Cycle of Our Souls: Heart's Fire
Part VI
M is for Mars

Disclaimers:
Sailor Moon and company don't belong to me, blahblahblah. I'm broke, damn it, completely broke, so don't sue me!
What, no long, involved author's note? Sorry, kiddies, I don't have anything new to say! Just a little reminder to write me, and a "thank you" to those who already have! :)

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It was the morning after what was to be known as Queen Serenity's last, greatest ball, and each princess was saying good-bye to her beloved. It had escaped no one's notice that these could be their last moments together, so the kisses were lingering, the whispers loving, and the tears plentiful.
"I'll come back to you," Jadeite swore to his Martian princess.
She smiled sadly. "I know you'll try."
"No, Rei-chan," he declared, "one day I will come back to you. I promise." He embraced her tightly and she tried to shake of her feelings of dread.
"Ai shiteru, Jade," she whispered, kissing him.
"And I love you, little firefly." Jadeite pulled away from her and went to join the other generals and their prince. Each man acknowledged his loved one, and then all five disappeared in a flash of light.
Minako let out a long sigh. "I miss him already," she said softly.
So do I, thought Rei, so do we all.

Prince Endymion watched with a heavy heart as his beloved Princess Serenity faded from view to be replaced by the familiar great room of his Earth Palace. With a sad sigh, he turned to face his generals, only to find them... well, not there. He blinked in amazement. "Mal-kun?" he called. "Jadeite? Nephrite? Zoi?" No one answered him. Suddenly he had a very, very bad feeling about this.

The four generals of Earth recovered from a rough teleport to find themselves surrounded by a darkness so deep that it seemed alive and the scent of death... old death, decaying death, evil death. "This," Malachite observed astutely, "is not the Earth Palace."
"Whatever gave you that idea?" Jadeite grumped, rubbing his head from where he'd hit it on a low stalactite.
"Where are we?" Nephrite demanded as he tried to peer through the blackness.
"Itai!" Zoisite suddenly cried. "Something has my hair! Zoi!" He tried to let loose a barrage of flower petals, but only a tiny puff appeared before winking out of sight.
"It's only me, Zoisite, don't go shooting your petals around in here," Malachite said sternly, letting go of the other general's hair. "I was just making sure it was you."
Zoisite gave an indignant sniff and carefully checked his beloved blond curls for damage. Finding them to be all right, he decided that his commander didn't have to suffer a horrible death after all.
"If you two are quite through," Nephrite said rather threateningly, "I believe we have a rather pressing problem. Where are we, how did we get here, and where is Endymion?"
"I believe I can answer your questions, gentlemen," a voice cackled from behind them. All four generals turned as a bright light appeared surrounding an unnaturally tall woman with wild red hair, green skin and (they shuddered) fangs. "I am Queen Beryl of the Negaverse, and I desire the services of the famed Earth Generals."
Their eyes widened in horror. "We will never serve you, bitch!" Malachite cried, recognizing the woman as the source of the war on his beloved planet. "Our loyalty is sworn to Prince Endymion of Earth, and you are his enemy."
Beryl grinned evilly, bearing her fangs. "We'll see about that," she hissed. With a wave of her staff, the cave vanished and each man found himself alone, alone and facing a different Hell, a Hell of his worst fears.

Jadeite ran through a vast, encompassing forest that seemed to have no end. He could feel the blood pounding in his head, and he felt as though he was about to pass out, but he kept running. He knew Rei and Endymion were in danger, he could feel it in his soul, his bones, his heart. His prince and his beloved needed him, and there's no way he was going to let them down.
"Rei-chan, Endy-kun!" he cried, finally reaching the forest's edge. The dark-haired princess of Mars was fighting off a huge, dark beast, and she didn't turn at his call. Jadeite searched around wildly and finally caught sight of Endymion, protecting Princess Serenity from a monster similar to the one Rei was fighting.
Suddenly a third monster tackled the general from behind. He rolled to his feet and shot a blast of energy at the evil creature, energy it easily deflected. Cursing, he concentrated and attempted to drain its life force, but succeeded in only weakening himself. He heard a scream then, just on the edge of his consciousness, and he whirled to see Rei being hefted into the air, impaled on one of her enemy's long, viscous fangs. "NO! Rei!" He tried to run to her, but an invisible shield seemed to have formed around the battlefield.
"No! Gods, Rei!" he whispered in horror, turning away from the sight of her bloody, lifeless body. Endymion! his mind screamed, reminding him of his duty to the prince. Shaking himself from the pain Rei's death had inflicted on his heart, Jadeite ran to aid his prince, only to find himself too late. Endymion lay dead, draped over the body of his beloved Moon Princess.
Jadeite let out a scream of anguish and fell to his knees, his head in his hands. "NO! This isn't possible! Endymion, Serena, REI! I've failed you all!" As his world collapsed around him, he found himself running through the forest again, the blood pounding in his ears, on his way to save Endymion and Rei.
"This is your Hell, Jadeite, and you will relive it until you submit to the power of the Negaverse," he vaguely heard Queen Beryl's evil voice say.
"NEVER!" he cried even as he felt the agonizing pain of failure and death rip through him once again.

A scream of terror echoed along the peaceful halls of the Moon Palace. Rei, Princess of Mars, awoke with pain like she'd never felt before scorching through her entire body. "Jadeite!" she cried. He was dying, and dying painfully. "No, Gods, please don't do this!" she whispered, struggling to regain control of her psychic senses. The connection to her beloved was too strong, however, and she felt the life slipping from him.
Her chamber door flew open and Minako, Makoto, Ami and Serena ran, pale and panting, over to their friend. "Rei-chan," Ami said gently, trying to assess the situation, "Rei-chan, what's wrong?"
"Jadeite," she said so softly they almost couldn't hear her, "Jadeite is dead. She killed him, and the other generals, and now she's coming for us." With that, Rei fainted dead away.
"She was under too much stress from her sixth sense," Ami explained after a moment. "She should be fine when she regains consciousness."
The other girls stood staring at one another, their jaws hanging open in horror. "Could... could it be true? Could they be dead?" Makoto finally said, voicing their shared fear.
"Nai," Minako told her, "I refuse to believe it. Like Ami said, Rei-chan was under a lot of stress from her psychic senses, so she could be wrong... ne?"
"Possibly," Ami whispered, biting her lower lip.
"What could she have meant? Who is coming for us?" Serena wanted to know.
"Queen Beryl of the Negaverse," a gentle voice said from behind them.
"Mother!" Serena cried, throwing herself into the queen's embrace. "Mother, was what Rei said true? Are the generals dead? Is Endymion dead too? What's going on?"
"I do not know, my dear one," Serenity replied earnestly. "But I do know that tomorrow will bring a great battle, and an army stronger than any we have ever faced before. We must all rest, for we will need all of our strength if we are to defeat this enemy. It will be difficult, but I have faith that we will prevail."
Serena looked up at her mother, fear in her kind blue eyes, and said, "What if we don't? What will become of us then?"
"Don't say that, Serena!" Minako cried with surprising fierceness. "We'll win, just like Queen Serenity says. Now come on... let's go back to bed and let Rei sleep in peace." It was the last peace any of them would enjoy for a long, long time.

"We will take position here, ahead of the main army. Our job is to prevent any youma from passing through, because we all know that mere swords aren't nearly enough to stop one," Minako, leader of the Sailor Senshi, instructed the other three. "There are only four of us, as the Outers are needed elsewhere, so we must be careful. The Negaverse cannot destroy the Moon Kingdom! With our defeat, so would fall the rest of the Universe."
Queen and Princess Serenity stepped forward. "May all of you go in health, and return in health," the queen said in blessing.
The senshi bowed their heads respectfully. "Thank you, Your Majesty," Minako said for them.
Serena ran forward and embraced her friends. "Please be careful!" she whispered. "I don't know what I would do if I lost any of you."
Rei grinned. "Don't worry about us, Serena-chan. Just make sure you keep yourself out of trouble, ne?" With that and a bow to their queen, the four girls stepped from the beautiful palace to the gardens and then out the gate. "There!" Rei cried, pointing to the figures in the distance.
"Gods," Ami whispered, "there are thousands of them!"
"And we can handle every one!" Makoto cried, raising a fist in the air. The army behind them saw this gesture and began cheering wildly. "Spirit's half the battle," she explained to her friends.
And suddenly, as though the energy of the Moon Kingdom's soldiers had propelled it, the battle arrived. The senshi fought with everything they had, and numerous youma found themselves barbecued, electrocuted, frozen, or shocked with love energy, but still more came. It seemed as though the supply would never end, and the army found itself falling back again and again until the battle raged inside the gates of the Moon Palace, among its beautiful flower beds and fountains.
Rei glanced over her shoulder at one point and saw her own bed destroyed, the flowers ripped from the soil and crushed beneath hundreds of feet. She shivered at the omen and blasted a youma that came too close to her. As it fell with a ghastly scream, a great cry went up through the enemy ranks and they fell back, no longer fighting.
Minako, Makoto and Ami appeared beside her, and the Mercurial expressed her confusion. "Why did they just stop like that? Have we won?"
"I don't think so," Makoto whispered. "Look." She pointed to four figures making their way through the ranks of youma.
Rei gasped in recognition and her eyes widened. "The generals!" she cried, much to the surprise of the other girls. "I thought they were dead! I felt Jadeite die. This is so strange..."
"That is Nephrite! I can't believe I didn't recognize him!" Makoto said, breaking away from her friends and running to the men.
"Matte, Mako-chan," Rei called, "something isn't right!" The three senshi set off after the rash Princess of Jupiter, but stopped dead when they reached the generals of Earth.
"Malachite?" Minako questioned softly, not recognizing the blank, cruel look in his gray-violet eyes. The pretty blond took a step back from him, unsure. "Malachite, what's going on? Have you come to help us?"
"Nai, Sailor Venus," he said in a cold, evil voice, "we have come to destroy you in the name of the Negaverse!"
Tears ran down Rei's cheeks as she realized the meaning of her visions and the horrible dream the night before. "You did die, Jadeite," she said, "and then you came back as this thing!" Anger surged through her. "On behalf of Mars and the Moon Kingdom, I will destroy you!"
He grinned maliciously. "How sweet those words sound to me." A blast of dark energy came from his hands just as she shot her fire at him. The two powers locked together, at an impasse, till suddenly they exploded, knocking both the senshi and the evil general to the ground.
As she lay there, staring up at the dark sky, Rei was vaguely aware of the sounds around her: Ami and Zoisite blasting one another with ice energy, Makoto and Nephrite throwing electricity back and forth, and Mina and Malachite locked in hand-to-hand combat. "No," she whispered, sensing the dissolution of everything and everyone she held dear. "How did it come to this?"
There was a cry from the terrace of the Moon Palace, and Rei's psychic senses exploded with pain. The Princess... dead... Serena... Gods, not Serena! Endymion, too... Serena, Endymion, Makoto, Ami, Minako, Malachite, Nephrite, Zoisite, Jadeite... all dead... all gone... I guess it's my turn.
With the last bit of energy remaining in her battered, burnt body, she dragged herself to Jadeite's side. "I'll never forget," she gasped into his ear. Then, resting her head on her beloved's lifeless chest, the Princess of Mars exhaled her last breath and slipped quietly into death.
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"He betrayed me back then, and he's betrayed me now," Raye whispered, the vision fading. "How could I not have known they were the same person? And what am I going to do about it?" With a sigh, she wiped her eyes and picked up the phone, knowing there was only one person she could call.
"Moshi moshi," Serena said after only a few rings.
At the sound of the bright, cheerful voice, Raye had to fight to control the tears. "Would you mind... would you mind coming over here, Serena? Please?" she asked, her voice sounding pathetic in her own ears.
"Raye, what's wrong? It doesn't matter... I'll get everyone and we'll be over there in five minutes, ok? Hang on, Raye!" The blond hung up the phone with a worried frown and hit the "all-call" button on her communicator.
Knowing she had picked the right person to turn to, the miko got dressed and washed her face, hoping doing so would erase at least some of the signs of her crying fit. Switching over to hostess mode, Raye hurried to the kitchen to prepare tea and cakes for her friends, but stopped, a cake in midair above
the plate, and let out a little sigh.
How glad I am to have them, she thought suddenly, her dark eyes trying to tear up again, at least I have people to go to when I'm feeling like an idiot over a guy. With that comforting thought, she finished up in the kitchen with a much brighter attitude.
"Raye?" she heard Serena call from the main room of the temple.
"Hai, I'm in the kitchen."
A moment later Raye's friends were surrounding her, each looking her over with concerned eyes. "I found this on the temple steps," Serena said, holding out the ring box, its lid open. "I thought it was too valuable an offering to be left out there, so I brought it to you."
At the sight of the beautiful piece of jewelry, her control snapped and Raye burst into fresh tears. The other girls all looked at one another, horrified. Could this be the same stubborn, fiery, no-nonsense miko they all knew and loved? Serena's mothering instincts clicked in and she put her arms around Raye, gently leading her to the table. "Shh," she whispered. "It's ok. Tell us what happened."
Through her tears, the dark-haired girl told her friends the entire story -- the Silver Millennium dreams she had been having, her inability to remember Jadeite's face, her breakup and makeup with Jay, and finally... the ring. "It's the same one! As soon as I saw it, I knew that Jay and Jadeite are the same person. I just feel so stupid for not seeing it before."
Mina's brow creased in a frown. "How can you be sure that the dreams were telling the truth? Maybe it was your imagination--"
"Iie, Mina, they were real. I know it because I just do. It's hard to explain... Gods, guys, what am I gonna do?"
Lita jumped to her feet, fists clinched. "I'll tell ya what I'm gonna do, Raye! That Jay Dalinger, or Jadeite, or whatever the hell is name is, is gonna know the feeling of my Thunder Dragon in a place--"
"Lita," Serena cut the brunette off with surprising sharpness, "no one is going to blast anyone until we know more about this. Perhaps Jay honestly doesn't remember that he's Jadeite. We don't know what Beryl did to him... maybe she killed him and he came back to life with no memory the same way we did."
"Perhaps," Raye said slowly. "He seemed very confused by the whole thing... but that might've just been an act."
"Amy, do you think you could do a scan on him? You could see if there is any Dark Energy remaining in his system."
Amy nodded and Luna asked, "And if there isn't?"
"Then I guess we know he's cured, ne? I wonder why they all became evil anyway," Serena said, taking a bite of one of Raye's cakes.
"Beryl did something to them. In the dream, I said they died... but I don't think that was quite accurate. I think Beryl killed their goodness, the side of them that knew the importance of loyalty, love and honor. Hopefully whatever's happened to Jay has caused that side to be restored."
"What if it hasn't?" Lita wanted to know.
Raye shrugged. "Then we'll kill him."
Mina gasped. "Are you sure about that, Raye? I mean... don't you love him?"
"I killed him before, didn't I? If he is trying to hurt us, or hurt this planet, then we have no choice," she replied tartly.
"What about the others?" Amy asked suddenly.
Serena frowned. "What others?"
"If Jadeite was resurrected, then it makes sense that the others would have been as well, ne? We should try to find them and see what they remember," Luna explained.
"Do you think they'll still have their powers?"
"There's only one way to find out," Amy said, holding up her handheld computer. "We'll need to bring Jay here. Can you call him, Raye?"
"No I most certainly can't... and he probably wouldn't come anyway. That's the second time I've broken up with him in the last week."
"Then I'll call do it," Serena said, jumping up from her chair.
"Nai, matte," Lita said quickly, "let me. If we invite him here, then he'll know something's up. I can ask him to come over to my place for lunch tomorrow."
"Oh yeah, that won't make him suspicious," Raye commented darkly.
End VI