Soulriders 5.0: Legend of the Unending Games

Standing on a balcony and looking at the night sky, Queen Serenity sees a spaceship burn in the Moon's atmosphere, leaving a trail of flaming wreckage on its course to the Royal Spaceport. "Most ominous," she says, murmuring a quick prayer for the ship's insurance company.

Meanwhile, at the Royal Spaceport, Princess Makoto, Eiko and Luna see the Millennium Frog at its final approach from the relative safety of their private liner....

OOC: Go for it, Rei, Makoto.

As the Millenium Frog shakes itself to pieces on its final approach to Serenity Spaceport, Rei tears her gaze away from the window where she can see pieces of the hull flying past her view. "I can't believe it ends like this..." she moans piteously, before turning a furious look on the cause of her current troubles. "If I die, I'm going to haunt you forever!" she hisses at Genkai, incidentally bracing herself on the ruined seat in front of her.

Genkai laughs. "It'll take a lot more to kill someone like you, Girl." She scratches her chin thoughtfully. "Though facial scarring is not out of the question...."

The Princess pales at Genkai's words. "Not the face!" she cries, bringing both hands to cover her cheeks, and incidentally causing herself to smack her chin on the ruined seat as she stops bracing herself against it. Shooting the old crone a dirty look, she resumes bracing herself, whispering a prayer as she awaits their inevitable meeting with the Lunar surface...

The Millennium Frog impacts against the runway, and then leaps up, before Lunar gravity takes its toll again. It descends again, only to bounce, rising to a lower height than previously.

Ten bounces later, it stops, having dug itself into a trench of Lunar soil and concrete.

Incredibly shaken by the experience, but still miraculously alive, Princess Rei of Mars proceeds to show her appreciation for her continued existence by vomiting her lunch all over the seat in front of hers.

After evacuating her stomach, the thoroughly shaken (not to mention filthy) young woman takes off her seatbelt and staggers towards the nearest emergency exit, rudely pushing anyone foolish enough to get in her way. After opening the door and activating the emergency ramp, she slides down onto the surface of Serenity Spaceport and begins kissing the ground fervently. "I'm not dead... I'm not scarred... but I still hate my life..."

Makoto watches from the sidelines, rather surprised by this turn of events. "Erm... I guess our pilot was better than I gave him credit. I thought he was making up that 'turbulance' stuff... should we see if they're okay?"

With eyes wider than Makoto had ever seen on her before, Luna stares at the young princess, gaping. "Th-- th--" she tries saying, her mouth opening and closing.

"I'm going to take that as a 'yes'," Makoto decides. Throwing caution to the wind, she scrambles towards the smoking flaming ruin, slowing only slightly when she sees the Princess of Mars kissing the ground.

"Princess Rei?" Luna finally asks, still gaping at the scene of the crash. "What could possess her to travel so dangerously?!"

Eiko shrugs, and scoops Luna up, following Makoto.

Hearing Luna's voice, Rei looks up with a start. 'How could she recognise me?' the Princess thinks, confirming that she is still covered from head to toe in that strange white crap from the spaceship, and her face is still covered in... whatever the hell that stuff from Genkai's feet was. About the only distinctive feature the cat could have picked up would be her hair... but the style wasn't that uncommon on Mars...

"Uh... er... Princess Rei? Where?!" The incognito Princess makes a show of looking around, deciding that retaining the Rika alias would most definitely be in her best interests until she can get cleaned up. She didn't fancy explaining how the Crown Princess of Mars had been bullied into going on that flying deathtrap by her geriatric tutor, to say nothing of simply not wanting anyone to see her in such a pitiful state as she is currently in.

"You poor dear," Luna croons in Eiko's arms. "Did you hit your head and forgot who you were when that thing crashed?"

Rei's facial muscles tick slightly, but under all the crap she is covered in, it's not all that noticeable. "Oh, what a cute kitty! Can I hold her?" she then proceeds to grab Luna from the redhead without waiting for a reply. Turning away from the two girls, she leans down to whisper in Luna's ears without anyone else overhearing.

"Luna, I'm trying to preserve my dignity here. Do you really think it's a good idea for it to get out that the Crown Princess of Mars arrived on the Moon to see Queen Serenity looking like... well, like this?" she indicates her filthy and bedraggled state. "Think of the scandal!" she whispers in a shocked tone. "Do you want a scandal Luna? A scandal that could tarnish both my reputation, and by extension Queen Serenity's, since I'm coming here as her guest?"

Makoto slows to a halt, peering between the two beings she sees nearby. "Well, if she's not the princess," Makoto muses to herself, glancing at the white...stuff...encrusted young girl, "then _she_ must be!"

Makoto turns to Genkai, who is at the moment the most presentable, stately, and dignified looking of the survivors. "Er... ah... you must be the... Princess, then," Makoto manages. "It's... nice to meet you!"

Hearing the other girl's words, Rei spins round, still holding Luna. "No! No one here is the Princess! I'm just a humble peasant girl, and that's my dear old eccentric grandmother!"

Luna struggles in Rei's arms, until getting a whiff of her and fainting.

"Oh my God! You killed Luna!" Eiko screeches.

"How mean of you," Genkai says, looking disapprovingly at Rei. "What did that poor cat ever do to you, Rika dead?"

Rei looks down at the unconscious cat in her arms and shrugs. Not quite what she was trying to accomplish, but the net result is the same.

"Here, she just fainted," Rei says, handing the cat back to the redhead. "Anyway, why are you looking for the Princess? Surely any self-respecting member of royalty would travel on something with a bit more style than that piece of crap," she waves to the burning hulk of the Millenium Frog. "My name is Rika," she bows to the other girls, doing her best to ignore the old crone.

Looking horribly confused, Makoto tries to puzzle things out.... If the old woman's eccentric... but no, the younger one is trying to talk to the cat. Mau. Cat.

Wait, was there any guarantee that the younger girl was coherent enough to actually realize that it was Mau, and not a cat? "Err... Eiko-chan... maybe the fumes from those chemicals are getting to her.... Should we call a medic?"

"No, no! That won't be necessary, I'm fine! Really, totally fine!" The princess waves her hands frantically as she tries to reassure the would-be good samaritan. "In fact, we're both fine!" she moves over to stand by Genkai, but refrains from touching the evil old woman, "And we were both just leaving! As soon as I get my..." she trails off and looks at the burning Millenium Frog, "... luggage..."

Rei examines the ship to try and determine if the luggage hold is even intact anymore.

Makoto considers things while the black (white) haired young woman in the colorful (white) dress stares at the burning ruin of the flaming Frog. Deciding that with Luna unconsious and this 'Rika' obviously in shock from the accident that she is the most capable one (outside of the apparently distracted older woman who is, not, in fact, a Princess of Mars), Makoto promptly falls back on her parents' oldest course of action:

"Eiko-chan, what do you think we should do?"

Eiko ponders her friend's question.

"Well, we could still call a medic, or we could just take Luna with us and leave that poor, poor girl alone with her dear old, old grandmother." Shrugging, she adds, "It's been a while since we had something to eat, right?"

Rei notices that the cargo hold is on fire, but still miraculously intact.

Makoto looks at Eiko sidelong. "You still think with your stomach," she murmurs. "Alright, let's get them to the medics. I suppose if they can walk they aren't horribly injured. Once we take care of that I'll make us lunch."

Taking a few steps away, Makoto pauses, and turns to look at Eiko questioningly, completely ignoring both the old woman and the gunk-encrusted younger girl, to say the last of the rampaging fire on the Milenium Frog. "Do you think they'll let me cook?"

"Ack! It's on fire, and all my stuff is in there!" Rei cries, looking around to see if the emergency services are actually doing anything about the flaming wreck in the middle of the spaceport, since she doesn't feel like tackling the blaze herself...

"Sure, I don't see why not, Mako-chan," Eiko replies with another shrug. "If it comes to that, we can buy you a kitchen, right?"

As Rei looks around, she notices that the burning wreckage is on a special, remote runway, a shiny sign proclaiming it to be 'Reserved for the Millennium Frog'. A smaller sign advertizes barbeques, pegging the admittance fee at several pennies.

A few men in emergency services uniforms are dancing around the burning wreckage, while another holds what looks like sweet potatoes on sticks towards the fire.

Rei stares at the amazing display of pure craptasticness from the Lunar emergency services. For a moment she looks like she might go over to give them a piece of her mind, but then she just shrugs and shakes her head. "None of it's irreplaceable, and I'm insured anyway. We may as well just leave before the spaceship EXPLODES!" she yells the last word at the dancing emergency services, and begins walking to the terminal with as much dignity as she can manage. "Besides, I bet half my clothes aren't even in fashion here on the Moon..."

As Rei walks away, she hears someone calling out, "Wait, please, Miss Rika!"

Rei halts and turns to see who is calling for her, guessing it must be that Vir fellow, since aside from those two girls, she hasn't used the Rika alias on anyone else.

Rei is indeed right. Vir is running towards her, loaded with baggage. Rei notices one of her suitcases -- slightly singed and trails of smoke escaping from it -- on top of those he is carrying.

"Isn't that great, Rika dearest?" Genkai asks in a sweet voice. "Now we don't have to bother ourselves with talking to the nice insurance agents!"

Rei's eyes light up. "You saved my bags!" she gushes, rushing over to meet Vir and help him with his load. "Thank you, ever so much!"

After taking a fair share of the burden, Rei walks again resumes walking to the terminal, keeping pace with Vir, thinking happy thoughts of how at least not everyone in the universe is out to get her after all.

Scowling a little at that thought, she gives some of her attention to the bane of her existence. "Yes, granny. It's a good thing we don't have to fill in all those forms they make us do, why, it must be such a strain on your tired old eyes to read the fine print," she says with a sweet voice that doesn't sound so strained any more.

"I'm afraid I couldn't save everything," Vir laments, matching her pace. "Your largest suitcase prooved to be quite flammable, Miss Rika."

The blond man is about to continue, when he doubles over from the weight of Rika's dear grandmother appearing on his back.

"Thank you for reminding me of my old age," she tells Rei, showing the girl a row of sharp teeth as she smiles. "We must avoid any unnecessary strain on my bones, too."

Rei shrugs off the loss of one of her suitcases with equanimity. The fact that the guy made the effort to rescue any of them speaks quite highly of him, and, as she told herself earlier, nothing is irreplacable.

She is not able to take Genkai's rudeness towards her knight in shining armour quite so well, however. "Get off of him you old ghoul! How can you be so horrid to poor Mister Vir?!" she yells at the evil old woman, swinging one of the smaller suitcases up to try and knock her off of Vir.

Weightened by Genkai's surprising bulk, Vir is unable to dodge, and is hit by the suitcase, as it passes through the spot the old woman had occupied until that moment. Vir crashes to the ground, the suitcases he was carrying dropping on top of him, Genkai plopping on top of them in turn.

Rei gasps in horror at what just transpired. "Now look what you made me do!" she accuses, before pushing Genkai away so she can dig Vir out from the luggage and check he is okay.

"Pain..." he mutters, his eyes unfocused. "Can't feel... legs...."

Genkai snorts, standing nearby.

"Oh, dear..." Rei frets, making sure Vir is no longer buried under the luggage, but unsure what else she can do to alleviate his situation. She glares at Genkai before risking a look back at the emergency services to see if they might be of any assistance.

The emergency services people have finally stopped dancing, now sitting around the fire in a semi-circle and eating the roasted sweet potatoes.

Rei holds up three fingers in front of Vir's eyes. "Mister Vir, how many fingers do you see?" she asks in a worried tone.

"Seven and a third!" he proudly proclaims, his head lolling.

Makto finally breaks from watching silently and says, "Eiko-chan, why don't we help them to an infirmary, and then look for a kitchen?"

"Sure, just as long as we don't have to touch that dirty girl," Eiko replies. "I'll go get our luggage. Back in a second!"

The red-head takes off towards the liner you three came to the Moon with, the unconscious Luna in her arms.

"Er.... Hello, Rika, can I help you with any of your luggage?" Makoto asks quietly, trying to ignore the twitching blond knight and the smirking elder woman.

Rei blinks at hearing Makoto's voice, having thought she and her friend had already left. "Um..." she looks between the strewn luggage and the other people present. "If you could help with the luggage, that'd be great. Granny, I don't suppose you could trouble your tired old bones to carry a few things as well? Then I can carry Mister Vir so we can get him some help..."

Before she picks up the dazed man, Rei suddenly remembers something. "Oh, I'm sorry! I never did get your name," she looks up at the other girl expectantly, taking the opportunity to properly check out Makoto's appearance, since she hadn't been paying attention before.

Makoto giggles quietly, and offers a curtsy. "I'm Makoto de la Joviana!" she introduces herself. She is currently wearing a simple cream/green gown and has long brown hair done up in a pony-tail, tied up with a gold and jade hair ornament, and matching gold and jade earrings. The thing that sticks out about her, however, is that she's a bit... tall. Not quite gangly, or poorly proportioned, but... tall.

Humming softly, she takes a few items of baggage. "We should probably get Lady Luna to the infirmary to get her checked up anyway, so it's no problem at all." Glancing between Rika, who might not be crazy and the granny, she asks, "Have you been here before? I'd never seen a Mau, so... um... are there many of them here?"

Rei hefts Vir on her back, bearing his weight with some difficulty, but managing. She smiles up at Makoto, silently cursing the bad first impression she must be making in such a state, but swearing to make it up to the girl when she can be properly introduced to Princess Rei instead of Rika the peasant girl...

"I've never seen a Mau before except in pictures," she says, "As far as I know, they're very rare, but Lady Luna acts as an advisor to Queen Serenity herself. I recognised her by the crescent moon marking."

After a moment, something else clicks. "De la Joviana? As in, the royal family of Jupiter?"

Makoto winces slightly. "Um, well.... Yes," she admits. "It's a bit of a sprawling family, with all of those moons to spread out on, though." Shaking her head, she turns her attention to Rika. "I'd never even head of Mau except in old playtime stories, in the Jovian system."

"Me? Do menial labor when fit teenagers are around?" Genkai snorts. "Perish the thought!"

Rei curses the cruel fates. She had never met another princess from one of the other worlds before, and now that she finally does, instead of dealing with an equal, she has to play the part of the peasant... The universe was certainly conspiring against her lately. And coupled with Luna's presence, this Makoto was likely to be Sailot Jupiter... hopefully her 'disguise' of being covered in white crap would hold out long enough, since she certainly didn't want one of her future team-mates seeing her like this. Especially such a... well formed, team-mate.

With a supreme effort, Rei shakes off the burgeoning fantasy. This is not the time or place. Instead, she bows as much as possible while bearing Vir. "It's an honour for this humble one to meet you, your majesty," she greets the other girl formally.

"I'm a bit of a history buff, so I've heard about the Mau in a few books I've read. I don't know if you get the same news we do on Mars, but I've also heard Lady Luna mentioned from time to time when discussing current events from the Moon Kingdom, although the fact that she is a Mau does tend to be underplayed for some reason."

Rei ignores Genkai, but her expression falls as she realises that she can't force the evil old woman to do anything, her own burden is more than she is comfortable with, and there is no way she is willing to ask Princess Makoto to carry any more...

Makoto nods graciously at Rika's bow. "Well, I will admit... most of the news goes to Metis first," Makoto muses. "But I don't remember hearing as much as you have about it."

Makoto smiles encouragingly at Rika. "What's it like on Mars? Lady Luna said that the Princess of Mars was quite lovely... she used a word... what was it now...." Makoto looks thoughtful. "Precocious! That's the word. Still, I'd like to meet her." Makoto sighs wistfully.

Rei twitches a little. Admittedly, precocious is a lot nicer than some of the things she's been called, but still... darn cat!

Struggling to pick up a few more suitcases without dropping Vir, Rei formulates a reply for Makoto. "Mars is a beautiful world... I suppose I can't really compare since this is my first time travelling further than the asteroid belt, and the Moon seems nice enough, but Mars... well, it's home..." Rei has a wistful smile as she speaks, imagining carefree days sailing along the canals with some beautiful girl or another (she couldn't really remember any specific girl - they all tended to blur together after a while).

Frowning slightly, Rei tries to come up with an answer to Makoto's question about the Princess without giving too much away, and fails completely. "I've never met the Princess, so I doubt I could tell you much about her... but I'm sure you'll meet her soon!"

Eiko shows up, holding all of her and Makoto's baggage with one hand rather easily, Luna carried in the crook of her free arm. "Need help?" she asks simply, glancing at the two girls and Genkai.

"Yes please," Rei smiles gratefully at Eiko, taking the opportunity to check her out as well as she steps away from the few remaining suitcases which Genkai could have easily carried if she wasn't such an evil old bint.

Eiko seems to notice the stare, and smirks, stretching out before picking up more suitcases, handing Luna to Makoto.

Rei smiles ever so slightly at Eiko. Now things are looking up... she thinks, though still bitter over the fact that in her current condition she can't actually act on any of her impulses...

With a small sigh, she starts heading towards the terminal with her burden. "Well, we'd best get Mister Vir and Lady Luna to some medical facilities."

As she walks, Rei takes note of the other spacecraft in the Spaceport, trying to pick out the most impressive one so she can later claim she arrived on that...

"Thank you, Eiko-chan," Makoto chirps, patting the unconsious Luna comfortingly. "Poor ki... er... Mau."

"Well, I imagine that the Princess of Mars must be quite impressive, but could you tell me anything about yourself, Rika?"

"Ah, me?" Rei gasps in a small voice at Makoto's question, again trying to come up with an answer that won't give too much away.

"Well..." she hesitantly begins, "My family owns a... er... skiing resort on Olympus Mons..." Which was true enough, in fact they owned several. "I, uh... well, I'm not a very interesting person! I'm sure you don't want to be bored by listening to me prattle on..."

Searching for a quick subject change before she can be pressed further, Rei takes the obvious opening. "Why don't you tell me about yourself, Princess Makoto? And you, Lady Eiko? I'm sure you both must have much more interesting lives than I do..."

Plus, I can find out a bit more about you for later on... Rei thinks with a lascvicious grin starting to creep across her filth covered face.

"Me?" Makoto asks, eyeing Rika suspiciously. "Well, I suppose," she murmurs, relaxing when she considers that it's probably more interesting to talk about a Princess from across the solar system than it is to talk about one from the same planet. "Um... I was born on Metis, which is the capital of the Jovian system.

"I... moved to Callisto a few years ago, which is where I met Eiko-chan. Callisto's a nice place, but just recently they gave me a palace on Io and asked me to renovate."

Makoto pauses, and realizes that she's far too used to asking about her political well-being instead of her actual hobbies. "Er... I like to cook," she ekes out, embarrased. "I like to read, and I think martial arts are really neat-- to watch," she catches herself. A proper princess is too graceful to resort to brawling... so her parents insisted, anyway. "Um... I suppose I'm very boring, really."

"Boring, not at all!" Rei replies, perhaps a touch too eagerly.

"I'm not a very good cook myself... I can manage, but nothing special..." Besides, normally the servants handle it. "But you say you like martial arts? That's great! I love that too! Some of the ancient Martian forms are very graceful, but my parents always say a Pri-" Rei catches herself and covers her mouth, mortified at her near slip.

"Wow, Rika!" Genkai exclaims with enthusiasm Rei can feel is false. "Princess Makoto is a three-dimensional person with a pleasant personality, a beautiful and willing female companion and an actual life! Aren't you jealous?"

Hearing Genkai, Rei clenches her fists tightly around the bags she is carrying and takes deep gulping breaths of air in an effort to calm down. It doesn't really succeed, but she somehow manages to keep from rising to the old ghoul's bait.

Genkai goes towards the terminal ahead of the rest, showing no signs of the aching bones she complained to Rei about earlier.

"Wait... Pri..." Makoto almost asks. However, she is dristracted by Genkai's comment, and blushes. "Ah, you're too kind!" she protests. "Um, Rika, you're... er... not a good cook you say?" Makoto asks, wondering how good that white... gunk... can possibly taste. "I'm not... familiar with Martian cuizine. But, um, tell me more about Martian combat."

Rei blinks slightly... Did Genkai just distract Princess Makoto to cover my slip...?

The thought of the evil old bitch doing anything nice was totally alien to the Martian Princess, but... that almost seemed like what had happened...

Responding to Makoto's question, Rei smiles a bit as she thinks of the combat forms she has spent her life studying... which for some reason were completely inadequate against Genkai, who she had always dismissed as nothing more than a feeble and bitter old woman...

"Well, there are lots of different styles, I'm sure most of the modern ones are similar to any martial arts you could study anywhere in the Solar System. But my style is called Ka-Hou-Ken; the art of the Burning Phoenix Fist. It's an ancient style, and the basis for almost every indiginous Martian martial art. Not many people practice it any more, and finding instructors is difficult..." A brilliant plan suddenly pops into Rei's head! "I'm not very good, but I hear Princess Rei is very skilled! Maybe when you meet her you should have a sparring match!"

"A match?" Makoto asks, looking at Eiko out of the corner of her eye. Her self-proclaimed guardian might not be overjoyed with that thought, but.... "Well, I'm not very good... Callisto is a very martial hold, and Io's polar regions are used for training Jovian shock-troops, but, well.... They never le--  er, I never learned how to fight." Makoto coughs quietly, hoping that Rika missed her slip-up.

Even better! Rei thinks triumphantly. "Well, if you've never learned, you should ask someone to teach you! I bet Princess Rei would be happy to give you... private, instruction..." she trails off with a very perverted look on her face.

Makoto manages to completely miss the meaning of Rei's look. "Really?" she asks excitedly. "That'd be great!" Realizing her enthusiasm is unseemly, she quickly calms herself and adds, "It'd be a great step in moving Mars and Jupiter into greater unity as a whole." I sure hope Rika buys that.

"Yes," Rei agrees gleefully, "Unity between us, er, our two planets, would be a wonderful experience for all concerned, I'm sure!"

Smiling blissfully, Rei continues to the terminal. Things are looking up now... as soon as I can get myself cleaned up and properly introduce myself to my dear Makoto...

"Princess Rei, Princess Makoto," the public announcement system crackles, as the group finally reaches the terminal. "Please approach Information."

OOC: Genkai is nowhere in sight.

"Well, it looks like Princess Rei must already be here," Rei says casually, while fighting off a wave of panic. "Um, I think we should make sure Mister Vir and Lady Luna are taken care of before you go to see about that announcement, though?" She offers nervously. Once they're taken care of, I can carry all my luggage myself and go get cleaned up...

"Oh," Makoto exclaims. "I'm sorry, I have to run. Um... Rika, could you please see that Lady Luna gets to the infirmary with you? Thank you!"

Not waiting for a reply, Makoto pushes Luna into Rei's hands, nearly knocking the already burdened girl down, then dashes towards the information counter.

"Um... right..." Rei says as Makoto departs, trying to cope with her luggage, Vir, and Luna... "Um... little help?" she says to anyone who might be passing by.

Eiko chuckles from beside her. "I wish I could stay and help," she says apologetically, "but I'm her guardian and stuff. Later, Rika!"

The red-head sets Rei's baggage on the ground, and rushes off after her friend, waving back at Rei.

Sighing in defeat, Rei shifts her burden where she can to make things easier, then begins kicking the remaining luggage along the ground as she follows the signs to the infirmary.

Luna wakes up, taking a deep breath as she does so. "W-Where am I?" she asks, looking around blearily.

"We're at Serenity Spaceport, Lady Luna. I'm sorry about the smell, I don't know what this stuff is... it just came out of the walls aboard that horrible spaceship... Anyway, I'm taking you and Mister Vir to the infirmary, then I have to get cleaned up and get to the information desk for some reason... And call me Rika for now, please. I'd rather not have people know my true identity given how I look right now..." Rei informs the cat as she continues her labourious journey to the infirmary.

Luna nods gravely, and snaps her kitty fingers.

A dozen menservants in tuxedos appear in a wide circle around Rei, all looking down at Luna. "What is your command, My Lady?" the one facing Luna directly asks, bowing.

"We need to get to the infirmary," Luna commands in a businesslike voice. "And help with Princess Rika's luggage would be appreciated."

OOC: Rei, giving you a chance to react, before you're whisked off to safety. Makoto, please wait a bit till Rei gets there.

Rei blinks. "When I said 'call me Rika', I kind of meant I was forgoing the Princess title..." she mutters before allowing the servants to do their thing. Maybe living on the Moon wouldn't be so bad... not even her personal servants back in Phobos Deimos castle were that prompt!

With the extra hands to help her carry her things and Vir, it doesn't take a long time for Rei to drop the blond samaritan off at the infirmary, and stop at a private restroom reserved for the Moon's aristocracy to clean up and get changed. Less than half an hour later, Luna and Rei are rushing to the Information desk.

A squad of Lunar Marines greets Rei, though she is a bit puzzled to see them all eating some kind of a fruit salad. Princess Makoto stands nearby with an apron, eating some of it as well from a bowl which Eiko holds. Rei notices with no small amount of jealousy that the two are sharing a spoon.

Seeing another Princess entering the room, Makoto quickly hands the bowl of fruit salad to Eiko, and cheefully curtsies. "Your Highness," she greets, bowing her head mid-curtsy, as she's been taught. "It's a pleasure to meet you."

As Makoto has been in the room longer, she continues the formal greeting, "I am Motoko de la Joviana, Daughter of the Joves, Princess of Jupiter, and current ruler of Io." She remains in a deep curtsy, waiting to hear her greeting aknowledged before she rises.

Rei has to resist the impulse to greet Makoto casually, since this is supposed to be their first meeting...

Keeping a formal tone, Rei acknowledges the greeting. "The pleasure is all mine, your Highness," she says, curtseying back. "I am Rei Aresion, daughter of Cydonia, and Crown Princess of Mars. It is truly an honour to meet you."

Makoto rises slowly, still smiling, though for some reason... that voice sounded somehow familiar. Putting that aside for the moment, and aware that surrounded by the guards is not really the best place to discuss things like that, she replies, "I hope we can get to know one another better, Highness... was your trip here pleasant?"

Rei rises as well, smiling back at Makoto. "I too hope we can become very close, Highness. And please, call me Rei."

"As for my trip, it was pleasant enough. I came aboard the Mercury Silverstar," she says, recalling the huge and incredibly lavish looking spaceliner she had seen on the way to the terminal. "I apologise for my tardiness, as I was delayed by some minor beaurocratic matter. I trust you haven't been troubled by the wait?" she asks smoothly.

Makoto shakes her head slightly. "Then please call me Makoto, Rei. I didn't have any trouble waiting, really." Makoto steals a covert glance at the bowl of fruit salad Eiko is holding. "I trust that Lady Luna is well from her prior encounter?" Makoto asks, looking at the Mau.

"Lady Luna is quite well, now. I ran into her as I was on my way here and she told me something of what happened..." Rei trails off, suddenly remembering that Genkai was supposed to be her 'guardian' on the Moon, and the old bat hadn't been disguised in any way when Makoto had met Rika. Quickly devising a cover story, Rei speaks up. "Actually, I'm rather surprised, since it seems you've already met my, ah, 'guardian', since she came here on a different ship with her granddaughter. I told them they could have gotten on a better ship with me, but Genkai insisted. A pity," Rei shakes her head mournfully, "they could have avoided so much trouble, or so I hear."

Oh, what a tangled web we weave... Rei thinks sadly, wishing dearly that she could have avoided this whole sordid mess...

"Ah, yes," Makoto says slowly, frowning. "The poor girl... well, hopefully she'll be alright. I believe I met your guardian, though." No need to say how I thought she might have been the Princess of Mars.... "Her grandaughter Rika is quite a charming, if... eccentric girl."

"Ah, well... I've never met her, but I'm sure she doesn't take after her grandmother..." Rei hedges.

Coughing delicately, Rei tries for a subject change. "So, what were we wanted at information for? Is it about when we will be presented to Queen Serenity?"

"That's a good question." Makoto turns to the Mau curiously. "Lady Luna?"

"Like Princess Reiko said," Luna replies, "an emissary from the Queen should be waiting for us."

"Ah, that's Princess Rei," the raven haired young woman quietly hisses at the cat, before looking around and speaking up before anyone can spend too long wondering why Luna would be mangling her name in the first place, "So where is the Emissary?"

"That would be me," a blue-haired woman dressed as a priestess says, appearing from behind a bulky marine. "I should have been here sooner," she apologizes, "but pressing matters of state kept me away. In any case-- Oh, my! Is that fruit salad?"

"Of course it is!" Makoto enthuses. "I had a moment, and the guards looked so hungry and dry, so I thought... well..." She suddenly looks a little guilty. "I hope you don't mind...."

Rei takes the opportunity to check out the Emissary.

The voluptuous priestess looks at Makoto with puppy-dog eyes. "May I have some, too? Pretty please, with a cherry on top?"

As she pleads, Rei sees that the priestess is a teenager herself. She is wearing purple gloves and boots, and a scandalously small shirt of the same color, which barely goes past her waist. Her legs are covered in tights of a light blue shade. The cape the priestess wears gets slightly in the way of Rei's look, and obstructs the princess's estimations of the other girl's three sizes.

"Oh, yes, Makoto, you'll let her have some, won't you?" Rei asks, sidling up alongside the emissary. "So, if you are taking us to see Queen Serenity, you must know who we are, but may we have the pleasure of your name?"

As she draws closer, Rei takes the opportunity to lightly brush her hand against the emissary's to see how she'll react to a little friendly touching.

"Please, go right ahead," Makoto insists, handing the emmisary another bowl of fruit salad.

The priestess squeals in joy, and takes the bowl from Makoto. Rei, who had been trying to brush up against her, gets her hand tangled in the blue-haired girl's cape.

"Thank you!" the priestess enthuses, and tastes the food. "It's delicious!"

Rei smiles slightly at the unexpected difficulty. Feisty, eh? I like that... she thinks, removing her hand while still remaining close to the emissary.

Makoto sees Rei pulling her hand back and comes to the obvious conclusion: "Oh, you must want some, too!"

"Oh, I want it alright..." Rei whispers dreamily, before realising that Makoto had spoken in reality, and not in some pleasant fantasy. "Uh, er... Yes, I'd like some, thankyou!" she says, guessing that Makoto was offering her some salad.

As she waits to get some salad, Rei verbally prods the Emissary. "We never did get your name, dear."

Makoto blinks at Rei, but dismisses it. Shuttle lag, surely. "Here you go," she says, handing over yet another of the seemingly endless supply of bowls.

"Mmph?" the priestess asks, looking at Rei with her large, innocent eyes, a spoon held between her lips. "I'm sorry!" she apologizes, bowing. Upon rising, she hides the bowl of fruit behind her back, and addresses the two princesses, "My name is Sylphiel Nels Lahda, Chief Priestess of Serenity. On behalf of the Queen, welcome to Luna, Princess Rei Aresion and Princess Makoto de la Joviana!"

She bows again, and the marines salute as one.

Rei accepts the bowl from Makoto as Sylphiel speaks. "It's very nice to meet you, Chief Priestess," Rei says, smiling, before looking at the salad.

Makoto had just given her the salad. It would be rude not to eat it.

She was talking to Sylphiel. It would be rude to start eating.

Such a conundrum faces our brave Princess!

Dear Makoto, truly a gentle soul, willing to go out of her way to even help a poor, filthy peasant girl... Not to mention that 'coy, innocent' act was proving to be a total turn on.

Sylphiel... Rei hadn't had time to form much of an opinion of her, but the Priestess seemed like someone worth getting to know better... Plus, those religous types were always into the really kinky stuff, which was always a big plus...

Shaking with indecision, Rei decides to try and nibble on the salad as politely as possible, without letting it distract her from the conversation too much. At least she planned to...

"Goodness! This fruit salad is absolutely divine! I've never had anything like it!" The Princess declares, proceeding to wolf down the dish at a rapid pace. "I can tell working alongside you is going to have all sorts of benefits!" she says cheerfully to Makoto.

After curstying to the priestess, Makoto replies to Rei's comment. "Well, I had a lot of spare time to study under good cooks," Makoto temporizes, remembering a certain incident when her parents actually thought she was sneaking off for something indecent. "With Callisto the upper-atmosphere hydroponics farms in Jupiter itself, there's a lot of variety to work with. Though they wouldn't let me bring any fruits or vegetables through customs. Pity, I had baked a strawberry cake for me and Eiko to enjoy, but they insisted it had to be seized."

Makoto shrugs, then turns to regard the priestess curiously. "Ah... what are we to do next, if I might ask?"

"I'm supposed to take you to the Queen," Sylphiel replies. "Only the two princesses, I'm afraid," she adds, looking apologetically at Eiko.

"Heh, I'm cool," the red-head replies. "I'm pretty sure I would've just been scenery, anyway." Winking at her friend, she says, "Have fun, Mako-chan! And hurry back!"

Sylphiel smiles at the two princesses, and extends her arms towards them. They each take one, Makoto cautiously and Rei with enthusiasm.

The priestess closes her eyes, and the world around the three dissolves into soothing white light. When it disappears, Makoto and Rei find themselves standing in a large crystalline room, a young silver-haired woman sitting on a throne a few feet in front of them.

"Welcome," she greets, rising up and walking towards her guests. "I am pleased to see you here, Senshi of Mars, Senshi of Jupiter."

Rei lets go of Sylphiel and curtsey's very deeply. "Queen Serenity, it is truly an honour to be summoned into your presence."

"Urk," Makoto noises, mildly confused and completely surprised. Makoto continues to cling to Sylphiel for a moment to retain her balance, and then realizes that she's in the presense of someone.... The Queen?

It's possible, but further conscious thought is wiped from her mind by that realization, and she hurriedly curtsies deeply to the Queen, tongue frozen.

"I'll go find the Princess, then, Your Majesty," the priestess says, and proceeds to trip over her own two feet, falling to the floor. "Tehehehe," she laughs in embarrassment, and disappears in a flash of white light.

The Queen sighs as Sylphiel teleports away. "Such a sweet girl," she says, shaking her head. "Such a ditz. Perhaps pairing her with Priestess Trainee Misha was not such a good idea after all...."

Rei remains frozen in deep curtsey, waiting until the Queen directly addresses her.

Makoto swallows nervously, not rising from her curtsey.

"I'm sure you must have heard the rumors," Queen Serenity says, walking over to the glass doors leading to a balcony. "The people who live at the Moon are eternal. There is no war, no death... no disease!" The Queen's voice rises at the end.

"Unfortunately, five centuries of prosperity have created generations upon generations of, for the lack of better words, bums and flakes. Our magic and technology are at such a level of self-sufficiency that human intervention is rarely, if ever, needed. And don't get me started on the endless parties--!"

Serenity shakes her head sadly, touching a palm against the smooth surface of the glass doors she is facing. "Our people have forgot all about war, but war has not forgot about us! A thousand years ago, the Solar System faced an unparalleled evil. We all faced annihilation, and only the legendary planetary soldiers proved to be our salvation!"

She turns towards the two princesses. "You have the power, Rei and Makoto! That evil is coming again, and Civilization needs you both, if it is to survive!"

Rei rises from her curtsey, rather shocked at the Queen's words. Things on the Moon sounded even more boring than on Mars! But the way the Queen spoke... was she a kindred spirit?

"I haven't forgotten war, your Majesty!" Rei says earnestly, unconsciously taking a step forward, "Ever since I was little, I've studied the bloody history of our Solar System, in the days before our peaceful Silver Millenium!" Almost overcome with emotion, Rei pulls out her transformation wand and raises it above her head. "If dark times are coming to our people, Sailor Mars stands ready to fight!" she swears, flushed and breathing heavily.

"War?" Makoto asks, a little confused. Well, she had spent years studying the training facilities for all Jovian soldiers... war was unheard of, but those soldiers were obviously trained for a reason.

Makoto then thinks of Callisto's endless seas of prarie-grass and deep forests, and Io's expanses of rain forest, peacable maintaned beneath the continous electrical torus of the moon's passage through its own plasma halo. What would a war do to these things? Or worse, the people who lived on those planets who expected her to protect them as its reagant? Was that why she had the strange power she did?

Slight electrical charges buzzing around her hands, Makoto stands tall, resolute. "Then Sailor Jupiter will fight to protect, too, your Majesty!"

"Excellent!" Queen Serenity says, clasping her hands in front of her chest. "I had been fearing the worst, since this secret mission started on the wrong foot."

"Oh, yes, I recall Lady Luna mentioned there were problems with her mission, but she didn't go into specifics. I think she mentioned the name 'Artemis'."

Serenity nods, frowning. "He is another one of my trusted advisors, and a Mau as well as Luna. While Luna went to recruit the chosen protectors of Mars and Jupiter, Artemis was sent to do the same at Venus and Mercury. Unfortunately," the Queen pauses, sighing, "the Princess of Mercury proved to be... unsuitable."

"Unsuitable?" Rei repeats in a shocked whisper. What could possibly be wrong with the Mercurian Princess? What awful flaw could she possess?

Damn, this is some juicy gossip!

Makoto blinks in surprise. "Unsuitable?" she asks before realizing who she is speaking to. She claps her hands over her mouth in horror, mortified.

"She was an evil brat who set Artemis's tail on fire and then sicked her royal guard after him," the Queen snapped. Rubbing her temples, she mumbled, "It's only natural with five-year-olds. Or so I've been told by the Queen and King of Mercury. Repeatedly." Throwing up her hands in the air in annoyance, she exclaimed, "Honestly, haven't they a clue about the time differences between Luna and Mercury?"

Rei blinks, recalling some of the things she had done at the tender age of five, and her propensity for demanding the execution of pretty much anyone who upset her. For the first time, she feels grateful for her mother's attempts to curb some of those excesses...

Wisely, Rei elects to keep her mouth shut.

Serenity sighs. "In any case, the poor, traumatized Mau then teamed up with Sailor Venus and, well--"

"Ah, the Princess of Venus," Rei perks up, "Will she be arriving soon?"

Serenity's eye develops a nervous tick. "She should have reported to me by now. Both of them should have. But no, they are keeping radio silence." Rolling her hands into fists, she grinds her teeth. "When I said to keep quiet while on their mission, I did not mean for them to include me!"

"Ah..." Rei begins nervously, "How do you know they are just keeping silent? Maybe something happened to them..." she offers nervously.

Serenity's other eye devlops that same twitch. "I would be inclined to believe that, if I weren't getting daily greetings from General Kunzite. Live feeds. Where I see him dining with Princess Minako. Who waves at the videophone cheerfully. Each and every time."

Makoto says nothing, somewhat stunned by all of this. Funny, she never did anything that horrible when she was younger.

Though she did destroy pretty much every computer on Metis when she....

She shook her head. That was then, and really.... "So... does that mean that there will be only two of us?"

"Well, if the Princess is with this General Kunzite person, why don't you just tell her, through the general, to start giving you updates?" Rei offers, helpfully. "But I still don't understand why she hasn't arrived yet... Venus is closer to the Moon than either Mars or Jupiter..."

"I got ahead of myself," Serenity says, ducking her head. "My apologies." Looking at Makoto, she shakes her head. "No, you two won't be alone. There are two more who will help you. A soldier to lead you and another to support you from the shadows."

Then, the Queen turns to Rei, and lets out a slightly histerical laugh. "I somehow doubt that having the person Artemis is supposed to be spying on relay that request would be wise."

"Ah, forgive me, I assumed this General Kunzite was a member of your staff..." Rei frowns slightly. Who could this general be, and why was he deemed worthy of spying on by Queen Serenity?

Deciding to leave those questions for later, Rei addresses the other point raised by the Queen, as well as something else that has been puzzling her. "So who are the two who will help us? And why haven't you called for Sailor Senshi from the planets beyond Saturn?"

"Kunzite is one of Earth's generals," Serenity says, speaking in a calmer voice. "To combat the threat that we all will be facing soon, I have accepted the Earth's peace offer. It would be... inconvenient, if we were to defend ourselves against a being of unimaginable evil, while a state of war officially exists with a planet literally in our backyard."

The Queen pauses, gathering her thoughts. "After he were to recruit the princesses of Venus and Mercury, Artemis was to meet the Earth's delegation with them, to represent our side in the preliminary negotiations." Taking a deep breath, she continues, "For obvious reasons, Princess Ami proved to be unsuitable for this task as well, and now I'm stuck waiting to hear something from Princess Minako or Artemis."

Flinching, she mutters, "I hope they don't give away Venus."

"The Princess of Venus is on Earth?" Rei whispers in a scandalised tone. "Those filthy savages will probably eat her!"

"Oh dear. So those rumors were true?" The Queen fans herself. After taking several long minutes to calm down, she shakes her head. "Now I'm even happier that I didn't agree to have the talks take place on Earth. No, dear, Princess Minako should be safe on the royal cruiser 'My Dear Baby Girl, Serenity'. I named it after my daughter, you know?" she adds with pride.

"Though this could explain why I never saw Artemis at those meals with General Kunzite," she says thoughtfully. "Oh, my! Luna will be so upset...."

"Oh, if the Earthlings are aboard a Lunar ship, I'm sure things aren't too bad... just so long as you make sure to search them thoroughly before they leave, if you catch my meaning..." Rei says, her tone a mix between reassurance for the Queen, and snide disdain for Earthlings.

Makoto looks between Rei and Serenity curiously. She'd never heard much of Earthlings, but then, she was also located far enough away that news seldom reached her specifically.

The Queen holds a hand to her forehead. "That was quite a scare. Oh, the things we must endure for the greater good!"

"Yes, your Majesty," Rei agrees, "But, ah... back to the matter in hand. Can you tell us more about this great evil and why we have been chosen to fight it, but not those from other planets?" she pauses for a second before hastily adding, "I mean planets besides Mercury of course, as I believe we have already covered that."

"Oh, them?" Serenity waves her hand in a dismissive manner. "Of course there are soldiers from the rest of the planets. Don't be silly, Dear!"

Rei almost frowns, but barely manages to keep anything from showing on her expression. "But you said Luna and Artemis were sent to Mercury, Venus, Mars, and Jupiter. No mention has been made of the other planets, so when will their princesses be arriving?" she asks, getting sidetracked from asking about the great evil by the prospect of meeting her other teammates and potential conquests.

"They won't be," Serenity replies simply, confusion written over her face. "The rest of the planetary soldiers had been active from the start, their mission to stop alien invasions and other threats to the Kingdom. They are, in other words, already on the front lines."

"Oh..." Rei replies, disappointment plain in both her voice and expression.

I thought Luna said there hadn't been any Sailor Senshi for five hundred years... she thinks, making a note to berate the lying cat later.

"Yes, I get that a lot," Serenity says, nodding.

"Um, your Majesty... if I can ask," Makoto begins hesitantly, "what evil do you want us to fight, exactly?"

"A very evil... evil," Serenity replies, twiddling her thumbs.

"Er... how... evil?" Makoto asks, slightly unnerved by the supposed evilness of said evil.

"I'm... actually not sure," Serenity says, rubbing the back of her head in embarrassment. "I was just a little girl the last time it came, and didn't really pay attention to mum. I just know that after having been driven away last time, the evil being promised to return in half a millennium and, well, we're it!"

Giggling nervously, she adds, "The evil's called Metallia or something, if that helps."

Makoto falls flat on her face in the middle of the floor, taking a few seconds to climb to her feet. "Um...."

She looks to Rei questioningly. Rei seems to be fairly smart, though.... "I wish Rika were here. That girl seemed to know about everything. Maybe she'd know about this, too."

"Actually, Makoto, I can tell you with a fair degree of certainty that Rika would be just as confused as us," Rei replies to Makoto before refocusing her attention on Queen Serenity.

"Your Majesty, if you can't tell us anything about this 'Metallia', is there anyone who can? Or have records of that time been kept?" she asks, hoping against hope that she will get a straight answer this time. Getting information from the Queen was like pulling teeth...

"Well...." The Queen frowns, thinking hard. "Luna always seems to know what she's talking about. And people who were alive at the time and listened to their mommies would know, I bet!"

Okay, so the Queen of the Moon is a complete moron... Rei thinks, retracting her earlier hopes of having found a kindred spirit.

Realising that there is no way she will ever obtain any useful information from the Lunar ditz, Rei chooses to relax by mentally undressing the Queen. While Serenity the elder is in no way Rei's type, she is, at least, easy on the eyes.

"Kya!" the Queen goes, blushing.

"Your Majesty?" Rei is startled from her 'relaxation' by the Queen's outburst, and looks around to see what could have set her off.

"You felt like a kindred spirit there for a moment, Rei-chan," Serenity says, batting her eyes at the Crown Princess of Mars.

Rei blinks in surprise at the familiar usage of her name by the Queen, not to mention her choice of words seemed too apt to be coincidence.

And that coy batting of the eyelashes... Rei was no stranger that that kind of look!

Well... perhaps I was wrong about her. Things are starting to pick up now! the Princess thinks happily as she smiles at the Queen. "I was thinking much the same thing, your Majesty," Rei replies smoothly, chickening out from using a more familiar term at the last minute, since if she's misjudging things, it would be horribly rude.

The queen smiles widely. "Well then, if there's anything else I could help you two with, before you are taken to the quarters prepared for you?" She gives Rei a suggestive look. "Anything at all?"

"Um, actually, how much of this is it safe to talk about, and who can we trust to talk about it with?" Makoto asks, wondering at the looks that Rei and Serenity are shooting at one another. "Can I tell Eiko-chan about this, or is it a secret? If Luna or other people might know... can we ask them for advice?"

"Sure, sure, be my guest!" Serenity replies. "Except for the spying on Kunzite thing. If that ever got out, things could get... bad."

Makoto nods, despite her doubts as to the effectiveness of the whole 'spying' thing. I need to find a spot to think for a while... maybe figure out a few good questions to ask. Oooh, this is like a mystery novel! I wonder if I'll meet a dashing hero to save me after I uncover a wicked... er... focus, Makoto. Focus. Better tell Eiko what's going on.

"Okay, then we'll ask Lady Luna for some advice on where to begin." Then I'll go investigate the kitchens. I bet the cooks hear lots of juicy gosip... they did on Metis!

Serenity nods. "That's a good idea. Say, where is the little furball? Didn't she come back with you, Makoto?"

"Er... yes, actually, she did. But then, there was a crash, and she got exposed to... um, fumes, I guess, and passed out." Makoto thinks for a minute. "She came back from the infirmary, but I guess she stayed behind when Sylphiel brought us to see you."

"Ah. Sylphiel. Of course." Serenity sighs, rubbing her temples. "I seem to have developed a headache," she says apologetically. "I'm afraid that if you have any further questions, you'll have to take a raincheck."

Before either of the princesses has a chance to react, they reappear next to the Information desk. The squad of marines, Eiko and Luna are still there, appearing to be done with the food Makoto prepared earlier.

"Ah, I'm glad you have returned," Luna greets them from Eiko's arms. "Did you have a nice chat, Princess Makoto, Princess Ruri?"

For a moment, Rei is stunned by the blatant come-on from the Queen, and barely registers the discussion between Makoto and Serenity as her mind works furiously.

Okay, she's definitely hitting on me, no doubt about it! the Princess thinks gleefully as all sorts of wonderfully naughty ideas flit through her mind. After all, someone who's been around as long as Queen Serenity could probably even teach Rei a few interesting new things!

Now... how do I take this? she wonders to herself. She's obviously interested, so there's no need to rush. Besides, I'd prefer to do things on my own terms rather than get swept away too quickly...

She is about to speak up, and give the Queen a little something to think about, when she hears something about a headache, and is enveloped in a bright flash of light.

"Hey, what happened?" she looks around in confusion.

"Hmm, yes, we must investigate immediately," Makoto agrees. "Lady Luna, is there anything you can tell us about the... um... really... evil evil Metallia stuff?"

"She's really evil," Luna deadpanned.

Slightly disappointed at this latest turn of events (but not unduly surprised, considering the day she's had), Rei focuses her attention on Luna. "If no one can actually tell us about Metallia, are there any records from the last time that we can look at? At least get some idea of what we're dealing with beyond 'evil'. Because I want to know if she's either 'pathetically weak and evil', or 'incredibly powerful on a god-like scale and evil'," she says, the remnants of her patience beginning to fray. "And my name is Rei!"

"Well, being evil is all well and good... er... I guess it's actually corrupt and evil. But um, does anyone remember anything about her from the last time she was here?"

Luna sighs. "There are records, of course. Seealed, top secret records... but that wouldn't be a problem for you, Highnesses." The Mau takes a deep breath and then exhales loudly. "Queen Serenity is the most powerful being in the Solar System. The Lunar Fleet can melt a planetoid into slag in a matter of moments. And you have been recruited, because none of that is enough. As you can see--"

Eiko drops Luna, covering her mouth with her hands, causing the Mau to sputter in indignation.

"Uh..." Rei pales a little bit as things are put into perspective for her. "Not to put a downer on things, but when I became Sailor Mars, I was able to use a magical attack which instinctively came to me. It was pretty impressive, I thought, but... it couldn't even kill Genkai!"

Makoto blinks a few times. "Um, I don't even know if I can do anything!" she protests. "They wouldn't let me learn to fight!" Makoto isn't even aware of what she just confessed to, staring at Luna worriedly. "What do they expect me to do?"

"Of course not," an ancient voice announces arrogantly, before Rei's formal dress is flipped upwards by a strong gust of wind coming from below. "You're four hundred years too early to lay a finger on me, Dearie."

The marines rigidly salute Genkai, as she comes into sight wearing an tuxedo of a deep green color.

Turning towards Makoto, Rei's tutor inclines her head in greeting. "You will be taught to fight, naturally... Sailor Jupiter." She smirks. "That's why you're here, on the Moon, instead of on the front lines at the rim."

Rei quickly pushes her skirt back down and glares at any of the guards who were foolish enough to look. Not wanting to make too much of a scene, and knowing that any attempt at violent retribution would probably be rebuffed quite easily, she instead turns her attention towards Makoto and Luna. "You'll have to forgive Genkai. She's getting rather old, and isn't really all there anymore," she swivels her index finger beside her head in the classic gesture for 'crazy'. "Still, due to her long, long years of service to Mars, we have to make allowances for her sometimes insufferably rude behaviour," she finishes, giggling nervously.

"Ah, hello again, Genkai," Makoto says warmly, smiling at the old woman. "I'd like to learn more about that." Makoto blinks, as she suddenly remembers something. "How is your poor grand-daughter doing, if I might ask?"

Genkai throws a glance at Rei, before smiling warmly at Makoto. "I'm afraid I have bad news, my dear. It seems like she had to remain quarantined. Something about.... Neptunian Herpes? And I thought I raised her well!" Genkai lowers her head mournfully, and only Rei's trained eyes and experience with her can tell her that the sincerity of her emotions is in question.

"Oh, my," Makoto murmurs, scandalized. "I thought the girl looked dirty, but not like that."

Rei makes a mental note to never use the 'Rika' alias again.

"Well, nevermind about Rika. I'm sure she'll be fine, after all, there isn't a disease in existence that can't be treated here on the Moon," deciding on a quick subject change, she looks towards Luna. "Where might we find these sealed records? We really do need to find out more about Metallia if we are to be the Silver Millenium's only hope against such a powerful evil. Perhaps she has some sort of weakness we could exploit..."

"She does have a weakness," Genkai says in her serious tone, before smiling. "She's weak to lots and lots of firepower!"

"That's wonderful," Rei replies flatly. "But I somehow doubt we could muster more firepower than Queen Serenity and the Lunar Fleet combined."

"Maybe we could make her a cake and ask her to be less evil," Makoto says with waning confidence. "I don't have much firepower. But Eiko-chan says I make a mean souffle."

Eiko nods to that, while Genkai laughs. "I like you. Unlike my ungrateful granddaughter, you have style!"

"I'm sure your granddaughter would have plenty of style if you weren't always cramping it," Rei puts in, snidely.

"Details, details," Genkai says idly. "So, shall we go to your new home on the Moon?"

Turning to the marines, the old woman dismisses them with a single glance. "They won't be needed anymore," she comments to the princesses and Eiko.

Rei taps her chin thoughtfully. "Well... Queen Serenity did say she was going to send us to our new quarters, but then she sent us here instead. I assume we'll be staying in the royal palace?" she looks towards Luna, "After all, you did say we would be guarding the Princess. Before we found out about this all powerful great evil that we have to fight, that is..."

Luna opens her mouth, but before she can reply, Genkai's laughter interrupts her. "Protect the princess? At your present state? You couldn't protect her from a nasty rash as you are now, oh mighty Daughter of Cydonia."

Luna smiles apologetically. "Apparently, your quarters have been relocated due to Miss Genkai's request. I'm terribly sorry about the mess, Princess Makoto, Princess Risa."

"Relocated?" Rei whispers, a slightly cracked gleam in her eyes. "Yes, of course..." she mutters, shooting a hateful look at Genkai. "Of course they are."

Sighing, and massaging her temples in an effort to calm down, Rei speaks up in a more reasonable tone. "So, where exactly will we be living now?" she asks, before adding in a distracted tone, "And my name is Rei."

Luna takes a look at Rei's face, and blanches. "Perhaps, err, it would be for the best if Miss Genkai were to lead you there. I have pressing business in a completely different part of the Moon." She nods to herself. "Yes, very pressing business, very far away."

"Well... I'm anxious to start investigating. Could we have our things sent to our new quarters while we began to search for the records that tell us if Metallia's got a tickle spot, or trick knee, or something we can take advantage of?" Oooh! Maybe she's allergic to boysonberries! Everyone hates those, though. I could tell her it was blueberry, and.... What am I thinking? Arg! I can't think straight outside of a kitchen! Makoto rubs at her temples, frowning. "Eiko-chan, do you think we should settle in first, or start researching right away?"

Eiko shrugs. "I could take our luggage with me, while you go investigate. Diving into old, dust-covered tomes is not my thing, you know."

"Hmm," Makoto muses quietly. "Yes, I suppose you're right. Looking through books is likely to be quiet, lonely work." Makoto turns towards Rei speculatively. "The kind of work where two girls alone might end up not hearing from servants for hours as they dig through piles of books in a deep vault, away from prying eyes and neat spy-stuff." Makoto nods thoughtfully, then says, "Would you like to come with me, your Highness?"

Rei smiles at Makoto, glad for the reminder that not everyone is out to thwart her... Though she does have the sneaking suspicion that she is being manipulated, surely dear Makoto is too innocent and pure to do such a thing?

"You never know, I always find it fascinating to discover mysteries of the past, and interesting stories from more exciting times. And I don't think I could ask for better company," she says, before adding, "And none of that 'Highness' nonsense, we already agreed to call each other by name after all."

"Oh, I'm glad, Rei-chan!" Makoto cheers. "You can call me Mako-chan, if you'd like." Makoto looks thoughtful again for a moment. "You'll help us out, won't you, Genkai-san?" Makoto asks, innocently turning a questioning gaze upon the old woman. "Or do you need to take care of Rika, still?"

"I'd be delighted to, Makoto dearest!" Genkai says enthusiastically, throwing a smirk Rei's way. "Why, I wouldn't dream of leaving you two alone and unguarded!"

As Genkai speaks, Eiko picks up Luna. Putting the Mau on her shoulder, she gathers the luggage and follows Luna's instructions, waving at Makoto.

"We're going to be looking up top secret records. I'm pretty sure the only place that's more heavily guarded would be the Queen's bedchambers..." Not that they would be a challenge for me to get into...

While there was the chance that Genkai might divulge some useful and interesting information during their search, since the old hag was actually somewhat tolerable when teaching History, Rei really didn't want to have her quality time with dear Makoto interrupted...

"I'm sorry," Genkai says, an insufferable smile on her face. "I meant that I wouldn't dream of leaving Princess Makoto alone and unguarded. Why, who knows what kind of deviants one might find in a deserted library!"

Makoto blinks at Genkai in surprise. "Deviants?" she asks worriedly. "Well, I suppose it just goes to show that you never can tell...."

"Well, if the library is deserted, I'd imagine there'd be no deviants in it!" Rei huffs exasparatedly. "Or anyone else! That's pretty much the point of it being deserted."

With a sorrowful face, Genkai hands Makoto a small device. "If you see a deviant, Princess, don't hesitate to use it," she says, looking at Rei all the while. "I'll be making the final sleeping arrangements in the barr-- new lodgings you have been assigned while you tour the Royal Library."

Makoto pockets the device wordlessly, and nods. Turning her attention back to Rei (with numerous anxious glances towards corners where deviants could leap out at any moment) Makoto asks, "Are you ready to go exploring for these old records?"

With a parting smirk in Rei's direction, Genkai parts with the two princesses, leaving them alone at the Information desk.

Makoto walks towards the information desk, looking around for someone to ask questions of.

A pretty green-haired girl is sitting there, looking bored. As Makoto approaches, she turns to look at her quizzically, giving the princess her undivided attention. "May I help you, Miss?" she asks.

"Um... yes, I was wondering if you could tell me where to find...." Makoto trails off, realizing what she's about to say, then sighs. "I'm looking for a really old sealed library with answers to questions that everyone else forgot."

The girl thinks for a moment, before her face brightens up with a smile. "You must be seeking the St. Claire Library!" she exclaims. Not waiting for an answer, she rattles off the directions. They sound complicated, and for the life of her Makoto can't realize why the girl didn't just tell her how to get there by shuttle.

Sidling up alongside Makoto, Rei speaks to her fellow Princess. "Isn't it nice that they're giving us so much support and assistance in our quest to find out how to save the Kingdom from this ancient and powerful evil?" she remarks sarcastically.

"I don't suppose you have a map, do you?" she then asks the girl at the desk.

"The St. Claire library," Makoto muses. "I think I've heard of that." Turning to Rei, Makoto offers a reassuring wink, and whispers, "I think we'll be okay, Rei-chan."

"It's forbidden to have maps to the St. Claire Library, since an enemy might find them," the green-haired clerk replies, smiling.

Rei valiantly resists the urge to transform into Sailor Mars and Fire Soul the clerk for such blatant stupidity. Instead she simply throws a look at her which conveys how utterly moronic Rei finds that concept to be, before focusing entirely on Makoto. "That's great Mako-chan, you can lead the way!" she smiles cheefully, linking her arm with the taller girl.

A flash goes off, and a moment later, the clerk is holding a photograph of the two princesses linking hands to them. "It's on the house, Miss!" she tells Makoto.

"Ah!" Makoto exclaims, inadvertantly freeing her arm from Rei's grip as she accepts the photohgraph. "How cute! Shall we go, Rei-chan?"

Thwarted again... Rei thinks disconsolately as she examines her arm which is no longer occupied by Makoto. Her expression is firm though. A prize I don't have to earn isn't worth having, after all...

Leaning close enough that she's more or less rubbing against Makoto, Rei examines the photograph in the other girl's hands. "Yes, we do look very good together, Mako-chan," she agrees.

Makoto blushes, and offers the picture to Rei. "Would you like it?" she asks. "I think I can remember the way to the library, if we're done here."

Rei happily takes the picture. "I'll treasure it," she says, smiling at Makoto.

Giving a quick look around, the Martian Princess shrugs. "I can't think of any reason to stay here, so we may as well get going. Lead on, Mako-chan!"  she gestures for Makoto to lead the way.

The princesses follow the surprisingly correct instructions they had been given, though at times Rei's gaze lingers on the attractive women in their path, and Makoto has to pull on her arm to get her attention. Eventually, slightly winded from their hour of nonstop walking, the duo arrives at its destination. They see a tall fence made out of pure silver stretch out for as far as the eye can see into both directions, ostensibly to prevent unauthorzied access to a massive oval building of the purest white they easily notice inside the closed off perimeter. While Rei looks at the fence, judging its height to be slightly over three meters, Makoto notices a guard walking in their direction from the right, on patrol.

Rei decides that she could easily clear that fence if the need should arise, but since she is here on legitimate business, not to mention her dress isn't really appropriate for acrobatic feats, she instead looks for a gate or other entry point to use.

As Rei looks for a gate, the guard patrolling the perimeter reaches her and Makoto, and walks past them without a second glance.

Taking note of the guard as he walks past, Rei calls out to him. "Excuse me, we're looking to gain access to the St. Claire Library. Can you direct us to the entrance?"

"Sure," the guard comments, turning around and giving Rei a dazzling smile. "Follow me, Miss."

After slightly over eighty minutes of walking, during which Rei notices multiple eroded signs hung on the fence and saying "Entreance Forbidden!", "Uber Top Secret Govermental Installation Here!" and "Nothing To See, Move Along, Citizens!", the guard, Rei and Makoto finally arrive at a gate to the compound. Another guard, dressed in the same simple, navy blue shirt and pants combination, waves them inside cheerfully, offering each girl refreshments.

The two enter the premises, both guards staying back at the gate.

"My, the Lunar people are certainly... er... hospitable, aren't they?" Makoto asks Rei, trying to keep her voice quiet enough not to let the guards hear. Raising her voice, she asks, "How old is this building?"

Rei nods. "The security is rather awful. I expected we'd have at least had to prove who we were..."

As the pair enter the building, Rei continues, "Well, my father always says there haven't been revolutonaries or anything like that for hundreds of years, so why bother worrying about things like that? I always try to convince him that they operate in secret for a reason, but no one ever listens to me..."

Rei doesn't have a clue how old the building is, so just shrugs helplessly at Makoto's louder question.

"Well, it looks pretty old, anyway," Makoto says, looking over her shoulder and wondering why the ever-helpful guards said nothing. "Maybe someone told them we were coming? Come to think of it, where did Luna run off to? I get the idea that she should be here, too."

"It's probably been around a good long while," Rei agrees, looking around to take in the interior of the building. "I somehow expect that Luna would offer us very little help anyway. I'm sure we can ask someone who works here to direct us to the top secret sealed records," she finishes, taking note of any other people she might have seen in her survey of the library.

Not noticing anyone else outside the library, Makoto and Rei enter it, and take a look around. The building is vast, going for as far as the eye can see in every direction. There is a reception desk near the entrance, but it's unmanned.

The massive twenty-meter-tall bookshelves are helpfully labelled, however, and appear to be sorted by categories. Alphabetically. Anything in a five hundred meter radius from the two princesses is dedicated to literature on Acne.

"This is... thorough..." Rei gulps, a little intimidated by the sheer scale of the library, and the vast amount of information no doubt contained within. Dazedly walking over to the reception desk, she looks for a 'Ring for assistance' bell or something similar to summon a librarian.

Rei indeed finds a button that does that function. A faded 'Out of Order' sign is draped over it lazily. The princess idly notes that Mars had stopped using the material it's made of half a century prior.

Rei's eyebrow twitches slightly at the 'Out of Order' sign. "I'm starting to think I may have had some misconceptions about life here on the Moon..."

"I wonder if they have a section on cooking," Makoto finally manages, somewhat daunted by the volume of information before her.

Rei sighs. There is one method which is guaranteed to summon a librarian in any situation, but she was loathe to use it, since the summoned librarian was usually not favourably disposed to whomever did it.

"I DON'T KNOW, MAKO-CHAN," the princess yells loudly, "I BET YOU COULD FIND IT IF YOU LOOKED HARD ENOUGH, THOUGH!"

Rei's voice echoes loudly in the library, unsettling the thick layer of dust on the nearby shelves. Though nothing seems to happen, Rei experiences a strong sensation of foreboding.

Makoto jumps away from Rei at the noise, eyes wide in shock. "Ah... Rei-chan... why don't we just go to find section 'M'? These are alphabetized, so I'm sure that we'll find it quickly, right?" And this place is creepy. REALLY creepy. The sooner we get this over with, the better.

Rei gives Makoto an apologetic look. "Luna said the records were sealed, so we'll need someone to give us access to them."

"I think those lazy guards were the seal," Makoto says quietly.

Rei slumps her shoulders. "We're all doomed, aren't we?"

Wincing at the other girl's plight, Makoto offers a consoling pat on the back. "Come on, now," she says, trying to remain upbeat, "we've still got each other, right?"

Rei's eyes suddenly light up. "Yes we do, Mako-chan, yes we do!" she then proceeds to glomp the other girl, "Even if Metallia will kill us all, we can make the most of the time we have left!"

Rei experiences that same sense of foreboding, only magnified a thousandfold. A gnarled hand lands on her behind, as a aged voice rasps disapprovingly, "No sex in the library."

Rei shrieks and leaps away from both Makoto and the gnarled hand. Putting a hand over her heaving chest as she struggles to control her breath, the Princess eventually speaks. "We weren't going to do anything here!"

The shriveled up man looks at his hand, clenching it a few times, before looking at Rei and Makoto with pleading eyes. "I know it's hard, but please try to control yourselves!" His eyes settle over the raven-haired princess's breasts, and a bit of drool escapes his lips.

"My eyes are up here," Rei says icily to the old pervert.

"You don't say," another aged voice says from behind her.

Makoto panics, remembering the device that Genkai left her with. Not knowing what it it, or really, how to use it, she pulls it out and points it at the old pervert nervously. Well, she thinks she's pointing it at him, anyway.

Rei turns around to see who the other aged voice belongs to.

Geez, I thought everyone on the Moon was supposed to be ageless...

The old pervert who had earlier groped Rei looks offended. "And here I thought you were just happy to see me, Missy," he says mournfully.

Rei sees another old man leering at her, though his gaze lies significantly lower than his companion's.

Rei shudders at the feeling of dirtiness that overwhelms her. And not in the good way.

Ignoring the librarians, she turns to Makoto. "You were right, Mako-chan, lets look for the information ourselves. I'd rather not deal with... them," she finishes, giving a scathing look towards the two old perverts.

Makoto is currently trying to hide behind the brave princess Rei from the scary gnomes, and so readily agrees, stowing Genkai's delightful deviant detracting device with delicate discretion. "Um, yeah, Rei-chan, I think that'd be for the best." I'm starting to think the 'help' around here isn't so helpful....

"You need information?" The two old men join hands, and raise large, innocent eyes at the pair of princesses. "Can we help you?"

"Um... do you have any information on Metallia?" Makoto asks, uncertain that asking this Happy-go-Lucky duo for help with anything is a good idea.

"Why, yes!" Happy exclaims, rubbing his hands in glee.

His companion throws a glance at him, and then whips out a pallet, and leers at Rei. "We'll tell you where to find it... for a small contribution to our museum."

"Museum?" Makoto muses thoughtfully. "Well, I'm all for the advancement of culture, and I suppose that must be really important on the moon, right?"

Frowning, Makoto rubs her chin. "Hmm. I didn't bring much with me."

Rei gives the old perverts a dubious look. "If you're thinking of asking for our underwear, I suggest you reconsider."

"I beg to differ," Lucky responds, openly admiring Makoto's chest. "Not underwear, no," he adds quickly, ignoring the hurt look on his companion's face. "Just pose for us, baby!"

Glaring at the two perverts, Rei speaks in her most dire tones. "Do you two have any idea who you are dealing with?"

"Very gifted library visitors?" Happy asks innocently.

"Try 'visiting royalty from Mars and Jupiter'," Rei says through gritted teeth, producing the royal seal of Mars and displaying it to the pair.

"Ooh, royal panties!" Happy exclaims, drooling.

"Been a while since we had any," Lucky echoes him.

With a furious look on her face, Rei steps in front of Makoto. A coiled whip suddenly appears in the enraged Princess' hands, and she cracks it in the air once, sending flames shooting down its length.

"All right, last warning. Back off!" she warns the aged perverts, in no mood to have her underwear messed with by elderly hands once more. Especially male hands.

Makoto simply looks baffled and embarassed. "What could they possibly do with our underwear?" she asks.

Hearing Makoto's innocent question, Rei redoubles her resolve to protect her Mako-chan's innocence.

At least until such a time as it can be done away with in a suitably fun manner for both of them.

"This will be fun, Happy!"

"Indeed, Lucky!"

The wizened couple hugs, shouting, "It's Happy's and Lucky's Plan: Get Royal Panties and Breast Imprints!"

The two giggle insanely, and run away. Rei's feeling of foreboding magnifies tenfold.

Rei warily eyes the direction the two freaks ran off in. "Don't worry, Mako-chan, I'll protect you," she reassures the Jovian Princess.

Makoto looks nervous, but is comforted by Rei's words. "Thank you Rei-chan. Fighting in the name of justice, love, and all that is good is fine, but no one said to do anything with scary old men. And what exactly were they talking about, anyway? What's a..." Makoto blushes very darkly. "Well... those imprints they were talking about?"

Rei looks at her whip. "Yes, they'd probably enjoy that too much anyway..." she mutters, dismissing the item once more to it's subspace pocket.

"As to the imprints," Rei makes a show of looking around before leaning in to whisper in Makoto's ear, "You know how you sometimes stamp a sign on a document by dipping it in ink so it will leave it's mark?" The Princess then steps back and gestures to both her own and Makoto's chests while giving a meaningful look.

Makoto, if possible, blushes even more darkly, and her eyes widen. "Genkai was right!" she squeaks. "There are deviants here!"

Rei blinks. "She was right!" she exclaims in shock, before her brow furrows. "I bet she put them up to it..."

"We'd better hurry up and look for the books... though, now that I think about it, there's not even any guarantee that anything's written down." Makoto sighs. "Well, either way, we should hurry."

Rei nods tersely. "The sooner we're done here, the better, I say. Let's go."

With that, she sets off at a brisk pace deeper into the library, periodically checking the shelves as they move up the alphabet in search of 'M' for 'Metallia'.

The two walk nervously past 'Boyfriends' and 'Cooking', Makoto clinging to Rei to the latter's secret delight. Eventually, the princesses reach the 'Make Up' section, seeing the next one labeled 'Mothers' in the distance.

It is then that Makoto jumps, startled by the rustling of pages in the distance.

Rei looks at the shelves and blows up her bangs in exasparation. "Knew it wouldn't be so easy. Okay, we'll just go to 'S' for 'Sealed Records', or 'Secret Stuff' or something like that..."

Then noticing Makoto's rather startled state, she looks at her companion curiously. "What is it?"

"Um... I heard some pages moving," Makoto says, putting on an obvious show of false bravado. The show fails quickly. "They could be perverts running around with sheets of paper, or they could just be a dangerously sealed mystical book trying to get our attention. I'm kind of scared to find out though."

Rei thinks about the headings on the shelves... 'Acne', 'Boyfriends', 'Cooking', 'Make Up', 'Mothers'... "I doubt there's any dangerous mystical books in here," she remarks.

"Anyway, lets go. I'd really rather not stick around here any longer than necessary," Rei says with some disgust at how crap this library is. If this is the sum collected wisdom of the Moon Kingdom, it's hard to muster much enthusiasm for protecting it...

Rei notices a diminutive shadow out of the corner of her eye.

Rei spins to face the shadow!

A pervert's face leers at Rei, as she turns around. As she looks at it, there is a whoosh of air from above the two girls!

Since the whoosh of air above her head is a more immediate concern than a pervert peeking from behind a bookcase, Rei moves her body in front of Makoto, adopting a defensive stance (and cursing the unweildy dress she is wearing) as she faces the potential threat.

As Rei leaps into action, Makoto grabs the device Genkai handed her, flails randomly, and then presses the shiny red candylike button.

There are three flashes of light, and a charred pervert drops to the ground between Rei and Makoto. His comrade in ecchi drops back behind the bookcase he was using to mask his presence. Rei remains standing, though by the way her hair's sticking out, her face is covered with soot and the occasional twitch her body seems to involuntarily go through, she hasn't escaped the punishment of Genkai's gift -- Makoto's anti-pervert taser.

A moment passes in silence, before a female voice tentatively asks Makoto, "Excuse me'su?"

"Waaaah!" Makoto exclaims, seeing the slightly toasted girl before her. "I'm sorry! I didn't know it would do that! Rei-chan, are you okay?" Makoto looks around anxiously for some way to help the singed Princess of Mars.

After she stops twitching, Rei sighs, long and loud, as she laboriously wipes the soot from her face.

She then counts to ten in her head very slowly.

"That's alright Mako-chan. It's not your fault," she eventually reassures her fellow Princess, thinking most dire thoughts towards Genkai...

A pink-haired girl in a priestess's outfit, styled much like Sylphiel's, only in black and grey, glances at Makoto with hesitation, as the latter looks around, fretting.

Makoto nods hesitantly, reluctant to fogive herself given her past luck with elextrical devices. Trying to focus on something else to distract herself from the guilt, she eyes the pink-haired girl. "Oh, um, hello. Are you...." Makoto pauses when she recognizes the uniform. "Do you work here? We're looking for some information...."

Rei takes the opportunity to check out the apparent priestess, and waits for her to respond to Makoto's prompt.

The pink-haired girl nods timidly, not taking her eyes from Makoto's still sparkling taser.

Rei sees that the girl's waist-length hair is loose, several strands covering her face. Rabbit plushies are attached to her shoulder pads, one of them white and the other mostly black, with grey ears. She looks scared, and her large, dark green eyes are opened wide in apprehension. Rei also notices, with no small amount of satisfaction, that the girl is almost as endowed as Makoto, despite appearing no older than fourteen.

Rei blinks at the oddly proportioned girl. Despite the large breasts, she seemed a little bit too young for the Martian Princess' liking...

Wait a minute! a mental voice reprimands her Everyone on the Moon is immortal remember! She's probably older than you are!

That gives Rei pause for a moment, but she shakes it off quickly enough. With all the potential conquests she had met today, it was becoming increasingly hard to decide which one to devote herself to, and her current mood wasn't exactly conductive towards romance anyway.

"You work here? Then can you show us where the sealed records are kept? We're looking for information on Metallia," Rei says to the younger looking girl, before adding as an afterthought, "and the Sailor Senshi, too while we're here."

"Your hair..." she says, looking at it. "Isn't that painful'su?"

Patting down her hair, Rei gives the girl a small smile. "It isn't anything I can't handle."

"I'm Misha!" she announces, reassured by Rei's smile and returning it brightly while tilting her head to the side. "It's a pleasure to meet other girls here'su!"

Hearing the girl's name, Rei responds with her own introduction. "I'm Rei, and this is my friend, Makoto."

Suddenly she gets a horrified look on her face. "Wait... you work here, and are the only girl?" she casts a glance at the unconscious pervert on the ground between her and Makoto before giving Misha a look that mixes respect and pity. "How in the world can you stand it?"

"It's only temporary'su," Misha says, looking downcast. "I messed up'su, so they sent me to read about what it means to be a good mother'su." Her black rabbit plushie let out an ominous spark, and she added, "I've got protection, though'su. Tehehehe!"

Sighing, Makoto carefully puts away the tazer. "Sorry," she says apologetically again to no one in particular. "Um... what exactly do you mean they sent you here to learn to be a good mother? You don't look old enough... erm...."

"I think Queen Serenity didn't like it when I went with her daughter on a  trip to Earth'su," Misha explains. "She was very angry about that'su, and lectured me a lot and I think I fell asleep in the middle'su, because she was asking me something and I said no'su," she says in a single breath, shrugging and spreading her arms, "and she told me to go here and not to return until I understood how difficult it was being a good mother'su."

The girl sighs, and gives the massive bookcases a mournful look.

Rei nods, vaguely recalling a comment made by the Queen about priestesses Sylphiel and Misha working together...

"Wait a minute!" she suddenly exclaims, "You took the Crown Princess of the Moon Kingdom to Earth?! What were you thinking? Those dirty savages could have eaten her, or worse!"

Misha cringes. "Well, they seemed nice! And they were actually very clean'su...."

"I'm sure they only acted nice to lull you into a false sense of security before they would do all manner of unspeakable things to you!" Rei reprimands the priestess.

"But we were disguised and they never saw us'su," Misha whines. "And they were just a group of children gathering flowers in the field'su. Children are harmless'su!"

"Then you were very lucky. Who knows what kind of horrible things could have happened to you?"

Wanting to get off the subject of Earth, Rei reiterates her earlier question. "Anyway, do you know where in the library we could find the sealed records on Metallia?"

"Metallia? Of course'su!" the priestess exclaims, but then she adds, "And Earthlings are nice'su!"

"I suppose I've never met one myself," Rei concedes, not wanting to get drawn into an argument. "Anyway, can you show us where to find the records? Neither of us are from the Moon, and we're not used to libraries like... this."

"Your libraries aren't organized by topic'su?" Misha looks at the two princesses with pity. "Priestesses from other planets have it rough'su."

"Oh, they're organised by topics all right, just... uh... a lot more topics..." Rei says, barely holding back the urge to say exactly what she thinks of this shitty insult to libraries everywhere.

"And the librarians tend to be a bit more helpful," she adds.

Misha winces at that. "Yes'su, the librarians are evil and must be destroyed'su," she agrees. "But they have seniority'su. In more ways than one'su."

Then, she shrugs, and smiles once more. "Why would a Priestess of Serenity need more topics'su? This is the sacred library for clergy, after all'su."

Rei's opinion of the Church of Serenity promptly takes a nosedive down the toilet.

These wackos were deserving of nowhere near the respect she gave to the Temple of the Sacred Flame back on Mars. That sparked off another train of thought, and she lost herself in a pleasant fantasy involving head priestess Shayla Shayla.

Needless to say, she doesn't respond to Misha, only standing there with flushed cheeks and a lecherous grin as the fantasy plays out.

Makoto had fallen silent, as Rei seemed to know what she was doing when questioning Misha. Now, however.... "I think that shock must be catching up to her," Makoto says sadly. "Um, Misha-san, can you show us to the books on Metallia? We're not sure on where to find them... and we need to know everything we can about her."

"No problem'su!" Misha says, smiling at Makoto. The pink-haired priestess then leads the way to a section called Serenity's Enemies, the journey taking fourty minutes. Rei fairly soon snaps out of her daze, and walks slightly behind Makoto, admiring the view.

"Serenity's Enemies" turns out to be a fairly small section consisting of a single bookshelf. Rei and Makoto aren't sure they would have found it on their own, as they take in the massive "Serenity's Clergy" and "Serenity's Friends" sections flanking it.

"Well, I was right when I said we should look at 'S' next..." Rei shrugs, thinking that she probably wouldn't have noticed this tiny section unless it was pointed out.

Just out of interest, Rei looks to see if any of the books on the shelf refer to someone/something other than Metallia.

Makoto eyes the clergy and friends sections, wondering if any books are indexed twice. "Say, Misha-san, if I look for you will I find a book with your name on the cover?" she teases, idly scanning the Serenity's Clergy section.

Misha laughs nervously, rubbing the back of her head. "You never know'su!"

Most of the books have faded covers, but Rei manages to see three titles. "Usagi, That Lying Bitch", "Alien Fleet From Beyond" and "Eric the Destroyer."

There is also, of course, a large blood-red tome labeled simply "Metallia".

Rei moves to grab the book titled 'Metallia', then pauses at 'Usagi, That Lying Bitch'. "That's a rather opinionated title..." she muses, wondering at what 'Usagi' must have done to earn such scorn.

Idly curious, she pulls that book out and takes a quick glance through it's pages to see if anything interesting pops up.

As Makoto stares oddly at the laughing Misha, Rei takes the book titled "Usagi, That Lying Bitch" and leafs through it. From what she can gather from the introductory chapter, the book is about a pink-haired girl whose hairstyle resembled carrots, of all things. She appeared one day some four centuries prior out of thin air, dropping on Serenity's back during a massage given to the Queen by her husband, Sven, and claiming that Serenity's daughter was not only married to an Earthling but was an Earthling herself.

Reading further, intrigued, Rei learns that the girl, 'Usagi', was summarily executed, and the fleet she apparently brought with her underestimated the Lunar defenses, and got decimated. A sidenote mentions the Millennium Frog crashing into the enemy's flagship and winning the battle for the Moon without any friendly casualties. Rei can't help but think that this was quite pathetic for an enemy menace.

Makoto can't help but be intrigued. "Eric the Destroyer?" she muses, pulling that book out to flip through it. After all, they'll probably check out the Metallia book, but they might not get that many chances to scan through them.

Rei blinks. It was a fairly interesting story actually, and it gave her a curious sense of pride that she had flown on the Millenium Frog. Not too many spaceships around today had seen actual combat, after all.

Deciding to come back and examine the Usagi book in greater detail some other time, Rei puts it back and pulls out the Metallia book. "Are we allowed to check books out of this library, or is there a reading room we can use?" she asks Misha.

"Any priestess, even a visiting one, can check out books'su," Misha replies, turning to look at Rei. "Of course, there are special rooms for reading inside the library itself'su, too'su." She grimaces. "But whichever you choose'su, you still need to get near the librarians'su." Throwing her hands in the air, the priestess sighs. "If you read here, they have more chances to try and attack you'su. But if you actually ask them to do their job'su, they'll want something in return'su."

Makoto considers the tazer briefly. "What would they ask for exactly? Not what they asked for last time, is it?"

"Well, we're not actually priestesses," Rei admits, "But we are the legendary Sailor Senshi, and the Moon Kingdom's only hope for defeating Metallia," she indicates the red book in her hands. "I'm sure the Queen wouldn't mind if we just took the book without dealing with those perverts."

Pausing for a moment in thought, she then adds, "Also, I'd like to see if there are any books on the Sailor Senshi. Would the be under 'Serenity's Friends' or have their own section? I'd like to find out more about what we're becoming, and maybe even learn about what the last Sailor Mars was like."

Makoto gets an uneasy feeling as she picks up the book, and only only worsens as she reads from it. The book tells the tale of a powerful man by the name of Eric, who lead armies of demons against the Moon Kingdom twelve hundred years ago, almost bringing it to extinction. Serenity the Fourth, an ancestor of the present Queen Serenity, had to use the Ginzuisho to defeat the massing armies, striking them down with lightning bolts like the wrath of Heaven. Eric and Serenity battled, then, neither gaining ground until three planetary soldiers helped Serenity, allowing her to vanquish the foe. Sailors Neptune, Uranus and Pluto then pledged loyalty to Serenity, offering her help in rebuilding her Kingdom to span across the Solar System.

Some details in the book, like Eric's Golden Crystal and what happened to it don't make much sense to Makoto, though she gets the idea that said crystal was somehow tied to Serenity's. At the very least, he was of equal power to the Ginzuisho, and it's quite a coincidence, to be sure.

Makoto also discovers that Eric was an apparently Earthling, and that his Shadow War triggered the hatred of Earth and the total ban of travel to and from it.

"I doubt that'su," Misha answers Makoto, snickering. "They are inventive deviants'su, if nothing else'su."

Hearing Rei's question, Misha stares at her with a blank look. "Sailor Senshi? You're Martians or something'su?"

"Oh, we haven't introduced ourselves properly," Rei suddenly realises. "I am Rei Aresion, Crown Princess of Mars, invited to the Moon at special request of her Majesty Queen Serenity to assume the post of Sailor Mars."

She then looks expectantly at Makoto to give her introduction.

Makoto offers a curtsy to the priestess. "My name is Makoto de la Joviana," she introduces herself. "The fifth princess in succession to the throne of the Jovian Protectrates."

"You are Martians'su!" Misha exclaims in response to Rei's introduction, giggling. Thinking for a moment, she asks, "Do you mind if I keep calling you Rei-chan and Makoto-chan?"

"Well, I'm a Martian, but not Mako-chan. And I certainly don't mind you calling me Rei-chan, Misha-chan," Rei smiles at the (apparently) younger girl.

Misha smiles back brightly.

"Oh, please go right ahead," Makoto assures the other girl. "You can call me Makoto-chan."

"Anyway," Rei begins to Misha, "Do you know which section we'd find books on the Sailor Senshi? I'd like to learn a bit more about what we're supposed to be in addition to learning about what we'll fight," she indicates the Metallia book in her hands.

Misha scratches her head. "Sailor Senshi? Weren't there sailor somethings mentioned in that book'su?" she asks, pointing at "Eric the Destroyer".

Rei nods. "Yes, they seem to be rather important, and Queen Serenity told us that Sailor Senshi from the planets past Saturn are currently defending the Solar System from any outside threats. Mako-chan and I recently became Sailor Senshi, but we don't really know much about them, so I was hoping we could find some more information in the library," she explains patiently.

"Maybe they are friends of Serenity'su," Misha says slowly, thinking it through. "But they could be clergy, too'su!"

Rei taps her chin thoughtfully. "I don't think they'll be clergy... we haven't been asked to take any vows or anything like that. If they don't have a seperate section, I think 'Serenity's Friends' is our best bet."

Nodding as she comes to that decision, Rei slowly makes her way down the bookshelf, looking for where 'Serenity's Friends' start beginning with the letter S so she can hopefully come across 'Sailor Senshi'.

Rei sees literally thousands of bookshelves starting with the letter S under "Serenity's Friends", her quest taking her into a side corridor in the enormous library. Before she can investigate any further, a charred face suddenly pushes itself through the bookshelf the princess was facing, its beady eyes leering at her breasts. Then, with a cry of "Hotcha!" the librarian launches himself at her, making it rain books as they are pushed aside by his speeding form.

Reacting quickly, Rei drops the Metallia book, her fist lashes out to intercept the form of the pervert as he flies towards her.

Rei's attack grazes the old pervert's skin, and manages to deflect him away from his course, his groping hands flailing as they fail to reach their targets.

Rei spins to face the pervert as he lands, keeping her guard up. "Do you want to die, old man?" she asks, eyeing him warily.

"Royal panties," he says, drooling, as he slowly circles the girl. Suddenly, he breaks into a run, staying close to the ground as he approaches the princess from her left.

As he approaches her, Rei rears back a foot, and boots him as hard as she can to knock him further away. If he's anything like Genkai, she doesn't want him getting close.

Rei's upwards kick strikes true, her toes impacting against the old pervert's rump with a satisfying thump. It's then that she realize something is wrong. Happy was already airborne, and Rei's kick, while doubtlessly damaging him, only served to propel him towards his original goal. A scowl mixed with a smile on his face, Happy flies past Rei, feeling up a breast with each tiny hand.

OOC: Happy damage, 19. Rei damage, only to pride.

"Feisty, just the way I like them!" Happy comments, rubbing his sore backside as he turns to face Rei after landing on his feet.

Rei only glares at the wretched pervert. "You. Die," she whispers hoarsely as the Flame Whip appears in her other hand, already burning brightly with the fire of her rage.

Happy smirks, and launches his body towards Rei, bouncing off the various bookcases and even the ceiling. Rei briefly loses sight of him, and when her senses locate the old librarian next, he is almost directly below her, his arms reaching out towards her panties with blinding speed.

As he appears beneath her, Rei leaps backwards to dodge his attempt at stealing her underwear!

Due to Rei's quick thinking and combat reflexes, she manages to keep her panties on, though she briefly feels a male hand brushing against her inner thigh.

Shuddering as she lands, Rei nonetheless retains the presence of mind to lash out with her flame whip to strike the senile old letch with burning retribution!

Rei's strike leaves a flaming trail against Happy's pants. Crying out in shock, he rolls on the ground, trying to put the fire out, before dropping his pants and backflipping, now seeing the princess with a new light.

"Starting to think this might be more trouble than it's worth?" Rei snarls angrily at the midget. Rei then pales slightly as he drops the burning pants, thanking her lucky stars he still has underwear on.  That  is something she can well do without seeing.

"You'll pay for that, girly!" he snaps back at her. "I've worn those pants for the past three centuries!" Not waiting for a response, he makes a frontal assault on the girl. As he gets near, his hands blur, until it seems as if six arms are headed for Rei's chest simultaneously.

Rei deflects the first pair of arms, discovering too late that it was but a diversion. She is too slow to react to the other arms, two of which move the shoulder straps of her low-cut red dress aside expertly and exposing her front, while the last pair quickly unclasps her bra and makes off with it.

Heedless of her now bare chest, Rei emits an angry yell as she lashes out with the whip once more to strike his fleeing back.

Though unaware of Rei's attack, Happy is bouncing in joy so much, that Rei's aim goes wide.

Happy turns around to face Rei from a safe distance. Pocketing her bra after giving it an affectionate nuzzle, he smirks. "Royal panties... next!" the librarian announces, and bounces over towards Rei again.

Noticing the state of her clothes, Rei growls. "Alright, now I'm going to get serious." The Mars Pen appears in her outstretched hand, and she raises it above her head with a cry of "Mars Planet, Make Up!" Her body wreathed in flame, Rei transforms into the Sailor Suited Soldier of Fire and Passion, Sailor Mars!

Happy breaks off his attack, standing midway towards her and gaping. Twin gushes of blood erupt from his nose and he flies backwards, impacting against a bookcase in the distance. "Not bad," he says, standing up groggily and stuffing both ends of Rei's bra into his nose instead of tissues. "Not bad at all, girly."

OOC: Happy takes 5 damage from blood loss.

Still feeling a bit unsteady on his two feet, Happy supports himself against the nearby bookcase with one hand, and beckons Rei forward with the other.

Sailor Mars smirks. "Heh, I don't need to move to get you," she says, raising her clasped hands as a small spark of flame ignites at the end of her outstretched index fingers. "Fire Soul!" she cries, shooting a spiraling fireball towards the soon to be flambe'd pervert.

" You  want to teach  me  about magical firecrackers?" he blurts out in genuine befuddlement. Soon, he snaps out of his shock, and reacts quickly, leaping over the bookcase at his back. The Fire Soul impacts against the massive bookshelf, sending it crashing backwards, and then Happy erupts through the burning books, much like he did at the beginning of the battle. At first, Rei thinks he's attacking her and cringes, her hands going instinctively towards her assets, but the librarian overshoots her and bounds away, laughing.

Burning books fly all over the place, hitting their companions in other bookcases, while the bookcase hit by Sailor Mars's attack topples over another one behind it, setting off a domino effect.

"Oh my sweet baby Serenity'su!" a female voice exclaims from Rei's right. "By all that is holy'su! This is a disaster'su!"

Whirling to her right, Rei sees Makoto and Misha run towards her from the main corridor, still a ways off.

Sailor Mars frantically looks at her the floor by the bookcase Happy first burst through, her eyes searching out for the large red Metallia book.

Mars finds the unlucky book burning merrily, having been opened somewhere around the middle when she dropped it and caught fire on something. Though she doesn't see any burning books nearby, Rei recalls swinging her whip around wildly previously.

Starting to panic at the sight of the precious book burning, Sailor Mars feels her power over the Fire itself call out to her, and somehow knows she can control it. Focusing on her will, the senshi of Fire quickly commands the fire on and around the Metallia book to cease.

Rei succeeds in her attempt, and sighs in relief as she sees that the pages the book is open to are now merely black, and no longer eaten away by the blue flames.

Dashing over to pick up the book and clutching it protectively against her chest, Mars then surveys the remainder of the burning library with some trepidation. Taking a deep calming breath, she tries to use her powers to prevent the remainder of the fire from spreading, not feeling confident enough in her powers to quell the blaze completely.

The fire is indeed affected by Rei's powers, though not quite as she expected. It continues spreading at twice its previous speed. At least the Metallia book is safe, Rei notices idly, though it doesn't bring her much relief.

As they arrive, Makoto and Misha see Rei just staring in shocked silence at what's just happened.

"Um," Makoto manages after a minute.  "This is not good! What happened!?"

Misha frets, running around between one burning book to another and wringing her hands worriedly. "Oh, my'su. This is not happening'su," she repeats, shaking her head in denial.

As previous events begin to sink in, Sailor Mars feels her head start to spin. The St Claire Library, home of hundreds of years worth of potentially irreplaceable knowledge... destroyed thanks to her. That coupled with her total inability to defend herself from the pervert is the final straw for the Martian Princess turned Sailor Senshi.

With a pathetic groan, Sailor Mars sinks to her knees and begins sobbing.

How can they expect me to defend the kingdom from an ancient evil that even Queen Serenity fears, when I can't even protect myself from an old pervert?

"Isn't there a system to deal with the fires?" Makoto asks in a panic, hurriedly picking up the Princess of Mars and carrying her on her back. "Quickly, Misha-chan, you have to lead us somewhere.  We need to either stop this, or at least get to safety." If only the sprinkler system were activated with electricity... but with my luck, it'd just make all the books too water-damaged to be read. Ugh. Focus, Makoto! Focus! Gotta take care of Rei-chan and Misha-chan... and maybe those two stupid perverts.

"Sprinklers'su!" Misha exclaimed, running after Makoto. "Of course'su!" Grabbing the black rabbit plushie around its throat, she brought it to her face. "Save the library, Bunny-Su! It's the highest priority'su!"

The plushie squealed, protesting its treatment, but then blinked. Heralded by a low humming, huge openings appeared in the ceiling, a mass of pipes descending from them and covering everything with a thick layer of foam.

Makoto squeezes her eyes shut, standing in the middle of the aisle, wondering if she'd just inadvertantly used the Princess of Mars to shield herself from the gunk. "Um... does that take care of the fire? If it does, I want to get Rei-chan somewhere she can rest."

The depressed Sailor Mars, having lost the will to fight, reverts to her normal self. Makoto shivers at the cool feel of Rei's bare chest against her back, while Misha blinks at the sight, having forgotten what she was about to reply to Makoto.

Then, another blast of foam covers the trio.

Covered in all manner of crap for the second time today, Rei doesn't react at all to being manhandled by the Princess of Jupiter, nor to being blasted repeatedly by fire suppresant foam.

It had been a day with its ups and downs, to be sure. Becoming Sailor Mars - up. Genkai beating the crap out of her and lording it over her - down. Flying to the Moon on the Millenium Frog - down. Meeting Mako-chan - up. Having to pretend to be someone else to escape the embarassing circumstances of the meeting - down. Being hit on by Queen Serenity - very up.

And then being charged with protecting the kingdom from Metallia... it had seemed quite cool at the time, actually. Sure, it'd be dangerous, but think of the excitement! Besides, the beautiful Princess always wins in the end, right?

She could perhaps write off being beaten on by Genkai. The old woman was tricky, after all, and had the respect of her parents. But being so humiliated by a geriatric librarian was another thing entirely. In spite of all the skills she thought she possessed, in spite of the magical abilities granted to her as Sailor Mars, she had been utterly powerless against him. Maybe all he had done was steal her bra and grope her, but Rei was no fool. She knew that if he had tried to go further, she still wouldn't have been able to stop him.

And so, the Princess of Mars weeps quietly on Makoto's back, not paying any attention to the world around her as she wallows in misery and self-pity.

"Misha-chan!" Makoto calls out, trying to shake the girl out of her trance.  "We need to get Rei-chan somewhere she can rest. Could you show us to an exit? We need to find our way to the guest quarters."

Misha blinks, two eyes appearing out of the mess of bubbly lemon-scented foam covering her. "Umm'su," she says intelligently, trying hard not to look at Rei and Makoto. "Teleport'su? Highest priority'su?"

Makoto and Rei feel the now-familiar effects of an instant transportation taking place. The trio, plus a slightly charred Metallia book, wink into existence near the gate with the two guards, Rei's modesty thankfully preserved by the thick layer of foam.

The guards aren't looking at the princesses and priestess, however. They are busy talking with arriving emergency services personnel. Makoto idly notices that the latter seem very disappointed, and a firefighter drops a large bucket he was holding in frustration, sweet potatoes spilling onto the ground out of it.

Makoto vaguely remembers the Millenium Frog, and quicky edges past the emergency personell. As long as they're distracted she can help get Rei cleaned up and find out what exactly happened.  And then I have to send a note to poor Misha-chan thanking her for her help.

The two foam-covered girls get more than a few curious glances, but Makoto manages to get past them and into the street without much trouble.

OOC:
Going to go back to the spaceport the way you are, while carrying Rei on your back?

Makoto pauses, considering what to do.

OOC:
Looking for some way to move Rei easily and subtly... something like a taxi or a shuttle.  Preferably with someone who also happens to know the way to their guest rooms. >_<

Rei disengages herself from Makoto's back, causing the Metallia book to slide to the ground, before wiping away at her tears. That done, she hitches up the ruined shoulders of her dress so the material will once more cover her breasts. Then she kneels down to retrieve the book, and holds it under her folded arms over her chest to ensure the material of her dress will stay in place.

Throughout this, she remains silent.

The dress holds surprisingly well, the Martian craftsmanship shining through once more. Meanwhile, Makoto's efforts to spot a transportation device come up empty.

OOC: Want to chance it and wait for an indefinite amount of time?

Rei sighs. "I don't think I want to stay on the Moon any more, Mako-chan..." the dispirited Princess says softly.

A long blue air-car pulls up just outside the gate to the library grounds. A young blue-haired girl darts out of the back seat and tries to reach the door to the library itself, but is restrained by one of the emergency workers. She begins to struggle with the man. "Please, you've got to let me go in there! All those books, burning..." The child looks ready to burst into tears.

A grown up man begins crying along with the girl. "I know how you feel! We missed it too!"

"Aw... Rei-chan, it's gonna be okay," Makoto soothes, having no idea what happened once Rei ran out of sight. "Um... look, let's get to our rooms, so we can get cleaned up and see what we can learn from the book you saved, right?" Makoto tries to give an encouraging smile to Rei.

Rei shudders, thinking of how very not okay she feels right now. "What rooms? Genkai said she changed our accommadation, remember. I think she's putting us in the barracks."

Ami continues to try to get past the emergency workers guarding the door. "You have to let me in there to get those books out!" When her struggles prove useless, she douses the two guards with several gallons of ice-cold water out of frustration, causing quite a bit of teeth-chattering.

"LET ME IN!"

"Hey, what do you think you're doing?!" the guards exclaim, shivering.

Then, one of them turns to the other. "Say, Tenchi, are you pondering what I'm pondering?"

"I dunno, Lalchi," his companion replies. "But it could be, with the Fire and all."

Turning to glare at the little girl, Tenchi asks, "You're a spy, aren't you?"

Ami stares at the two guards in shock for a moment. "Me? A spy?! How dare you!" After another dose of ice water for the pair, she draws herself up haughtily. "I am Princess Ami Hermesia of the planet Mercury, and I DEMAND that you allow me into this library at once!"

Privately, Ami wonders how anyone could be stupid enough to think that someone would use a seven year old girl as a spy.

"Now look here, girly," Lalchi says, his teeth chattering. "Come with us quietly, or we'll have to spank you!"

Tenchi disappears into the guards' booth for a moment, before emerging with a paddle.

The Emergency Services people stare at the developing confrontation quietly, before nodding as one at an invisible sign and gathering wood for a small fire, a few meters away.

Ami sees the paddle in Tenchi's hand and backs away from the entrance. "You wouldn't dare..."

Turning towards the car she arrived in, she shouts at the top of her lungs. "FILIA! HELP ME, QUICKLY!"

A golden-haired young woman rushes out of the car, giving a strange glance to a pair of girls covered in foam, before heading straight to her charge. "Oh, no," she groans, seeing the paddle and the shivering guards. "Mistress Ami, did you do something naughty again?"

Makoto blinks, some of the foam on her dribbling to the ground. "Um, it's not so bad, Rei-chan. We've still got each other, right?" she says as cheerfully as possible. "And, um, look, another princess. Maybe if we show her the book we found, she'll agree to give us a ride to... um... I know! We should ask for Eiko-chan. She'll know where we're staying!"

Ami turns to Filia. "They won't let me inside! Who knows how much information has been lost in there... I've got to try to save whatever I can!"

"You shouldn't worry about adult books, Mistress Ami," Filia attempts to calm her down. "I'm sure I have something in the car you could fingerpaint with."

Ami points an accusing finger at the blonde. "Don't start that with me, Filia-I'm in no mood for jokes at the moment. Are you going to help me talk these simpletons into allowing me inside this library or not?"

"Please forgive her, she's still young," Filia tells the guards, before gathering the girl up in her arms. "We can visit the library later, if you want to, Mistress Ami," she tells her charge, walking back to the car.

Trying to wipe some of the foam free, Makoto curtsies to Filia as the woman approaches. "Excuse me, I couldn't help overhear you speaking with the, ah, princess. I'm Princess Makoto de la Joviana, and this is my friend," Makoto pauses suddenly, realizing how dispirited Rei is... and covered with foam, too. Wiping away some more of the foam from her own face, Makoto decides to cover for the Princess of Mars. "This is my friend, R..." I need a name! Um, foam-covered girl, foam-covered girl... AH! Rika! That's perfect!, "Rika!" she concludes, smiling. "We just got out of the library," she continues, turning to regard the minute Princess of Mercury. "There was a fire, but it was put out, and there's a good priestess working on fixing up the damage." I hope. Good luck, Misha-chan! "What brings you here?"

"Mistress Ami was adamant about seeing the St. Claire Library," Filia responds. "It was the reason for our flight to Luna." With a somewhat doubtful look, she nods at the foam-covered girls. "A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mistress Makoto, Rika."

Jolting out of her stupor as Makoto introduces her, Rei turns a very surprised look on her fellow Princess. "How long have you known?!" she asks, shocked that her clever ruse had been seen through.

She also takes note of the Princess of Mercury and recalls Queen Serenity's opinion of the girl...

Ami sighs in defeat. "All right, I know when to regroup and plan a new strategy."

She turns to survey the two new arrivals, giving Makoto a smile. "I apologize for introducing myself like this. I'm afraid I panicked a bit when I saw the smoke over the library. I am Princess Ami Hermesia of Mercury; pleased to make your acquaintance." She gives the library a mournful glance. "I hope that priestess manages to salvage the books-there are volumes in there that have no copies anywhere else."

"And I'm Filia," the golden-tressed woman says, inclining her head again. "Chief Priestess of Mariner Castle, and Mistress Ami's retainer."

"Play along with me," Makoto whispers to Rei. "We'll pretend you're really Rika until we're more presentable."

Slightly louder, and still futiley trying to remove the foamy lemon-scented bubble-bath from her outfit, Makoto explains, "The queen asked us here on... er... personal business... and we've just gotten some information." Makoto regards the princess, though she appears not to be judging her based on her age.

If anything, Makoto looks at the far younger girl as an equal, which could say great things about Makoto. Or really bad ones. "Ah, Princess Ami, have you met with the Queen yet?"

"Wha...?" Rei looks oddly at Makoto, "You mean you haven't figured it out?"

"Of course I figured it out, Re... er... Rika-chan. It's my plan, after all." Makoto winks at Rei before turning her attention bacxk towards Ami and Filia.

Ami shakes her head. "No, I was on my way to present myself when I saw the smoke coming from the library. Since it IS the main reason for me to be here right now, I came directly here to see if there was anything I could do."

Noticing the two in obvious discomfort covered in foam, she covers a smile. "Would you, ah, like any help cleaning up?"

Rei sighs, wondering what the hell has gotten into Mako-chan. Then she hears Ami's question anc blanches. While 'cleaning up' with Mako-chan would be an immensely enjoyable activity, the Mercurian Princess looks way too young for her taste.

"That's alright, we'll clean up when we get back to our lodgings."

She considers asking why Princess Ami was bothering to present herself to Queen Serenity, given the monarch's earlier comments about the girl, but refrains from commenting.

"Er... yes, we have to get cleaned up at our lodgings," Makoto says, frowning. "If only I could remember where they were."

"Well, we'll just go back to the palace, then. I'm sure someone there'll be able to help us out," Rei says, wondering why, in spite of her earlier words, she is not just making tracks for the Spaceport so she can get back to Mars and away from this nightmare...

The young princess shrugs. "Suit yourselves then. Very well, Filia. We'd better get to the palace ourselves and report to the queen."

When Filia makes no move to let her go, she stares at the blonde priestess pointedly. "You can put me down, you know. I believe I'm familiar with how to walk on my own."

"Very well, Mistress Ami," she says, putting the child down. Filia then follows her princess to the air car, giving the other two girls a smile as she goes.

"Oh, yes, the palace," Makoto says. "Um... I don't suppose we could... er... catch a ride with you?"

Ami looks out of the car door at the messy princess and her companion. "All right, on one condition..."

With that, she summons several gallons of warm water over the pair, drenching them to the skin-and incidentally washing all of the foam off of them. Ami takes a moment to giggle at the shocked expressions on their faces before evaporating the remaining water off of them.

"All right, you can get in now. I just didn't want that foam getting all over my dress. I apologize for the inconvenience." Ami sounds perfectly sincere, but she can't hide her smile.

OOC: Ami passes her mind check, penalties notwithstanding, and recognizes Rei as the Crown Princess of Mars, though she keeps quiet about this.

IC: Filia steps outside and holds the air car's door open for the girls, waiting for her princess's guests to enter.

Rei sighs. "Well, I might as well 'come clean' so to speak," she says, throwing a glance at Makoto. "I am Princess Rei Aresion of Mars. A pleasure to meet you both," she curtseys as best she can while still holding up her dress.

While the sudden dunking was a little shocking, at least the water had been dried off quickly. Although it was passing strange for such a young girl to demonstrate such power...

Makoto looks disapointed. "I'm sorry, Rei-chan," she says quietly. "I was trying to help...."

"I thought you looked a bit familiar, Princess Rei." Ami smiles at the two princesses. "Please, by all means, get in the car; there's no need to stand on formality on my account."

Ami notes the sorry shape of Rei's dress. "If you'll pardon my asking, what happened to you two? And why are you here at the St. Clair Library? I can't imagine it being high on the list of tourist attractions for either of you."

Rei puts a comforting hand on Makoto's shoulder, still using the other to keep her dress held up. "That's alright, Mako-chan, I know you meant well."

Turning to the younger Princess, Rei smiles. Obviously poor Princess Ami had been grossly misrepresented in the stories Rei had heard, which was certainly something she could relate to. "Anyway, we came to the St Claire Library seeking some specific information," she indicates the blood red book she holds, "But the..." she grimaces, "librarians proved most hostile. I shall be having words with Queen Serenity about that when we get to the palace, I can assure you."

Ami is a bit taken aback. Hostile librarians?

She quickly masks her surprise. "Well, I certainly wasn't expecting to have to fight my way through the library after I obtained permission to use it. I'll have to keep my eyes open, I suppose."

Noticing the dark red book in the Martian princess' arms, she attempts to get a discreet look at the title.

Considering Rei's state of near-undress, especially without the benefit of concealing foam, Makoto steps between Ami and the book title (completely obliviously) and leans down to be of height with the young girl. "Er... since we're going to the palace anyway, can we discuss this in your car?"

"Of course, I was simply waiting for the two of you to get inside." Ami replies.

"Well, no sense in waiting around here any longer," Rei says, stepping into the car and taking a seat on the far side so the others can get in.

Makoto climbs in and sits next to Rei before looking around the car briefly.

Ami moves over in her seat to make room for Filia, seating herself opposite Rei.

Filia steps into the air car after the two girls, and sits down next to Ami, patting her on her head. "Let's go to the palace," she calls out to the driver, and they are off.

A short and fairly uneventful ride later, the air car reaches the Moon Palace's gates. Looking out the window, Ami sees a general rush inside. People are running, some carrying stuff, most of those falling down and spilling them.

"What in the world is going on here?" Ami stares out of the car window at the bustling palace grounds. "It looks like someone overturned an anthill."

"Maybe it's a revolution," Rei says hopefully, looking out to see what is going on.

"A revolution?" Makoto says without much conviction. "Maybe it's something worse.... Rei-chan, if we need to step in, we should make sure that book's safe, first."

"The Earthlings are coming! The Earthlings are coming!" a male servant yelled, rushing past the princesses and into the streets of the city.

Ami exchanges confused glances with her two companions. "Is it some sort of invasion?"

She shakes her head. "Even if I book the next flight out of here, I still need to see the queen before I leave."

Rei slaps her forehead as the servant runs past. "There goes the neighbourhood..." she gripes. "Well, the Earthlings can wait. I still need to have words with the Queen myself."

With that, Rei heads over to the palace gates.

The gates to the palace are open, and there are no guards. People are rushing all over the place, but none of them give the girls even a second glance.

As they enter the grounds, Rei decides to at least fill Ami in on the situation. No doubt the poor young girl must be terrified at the thought of Earthlings being in such close proximity. "Queen Serenity told us earlier that she is in the process of making a peace treaty with Earth. I expect news of the Earth delegation's arrival has spread by now."

Ami breathes a sigh of relief. "Thank goodness. I was afraid it was something more serious than that. I do try not to be judgmental  of those from other planets, but some of those stories about Earthlings..." The girl shudders.

Rei nods sollemnly. "Yes, some of those stories are rather shocking, aren't they? But when it concerns Earth, you never can tell...," she then looks around surreptitously and leans in towards Ami, speaking in a conspiratorial whisper, "Did you know, that Princess Serenity has actually visited Earth?"

Ami's eyes widen in surprise. "Surely you must be joking! The queen's daughter went to Earth? I can't imagine Queen Serenity allowing such a thing-it's simply too dangerous! We don't know enough about the Earthlings to take such a foolhardy risk."

"Well, obviously the Queen didn't allow it. She was most upset, from what I gather, but still..." Rei trails off, letting the unspoken implications of all manner of nastiness befalling the innocent Princess sink in.

"What in the name of Mercury could she find interesting there? I personally wouldn't mind doing some geographic and climatological studies there, but I would be very surprised to hear that Princess Serenity went to Earth for research purposes."  Ami muses over the Princess' odd behavior.

"I never really heard much about the Earthlings, except from Rei-chan," Makoto adds hesitantly. "But if they're coming, we should hurry to make ourselves presentable. We have to be ready for anything, right?"

"Bah," Rei waves dismissively, "I'm starting to reconsider my opinion anyway. After all, Lunarians are supposed to be the most 'civilised' people in the Solar System, and after what happened in the library, I can see that the truth is far different from propaganda. Anyway, lets go see if we can find Queen Serenity. The peace treaty with Earth isn't really any of our business, we have more important things to worry about," she then tries to catch Makoto's eye and subtly indicate the Metallia book.

Ami nods, remembering the information she has to relate. "You're right, speaking with the Queen is the most important thing right now." Glancing around at the hallways of the palace, she turns to Rei. "How much further is it to reach the throne room, anyway?"

"Truthfully? I'm not really sure," Rei admits, "We only teleported in and out the one time, and there's no guarantee that Queen Serenity will even be in the throneroom when we get there, since she seemed rather fatigued when we left, and may have went for a rest."

Briefly, Rei considers trying to simply trust her luck and hunt down the throneroom, since most palaces tend to follow a fairly similar layout with regard to important rooms, but decides it isn't worth the hassle. Instead, she looks around for a nearby servant she can have guide them.

Nodding quietly, Makoto falls in line behind Rei. "We'll have to find someone and ask them," she agrees.

The palaces on Metis, Callisto, and IO had all been quite different, though the palace they were in was most similar to the estate on IO.

"Calm down! Please calm down!" a silver-haired teenager in a flowing white gown repeats unsuccessfully. "Honestly," she mutters, walking towards the gates. "It's not like they're cannibals!"

Noticing the trio of princesses and Filia, she approaches them, and curtsies. "Hello, are you here to see Mom?" the girl asks.

Rei eyes the girl who is no doubt Princess Serenity... the girl she was initially told she would protect on the Moon.

If she were in a better mood, she'd probably try flirting with her, but as things are right now... "Yes, we're here to see the Queen," she says, before tacking on a belated introduction, "I am Princess Rei Aresion, recently arrived from Mars."

"Oh, I know that!" she replies. "I had to take all those boring classes about unimportant royalt-- right, forget I said that. So, can I help you?"

"It's rather urgent that we see the Queen as soon as possible." Ami halts for a moment. "Forgive me, I should have introduced myself first. Princess Ami Hermesia, of the planet Mercury." She gives the silver-haired girl a small curtsy.

"I knew it!" Serenity exclaims. "You just had to come and see Mom!" Picking Ami, she hugs her close to her chest, and sighs in happiness. "How cute...."

Ami silently fumes as the older princess hugs her like a doll. While the thought of the Lunarian submerged in a tub of ice water is a pleasant one, making it a reality at this point would definitely not be the wisest course she could take. Instead, she submits to the embrace stiffly, although she is unable to hide the rising flush of anger on her cheeks.

Unimportant royalty?!

With a huge effort of will, Rei keeps from lashing out at the ditz, but makes a mental note to secede from the Silver Millenium when she becomes Queen of Mars. If she lives that long, what with Metallia...

Oh well, she consoles herself, at least if I die, I'm taking you losers with me!

Makoto nods knowingly. "Yes, well, when you are fifth in line to succession, you are unimportant," she agrees. "But, since you know who we are, could you please take us to see the Queen again?"

"No problem, Princess Makoto!" Serenity chirps, and leads the way, whistling a merry tune and cuddling Ami.

During a fairly short walk -- Serenity seems to know all the passages and shortcuts in the palace -- the four princesses and Filia, who hangs back, arrive at a large, oval-shaped room. The Queen is there, looking completely different from how Makoto and Rei saw her earlier. While her dress is the same, the manner of speech in which she addresses a dozen of officers gathered around her mark her as a leader. Her tone is confident and firm, and she holds herself majestically.

OOC: You basically hear Serenity Sr. alert the fleet, support the police in case of riots breaking out in the capital, and basically reassure her top military aides.

Rei smiles tightly, rather impressed with how the Queen is handling her subordinates.

Keeping herself in the background, she waits until the Queen dismisses the officers. It wouldn't do for them to hear what she had to say to their Queen, after all.

With a slight effort, Ami manages to wriggle out of the younger Serenity's grasp and turns to face the queen. She waits patiently for a chance to introduce herself as the monarch issues her orders to her advisors.

Seeing that the Queen is busy, Makoto takes advantage of the opportunity to study Serenity, wondering what it's going to be like now that she's been assigned the duty of -- among other things -- protecting this girl. I wonder how old she really is.

"Mom is cool, isn't she?" Serenity whispers to the other girls, looking at her mother in awe.

Ami pointedly ignores the Lunar princess, aside from supressing a thought of the girl encased in ice up to her neck.

Rei nods distractedly at Princess Serenity's words, her smile turning slightly goofy as she remembers the invitation the Queen made earlier... but she quickly shakes it off. There is something else that needs to be resolved before she can think about such matters, after all.

Makoto nods diligently. Her own parents seldom spoke to her with any regularity.

Queen Serenity stops in mid-sentence, and her gaze shoots towards her guests. She dismisses her aides with a gesture, and approaches the girls, not taking her eyes off Ami. A frown appears on her face, she she says in a clear voice, "Come over here, Serenity dearest."

Ami drops to one knee, bowing in the presence of her queen. She wonders why the queen singled her out of all of the other girls, but chalks it up to the fact that she must have met the others at some point previously.

Serenity gives her mother a curious look, but shrugs and waves at her new friends. "It's been a blast! Call me sometime, and we'll go out to Earth or something." The girl runs over to her mother, and kisses her on the cheek.

The Queen sighs, and pats the girl on her head, before saying something softly. Her daughter nods, and leaves the room, skipping. Shaking her head, Serenity comes closer to the princesses. "You are Ami of Mercury, aren't you?" she asks, glaring at the kneeling girl.

"Y-yes, your Majesty. I apologize for my unannounced arrival, but I..." Ami closes her eyes as memories of the events that triggered her trip to Luna rush through her head. "I had to speak with you on a matter of some urgency." She barely manages to keep her voice from shaking.

Serenity looks undecided. "Is that related to the important mission I entrusted to Artemis?" she asks, not masking her displeasure.

Rei remains silent as she watches the interplay, curious as to how Ami will portray her version of events. Surely the Mercurian Princess can't be as bad as the picture Queen Serenity painted earlier?

"It may well be, your Majesty. Artemis was not exactly forthcoming with the details of why my presence had been requested here on the Moon."

Ami swallows hard. "If it is not too much to ask, I would ask for a private audience with you at some point soon. The information I have is... of a rather delicate nature."

"Fine," Serenity snaps after a short pause. "Everybody out." The technicians manning the stations set against the walls of the room fan out at their Queen's words, leaving her alone with the three princesses and Filia.

"What are you waiting for?" Seremity asks unkindly, levelling a hostile glare at the priestess. "Don't they teach you proper etiquette on Mercury?"

Filia shivers, but looks at her charge. "Mistress Ami?"

"Please go, Filia. This should not take long, I hope." Ami swallows hard. The last thing she had imagined was trying to speak with a hostile Queen Serenity.

Filia bows to Ami, and then to Serenity, though a bit fearfully, and scurries away.

Ami glances to her sides at the other princesses in the room. "I hate to ask, your Majesty, but it really might be best if it were the two of us, alone."  Ami takes a shuddering breath, trying to stop the images of that fateful night from running through her head. "What I have to say has the possibility of creating a temporal paradox."

Rei shrugs, "If it pleases your Majesty, Princess Makoto and I shall wait outside." She then turns to the Jovian Princess. "Come on, Mako-chan. We can have a quick glance at the book while we wait to tell her Majesty about what happened when we aquired it." Her voice carries an unmistakable edge of anger as she finishes.

Serenity looks surprised, before a vaguely interested expression comes over her face. She stops the other two girls with a wave of her hand, and then seems to ignore Ami, looking at the large clock hanging on the opposite wall.

Just as Ami thinks she's being ridiculed, Serenity nods her head. "Five minutes. More than enough time for her to get here and stop this." She walks towards a silvery console in the center of the room, and feeds a sequence of keystrokes into it. The door to the Lunar situation room slams shut, and all three princesses feel more than hear a small 'pop'.

"The room's now secure," the Queen tells Ami, leaning back on the aforementioned console. "So, let's hear it."

Ami takes a deep breath to steady herself, then begins her tale.

"Approximately two weeks ago, I was awakened in my chambers on Mercury by someone in the room, apparently moaning in pain. When I got up to investigate, I found a woman-who bore an uncanny resemblance to myself-in a very strange-looking uniform, severely injured and lying in the middle of my sitting room. She was barely able to speak, but she gave her name as Sailor Mercury, a senshi from the future. She..." Ami tries to hold back her tears, but has little success. "She told me of a vast evil which the senshi of that future were battling, named Metallia. She also named Metallia's main servant, a woman named Beryl, and that both Metallia and Beryl came from the time of the Silver Millenium. Shortly thereafter, she... died, right in front of me, and her body vanished shortly after. I have told no one else of these events until now, although my servant Filia has noticed that I have been subject to terrible nightmares since that time. As for my parents, I simply told them that it was urgent that I travel to Luna as quickly as could be arranged, and so I made my way here to speak to you."

Ami now weeps openly. "Forgive me, your Majesty. Watching that senshi die was... it almost felt like a part of myself was dying as well. The only thing I could think to do was to get this information into your hands; if anyone should know how to act upon it, it would be you."

Rei covers her mouth with a gasp. If that is true... then it seems like victory against Metallia is as unlikely as she feared...

Makoto frowns. "If ... you saw the Sailor Mercury of the future.... Doesn't that mean we can change that future, though? It may seem grim and ... well ... unhappy, but if we know now, we can prevent it from happening, can't we?" Makoto asks, slipping slightly away from Rei, and putting a comforting arm about Ami's shoulders, kneeling to be the same level as the girl. "We can't really fight yet, which is all I'm good at ... and I'm not really good at that either. But we have a little bit of time, and we have information. They always told me on Calisto that since it wasn't proper for a princess like me to train in martial arts that I should learn to use the one weapon no one could take from me -- my mind." Makoto decides not to mention the often added comment that 'a blunt instrument was better than nothing'. "I mean, I'm stumped, but I bet if we think about it together, we'll figure out something together. Right?"

"Hah!" Rei laughs sharply at Makoto's words, "I've been practicing to fight since I was a little girl, and I couldn't even protect myself from a perverted librarian! What chance can we possibly have against something that Queen Serenity herself can't handle?"

Ami looks up at Makoto. "I really don't know, Makoto. Temporal physics is a slippery subject at the best of times. Think of it this way: If we manage to destroy this Beryl and Metallia now, then who in the future would be bothered by them? If that Sailor Mercury wasn't fighting Beryl and Metallia because they were already dead in OUR time, how could she return to this time to warn me about them? On the other hand, why bother to warn me if there was absolutely nothing to be done about the matter?"

She sighs and looks to the Queen. "This is why I brought the matter directly to you, your Majesty. I've been reviewing my studies of temporal mechanics, and unfortunately the theories I've seen so far seem rather muddled when it comes to the matter of potential paradox. I... I really have no idea what could happen if we act on this information." Ami looks down in shame.

Makoto looks at Rei in confusion. "You were attacked by the librarians?" she asked. "Is that why they set the library on fire?" Realizing that the Queen is still there, she shakes her head and turns back to the woman, wondering what she will make of Ami's story.

Serenity twitches. "Which library was set on fire?" she asks, very slowly.

"The St. Claire library. Since we had so little information to go on, Luna suggested we go there to find out about Metallia," Rei indicates the book she holds. "However, I did not expect to be sexually assaulted by your librarians." she finishes grinding out, reliving the humiliating attack in her head.

"The St. Claire Library?" Serenity repeats. "My beautiful, priceless library where I keep my personal reading material was set on fire? The Royal Library, home to countless tomes irreplaceable in every Lunar Priestess's training? The only place who might have information on how to deal with temporal paradoxes and evils from beyond?" She fixes Rei and Makoto with a look. "That library?"

Rei blinks, utterly appalled at receiving this kind of reaction. "You don't care at all, do you?" she whispers in a stunned tone.

Ami watches the scene unfold in front of her, glad that someone else is the target of the Queen's wrath for the moment-even if the other two princesses have been fairly kind.

"Oh, come on," the Queen replies, snorting most unladylike. "Don't tell me you went there without an anti-pervert taser."

Rei begins to feel the stirrings of genuine hatred towards the Queen. "Princess Makoto had some sort of taser, but I was not so armed," she seethes. "It seems the vaunted powers of Sailor Mars proved no match for the kind of people you employ to run your library."

Serenity grimaces. "I don't exactly... employ them. Since the two degenerates can't be harmed by magic, unless it was strong enough to level this city, we just tricked them into the library and put electronic measures around the perimeter to ensure they don't escape." She shrugs. "The system is not elegant, but it works. Every priestess, whether domestic or visiting, gets a taser, which keeps the two at bay. On a more practical note, infiltration attempts have dwindled down to nothing in the first year since Happy and Lucky were dumped there."

Serenity frowns, looking at Rei. "Who did you say sent you there without proper protection?"

"Well, Luna told us to search the sealed records for information on Metallia, but she left without telling us where to find them. We asked a girl at the information desk at Serenity Spaceport, and she directed us to the St. Claire library," Rei answers the question before giving the Queen a disbelieving look, "And I find it hard to believe the librarians are as invincible as you claim. If they can be incapacitated so easily with those tasers, how hard could it be to finish them off?"

"It's a bit embarrassing, really," the Queen says. "We never actually bothered to research that technology beyond the tasers. After all, magic is far more superior, so why should we throw tons of money into an inferior product that will only be useful twice?"

"Besides," she adds, "they aren't really librarians. They may call themselves such, but...." She shrugs helplessly. "Well, you saw how they were." Her face adopting a sympathetic looks, Serenity asks, "Is there anything I can do to help you with your... unpleasant experience?"

Rei calms down, seeing that the Queen is being more reasonable. An inner voice warns that the Queen is probably a master at manipulating others with the way she changes her demeanour so frequently, so she remains slightly guarded. "I was going to demand the execution of the librarian who attacked me, but I see now that such a request is unlikely to meet with any success." She sighs, running a hand through her hair in a stressed gesture.

Serenity winces. "Not necessarily. If negotiations with Earth break down, we could just try to ship that pair there, and then blow it up!"

"Such an act would help to ensure Mars' loyalty for the next generation," Rei points out.

She'd prefer to see the pervert's anguished face as he meets his end, but just so long as he dies, that'll be enough.

"I am obligated to inform you, that under Lunar Law you could demand the execution of the person who sent you to the St. Claire Library without proper protection," Serenity recites, though her heart is not into it. "You mentioned... an information desk clerk?"

Rei gets a disgusted look on her face. "No, that won't be necessary," she says distastefully. "I'm a believer in punishing the guilty, and there's only one person who fits that category in this matter."

Eyes widening, Makoto edges very slightly away. "Um, Ami-chan," she whispers distractedly. "What's going on?"

"Great!" Serenity exclaims. "I really hate it when something happens to my subjects...." Her gaze encompasses the room, and comes to rest on the trio of princesses. "And those include you, of course." The Queen sighs, and drops into an empty chair, motioning for the others to take a seat.

"This is quite a problem," she says wearily, massaging her temples. "The sudden act of sabotage by the quarantined perverts, including an assault on one of my Sailor Senshi... the dying message of a future Sailor Senshi... the leaked information about the peace talks and the expected delegation from Earth...."

Serenity sighs. "I can't help but feel these are connected. Has Metallia made her move?" She shakes her head abruptly. "But no, that's silly. She came from the outer rim last time, that much I know. There's no way she could have gotten past Sailors Uranus and Neptune."

Ami seats herself and turns to the Queen. "If I might ask, your Majesty, what is known about Metallia so far? The small amount of research I was able to complete before leaving Mercury turned up the name in a few old legends, but nothing more of substance. I would ask about Beryl as well, but all of my attempts to look for information by anyone of that name came up fruitless-not really that surprising, I suppose, given that Metallia doesn't seem to have surfaced openly in this time yet."

"I know that Metallia can be stopped," Serenity says with another weary sigh. "However, the price for using the Ginzuisho is too high. Not just for the Moon," she adds, giving each princess a piercing look, "but for our entire Kingdom. If it comes to a battle between Metallia and me, the war will have already been lost for our side."

She shakes her head. "But I've taken precautions. You, girls, will stop her before it's too late. The senshi have a power... while alone, each is no match for Metallia, together... together you have something that--"

Rei takes her own seat. "I hope so... from what I've discovered so far, my own powers are nothing special at all..."

Serenity stands up suddenly, and moves swiftly towards Rei, placing her arms over the raven-haired girl's. A moment later, Rei feels a warmth spread through her body, quite different from how she usually feels while being in such a situation with pretty girls.

Ami is completely lost for words as the implications of Serenity's words sink in. "Senshi? Us? As in, including me?" she manages to babble past her shock, glancing back and forth between her two companions. "I'm no soldier, I'm just... just a child!" Ami's cheeks redden at the admission, one she normally hates having to make.

"Even evil brats can become senshi," Serenity says with a smile, and offers one hand to Ami, while keeping the other on Rei's hands.

Catching the Jupiter princess's eyes with her own, she asks her warmly, "Please join us, Makoto dear."

Still obviously frightened by the idea, Ami nevertheless places her small hand in the Queen's. "I don't know what I can do to help, but I... I suppose I can at least try."

Blushing, Makoto nods, but resolutely joins Serenity, Rei, and Ami.

A warm feeling spreads to the other two girls as well. Ami is almost overwhelmed by the love she is fed, through the physical contact with Queen Serenity.

Rei and Makoto, however, feel something else as well, which balances out the warm and fuzzy feeling of pureness. Makoto sees herself surrounded by an aura of fire, which is comforting, and strangely doesn't hurt her or her clothing in the least. Rei, for her part, feels her senses tingling from an electrical charge that by all rights should've killed her ten times over, not merely tickle her.

"Do you see now?" Serenity asks, smiling at the trio.

Makoto doesn't truly understand, though she knows that this electrical sensation has been a part of her life ever since she was sent away from Metis. But looking at Serenity, and feeling such power, the inlklings of understanding begin to make themselves known in her eyes. "Oh," she says softly. "So that's why."

Ami feels her fears melt away in the flow of love and reassurance coming from Queen Serenity. Slowly she manages a shy smile. "I think I do now, a least a little."

Rei doesn't really understand. She knows she feels more comfortable now than she has in a long time, and electric feeling throughout her body is incredibly soothing, certainly unlike what she would expect...

But what does it actually mean...?

Hearing Ami and Makoto respond, she feigns a look of dawning comprehension. "I think I understand..." Well, she can try to puzzle it out later. No sense in making herself look stupid by holding everyone up for a clear explanation.

With another smile, Serenity lets go and takes a step back, the feelings the three princesses have been experiencing ending along with the loss of physical contact.

"The name Beryl is interesting," Serenity says suddenly, reminiscing. "While our knowledge of Earth and its inhabitants is limited at best, we do know that their nobility is more often than not named after minerals. Thus, if my assumption is correct...."

"An Earthling noble is likely to become Metallia's chief lackey?" Rei finishes the thought. "We could ask the Earth delegation if they know anyone called Beryl, but... well, for all we know, this 'Beryl' might only be Ami's age, or even not born yet..." The Martian Princess furrows her brow in thought. Time travel was much easier to deal with in fiction...

Serenity nods. "Yes, and given the threats out Kingdom has faced from Earth over time...." She sighs. "We don't even know which Beryl it would be, if it is indeed someone living in this time period on Earth. It would be best if we don't announce our knowledge and just monitor any and all 'Beryls' that we get intelligence on."

Rei nods, "That would be best... it would certainly be embarrassing if we were to make a big fuss over capturing the first 'Beryl' we encounter, and then some other Beryl sneaks in and catches us by surprise. Not to mention if the Earthlings got wind that we didn't like people called Beryl, they would probably try to make use of us in their own internal politics..."

A little knowledge can certainly be a dangerous thing, she muses disconsolately. What seemed like an incredibly useful piece of information at first is quickly becoming more troublesome under closer inspection.

Serenity claps, and a glowing pen with the sigil of Mercury clearly visible above her hands, floating slowly into them. "I believe this is yours," she says, squatting down next to Ami and handing over the pen. "And be sure to apologize before Artemis, when he gets there with Sailor Venus," she adds sternly.

"So do you now know when Princess Minako will arrive?" Rei asks upon hearing mention of Sailor Venus.

"Not any time soon, I'm afraid," Serenity replies, turning to look at Rei. "With all the chaos both here and, I'd imagine, on Earth, I needed something to guard our borders. Sailor Venus was ordered to assume command of the starship MDBG Serenity, and patrol the quarantine zone, letting only the Earth delegation through."

Ami accepts the transformation pen from Serenity and looks away. "Yes, your Majesty." The idea of apologizing to that impudent cat still rankles her; she didn't really do anything to him. Well, the torch might have been a bit excessive, but still...

Serenity frowns at Ami. "Poor Artemis had soldiers sent after him. His tail was set on fire. He barely escaped with the rest of his fur untouched!"

Ami looks at the queen in puzzlement. "What are you talking about? I will admit I lost my temper with that... that CAT, but I certainly did not set him on fire-not intentionally, at least. I DID ask the guards to remove him from my chambers until he could speak to me like a human being instead of trying to bribe me with promises of toys and candy here on the Moon, but I certainly did not ask them to chase him." She looks down, a bit embarrassed. "I will admit to losing my temper and throwing a torch at him, but I didn't think I did anything more than singe his tail a bit. He certainly wasn't on fire when the guards escorted him out of my chambers."

"So you say." Serenity narrows her eyes. "I'll have a long talk with Artemis when he returns, and get to the bottom of this."

Ami keeps her eyes lowered. "Of course, your Majesty. I will apologize for my part; I can't place all the blame on Artemis' head."

Rei smiles warmly. "Well, now that that's settled, we can all put it behind us and move on, why, we even have a Sailor Mercury now, so that improves our chances, right?"

Wait a minute, her inner monologue prompts, Remember that outfit you wore when you became Sailor Mars? Rei did indeed remember it. And that also prompted thoughts of Makoto dressed in similar attire, causing a warm flush to spread throughout the Princess. Then she notices Princess Ami. Little seven year old Princess Ami. Who would transform into Sailor Mercury and wear... Dear God, my eyes!!

The only visible manifestation throughout this train of thought is a slight twitch of her facial muscles as her smile becomes more than a little strained...

Could be worse... at least there aren't any male Sailor Senshi...

Ami blanches as Rei mentions Sailor Mercury. If she is Sailor Mercury, then does that mean that the one she saw was...

Hurriedly banishing the thought from her mind, she remembers the book which the Martian princess has been carrying since they met at the library. "You said you went to the St. Claire Library to research Metallia; did you find anything there?"

"Only one book," responds Rei, "but it's a big one. The library wasn't exactly conductive to studying it, so we've been waiting until we can get some peace and quiet before we properly read it."

Of course, knowing my recent luck, the section 'How to easily defeat Metallia in 5 simple steps' will have gotten burnt in the fire... she thinks sadly.

An angry red light flashes over the room, making Serenity look around in worry. "Someone's trying to enter the room," she says for the benefit of the others, heading steadily towards the door. "Someone's trying really hard."

Reaching the entrance, she presses her palm against the smooth metal surface. Her hand sinks in, and the room's defenses melt away, returning the situation room to its previous state.

"What is it?" Serenity demands, as the door opens.

"A private liner has left Earth's atmosphere, My Queen," a lieutenant in the Lunar Space Force informs her, saluting. "Princess von Magellan onboard the MDBG Serenity has been tracking its course and is respectfully asking for further orders, Ma'am."

Serenity nods curtly, and turns towards her guests. "Okay, this is it. We have a few hours to prepare." She smiles. "Make yourselves presentable for meeting with foreign dignitaries. I'll dispatch someone to take you to your quarters, if you'd like."

Rei stands and bows respectfully at the dismissal. "Very well, your Majesty. If you can have someone direct us to our quarters, we can get changed and make a start on this book until it is time for the meeting."

A thought occurs to her, and she adds, "Would you like us to appear in our Sailor Senshi attire for the first meeting with the Earthlings?"

"I hate to ask, but on the subject of living quarters... I hadn't arranged for any long-term living arrangements here on Luna, as I had originally only expected to be giving you my message and leaving again for Mercury." Ami grimaces. "I was expecting to take rooms in the city until I departed, but I haven't done so yet."

"Sailor Senshi?" the Queen asks, smiling at Rei. "Who are those?"

Turning to look at Ami, she shakes her head. "This won't do. I'll have Sylphiel prepare one of the guest rooms for you."

"This won't be necessary, Your Majesty," a voice rasps from the entrance. The lieutenant jumps in the air in shock, as an old woman appears by his side, as if out of thin air. "I've already made the proper arrangements."

"Oh, you have? That'll be great!" Serenity exclaims, clasping her hands together. "Would you take Princess Ami with you then, Genkai?"

The old woman bows. "As you wish, My Queen."

Rei nods silently, taking the hint about keeping their identities as Sailor Senshi secret.

"Ah, Genkai..." Rei acknowledges the old woman's presence with a stunning lack of enthusiasm. "Yes, lets go to whatever you have arranged for us."

If things get too bad, at least Mako-chan and Ami have no obligation to put up with her crap...

Ami turns to the old woman and smiles. "Er, thank you, Ms. Genkai." Ami gives the queen a final curtsy. "Thank you again for hearing me out, your Majesty."

Ami joins Rei and Genkai at the door to the situation room. "I suppose I'm ready to go whenever you are. Filia can help take care of my belongings once we get situated, I suppose."

Offering the Queen a deep and respectful curtsy, Makoto turns away, and towards Genkai. "It's nice to see you again, Genkai-san. Er... if it's not too much trouble, do you know where I'm staying, as well? I do hope I get to stay near Rei-chan."

Genkai smiles -- evilly, those who know her might say. "That's not a problem, Makoto dear," she says in a sweet voice. "Just follow me...."

She turns around and walks down a corridor, the three princesses following her as they go through a veritable maze that is the castle's system of passageways. After a few minutes of walking, the four stop at an elevator. Genkai smiles once more, looking at Rei, and presses the 'down' button, whistling to herself as she waits for it to arrive.

"You're seeming awfully chipper, old woman," Rei remarks snidely. "So what unpleasantness have you got prepared for us, now?"

"You wound me," she says, an insufferable smirk on her face. "And here I made reservations at the best training facility the Moon has to offer." She taps her chin thoughtfully, ignoring her charge altogether. "Perhaps I should've gone with the co-ed barracks after all...."

Rei shudders at the thought of sleeping in a room filled with men. "Ugh, no thanks... Still, I take it this 'best training facility' is not the one used by the common soldiery?" she asks, recalling how worthless the guards outside the library had been.

Makoto claps her hands together excitedly. "Training?" she asks. "Like, martial arts training, Genkai-san? I've always wanted to learn martial arts, but on Callisto they always said it wasn't--" Realizing that she's saying too much, Makoto ducks her head and giggles. "Sorry," she apologizes. "But... if I might ask, what kind of training is it for? And will we be doing any?"

The lift arrives, and Genkai steps inside, beconing the three princesses to follow. Once the elevator's doors close behind them, and the lift begins its descent to the lowest level, Genkai shakes her head, a genuine smile appearing on her face. "No, it isn't."

The lift lurches suddenly, an orange warning light lighting on the panel indicating the floors, the message 'Malfunction' appearing, flashing. A keycard appears in Genkai's right hand with a flick of her fingers, and she slides it against what seems to be a small crack in the lift's interior. A moment later, the warning light disappears, and the elevator resumes its descent, the floors no longer being indicated on the panel.

A short time later, it finally comes to a halt, and the four exit the lift into an old-fashioned gym, three doors leading out of the room, each in a different color.

"That's where all the utilities are," Genkai announces, pointing to the rightmost door, colored blue. She points at the door opposite the first one next, saying, "You'll be sleeping there, along with Venus, when she finally arrives."

Genkai snaps her fingers, and once more things appear out of thin air in her hands. She distributes the three fingerless gloves inset with a large jewel -- red for Rei, green for Makoto and blue for Ami -- that she materialized, telling the girls, "Put these on, once you're done with preparations."

"Well, I need to get changed first," Rei says, accepting the glove, "Is all my luggage in that room?" she indicates the one Genkai said they would be sleeping in.

Genkai smiles again, this time in just the right way to annoy Rei. "Not exactly, no." She reaches out and taps the red jewel on Rei's glove. The jewel glows suddenly, and there's a red flash that causes the three girls to close their eyes instinctively. Once they look again, they see that Rei's luggage has appeared all around the raven-haired girl, littering the floor.

"You two might want to do this in your sleeping quarters," she tells Ami and Makoto, indicating the green-colored door once more.

Ami has spent most of the trip deep in thought. The feelings of reassurance from the Queen have dissipated in the time since leaving her, leaving her with a mountain of worries. Not only does she still not know what to do about the information left to her by the future Sailor Mercury, now she has the added problems of being stuck on the Moon-and of being a senshi.

Why me? For god's sake, I'm a 7-year old child! As much as I hate that fact, it is still true. Now I'm stuck here, several million miles from home, part of a team with two other princesses who I've barely just met, and I'm expected to train to be a warrior for god only knows how long. If there really IS a higher power out there, what have I done to make them upset?

Ami accepts the blue-jeweled glove from Genkai without a word, staring vacantly ahead. This has NOT been one of her better days.

Rei sighs, blowing away a few strands of hair that had fallen over her face. "Thanks," she says dryly, handing the Metallia book over to Makoto before grabbing up about half of her suitcases and taking them into the room before returning for the rest. "I'm going to get changed and cleaned up now. I'll be done soon," she tells the others before closing the door and starting to look through her luggage.

As Rei sorts through her luggage, she can't help but notice that the room only has two beds, and neither is large enough for two teenage girls to sleep in together.

Rei opens one of her suitcases and pulls out a nice big fluffy towel, along with several of her favourite soaps and shampoos. That done, she exits the room and heads straight into the rightmost door, in search of a bath, or at least a shower.

After going through the blue door, to her left, Rei finds a small kitchen, a sliding door leading to it half-open. To her right are a pair of doors she thinks are toilets, one bearing the label 'Senshi' while the other 'Rika', of all names. Straight ahead is a set of double doors, steam escaping slowly through a small crack between them and the ground.

Rei mutters something nasty under her breath. Genkai had had way too much fun over the whole 'Rika' business, and she was really starting to regret what had seemed like such a good idea at the time...

Letting it drop, she heads into the double doors.

A spacious, marble-laden bathing area taking most of the room greets Rei's eyes, the waters already hot judging from the steam rising from them. Off to the side, right next to a wall, is a series of stalls just large enough for a person to bath in, standing up. Though their doors are designed to preserve the occupants' modesty by distorting light going to and from the stalls, Rei notices that all of them are vacant, as expected.

Sweeping the room with her eyes once more, she notices a curious device next to the shower stalls, the purpose of which she can't divine from afar.

"Not bad," Rei muses approvingly. In truth, it wasn't as fancy as she had expected for the Moon, but a whole lot better than she would expect from anything Genkai had been involved in providing.

Quickly removing her dress and what remains of her underwear, the Princess leaves her clothes and towel by the door, carrying her bath things as she moves over to the stalls, giving a curious look towards the strange device.

The device reveals itself to be a shelf-like protrusion from the wall, but on top of it is an imprint of a right human palm.

With an odd fascination, Rei puts her hand into the imprint to see what will happen.

Rei's right hand suddenly feels ticklish, and before she can react, the contour of the third stall away from her lights up in a soft red light, a hand-shaped hole melting into its door at waist level. "Welcome, Sailor Mars," a pleasant female voice emanates from the device she has put her hand on.

"Oooh! It's personalised to me already," Rei giggles slightly, stepping over to the now crimson illuminated stall and putting her hand in the hole that appeared.

"Michiru, you naughty girl," a new female voice says, as soon as Rei inserts her left hand into the newly-created slot in the door. "You forgot your glove again."

There is a girlish giggle, and the door to the stall slides open with a whoosh.

Ami remains where she is for several minutes before sighing. All I'm doing is thinking in circles, going nowhere.

Remembering Genkai's words about the glove, she heads into the bedroom before activating hers, her luggage appearing in one corner of the room. She returns to the gymnasium a moment later and turns to the old woman.

"Is there a computer or vidphone here anywhere? I suppose I should contact my parents and let them know that my stay here has been somewhat... extended." Ami grimaces.

"Michiru?" Rei frowns, "My name is Rei, not Michiru," the Martian Princess remonstrates the... bathroom.

Shrugging it off, she enters the stall so she can begin cleaning herself. Even after Ami's little trick with the water, the dirtiness she felt after being molested demanded a good scrubbing to get herself feeling back to normal.

"You want to call, do you?" Genkai asks, staring at the little girl intently. "Access communications network," she commands Ami's glove, the jewel glowing dimly in response.

"Please state the destination of your call," a male baritone asks.

Ami blinks in surprise, but manages to recover quickly. "Mariner Castle, Mercury. Private access line..." Ami relays a short code to her glove, giving her authorization to connect to the royal family's private secretary.

"Please remember that this is not a secure connection on both ends," Genkai warns Ami, before turning to Makoto. "Will there be anything else, Dearie?"

Ami nods to the woman. "Thank you for your assistance, Ms. Genkai."  Turning back to her glove, she waits for the connection to take place.

The royal secretary, Cecilia, answers the call. "Mistress Ami?!" she exclaims. "Where have you been?"

Giving herself a deep scrubbing where she can remember feeling the wretched little pervert pawing her, Rei follows by rubbing in some soothing oils and shampooing her hair before rinsing off.

That done, she exits the stall and enters the large bath, making sure to stay near the edge, and enjoys a relaxing soak for a while.

Then, before her skin starts to prune,  she exits the bath, going over to towel herself off. Wrapping the large towel around her body, and a small one over her hair, she gathers up her things and leaves the bathroom.

Ami's face breaks into a wan smile as she hears the familiar voice. "I'm sorry for leaving with so little warning, Cecilia. I had to take a rather unexpected trip to Luna; Mother and Father know about it. I'm calling to let you know that I have no idea when I'll be returning; Queen Serenity has... retained me on a matter of some import, and I'm not exactly sure when it will be concluded. Please, let my parents know that I'm fine here, and Filia is here to keep an eye on me still. I'll call again once I have a better idea of when I might be back, but until then don't expect me back on Mercury any time soon."

Cecilia sighs. "If Their Majesties are aware..." she trails off, shaking her head. "Please do take care, Mistress Ami. Make sure to brush your teeth, and go to bed early... and don't give your auntie Filia too much trouble, alright?"

Ami rolls her eyes. "Yes, Cecilia, I'll take care of myself. No, I won't give Filia any trouble. Tell Mother and Father that I miss them, and that I hope to come home very soon.  And don't worry about me, I'll be fine here." With that she lets the connection close. At least I hope so.

As she checks the time, she realizes there are still several hours to go before the reception for the Earthlings. She decides to take the opportunity to get a better look at the place that seems likely to be her home for some time. She heads towards the blue-colored door, curious to see what sort of "utilities" have been provided for them.

Ami sees Rei emerging from a set of double doors, wearing only a towel. Rei spots the little princess a few moments later.

Ami flushes a beautiful shade of crimson and covers her mouth as she gasps. "Oh my... I'm so sorry, Princess Rei! I didn't realize you were using the baths..." She quickly turns away from the towel-clad girl to give her more privacy.

Rei giggles slightly at Ami's reaction, her mood a whole lot better after a relaxing bath. "Don't worry, Princess, don't they take communal baths on Mercury? Besides, I'm decent," she gestures to the large towel wrapped around her body which covers from above her breasts down to her calves.

"I must admit, I'm surprised the facilities are so nice. Since Genkai was the one who set this up..." she trails off, expecting anyone who has known the old ghoul for even as short a time as Ami has to understand her point.

Ami turns back at the older princess' words of reassurance. "Well, they DO have communal baths back home, but I've never attended one myself. At least on Mercury, it's generally frowned upon for children my age." Her mouth gives a slight twist of disgust at the admission.

"Is Genkai really that bad? She seems a bit... abrupt to me, but nice enough once you get past that. I mean, I was expecting to be crammed in wherever they could find room for me once I heard that the Earth delegation was on its way here. This is certainly better than trying to find a place to stay out in the city."

"Ah," Rei nods in understanding, "Well, I suppose I didn't go to communal baths much when I was your age, either. Though it was more a case of shyness on my part," she grins wickedly, "But I got over that as I got older."

"Genkai, though? She never used to bother me that much..." Rei says, adopting a more thoughtful tone as she walks about half the distance between her and Ami before leaning against the wall, "She's been my tutor for the past few years for most of my academic and magical subjects. I just thought she was a cranky, sarcastic, old woman. We insulted each other a lot, but nothing much ever came of it... even though I did ask to have her executed more times than I can count," she smiles slightly in remembrance, "But lately her duties have been expanded so she basically has free reign to do what she likes to me, and I've discovered that the old bitch can fight like you wouldn't believe." she shrugs philosophically, before concluding, "She's pretty much been lording it over me ever since."

Ami giggles. "That reminds me of my first programming tutor. The old grouch asked me to write a program that just put the words "Hello Mercury!" on the screen; I was so infuriated that he thought I was that stupid, I hacked into the palace database and had his living quarters relocated next to the scullery."

She grins at the memory. "Of course, he had me fix all the security holes in the system as a punishment, but I at least got him once. He was never foolish enough to let his guard down around me again though."

She smiles. "It seems strange to say it now, but I almost miss the old fellow; I absolutely hated him at the time though."

"Heh, that's more interesting than anything I ever tried with my old tutors. Although I don't really miss any of them. They were much easier to intimidate than Genkai, which was certainly convienient, but my parents never approved. They stopped hassling me about my studies after Genkai was able to remain in the job for over a month, though."

While the King and Queen of Mars were both wonderful people, whom Rei loved dearly, they were still her parents, and consequently afforded a great deal of respect.

"Anyway," she says, getting up from where she was leaning on the wall, "I'd best go dry my hair and get dressed. I'll see you in a little bit, Princess." Rei smiles as she walks past the younger Princess, heading towards the door.

"Of course, my apologies for holding you up." Ami nods to the princess as she heads back out into the main room.

Let's see... Rei came out of the double doors in a towel, so the baths must be through there. Those doors over there look like toilets-although I wonder why the one is labeled "Rika"? I suppose I'll have to take door number three then...

With that, Ami heads for the doorway leading into the kitchenette.

Makoto absentmindedly unpacks her things in her room, idly wondering where Eiko is. "Well, no matter," she says to herself. "I'll just make us something to eat in the kitchen, and we can all look at the book later." Setting the tome down on the center of her bed carefully, she wanders over to the kitchenette, wondering what she should make. I always think better in a kitchen, anyway.

Ami finds a very modern, is small, kitchen. It's in a sharp contrast to the conservative gym equipment back in the main room.

A slightly hurt expression appearing on her face at her casual dismissal by Makoto, Genkai finally leaves the room, boarding the elevator.

A few minutes later, Makoto leaves the leftmost room and sees Rei enter the gym from the opposite direction, clad only in a towel.

"Very nice," Ami smiles. "Actually, a snack might not be a bad idea."

With that the young princess starts to look through the refrigerator in search of something she can eat without having to cook.

Ami finds some fruits and vegetables kept frozen for preservation, but nothing else.

Rei waves to Makoto as she passes, her towel almost slipping, only just being caught before revealing anything indecent. Although Makoto had already seen the goods back at the library...

Entering the bedroom, Rei removes the towel from her head and grabs her hairdryer from one of her suitcases. Quickly drying her long, raven hair, Rei then proceeds with getting dressed and putting on some makeup.

Before long, she is once more looking at her best, now dressed in a many layered set of formal robes for state occasions (and also difficult for perverts to easily get past). While the robes might not show off her figure as she'd best like, she still thinks she looks pretty good in them. It takes her a few moments to find any gloves she owns which match the bejewelled one Genkai gave her, but she soon finds a white fingerless one which lends a pleasingly asymetrical look.

Noticing the Metallia book on the centre of one of the beds, Rei goes over and opens it to the contents page.

Ami sighs. Nothing here that she can simply grab and eat, and cooking is certainly not one of the things she's studied.

Leaving the kitchen, she heads back out through the gym-nodding to Makoto as she passes her-and enters the bedroom to see about selecting a dress to wear for the reception. As she comes in, she spots Rei on one of the beds, looking at the book the others had retrieved from the burning library earlier that day. She walks over to get a closer look at it herself.

[15:24] <Corwin> As your several hours long journey approaches its end, the captain invites your four onto the bridge. Zoisite rejects the invitation, as does Endymion. Beryl and Alita, however, are there when a communication from Lunar surface arrives.
[15:25] <Corwin> "Unidentified vessel, this is Lunar control. Please respond."
[15:26] <Corwin> The liner's captain glances at you two, before responding, "This is the Divine Wind, on a diplomatic mission from Earth."
[15:26] <Corwin> There is a long silence, and he glances at Beryl and Alita again, muttering, "I thought they knew we were coming...."
[15:27] <Beryl> "I was under that impression as well, Captain."
[15:28] <Corwin> "Please hold your course, Divine Wind," a communications officer from the Moon responds at last.
[15:29] <Corwin> "Orders, Ma'am?" the captain asks, turning to look at Alita.
[15:30] <Corwin> The latter shrugs, and glances at Beryl in turn. "To wait, or not to wait," she muses.
[15:31] <Beryl> "It would hardly be becoming of us to not wait. But then again, a forceful appearance might help us at the bargaining table," Beryl muses.
[15:32] <Corwin> "If it were me, I'd fire at their communications tower," Alita says, more to herself. "But then again, Endy would get all whiny and stuff."
[15:33] * Beryl raises an eyebrow.
[15:34] <Corwin> "Well, you know how he is." Alita sighs. "Fine, tell them we'll wait. It's not like another hour would change anything."
[15:34] <Corwin> The captain relays this answer to the Moon, looking relieved.
[15:34] <Beryl> "How much firepower are we carrying? Just out of curiosity?" Beryl asks.
[15:35] <Corwin> "We should be able to take on a battle cruiser and win," Alita replies casually. "Anyway, I'll go prepare," she announces, turning on her heels. "Gotta make myself presentable for meeting her...."
[15:36] <Beryl> "Her?"
[15:36] <Corwin> -------------
[15:37] <Corwin> Makoto's glove beeps, interrupting her in the middle of preparing some sandwiches.
[15:41] <Makoto> Makoto looks at her glove curiously.  "How strange.  It's never done _that_ before."
[15:41] <Corwin> A few moments later, it begins flashing, light emitting from the gem imbedded in it.
[15:42] <Makoto> Makoto sets down the knife she was using and turns her hand over to inspect the gem, pressing it gently to see what happens.
[15:43] <Corwin> A holographic image of Genkai's face appears above the gem. "Hello," she greets the young princess. "Did I call at a bad time?"
[15:43] <Makoto> "Oh!  Not at all, Genkai-san," Makoto chirps.  "It's good to see you again."
[15:45] <Corwin> "I wish I had time for many pleasantries," she says, sighing. "But the Earth delegation has arrived ahead of schedule. Our information on their propulsion systems has apparently been flawed."
[15:46] <Makoto> "Ooooh?" Makoto noises, looking at the hologram with wide eyes.  "Well, should we go and meet them, then?"
[15:48] <Makoto> She frets for a moment.  "What should I wear?  Rei-chan said that the Earthlings could be dangerous."  Makoto frowns.  "Well, Eiko-chan didn't do my packing, so I should be able to find something nice."
[15:48] <Corwin> Genkai glances at Makoto's clothing, and hides a smile. "We are introducing them to our wonderful Lunar bureaucracy. You have time to change, Makoto."
[15:48] <Corwin> As if remembering something, she asks, "Could you inform your two friends at the same opportunity?"
[15:49] <Makoto> "Oh, good."  Makoto removes her favorite apron (the one that reads 'Piyu-Piyu' with a small chick on the front between the letters) and nods.  "I'll do that, Genkai-san.  Oh, and that reminds me.  How's your granddaughter Rika-chan doing?"
[15:50] <Corwin> Genkai snorts. "Cleaner, in more ways than one. Good day, Makoto." Her image disappears, and so does the glow from the gem.
[15:51] <Makoto> "Hmmm," Makoto muses, looking at the collection of small half-finished sandwiches forlornly.  "Well, duty calls."  Sighing, she walks from the kitchen, looking around for the other princesses.  "Rei-chan!  Ami-chan!"
[15:52] <Corwin> ------------
[15:55] <Corwin> Half an hour later, Sylphiel leads the trio of princesses through the maze of palace hallways, having come to pick them up. On her left hand is a glove, appearing just like the one the three wear. After a fairly short walk, the four of them reach a moderate-sized reception hall. A dozen of people are there, Queen Serenity amongst them. About half of those present are military, and all the women wear similar gloves to those the girls have.
[15:55] <Corwin> "Ah, welcome!" Serenity greets the trio, as Sylphiel excuses herself and leaves. "You girls are just in time!"
[15:56] * Rei-chan curtseys to the Queen, "We came as soon as we could, your Majesty."
[15:56] <Makoto> Makoto blinks curiously, but waits for one of the other princesses to speak first; Rei seems to know her way around these functions quite well.
[15:57] * Ami-hime also curtsies to the Queen. "I apologize for the delay, your Majesty. I wasn't expecting the Earth delegation to arrive so quickly."
[15:57] * Makoto follows suit.
[15:58] <Corwin> "Neither was I," Serenity replies, shrugging. "Sneaky bastards, those Earthlings."
[15:58] <Rei-chan> "We will have to be careful around them," Rei agrees, "No telling what tricks they might have up their sleeves."
[16:00] <Corwin> Queen Serenity is about to say something, but Sylphiel announcing the arrival of the Earth party interrupts her. Three people walk into the reception hall -- a man in a gray military uniform, and two women who couldn't be further apart, one petite and seemingly fragile, while the other a veritable red-headed giantess.
[16:02] * Rei-chan draws herself up, standing beside the Queen and dismissing the man entirely as she gives the two women a careful once over.
[16:03] <Corwin> "Yo," the petite girl greets everyone, her eyes darting around, as if in search for something. "So she's not here after all?" she mumbles to herself.
[16:03] <Makoto> Makoto resists the urge to hide behind Rei-chan and peek over her shoulder -- barely.
[16:04] * Ami-hime eyes the approaching group warily, not exactly sure what to expect from any of them.
[16:04] * Rei-chan frowns slightly at the lack of politeness from the smaller girl, glancing at the Queen to see how she responds.
[16:05] <Corwin> Serenity is seemingly unaffected by the girl, and focuses her eyes on the other two Earth delegation members.
[16:06] <Corwin> The rest of Serenity's various aids are silent, waiting for a word from their queen.
[16:07] * Rei-chan follows suit, reluctantly admitting to herself that the Earthlings aren't the animal-skin bedecked savages she had half expected.
[16:08] * Beryl saunters into the room gracefully, silk Chinese sty le dress clinging just so in all the right places. Black of darkest midnight, the dress flowed to just above the floor. A slit up one side made every step tantalizing, hinting at the wonders underneath. An ebony lily design wrapped around the upper portion of the low cut dress, coming to rest on her right breast.
[16:08] <Beryl> Waves of red hair cascaded down her back like a crimson river. Beryl brushed her hair back casually, revealing lily-shaped diamond earrings. All in all, she was quite an impressive sight.
[16:10] * Rei-chan is torn between gaping at the new arrival in lust, and feelings of jealousy that she had elected to wear her own far more conservative formal robes to this occasion. 'Damn, I knew I should have went with the cheongsam... it's all those perverts' fault!'
[16:11] <Corwin> "I am Serenity," the silver-haired queen says, once all three approach her. "Welcome to Luna."
[16:12] <Corwin> The petite girl waves at her with a smile. "I'm Alita, and this seems like a fun place."
[16:12] <Corwin> Serenity smiles as well. "We try our best."
[16:14] <Beryl> "I am Beryllium Wil Tesla Himemiya. It is an honor your Majesty," Beryl bows.
[16:15] * Beryl calmly scans the room once she rises.
[16:15] * Rei-chan quirks an eyebrow. 'Beryl?' But otherwise makes no response.
[16:15] <Corwin> The uniformed Earthling steps forward, and bows deeply, as if trying to outdo the red-head. "I am General Zoisite of the Earth's armed forced. On behalf of King Azusa and Earth, please accept our greetings."
[16:16] * Ami-hime blanches as the red-haired woman gives her name, but gives no other outward sign of acknowledgement.
[16:20] <Corwin> Serenity nods curtly. "As I've said, welcome. I am curious, however. Was there not supposed to be a representative of the Earth's Royal House on this delegation?"
[16:23] <Beryl> "Yes, there is. However, the prince has taken ill. Nothing major, I assure you. He will meet with you at his earliest convenience."
[16:24] <Beryl> "For the moment, I have been given authority over the delegation."
[16:24] <Corwin> "Space sickness," Alita says with a snort, earning her a nasty glare from Zoisite. "Gosh, he's such a baby sometimes."
[16:26] <Beryl> "But a cute one, none the less," Beryl said, effecting an air of casualness.
[16:26] <Corwin> Alita shrugs. "I guess. If you like wimps."
[16:27] <Beryl> "Depends on your point of view I suppose. After all, most people can't keep up with the likes of you." Beryl's amusement is easily seen.
[16:27] * Rei-chan takes a step forward from her position next to Queen Serenity, frowning slightly at the off topic conversation, and hoping to get things back on track. "I am Princess Rei Aresion of Mars, I hope these talks can pave the way towards better relations between Earth and the peoples of the Silver Millenium," she says, bowing slightly towards the Earthlings.
[16:28] * Beryl inclines her head slightly, but otherwise says nothing.
[16:28] <Corwin> "Yeah, yeah," Alita says, sauntering forward. "I bet you like a good fight just as much as I do."
[16:30] * Ami-hime nods. "I am Princess Ami Hermesia of Mercury, and it is an honor to be present at such a historic occasion."
[16:30] * Rei-chan smirks slightly and is about to reply in the positive, but catches herself in time, feeling that Queen Serenity wouldn't approve. "There is no harm in a little rivalry, but outright hostilities help no one," she says, hoping her answer will keep from offending either the Queen or the Earthlings.
[16:33] * Beryl smiles at the young Mercurian princess. "My, aren't you the cutest little thing?"
[16:34] * Ami-hime narrows her eyes and frowns, but says nothing in reply.
[16:36] * Beryl blinks and gives an internal shrug. "Kids these days," she thinks.
[16:37] <Corwin> "I am Makoto de la Joviana," the princess from Jupiter finally says, gathering up her nerve while wishing Eiko was there. "I'm a princess too! Nice to meet you!"
[16:39] <Beryl> "You as well," a genuine smile touching her lips. At least someone here had a proper name. "A Jovian princess I take it?"
[16:41] <Makoto> "The fifth in succession," Makoto confirms.
[16:43] * Beryl turns her gaze back to Serenity. "I hope our talks will bare fruit."
[16:44] <Corwin> Serenity nods, a contemplative look on her face. "So do I, Miss Beryl."
[16:48] * Beryl tenses slightly at the shortening of her name, but holds her temper. "The trip was long. I'm sure my people would like their rest," Beryl hinted, none too subtly.
[16:50] * Ami-hime tenses slightly at hearing Beryl's name repeated, but again holds her silence.
[16:51] <Corwin> "Some of us, anyway," Zoisite comments, shooting a glare full of superiority at Beryl. "I am always ready to discuss matters of importance."
[16:51] <Corwin> Serenity takes her eyes off Beryl, and nods absently. "Excellent. I'm sure my general staff have a lot they would like to go over with you."
[16:52] <Corwin> At a wave of her hand, the military personnel exchange glances, before approaching the Earth general.
[16:56] * Beryl gives Zoisite an unreadable look, but does not jump to the bait.
[16:58] <Corwin> "I'm sure that Sylphiel, our High Priestess, would be delighted to show you to the quarters assigned for you, Miss Beryl," Serenity tells the red-head, and at her words, Sylphiel appears by Beryl's side, bowing respectfully.
[17:02] * Beryl bows back. "Of course. Zoisite, try not to give away the kingdom, would you?" Beryl waits for Sylpiel's lead.
[17:03] <Corwin> A giggle escapes Makoto's mouth, as she recalls the Queen bemoaning the exact same thing just a short time earlier.
[17:13] <Corwin> Though not having much love for her two companions, Beryl trusts Zoisite's competence as a general and devotion to Earth, at the very least, and feels at ease leaving him with Serenity's military aids. She follows Sylphiel's lead, and exits the room with a bow at Serenity.
[17:14] <Corwin> Alita opts to remain in the room, ignoring both Beryl and Zoisite, not really under either of their command. She keeps eyeing Rei, but otherwise remains silent.
[17:14] <Corwin> Zoisite leaves as well, taken to an adjacent room.
[17:16] * Ami-hime discreetly watches Beryl leave the room with the priestess, inwardly relieved that the red-haired woman is gone.
[20:44] * Rei-chan notices Alita's scrutiny and draws slightly closer to her. "Something else you wanted to ask me, Lady Alita?" she asks pleasantly.
[20:46] <V-chan> "Ask you? No." Snorting, she adds, "And don't call me a lady. That couldn't be farther from the truth."
[20:46] * Ami-hime blinks, taken aback by the woman's rather abrupt manner.
[20:47] * Rei-chan clenches a gloved fist slightly at the Earthling's tone. "Perhaps I was mistaken, then," she says, her veneer of pleasantness slipping as she drifts back over towards Queen Serenity before she causes a diplomatic incident.
[20:47] <V-chan> Serenity moves to her remaining aids, giving the girls a smile as she goes, speaking with the advisors in hushed tones.
[20:48] <V-chan> "Was it something I said?" Alita asks Ami with a smirk.
[20:48] * Ami-hime blushes. "I... I'm just not used to people being quite so forward."
[20:49] <Rei-chan> "I suppose things work differently on Earth," Rei says philosophically.
[20:50] <V-chan> "But that girl's a Martian, isn't she? I didn't think they were such wimps." Alita ponders, scratching her chin. "Endy should fit right in with your bunch, then."
[20:51] * Ami-hime coughs. "Exactly what position do you hold on Earth, Miss Alita?" Ami asks, trying to steer the conversation onto a less inflammatory subject.
[20:52] <V-chan> "I wonder..." Alita drawls out. "I'm supposed to be a combat instructor to the head wimp, I think." She smiles toothily. "Doesn't bother me in the slightest! The job has perks."
[20:53] <Ami-hime> "Head wimp?" Ami looks a bit puzzled.
[20:53] * Rei-chan grits her teeth. "I think you should reconsider your opinion," she says, now sounding anything but pleasant, "Mars isn't known as the Star of War for nothing."
[20:54] <V-chan> "Endy," she replies, before hearing Rei's challenge. Alita's grin widens. "So there's spirit in you after all, beneath all these layers?"
[20:55] <Rei-chan> "It's always unwise to judge by surface appearances," Rei replies, thinking of Genkai and the pervert at the library.
[20:55] <V-chan> "Would you like to back those words with your fists, Martian Girl?" Alita asks, stepping towards the raven-haired princess.
[20:57] * Rei-chan grins, "Now isn't the time or place, but a... friendly, spar could be arranged." She suspects Alita could prove a challenge, but surely not on the same order as Genkai or... the pervert. Besides, it would do her some good to show the upstart Earthling her place.
[20:58] * Ami-hime breathes a sigh of relief. She had been afraid the two older girls would start fighting right then and there.
[21:00] <V-chan> "I'll be looking forward for that, Your Highness Crown Princess Rei Aresion of Mars," Alita says, listing the other girl's titles, before stepping past her and towards the Queen.
[21:01] <Rei-chan> "As will I, Alita," Rei replies quietly, paying more careful attention to how the other girl moves as she walks off.
[21:02] <V-chan> Alita walks with the gait of a trained fighter, resembling Genkai's grace to Rei's watchful eyes.
[21:03] * Rei-chan twitches slightly at the similarity to Genkai's movements. 'No way. Even if she uses the same style, she won't have near the old ghoul's experience....'
[21:05] <V-chan> "It's been a pleasure, Serenity!" Alita tells the Queen of the Moon with a wide smile. "I already got myself a promising spar, and it was well-worth the wait you put us through!"
[21:05] <V-chan> Serenity returns the girl's smile, as she had before. "It was an unfortunate mix-up."
[21:06] <V-chan> Alita nods in mock seriousness. "Undoubtedly."
[21:06] <Rei-chan> "Well, I can say that things certainly won't be dull around here now, Ami-chan," Rei says, moving to stand next to the Mercurian Princess.
[21:07] <V-chan> "Would you like someone to show you to your quarters?" Serenity asks Alita. "Or would you like to join General Zoisite--"
[21:07] <V-chan> "Not on your life," Alita interrupts her. "Our tastes run too far apart."
[21:08] <V-chan> "I see." Serenity frowns. "Perhaps you would like a tour of our... training facilities?"
[21:09] <V-chan> Alita's eyes light up. "A Lunar gym? She could be there!" The petite girl nods excitedly. "I want to go! I want to go!"
[21:09] <Ami-hime> "That's for certain." Ami lets out the shudder she'd been suppressing. "Seeing that other woman was..." She trails off, unable to even say her name.
[21:10] <Rei-chan> "Spooky, isn't it," Rei nods, speaking in a low whisper, "Still, I doubt she's our Beryl. It'd be far too convenient."
[21:11] * Ami-hime nods. "Stranger things have happened though. I know I'll be keeping an eye on her while she's here, anyway." she murmurs to the older girl.
[21:12] <V-chan> "What would you like to do now?" Serenity calls out in a louder tone, addressing her guests. "I've extended an offer to Miss Alita to see the Lunar Guard's training facilities, and when she leaves that will effectively end our little reception."
[21:12] <Rei-chan> "I'll certainly be keeping an eye on her myself," Rei replies, her expression becoming slightly glazed as her mind wanders...
[21:13] * Rei-chan jolts out of her brewing fantasy at the Queen's voice. "Oh! Ah, yes, I'd be happy to accompany Alita on her tour," she says, meeting the other girl's eyes with a challenging glint.
[21:14] <V-chan> "You highness," Makoto addresses the Queen, approaching her hesitantly, "I would like to check on Eiko-chan -- that's the girl I came with -- but I don't know where she went, and...." She wrings her hands. "What should I do?"
[21:17] <V-chan> "I believe she's being entertained by my daughter," Serenity replies to Makoto. Catching a middle-aged minister's elbow, she asks him, "Would you be so kind as to show our visiting dignitary to my daughter's quarters?"
[21:18] <V-chan> The man gapes at the queen for a brief moment, before bowing deeply. "It shall be done, My Queen." Turning towards Makoto, he says, "This way, please, Your Highness."
[21:19] * Ami-hime glances towards the retreating Jovian princess for a moment, and then shrugs. "I suppose I can accompany you as well. There isn't much else for me to do at the moment, it would seem." She is definitely not spending any more time with the Lunar princess than necessary.
[21:19] <Rei-chan> "If you're lucky, Ami-chan, you might see something interesting," Rei smiles at the younger girl as she heads over towards Alita.
[21:20] <V-chan> Serenity taps her lips, before walking towards the exit and tapping one of the guards on the shoulder. "Our guests would like to see the Lunar Guard's training facilities," she says, indicating the three girls with a wave of her hand.
[21:21] * Ami-hime nods and follows the dark-haired princess. "It's certainly better than the alternative."
[21:21] <V-chan> The young man salutes to the Queen, and then stands rigidly and waits for the girls to come near, before leading them on their tour.
[21:22] <V-chan> ----------------
[21:24] <V-chan> The guard's tour of the facilities ends at a spacious gym, in the center of which there is a closed off arena usually used for sparring. A few more guards are training in the gym, but the arena itself is unused.
[21:26] <V-chan> Alita vaults herself into the improvised ring, grinning as she bounces on the soles of her shoes.
[21:27] <V-chan> "You use this place for spars, don't you?" she asks the guard with a smirk.
[21:28] <Rei-chan> "So eager, are you Alita?" Rei asks, smirking at the confident girl.
[21:28] <V-chan> "Why, I thought you'd never ask," she replies with a smirk of her own.
[21:29] <Rei-chan> "Just give me a moment to get changed," she says, indicating her cumbersome robes, "These aren't exactly suited for what we have planned." She gets the attention of their guide, "I require a training uniform, and a place to get changed."
[21:30] <V-chan> He dutifully directs Rei to an adjacent room, where spare uniforms are kept. Rei finds it much like the facilities she saw while on Mars.
[21:33] * Rei-chan sheds her robes as quickly as possible, dressing in a uniform of her size, and tying off her long hair with a ribbon from her former outfit so it won't get in the way during the fight. That done, she re-enters the gym and hops onto the ring herself.
[21:33] * Ami-hime smiles. "Good luck, Rei-sempai!"
[21:33] <V-chan> As Rei hops into the ring, she notices her guide being dragged out of it, unconscious. Alita shrugs, as Rei looks at her. "I got bored," she says simply.
[21:34] <Rei-chan> "Thank you, Ami-chan," Rei gives the younger Princess a smile before facing Alita, and noticing the guard, "I suppose that counts as a warm-up for you. Give me a second to loosen up, myself," she says, doing a few stretches.
[21:35] <V-chan> Alita leans against the ropes warding off the sparring arena, glancing at Rei through half-lidded eyes.
[21:35] * Rei-chan finishes her warm-up and faces Alita once more. "Any special conditions for the spar?"
[21:36] * Ami-hime watches somewhat anxiously, having never seen a fight like this in person before.
[21:36] <V-chan> "Knockout or submission?" Alita offers. "And I'll hold off the high blows. Wouldn't want to mar that pretty face o' yours."
[21:38] <Rei-chan> "How nice of you," Rei says dryly, "I think knockout or submission works well," she bows to Alita before saying "Ami-chan, can you call the beginning of the match, please, seeing as our guide is indisposed."
[21:40] <Ami-hime> "Me? I.. I suppose so." Ami waits for the two to face off against one another, then nods. "GO!"
[21:41] * Rei-chan tests Alita's defences with a fast thrust kick at her midsection, holding back on the power until she can properly gauge the other girl.
[21:43] <V-chan> The kick doesn't reach Alita, who smirks, and suddenly disappears from view, trying to sweep Rei off her feet.
[21:46] <V-chan> Alita's leg sweep goes through Rei's guard, already incomplete due to being unbalanced from her earlier attack. Rei feels her world tumble along with her, and crashes on her back, rebounding off the mats slightly. As she lies there, stunned, she hears Alita's laugher echo in her ears.
[21:46] * Ami-hime winces as she sees Rei hit the mat. "Come on, Rei-sempai! You can do it!" she shouts, then blushes as she realizes what she's just done.
[21:47] * Rei-chan picks herself up quickly, "Heh, you're pretty good," she admits. "But we're only just getting started."
[21:49] <Rei-chan> Back on her feet and ready to go, Rei launches a quick jab at Alita.
[21:51] <V-chan> Surprised, Alita barely manages to bring her left hand up from her guard and intercept Rei's jab. Her laughter stops, though the mirth seems to have migrated to her eyes. Still holding onto Rei's arm, she attempts to backhand the other girl with her free, right hand.
[21:52] <V-chan> Rei manages to lean back in time, freeing her hand from Alita's grip in the process.
[21:53] * Rei-chan smirks, feeling this fight is on her level. After being so easily overmatched in recent encounters, it feels good.
[21:53] <Rei-chan> Using her backwards momentum, Rei spins round, launching an elbow jab at Alita's chest.
[21:55] <V-chan> Alita is too fast, and avoids the jab with time to spare. Instead of attacking, she settles into a defensive stance, and beckons Rei towards her.
[22:00] <Rei-chan> Happy to oblige, Rei moves in, making a palm thrust to Alita's solar plexus.
[22:01] <V-chan> The strike goes wild, Rei's hand landing on Alita's left shoulder and sliding forward, as Rei stumbles towards her opponent.
[22:02] <V-chan> Startled by Rei's action, Alita reflexively launches an uppercut at the other girl.
[22:04] <V-chan> Rei brings her left arm to block the strike to her chin just in time, but that isn't enough to stop Alita's attack. Rei finds herself flying through the air, once more landing on the mat on her back.
[22:05] <V-chan> "Get up!" Alita calls out. "Show me your fire, Martian Girl!"
[22:05] * Ami-hime cringes as Rei slams into the mat once again.
[22:06] * Rei-chan flips to her feet, looking none the worse for wear, "More than happy to," she calls back, her blood pumping furiously.
[22:33] <Rei-chan> A determined expression on her face, Rei lashes out with a roundhouse kick at Alita, only barely holding back her full strength now.
[22:35] <V-chan> Both girls attack with roundhouse kicks at the same time, but Rei is a bit faster, and her foot slams into Alita's back, sending her flying at the ropes. She grabs them to steady herself, and whirls around, facing Rei again.
[22:36] * Ami-hime claps her hands excitedly as Rei's attack lands successfully.
[22:36] <V-chan> "Not bad," she says, settling into a stance Rei is used to see swordsmen in, of all people.
[22:37] <V-chan> At some signal only she can hear, Alita goes into action. She comes in from the front, her right hand going for Rei's chest in a quick jab.
[22:39] * Rei-chan brings her hand down to knock the jab away, but is too slow.
[22:41] <Rei-chan> "Oohf" Rei grunts, stepping backwards from the blow, before ducking down and countering with a foot sweep!
[22:42] <V-chan> Having struck Rei's chest, Alita nimbly leaps back, avoiding the leg sweep.
[22:43] <Rei-chan> "I can definitely see why you've got the combat instructor job," Rei admits, recovering her stance.
[22:43] <V-chan> "Perhaps we should stop?" she asks with mock concern. "We wouldn't want you to get all sweaty, now would we, Highness?"
[22:43] <Rei-chan> "Oh, no. I'm enjoying this far too much to stop now," Rei replies, tossing her ponytail back from where it has fallen over her chest.
[22:44] <V-chan> "I'm glad," Alita says, waiting for Rei to come at her.
[22:44] * Rei-chan takes a step forward before launching a right cross at her opponent.
[22:45] <V-chan> Alita opts to dodge the attack instead of blocking it, this time, perhaps sensing the power her opponent put behind it.
[22:45] * Rei-chan quickly retracts her fist, preparing to defend the inevitable counterattack.
[22:48] <V-chan> A mischievous glint in her eyes, Alita launches her body into the air, flipping agilely over Rei's head, and attempting to tag the back of it with her index finger.
[22:53] <V-chan> Rei turns around swiftly, and dances out of the way of the tap, Alita's finger brushing against the other girl's bangs.
[22:53] <V-chan> "You've got potential," Alita says simply, retracting her hand. "Endy would've been so owned by this."
[22:55] <Rei-chan> "Very flashy," Rei admits, "I never expected you to do that. But it'll take more than a flashy trick to beat me."
[22:55] <V-chan> "I can do basics, too," she replies, settling into a boxing stance now.
[22:56] * Rei-chan adopts a kick-boxing stance, "So I've seen," she acknowledges.
[22:58] <V-chan> Alita advances slowly, but then steps in suddenly, wind rushes at her passing, as she comes at Rei with a right hook.
[22:59] * Rei-chan simply slides to the left, letting the blow pass her by before she counters with an uppercut to Alita's stomach.
[23:01] <V-chan> Rei isn't the only one to move, as Alita changes her own path accordingly.
[23:02] <V-chan> Alita turns to face Rei, standing well within slugging range, and grins at her opponent.
[23:04] <Rei-chan> Pulling back her right fist, Rei grins back as she feints a jab towards Alita's face, only to lower her body enough to make a sweep at the other girl's legs.
[23:06] <V-chan> Alita's feet leave the ground, as she unexpectedly turns what seemed like a dodge at first into an attack, her right knee flying at Rei's stomach.
[23:07] <Rei-chan> Rei spins on her still ground foot, recovering from the failed sweep and barely getting her body out of the knee's path.
[23:08] <V-chan> Alita flips, and lands on her arms briefly, before pushing off the mat again and landing in a crouch a meter from the ropes.
[23:17] <Rei-chan> Her heart racing, Rei leaps towards her foe aiming to bring her heel down on Alita's head.
[23:17] <V-chan> Alita blocks with her forearms, and then pushes off the ground, springing up and sending Rei flying back.
[23:19] <V-chan> Rei is shocked, finds herself unable to twist in the air in time and lands on the mat for the third time, stunned again.
[23:20] <V-chan> When Rei's eyes refocus, she feels her arms wrapped back against the ropes and propping her up, and sees Alita looking at her in concern. "Oi, Martian Girl. You okay in there?" she asks, slapping Rei lightly on her face.
[23:22] * Ami-hime approaches the edge of the ring. "Are you all right, Rei-sempai?"
[23:23] * Rei-chan shakes her head groggily, "I... I'm okay," she says, regaining her focus, "Don't worry," she manages a grin, "there's still plenty of fight left in me. I'm not ready to quit yet."
[23:23] <V-chan> Alita brings her fists together, and pushes off Rei's chest, jumping back.
[23:24] * Rei-chan nods, bringing her own guard up, and ready to resume the battle.
[23:25] <Rei-chan> Calling on her inner reserves, Rei dashes towards Alita with a fierce punch to her midsection.
[23:27] <V-chan> Alita brings her left elbow on Rei's punch, redirecting the blow downwards, before launching a straight at Rei's face.
[23:28] * Rei-chan tilts her head to the side, letting the fist fly right past her.
[23:30] <V-chan> Alita's left comes up with a short upper at Rei's chin.
[23:32] * Rei-chan barely bats the uppercut aside before the blow connects, following by launching her knee up at Alita's stomach.
[23:33] <V-chan> Alita folds around the knee, before pushing off the other girl and jumping back, holding an arm in front of her stomach.
[23:33] * Rei-chan breathes a little hard from her exertions, but wears a look of triumph at landing a good blow.
[23:35] <V-chan> "I knew I was right about you," Alita says, looking just as triumphant. She straightens up, and looks Rei straight in the eyes. "Now I won't feel bad about going all out against you."
[23:35] <Rei-chan> "All out? Sounds interesting," Rei smirks, deciding to do just the same as she advances with a thrust kick using her full strength.
[23:39] <V-chan> Alita jumps straight up, blocking the kick with her right leg before twisting in mid-air and coming at Rei with an aerial spin kick that she barely avoids, bending over backwards. Alita passes over her head, and turns around swiftly, launching a rabbit punch at the back of Rei's head.
[23:40] <V-chan> Rei is feeling triumphant about avoiding the Earth's main combat instructor attack, and then Alita disappears from her view, and everything becomes black.
[23:42] <Ami-hime> "Sempai!" Ami scrambles into the ring and moves to Rei's side, checking the girl for any serious injuries.
[23:45] <V-chan> Alita raises the topmost rope, while pushes the rest of them down, and gets out of the ring, headed for the showers. A few moments later, running water is heard from that direction, and soon Alita emerges with a bucket, water splashing out of it as she makes her way back towards the ring quickly. "Get away from her," she tells Ami, climbing back in. "There's only one thing that'll bring her out quickly."
[23:46] * Ami-hime moves away from Rei, nodding.
[23:47] * V-chan gets towards Rei, and upends the bucket over the prone girl's head.
[23:47] <V-chan> Rei -- You feel cold water, as you come to.
[23:48] <Rei-chan> "Gwah!" Rei sits bolt upright at the feeling of cold water all over her, then cradles her head, feeling awfully dizzy after the sudden movement.
[23:48] * Rei-chan looks up to see Alita. "Guess I lost, then," she admits, though she doesn't seem too upset, rather looking at Alita with respect.
[23:50] <V-chan> "You're way better than Endy," she says, offering her free hand to help Rei up, the empty bucket held in the other. "I wish I had you as a student instead," she adds wistfully.
[23:50] * Ami-hime gives Rei a critical once-over again, looking for any serious bruises or other injuries. "Are you all right?"
[23:52] <Rei-chan> "I'm alright, Ami-chan," Rei reassures the younger Princess before addressing Alita, "I have been training since I was little. Most of my recent fights have been... disappointing, though," she admits with a frown, before smiling. "I haven't had a fight like that since last time I sparred with Shayla Shayla back on Mars. She usually beat me too..." she trails off wistfully, recalling that she could usually guilt the Priestess into spending time with her because of it.
[23:53] <V-chan> Ami -- You find no serious bruising, though Rei's arms should be treated for the myriad of small bruising that came from her blocks.
[23:54] <V-chan> "Shayla Shayla? The fire priestess?" Alita asks in surprise. "I heard about her skill."
[23:55] <Rei-chan> "She's very good," Rei nods, "I try to see her whenever I can, but..." she blushes, "Um... royal visits to the temple are so disruptive that I don't get as many opportunities as I'd like...." Not exactly the truth, but not far off....
[23:56] <V-chan> "Yeah, I heard about her temper, too." Alita snorts. "Sounds like my kind of gal." Suddenly looking around, she asks, "She's not here, is she?"
[23:58] <Rei-chan> "Oh, no," Rei shakes her head, "I can't imagine her ever leaving Mars unless absolutely necessary." The thought of Shayla Shayla's fiery temper brings a warmth to Rei's heart and... other places... as she develops a rather goofy little smile.
[00:02] <V-chan> "Yeah, what a prude." Alita sighs. "So she's the head priestess of Mars. She could still visit!"
[00:03] <Rei-chan> "Yes, that celibacy rule of hers is very annoying. But I'll break through, yet," Rei swears distantly.
[00:04] * Ami-hime tugs on Rei's hand. "Come on, Sempai. Let's go get you cleaned up."
[00:05] <Rei-chan> "Hmm?" Rei notices Ami. "Oh, yes, you're right Ami-chan, I suppose I do need a shower, now."
[00:06] <V-chan> "Uh, sure, see you around," Alita tells the older princess. "Rei, wasn't it?"
[00:06] * Rei-chan looks to see if the guard is awake yet to guide Alita back to wherever she is staying.
[00:06] <Rei-chan> "Yes, Rei. It's sounds far better than Martian Girl, I think," Rei smiles at Alita.
[00:08] <V-chan> "Martian Girl Rei." Alita ponders, rolling it off her tongue. "Yeah, too wordy."
[00:08] <V-chan> With a wave, she jumps out of the ring and heads over to the unconscious guard who took them to the gym, slapping him awake.
[00:10] <Rei-chan> "Well, I'm sure the guard will be able to show you to wherever you'll be staying," Rei chuckles slightly, "I'll see you around, Alita. Maybe we'll have a rematch some time?"
[00:12] * Ami-hime climbs out of the ring and scurries over to the changing room, bringing Rei's formal dress with her as she returns.
[00:13] <V-chan> "Sure thing!" Alita replies, pausing in her activities. "I'll introduce you to Endy!"
[00:14] * Rei-chan nods to Alita as she vaults out of the ring, wincing slightly as she lands. "Thank you, Ami-chan," she says, taking her clothes from the younger Princess. "Let's be on our way, then."
[00:16] * Ami-hime shakes her head as Rei winces. "You should be more careful! You could have really gotten hurt doing that!"
[00:17] * Rei-chan waves it off, "Don't worry. This time tomorrow I'll be good as new."
[00:17] <V-chan> "That's the spirit!" Alita's voice echoes, as the two princesses leave the gym.
[00:18] * Rei-chan smiles slightly. "I think I was wrong about the Earthlings," she tells Ami as the head back towards their quarters.
[00:19] <Ami-hime> "That particular one certainly seems like she could teach you a thing or two." Ami frowns.
[00:20] <Rei-chan> "Yes, she certainly was good," Rei agrees, rubbing the back of her head, "But at least I gave it a proper fight. I think I needed that after what I've had to deal with recently."
[00:22] * Ami-hime presses the button for the elevator leading down to their quarters. "I'll take a better look at you once you've cleaned up a bit. I do know a bit about healing."
[00:23] <V-chan> The elevator arrives, promptly this time.
[00:25] * Rei-chan steps into the elevator. "I won't turn down any help," she says amiably enough, before frowning. "Didn't Genkai use a keycard to access our quarters?"
[00:27] * Ami-hime thinks for a moment. "I believe so. I have no idea where she got it, or where we'd get one ourselves though."
[00:28] * Rei-chan recalls what happened in the bathroom. "Maybe those gloves she gave us will grant access?" she says, pushing the button for the lowest floor.
[00:28] <V-chan> The lift doors close, and it descends, until stopping with the same error message it gave to Genkai a few hours earlier that day.
[00:29] * Ami-hime presses the jewel on the back of her glove, hoping that it will do something to help.
[00:30] <V-chan> The jewel beeps in return.
[00:30] <Rei-chan> Rummaging in her pile of clothes, Rei pulls out her own glove and dons it.
[00:31] * Rei-chan puts the back of her hand against the crack where Genkai swiped the keycard, so the jewel is touching it. Nothing else seems obvious....
[00:32] <V-chan> As Rei brushes the back of her hand against the crack Genkai touched with the keycard earlier, and gem in Rei's glove glows with a soft light, and the lift starts moving again.
[00:33] <Rei-chan> "I think that did it," the Martian Princess says, waiting for the lift to stop, hopefully at their quarters.

Rei and Ami enter their private gym complex, the lift's doors closing behind them.

Makoto and her guide finally manage to track down Princess Serenity, who had been showing Eiko her entire wing of the palace, to the red-head's delight.

Beryl is taken to her quarters, noticing a piece of paper on a table as soon as she enters, held down by an elephant-shaped paperweight.

"Well, guess that worked," Rei says as the arrive at their intended destination. "I'll take a quick shower, then you can see that I'm not really hurt much." Heading into her quarters, she drops off her robes (except the glove), and grabs a towel before heading to the bathroom.

Ami simply shakes her head and heads into the bedroom, seating herself on one of the beds as she waits for Rei to finish her shower.

Rei's shower goes pretty much like previously, except she finds out that the opening in the stall's door stores her glove, returning it after her soak at the large bath.

All cleaned up, and having the tension soaked out of her stressed muscles, Rei departs the bathroom with a towel wrapped around herself and a smile on her face.

Entering the bedroom, she uses the towel to cover herself from Ami as she puts on some underwear, followed by a soft flannel nightgown (red, of course).

"Okay, Ami-chan, you can look me over, if you like," she says, turning to face the younger Princess, "But after that I'm going to bed. The flight here was pretty stressful, and the rest of the day hasn't been much better." To emphasize her statement, she stretches her arms and yawns.

"All right, this shouldn't take more than a few moments." Ami carefully looks over the older princess, making note of the slight bruising on her arms and the quite-noticeable lump on the back of her head. She shakes her head ruefully. "This is why I hate fighting."

Ami carefully places one hand over the bump on the back of Rei's head and the other on her upper arm, then closes her eyes in concentration. "This should only take a moment."

OOC: Healing Touch, just need the effect and cost described. ^_^

Curious, Beryl goes to check on the note.

Beryl learns the Endymion isn't feeling well enough to leave the ship. If anything, his mysterious illness intensified. Looks like she's the head of the delegation for the foreseeable future.

Finding Eiko intact, if distracted, Makoto waves.  "Eiko-chan!  There you are.  Oh, are you and Serenity-hime getting along well?"

"Oh, totally!" Eiko chirps. "I've never seen so many fun things!" In a conspiratorial whisper, she tells her friend, "Mako-chan, I think some of these things are contraband from Earth!"

Ami's little hands glow a soft blue, and the bruises on Rei's arms disappear, while the big one on the back of her head doesn't look as menacing anymore. Suddenly, Ami collapses, draping herself over Rei, tired as hell.

OOC: Ami uses 60ep, Rei's back to 52hp

Beryl shakes her head sadly.

My prince, get better soon!

Not in any particular mood to start delegating this early, Beryl decides seeing to the welfare of her people would probably be a good thing. Right after she unpacks.

"Ami-chan!" Rei cries worriedly, seeing the younger girl collapse even as she starts to feel better.

"You really didn't have to do that," she remonstrates gently, picking Ami up and putting her on the other bed. "Now you'll need to rest as well... but you said you weren't planning on staying here. Do you even have any bedclothes with you?"

Ami shakes her head slightly. "Don't worry... I just overdid it a bit." She sits on the bed for a few moments. "I'll be fine once I catch my breath."

She goes over to rummage in her suitcase for a few minutes, bringing out a light blue nightgown. "I wasn't expecting my trip to be less than a day, you know. I just wasn't expecting to stay here for very long." Ami sighs. "I'll just wash up and change for bed."

She takes the nightgown with her into the bathroom and heads into one of the shower stalls to clean up after the rather long day.

Seeing Ami seems okay now, and feeling a fair bit better herself, Rei turns the lights off and gets in bed, falling into a peaceful sleep within moments.

Ami quickly showers and changes into her nightgown, before heading back to the now-darkened room and crawling into the other bed. A few moments later, she is sound asleep.

Ami finds that her stall is the closest to the glorified senshi recognition device, and that it shines a pretty blue when in use. Getting back, she sees that Rei is already fast asleep in one of the beds. There's still no sign of Makoto, though. She probably stayed with her friend, Eiko, Ami thinks absently, just before she herself falls asleep.

Makoto gasps, and peers around at the 'potential contraband' that Eiko is indicating.  "Wow! Usagi-chan, can you tell us anything about-- Ah, I mean, Serenity-Hime, I'm sorry!"  Makoto curties in embarassment.  "Um....  Can you tell us anything about Earth?  It's hard to learn much from the Jovian system....  Really, the Joves haven't got their borders closed anymore, but we still seem to have a little too much of the old tradition; news from out-system is so hard to come by."

Beryl smiles as she surveyed her work. The room now suits her fancy almost perfectly.

That having been taken care of, Beryl leaves her quarters in search of her ill prince.

"Earth has so many hot guys!" Serenity younger gushes, spreading her arms wide. "That many! And they're all very nice, and look so good in their uniforms...."

Prince Endymion is at the Divine Wind, stationed on a special runway of the Serenity Spaceport at present, the guard at Beryl's door informs her. Something about a quarantine.

Ami and Rei wake up the next day, and see no sign of Makoto. She probably spent the night with Eiko after all.

Having finished getting ready to face the new day, Rei finds herself in the kitchen, looking around curiously. "I suppose it's too much to ask that we have access to servants isn't it?" she muses, tapping her foot in annoyance.

Ami yawns and stretches as she awakens, pleased to have gotten a full night's sleep for a change. Noting that Rei is gone from the room, she dresses herself and heads out of the bedroom to look for the older princess.

Exiting the kitchen, Rei bumps into Ami. "Good morning, Ami-chan. I was just about to step out to get some breakfast. Would you like to come with me?" she asks pleasantly.

The young girl nods in reply. "I suppose I might as well; I certainly can't make anything for myself here."

Rei nods, "Yes, I can't cook either, and Genkai is unlikely to let us make use of the many servants available here. Still," she grins, "I am sure we can find a nice eating establishment somewhere out in the city, and it'll give us a chance to take in some of the sights."

Rei then enters the elevator, waiting for Ami before pushing the button for ground level.

Ami follows Rei into the elevator and waits for it to deposit them on the surface.

Beryl sighs. “Very well.”

Not really hungry, she returns to her quarters for a good night’s rest. Perhaps the morrow would see a better day?

[00:18] <Brian> Makoto raises her eyebrows as though the idea had never occured to her. "Guys?" she asks. "Is that what you talked about, Eiko-chan?"
[00:19] <V-chan> Eiko blushes, punching at Makoto's arm playfully. "You know I think guys are icky, Mako-chan!"
[00:23] <Brian> "Oh, right.  So, what's it like growing up on the moon, Serenity-hime?"
[00:24] <V-chan> "It's so boring," Serenity says, pouting. "Sylphiel's always trying to make me study boring things, and there are all those annoying balls...."
[00:25] <Brian> "Oh, balls!  I remember those, there was one on Metis once." Makoto frowns. "So, what do you like to do when you're not studying?"
[00:26] <V-chan> "Sneaking down to Earth!" Serenity chirps, giggling. "It's such a fun place!"
[00:28] <Brian> "Oh," Makoto sounds a bit put out when she realizes Serenity doesn't want to talk about the moon. But then, that does make sense, the moon is just one lump of rock, and Jupiter has nearly forty. Brightening, she asks, "What else can you tell me about earth?  Rei-chan told me that earth-people are dangerous savages. What are they really like?"
[00:28] <Brian> "Aside from really cute in uniform," she adds quickly.
[00:29] <V-chan> "Well, I already told you about the hot guys," Serenity says thoughtfully, nodding at Makoto's addition. "They have kids, and the kids are ultra cute! Misha likes them a lot, and they call her an angel when she makes candy for them."
[00:32] <Brian> "Oooh..." Makoto says. "Misha-chan sure was nice. But why is your mom so upset about you going to Earth if it's not really that bad after all?"
[00:32] <V-chan> "Well...." Serenity is silent for a long moment, and the mood gets somber. "It all predates to an Earthling called Eric. He did a lot of bad stuff, and because he came from Earth...."
[00:34] <Brian> Makoto nods, eyes brightening.  "I saw a book about that!"
[00:35] <Brian> "Right next to the book about ... um ... someone else."  Makoto frowns, unable to remember how much of Metallia is safe to speak of aloud.  "What was the story of Eric?"
[00:36] <V-chan> "He came from another Earth, just like the one Luna orbits," Serenity tells, Eiko listening to her raptly. "He gathered armies of Earthlings and demons alike, and laid siege on the Moon and on the outer colonies."
[00:38] <Brian> "Demons," Makoto mused.  "That's funny, it must have been lost from the Jovian histories."
[00:39] <Brian> "But, if there's another Earth, and another moon ... does that mean that somewhere out there, there's another Jupiter, too?" Makoto looks slightly disturbed. "Maybe one with another Makoto?"
[00:39] <V-chan> Serenity shrugs. "There was no Jupiter colony at the time, so I wouldn't be surprised."
[00:40] <V-chan> "Another Makoto?" Eiko asks. "Would she be my bestest friend, too?"
[00:41] <Brian> "I hope so," Makoto says.  "But, how many other Earths are there?  And could this ... Eric ... ever come back?"
[00:41] <V-chan> "Oh, no," Serenity says, shaking her head. "He's very firmly dead."
[00:42] <Brian> Makoto seems unconvinced, but nods anyway. "It's getting late," she says, trying to change the subject. "Have you eaten anything since the salad, Eiko-chan?"
[00:43] <V-chan> "Princess Serenity treated me to a nice lunch, Mako-chan!" she says, before suddenly looking down in shame. "You're not mad I ate without you?"
[00:45] <Brian> "Why would I be mad?" Makoto says, looking a little downcast. She pushes it aside and brightens again. "You can make it up to me, Eiko-chan. We just need to find a nice book of lunar cuisine, so I can study some new dishes!" Her eyes sparkle with subdued joy. "Speaking of which, what did you have?"
[00:46] <V-chan> "Something from... veal?" Eiko shrugs, giving her friend a helpless look. "You know I'm bad with food names and stuff, Mako-chan."
[00:49] <Brian> Makoto ponders this, then shakes her head. "It's late. I should probably get some sleep." Realizing that Eiko was probably somewhat tired herself, Makoto asked, "Are you at all tired?"
[00:49] <V-chan> "Not at all!" Eiko bravely announces, before covering a yawn with the back of her right hand.
[00:50] <V-chan> "I have plenty of space at my quarters," Serenity offers, smiling at the two.
[00:51] <Brian> "Oh?" Makoto asks, blinking. "That might be nice, we could talk about all sorts of things!"
[00:51] <V-chan> "Yes!" Serenity exclaims, clapping her hands. "We could talk about the hot Earth guys!"
[00:52] <Brian> Makoto decides that as much as the Queen went on about people listening in, the only people who would spy on the Princess's room would be... the Queen herself. That left only one obstacle between her and asking about Metallia, though Makoto doubted Serenity knew anything.
[00:52] <Brian> "Oh, right.  Guys," Makoto muses.
[00:52] <Brian> Maybe she could ask about the Senshi, instead....
[00:52] <V-chan> "Hot guys!" Serenity gushes, excited.
[00:53] <V-chan> "We could talk all night! It'd be a blast!"
[00:53] <Brian> "Hot guys," Makoto amends herself.
[00:53] <Brian> "Say, do guys like girls who can cook?"
[00:54] <V-chan> Serenity nods happily. "I bet they do! I've been told that they like talented girls very much."

Makoto wakes up the next day, the last thing she remembers being Serenity's description of a really hot guy. She moves her head sleepily, finding her cushion bumpy.

Meanwhile, Beryl sleeps in, waking up leisurely in her redecorated room.

As Ami and Rei exit the elevator, a golden-haired priestess catches sight of the two. "Mistress Ami!" Filia exclaims, rushing towards them. "I've been trying to look for you all night long!"

Ami breaks into a broad smile and rushes over to give her servant a hug. "Filia! I'm so glad you're all right... I'm fine; Ms. Genkai had me moved into a special set of quarters with Princess Rei and Princess Makoto. Did you get settled in yourself?"

"This woman asked me to wait for her for a moment," Filia tells, sobbing on Ami's shoulder, "but I knew I had to look for you!" She begins crying in earnest. "Oh, my little girl.... I've been so worried...."

Ami does her best to reassure the older girl. "It's all right, Filia, I'm fine. Queen Serenity had me atttend the reception for the Earth delegation last night, and then we had a short tour of the palace with one of the Earthlings. You don't need to worry about me, Filia." Ami smiles.

Rei frowns at Filia's distraught state. The only one responsible for this was Genkai! Taking over Ami's welfare and leaving the poor woman at a loose end. Making her way over to the pair, "I'm so sorry, Lady Filia, but I am partially to blame, since Genkai was responsible for Ami's lodgings, and much as I loathe her, I cannot deny my association with the woman. Princess Ami and I were about to go have a look around the city and partake of breakfast at one of the Moon's fine eating establishments. You are welcome to join us," she offers, turning her most dazzling smile on the blonde.

Stretching sleepily, Makoto shifts slightly and pats her pillow to try and smooth it out a bit.

Beryllium languidly rises from her slumber. A good night’s rest was just what the doctor ordered. She does her morning stretches, feeling her muscles stretch pleasantly with each motion. After a quick bath she slips into form fitting white blouse and burgundy jacket with straps running up and down the arms, and a matching skirt. An overly large belt with locks hanging off it complete the out fit.

“Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the most gorgeous red-head of them all?” She winks at the mirror and exits the room. Spotting a guard, she inquires both on the condition of the quarantine and the whereabouts of breakfast.

Makoto's pillow moans.

Beryl finds out that Endymion's mysterious space illness only worsened during his stay at the spaceport. Breakfast could be found at a nice cafeteria nearby, and the guard offers to walk Beryl there.

Beryl accepts graciously. She studies the palace while on her way, curious about what the differences between Earth and Lunar design.

Makoto looks up sleepily to see why her pillow is making such a silly noise.

Makoto sees that her head is resting in Eiko's bosom, the red-head snoring quietly on the same bed as Makoto.

Nodding sagaciously, Makoto curls up a bit tighter, drops her hands to the bed again, and goes straight back to sleep.

Makoto is awakened again by a bright flash of light. Opening her eyes, she sees Serenity kneeling on the bed with a camera, smiling widely. Judging by the light coming through the windows, it's about midday.

"Augh," Eiko moans underneath Makoto. "Pretty boys, swirly head...."

"Mmm," Makoto says, stretching, and sitting up in the bed. "Morning already? Ooh, thank you, Serenity-hime, for letting us stay here." Makoto rubs her eyes to clear the sleep from them. "Oh, Eiko-chan.... Did you rest well?"

Eiko blinks a few times, and her eyes focus on Makoto. "Sleep? Dream?"

Makoto pats Eiko on the head comfortingly. "You need some hot coco to wake up in the morning, don't you?" Turning to Serenity, she asks, "Would you like some, too?"

Serenity smiles. "I'll treat you girls. And then we can chat about the hot Earth guys again!"

Not waiting for an answer, the moon princess scrambles off the bed, and disappears into a door. Makoto vaguely recalls that it leads to some kind of closet, though said closet seemed the size of the entire training complex she had been at the day before to the Jovian princess.

"I'm up," Eiko mumbles, sitting up and shaking her head. "Let's run away before she returns?" she asks her friend hopefully.

"Oh, that would be mean," Makoto says, blinking her eyes to try and clear her head. "We just need a change of subject." She frowns, puzzling over this for a moment. "What were you talking about with her before she started talking about boys?"

"Nothing except cute boys exists in her world," Eiko whines, clutching Makoto's shoulders. "It was fun at first, but as the hours went by...."

Serenity returns at that point, dressed in a T-shirt and slacks. "Ready to go?" she asks brightly. "I know just the place! The waiters look good enough to eat!"

"I'm sorry," Makoto says apologetically.  "We really need to focus on other things before we have the free time to talk about boys anymore.  We have to find out about the original Sailor Senshi first."

"Original Sailor Senshi?" Serenity asks in confusion. "Neptune, Uranus and Pluto?"

Before Serenity can find a way to turn this into a discussion on boys, Makoto says, "Them, too, but apparently there are others that hardly anyone remembers.  So we've got to find out about them."

"There are no others," Serenity replies, shaking her head. "Why would there be? The outer colonies provide protection for the entire Solar System from outside threats."

[21:54] <Filia> OOC: Okay. You two just met Filia, Rei was filled with new rage at Genkai, and the three of you are going to dine out.
[21:55] <Filia> Before Filia can respond, her stomach grumbles. She blushes pink, looking away.
[21:56] <Rei-chan> "Oh, dear," Rei frets, stepping closer to Filia, "You must be starved! When did you last eat?"
[21:58] <Filia> "Mistress Ami had to rush to the Moon, so...." Filia frowns cutely, trying to remember. "Which day was Wednesday?"
[22:00] * Ami-hime looks shocked. "You mean you didn't eat on the flight here?"
[22:00] * Rei-chan gasps, "You haven't eaten in that long?!" she asks, shocked. "Well. we can't have that! I must insist you come along with us to get a decent meal."
[22:00] <Filia> "I'll go anywhere with the Mistress!" Filia says passionately, gathering Ami into her arms.
[22:01] * Ami-hime looks skyward for patience. "I appreciate your enthusiasm, Filia, but you CAN put me down."
[22:02] * Filia looks down at Ami's face, her eyes pleading with the young princess.
[22:03] * Rei-chan giggles. "You should feel lucky to have someone so devoted to you, Ami-chan."
[22:03] * Ami-hime sighs. "All right, if you really insist, I suppose it's all right this time."
[22:03] * Filia sighs with relief, tears appearing at the corners of her eyes. "Oh, thank you!" she gushes.
[22:05] <Ami-hime> "So where ARE we going?" Ami asks from her perch in Filia's arms. "I have no idea where any decent restaurants are here; this is my first time on Luna."
[22:06] <Rei-chan> "Well, let's be off, then," Rei enthuses, putting a hand on the small of Filia's back to guide her forward, "I'm sure we'll find a lovely place to have breakfast, and then you'll feel much better, Lady Filia."
[22:07] <Rei-chan> "Any restaurant near the palace is bound to be high class," Rei tells Ami as she proceeds.
[22:07] <Filia> "... and while we obviously have kitchens in the palace, it's all about the atmosphere, Milady," a male voice sounds from behind the trio.
[22:08] <Beryl> "Indeed. It would seem you don't spare expense on the atmosphere," Beryl says, voice full of approval.
[22:09] <Filia> "Queen Serenity insisted on it, preferring to go out to eat herself a lot," the guard replies, walking alongside Beryl.
[22:09] * Ami-hime glances over Filia's shoulder and freezes as she sees the Earthling walking along behind them.
[22:10] <Rei-chan> Turning at the voice, Rei notes the new arrivals, ignoring the guard and giving a small curtsey to the woman. "Good morning, Lady Beryl. How does the day find you?" she asks, her eyes darting to the side as she notes Ami's reaction.
[22:11] * Filia settles for a nod at the woman, averting her gaze to the ground, as she is unwilling to let go of Ami.
[22:12] * Beryl returns the curtsey with a bow, emphasizing it with a flourish. "Very well, actually. Yourself, Princess?"
[22:13] <Rei-chan> "Rather well, myself. Did I hear right that you were going to eat out? We were just going to get breakfast ourselves, would you care to join us?" the Martian Princess asks, eyeing Beryl speculatively.
[22:14] * Ami-hime shoots Rei an agonized look.
[22:15] <Filia> The guard with Beryl, his nametag saying Chiaki, stands off to the side, observing the princesses quietly
[22:15] <Beryl> "Certainly. Mr. Guard here was just escorting me to a place he's recommend. You're welcome to join us."
[22:17] * Rei-chan nods, and starts walking while allowing Beryl to catch up. "So, how is Prince Endymion faring? Has he recovered from his 'space sickness'?"
[22:19] * Filia begins following the Martian princess, her young charge in her arms.
[22:20] <Filia> The guard once more takes point, leading everyone out of the palace, though he doesn't speak with Beryl now.
[22:20] * Ami-hime huddles down close to Filia, actually happy for once to be in the priestess' arms.
[22:21] <Beryl> "He is under quarantine, actually. Odd, but I suppose not everyone can travel well. Why, I recall when my dear uncle had to make that trip through the Asian continent." A small chuckle escapes her lips.
[22:21] <Filia> "The Asian continent?" Filia asks, before she can stop herself.
[22:23] * Ami-hime leans up to whisper in Filia's ear. "She's from Earth, Filia."
[22:23] * Filia looks at Ami in surprise, her eyes open wide. It is a testament to her devotion to the Princess of Mercury that she doesn't drop the girl.
[22:24] * Beryl glances at the other two. "Ah, where are my manners. Good day, Princess," she says, nodding toward the younger. "And...?" Her gaze travels toward Filia.
[22:26] * Ami-hime shrinks away from the red-haired woman's gaze, huddling closer to Filia again.
[22:27] <Filia> "Filia ul Copt," the golden-tressed woman responds, wrapping one hand around Ami's neck protectively, as she stares Beryl down. "Head Priestess of Mercury, and retainer of Crown Princess Ami."
[22:29] * Rei-chan claps her hands, noting the tension and acting to defuse it, "Well, then!" she says brightly, "Now that we're all introduced, shall we be off?"
[22:30] <Filia> "An excellent suggestion, Your Highness," Filia says, smiling at Rei.
[22:31] * Beryl blinks, taken aback slightly at the hostility in the older and fear in the younger. 'Well, that was unexpected. You'd think I was trying to eat her or something.' Shrugging it off as unimportant, Beryl nods. "Yes. I do feel the need to taste some of the Lunar cuisine."
[22:31] * Rei-chan turns to Beryl "Wait a minute! Did you say Prince Endymion was in quarantine? Space sickness isn't supposed to be contagious..." she says thoughtfully.
[22:33] <Beryl> "I'd assumed it was more to ease the minds of the natives than any actual transmutable disease," Beryl says.
[22:34] * Rei-chan nods understandingly. "Yes, you'll have to forgive people for a bit of apprehension towards you. For so long we've had little contact with Earth except from wild tales our mothers tell us to make us behave... Still, I hope these talks can put an end to all that."
[22:35] <Beryl> "What sort of tales?" Beryl asks curiously.
[22:39] * Rei-chan covers her mouth as she gives a small laugh. "Oh, nothing worth treating seriously. Just that Earthlings are all mud covered savages who eat babies...." She gives Beryl a serious look. "You really will have to get some good PR while you're here if you want to make any headway, though. The attitude towards Earth is rather ingrained."
[22:41] <Beryl> "Eating babies?" Beryl's voice is filled with incredulity. "While I'll admit we aren't perfect, we don't eat each other!"
[22:41] * Filia gives Beryl a sideways glance, thinking that there must be foundation for those rumors, if Ami's reaction is to be judged.
[22:42] <Rei-chan> "Well, no one has been to Earth for so long." 'Officially at least....' She briefly thinks of Serenity Jr. "And these things get blown out of proportion as rumour and hearsay spreads with no actual proof either way."
[22:43] <Beryl> "Don't people do research on this kind of thing?"
[22:44] <Rei-chan> "Research makes for poor bedtime stories," Rei says apologetically.
[22:45] <Beryl> "Please, _please_ tell me I won't be negotiating with a bunch of people who think I'll be eating their kids," Beryl mutters more to herself than anyone.
[22:46] <Rei-chan> "I wouldn't worry about that," Rei consoles her, "Queen Serenity will be sure to treat you fairly."
[22:47] <Beryl> "No, I think you're right. You don't seem to be suffering from that misconception."
[22:49] <Rei-chan> "Well, I admit I was rather hesitant when I learned that Earthlings were coming here, but after we met your delegation last night I spent some time with Alita. If she's any representation of Earth, I think things would be much more interesting if we had more dealings with your people."
[22:51] * Beryl thinks about what little she knows of the violent woman. 'If she represents Earth.... No, still better than baby eaters.' "I should hope so."
[22:56] <Filia> The four, lead by Chiaki, arrive to a luxurious air car which is parked outside, seeming to be reserved for Beryl's personal use, if the sign erected next to the parking space is to be believed. The guard holds the car's doors open for the women he is escorting, before slipping into the chauffeur's seat and starting the engine.
[22:58] <Filia> Beryl sits at the front, which is a source of relief for Ami, held securely in Filia's arms at the back. Rei sits directly behind Beryl, which doesn't allow for much conversation. The air car takes off, and after a short, fairly uneventful trip, gets them to Stellar Lighthouse, an unlikely name for a restaurant.
[22:59] <Filia> As he once more holds the car's doors open for the ladies, Chiaki insists that this particular restaurant is very high class, and has exquisite cuisine.
[23:00] * Beryl slides out of her seat gracefully and waits for her companions.
[23:00] <Rei-chan> Exiting the car, Rei confidently strides into the restaurant, not expecting that she'll even need to invoke her royal status to get a table this early.
[23:04] <Filia> As Rei and her companions head into the restaurant, Chiaki stays back with the car, leaning against it.
[23:06] <Filia> The maitre 'd meets Rei as she enters the establishment, bowing as she approaches him.
[23:07] <Rei-chan> "Table for four," Rei says imperiously.
[23:09] <Filia> "We're full, I'm afraid," he says, sounding apologetic. "But if Madam is willing to wait for a few minutes, an opening will be made."
[23:10] <Filia> As Beryl comes up to Rei, she spots Zoisite inside the restaurant, sitting alone at a table. He seems to be drinking.
[23:10] <Rei-chan> "I'm sure you can make an opening sooner than that," Rei says, discretely showing her royal seal to him.
[23:12] <Filia> "Ah, my apologies!" he exclaims, bowing even deeper than previously. The maitre 'd snaps his fingers, and two large, burly waiters in tuxedos appear at his sides. "Serve the gentleman at table four his bill, Jean and Claud?"
[23:12] <Filia> The waiters pop their knuckles, and nod grimly, leaving for Zoisite's table.
[23:15] * Beryl blinks. "Wait! I know that guy!" Beryl speaks up.
[23:16] <Rei-chan> "Hmm?" Rei turns to look at Beryl.
[23:16] <Filia> Zoisite looks up, his face red, and then eeps, fishing in his pockets frantically. His expression turns into one of pure horror, and he begins gesturing frantically at Jean and Claude. They nods grimly once more, and say something, at which his head drops, and he nods slightly. Zoisite stands up afterwards, and follows Claude through the restaurant towards a door labeled 'employee only'. Meanwhile, Jean clears the table.
[23:17] <Beryl> "... Oh well." Beryl shrugs.
[23:17] <Filia> "Are you an... acquaintance of that gentleman, Madam?" the maitre 'd asks Beryl.
[23:18] <Beryl> "We're conversed. How much does he owe you?"
[23:18] * Beryl reaches for her Plutonium Card.
[23:20] <Filia> The maitre 'd smiles thinly. "Ale imported from Charon is not cheap."
[23:25] <Beryl> Beryl pauses. "How 'not cheap' are we talking about here?"
[23:30] <Filia> Beryl gets a glance from a maitre 'd, as he looks down on her despite being shorter than the red-haired Earthling. "Madam," he says, a taint of disapproval in his voice.
[23:32] <Beryl> Beryl returns the glare. "Sir," she says.
[23:34] <Filia> "Perhaps you should try the Lovely Chicken a few blocks over?" he asks Beryl.
[23:35] <Rei-chan> "Excuse me," Rei interjects, a trace of annoyance in her voice, "I'll thank you kindly to keep your remarks concerning my guest to yourself."
[23:36] <Filia> "Of course, Milady," he says, docile in a flash. "Oh, look, your table is ready." Bowing to Rei and her guests, he leads them over to table number four.
[23:38] <Filia> Menus are set in front of the four seats, and Filia reluctantly lets go of Ami, when they reach the table.
[23:38] * Rei-chan looks over the menu, wondering if she should try any specialty local dishes.
[23:39] * Ami-hime glances over the menu herself, looking for any dishes that can be served in a half-portion.
[23:39] * Beryl glances over the menu, curious about the Lunar cuisine.
[23:39] * Filia takes a menu into her arms as well.
[23:45] <Filia> The menu is dominated by foreign dishes, the vast majority of which come from the outer system. Rei recognizes a few of them, like the Aquatic Shine, from her brief interlude with the Neptunian Ambassador's daughter, though it never got anywhere in the end. The rest are fairly stumped by the names appearing on the menu.
[23:48] <Beryl> "Ahem," Beryl clears her throat. "What would you recommend? We don't have any of these at home. I'm sure you understand," She says to Rei.
[23:49] * Ami-hime gives Beryl a nervous glance, but goes back to studying her menu.
[23:50] * Filia pats Ami's leg reassuringly under the table.
[23:51] <Rei-chan> "Truthfully, I haven't had many of the items here myself. Though I can certainly recommend the Martian Peppered Pasta Bake. It's a little spicy, but I'm sure you'll enjoy it," Rei smiles at Beryl, before resuming her own survey of the menu, looking for something exotic.
[23:53] <Filia> The dishes from Saturn certainly fit that description, with their flashy names and prices that go through the roof, such that even a crown princess would feel the sting in her allowance if she were to order them. The dishes from Pluto draw Rei's eyes, though.
[23:53] * Beryl scans the menu for something that at least sounds like meat. 'They've got to have a steak or Bar-b-Que or grilled something,' Beryl thinks. 'Unless, are they all vegans?'
[23:53] <Rei-chan> After a moment, Rei elects to try the Pluto Borscht, and sets down her menu, waiting for the others to decide.
[23:54] <Filia> Beryl spots the curiously-named Earthling Baby Delight under a separate category of dishes, their origin not immediately discernable.
[23:55] * Ami-hime surveys the menu for a few minutes more, before deciding on a Uranutian omelet.
[23:56] * Filia blushes for some reason, and immediately covers her face with the menu.
[23:56] * Rei-chan blinks. "Something wrong, Filia?"
[23:56] * Beryl stares at it for all of a moment before going on.
[23:57] <Filia> "Oh no, Highness," she says unsteadily, trying to escape the outside world even farther into the safety of the menu.
[23:58] * Beryl finally decides on the Jovian Steak.
[23:59] <Rei-chan> Leaning over the table, Rei pulls the menu down from Filia's face. "Come on, what is it?" she wheedles.
[23:59] <Filia> Filia's blush reaches enormous proportions, her arms reddening as well. "It's nothing," she whispers, looking away. "I'm ready to order, Highness."
[00:01] <Rei-chan> "If you say so," Rei says dubiously, sitting back down. Noticing the others have set down their menus, she makes eye contact with a nearby waiter.
[00:03] <Filia> The maitre 'd himself approaches their table, Rei idly noticing that another waiter took his place at the entrance immediately. "Are you ready to order now, Milady?" he asks politely.
[00:03] <Rei-chan> "Yes, I'll have the Pluto Borscht," Rei tells him, glancing at the others for them to add in their own orders.
[00:04] <Beryl> "Jovian Streak and iced water. Two lemon slices," Beryl says, folding the menu.
[00:04] <Filia> He nods immediately, writing something down in his little notebook. Hearing Beryl, he adds her order with another nod. "And you, Madam?" he asks Filia next.
[00:05] * Filia blushes even more, if possible, and gestures him to come over. Once he does, promptly and not showing any outwards confusion at her unusual request, she points out an item in the menu, and glances at him shyly.
[00:06] * Rei-chan looks over to see what she's pointing at.
[00:06] * Filia holds the menu opened just slightly, not letting anyone else see it.
[00:07] <Filia> The maitre 'd stares for a long moment, asking, "Are you certain, Madam?"
[00:07] * Filia nods, and snaps the menu shut, while he makes another mark in his notebook.
[00:09] <Ami-hime> "I'll have the Uranutian Omelet, in a half-portion if you could." Ami nods to the waiter.
[00:11] <Filia> "Certainly, Ma'am," he says, nodding yet again. "Refreshments would be delivered now, while our kitchen staff works on your orders," he tells everyone, his eyes wondering towards Filia for a brief moment. Bowing deeply at the waist, he leaves the table, heading towards the 'employees only' door.
[00:12] <Filia> Almost immediately, drinks and various salads are brought to the table by no less than four waiters and a waitress, all looking in their twenties and in excellent physical shape.
[00:13] <Filia> Beryl's iced water also arrives, with the two ordered lemon slices.
[00:13] <Beryl> "That was exceptionally fast," Beryl says, her voice filled with approval.
[00:13] <Rei-chan> "So, Filia," Rei looks at Ami's retainer, "What's with all the mystery about your order? We'll see it when it arrives, anyway."
[00:14] <Filia> "I just had to try it, once," she says quietly, lowering her head.
[00:16] * Ami-hime gives Filia a curious glance. "Try what, Filia?"
[00:16] * Filia mumbles something unintelligible.
[00:17] * Rei-chan picks at the various appetizers, looking at Filia out the corner of her eye.
[00:17] * Ami-hime leans closer to Filia. "What was that? I couldn't hear you."
[00:18] * Filia puts her hands over Ami's ears, and tells Rei, "Well, I've always heard those rumors about Saturnian cuisine...."
[00:19] * Ami-hime frowns at her retainer, then attempts to pull her hands away from her ears.
[00:20] <Rei-chan> "Oh," Rei smirks, "I understand completely. Though it isn't really breakfast food...."
[00:20] <Filia> "It isn't really breakfast for me," Filia retorts, before her blush returns with a vengeance. "I mean-- Highness!"
[00:21] * Filia removes her hands from Ami's ears, covering her own face with them instead.
[00:22] * Rei-chan covers her mouth and giggles, "True enough. Though perhaps later on I could take you for dinner and we could try some together?"
[00:22] * Ami-hime turns a puzzled and slightly angry glance between the priestess and the princess. "What was that all about?"
[00:23] * Filia peaks from behind her hands, and relaxes upon seeing that the Martian princess isn't angry at her slip. "I would love that, Highness, but I have my job...." She trails off, casting a glance at Ami.
[00:24] * Beryl sips her water, content to watch.
[00:24] <Ami-hime> "If you'd like to do something with Princess Rei later, I don't mind, Filia. I'll be all right on my own." Ami smiles.
[00:24] <Rei-chan> "I'm sure that's alright," Rei reassures her, looking at Ami, "Don't worry, Ami-chan, Filia was just embarrassed at ordering something rather expensive."
[00:26] * Ami-hime shrugs slightly. 'Why would she need to hide that from me though?' she thinks to herself.
[00:27] <Filia> "I can pay for that, Highness!" Filia insists. "I have been saving up the money I get from all my har-- from all my work for the past five years!"
[00:28] <Rei-chan> "Nonsense," Rei waves it off, "You're my guest, I insist."
[00:28] <Ami-hime> "If it's that expensive I can cover it, Sempai. I don't mind at all."
[00:30] <Filia> Tears gather at the corners of Filia's eyes, as she looks at Ami.
[00:30] <Rei-chan> "No need, Ami-chan, I can quite afford it." Rei smiles.
[00:31] <Ami-hime> "At least let me take care of the tip then. I hate to put you to the trouble of paying for the entire meal yourself." Ami smiles.
[00:32] <Rei-chan> "I certainly won't refuse your generosity, Ami-chan," Rei says amiably.
[00:39] <Filia> The maitre 'd appears at their table once more, three trolleys pushed behind him by a trio of waitresses. "Your food is ready, Milady," he tells Rei, before turning towards Ami and Beryl. "So are your orders, Madams." Casting an apologetic glance at Filia, he bows. "Your dish shall take ten more minutes to prepare, I'm afraid, Ma'am. The culinary level involved--" He cuts himself off.
[00:47] <Rei-chan> "Well, it'd be rude to start before everyone is served," Rei says, "Can you keep our food ready until Filia's dish is ready?"
[00:48] <Filia> Bowing once more, he leaves, returning a few minutes later with the last trolley. The maitre 'd sets the enormous dish in front of Filia, it taking slightly over a quarter of the table by itself. The waitresses, who have waited with the group, serve the other three diners.
[00:48] * Beryl looks at her Jovian Steak like a child in a candy store. "It's so big." Beryl pokes it, "And so tender." With grate ceremony she starts in, savoring every bite.
[00:49] * Rei-chan starts in on her Pluto Borscht.
[00:50] * Ami-hime takes a small bite of her omelet, then smiles and starts in on it seriously.
[00:51] * Filia looks at the chocolate-covered monstrosity in front of her, wide-eyed. "Wow," she whispers, licking her lips subconsciously.
[00:51] * Ami-hime looks over at Filia's dish, still unaware of what it is. "Will you be able to manage all that by yourself, Filia?"
[00:52] * Filia reluctantly takes her eyes from the elephant-shaped dish, and nods slowly at her charge. "You bet, Mistress Ami!" she says, a slight bit of drool appearing at the corner of her mouth.
[00:52] <Rei-chan> "If you need any help, just ask," Rei smiles over at her.
[00:53] * Filia snaps out of her shock, and blushes once more at Rei's words, ducking her head again.
[00:54] * Rei-chan chuckles at Filia's reaction, before resuming her own meal.
[00:54] <Ami-hime> "Could I try some of it? It looks delicious."
[00:54] <Filia> Filia's head snaps back up, and she shakes her head frantically. "You mustn't, Mistress Ami! Your parents would have my head!"
[00:55] * Filia begins eating her dish hurriedly, trying to finish it before Ami tries to act upon her request.
[00:55] * Ami-hime is taken aback by the vehemence of the response. "All right, I was only asking!" She shakes her head. 'I never thought chocolate was dangerous....'
[00:56] <Beryl> Even with its massive size the steak, which tasted suspiciously like beef, quickly disappears.
[01:00] <Filia> As she tastes her borscht, Rei notices a curious contradiction. On the one side, it reminds her of the Mercurian seafood dishes she had often enjoyed, but along with them there's a strong, ever-present flavor of Neptunian cuisine. For the life of her, she can't understand how something like that could've been grown on Pluto, the atmosphere of which is radically different from both aforementioned planets.
[01:02] * Rei-chan happily finishes her breakfast, rather pleased with discovering such an interesting dish. "So, what are everyone's plans for today?" she asks the others.
[01:03] * Filia turns away from her dish, two-thirds into it. She doesn't speak, though, looking at Ami.
[01:04] * Ami-hime glances over at Beryl before answering. "I hadn't planned anything specifically. I thought I might take a better look around the Palace, myself."
[01:06] <Rei-chan> "And you, Lady Beryl?" Rei turns to the redheaded Earthling.
[01:07] <Beryl> "I had hoped to speak with the Queen, check on the prince, and--" Beryl glances toward the door Zoisite left through. "And kick start this diplomatic mission."
[01:09] <Rei-chan> "Yes, I had planned on talking to the Queen at some point today, though I suppose the first thing I should do is contact my parents. They would want to be kept updated on the diplomatic proceedings," she smiles at Beryl, "And I'm sure they'll be happy to hear that things are proceeding smoothly."
[01:11] <Beryl> 'I'd certainly be happy to hear that, myself,' Beryl thinks.
[01:14] <Rei-chan> Seeing Filia is nearly finished, Rei looks around for the maitre 'd.
[01:15] <Filia> Rei needs not more than a mere searching glance around the restaurant. The maitre 'd heads towards her immediately, stopping a respectable distance in front of the Martian princess.
[01:15] <Filia> "Yes, Milady?" he asks. "How may I be of service?"
[01:16] <Rei-chan> "I believe we are finished," Rei says, "Could we get the bill, please?"
[01:20] <Filia> "Right away, Milady." He taps his notebook, and a small piece of paper pops out of its top, expanding as he takes hold of it with his left hand and pulls it clear. Bowing before her, like he seems to be doing a lot, the maitre 'd hands the bill on a small platter that he pulls out of thin air, it replacing his notebook.
[01:21] * Rei-chan puts her Royal Bank of Mars credit card on the platter, not even looking at the actual price.
[01:21] * Ami-hime motions to Rei to give her a look, so that she has an idea of how much of a tip to leave.
[01:22] * Rei-chan holds the platter in front of Ami so she can see the bill.
[01:24] * Ami-hime blinks a bit at the price, but pulls out her access card for the Mercurian royal account and places it in the platter with Rei's card. "If you would add oh, a 25% gratuity on my card, I'd appreciate it, sir." Ami smiles at the head waiter.
[01:28] <Filia> His eyes visibly widen, and he bows to Ami as well. "Of course, Milady. Right away, Milady." Another bow at Rei, and he disappears, returning several moments later with the cards, several waiters and waitresses trailing him. "We hope you enjoyed your breakfast," he says, and his staff bows along with him, this time.
[01:29] <Ami-hime> "It was excellent, thank you very much." Ami nods to the assembled staff.
[01:29] <Rei-chan> "It was excellent," Rei says, taking her card. "I'll be sure to return," she adds while smiling at Filia.
[01:30] * Filia blushes at the smile, her plate clean, as if it had been washed.
[01:31] <Filia> -------------

And those three just about caught up to Makoto's time.

Chiaki drives the four back to the palace, where Ami and Rei say their goodbyes to Beryl, departing with Filia, leaving the Earthling in the car with the helpful guard.

Ami turns to her retainer. "I think we'd better make arrangements for a place for you to stay, Filia." The young princess thinks for a few moments, then presses the jewel on her glove, asking for Genkai.

Beryl thanks her escort and leaves the car, heading to her quarters. Once there, she hails the ship via vidphone.

“This is ambassador Beryllium calling from the Lunar Palace.”

Beryl has a nice chat with Endymion, whose face is covered by a light-blue surgical mask. She tells him of the progress in the talks, assuring the Prince that she would handle things until his recovery, and tells him of Zoisite's exploits. The two share a laugh about the latter, but Endymion's laugh turns into a cough. Waving off the red-haired woman's concerns, he tells her that he is fine, and cuts off the communications from his side. Any of Beryl's further attempts to call him back end up fruitless.

"Oh?" Makoto says curiously, before she frowns.  "Maybe I read it wrong.  In that case, I should get back to Rei-chan and Ami-chan and discuss what we need to learn about."

The three-dimensional image of Genkai's head appears above the glove's jewel, startling Filia. "Ah, Princess Ami. What can I do for you?"

Ami nods to the figure of the old woman. "Good morning, Ms. Genkai. I discovered this morning that my retainer Filia has yet to find accomodations here at the palace. Do you think you could assist her in finding a place to stay? I don't think we would have room for her in our quarters."

"Alright." Serenity pouts slightly. "Are you sure you won't have any breakfast first, at least?"

As Serenity speaks, Eiko casts her friend another pleading glance.

Genkai peers at Filia, before sighing. "So here is the person who caused me so much headache after she took off on her own...."

Filia blushes, and tries to hide behind Rei.

Pausing to give Filia a reassuring look, Rei then turns her attention towards Genkai. "So I take it you have arranged accomadation for the Head Priestess of Mercury?" she asks, deciding not to get involved in an argument over whether Filia should have just idly sat still while her charge was spirited away.

"Ah!" Genkai's head turns to look at Rei, her eyes sparkling in delight. "If it isn't my most favorite person in the entire known universe!"

"Good morning, Genkai. It fills me with joy to see you looking so chipper today," Rei says, her tone betraying exactly the opposite, "But we were discussing Filia, remember?" she tilts her head backwards slightly to indicate the woman cowering behind her.

"Yes, yes," Genkai says, her cheer melting away. "Filia ul Copt, wasn't it? If you follow the map stored in in one of the gloves and head towards the eastern wing of the palace, I'll meet you three there and take it from that point."

Ami speaks to the holographic image of Genkai. "Please don't be too hard on her, Ms. Genkai. She was only worried about me."

"Of course," Genkai tells Ami. "I understand what it means to worry endlessly about a young charge, as their insensitive actions bring stress into your life... though in your retainer's case, I'm sure the worry is unjustified." She smiles, and her holographic image disappears.

"Hah!" Rei laughs sharply, "I doubt she's felt a moments honest concern for a fellow human being in her overlong miserable life!"

Ami simply shakes her head and presses the jewel on her glove again to attempt to call up the map stored in it, all the while wishing the odd device had some sort of manual.

"I'm sorry," Makoto says apologetically.  "We really must hurry back; perhaps another time."

As the two leave Serenity's quarters, an aged voice calls out to Makoto from the other end of the corridor, "Did you have a nice rest, Dear?"

After a few tries, Ami finds out that most of the glove's functions are voice-activated. After that, it doesn't take her a lot to call up a map to Genkai's specified meeting place, and be on her way there with Filia and Rei.