Exiles Chronicles
Book I: Thy Will be Done
A companion story to Thy Kingdom Come

by Craig Beard

Foreword V0.03:

Begin at the beginning, and end at the end?

In this case, that's a little difficult, without ruining at least one of two tales from which this particular tale had its genesis. So let's instead try being a little different, and beginn in the middle, and end in another omniverse. :)

Hello, and welcome to the tale I like to consider both a companion story to Mark Latus's Thy Kingdom Come, and an inevitable consequence of an event in a saga of my own, of which very few of you will yet be familiar.

For those reading this before taking a look first at (at the least) all the Dark Kingdom Renegades tales up to, and including TKC, Frank Barr's Trenchcoat Mask, at least the first two parts of Craig A. Reed's Windwalker Chronicles, and what exists of Sam Ashley's An American Wizard in Queen Beryl's Court: stop right now! You most definitely shouldn't be reading this first; it simply won't make sense.

For those who have decided the SME team don't know that a foreword is supposed to come before a prologue, and so are reading this first: stop making executive decisions for yourself, ^_^ go back, and read things in the correct order. ^^

For those who, after looking at the prologue, are shaking their heads, and saying: ‘Now hang on a minute! I'm sure I remember some of these characters from something he was writing way back when Noah was still building the Arc, but they weren't in SME last time I checked! So what in the Abyss is going on?’ please be patient; all (or at least, some things) shall be revealed.

It was mid 1996 when I posted the initial draft of the first chapter of my first fanfic saga to the FFML. The initial Dark Chronicles premise seemed to me unique (at least, I'd not seen anything at the time remotely similar), reaction (although limited) was positive, and I had time and to spare. It soon became painfully apparent however, that I had vastly underestimated the complexity of the tale I had begun. Reaction waned as the story lost focus, I lost patience with a concept that seemed to me to be getting quickly completely out of hand, and DChr fell into a slow, ignominious death. Still, I was reluctant simply to abandon the idea, and still more, seven original characters who had grown far beyond their original genesis, and become dynamic creations in their own right. At least, in part, Thy Will be Done is the result: a chance for them (or at least, a version of them) to develop outside the constraints of DChr, while at the same time giving me a chance to tell what I hope to be a story as gripping and enthralling as the superb Thy Kingdom Come, that has been just as much its genesis.

It's been over eight years since TWBD first made a very tentative appearance, and many things have changed. The tale's first incarnation proved a disaster, most notably due to the absurd over-complication of events that would from the beginning have been far better shifted from the main story, and the almost insurmountable problem of introducing so many characters with their own history to the world of Earth-Beta, in a fashion both interesting, and understandable.

I have considered abandoning the tale many times, not least because a great deal of my time has become once more taken up with two separate original fantasy creations of my own, one at least of which demands a vast effort on my part, and both of which hopefully shall one day be submitted for publication. Still, my fanfic projects have not yet been entirely set aside. Much has been reorganised, and DChr has been given at least a potential new lease of life, while I've been ironing out TWBD's outline, and working on concepts for a BGC alternate that will explore the story of the Bu-33DA-Elite buma as it unfolds without the events of DChr, and a non-SME SM tale in no way related to anything else.

Perhaps the remainder of the eighth year of the twenty-first century will be as productive as I've planned; certainly, it's showing unlooked-for promise. But time will tell.

Craig (8th of October, 2007)

Acknowledgements.

I'd like to thank the following people for help and inspiration (whether large or small), without whom this tale would not have been possible.

First and foremost: Takeuchi Naoko, for a creation of such depth and richness: had she not conceived any of this, Sailor Moon Expanded simply would not exist.

Next, Mark Latus, not simply for creating the Dark Kingdom Renegades, but for conceiving Thy Kingdom Come, and with it the Beta-SME SM universe, without which TWBD would not have been possible.

Lastly, the SME team as a whole: both for their comments on TWBD itself, and for giving an already rich universe a scope and depth second to none in the short history of Anime fanfic.

SME-specific Copyrights:

This work is copyright, and permission to distribute it on a non-proffit basis is given by me, so long as not a single byte of any file has been tampered with (disregarding anything a designated WWW/mailing-list administrator, or RAAC moderator might have to do of course ^_^ ), and it is distributed in its entirety. No unauthorised copying, broadcasting, public performance, or appropriation of characters and concepts, in full or in part (save with regard to other members of the Sailor Moon Expanded team of course) is permitted, without written permission from me first. This work may not be distributed for profit, or in, or with a commercial publication without written permision from myself. Joanna Marina O'Reilly, Marina Alekseyevna Zhuranovskya, Liana, Camilla, Ligeia, Lenore and Rhiannon are Copyright 1996-2007 © by me, as is the Bu-33DA-Elite Buma concept as a whole, and definitely can't be pinched by any non-SME member under any circumstances, without my written consent. Unlike many fanfic creations, these characters appear in slightly altered form in an original fantasy epic intended for publication, and thus are protected under international copyright law. All characters specific to Thy Will be Done are Copyright 1999-2007 © by me, and the same rules apply. Everything else native to SME canon (such as the DKR, Alisin, Alan Cornwell Thomas, Michael Maxwell, etc.) is copyright © their respective owners, so please talk to them if you want to use something they've created. Everything else not native to any canon is Copyright 1999-2007 © by me, unless someone suggests ideas to me that I like, and they're willing to let me use. In that case, the ideas remain entirely their own unless they specifically tell me otherwise, and the copyright for them is theirs, so you'll have to ask them if you can use them. :-)

Non-SME Copyrights:

First and foremost: Sailor Moon is Copyright ©1994-2007, Takeuchi Naoko / Kodansha / Toei Animation / Asahi TV / DIC / CWI (even though there may be some question as to whether these last two deserve to retain it).