Mis-step ~*~ In the 53rd year of the Reign of the High Queen Tranquility She stoically watched the besiegement of the Elysian City, royal capitol of Pluto, the only outward expression of any emotion being her white fisted grip on the Time Staff. The faraway lights of energy attacks briefly illuminated her stony countenance from time to time as she stood upon the overhanging cliff and watched the turmoil unfold below her. A soft wind gently caressed tendrils of green hair, sighing in her ears with the voices of a thousand damned souls. It was perhaps the only gentle thing left on the planet; yet it too carried the scent of blood and death. A sea of glittering metal surrounded the city, an ocean of armour, blades, and shields. Soon the tide would rise and sweep away Elysian, leaving nothing but broken bodies and shattered dreams behind. She _knew_ that the Nodian forces would be too much for even the combined powers of the warriors of Pluto and Charon.... _...but she must not interfere..._ The invaders should have been no match against the mystic powers controlled by the planet and moon senshi, yet the mages of Nod had concealed their true strength until their arrival on Pluto. _...No one understood the danger. No one but her...._ While lacking intrinsic mystic power, the Nodian miko-warriors could channel vast amounts of outside energy--energy not drawn from the moons or planets of this galaxy--through a large stone called the Darkstar Crystal. The crystal was as large as a tall man and yet light enough to be carried around by the two small Nodian Guardians during every battle and skirmish in the protracted war. Power itself was not inherently good or bad, it should only be a reflection of the soul of the user, yet-- yet when she gazed into the swirling depths of the alien dark stone she could sense it, calling to her, tugging at the corners of her mind... _evil_. _...All the battles...all the cries....all the screams..._ Pluto had dreamed of the dark crystal, nay, she had suffered nightmares concerning the stone, for months now. It haunted her and though-- Close by, and yet so far away, a trumpet sounded and ripples of motion spread throughout the army at her feet. They marched forward. _...Something..._ The Outer Senshi alone were not strong enough to destroy the crystal and leave the Nodian invaders powerless; only the Moon Forces led by the High Queen herself had any hope of saving the planet Pluto. She knew that Tranquility and the Inner Senshi would not arrive in time. At least, they would not arrive in time to save-- _...She could do nothing. She _must_ do nothing. What would be, would be..._ "How can you simply stand there?" The familiar voice broke into her dark thoughts. Sailor Pluto, the Guardian of Time, turned to regard the tall black haired woman standing behind her. Sailor Charon's appearance was disheveled, white uniform torn and smudged, but her pale silver eyes gleamed with suppressed anger. "The tide would turn if you simply helped us!" the guardian of Pluto's moon continued. Sailor Pluto sadly shook her head, long strands of dark green hair swaying with the moment. "Charon, you know I can not. There is more at stake here then Hades or Pluto." "Yes, your precious time line." Charon replied bitterly. Pluto knew how desperate the other senshi must have been to speak in such a tone of voice. She regarded Sailor Charon as a sister... a sister when all the true members of her family had become nothing but dust. All who would recognize the ghost of a memory that was the woman behind Sailor Pluto were long ago lost to the winds of time. "It is what I am... The Guardian of Time." the green haired senshi spoke the statement as much to remind herself as for the other woman. "Do you forget? You are also the Guardian of Pluto, and yet the senshi of Neptune and Uranus help more in Pluto's defense then you!" Charon retorted. Sailor Pluto turned away, her gaze returning to the battle taking place outside Elysian's walls. It would not be long. An eternity, a few moments, until the city defenses would break taking the remains of her heart with it. _... I am Pluto. All that happens to Pluto happens to me, for we are one and the same..._ "I am sworn to protect Pluto, not Pluto's ruler." she said softly. _...The light have mercy on both of them...._ "Pluto!" "He will not leave." It was not a question, for she well knew the answer. "You know he will not. He will not abandon his city, his people, and the warriors who fight for him." Charon's voice was clipped, every word a stabbing accusation. "He tried to send Persephone away, but she would not go. But you--" The ground quivered as if it had been struck a mortal blow. Pluto raised eyes the color of rich wine to a sky tinted with the same shade. For a brief moment inexpressible pain filled those eyes. Charon cried out behind her but Pluto's attention was riveted to the heavens directly above the city. Multi-colored flares, the after effects of a senshi attack discharge, streaked through the air. Silence reigned for a heart beat; and then a low keening wail tore through the night. It was the sound of metal grinheding against stone, the sound of the city's outer walls being breached. Pluto pivoted away from the precipice. She was unable to face Sailor Charon, yet neither could she face the sight of her planet's downfall. Charon was an accomplished warrior, she too understood the meaning behind the sound reverberating throughout the night. "For the love of the light, Pluto your planet is dying! I have given _everything_! You must--" "PLUTO WILL NOT FALL!" To her own amazement the green haired senshi's voice echoed across the barren cliff top. Charon gaped at her in surprise, mouth hanging open on the words caught in her throat. "Pluto will not fall." the Guardian of Time continued quietly. "Queen Tranquility will arrive in time to prevent that." _...Damn you Hades..._ Charon drew in a deep breath. "So you have seen that at least. What of the capitol? What of King Hades?" Sailor Pluto's gaze lowered but her voice was hard as steel. "He made his choice." _...Foolish man..._ She could feel Charon's stare boring into her back. "How can you say that? I thought you cared for him?" No one, not even Charon knew--or ever would know--how much she cared about Hades, the current and perhaps greatest ruler of Pluto. In all of space, from this galaxy to the ones at the very edge of the universe, there was only one being alive who had any claim on the woman Pluto had been. Only one person bore a single drop of blood related to the person lost behind the guise of Sailor Pluto; her unknowing kin Hades. She dared not bend the weaves of time, not even for _him_. "Charon... Time is an eternal weave where every single being that exists, ever existed, or ever will exist is a lone thread. Every choice ever made changes how the pattern is woven for other threads, and these smaller patterns determine the courses of larger and ever larger patterns within Time. "I dare not tamper with the pattern that so many threads, so many people, so many choices has laid out. The conclusion of this particular course was set long ago, and even Hades himself had a hand in it's weaving. I warned him that if he rescued Persephone he would not live long thereafter." She turned back towards Charon, hands uplifted as if she begged for understanding. _...She saw the weave that must be, that shall be. The realm of 'what could have been' lay even beyond her. She must remember that..._ Something flickered in Charon's eyes but her gaze remained cool. "How can you be so cold, Pluto?" the other senshi murmured. "Everyone must pay the price for the decisions that they have made--even Hades." Pluto continued implacably. In the distance the sounds of fighting--screams and loud blasts-- rose and died away. "But you also are a thread in time, Pluto! Can you not make decisions of your own?" Charon now pleaded her gaze riveted towards the slaughter within the capitol. Pluto tensed. "I am unlike any other thread in the pattern, Charon." It was almost as if she could see her own lifeline, twisted and curving, black against all the other golden threads of time. "I can see the patterns of the past and those of the future. There is a great danger in that. I should not interfere at all." No, she should remain safely outside of time, standing at her lone vigil at the Time Gate, free from the temptations of joining in and perhaps wrecking the cycle of life. Those who saw could not speak. The Watcher must never become a participant. _...Why did it sound as if she sought to convince herself as much as Charon?..._ "But you are still a part of life!" Charon now sounded desperate. "Tell me, if Hades never met Persephone, never felt the urge to save her from the forced slavery of the Nod, would he have lived?" "Yes." Pluto did not express the weariness that she felt at the question. _...She had warned him. Had come the closest to begging that she ever would..._ "Then Hades living is a viable pattern within Time! Will such destruction occur if King Hades lives in this pattern with Persephone?" The white clad senshi leaned heavily on the Mobius Staff as if the army that pillaged within the city's walls also sapped away her strength. Perhaps in a way it did. Charon, brother to Pluto, connected to its planet far more deeply then any other moon in this galaxy. _...Do you echo the pain of Pluto as well as I do?..._ Pluto allowed herself a brief smile. "Clever, Charon. But Lady Persephone was destined to be the downfall of King Hades. If I save him now, how much longer do you think he will live? A year, two years, five years? You ask me to risk much to stave off death for such a short time." _...What could have been..._ "Perhaps that means little to the great weave of time but it would mean everything to Hades and to those who love him." Charon's words pierced her to the heart, the more so for the despair behind the woman's voice. Thoughts spun through Pluto's mind, glittering and drifting away in a confused maelstrom. She closed her eyes and came to a decision. "Charon, listen to me. Time is not done with Hades. Millennia from now the Moon Kingdom will reach a pinnacle of power and peace called the 'Silver Millennium'. Under the rule of High Queen Serenity II and High King Endymion, Hades will be reborn to once again rule Pluto." The future unrolled before Pluto like a seer's scroll. She was as intimate with the faces of Serenity, Endymion, and their Court as she was with the woman who stood before her. For a moment the ephemeral beauty of the future Silver Millennium blotted out the carnage that stretched before her eyes, but then the vision faded away, leaving behind the stark reality. The Plains of Tartarus ran crimson with blood. Red, red, everywhere, staining the ground, mirrored in the night sky of the planet, reflected within her own eyes, her soul... _...The future was dictated by all the threads of past of present. She could not interfere..._ Charon's beautiful silver eyes widened. She gazed in gratitude at Pluto, knowing full well that the Senshi of Time had gone against all her instincts, all that she had been taught, all that she had painstakingly learned over thousands of years, in order to reveal that bit of knowledge. Charon would never reveal this secret, that Pluto knew. She also knew that this particular incarnation of the senshi of Charon would be dead within the year. Death held no pain compared to duty. "Millennia..." Charon breathed. "_Thousands_ of years. If what you say is true, then Pluto will need the guidance of King Hades more then ever once the Nodians are defeated. He is the only one, Pluto! The last-- the very last of the royal line of Pluto!" _... The last. In the end she had lost all the others; they had slipped through her fingers like so many motes of dust. The _last_. Gods help her..._ "Nearly half of Charon and most of Pluto lies in waste! A strong hand is needed to rally the people to rebuild." Pluto understood. Charon was a creature of the present, one who's allegiance centered around the current manifestation of King Hades. It was beyond her ability to trade the life of her king for a distant hope of rebirth and salvation. _...If only Hades had not been so stubborn...if only he had heeded her warnings concerning Persephone..._ "Charon..." for the first time that night Pluto allowed pain to tinge her voice. "Will Hades living cause such a warp in time?" A final plea came from her friend. It was the answer that burned so painfully within Pluto's mind. No, Hades continued life was not complete anathema to the overall Weave of Time. Hades was a good man, and there were many discarded patterns where he could have ruled Pluto until old age claimed him. That was no longer meant to be. He would not live many years with Persephone at his side... what did a few more years matter? It mattered very much to Sailor Pluto. Her grip on the Time Staff tightened even further. ~*~ A few minutes later. The forces of Nod triumphantly marched on the royal castle. They had battered through both the warriors of the planet Pluto and the moon Charon, and now the death of King Hades was within sight. It was at their greatest moment, as their troops surrounded the king in his own courtyard that disaster struck. From seemingly nowhere a burst of purple hued energy seared straight into the heart of the Nodian Army and with deadly accuracy struck the Darkstar. The two Crystal Guardians were instantly disintegrated while the force of the blow hurled the stone into the atmosphere of Pluto where it shattered into many fragments. Only the Silver Crystal wielded by the High Queen of the Moon Kingdom held enough power to completely destroy the Darkstar, yet no one paid any attention to the remnants that drifted out into the galaxy, crystalline particles destined to become so much space debris. Chaos immediately erupted within the ranks of the Nodians. Without a way to channel power, they were helpless before the joined forces of Pluto and Charon. The forces of Nod immediately broke ranks and fled with many disgruntled Plutonian and Charonese senshi vowing vengeance and harrowing their retreat. Meanwhile, Sailor Charon looked happily on as King Hades and Lady Persephone embraced and planned to ask for the High Queen's blessing on their marriage once she arrived. The green haired senshi of Pluto was no where to be found, else the three would have asked about the new future that had been woven. ~*~ A few thousand years later. She stalked angrily through the field, red hair gleaming like brightly polished brass and velvet slippered feet stamping the jewel-green grass into a sticky green paste. Pausing in the act of kicking at a nearby clump of forget-me-not flowers, she turned a baleful stare on the glittering roofs and walls of the city behind her. Tir'na'nog, capitol of Atlantis... HA! She would... "Lady Terra! Lady Terra!" her attendants panted as they rushed up the hill, ladies holding the hems of their gowns aloft and lords struggling with swords and various bits of armor, trying to catch up with her. She swept an icy glare over all of them, freezing them in their tracks, before she swept on muttering all the while under her breath. "How _dare_ he ignore me like that? I am the Head of the House Mordeth, heir to the largest kingdom in Atlantis!" And she was _much_ prettier and more mature then that moon trollop-- Her diatribe was interrupted by gasps and shrieks coming from the courtiers behind her. She whirled around in annoyance to see both lords and ladies pointing at the sky above her. "Look! A shooting star!" "Meteor...it's coming right at us!" "Watch out!" Lady Terra tilted back her head and indeed saw a brightly glowing object rapidly approaching the ground. She watched with a smirk on her face as her attendants milled about the field in terror and confusion. The trajectory of the meteor placed it's landing point safely beyond where they now stood--besides it was obviously too small to be any source of danger. The object streaked across the sky and disappeared behind the curve of a nearby hill. She frowned at the silence that followed. The landing meteor _should_ have crashed with enough noise to be heard in the field below. Curious, she looped the end of her dark green silk skirt over an arm and began to wend her way over to where she last saw it. Lady Terra crested the hill and left behind her unknowing attendants in their state of panic. Her eyes scanned the land below her, disregarding clouds of butterflies that flitted into the air at her approach and the multi-colored vegetation bending in the softly blowing breeze. Her eyes came to rest on a dark spherical object that lay at the foot of the hill. Was that the meteor? She lightly ran down the slope and began to warily circle the thing. It was indeed odd looking--she had never seen any meteor that even slightly resembled it. It appeared to be a perfect sphere, with a slick and glossy surface that faintly glowed. Lady Terra crouched next to it, paying no heed to the yards of silk and satin that lay in the dust as she leaned over, and gingerly brushed her fingers across its surface. It should have been scalding to the touch after traveling through Earth's atmosphere, yet it was completely cool to her fingers. Very strange indeed. She seized the object between both hands and gasped at how easily she lifted it. It was half the size of her head and yet light as a pegasus' plume! And then she shivered. She could sense _something_ out there. Something vast... and powerful. Lady Terra dropped the stone and immediately the connection was broken. She stood for a moment, arms crossed over her body, and then with a wild cry she snatched at it again. Power... yes. An unpleasant smile came to her lips as she briefly raised her eyes to the sun. "Lady Terra!" It was those ignorant buffoons again, crying out in joy as they found her safely standing at the foot of the hill. "Lady Terra!" They tried to gain her attention. They succeeded. She turned towards them, enjoying the fearful looks that suddenly shadowed their faces. "Call me Beryl." Author's Notes I decided it would be more appropriate to tack the notes unto the end instead of putting them at the beginning, as in the previous incarnations of this story. Soo... 'Mis-step' was dictated to Sailor Charon, Bard of the Senshi by a certain green haired, close-lipped, Big A$$ Wielding senshi-- *WHACK* Oww! This small 'fic came about during a debate concerning Pluto's responsibilities as Guardian of Time. I used it to emphasize my standpoint that Pluto's distant persona & her hesitation to interfere was a necessary part of her duty. *rubs ruefully at head* Although, _why_ I'd want to defend her is sometimes beyond me. *ducks* Standard disclaimers apply. Haven't the foggiest clue what just went on in the 'fic? You aren't alone. I was finally *ahem*... convinced... by a certain you-know-who to get off my lazy derriere and write an extended annotated Author's Notes to explain everything that was occurring off-screen. The solutions to world hunger, the cure to all diseases, and all the other secrets of the world can be found below! Or at least you'll find the explanations for this story. (Maybe _you_ can wrangle a secret or two out of Pluto, perhaps.) http://www.geocities.com/selelight/explain.txt Other stories by me can be found in their temporary home at... http://www.geocities.com/selelight/EPK.html Sailor Charon's alternate real life persona can be contacted at princeendymion@earthling.net Just don't make her sic Pluto on you. (^_~)