Chapter 2: The Guardians and their Princess


Kitty reported their encounter with the four Sailor Guardians to Professor Xavier as soon as she and Illyana returned to the mansion/

“All I know is that metal monster and those girls were all magic, because Illyana could sense the fight and her sword turned the robot back into a kid,” she said.

The professor rubbed his chin in thought. “This is most unusual. Do you believe these people are connected to what happened in Limbo in any way?”

Kitty shook her head. It was a natural assumption, given that the X-Men’s recent experiences with magic mostly consisted of their battle with the sorcerer Belasco in Limbo and the assault of the Limbo demon S’ym on the mansion. But they knew there was more magic in the world than just Limbo, as the New Mutants’ recent battle with the Demon Bear proved.

“No. This seemed totally different.” Kitty looked to the side. “Actually, now that I think about it…”

“What is it?”

Kitty looked at him. “Those girls, the way they dressed reminds me of Sailor V.”

Xavier frowned. “Interesting.”

Sailor V was a teenaged superhero who fought crime in a mask and sailor uniform. She had been one of Kitty’s heroes before she joined the X-Men, but had fallen off the face of the earth in recent months. Most ‘superhero watchers,’ as they were known, speculated that Sailor V had been killed in action.

“This doesn’t seem to concern us,” Xavier said. “But I’ll keep an eye out in case they pop up again.”
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“You failed, Zoisite,” Queen Beryl hissed from her throne. “Again.”

Zoisite trembled as he bowed. “I am deeply sorry, your majesty! I do not know how they defeated Bunbo. There was no way Sailor Venus could have freed him from our control like she did the others.”

Beryl scowled. “You also let the Sailor Guardians get away with another rainbow crystal. Give me a reason not to take your life here and now.”

“I-“

“OOOOOOHHHH”

Beryl stood up and turned around.

“Begone,” she instructed Zoisite, who stood up and breathed a sigh of relief. “I don’t have time to waste on you.”

Beryl walked into the chamber behind her throne and dropped to one knee. Her waist-length red hair reached the ground as she bowed low despite her status as ruler of the Dark Kingdom.

“What is thy bidding, oh Great Ruler?”

A mass of dark energy began to pulsate in front of her, forming the outline of a face.

“The moon princess has appeared,” said a soft voice, barely more than a whisper. The voice seemed to come from every direction.

Beryl’s eyes lit up with fury and hatred. “That girl?”

“I felt her power,” the soft voice said. “She was there.”

“So, the Sailor Guardians have finally joined up with their princess,” Beryl observed.

“You must destroy her immediately,” the voice commanded. “She cannot be allowed to reclaim the Silver Crystal.”

Beryl bowed her head to the ground. “She is as good as dead, Great Ruler.”
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The New Mutants had a Danger Room session the next morning. While Professor Xavier insisted that they were not being trained to be the next X-Men, he still made them practice using their powers and working as a team.

One New Mutant did not participate in the training session. Danielle Moonstar had been released from the hospital just a few days earlier following her near-fatal encounter with the Demon Bear, and she was still confined to a wheelchair. She watched impatiently as her friends and teammates battled various robots without her.

Xavier did not need psychic powers to notice Dani’s frustration. “What’s the matter?” he asked.

“I just wish I was out of this chair and down there with them,” Dani complained.

“In time,” Xavier assured her. “You’re lucky to be alive after the injuries you received. These things can’t be rushed.”

Dani nodded and looked down at the fight going on in the Danger Room. She knew Xavier was right, but she still hated being confined to a wheelchair.

Below, Magma was melting a robot with her powers while Sunspot lifted another robot up and threw it into Cannonball’s flight path. The resulting collision was spectacular.

Wolfsbane was struggling against a bipedal robot with super-strength. While the lupine mutant was far stronger than ordinary humans in her transformed states, this particular robot was programmed to test Sunspot’s
strength and was pushing her back.

A disk of light appeared, cutting off the robot’s arms and freeing Wolfsbane from its clutches. Wolfsbane turned to the side, where Illyana was looking at her out of the corner of her eye.

“I didna’ ask for youir help, witch,” Wolfsbane spat.

Magik turned away to focus on another opponent, and above, Xavier buried his head in his palm.

This was Illyana’s first Danger Room session with her teammates since officially joining the New Mutants. Xavier knew the trainee team was having a hard time accepting Illyana after learning she was a sorceress in addition to being a mutant, but he was starting to realize the problem was worse than he initially believed.

His brow furrowed as his psychic senses detected multiple unfamiliar presences approaching the school, and he turned on the speaker. “That’s enough for today. Everyone hit the showers. You’ll receive my assessment of your performances later. Illyana, please meet me in my office.”

“What’s wrong, professor?” Dani asked as he quickly moved to leave.

“It’s nothing, Dani,” he assured her. As soon as he was out the door, his hand shot to the side of his head as he telepathically contacted Kitty.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mina, Rei, Amy, and Lita were dropped off by a taxi outside the grounds to the Xavier school.

Mina was a British girl with a large pink bow in her long, blonde hair. She carried a white cat with a crescent shaped bald spot on its forehead on her shoulder.

Amy was a studious New York girl with short blue hair and carried a black cat with an identical bald spot on its forehead in her arms.

Rei was a serious-faced Japanese girl with long, blonde hair whose eyes carefully scanned the grounds and the mansion as they approached.

Lita was a tall, muscular girl with brown hair tied in a pony tail who towered over her companions.

The front gate opened electronically for them.

“Seems we’re expected,” Mina said as they entered.

They crossed the grounds and made their way to the front door. Mina raised her hand to knock, but it opened before she could, revealing Kitty on the other side.

“Hello there,” Kitty said.

“May we come in?” Mina asked.

Kitty opened the door fully and beckoned them inside. “The headmaster wants to talk to you.”

“Headmaster,” Mina observed, “like being back in England.”

“Kitty closed the door behind them and led them down the hall to the left. “So, how’d you find this place?”

“The boy you and your friend saved last night has the power to see the future. He was able to give us enough information to know where to go.”

“Thank you so much for saving Greg,” Amy said. “I don’t know what we’d have done if you hadn’t been there.”

“That was all Illyana. Her sword disrupts all magic. All I did was watch.” Kitty stopped in front of Xavier’s office and paused before entering. “I gotta ask, are you people related to Sailor V?”

Lita laughed. “Related? Mina is Sailor V!”

Kitty’s stoic expression parted into a wide smile. “Really? Wow, can I get your autograph?”

“I was Sailor V,” Mina corrected. “I don’t do that anymore.”

“Too bad,” Kitty said as she opened the door to the office.

Xavier was sitting in front of his desk, with Illyana standing to his left.

“Welcome to the Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters,” he said. “To what do we owe this pleasure?”

The cats leapt off of their carriers and landed on the desk. “We’re looking for someone,” the white cat said in a male voice.

“Did … that cat just … talk?” Kitty asked.

“Luna and Artemis both talk,” Amy answered. “It was weird having cats as our guides at first, but you get used to it after a while,” Lita added.

Mina spoke up. “We Sailor Guardians are reincarnated warriors from a long-extinct kingdom on the moon. We were reawakened to do battle with our ancient enemy, who has returned and threatens this world the same way they destroyed our kingdom.”

“That doesn’t explain why you’re here,” Illyana said.

“Well, if they need help saving the world, the X-Men are the right people for the job,” Kitty replied.

The black cat, Luna, spoke in a female voice. “While any help you can provide would be appreciated, I’m afraid we must find one specific person or else this world is doomed for sure.”

“Who are you looking for?” Illyana asked.

Mina pulled out her crescent compact and handed it to Kitty. “Would you both look into this mirror?”

Kitty raised an eyebrow at the strange request but complied, opening the compact to reveal the mirror within.

“It’s just a normal mirror,” she said when nothing happened.

“Now you look into the compact,” Artemis instructed Illyana.

Kitty handed the compact to Illyana, who looked down into the mirror and gasped.

As the mirror aligned with Illyana’s face, the compact began to glow and vibrate in response, and a silver crescent symbol appeared on the forehead of her reflection.

Artemis and Luna exchanged satisfied looks and all of the girls stared in awe as the center of Illyana’s forehead began to glow as well, the silvery light growing into a crescent symbol to match the one in her reflection, only brighter.

Illyana raised her free hand to forehead to try to wipe the mark away, but it remained, as much a part of her skin as a birthmark. She quickly shut the compact. The glow from the mirror and the mark on her forehead vanished immediately.

“It’s you,” Mina whispered, “at last.”

Illyana put the compact down on Xavier’s desk and asked: “what the hell was that?”

Mina dropped to one knee and knelt with her head bowed down. “Princess Serenity, we are your humble servants and guardians. Please accept our vow of loyalty, and we shall protect you and the Silver Crystal until our dying day.”

Kitty looked back and forth in confusion, and Illyana appeared just as lost. She turned to the window and closed her eyes, taking deep breaths and shaking her head.

“I’m afraid this is somewhat overwhelming and confusing for Illyana, for all of us, really,” Xavier said. “Perhaps you could explain what you mean?”

“The Sailor Guardians were the protectors of the royal family of the Moon Kingdom, the Silver Millennium, which ruled the entire soler system” Luna explained. “We have been searching for the Moon Princess for some time.
She was reincarnated along with the guardians, and is the only one who can wield the power of the Silver Crystal to stop the Dark Kingdom. It is the sworn duty of the Sailor Guardians to protect her as she accomplishes that task.”

Mina looked up at Illyana, her expression slowly morphing from joy to concern as Illyana continued to face the other way.

“Get up,” Illyana said simply.

Mina rose and slowly, tentatively approached her. As soon as she got close, Illyana sun around, her fist moving in a rapid right hook which struck Mina directly on the side of her eye.

Mina was lifted off her feet by the force of the blow and land on her back in front of the other Sailor Guardians.

“Mina!” Artemis yelled, leaping off the desk to his young charge.

“Illyana!” yelled Xavier.

Kitty covered her nose and mouth with her hands in shock as the Sailor Guardians bent down to help Mina up.

“What’d you do that for?” Lita demanded.

“Get out,” Illyana spat. “I never want to see any of your faces again.”

Rei and Lita stepped in-between Illyana and Mina as Amy continued to try to help their leader, ready to fight if necessary.

“So much for Princess ‘Serenity,’” Rei observed.

“W-wait,” Mina said weakly as Amy helped her to her feet. She held her hand to the eye Illyana had struck “We’re leaving.”

“Are going to let her get away with-“ Lita began.

“I said we’re going!” Mina snapped. She grabbed her compact from the desk and gave Illyana one last, sad look before turning and walking quickly out of the office. The other guardians and the two cats followed immediately after her.

Xavier glared daggers at Illyana. “We do not assault our guests, young lady.”

“Why’d you do that?” Kitty asked.

Illyana humphed and summoned a stepping disk to teleport herself away, leaving Kitty and Xavier to look at each other in shock and confusion.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mina was laid on the couch of the apartment the Sailor Guardians were using in New York, holding an ice pack to her eye, which had become covered in a large, purple bruise.

“So, what do we do now?” Amy asked.

“If that’s the ‘princess,’ we’re better off without her,” Rei said.

“No,” Mina declared. “We finally found the princess, and we’re sticking close to her.”

“I told you there was a darkness to her!” Rei exclaimed. “You didn’t listen to me!”

“It doesn’t matter,” Mina said. “The mission hasn’t changed.”

“The mission,” Rei said dismissively.

“Mina’s right,” Artemis said. “Illyana is the Moon Princess. The compact proved it.”

“What if our sticking around is what leads the Dark Kingdom to finding her?” Lita asked. “We’d be putting her in danger instead of protecting her. If she doesn’t want us around, maybe it would be better for everyone if we went our separate ways.

Mina shook her head. “It’s too late for that. She and Kitty are already involved. After Bunbo, the Dark Kingdom will be looking for them.”
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Xavier found Illyana sitting in the dark in the room she shared with Kitty.

“Your behavior earlier today was unacceptable,” he admonished her. “What got into you?”

Not for the first time, Xavier wished that he could read Illyana’s mind as she did not respond, but her psychic shields remained as powerful as ever.

“I understand that you’re angry at how Rahne has been treating you, but you don’t have the right to take that out on others.”

“This has nothing to do with Rahne,” Illyana snapped.

“Then what is it? Why did you strike Mina without provocation?”

Illyana turned away, and Xavier sighed in resignation. “Consider yourself grounded until you either explain your behavior or apologize to Mina.”

He closed the door, and Illyana pulled out her locket. The Beatrix Medallion, which she wore at all times, was given to her by her former master, the demon lord Belasco. She opened the locket, and stared at the three bloodstones embedded at the points of pentagram within.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Xavier sighed again as he re-entered his office where so much had happened that day. A light was flickering on his desk, from the Shi’ar communicator left to him by his beloved.

Xavier hurriedly activated the communicator, and a hologram of Lilandra, former Empress of the Shi’ar Empire, appeared above his desk.

“Charles,” she said, “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to respond before. Things have been hectic with the Starjammers. It is good to see you again, my love.”

“For me as well,” he replied, both overjoyed at hearing Lilandra’s voice and relieved that his signal had gotten through. The Starjammers were so often in parts of the universe where communication was impossible these days.

“Why are you calling me?”

“I wanted to ask, have you heard of an ancient space-faring civilization on Earth’s moon called the Silver Millennium?”

“The Silver-? Yes, many thousands of years ago, there was a great civilization with that name which was known and admired even in the Shi’ar Empire. It is how we knew of the SOL system in the first place.”

“And the Sailor Guardians who protected it?”

“I believe the legends speak of a group of four warriors who guarded the queen and her family and treasure. The name has been lost to time.”

“And that treasure, was its name lost to time as well?”

“No. It was known as the Silver Crystal, and object of immense power. Perhaps the comparisons to our own M’Kraan Crystal are responsible for it being more well known.”

“I see. Thank you for confirming this is all real. I’d appreciate it if you could send me any information you have on the Silver Millennium, the Silver Crystal, and whatever force destroyed their civilization.”

“I’ll see what I can do. I doubt the information would be in the Starjammers’ computers. What is going on Charles? Why are you asking me these things?”

“I’m not sure myself yet,” Xavier answered. “It would seem that the past is becoming more relevant to the present, and my school is about to get swept up in whatever is coming whether we want to or not.”

“Very well. Be careful, my love.”

“You as well, my love.”

Lilandra cut off the signal, and her hologram vanished. Xavier walked around his desk and stared out of his window into the night sky, looking at the crescent moon.

Chapter 4: The Darkness Within


Queen Beryl angrily tapped the arm of her stone throne as an image of a girl with silver armor and a glowing sword appeared before her.

"You are certain that this is the Moon Princess?" she demanded.

Zoisite bowed as he answered, his most recent failure had left him on even shakier ground with Beryl. "There is no doubt, your majesty."

The image shifted and showed the glowing crescent moon which had appeared on Illyana's forehead when she gripped the rainbow crystal.

"Yes. You are right. It is her," Beryl said as she leaned back in the throne, her voice becoming calmer. "Still…"

She examined Illyana's features closely, from the incomplete armor covering her left arm to the look in her eyes.

"She has clearly not fully awakened yet, but something is different about her. That sword, that look on her face, they don't belong."

'Is this your doing, Queen Serenity?' she wondered. 'Did you plan on turning your darling daughter into a warrior in one last attempt to thwart my plans?'

"Zoisite!"

Zoisite quickly bowed again. "Yes, my queen?"

"The princess is now your primary target. You are to take her life immediately. Everything else is secondary."

"It will be done, your majesty," Zoisite declared, vanishing in a cloud of flower petals.

Beryl lifted the arm which had been on the arm of her throne and rubbed her chin in thought.

"Kunzite," she called out, the undertone of rage which had been barely concealed when she had spoken to Zoisite vanishing.

The greatest of the Shittenu stepped out of the shadows and into the spot where Zoisite had stood. "My how I serve you, Queen Beryl?"

"You must find out all you can about the Moon Princess."

"I am to aid Zoisite?"

"No." Beryl looked at the image of Illyana again. "This foe is far beyond his capabilities. When she destroys him, we will learn more about her power."

Kunzite could not fight back the gulp which rose in his throat and took an involuntary step back. "You would sacrifice Zoisite?"

"He has failed me too many times. Let his last failure at least prove useful for something. You will prepare our true attack on the princess and her guardians.

She focused on Illyana's eyes. Even in hologram form, Illyana's glare sent a shiver down her spine.

"You will discover who she has already fought to make her this way. And if they still live, you will bring them to me. I will know everything there is to know about the princess before I destroy her."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Amy was waiting with Luna and Artemis in the lobby of JFK Airport when Mina, Rei, and Lita finally landed back in New York.

"How was your flight?"

"Long," Mina answered.

'At least you were able to sleep," Lita complained. "I had no leg-room and couldn't get comfortable the whole time. I swear, I'm gonna go straight to Xavier's and wring Illyana's neck for abandoning us halfway around the world."

"About that…" Amy said.

"What is it?"

"She never returned to the school."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Charles Xavier rubbed his forehead as the Sailor Guardians entered his office again. The situation and his lack of control over it was giving him one of the worst headaches he'd ever had when not pushing his telepathic powers.

"I understand time was of the essence, but you should still have spoken to me first. I would have dispatched the X-Men to help and bring everyone back."

To his surprise, none of his guests appeared apologetic. They were as determined as ever.

"Where is she?" Mina demanded.

Xavier sighed. "Illyana … doesn't just teleport through space. She moves through time as well. And her control over that aspect of her power is … lacking."

The guardians' angry expressions turned to concern as they looked at each other.

"So she's … lost in time?" Amy asked.

Xavier nodded. "The farther she travels, the worse her control over when she arrives is. You were quite fortunate that you arrived in Tokyo when you needed to and not a year in the past or future."

Mina had to sit down. "We … we didn't know."

"I guess … she had a reason for not teleporting us back with her," Lita observed.

"Do you have any idea when she'll be coming back?" Mina asked.

Xavier looked down in thought. "Going by past experience, I would expect her to arrive about one to two weeks after she intended to. If she overshot her arrival by an especially long amount of time she will try again, and she will have more control the second time since she will be only moving through time and not space. She seems to just accept the lost time if it is less than two weeks."

Mina scowled. "We'd better hope the enemy doesn't learn about this. Otherwise they could lie in wait and attack the moment she reappears, before she or any of you have a chance to defend yourselves."

"So, I take it my school is now in danger?"

Mina nodded. "I'm afraid so. I'm sorry."

Xavier stood up. "I knew this would happen sooner or later after your first visit. I'll have to tell the X-Men and the New Mutants everything. I'd have preferred to do this when Illyana was here, but it does not seem that I have any choice."

"Wait," Mina said. "Can you tell us what happened to Illyana a year ago?"

Xavier stopped. "Kitty should not have told you about that. It wasn't her place."

"Look, Kitty seems to think that Illyana hit me because she was angry at us for not being there to protect her a year ago, but she's wrong."

Xavier raised his head in surprise and looked at her. The other guardians also reacted with surprise.

"Unlike my comrades, my powers are based on the heart instead of an element. I'm an empath."

"You could sense her emotions, when I cannot even read her thoughts?"

"Yes. That's part of what made me such a good detective when I was Sailor V. If Illyana was as angry as she pretended to be, I'd have seen that punch coming and been able to avoid it. She was feeling a lot of things, but anger wasn't one of them."

"Do you all have abilities like this which you can use when you are not transformed?"

"I have certain abilities as a Shinto priestess," Rei said.

"I don't know if it counts, but I've always been much stronger than I should be given my size and weight," Lita said.

"I also don't know if it counts, but I've been told my mind functions more like a computer than like other people's," Amy said.

"Fascinating," Xavier said. "The four of you may actually be mutants like Illyana."

"Don't change the subject," Mina said. "Are you going to tell us what happened a year ago, or not?"

Xavier grimaced and shook his head.

"You can't, or won't?"

"Both," he answered. "The only one who knows exactly what happened is Illyana herself. And she's never even told her brother or Kitty."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Zoisite growled in frustration as he attempted to use the dark crystal to reveal the princess' location.

"How is this possible? It's like she doesn't exist on Earth!"

Nothing he tried seemed to work. The dark crystal should have revealed the location of the rainbow crystal Illyana had taken from him, but Jiji's crystal seemed to have vanished entirely. The Sailor Guardians' cats had developed technologies that made the girls difficult to track, but he could always narrow their location down to a certain area. With the princess, even that was proving impossible.

"Did she destroy the rainbow crystal?" he wondered. 'She couldn't have. They need the Silver Crystal more than we do.'

He took out the two rainbow crystals he had succeeded in obtaining. With Beryl's displeasure at his failures, he would be forced to battle not only the princess but all four guardians at the same time. His only hope would be to be able to harness the power of these fragments of the Silver Crystal.

Zoisite's attempts to track down the princess through facial recognition or by using the unique energy signature her sword was found to give off had proven just as unsuccessful.

"Damn it!"

He put the dark and rainbow crystals away and summoned an image of Greg.

"If I can't find her, I'll have to wait for her to show herself,' he thought. 'She first appeared when I went after this boy and his rainbow crystal. There may be a connection there. It's all I can do.'

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rahne had a dazed look in her eyes as she opened the door to her room.

The last day had been one of the most enjoyable she'd had in a while. After months of failure, she'd finally begun to feel comfortable using the computers to do her schoolwork. She'd scored the winning basket in the New Mutants' basketball game despite being so much shorter than Sam. She'd gotten farther in writing her story. And Dani's recovery was progressing nicely.

What the professor had just told them had completely shattered her good mood.

Rahne sat at her desk and looked at the pages of lined paper she'd poured so much of her heart and soul into the last few weeks, hours spent with a pencil in hand each night telling the story of the beautiful Princess Alystraea and her struggles against the Silver Sorceress.

'Why did it have to be her?'

Part of Rahne's good mood the past day had been the fact that Illyana was gone. She did not have to interact with or look at the sorceress.

The professor had just told them about the four girls who had been coming to the mansion and their relationship to Illyana. And so Rahne learned that as she was writing her fantasy of being a fairy-tale princess who would defeat the evil sorceress, the equivalent of a group of fairy godmothers – complete with talking animals - had come to reveal that the real princess of a lost kingdom was the evil sorceress all along.

Rahne screamed and began to cry as she ripped the first page of her story in half.

'It's not fair! She's a witch! She consorts with demons and comes from hell! She's pure evil! So why is it her?'

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lita and Rei went straight to bed as soon as they got back to their apartment. Between their jet-lag and spending most of the day at Xavier's they were exhausted.

Amy did not join them. She alone of the group had family in the area, and while she spent a lot of time with her teammates, she slept in her own apartment so that he parents would not worry about her.

This left Mina all alone with her thoughts.

"What's wrong?" Artemis asked.

"When we were helping Xavier explain the situation, I could sense how Illyana's classmates, the New Mutants, were feeling about her. Only the one in the wheelchair, Dani, seems to like her at all."

"Given how she's treated you it's not surprising that she doesn't have many friends."

"I asked Dani about that, and she said that Illyana's always been nice to them. It's only with us that she's been acting this way. She said that their problem with her is just because she's a sorceress. She's been trying to make friends, but they fear and hate her too much to let her, especially that redhead. There are people I've put away for life who don't hate me as much as she hates Illyana."

"That doesn't make any sense. Why would Illyana deliberately antagonize you if she needs more friends and is nice to people who hate her?"

"I wish I knew. Knowing what people are feeling doesn't always mean I know what they're thinking, and with Illyana, I can't understand her at all."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A pair of newcomers sat in the kitchen of the Xavier's mansion and talked excitedly. Douglas Ramsay had been summoned by the New Mutants when a meteor which turned out to be an alien life-form landed near the mansion. In an instant his life had changed, he now knew that he was a mutant with the power to understand and speak any language, and he was hanging out with a shape-shifting alien who was made of organic circuitry rather than flesh and blood named Warlock, carrying out a conversation entirely in binary code.

They stopped talking as a disk of light appeared near the refrigerator. As the disk disappeared, it revealed a girl with blonde hair who Doug had met before through Kitty.

Illyana gaped at the unexpected sight of Doug and a misshapen alien in the kitchen.

"Doug? And what is that?"

"This is Warlock. He and I are on the New Mutants now."

"Wait, what?" Illyana realized that Doug was wearing a yellow and black New Mutants uniform. "How long was I gone?"

"I think about ten days."

"Just great. It seems I missed quite a lot."

"Yeah. It was crazy when Warlock arrived."

Warlock finally spoke up. "Self has observed that 'crazy' seems to be the normal state of affairs in this school."

"Yeah. Crazy like everyone worrying about a runaway princess,"

Illyana buried her face in her palm. "Ah, spit and hades."

"Everyone knows now, the New Mutants included."

"Don't call me a 'princess' again," she warned. "I'm in a bad enough mood as it is."

"Um, ok," Doug stammered, shocked by the intensity of her voice and glare.

"There you are."

They turned to see Xavier standing in the kitchen doorway.

"Illyana, we need to talk."

Illyana gave Doug and Warlock one last look before following Xavier into the hall.

"You didn't have to tell everyone," she complained.

"I'm afraid I did. They deserved to know why you had disappeared for so long, and now that this Dark Kingdom is threatening us, they needed to understand the danger we are in. I will not put your hurt feelings above the safety and well-being of all my other students."

"And you're not off the hook yourself," he continued. "You left the school grounds without permission after I had grounded you, and you used your power to travel halfway across the world despite knowing you have no control over such a large distance."

"What was I supposed to do?" Illyana demanded. "Rei's grandfather was being attacked at that moment."

"You should have informed me of what was happening! Maybe there wasn't enough time to gather the X-Men to help this time, but I could have at least sent the Blackbird to bring you home if I had known where you were going!"

Illyana stopped and looked down.

"I didn't think of that."

"No, you didn't."

Xavier sighed. "We received a phone call the other day from Greg, that boy you and Kitty saved. He said that he needs your help and asked that you come meet him in the city as soon as you returned."

"I thought I was still grounded."

"You are. But you've already proven I can't keep you locked in your room, and exceptions can be made if it's to help another person."

"Did he say why he wants me to meet him instead of just coming here himself?"

"He said if you helped him, he'd explain how you fit into this conflict, and he didn't think you'd want anyone else around for that."

Illyana pursed her lips. "Well, he's right about that."

"So, what will you do?"

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Greg gulped as he watched Illyana get off the bus across the street. He raised his arm to get his attention, and when he had it, he turned and walked into a nearby alley.

He stopped at the alley's dead end and turned to face her.

"You didn't teleport," he observed.

"I'm trying to avoid having to do that after my latest mishap. What, you didn't see that coming?"

"Yes and no."

Illyana's nostrils flared in anger. "I'm not in the mood for cryptic statements. You said you'd explain what's going on, so talk. Why did you tell the guardians I was this Moon Princess?"

"Because you are, no matter much you deny it. And because of that, you're the only one who can save the world."

"I'm only involved in this because you told those girls I was the person they were looking for. They seemed to be getting along just fine without me."

"That was against Beryl's minions. Against the mastermind and the force behind her, they can't win without your help. And you can't win without theirs."

Greg's voice cracked as he continued. "Please. This is the only thing I can do … to save Amy. I can't fight like you can. And I can't even predict the future as well as I used to."

"Huh? What do you mean?" Illyana asked.

"Before, I always saw one future – the future. But ever since I saw you in the park, my visions have gone crazy. I'm now seeing many different possible futures, and I have no way of knowing which is the real future anymore. There's something about you that makes the future uncertain, like your very existence has an effect on time itself."

"That's why I asked you to help me," he explained. "This power was bad enough before, but now it's driving me crazy. I know you have a spell that can take a person's powers away. I want you to cast it on me and free me from this curse."

Illyana was taken aback. "Any spell I cast would be dangerous."

"It'll be fine," he assured her.

"I don't-I don't know…"

"If you were in my shoes, and someone had the power to give you a normal life, you'd seize it in an instant."

"I would," she agreed. "All right. Just stand still."

Illyana held out her hand towards Greg. There were no words, no fancy gestures, and no glow.

"There. It's done," she said after three seconds, lowering her arm.

Greg squinted as he attempted to glimpse the future again.

"I can't see anything! You did it! I'm free!"

To her surprise, he began backing away from her. "And … I'm sorry about what comes next."

Illyana barely had time to open her mouth before she was seized in a dome of black energy. She turned her head to see Zoisite descending to the ground behind her, accompanied by what looked like a blue woman with dead white eyes and a row of razor-sharp teeth, another youma.

"I knew I'd find you if I watched the boy closely," the Shitennou said with a malicious grin. "I don't know where you've been hiding the last ten days, but you should have stayed there!"

He held out both arms towards the energy dome. "That mistake will cost you your life."

The dome contracted, the sides moving in to press against Illyana's body and hold her limbs in place. Electrical energy sparked along its surface, sending powerful shocks through her body.

"Illyana!"

Zoisite looked at the entrance to the alleyway, where the four Sailor Guardians had appeared.

"We didn't make it in time," Sailor Jupiter said.

Zoisite nodded at the monster he had brought with him. "Biel, deal with them."

Greg through himself to the ground behind the guardians as the blue youma leapt at them. Sailor Venus held out her arm and pointed at the creature.

"Crescent Beam!"

A beam of golden energy shot out of her finger and struck the youma head-on. The creature screamed as the Sailor Guardians' leader continued her attack, her arm unwavering as her beam drove the monster further back, until with a final yell, it disintegrated.

The distraction dealt with, Sailor Venus took out her crescent compact and prepared to throw it at Zoisite.

"Wait!" Greg yelled.

The guardians all looked at him, and he continued: "You can't interfere now!"

Sailor Venus looked back at the dome where Illyana was trapped. It was pulsating with even more energy now, all of which was being shot through Illyana's body. Her eyes were shut and her mouth was wide open, with there not being enough time between breaths for her to either scream or take a proper breath.

"Our entire mission is to protect her - we can't let her die!"

"Trust me!" Greg insisted. "I didn't call you here to save her, but to witness."

"Witness what?" Sailor Mercury asked.

Sailor Mars took a deep breath. "He may be right. I'm sensing … something."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Far away, in the Dark Kingdom, Queen Beryl watched the fight through her crystal ball with deep confusion.

"At this rate Zoisite will actually succeed. What are those Sailor Guardians waiting for? Are they really just going to let her die? Or do they know something we don't?"

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Zoisite laughed maniacally as he increased the force of his attack even further.

"I had hoped you'd scream or beg for mercy before the end, but it's too late for that now. By now, every nerve in your body must be screaming out in agony. That's your body's final desperate bid to stay alive."

Sailor Jupiter screamed "that's enough!" and stepped forward.

"I don't care what you think you saw," she snapped at Greg. "There's no way we can let this go on! Supreme thu-"

Illyana's eyes shot open, and the energy dome exploded, cutting off Sailor Jupiter's attack before she could launch it. The shockwave knocked the guardians and Greg over and threw Zoisite into the wall behind him, cracking it.

The spot where the dome had been was covered in smoke, blocking their view.

"What just … happened?" Sailor Jupiter asked. "Hey Rei, what's wrong?"

Sailor Mars was trembling and hyperventilating from fear. None of her friends had ever seen her this panicked before.

"There's no way," she whispered. "This can't be possible."

"What?"

The smoke was beginning to clear, and they could make out a dark figure standing within it.

"Impossible!" Zoisite exclaimed. "There's no way she could have survived that!"

"That doesn't look like Illyana," Sailor Jupiter said. "It's too big. Amy?"

Sailor Mercury summoned her visor and began to analyze the figure in front of them. "I don't know. None of the readings I'm getting from her make any sense. And the energy readings are off the scale!"

Sailor Venus clutched her heart. "It's her. But…"

Zoisite rose to his feet and unleashed a blast at the figure. The blast cleared the smoke away, revealing what stood before them.

The figure wore the same clothes as Illyana, but they were torn her body's growth in size and changes in shape. Her skin had turned a deep shade of red similar to Jiji's. Her eyes were pupilless, glowing orange, and two large fangs stuck out of her mouth. A pair of large horns stuck out from under her bangs, which had become unkempt. A long, muscular tail stuck out from the back of her pants, and her legs below the knees had turned into goat legs, complete with split hooves instead of toes.

The guardians were speechless. They could only stare as the creature which used to be Illyana, turned to glare at Zoisite.

"What is this trick? Are you trying to frighten me? Well, it won't work!" he declared, even as his trembling voice betrayed his terror.

Illyana only hissed in response.

"Say something, damn you!" Zoisite screamed, launching a two-handed blast at her. The blast struck her head on, but she stepped forward, completely unfazed.

"That … that doesn't look like any princess I've ever heard of," Sailor Jupiter said at last.

"The darkness I sensed in her," Sailor Mars said between labored breaths. "She's … she's pure evil … so much worse than any of the Dark Kingdom's servants."

"What do we do?" Sailor Jupiter asked their leader. "Do we fight her?"

Sailor Venus shook her head. "Don't … don't make me-"

Every attack in Zoisite's arsenal proved useless against Illyana in her new state, forcing him to use his last resort.

He took out the two rainbow crystals he had brought with him. "Maybe this will-"

Illyana waved her hand, and the crystals flew out of his grasp. Zoisite's flower petals surrounded him as he prepared to escape, but with a flick of her hand Illyana made the petals disappear, preventing his disappearing act.

"I can't believe what I'm seeing," Sailor Jupiter said.

Zoisite backed away, terrified for his life.

"What are you?"

Illyana raised her hand into the air, and an incredible force pushed Zoisite to his knees.

"Please, have mercy," he begged.

Illyana bent her fingers, and Zoisite's face was forced into the pavement in front of her. She lifted her leg and placed her hooved foot on the back of his head.

Zoisite screamed into the pavement, helpless as she began to press down on his head.

"She's gonna crush his head like a walnut!" Sailor Jupiter yelled.

"We've got to stop this," Sailor Mercury said. "Even Zoisite doesn't deserve this."

"Damn it," Sailor Venus said. "We have no choice but to stop her before she attacks us. And the only attack we've got that's powerful enough is the Sailor Planet Attack."

'But … that would almost certainly kill her," Sailor Mercury said.

Sailor Venus looked at Zoisite, whose screams were growing louder and more desperate as cracks began to form in the ground beneath his head. She closed her eyes for a moment to steel herself for what had to be done.

"I know."

Chapter 6: Beyond Belief

The Sailor Guardians waited in the mansion's main living room while Illyana changed into clothes that were not torn, together with Xavier.

The professor had sent the New Mutants into town to enjoy themselves. When he had read the guardians' minds and learned of the events which preceded Illyana's test in the Danger Room, he sent the X-Men off as well.

There were several times when Xavier opened his mouth to say something, but each time he shut his mouth before saying a word.

"You didn't know," Mina observed.

"I didn't … or rather, I didn't want to know," he admitted.

When S'ym had attacked the mansion, he referred to Illyana only as the Darkchild, and his manifested fears had appeared as Illyana in a demonic form very similar to what the guardians had just witnessed. Xavier had given no thought to those details until now, when their true implications had become apparent.

He needed to understand this strange, empowered form his student had taken, both to gauge what risk it presented to the school and its inhabitants, and to decide how and if it should be revealed to the X-Men and the New Mutants. He was not looking forward to Piotr's reaction to what his baby sister had become, and if the New Mutants learned of it, it would likely spell the end of any chance Illyana had of integrating with her peers and becoming a true part of the team.

They looked up as Illyana appeared at the top of the staircase. She had changed into a plain light blue t-shirt and a new pair of jeans. And was holding a small object which they could not make out.

"So … what's the big secret?" Lita asked.

Illyana shook her head. "Not here. The only place where I can explain it properly is in Limbo."

She glanced at Xavier. "I'd rather this be kept private."

Xavier paused for a moment, then nodded. She was asking him not only to stay behind for now, but also not to read the guardians' minds to learn everything she was about to reveal to them. He could do that for now, provided she spoke with him herself afterwards.

The guardians gathered around Illyana at the bottom of the staircase, and a stepping disk whisked them off to Limbo.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was pitch black when they arrived. There was so little light that they could barely make out the shape of the person next to them, let alone their face.

"Rei, could you give us some light?" Mina asked. Rei transformed and produced a small fire, lighting up their surroundings and making them gasp.

In front of them and behind Illyana, the corpse of a large man hung against a cave wall. His chest had been caved in, and his metal flesh was unmistakable.

"That's your brother!" Ami yelled.

"How in the-" Lita began. "But Colossus is alive. We just saw him at the mansion!"

Illyana bent down and picked up an abnormally large cigar from the ground. It was the same cigar with which S'ym had first revealed Piotr's dark fate to her, and which had laid at that spot ever since he dropped it when Cat had stabbed his tail with her sword. She put the end of the cigar in Rei's fire and held it up as a torch, further illuminating the cave.

The guardians looked the cave. Wherever they were was deep underground, as there was no sign of an exit.

Illyana handed Mina the small object they had noticed earlier, a normal photograph.

With the two fires providing light, the guardians gathered around Mina to look at the photograph. It depicted three people. Kitty and Piotr were holding between them a little girl of about five or six years old.

Kitty appeared to be about one year younger than she now was, being a few inches shorter and still having a little baby fat in her cheeks which she no longer had. She was pinching the cheek of the little girl, who was laughing hysterically and wearing a party hat which did nothing to cover her distinctive bangs.

"Hey, that kid looks a lot like you," Lita said. "Do you have a little sister?"

"Nyet," Illyana said as she began speaking in Russian, the language she was most comfortable with. The guardians looked at her in confusion, as even Mina, who knew the most languages of any of them, barely knew any Russian.

Illyana stopped, finally realizing what language she was speaking in, and took three breaths before continuing in English.

"That … is me."

"But that's not possible," Amy said. "You and Kitty are the same age. And your brother would look very different if this was taken so long ago."

"That picture was taken a little over a year ago," Illyana stated, "at my sixth birthday party."

She sat down on the floor of the cave, and the guardians once again saw the corpse of Colossus above her. Mina realized that Illyana had been careful to face away from the body the entire time.

"Not long after that, I was taken to Limbo by its ruler, a sorcerer named Belasco. He told me he loved me and made me his apprentice. For years he taught me to be a sorcerer like him.

She took her medallion out of her shirt and held it in her trembling hand. "The things he did to me … the things he made me do … He made me into that monster you saw earlier. When I grew up, I was supposed to be his ultimate weapon to invade the earth and damn all of humanity."

The guardians stood there in stunned silence, waiting on baited breath as Illyana continued her story.

"When I was 13, I discovered how to use my own life force to create a weapon and forged my soul sword. With that, I was finally able to fight Belasco. I defeated him and drove him from Limbo, making me its new ruler.

She glanced up at them. "You want me to be a princess, but I'm already a queen, the queen of hell."

"Time works differently in Limbo than it does on earth. So when I was finally able to leave, seven years had passed for me, while on earth, only moments had passed. One minute I was a kindergartener, the next I was a teenager.

Amy took the photo from Mina's hand and looked at it with growing horror.

"Because of the way time works here, when the X-Men came to try to rescue me, two versions of them from different timelines ended up in Limbo. One group escaped without me. Those are the X-Men you know. The other group became trapped in Limbo along with me, aging along with me.

Illyana closed and covered her eyes. A stream of tears began to flow from under her fingers. "One by one, all the X-Men who tried to protect me were killed. Some of them … like my brother … at S'ym's hand."

Mina winced. "Now I get it." The other guardians looked to her as she explained. "The reason you hit me, the reason you were so hurt when we said our mission was to protect you ..."

"It wasn't about our not being there when you were small. It was about what happened to the last group of people who tried to protect you. You weren't angry at us at all, you were scared that if we got involved with you, we'd suffer the same fate as the X-Men."

"So trying to make us hate her was her way of protecting us?" Lita asked.

"That's why it was so important that we prove we could defeat S'ym," Amy realized.

Rei looked at the corpse with its caved-in chest. "S'ym did this to your brother, and you still let him live …"

Mina knelt down and put her hand on Illyana's shoulder. "I'm sorry. I didn't realize that just by saying we were going to protect you we'd be dredging up such horrible memories."

Illyana still had her eyes covered. "I can't-I can't go through that again."

"Look," Mina said, "I can't promise that this will have a happy ending for all of us. I wish I could, but I can't. We all know the risks, and we've accepted them as the price we pay for fighting to protect our world and everything we care for."

Lita agreed. "We're in this for the long haul."

"This is our choice," Mina said. "Can you respect that?"

Illyana wiped her eyes and lowered her hand. She slowly rose back to her feet. "If you can respect that I'm not who you want me to be, that I can't be that person."

Rei looked around the cave. "I guess … it'd be impossible for anyone to be that person if they were forced to grow up here."

"You said S'ym killed only some of the X-Men," she observed. "What happened to the others?"

Illyana stumbled back at the question and would have fallen over if Mina had not caught her.

"We've got the answers we asked for. There's no point in making her relive more of this."

Rei looked at Illyana's face and quickly looked away in guilt. The young sorceress looked pale and sickly after recounting the story of her lost childhood.

"We're the first people you've told this to, aren't we?" Mina asked. "At least in this detail."

Illyana nodded. "How could I tell my brother what his little snowflake had become?"

Mina turned back to her. "Thank you, for trusting us with this. Let's get out of here. We've spent enough time in hell."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The stepping disk which brought Illyana and the Sailor Guardians back to earth was so close to the one which took them to Limbo that it appeared to Xavier as if it was a single stepping disk which did not transport them at all.

It took him a half-second to register that they were standing in different positions, and another to realize how bad Illyana suddenly looked. Whatever had transpired in Limbo had taken more out of her than S'ym's attack on the mansion or the fight with Demon Bear had.

Xavier's fatherly instincts kicked in immediately and he moved with an alacrity the guardians did not believe him capable of.

Illyana was too unsteady on her feet to go up the stairs, so he helped her to the infirmary on the ground floor instead of her room. He prepared some water and medicine for her and put her in one of the infirmary's beds to rest and regain her strength.

Once Illyana had taken the medicine and tucked herself in, Xavier allowed himself to slowly exhale. All of his students were like his own children, and seeing any of them in this state broke his heart.

"Rest now, child," he said in a reassuring tone. "Everything will be all right."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When Xavier returned, Rei, Amy, and Lita were sitting on the couches in the lobby while Mina stood by the stairs, holding and staring at her crescent compact. The others stood up when they saw him.

"How is she?" Mina asked.

"Resting," Xavier answered. "I knew it wouldn't be easy for her to open up about what happened to her, but I never imagined it would be this difficult."

"I'm sorry," Mina said. "We didn't mean to-"

"Don't apologize," Xavier assured them. "If anything, I should be thanking you. You're the first people Illyana's ever been able to talk to about her experiences. The first time is always the most difficult. Maybe now we'll be able to do more to help her."

"So it's all true?" Lita asked. "Illyana's really six or seven years old?"

Xavier nodded. "I'm afraid so."

"And there really was a second group of X-Men who all died in Limbo?" Rei asked.

A visible lump appeared in Xavier's throat before he answered. "I'm afraid that part is also true."

Mina put her compact away. "We understand now why you and Kitty couldn't tell us what happened. And we understand what Illyana was trying to do when she hit me. But it had to be in Limbo, or we wouldn't have been able to believe it."

"I'm still not sure I can fully believe it," Rei said. "Even after seeing Colossus' body."

Xavier shut his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "She took you there? No wonder she's in such a state."

Opening his yes again, he asked: "What will you do now?"

"When Illyana's feeling better, we'll take the rainbow crystal she's got and combine with ours to reform the Silver Crystal," Mina answered. "Once she's mastered using it we'll be able to take the fight to the Dark Kingdom and finally put an end to all this."

"You'll have whatever assistance we can provide."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

After Xavier left, Lita turned to their leader and asked: "So what is our role in this going forward? It doesn't look like Illyana needs our help to fight, let alone our protection."

Mina shook her head sadly. "She may need our protection more than we thought."

"How so?" Amy asked.

"She's got survivor's guilt. When she was telling us about the X-Men being killed, she was wishing that she had died with them. We've got to watch out in case she's not careful for her own safety. And … "

She scowled "… we still have to keep an eye on her in case she transforms again, and be ready to stop her if that happens."

"That was the worst evil I've ever sensed," Rei recalled. "What did you sense from her then?"

"I'm not entirely sure," Mina answered. "I don't think it was the same kind of desire for death and destruction I once sensed from Metalia. It was just as intense, but that thing wanted to destroy for destruction's sake, because that's what it enjoyed. Illyana … I think when she was in that form, she wanted to destroy because she wanted to make the whole world suffer the same pain she was feeling."

"There's one other part of our mission now," she added.

"What's that?"

"We have to survive. All of us."

Lita rubbed the back of her head. "It's not like I was planning on dying, but I see your point."

Amy interjected: "We're forgetting something."

All eyes turned to her as she continued. Amy had a photographic memory, and could often pick up on details the rest of them missed.

"This may not be important, but it needs to be considered. We know that Illyana didn't kill Zoisite earlier, and she didn't kill S'ym."

"We know," Minda said. "She shows mercy to her enemies when we wouldn't. What's your point?"

"She never said that she killed that sorcerer," Amy said gravely. "Going by what she said, he must be here on Earth."

Chapter 8: To the Moon

Three of Charles Xavier's students, Danielle Moonstar, Sam Guthrie, and Roberto da Costa, stood before the professor in his office, which had been automatically repaired by the mansion's Shi'ar technology following the battle with Kunzite. And they were not at all happy with him.

"We should have been there when Illyana was fighting," Dani stated with a firm determination.

"You shouldn't have sidelined us!" Roberto added.

Xavier regarded each of the members of his trainee team, including those who were not present at the moment. Doug would not complain about being left out of a battle given how recently he had joined the school and his complete lack of combat skills. Warlock did not think in human terms, and so any complaints he had would stem from a different place entirely. Amara was as proud as any of the three who stood before him, but being raised in an ancient Roman culture she placed a high value on respect for authority and was not one to question decisions Xavier made as a military leader.

As for Rahne, the idea of her complaining about not being allowed to help Illyana was laughable.

"And why should I have sent a team of children into battle?"

"The Sailor Guardians are the same age as us," Roberto said. If they can fight, then so can we!"

Dani squinted her eyes in pain and leaned forward over one of the chairs on the other side of his desk, putting her weight on the chair.

"Illyana's our teammate," Dani said. "When our teammate is fighting, we should be there."

"Is she?" Xavier asked. "Is she your teammate? You hardly seem to act like she is."

Dani looked like she was struck by lightning, while Sam and Roberto exchanged guilty glances. Dani finally gave in to what her body was screaming at her and sat down.

"Danielle, you just got out of your wheelchair, and are hardly fully recovered. And you want to go back into battle already?"

In truth, Xavier believed that Dani was the New Mutant who could have been the greatest help during the battle with Kunzite. The rest of the team's powers could possibly have been effective against the youma, but that was hardly the assistance the X-Men and Sailor Guardians had needed during the fight. Only Dani's mental ability to summon a person's fears had a chance of breaching Kunzite's defenses. Still, that did not mean he wanted to see her on the battlefield, especially in her condition.

"When your teammates battled the Demon Bear, they were willing to risk life and limb to defend you. Your team fought like they'd never fought before, because you are their friend and important to them. Can you honestly tell me that the New Mutants would fight the same way for Illyana?"

Xavier had never brought up the way the New Mutants treated Illyana with them before. He wanted them to build a relationship in a more natural manner based on a gradual culmination of interpersonal interactions with her, and he believed that simply scolding them would not help matters, and in some cases would even deepen the resentment they felt towards Illyana.

This decision of these three to confront him was the first sign that the team was finally beginning to move past their fear and dislike of their sorceress teammate. If they were finally starting to see her as more than a scary witch, then they were perhaps ready to feel guilt over how they had behaved.

Dani was silent. She had been the only member of the team who had started to treat Illyana as a human being before this Moon Kingdom business had started. But as the unofficial team leader, she had not stepped up to diffuse the tension that had been created when Illyana had joined their ranks or asked any of her teammates to try to treat Illyana better.

It was Sam who spoke up instead. "Maybe you're right, Professor. But those scoundrels didn't just attack Illyana. They attacked the mansion and all of us who live here. We'd fight to defend our home."

"I have told you many times, you are not meant to be the next generation of X-Men," Xavier said. "Some of you may become X-Men in time, but that was never the purpose for which I gathered you. If it had been up to me, none of you would have fought at all until now, and I consider it a failure on my part that you have seen real combat. It is true that the Sailor Guardians are the same age as you, but I am not their teacher or their guardian, and their safety and well-being is not my responsibility the way it is for you."

Dani stood up, her strength returning. "Illyana didn't just save my life from the Demon Bear. She brought my parents back to me. I'm not going to sit on the sidelines while she's fighting for her life."

Roberto nodded. "And where Dani goes, the rest of us will follow."

Xavier rubbed his forehead as the three turned and left his office. The mixture of frustration and pride he felt was becoming an all too familiar sensation.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Illyana and the Sailor Guardians sat around one of the library's tables. Luna and Artemis stood on the table. All eyes were on the Silver Crystal, which lay on the wooden surface.

"It's no use," Illyana said. "Nothing I've tried has gotten any response from the crystal has worked. Even just using it to power spells does nothing."

"That is strange," Artemis said. "Every member of the royal family has always been able to wield the Silver Crystal without problem. With your training as a sorceress, it should be even simpler for you."

"Then the simplest solution would be that I'm not a member of the royal family."

Lita rolled her eyes. "That again? Just give it up already."

"Even if you weren't the princess, you should still be able to use the crystal to empower your spells," Luna explained. "It has to be something else."

"Maybe the crystal only responds to someone with no evil in their heart," Rei suggested, earning her a look of rebuke from Mina.

Luna shook her head. "If that were the case, we wouldn't have to worry about keeping it out of the enemy's hands."

"That's right," Mina said. "The queen's strategy in the final battles would have been completely different if the enemy couldn't use the Silver Crystal's power to enhance their own strength."

"Just how strong is their leader?" Illyana asked.

"Beryl," Mina said softly. "She's much more powerful than any of the Shitennou, but she's not unbeatable, which is why she needs the Silver Crystal. I'm almost certain you're quite a bit more powerful than she is when you transform."

Illyana looked down. "I'd rather not have to do that."

"I'm sure we can come up with a strategy together with the X-Men that will allow us to win without having to use the crystal or your true power," Mina said. "Right now, I'm more worried about how they knew the exact moment we reforged the crystal."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Queen Beryl's upper lip quivered in rage as she waited for her summons to be answered. She fought the urge to express her impatience by tapping the edge of her throne or to take out her anger on the youma which cowered along the walls of her throne room.

At last, the man she had summoned arrived. Many youma fled the throne room entirely as he entered, more afraid of this newcomer than of their own queen, even though his power was a fraction of her own.

The man's skin and clothing were a deep red, though his outfit and flowing cape were adorned with golden highlights and jewelry. His neat hair, erect posture, and cape gave him a regal appearance. Even the pair of curved horns which protruded from his forehead seemed like a crown upon his head. His eyes were yellow and pupil-less, and his right arm was missing, his cape concealing where it had been cut off.

Kunzite had found this man and brought him to Beryl under her orders. But now she wondered if that had not been a mistake.

"What do you have to say for yourself, Belasco?"

"When I told you that I had sensed that the Silver Crystal had been reforged in Limbo, I instructed you not to panic. The death of your subordinate is entirely the result of your own rash actions."

"Be mindful of to whom you speak!" she hissed.

Belasco bowed to her. "My apologies, Queen Beryl. I meant no disrespect."

The words flowed with such seeming sincerity that she almost believed them. Belasco was crafty and far more cunning than any of the Shitennou had been.

"As I predicted, the princess was unable to use the Silver Crystal," he said.

"And when she does learn how to wield it?"

"She never will. The crystal will never be a threat to you as long as it is in her possession."

"How can you possibly be sure of that?"

"Because I trained her myself, and I know my apprentice better than she knows herself."

"How do I know you do not retain a soft spot for your former apprentice, and are attempting to protect her from me?"

Belasco growled in rage and raised his one fist. "Once I sat at the same table as Mephisto, as Hela and Satannish. I ruled Limbo like a god. And she took that from me, reduced me to groveling at your feet. I will have my revenge. When I take back my kingdom and the locket she stole from me, my powers will be fully restored, and you will learn to fear the name Belasco."

There it was, she thought. The selfish motivation he could be trusted to pursue at all costs. That would make his inevitable betrayal predictable. His boasts about his true power were probably exaggerated to some extent, but to be safe, she would eliminate him after he outlived his usefulness.

"These others who joined in the battle against Kunzite, what do you know of them?"

"Ah, the mutants. The X-Men. Yes, they are a serious complication. As individuals they are powerful in their own right, and as a group they are a force to be reckoned with. But they can be defeated. I killed them all in one timeline. If you are willing to listen, I can show you how to eliminate the mutants as a threat entirely. Raw power is not what will win the day, neither against the X-Men, nor the princess."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Illyana set the Silver Crystal down on her desk in her room and glared at the object. She could sense the awesome power contained within, making it all the more frustrating that this power remained so far out of reach.

This anger frightened her. Power was an addictive drug, as she knew all too well from her years in Limbo. She remembered the thrill she felt each time she mastered a new spell and the first time the demons she had so feared as a child fled from her sight in fear of her growing power.

The Silver Crystal was dangerous in the wrong hands. But even if she believed every word the Sailor Guardians and their cats said, it did not mean that her hands were necessarily the right hands.

There was a loud knock on her door, causing Illyana to reflexively raise her hand towards it. Recent events, starting with S'ym's attack on the mansion, were beginning to make her paranoid, and she was starting to consider putting warning signs on the door, for the others' protection more than her own.

Lowering her arm, she asked: "Who is it?"

"It's Doug."

Illyana walked to the door and opened it. She must still have looked angry, because Doug just stood there for several awkward seconds like a deer in headlights.

"What is it?"

"Um, you remember how I was reading up on the X-Men's old battles?"

'Yes."

"Well, I was reading about the whole thing with Jean Grey going all Dark Phoenix … Man, that must've been crazy."

"I know about Jean Grey," she said, growing annoyed. The Dark Phoenix saga was another cautionary tale for her, and a likely harbinger of her eventual fate. "What's your point?"

"Well, at the end, the X-Men fought the Shi'ar elites … in the ruins of an ancient civilization … on the moon."

Illyana's jaw dropped and she stared at him for several more awkward seconds.

"Illyana?"

"Get Warlock," she instructed him. "We're going on a field trip."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On the International Space Station, an astronaut floated into one of the station's cupolas to gaze out of its windows at the Earth below. The seven-windowed module attached to the station served many purposes, from observing the approach of spacecraft to taking spectacular photographs which NASA's PR team loved.

The astronaut noticed a black dot on the earth's surface while looking through the center window. As he focused his attention on it, the dot grew closer, and he realized that it was a large object approaching from the Earth at an extremely high speed. Whatever it was had to have launched from the earth.

"No way," he whispered as the object grew close enough to make out its shape. The object was not on a direct course for the space station, but it changed direction slightly to put a greater distance between itself and the station as it passed by.

"Holy shit!"

"What is it, Larry?" a fellow astronaut asked, startled by his sudden profanity.

Larry climbed out of the cupola. "You're never going to believe this, Joe. I just saw the freakin' Enterprise."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It takes an Earth vessel three days to travel to the moon, a Shi'ar vessel mere minutes. For Warlock the journey took about a half-hour.

For the journey, the techno-organic being had assumed the shape suggested to him by Doug, that of the Starship Enterprise from the original Star Trek movies.

Warlock approached the Mare Serenitatis, the Sea of Serenity, and touched down in the Luther Crater, assuming a shape more appropriate for landing as his passengers disembarked.

Illyana, Professor Xavier, Doug, the Sailor Guardians, and the cats stepped out into the Blue Area, the ruins on the moon which contained a habitable atmosphere, the site where Jean Grey had died.

All of them gazed in wonder at the ruins surrounding them.

"This is it," Mina said solemnly. "This was our kingdom."

"Something's different about it," Artemis observed.

Amy summoned her visor and began to examine the ruins. "Someone else rebuilt this city after the Silver Millennium was destroyed. There's newer, alien architecture built over the original structures."

"That would be the Skrulls and the Kree," Xavier said. "Reed Richards believed that they built this city when the human race was in its infancy. It would seem that they merely appropriated what was already here."

Illyana turned to Doug. "That's why you're here. If anyone can sort through the different languages we're bound to come across and lead us to something useful, it's you."

"I'd better get to work then." Doug approached Amy, who was continuing to scan the environment. She pointed at a particular structure which stood out to her.

Mina pointed: "The palace would have been in that direction."

"Are you sure?" Lita asked. "This place looks very different from when we used to live here."

"Positive."

The group was silent as they followed Mina's directions. She and the cats were haunted by memories of what was, and the other guardians felt a sense of loss despite not having the same memories of their previous lives. Xavier was haunted by far more recent memories.

It was here that he had watched as his X-Men were defeated one by one, taken down by Lilandra's Imperial Guard. Here that his first student, Jean Grey, had taken her own life rather than succumb to the power of the Phoenix.

That was the main reason he had chosen not to bring the other New Mutants on this trip to the moon. He knew they would be angry at him again, but he did not want to associate his newest students with the fate of his oldest student any more than absolutely necessary.

Soon all of them had learned to pick out the white ruins of the Moon Kingdom from the more metallic alien ruins.

They approached the ruins of a large stone building, and Xavier closed his eyes in a grimace.

"The palace, it's all gone!" Luna exclaimed. "But the inner parts were still standing even after Metaria's attack!"

Xavier knew what had happened to it. What remained of the palace had been destroyed in a battle between Illyana's brother and the Gladiator, Lilandra's most powerful soldier. The collapsing stones had decided the battle's outcome, and not in Colossus' favor.

"We may not find anything of use," Artemis said. "It may all have been destroyed."

Doug stepped forward and began to climb over the rubble, looking for any piece of stone that had pictures or writing on it.

"I think I've found something," he said. "This stone has the word 'prayer' on it."

"That must be the entrance to the chamber of prayer!" Luna said. "We need to remove that rubble!"

"How?" Rei asked. "Even with the moon's lighter gravity, those stones still weigh tons."

"Leave that to me," Illyana said as Doug climbed down from the rubble. She extended both arms, her heft hand in front of her right, and curved her fingers downward as she cast a levitation spell.

Stone after stone rose slowly into the air, hovering between eight and fifteen feet off of the ground, and revealing an underground passage beneath. Illyana gestured towards her left, and the stones moved in tandem with her arms, dropping in a place where they would no longer be in the way.

Luna approached the passageway first. "Only the Queen was allowed into the chamber of prayer. It was at the base of the Crystal Tower, the heart of the Moon Palace."

The followed her down, Warlock providing light, and emerged into a round room. Pillars, some half destroyed, circled a large crystal obelisk. In front of the obelisk was a stone altar in which a black-bladed sword was sheathed.

"The Sword in the Stone," Doug said.

"Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, Venus," Luna asked, "can one of you free it?"

"Sure," Lita said, grinning as she approached the altar, "just leave it to me." She grasped the hilt and began to pull with all of her might.

"What is this thing?" she asked as she strained to budge the blade. "Who makes swords out of rocks?"

Lita let go, rubbing her hands. "It's stuck."

"If this is indeed similar to the Arthurian legend," Xavier said, "strength of arms will not suffice to free that sword."

There was an orange glow as Mina transformed into Sailor Venus. She took Lita's place and gripped the hilt as Lita had done.

Mina grunted with the effort, but slowly, the blade began to move upwards, A blue light burst forth from the hole left by the sword as she pulled it free.

Mina stumbled backwards, the low gravity sending her tumbling into the other guardians, who caught her. Having pulled the sword out, she now struggled to lift it up, such was its weight even on the moon.

A voice spoke from within the blue light. "That is a sacred sword, meant to protect the royal family of the Silver Millennium. Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, Venus, it belongs to all of you."

The light coalesced into a figure, a hologram of a woman, which appeared above the opening in the stone where the sword had been sheathed.

The figure was beautiful. Her face was nearly identical to Illyana's only older, as a mature adult, and with the golden crescent moon permanently shining on her forehead. Her long, silver hair was gathered in a pair of buns on top of her head, from which two ponytails extended all the way to the ground. She wore a gorgeous white gown and appeared to have a pair of translucent butterfly wings extending from her back.

"Luna, Artemis, thank you for bringing everyone here," the holographic woman said.

"Queen Serenity," Mina said.

The queen smiled at each person and cat gathered in front of her before setting her gaze on Illyana.

"My adorable little Serenity, is that really you?"

Illyana took a deep breath and glared at the hologram. "I'm not your anything. I don't know you, and I certainly don't consider you to be my mother. I've already got a mother."

"I see," the queen said sadly, looking down.

Seeing how the hologram reacted, Amy asked: "You're not just a recording, are you?"

"Thanks to the Moon Palace's Eternity main system, even though I have physically perished, my consciousness and my memories remain in this form. I have waited so long for this moment."

She looked up at Illyana again. "However, why is it that the princess appears to be the same age as her guardians?"

Illyana was startled by the question. "What do you mean?"

"When you were killed, I was inconsolable. After I barely managed to seal Queen Metaria away, I used the last of my strength to ensure you and the Sailor Guardians would be reborn on Earth. Knowing that the enemy would return, my spell would have had the princess reborn many years after the guardians. I had hoped this would prevent the enemy from finding you, and allow you to grow up in a world free from that darkness after the guardians defeated Metaria and her servants."

Mina looked down at Artemis. "We were never supposed to fight at the princess' side at all! We were supposed to keep her from ever having to fight!"

Artemis scowled. "If only we'd known. If only we'd remembered!"

Illyana stared open-mouthed at the image of the queen, trembling. Finally, she steadied herself enough to speak.

"If that was your plan, then it backfired spectacularly. I've suffered more than you could ever know, and it was because I was so young and innocent."

Xavier and Illyana had seen many holograms in the Danger Room, but they had never seen a hologram cry as the image of the queen did then.

"I am so sorry. I did what I thought was best. Can you ever forgive me?"

Illyana looked down in thought, then back at the queen. "I don't know," she said softly.

The queen turned to Xavier, Doug, and Warlock. "And who might you be?"

"I am … I am Illyana's teacher," Xavier said. "And these two are her classmates."

"You must care deeply for her, to have come all this way with her. I thank you, for looking after my daughter."

The queen wiped her eyes, and her tone grew stern. "You all must have many questions. I will do my best to fill in the blanks. Ours was a peaceful, prosperous kingdom, thanks to the power of the Silver Crystal. Our mission was to watch over the earth and guide it as its people grew and evolved."

"But then, a terrible disaster occurred. A horrible creature emerged from its billion-year confinement in the heart of our sun, an ancient eldritch abomination …"

"An Elder God," Illyana said.

The queen nodded. "That is exactly what Metaria was. Despite our best efforts, it conquered Earth quickly. The people of the planet were easily swayed by its power and evil. But this was not enough for it. It wanted the power of our Silver Crystal. And so, it attacked us here in our home. Even with the Silver Crystal, I could not destroy this evil. All of our people were killed in the battle, including the princess. Only the Sailor Guardians' leader survived long enough to help me use the Silver Crystal's power to seal Metaria away, before she too succumbed to her wounds."

"I alone remained of our great kingdom. But I knew that one day the seal I placed on Metaria would be broken one day, and I would not have the strength to battle it a second time. But my motivations were far more selfish. I simply wanted my daughter to live again. So, I used the Silver Crystal one last time to bring her back, as well as the guardians to protect her.

"I know that the evil one has returned to finish what it started. While this was not my intention, now that you are here, Serenity, it falls to you to destroy it once and for all. You must do what I could not, and end the threat of Metaria for good."

Mina stepped forward. "Your majesty, there is a problem. We have successfully reforged the Silver Crystal, but the princess cannot use it. It does not respond to her."

"Given what I have heard here today, I cannot say that I am surprised," the queen said. "The Silver Crystal follows the princess' heart. If in her heart she rejects who she is, she rejects the crystal as well, and it will not work for her. It will likely never work for her, I am afraid."

"But there is another way the Silver Crystal can be used," she continued. "The Silver Crystal is also the original source of the powers you guardians wield. If you combine your powers, all four of you, you can channel that power through the Silver Crystal even without the princess. And perhaps more."

"Was that what you had wanted us to do originally?" Mina asked.

The queen nodded again, and the image of her began to glitch, becoming pixilated for split-seconds. "Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, Venus, work together, and protect the princess. Do our kingdom proud"

"I am afraid I cannot talk much longer. The system which allows this image to manifest before you has little power left after so long.

The queen reached out towards Illyana. "Serenity, I know you have had a difficult life, but I hope you can still find happiness with those you love."

Another tear fell down the queen's digital cheek as the glitches became more frequent.

"Goodbye, my little snowflake."

Illyana gasped, the hardened expression she had maintained melting away. "What … what did you just call me?"

The hologram glitched again, and Illyana ran forward, attempting to grab the queen's outstretched hand.

"Wait, mother!" she screamed.

The queen disappeared just as Illyana's hands passed through hers. Illyana froze in place, her hands outstretched, her mouth wide open, and her eyes unblinking.

The Sailor Guardians stirred. Seeing the queen had awakened something deep within their minds.

"I remember now," Amy said.

"So do I," Rei said. "We used to live here. We were so happy here."

"Those were the best days of our lives," Lita said. "How could we have forgotten?"

Mina walked over to Illyana. "I just remembered something, too. The one time you and the queen visited the earth together … we went with you as bodyguards. You were so young, you had never seen snow before, and you were fascinated by it. The queen explained how every snowflake is unique in its beauty, and she decided then that was how she would express how special you were to her. From that day on, you were her little snowflake. Do you remember any of this?"

Illyana finally moved, turning her head to look at Mina. Pools of water were forming around her eyes. Unlike the hologram, her tears were affected by the low gravity and did not fall down her cheeks. She choked back a sob, and shook her head. No memories had returned to her, good or bad.

Xavier walked over and put his hand on Illyana's shoulder. She looked up at her teacher and pulled him into a hug.

Warlock extended his neck towards Illyana and Xavier, intending to ask why Illyana was crying, but Doug tapped his shoulder and motioned for him to stop and leave them be.

"It's true," Illyana said between sobs, in a voice so soft only Xavier could hear her. "I wanted it to be a big mistake so badly, but it's all true."

Professor Xavier knew something was wrong when a device in his suit pocket began to vibrate. His phone had been turned off for his meeting with the Albany official who currently sat in front of him, and only the X-Men knew how to contact the emergency communicator he carried.

Xavier raised his hand to his temple, appearing to the man on the other side of the desk as if he had become frustrated at their impasse, and reached out with his mind. It was difficult to stretch his psychic abilities over 100 miles from Albany to the mansion, and he could not spare any focus for the excuses coming out of his interlocutor's mouth. The professor would simply have to read the man's mind in a minute to know what was being said and figure out a way to end the conversation quickly.

'I'm here, Ororo,' Xavier said telepathically. 'What is wrong?'

Storm's response was only two words, and the fear behind them was greater than anything he had sensed from the leader of the X-Men since Jean had become Dark Phoenix.

'He's back.'

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mina groaned as she awoke. It took her a few seconds to register that she was not in the mansion anymore, and a second more to realize that bands of energy were wrapped around her body, holding her in place.

She sat up, an act that took a great deal of effort given the mystic chains which bound her and gritted her teeth in an attempt to force her way out of them. She had broken out of bonds before, breaking handcuffs and chains with her sheer strength, but this was something different. These chains were far stronger than anything she had seen before, and did not have a weak link to exploit.

A deep voice laughed at Mina's predicament, and she looked up and began to examine the room she was in. It was obvious at a glance that she was in the Dark Kingdom. Her surroundings were a strange mix of cave-like and palace-like structures, all a dark blue. An otherworldly mist seemed to pervade the air, obscuring anything more than a few meters away, but still she saw creatures stirring in the shadows.

"Welcome to the Dark Kingdom, Sailor Venus."

She turned her head and realized she was in front of Beryl's throne. Sitting on the throne was a one-armed man with horns and red skin who she had never seen before. He was examining the sword with which she had slain Beryl, which still glowed with the power she had imbued it with.

After all the trouble Mina and the other guardians had just lifting the sword, this man was holding the legendary blade with one hand like it was nothing.

He placed the sword next to the throne and smiled at her. "My name is Belasco. I'm sure Illyana must have mentioned me at some point."

Mina fought down a gulp. Illyana had mentioned the name of the sorcerer who kidnapped her to Limbo and made her into the person she was today. But none of them had considered that he could have been working with the guardians' enemies.

"I should thank you, Venus. You've given me everything I needed."

"What are you talking about?"

"I dared not face Illyana again or challenge Beryl on my own as I currently am. By destroying that pompous queen, you created a vacuum that allowed me to take her throne and her power." He glanced down at the sword. "You've also gift-wrapped me a weapon to stand against hers ... and irresistible bait."

"You're dreaming," Mina scoffed. "Illyana doesn't even like me."

Belasco rose, grabbing the sword again, and his lips parted in a smile which sent a shiver down her spine.

Mina had thought that Beryl was the epitome of human evil, someone so wrapped up in her own pain that she would inflict it on the rest of the world a thousandfold just to feel empowered. Her rage was barely kept under control and made her impulsive and easy for Metaria to manipulate. Belasco was something else entirely. His rage and hate, while as powerful as any villain she had fought, were completely under control and exercised no control over him. He was a different kind of evil, focused and pure, more akin to a force of nature like Metaria than other human villains.

Were it not for one emotion Mina sensed in him, she would have thought Belasco more god than man. And that one emotion which was not completely under his control frightened her more than the rage or hatred of anyone she had ever faced before.

"You forget, I know my apprentice far better than you. I know her heart."

Belasco turned and carried the sword into the chamber behind the throne, the chamber of Metaria. He dropped to one knee and laid the sword on the ground in front of him.

A mass of energy pulsated in front of him, forming the outline of a face.

"Beryl has fallen," came the voice of Queen Metaria.

"Yes, she has," Belasco acknowledged. "But I am more than capable of taking her place."

The form shifted, and it appeared that the face was now glaring at the Dark Lord. He showed no fear, merely smirking at the eldritch abomination's doubts.

"I have already done what Beryl failed to do. I have brought you the leader of the Sailor Guardians as well as their greatest weapon. And I have done this with my powers being at a fraction of what Beryl's were."

"If I could do this in my current state, just imagine what I could do with more power."

"I care not for what you could do. My only desire is to be free of this prison so I may lay waste to this world once again."

"Help me, and you will. By tomorrow, I promise, you will be free, Queen Metaria. And it will be the energy of the princess' own soul which breaks your shackles."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It took almost an hour and a half to get back to the mansion, even while speeding. Xavier used his powers to telepathically nudge other drivers out of the way to avoid any accidents and to erase his vehicle from the minds of any traffic cops who may have seen him.

The situation was far too serious to waste any time.

He knew what to expect as he arrived, having been in telepathic contact with the X-Men since Ororo contacted him, but seeing it with his own eyes was still a shock.

The automated repair system had begun repairing the damage, but furniture remained strewn across the room and burn marks remained on the second-floor wall. As bad as the damage to the property was, the people looked even worse.

It wasn't the visible injuries and dishevelment among all the X-Men, guardians, and New Mutants which showed the toll the fight had taken on them, but their haunted expressions. All of them were in shock. The guardians had just lost their leader and inspiration. The New Mutants had never experienced helplessness like they did when Beryl stopped them from using their powers. And the X-Men had come face to face with a nightmare they had hoped would remain nothing more than a memory. Even the cats seemed distraught, with Amy holding and consoling Artemis. Only Warlock, whose power had been restored by Storm's lightning following the attack, seemed to be all right.

Illyana was the worst affected of all of them. Kitty and Piotr had wrapped her in a blanket as she sat on the stairs, unmoving, unblinking, staring blankly at nothing.

Xavier had seen this before. He'd helped several trauma victims who'd retreated into themselves emerge from catatonic states. And it was hardly unexpected that Illyana would react this way to seeing her old master again. When S'ym attacked the mansion, she had frozen in fright and taken 15 minutes to calm down enough to fight back. And the sight of a mere simulation of Belasco had caused her to have an anxiety attack back when she still had not revealed that she possessed superpowers. The real thing would be far worse.

Xavier walked up the stairs and approached Illyana. Kitty had her arms wrapped around Illyana's shoulders, holding the blanket in place, as Piotr kneeled in front of them, holding his sister's hand and trying to get her to respond.

The professor motioned for the two of them to move away so he could talk to Illyana alone. Unsurprisingly, Kitty and Piotr were hesitant to move even a foot from her side, but they trusted that if anyone could help Illyana now, it would be Charles Xavier.

Xavier assumed the same position Piotr vacated, kneeling in front of Illyana on the stairs.

He looked into her blank eyes and a frog formed in his throat as he remembered the joy he saw in those same eyes as a six-year-old girl bounded down that very staircase to see her big brother, secure in the knowledge that Piotr, his friends, and his mentor would always keep her safe.

That had only been a year earlier. But in that year, the only time he had ever seen any joy in Illyana's eyes was for those few brief, glorious seconds after he had danced with her on her birthday, when she realized that he could walk again.

He took her hand. Even after it had been held by Piotr, her skin was cold to the touch.

"Illyana, I need you to listen to me now. With anyone else, I could have used my powers to bring them back. I could make it hurt a little less, make it a little less scary. Just enough for them to pull themselves back. I can't do that with you. My powers won't work on you. You have to come back to us on your own," he said.

"You've pulled yourself out of worse pits. I can't even imagine how much strength it must have taken to come back from Limbo. I need you to show that strength again. We all need you. Mina needs you."

He felt the slightest movement in her hand, saw the smallest twitch in her eyes.

"That's it. You have to fight. Fight for yourself. Fight for all of us here who love you. Fight for the girl who just saved your life."

The Sailor Guardians moved to the bottom of the stairs, and Illyana began to blink as they came into her view.

"I'll fight."

It was barely a whisper, hardly audible even to Xavier. But the steel which returned to her eyes was impossible to miss. That iron wall which she hid her pain behind, which allowed her to intimidate just about anyone with a glance, was back.

Illyana stood up, the blanket falling off of her.

"I'll fight," she said, louder this time.

Kitty rushed over to grab Illyana's arm and steady her. Illyana took a deep, long breath, and looked to the guardians.

"The four won't become three."

Xavier did not need to turn around to notice the change in the guardians' demeanor at Illyana's words, the grim smile on Lita's face that signified resignation to the battle ahead rather than any form of happiness, Rei's determination to rescue her hero, and Amy's growing hope that they could win their first battle fought without their leader.

Dani stood up and looked to her teammates. The professor felt her resolve to fight as well pass into the other New Mutants, and he closed his eyes and let out a long, sad sigh.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The three teams stood outside the Cerebro room as Xavier and Illyana combined their powers in an attempt to determine where on Earth Mina had been taken. Illyana's locator spell allowed Xavier to focus Cerebro on a specific area and break through any magical obstruction concealing Mina's location.

As they waited, Ororo turned to Dani. "You should stay here."

"With all due respect," Dani said, "if Illyana's going to be fighting, then we're going to fight too. We're a team, and we're going to stick together."

"You don't understand how dangerous Belasco is."

"Is he really that bad?" Amy asked.

Kitty shuddered, and Logan said: "Yup."

"After our first encounter with him," Ororo explained, "we couldn't even do a Danger Room session with him as our opponent."

"He's already killed one team of X-Men," Rei observed.

"That won't happen again."

They turned to the doorway, where Illyana and Xavier had reappeared.

"We've found Mina. She's being held in the arctic."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The X-Men, Sailor Guardians, and New Mutants changed into their uniforms and entered the hangar where the supersonic jet the Blackbird was held. With over 2,500 miles between them and their destination in the arctic, using Illyana's stepping disks was out of the question as a displacement in time would be all but guaranteed.

As Nightcrawler and Kitty prepped the aircraft for takeoff, Illyana grabbed Doug's arm.

"You should stay back."

"Why? Is it because my power is mental and not physical?"

"It's because you're so innocent. You've never even been in a real fight. You're exactly the sort of person he'd target first."

Doug scowled and looked to Dani, but the New Mutants' leader shook her head. "She's got a point. If it's probably a bad idea for us to go, it's definitely a bad idea for you."

Across the hangar, Xavier was telling Ororo that he would be remaining behind as well.

"I'll monitor you at all times with Cerebro. My abilities are not effective against demons and will be best utilized from a bird's-eye view."

Ororo nodded. "I understand. But I still believe it is a mistake to send any of the children, Illyana included. She's not ready to face him again."

Xavier looked towards the New Mutants. "She has to do this, I'm afraid. If she doesn't face Belasco now, she will never get closure. And I can't stop the New Mutants from going with her, not now when they're finally treating her like a teammate."

Ororo scowled. "If letting Illyana fight that monster again is the only way to help her, then we've failed."

"Yes," Xavier said sadly, "yes we have. Let us not fail again."

The loading ramp to the Blackbird lowered, and the three teams of heroes began to board the craft.

Illyana stopped right before the ramp as Artemis walked up to her. The white cat had been silent since Mina was taken.

"Mina's important to you, isn't she?" Illyana asked.

"I was the one who first found her and got her involved in all this," Artemis answered. "Before I came along, she was just a normal girl. And for a while, it was just the two of us."

"Please," he begged, "bring her home."

"I will," Illyana promised. "You have my word."

Illyana spared one last look at those who would be staying behind on this mission, Professor Xavier, Doug, and the cats, before boarding the plane, the ramp closing behind her.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Belasco did not want Mina dead, she realized. Her first clue was the bandage covering her hand where it hand been pierced by Beryl's hair. Whatever his plans for her, were they did not include her bleeding out.

All she could do was attempt to analyze her captor after he returned from Metaria's chamber. His behavior continued to surprise. He felt no emotion towards her whatsoever, nor did he have any regard for Beryl, whose throne he now sat on. Despite her dominant position over him, he had no jealousy or sense of rivalry towards the late queen. She had merely been an obstacle to be overcome and a tool to be used, just as Mina was at that very moment.

Belasco held out his hand towards Mina, and she felt an icy coldness flush through her body.

"Hmph," the Dark Lord said in mild disappointment. "It would seem that your unique heart-based powers make you immune to my influence. A pity, you would have made a fine servant."

"So what, you'll just kill me instead?"

"Yes, once you've outlived your usefulness. Of course, you could always choose to serve us instead."

"Us?"

Mina gaped at him in confusion. He did not seem to have meant Metaria or the Elder Gods. Moreover, he had actually felt something while using that word.

"I get it now."

"Oh?"

"What you're really after. The reason you're doing all this. You … Illyana's the only thing in the world you actually care about besides yourself. You actually see her as a real person, as an … an equal. And you can't live without her."

"Very astute," Belasco admitted, unashamed of admitting this one seeming weakness. "I see the stories of your empathic abilities are not exaggerated."

He sat back in his throne and raised his open palm straight up. "I would imagine your friends will be here soon. Why don't we give them a warm welcome?"

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Colossus burst forth from the cave wall, his face a mask of unleashed fury.

"It was for you we died, Illyana!" he screamed. "For you we were damned! Those scales must be balanced!"

"Illyana!"

She gasped as her eyes shot open, breathing heavily and clutching her heart. Everyone on the plane was staring at her in shock.

Colossus stood up from his seat and rushed over to her. "Snowflake, what were you screaming about?"

"I was-I was trying to meditate, to calm myself before the fight," she said. "It didn't work."

"I'm afraid it's too late to try again," Storm said from the co-pilot's seat. "We're nearing the coordinates."

Illyana looked out the nearest window. Night had fallen, but the moon was out, and its light revealed the white snowfields and glaciers below them.

"Hey," Sailor Jupiter said, "once we land, why don't you summon S'ym from Limbo? A demon that strong would wreck some serious shit against the Dark Kingdom."

Illyana shook her head. "It's too dangerous. S'ym was Belasco's servant long before he was mine. I dare not test his loyalty that way."

Jupiter grimaced in disappointment. "That makes sense."

"We've got a problem," Nightcrawler said from the pilot's seat. "It looks like there's a localized storm right over the coordinates you gave us. Winds are hurricane level, and there seems to be a lot of ice and hail."

Storm's eyes turned completely white for a few moments before reverting to normal. "I can't stop this tempest," she said. "It must be magical in nature."

"Belasco," Illyana said. "He knows we're coming."

Nightcrawler brought the plane to a lower altitude. "I'll have to bring us down away from the site. That storm would tear us apart if we got near it."

They landed about a kilometer from the coordinates where Illyana and Xavier had located Mina and disembarked.

The storm Nightcrawler had warned them about was everything he had said and more. The entire area under which the Dark Kingdom lay was covered in a dark, swirling cloud. Cracks of lightning streaked within the cloud and from it, briefly lighting up the night sky, followed three seconds later by the deafening roar of the resulting thunder.

"Ok," Kitty said, "how are we supposed to get through that?"

Sailor Mercury summoned her visor and analyzed the storm. "I believe it's starting to dissipate."

"The storm's not the problem," Illyana said, " it's what the storm is hiding we need to worry about."

The lightning stopped, leaving only the moon and the stars providing any light, and as Amy said, the storm cloud began to fade. When it was gone, it was not the white ice and snow of their artic surroundings that was revealed beneath, but a black mass.

Wolverine spat at the sight. "That's a flamin' army."

Amy took a step back in fright as she calculated the number of youma which stood before them. "There's thousands of them. This must be the entirety of the Dark Kingdom's forces!"

The mass of demons began to roar as those in the front of the army ran at the heroes, leading their fellow youma in a battle charge.

"What do we do?" Kitty asked. "There's no way we can fight that many!"

"I hate to say it, but the kid's right," Wolverine said. "We're all going to die if we don't get out of here right now."

Sailor Jupiter looked at Sailor Mars. "I never thought they were this powerful. Even if we had Mina with us, we couldn't win this fight."

"But we can't leave her!"

A bright light appeared on the horizon to their right, making them turn their heads.

"What's that?" Kitty asked.

Amy turned her visored gaze to the light, which faded almost as quickly as it had appeared.

"I don't know. It's either gone now, or it's too far away to get a reading."

Illyana continued to stare in the direction of that light even as the others turned their attention back to the army of youma which was running straight at them.

"Do we even have time to get back on the plane and take off?" Jupiter asked.

"You children go," Storm ordered them. "We'll buy you the time to get away."

"No way! We're not leaving you to die here for us!"

Illyana turned back to the youma, which were getting closer with every second. "No one's dying today," she declared.

She stepped forward, her declaration silencing their proclamations of doom, pausing only to give her brother one last look.

"Illyana?" he asked.

"Please," she begged, "don't hate me for this."

"Hate you? What are you talking about?"

"What are you going to do?" Kitty asked.

Illyana did not answer. She walked ten paces ahead of the other heroes, who could only stare in confusion. She bent over, and raised her left hand to her face, grunting as her transformation began.

The convulsions of her body made the pain of the transformation obvious to all of them, but only the guardians knew what was truly happening.

Illyana's limbs grew as her skin darkened to a deep red. Her feet burst from the boots of her New Mutants uniform in split hooves and a tail burst from the back of her costume. Her soul sword appeared in her right hand and she screamed as she swung it, creating a shockwave with her power.

Illyana raised her head, and though she did not face the heroes standing behind her, there was no mistaking the demonic horns which were growing out of her forehead.

The X-Men and New Mutants stood speechless as they beheld the Darkchild for the first time, their shock silencing any voicing of their fear and concern. Only Rahne, who stood at the back of group, found her voice.

"I knew it," the lupine mutant said to herself as Illyana revealed her demon form.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The empathic pain rolled through Mina like a wave, and she knew that the Moon Princess was there fighting. There was no one else whose emotions could be felt so strongly from so far away.

The leader of the Sailor Guardians trembled. There were times when being empathic was a nearly unbearable burden, and being within a mile of Illyana while she was in her Darkchild form was one of those times.

She looked up at Belasco, who was examining his own trembling hand.

"You feel it too, don't you?" he said. "The power and rage beyond mortal comprehension. Even I never imagined my Darkchild would be such a force. Yes, I experienced true fear for the first time when I beheld her in all her darkling majesty. Even with Metaria's power flowing through me, the memory of that fear remains."

Mina could only glare at him. She could not even imagine what kind of monster could inflict such pain on another being as she now felt radiating from Illyana, especially the only person he cared for. And he wasn't done yet.

Mina took a deep breath to calm herself and focus on her empathic senses. While Illyana's emotions were just as intense as when Zoisite had caused her to transform, they were under far greater control than they had been then. Whatever Illyana was doing, she was not simply lashing out at her opponents.

Mina's draw dropped as she began to understand what was happening. Illyana, who had refused to transform to use her true power even to save her own life, had willingly transformed now: all to rescue her.

And when she got there, her old tormenter was waiting for her.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Each swing of Illyana's soul sword sent dozens of youma flying, each blast released from her hands or mouth disintegrating many more of the monsters.

The X-Men and New Mutants continued to stare in shock as wave after wave of youma broke against the impenetrable wall that was the Darkchilld's power. Several members of the younger team backed up in fright. For the X-Men, they had not witnessed one of their own wield such power since Jean Grey had become the Phoenix.

Colossus looked at his baby sister with growing horror. "Illyana Nikolaievna, what has happened to you?"

Storm reached out to their mentor with her mind. 'Professor, do you know what's going on? What has she become?'

There was no response.

It did not take long for the surviving youma to realize that facing this demonic child was certain death, and they began to turn and flee.

Wolverine recovered from his shock first as he realized that Illyana had dealt with the army of youma on her own. "What are we even doing here?"

The youma either defeated or fled, Illyana lowered her sword and turned her head slightly to the side, too afraid to turn around all the way and see the reactions of her friends and teammates.

"I'm going," she said in a raspy, snakelike voice.

The Sailor Guardians stepped forward. "And we're going with you," Sailor Jupiter said.

Storm stepped forward as well, followed by the rest of the X-Men. There was never any question that these heroes would never let Illyana face Belasco alone. They had already fought a hopeless battle against the Shi'ar Imperial Guard on Jean's behalf, and Illyana had not destroyed an inhabited star system like the Pheonix had.

Dani felt the eyes of all of her teammates turn to her. The New Mutants had no obligation to serve their sovereign from a past life like the guardians had, nor did they have the inherent love for Illyana all who met her before her years in Limbo had. They were not expected to fight the fights or make the kinds of sacrifices the two other teams were expected to. No one would have held it against them if they turned around, boarded the Blackbird, and waited for the battle to be over. Most of the X-Men would have welcomed that course of action from them.

Inwardly, Dani cursed her status as unofficial team leader. She needed time to process what they had just seen like the rest of them, and it wasn't her place to tell them how to feel, but still they looked to her for guidance.

Tentatively, Dani took one step forward, then another. Rahne gaped in horror as all of the New Mutants began to follow their leader, choosing to fight alongside the witch-demon. As the three teams began to make their way towards the entrance to the Dark Kingdom, she transformed into her wolf form and ran behind them.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Belasco remained seated on his throne as the heroes passed unopposed into the evil realm and headed straight for the throne room.

"Welcome," he said, smiling like he was greeting old friends. "I'm so glad you decided to join us. And as you truly are."

They saw Mina bound on the ground in front of the Dark Lord.

"Nightcrawler, go," Storm ordered.

The furry mutant teleported in a puff of black smoke, reappearing in a similar puff right next to Mina and bringing himself far closer to Belasco than he would have liked. But the demon lord did not react as he teleported the guardians' leader back to the rest of the heroes, where Illyana could use her soul sword to break the mystic chains holding her.

"I … thank you …" Sailor Venus said.

With that taken care of, Illyana turned her attention to Belasco. "Now it ends, demon," she spat.

She raised her sword and leapt across the throne room at her old master. Belasco finally stood, raising the guardians' sacred sword to meet her blade. The two swords met with a roar of thunder, and the heroes struggled to remain standing from the wind force created by the clash of powers. Belasco's brow creased as he began to exert himself, throwing Illyana to the ground.

Illyana's hooved feet skidded across the floor and she looked up at Belasco in shock. Even at the height of his power when he ruled Limbo, Belasco had not been a match for her when she was in her Darkchild form.

"He's drawing power directly from Metaria!" Mina yelled.

"Did you really think I'd draw you here without being prepared?" Belasco asked. He gestured at Illyana, and an invisible force drove her to her knees. Her horns shrunk back into her head, her tail into the back of her costume, and her hooves split into toes.

Belasco had forced her out of her Darkchild form.

Every hero who could use projectile attacks leapt into action, and a cavalcade of lightning, fire, and water struck Belasco with enough force to destroy multiple city blocks. Storm, Warlock, Magma, Sailor Mars, Sailor Jupiter, and Sailor Mercury hit him with everything they could muster. The ceiling collapsed The Dark Lord stood there, as concerned as he would be at a tiny drizzle of rain. He did not even need to summon a barrier to protect himself as Kunzite and Beryl had. He was simply so powerful now that their attacks meant nothing to him.

Kitty and Colossus ran forward to attempt to help Illyana up, and Dani reached into Belasco's mind, hoping to distract with the image of what he feared most. An apparition of the Darkchild appeared before him, frothing at the mouth with bloodlust, and his eyes flashed with anger.

In an instant, all of the heroes collapsed, screaming in pain.

"Insects," Belasco said. "Fleas."

Illyana continued to struggle to stand, but without access to her transformation, her power was nothing compared to Belasco's. She turned her head and beheld in horror the state her comrades were in.

"Stop it!" she yelled. "You're killing them!"

Belasco ignored her pleas. He had been patient long enough, and these annoyances were delaying his plans.

Illyana stopped struggling and reached deep inside herself. Her magic wasn't enough, and the Silver Crystal's power was beyond her reach. But she had another power, which she considered her true birthright, even if she used it only sparingly due to her lack of control.

A stepping disk appeared under her brother, then another under Kitty. More and more teleportation circles began forming beneath all of them, the X-Men, Sailor Guardians, and New Mutants.

Illyana had never before pushed her mutant power in this way. She had never summoned more than two stepping disks at the same time. Now she was summoning 16, and she could not say for certain when they would end up.

"Illyana, no!" Colossus screamed as he and the rest of them disappeared, leaving Illyana all alone, and at Belasco's mercy.

The Dark Lord smiled again. "It would have been more merciful to let them die here and now, to spare them from what Metaria and the Elder Gods will do once they are released. But now that those pests are gone, we can get down to business. I think that's enough teleporting for one day."

Metal chains grew out of the floor and wrapped around Illyana's wrists, draining her of all the power she had left, even her mutant power.

"Now, the time has come to forge the fourth bloodstone."