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

Shivering miserably, Azumi Keiichi turned again and again in the night in small, helpless circles, trying in vain to see the tall cherry tree that stood near the bottom of the hill that led up to Hino-sama's shrine, and that his father had told him would always show him how to find his own street and home if ever he lost his way. But it was dark and bitter in the empty park where the glow from the street-lights was faint and half hidden by trees, and the small boy felt tears begin to sting his eyes once more as he stared helplessly around him in the silence, and tried to fight the trembling and the fear that was growing worse with every moment.

It had seemed like such a good idea when the four of them had planned it at pre-school, that lunchtime. They would each sneak out very late in the dark: secret and quiet as one of Aya-chan's four cats, and have an exciting adventure together in the middle of the night, when there was no one to catch them, and no one to tell them they should be tucked up safe in bed, sound asleep.

But he had not realised just how different everything was alone at night, with no one save for half-seen figures in passing cars, and with everything so cold, and so very quiet and strange. He had lost his way in the dark, and now he was alone in the dead stillness and the bitter cold of the deserted park, with no idea where he was, or how to find his way home.

Fighting against the tears, the small boy huddled miserably in the frigid darkness, and tried desperately to stop the shivering. The snow had ceased to fall an hour or so earlier, but the stars seemed cold and unfriendly, and the night bitter with the threat of worse to come, and the boy shook with cold and growing fear as he turned helplessly this way and that, trying in vain to see something that was familiar.

Then the air stirred fitfully once more, a touch like the icy fingers of some frigid snow-demon seeming almost to stop his heart as he stood there in the silence, and he gave up even pretending not to be afraid. His eyes squeezed tightly shut against the tears, he stood numb and trembling, fighting the rising panic and the shivering that would not stop no matter how he tried.

It was then that he heard it from somewhere in the deeper darkness ahead of him: a whisper at the very edge of hearing, a strange, horrible something almost but not quite like the sound of someone tearing a big roll of tin-foil or the page of a very large book in a far-off room, mixed with a long, venomous hiss, like the hot, gurgling sound of a very big steam iron, but far, far worse.

His eyes snapping open once more, the small boy froze, numb with sudden terror, his heart hammering wildly in his chest, the sudden, hideous certainty taking him that he had waked something tall and hooded with hissing, venomous breath and red, glowing eyes, that would come gliding out of the dark, long, sinewy arms swaying towards him like fog, snapping, skeletal fingers reaching to seize him.

For what seemed an eternity, he stood shaking, his eyes starting into the night, hardly daring to breathe. Then the sound came again more clearly, and at the same moment he thought he saw something in the darkness ahead of him from where it had come: a faint flicker, like the beam of a moving torch. At almost the same instant, he heard voices far, far away in the night. “Keiichi? Keiichi-chan?”

Mama-sama! Papa-sama!

With a gasp of almost giddy relief, forgetting everything else, he plunged forwards towards the flickering light, not caring that it was in the same direction as the terrifying sounds of a moment before, his only thought that his parents had come to find him, and that the shifting glow he could see was a torch Papa-sama or Mama-sama was carrying.

But the calling voices were growing no closer, and as he drew nearer, he saw that the light was not clear and steady like it should be, but a sullen, flickering red, as if someone had lit a fire somewhere ahead under the trees.

For a moment he pulled to a halt, fear clenching his throat again as he tried to quiet his frantic breathing and listen. Then his father's voice came again, this time a little nearer and seemingly from somewhere almost straight ahead, although still a long way away, and he gasped and started forwards once more. The red glow was approaching and growing swiftly, and ahead he thought he caught a patch of deeper shadow, as though someone were moving just beyond the circle it cast.

“Papa-sama?” he called, trying to run still faster. “Mama-sama?”

But in that moment his foot caught something in the dark, and in the next instant he was somersaulting headlong, his mouth full of dirt and sodden grass as he rolled over and over, while sharp things stabbed him in a dozen places. His tumble ended with his head striking something very hard that brought fresh tears to his eyes and sent stars exploding across his vision, and at the same time something else slammed painfully into his ribs.

For several seconds he lay gasping face down in the cold grass, his heart hammering so fast he thought it would burst, while everything seemed to spin around him. Then slowly he became aware of a sullen, blood-red glow that cast lurid, dancing shadows in the grass before his face, mixed with a soft sound not far away, like the quiet roar and crackle of the fire in Aunt Natsumi's big fireplace, but with a strange and indescribably horrible undertone, like the hot iron mixed with a deep throbbing rumble and the low, sinister sputtering the gas stove made when the jet was turned up too high. In the same moment he felt something hot on the back of his neck. But it did not make him think of the comforting warmth of the sun, but rather of the insidious, silent heat of the glowing radiator in Grandmama's small sitting-room that had burnt him when he was very small, and that still frightened him even now. Then there came another sound of tearing foil, and suddenly a fierce blood-red light leapt out to light the night around him.

With an unreasoning thrill of terror, Keiichi rolled away and tried to scramble frantically to his feet. But he had barely stood, when he heard something from behind that made his blood run cold. The low, poisonous snarl seemed to fill the night, a long, venomous sound more horrible than the snarl of the most terrible dog of the worst, most hideous dream he could imagine: a sound that stopped his heart, and turned his veins to ice.

Numb and helpless, knowing he had to run: that if he looked just once at what was behind him, he would scream and scream and never ever be able to stop, the small boy turned. And looked into hell and Nightmare, and an Abyss he could not begin to understand.

For one moment, he stared, his mouth wide in a primal, silent scream, as the gate yawned and writhed before him, and his mind teetered upon the knife-edge of a horror from which there could be no return or escape. For one instant, he saw the leaping, hell-red fires, and the surging, hungry blackness, and the lurid shapes of terror for which he had no name. For one hideous second that was for ever, he looked into the burning, hate-filled eyes of a creature of a power and malice more terrible than he could begin to comprehend: a creature who stood upon the very verge of his triumph and revenge.

And Azumi Keiichi did the worst possible thing he could have done. He turned and ran wildly into the night. He did not see the Gate shiver and collapse; did not hear the Khr-vorll Demon Lord's howl of rage and limitless hate as the revenge for which he had waited for years beyond count was frustrated, and fell in ruins about him; did not see a new gate, clear and clean, leap to coherence from the wreck of that Death Phantom had made, or the two tall, slender female forms who were tumbled from it to lie pale and unmoving on the snow-clad grass; did not know that they could, and would have saved him. The sounds of his small, desperate footfalls went racing away into the night until they were lost in the uncaring, frigid blackness, and silence fell once more.

For a long, still space, nothing happened. Then a dog barked somewhere very far away, and at the same moment the moon slipped from behind a vanishing cloud, and a cold, clear light shone full upon the two prone forms.

They were young, as though in the prime of life, and so alike that they might have been sisters. Both were very tall, flame-haired and undeniably beautiful, yet somehow hard and cold, as though carved from pale ice or crystal. And in each face was the same frozen look of some terrible pain and suffering, but tempered by a grim, almost primal will, and a fierce determination. One was dressed simply in a black, form-fitting jumpsuit that clung close about her, and left little to the imagination. But her companion was wrapped close in a long, flowing, silver-grey cloak that reached nearly to her feet, and hid anything else she might have worn, save for the beautiful star-shaped brooch of emerald that fastened it just below her throat, and her high midnight boots of supple leather that vanished beneath the folds of the cloak.

For a few seconds more, they remained very still, side by side, seeming not even to breathe, eyes closed, slender arms folded, long, flame-red hair tumbled wildly about them. Then suddenly, the jumpsuited figure drew in a long, gasping breath, and in the next instant she was lurching forwards, jade eyes flying open, even as she surged unsteadily to her feet. For several seconds she stood, staring wildly about her, clearly with no idea where she was. Then suddenly her gaze focussed on the prone form, and in the next moment she was gasping and falling frantically to her knees beside her.

“Joanna!” she cried urgently. “Joanna-neechan!”

But the other lay as cold and still as before, while the seconds became minutes, and her companion called her again and again, her tone growing ever-more desperate, until suddenly the cloaked form lurched and started and opened her eyes. For a moment she remained frozen. Then with a convulsive wrench she began to breathe, each breath coming in great, tearing gasps, as though she had just surfaced from deep water.

For what seemed endless moments she lay, her emerald gaze roving wildly here and there, although seeming to see nothing, while the other continued to call her urgently. Then at last her eyes focussed on her face.

“Tell me,” she said quietly after several more seconds in which she seemed unable to make any sound. “Why is it that whenever someone has just escaped some particularly unpleasant situation, is obviously still unable to move, and unsure as to whether it really might not be better never to try again, while ten-thousand soldiers march in military tattoo through their head, there is always some idiot who insists on shrieking like a bean-sidhe in their ears with a lot of damn stupid questions?”

At her words her companion choked off, her jade eyes suddenly filled with tears as she reached as though to pull the prone figure to her, before she seemed suddenly to hesitate as though unsure. For a second she remained still, staring down into the emerald eyes only a few inches from her own. But then her arms were twining wildly around her, and she was clutching her to her in a fierce embrace, her long, flame-red hair tumbling around her while her tears fell on her cheek.

“Joanna!” she was crying softly again and again, while her still-tightening hold threatened to crush her companion's ribs. “Oh Neechan! Thank Kami-sama! For a while I thought… Oh thank Kami-sama you're all right!”

It was this more than anything else that seemed to snap the cloaked form from the last of her stupor, and to full awareness once more.

With a savage twist, plainly furious at her companion's treatment, she pulled fiercely free of her hold and struggled with grim determination to her feet, ignoring her offered help, and stepping a pace away from her as she brushed angrily at the wetness of the other girl's tears, and tried to shake her hopelessly tangled hair into some kind of order.

“Damn it Liana! do you mind?” she flared savagely as she twisted fiercely from her steadying hand, not turning to catch the sudden flash of pain in her face, or the momentary desperate look of hurt and betrayal in her jade eyes as the other girl turned quickly away from her and dashed away the tears with a sudden savage gesture of her own. For a few seconds she remained, her face averted, slender hands clenched convulsively at her sides. But at last she shook her head and turned back to her once more.

Joanna Marina O'Reilly stood, fighting down wave after wave of giddiness as she stared about her and tried in vain to understand what had happened. Her last clear memory was as the company had entered the Gate from Yohko's home. Then nothing, save for a vague memory of falling, and a vast, leaping horror and soaring Oblivion. And then the dreams: nightmare upon nightmare that had chased one another through an endless eternity: dream within hideous dream, seemingly without end, until the last climactic confrontation. Yet the images remained chaotic and elusive.

Furiously, she shook her head, trying vainly to bring her fractured memories into focus, even as she turned this way and that and sought urgently for any clue as to where they might be, or for any sign of the rest of the company. Her head was pounding relentlessly, and she fought savagely against yet another wave of nausea, gritting her teeth with grim determination, until the moment passed and she breathed a little more easily.

At her side, her companion was silent and very still, and she knew she had hurt her with her brusqueness of a moment before. But the headache was not relenting, and she was in no mood to deal with any fear for her on the part of the other girl, nor with Liana's seeming continual inability, after over two months fighting side by side, to understand that being her foster-sister did not somehow entitle her to hold, touch, or in any other way make physical contact with her, without her expressed permission. That was something she barely tolerated even at the best of times, even with Liana, who was one of her closest friends amongst the company.

Besides, every second was precious. She could see and sense no sign of the others, and if they were still trapped between worlds, they had to get back to find them as quickly as they could; nothing was more important.

Grimacing against yet another vicious lance of pain behind her eyes, the grey-cloaked figure half turned to glance for a moment at the girl at her side, her gaze hard, and her face cold and set.

“Well,” she snapped shortly, after a chill silence in which her companion stood taut and unmoving at a little distance from her, and said nothing; “come on. We'd better get moving. We have to find out first exactly where we've appeared. It looks like the park near Hikawa Ginja, but I can't be sure until we get our bearings. Once I know where we are, we've at least a chance of getting back to find the others before something happens. I only hope they've had the sense to stay together, and not wander all over the place. But then, that's probably too much to hope for. Did anyone else make it through with us? What about Marina and the others?”

“I don't know.” The other girl's tone was suddenly as hard and arctic as her own, and spinning once more towards her, Joanna felt her own quick temper flare as she caught the hurt and fury in her jade eyes, before her companion turned quickly away.

“What do you mean, you don't know!” she exploded, her own eyes kindling furiously. “Can't you check? Damn it, Liana! we don't have time for this!”

In the next instant, her companion was whirling to face her once more, her eyes flashing green fire through the freshly brimming tears as they leapt to meet her own.

“I don't know, because I can't sense anything!” she flared, her own volatile temper exploding savagely. “I can't get any indication as to where we are! Everything is just screaming and confusion, and I can't make anything out! Why else do you imagine I just waited here and did nothing, while the sister who obviously couldn't care less about how frightened I was for her, lay there for nearly two minutes, so still I thought she was dead? I couldn't even hear, damn it, and I could barely see until just before you spoke to me! And even now, I'm limited to my five basic senses, and those, barely. Do you think I don't know how important it is that we get back as quickly as we can, or what could happen to the others if we don't? Damn you! What precisely do you imagine I am!”

She had been glaring in a white-hot rage, her eyes flaming wildly while the tears fell unchecked. But now she turned away, while the cloaked girl stood and for once was unable to think of anything to say.

Inwardly, Joanna was cursing herself for her thoughtless impatience, and for hurting yet again a friend who had become as dear to her as anyone she had ever known, despite all her attempts to remain aloof, and maintain a careful emotional distance from her companions. But she could not reach out: could not let her see beneath the ice: could not let her know how much it hurt to see the tears and the pain. Far better that all of them thought her hard and ruthless enough to take easily the terrible decisions of the past months, decisions that might damn her for ever in every possible reality, but that would at least see them and all they could preserve safe and beyond the reach of their enemy, for ever. When that ruinous evil was gone: when she was destroyed and shattered beyond the last end of Oblivion, then Joanna could let them see: let them understand how much all of them had come to mean to her. Until then, she was ice and ruthlessness, and an implacable, limitless hate for their enemy and all she represented.

Yet she could not simply stand and watch, and do nothing.

Allowing a fleeting smile to soften her features, she reached with only a moment's hesitation to lay a suddenly gentle hand for a moment on her companion's arm.

“I'm sorry,” she said quietly, a sudden kinder note to her tone, knowing as always that it was not enough, but that for her, as for no one else, Liana would accept and forgive. “I had no idea it was so close; it seemed I was gasping for air the moment I hit the ground. And I had no idea you'd been hurt. How bad is it?”

At her words, Liana felt the anger flee as quickly as it had kindled. As always, it was the little things: the sudden if fleeting genuine smile and quick humour that hinted at all her foster-sister might have been had things been different; a quiet word when things looked most black, and the sudden unlooked-for warmth and instinctive understanding behind even such a question as this that meant so much to her, and belied all Joanna claimed herself to be.

Of the others, even Serena or Usagi might have asked simply how badly she was damaged, without realising the underlying inference of distance and difference behind the words. But to Joanna, she and her sisters had been from the beginning simply six of the company, whose nature and origin did not so much as cross her mind, save insofar as their particular needs might dictate, or where it could prove of benefit to their companions.

Watching her now through her tears, Liana felt a sudden surge of love for her that tightened her throat painfully, so that for a moment she could not answer.

“Not so bad as I thought at first,” she said softly at last, her voice as warm as it had been frigid only moments before, “and things are improving. I still can't make much of my other senses, but at least I can keep up with you.

“Still,” she added wryly in a lighter tone, “I'd rather not risk a fight just at the moment.”

Joanna nodded, her own smile warming still more for a brief moment before her face resumed again its usual closed watchfulness, and she was turning quickly towards the lights of the street only a little distance from where they stood.

“Come on then,” she said, her tone brisk but no longer cold, shifting a little as she drew the long grey cloak closer about her. “If we're going to find out where we are, we'd better get moving.”

Moments later they were on their way, Liana's silent, cat-like movements at her side revealing nothing of the extent to which she might still be suffering. At least her own headache was receding, and she was beginning to feel again more or less herself.

“Yes,” she said perhaps a minute or so later as they turned yet again, and the familiar hill came into view before them; “Hikawa, rather than Cherry, I'd say; although we'd best make sure it's not some alternate we haven't found yet, before I risk opening a Gate.”

Beside her, her companion nodded silently, and the cloaked girl shook her head. Liana had not spoken since they had started, and she suspected that her condition was worse than her assurances had suggested. She glanced to her with growing concern, wondering just how much useful information at the moment even her five basic senses were giving her, and whether it might not be better to allow her a little more time, despite the danger in any delay.

She stirred as though to speak, but the question never left her lips.

In that moment, a high, keening scream tore from the darkness ahead of them, a blood-chilling shriek filled somehow with pain and loss that shifted to a long, broken cry that fell and faltered, until at last it was gone, and only the chill, uneasy quiet remained.

“What the…!” Joanna hissed in her native Irish-gaelic. “What on earth!”

But Liana had frozen at the sound, head up, eyes starting into the darkness. Now she exploded forwards, face wild, and long hair flying behind her.

“Moon-cat!” she cried, almost in a scream. “Lu-na I think, although I can't be sure with my senses like this! There were words in that scream: Usagi-chan, at least, and something else I couldn't catch. Damn this racket and the dark! Come on!”

“Liana!” Joanna cried in her turn, struggling despite herself to match the other girl's suddenly tremendous speed. “For God's sake be care…ful!” she ended too late with a furious shake of her head.

Proving her growing suspicion that she was in far greater trouble than she had told her, her companion had slammed at full tilt into a low retaining wall, and catapulted headlong to land face-down in a garden. Snarling, she surged to her feet, a sudden brilliant white flash reducing half the garden to ashes and the wall to rubble, as she gave way to a momentary fit of pique before she corrected her course, and continued unperturbed.

Cursing savagely, Joanna surged suddenly in her wake, the momentary exhilaration at the sudden tremendous speed ignored as she increased her pace still more, and began at last to close the distance between them.

“Liana!” she tried again, anger tempering her anxiety as her companion plunged on heedless in the dark. “Damn it! will you wait and listen!”

A moment later, she was overtaking her in her still disoriented condition, catching her arm to pull her violently to a halt, and swinging her furiously to face her. In the next instant, her other arm came round, her hand catching the other girl a stunning crack to the cheek that would almost certainly have broken her neck, had she been human.

“Don't you ever lie to me about something so important again!” she snarled savagely. “You're in no state to be on your feet, let alone barrelling around in the middle of the night on possibly a strange world, without the first idea as to what's happened, or what you're getting into. I can't believe you'd do anything so stupid, after all that's happened in the past two months!”

“Usagi's in trouble!” Liana countered, her eyes flashing fury as they fixed again on Joanna's frigid emerald stare. “Probably Lu-na too. What do you expect me to do; wait?

“Let go!” she ended almost in a scream.

Ignoring her sudden desperate yet unnervingly ineffectual attempts to pull free, and restraining the almost overwhelming urge to hit her still harder with a supreme effort, Joanna held her eyes, noting suddenly how wide they were, and how dilated the pupils.

“How well can you see me?” she demanded suddenly.

For answer, Liana redoubled her efforts, her strength and coordination a mockery of the usual lithe, fluid grace and stunning agility of her kind.

“I told you, I'm fine!” she returned furiously. “Let me go! We have to—”

“How well?” the cloaked girl snarled, shaking her and tightening her hold while her face grew more fiery by the second.

For a few moments longer, her companion continued to twist and turn, her jade eyes blazing with frustrated fury as she fought savagely to escape.

Then abruptly the fight seemed to leave her, and she stood still, a faint rhythmic trembling rippling slowly through her, obvious suddenly to the other girl now that she was no longer moving. For a long moment she was silent. Then at last she sighed and the fury left her eyes.

“All right,” she said quietly. “All right. I'm sorry. I know I should have said something. But I didn't lie to you, Neechan. things really were improving, and I thought I'd be all right in a few minutes. But they haven't changed since we started. It's not simply what I can and can't sense. It's more fundamental.” She broke off, shaking her head. “It's difficult to explain,” she continued at last. “I've never felt anything like it before. Perhaps the only way I can describe it is a feeling of…of being disconnected; as though there were a veil between me and the world; like moving through the Void, but more distant, less real. I can't describe it any other way. Everything's so far away, and I can't come closer.”

And suddenly she drew close, and Joanna knew suddenly that she was afraid as she had seldom been, although like all her sisters (save perhaps for Camilla, who had never been ashamed to admit a weakness), she was fighting even now to hide it as best she could.

Cursing herself again for being unable even now to offer the simple physical comfort and reassurance Liana seemed to need, the grey-cloaked girl relaxed her grip and moved to lay her other hand gently on her shoulder.

“Liana…” she began uncertainly, suddenly with no idea what she could say. But whatever she might have tried was lost.

In that moment, another blood-chilling scream rent the night. Then, even as they whirled again in the direction of the shrine, a darkness: stark and horrible as a nightmare in an uneasy sleep, came surging suddenly from the north, eating up the stars with impossible speed, until within moments the sky had become a stark, uniform black.

Immediately, Joanna stiffened, every danger-sense screaming in sudden savage warning.

But beside her, her companion gasped and started, staring suddenly keenly about her.

For a moment, Joanna wondered whether she might believe the sudden blackness a product of her own confused senses. Then the other girl caught her arm.

“The noise and confusion!” she cried; “they're gone! Things are still far from good, but at least my suite isn't screaming at me, and I can use what senses I have.”

“I don't think that's much comfort under the circumstances,” said Joanna grimly, her eyes seeking wildly in the dark, as every sense continued to scream imminent peril.

Then another long wail shrilled from the blackness, and she turned again towards the shrine.

“Come on!” she cried urgently. “I don't know what in Hell's name is going on, but I intend to find out.”

With that, she began forwards once more at a more cautious speed, Liana keeping silent pace beside her.

Within minutes, they were approaching the shrine, and it was only moments later that they halted at the steps.

“Shush!” Joanna breathed as Liana leaned close as though to speak. “We've no idea what we're getting into. Shh for a moment, and wait.”

Then for almost a minute, she was still, her eyes, ears and other senses straining into the darkness, while Liana remained silent at her side, until at last Joanna stirred once more.

“Tell me,” she continued, still in a whisper; “how bad is it? No bravado Liana; I want the truth.”

Liana nodded.

“No change,” she murmured tightly. “Whatever this darkness did, it's helped, but only with what I already have. I can hear well enough, but only because I'm compensating to the absolute limit, and I can see more or less as well for the same reason. But that's saying very little, considering what I'm having to do, and what I should be sensing. My enhanced perceptions are all but useless; and as for the rest…” She shook her head. “I could probably hit something the size of a very large lorry with one of my less lethal weapons, and wipe out everything for several hundred yards in either direction, and vaporise both of us into the bargain, more than likely. I can't manage precision coordination of any kind, which makes my micro-weaponry completely unusable, and as for anything more dangerous at my disposal…”

She fell silent, and Joanna nodded in her turn.

“All right,” she said simply, no admonition in her tone. “All right. I think it'll be best if you stay here and guard the entrance as best you can. I'm going to try to reach the grounds without being seen, and find out what on earth we've stumbled into. If it's Lu-na or Luna I'll bring her back with me, or call you if things look grim. If not… If we've found another alternative…” She shook her head. “Well, we'll deal with that if and when we have to,” she ended simply. “Wait here and be ready if I need you.”

“Joanna,” whispered Liana urgently; “Neechan, if she's hurt, or Usagi… I can't…I won't be able to do anything to help, like this! I'd do more harm than good, were I to—”

“I know,” Joanna answered, a sudden intense warmth touching her tone and eyes for a fleeting instant through the urgency of the moment. “But we've no choice, and hopefully it won't come to that. Watch and wait for my signal. And for heaven's sake Liana, don't take any chances, or do anything without calling me.”

“I'm not an imbecile!” Liana flashed. Then her voice softened. “I'm sorry,” she said. “I promise I won't try anything impulsive. Good luck; and neechan, be careful.”

She made as though to reach out to pull Joanna fiercely to her for a moment, but the other girl was already vanishing swiftly into the blackness, and Liana forced down the hurt and shook her head.

A moment later she was alone, save for the cold hissing of the fitful wind and the barely-heard sounds of the first beginnings of alarm far away. Minutes passed, and still there was no other sound, and Joanna did not return. Liana remained statue-still, her senses, scrambled as they were, straining into the darkness. Now that she had time to evaluate her condition, she realised things were far worse even than she had feared. She could not access her own diagnostics, something that should have been integral to her consciousness, nor had she any but the most rudimentary control of her systems. It was as though there were an invisible distance between her mind and her perception of herself and the physical world that she could not bridge, no matter how she tried.

Frustrated and increasingly alarmed, despite all she could do to remain calm, she stood and waited, while time passed with agonising slowness, and still there was no sign.

It was perhaps half an hour after Joanna had left her (she had only the vaguest idea of the passing minutes in her condition), when a sudden sound close by startled her from her increasingly anxious introspection. She whirled, eyes flaming, teeth bared in a vicious snarl as her combat instincts screamed at her to attack.

“Liana?”

The voice snapped her back to herself, and she gasped and tried to regain her shaken calm.

“Where have you been!” she demanded in a hissing whisper, mingled anxiety and relief making her tone hard and furious as Joanna glided silently to her side. “Do you realise how long you were away? I thought—”

“I had to be sure.” Joanna's voice was strangely hard and flat. “I couldn't take the chance that I was mistaken, or leave while there was a chance we might be able to do something before it was too late. Now I'm all but certain.

“Come on,” she ended in the same flat, harsh tone; “we're leaving. I'm not prepared to take any chances with you as you are, and in any case, there's nothing more we can do here; at least, not without a great deal of force.”

“What!” Liana gasped, almost forgetting to be quiet in her sudden shock and outrage. “Leaving! Just like that? And Lu-na, and Usagi—?”

“Are beyond our help, at least for the moment,” said Joanna in the same grim tone. “Usagi…: this Usagi is already dead, and unless we wish to join her, we have perhaps ten minutes to escape before Tokyo is wiped from the face of the earth. I should have realised at once; it should have been painfully apparent, after all we've had to deal with. But I was somewhat distracted.”

“But we can't!” cried Liana, no longer caring that she was speaking now far above a whisper. “I won't just abandon them. I won't! What could possibly be so terrible that we should run, just like that, after all we've faced together in the past two months?”

“Certain death in an aberrant world, should we stay,” said Joanna simply, her voice still harder, “with no reference to the habitable regions of the Gateway Void, and no hope of finding our way back to the others should we die, before it's too late. Have you forgotten that I wasn't conscious during this transition, and so in no fit state to track our passage? If we die here, we'll be flung headlong into the Gateway Void, with no way to know where we are, or how we might begin to look for a reality with which we're familiar. Do you imagine I want to abandon this world's remaining senshi and run? But there is nothing, absolutely nothing we can do with you unable to fight, and without the force we could have brought to bear should all of us have been here. If we don't escape, we will die; nothing is more certain. Do you want to wander for perhaps months of linear time, with no easy way to find our way back, having no idea meanwhile what's happening to the others, and with the chance that our complements could try to break out again at any moment? Our only hope is to escape while we can.”

“But—” Liana began again.

But suddenly Joanna shushed her urgently. She had caught the sudden faint sounds of voices from ahead, lost to Liana as she was.

“Come on then,” she continued grimly. “We might as well be sure. If I'm wrong after all, we can decide then what to do. But I don't think I am. And perhaps when you realise where we are, you'll do as I tell you, without wasting any more time.”

With that she was moving again, Liana, as before, keeping close at her side.

“But I don't—” Liana tried again.

But at that moment the wind carried the voices more clearly to them, and they froze, standing suddenly still and silent as they strained to catch the sounds drifting towards them out of the darkness.

For a few seconds more, little could be made out, save for a half-incoherent word here and there, interspersed with broken sobbing. Then suddenly, a male voice reached them clearly.

“So Minako's dead. So are Rei and Usagi. Ami's about to join them.”

For a second, Liana was bewildered. The intonation and manner of speaking caught her attention immediately, even though the voice itself was unfamiliar. But distanced as she was from the physical world, and operating she knew now at the most minute fraction of her potential, she did not at first make the connection. Then Joanna spoke quietly beside her, and a sudden nightmare horror, mixed with a terrible foreboding rose in her as she began at last to reach a guess.

“‘He spoke quietly’,” Joanna quoted softly, her voice low and terribly calm, “‘but with determination. The crescent moon mark on his forehead began to glow brightly. Luna was appalled.’.”

And the cry came from the dark: “ARTEMIS! What are you doing?”

With the same dreadful calm, Joanna turned to meet Liana's suddenly starting eyes.

“It was simple enough to reach a guess, even from the little I overheard,” she said, her tone grim and flat with a dreadful finality, while Liana stared at her aghast. “The senshi: this world's senshi left this evening for their climactic confrontation with the Dark Kingdom. Some thirty-five minutes ago, we heard Luna's scream at the death of the Moon Princess. Five minutes after that: enough time for the Kingdom's new ruler to have settled with its former queen, a darkness exploded from the north: D-point, to fill the sky and envelop the world: a darkness, or rather a shield so absolute that it blocked not only light and heat, but the full spectrum of cosmic radiation and satellite communications that I can only assume were causing you so much trouble in your present condition.

“And now, the Overlord is dealing with the last of his immediate problems amongst the youma. In perhaps three minutes, he will make his announcement and seal this city, and in six, it will begin to die. I think it's time to leave.”

For a long moment, a stunned, deathly silence hung between them, while Liana stared at her as though unwilling or unable to accept what her companion was telling her, or what both of them had heard.

“Kami-sama!” she whispered softly at last. “Kami-sama! It's not possible! We can't have come there! We can't!”

Yet there could be little room for doubt. Like many of the others, she had tried to learn and read as much as she could concerning any possible variations of their universes: at first, simply as a matter of necessity. Given the circumstances of their own coexistence, and before they had learnt just how rare specific non-canonical universes had proved, it had seemed prudent as quickly as possible to familiarise themselves with as many possibilities for alternates of their realities as they could find. But like Joanna herself, Liana had grown to love well-told fantasy stories in all their various forms with a special warmth and fondness, and the various incarnations of the Sailor Moon Expanded tales she had read (and in particular, those of the Dark Kingdom Renegades, and best, the chilling world of Earth-beta) had particularly appealed to her.

Now, with the blackness overhead, and the faint, not quite familiar voices still reaching them in the fitful stillness, Liana found herself shivering at the savage irony of her fascination.

Shaking her head, she turned her eyes from the darkness above, once more to the tall, grey-cloaked girl at her side.

“Earth-Beta!” she murmured, her tone still soft and disbelieving. “Sailor Moon Expanded Earth-Beta! But Joanna…but Neechan, it's impossible! Even were not non-canonical universes so rare, on that point, we all agreed. Such a Group couldn't truly exist as they imagined it; there are too many fundamental differences in the underlying metaphysics: the very base constants that would define that meta-reality. And even if somehow it could, we haven't found any evidence for a single non-canonical fanfiction Group. We agreed; such meta-realities simply can't exist.”

“Then perhaps you'd care to inform the Overlord of that fact, preferably within the next two minutes,” said Joanna, her tone harsh and frigid with biting sarcasm. “I'm sure it will make a difference. Or of course we can simply stand here and debate the point until it becomes academic?

“I doubt somehow that it really matters just now in the scheme of things, whether we've found our first aberration, or whether our various Mr. Latuses have managed collectively to build some isolated, charming little Beta analogue. It doesn't change the fact that we will be just as dead if we don't go, and go now.”

For a moment, the other girl seemed uncharacteristically unable to answer. Then abruptly, she shivered and nodded.

Joanna was right. As unthinkable to her as it was to abandon this Tokyo to what she knew was coming, she had seen enough ruin and destruction in her short life to know that sometimes, such horror simply could not be averted. As things stood, they could do nothing: nothing, save to die should they stay; there was simply not enough time. Even were they to teleport directly into Beryl's throne-room (an impossibility in any case, unless, by unimaginable good fortune this Kingdom's analogue matched very closely that with which they were familiar), and assuming the Overlord had not already placed an interdiction field around it, there would be nothing they could do, save perhaps to delay the destruction of the city for the time it would take him to kill them. There would be no chance of reasoning with him, and no hope of Joanna being able to find and break his link to whatever this world's analogue of the true SME abyss might be, before he realised what was happening; such control took time and patience, and protection while she searched.

Of all of them, only Lina and her companions might perhaps have been able together to battle the Overlord, and only Lina herself, one to one, without a great deal of preparation. In her own present condition, Liana knew that she might well be hard put to it to hold a conventional buma of her own universe, let alone a being with a power at his command such as that the SME Metallia possessed, even given their extra-real advantage. She might, as a last resort, detonate her power-plant, and blow Overlord, youma and Dark Kingdom to oblivion. But the idea was to escape without the need to die to do it.

And in any case, in the end, their companions came first. Should the others be lost, or worse, taken by their qliphothic complements, it would be academic whether she and Joanna managed somehow to halt this version of Calcite's genocidal alternate before his reign of terror began; there would soon be no omniverse to make a difference. Anathema to every instinct though it was, they had to escape, and now while there was time, and return later if possible to salvage what they could. Perhaps even the youma king might listen, once he understood the alternative.

Beside her, Joanna stirred, and Liana nodded and reached quickly for her hand.

“Ready?” the grey-cloaked girl murmured.

It was merely a courtesy; transition was never pleasant, save for the few of them with an affinity for the unreality of the Gateway universe.

Liana nodded again, tensing involuntarily for a moment in preparation for the giddying plunge into oblivion.

Her own face still hard and set, showing nothing of her own helpless fury and denial at the need to flee, Joanna reached to open the gate… And touched the screaming madness of for ever.

It was impossible to describe: as though in that moment, something fundamental to the link between the Gateway Void and her understanding as she conceptualised it to herself, had been suddenly and hideously changed, and only a writhing, rending chaos remained.

Reeling, her mind reaching wildly for some common reference in a boiling oblivion suddenly utterly beyond her comprehension, she lurched and stumbled, kept from falling only by her companion's suddenly iron grip, as she fought vainly to seize something that was suddenly utterly alien and horrible, and reach a balance she could understand. For a moment, she endured with grim determination, while every instinct screamed at her to retreat, and the lurching nausea threatened to overwhelm her. Yet she could find nothing, and at last with a gasp she tore free, and slammed back to herself and the world with a shattering jolt.

For several seconds she stood frozen, while her heart hammered savagely and she fought desperately not to be sick.

“I think,” she managed flatly at last, swallowing convulsively against the bile that threatened to rise at any moment, “that we are in a great deal of trouble.”

Slowly, the other girl turned to meet her eyes once more, a sudden unreasoning fear beginning to take hold of her as Joanna gritted her teeth and prepared to try again.

“Wait!” she cried with sudden urgency. “I know we don't have much time, Neechan. But give me just a minute. I think we've missed something; something obvious; something so simple… Damn it! I can't…”

She fell silent, her senses straining into the night, while she remained tense and unmoving, fighting desperately for an answer that hovered tantalisingly just beyond reach, and yet that she knew should have been plain.

Around them, the fitful wind had shifted, and the voices were no longer clear. Yet straining, they could still catch the elusive sounds.

Something obvious, she thought desperately. The giddy plunge into the vast, soaring horror and Oblivion that was all she could remember of the Transition from Yohko's home. The surreal, terrible dreams that had preceded her waking, mingled with the faintest whisper of memory: of something the transient phantom or his strange companion had said to her, even as her nightmare had ended. Her condition now. And worst, Joanna's sudden inability to build a gate from this world, something that should be fundamental to her nature. Unless… And then at last she thought she knew.

Liana froze, a numbing, nightmare horror leaping in her as she quailed for a moment from the inconceivable enormity of a possibility, stark and horrible beyond the worst she could have imagined.

“Oh Kami-sama!” she breathed softly at last.

If she were right… But there was no time now to consider all the terrifying implications; they had to escape while they could, and there might still be a way, given that somehow they were alive still. If things were close…close enough…

“Neechan!” she cried, her voice rising urgently. “Neechan, forget the gate! If we can escape Tokyo, that will be enough, and there's a simpler way to—”

“Teleport!” Joanna cried in her turn, already summoning the power, and thanking Cryolite fiercely in that moment for showing her the trick of jumping to a point without the need to have visited it before.

Lunging with desperate speed, she found their destination and triggered the jump… And nothing happened.

“What…!” she hissed, frustration and a sudden unreasoning thrill of fear of her own leaping savagely, as she tried again, and yet again. “Damn it all! What's…!”

But beside her, the colour had drained from her companion's face as the horror became a certainty and she shook her head.

Of course. Even given that such constants existed in this world, there was no reason to suppose their own abilities would translate to local analogues. If that had been true, Joanna's unique affinity to the Gateway reality should have manifested as the ability to shift dimensions, like Rhiannon Mcintyre. Or, she realised starkly, simply to scatter them to oblivion in the boiling chaos between realities.

For a moment that was eternity, she stood, a nightmare terror and a numb futility, mixed with rage and a savage denial at her own helplessness and the perverse unfairness of fate after they had survived so much, threatening to overwhelm her.

Then, in the next instant, she was moving.

Almost before Joanna realised what was happening, Liana had caught her to her with savage desperation, while the fey light that was the battle-nature of her kind blazed with sudden, primal intensity in her eyes.

“What!” Joanna demanded, both enraged and alarmed. “Liana! What the hell do you think you're—”

But her companion was not listening.

“We have one chance!” she cried wildly, her face suddenly fierce with desperate determination. “I've barely any control, but I think I've enough to fly. There's no time to escape the city, but if I can carry us above the area of destruction before the dome appears—”

“In less than a minute!” Joanna exclaimed incredulously. “Liana, it's impossible. Even if you could manage it in time, anything trying to outrun the dome, or approach Dark Layer would be attacked without argument. To try would mean death, as surely as to stay here.”

“We don't know that!” Liana cried urgently, even as she tightened her hold still more and fought savagely to pull her reeling systems to order. “It was never made clear whether Dark Layer was a direct extension of the Overlord's own power, or simply a static means to create Kingdom conditions. If the latter, we have at least a chance of getting out and away before he can retaliate. If we can get above the area of destruction—”

“It won't work,” said Joanna flatly. “Liana, think! Consider how Beta-calcite was defined. If this world even approximates the true SME Earth-beta, his creator would have imagined Dark Layer as an extension of his power; nothing is more certain. And even if he didn't, the Overlord will already be very attentive to what's happening here, and watching for anything trying to escape. In which case, to try to hide between the dome and Dark Layer would be to commit suicide, as surely as to wait here and die with the city. Our only chance is to reach the shrine, and teleport with the senshi. If we can—”

But in that instant her every danger-sense began to scream with savage alarm, and in the same moment a cry reached them clearly from the temple: “SOMETHING'S COMING! SOMETHING TERRIBLE!!”

With a gasp, Liana tensed, preparing to hurl herself and Joanna skywards in a last, desperate race. Then, almost before she could understand what was happening, something caught her long hair from behind, and she was wrenched violently backwards, something cold and hard pressed to her neck, even as her legs were kicked savagely from beneath her with a strength far beyond human.

For an instant, pain exploded through her, and she could not move. Then she was falling, Joanna torn in a moment from her arms as the world tumbled away from her, and she plunged swiftly down, her senses a shrieking maelstrom of confusion, until she emerged at last to sprawl on her back on cold, unyielding stone.

For long moments she lay still and shaking, while something tinkled softly to the floor beside her head, and her senses began slowly to return. Then Joanna's voice spoke only a little distance from her, and she gasped and opened her eyes.

She was in what appeared to be a large, cavernous space, lit by a defuse, grey light from some source she could not define: a light that illuminated little, and made it all but impossible to guess at anything beyond the fact that the floor, the high, vaulted roof and the nearer wall to her left were of the same rough, black stone. From somewhere far away she thought she caught a faint sound as of the fitful sighing of some uneasy wind. But the air seemed still, and nothing else disturbed the silence, save for the faint sound of Joanna's high boots and the soft swish of the cloak as she shifted her position.

“You!” her tone was as arctic as Liana had ever heard it. She stood only a little distance before her, her attention seeming fixed intently on a shadowed figure who stood some ten paces further off, and about whom Liana could make out almost nothing in the gloom.

With a gasp, she struggled to her feet, the frustrating distance that kept her all but helpless seeming, if anything, even greater than before as she moved carefully forwards, her eyes stubbornly refusing to bring the world about her into sharper focus.

At her first movement, Joanna had glanced quickly in her direction. But now she turned her eyes once more to the shrouded figure, as Liana stepped to stand once more at her side.

“Why am I not surprised?” Joanna continued, her voice, if possible, even more frigid than before. “You just couldn't resist, could you? You couldn't resist the temptation to leave your cozy little intervention till the last possible moment. I'd be prepared to bet that we could find a million words unfortunate enough to be saddled with a version of you, and in every last one of them, you'd be exactly the same. Small wonder Rhiannon and the two of you with whom i have to deal on a regular basis get along so well; you have so much in common.”

Liana sighed. She knew now who it had to be. Joanna's relationship with her youngest sister could best be described as volatile at the best of times, and of the rest of the company, only Xelloss, Setsuna and Susan seemed able to elicit exactly the same combination of frustration, fury and (in the case at least of the two time guardians) grudging respect for their commitment and tenacity, if not their methods.

“One thing that does surprise me though,” her companion continued, “is that you could intervene at all at this point. If you could enter time now, why couldn't you have prevented… Unless…” And abruptly she nodded. “You're not Hades, or not the Hades belonging to this universe.”

“You are dangerously perceptive.”

The voice, like the others, was not quite as it should be, as though a consummate actress able to emulate Setsuna's manner and intonation (if not quite her voice itself) were speaking the senshi's lines.

Not that Liana was surprised. If the stories of this and its companion universe were close to actual SME reality, it was not, unlike their own, an exact literal archetype, where even the voices were almost exactly those of the actors and actresses who had played the parts.

She found herself smiling briefly in spite of their situation as she recalled one particular near-disastrous attempt on the part of Minako, Usagi and Makoto to bring Rei and Yuuichiro closer by convincing Linna to call him as the Fire priestess, and ask him to an evening meal and movie. Rei had been livid. But she had calmed down after the four had apologised, and after trying only once to strangle Minako and her princess, and the night had gone far better than any of them could have hoped.

But then, Yuuichiro had died, and…

The brief smile vanished, and Liana pulled herself savagely back to the present against a sudden almost overwhelming urge to burst into tears at the thought that she might never see any of them again; that they might be lost; for ever.

“But you're quite correct,” the time senshi continued, snapping Liana's attention to her once more. “I'm what you would call the more canonical version.” For a moment something warmer and almost amused touched her tone. Then the laughter was gone.

“But I didn't bring you here to discuss that, myself or my intervention in this universe, nor to debate with you. You are here for two reasons: for an explanation, and to be given a choice. Before I begin however, there is something fundamental to your situation you must understand.

“You have believed this world to be an aberration: an isolated analogue of the stories you have read, brought somehow into being despite all you're sure you know. But—”

“It is not.” Liana's quiet words were stark and terrible in the sudden deathly stillness, and at her side, Joanna felt her growing alarm surge to an unreasoning, leaping dread at the absolute finality in her tone.

“I should have realised,” she continued, a numb, growing horror in her voice that sent the cloying fear coursing slowly down her companion's spine. “I should have understood.”

“what?” said Joanna softly, the dread waxing with a terrible swiftness as she began to guess at the enormity of a truth, horrible beyond the worst she could have conceived.

“A world,” Liana answered, her tone never changing. “A world, or rather, a group of worlds that should not exist, the fact that neither of us can remember clearly how we came here, the catastrophic failure of my own systems, and you're inability to teleport, or open a gate.

“I should have seen it: would have, but for the damage caused by what I can only assume to be the incompatible fundamentals of this world, fundamentals so alien that the very constants that allow my existence and your abilities no longer apply. I'm amazed only that I'm able to function at all: that at least some paradigms are close enough to make that possible, if barely, or that we can exist here without going indescribably insane, or simply blasting ourselves and everything else in this reality to oblivion.

“Neechan, don't you understand? There can be only one explanation.” And suddenly, she had moved close, and it was all Joanna could do not to reach out to her in return.

“We've slipped the moorings!” she breathed, her own voice barely audible in the terrible silence of the cavern, stark with horror as she at last fully understood. “We've jumped another quantum level, and our advantage has become as meaningless as if we'd never entered the Void.

“Yes.” Liana's answer was barely a whisper in the stillness. “Lenore and the others warned us all more than once that Yohko's universe was becoming a nexus for the growing Storms: that it was becoming increasingly unstable, and Ami told us when she called that there were new elements to this Storm, disturbing subtleties the Mercury computer couldn't model, even with all the new data we'd gathered. And remember Viko's attack, and what you felt during the transition to Yohko's home, and how the Ginzuishou and Silver Crystal reacted? This Storm was beyond anything we've seen, and contained new elements about which we knew nothing.

“Just what happened, probably we'll never know. But the most likely scenario is that the Storm struck while we were all in transit, and that it did what Lenore and Skuld were warning us could soon begin to happen. It ripped a gash in the fabric not simply of Yohko's world, but in the very foundations of our omniverse: the sum of all we've known. The Gateway universe is beyond any single physical reality, and gives an extra-real advantage to anything that enters. But it's still part of the underlying fundamentals: the base constants of our meta-reality. The Storm opened a way into an Oblivion we can't begin to imagine or understand, and our anchor was lost. We slipped, or fell, or were sucked through the gap, into a place beyond comprehension, and in which we should have ceased instantly to exist. How long we drifted, caught between unimaginable infinities, we'll never know: indeed, probably such a concept is meaningless. But somehow, we were caught by this multiverse, a definitive SME multiverse, and impossibly, inconceivably, we manifested here, perhaps because at some base, fundamental level, certain constants are similar enough to be compatible.

“This isn't some SME Group or Beta analogue in the omniverse we know. Probably we were right; in our reality, such worlds could never come into being. This is the definitive, or at least a definitive. And now we're trapped beyond hope of escape, save perhaps by some almost unimaginable chance, and all we've known may be lost; for ever.”

Liana faltered, her quiet voice falling into a stark, terrible silence, broken only by the faint whispering of the unfelt wind.

“Not quite.” the Senshi's quiet words seemed to come as though from some other world, recalling them from the nightmare incomprehension into which each seemed to have fallen. “Or rather, you have guessed at only half the truth.

“But first,” she continued, turning directly to Liana, “there is the matter of your little problem. You were not quite correct in your guess as to the reasons for the difficulties you're experiencing.

“Catch!” she cried suddenly.

Without warning, something shining and spherical came flying from her hand, to hurtle at Liana with savage speed. Instinctively, her hand flashed out to snatch the fist-sized ball from the air. But no sooner had she touched it, than it shattered and vanished, a nerve-shattering shock exploding through her savagely in its wake, as though every fibre of her being had been stretched, then snapped violently back into place.

And suddenly the world was intensely real and present, while every sense screamed at her and she reeled for a moment in dazed confusion, before she shivered and drew in a long, slow breath of indescribable relief as everything settled at last, and she was truly herself again.

“Your benefactor was in something of a hurry,” said Pluto as if by way of apology; and now Liana could see her clearly, although the light was indeed low, and much of the great cavern was in darkness. “And one can hardly blame him for a little oversight, given the circumstances.”

“Our benefactor?” Liana demanded. “What—”

But Pluto held up her hand.

“Later,” she said grimly; and now the warning was clear in her suddenly-implacable tone. “If you don't remember, you shall, soon enough.

“As I was saying; you were never hurt by the transition. Your mind had simply not quite returned to your body: an interesting philosophical point, given your nature, but one for another time.

“For now, it's vital that you listen, and listen well to what I have to tell you. If you don't: should you choose to disregard my advice, or the warning I am about to give you, make no mistake: I will not hesitate to enter this time-line before you appear, and tear the gate from the fabric of existence at the moment of your manifestation. Do you understand me? My duty to what you would call the Alpha universe is paramount, and you are not needed, save perhaps to lessen a little the suffering to come. Will you listen to what I have to tell you?”

For answer, Liana's eyes flashed jade fire, and she made as though to step a pace forwards. But Joanna gestured her urgently to stillness, and nodded curtly to the senshi, although she favoured her with a very unfriendly glance.

“Very well,” Pluto began. “What I am about to tell you is the truth, whether you choose to believe it or no; or at least as near to the truth as we can ascertain, given the extraordinary circumstances surrounding your appearance in this omniverse. And yes; I use the word deliberately: on that point, Liana guessed very closely. However, there is more, and of cardinal importance to your situation.

“First, and paramount in what I have to say to you, is this. You did not ‘travel’ here in any real sense: indeed for you, the idea has no meaning. There is no way to break this to you gently. Simply put, you are not Joanna Marina O'Reilly, of what you've come to call the Empire Universe, nor Liana, Bu-33DA-Elite buma of the single BGC alternate with which you are familiar. More specifically, you are not the Joanna and Liana who began the journey from your Mamono Hunter reality.

“So far as we can determine from the first confused moments of your existence, the company made the transition unhurt, if not without difficulty, and to the best of our knowledge, continue in relative terms the struggle you believe yourselves to have been to that point a part. What happened, is happening, or shall happen to them, we can never know. But for you, that struggle is past and ended, and cannot concern you further.

“Precisely how you should be defined is problematic. Perhaps the most useful definition is to consider yourselves to have begun as static echoes: snapshots if you will, of your templates, exact to the last detail, created of an almost inconceivably fortuitous combination of chance and extraordinary luck.

“At the very height of the Storm: at the instant the company passed the threshold of physical reality into a place even I don't pretend to understand, the Storm-front struck your Mamono Hunter universe with devastating force, and entered the gate Joanna had made. By all accepted theory, it should have obliterated it in an instant, and scattered her and the rest to oblivion. But their transition was not the first, and they had by virtue of their travels, become already partially immune to the growing destabilisation, anchored perhaps irrevocably as they were in the nothingness of the created Gateway Void, a place that should never have been, and that existed outside the restrictions of any single physical universe, a fact proven amply by their returning there again and again after any physical death in a real world.

“Unable to destroy them, the front stripped them nevertheless of the current manifestation of their physical bodies, a fact probably that went almost unnoticed, given that they were in a place in which matter was an afterthought rather than a necessity, and created of souls to which their physical templates were already an integral component, myriad echoes: perfect but static fractures that split from them at the instant of their creation.

“The originals continued on their way, perhaps even entirely unaware that anything had happened. But behind them, the echoes: each believing themselves to have been the original from which they were made, had a few seconds of discreet existence: a tiny impetus of subjective momentum in which to know a ruin and horror beyond nightmare and madness and the uttermost end of damnation that was, through its qliphothic mistress, the base nature of the Gateway Void, before the static moment that was all the life they could know began to lose coherence, and they began to die: dissolving in unimaginable terror, until at last the very essence of their existence failed in catastrophic collapse, and they vanished into the infinite emptiness of absolute oblivion.”

As she spoke, a slow, new horror had grown in her listeners, as at last they began to remember: a twisting, nightmare dread that clawed at mind and reason, and threatened for one terrible moment to surge suddenly to overwhelm everything in a mindless, gibbering despair. Yet dreadful as it was, there was a sense of distance and detachment to the fear: an unreal, dreamlike quality that made the sudden terrible intensity of the reawakened memories able to be borne and accepted as something passed and finished with, for ever.

“That should have been the end,” Pluto continued at last in the same quiet tone, after many seconds in which everything seemed very still. “Yet impossibly, inconceivably, some of those myriad echoes remained viable long enough to generate a sympathetic resonance in the base constants that define your omniverse, unstable as it has become. How this could have happened, and still more, how that resonance could have been read or detected beyond it, and made reality within our own, we cannot begin to imagine. Again, it should have been impossible. But we are dealing here with matters utterly beyond our understanding: perhaps beyond any understanding; and as for the last question: I have my suspicions.

“Still, all this is secondary to the fact that you are here and alive, and most importantly, a danger to the destiny both of this and my own universe, should you refuse to accept what I've told you.”

With that she fell silent, while the two travellers remained for many seconds unmoving as they came slowly to terms with the vastness of all she had said, and the enormity of what her words would mean.

Neither doubted her, despite all their mistrust, and the almost overwhelming desire to dismiss her claims as absurd, or an attempt to manipulate them for some secret purpose of her own. They could never forget those last terrible moments: the memories would remain graven in them for ever. And now, Joanna remembered again with terrible intensity the moment the gate had been torn from her: the impossible, incomprehensible moment when she had felt herself shatter like glass, and it had seemed to her that she was legion, and a thousand conflicting perspectives assaulted her; the moment, she knew now, of her first truly independent memory, and the moment of her birth and utter dissolution.

For a space of stillness she could not define, she continued to watch the senshi, while the silence stretched between them. But at last, she stirred and sighed.

“So, Helios was real after all,” she murmured softly, her gaze turned suddenly inwards.

“He brought you back,” said Pluto, her tone softened a little; “back from a nightmare from which you could never have escaped alone. Not all in this world are so beneficent, and you have enemies you cannot guess.”

But Joanna was barely listening, her eyes leaving Pluto's face as she turned to Liana at her side.

Her companion was very still, her own gaze seeming fixed on something very far away as she stood, clenched and unmoving, and said nothing.

“Liana?” said Joanna softly at last, her voice kindly and gentle.

“Gone!” The word was little more than a whisper in the stillness. “Gone for ever; everyone and everything we've ever known! Even if by some impossible chance we could find a way back, there would be no place for us. We're phantoms, exiles trapped beyond hope in a world distant beyond anything we could begin to understand, and in which we can never truly have a place. Trapped and alone; for ever.”

Pain and a sudden primal rage filled her eyes, but she would not falter, nor shed a single tear now that they were no longer alone.

“No.” Pluto spoke softly, something suddenly quiet and unexpectedly gentle in her own voice as she looked between them. “True: there is no way back, and that above all makes what I have still to say to you of paramount importance. But you are as real and vital as any living thing in this world, and you are not alone here: not altogether. Your five sisters also made the journey, and are safe, although scattered across the world.”

At her words, Liana's face leapt with sudden wild hope, her eyes flashing once more to the senshi. But Joanna forestalled her sudden urgent exclamation with another imperative gesture.

“Where?” she demanded.

But Pluto shook her head.

“I'm sorry,” she said, her tone again cool and careful, “but that I cannot tell you. My first concern was with finding and warning you, before your ignorance of your situation had you do something all of us would regret.”

“Cannot?” said Joanna, her own tone freezing in an instant as her eyes leapt once more to Pluto's face. “Or simply will not. After all, you seem remarkably well informed, even concerning things about which you could have no possible knowledge.

“Tell me; how is it that you know so much about us, and yet can't, or more likely won't answer such a simple question? In fact, let's return to the first point. How do you know anything about us at all? By definition, another omniverse could have no reference to, or connection with your own, nor could our Susan or Setsuna have contrived to contact you; the idea is manifestly absurd. How can you possibly know anything about our beginning, assuming you're not lying to us for some reason of your own? And how is it that you've been able to describe in such detail events surrounding something of which you simply could have no possible knowledge?

“You know a great deal more than you're telling us, and I think we deserve an explanation.”

Joanna's emerald eyes sought Pluto's own once more in fierce challenge, but the senshi simply shook her head and did not meet her glance.

“I could tell you it was a secret,” she said, a sudden almost mischievous smile playing for a moment about the corners of her mouth, as Liana started in shock, and Joanna's eyes flashed sudden savage rage, “but I doubt you'd appreciate the humour, given the circumstances. Suffice it to say that I am quite satisfied with the veracity of my information: indeed, it comes from the best possible source.

“In any event, it doesn't matter. Exactly how much I know concerning you, and how I possess that knowledge, is a great deal less important at the moment than what you must understand concerning your destiny here, and what could happen should you choose not to listen to what I have to say. Quite simply, it is this. The future of this world, and through it that for which I am responsible, is balanced upon a knife-edge. Should the Overlord learn too soon of my universe, or should Earth-beta diverge so that Hermes and Zeus never reach it and so set in motion the events that will lead to his defeat, then not only this world, but my own shall collapse into chaos and ruin, from which I see no hope of escape.”

“The Acolytes,” said Liana simply. “The Renegades have to fulfil their destiny here, and return to trigger Serenity's apotheosis.”

“Precisely,” said Pluto, her tone grim, and her eyes suddenly hard and cold as they met for a moment those of each of the travellers. “Your coming to this universe is an aberration, a factor outside the flow of destiny as it should have unfolded. Should you intervene overtly here, and so alter events as history dictates they must happen, all for which I've fought since the fall of Silver Millennium may be laid in ruin, and my world lost beyond hope of recall.

“That shall not be!

“Understand this, and this clearly. Should you, by your interference, threaten the destiny of this world, and so that of my own, I will destroy you, though it break every oath I swore on my accession. I will tear you from the fabric of time, and send you screaming into the nothingness from which you came, no matter what the cost, rather than see the future fall in ruin before the appointed time. Do you understand me? Forget this warning at your peril.”

Then for many seconds there was silence once more.

Liana stood taut, her face a mask of fury and her eyes flashing jade fire as she glared balefully at the senshi.

But Joanna remained still and cold as she studied the guardian of time, her own expression unreadable, until at last she stirred and nodded, and a chill smile touched her lips.

“I like you no more than the Plutos I've had…or rather, my template has been unlucky enough to have to deal with,” she said simply, her voice as arctic as her smile. “Nor do I trust, or more than half believe a good deal of what you've told us. If we're such a danger, why not simply give us the means to escape this world while we can? Obviously, you're from a time in your own in which that could be done, or you could never have come here; and I can't imagine such a solution wouldn't have been considered. Unless you're acting entirely alone, something I find very difficult to believe. Either you're lying: or at most, telling us just enough of the truth to suit some Machiavellian little scheme of your own, and we're needed here after all, or some other factor prevents your allowing us the easy way out.

“But whatever the truth, I suspect I'm not going to get anything further from you, and I might well do exactly as you've done in your place.

“Very well,” she ended, her tone thawing just a little, and the chill melting a little from her eyes. “You have my promise that we'll do nothing overt to draw the Overlord's attention (it would be tremendously dangerous in any case, until we understand our limitations in this world, and I've no wish to die pointlessly, and no more wish than you to see your world come to harm), and everything we can to ensure he learns nothing of our existence. But we will not stand by and watch him tear this world apart, without doing all we can to minimise that destruction within the limits you've set. After all, if what you've said is true, it's as much ours now as any other, and I intend to see that there's something left worth living in when this is over.

“And one more thing,” she added, her voice frigid once more. “My promise will hold for exactly one year, until the night Hermes and Zeus are meant to escape to your universe. If that doesn't happen, or should some other factor intervene to change events significantly before that time, our agreement is at an end. Do you understand? I will not see the Overlord victorious.”

She expected anger, or perhaps another dire warning on the part of the senshi. But to her surprise, Pluto simply nodded in her turn, her face softened by some complex, unreadable emotion, and something strange and unfathomable in her eyes as they held Joanna's for one last moment, before she nodded once more and withdrew her gaze.

“Then we understand one another,” she said simply, her voice cool and final as she summoned her staff and stepped towards them.

“Come,” she continued. “We've talked long enough, and you'd best be on your way if you're to prevent just such a factor as you've described. Farewell, and never forget; I'll be watching.”

And with that, before either of them had a chance to answer, the floor vanished from beneath them, and again they were falling, tumbling through a maelstrom of light and screaming wind, to emerge at last to find themselves standing on the wide pavement of a city street.

Cursing the senshi, who she was certain had ended their meeting precipitously to pre-empt further questions, and in addition, made their journey as unpleasant as she could, Joanna turned swiftly to look about them; and gasped. She had seen this particular street in enough incarnations of New York city, and the entrance to the building only some ten yards from where they stood, both from outside and in, to recognise it, even though its analogue existed in the London of her universe.

But it was not the headquarters of the United Nations itself that had caught her attention, but rather the tall figure with long, flowing fair hair, who had just dropped the last of the security detail with a light touch to his neck, and was moving to enter, even as they appeared.

Starting forwards, Joanna made to call urgently to her to wait. But she never had the chance.

“Marina-oneechan!”

In the next instant, Liana was racing towards her, and a moment later Marina had turned, and the two were clinging close, slender arms twined fiercely about one another, while all about them people were staring, and an unpleasant murmur had begun.

With a furious shake of her head, Joanna hurried forwards through the increasingly restive crowd.

“I would suggest,” she said drily, as the two drew apart, and the tall, fair-haired girl turned to greet her with an intense, welcoming smile, “that we postpone this cosy little reunion until we're somewhere a little more discreet. Unless of course you're eager to start the rioting now, rather than have the festivities wait until after the Overlord's announcement tomorrow. Having us appear from nowhere in the middle of a crowded street, minutes after the world has gone dark, was not what I'd have called one of Pluto's better ideas. But then, I imagine that was exactly what she intended.”

Then came the sound of a shot somewhere in the distance, and a moment later something shattered closer at hand, and the shouts and the screaming began.