Sailor Moon is the property of Naoko Takeuchi, Kodansha Comics, and Toei Animation.

Oh, and I’m dedicating this next part to Sarah, for insisting that I write it; I promised I would, so here it is, at long last, :P

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Nephrite sighed as he looked at the obviously pissed off Queen. The fact that the Senshi had actually won Kunzite’s little game was more Jadeite and Zoisite’s fault than anybody else’s, but Queen Beryl was infamous for pointing the finger at the nearest possible suspect.

Everyone had more or less assumed that Zoisite’s "accident" had resulted in the death of Tuxedo Kamen. After all, he had dropped him into one of the rivers of Hell. He hadn’t surfaced, and it was likely that the river had been Phlegethon – river of fire. That kind of thing could really put a crimp on your day.

However, Beryl didn’t seem interested in this – her agitation seemed to come more from the scroll suspended in mid-air before her, glowing faintly with a metallic blue sheen. Her cerise eyes were narrowed as she read over it silently for what must have been the millionth time.

Nephrite was slightly concerned about her silence, and the intensity of her gaze. Frankly, though, he was just pleased she wasn’t staring at him. He had to wonder just what Queen Beryl had made of Zoisite’s and Jadeite’s escapade, however. As far as he knew, she had asked to see him, Nephrite, first. Obviously, he had nothing to do with the "accident," but he had been worried nonetheless. He should have known better – Beryl liked to save carnage and punishment for last. Savour the flavour and all that crap.

To his surprise, Beryl suddenly took the scroll from the air, and sent it spiralling to Nephrite, who deftly caught it. He looked at it for a second, before turning confused eyes on the Queen. She merely nodded at him and said "Read."

Bowing his head dutifully, and not without some internal trepidation, he did;

Nephrite looked up from reading the scroll, and stared at the Queen. "Where is the rest of it, majesty?"

Beryl waved a sharp nailed hand in dismissal. "That is unimportant, Nephrite. What I mean to take from this is fairly simple. It is implied that there is a fifth element, and within the fifth element, you have the One Stone of the Five. The Quint Essentia."

Nephrite simply nodded, though he didn’t really understand what the Queen was getting at. When Beryl got on one of her kicks, it was sometimes better to let her run with it than to try and stop her long enough to be able to view her vision with her same frightening intensity.

Fortunately for him, Queen Beryl decided to go on. "A thousand years ago, we launched an attack on the Moon Kingdom of the Silver Millennium, and we failed. Now, my memories of that time are dim and far between, but one memory sticks in my mind. The maroboshi no ginzuishou."

Nephrite nodded without speaking. Even though he remembered next to nothing about the Silver Millennium , the crystal’s name had a profound effect on him. They had been searching for it for some time now, and it had always intrigued him.

Beryl went on. "Due to Zoisite’s spectacular display, I have decided to leave this next little assignment under your leadership, Nephrite. Now, the scroll states that there is one stone of the five, the quint essentia. The quintessence, in other words. The mysterious fifth element, granting immortality…and as you well know, the denizens of the Moon were immortal, with this great stone of theirs. Does it not make sense to you that this Quint Essentia should also be the ginzuishou?"

Nephrite marvelled at her rare display of logic. "Indeed it does, my queen."

She smiled, revealing those unsettling fangs. "That is so. Nephrite, this writing states that there is one stone of the five. And who is that five?" She smiled again, eyes glowing dully. "Nephrite, there are three Sailor Senshi, correct?"

"Correct…" Nephrite replied after a moment of hesitation, wondering where this conversation was leading.

"Now, the scroll requires five, and there are only three Senshi…but recall the Senshi whose activities have been chronicled in England?"

"Indeed I do, Majesty," he replied, a small idea beginning to form in his mind. He had the suspicion that he knew where this conversation was leading.

"She calls herself Sailor V, yes? Well, let me see here. If there are to be five Senshi in order to call back the ginzuishou from wherever it is, they must be Senshi of their native Solar System."

Nephrite nodded. "There is a Moon, a Mercury, and a Mars thus far."

Beryl smiled patronisingly. "Indeed. Therefore, if there are two more Senshi, they will be from the solar system, probably the closest two to the ones already active. Those planets are Jupiter and Venus."

A light bulb went off in Nephrite’s head. "Are you suggesting that this Sailor V is in fact Sailor Venus?"

"It’s a pretty big coincidence, wouldn’t you agree?" asked Beryl, languidly moving her long-nailed hands over the crystal before her. Nephrite could see the image of a blonde girl forming inside it, a pretty blonde girl wearing a fuku not dissimilar to that of the trio in Tokyo. "I suspect that this girl is more than what she says she is. Perhaps she hides her true Senshi powers behind another seeming…but, Nephrite, I want you to find out just what this girl is."

"I don’t understand."

She sighed impatiently. "Fine. I will repeat myself. Nephrite, the scroll speaks of the fifth element, which is the one stone of the five. It can only be brought together when there are five Senshi. There are now three. If we can find the other two, perhaps they can be of use to us."

Nephrite shook his head. "Are you sure? It has been said that the ginzuishou actually shattered into seven pieces, the nijizuishou. It has been said in legends that have been known for years that the ginzuishou really only can be activated by the joining of those crystals."

Beryl shook her head impatiently. "That has never been proven, Nephrite, although you do have a point. My personal theory on this is that there are obviously seven shards of the ginzuishou on Earth. They must be joined, but can only be joined when there is a complete complement of Senshi – a kind of group mentality, if you will."

Understanding dawned. "You mean it is the Senshi whom will bring the crystal to being, through their joined powers?"

Beryl’s patronising smile oozed onto her features with a kind of viscosity that sent shivers down Nephrite’s spine; considering that Nephrite was a difficult person to frighten, that was an important fact indeed. "For this quintessence to exist, there must be five active Senshi. Consider this – there are four elements on Earth. Two of the Senshi possess the powers of water and fire. Sailor Moon possesses no great elemental power, so it would be her, I assume, whom could control the ginzuishou, or the fifth element. That leaves two elements – and two Senshi." She stopped for a moment, before raking her cerise eyes over her court. Most of them withered beneath her piercing glare; satisfied, she turned back to her second general. "Nephrite, I want you to find the Senshi of both Venus and Jupiter, and bring them to me. Unharmed, at that."

Nephrite nodded. "It will be done, my queen…but what if they are not the two?"

Beryl’s eyes narrowed. "What do you mean?"

Clearing his throat, he temporarily considered a full frontal lobotomy; he must have been NUTS to challenge one of Beryl’s decrees. Beryl, whom if she was human, would probably be a neo-nazi or the head of the KKK. "I mean, there are nine planets in the solar system. The Senshi that give the full totality of the "group mentality" you mentioned might be from somewhere else – say, Neptune."

Beryl shook her head, and Nephrite was somewhat relieved to note she seemed more amused than angry. Then again, that possibly didn’t bode well for him, either. "Neptune is a Senshi of water, surely that much is obvious. As for the others, you may be right. However, I have the impression that we are dealing with the Inner Senshi. That would mean we would be looking for Venus and Jupiter. So do it."

Nephrite nodded, put his right fist over his left breast and bowed his head. "It will be done, my queen."

Beryl snorted. "It had better. I’m most decidedly not in a good mood Nephrite – which reminds me. You have been indefinitely released from all other previous duties, and I’m assigning you an assistant."

"Oh?" he asked non-committedly, though inside, he was fuming. He much preferred to work on his own, and Beryl knew that, the bitch.

"Yes," Beryl replied in an unreadable tone. She was gazing into her ball when she spoke again, in a somewhat reflective tone. "You’ve never cared much for Zoisite, have you?"

A shiver of apprehension sent a tremor through his entire body. "No, majesty."

"That’s too bad," remarked Beryl. "He’s going to be your handy little helper for the next few weeks." That smile, with the long, pointed canines was flashed in his direction again. "Perhaps it will give you an incentive to get things done quicker."

Before Nephrite could so much as lift a pinkie in protest, Beryl dismissed him. "You may begin your duties, Nephrite. I have other matters to deal with. I shall send Zoisite to you as soon as I have finished with him."

As Nephrite summoned a transport, he was reminded of a gore movie he had once had the dubious pleasure of watching. Die Screaming With Sharp Things in Your Head.

He could relate to that. Certainly, he could already feel the beginnings of a world-class migraine coming on – this time, not alcohol-related…though he wished desperately that it were.

Rei stretched out her long, slender legs, and cast Usagi a dirty look. "So, o great leader, what do we do now?"

Ami checked a sigh, and went back to tapping away on her computer. Even though she didn’t really want to have to listen to another argument conducted in an unorderly fashion by her two cohorts, she supposed she should let Rei get it out of her system.

Usagi bit her lip, then said brightly "Do you think we should call the animal shelters?"

To her credit, Rei did not blow up Usagi’s idea. She merely glared at her for about ten seconds before tensely replying in a civil manner "No, Usagi, I don’t think we should call an animal shelter."

Usagi sighed herself. "Well, I’m fresh out of ideas."

The black-haired Senshi of Mars tossed her long hair back over her shoulder, and curled her legs underneath her as she sat on her futon. "Do you think it would be worth it, trying to go back to the Dark Kingdom?" Even though she didn’t state it outwardly, both could sense that it was mainly directed at Ami.

Her fingers continued to dance over the keys as she looked up for the briefest of periods, before going back to whatever it was that she was doing. "No, I don’t think we should. There’s only three of us, and launching an offensive like that would only get us all killed. I mean, there are four leading generals, and you don’t get a general without an army for them to command. Now, if you want to take on an entire infantry by yourself, you do that. However, I think we need to be a little more subtle."

Rei nodded. "You have a point – but I don’t think we should sit around here and do nothing in the meantime. Who knows what they’re doing to Tuxedo Kamen-sama down there!"

"You don’t think they’d give him a break and let him go home, do you?" Usagi seemed to doubt her own words even as they left her lips.

Rei rolled her eyes. "Now there’s something we’ll have to remember, Ami-chan; if you want something done right, kill Usagi before you start."

Ami, however, seemed engrossed in what she doing and didn’t appear to hear what Rei was saying. The miko sighed again and picked idly at her duvet. She really hated this sitting around doing nothing, though, if she admitted it to herself, she was loathe to go back to the Dark Kingdom. It was only her gut feeling that Tuxedo Kamen-sama was in terrible danger that made her want to go on.

Then there was Usagi. Rei looked up at her friend through her eyelashes, noting how Usagi was chewing her bottom lip and staring out the window blankly. Her blue eyes were wide and troubled, and a wave of sympathy passed over her. Even though she berated, teased and downright insulted Usagi at every opportunity, she still cared about her little friend. And right now, she was beginning to get a little worried about her. Even though Usagi’s train of thought was still as scatter-brained as ever, she could quite clearly see Usagi was genuinely worried about Tuxedo Kamen’s fate, and the whereabouts of their feline advisor.

Luna. The word sent a tremor through her being. Even though she had yet to do a fire reading regarding the disappearance of the cat, she could still feel that wherever Luna was, she was probably in danger, and most assuredly, not in a good mood.

Rei looked over to where Ami was hunched at her little computer, kneeling in front of the low table. Her brow was furrowed in concentration, and her tongue was ever-so-slightly poking out of one side of her mouth. Rei frowned, wondering what it was Ami was actually doing. She and Usagi had never really questioned what it was that Ami did with her eenie-weenie-tiny-little-super-computer, but for some reason, her curiosity now got the better of her.

She leaned over to scope out the situation. "Hey, Ami-chan, what are you do…" Her voice trailed off, then rose to a scream. "You’re playing POKEMON?!"

Usagi jolted, and turned back to the group. In a flash, she was at Ami’s side, and she gasped. "Wow, your computer has Gameboy capabilities? Sugoi! It really CAN do everything!"

Even though Usagi didn’t seem too overly fussed that Ami had been playing Pokemon rather than trying to find out information about their enemies, the blue-haired computer hacker knew all too well that Rei was seriously approaching nutbar status. "Rei-chan, I…"

Rei stared at her, then said, in an almost broken voice, "Why?"

Ami bit her lip. "Uh…it just helps me think…" Rei continued to stare at her, looking both hurt and disappointed. To Ami, that was ten thousand times worse than being subjected to one of her special brand tongue lashings. "You guys, for Heaven’s sakes, why does it always me who has to be the one with the ideas, the logical one, the one constantly on the ball?" She took a deep breath before continuing. "I mean, I don’t think you guys understand what it’s like to be me…I have to study, go to cram school, take part in the computer club, be a Sailor Senshi, attempt to have a social life, and be just generally fantastic all the time. Why can’t I have a little break every now and then?" She looked away, feeling hot tears pricking at the backs of her eyes. "Geez, without me, you guys would just fall apart."

Rei felt instantly bad for berating the usually studious girl, but she was still far from finished. "Ami-chan, I know things can’t be easy for you – but none of us asked to do this, and we don’t have to do it all the time. I’m sure Pokemon can wait until after we’ve located Luna and Tuxedo Kamen-sama."

Ami nodded, but she refused to look up from staring at her hands. Usagi used the golden opportunity to swipe the mini-data computer/Gameboy from the tabletop.

Rei glared at her pointedly. "Usagi!"

The blonde ignored her, instead typing painstakingly slow into the computer. "Hey, Ami-chan, do you have Sailor V games in here? Oh, wait, here’s something." There were two slow taps as Usagi pressed on the keypad quite heavily, and they were followed by a series of blips.

"Hey!" complained the odango atama. "This isn’t a Sailor V game! It’s just a bunch of boring files!" She glared at Ami. "You know, Ami-chan, it’s really rude to put boring stuff under such cool names as Sailor V."

Rei reached over and wrapped her fingers about the little pocketbook sized computer. "Give me that."

"Hey!" whined Usagi. "I wasn’t done yet!"

Ignoring the pitch of her voice, Rei cast her eyes over the files, frowned, and opened one. Her eyes skipped down the page over the reams of information, before she looked up at Ami, who was by now staring at both of the long haired Senshi. "What’s this, Ami-chan?"

Ami smiled slightly, though it was a tight smile. "It’s all the information I’ve collected about the so-called activities of the real Sailor V in England."

Usagi looked up from peering over Rei’s shoulder and squealed excitedly. "You mean, she’s real?!"

"As real as you are, Usagi," replied Rei dryly. Ignoring the half-hearted glare Usagi directed at her, she looked to the files, then opened up another window, coming across a wealth of photos.

Ami joined Rei, and watched silently as Rei opened several of the pictures. She then took the computer from her loose grasp and opened another. She then turned the computer back to her audience. "That’s probably the best picture I have on file." She then put her elbows on the table and rested her chin on her laced fingers.

Rei looked at it, and frowned. It showed a side view of a fuku-clad girl as she stood on the roof of a city building. Her location was obvious – the shape of Big Ben was obvious against the dark night sky, in which floated a sickle-shaped moon. The angle made it so that she was in almost perfect silhouette. As it was night, the picture was poorly lighted, but the light clearly fell on her upper features, revealing strands of long, blonde hair.

Usagi made to close the picture and open another, but Rei slapped her hand away, her frown growing deeper. "Ami-chan, what’s that?"

Ami craned her neck as she looked closer. "What’s what?"

Rei jabbed a finger at the lower half of the picture, almost knocking the tiny computer over in the process. "That."

Ami frowned herself as she looked at the little black blob that was behind the Senshi. It didn’t seem that interesting, but Rei had seen something there with her sharp eyes. Pulling the computer closer to herself, Ami isolated that section of the picture and pushed ‘enhance, maximum.’

Rei was the first to see it clearly – after all, she had seen it fuzzily even when it hadn’t been enhanced. "You see?" she asked, sounding slightly exited, and slightly worried all at the same time.

Ami and Usagi simply stared at it in shock.

It was the silhouette of a cat. The lighting meant it was perfectly shadowed, but somehow, it had managed to garner some of the light.

The golden crescent moon on its head caught and refracted the moonlight like a golden mirror.

"…and you will assist him in any manner that he sees as fitting to your mission."

Zoisite was having the most difficult time this afternoon. The temptation to scream – then rip the queen’s head off a la Sub-Zero of Mortal Kombat – was becoming so great he almost put his hand over his own mouth to cut it off.

In the meantime, he nodded and tried not to look terribly put-out; he doubted that he was succeeding very well, but Beryl didn’t really seem to care. In fact, he did believe that she was taking particularly perverse pleasure in the punishment she was meting out to him.

Not that she would call it a punishment, oh no. She would never say that she was punishing him this way. In fact, she had implied that she was letting him off lightly, in terms of what he had done to incur her wrath. Zoisite knew the youma would see it that way, but he and Beryl knew the truth. There wasn’t anything more awful that she could do to him than team him up with Nephrite.

"Yes, my queen," he muttered.

Beryl smiled, the light shining on her fangs, giving them a disturbingly vampirish look. "Very good, Zoisite."

He bowed his head again. "I shall go to Nephrite at once, your majesty." He stood up straight, and was on the verge of summoning a transport when Beryl spoke again.

"Oh, and Zoisite?"

He stiffened. He had a fair idea of what was coming. "Yes?" he ventured.

Beryl cocked her head to one side, a playfully malicious smile cavorting on those full, luscious lips. "I want you to refrain from having relations with Kunzite."

He feigned innocence, widening his eyes. "I don’t know what you mean."

Her smile vanished – her eyes darkened exponentially. "Zoisite, you know exactly what I mean. Now, unless you want me to divulge details of your less-than-professional relationship with your sensei to my very hentai-inclined court, I recommend that you go and find Nephrite and attend to your duties."

Seething inside, the little bishounen nodded and stiffly bowed, before disappearing in a flurry of cherry blossoms.

All in all, not a good day.

I didn’t write the poem or the scroll extract. Full credit for those goes to Activision, for they are both from the PC game "Zork Nemesis."