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Gaea
"Now what?"
"Now, we wait and see if their friends come looking for them." The green-haired woman turned to face the younger Senshi and smiled. "You have done well, Gesre. We have one child ... and the Goddesses have another. All that remains, is to find the twin."
Gesre smiled at her mother. "Leave that to Ymede and I. We will not fail you, mother." The green-haired woman bowed slightly as a brunette behind her did the same.
Cronos watched her two daughters vanish, then turned to the man standing behind her. "Aevor, what of these ... other Senshi?"
Aevor bowed slightly. "We have planted the seeds of doubt in their minds. They will not easily trust the betrayers." He frowned at the three unconscious Shitennou. "What of them, Aunt?"
"Do not worry about them. I have already sent a message to Mars. What I need you, Fluri and the others to do is keep an eye on these strangers. I'm so very close to toppling Venus and I do not want interference from anyone."
The son of Mercury and Gaea nodded, bowing again. As soon as the blue-haired man left the room, Cronos started laughing. "'Ten will battle, but only one will rule.' I bet you regret ever making that prophecy, don't you, Mars?" She walked over to the unconscious Nephlite and knelt beside him. Grabbing his face, she smirked down at the sleeping man. "Even if you don't, I will make sure that he does."
Earth
"Rei-chan, if don't want to stay with us, you don't have to sweetie. We can take you back to Chiba-san's," Jinia replied, smiling down at the black-haired girl. As soon as Hikari and Kai had returned from their 'day out' with Yo-Ichi, they had taken some of the little girl's clothes and toys, as well as everything that belonged to her two brothers, to the house Jinia shared with Yaten. 'Otou-san called me a fool for buying a house so big when it was just me and 'Kari, but now ... I think I may be running out of room.'
Rei glanced around the living room for a moment until she saw Hiko sitting with Yo-Ichi. "Are my brothers here, too?" She had slept through the entire move and had woken in a panic when she couldn't find Urani. "Where's 'Rani?"
Jinia smiled slightly, sitting beside the young girl. "She's upstairs, putting her things into the room she's going to share with the other boys. Hikari said it was girls only in her room and Rani-chan didn't technically count as a girl," she replied, winking. "So, do you want to stay too? You can play with the boys all day while the rest of us go to school."
"But I'm s'posed to go to school, too," Rei replied, frowning.
"True, but Kakyuu-san has told your teachers that Seiya-chan had to go out of town for a family emergency. You don't have to go to school right now unless you want to."
"I wanna stay with my brother ... sister," Rei replied, seeing the blue-eyed girl walk into the room.
Urani chuckled slightly, blushing. "Yeah, I still need to figure out how to ... reverse this."
"It's quite simple really. Just concentrate on what you looked like as a boy."
Urani jumped and turned to face the person that had spoken. She hadn't even noticed the purple-haired man sitting in a chair when she walked in. "Z-Zavi?"
Xavier grinned. "How many Kinmokunai do you know that have hair this color?" He lifted a long purple ponytail off his shoulder. "Kakyuu-sama asked us to come help Sakuma-san get you settled in. And she wanted us to see what we could do to keep you and Hiko-chan from getting overwhelmed by the neighbors."
"That will be good," Urani replied. "But who is 'us'?"
"Surely you didn't think I'd let him have all the fun."
"Devii!" Rei bounced off the couch and ran past her sister to hug a woman with dark pink hair.
Devii Yaten, Kaish's youngest child, grinned at the little girl as she leaned down to hug her. "Hello Rei-rei."
Urani looked at his cousin in shock. "D-Devii? You've ... changed."
"So have you. When did you get so tall?"
"Two years ago," Urani replied, grinning. "I was as short as Rei-chan before that."
Rei frowned. "I'm not short."
"No, you're not, for a six-year-old. But I was ten and just a few inches taller," Urani replied.
"You were as small as the 'terrible trio'," Rei replied, walking over to her sister.
Seeing the look of confusion on Urani's face, Jinia smiled. "Your uncle Taiki-chan's god-children. The Vigns."
Urani smiled a little. "Oh, them. Yeah ... I was about as tall as Asht."
"Guess that means there's hope for them yet," Xavier replied, chuckling. "Tai hates being short."
Devii grinned, glancing over at the two boys on the couch. "Speaking of being short, who's the new little one?"
"That's my brother, Hiko. He's two, so he has an excuse to be short," Urani replied, grinning. "What's yours?"
"I didn't eat my vegetables when I was growing up." Devii smiled a little at the black-haired girl, then hesitantly pulled her into a hug.
Jinia smiled when she saw the older alien stand and hug both of the teenagers. She then noticed Rei was holding Urani's hand ... and that he was male again. "You changed back."
"I did?" Urani slipped out of the hug and glanced down at himself. A grin spread across his face and he winked at Rei. "Looks like you're back to having two brothers again."
Gaea
Venus looked up from her conversation with Mars as the doors to the Throne Room opened and Mercury entered, followed by the strange new Senshi and Jupiter. "Ah, I see we have some old friends that have returned," she replied when she saw the StarLights. She glanced over Saturn, dismissed the Glaive and the cold look on her face, and turned to face her 'double'. "I see what you mean, Mercury, she does look exactly like me."
Sailor V, in her normal fuku, smiled slightly. "Funny, I was about to say the same thing."
"Kami, you even sound alike." Mars laughed slightly as she stepped closer to the new blonde. "But I bet you can cook a lot better than she can."
"I heard that, Fire-breath." The ruler of Gaea stepped over to the Senshi and smiled. "Welcome to our home. Mercury tells me that you are looking for ... three children?"
StarFighter nodded. "Yes. They said my daughter, Shi, was here. Where is she?"
Venus smiled at the familiar face. "Just like our Fighter, straight to the point." She waved a hand and a guard stepped into a small shadowy corridor. "She will be here momentarily. First, I was hoping you could tell me how she came to be lost."
"As we told your friends, we are from another dimension. A ... friend ... is capable of opening portals between dimensions and asked if we'd let the girls come to this one. We thought it was safe, but it turns out that it was not."
"This world is safe. Or rather, was. I don't know how the monsters are getting out, but they are," Mars replied, frowning.
Saturn held up one hand and a ghostly image of a red-haired woman appeared. "There is a dark Sorceress behind this. Her name is Beryl."
Venus looked at the image in the younger woman's hand and frowned. "Beryl? That was the name of Metallia's pawn, wasn't it?" She glanced at Mercury as the blue-haired woman nodded, then turned back to Saturn. "How do you know this?"
"Because we have faced her in our own world, twice," V replied. "And we have destroyed her."
Jupiter frowned, looking over the younger Senshi's shoulder. "If she's trying to make a come back, we won't have any problems stopping her."
"Are you so sure? We had ten warriors then, but we only have seven now. And Lysithea has never faced anything like this," Mercury replied.
"We also have the kids."
Venus glared at the brunette. "Our children are not facing this monster. I will not allow-"
"Dema!!"
StarFighter turned at the squeaky voice and was knocked off her feet by the small blonde. She lay there for a moment stunned, then hugged the little girl. "Sh-Shi?"
Shi looked at the older woman and nodded. "I thought you had left me, but then I realized that this isn't home. I don't know where this is and I don't know what's going on, but they said some mean lady made me little again, which doesn't make sense, cause I don't remember being bigger, but I do remember Earth. But I've never been to Earth. They said this planet was called Gaea. I can't spell that. I tried teaching the blue lady Kinmokunai, but that funny language of Uncle Yaten's keeps getting mixed in with it, so it doesn't make sense. I wanted to come look for you, but they said it wasn't safe out there, that the mean lady could come back and I didn't want her to come back, she was scary." She paused to take a deep breath, then leaned closer to the older woman's ear. "She looked like that mean old woman that's been in my dreams. The one that-" She saw the image Saturn had created and frowned. Letting go of StarFighter, she walked over to the purple-clad Senshi and grabbed her arm. "You forgot her horns."
StarHunter helped the black-haired former singer to her feet and grinned. "Are you sure that's Shi? I haven't heard her talk that much since ... I don't think I've ever heard her talk that much. Rei-chan, yes, but never Shi."
"She's just getting started. The first few days she was here, she didn't say a word. She hasn't stopped talking since she met Venus face to face," Uranus replied. She glanced between the two blonde Senshi and frowned. "You're not making clones of yourself again, are you, love?"
"I have never tried to clone myself. Unlike Elara," Venus replied, grinning slightly at Jupiter. She turned to StarFighter and smiled slightly. "Cronos ... well, I've never seen her change someone's age before, but-"
"Your friends told us she had the power to 'alter' people. Guess she's never seen a half-Kinmokunai/half-Hrrrrunai before," StarFighter smiled at the younger girl as she was talking to Saturn.
Uranus smiled a little. "That's possible. She wasn't around when our StarLights were here."
"That is so weird," Saturn replied quietly as Uranus hugged Venus. She was modifying the image in her hand based on Shi's suggestions, but had glanced up when Uranus spoke. "Remind me to never tell Michiru-mama about this."
"Don't worry, I'll remind you." V smirked slightly, then turned to her double. "Mercury said that Cronos was 'playing a mind game'. What did she mean?"
Venus sighed, glancing over at Mars. "Cronos claims to have found ... it's really impossible. Especially since she's the one that ..."
"Seven and a half centuries ago, Cronos used her powers to manipulate the opening of the barrier between our world and that of Metallia. She is responsible for releasing the demons. Those monsters ..." Jupiter clenched her hands into fists and closed her eyes. "Those monsters killed our children and one of our friends."
StarFighter frowned slightly, glancing up at the blonde leader. "I have to admit that ... some of this, we already knew. Since we arrived, we have been in contact with a group of warriors on this planet. Only they said that ..."
"That we had killed them?" Venus sighed as the black-haired singer nodded. "I wondered how long it would be before she brought them back. The warriors you encountered are Cronos' servants. We don't know who they are, or how they gained their powers, but she has manipulated their minds against us. I imagine they told you about Triton and Gaea?"
"Triton, Gaea and Kiviuq," Saturn replied, glaring at the blonde.
Venus waved a hand absently and several guards appeared with chairs for everyone. Once they were all seated, except Saturn, who was still glaring, the blonde sighed again. "I know that, on the surface, the story of Kiviuq is horrible. But, you must understand ... I had no choice. You must also understand that warriors were never meant to have as much power as we had to gather to defeat Metallia. That much power led to ..." She glanced at Uranus, but the blue-clad Senshi was staring at the floor. "After only about a century, the power grew to be too much for even us to control. Kiviuq ... Dione created monsters that were terrorizing the planet. I tried to restrain her until Mars could bind her powers, but it didn't work. The monsters only grew stronger. They started killing. And with every person they killed, she lost a little more of herself. There was no other way ..."
Saturn refused to look up at the blonde. "Now I know why everyone was so scared of me."
"Everyone is still scared of you. Especially when you use that thing as a can-opener." StarFighter smiled a little at the younger woman, then looked up at the blonde. "So, Kiviuq wasn't killed at the same time as the rift?"
"No, she was dead long before the rift ever opened." Uranus turned to look at the black-haired Senshi. "Gaea ..."
"I only saw monsters," Mercury replied. "I didn't see Gaea until it was too late."
"And her husband?" V asked.
Mercury frowned. "She wasn't married."
V glanced at her companions, frowning. "He was lying to us."
StarFighter nodded. "So it would seem. About almost everything but Shi," she replied, brushing the young blonde's hair from her face. "But I don't understand why he would."
Mars stood, walking over to a wall display. "To turn you against us, I imagine. If he works for Cronos, his main goal will be to destroy us." She brought up an image onto the screen. "Cronos sent this to me this morning. She claims that the brunette is-"
"Minako!" StarHunter was at the redhead's side in an instant. She pointed to the youngest of the three figures. "That's Kou's daughter."
Mars frowned. "The blond is one of the men that was controlling the monsters. Why would they be with her?"
"His name is Jadeite." Shi frowned at the image as several things clicked into place in her mind. "The brunette is Nephlite. They are controlled by Beryl. When we first arrived in this world, she sensed us and used her powers to pull us into her realm."
"Why would she grab children?" Jupiter asked, frowning at the image. "And what did Cronos do to them?"
Shi sighed, glancing over her shoulder at her Dema, then the blonde sitting near him. She turned her gaze to the floor. "Minako is the reincarnation of a third Shitennou, Kunzite. Miyo is the reincarnation of our ... our Nephlite. I am ..." She raised her eyes to stare at the image as she allowed the one secret she had been keeping her entire life to finally come out. "I am the King of Fire, General of the Terran Kingdom, betrayer of the White Moon. I am Zoisite."
V looked at the younger blonde in shock. She had wondered who the Kinmokunai children were since they came into the house, but she would never have guessed that they were Shitennou. "Z-Zoisite? Th-then, the boy ..."
"If he has the same soul as Shi, then it is no surprise that he suffered from the same attack," Saturn replied, smiling slightly. She had known for several months who the former Generals were, but had kept her promise to the blonde not to tell. "At least now we know why Beryl took them and not the others."
StarFighter knelt beside her daughter and made the younger woman look at her. "Shi ... you could have told us."
Shi shook her head, hugging the older woman. "They hate us."
"We don't hate you, little one. Zoisite and the others were our friends first." V smiled at the younger blonde, then stood to look at her double. "Do you know where Cronos is?"
Venus shook her head. "You know that better than we do. These warriors you saw are hers. They will know how to find her." She glanced at her companions and frowned. "We will help you rescue your children. If you will help us stop her."
V glanced at her companions, then nodded. "Deal." She glanced over at Hunter and noticed the gray-haired woman was still staring at the image of Minako. "I think it's time we called in the cavalry."
