It had turned noon, but the sun had not risen in the sky. In fact, the sun was not visible at all. Deep purplish-black clouds rumbled angrily overhead, crushing any resistance the sun tried to give by compressing into one large mass of darkness. People in the streets hurriedly went about their business, casting anxious glances above them. Windows were securely shut, and the vendors closed shop, boarding up their kiosks behind them. And not a moment too late, as a jagged flash of lightning cut through the sky, illuminating frightened faces behind glass, and huddled bodies in doorways. The sky opened, and rain began splattering on the streets.

      "Well." The dark green haired woman pursed her lips, and turned toward her companion, a lean man with slightly curly ginger colored hair. He shrugged rather warily, and she sighed. "Look, it's not my fault we got lost, okay? This place is just so different..." She leaned against the side of the shelter they had taken refuge in, an abandoned building with the faded words "Doctors Office" painted on the front, and frowned, looking rather sheepish and cross at the same time.

      "Um, Miss?" The man said somewhat impatiently. "Are you going to tell me your name now?"

      She blinked. "Oh. Oh! Um.. told you it was complicated didn't I?" She sweatdropped at his expression. "I'm Set..uhm, no ..Iroiro. Yeah, Iroiro." She seemed pleased with herself.

      "It's a pleasure to meet you, Iroiro-san, but," he frowned, frustrated, "I really should be getting back to the palace." 'Why did I go with her in the first place?' He peered out the rain streaked glass door, still frowning.

      "Patience, Shinju. And quit with the formalities, ok?" She tapped him on the shoulder. "I guess this is as good a place as any," she muttered, then looked at him with a dazzling smile. "Well, I need your help."

      "Uhmm.. why?" He laughed nervously. "I'm just a gardener..."

      Iroiro laughed in response, as well, but a true, deep laugh of genuine amusement. Shinju glanced at her, startled. "What's so funny?"

      She wiped her eyes, amusement abruptly fading. "Ah well... all in due time, Shinju. All in due time.." She walked over to the door, and pressed her face against it, an intense expression hardening her eyes. "Now, where did that call come from..."

      "..what?" Shinju shuffled a few feet away from her, wondering if she was crazy. 'But then.. I've seen a lot of odd people in my life... including Makoto..' He sighed.

      Iroiro faced him once again, looking vaguely surprised. "Sailorjupiter? Odd? Now where would you ever get an idea like that?"

      Shinju's cheeks turned crimson. "I-I'm sorry... didn't know I said that aloud.. ehehe.. ahem." He cast his eyes downward, suddenly finding her gaze too penetrating. 'Almost as if she can look right into my soul...'

      "You didn't," she murmured absentmindedly. She smiled brightly. "Well anyway, we're going to have to stay here awhile. So tell me now, stay and help me, or return to that dreary existence you call life?"

      "Help you with what?" Shinju's temper was beginning to flare up, although he didn't know why. There was something about Iroiro that bugged him...

      "Well..." She wrung her hands, looking distressed. "I need you to help me find The Guardian of Time... you see, I've lost her."

      It was about that time that the shouting began. Deep, guttural cries, and snarls whipped through the air as fast as the wind, and Shinju thought absentmindedly that it sounded like a hunting party. But then, he'd never even -heard- of hunting parties before..

      "Oh dear," Iroiro muttered, backing up until she ran squarely into Shinju's torso. "It seems we're going to have to leave earlier than expected." She shoved him towards the back of the building, throwing back anxious glances at the now nearly opaque door.

      "What's going on?" Shinju questioned, utterly confused, and nearly stumbling several times on the leftover medical equipment that littered the ground. After getting pushed unusually hard by Iroiro, he yelled at her rather hotly, "What are you doing, idiot?! There's not even an exit this way..."

      She shoved him to the ground, and began chanting in a strange language under her breath, which, after a few moments, Shinju could understand clearly.

      "Great planet of Chronos, lend me your guidance amid this Chaos. Send me your power and your wisdom to help rid me of my burdens. For the good of humankind.... Pluto...... DEAD SCREAM!"

      Shinju cried out in unison with Iroiro, as a large, crackling ball of black energy gathered upon her outraised palms, and steadily grew more massive, until suddenly it was flung across the room, taking a large portion of the building with it. Shinju gaped at the smoking hole before him while Iroiro smiled triumphantly, and stated in a particularly flat voice, "Now there's an exit."

      A loud crack could be heard from behind them, followed by a tinkling sound and glass falling like a waterfall. Iroiro cursed under her breath, and brought a still gaping Shinju to his feet. Shinju's expression abruptly changed, however, as a small sliver of glass, now being used as a projectile, lodged itself firmly in his back.

      "Argh!" He groaned, but Iroiro just shook her head in impatience and shoved him through the hole, at the same time taking out some sort of device from one of her many hidden pockets.

      "Well, run already," she said rather reasonably to him, as she threw the small device towards the front of the building, and hastened out to where Shinju stood inspecting his wound critically.

      Shinju looked up about to say something to Iroiro, when his mouth dropped open. His eyes had strayed past the green-haired woman to the interior of the building they had just evacuated. Standing where the glass of the door and windows had previously been were two fuku-clad women with blue tinted glasses around their eyes, and computer pads in their hands. As they typed furiously, the large, hump-backed dog next to them snarled and clawed at its chain, which was held by a burly man with a long scar trailing down the entire length of the left side of his face. The man suddenly grinned, showing two razor-sharp rows of yellow teeth. He raised a fat finger and pointed directly at Shinju, or so he presumed, and shouted, "There's the bitch!"

      Shinju clenched his fists, sputtering, "Did you.. did you hear that?! He just called me.." Iroiro whacked him on the back, and he winced, but got the hint. The two of them began frantically running down the street, in their panic paying no heed to the angry weather around them. That proved to be their downfall.

      Sometime inbetween the shouting and their escape, the rain had turned to hail. A particularly large piece of ice struck Shinju in the shoulder and he stumbled, causing Iroiro to curse, and nearly become impaled by a jagged hailstone that fell just inches from her head.

      She gasped, and pulled both her and Shinju into a partially covered doorway. "Ohh.. artificially created weather." She bit into her knuckle, her face pale. "What to do? I don't have the Time Staff..."

      "Let me guess, you lost that too?" Shinju said sarcastically, his face drawn from both the pain from his shoulder and the glass embedded in his back. "Two of them were -Senshi-," he continued, his voice barely containing his anger and fear.

      "They're not after -you-, specifically." She smiled a bit, as if that was supposed to make him happy.

      He facefaulted. "I don't really think they give a damn at this moment. If they're after you.... they're definitely going to kill me." He sighed resignedly.

      The snarls were audible once again, and Iroiro sent a fearful glance out into the street, after giving Shinju another smack on the arm.

      "Why are they after you, anyway?"

      She glared at him. "You're too calm! You in shock or something? And didn't you hear the speech that... puppet gave?"

      He blinked. "Wha--"

      She grasped his arm again, and pulled him quickly along the side of the street. "The hail's gone... let's go, let's go!"

      Iroiro skidded to a halt, a petrified expression in her dark eyes, Shinju directly behind her, when she saw the Senshi. They were surrounded.

      "I would've thought you would have put up more of a fight, Great Elder Pluto," the Senshi to their left, a woman with cotton candy-like hair, said smugly, the "Great" expressed with much cynicism.

      'Pluto?' Shinju glanced at the green-haired woman before him with a mix of awe and embarrassment, the seriousness of the situation around him still not entirely sinking in. 'Oh, I hope I haven't offended her in any way...'

      "Uhm.. I'm not Pluto. Well, not exactly.." She laughed hesitantly, as the two women looked at one another skeptically. "You see, it's a very complicated situation..."

      "Ya, always is, right?" The voice of the man holding the dog came from behind them, and Iroiro swallowed. "Unfortunately chick, you and your boyfriend are not gonna live long enough to tell us about it."

      She had just started to tell him that Shinju was most definitely not her boyfriend, when the man let the dog loose. A ragged scream tore from her throat....

      And everything around them froze.

      It was dark in the room. Dark like the air itself had been consumed by the darkness, and now was slowly closing in on her. Her thoughts had begun to spiral into delirium the moment she had awoken. There was no rational thinking anymore, not after she had found she couldn't move her hands, or even feel them, except for the raw, burning sensation in her wrists. Her eyelids felt like a ton of bricks, but not in the dreamy way you feel just before you fall asleep, more like her eyes were so swollen and painful to look out of that she didn't dare struggle to keep them wide open. And her mouth... she couldn't feel her mouth, or any part of her lower face, at all. The only way she knew it was still there was from the wet puddle on her shoulder, which she assumed was drool. The frustrated blush that had risen to her cheeks had long faded away by now, only to be replaced a pair of glazed amber eyes. Fortunately for her, the buried away memories at the back of her mind had not yet begun to stir...

      "How are we doing here?" A man with large, odd-looking glasses stepped into view from behind a glass wall, clearing his throat rather nervously. The woman he was speaking to glanced up at him, and frowned.

      "Fine, Doctor. Although I don't understand why your men had to rough her up so badly--"

      "We found her that way," he interrupted, nodding and smiling all of a sudden as he stared at his female companion rather lecherously. "Now, you have administered the serum, have you not?" That same nervous look came over his features once again, as the woman crossed her arms over her chest, mouth twitching in annoyance.

      "Why don't you go and find out yourself, you baka?! I quit!" She dumped her books on the ground, and walked out in a huff.

      The man adjusted his glasses, and nonchalantly said to no one in particular, "I was going to fire you anyway. You've always done a lousy job." He nodded and smiled again, and reached underneath his desk. He pushed the small button there rather poignantly, waited for a few moments, then nodded and smiled some more when he heard the muffled scream. "I suppose I'm going to have to find a new assistant now." He shrugged his shoulders, and turned back to the woman on the other side of the glass.

      Even looking at her made him cringe. The long ashen hair tied in a complex twist of ponytails, the plastered-on sneer... even with the bruises and other such things that covered her face, he still could not forget who she was. A Senshi. A warrior. A super-bitch. He trembled again, thinking of his last encounter with her. She had mocked him about his old dealings with the old Neo-Senshi... designated the new Outers. They had been far more trouble than they were worth, a rebellious bunch, never following orders. And whenever he looked at this woman... this Neo-Jupiter.. he saw the same fire. He had disposed of the Neo-Outers, finally, after he had successfully been able to show the Lady Faustine their true nature. That had been about the time the other women, the old Outer Senshi, had disbanded.. broken ties. But he didn't particularly care. He hated them all. He even hated.... But no. He shook his head, wiping his suddenly sweaty forehead with the back of his hand. Treasonous thoughts would do him no good now... even if he was in the employ of Faustine. 'You never know where the psychics are..' He made a twittering noise, and hesitantly made his way over to the intercom system.

      "Testing, testing.." He tapped the microphone, and frowned at the screeching noise that emerged from it. When it finally subsided, he cleared his throat, and lowered his mouth until he was nearly touching the tip, getting ready to speak. "Good afternoon."

      The woman made a strangled noise. Her eyes suddenly became completely white, as her back straightened, and her mouth dropped open. "Good.. after.." She seemed to be struggling against the words, and the doctor frowned.

      "What is your name?" he asked coldly. He was going to enjoy this game.

      "Emmeline Kaamilah Charlock." It came out flat, as if she had just given up the struggle. Her eyes, however, darted frantically around, searching for the owner of the voice.

      He grinned gleefully. The glass he stood behind was a two-way mirror... she would never see who her captor was. He thought for a few moments, and picked up his clipboard, scanning down the list of questions. "Your rank?"

      "Senshi in the Crystal Tokyo Battalion. Class Triple A, Neo-Sailor Jupiter."

      He frowned, flustered again. "A-age?"

      "..two-thousand fifty five," she mumbled.

      "What?!" His glasses nearly fell off his face, and he jammed them against his eyes in anger. She was lying to him? How dare she?! "Age! You had better tell me it right this time!"

      She said nothing, but for a brief moment, he thought he saw the hint of a smirk.

      He was thoroughly pissed off by this time, but managed to keep his tone cool. "Where do your loyalties lie?"

      She seemed to hesitate for a moment, but responded unwaveringly, "With Neo-Queen Serenity, and Crystal Tokyo."

      The doctor pouted. 'This isn't going right..' He paused for another few moments, then began grinning like an idiot, rubbing his hands together. Yes, this was going to be good. "And who are your parents?"

      She blinked rapidly, wincing slightly at each movement of her eyelids. "...." Her mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out.

      He rolled his eyes. "Where were you born, then?"

      This seemed to strike home. She sputtered for a few seconds, until finally tears began leaking out of the sides of her eyes. "...it was dark.. like here. And cold..." She let out a strangled cry. "I wasn't born on Earth! It was..." That was when she regained her senses. She began struggling, and crying out angrily as the doctor shrank away from the glass separating them, disappointment flashing in his beady little eyes.

      "Why am I here?! I didn't -mean- to listen in... I -promise- not to do it again... Mother..."

      The man blinked. And blinked again. 'What in the world is she talking about?'

      "Shouldn't we... help her?"

      Two women, both donned in black trenchcoats, stood within the shadows across from the ominous barracks Neo-Jupiter was being held in. One, the taller of the two, had a scornful expression on her face, slightly reddish- black hair in disarray from the whipping wind. "Why?" she replied sourly. "The bitch brought it upon herself."

      Her companion, a woman with startling violet eyes, and shoulder-length black hair, pursed her lips, and gave the other a sharp look. "We need all the help we can get, Akasia."

      She shrugged. "Yeah, you keep saying that. What do we need help -for- is the question."

      "I told you already," the violet-eyed woman said impatiently, but still oddly lacking emotion. "The fate of our world depends on this."

      "Didn't you say yesterday that the fate of our world depends on us finding Uranus?" Akasia answered sarcastically. She sighed at the other woman's glance. "You can understand that even now this is hard to believe, can't you? This "prophecy"... even what happened all those years ago. Can't you just let well enough alone?"

      The woman studied her rather critically. "You like the world we're living in now? If you had the chance to change it..."

      "I doubt I'm even going to be alive if you do!" Akasia blurted out. The violet-eyed woman winced a bit, an expression of bitter sadness finally reaching her delicate features.

      "You.. don't know that." The woman looked doubtful.

      Akasia sighed. "Hotaru... you know I don't care about myself. Anyway, if I'm never born, I won't remember any of this, now will I?" She gave her companion a wan smile.

      The violet-eyed woman frowned deeply. "Do you have to call me by my name?"

      "What would you rather I call you?" Akasia sneered. "Mo--"

      A large blast came from the barracks, and Akasia and Hotaru turned reflexively in surprise. A large, smoking hole was now the main attraction of the barracks, poised directly above where Neo-Jupiter had been held passively only moments before.

      Akasia smirked, in grudging admiration. "I have to hand it to her, she knows how to make an exit."

      "That she does," Hotaru agreed, her eyes flashing with some unknown emotion. "Care to save her?" She gestured to the twenty or so Guard Senshi that were rushing into the barracks.

      "Save her yourself, oh Great One," Akasia replied snidely. "I need to find Daburu." She mumbled something in the way of an apology at Hotaru, as an afterthought, and leapt off the building they were standing upon, once again becoming lost in the darkness.

      Hotaru shook her head, and sighed, and after staring a moment longer at the spot Akasia had melted into, walked somewhat leisurely in the direction of the barracks.

      The doctor was scared. More frightened then he had ever been in his life. Neo-Jupiter had somehow broken free of her bonds, from sheer force of will, and stood defiantly in the middle of her cell, energy crackling around her. The same energy that when she had let it loose full blast had caused a gaping hole to appear in the ceiling.

      "She's coming for me next... coming for me.." he sobbed. He crawled away from the glass, terror nearly freezing his limbs in place as Emmeline turned her smoldering yellow eyes in his direction. She had a slightly crazed expression on her face, one the doctor knew only too well. "..waaaaa... she's in a rage," he whimpered, pulling himself into the far corner of the room. He pushed his glasses constantly up against his face, his hand shaking uncontrollably. He knew what happened when things like -her- were in a rage....

      "Doctor?" A brusque voice came from the direction of the door, and the man jumped.

      "Oh, oh, oh.." He grasped the startled man by the knees, wailing uncontrollably. "G-get me out of here before she kills me!!!!"

      The Senshi complied, and threw the man over his shoulder. "My men will take care of her, Doctor Gurio. Who would've thought that Neo-Senshi Jupiter would turn traitor..?" He shook his head rather sadly, and sprinted out of the room just as Emmeline shot a blast of electricity at the mirror.... and the Guard Senshi crashed through the walls, guns firing wildly.