Silver Millennium Chapter 3: Beneath the Tree of Memory, a sailor moon fanfic

Silver Millennium

By: Amber Evans Potter

Chapter 3: Beneath the Tree of Memory

Summary: When Queen Serenity's spell goes haywire, the entire population of Earth must watch the chain of events that led to the Moon Kingdom's destruction. Sequel to Lunar Expedition.

Author's Note: hello and welcome to the sequel of Lunar Expedition, the story of Silver Millennium. Like it's predecessor, SM is going to be pretty long so I hope you're ready for a huge story.

It's been a crazy month, ya'll. Just got a new job that took up more time than I expected but this story is still somehow churning. Let's thank the Lunar gods this time for this one! Hope you like it and everyone is staying safe!

…

Makoto found she hated airports as much as she hated airplanes. There were enormous lines, people telling other people what to do in the most clinical, impersonal way possible, and everything smelled funny. Sterile. Nothing warm or familiar or human at all.

"Smells like home," Ami murmured quietly. When Makoto heard her and turned her head, Ami seemed surprised. Then she smiled. "Mercury. It smells sterile and inpersonal. I hated it."

Makoto felt a wave of emotion. It came from nowhere, had nothing connected to it, no memories to offer up, just…sorrow. She crushed Ami in a tight hug, trembling as she did. Ami seemed to understand even if Makoto didn't because she hugged her back tightly, her arms tight. "It's okay," she said quietly. "The plane will be okay."

"Not that," Makoto whispered. "Something…I can't remember."

"Oh," Ami seemed to consider that for a long moment, then said, "He's okay. You might not remember but I do. He's okay."

For some reason, that calmed some of Makoto's fears. She didn't dare ask who "he" was. She just knew that there was someone she was worried about and the thought of…him, in a place like that…. Her head hurt. She couldn't remember and it would be horrible for anyone to know she didn't remember them. She stared at Ami wordlessly but Ami just smiled up at her. "I'm sorry," Makoto said miserably.

"Makoto, we love you, no matter what," Ami said. "We're all scared of things and we've all done things we don't want to remember or we wish we did." She squeezed her arms. "You're always going to be you and we'll never forget it."

Makoto smiled and wiped her cheeks, nodding as she hugged Ami again. "Keep Usagi safe."

"Keep Mamoru safe," Ami said. "You can accomplish anything. We've gone through the worst and come out stronger." She squeezed her again. "I believe in you."

"Thanks, Ami," Makoto said, nodding. She felt stronger, even if thought of getting on an airplane made her skin crawl. Taking a deep breath, she straightened up. "Alright. I'm ready."

Ami smiled and handed her a ticket. She'd bought all of the tickets using the jewelry her mother had given her. They all knew Ami's mom had a lot of money but this was the sort of personal sacrifice none of them had expected to make. They didn't want to draw attention to themselves by traveling by other means because of the volatility of the barrier (even Ami didn't trust it) but when they'd tried to talk to her about it, Ami had been short with all of them.

"It needs to be done," she said, and refused to discuss it any more.

Makoto took the ticket reverently and nodded to her. "I won't let you down."

Lillian watched Venus growing smaller as their ship cruised away from the glowing planet, her fingers leaving faint smudges on the glass. Silvia would have yelled at her about it if she wasn't telling the pilot exactly how he was supposed to enter into Earth's atmosphere to avoid the shields already up around the palace. Or compound. Lillian didn't have details about where or who was going to be there, or much of anything. It didn't matter that she was a princess of Venus because none of her sisters seemed to care for her opinion or contribution.

She wandered away from the glass, hoping to spy some additional information from one of the prompters when she noticed something. Arianna, the second oldest, wasn't beside Silvia, being a bossy pain. She was sitting at her seat, completely strapped in despite the cruising speed, her eyes closed and her hands clenched like claws over the arms of the chair.

Lillian debated speaking to her (it was never clear if Arianna was going to be kind or cruel) but Arianna made a soft whimpering sound, almost too soft to hear. Lillian went to her side, crouching beside her, and very carefully touched her hand. "Are you okay?"

Arianna jumped, turned her head to stare at her, blanched, then nodded. After a long moment, her lower lip trembled and she said, "I really hate traveling this way."

It was the most brutally honest thing Lillian could remember her sister saying to her. She was normally…distracted, or at least not nice. Not openly mean but not nice. This was weirdly vulnerable from her.

"Is there something I can do?" Lillian asked.

"No," Arianna barked a laugh that sounded almost like a sob. Closing her eyes, she inhaled slowly through her nose. "You were born on this route."

Lillian felt herself flush. Oh. She looked more carefully out of the glass windows, seeing all around them the space and floating debris of…old ships. A chill went down her spine as she squeezed Arianna's hand.

"I was here," Arianna said quietly. "When you were born. It was…it was really bloody. We lost everything that night. It was the longest night of my life."

Lillian had never heard this story. She had heard of it, but never told the story. She wanted so much to ask Arianna, in this moment where she was being open and honest, about how their mother had given birth to her in space instead of in the Magellan Castle, but Arianna had opened her eyes and screamed. Lillian jerked around, her eyes widening as something moved in the darkness of space and a beam of light hit the ship. She screamed, grabbing onto the seat as they were tipped sideways, Arianna grabbing at her to keep her from flying off.

"What's happening!" Arianna screamed, holding onto Lillian's arms in a vice grip.

"Silvia?" Lillian tore her gaze to the side as the ship righted its gravity, landing with a thwack on her knees. Silvia lay crumpled across the control panel on the other side of the ship, her eyes wide and her breathing hard. "Silvia!"

"Silvia!" Arianna wrenched at the bonds holding her in her seat. Both sisters ran to Silvia, who continued to stare off. Was she conscious? Before Lillian could ask, Arianna slapped her hard enough to echo in the space.

"Wake up!" Arianna snarled. "Strap in if you're not injured. Evasive action!" She ran back to the pilot, who snapped into action. Silvia reddened but snapped her jaw shut, eyes narrowed as she let Lillian help her down. She was bleeding from the head and had a weird limp to her gait as she moved, but she did move. They strapped themselves into their seats as Arianna, petrified moments before, looped her hand into the buckle on the pilot's chair and spoke rapid-fire orders into his ear. The ship jerked to the side, then trembled as it was hit again.

"What's attacking us?" Lillian whispered.

"Pirates," Silvia spat. She pointed to a spot to the far side, still in the darkness. "Youma. I've never seen them in this part of the solar system for centuries. They used to run rampant in this area before the Silver Millennium Senshi ran them out. Hold on tight."

Lillian stared at the spot, trying to see the darkened mass that fired mercilessly down on them. She remembered the fear in Arianna's eyes when she said that Lillian had been born in space. Like this? Under attack like this?

The ship rocked with another impact, the sudden grating sound of tearing metal setting her teeth on edge as her jaw snapped shut. She tasted blood in her mouth but didn't dare swallow, clenching her eyes.

"Urgent distress," Arianna was saying, her tone hard but low. "Come in, we are under attack. Urgent distress, send help immediately. I repeat, we are under attack. Shit!"

Lillian opened her eyes as the ship slowed to a sickening halt. Instead of a ship, a massive cloud seemed to billow all around them, clogging their engines and darkening the stars around. The cloud had something inside of it, some massive structure that sucked in all the light around it, seeming to form a shape from what was not there: columns, walls, fountains, ornaments. A man with brilliant hair like fire became visible, wielding some kind of flaming sword. As he raised it, the darkness washed over their ship like a tidal wave.

"How long ago did we receive the distress signal?" Queen Frida asked, her red nails tapping impatiently on the control panel.

"Two hours ago," Mulciber said, his voice muffled by the atmosphere helmet he wore over his armor. His sword glowed as he tapped in the combination code to adjust the speakers directly into the helmet, his breathing getting much louder. "We're going to find them. It was a shit plan anyway, don't blame yourself. We made the mistake."

"There is no time for blame," Hephaestus said from his own station. Surrounded by heavy artillery, his sword was far more decorative than Mulciber's–infused with similar Mercurian technology, it offered an opportunity for communication that would be impossible otherwise. "Give me a few minutes to set up reconnaissance. We don't yet know if they're still fighting or if we are looking for a salvage job."

"Take your time," Frida said, sitting back and crossing her arms over her chest, closing her eyes.

Frida had always been an advocate for the unity of their Solar System's resources but now didn't like their dependence on the technology. Restoration efforts and crisis control teams were still handling the tremors and damage done by the recent shockwaves created by the Silver Crystal's power. She was embarrassed to be told she'd experienced something like it as a child but couldn't remember it, no matter how much Hephaestus tried to remind her.

"She was a fucking baby, what do you expect?" Mulciber had grunted, putting an end to the conversation.

Residents of Mars, comfortable in highly-controlled environments, had needed to return to the surface in temporary escape structures normally used for monitoring weather patterns and climate conditions for food production. Earth probes and satellites picked up their frequencies and sent wild messages to them in those most arcane form possible, amusing controllers but also clogging up frequencies while teams worked.

Routine, normal life had been interrupted and the societal pressures of behaving like a strong leader were difficult to follow through on when her uncles, her most trusted advisors, argued against war.

Martians preferred war as a solution to most problems, even if their battles had been left mostly with Jupiter royals trying to test out their abilities or the occasional rogue youma group hoping to get a foothold into their region. Frida preferred peace because it was more stable but she knew that this was the sort of unprecedented action that she could not be expected to ignore. Public opinion was putting pressure on her to act, and to act publicly, to demonstrate the might of the Martian power. They would expect her to act, to attack, to fight for them.

Hephaestus had shaken his head. "We don't have enough tactical information for that," he'd said, as if she was a child again. "We can go and see for ourselves if these people are who they claim to be." He'd said it with the same tone he used when describing a tenth scouting mission, or tangling with a known adversary: routine, unlikely to be different, completely necessary to be thorough. He expected this to be nothing but, as always, he taught her patience when she wanted to impulsively prove herself.

Now Venus's ship, filled with their entire ruling family (the idiots), had been attacked with time to send only one distress signal before their presence was blighted out by something yet unidentified. No other planet was close enough to send help. No other planet would send help anyway. They were Martian; their appetite for battle was expected, which was probably why the Venetian ship had sent their message directly to them.

Frida looked up when she heard a sound but the communication was still down between her and her uncles. She sighed and relaxed, closing her eyes.

Among the other rulers of the Solar System, she was by far the youngest of them. The Queens of Mercury and Venus, touched by the Silver Crystal's light over a thousand years ago and looking young enough to be timeless, were much older than she was, even if she had been exposed as a child to the Silver Crystal and aged in a strange way. She looked older than her uncles, with gray in her hair, and arthritis in her hands, but she was far less experienced even than the Jupiter princes and princesses born to the Silver Millennium era. It was expected for her to behave with the dignity and knowledge of centuries, even though she had struggled to keep up with the vast knowledge of those who had lived through times she was too young to remember.

Glancing to the side of her monitor, she saw another news bulletin with a picture of her, adjusted to make her hair look more gray, the lines in her face more pronounced:

QUEEN FRIDA FRIGHTENED BY UNKNOWN ENEMY

IS HER SCANDALOUS BIRTH TO BLAME FOR YOUMA LENIENCY?

She shut the feed off, turning back to the reports on the screen. She'd long ago learned to ignore those sorts of attacks. The subject of her birth only became a scandal when she didn't do what one political leaning or the other didn't want. It didn't help that this missing ship was from Venus, and her mother had been from Venus. So…it was inevitable for these stories to crop back up.

She looked again at another bulletin.

This one had a picture of a photograph, back when she'd been a child. Sitting on the throne with a crown too large for her head, her uncles stood beside her. They looked like her older brothers, not her uncles, and Mulciber's face had that gaunt look she remembered only from her nightmares. He didn't look like that anymore, like he'd lost everything, but the news feeds loved to dig up those old family images.

SCANDALOUS QUEEN FRIDA BLINDED BY PAST

IS IT TIME FOR A NEW RULER?

"We're online now," Hephaestus said. Frida adjusted her posture, focusing back on the present instead of the niggling, eroding feeling of being a child again. "Have the scouts sent back any information?"

"No," Mulciber's voice was strained. "It's freezing. I hate space." The monitor showing his face blipped and then steadied on his prominent scowl. "I don't see any signs of the ship or wreckage. I'm going to take a closer look, see what I can find on the other side of this asteroid belt."

He signaled Hephaestus to show his position before moving away, his signal growing a bit fainter as it moved from the main ship. Hephaestus's gaze turned towards his screen, where a small image of Frida's own face frowned up at him. "Don't read the headlines anymore."

"I wasn't," Frida said, maintaining a stoic expression. "You should be focusing on what's ahead."

"Mulciber can handle a rogue spaceship attack," Hephaestus said. "I'm not concerned for him. I'm concerned for you. Public opinion of you has always been a tumultuous affair but the rumors about Sailor Mars are going to spark them all up again. I'd rather prepare you for that ahead of time while I still can. As much as I can."

"Uncle, it's alright," Frida said quietly. "I know that she was supposed to be Queen."

"No, she wasn't," Hephaestus said firmly. "That's what I wanted to talk to you about. The people in the news feeds have no idea what they're talking about. Senshi politics are tricky. We never bothered to teach them to you because we thought…" he paused.

"You thought they were all killed?" Frida supplied, her tone cold. "I don't approve of keeping vital information from me even if you think it is irrelevant. I'm not a child."

"I know you're not," Hephaestus said with a long-suffering sigh. "We both do. It's hard for Cib and I to remember you're older. We're so used to being your uncles, it's hard to feel like we won't be necessary to you forever."

Frida felt an odd twinge in her heart. Her uncles had been the constant of her life, it had never occurred to her that they might not be there one day. "Are you leaving?"

"What? No! I was just…ruminating," Hephaestus said with a laugh. His tone hardened as he said, "Anyway, you need to know that you are the rightful queen, no matter what anyone else says. The selection for Senshi is very simple: when all of the Senshi of a team die, the new ones are selected. I was there when the new Senshi were selected and Sailor Mars was very clearly picked. It's how we discovered you at all: you were a secret your father kept even from her."

Frida swallowed tightly. "Did my father know Sailor Mars?"

"She was his favorite person," Hepahestus said, his tone changing. When he swallowed, a sharp click over the intercom. "She was all of our favorites. We lost our parents a long time ago and she was our only sister. Your father and Sailor Mars were twins. The youngest. Cib and I were so happy when we could come back from war to see them, to care for them. We thought it was so clear that she would become queen."

He was quiet for so long that Frida thought he'd been cut off. Then he heaved a long, tired sigh. "I miss her too, you know."

"Then she was supposed to be queen," Frida whispered.

"No," Hephaestus's voice became harder. "No, she wasn't. She was always going to be Sailor Mars. She was selected. There's no mistaking it. It's not by any person, the planet itself picks…and it picked you to be queen, even when you were a baby hidden away, and it picked her. It was done. We had nothing to say about it but there was no mystery. You have always been meant to be queen."

There was something about the way that Uncle Hephaestus said things, with finality, with firm decisive, exhausted certainty, that made Frida finally relax. She took a shuddering breath with her eyes closed.

"Thank you, uncle," she said.

"Don't thank me," Hephaestus said. "We didn't want to bring it up. Cib isn't over it, even now. It's still painful for both of us, but especially for him. Talking about it makes him even angrier or I would have told you a long time ago."

Frida smiled faintly. "I know he's struggling. If he needs something, he can come to me. And so can you."

"I know, sweetheart," Hephaestus said with a chuckle. "We try not to burden you but…wait a minute. Mulciber, report."

Static came over the intercom, then the sounds of heavy breathing and startled cursing. No words, even as angry shouting was cut off.

"What in the…shit, Cib! Don't go in there! Gods," then the feed cut out. Frida refocused on the screen as a series of stuttered sounds and flashes of light showed before the crystal-clear image of a palace floating in a dark cloud appeared on the monitor.

"Cib! It's a trap!" Hephaestus's voice suddenly blasted into the speakers, his normally calm voice terrified and loud. "Cib! Fuck! Urgent distress, I repeat, this is an urgent distress call! I…we need backup, and fast! Fuck! Cib!"

"Uncle Hephaestus!" Frida shouted, rising to her feet. "We hear you, we're sending back up!"

"No! Not you!" Hephaestus shouted back, his voice echoing. "The Senshi! Get the fucking Senshi!"

"I…" Frida was suddenly at a loss. Then she snapped at her controller, "The Senshi are logged into the Mercury system, aren't they? That means they can receive messages. Send them an urgent distress message at once! Send them the coordinators to where my uncles are. Now!"

Rei couldn't sleep. Turning over, she felt instinctively along the pillow for Minako's tangle of blond hair. She stopped when she realized what she was doing, opening her eyes. She stared at the opposite wall, holding her breath as she struggled to reconcile the present and the past. Where was she? Who was she? What was the dream?

She closed her eyes as she heard the familiar wind against her open window. Earth had a smell like no other place she had ever been. It grounded her, soothed her raging feelings, her sudden anxiety and dread. The dread had been building for weeks now, something she had learned to hone and temper with prudence and observation. She sensed enemies when they approached the galaxy, often when Neptune and Uranus deflected such threats. They were busy now and the threat of danger felt like it was suffocating her, setting off every alarm in her brain and gut.

Rolling out of bed, she worked out the kinks in her shoulders. Thought about sending Minako a message. She would still be flying now. Maybe that was why she was so anxious, why that sense of dread wouldn't stop choking her. Closing her eyes, she tried to sense where Minako was, but could feel nothing but darkness.

She bathed and dressed in her robes, going to the Great Fire. Her grandfather saw her walking and waved to her. He suspected something, she knew he did because of the way she had been behaving lately, but there was nothing she could do. The dread only intensified when she thought about him finding out about her or anything about her true life.

All of them would have to face that reality soon, she knew that even if they were keeping the truth from Usagi: there was simply going to be a point where they could no longer live their human lives anymore. They would become what they were meant to be, Senshi and princess, forced out into the open. How, she didn't know. Or when.

She was startled to find Ami in the room with the Great Fire, curled up in a sleeping bag with her laptop right beside her head. She even had her glasses on, her hands twitching in her sleep.

Rei checked the watch at her wrist, frowning. She should have been in school. Both of them should have been, but Ami genuinely cared about her position in the school's academic pecking order. Rei had no one like Ami to compete against in her school, and besides it had been temporarily closed for repairs since one of the youma attacks had damaged the main gymnasium. Ami's school was still running and Usagi was there alone. Well, with Luna. Luna had taken to following Usagi directly into her classes, perching in trees or wandering in during lunch now that it was going to be just her and Ami. But Ami was here.

Usagi hadn't said a word through the comms. She must have known better than all of them that Ami needed some time to process what was happening. It was hard to remember that each of them had their own thoughts and feelings about what was happening and what they were all remembering. Rei had the comfort of having Minako close by, able to talk to their complicated history, their painful fights and the ruin of their past lives while trying to grow something new and fragile between them with the safety of understanding. Ami's past was riddled with pain in a way Rei didn't really understand, couldn't fathom, and Ami had been extremely quiet about it. Makoto might have understood, but Makoto didn't remember. That meant Ami was handling a lot of her own pain alone.

Moving closer, Rei dropped beside her and gently pet her hair. They all needed to be strong for one another. It made no sense to suffer alone. She understood, just as the others did. At least Ami had come here to be comforted instead of locking herself at home or somewhere else. She'd come to her without asking. That had to be its own message.

Something inside of Ami's blanket started to buzz, a light shining up to illuminate her face.

Ami jerked awake, barely opening her eyes as she fumbled around. She froze when she saw Rei, then smiled sheepishly. "I'm sorry, I…I couldn't sleep at home."

"It's fine, you can come here anytime," Rei said, nodding to the small Mercury computer. "What's going on?"

"A distress call," Ami said as she opened it, typing a quick litany of letters as she frowned, scanning the contents for a long moment. "There's been an attack. Youma. The Venus royal family is in danger." Her fingers paused. "We should help them."

Rei found that the automatic agreement froze on her tongue. "They were horrible to Minako," she heard herself say. Ami watched her for a long moment, fingers frozen over the keys. She didn't say anything. Rei felt that odd double-vision tugging at her, emotion and anger clouding her judgment. She closed her eyes and sighed, feeling the heat and security of the Great Fire in the room. Urging her to be calm. "No. We can't think that way. They asked for our help, we need to help them."

"I agree," Ami said. Then, "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have kept it, it's…" she winced. "I'm slipping into bad habits. I'm trying to catch myself. The Mars royal family is involved too, Mulciber and Hephaestus."

Rei swallowed tightly. The first flash of anger that Ami had kept it from her vanished with the flood of worry for them. "When did they send it?"

"Just now," Ami said, staring at the screen. "Usagi's in school." She paused. "We don't know what we'll find. It'll just be the two of us."

"We don't have time," Rei said. The feeling of dread had solidified for her. Even as she turned her gaze, inevitably, to the Great Fire, she could see what waited for her there: not strangers, but her brothers. In danger. She closed her eyes, taking a deep, cleansing breath before she stood. As she and Ami transformed, Rei could hear the startled gasp of her grandfather from the doorway.