SailorsPathfinder : Love and Without By: Erin Flynn – fanfic@mjade.com Episode 4 : The Pathfinders Risa's mind was in turmoil. How could this be? The Moon and the Earth... he couldn't be... "It's impossible. I saw you die. And then the Queen destroyed your body," she shook her head. "It can't be!" She looked up at him. He was picking Sage up off of the floor. She moaned softly. He looked at Risa. "Where can I put her?" "Uh, um..." Risa found that her mind was very fuzzy. She motioned to a button on the wall. "Just... just hit that." She watched him walk to the wall with Sage in his arms and depress the button. It lit up. He turned to look at her. "Well, now what?" Risa was about to tell him, when suddenly she didn't need to. The door on his right slid open and Leeota strode into the room, unseeing both Sage and him as her eyes fixated on Risa. "What happened? Where's Sage, and the warrior?" Risa answered by simply pointing in his direction. Leeota spun to face him. Anger rippled into her voice, "What have you done to her!!" "Me?" he said defensively. "Leeota! Transform." "In front of him?" "Yes," Risa sighed, "He did it for us." Leeota looked at her a moment confused and then reached into her pocket and pulled out a Star. "SENSHI GUARDIAN... MAKE UP!!!" A green light swam over her for a moment and then she was her SailorPathfinder self. She turned to Risa, "Now attack?" "No, just... look." Risa watched Leeota look back at the tall dark-haired man once more. She knew what would happen. Now that Leeota was in her Senshi form, she would easily recognize the Prince. Leeota instantly recognized him, her eyes enlarging significantly as her mouth fell open. Then she instantly fell to her knees. "My prince!" She looked up at him, "but during the attack on the Moon... how did you survive?" she paused, "Oh, forgive me! I have been rather disrespectful. How may I serve you once more?" Prince Endymion looked rather startled. It looked as if he had expected her to faint as well. "Well, um..." he lifted Sage up a bit, "where can I put her?" "Yes, my prince." Leeota rose swiftly, took Sage and left the room. Risa watched him as he watched Leeota leave the room. Then he looked at her. Time seemed to stop, Risa figured he was just as confused as she was. She was about to suggest something when he started, "Okay. Now... I have no idea where I am, what you or I are doing, or..." he motioned towards the door, "who that was. So I think the safest thing for us to do is for you to continue with your story." While he spoke, she had pulled herself back up into her chair. "Just allow me one question please... Are you alive? The technology we brought you here with is pretty new to us... could we have brought you from... death? Do you remember the battle with the Dark Kingdom? You died... I saw you..." He sighed and sat down on the floor. "As far as I know, I'm alive, and I _will_ explain that to you... but please, just continue on with your story... as soon as you finish, I'll begin mine." She looked at him for a moment, "All right..." * * * "Well, as I said I didn't remember anything after that bright flash. Just the new memories of this life. This new life, this one, was much harder than the old life I can remember now. "The time period between the death of the Moon Kingdom and the present time was very long, I don't think we will ever know how long. I have no idea what happened to my parents or my old friends. I believe they probably found the empty ship and presumed us to all be dead. And because Queen Serenity had imprisoned us... Senshi power was gone from the universe, forever.. until we were reborn. "In the present time, the words Moon Kingdom mean nothing. There are stories of warriors and magic in our legends, but nothing more, and none of the stories sound anything like what actually happened in those times... "But when Queen Serenity destroyed everything on the Moon, killing all of the forces of the Dark Kingdom there... she failed to destroy the remaining forces in any of the other realms... and by imprisoning the remaining Senshi, the Queen left the universe undefended, and the remanants of the Dark Kingdom quickly took control of what planets it could. And without Senshi powers... many worlds fell, unable to defend themselves. "This planet was and is still under the control of a segment of that old Dark Kingdom... the few remaining humans were either slaves... or were raised as animals might be... for their energy. "I was born 17 years ago on such a 'farm'. I knew my parents briefly, until I was around five or six, and then they were... taken. I was angry, and it was then that I started to feel like I had to find a way out, that I had to DO something... "During my twelfth year... I staged an escape, taking dozens of others with me, mostly childen. Leeota was one of them, she is two years younger than I, and there were other children there, that had power as well... "It was a difficult task, we had to distract the normal brainless youmas who were guards, and that in itself was easy, I suppose. But it is much harder with the other DarkNites (that is what they call themselves), for many are clever, and many have talents. Some, like Sage mentioned earlier are electrical talents, and can manipulate the electrical forces of nature, others control other elements, others, sheer raw power... It was difficult, but it was our only hope and we made it work... "After fleeing the compound, however, we had nowhere to go. Someone suggested a group of mountains in the distance... so for days we journeyed towards them... But, halfway there we ran into another group of escapees... they being former slaves. Sage was among them, she is almost precisely my same age. We joined them. "For a time we were scavengers, feeding off the foul 'bounties' of the land, or finding DarkNite dumping grounds... Until Sage and I devised a plan. "It was our thirteenth year, and we had tired of leading around a rather large group of children. Keeping them all in line, making sure they all ate, and trying desperately to hide them when the DarkNites came looking. So, in our thirteenth year we decided to capture a fortress... not an easy matter, mind you, but it had to be done. A small, youma guarded fortress is easy to conquer, the youmas are brainless, and even without powers they can be tricked and... killed. "But as we went through the contents of the place, we discovered maps, and detailed descriptions of slave camps and 'livestock' facilities... how could we live while others were dying... "So that is when the Pathfinders began... we attack, rescue, and take over, many of us between the life years of six and, now, seventeen. The more and more people that joined us, the more and more battles we won. But it is not easy, to win battles against DarkNites... many were killed, but more and more spirits were lifted as people became free and we took over new fortresses. After each fortress was stabilized, a group would remain and the larger party would move on, to continue, to fight. The fortresses all kept in contact "All along the way Sage studied, for when we took over a fortress, we took all of the technology as well, one of the things she had done as a slave was to program the larger machines. Sage became well adept in many of the new ways of technology. Which helped us greatly. "She and I had become leaders of a 'tribe' consisting of hundreds of souls, all dedicated and inspired to retake our world. She and I had come to think that we were invincible, that we could fight any war, and win. Unfortunately, that isn't ever the case. "We made a raid on a fortress larger than we had ever taken before, but we felt that it did not matter. With strength, the multitude of weapons we had picked up along the way, and relying on Sage's mechanial talent, we knew the DarkNite fortress was ours. "As you can probably deduct, we didn't triumph, in fact, we utterly failed. Around two hundred people were slaughtered... * * * "SAGE!!!" Risa looked around desperately for her friend. The smoke was thick... electric bursts and blaster fire still sprang through the air. The smell everywhere was death. She stumbled, and fell; face to face with a dead human. His eyes stared emptily back up at her. She muttered a prayer as she quickly pushed herself back to her feet. How could this have happened? It was impossible... She screamed as an electrical burst struck her. * * * "I thought I was dead, in fact, somehow... I really was. I found myself drifting in some sort of massive expanse of nothingness. I called out, but nothing responded. "And then in a white light... she appeared. The Queen... Serenity. Only, of course I didn't know that then. * * * "Wh-who are you?" "Oh, young one, I am sorry you do not remember... I never should have imprisioned you all. I wanted you to be able to return... to help her. Ah, that is over, and not even Pluto could change the time now..." "What?" "You must be given back your memories... and your powers." Suddenly, the two were no longer drifting, but standing in the ruins of the Moon Kingdom. Risa found herself in a long, light red-colored dress which flowed around her. She looked up at the tall woman who stood before her. "I-I don't understand." "You will." The woman reached out with her right hand and touched Risa's forehead with her index finger. A symbol flashed in Risa's mind... and then the memories... all of them, flooded into her mind... * * * "It was hard, hard having all of those memories come back to me all at once. But, when it was over, I remembered everything. Then she gave me back this." Prince Endymion watched as Risa held up a wand. It looked somewhat like Rei's... being red and all, but the symbol and the top were different. "and also all of the other Senshi's power items who had been on the ship. She said all of them had been reborn... not all of them still lived, but all had been brought back. "I can't remember what happened after that... I just woke up in a medical facility in one of our fortresses. Sage had sounded a retreat, and in the wake of the fleeing, some of the braver souls looked for wounded survivors to bring back. Someone had found my body and I still had a heart beat, so they brought me back. "Somehow Queen Serenity gave me the ability to sense when someone is a Senshi... I can feel it. I give them their wands and, somehow, tell them to say. And when they first transform... they get back all of their memories. It is a very painfull experience. We have adopted the name "Sailors Pathfinder" for we truly aren't really Senshi anymore, like we were then, we are Pathfinders. "I have only been able to give seventy-seven Senshi their wands... I have at least a hundred seventy-five, two hundred left. Sometimes, when we free a group of people, we find one... but the last time that happened was over a year ago... "With our newfound powers, we eaisily took over the fortress. Many more DarkNites fell each day, we slowly became an unstoppable force. Until the powerful ones came. A large group of DarkNites came to this planet, called here, we believe, to defeat us. They now threaten us, they are more powerful than any threat we have fought before, we need help... "The Senshi are now spread out around all of our fortresses, but there are not enough of us to go around. A warrior was needed. Information was given to us, informing us that there was still life on Earth, and that there were people there, people who defended the planet and fought for the light. we needed help, so Sage went rooting through all of the technical files we had gathered. She discovered the crystal technology that brought you here. "Now, I know all that I have said is brief, and a lot isn't understandable, but I ask you not to ask questions, just that you help us, and then we can return you to the Earth." Risa looked up at the prince. Her story had lasted a good long while. And, he thought, "I have a question. Earlier when I was, uh, 'talking' to Sage, she said this was the last fortress, you just said that there were many, how is this?" "Ah, but she said the last _defense_ Outpost. We do not attack, we simply defend ourselves. Our largest med facility is here, along with all our technology, and Signa," she waved her hand around, "Sage's big machine." "He is not a machine, he is an artificial intelligence unit, and he is listening to you right now, so you'd better watch out." They both looked to see Sage standing in the doorway, Leeota behind her. Prince Endymion noticed Leeota’s costume was different, similar top, but large Aladdin type pants were on her lower section. Her long blonde hair reminded him very much of Usagi with her hair down... He shook his head. "Now, I would ask that you tell your story." he turned to find Risa looking at him. "Ah, look Leeota, perfect timing!" Sage and Leeota moved to chairs in the room. He sighed, "Alright, but my story is almost as long, if not longer, than yours, so i'll have to cut some out..." * * * Leeota had tears in her eyes as Mamoru finished. "And then she, Leeota, brought me in here and we began our little chat." he finished and then stretched and stood up, "Wow, that took awhile!" * * * As he stood up he looked at Risa. She had a tragic expression on her face. "I am so sorry we have done this to you! We acted so unlike Senshi... OHH!! I can't believe we snatched you up like that!" "I can." Endymion saw Risa look at Sage as she continued. "We were...ARE desperate. We need help. Can you help us? I know you are the prince and all, but from what you have just told us now, you are a fighter as well. We need help, can you give it?" All three looked at him. "Can you return me home, to Earth?" "Does it matter?" "Sage!!" "Let him answer! Does it matter?" He thought about it. "No. It doesn't. I couldn't make myself leave if I didn't... you are Senshi, like my Us- like Sailor Moon, and the others. I am a guardian to all of the Senshi, and even if I wasn't, I am not the type to desert someone in need." "Alright, then. Yes, we can take you home, and we will. But first we have to attack." Sage moved to one of the wall monitors. "Attack what, exactly?" But it wasn't his destiny to recieve that answer just then, for the door opened... Endymion gasped as the newest occupant of the room strode over to him. "Mamoru is that you? You look different with that garb on. Wait till Ann sees you." "ALAN?" End Ep. Four