even larger than the first two, crashed against Neptune's barrier with the force of an oncoming train. An agonized moan slipped from her lips, but she held the wall firm, kept it from buckling with all her remaining power. Through haze and redness, she saw the silhouette of someone descending the glass staircase, one slow step at a time. "No." said Neptune, her vision swimming. "No..."

"DIANA!"

"Father! Mother!"

"Wait! Who are you, where are you taking her?! Get your hands off of-"

So the stranger in white was back… or at least, Neptune desperately hoped that was her. She heard scuffling as whoever it was scooped up a struggling Diana in her arms and dragged the cat-girl backwards through the wooden door, then silence.

Wherever the stranger was going, Neptune knew that by the time she came back a third time for the rest of them, if she came back at all… it would be too late. One more hit, and her barrier would crumple. They would die, like poor Phobos and Deimos. They would die without ever knowing what was happening to their world, why everything was going wrong… Only one thing left to try. One more person who might be able to help.

The smoke shrouding the attacker thinned. Artemis lost his breath in shock.

"O Deep Aqua Mirror, Talisman of my guardian star," pleaded Neptune, calling on her last reserves of strength. "Please, I beg you, take us to safety! Take us to Sailor Moon!"

Fragrant mist and sea spray swept the control room… when they cleared, the attacker was alone, apart from the two crystals that held the essences of Phobos and Deimos. Soon, they vanished in streaks of black light, the attacker following close behind.

The Merged Labyrinth

All of existence seemed to be coming apart. The skies and the landscape heaved, rippled, tore and rearranged themselves in ways that made no sense. A patchwork of surreal landscapes unfolded before their eyes, landscapes that made no sense… landscapes that made even less sense with their borders and edges bleeding into one another, fighting for dominance. Nothing was stable, nothing stayed the same… except for the gash(es) the Time Reaper tore in the empty air with its scythe, which stayed fixed in place and were all the more frightening for it.

Though the others had no way of knowing it, the turmoil that surrounded the Senshi was a perfect visual metaphor, a physical manifestation of the havoc being wreaked on Sailor Moon's mind.

-static-

She couldn't tell if she was screaming. If she was, she couldn't hear herself. The agony of two sets of conflicting memories of her life deafened her, blotting out all else. No, not just two differing sets of memories, not just memories of her present existence as Usagi Tsukino, as Sailor Moon, but two more of her past life as Princess Serenity… both pairs of lives similar in many respects, but fundamentally incompatible with each other in so many others…

As Princess Serenity, she remembered the wave of sorrow consuming her as her beloved Prince Endymion was swept up by Metaria's power, drifting away from her in a hurricane of darkness. She ran after him, throwing herself from the palace's crumbling balcony and reaching for his outstretched hand. Above, Metaria's clawed hand opened… and bolts of pure malice ripped through both of them. A shock, a shudder, and life bled from her body as she floated.

-static-

As Princess Serenity, she stood helpless behind her beloved Prince Endymion's back as he held off the invaders from Earth, the invaders led by the sorceress named Beryl. She and all her followers were driven mad by Metaria's influence, attacking the Silver Millennium in a frenzy. Already they had overwhelmed her four guardians, the Sailor Senshi, by the force of sheer numbers. They lay dead on the palace steps, cold and still. As she watched, Beryl herself struck a savage blow to Endymion with a sword. Her cry of denial went unheard as he fell into her arms, the final tremors of his dying body moving through her. Reason left her, all those things her mother said about her destiny to inherit the throne left her… it all drained away until she was empty of everything but loss, as empty as the shell of her beloved. Perhaps it was madness that drove her to take the sword from his limp grasp… perhaps a similar kind of madness that had claimed Beryl. The sorceress's eyes widened in disbelief. Clearly, she expected the Princess to try to fight her… but no. The blade bit into her heart and cleaved through, redness clouded her vision, and her final tears fell as she departed that life to join Endymion in death.

-static-

As Sailor Moon, she raised the Moon Stick high, extended into a scepter, the light of the Silver Crystal mounted on its diamond crescent sweeping Metaria from existence forever. That light was fueled by her own power, by her own life energy, willingly given to save the world she loved. The dark vapor of Metaria's massive form dissipated, she felt her body go limp, and the last thing she saw was the brilliance of the full moon shining once more in the night sky.

-static-

As Sailor Moon, but wearing the form of Princess Serenity, she stood in the freezing wind at the bottom of the world, the spirits of her four guardian Senshi lending her strength. The Moon Stick jumped in her hands… from the Silver Crystal mounted on the wand's golden crescent, an enormous pink sphere of light erupted, cutting through the Beryl-Metaria fusion's power like a knife. It slammed into the distorted creature, reducing her to dust. The light, the light was incredible, sweeping over everything… the light fueled by her own life energy, willingly given to save the world. She remained upright long enough to see it finished, to see the last of Beryl-Metaria vanish into that light… and then she was back to Sailor Moon, the Moon Stick falling from her hand, her life ebbing away. With her dying breath, her dying thought, she wished for everything to return to normal, return to the way it was before… before the fighting, before the death, before the destruction. The last thing she saw was the Silver Crystal gleaming as it tumbled out of sight atop the Moon Stick, becoming lost among the endless white wasteland…

-static-

She was Usagi Tsukino. She was Sailor Moon. She had been Princess Serenity. She would one day be Neo Queen Serenity. Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, and Venus protected her and stood by her side as her sisters-in-arms and her dearest friends. Those were constants, but everything else…

Everything else was static…

Crack. An open hand delivered a stinging slap to her cheek, dragging her back to reality by force. "Sailor Moon! Usagi!" The voice was Mars's, but which Mars it was, for the moment she couldn't tell. Her voice was shrill, wild with worry. "Come on, dammit, we need you! Snap out of it!" Ah. That had to be Mars 1, the one with the hot temper and short fuse.

"Rei-chan…" Sailor Moon blinked, shook her head, and pressed her hand to her reddening cheek. "Wh-where are we? What's happening?"

"Not a clue!" Mars 1 grimaced and looked up to Mercury for help. "Mercury, any answers?"

Mercury stood as part of a protective circle around with Mars 2, Jupiter, and Venus, barely keeping their footing as the ground beneath them flowed like water. Holographic figures raced across her visor as she hammered the keys of her palmtop computer. "I-it's-" Her voice shook with uncharacteristic dread. "We're stuck inside of some sort of pocket dimension," she said, trying to simplify it as much as possible. "Or multiple pocket dimensions, all trying to overlap…"

Venus kept a wary eye on the creatures floating, crawling, shuffling, or swimming around them. The most coherent of them seemed to be assembled from pieces of photo collage book gone berserk… others were cartoons come to life, inanimate objects with moving faces, distorted collections of body parts… and those were just the ones she could describe. "What are these things? Are they causing all of this?"

"It's unclear!"

"I'm sensing enormous hostility," said Mars 2. She could sense that even without concentrating, an aggression so fierce it was almost physical, weighing down on her. "They don't feel intelligent, but they most likely see us as enemies. I suggest we-"

"Hyah!" Jupiter didn't need to be told. Her heel lashed out at the first thing that got too close, a cotton puffball with a handlebar moustache that tottered forward on a spread-winged butterfly, clutching a pair of scissors in stubby little twig arms. When she struck it, the cottonball went one way, the moustache another, and the butterfly drifted away and was lost amid the swirling madness. "Whatever we're gonna do, we'd better do it fast! If they're scared of us, I don't think they will be much longer!"

"Can we Sailor Teleport out of here?" Mars 1 rose to her feet, pulling Sailor Moon up… and wobbled when she let go of her hand, as the ground beneath her softened to a consistency like taffy before solidifying again.

"I don't think so," said Mercury, shaking her head. "We're definitely not anywhere near Earth or local space. Even if we were, charging the Teleport would take too long, it would just make us a… look out! Incoming!"

One of the creatures had grown tired of waiting. With a roar, the melting rosebush hurled what appeared to be a love seat at them, a love seat sized for a giant. There was a crash of breaking timber as it hit the ever-shifting floor, and the Senshi scattered… Their flight took them in different directions, into different sections of the patchwork landscape, where-

"Mars, wait! Wait! Put me down! The others-" Sailor Moon pounded on the arm that Mars 1 held tight around her as she bounded across the rolling hills. Hills… this section of the labyrinth was gently rolling mounds of candy and sweets piled high, studded with colorful discarded packaging and pill bottles the size of tree trunks. Wrapped candies with stick-figure feet, mouse ears, and tiny nurses' caps squeaked in alarm and scuttled out of the way of her footsteps.

"What about them?" Mars 1 couldn't stop, wouldn't stop until Sailor Moon was safely out of this nightmare. It didn't matter what happened to her, Sailor Moon was more important… as long as she was all right, she could fix everything...

"They're gone, I can't see them!" Sailor Moon's voice took on that shrill tone that suggested a crying fit was about to come on.

Ice water trickled down Mars 1's spine. That was enough to make her stop. "What?! Usagi, don't talk nonsense, they were just-"

"I know, I know, they were right there, but after the sofa hit, they just-" She waved her arms in helpless panic. "Poof! They just disappeared!"

"Dammit!" One of Mars 1's fire-engine red heels came down, narrowly missing the tail of a scurrying candy-mouse. "What was it Mercury was saying? Something about pocket dimensions overlapping…"

"I don't know, I barely understood it." Her big blue eyes swam with more than the usual Usagi tears that she could shed at the drop of a hat. This was genuine worry and fear, as she hadn't felt in a long time. "Mars, I don't like this, I don't like this at all. What that Joker person said… Rei-chan, I can remember two different things happening… and I can feel something wrong, can't you…?"

"I'm not sure what you mean," said Mars 1, searching the rolling candy hills for anything that resembled an exit. "I've been feeling something nonstop, ever since the other Rei showed up…"

"It's more than that, it's like… kyaaa!" A shriek, and Sailor Moon's hand flew to her tiara. "Moon Tiara Action!" She flung the whirling golden disc past Mars 1's shoulder, millimeters from her teammate's neck… and it sliced through the stick-like, candy-headed nurse figure that had crept up behind her and raised an oversized hypodermic needle over her skull. The nurse crinkled and collapsed in a pile of gangly limbs, her needle dissolving into powdered sugar.

It was only then that Mars 1 let out her breath, the breath she didn't even remember taking in. Too close, that was far too close. There was a constant low level buzz from her ESP, a prickling sensation she'd been dealing with ever since that afternoon, since the arrival of her duplicate. Now it was apparent that that buzz was like a damper on her senses, muffling the usual warning prickles that indicated when danger was near. In normal circumstances, no monster should have ever gotten that close without her noticing. Mars 1 stared at the broken fragments of the nurse, her throat dry and tight. If Sailor Moon hadn't seen it… I'd have been-

"Uh, M-Mars?" Usagi bumped into her from behind, fumbled for her hand and gripped it tight.

"What, what is it?" Mars turned away from the nurse…

There was a face looming over them. An enormous cartoon face, like something out of Disney or a child's storybook, attached to a sinuous black body the width of a subway car and speckled with red polka dots. It was kind of cute… its wide eyes were ringed in multiple colors, there was a pointy nose like a party hat in the center of its clownish face and sunny yellow spots on its cheeks, and it wore a big, happy smile…

That smile split open into a mouth at least five meters wide, revealing rows upon rows of gleaming, razor sharp teeth.

"Mercury Aqua Mist!"

The doll-like monsters chasing Sailor Mercury halted their pursuit, making confused noises. The blue Senshi seemed to have vanished into a cloud that sprung up out of nowhere… a cloud that was unusually cold…

Mercury kept running through the fog, feeding all the information she could to her visor. No question of using her palmtop now; she needed both hands free to attack whatever came her way. One of those dolls had grabbed hold of her wrist… and until she froze it off, she felt herself become almost weightless, helpless in its grip as it pulled her along. Where it intended to take her, she didn't know, and she never wanted to find out.

At least the visor was helping, if only a little. Analysis of these monsters and their bizarre spaces took much longer than usual, but there were now a few hundred megabytes and counting of data about them. Her guess about pocket dimensions seemed right on the money… based on her findings, each of the larger creatures Joker had called "Witches" were the source of both their personal dimensions and the smaller servant creatures that inhabited each one. If she weren't so terrified for her life, she would find it fascinating. They had never fought anything remotely like these creatures in all their many battles as Sailor Senshi… no matter what kind of monster it was, it was almost always at least humanoid in its appearance (and almost always female, though heaven only knew why that was). These Witches, though… each one was a different animal from all the others at the cellular level. What connected them all, she had no idea.

Her fog thinned, but the monsters failed to come back out of it. Relieved, Mercury stopped to catch her breath and check her surroundings… This section of the labyrinth whirled and tilted around her in a rough globular shape, the borders of the "sky" ringed by fanciful designs of carousel horses. Each horse bore an old CRT monitor displaying multicolored test pattern bars. Something made her glad that that was all they were displaying.

Chirp. Her visor's alarm wouldn't be so startling on a normal day, but her nerves were on such high alert that Mercury could have jumped out of her skin. Trembling, she reached for her earring control…

The visor told her that a localized space-time anomaly had just sprung up two meters ahead of her. That alone was enough cause for alarm… space-time anomalies popping out of nowhere were an indication of something seriously wrong with the universe on a fundamental level. Mercury braced herself, all her muscles tensing. If she was going to survive the next few seconds, she needed to be ready to dive out of the way of the rift once it-

Something was wrong. According to her visor, the anomaly was stabilizing into a humanoid shape. That shouldn't be possible… what readings she gathered from Joker notwithstanding. This one, though, was apparently a stable human-shaped anomaly.

It waved at her.

Baffled, Mercury touched her earring, dismissing her visor. "Hello…?"

The anomaly, a stranger in a frilly white and pastel dress, bowed politely, her curly blonde pigtails spilling over her shoulders to touch the glass floor.

"Here it comes again, get ready!"

A horrible droning roar and more clouds of filthy black exhaust burst from the Witch's pipes as yet again it crouched its tarnished mechanical body low to the ground. Tires squealed an angry racket... it charged, leaving long, molten skid marks on the cracked asphalt.

Venus, Jupiter, and Mars 2 flung themselves out of its way. Engaging it bullfight-style was tiring, but at least it wasn't smart enough to catch on to what they were doing. An angry blast came from its pipes as it careened out of control into a concrete divider… but by now they knew that crashing wouldn't hinder it for long, it would simply reassemble itself and come after them again.

Wincing, Venus picked herself up and brushed gravel from her scraped knees. "We can't keep this up, so how do we stop this thing?"

"Until we know exactly what it is, I have no idea," said Mars 2. "Venus, are you all right?"

"Nothing I can't handle. Jupiter?"

"Still here." A dangerous growl came from the green Senshi's direction as she rose. "That clown is gonna get it next time I see him…"

"Okay, okay, let's think…" said Venus. In times of peril when Sailor Moon wasn't around, it was her duty to take over as leader of the Senshi. Not usually a problem, but it was Mercury who was the tactician, and with her still missing… "It's… some kind of giant motorcycle. It's big, it's loud, it's dumb, and it's tough. What stops motorcycles?"

Across from them, Jupiter raised an eyebrow. "Traffic jams?"

"Not an option! Oh geez, here come more of the little ones…" How was one supposed to think when fighting monsters like this? The big one made enough of a deafening racket, but now more of its spawn were gathering, collections of random engine parts shrouded by black oily, puffs of smoke, their pipes blasting bass droning noises that Venus could feel rumbling in her bones. "Crescent Beam!" She couldn't hear her own invocation over the din, but the line of light from her fingertip did its work all the same, boring through three of the spawn.

Jupiter took a more direct approach in order to save her power for the big one. The spawn she hammered with her fists, denting metal and shattering pipes. They were small, but they were hard, and she could feel bruises forming underneath her gloves, worsening with each hit.

As for Mars 2, the assault of noise, odor, and smoke threatened to make her light-headed. She was one for nature, calm, and quiet, not these dirty, ugly, loud creatures derived from the worst parts of the modern world. The fireballs she threw were tight, small and focused as she could make them… concentrated flame would only exacerbate the effects of their noxious fumes. And there was the warning buzz in the back of her mind, her ESP in overdrive, a constant distraction from a battle she knew in her heart of hearts was not going well.

A telltale shiver emerged from the buzzing. An incoming presence… "Jupiter, Venus!" she shouted. "Someone's coming!"

Someone did an instant later, in a burst of fragrant spray. Three someones, in fact… Sailor Neptune, Luna, and Artemis dropped out of the smoggy air between the trio, who moved to defend them while they recovered from the rough landing. The cats seemed quite shaken but otherwise fine, but Neptune looked bedraggled, in rougher shape than they had ever seen her.

"Neptune…?" Jupiter looked back over her shoulder. "What happened? How did you guys get here?"

"My Talisman," gasped Neptune, clutching at her shoulder. Her face was pale and slick with sweat. "Quickly, we must get out of here… find the Princess..."

Venus gritted her teeth and swept another Crescent Beam through five more spawn. "We're trying, but we got split up somehow!"

Below, Luna padded over to Neptune, once again in her cat form. Her paw pressed against the Outer Senshi's ankle. "Neptune, d-did you see-" Her words were cut off by a brief coughing fit. "Ugh, the air here is filthy…"

Artemis bounded to her side. "Easy, Luna, easy."

"What happened to you three?" said Jupiter after crashing two spawn together.

"We were attacked at the control room." Artemis's voice was hollow of his usual spirit. "Someone found us there, and took Naru, Umino, and Diana-" He choked on his daughter's name.

Somehow, Neptune managed to smile. "Don't worry about them, my friend. If that person is who and what I suspect she is, then Diana is far safer than we are at the moment."

A sharp intake of breath from Mars 2. "Neptune, my God, your arm!"

"I know. It's broken, but I'll survive. Sailor Mars…" Sea green eyes locked onto her. "Phobos and Deimos… they came to the control room trying to help, but they-"

"So this is where you went with your little parlor trick!" A sardonic voice chortled from above. "Truly out of the frying pan and into the fire, non?"

Six pairs of eyes turned upward to the harlequin floating two meters above the street, with his ghastly cloaked Reaper in tow.

"You," Neptune hissed. She knew. She could sense it just by seeing him, sense this creature's evil disrupting the calm ocean of her heart like a typhoon…

"Everyone, draw in!" said Venus. The Senshi and the cats complied, forming a tight little knot. "Don't make any reckless-"

"Deep Submerge." Incredibly, it was Neptune of all Senshi who disobeyed, raising both her healthy and broken arms to launch a sphere of high-pressure water directly at the harlequin's toothy grin.

The Time Reaper moved like the wind, shielding Joker with its body. Its crackling red scythe blade came down on the water sphere, slicing it into halves that sped past it to either side.

Joker laughed a grating laugh, his lips spreading wide to show even more of his pointed teeth. "Sacre bleu, that was a close one! Thank you, Reaper. Now, let's see… I need to stop and take count, since there's just so many of you. Un, deux, trois, quatre…" he said, counting on his fingers. "Two Senshi playing with Charlotte makes six. One by herself, that's sept. The two little ones that got away thanks to la petite nuisance, that makes neuf. By process of elimination, that means-"

"That means you talk to yourself too much! Shabon Spray Freezing…!"

A storm of bubbles swallowed both the harlequin and his Reaper from behind, coating the two of them in a thin sheet of ice. They hung frozen in midair, however that worked...

"Mercury!" There was a joyful shout from the cats and three of the assembled Senshi, and a pained but grateful whisper from Neptune. They were all glad to see their teammate alive…

… but aside from Neptune, they had no idea what to think of the unfamiliar girl in white and pastel that she ran hand-in-hand with…

Mars 1 acted without thinking, without reason. As the Witch's horrible toothy mouth opened wide, wide enough to swallow them both in two bites, as Sailor Moon shrieked next to her, she did the first thing that came to mind.

An ofuda printed with ink kanji was at her fingertips with a thought. Her hand lashed out to stick the paper charm right above the monster's ridiculous party hat nose as she cried out: "Akuryo Taisan!"

The ofuda glowed with sacred power and sealed itself down flat, and the Witch's colorful eyes went wider than ever.

Both Senshi held their breath.

The Witch trembled in place. Its ringed eyes crossed as it attempted to look at what was stuck above its nose.

Sailor Moon swallowed. "Do… do you think it's working?"

They got their answer an instant later, when the cartoon face twisted with fury and lost all semblance of cuteness. Its mouth opened wider than ever to show even more teeth, and it bellowed so loud that it shook the candy walls of its lair…

"Run!" Mars 1 screamed, grabbing Sailor Moon by the crook of her elbow. "RUN, JUST RUN!"

They ran. The Witch charged after them, smashing through prescription bottle pillars and mountains of sweets as if they were made of paper. It resembled nothing more than some kind of monstrous, demonic bullet train, hellbent on catching and devouring the two intruders.

After thirty meters, Sailor Moon's breathing grew strained and shallow. "Mars, s-stop…!" she said, stumbling to keep up. "C-can't run… much longer…!"

"You have to, do you want to get eaten?!"

"Gotta… try… something else!" Fanged jaws snapped at her heels as she reached into pocketspace for the Moon Stick. She had never done this while moving before, she prayed that it would work… Putting on an extra burst of speed, she widened the distance between them by just a meter or two, that had to be enough. She aimed the wand behind her, took a labored breath, and shouted out loud: "Moon Healing Escalation!"

Rays of holy light shone from the Moon Stick's crescent, bathing the Witch in a golden glow. Its snakelike body skidded to a stop, and its multicolored eyes shrank to mere dots, then disappeared into vacant whiteness.

Sailor Moon fell to her knees, sinking slightly into a mound of cake frosting at her feet. Her knuckles turned white within her gloves as she poured her energy into the Moon Stick. Even without the Silver Crystal, this had to work, it had to… Please, let this work!

Next to her, Mars stopped to catch her breath. Words of encouragement were on her lips when-

The Witch's maw fell open. A bright blue tongue lolled from its mouth, the vacant eyes stared…

Something on the end of its tongue stirred. A rough shape, struggling within the strange blue flesh, trying to push out of it. As the light washed over it, the shape grew more defined, clearer and clearer…

"Oh God," whispered Mars 1.

Emerging from the Witch's tongue was the head and upper body of a small human girl, no more than eight years old by the look of it. Her ashen, sunken, dessicated face was framed by the thinning remains of long white hair, and her eyes… it was difficult to tell at first, given the milky film that clouded them, but there were rings of color in her irises, red and yellow, rather like the eyes of the Witch.

"Fuar öh." Her voice was an anguished moan, so wounded and primal that words could hardly be made out from it. "Trzemhc sse… trzemch sse…!"

The Moon Stick's light faded as it fell from Sailor Moon's numb hands and melted into bright sparkles. "It…"

The girl began to scream, her wasted arms clawing wildly at her skull. At the same time, the Witch's body thrashed back and forth, pulverizing its own lair. Its tongue drew back into its mouth, taking the specter of the little girl with it. It began to scream, a hideous, high-pitched scream unlike the bellowing roars it let out before… a scream that they now recognized as the little girl's voice.

Sailor Moon didn't move, couldn't move, transfixed by what she had just seen. Her skin crawled as if a thousand rats were running over her. "Rei-chan," she said, her voice far away. "Rei-chan, that thing… it was a person. It was a little kid…"

Mars 1 had no answer. She had seen it too… Tears welled in her eyes as she moved to lay a hand on her friend's shoulder.

The Witch rolled through the trappings of its lair, gnashing its terrible jaws at nothing, blinded by pain. Its throes brought it in their direction, its blank eyes rolled sickeningly in their sockets…

Once more, Mars 1 acted without thinking. She stepped forward and pushed.

"Rei-cha-"

The creature's writhing propelled it forward. Its jaws snapped.

"REI-CHAN!"

Its teeth came away stained red. The Witch screamed and reared itself to its full height in its agonized throes… and one tufted ear brushed against one of the gash(es) the Reaper left in the air above, the only constant fixtures of this hellish space.

And though the gash was far, far smaller than the body of the Witch that had touched it, it nevertheless appeared to swallow the crazed beast whole… or perhaps it was pulled violently into it by an irresistible force, or perhaps both those things happened... or first one, then the other.

Anyone watching would have only seen the Witch's massive snakelike body crumple and vanish into the gash without a trace.

-static-

In an instant, the candy mountains and bottle pillars winked out of existence with the faintest hiss of white noise. Sailor Moon and Mars 1 thudded against hard asphalt…

"Sailor Moon!"

"Usagi!"

"Sailor Moon, what-"

All the Senshi who were able ran to her. They could tell right away that something was wrong, dreadfully wrong… that wasn't the normal way Usagi cried. She sobbed hysterically, her arms tight around-

Mars 2 came to a dead halt, her heart seizing in her chest.

Her duplicate lay face down in Sailor Moon's arms, her long raven hair dripping wet and a raw, ragged, fifteen-centimeter hole taken out of her back, just to the left of her spine.

None of them saw the stranger in white stop as well, clutching at her temples, her lips opening in a soundless cry. Her image wavered like the picture on a magnetized computer screen.

-static-

Above them, the ice holding Joker and the Reaper began to crack.

Six frantic voices overlapped.

"Usagi! Usagi, speak to me, what happened?!"

"Mars, please wake up… Oh God, it's everywhere…"

"The W-W-Witch… I t-tried to heal it… d-didn't work… there was a little girl inside it, it hu-hurt her… w-went berserk, and Rei-chan…"

"We have to leave, now!"

"She's lost too much blood, Neptune, if we move her-"

"There's no other choice! If those things come back…!"

"Sailor Moon, listen! You need to calm down and hold it together! You can still use Healing Escalation to-"

"I c-can't, I can't…! The Cr-crystal's gone, it d-doesn't work…!"

The only ones in silence were the two Reis… one unconscious, wavering on the edge of death, and the other staring in appalled shock at the bizarre sight of herself bleeding out.

With a musical noise like breaking glass, Joker and the Time Reaper tore free of Mercury's ice.

"Mon dieu, what a fuss," said Joker to no one in particular, shaking himself and flicking frost crystals from one eye of his mask. "They've still got one Sailor Mars left, what's the problem?"

The Reaper said nothing.

Joker sighed and threw up his hands. "Humans and their attachments. The sooner they're rid of them all, the better."

Below, the Witches began to gather. Pain, grief, despair, and rage… the emotions drew them in like moths to a flame.

Sailor Venus stood up.

"Mina?" Artemis began. "What are you-" He stopped, for the look in her eyes was answer enough.

Venus stared at Joker with fists clenched and eyes filled with righteous fury, a storm about to be unleashed. She stared right into those pitiless black eyes without blinking, without flinching, absorbing his hateful, heartless words and using them to fuel that storm… "O Holy Blade that protects the Princess," she intoned, "Come to my hand!"

A line of light appeared at her fingertips, resolving into an ancient sword… a long, straight blade inscribed with the crescent moon marks of the Silver Millennium. Once, it had been reduced to a husk of poisonous stone by Metaria's power, but in Venus's hands it shone with all its luster.

Joker sneered at it, unimpressed. "Is that supposed to-"

He had to admit astonishment at how quickly she moved. Like a golden firework, she sprung up from the Labyrinth's floor and- and now it was his turn to scream, because the blade carved across his forehead through his mask and across each eye, once, twice, leaving a glowing X-shaped mark, and it burned… it seared him down to the very center of his being, a pain he had not known since Pierrot's fall, a pain he couldn't imagine he was still capable of feeling.

Joker felt the Reaper's alarm, felt it rush to defend him… "Stay BACK!" he bellowed at it, a hellish glow burning in the depths of the mask's eye sockets.

Venus lifted the blade for a third strike-

- and the claws of Joker's right hand closed tight on her neck, digging into deep her flesh. With his other hand, he knocked the sword away. "Merde," he spat, the word dripping with venom. Trails of blood-ink poured down his face, making him look more ghoulish than ever. "You foul little sow…"

"Venus!"

"Let her go!"

More rabble from below. That the Reaper could help with… Freezing bubbles and thunderbolts crashed against its scythe blade.

"This is going to last at least until the next time I regenerate, I just know it," hissed Joker, applying more pressure, crushing her windpipe ounce by ounce. "Do you have any idea how annoying that's going to be?"

Venus choked and flailed against his grip, but there was still that fury in her eyes…

"I ought to tear apart your pretty little face and see how you like it…" The harlequin drew her close. "But instead, I think-"

She spit in his eye.

"Oh, that's it."

All they saw from below was Venus struggling in Joker's grip… and soon they were obscured by the bodies of the Witches circling around them, all eager to be the first to feed.

Luna felt the situation spiraling wildly out of control… Sailor Moon was near-incoherent, one Mars was critically injured if not already dead, the other Mars frozen in shock, Neptune's arm was broken, Chibi-Moon, Saturn, Uranus, Pluto, and Tuxedo Mask were missing… and now Venus at the mercy of a madman. That left only Mercury and Jupiter at anywhere near full strength against these horrible things, and they couldn't hold out much longer on their own. "Sailor Moon!" Desperate, she turned to her, perhaps the only way out of this nightmare. "Sailor Moon, you've got to listen!"

Sailor Moon didn't answer. She crouched over the fallen Mars, holding her hand tight and demanding her heart to keep beating by sheer force of will. "Rei-chan," she whispered over and over. "Rei-chan, please…"

"Usagi," said Luna, fighting to keep her voice even. "If you don't stand up, Rei and everyone else will die here! We need you! We need Sailor Moon!"

The other Mars moved toward them as if in a dream.

Mercury's latest attack froze one Witch solid, and Jupiter's follow-up shattered it to pieces. But there were so many more…

"No," said Sailor Moon. Whether herself or to the others was unclear. "No, no, no, this can't be happening, not again, it can't-"

Now Neptune stood to join the fight, half-crippled though she was, pushing back her pain to launch another Deep Submerge at a Witch that resembled a stone arch. Seawater blasted away its facade, but its stopping power was negligible… until one of Jupiter's thunderbolts hit it seconds after. Lightning arced over the thing's body, it let out a high-pitched screech before it exploded in a rain of very un-stone-like blood…

Horrified, Jupiter gaped at its smoking corpse. "That… what the hell…?! These things are-"

"You can't," said Sailor Moon, trembling. "Don't kill them, please-"

"Jupiter!"

There was another swooping over her. Something like a jellyfish, its bulbous head stuffed with small, lumpy, twisted growths that resembled diseased fruits, its tendrils long, impossibly thin filaments that dragged behind it like a bridal train. It was about to sweep those filaments over Jupiter…

Mercury rushed to save her friend, threw out her hands.

The Witch's filaments passed over her instead… she had time to cry out for a second, maybe two… before she shrank, and shrank, and shrank, her body compacting, squeezing down, smaller and smaller…

"Mercury! MERCURY! What did you do to-" Sparks flew from Jupiter's hands. A primal cry of rage escaped her as she leaped atop the bulbous head, ready to tear it apart.

It shuddered, letting out a plaintive wailing sound as Jupiter's blows tore into it. One of the strange growths inside its mass floated to its surface behind her, and was ejected from it at high speed. The growth, something like a withered nut, pierced the Senshi's back and plunged into her body...

"Gaaah…!" A sharp, stabbing pain coursed through her. Then came a pulse… of what, she couldn't identify, but it radiated outward from the wound to the tips of each of her fingers and toes. Jupiter's senses fell away… and something inside her broke.

His revenge done, Joker let Venus's limp form fall. He didn't particularly care where she landed… he trusted she knew better now than to cross him, and if she didn't, he could always put her on the Merry-Go-Round later, once this was all over. Wiping blood-ink out of his eyes, he was pleased to see that the Senshi were now down to just one able-bodied fighter, and that one was preoccupied with her dying duplicate.

Better and better, it seemed that Marie Annette had caught the blue one with her unique powers… now that could be useful later. And judging by the twisted aura surrounding Jupiter, the way her limbs were elongating and bulging grotesquely, and how her remaining comrades below were screaming her name in horrified tones… well, it seemed Marie Annette had hit her with an Evil Nut. Not as good a result as a true Witch would be, but still an unexpected bonus. What ambition she had, trying to turn a Sailor Senshi by herself! Pleasing indeed.

However, he was far less pleased to see that damned wooden door again, and the stranger in white dragging Venus toward it, apparently having caught her fall.

"Reaper?" he said. "I'm growing quite sick of that one. Could you dispose of her for me, please?"

The Reaper said nothing, but it needed no second bidding. As the stranger's back was turned, as she pushed Venus's body past the doorway, it swooped down on her like a hawk and cut a gaping slash across her back with its scythe.

The stranger didn't scream, for she had no voice to scream with. But-

-static-

- but her form flickered, distorted, changed…

She became a girl of perhaps five years old, with long blonde hair and gorgeous ruby eyes, wearing a simple sundress…

-static-

She became another girl, this one around eight by the look of it, dressed in pink and polka dots. Wavy white tresses framed her cute round face and her unusual eyes with red and yellow rings…

-static-

She became the older girl in the frilly white and pastel outfit again, the one who had taken Naru, Umino, Diana, and now Venus through that strange door...

-static-

And she became someone that everyone who could still see recognized, someone they never thought they would see again: a toddler in a miniature school uniform, with red hair in heart-shaped odango and blue eyes, the bluest eyes…

"That… you can't be…" said Artemis, roused from the horror of the Senshi falling or being taken one by one. Of all the unbelievable things he had seen tonight, this was the most baffling of all. "Chibi-Chibi...?"

The stranger flashed from one form to the other, faster and faster, too fast to follow… the only constant between them being the wound across her back. She (they?) fell to her (their?) hands and knees, in obvious pain…

-static-

… but with an audible snap, she resumed the form of the older girl in the white and pastel dress, threw up her hands, and mouthed a silent invocation with the last of her strength. A small, brilliant ball of light flew straight up from her palms, hovered over them, and burst…

The small ball of light became a blossoming cascade of light, spreading from horizon to horizon. Wherever the light touched, reality reasserted itself, the Witches' labyrinths melting away like bad dreams. Laid bare to the real world, the remaining Witches ran for any shadows or dark corners they could reach… The thing that Jupiter was becoming lurched after them, running on all fours, on limbs that were still changing shape. The last any saw of her was the talons at the tip of a reptilian, three-toed foot, vanishing into a secluded alleyway.

The stranger's honey-brown eyes rolled upward, and she collapsed in the street in front of the Osa-P jewelers' store. Her image flickered one final time as she shrank into Chibi-Chibi's form, then lay still.

END OF CHAPTER 15