Chapter Eight: Alternate Destiny Serena opened her eyes. She lay on a soft cushion of grainy white sand. All around her the ocean roared. Sitting up, she glanced around. The sky was dazzling and cloudless. Far down on the beach a child played in the surf, dancing forward and leaping back as the ocean reached to meet her. Her flaming red hair could be seen from miles away, it was so bright. "Chibi Chibi seems to be having fun," remarked a soft voice behind her. Serena half turned and her eyes met with the shimmering gold of the sun over her visitor's shoulder. He was a shadow against the light, a dark blob with shoulders. "Is that Chibi?" Serena asked. "I couldn't tell." The figure nodded and dropped to the ground beside her. Serena's eyes widened as he removed his top hat and unbuckled his cape. "Here, Serena. Sit on this or you'll be finding sand in cracks you didn't know you had for the rest of eternity." She nodded, her mouth dry. "Is it the rest of eternity, Adam?" Venus Knight shrugged and ran one hand through his ruffled auburn hair. Eyes the color of a forest at sunrise stared out at the endless sea. "It has been for me. Mina never remembers my dream visits, does she?" Serena shrugged in defeat. "If she does, she tells no one. She's been kinda, I don't know, lonely lately." Nodding, Adam sighed. "I assumed as much. She thinks I don't know, wouldn't approve of what's going on in her life right now. Malachite is trying to win her back and she still loves him, but..." Serena raised a hand in a gesture of confusion. "Malachite? What are you talking about?" A measuring look was her only reply. Then, "Serena, what do you last remember?" Memories flitted by, she grasped one. "I was in a doctor's office, Darien was..." She paused, that wasn't right. "I...wait. I don't know." Adam hummed a song under his breath and stared out at the water. Chibi Chibi was now letting the waves tickle the tips of her toes; her light giggles could be heard down the beach. The shadows grew long, Adam and Serena watched the sun set, both silent until the last rays of light faded from the horizon. Then he stood and helped Serena to her feet. "Come on, it's a long walk to our destiny." She watched him gather the giggling Chibi Chibi in his arms and shivered as the first cool eddies of wind coated her arms. Yes, I suppose it is. * * * * * * * * * * * Tokyo International Airport was bustling and hot. The press of bodies and smell of too many people crowded together wore on Darien's nerves and made him want to give his lunch an escort out of his stomach from the door it had come in. Solan and Apollo crowded on either side of him, watching the exits carefully as if afraid he'd bolt. A voice called to Solan and he turned. Solan's friend, the one who started the entire mess by showing up in Solan's first vision, waved at them from across the terminal. "Solan!" "Jeremy?" Solan looked confused and for a moment Darien felt an emotion other than crushing loss. He assumed it was pity but he couldn't be sure. "What are you doing here?" Jeremy pressed through the crush of bodies and forced an exit. The Knights took it and followed him to the baggage center. "After I thought about it for a bit, I realized you must have been playing one hell of a joke on me so I came back. Mina as Sailor Venus." He chuckled and shook his head. "Impossible." Ken glanced at Greg and Chad. They shrugged and decided to let it be. Now was not the time to inform the delusional young man of his error. They gathered their belongings and neared the front of the airport. Jeremy had quieted his chatter, sensing the uneasy emotions in high gear. A voice broke through Darien's haze and he turned to watch Aurora throw herself in Apollo's arms, wailing at the top of her lungs. Normally Aurora didn't cry, but this time she let the waterworks loose. Girls clinging to their loves tightly and weeping surrounded him. He almost smiled. If Serena were here, he thought ignoring the pang that overtook him at the image, then I would be drying her tears as well. Instead Serena was dead and he was watching her best friends and his share their grief. But he had no one to share his with, no one at all. "You have us," replied a voice to his thoughts. Darien started as he turned and identified the speaker. He reached in to his coat for his transformation rose before he realized that the four men standing in front of him weren't emanating evil. They seemed...serene, peaceful almost. They were his generals and he their leader once more. Darien bit his lip and tasted blood. "Malachite," he whispered, shaking his old comrade/enemy's hand. "Jadeite, Nephrite, Zoisite. It is a...pleasure." "It'll take time," Nephrite replied, "for you to recognize us as friends again, Darien. We were brainwashed much more thoroughly than you were; we'd been in those coffins for centuries. It took the combined power of six princesses and a goddess to free us." Malachite began to speak, but his eye had caught Mina hugging a fiery haired young man across the way. "I thought he was dead," he gasped softly. "Mina said he died." Darien turned. "Oh. That's not Adam, Malachite. That's...Jeremy." Understanding dawned instantly on Malachite's face. He blushed and glanced down studiously ignoring the displays of affection going on around him. The other three generals did the same; carefully avoiding the reunions of their ancient loves and their Knight's reincarnations. Again, Darien felt an emotion other than loss. He patted Malachite on the shoulder. "Take heart. It wasn't meant to be, and if you need proof I have two to four friends who would be more than happy to explain why." * * * * * * * * * * * Serena shook her head as Adam offered her a sip from the bottle he carried at his waist. "I'm not thirsty." He shrugged and cuddled the sleeping Chibi Chibi more firmly to his chest. "I understand. You usually aren't for awhile, then your body reminds you of your limits." "But if we are dead, then how do our bodies have limits?" Adam grinned. "Do you recall Chibi here ever dying, Serena?" She shook her head. "No, but anything can happen." The woods around her reminded her of that fact. They had walked maybe one mile and the ocean had disappeared completely, leaving them among a thick press of trees as the last rays of light faded from the sky. "You're asleep Serena. So deeply asleep that even the state-of-the-art heart monitors at the hospital think you died, and according to most beliefs, you are. As far as they're concerned, you are dead. According to them, I'm dead." She stared at him, her eyes widening. "You're not dead?" "Oh in the normal meaning of the word I am, as are you. No heartbeat, no brain pattern, no breathing. But just because your body quits, that doesn't mean you've died. We're still here, aren't we?" Chibi sighed and blew a bubble in her sleep. It popped gently and Serena found herself wanting to embrace the young child, embrace the mystical creature she would one day be. "But Chibi..." Adam shifted the child again and shrugged. "She was here when I got here. So was a pink haired teenager. When I neared her, she threw something at me and took off." Mind wandering, Serena mused on the idea that Rini might be there. "What was the girl wearing?" He glanced at Serena approvingly and she could feel a low blush flush once more along her cheeks. "She looked a lot like you Serena. Just shorter and pink." Dismissing the idea of Rini's appearance, Serena turned to a nearby tree and leaned against it. "Do we rest for the night or what? I know we haven't gone far, but I'm pooped." Adam laughed. "If you wish. It must be tiring for you. Dying twice, I mean." Her head snapped up. "Dying twice?" Settling Chibi Chibi on the ground beside a trickling stream that ran beneath their feet, Adam nodded. "You were tricked Serena. I saw it all from the looking glass." "You are way beyond me, Adam." He pointed to a clearing a few feet ahead of them. "Go there and tell me what you see." Nervous about leaving the safety of his presence she shivered and complied. Things had gone from mildly odd to off the Richter scale strange as the day had progressed, and this was no difference. Above her in the night sky towered a mountain shining in the full light of day. "What is going on here?" she whispered. Adam appeared beside her once more, Chibi safely ensconced in his embrace. "I discovered those mountains my first or second day here. They are always in day, just as this place is always shadowed in night. The beach seems to be the only place near here that actually follows any set sunrise, sunset pattern." "So what is up there?" Serena whispered. A warm hand settled on her shoulders. "My looking glass." * * * * * * * * * * * Parting the mist with a wave of her staff, Pluto stepped in to the altar of the Solar Gods. "Aurora!" she bellowed. "Apollo!" She paused, there was no answer, but then again, she hadn't expected one. "GET OVER HERE RIGHT NOW!!! YOU HAVE SOME EXPLAINING TO DO!" A low chuckle behind her caused Pluto to swirl and brandish her staff threateningly. She brought it down in a hard arc, only to have it parried by one far stronger than she. "Aurora couldn't come, so she sent me." Celia stepped back to allow Apollo entrance to his home. "This is not funny, Apollo. Things are so messed up I can't begin to figure out what in the hell is going on here. Care to explain why the timelines are shifting and splintering? I must have repaired fifty or so alternate lines today, and they are still moving around. You had better have an answer and quickly too, or I'm going to make you clean up your own mess and believe me it's not pretty!" He turned and Pluto could see the fear and contempt mixed in his eyes. "I told her to leave things be," he whispered. Pluto stepped forward, and raised his chin with the end of her Garnet Orb. "Who?" He settled down on the steps and patted the square of marble beside him. Pluto nodded and sat beside him, laying her staff next to his like old friends. "What is going on, Apollo?" He shook his head. "They got out. I don't know how they managed it, but they got out." "Who? Who got out? Apollo, I need to know so I can help." His voice choked. "Serena got out." Pluto furrowed her brow and shook her head. "Care to try that again? Serena is dead, Apollo. Crystal Tokyo is disappearing at a rapid rate. People run for cover and it disappears from above them. I got Rini out and sent her to safety but I couldn't find the other Scouts or the King." Apollo sighed. "I know Serena is dead, Celia. I know who did it too. There is an evil perfectly matched with Sailor Moon in size and strength. It is, if you pardon the term, a nega-Sailor Moon. A Sailor Moon that would exist had Serena been turned from the correct path even once in history. She... " Pluto's eyes widened. "This...Nega Sailor Moon...she escaped somewhere? How? Where did she escape from?" Apollo drew a circle in the dirt with his staff. "There is one dimension in the entire universe that holds the evil parodies of every Sailor Scout ever created. The evil Galexia could be used as an example. She comes from this dimension." "How did she get out?" Staring at the rising sun, Apollo let a tear drift down his cheek. "When Auriel and Aurora followed the will of Fate and saved the Generals from their eternal prison, she found a crack. She found it and forced her way through in to Serena's mind. One other accompanied her I think. Darien." Gasping, Pluto sat back. "Darien? There is an evil Tuxedo Mask?" "Yes but the irony lies in the fact he still loves Sailor Moon. Not the Sailor Moon of his world, he loves Serena. He first glimpsed her when Darien was brainwashed by Beryl and fell in love. He followed the opposite of his love to find her, if that makes sense." "And now?" "They trapped Serena in the coma somehow, then they made her give up. Now two alternate universes have been formed and are battling one another for control. Ours and the one where Sailor Moon never existed. Not even Venus is a Scout in that one. The girls are there, don't get me wrong, but you are the only Sailor Scout of this galaxy there. The rest...were never activated, not even Tuxedo Mask." "And Serena in this universe?" Apollo shivered. "She met Darien several times, but he was dating Raye. He and Raye married, and Serena eventually married a member of a singing group called the Three Lights." A tear dripped down Pluto's face. "Seiya loved her enough to stay on Earth?" "Apparently." "So what do we do?" Pluto buried her face in her hands and wept, an act she could not recall the last time she had done. Apollo groaned. "As they bury her here, they bury her there. She died a little later in that life, but she still died relatively early in the scheme of things. I don't know how the negative Serena found the hole, and I don't know what is going to happen next. It seems that the Nega Serena and Darien hold all the cards now. We have nothing to do with it. Our hands are tied. Now it's up to Destiny, but even I can't tell you where that wheel will take us." * * * * * * * * * * * "We gather here today to say goodbye to a loved and trusted friend..." "Today we gather to witness the burial of our dearly loved and trusted friend..." Adam's "mirror" turned out to be two smooth shiny walls buried deep within a large cave high in the mountain. One wall showed Darien tightly clutching Raye's hand and Seiya standing stone cold still near the casket as the minister droned on in the heat of a bright summer day. Three children huddled behind him, two dark-haired girls and a boy with hair a golden sheen. Soft sobbing was heard from the large group of people behind the children. Mina stood alone off to the side, a large pair of sunglasses hiding the fact that her eyes slowly trickling tears. A stiff Lita and her man stood behind Ken, Nerissa, and Corrine. They all barely knew each other; it was obvious, for the mourners were well spaced. The other wall exposed a snowy world covered with white. A warmly bundled Darien now stood cold and still without the comforting grip of Raye's hand, Seiya was nowhere in sight. The Scout team huddled tightly together, sharing their grief, holding hands and weeping openly. Lita leaned on Ken for support, Ami and Greg used one another for warmth, but her hand tightly clutched Saturn's small one. Nerissa and Corrine were crushing one another with sorrowful hugs, and Raye held Chad tightly. The four generals stood silently at the back with the sisters, all weeping. Serena shivered at the sight; it was gruesome in an attractive sort of way, like a car wreck or a particularly bloody part of a scary movie. No matter how much you didn't want to look, you found yourself doing so against your will. "Kou Serena, beloved wife of Seiya and mother of Yaten, Minako, and Hotura." "...Serena, beloved daughter of Elisa and Robert, sister to Sammy..." "No," she whispered. "I married Seiya, I had children. It's not supposed to be that way. Why? Why would I have done such a thing?" Adam could feel her distress from across the room. He tucked Chibi Chibi in to the pallet and brushed one stray wisp of fire hair off her forehead. Something tells me you have the answer, don't you munchkin? Serena began crying and he bit his lip to keep from joining her. "Serena," he ground out around his tears, "if you'd like to see anything else, we can. That's how I could visit Mina in her dreams, that's how I knew what was going on despite being dead myself for the past eight months. It is possible." She turned to him, her large blue eyes watery and grave. The walls behind her showed a close-up of both Ami's, both with death grips on almost identical Gregs. "Can we see the people who did this to me?" He glanced at the second wall. Mina had moved to the back and now had a hand in Malachite's grip; the other tightly clasped in Jeremy's. "We can try." * * * * * * * * * * * "And so the big bad wolf says, 'I'll huff...and I'll puff...and I'll..." A giggling voice cut Seiya off. "Blow the house down!" Smiling tenderly, Seiya brushed stray wisps of sunny blond hair off Yaten's forehead. "You're right my little man. What happens next? Daddy forgot." The little boy scrunched his eyebrows together and whispered something so softly Seiya couldn't catch it. "What was that my little man? Old deaf Daddy didn't hear it." Two flawlessly blue eyes gazed at him with Serena's honesty and Seiya felt his heart catch in his throat. Yaten was the spitting image of his beloved Serena. The boy whispered again, and Seiya leaned closer. "One more time babe. Didn't hear you." "I said, Daddy," the voice faintly whispered, "then the fairy godmother comes and brings the little piggies mommy back." Seiya closed his eyes against the threatening tears. "I wish baby," he murmured, "I wish it were that easy." * * * * * * * * * * * Darien stared at the full moon as it lay against the night sky. In his hands he loosely grasped a picture of he, Serena, and Rini taken at a circus when Rini had first arrived. In it his two meatball-heads were hamming it up for the camera; the kindergarten-aged Rini pulling her pigtails until she resembled Pippie Long Stocking, and fourteen year old Serena pushing her nose up until you could fairly see up her nostrils. He stood at the back, of course, his arms loosely wrapped around Serena's slim waist, laughing at the girl's antics. He had been nineteen or so, in his first year of college, definitely. Had it only been four years ago? He couldn't remember. "Serena," he whispered brokenly. He dropped the picture on the kitchen table and poured himself half a glass of bourbon. He hated liquor but he'd forgotten that little fact five or six shots of vodka ago. He raised the glass to the moon in a tipsy salute, before tipping it back and drinking it down as rapidly as he could. If there was going to be a world without Serena, he wanted to be out of it, and quickly. The alcohol hit his stomach in a volcanic rush as he picked up the picture once more. Serena's smiling face was now wet as his tears pattered down and dampened the picture. "Serena," he moaned. There was a light knock at the door, and Darien rambled over to the door to open it. "Who is it?" he slurred. A quiet voice answered, but Darien couldn't make out the owner or the words. He pressed one blurry eye to the keyhole, but could see nothing. Sighing as if the weight of the entire world rested on his opening that door, he fought with the locks for a moment before they decided protecting a drunk was a horrible idea and squealed off the wall as he ripped them free. The door swung open and he poked his head out. The hall was empty, but a small black ball rolled in to the room past his feet. "What the...?" he whispered. Something about the way that thing moved reminded him of someone. Who, he couldn't place, but definitely someone he hadn't seen in awhile. As he watched the thing move, a small step behind him caught his attention. Darien reached in his shirt pocket and found a spare rose. Gripping the thorny sides tightly, he relished the feel of the pricks in his skin, of minuscule hooks digging in and rending his flesh. "Damn right," he muttered before whirling and launching the rose at whatever had the audacity to interrupt him when he was drowning his sorrows. A small shriek cut through the haze and Darien was instantly sober. His eyes widened as the person who stood there jumped back about a foot and blasted his rose right out of the air. "...Twinkle Yell!" Darien gasped as the figure stepped forward and kicked at the ashes of what had been his rose. "Sorry Daddy, but I couldn't dodge," she apologized softly. "Rini?!" Certain that the world was coming to an end, Darien felt the earth beneath his feet melt and he slumped to the ground in an effort to hold the planet together. "But you aren't borned...borened...born yet." His pink-haired daughter shook her head and let a single tear slip down her cheek. "That's what Pluto said. Then she said to come here, that I'd be safe here, and that Crystal Tokyo was disappearing again." He wrapped his arms around his future daughter and clung desperately, squeezing so tightly she couldn't breath, and filling her world with alcohol tinged air. "Daddy? Darien? Where's Serena? Where's Mommy, Daddy?" * * * * * * * * * * * "So, now what?" Mina looked at the mirror in her bedroom. Her eyes were puffy from too much crying and crusty from lack of sleep. "Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who's the ugliest one of all?" No answer, typical. Mina sighed and turned to Lita, curled up on the bed. "What do you mean, 'so now what?'" "I mean," Lita sat up and pulled off her ponytail holder. Her long chestnut locks curled around her face and body, ending somewhere at her hip. "We are acting like nothing happened. Ami's returned to school, you have a shoot next week for the newest Sailor V whatever, I have two weeks to make an apple pie that will water mouths two countries away, and Raye is back at the temple with Chad. The Generals are staying with the Four Sisters, and loving it from what I hear, Ken and Greg got the Microsoft deal, and Darien is putting in ninety hours a week so he won't have to be alone in the apartment. So now what?" "Something happened," Mina whispered. "But none of us knows what. Auriel and Solan are okay, she moved in with him last week. The Outers are all back to doing their own thing, the funeral didn't change that. Life goes on, right?" "But it's not right. Nothing is right." Lita's voice was empty, flat. "We know that. I'm sure we all know that. But we must be strong, for Serena's sake. She'll find a way back to us, she always does." "You actually believe that, don't you?" Incredulously, Lita jumped off the bed and grabbed Mina by the shoulders. "You think she's coming back!" Mina nodded. "Serena's never let us down when the going got tough before, so why would she now? I have faith in her, it just takes awhile." Lita shook Mina slightly. "Are you crazy? Mina, she dead. D-E-A-D. She isn't coming back, just the way Adam won't." The slap was very loud. Lita took a step back and held her fingers to her tingling right cheek. Mina, gentle Mina, had actually struck a fellow Scout. "I'm sorry," she whispered quietly. "That was way out of line." Mina's shoulders humped over. "Don't you think I miss her too, Lita?" she ground out. "Don't you think I miss them both? But I have faith in her. It's not like some monster cleaved her in two...or she died in a car wreck...this was different. This was not under normal circumstances." "You have faith in her." Mina nodded. "I believe in Serena, I always have. She'll find a way back, or else we're all doomed."