The police detective strode quickly down the sterile white halls of the hospital, with a doctor and a night nurse scurrying along behind him, trying to keep up.
"How long has she been awake?" he asked briskly.
The doctor started to answer, "Well Officer . . .?" He trailed off uncertainly.
"Detective Williams."
"Yes, well," he cleared his throat, "Detective Williams, she's still slowly waking up. She's mumbling in a foreign language-we can't understand her. You don't know who she is?"
Williams shook his head. "She was found two years ago, in a coma, bruised and battered. She was just lying in the middle of a parking lot. You say she's foreign?"
The doctor shrugged. "I assume so. It sounds as if the language she's speaking is Asian, but the only Asian in tonight is Korean, and she only knew the girl didn't speak her language."
The detective looked confused. "What do you mean she's Asian? She's a blonde, for goodness' sake!" The doctor responded with another helpless shrug as the detective pushed open the door leading to their mysterious Jane Doe's room. She was sitting up and looking around the room in confusion. When they entered she turned her head around to face them so quickly that her short bobbed hair whipped her in the face. There was a slightly panicked look in her eyes, and she jabbered at them in whatever language it was that she spoke.
Detective Williams stood inside the door indecisively. He finally stepped forward with an embarrassed cough and held out his hand to her. The nurse and doctor just silently watched, wide-eyed. "My name is Detective Williams," he said. The girl-she looked about sixteen-stared at his hand with puzzlement. He felt his ears and neck redden as the silence stretched the already tense air in the room tighter. He was about to retract his hand in embarrassment when she abruptly grabbed his hand. She opened her mouth to say something, but nothing except a strangled croak emerged from her mouth. As if that was some pre-arranged signal, the nurse and doctor came through the door. The nurse went into the bathroom and returned with a cup of water. She held it out to the girl. She grabbed it from the nurse's grip with both hands, and greedily drank it down. Detective Williams surreptitiously massaged the hand the girl had held. Her grip had been crushing, as if her hold on his hand was all that held her on this side of sanity. He studied her face as she motioned that she'd like another drink. Her hair had been cut. He remembered that when he and his partner had seen her being placed in the ambulance that brought her here, her hair had been long enough to reach past her knees, and now the bottom edges brushed against the lower edge of her jaw. When the nurse nodded in understanding and went back to refill the cup, the girl's bright blue eyes took on an abstracted look, as if she was concentrating on something. He remembered that she'd been wearing an odd hairstyle, and some sort of school uniform, but they hadn't found any schools in the area with that particular uniform. The nurse handed her a second glass of water and drank that water too, more slowly. Then her eyes looked up into Detective William's. They were determined, as if she'd made a decision. She carefully placed the empty cup on the bedside table with one hand and grabbed his hand with the other. She cleared her throat.
"My name-" her eyes teared up, "I not know."
"You speak English!" the nurse exclaimed. The girl shook her and didn't respond for a while, so the doctor turned to the nurse.
"Keep her on the IV and we'll put her on soft, mild foods until-"
"Not speak good English," the girl interrupted. She'd had to think hard to come up with a reply.
"What language do you speak?" Detective Williams asked carefully.
"Japanese," she responded after a moment's concentration. The detective nodded.
"I'll find a translator. Excuse me." He walked to the nurse's station to use the phone. The nurse noticed the girl's eyes following him, as if she was worried he'd leave. She reached out and took the girl's hand, putting her other hand over the girl's and smiled comfortingly. The girl jerked her head over to look at the nurse, startled.
The nurse tried to start a conversation. "Don't you remember you name?" The girl shook her head. Evidently she understood English better than she could speak it.
The doctor stepped in. "You don't remember anything?"
"Iie," she said, but she shook her head at the same time, so the doctor understood her despite her reversion to Japanese. He nodded thoughtfully and jotted something down on her charts. Then he turned to the nurse. "We're going to have to find out what is causing her amnesia. Here-" He handed her instructions. "perform these tests and we'll try to determine what happened."
He walked briskly out of the room. The nurse looked over at the girl, who clutched the hospital sheets in tightly balled fists. The fear on her face was unmistakable. The nurse walked over and gave her a hug. The poor girl. <What will happen to her?>
*****
<Who am I?> She watched the nurse leave the room. She and the policeman were kind, but that doctor . . .she shivered. <He makes me feel like a pinned butterfly in a collection.> Hospitals were so cold and impersonal, and this silly almost non-existent gown didn't make her feel secure either. She desperately sought through her mind for some clue as to who she was, but she kept running into blank walls. She felt like hitting her head in the hope of jarring something loose in there. She knew the knowledge was in her memories somewhere, but every time she got close it eluded her. The only things she could grab a momentary hold of were two pictures, one of the sad, dark haired man, and one of a girl-herself?-in a flowing white dress. She closed her eyes in an attempt to associate these memories with something else-maybe she could start a chain reaction. . .
"Hello!" The girl snapped her eyes open, startled. "What's your name?"
<Serenity!> "Sere-" she started to answer the detective's abrupt question, but then whatever she'd been about to say dissipated like thin mist pierced by the first rays of the rising sun. She shook her head angrily. "I can't remember!" she cried in Japanese, then remembered that she needed to speak English to be understood.
The detective seemed to know what she had said anyway. He walked up to her bed and took her hand in a comforting grasp. "I don't know how well you understand me, but I just wanted to see if I could jar any information out of you, and it seems I did. I got part of you name. Oh, I have a translator coming in, so we can talk more easily." He pulled a chair up to the side of her bed. "Now let's see if we can guess what your name is. It started with an 's' . . ." He pulled out a pad of paper and started writing. The girl craned her neck to try to see what he was writing. "Ser. . ." he mumbled, and scribbled something down. He looked up suddenly. "Serena! That's close!" He looked at her intently. "Does that sound familiar?"
It did sound familiar, but not quite right. . .The girl nodded uncertainly. It was close, even if that wasn't exactly her name.
*****
Sailor V woke suddenly. Her eyes snapped open. Where was she? She tried to sit up, but couldn't. <They've put restraints on me! I'm strapped to the bed!> She felt panic creeping up on her, and fought it down. She moved her head and looked the room over. She was alone, and hooked up to a bunch of monitors. It seemed that they hadn't been able to get her armor off. Her shoes, gloves, and tiara were still on. There was a shadow in front of the door into her room. <That's gotta be a police guard. Why didn't I run when I first heard the sirens.> "Baka. . ." she mumbled to herself. She had to get out of this. She'd gotten way too reckless in the last couple of years. Her mind raced. Maybe, if she could her hands in the right position...She struggled in her restraints. There! That was as close as she was going to get. "Crescent Beam!" The laser didn't cut all the way through the strap restraining her arm, but it damaged it. At her shout, the shadow she saw under the crack in the door moved. The guard! He had to have heard her! She flexed her muscles and strained against the strap. It broke with a snap. Not wasting a second, she desperately loosened the ties on her other arm and legs. The door flew open.
"Freeze!" the police officer shouted, his gun halfway out of his holster. Sailor V didn't waste a second. With a super-human leap she jumped past him and out the door. She ran flat out down the tiled corridor. Damn! She didn't know where she was! The curtains in her room had been closed, so she didn't even know what floor she was on.
"Stop her!" The officer bellowed down the hall. Sailor V saw she was coming up on a very shocked group of doctors and nurses.
"It's that one girl! The one the police arrested!" she heard one woman gasp as she dashed past them. Sailor V kept running, turning down corridors at random. She came to an elevator and swore under her breath. She was on the fifth floor. Even as Sailor V she couldn't jump out a window and hope to survive from that height. The elevator was moving toward her floor, but it was coming up, that wasn't any help! Her ears picked up a sound-running feet! They were coming up behind her! She started to run forward, but stopped. There were multiple footfalls resounding off the tile floors in that direction too! She forced herself to think. An idea!
She pushed the up arrow button. The elevator door opened to reveal an elderly couple and an opened-mouthed doctor in deep blue scrubs and a white overcoat. She was in the elevator before the doors had finished opening, and she desperately pressed the button to close the doors. Just then two policemen rounded the corner she'd just come from. She smiled and waved cheerfully through the crack just before the doors closed, and laughed at the dumbfounded looks on their faces as they skidded to a halt. She heard the elderly couple whisper as she jumped up through the access panel. "Shameful behavior! And look at the length of her skirt! What in the name of all that's good is she doing now! Running from police officers, climbing around like a monkey! What is today's youth coming to!?" The old woman clicked her tongue. The doctor just stood there, blank faced, as if he was busily pretending that he wasn't seeing any of this. She pulled herself all the way up and replaced the access panel. She looked up. How many floors did this hospital have? The elevator shaft extended a long way up. There it was! Exactly what she had hoped for, an elevator coming down. She leapt over to it, and lifted up one corner of the access panel. Yes! Luck was with her-it was empty. She quickly crawled down and transformed back into Mina. She pressed the first floor button and waited nervously for the elevator to reach the ground floor. As she walked out through the lobby she kept waiting for someone to shriek "There she is! The sailor girl!" and point at her. No one had ever recognized that Mina looked a lot like Sailor V, but there was a first time for everything. Almost there. . .she desperately resisted the urge to run for the double doors that led out of the hospital. Suddenly three police cars pulled up, sirens blaring. Six officers poured out of the cars and ran to the front desk. Mina slipped out before the police decided to hold everybody in the building, and ran home. As she walked up to the front door of her house, her hands began to shake. That was WAY too close for comfort, almost as close as that battle over two years ago now. . .she had been Sailor Venus back then, before-her mind shied away from what she was going to think next-before Usagi died. The enemy was so strong! She sat-actually, she almost collapsed-on the steps of her front porch, closed her eyes, and remembered what had happened, over two years ago now. . .
*****
"Venus Love Me Chain!" she shrieked at the monster. She had to get the dragon on the ground. If it stayed in the air it was too maneuverable to stop, and one of those gouts of flame would catch the senshi eventually. They couldn't avoid them forever. Even Jupiter was gasping, out of breath.
It worked! The glowing chain wrapped around the monstrous beast's gigantic bat-like wings and tangled them up. With a keening screech it plummeted to the earth. The Silver Knight riding on its back nimbly leapt off his mount before it hit the ground. The white scales of the dragon's hide were dingy from dirt and soot as it writhed on the ground, trying to escape from Venus' confining chain. The knight crouched behind its mount's body, using it as a shield.
"Great shot, Venus!" Mars congratulated. The scouts pulled themselves together and walked up to each other, eyeing the dragon warily.
"Sailor senshi! Stop!"
The girls looked. The knight had walked around the dragon's still struggling body and stood in front of it, arms crossed in front of his chest.
"Then why did you threaten Tokyo? You challenged us to meet you here-" Mercury gestured at the mountainous scenery around them, "so we came, to defend our home. Now you want us to leave you alone?"
"Explain yourself!" Jupiter stood in a position similar to the knight's, her feet rooted in the ground shoulder width apart with her arms crossed as well.
"I just wanted to see if it was true, if some of the old nobility of the Silver Millennium did still exist. Rumors have flown across the galaxy since the re-emergence and defeat of Queen Metallia and her minions. Rumors that the old nobility had survived. We, the Dragon Riders, still remember those glorious days with fondness, and I came to see if what was being said was true."
"You don't really expect us to believe that, do you?" Mars' hands were clasped together and held down, in a gesture that would have almost seemed demure, if the knight hadn't seen how she held her hands when she threw her fireballs. "Why would you have threatened to destroy Tokyo and all the people that lived there, if you were friendly?"
The knight looked taken aback, or as surprised as anyone can while wearing a full suit of armor with a helmet and visor. "I knew it would get you out to meet me if you were really alive, and if you weren't, well, they're only mortals. It's not as if anyone would miss them." He shrugged, unconcerned, and the movement flung reflected rays of sunlight off his bright armor.
That comment angered Sailor Moon. She growled under her breath and clenched her fists. She surged forward with a shout. "Of course people would miss them! You can't just kill innocent bystanders because they're not important to you!" She brought up her arms in a characteristic gesture, one arm held back and bent up at the elbow, the other held along her chest. "In the name of the Moon-"
Venus grabbed her arm and stopped her. "It might be wise to hear what he has to say before we attack again. Let's not fight if we don't need to." Sailor Moon looked at her with surprise, but then saw the wisdom in Venus' advice and nodded. Venus spoke up. "You know we are alive, your curiosity has been satisfied. We simply wish to be left alone. Surely you can honor our request, and leave now."
The knight straightened and drew himself up to his full height. "No, I'm afraid I can't. I mentioned that the Dragon Riders remembered those days with fondness. Well, we do, but also with longing." His right hand slowly moved toward the sheathed sword hanging off his left hip.
"Watch out!" Readings began to pour across Mercury's visor, "His energy readings are rising-"
The silver knight continued "I came to see if you were alive, and if you were, I came to take the Silver Crystal." His hand abruptly finished it's journey to his sword's hilt, and with a sonorous ring, pure as the tolling of a bell, the sword pulled free of its sheath. "I will have the crystal. You now have a choice. You can give it to me without a fight, or you can die, and I will take it anyway!"
All of the senshi saw Sailor Moon's face take on a stubborn look they all knew too well. They all knew what her answer was going to be.
"I will not give you the crystal, and we won't die! I'd be more concerned for your own safety." Her eyes flickered in Venus' direction as if to ask if now was an appropriate time to say..."In the name of the Moon, I will punish you!" Her challenge rang out across the valley, and echoed ominously.
The knight crouched with his sword extended, as if he was about to leap after them, so they were all surprised when he whirled around and struck at the chain holding his dragon helpless.
"Oh no you don't!" Jupiter bellowed. "Supreme Thunder!"
Venus decided to add a little extra punch to Jupiter's attack. "Crescent Beam!"
The lightning caressed beam sped toward the busily working knight. He sawed through Venus' chain just before the senshi attack hit. It threw him against the huge beast. He slumped, and the senshi relaxed. They'd beaten him!
"Yah!" He straightened up, and pointed the tip of his sword at Jupiter. He uttered some rhythmic syllables that seemed to carry the force of doom behind them. Just hearing him speak them made Venus feel weak at the knees. A ray of blinding white light emanated from his sword, and Jupiter sank to her knees with a cry.
"Burning. . ." Mars brought up her arms, but stopped mid-cry. "What's that?" she asked, and cocked her head, trying to hear something.
"Oh my God!" Sailor Moon pointed at a path. A group of backpackers stood open-mouthed, watching the fight. "Get out of here! It's too dangerous for you!" she yelled. The knight laughed.
"I don't know why you are so concerned with the puny humans, but..." He turned his sword and held it with it's tip to the ground. A black jewel that seemed to pull light out the space around it sparkled blackly at the end of the sword's pommel. The darkness was blinding! Venus shielded her eyes, so she didn't see what happened next. Screams punctuated the roaring of a wind that had suddenly arisen. Venus felt her clothes whip around her body as the cyclone tore at her. She struggled to stand upright, but she knew she was going to fail soon. The winds rose to a keening shriek, and she began to scream along, in fear and pain.
Silence and stillness.
Venus brought down her hand. Her skin was rubbed raw, and had cracked in places from the fierce force of the wind. She looked around. The senshi were here, and the tourists as well. Only the senshi still stood, though Mercury swayed a few times before she regained firm footing. The backpackers were sprawled around on the ground. Venus looked at her feet. It was as if the ground wasn't quite solid, her feet sunk a few inched into it. She gingerly began to walk toward Mercury. "Get out your computer-hurry! we need to know where we are!"
Mercury blinked her eyes clear. A drop of blood traced a bright red track down her cheek and neck. She brought up her computer and began to type. "It's a warpage of space-time. . .not a black hole, no singularity. . .wormhole. . .cosmic string. . ." Venus left her to her arcane mumbling and knelt next to one prone tourist. She shook her shoulder.
"Wake up! Wake up!" she said urgently. The woman opened her eyes briefly, but then sighed and fell unconscious again. "What's wrong with her?" Venus muttered. She turned her head and coughed. <It must be that thick, heavy grey mist that curled around my body.>
"No one will wake up!" Sailor Moon ran from person to person, desperately trying to wake someone up. Sweat ran from her face, and mingled with the blood that ran from cuts along her cheeks, arms, and legs. It seems Sailor Moon hadn't come out of that cyclone of darkness as well as the other scouts had.
"There's something wrong with the air. If we weren't in senshi form, I think we'd be out too." Mars sniffed with disgust. "I don't feel all that great as it is. Any news on where we are?"
"It looks like a wormhole of some sort. I'm trying to open a way out. Mars is right, the air is bad here. If we don't get these people out soon, they could die."
Sailor Moon looked around. "Hey, where's Jupiter?"
Venus looked around. "Oh no, I didn't notice she's not here! Does anyone know whether she was brought here or not?"
Mercury looked up from her typing. "I saw her transported with all of us. She should be here."
Mars gasped. "How'd you keep your eyes open? I didn't even dare try!"
"My visor protected my eyes, so I saw what happened. I'm working on this, you'd better look for her." Her single-minded concentration centered once more on her faintly glowing computer screen.
The girls spread out. Venus heard a shout after a few minutes of searching. "I've found her!" Venus ran toward the source of the call and found Mars leaning over Jupiter's battered body. Mars looked up. "Help me carry her, will you? We should get back to Mercury."
"Hai!" With grunts of effort-Jupiter was just so much larger than the other girls-Venus and Mars pulled Jupiter up and carried her back in the direction they'd come.
"It didn't seem to be such a long trip coming the other way," Mars gasped. Venus peered ahead.
"Isn't that Mercury?" she asked, relieved.
"Looks like it." As they neared their goal they felt their strength returning. They limped up to Mercury, and lowered Jupiter to the ground with sighs of relief. "It sure took us long enough to get back." Mars leaned back and cracked her back.
Mercury looked up. "We're inside a wormhole-time and space are going to do some unusual things here. I think it's best if we don't get out of each other's sight. I've almost got a portal open...it seems that the dragon knight uses wormholes to travel. I can open a portal easily, but holding it steady on Earth is another thing altogether...There! Start getting these civilians out of here!" Mercury's face firmed with determination. "This is very draining-hurry!" Mars and Venus dragged people out of the strange place they were in one at a time. They carried Jupiter out last and laid her down on the bright green grass of the mountainside. They dashed back into the portal and found Mercury on her knees, her face as pale and bloodless as death. Sweat stood out in large drops on her forehead, and under her nose. Her hair was dark with it. She slowly raised her head. "Are they all out? Where's Sailor Moon?"
Mars and Venus looked at each other in consternation. Venus's felt guilt stab her-how could she have forgotten Sailor Moon? She struggled to think through her nearly crippling exhaustion. <When was the last time I saw her?> "The last time I saw her was when we were searching for Jupiter. We have to find her!" She tried to keep the desperation and guilt out of her voice, but she knew from the commiserating expressions on her friends' faces that she had failed.
Mercury sighed wearily. "She could easily have gotten lost or separated. As I mentioned, time and space do strange things here. We have a choice-you two can search for her, while I keep this portal open, and then you'll have to find your way back to me, or I can close this portal, go with you, and we'll have to hope I can open another portal when we find her." Both senshi looked at Venus. She hated it when they did that! She didn't have a crystal ball! Why did they think she knew what decision to make?
She stopped whining to herself and thought. Mercury really looked too weak to open another portal, even if she now knew how. But if they separated-
"I will make you decision easier, Sailor Venus!" The senshi whirled to face the gloating Silver Knight. "I won't give you one to make!" The air around them began to shimmer and waver, as the heated air rising off black tar on a hot day made the air flutter.
"Fire Soul!"
"Crescent Beam!"
"Shine Aqua Illusion!"
The Silver Knight screamed in pain, and went down to one knee, obviously seriously hurt. He looked up slowly. "You may have hurt me, but it's too late for you!" The world around the senshi whirled more and more chaotically. The girls clung to each other with shrill cries of fear as the cyclone of wind arose again and threatened to tear them from each other. All of the girls were much too weak to stand up to such a battering again. Blackness closed over them...
*****
Mina wrapped her arms around herself and rocked back and forth, alone on the cold cement steps in front of her house as the chill of night seeped through her thin cotton T-shirt and shorts. She shivered, but with the piercing pain of memory.
She didn't even notice the cold, or the encroaching darkness.
"Usagi-chan!" Mina choked through tears.
She'd never seen her again.