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Diamohns are Forever	By : SailorSol Category: Sailor Moon > General Views: 22490 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Sailor Moon, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

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PLUTO�S RETURN

Aster was brushing her hair carefully when she was startled by the sound of the house door being unlocked. There had been no sound from either the foot gate or the main gate, and everyone who had just taken part in an early evening attack, including herself, was back. No one else could have approached the door without using the gate that she knew of. Then, the germ of an idea formed in her mind as she rose from her seat and headed for the door. Behind her, she felt Vincent rise and follow her.

In the entry to the house, straightening his cloak was Kishi Pluto. Behind him was Sailor Pluto, looking exactly as she had when they had seen her last, nine months before.

�It's about time you two showed up," Aster growled. Sailor Pluto said nothing. She was well accustomed to Aster's attitude towards her, since she kept secrets on a regular basis, something Aster found reprehensible. Takagi looked startled, then more than a little hurt.

"We need to talk," Aster said, pushing her knee-length curls over her shoulder and heading for the solarium. She passed the white board from the council chamber, this time taken up with a map of the city and coordinates for sporadic raids on the chaos zone. Kojiro's grandfather, Tanamura Jishin, was picking counters randomly out of bowls and writing times down for each of the coordinates. Sailor Pluto stared at him in shock, but received no explanations.

Silently, Takagi followed, wondering precisely what had gone on while they were gone. As he passed through the living room, he noticed that while soul-bonded mates were sometimes sitting together, planetary partners were also sitting together, and the planet partners were closer together than the mated pairs.

For instance, Hotaru and Thomas were normally inseparable, but Hotaru was sitting in Sean's lap in one couch group, while Thomas was leaning against Usagi in another group that only seemed to include the two of them, Lucinda, and Mamoru.

Makoto's husband, Kojiro, was in yet another group that included Venus and Mars, with Ami curled up in his lap. They seemed to be the worst off other than Mina and Martin, who were quite literally wrapped around one another and holding each other�s hands so tightly that their knuckles were white.

When they reached the solarium, Takagi took Aster's shoulders and looked at her minutely. There were signs of extreme strain that had not been there nine months ago.

"What happened?" he asked. "I'm sorry we didn't arrive until now, but she set our arrival. She said that this time was necessary for you to develop the telepathic bonds between planetary pairs."

"I expect that kind of cold-hearted efficiency out of her, Takagi," Aster said. "I would have never expected it out of you. Do you have any idea of what's been going on in the last nine months?"

"I wouldn't have asked if I had known," he reminded her. She sighed and sat down, then resumed brushing her hair.

"I'm sorry," she said. "It's just that things have been a bit on the difficult side."

"Tell me," he said, sitting across from her. He heard a soft step and looked over to see Vincent leaning in the doorway that led to the rest of the house, out of earshot, but within line of sight of his partner.

"We were separated from our elements," Aster said, brushing at her hair with short, swift strokes, then calming herself with visible effort and lengthening the strokes of the brush while slowing down her movements.

"We got teleported by planetary pairs," she explained. "We were separated from everything and everyone else. Vincent and I ended up in a frozen waste, with no sun, and so did Mars. Mercury was in a jungle and Neptune ended up in a desert. Venus and Jupiter ended up in volcanic wastes. Uranus ended up in some airless cave. Saturn was in a bubble in space.

"We had to raise power to get back," she continued, tossing her brush on the table in front of her. "Without our elements, there was only one way to raise enough power to teleport."

"Oh, no," Takagi said, remembering several references on tantric sex he had read several years earlier. "Terra is cousins!"

"Not by blood, this time, fortunately," Aster said. "Because Hotaru, Lucinda, and Lita are pregnant, by their planet partners. I am, too, but I�m not exactly sure who the father is. Fortunately, it doesn't show when we're Senshi, and it doesn't seem to affect our abilities."

"I hope the princess understands," Takagi said.

"Actually," Aster said primly. "I think you'll find her Highness most understanding of human failings. She's had her trial by fire, and it wasn't pleasant."

"That, too, was necessary," Takagi said. "She needed tempering to be fit to rule."

"No problem now," Aster said. "But I wouldn't have wished her trial on my worst enemy. By the way, she�s pregnant, as well."

"I am sorry for that, too," he said. "I am the most sorry that I wasn't here when you so clearly needed me. She probably would have waited longer if we had time. According to what we�ve seen, we have less than twenty-four hours before the zone of chaos reaches this house. It is less than two miles away."

"That's only because we've been pushing it back as best we can," Aster said. "I don't think we would survive another separation like this, especially if the next one were not along partnership lines."

"You won't have to," Takagi said. "Your idea was sound. You need to keep Sailor Moon focused on the Sailor Box and not on what she�s facing. Also, you need to figure out who�s going to contain Chaos."

"That I have solved," Aster said, her smile wry and her tone amused. �Chiron moved in before any of us came back, along with a number of satellites to keep Charon and Hermes company. As for who will contain Chaos, his jailers have come back to take him away. As for the other, it won�t matter what happens, if we�re out of phase with time.�

"That is true," Takagi said. "He cannot teleport you if you are out of phase with time. Who told you?"

"I told you, his original jailers," she said. "I�m worried about the strain on everyone else. It took us nearly a day the last time. The zone is so much larger now."

�I know," he said. "It will take more like four days."

"We don't have the strength, yet," Aster said. "The Outers and I do, but we've been back the longest. Terra and the Moon might, but the strain would kill the Inner Senshi. The return here nearly killed Venus."

"I can stretch time," he reminded her gently. "I can make the four days one day for you. You can do this."

"I hope so," Aster said. "At least if we fail, ChibiUsa will never know." She rose to her feet, then nodded at Vincent, who pushed himself off of the doorway and walked back to the living room.

"He doesn't trust me, does he?" Takagi asked.

Aster shrugged.

"It's not that," she said. "It's that physical separation still isn't very pleasant for us. It's possible, for all of us, but it hurts. It is physically painful, and the weaker the Senshi, the more painful it is." She looked at the doorway to see Sailor Pluto silhouetted by the light from the living room.

"They're acting like children," she said to Takagi. "When I mentioned it, the princess told me not to criticize anyone! I've never seen anything like it!"

"Don't even start, Pluto," Aster said, rather rebelliously taking Takagi's hand and laying her head on her lover's armored shoulder. "When you've been stranded somewhere bleak and unpleasant with no one but your planet partner for company, and no way to get home but to try to generate enough power somehow, then you can criticize, not until."

She straightened up, released Takagi's hand, and swept past a very confused Pluto and into the living room.

As Aster reentered the living room, where Vincent met her with a hug, she heard Takagi speaking rapidly and intensely, a sure sign that he was angry. She saw angry looks on Usagi's face and her sister's but she had more than domestic problems to concern her. She stopped at the white board and told Kojiro's grandfather that they needed equal spacing around the perimeter, with twenty-two points. While she talked to him, she communicated the situation to Vincent.

//Apollo,// she thought. //I know this is going to be hard on everyone, but we have to get the planet partners separate.//

//Why?:// came the reply. //Venus still isn't recovered. Why push things?//

//Because the chaos zone is less than two miles from here,// she told him. //It�s expansion is accelerating. We have less than twenty-four hours before it reaches here. If we don't act now, there is no future.//

//That means no ChibiUsa,//

//Exactly,// she replied. //I know it sounds cold, love, but we need to do this. I need you to be strong for me, and for them. They're all following our lead.//

//You're right, Amaterasu,// his thought surged into her, accompanied with the sensation of a comforting embrace. //We won't let this thing beat us.//

//No.//

Almost against her will, Aster walked away from Vincent. Every instinct was screaming at her to turn around and go back to him, but she ignored him and approached the cluster of couches where the Outer Senshi and Kishi were sitting.

Off to one side sat the most perplexing planetary pair that Aster had ever encountered. They had appeared in the compound barely a week after she and Vincent had found their way home. They were members of the same race as the Dark Millennium had been. They had been able to fill in the gaps for Aster and Vincent, explaining, when humans had come by the powers that their race had developed, why the levels of power were switched for each gender.

They called themselves Prospero and Dreanne, and they took their power from the darkest of the planets. Persephone was a planet that current astronomers barely acknowledged the existence of. Their sole function, from the development of their powers, was to contain Chaos.

When Chaos had been freed, they had begun the work of attempting to become corporeal again for the first time in many, many millennia. They had only managed it when the explosion that had destroyed the last of their brethren had given them the power they needed.

Aster approached them and took them each by the hand, allowing them to access the information she had just acquired. Their grim faces told her that they understood the situation. Without a word, they got up from their seat with a liquid grace that Aster envied with all her heart.

�Chaos will be contained,� the man told her, putting a hand on her shoulder. �With the new plan, we will succeed.� He nodded to his partner, and then turned to move into the den. She smiled at Aster and stroked Aster�s cheek lovingly before she turned and entered the dining room.

Aster now turned to the other Outers. She knelt in front of Hotaru and Sean first, knowing that they would have the easiest time of it.

"Sean," she said softly. "We have to separate. We don't have time to recover naturally. The chaos zone will be here in less than twenty-four hours. If we don't act now, we won't be able to act. If we don't stop the chaos zone, there won't be a future to fight for."

"No ChibiUsa?" Hotaru asked, her violet eyes enormous. She was the most pregnant of the Senshi, and at about eight months looked like she had swallowed a ball whole. Fortunately, the child she was carrying was correspondingly small, so her small belly was not disproportionately swollen. She turned her eyes to Sean, who looked into them for a moment, then nodded.

"You're right, wee one," he said. "We've got to do it, if only for the little Princess." He turned his eyes to Aster, and as always, she felt a surge of love for him.

"Where do we go?" he asked.

"Kishi into the den," she said. "Senshi into the dining room." She watched while Sean helped Hotaru up, waited while she made her way ponderously to the dining room, then resolutely turned and walked into the den, where Vincent was waiting. He and Vincent clasped wrists, then stood still with their heads together. Another advantage of the planetary bond was that all of the Kishi had quickly overcome their early programming to hide their emotions. Neither Vincent nor Sean was saying anything. Shared misery was better than misery alone.

Aster then turned to where Haruka, Michiru, Quentin, and Nathan sat together, the two Kishi together, and their Senshi planet partners on either side.

Without saying anything, and without Aster needing to say anything, the four of them stood, embraced their planet partners, then clasped hands with their lovers and walked away from one another, Haruka and Michiru into the dining room where Hotaru and Dreanne were waiting, and Quentin and Nathan to join Sean, Vincent, and Prospero.

Now, Aster walked over to where her Lucinda, Mamoru, Usagi, and Thomas sat. Lucinda and Mamoru were in constant pain, as the very earth they were tied to was twisted and warped by the encroaching chaos zone. Usagi did her best to share it with them, but there was a limit to what even the Moon Princess could accomplish.

Aster gave them the same information she had the others, then reminded them that they were only a thought away, no matter what happened, or how far apart they were. With a visible effort, Lucinda and Mamoru rose to their feet and walked to opposite ends of the couch they had been sharing. Thomas joined Mamoru, and Usagi threw her arms around Lucinda, stifling silent sobs.

Aster watched as Thomas and Mamoru put their arms around one another and slowly made their way to the den. The part of her that was the young woman who loved everyone wanted to call it off and take everyone away to where they would be safe. Sailor Sol knew that if they did not fight now, there would be no other day. She turned to offer encouragement to her sister and her future queen to see that they had joined the Outer Senshi. Now all she had to do was separate the Inners.

Willing herself to be calm, she approached the couch and chairs where the four Inner Senshi and their planet partners sat.

With infinite patience, Aster sat down where they all could see her, told them where the perimeter was, and mentioned its proximity to Hikawa Temple. Since Rei's grandfather had been a kind of surrogate grandfather to all of them, this gave the four girls the motivation to start the difficult process.

Lita and Robert just embraced one another, he patted her bulging belly, and they resolutely let go of one another and walked away. Rei closed her eyes and started chanting. Momentarily, Eduard began chanting with her. The two of them released their grip on one another and walked towards their respective groups, still chanting. Ami and Kojiro gave one another fierce hugs, kissed briefly, and then walked to their places, their arms wrapped around themselves.

Now came the hardest part. Aster knelt in front of Mina and Martin, whose faces were already showing strain, just at the thought of separation.

"It hurts!" Mina whimpered, trying to remove her fingers from Martin's grip. In a sudden convulsive movement, her fingers tightened again.

"Pain has never stopped us from doing our job before," Aster said. "Is it going to now?"

"No!" they both said in chorus. Mina pried her hands from Martin's, and then threw herself into Aster's arms, shuddering with effort, her body wracked with pain. Martin made a gesture to pull her back, and then drew his hands in to his chest.

Aster turned towards the den in entreaty, knowing that, even with their strength of will, there was no way that either of them would manage this without help.

In response to Aster's silent summons, Vincent came out of the den and helped Martin to his feet. He drew the other Kishi away, looking over his shoulder at Aster one last time. She helped Mina to her feet, pulled her across the living room into the dining room, and helped her into a chair. She then turned to the open shoji doors and firmly shut them.

There was an immediate outcry, as the others could no longer see their planet partners. The outcry quickly died, though, as under Aster's direction, the Senshi strengthened the mental links between themselves and their Kishi.

When even Mina had calmed down as she touched Martin's mind, Aster pulled out her henshin wand. All of the others followed her lead, and Usagi pulled her locket out. At Aster's nod, they all transformed simultaneously.

When the rush of power and the accompanying pain had died away, Sailor Sol opened the doors to the dining room and led the Senshi to meet their planet partners again, this time much stronger. Sol turned to see both Plutos standing off to one side and nodded coolly at them. Then she went to the whiteboard where the perimeter of the circle representing the chaos zone had been divided evenly the positions around the perimeter marked.

Helpfully, Kojiro's grandfather had marked each position with a pushpin with a planetary symbol on it: blue for Kishi, pink for Senshi. He had perfectly balanced their needs.

Carefully, Sol added two more flags: a pink one with the symbol for Pluto behind the blue Sol, and a blue Pluto behind the pink Sol. She mentally calculated the time needed to get around the enlarged circle, and she sighed.

"We all know what we have to do," she told the others. "This isn't going to be easy, or pleasant. The physical separation from our planet partners is going to be the least of our worries. We're going to do what we did last time, but with two important differences.

"The most serious problem last time," she continued. "Was that when we were attempting containment, Sailor Moon was faced with a debilitating fear, and it threw the rest of us out of balance. What we need to solve that problem is to have only Persephone confront him directly, and then have someone else step in. Chiron will be there to step in.

"The other problem," she finished. "Was the teleportation he effected when the sailor box was thrown out of balance. The solution to that is to place us slightly out of phase with time, so that he can't touch us to send us away. Now, I want you to pair up the way I tell you, and when the time comes to leave, you go. Everyone can see the board, so I'll show you your position."

She picked up a pointer and raised it to the first position, then moved it as she indicated pairs.

"Kishi Sol, Sailor Pluto."

"Sailor Mercury, Dreanne."

"Kishi Venus, Kishi Neptune."

"Sailor Terra, Sailor Uranus."

"Kishi Moon, Kishi Saturn."

"Sailor Mars, Sailor Jupiter."

"Kishi Jupiter, Kishi Mars."

"Sailor Saturn, Sailor Moon."

"Kishi Uranus, Prince Endymion."

"Sailor Neptune, Sailor Venus."

"Prospero, Kishi Mercury."

"Sailor Sol, Kishi Pluto."

�Kishi Chiron will take his place behind Prospero on the last day of the containment, to take Prospero�s place in the circle. Sailor Chiron will do the same with Dreanne. They must be in place when we are ready to fully contain Chaos, or this will not work.�

She finished and waited while everyone shifted around into the pairs she had designated. When they were finished separating, she nodded to Sailor Pluto.

"Time Phase now, Pluto," she said. The teeth on Sailor Pluto's garnet staff began to glow and all of them felt a sense of vertigo that quickly passed. Once everything seemed stable, although their surroundings seemed a little out of focus, Sol nodded to her partner. and Sailor Pluto.

"Go," she said. "When everyone is in place, if this works out right, we should all be interconnected while we make the box." She watched with an ache in her heart as the other half of her walked out the door, followed by Pluto. She felt a gauntleted hand on her shoulder and knew without turning that it was Kishi Pluto. She put one gloved hand on his, willing herself to be strong enough.

For the next two and a half hours, every twenty minutes, another pair went out, in order, in response to Sailor Sol's orders. When the time came for Sailor Moon to leave, she came over to Sol, hugged her quickly, and then left with Saturn. When it came time for Endymion to leave, he did much the same, whispering in his cousin's ear before he released her. Then he and Kishi Uranus left. Finally, it was only Sol, Pluto, and Tanamura Jishin standing in the empty house.

"Pray for us, Grandfather," Sol said as she and Pluto headed for the door. "We may need it." She allowed Pluto to open the door for her, and then preceded him out the door.

TBC
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Diamohns are Forever