-Prelude-



   Voices mingled with the strains of upbeat big band music steadily grew louder over her own pattering footsteps as a lavender-haired girl hurried down a narrow hallway. Her normally long, flowing hair was hitched up to shoulder length by a shiny silver bow, which accented the silver highlights in her hair. She was also apparently not used to her floor length lavender dress for continually stepped on the hem and stumbled in her haste.

  Cursing under her breath, she finally grabbed a handful of the material and held it out of her way, which let her increase her pace significantly. From the sounds, she knew she was already late. She paused before an unsightly gray door to steady her breathing. She smoothed out her dress and felt her hair to assure herself it was still somewhat in place before punching a set of numbers into the keypad on the side of the door.

  A green light flashed briefly and the girl pushed open the door, stepped through, and shut it firmly behind her, surveying the crowd before her as she did. She gaped in awe at the masses of people, all of whom were formally garbed, some more extravagantly than others. She had been told there would be an awful lot of people there this day, but somehow she had never imagined there'd have been so many.

  The Great Hall, where she now stood, was the largest room of the palace by a great margin. Some of the servants claimed there were days when clouds formed on the ceiling and a light fog inhibited one from seeing the far side of the room. The girl knew nothing of which she could compare it to, although this was of no surprise since the Hall had been originally built to be able to hold at least half the population of Crystal Tokyo. The other half generally had to stay outside in the palace gardens.

  Normally the Great Hall was empty, a mass cavern of marble pillars and tile. On the far end stood a marble stage, which was now decorated with silver, white, and pink frills and flowers of all sorts. The same frills hung from the ceiling and in between the massive pillars, on the tables and chairs that had been set up on one side of the Hall and the long buffet on the other side. The massive space in between the pillars and stretching down the length of the Hall had been left open. In front of the band, set up at the foot of the stage, was a wide wooden removable floor, for the dancers.

  People were dancing; she could catch glimpses of them through the crowd. Everyone else seemed to be having a grand time mingling or raiding the buffet table. None of the immediate faces were familiar to her so she began to slide through the crowd, in search of her friends or fellow servants.

  Before she had gone more then a few steps, however, her vision was hindered by a set of white-gloved hands. "Guess who?" A somewhat high-pitched voice teased, suppressing a giggle.

  "Ooh, let me guess," the girl returned and gave a show of thinking hard. "Setsuna, right?"

  The other girl laughed and let her go. "Kala! Don't be so silly!"

  Kala turned around to meet the blonde's pale blue eyes. "I'm the one being silly? Trish, you're supposed to be a lady by now."

  Trish grinned. "Well, we aren't young forever and I certainly don't intend on wasting it!"

  "Young?" Kala raised her eyebrows and smiled. "I wouldn't call having your eighty-seventh birthday in the next month young."

  "That's your problem," another voice cut in from behind Kala. "You're reckoning it with the old standards again. In this day and age, eighty-seven is young." A red-haired lady in a matching elegant red gown positioned herself beside Trish. "That little trip of yours really addled your brains, didn't it?"

  "Victoria!" Trish squealed, "I've been looking all over for you! Brekke just went off to find you and Kari. I thought we agreed to meet by the bunch bowl before it all started?"

  "Kari and I were at the punch bowl before it all started," Victoria stated coolly. "Up until the band completed their first three songs. Then we split up to search for you. Kari should be on the other side of the Hall by now."

  As if on cue, a bird abruptly appeared in a shower of lavender sparks in their midst, chirruped once and then disappeared again. A few seconds later the bird came flying back with a tall girl in its wake. Her short cropped, apparently black hair caught the light from the many chandeliers above, revealing a rainbow of colors. She wore a simple, flowing dark purple dress with black gloves.

  "Speak of the devil," came yet another voice as a black-haired girl emerged from the crowd to their left. She dawned a dark blue dress, which was oddly shorter than most of the others in the Hall.

  "Kari! Brekke!" Trish cried and paused momentarily in her indecision before tackling the taller of the two with a hug.

  Kari let out a squeak of surprise but let herself be embraced, ignoring the contemptuous glare from Brekke. Victoria rolled her dark brown eyes and Kala grinned. The bird, a mockingbird, gave up flying around the group in circles to land on Kala's shoulder.

  "So, how've you been, Mellon-head?" Brekke asked conversationally as she turned to Kala.

  "Fine, and yourself, Brekke-baka?" Kala returned, quickly ducking out of the way as the black-haired lady attempted to punch her playfully.

  Kala darted behind Victoria as Brekke made a grab for her ponytail. The two started racing around the redhead for a few seconds before Victoria grabbed a handful of both of their dresses and forced them to a stop.

  "Hey!" Brekke cried. "That's not fair!"

  "Maybe you should stop acting like children for once?" The shortest of the group stated, letting them go. She crossed her arms and looked around at the four ladies before her. "We have our duties to attend to, remember. Before the band starts up their little processional, we need to get into our places."

  They nodded, albeit somewhat reluctantly. As senshi, they were entitled to their duties, particularly as unannounced senshi, soldiers the public knew not of. Since this ceremony was rather important - the coming of age ceremony for the princess Chibi-Usa, where she would receive her full powers and thus become the new Sailor Moon - the Queen had specifically asked that they remain apart from the procession and instead take up posts around the bottom of the stage, trying to maintain crowd status. A sort of secret service, which was more than just a good idea, since just about every one of the most influential and powerful people would be up there at one time. Both the Queen and the King, all the senshi, the princess, and even a few high-ranking lords and ladies.

  "How much time do we have?" Kari asked just as there was a lull in the music.

  Victoria glanced at her watch but was interrupted as the band began to play a completely different tune rather loudly. She raised her eyebrows. "Now."

  "To positions!" Brekke cried, thrusting a fist into the air and charging off through the crowd.

  The remaining four exchanged amused glances before splitting up. Kala headed off to the far right corner of the stage where she stopped right beside the band. She watched as the crowd began to turn its attention towards the doors at the far end of the Hall, which had just begun to open.

  "Kala!" The soft cry made the lavender-haired girl turn to see a relatively short, fluffy-haired blonde at her elbow.

  "Shiraha?" Kala blinked in surprise. "What're you doing here? I thought all the servants were on duty!"

  "Not the scholarships," Shiraha chirped, beaming. "The Queen let us join in with the festivities. She thought we'd been working hard enough and needed some time off. What about you? Don't you have to work?"

  Kala smiled at the younger girl whose gray eyes glittered excitedly. "No, the Queen let me off as well."

  Shiraha was one of six other girls who had taken advantage of a recently opened scholarship program. In exchange for working as a servant at the palace during high school, they would be able to go to any college or university in Crystal Tokyo and have their tuition paid for. The blonde was the youngest of the six and had only joined in the last month.

  "That's great!" Shiraha grinned and then pointed at the wide open doors. "Look! Here they come!"

  At the front of the procession were the other servants in their white robes, strewing flower petals as they went. Behind them came the princesses of the inner planets, then the Queen and King, ushering the somewhat nervous looking Chibi-Usa along. Taking up the rear came the princesses of the outer planets, who closed the doors.

  The procession made its way relatively quickly through the center of the Great Hall, the crowd parting before it, straight for the stage. The crowd, meanwhile, was cheering and clapping around them. As they reached the stage, the servants spread out along the base of it, the royalty ascending the steps to one side.

  The senshi took their seats along the back of the stage as the Queen and King led Chibi-Usa towards the front, where a single microphone had been set up. Queen Serenity looked calmly out onto the crowd, which grew silent.

  "Such a great number of faces here today," the Queen spoke, smiling softly. "So many here on such an important day in our lives. I welcome each and every one of you with joy, for today is the day we greet the much awaited revival of Crystal Tokyo's protector and maybe even future savior and today we celebrate our very special princess' being of age for this important task."

  Chibi-Usa turned a light shade of pink as she stood beside her mother, the King's hand on her shoulder. The pink darkened considerably to match the shade she wore as Queen Serenity went on to describe their little "bundle of joy." The Queen paid no attention but went on to show her delight that the princess was finally mature enough to accept the great responsibility as the leader of the protectors the Earth and Sol System. She reminded her audience of the duties of the sailor senshi, defending love, justice, and their kingdom.

  The Hall erupted into applause as the Queen rounded off her monologue. Silence returned as the Ginzuishou, placed delicately on a pillow of royal purple velvet, was brought to her by Setsuna. Queen Serenity gently accepted the glittering crystal and held it up before her. She opened her mouth, reading to speak again, however no words came out. Kala watched as her beautiful blue eyes turned cold, focusing on the far end of the Hall instead of the Ginzuishou, and her eyebrows knit together.

  In the thick silence, the creak of the doors and the whispers that followed were quite audible. The crowd turned its head and then parted, allowing two cats to come bounding down the Hall. Their fur was on end and Kala could see several spots of red on the fur of the white cat as they skidded to a halt at the base of the stage.

  "Queen!" The black cat cried, still out of breath. "Queen Serenity! There are intruders in the palace!"

  "Luna?" Concern swept aside the brief evidence of alarm on the Queen's face. She lowered the crystal.

  "They're heading for the Hall!" Luna's eyes had grown to the size of eight balls.

  "Who?"

  Luna's answer was cut off as the doors were thrown open, banging against the walls. All heads turned at once to witness as five women came striding into the Great Hall. They all wore black dresses of varying styles and the lady at the front, their apparent leader, had a red ribbon tied around her head and another around her waist. As they strode closer to the stage, the crowd parting before them as it had for the cats, Kala was able to make out distinguishing details of the others.

  One right behind the leader wore her grayish blue hair back in a bun, a black feather behind one ear matching the black highlights in her hair. Beside her strode a wrinkly old lady with a mane of lifeless, gray hair who continually glared at anybody who stared at her. Behind her, glinting red eyes wide, walked a somewhat taller, quite younger lady with dark red hair flowing freely behind her. Bringing up the rear was a grinning lady in a shark tooth-lined dress with short-cropped, grayish lavender hair.

  "Who are you?" The Queen demanded as the five stopped right in front of the band. Behind her the princesses had gotten to their feet. Kala glanced to the other end of the stage where she caught Victoria's eye and nearly jumped out of her skin when something grabbed her arm.

  "Kala, what's going on?" Shiraha whispered fearfully, holding tight to the lavender-haired girl's arm.

  The leader of the five answered before Kala could respond to the blonde. "We are the Mistresses."

  "And may I ask what you are doing, barging in here in such a manner?"

  "We are here to make a simple request," the lead Mistress bowed.

  "And what is your request?" The Queen countered with a hint of annoyance.

  "Control of Crystal Tokyo."

  There was a shocked silence as this seeped into the thoughts of the crowd and the people on stage. Shiraha had unconsciously begun to imbed her nails into Kala's arm. The lavender-haired girl shook her arm free, not letting her eyes leave the Mistresses except to exchange glances with Victoria and Brekke, who had met up on the other end of the stage. Kari and Trish were nowhere to be seen.

  "What makes you think you can have Crystal Tokyo?" Queen Serenity narrowed her eyes, ignoring the agitation of the princesses behind her.

  "This does," the lead Mistress stated, removing the red ribbon from her waist.

  Every eye watched as she let the ribbon swirl in the air in front of her by rotating her wrist. A sideways cyclone formed, becoming visible as it siphoned off darkness from the shadows around it. With a quick flick of her wrist, she sent it flying towards the Queen.

  All of the princesses ran forward and the Queen tried to jump to the side, holding up her arms to protect herself, however the cyclone was too fast. Before anyone could really react properly it collided with the Queen. Instead of sending her skidding across the floor, though, as was expected, a solid wall of crystal materialized, forming itself by starting from the Ginzuishou and traveling over her body in a wave. It encased Queen Serenity within a solid block of milky white crystal.

  The crowd took this as their cue to panic. It was an odd sight to see the five Mistresses stand there, their gaze on the stage before them, as people ran past. It only took a minute or so until the entire Hall was cleared of all except for the princesses, King Endymion, Kala, Trish, Kari, Brekke, Victoria, and Shiraha, who seemed to have solidified into stone as well.

  "What the hell did you do to her?!" Screamed Haruka as the princesses around her held her back.

  "Nothing of lasting harm," the Mistress returned delicately, retying the ribbon around her waist.

  "I order you to release her now," the King stated, stepping up to the edge of the stage, his eyes on fire.

  "No," she replied. "I order you to put down your weapons, objects of power included, and come down here quietly."

  The princesses ignored her request, exchanging glances that all meant the same; there's five of them, fourteen of us. They each slipped out their individual henshin objects, with varying degrees of discretion. Kala had her dark purple stone in her hand before she remembered the servant clinging to her arm.

  "Shiraha," she turned to the girl. "You need to get away as quietly as possible. Sneak along the back of the stage and go through the door behind it. Now."

  The blonde finally released her grip and sidestepped to the corner of the stage, however stayed rooted to the spot, much to Kala's dismay. Her eyes remained fixed on the Mistresses. The lavender-haired girl hissed at her to keep going.

  "Ah, ah," the Mistress interrupted Kala's insistencies. "Already disobeying a direct order? We'll have to remedy that, then. Won't due learning from the wrong examples. Wolf," she turned to the oldest of the ladies, a dagger now twirling in one gloved hand and nodded towards the far corner of the stage, where Kari and Trish had just appeared.

  Wolf only had to flick her hand with just a glimpse at what she was aiming for. Kala stared as Kari blinked and looked down at the knife handle she seemed to have sprouted from her chest. Trish, pale as snow, had enough sense left to catch the tall girl as her knees gave out from under her. The blonde gingerly laid her down on the tiled floor before glancing, panicked, around at the others for help.

  Kala sprinted past the Mistresses, skidding to a stop by her adopted mother. Kari had closed her beautiful eyes, those eyes that the little girl, cowering behind a dumpster, had fallen into and had come out for. Kala fell to her knees, taking the hands clutching at the handle into her own, hands that had tucked her in at night, held her when she was scared. The girl closed her eyes and shook her head, trying to clear it of memories.

  Before Trish could object, Kala scooped Kari into her arms and stood, wobbling slightly from the weight. With nothing but determination, she set out for the far end of the hall.

  "Where do you think you're going?" The Mistress with shark teeth lining her dress demanded, breaking the horrified silence that had taken hold of the Hall.

  "I'm getting her help," Kala stated, pushing her way past.

  "Uh uh," the lady broke into a grin. "Stop tiring yourself and go ahead and put her down."

  Kala stared at her, fighting the sudden urge to do just that and wondering why no one else was doing anything. Kari gave a punctuated groan, snapping her back to what she was doing. The lavender-haired girl pushed past again and was not expecting the Mistress to push her back, causing her to stumble, lose her balance, and teeter for a few seconds before falling backwards.

  The weight of her adopted mother landing on her took away her breath and made her vision go dark momentarily. She felt someone grabbing the back of her dress and pulling her out from underneath. The Mistress was still grinning, her face pressed against Kala's, as her vision cleared.

  "She's going to die if we don't do anything!" Kala cried, trying to wrestle out of her grip.

  "That's the point," the shark-toothed Mistress said in singsong.

  She spun the girl around and pushed her away from herself. Another of the Mistresses standing nearby caught her and pinned Kala's arms behind her back, forcing her to watch as the shark Mistress stepped lightly over Kari, flashed her grin at Kala, and then placed one foot, then all of her weight onto the knife's handle. With a sickening crunching squelch the handle disappeared and a fresh torrent of blood came seeping out around Kari.

  Kala noticed later that around that point the world came crashing down into chaos. With cries varying from distress to outright rage, the princesses on stage transformed. Kala wretched herself free from the Mistress holding her to run to Kari and check her pulse, even though she already knew it was futile. The Mistresses ignored her as they met with the attacks from the stage, rebounding or dissolving them with disturbing ease.

  She felt hands grabbing at her, dragging her away from the line of fire. It took her a few seconds to realize the hands belonged to Victoria, Brekke, and Trish. They held her down as they watched the fight, oddly responsible in spite of things; Kala realized they had kept to their oath of remaining in civilian until it was absolutely necessary. However it was becoming slowly clear it would be necessary.

  The senshi had jumped down from the stage, leaving the King and Chibi-Usa up there to continue their attempts at breaking the crystal holding the Queen. The four off to the side watched as, despite the deluge of attacks, the head Mistress managed to whisper something to the Mistress with her hair up in a bun and a feather behind her ear and hand her the ribbon from around her forehead.

  She darted forward, the ribbon and her dark blue cape trailing behind. The ribbon seemed to lengthen as she cut her course, circling around the senshi, darting out of the way of attacks. The ends met as she completed her loop, completely encircling the group. With a tap from her black feather, the ribbon began to vibrate, then rise up into the air. With a grin and a wave to the other Mistresses, she hopped over and tapped the ribbon again. Everything - senshi, Mistress, and ribbon - disappeared.

  "Shit," Kala heard Brekke whisper from behind her.

  As one, the four remaining Mistresses turned their attention to them. Kala's eyes darted to the stage where Endymion and Chibi-Usa continued their futile attempts, oblivious to the world. She realized Shiraha was no longer anywhere to be seen.

  "Aww, look at the cute little girls!" The shark Mistress cried in glee.

  "What ever are we going to do with them?" The oldest Mistress stated blandly, fingering another knife.

  "I'd be more worrying what we're going to do to you," Victoria stated, standing up. And before anything else could be said, "Ypsos star power, make up!"

  The others followed her lead and transformed as well. Four angry senshi met the eyes of the Mistresses.

  "Do the little ones want to fight?" The shark-toothed Mistress's insane grin didn't waver.

  "We're here to wish you a nice trip to Hell," Sailor Mikos stated, grabbing her counterpart, Platos's, hand. "Ying!"

  "Yang!" The white senshi cried.

  "Pax!" They yelled in unison, sending a wave of black and white energy from their upraised hands, which merged into a blazing yingyang midway.

  The attack flew towards the Mistresses. The head Mistress smiled and held up a hand, which the attack hit and bounced back off of. Not expecting this, the two senshi were hit full on by their own attack, and skidded backwards into the wall.

  "Silver stars slash!" Sailor Mellon cried, finding her throwing star in her hand and throwing it. With her cry, the star suddenly multiplied itself, twenty duplicates following the original as it cut its way through the air towards the Mistresses.

  However the stars hardly came within a few feet before all of them abruptly fell to the ground with a clatter. The duplicates evaporated as the red-haired Mistress reached over and picked up the remaining throwing star. She examined it momentarily before snapping it in half. Sailor Mellon suddenly felt ill.

  "Now, if you'll please excuse us, we really must hurry this up a tad," the lead Mistress said, looking bored. "We have a lot to do."

  The red-haired Mistress selected a few strands from her hair and held them out before her. "Hakanai hi." The strands burst into flame.

  She held them up before her face and blew. A jet of white flame came streaking across the room, hitting the two senshi still crumpled at the base of the wall full on. Mellon and Ypsos turned their heads slowly as an odd popping noise filled the air and stared at the spot where the other two had been. The wall and its base had turned black, but there was no evidence of Platos and Mikos.

  "Where?" Was all Ypsos could get out as the two stared at the wall.

  Sailor Mellon could only blink until a sudden impulse seized her to grab the red senshi's hand, jump to her feet, and run, dragging Ypsos behind her. A second later the pillar they had been crouching next to had fallen over. They ran for the large doors at the far end of the Hall and Mellon was so focused on those doors that she didn't see the ribbon wind itself around the pillar just ahead of them.

  "Kala, just run!" Ypsos yelled, pushing Mellon forward as the ribbon brought the large marble pillar toppling over.

  Sailor Mellon tripped, fell, and spun around in time to see the hundreds of pounds of marble come crashing down a few feet away on top of the red senshi. She scrambled back on to her feet, long since forgetting to think, saw the glint of metal among the Mistresses that made up her broken throwing star and ran for it.

  They stepped out of her way, thinking she had gone mad. Mellon stooped down and grabbed the halves as she darted by. She ran, not daring to let in thoughts. She ran to forget. She ran to escape. She ran for the large, somehow symbolic, doors at the end of the hallway.

  With the Mistresses' laughter in her ears, she barreled out of the room and down the hallway, everything she knew, shattered.

  This is my forty-fifth depressing tune.

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