Synopsis of the Sailor Moon RPG. COMPLETE

[Ebiris]

The backstory of the game follows the Sailor Moon anime pretty closely up to just after the events at Starlight Tower, where Usagi was revealed as the Moon Princess. This is when we started playing, so obviously this is where it starts to diverge. This summary will generally focus on important events, so I'll be missing out the odd 'monster of the day' attack, and won't go too deeply into the character interaction that's happened throughout the game (doing so would likely make it several times longer).

If you have any questions about anything here, or just want something explained in more detail, feel free to contact either the GM or one of the players.

ARC I - the Dark Kingdom

With Usagi distraught over Tuxedo Kamen being kidnapped by the Dark Kingdom, Ikkuko decided to take her daughter to the hot springs to cheer her up. Just before they left, Rei had a premonition of Usagi and Ikkuko being killed, so hurriedly tagged along on their mother/daughter bonding exercise. Good thing she did, too, since DK Endymion showed up and released an evil spirit at the hot springs. Rei was able to banish it, but not before it maimed Ikkuko, further traumatising Usagi.

While Usagi and Ami stayed with the convalescing Ikkuko, the remaining senshi went back to Tokyo, and shortly wound up at a Dark Kingdom attack at Deep Sea Spectacular. While Mars, Venus, and Jupiter were able to defeat the youma and see off Kunzite by themselves, the battle caused a good degree of property damage, killing one innocent bystander.

The girls were all pretty broken up about that, and parted after the battle in a rather shell-shocked state. Over the next few days, Minako used her disguise compact to transform Artemis into a double of herself, sending the shape-changed Mau to school in her place while she spent her days trying to investigate previous Dark Kingdom attacks in hope of finding a pattern. Unfortunately for Artemis, the disguise magic ran deep, and he found himself psychologically ill equipped to deal with some of the things teenage girls experience, which didn't do Minako's reputation at school any favours.

Around the same time, Rei had a nasty vague premonition, which prompted her to ditch school and call a meeting at the Shrine. Good thing too, since DK Endymion was there when she arrived, and gunning for Grandpa. Faced with Sailors Mars and Jupiter, and the newly arrived Sailor Dragon, the brainwashed Prince retreated. And Rei and Makoto got to know their latest fellow senshi, who happened to really be a guy.

Rather than face up to the mocking of her peers over Artemis' troubles, Minako promptly got herself transferred to Rei's school. And got herself energy drained on her first pre-transfer visit there. This put a good deal of stress on the girls as Minako more or less snapped over how useless she had been, transforming herself into a Mooncat for some reason. While Minako was having her episode, the other senshi were doing their best to protect the remaining Rainbow Crystal carriers, who were being targeted by Endymion to make some sort of super-youma.

With all the crystal carriers in Endymion's hands, bar Urawa, who Rei had managed to find and bring back to the Shrine for safekeeping, things were looking grim. Luckily Minako managed to calm down, just in time for both Kunzite AND Endymion to show up at the Shrine. While the last of the Dark Generals battled Mars and Venus outside the Shrine, Endymion went inside to find the last crystal carrier. Unfortunately for the Dark Prince, he found himself facing Sailors Jupiter and Dragon, who made short work of him (and broke his hand).

Meanwhile, after a difficult battle, Kunzite had teleported away, and was suspected to have died shortly thereafter by how low his energy felt to Mars. Racing inside, Venus managed to purify the brainwashed Endymion, and Mars prevented Beryl's attempt to teleport him back to the Dark Kingdom.

ARC 1a - Metallia

With Mamoru safe (although still with a broken hand), Usagi and Ami returned to Tokyo - Ikkuko having made a full recovery. The Prince of Earth stayed at the Shrine while recovering from his time with the Dark Kingdom (and his broken hand), while the senshi sought answers as to how they could take the battle to the Dark Kingdom and end things once and for all.

This marked the beginning of a fairly big schism between the senshi and the Mooncats, as it emerged that Luna and Artemis already knew where the Dark Kingdom was, but hadn't told the senshi because they wanted to fight a defensive war and hold the DK at an indefinite stalemate, rather than risk losing everything on an attack into enemy territory. Unsurprisingly, the girls disagreed quite violently.

The argument was rendered moot, however, when Beryl sent a squad of her elite youma to Hikawa Shrine to recover Mamoru and kill the senshi - with Sailor Mars being identified as 'the shrine girl' it made things quite clear that they could no longer afford to be defensive if the Dark Kingdom could strike them in their homes at any time. After fending off the attack, the girls made their plans to attack the Dark Kingdom at its heart - the ruins of the Moon Kingdom.

To kick things off, they needed to secure the Shrine to prevent Beryl spying on them. But they rather underestimated the power of Usagi's Ginzuishou, and wound up putting a barrier over the whole of Tokyo. This gave them the breathing room to practice and prepare for their attack. At least for as long as the barrier held.

Unfortunately, it didn't hold more than a few days, and the Dark Kingdom pre-empted them by opening a portal into downtown Tokyo as soon as the barrier fell, and releasing an army of youma. Unlike previous energy draining expeditions, these youma only seemed bent on killing and destroying as much as possible. Fighting their way towards the portal, our heroic sailor suited defenders of love and justice finally reached their goal. A two storey tall portal of evil, surrounded by about twenty youma.

Not wasting any time at all, Sailor Mars attempted to seal the portal herself with her spiritual powers. This gave her a hot-line to Metallia, and she was summarily bitchslapped in the mental sense for her presumption. With Mars KO'd, Moon pulled out her last resort, and used the Ginzuishou to seal the portal and banish the youma. She pulled it off, too, although wound up in worse shape physically than Mars from the Crystal's energy drain.

With both Rei and Usagi hospitalised, the girls put off their attack. Until the next day, when both girls were given a clean bill of health. Physically, at least. Rei still had a mental link to Metallia from yesterday's events, which the ruler of the Dark Kingdom used to utterly demoralise the senshi of fire almost as soon as they had teleported to the Moon.

Oddly enough, no mass army of youma awaited the senshi. Exploring the ruins of the Moon Palace, they found it curiously deserted, though the decor and general ambience of the place definitely screamed out its occupation by the Dark Kingdom.

Finally, as the girls approached Beryl's throneroom, Metallia stopped playing around. Overwhelming Rei's mental defences in an instant, she teleported the senshi away right before the horrified eyes of her friends, who very quickly went to challenge Beryl and demand their friend back. Alas, they were pretty much walking into a trap, and stood no chance against Beryl in their disorganised state. Luckily, they were saved at the last moment by Queen Serenity, who had survived the fall of the Moon Kingdom and lived by herself in a small dimension on the Moon, hidden from the Dark Kingdom.

While the demoralised Queen of the Moon Kingdom tried to convince the senshi to give up a battle she felt sure they could never win, the Queen of the Dark Kingdom had her way with Sailor Mars, utterly breaking her will and twisting her mind into a deranged parody of itself. One completely loyal to Metallia.

Realising she couldn't convince the senshi to abandon their foolish cause, Queen Serenity sent them back to Earth, to do as they would please. Unfortunately, Metallia had sent Rei back first. And Tokyo found itself ill equipped to deal with a berserk magical girl and her army of youma. The senshi arrived in Hikawa Shrine, finding it burnt to the ground, and the rest of Juuban a sea of flame.

http://mysite.freeserve.com/ebiris/EvilRei_v3.jpg

Confronting the deranged Sailor Mars at the burnt out wreck of T*A Academy, Sailor Moon was able to purify her with the Crystal. Of course, this left Rei feeling rather suicidal as the full impact of what she had done suddenly crashed down on her, but she realised she could at least atone in part for what she had done by defeating Metallia. Or dying in the attempt.

Reaching Tokyo Tower (which had recieved the same treatment as Starlight Tower earlier in the series), the senshi began their ascent, to face Queen Beryl at the top. And Prince Endymion, who Rei had earlier grabbed at the Shrine and given back to Metallia to be re-brainwashed. After a fierce battle, Endymion lay unconscious while Beryl lay dead.

But the girls had no time to celebrate, since Metallia had finally accumulated enough energy to appear on Earth. Calling on everything they had left, the senshi hit Metallia with a Planet Attack, but amazingly were still being pushed back. At least until Moon used the Ginzuishou, which coupled with the power of the senshi's planet attack, was enough to utterly destroy Metallia, once and for all.

Better than that, the power of the Silver Crystal also undid all the damage Tokyo had suffered at Rei's hands, even bringing back the thousands of people she had killed. This last act also seemed to use up everything the Crystal had, for it disappeared afterwards, never to return...?

But,  seeing the sun rise on a new day from their lofty vantage of Tokyo Tower, the loss of the Ginzuishou didn't seem that important. They had saved the Earth, and the battles were finally over.

Or so they thought...

[Anastasia]

Stickied on the grounds of awesomeness.

Keep up the good work, Eb. I'm looking forward to see the next few arcs summed up by yourself. And yes, if you have any questions about the game after reading this, please ask myself or one of the PCs.

[Ebiris]

ARC II - the Space Criminals

After their victory over Metallia, and the Crystal's actions to undo the damage of the battle, the girls all went home. And at home, Usagi discovered that she had apparently been missing for 2 days (the crystal had also undone the Dark Kingdom's massacre that happened right after the barrier fell) and her family was understandably aggrieved. Not seeing any use in hiding it with the fighting over, Usagi came clean as to her identity as Sailor Moon.

Meanwhile, Minako started attending T*A Academy with Rei. And promptly got them both expelled on her first day.

Shortly afterwards, Usagi teleported herself up to the Moon to have a few words with Queen Serenity. After talking on far better terms than they had the last time, Queen Serenity died, her last words telling Usagi to take care of her kingdom. Exploring the now no longer evil-occupied ruins, Usagi came across several rooms containing chests with energy barriers around them. Being the Princess (now Queen) of the Moon Kingdom, she had no trouble passing the barriers, and in the first one found the Legendary Holy Blade that had belonged to Sailor Venus in the Silver Millenium.

Alas, the next room contained no such powerful artifact. Instead it was a crystal prison, housing the very worst criminals of the Moon Kingdom (Beryl also made use of the prison, and put Jadeite in there). Usagi's arrival triggered their release, and the criminals all promptly teleported off the Moon and away from their confinement. So much for a holiday after beating Metallia...

As the girls looted the remaining artifacts from the Moon to aid in the upcoming battles, one of the former criminals was already making her move. An Ice Spirit named Celcia had set up shop in Tokyo, and was doing her best to imitate the villian from the S Movie by freezing the Earth. Arriving back in the blizzard-swept city, and drained from their teleporting, the senshi nonetheless trudged through the snow and hail to reach Celcia's Ice Palace (which used to be a mall).

After a long and tiring battle, the first of the escaped criminals was dealt with, and aside from being drained, none of the girls had been really hurt at all. A few days later, Usagi ran into Mamoru, who was having some mental difficulties over his past life memories surfacing, and the effects of being brainwashed twice. This ended with Usagi being rather traumatised and the Tuxedo'd one taking off for a relaxing holiday in Hawaii while escaped Lunar criminals rampaged over Japan.

During all this, Makoto hadn't been seen for a few days, and the girls were growing increasingly concerned for her safety. While Rei tried to locate the senshi of Thunder with her fire readings, Ami busily researched the prisoners on her computer, the two converging when Ami found out about one of the criminals being a former retainer of Princess Makoto, who was unhealthily obsessed with her. Meanwhile, Usagi was plagued by memories of Princess Serenity's best friend, a girl named Cynthia, who she seemed to have had some big falling out with...

Finally catching a break, Rei located Makoto in an upscale apartment in Tokyo. Wasting no time, the girls raced off to her rescue, only to be confronted by three majorly powerful baddies, who unsurprisingly were former recipients of the Moon Kingdom's penal system. Two of the villians promptly teleported away, leaving a demon behind for our girls to battle. The creature was dispatched in fairly short order, and then the other criminal who had been observing finally joined the fray.

Nearly gutting Sailor Mars with impossible speed, the villian's energy skyrocketed to pants-wetting levels, understandably freaking the senshi big time. Disorganised and tired from fighting the demon, the senshi were forced to retreat for the first time, Sailor Moon blowing the entire apartment to bits to cover their escape, which barely seemed to phase the swordsman.

Not giving them much time to recover from this, Jadeite finally acted. The Dark General already knew the identities of Moon, Mercury, and Mars from right before their last battle with him, and he made use of this to kidnap Kenji and Shingo, along with several of Usagi's classmates to lure Sailor Moon into a trap. Beryl's former servant underestimated our heroines' resolve, however, and found himself recieving a sound beating for his trouble. During this, Mars discovered Jadeite had been controlled by Metallia the same way she had been, presenting the girls with something of a dilemma. Even with Metallia gone, his soul had been so long steeped in evil that he knew no other way to act, but Mars and Moon were still determined to help him, somehow. Venus disagreed quite vehemently, insisting that the only solution was to kill him. But as the girls debated, Jadeite managed to escape to fight another day...

Over time, the girls learnt more about their foes from the Mercury Computer, and from one of the former criminals who bore them no ill will - a powerful mage named Starfire, who seemed to be on rather good terms with Sailor Pluto.

The swordsman was named Oxyite, and was a pirate from the Silver Millenium. Among his many crimes, he was responsible for the death of Sailor Neptune.

The other man was Orestes, the former retainer of Princess Makoto, a powerful psionic, and certifiable madman.

And the female villian was Cynthia, Princess Serenity's best friend who had been imprisoned when her experiments in demon summoning went out of control.

Catching another lead on Makoto (in another upscale apartment), the senshi attempted once more to rescue their friend, this time planning their attack rather than charging in blindly. With Oxyite being the only villian presently guarding her, it fell to Moon, Mars, and Venus to attack him, while Sailor Dragon used the diversion to liberate Makoto.

The battle went poorly for our heroines, with Mars being overwhelmed in an instant and kicked through the ceiling onto the roof of the building, the others following to take the battle where they would have more room. Pelting Oxyite with their most powerful attacks, the three senshi were wearing him down, but the main effect seemed to be his massive energy was spiralling out of control. Finally it was too much, and he blew, only a timely teleport from Starfire getting the senshi out of there before the blast, which wiped out the whole block.

While Minako had a psychotic episode over what happened during and after the battle with Oxyite, it was learned that something nasty had been done to Makoto. A large chunk of her soul had been removed! With the poor girl completely comatose, and looking unlikely to recover on her own, the beleagured and embattled senshi had to continue searching for Orestes.

Luckily, he made that rather easy, by taking over Channel 5 TV station and challenging the senshi on national television. Racing to confront him, the girls found the building in the midst of an electrical storm the likes of which had never been seen before. Orestes was obviously making good use of the Thunder senshi's soul, while his cohort used her demonic powers to open a Gate which would unleash Hell on Earth.

Battling their way to the top of the TV station, the girls faced off with Orestes, Cynthia, and her pet demons. A creative ofuda from the miko managed to take Cynthia and her demons out of the battle, by turning them against each other, but in the process Sailor Mars was nearly killed by a lightning shot from Orestes. This prompted Sailor Venus to go berserk, and the other senshi made short work of Orestes. But while Sailor Moon worked to seal the half-open Gate, Venus calmly executed the comatose Cynthia, right before the eyes of Mars, who was giving her a sound verbal beatdown at the time.

In the aftermath of the battle, the stolen portion of Makoto's soul was returned to her, while the girls sought answers as to why Minako had flipped the way she had. This ended with Venus taking a leave of absence from the senshi, and the remaining girls feeling more dispirited than ever.

Determined to regain some measure of cheer, Usagi invited the senshi and their families to a Christmas party at her house. Festivities were cut short, however, by Jadeite attacking once more, turning Shingo into a youma to kill his sister! While Moon tried to reason with her transformed sibling, Mars quickly tracked Jadeite to the roof of the Tsukino home, and engaged him in their final battle. Unwilling to change his ways, Jadeite fought to the bitter end, only asking for forgiveness as he died in Mars' arms.

With Jadeite's death, the girls had reclaimed their peace, and could finally take the time to recover from the emotional scars inflicted by the series of brutal battles following straight after Metallia's demise. The peace wouldn't last forever, but they'd enjoy it while they could...

[Ebiris]

ARC III - Deathbusters & Elves

After being in educational limbo during December following their expulsion from T*A, Rei and Minako both took the Mugen entrance exams in January to gain admittance to the elite school. Oddly, the entrance exam included a physical examination which involved being scanned by a strange machine...

Meanwhile, Usagi had decided to face up to her destiny as Queen of the Moon Kingdom, and set about putting things in order up in her ruined palace. Enlisting Ami's help, the pair started work in earnest, restoring the library and a few other areas of the Moon Palace to their former splendour - all in secret from the other senshi.

After attending Mugen for about a month, Rei was pulled out of her classes by an upperclassman named Eudial, who seemed aware of the miko's powers over fire, and told her all about a special club Mugen ran for 'talented' students, named the Witches 5 (soon to be 6). Perhaps a bit too trustingly, Rei went along with her and was brought before Professor Tomoe and the 'Mistress' of the Deathbusters. Before she could react, she was injected with a strange chemical which knocked her out and brainwashed her. Again.

Unlike her treatment at the hands of Metallia, the Deathbusters brainwashing was far more subtle, instilling loyalty to their cause but otherwise leaving her unchanged. So aside from a moral blind spot concerning taking peoples' heart crystals, Rei was still the same sailor suited soldier of love and justice she'd always been.

Not long after Rei got brainwashed, Usagi and Ami had done enough work on the Moon that they felt confident in revealing the fruits of their efforts to the other girls, garnering very impressed reactions from Rei and Makoto, who both offered to help out themselves in restoring the Moon Kingdom. Minako, for her part, seemed rather apathetic to the whole thing, and quickly made excuses to leave while Ami and Usagi gave the other girls the grand tour.

A few days later, Artemis informed the senshi that Minako had left Tokyo, using her disguise compact to appear as the idol singer 'Full Moon' she abandoned her duties as a Sailor Senshi in favour of pursuing her dreams as a singer.

This was rather unfortunately timed, as around the same time, a strange meteor landed in Tokyo, and a few days later Sailors Moon and Mercury battled the first of Alan and Ann's Cardians at the Osa P jewellery store!

The senshi weren't the only ones aggrieved by this new menace from beyond the stars, though. The Witches 6 frequently found themselves caught in the middle of energy draining monster attacks while out on heart snatch raids, a situation that the Deathbusters sought to rectify by assigning Rei and Eudial to locate the source of the attacks and exterminate it by whatever means necessary.

Lucky for Rei that her Witch job and her Senshi job had the same goal, although she did have reason to be extremely concerned after the Professor ordered the Witches to kill the Sailor Senshi should they interfere.

Meanwhile, Makoto was becoming enamoured of the new transfer student at Juuban Junior High, one Alan Grangier. Her interest was reciprocated, and the two began dating, much to the consternation of Alan's 'sister', Ann.

With Usagi commited to restoring the Moon Kingdom, she recieved a surprise visit at her home from the mysterious Sailor Pluto. Setsuna explained that as Queen of the Moon Kingdom, it fell to Usagi to designate a new holder for the title and powers of Sailor Neptune - since the original had been slain by Oxyite long before Queen Serenity's spell sent the senshi forard to be reincarnated.

Of course, people with the magical potential to become Sailor Senshi aren't very common, and Setsuna hadn't given her Queen any hints as to where she should look. A lead was provided when Rei mentioned she went to school with several magically powerful girls, but the miko was quick to insist Usagi avoid looking around Mugen - for her own safety, mostly since Rei wasn't on great terms with any of the other Witches besides Eudial, but also because she was starting to have very definite doubts regarding the Deathbuster's agenda.

Sadly for Rei, this only made Usagi worried for her friend's safety at Mugen, and she disguised herself as a student at the prestigous school to investigate. Alas she didn't get far before freaking out due to the thunderstorm raging outside. Her panicked yelps from inside an empty classroom attracted the attention of Professor Tomoe, who Usagi fed a bunch of lies to convince him she was a genuine student. Taking her up to his office, the Professor called for Rei to investigate 'Yuki Shirata' in case she was a spy, and Rei of course immediately recognised her as her Princess. Quickly dissuading the Professor of anything suspicious regarding the girl, Rei had Usagi safely removed from the school before anything nasty could happen to her.

The following night, Rei had a prophetic dream that put the Deathbuster's plans into perspective for her, revealing that the Mistress desired nothing less than the complete destruction of the Earth! Voicing her doubts to Eudial the next day, both girls shook off their brainwashing and quickly made tracks from the school, Rei calling for a senshi meeting at the Shrine. Spilling all she knew about the Deathbusters, the girls quickly planned out their attack on Mugen, stopping by Tellu's house to purify her on the way.

Proceeding to the Professor's underground lab, the senshi plus Eudial were confronted by the Professor himself, along with Kaolinite, Cyprine, and Ptliol. Acknowledging that the senshi had won this round, the Professor collapsed as the Daimon possessing him escaped, leaving his lackeys behind to battle the senshi. After a fierce battle, the twins were purified while Kaolinite was brutally slain.

In the aftermath, the girls learnt from Professor Tomoe about how he had been possessed by the Daimon Germatou, along with his daughter becoming the vessel of Mistress 9. Germatou had taken Hotaru as he fled, and the senshi swore that they would find her. Mimette and Viluy were also purified without much fuss, as they had no clue what had happened and were easily caught off guard by the senshi and other witches.

During the battle at Mugen, the senshi had had their identities blown, but it worked to their advantage as the Professor offered the girls scholarships at Mugen and the use of the school's resources in battling the energy draining elves, in addition to joining forces to hunt down Germatou and rescue Hotaru.

Meanwhile, Alan and Makoto drew ever closer, to the point of Alan outright rejecting Ann for his new girlfriend, which devastated the female elf. Rather than taking it out on Makoto, however, she became increasingly violent in her energy draining raids, nearly killing Sailor Mercury and Viluy during one battle before reinforcements from the other senshi and witches drove her off.

She didn't just cope by going psycho on her victims, though, as Ann also started dating Herb to take her mind off Alan, although their relationship wasn't nearly as close as the one Alan enjoyed with Makoto.

While Hotaru still eluded them, the girls caught a break when Rei had a dream leading her to a Talisman holder - one Haruka Ten'ou. Checking to see if she really did possess a Talisman, so that they could protect her from Germatou, the girls were shocked to discover she was Sailor Uranus - and none to happy about them going after her Talisman! Luckily Usagi was able to calm her down, and the senshi added another to their ranks.

However, the bliss of Makoto and Alan's relationship couldn't last forever, as during an attack at the Mall, Sailor Jupiter recognised Alan's flute song, prompting the girls to pay an official visit to the Grangier's apartment the following day. Discovering Alan at the Doom Tree in a pocket dimension within the apartment, Makoto tried to reason with her love, but the elf was resolute that he needed to drain energy for the tree to live, and that would forever make them enemies.

Ann's reappearance at the tree marked the battle beginning in earnest, with the senshi and witches on the defensive as they still tried to reason with the energy vampires on Makoto's behalf. That lasted until Usagi was badly injured, prompting Sailor Mars to take off the kid gloves and burn their precious tree to smoking ash. But as the senshi of fire ignited the tree, it surprised all present by screaming! The Doom Tree was sentient, and no one knew, not even Alan and Ann.

Psychically linking with Rei, the tree used her as a voice to remonstrate the elves for nearly killing it with their stolen energy - for all it really needed to bloom was love, which it was starting to get from Alan and Makoto's blossoming relationship. Still badly crippled by fire and stolen energy, the tree asked Sailor Moon to purify it, so it could be reborn and grow in a world filled with love. Gladly obliging, Moon did so, and the sapling Tree of Life was planted on the Moon, which was being restored at an even faster pace with the help of the former Deathbusters, and now Alan and Ann had joined the fledgling kingdom as well.

Using its new host, Germatou continued searching for the Talismans, and finally caught a break by attacking at a beauty pageant Haruka was observing, revealing the Space Sword Talisman she carried!

Help was at hand, as Moon and Mars stalled Germatou long enough for Haruka to recover and transform, while Germatou revealed who it had found as it's new host - Guinvain, the treacherous Sailor Dragon who had been imprisoned during the Silver Millenium, and released in the events of last December!

Impossibly seeming to brush off everything our heroines threw at it, the Daimon possessed (and evil even if not possessed) senshi seemed invincible, until the three senshi combined their powers, utterly annihilating it! With Germatou no longer screening her from detection, Hotaru was quickly located by Cyprine and Ptliol, and purified of the Mistress' possession by Sailor Moon.

And so, peace once more returned. With the energy draining elves finding it possible to live peaceful lives on Earth, while Pharaoh 90 was forever denied access to the planet with both his servants dead and no way to open a gate from either end.

[Ebiris]

ARC IV - Shadow Tokyo

A few months passed peacefully after Germatou's end, but trouble once more reared its head in fair Tokyo. And it all started with one little girl with pink hair...

Having Chibi Usa fall out of the sky on Usagi's head, before she promptly glomped onto the girl and started wailing about how she thought we were all dead, came as no small surprise to our heroines. Having Chibs then freak out at no one recognising her and shooting off a massive beam of energy akin to the Silver Crystal only deepened the mystery.

Investigating further, they learned that she came from Crystal Tokyo, where her parents; Neo Queen Serenity and King Endymion ruled. Ami's computer confirmed the DNA match with Usagi and Endymion, only leading to further confusion, since Usagi was with Rei and Endymion had gotten together with Setsuna.

It soon became clear that Chibi Usa was from a parallel universe, and shortly afterwards, the Black Moon family invaded from that dimension, still doggedly pursuing Chibi Usa and gloating of how they killed the Sailor Senshi in their own dimension.

While fending off the initial attacks from the Black Moon sisters, more bad news broke on another front. The idol singer Full Moon - Minako's alias - died in a car crash.

A few days after that, the senshi investigated a makeup shop that was being used as a front by the Black Moon. In the battle that followed, Beruche was killed by Sailor Mars. This led to another battle shortly after, with Cooan out for revenge. This battle had the bad luck to be videotaped on national television, as Cooan was cut in half by an attack from Sailor Dragon.

After that, the attacks ceased entirely. But while searching for a way to get Chibi Usa home, another problem presented itself. With the Black Moon running rampant in the other dimension, negative energy levels were skyrocketing. With the dimensional barrier weakened, that negative energy would spill over into our world with catastrophic results after reaching a critical mass in Chibi Usa's home.

The negative energy also presented a problem of making it difficult for the 'positive energy' senshi to traverse between dimensions. Only an extremely powerful source of positive energy could get them there, and the Silver Crystal had been gone for some time. The only other option was the Holy Grail, but without Sailor Neptune's talisman, it couldn't be summoned. Prompted by this, Usagi finally selected a new Sailor Neptine - the former Deathbuster, Viluy. After she inherited the powers and title, her talisman was revealed, and the senshi finally summoned the Grail forth.

The summoning of the legendary artifact produced some profound effects on the members of the fledgling new Moon Kingdom. Rei's two ravens; Phobos and Deimos both attained humanoid forms as small fairies, while Artemis and Luna both recalled how to transform themselves into their fully human forms. The former Deathbusters all underwent small changes in their spiritual auras to mark them as tied to the new Moon Kingdom, and Professor Tomoe also recalled all the knowledge he lost when Germatou fled his body.

A few days later, the girls were ready, and ventured forth into the other dimension. Arriving in the other Tokyo, they found the city in the grip of anarchy, with people everywhere deeply corrupted by the Black Moon's negative energy. After a brief battle with one of Rubeus' droids, being taunted with the deaths of this world's own senshi, and dealing with the students of Juuban middle who had set their school ablaze, the senshi arrived at the Crystal Point of Hikawa Shrine.

After dealing with the corrupted versions of Phobos, Deimos, and Yuichirrou, the senshi had to wage a prolonged battle against the corrupted guardian spirit of the Shrine, a small army of droids, and Calaveras. Eventually prevailing, Usagi used the Holy Grail to purify the Shrine and surrounding area, and set up a large scale barrier to prevent the Black Moon from counterattacking while they used it as their base of operations in this dimension.

Getting radio broadcasts from outside the city (TV not recieving anything) they learned how Tokyo was cut off from the rest of Japan as a disaster zone, with the outside world not truly understanding the nature of the threat they faced.

Performing a fire reading to make sense of what happened to make everything go so horribly wrong in this world, Rei saw how the Sailor Senshi here were sucked into a dimensional rift by Petz, while Beruche and Cooan were corrupted by the Black Moon and sent after Chibi Usa.

The following day while seeking out another Crystal Point to purify, the senshi were intercepted by Petz herself, the Queen of Shadow Tokyo as she called herself. After a fierce battle, Petz was killed and her Black Moon Strobe went haywire, sucking the senshi into the same void that claimed their counterparts!

Luckily Usagi was able to hold the rift open for them to escape, and in the process they recovered the bodies of this world's senshi - who they learned weren't actually dead on fleeing back to the Shrine, just incredibly weak. Almost like they were in suspended animation. Sadly, nothing the girls tried could wake up their counterparts, and the battle for Shadow Tokyo had only just begun.

Purifying a point at the Bob Floy Icecream Store (where they had fought Beruche in their own world), the senshi were attacked by Rubeus' UFO, only barely managing to fend it off long enough to purify the point and force his retreat. After the difficult battle, that world's Tuxedo Kamen appeared, startled at seeing Sailor Moon and the others apparently alive and fighting back after he had nearly lost all hope.

Taking him back to the Shrine, the girls explained the situation with the handy visual aid of the comatose native senshi, and compared stories with Mamoru over how things were different between the two worlds.

With the senshi proceeding to purify the remaining Crystal Points - the city already starting to return to normal from the significantly weakened flow of negative energy - Rubeus hatched a desperate plan to trap Sailor Moon at one of the points, blasting her with overwhelming negative energy from a remote location. But he underestimated her, and the Moon Princess instead turned the trap against him, using his negative energy flow as a conduit to strike directly at the villian, utterly disrupting the negative energy all over the city and allowing them to make short work of several Crystal Points in quick succession.

Badly overstretched, the girls were in little shape to fight when Rubeus' UFO returned after he recovered, fleeing back to the shielded Shrine before Usagi collapsed from the massive strain on her body of using so much energy.

With the city close to normal, the girls sat and waited while Usagi recovered, before the shield finally fell after four days, and Rubeus attacked. Fully rested, though, the senshi minus Usagi managed to shoot his UFO out of the sky, and defeat him handily, finally putting an end to the Black Moon's Shadow Tokyo.

But that still left the problem of the comatose native senshi...

Recieving a message from this world's Sailor Pluto via Chibi Usa, Rei and Usagi went to visit the Senshi of Time. There they recieved startling news - because of the success of the Black Moon, Crystal Tokyo would never exist. Chibi Usa had no home to return to, and her existence only continued thanks to the power of the Silver Crystal inside her body. Pluto also explained how this world's senshi could be revived by combining Chibi Usa's Crystal with Usagi's Grail and the other Usagi's depleted Crystal.

The problem of what to do with Chibi Usa remained. The girl had already latched onto Usagi as a mother figure after learning she was actually Serenity, but had no love at all for the immature girl in this world who HAD been destined to grow up into Neo Queen Serenity. And while she liked Rei well enough, she wanted her 'Mother' to be with her Mamo-chan. That couldn't really happen with this world's Mamoru quite devoted to his own Usagi.

The other senshi were revived easily enough, and after some fun discussion of the differences between the two worlds, most of which seemed to traumatise this world's senshi - especially Usagi and Rei - the senshi returned back to their own dimension, Chibi Usa coming with them to live as Usagi's daughter.

[Ebiris]

ARC V - Zirae

Returning to their native dimension, the girls settled back into their regular lives, while Chibi Usa adjusted to becoming a permanent part of the Tsukino family.

It wasn't all relaxation, though. The dimensional barrier was still significantly weakened, and Usagi spent a good amount of time working with Professor Tomoe to restore it - the fear being that the Deathbusters would triumph over the Sailor Senshi in the other universe and allow Pharaoh 90 to come here after he finished destroying that world.

But by and large, things had settled down to a managable pace, giving everyone a chance to catch their breath after the non-stop battling in Shadow Tokyo. Of course, it didn't last.

Less than a month after returning home, the senshi were invited to Motoki and Reika's engagement party, and fun was had by all... until an uninvited guest crashed the party.

Identifying himself only as Zirae, the pale man dressed all in white had a very unusual defining characteristic - no spiritual aura to speak of. He was a complete 'null-space' to the esoteric senses of certain senshi. That didn't stop him from freezing everyone at the party except for some of the senshi and Ann, and making all the frozen people transparent so he could look inside them. And he claimed to be looking for the Silver Crystal, which had been stolen from him aeons ago.

Failing to find any traces of it among the partygoers, Zirae promptly departed, with all those who had been frozen having no memory of the event.

While Usagi's Silver Crystal had vanished at the final battle with Metallia, Chibi Usa's presence meant there WAS a Silver Crystal on Earth - putting the young Princess from another world in extremely grave danger, since her very existence was wholly dependent on said Crystal.

Feverishly researching all the old records of the Silver Millenium, Usagi was only able to find two small clues. A passage detailing how the worlds of the Solar System lived in constant turmoil and war until Queen Serenity went out into the Galaxy, returning with the Silver Crystal and using its power to bring peace to the System. The second clue was far more subtle, and left more questions - a single picture of the Queen, Crystal in hand, with a shadowy figure in the background. A caption named him as Zirae in archaic Lunarian, but no other details on the picture were present.

The next encounter came during an awards ceremony at Mugen, with Zirae freezing everyone except Usagi, Ami, Rei, Hotaru, and Cyprine & Ptliol. Intrigued by their resistance, Zirae made a more forceful demand for the Silver Crystal, guessing that they would have that knowledge.

At the girls' resistance, battle broke out, with Zirae merely needing to speak the word "Die" to Cyprine for the twins to be knocked out of the fight, her aura shredded and the girl hovering on the brink of death. Meanwhile both Mars and Mercury attacked, only to find their most powerful attacks completely wink out of existence when they came within a few feet of their foe. As Zirae repeated his performance and incapacitated Mercury, a desperate Usagi formed an energy barrier with the full power of the Holy Grail to buy them some time.

Time which didn't last, for Zirae simply negated the barrier by touching it. Running out of options, the Moon Princess called upon as much power as she could muster, blasting Zirae full force with everything she could summon using the Grail. Said blast succeeded in one thing, by cracking apart the 'null-field' around him - it showed Zirae DID have an aura. An aura of such incredible magnitude it defied comprehension. Amazingly, however, Zirae retreated after that, leaving our battered and dispirited heroines to lick their wounds.

Analysing readings from Professor Tomoe's equipment at Mugen, which had been on during the battle, they managed to learn more about Zirae. Not actually a man, Zirae was an artifical construct - a sentient bridge between this universe and a 'pocket universe'. Said pocket universe existed for only one reason: a power source. Tapping into the complete energy of an entire cosmos under his control, Zirae waa effectively omnipotent in this universe. But his power had been sealed, with the Silver Crystal being the key to his full potential.

Via a Fire Reading, Rei learned what had happened to Usagi's own Crystal. After the battle with Metallia, it had shattered, tiny shards going into each person who died that horrible day, before the last power of the Crystal reversed the flow of time and brought them back to life.

Disastrously, Zirae targetted Hikawa Shrine next, and this time Rei was unable to resist his initial effect of freezing everyone. Recognising the girl who had defied him twice before while fighting alongside the accursed Princess of the Moon, Zirae would have done something rather nasty to the helpless miko if not for one thing.

Hotaru had been training under Rei as a miko, and was able to resist the effects herself. While the young girl was still coping with her experiences as Mistress of the Deathbusters, and had utterly refused to accept her role as Sailor Saturn, seeing her 'big sister' in danger prompted her to transform. Fighting alone, the Senshi of Destruction was able to drive Zirae off, although being hurt somewhat in the process.

Working off information his sensitive machines detected from that battle, Professor Tomoe, working with Ami and Eudial, came up with a plan for dealing with Zirae. Usagi, with the aid of Cyprine and Ptliol, would shatter his null-field once more, while the remaining senshi would attack full force to destroy his physical body in that state before he fled. The only problem was the risk of a catastrophic energy release from his Pocket Universe, which would annihilate the entire Milky Way Galaxy...

It was a daring plan, made only slightly safer by Tomoe and Eudial's job of creating a portal to channel any catastrophic energy release to an empty space in the universe between Galaxies. But it was all they had.

Sadly, Zirae wasn't very considerate of their timetable, attacking Mugen once more before all the preperations had been made. Even worse, Chibi Usa was at the school, and found by Zirae.

And so, the desperate final battle began.

Rei, Usagi, the Twins, and Chibi Usa all relocated to the roof of Mugen, swiftly followed by Zirae as the other senshi raced to the scene while battle commenced.

Unfortunately, close presence with Zirae had a profound effect on Chibi Usa, reverting her to a pink-tinged Silver Crystal in Rei's arms, which Zirae spared no effort in obtaining - his attempts to warp reality and sieze the Crystal from Rei managing to tear her left arm out its socket and shatter her right forearm in several places while she somehow retained a desperate grip.

Meanwhile, Usagi fractured his null-field and the other Sailor Senshi arrived, attacking in earnest. After a particularly brutal attack from Sailor Jupiter nearly destroyed the rooftop, injuring Zirae severely, he finally cut loose with a desperate attack that stunned all of the senshi. And as they regained their wits, he had already retrieved the Crystal...

Removing all limits on his power, Zirae healed himself in an instant, utterly ignoring a furious desperate attack from Usagi before preparing to end the Moon Princess' life.

But then, something amazing happened. Chibi Usa spoke from inside Zirae! Desperately fighting Zirae from within to protect her adopted mother and loved ones, Chibi Usa nonetheless found herself outmatched. And in the end, she proved she was her mother's daughter by sacrifing herself to shatter the Silver Crystal and relimit Zirae's power, fully healing the senshi in the process.

Filled with rage and grief, the Sailor Senshi laid into Zirae with a vengeance, Eudial and Viluy also arriving by this point to assist in the battle. Overwhelmed by their attacks, Zirae was hit by Usagi's final attack with the Holy Grail, and everything went black...

Waking up an unknown time later, the girls saw they had won, and the Galaxy hadn't been destroyed. But victory tasted like ashes after the brave and selfless sacrifice of one little girl who had already lost so much in her tragically short life.

Seeing the Silver Crystal reform, absorbing the Holy Grail entirely, didn't offer much comfort. What good was it, now, coming too late to save Usagi's daughter?

But then, a miracle happened. Pulsing with light, the Crystal turned back into Chibi Usa! The battle had been won against the strongest foe of all, and the girls all looked forward to their bright future.

But, that is another story...