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Gaea - 13 Months after the arrival of the Kinmokunai & Sol Senshi
Fifth month of 1Serenity
"Are you sure?"
"Positive."
"Oh boy." Shi watched her twin for several long moments, then sighed. "Well, I'm not going to be the one to tell Kaiou-san."
Miyo frowned. "You still won't call her Aunt Michiru, will you?"
"No," Shi replied. "And once she finds out about this, she won't want us calling her anything, I'm sure."
"Once who finds out about what?"
Miyo turned to face Seiya and smiled. "No one. And nothing."
Shi grinned at the look on the older alien's face. "You are so bad at lying." She turned to face her Dema and the grin widened. "I was just telling Miyo that once Kaiou-san finds out some of the things that have happened on Gaea, she won't be very happy with us."
Seiya frowned and buried her hands in her pockets to keep from fidgeting. "What could possibly have happened on Gaea that would affect how Michiru-chan treats the two of you?"
Shi shrugged, idly twirling a lock of blue (thanks to a 'gift' from Elara) hair around her finger. "Not much. Just the fact that Miyo happened to see you and Haruka-oba-san last night on the balcony." The blonde smirked when the older woman's face turned bright red. "So it is true."
"I told you so." Miyo giggled and hooked one arm with Seiya. "So ... why didn't you tell us?"
"My love life is no concern of yours."
"Yes, it is, you're our mother."
"Does she know that?"
"Know what?"
"That you're not our father."
"Yes, she knows." Seiya sighed as Shi grabbed her free arm. "Please don't ambush her like this, okay?"
"This wasn't an ambush. You snuck up on us."
"I can hardly sneak up on a telepath."
Miyo made a face at the older woman as all three of them started walking toward the exit. "You can when their mind is on other things. Like on the Kinmokunai ship that's about to land."
"And the fact that Riein told us that there IS a StarFighter who looks just like you," Shi replied. "Having one of you as a parent is difficult enough. How are we ever going to survive there being two of you?"
"The same way I survived there being two of you," Seiya replied. "Lots and lots of therapy."
Shi rolled her eyes as they walked outside, then started looking for a familiar blonde. Not exactly an easy task in a court where nearly a third of the members had hair in differing shades of yellow and gold. Finally spotting a head of sandy-blonde hair, she glanced back at her mother. "Is that her? or Aunt Rosa?"
"Rosa is still inside helping Pandora. That is Haru-chan." Seiya fought down another blush as the twins started pulling her toward the blonde. "Girls, I have to go find Yaten and Kaish."
"They're standing right next to her. I think. Or is that Trun and Trans?" Miyo frowned slightly as she followed the blonde's lead through the gathered group. "I can't really tell who it is. Why did Aunt Imari have to go so heavy on the wards?"
Seiya chuckled slightly. "She didn't. The baby added her own touches." She was still chuckling when they finally reached the group and they could see that it was, in fact, Trans and Yaten standing next to Haruka.
Yaten raised an eyebrow at the twins, then glanced at Seiya. "Do I even want to ask what's gotten into them?"
Trans glanced between the two and shook her head. "Probably not. It looks like they've been into some of Elara's experiments."
"That ... was the day before yesterday," Shi replied, pushing a chunk of blue hair out of her face. Most of the dye had washed out, with repeated scrubbing, but she still had large streaks of blue throughout the now waist-length hair. In the year since she had left the Dark Kingdom, her hair had already grown nearly a foot. Elara, thinking that she should look more like Seiya and Miyo, made a 'gift' of a new bottle of shampoo, but instead of turning her hair black, as intended, it turned it dark blue.
Haruka chuckled slightly. "So that's why no one could find you yesterday. And why Seiya-chan laughed everytime anyone asked where you were."
Miyo bit back a laugh and let go of Seiya's arm to grab Haruka's. "We should find a good spot for the landing. Don't want to have to stand near the engines."
Haruka looked at Seiya curiously for a moment as Shi mimicked her sister's actions. "Okay ... just not too far away, in case your Dema needs you."
Yaten watched the twins lead the blonde away, then looked at Seiya. She raised an eyebrow at the slight blush that had returned to the singer's cheeks. "Kou-"
"Don't ask. I'll explain later." Seiya smiled at Trans and grabbed Yaten's arm. "Sorry to rush, but we need to find Kaish and Zavi."
"You shouldn't have to look too hard," Trans replied, smiling. She pointed toward one edge of the group where Xavier was trying to get Sora, who was carrying twins, to sit next to Elara.
"Ah. And why are you over here, standing, instead of sitting over there?" Seiya asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Because I'm not carrying a half-Kinmokunai who could very well decide that today is a good day to be born," Trans replied, smiling. "This little one has several more months until she'll be ready to meet an alien."
Yaten shared a glance with Seiya before the two musicians each grabbed an arm of the gray-haired woman and started marching her over to the rows of chairs. "That may very well be, but Eris did ask us to make sure you didn't do anything stupid while she was gone. And I'd feel a lot better if you were sitting. Especially if you were where Larissa could make sure you stay seated."
Trans rolled her eyes, but allowed herself to be led over to the chairs. "I'm not helpless, you know."
"No one said you were. We're just picky about seating arrangements." Seiya grinned at her as they walked up to the chairs, then smirked when she saw that Sora had finally given in and was scowling at Xavier. "Honeymoon over already?"
Sora blushed slightly and looked up at Seiya. "I keep telling him that I'm perfectly fine standing, but he will not listen to reason."
Elara chuckled. "Stop arguing, Sora. Or do you really want to stand through the whole welcoming ceremony that your mother has planned?"
Sora frowned. "What exactly has she planned? And why isn't Queen Serenity doing the ceremony?"
Elara motioned to the guards standing at attention behind the children. "Some kind of vague welcoming ceremony she remembers from the Moon. And Queen Serenity isn't doing it for the same reason that your mother isn't doing it. They'll be here with us soon enough. Rosa and Riein are doing it."
"That is, if Riein can stand still long enough to do it," Kaish replied, grinning. There was a noise above them and she looked up. A vague outline of a spaceship could be seen through the early afternoon clouds, slowly descending toward the palace. "Show time."
Seiya nodded and turned back toward the palace. Since they didn't know how the others would react to their presence, it was decided that the four StarLights would wait inside the palace until Rosa and Riein had a chance to talk to the newcomers. Devii was inside the palace as well, with Ryusei, babysitting Midori. The only dimensional travellers that remained outside were Haruka and the twins, mainly because they could blend into the sea of faces and because Miyo needed to be close to sense any deception on the parts of the new Kinmokunai.
As the StarLights entered the palace, they passed Helios and Rosalind escorting Serenity and Pandora outside. Riein motioned them into one of the side rooms off the main hall and pointed to a crystal display on the wall. "You four will be able to see everything that happens. Once we've had a chance to speak to them, we'll introduce them to you."
Seiya watched the blue-haired woman for several moments as she explained some of the stuff that Pandora had planned. "Riein, are you okay?"
Smoothing her hair down for the hundredth time that morning, Riein nodded. "I'm fine, just ... I never told you Seiya-chan, because ... I didn't want you to be nervous around me, but ... our StarFighter and I were ..." She smiled slightly. "You do look just like her."
"Then don't you think you should get outside and say hello to her?" Yaten grinned at Riein and hooked an arm around Seiya's shoulders. "Don't worry, we'll keep this one in here, so you won't have to worry about getting them confused."
Kaish chuckled slightly and lightly pulled her sister's ponytail. "I think we may be the ones in danger of being confused."
Riein laughed softly as she began to relax a little. The crystal display behind her came on and she glanced back to see that the ship was just a few feet above the treeline. "Time to go." She hesitated for a moment before hugging Seiya, then nearly running out of the room.
Seiya stood there a few moments longer, just staring at where Riein had been. "Did she say ..."
"Yes."
Rubbing her forehead, the blue-eyed singer finally seemed to snap out of her daze. "That explains so much ..."
Yaten chuckled and pulled the other woman over to a seat. "And it's going to be a little odd to watch, I'm sure. But ... you promised me an explanation. What's going on that I don't know about?"
Rosalind smiled at Riein as the blue-haired woman joined her beside the small clearing they had set aside to use as a landing site for the main Kinmokunai ship. Since the destruction of their planet, the Kinmokunai had been forced to live on the few Fleet ships that managed to escape and those ships they could salvage or acquire. For the last four decades, they had been travelling the universe, finding their many scattered survivors and looking for a new home. They had left behind a way for the Gaean warriors to contact them, should they ever need their help again.
Thankfully, Riein had stayed in contact with them, though it had been sporadic, and thought she knew the best way to ensure their cooperation. She convinced the other Goddesses, with only a small amount of effort, to let the Kinmokunai return to Gaea, permanently. StarFighter had assured her that they would return to Gaea, but would not say for sure if they would, or could, stay.
"Ready for this?" Rosa asked as the blue-haired woman smoothed her hair down yet again.
"Yes ... no ..." Riein smiled nervously at the blonde woman as the ship finally stopped it's descent. Because of it's size, it couldn't completly land, but it was able to get close enough for the hover craft to reach the shuttle bay. The first of the small crafts started up toward the ship as the shuttle bay doors opened.
With everyone's attention focused on the shuttle bay, no one saw the four warriors that teleported into the clearing below the ship until one of the warriors started running toward the dais screaming, "Riein!"
The blue-haired woman jumped and immediately motioned for the guards to stand down when she saw who it was. Grinning like an idiot, Riein jumped off the small dais and started running toward StarFighter.
In the crowd, Miyo, Shi and Haruka all started laughing. "Protocol be damned," Shi replied. "Just like Dema."
Rosalind's shoulders were shaking as she glanced over to see Pandora glaring at the blue-haired woman's back. Beside her, Serenity was holding a hand over her mouth, trying to hide her own smile. The first hovercraft arrived a few feet away from the dais with a black-haired StarLight rubbing the bridge of her nose and a red-haired StarLight laughing.
"Doesn't she look like ..."
"Yes, she does."
The blonde Goddess stepped forward and bowed slightly to the two StarLights. "Now that we seem to have determined that those two do, in fact, know each other ... Welcome to Gaea."
The red-haired StarLight returned the bow and smiled at Rosalind. "Yes, I do believe they are ... very well acquainted. I am Sailor StarDestroyer and on behalf of the Kinmokunai people, I thank you for inviting us to your planet."
The black-haired StarLight turned to the three warriors that were walking briskly up to the dais and hissed in her native language, "Just what the hell do you think you were doing?"
A StarLight with blue hair, a little lighter than Riein's smiled slightly and scratched her head. "We were aiming for the dais," she replied in the same language. The redheaded Guard beside her, nodded. "They must have some kind of ... shield around it."
The third figure, a StarLight with white hair and black eyes, ignored the glare aimed in her direction. "I just came along to do some recon. Can't let everyone down here until we know for sure what's going on, right?"
The black-haired woman sighed and looked over at StarFighter and Riein. "Saier ... would you please go tell them to stop making such fools of themselves? Really, my daughter should know better than that." The elder StarFighter, aka Miyoshi Seiya, turned back to the first redhead and the blonde. Smiling a little at the blonde woman, she bowed and spoke in the strange language her daughter had taught her. "Thank you for inviting us to your planet. I ... apologize for my daughter. She has been most anxious to make this journey. I am Sailor StarFighter."
Shi glanced at her sister, then looked toward the palace. "She couldn't really ... be ..."
Miyo shrugged, too stunned to even think about using her powers to find out if the woman standing before them could really be the double of their grandmother.
