Chapter Text
March 14, 1992
It was a bright, sunny day, the kind of day that was perfect to hide evil schemes afoot. Not that what Jadeite was doing was evil, per say, as much as just necessary. Queen Metallia needed energy. Queen Beryl tasked Jadeite with gathering that energy. Humans happened to be a fantastic source of energy. Though it was baffling how these creatures had survived the extinction of the Moon Kingdom and whatever cataclysm had happened to the great ancient Golden Kingdom of Earth, Jadeite couldn't deny their society was fascinating.
Take, for example, fortune telling. An unpredictable field only mastered by those with some sense for the various intercurrents of time. Yet humans would line up to listen to anyone who claimed to predict the fate of their heart's desires.
Love, Jadeite had realized very quickly, was one of the strongest driving forces in all human actions. The other was major discount sales.
The old man telling fortunes in the street corner had not realized the power of this second, great human motivator. It would be his downfall and ruin.
Maybe if he had real power he would predict this and change career paths. Jadeite smirked to himself and abandoned the line. There was an empty alley across the street that could be very easily turned into an elegant and grandiose fortune house, perfect to entice fools. As for the Youma to gather energy — maybe Ramua, who can control time in her pocket dimension? No, Balm would be better — Jadeite didn't care for the massive energy sink it would require to actually predict the future. So a fortune house as a front, and a different source of heart's desire for energy…
His plotting was shoved to the side with the same force as a crashing bus as a strong arm wrapped around his bicep and hauled him into a different secluded alleyway than where he'd been aiming for. Jadeite was too baffled to react in time. His assailant was a tall, muscular woman, her blonde hair cropped close to her face and highlighting her attractive features. She wore a police uniform and had the attitude to match. Around him, humans stopped to stare and whisper, which was the only thing preventing Jaedite's reawakened battle instincts from slathering this woman across the wall like goo.
Was he… being arrested? Taken into custody?
Detained?
In the secluded, dark alleyway, the policewoman released him and stepped away. Jadeite rotated his shoulder and contemplated the ache in his bicep.
No ordinary human could hurt him. No ordinary policewoman would even know that Jadeite was committing crimes.
Which, really, he wasn't. There was nothing in human laws against replacing a few business owners with Youma and then prompting massive store sales. He'd checked.
"Jaedite," said the police woman, and then didn't say anything else. She breathed heavily despite not having exerted herself, her fists clenched at her side. She was, ever so slightly, trembling.
"Color me intrigued," Jadeite drawled. "I will forgive this rude attack on my person if you explain who you are and why you dared act this way."
He considered the blonde woman with more than just his sight. There was a small, tightly controlled wellspring of power burning inside her like a star. More powerful than an ordinary Youma, but nothing compared to Jadeite or his fellow Shittenou.
"My identity isn't important right now," the woman declared. "What is important is the plots you are making to take advantage of people's feelings without any care for their well-being! Don't you have any shame? There's nothing worse than selfish people like you! I won't stand for it! In the name of — justice, I will stop you before you can enact any of your schemes!"
She finished this speech by dramatically pointing a finger at his face.
Jadeite blinked at the finger. His mind whirred across endless possibilities before he concluded, "You're one of those Sailor Guardians."
He was, once more, too baffled to act on this information. He'd never expected to be confronted by them outside of armor, when he was disguised as an ordinary human. He studied the blond woman more closely and imprinted her features to his memory. How arrogant!
The woman cringed, then squared her shoulders and snapped, "So what if I am! You know that my words aren't just for show!"
"What threat?" Jadeite laughed. When he took a step forward the guardian took a step back. She was noticeably taller than he was, and he had to lean up to ghost his breath across her face. "All you've done is reveal yourself to me and bring us to an isolated location. I can sense your fear. Do you think your power is enough to challenge one of the Four Heavenly Kings of the Dark Kingdom? Don't even threaten to kill me, because we both know you can't."
She swallowed. Her expression steeled, a bright fire burning in her eyes befitting of a sailor guardian. "I'm not here to kill you."
"Is that so?" Jadeite was intrigued despite himself. "Is this a proposition, then? Some offer of alliance?"
"No," said the Guardian. "It's an intervention."
Then there was a weapon at his throat, manifested into the woman's hand with a shimmer of light. Jadeite leaped back and brought out his sword, but she didn't chase him. It was a small wand, with a sharp crescent moon at its tip. The Sailor Guardian pointed it at him and yelled, "Moon Healing Escalation!"
The glow was blinding; like a supernova burning away at his eyes, his skin, the very core of his being. Jadeite teleported away to the Dark Kingdom before the attack could complete its goal — surely nothing less than disintegrating his entire self!
He collapsed to his knees, then to his forearms. His eyes leaked freely, and he was unable to blink away the spots in his vision. The normally soothing Dark Energy of his home felt like acid on his skin, and he had to stuff his coat into his mouth to muffle a scream.
Overconfident, Jadeite cursed himself. He'd forgotten how powerful the Sailor Guardians were. But the woman had done a fatal mistake in showing him her real face, and she would pay for it.
…As soon as Jadeite woke up from massively passing out.
March 17, 1992
" — unexpected rioting at the local precinct, in which officers report a 'giant bat monster' attacking them, have created waves of concerns over chemical attacks with hallucinogenics. This incident joins the latest trend of reports of monster attack reports across Tokyo's Jūban district over the past two weeks. Investigators request that if you have any information to share, please call … "
"A giant bat monster," repeated Mamoru flatly. He turned his flat stare onto the alien pretending to be a cat (or a cat that just happened to be an alien?). Luna blinked up at him with wide, concerned eyes. "Is that one of those Youma creatures, or is there some other supernatural threat you forgot to warn me about?"
Her concerned expression turned disdainful. Being a cat, she could pack a lot of disdain into her whiskers. "Don't be foolish, I would never withhold information on potential threats."
"Then, shouldn't you have some sort of warning system. Some sort of mystical alarm for Youma attacks?" He wriggled his fingers in imitation of casting magic. "Preferably before they attack our public defenders and free everyone in jail?"
"That makes no sense with their goals," argued Luna.
"What are their goals?" Mamoru retorted. "The only thing we know about them is that they steal energy from people!"
"Exactly," said Luna. "Why would they do that by freeing criminals? All their schemes have involved the desires of the heart — no matter how much criminals want to be free, they're a very limited population compared to say, every love-struck teenage girl in Tokyo."
"Unless this is a multi-tiered scheme where they free criminals, let them enjoy freedom, and then round them up again, creating an endless cycle of energy." Mamoru felt he was onto something … right until the news replay showed the very grainy image of a giant bat — woman? — creature with what looked to be breasts — swooping down onto police officers, taking off their hats, and chucking the hats away with increasing ire before eventually flying away to target a different office. "Or maybe they just want to cause chaos," he amended.
Luna hummed. They watched the news in companionable, baffled silence. "I should go and take this Youma out, shouldn't I?" Mamoru eventually said.
"Yes," said Luna. "That would be the best action to take here."
It wouldn't even be hard to find the Youma, unlike the first two Mamoru had encountered. It (she?) was clearly flying to the Hitotsubashi Police Box on the outskirts of Azabu-Jūban. This was after she'd harassed two other police stations closer to the district center. There was a news helicopter following at a distance.
"Should I…transform before going after it?"
"Well," said Luna, without looking at him. "You won't want to not be transformed when you fight a Youma."
And so Mamoru scuffed his socked toes against the carpet, and after some dilly dallying and the usual, reflexive mix of embarrassment and disbelief this was actually happening, lifted his magical pen towards the heaven. Before he could yell out the transformation phrase that would inexplicably turn him from Chiba Mamoru, local 17-year old first year university student from Jūban, into Earth's Guardian, Tuxedo Mask, the news announcers got louder and more excited.
"Sailor V!" One of them yelled, slapping their hands onto the news counter.
The other responded, "Who?" Which was very relatable. That had been Mamoru's response when Motoki got the new arcade game.
"From the movie!"
"So this is all a film?" The news anchor was in disbelief. "That — that's beyond irresponsible, even for a publicity stunt — "
The news anchors cut off as Sailor Moon yelled something at the Youma, catching its attention. The news helicopter was too far away and so were the vans. The Youma screeched loudly and swooped down to tackle Sailor Moon, but she nimbly threw herself onto another roof.
Mamoru heaved a sigh of relief from where he was all but pressed against the TV screen. His heart was pounding. His skin felt clammy and too tight. At his fingertips boiled raw, contained power and as he shook it off he found himself holding a rose.
"Let me see," Luna jumped onto his shoulder and pushed his head away from the screen. "Go, Sailor Moon!"
"You're such a fan girl," said Mamoru.
Luna shushed him.
Luckily, it was clear Sailor Moon had this Youma well in hand. Whatever goal the Youma had for harassing all of the Jūban police officers was abandoned in the face of a Sailor Guardian. Sailor Moon dodged all its attacks and after what appeared to be a fruitless questioning session the camera was too far to hear, pulled her tiara away from her forehead.
In her hands it glowed white-hot like molten metal. She threw the shining disc of unknown material and temperature at the Youma, who flapped away from the object and laughed. The creature stopped laughing when Sailor Moon made a hand gesture and the glowing tiara-weapon boomeranged straight into its back.
To the visible shock of the news anchors, the Youma turned to dust. Sailor Moon caught her weapon without also turning to dust, and as it reverted to a tiara she slid it onto her forehead above her mask.
Mamoru had seen her do it before, but it didn't get easier to believe the second go around.
"What just happened?" whispered the Sailor V fan.
"I didn't know practical effects could do that," said the second news announcer in a tinny voice.
"Humans!" Luna scoffed. "That's just the power of a fully fledged Sailor Soldier!"
She didn't give Mamoru a stink eye, but he could feel it in her lashing tail. A very pointed 'why the hell am I stuck with this guy when that is out there?'
He shrugged his shoulders until the cat tumbled off.
On the TV, Sailor Moon gave a small wave at the camera, then jumped across several rooftops before disappearing to an alley below. By the time a camera got eyes on the location, she was long gone.
"They need to stop talking about Sailor V," Luna grumbled. "They look completely different!"
"They really don't."
"To think that I would live to see a Sailor Moon manifest…" Luna sounded choked up.
"Next up you'll be buying merchandise and decorating your room." Mamoru pressed his hand to his chest. "They grow up so fast."
This earned him a stink eye.
Mamoru laughed. He let the rose return to wherever his roses came from and sprawled back as the last of the adrenaline faded. For a moment when he'd first seen Sailor Moon on the TV, the energy of a transformation had surged inside him. His vision had whited out. A string deep inside his heart had gone taut. He could almost feel the weight of his mask, the cape, the sword that masquerades as a cane, rose petals dripping from his eyes and his nose and his ears and his skin until Chiba Mamoru had faded away.
But then the moment passed, and the energy dammed up against the transformation pen Luna had created for him. Mamoru returned to his senses. That monstrosity that lived inside of him, his so-called true destiny as a Guardian, remained contained.
From various conversations with Luna he'd determined the transformation pens were like guiding rods to channel the immense celestial power that manifested in the sailor guardians. Eventually, Luna had grudgingly said, a guardian could transform without it. But why would you, when it was easier and faster to use it?
Clearly, it was less painful too. His every muscle ached from the thwarted almost-transformation.
"If only we had some way of contacting Sailor Moon…" Luna sighed.
"You're not this insane about Sailor V," said Mamoru. "Is she some sort of fake?"
"Sailor V is a known quantity," said Luna primly. "We don't know who Sailor Moon is, or why she only manifested now, even though the Dark Kingdom has been active for months. We don't even know how she manifested, because we certainly didn't have anything to do with it."
"And we don't know what her goals are, either."
It clearly pained Luna to view her idol with any sort of suspicion. "Exactly."
"For all we know she could be a Dark Kingdom plant, infiltrating our uh, operation."
Luna shook her head. "It is very hard to fake a Sailor Guardian's power. I have a reliable source that confirmed there's too much stardust in her scent-trail to be faked."
"About half of what you just said means nothing to me."
"It means she's the real deal. But why now? Why not during the Silver Millennium, when our need was greatest?"
"Maybe it wasn't," said Mamoru. "Maybe it's now."
"That's a chilling thought," said Luna. Her little ears drooped. "What could be worse than the destruction of the Silver Millennium? It wasn't just the Moon Kingdom that was attacked but all the Solar System… every single civilization from Mercury to Pluto, destroyed."
It was an absurd sentence. It still sent chills down to Mamoru's aching bones. Distantly, he could hear almost hear screams, and then a silence as deep as the vacuum of space.
"We have to get in touch with her," he said, a new wave of determination growing within him. "You said she acts like a seasoned warrior. She must have been training for this. If nothing else, we can share knowledge about what threat we face. And we will learn why she awakened now, and what her goals are."
"If we're lucky she's also seeking the Moon Princess and the Silver Crystal."
Mamoru wasn't so sure he'd call such a coincidence 'lucky'. Inconvenient, maybe. Unlucky, if he had to fight her for it. He was under no illusions as to how he'd fare against that insane plasma tiara boomerang attack. He'd crumble to dust, or explode into blood mist — what even was the chemical composition of Youma?
Maybe, he thought, Sailor Moon would have the answer to that question too. She might even deign to answer before vaporizing him.
A cat paw pressed over his mouth. Mamoru let out an indignant noise.
"I can feel you brooding," said Luna with heavy disapproval. It didn't change even when Mamoru sat up, which forced her to jump off him or land in his lap.
"Do you think I can do that?"
"Do what?"
Mamoru pantomimed taking off a tiara and then throwing it like a boomerang. "That."
"With what?" Luna asked incredulously. "Your top-hat?"
Mamoru scowled at her. "It's not like a tiara makes any more sense!"
"At least the tiara isn't made out of cloth."
"You," Mamoru pointed a finger right at the little crescent on her forehead. "Are biased."
"Why!" Luna gasped. "You're the one who didn't manifest a proper sailor guardian uniform."
"Blame the Earth! Since apparently that's where my powers come from."
"You're such a blasphemous child," said Luna.
"I am seventeen," said Mamoru with great dignity.
"And I'm over a millennia old."
"It doesn't count if you're asleep for it."
"Even without that," said Luna. "I would still be older than you."
"Whatever, you old hag. It's not my religion."
Luna sputtered. "The Sailor Guardians are not — oh, why do I even bother."
She went to the opposite side of the living room to sulk. Mamoru crossed his arms and harrumphed.
Eventually, though, the silence got awkward. Mamoru had hated every moment of having someone in his space that first day with Luna, but now the lack of a small, warm body nagging at him to eat properly was worse.
Cat people were so annoying.
"It's not like you really need me, anyway," he said. "What with her." And Sailor V, maybe? Was there an entire network of secret super-powered Sailor uniformed girls out there fighting crime?
"It's not about needing you," said Luna. "We need an army. But all we have is each other, and whether you like it or not the Earth chose you to defend it. You'd be drawn into this one way or another. You're my charge, and I'm not going to abandon you."
A warm fuzzy feeling blossomed like a rose in his chest.
"Even if I do think you could learn a thing or two from Sailor Moon," Luna muttered.
Aaaand it was gone again.
"Where are you going?" Luna called out.
Mamoru shrugged on his jacket. "To find Sailor Moon," he replied, peevishly. "Maybe she'll teach you some manners."
"Excuse me? I am not the one in need of etiquette lessons!"
"Oh yeah?" Mamoru glared at the cat that had followed him home and upended his entire life. "Name one person that needs it more than you."
"Jadeite," said Queen Beryl. Her deep voice was heavy with disbelief. "What was this?"
This, of course, referred to Kyureme going rogue and harassing all the police stations in Tokyo, rather than discretely identifying the one where the Sailor Guardian worked at. If Kyureme wasn't too dead to answer, Jadeite would be shaking her shoulders and demanding how a simple recon mission turned into this.
"My queen," Jadeite began. "It was a … miscalculation of which asset to send."
"You said you'd discovered the true identity of this 'Sailor Moon'."
For the record, Jadeite had not said that. He'd implied it. He had, maybe, been less discrete than he should have been in his flurry of research following his awakening face down on the floor.
It could have been worse. Zoisite could have found him.
It had been three days since Jadeite awoke face down on the floor of his chambers. His return to consciousness had been uncharismatic, to say the least. He spent an eternity with his cheek pressed to the cold stone, waiting for his skin to stop crawling and his insides to return to their proper place inside him.
Then Nephrite had walked in. "You're back early," he'd said, without looking up from an American magazine that even to Jaedite's blurry vision involved too many colors on the cover. "Trouble in Tokyo already?" Then he looked just a bit further down from his magazine, where his boots had met Jaedite's ribcage. "Why are you on the floor?"
"Practicing yoga for my next energy gathering plan," Jaedite said, though it came out all vowels, no consonants.
Nephrite's eyebrows raised. He slowly rolled the magazine and tucked it away in his coat. He crouched besides Jadeite and contemplated him with the same friendly interest of a frog on a dissection table.
Jadeite had vague memories of seeing such a thing on a grainy video. The teacher had a VHS tape of it because the school disproved of the expense involved in mass frog murder for childhood elucidation. And Jadeite had been bored and disgustedly intrigued, and wishing he were in his literature class instead. They had been covering … knights… and a king…
His eyes squeezed shut. The memory was a knife through his skull, a volcanic eruption that melted everything in its path.
"You're actually unwell," Nephrite slowly drawled. He sounded faintly surprised.
"Go away," Jadeite snapped. His voice was strong and steady. His arms were firm as he pushed himself up, though a wave of relief almost knocked him back down again. Nephrite's hand hovered in the air for a long moment, before he too stood up.
"There is nothing wrong with me," Jadeite said. "I was utilizing a new deep concentration method. Your disturbance is unappreciated."
"And your lying skills could use more work," said Nephrite. "Go on. What deep thoughts were you contemplating? What astounding benefits shall you win for our great Dark Kingdom today?"
Jaedite smoothed his coat into proper order. His human disguise had faded away and his uniform jacket was crumbled. "I have, as a matter of fact, discovered something of great importance."
"And that is?"
"Patience," Jadeite chided. Nephrite's amiable expression soured into just shy of murder. Jadeite's stomach twisted; nausea rose to this throat. A human fallacy.
Had he been… infected… with humanity?
Jadeite took a deep, bracing breath. This was no joking matter. There was no room for speculation. There was only truth. "Our ancient enemy has awoken."
"Our ancient enemy?" Nephrite echoed. It took him but a moment to realize what he was alluding to. "Sailor V was defeated. She's dead."
"Not her," said Jadeite. The smug satisfaction of knowing something that others did not soothed away the last of the unnatural agony he'd been subjected to. "There's a new Sailor Guardian, and I don't intend to let this one last long enough to be a thorn in our side."
Famous last words, Jadeite of approximately two days and 14 hours ago.
"Maybe Jadeite should concentrate on gathering energy," Zoisite chortled from far above. Even here he floated like the showboating asshole he was, and his grin was as sharp as knives. When he touched down besides Jadeite, there wasn't even any satisfaction in being taller than him. Zoisite had only done it to bow before Queen Beryl with a flourish. "My Queen, I shall hunt down this Sailor Moon for us."
"No," said Queen Beryl. "The Silver Crystal remains your top priority."
Zoisite pouted.
Queen Beryl turned her gaze upon Jadeite. Embers burned in her eyes, and her mere attention was like claws digging into Jadeite's skin. He steadied himself by clenching his fists. "Jadeite," she said. "You will resume your task to gather energy. I expect that when you next encounter Sailor Moon, it shall be the last time."
That the next encounter was not to be caught on live television went without saying.
"Of course, my Queen. It shall be as you with."
Damn you Sailor Moon, Jadeite thought, stepping through the fabric of reality back into the human realm. The sun was still soft and shining. The air smelled faintly of cherry blossom. It was a beautiful May morning, and right in front of Jadeite was a newsstand with a front page spread about Sailor Moon and that odd fellow in a tuxedo that sometimes showed up to gawk at her fights.
Jadeite immolated the entire stand. He didn't even feel guilty about the instant panic this caused. He'd already teleported down the street and shifted his clothes into something more…passable.
There was a shrine he'd been investigating as a potential base. It offered free board in exchange for work. He could gather information and energy for Queen Metallia at the same time. That he wouldn't need to return to the Dark Kingdom for rest was an added bonus, if only so he didn't snap Zoisite's neck off.
Yes, this would do nicely.
"Be prepared, Sailor Moon," Jadeite vowed, glaring down at the newspaper he'd swiped. "I will get you, and your little tuxedo man too."
A street over, Tsukino Usagi sneezed. She rubbed her nose and blinked back tears. "If I'm sick on top of everything else, I really can't take it!"
"You're not sick, it's the pollen from the trees waking up," Naru soothed.
"It better be!" Usagi sniffed again and covered her eyes with her palms. "Life is really hard, Naru."
Her friend patted her shoulder. "Come on, we're almost at the patisserie. I've heard it's fantastic, I'm so excited to… oh, wow."
Usagi peeked through her fingers. Naru was blushing slightly as she gazed dreamily across the road. Usagi followed her gaze and spotted a handsome blonde man a few years older than them glaring down at a newspaper.
Oh, great. Jadeite was back.
.
.
.
…Wait a minute.
Jadeite! Was back!
Naru yelped as she was dragged behind a phone booth. "Usagi?!"
"Shh!" Usagi clamped a hand over her friend's mouth. "We don't want him to spot us."
Even muffled, Naru managed to convey, "Why not?"
"Because he's a creep! You remember what I said about staying away from handsome older men who are actually creeps, right?"
Naru pulled her arm away and sighed. "I was just looking."
"He's evil," Usagi insisted.
"How do you know that? Have you met him before?"
Usagi hesitated.
"Usagi, you can't judge people you've never met before," Naru sighed. "And he's a cute guy too! What could he do that's bad?"
"He runs evil marketing schemes to steal energy," Usagi grumbled.
Naru was too baffled to respond.
Usagi peeked around the phone booth, but Jadeite had disappeared. This was less reassuring than it should have been. He could be anywhere, doing anything! Usagi didn't fully remember all the Youma he had unleashed, much less when they'd attacked, but she already knew they were out of order from how things should have been. That weird bat monster was supposed to chase that poor musician, not harass the Tokyo police department.
"Look, there's nothing wrong with looking," said Naru. "And if he really is a creep then…"
"Then…?"
Naru blushed a bit. "Well, I've been told to whack them with a bat."
Usagi blinked.
Well, since her first attempt at dealing with Jadeite had failed to yield any result... All she had to do was track down Jadeite and use the Luna Pen to transform into a beautiful baseball player...
"What are you supposed to do after you hit them with a bat?" Usagi asked.
"Uh," said Naru. "Run, I think."
"I see..."
Well, it was worth a shot.