NEMESIS NATIONAL ARCHIVES

Sometimes, he just felt... disenchanted.

The Nemesian morning was cold and dreary, but it wasn't as if this was particularly unusual. Nemesis wasn't the most tropical of homes, but as it was the place the enemies of Terra had been banished to, it was hardly a remarkable thing.

Saffir didn't really mind the bleakness of the planet, not as much as his oniisan did. The blue-haired physicist was usually indoors anyhow, therefore the weather outside was only of interest to him in a mathematical sense. He predicted the weather cycles for a hobby only -- it was a fun application of the much-adored Chaos Theory.

Staring at his computer screens, his chin resting on his laced fingers, the young man stared reflectively at his multitude of data. He was quite addicted to statistic interpretation, though today, he felt... restless.

"Maybe it's just the war," he said softly to himself, absently adding up the figures in his head without really meaning to. Dimando had once accused him of never being able to leave numbers alone -- and he supposed it was true. Saffir always had been a mathematician, he couldn't resist applying his knowledge to anything and everything. He remembered being bored silly during the pedantic examinations he had endured, even though they were as difficult as his talented tutors could make them. Saffir had always finished far too early, and then, due to his searching mind, he would work out silly things like the what the dimensions of the examination hall would be in four-dimensional, time-transcendent space. A mere hobby, but those pages of amusing calculations kept him far more entertained than the academic idiocies he flew through without thinking.

He loved it because it earned him such high respect from his brother. He didn't care about his talent because he was vain, and liked to prove that he could think better than the entire scientific contingent of Nemesis put together. No, he liked his intelligence because his achievements would put a smile on his worshipped elder brother's face.

Words of praise were seldom heard from the White Prince, except where his younger brother was concerned. It confused and bemused many citizens of Nemesis, but that was the way it stood.

Esmeraude's eyes narrowed as she looked at the silent young man, his features turned pale by the condescending white glare of his projection monitors. She had never understood why Prince Dimando was so attached to his little brother. In her opinion, the kid had too many smarts for his own good, and there was just something about him that irritated her. Maybe it was his cynical view of her abilities, the way he seemed to place himself above her.

She didn't even realise she had begun to laugh -- it was an involuntary reaction with her, she did it without thinking. It wasn't until Saffir sighed that she realised she had made a sound.

Saffir turned his chair around to stare at her with quiet annoyance, his blue eyes as deeply shadowed as ever. "Hello, Esmeraude."

Coughing slightly, she then smiled in her brightly evil manner. If she felt embarrassed about being discovered practically spying on Dimando's little brother, she didn't show it. "Saffir, have you been doing anything about those negative power crystal figurines I asked you to make?"

Saffir rolled his eyes skyward, and turned back to his computers. "Esmeraude, haven't you learnt anything about me? I do things immediately, I'm not a master procrastinator like you."

She scowled and waved her fan in irritation. "Youâre just a complete academic idiot, Saffir. All you do is spend your entire day with your nose in a book -- you really need to get out more often. Look, you even talk to your computers, youâre so completely out of it."

"It's better to have too many brains than none at all," Saffir retorted mildly, pulling out a third keyboard. He began to tap away at the keys, before turning to wave a patronising hand at the tall, gracefully pretty woman. "Leave me, Esmeraude. I need to do some more calculations as relating to the power of those Sailor Senshi. Surely there is a weak point in the web of energy lines that makes up their self-generated shields... if I could pinpoint it, I could just..." His voice faded out as he became completely immersed in the world of mathematical and physical applications, the world where he felt the safest. The happiest.

Esmeraude watched, slightly awed by his obvious dedication to the dizzying world of numbers and the like, a world she despised. She was a warrior at heart, a top-class officer. Frankly, Saffir's little universe was a little beyond her. However, she knew full well Saffir was no match for her in her duties as the highest ranking officer of the Black Moon Family. Dimando's little otootosan was a tactician, not any kind of warrior. You could tell it just by looking at him. She had to admit, the little butsuri-gakusha did have his saving graces, but still, he would never be mistaken for a soldier.

Esmeraude laughed her infamous giggle, stroking the crystalline figure absently. Even though Saffir had deemed the thing gaudy, she found it perfectly suited to her tastes. Besides, if it opened the gate to allow the power of the jakokuzuishou through, it was perfect.

Even if Saffir is a snivelling, paranoid little suck-up, he certainly can make a good implement, she thought to herself with a smile, and then looked to the controls of the time-space continuum displacement device. Partly designed by Saffir, it was a remarkable mechanism that he had constructed based on the work of the scientists and mages who had come before him. Saffir had been the first to meld the theories and thoughts of the greater academics of Nemesis together, and assisted by a talented team of erudite scholars, he had produced the machination.

She vaguely remembered Saffir telling her the most complicated process had been determining a method of dealing with the wards of the Guardian of Time, the solitary Senshi Sailor Pluto. He had never directly admitted it, but she had garnered the impression that he had actually had a run-in with the notoriously short-tempered Senshi. No one else had met her, only read various literature on her. Of all the Senshi, Sailor Pluto was undoubtedly the most well-known on Nemesis.

"Esmeraude."

The softly-spoken word almost caused the bearer of the name to drop her treasure. She spun around to face the intruder, her eyes narrowing. Then she laughed. "Oh Saffir, it's just you. Come to apologise for making fun of my plan to colour the planet black?"

Saffir rolled his eyes. "It won't change anything, Esmeraude. You could do the exact same thing here. The Senshi are just as strong back then as they are now. Playing in the past solves absolutely nothing."

"Then why did you create the Door?" she asked petulantly, absently waving her fan. "If you honestly believe that the past is better left alone, why did you make it possible for us to travel back there?"

Saffir rolled his eyes. "Do you have to ask? I would have thought that much was obvious."

Esmeraude smiled in an oddly feline manner. "No, it's not obvious, dear Saffir. Do enlighten me."

The sapphire-haired man rolled his eyes in exasperation again -- he seemed to do it a lot around the woman with the verdant hair. She was simply aggravating, and so slow. "Prince Dimando-oniisan asked me to do it, so I did it."

"Like the little lap-dog you are, hmm?" she snickered. "I have never understood why Dimando puts up with your blatant suck-ups -- it would irritate the Hell out of me. The novelty of having a personal idiot must wear off pretty quickly."

"As must the novelty of having a vindictive, vain little queen-wannabe," muttered Saffir, leaning on the nearest pillar of the circular room. "But I didn't come here to trade insults with you, entertaining as it is."

"Well, that's a welcome relief," replied Esmeraude with an upraised eyebrow. "So, what are you plotting today, Saffir? You're supposed to be keeping an eye on the energy absorption indicator of the jakokuzuishou."

"I have someone else to do it for me," he replied easily, moving over to stand beside the woman at the controls. It irritated Esmeraude to see that even though she was unusually tall for a woman, Saffir still stood taller than her by an inch or so.

He reached out with a gloved hand to the control panel, and she frowned, placing hers over his, tightening it enough to stop him moving it. "What are you doing?"

Saffir didn't shake off her touch. "I'm coming with you to the Twentieth century."

"You most certainly are not!" she snapped, yanking his hand off the control panel completely. His hand fell back to his side as he watched the woman with an mildly amused look. Clutching the figurine to her chest, she continued on angrily. "This is my assignment, you understand me Dexter? You can just stay here and play with your beloved computers like you always do! This is my chance to show Dimando what I am capable of, and I'm not going to let you mess me up. So you can just toddle back to your toys and be a good little scientist." A realisation then came to her. "Besides, you have to keep a watch over the Wiseman, don't you? I know you, Saffir -- you're so paranoid, you think the kitchen cat is a spy for those bloody moonies."

Saffir sighed with impatient displeasure. "Esmeraude, you have no idea of political espionage -- those so-called 'moonies' have probably been trying to infiltrate our palace at every opportunity since the day they banished us. The Queen proves that beauty can have brains, not to mention her consort is not as gormless as he looks."

"Speak for yourself, I think his looks are quite pleasing myself," replied Esmeraude with a delicious smile. "Still, Saffir, you should really stay here and play the game of political intrigue. I'll admit you do have a flair for it, though your brother is probably the better demagogue of the pair of you."

"I may not match my brother's political savvy, Esmeraude, but that is not the point. I am joining you, at the risk of leaving my brother alone with the lies and manipulations of the Wiseman," -- he ignored her laughter at his histrionics -- "to prove to him that the Wiseman is wrong. Playing in the past solves nothing. It only creates more problems with that damned Small Lady."

"Say what you will, Saffir, but you are most assuredly not coming with me," she replied easily, moving to the time gate she had opened with the press of a button.

Saffir slammed the abort button with so much force she winced. With the beginnings of a slightly nervous laugh, she waved her fan aimlessly. She had never seen Saffir angry before in her life, and she had some slight trepidation about risking it now. For all she knew, the physicist could be a complete nutbar when enraged. "Saffir, was that really necessary?"

The younger brother of the Prince of Nemesis stared silently at the woman for a moment before speaking. He did know how to unnerve a person with a stare, a talent learnt from his elder sibling. "Esmeraude, it's not like you have a choice here."

"There's always a choice," she snapped in reply, moving closer to hit the activation button for a second time. "Go back to your beloved mathematicals, Saffir. Leave the war to those who won't get hurt by their own incompetence."

He managed to hold her before the gate with but a Look. "If you don't co-operate now, I'm going to go and get Dimando-oniisan to issue an order to force you to allow me to accompany you. I know you would never disobey a direct order from my brother."

Her eyes flashed angrily as she stared at him. "Damn you, Saffir! Always throwing him in my face! Why did you have to be Dimando's brother, anyway?! That doped-up Rubeus would have been better -- he couldn't think straight enough to tie his own shoelaces! You're just a sneaky, conniving little-"

"Oh shut up, Esmeraude!" Saffir replied nastily, finally really getting that good old argumentative spirit. "I know you adore my oniisan so, but I wish you'd forget about him. He has no interest in you." He had been on the verge of saying something more regarding who actually did hold a candle for the woman, but Esmeraude's temper was notoriously short.

"Take that back!" she shrieked. "I am the ONLY one who will ever be the bride of the Prince, and you damn well know it!" As she slammed her gloved fist down on the nearest keypad, a message in red flickered across the projection monitor behind her. As she blocked it with her trembling body, neither she nor Saffir noticed it.

Space status unchangedÀ

Period co-ordinates invalidÀ

Input new data regarding time era desiredÀ

Still shaking with anger, Esmeraude continued her angry tirade. "You just can't cope with the fact that soon, you're not going to be the only one Dimando gives a damn about! You're just so bloody selfish you canât deal with it!"

She slammed her fist down on the keypad again.

Inputting new data co-ordinates nowÀ

Saffir shook his head. "I didn't ever mean to come across that way," he almost apologised. "But frankly, Esmeraude, you're fooling nobody but yourself with this..."

ProcessingÀ

"Saffir, you just don't understand," Esmeraude almost spat at him. "You're so wrapped up in your books and calculations, you don't understand real life! You don't understand what it's like..."

Data upload completeÀ

New co-ordinates locked and setÀ

Slightly surprised by this accusation, Saffir's shadowy eyes widened. "Esmeraude, I..."

ReadyÀ

"Forget it, Saffir. Go back to Dimando, go back to your misguided suspicions of the Wiseman, and most of all, go back to your numbers. You don't make a good warrior, you think too much." She turned to hit the activation button again, clutching the figurine to her chest.

Saffir was by her side in a flash, and he smiled almost tenderly as her eyes widened. The world faded around them into a gauzy mess as the time-space continuum warped about them. "Too late now, Esmeraude."

"Dammit, Saffir, why don't you ever listen?!" she shrieked as they began a spiral through the time tunnels. "The second we get there, I'm sending you back..."

He almost laughed, a rare occurrence for the solitary mathematician. "I'd like to see you try to make me do anything, Esmeraude."

"Then maybe she'd allow me to do it," came an ominously low voice from behind them.

They spun, to find themselves facing a tall woman with the Time Key held in one hand. It was an unnerving experience -- it seemed as if they were standing on solid ground, yet the time-space tunnel whooshed by them on either side.

"Sailor Pluto," he whispered, and Esmeraude saw the colour drain from his face. It was obvious Saffir was almost afraid of this tall, silent woman. "You... I blocked the Nemesian passageway against you! How on the Nemesis did you break through my wards?!"
Eyeing him with her piercing cerise eyes, she frowned. "I didn't do any such thing, mathematician. And may I say, it's a pure delight to see you again."

Esmeraude waved her fan before her face nervously and tried to look inconspicuous.

"This time tunnel of your little machination has never been warded against me," she continued softly, while Saffir gave the Garnet Orb atop her staff a slightly speculative look. Maybe he was determining how painful it would be if it come into contact with his head, as Pluto seemed ready to strike out with the blasted thing at any point.

"But that's impossible! I warded the tunnels against infiltration by even the Guardian of Time herself!"

"Don't over-estimate your abilities, little mathematician," replied Sailor Pluto dryly, not paying an iota of attention to Esmeraude. "But I will say one thing -- there is no trace of a Nemesian ward in this tunnel."

"Impossible!" Saffir denied. Then his already pale face whitened further. "Unless... oh, gods..."

The emerald-haired woman laughed nervously waving her fan with visible agitation. "Saffir, what have you done?"

The grim Senshi's face suddenly broke into a remarkably sunny grin. "Oh, I get it. I see now... you're on the wrong track, aren't you? Oh, now there is a punishment for you... I'll leave you two now. I don't have to punish you any longer, I can see you've made your own bed of nails." With that comforting comment, the Senshi vanished.

Esmeraude turned to Saffir. "What the Hell did she mean by that?!"

The pale man looked almost ill. "We're going to the wrong destination. Pluto's left us to it, meaning once we get to where-ever we're going, she's going to Lock the Door behind us, so we're more or less stuck there until Dimando or someone realises we're there..."

Esmeraude rolled her eyes, adding in a long-suffering sigh for good measure. "This is the last time I take you anywhere."

­ ­ ­

Nephrite figured that, given there were a finite amount of people in the world, and a finite amount of places, and infinite points of time, the chances were fairly good of him slipping off to Tokyo and NOT meeting Zoisite anywhere.

That in mind, he opened a Gate and stepped into his cathedral, slipping into his Sanjouin Masato persona as he did so.

"The stars know everything," he murmured to himself with a sigh, "but even they don't know how I'm to get rid of Zoisite. Nor are they telling me how to get rid of those Sailor Senshi who took down Jadeite." He felt a wash of sadness come over him at this; he and Jadeite had never been close, but Jadeite had been a good sort as Generals go, and Nephrite much preferred the now-sleeping First King to Zoisite any day.

He shrugged, and closed his eyes, getting down to business. "I call upon the power of the stars," he declared in ringing tones. "Show me my next vict- WHAT THE HELL?"

This less-than-oracular ejaculation stemmed from the fact that in the middle of Nephrite's star chart had appeared a gaping black hole. And out of that black hole spilled two people, both complaining bitterly.

The blue-haired man said crisply, "There, we're finally here, so all we have to do now is find out what time it is."

"Oh, really, Saffy-dear?" the green-haired woman muttered, snapping her fan open. "And just how might we do that, hmm? Walk up to someone and say, 'Pardon me, I'm really not crazy, but I'd like to know what year this is?'"

Nephrite watched this with a certain amount of bemusement. Either the stars had decided to cut out the middle business and had given him his next two victims right here, or - Nephrite discovered that he really didn't care if there was an "or" or not; these two idiots would do very well as his next victims. Judging by the exuberance with which the woman fired back her replies, the pair had plenty of energy to spare anyway.

This decided, he stepped forward and said coldly, "Your energy belongs to the Dark Kingdom!" He began draining. "Keep things simple," that's where Jadeite had gone wrong.

Much to his secret annoyance, the pair merely looked at him oddly.

"I think he's trying to drain our energy," the woman said with an incredulous look on her pretty face. She fanned herself, looking him over with interest. She dropped her lids flirtatiously, and murmured with a smile, "Now that's not good. You're supposed to introduce yourself before you try taking away a girl's energy."

The slim young man snorted in disgust. "Esmeraude, I don't think he honestly cares. Besides, if he's trying to drain our energy he's an enemy so we may as well get rid of him immediately and skip the pleasantries."

Nephrite was conscious of a vague but insistent feeling that gnawed away at his brain. It had to do with the fact that these two people had appeared out of nowhere, and it also had something to bear on the utter blitheness with which they treated him. But most of all, it concerned their apparent invulnerability to his energy-drain.

"Who ARE you two?" he snapped, just as Esmeraude looked daggers at the young man and replied to him, "And just what do you mean 'we,' Saffir?"

Saffir, the blue-haired young man, rolled his eyes in exasperation. "Fine. YOU will get rid of him." He turned his back on Esmeraude and looked at Nephrite dispassionately. "I am Saffir re'Adamant, brother to Prince Dimando re'Adamant of the Black Moon, and this is Esmeraude re'Garnet, the first legate to my brother. Not that it's going to matter in a moment or two, but who are you?"

Nephrite by now was turning a very interesting shade of purple. Not only were these people refusing to have their energy drained, they were not at all impressed by him. Metallia's Fangs, they didn't even know who he was! This would be bruising for any dark warrior's ego, but this was Nephrite, after all, and HE was the second-greatest King of Beryl's hierarchy, and -

"The Black Moon?" he repeated, this information finally sinking in. "The BLACK MOON? What?"

Saffir heaved a great sigh, turning to Esmeraude, again to discuss Nephrite as if he weren't there. "See, we're in no danger. We must be in a time frame earlier than our objective; I finally recognise him. That's General Nephrite of the Dark Kingdom."

"Uh-huh," Esmeraude said in a "whatever" tone. She kept eyeing Nephrite in a speculative fashion entirely at odds with her slinky dress and languid eyes; with a start, Nephrite realised that the green-haired woman's contrast of massive vanity and almost predatory cleverness reminded him of Zoisite. "If you're done with your lecture, little bookworm, I'll just take care of this distraction, and you can go about doing whatever it is you'll do to get Dimando's attention, and get us home."

She turned back towards Nephrite without waiting for Saffir's reply, snapping her fan closed and ready to launch a bevy of pointy-edged stars at the Dark King - only to find that Nephrite was no longer there.

Instead, Esmeraude found her arm seized from behind and twisted up behind her back, high up between her shoulder blades so that she had to stand on tiptoe to avoid dislocating her own shoulder. The pain was so exquisitely mind-numbing that for a moment she couldn't even breathe.

Saffir appeared to greatly appreciate Esmeraude's comeuppance for a brief second, a second in which Esmeraude instantly decided that death would not be too good for either the baka physicist or the auburn-haired jackass who was currently holding her arm. She shifted her weight slightly, intending to throw herself backwards and grind her free elbow into the idiot's groin; apparently, this subtle physical nuance was not lost upon the aforementioned idiot, because he immediately applied more pressure to her shoulder, forcing out from her lungs a noise very much like that of a squeezed kitten.

"H-h-help me, Useless!" she half-sobbed, half-snapped at Saffir.

"I don't see what you expect me to do," Saffir said calmly. He gazed over her shoulder, into the cold azure eyes of the Dark King Nephrite. "General Nephrite, will you release Esmeraude-san, please?"

The "please" is what caught Nephrite's attention; to his knowledge, no one had ever asked a General to desist from doing something hideously painful and undignified, please. Pain is, unfortunately, an almost certain eradicator of good manners.

"No," said Nephrite pleasantly, "but for being thoughtful enough to ask, and smart enough not to attack yourself, I'll grant you a quick clean death."

"How magnanimous," Saffir murmured, shadow-blue eyes unreadable.

Both men were considerably startled by Esmeraude's shriek of "Either kill me or let me GO, you bastard!" Moreover, Nephrite's grasp upon her had slightly loosened, due to his interest in the conversation between himself and Saffir, so Esmeraude had just that much more leverage with which to bring down her spiked heel down on Nephrite's toe.

Hopping about and cursing in annoyance and pain took up much the next fifteen seconds of Nephrite's life; he was only peripherally aware of Esmeraude's black earrings glowing and sparkling with a dark, malevolent light.

"Here, Useless," she said witheringly to Saffir, "this is how it's done."

From her upraised right hand came a coruscating flare of dark fire; it sped towards Nephrite's swearing form. If Nephrite had not hastily erected a personal shield, he would've been translated into a higher, no doubt astral, sphere that very instant.

Esmeraude pouted. "Damn," she muttered.

"That's how it's done, hmm?" Saffir wondered aloud. Esmeraude looked sharply at him, but couldn't detect any irony. That was the damnable thing about Saffir; when he wished, he could be as enigmatically, infuriatingly unreadable as Prince Dimando-sama himself, the master of politic opacity.

"It's a stand-off," Nephrite growled from behind his shield. "Fine. You're Saffir and Esmeraude from the Black Moon, emissaries of Prince Dimando. I expect that you'll want to meet with Queen Beryl officially, then?"

"What?" said both Saffir and Esmeraude, turning to the Dark King in puzzlement. Saffir, being somewhat quicker on the uptake than Esmeraude at the best of times, even when her mind wasn't clouded with an aching shoulder, nodded once in dawning awareness; Esmeraude just looked thoroughly frustrated and contented herself with thinking that Nephrite would make an awfully attractive human torch.

"Yes, certainly," said Saffir, elbowing Esmeraude hard when she would've said "What?" again. "We had meant to appear before the Queen officially a few hours before, but apparently the Gate got side-tracked." Another elbow in the guts for Esmeraude followed. Sometimes Saffir deeply wished that his brother had gathered a brighter bunch of lieutenants; neither Rubius nor Esmeraude were exactly Nobel material.

Nephrite nodded formally. "Very well. Follow me and I will present you to Queen Beryl-sama."

A flicker of stars was apparent around the Dark King's form; Saffir recognized the aural tones of a Gate being opened. As Nephrite opened a portal into the Dark Kingdom, Saffir leaned over to Esmeraude and whispered almost soundlessly, "He thinks we're ambassadors to his queen, Beryl-hime."

"WHO?" Esmeraude whispered back frantically. It was quite obvious that she, at least, had never studied the histories of Earth as compiled by the scholars of Breccia University back on Nemesis. Saffir checked a sigh. It wasn't that Esmeraude was unintelligent, per se; it was that she was so confoundedly IGNORANT. And worse, she never bothered to realize just how far below Saffir this lack put her.

Nephrite turned sharply back to them, blue eyes unfriendly. "Did you say something, Saffir?" he inquired, pointedly leaving off an honorific.

Saffir's reply was just as pointed, his tone as sweet and as cold as ice cream. "Nothing whatsoever, General Nephrite-sama." It was said very lightly. Ice was light.

As soon as Nephrite's attention was back on the opening portal, Saffir took the opportunity to again murmur to Esmeraude. "I know that you have no clue where we are, Madam Useless, so just follow my lead. If you can think that far ahead."

To say that Esmeraude was surprised at the slim physicist's uncharacteristic assertiveness would have been the understatement of the year, the decade, and possibly the century as well. She could think of no satisfactory reply to his snide whisper, but instead chose to snap open her fan and stare blankly at the frilly red silk of the beloved object.

"Come, envoys of the Black Moon," Nephrite said shortly. He held open the Gate; he pretended not to wince when Esmeraude "failed" to see his foot and stepped on it while she sailed through the Door.

Saffir paused a moment before entering the Door. "After you, Nephrite-sama," he said politely. The Dark King eyed him for a moment, then shrugged, and stepped through. Saffir followed, feeling undeniably pessimistic.

How was Dimando-oniisan supposed to find them in the Dark Kingdom of more than a year before the projected timeframe?