Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! OH YES! YES! YESSS!

Artemis growled. "Minako, this is why we let HOTARU quote Yeats and not you."

Minako sighed. "Artemis it's not my fault she was kidnapped before this thing started."

"Just... Nevermind," Artemis muttered, getting back to the tale and ignoring this preface which the crisis thankfully retconned immediately thereafter*.

* Too bad you've already read it, eh?

PART ONE

"Just throw the cat at 'em, huh?" Haruka belched and nodded, bending down and looking Artemis eye to eye.

"Uhh--" Artemis began, but was cut off when Haruka roughly grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, trying to pick him up.

Instinctively, Artemis twisted around and bit Haruka on the hand. Hard.

"OW MOTHERFU[BLEEP]KER!" Haruka yelled, batting Artemis aside and flailing excitedly. "Are you a f[BLEEP]ing VAMPIRE OR SOME s[BLEEP]t?!"

Artemis landed on his feet, hissing, back arched. "What the heck is WRONG with you, don't you know how to treat pets?!"

Haruka shook her head. "When I was a kid all my pets died. Mom never let me have anything with a spinal cord."

Artemis fumed, "Well I can SEE why. God help you if you adopt an infant." He took a moment to scratch behind his left ear with his hind leg, a cute move that totally evaporated the gravity of his lecturing tone.

Haruka opened her mouth to reply, but the bite to her hand started to throb. It became an overpowering sensation, her head swimming with the pulse of blood rushing through her body.

Holy crap, she thought. What if Artemis really was a vampire cat?

Haruka looked at her hand, thoughts winding back to when she had last been bitten on the same spot, by a Tsetse fly.

It had been years ago, in Africa. She had gone to South Africa to participate in an A1 Motorsport rally, with Michiru in tow. The other senshi were still in Tokyo, fighting Neherenia.

But Neherenia's battle had been worldwide, against all Senshi. She had dispatched Zircon to create an illusory slice of Tokyo, a dreamland, and brought the inner senshi there, with the hopes of killing them and the outers in one stroke. The inners had been fooled into thinking they had infiltrated the circus, and then had been caught, Minako so deep in the illusion she was even unable to transform.

But then Haruka and Michiru had arrived to save the day, along with Hotaru. Sure, it made no sense. Hotaru was still an infant. But at the time--like with any dream-- logic went out the window. They even managed to "beat" the enemy, sinking deeper into the dreamworld. They would have been lost forever had not a Tsetse fly bitten Haruka hard on the hand and awoken her. A few pokes to Zircon's Eye with the Space Sword, and the little brat hightailed it back to Tokyo, the inners managing to follow in tow. By the time Haruka and Michiru had made it back to Tokyo, Usagi had already sealed her up in the light of the new moon.*

* This reconciles the Anime and Manga versions of the Dead moon Conflict. The Manga version is trumped by the Anime. The happenings of the manga that conflict are officially a result of Neherenia's dream machinations. Recall that SubSen establishes the SuperS season happened worldwide over the course of the eclipse, taking no more that one realtime day.

"Man you bit me so hard my f[BLEEP]ing brain hurts," Haruka protested, feeling her head.

Artemis blinked as he looked at Haruka again, his eyes shifting from blue to green to blue to green. It seemed like Haruka had become horribly out of focus, and then crystal clear once again.

"Anyway, we need to get to the Palace," Haruka pointed out, looking over the fire-lit city, the streets filled with smoke and the sounds of car alarms going off, mandroids, gundams and daimon-youma battling it out under the light of the gleaming Crystal Palace while Earth's second moon, the Pimp Star, loomed overhead.

"So transform and do the roof-leaping thing," Artemis said tiredly.

"I would," Haruka replied, pointing to the skyline, where a crashing Martian battlecruiser scraped the tops of buildings, cleaving the top floors off others and spinning out of control into Tokyo Tower, destroying it for the 5th time that night-- "But there aren't any roofs LEFT".

"So we walk?" Artemis suggested, hopping on Haruka's shoulder.

"Walk my ass," Haruka answered, pointing to downtown Azabu. "We need a damn car. And Neko took mine."

"So where are we going!?" Artemis complained, as Haruka broke into a run.

"Mo's got a car," Haruka replied, making for "Mo's Tavern."

MO'S TAVERN, NEXT TO CROWN GAME CENTER

"Holy s[BLEEP]t," Haruka whispered, not daring to move. There, under the moonlight, under the scant remains of the ravaged roof, Furuhata Motoki sat, cash in hand, ready to pay a furry cosplayer to re-enact Monica Lewinsky's finest hour.

"He's going to have that Platypus fe--" Artemis coughed, not daring to complete the thought."HEY!" the cat yelled, sending the fur running.

"Huh?" Motoki asked, his voice hollow and empty, eyes so dead. He turned his head to look at the source of the yell. A small white cat with large blue eyes. Or were they green? Such large eyes, such innocent eyes. Oh, they were so large, so innocent, just like Reika's. Oh god, Reika. She reminded him of back when the world was so pure, so clean, back before he had had to resort to giant cosplayers trying to make it as giant skunks to bring him pleasure.

Gazing into the cat's eyes, falling back into his memories, Motoki rememebered how Reika had phoned him from the town of f[BLEEP]ing Austria. Or had she said she was f[BLEEP]ing Austria. He couldn't recall. But he had been so sick of her, her the horse-girl who left him for years at a time using school as an excuse. The equestrian rider. Her horse had been so much more purer than her. It had known no deceit, no treachery. He had looked in its eyes and noted how animals, unlike humans with their motives, and excuses, and fickle desires, were pure and simple. They just wanted to eat, sleep and mate. Why couldn't HIS life be that simple? Then he had found the internet, and pregfur.org. Such a beautiful thing, he had thought, humanity and nature in perfect, pregnant balance.

There he had found a man named Molatar. With Molatar's money raised from the preachings of the Lycanthrope God, he had torn down the fruit parlor, the place that reminded him of Reika so, and he had rebuilt a karaoke bar. But that place never made any money, because the girls would keep sneaking in with unlimited passes, and their singing scared away all the regulars from the Game Center. So he shut it down and just opened a bar to allow himself to wallow in total misery drowned in rum. Then he had heard the voice of Aino Minako again after many years. Grown up a bit, she sounded just like Reika, and oh god, he had wanted more. So even though he liked the furry world, he began to call her at night, just to hear her voice. Even when she was yelling insults at him, he felt so good-- and hey, wasn't that her cat?*

* PSGM / BSSM / SS continuity merge GET

"I don't like the way he's looking at me, Haruka," Artemis said, walking in reverse (which is DAMN hard for a cat, Lunar or otherwise), and getting behind Haruka's legs. He noted that Motoki had snapped into a clearer focus as well.

"Ahh, he just wants to pet you," Haruka replied, blind to the situation.

"I don't need that kind of petting," Artemis replied, going paler than usual.

Motoki squatted down and reached out to Artemis, drooling. Cats only lasted 5 seconds but what wonderful 5 seconds those would be--

As Artemis raised his forepaw to unsheathe his claws, an explosion blew in the side of the Bar.

"A NEW CHALLENGER HAS ARRIVED" yelled a Mandroid, looking at Haruka. "SENSHI DETECTED."

"Hloy SIT!1111" Chibiusa, who was perched on the beefcake-droid's shoulder yelled. "It's harackra!!1"

Haruka sighed. "Man, that s[BLEEP]t sounds like the sound Artemis makes when he hacks up s[BLEEP]t."

Artemis sweatdropped.

"Were u biches haded??/" Chibiusa asked, looking towards the Castle. To Artemis' eyes, she was sharp and clear, but now a bit brighter.

"If it wasn't for the fact she had no counterpart in Live Action verse, she would have been more perfect than you," Haruka blurted out, words stuffed into her mouth again.

Artemis took that in, and nodded. Chibiusa, for her part, not understanding, snapped, "im mror parfackt dan, u bichass!!1111 UR MAI PISONERS1111"

"Oh no," Haruka muttered. "Prisoners. I guess my life is f[BLEEP]ing over then." Artemis shrugged as best he could.

"Cum with mi!" Chibiusa commanded. "U kan wach az mai armiez defeet da uders an i tak da thone ov kistal tokio!111 mohshshshshshshhsshsh!!"!

She snapped her fingers, and the mandroids marched in lock-step, taking Haruka, Motoki and Artemis in tow.

There was a sick thumping sound as one of the mandroids malfunctioned and began humping a distraught Daimon-youma. Chibiusa turned and saw this, and imperiously fired a deadly stream of pink hearts from her moon stick at the machine, exploding its head..... then its cranium. As it dropped to the ground spasming, she yelled out to her troops "U WALL DASAIRE ONLI MI!11111"

No mandroid dared disagree.*

* Chibiusa's cross continuity is pretty much straightforward, actually. There are just a LOT of back and forth hops to and from the future that makes it seem tangled. I will excerpt them from the Chronology so it's easier to make sense of. For retcon purposes, as will be seen next, all that's really changed is that her strong friendship with Rei from the anime will be intensified as opposed to the hostility that exists in SS currently.

Chibiusa's army marched through the streets slowly, spending most of its time killing Youma, as the Gundams and Martian spacecraft seemed deadlocked over the Palace proper. When they did make it to the huge seat of Imperial power, they could see that a huge side of the palace had collapsed inwards and shattered, revealing a tense standoff between Sailors Mars and Mercury.

"Why are you getting in my way!?" Sailor Mercury hissed, summoning a huge cloud of freezing gas around her like two coiled serpents as Sailor Mars circled her, Flame Sniper at the ready.

"Because this is INSANE!" Mars snapped.

"INSANE?" Mercury laughed. "YOU'RE the one who raised a battle fleet and came hee declaring martial law! Your ships have done more damage to Tokyo than the rest of all the factions combined!"

"Only because you WON'T SURRENDER!" Mars replied.

"Oh, should I be a good little girl and roll over when the Imperial Navy says so?" Mercury laughed. "I don't THINK SO. You should have stayed in the past and played house with the Outers."

"I DID!" Mars replied. "But it's just as well Setsuna shoved everything together. Insane MANIACS like you need to be stopped! I just picked up where I had left off!"

Mercury growled. "Everyone, always expecting me to conform, to comply to do what's wanted. 'Ami, you're smart, go to three cram schools at once so you can be a good little doctor like your mother. Don't be a bum like your artist father who walked out. Get good grades Ami, keep up the face of the family, Ami.' ENOUGH! I WON'T LISTEN TO THEM AND I WON'T LISTEN TO YOU! I WASTED ENOUGH OF MY LIFE DOING THAT!"

"Dude. This is some deep s[BLEEP]t," Haruka commented blithely, cracking open a beer and drinking, as Artemis rolled his eyes.

"Don't expect pity from ME!" Mars shot back. "After my mother died, Papa sunk deeper into his DAMN politics! Risa Hino was just a name to him! She meant nothing! I meant nothing! He said he was sending me to live at the shrine with Ojii-san because of my powers, but it was REALLY because he couldn't be bothered to deal with his little girl who needed love!"

"Oh har har, cry me a river, Rei-chan," Mercury replied sarcastically. "You needed so much love that you, a shinto MIKO, dressed like a SKANK and hit on EVERY CUTE BOY YOU SAW! You really were a 'Roppongi Girl!'"

Mars stood there, scowling, noticing Artemis for the first time, her image blurring a bit and resharpening. "I don't like men. No, that's not right. I don't like the games they play with women. I have no time for men who are like that. Men Like my father. THOSE I hate with no mercy. But I do... I do want a man to love me. To give me casablancas, to stroke my hair, to care for me for who I am. And so I will live, live like a normal girl even IF I have my powers. I will date, and I will PARTY, AND I WILL BE A MIKO! I AM HINO REI, AMI! LOVER, FIGHTER, SHAMAN! I CAN DO IT ALL! AND NO ONE CAN STOP ME! AND YOU DAMN. WELL. KNOW THIS!"*

* Anime / Manga / PSGM Rei hybrid GET

Everyone backed up a step, the sheer fire of Rei's iron will no small thing. Her very aura was on fire. Snarling, she pulled back on the bow of the flame sniper and let the arrow fly at Mercury, who began to dodge.

"Stop this, minna!!" Sailor Venus yelled, having just burst in through the crowd of manrdoids right before Mars had let go of the arrow.

As everyone looked on in horror, she was knocked off her feet, twisting in mid-air, impaled by the Flame Sniper, the sheer force of the impact blowing her transformation away and sending her smashing hard into a wall.

TO BE CONTINUED