End of the Millennium
A Xian Shade Production

Author's Notes: Coming upon the last few chapters of book two.
Thanatos needs to find a way to preserve the survivors until needed,
and to prepare the reborn creatures of light for the coming battles
in the distant future. But could more surprises be in store for the
physical manifestation of death?

Disclaimer: I do not own any aspects of Sailor Moon or Phantasy Star.
If I did, this would be an anime, or manga, or both. Thanatos, Ares,
Chronos, Aljus, King Marcus, and the worthless one are © Xian Shade
and may not be used without my permission. People failing to follow
this rule have broken Xian's Law #849, paragraph 3, line 2: Don't fuck
with my shit.


The Path of Finding Destiny, Chapter 29:

Like the other worlds, Mercury was a wasteland. The surface's plants
and soil had been scorched away, devoid of life. 'The forest where
Amilia and I first kissed is gone as well.' Thanatos thought. He shook
the thoughts aside, since he realized he had to hurry, and found one
of the mechanical production domes. All that remained was the
mechanical, and even that was suffering due to the immense amount of
heat reflecting from the sun, the world's mechanical and magical
protection now gone. The planetary defense mechanisms were broken and
shattered, probably by agents of darkness amongst the people. King
Marcus was right in investigating after all... for what good it did.

The black space of Thanatos' cloak was a near-infinite storage space,
where he himself hid as a defense. The cloak was two-dimensional when
not filled out by his three-dimensional form, so he could travel on
different planes of existence, and at tremendous speeds. Within the
cloak, he could store a thousand lifetimes of work, and indeed he had
such things: the desk he'd written up the contract upon to come to
Mercury and court their princess, the books on Silver Millennium Law,
scrolls of knowledge filled with the magics and healing from Saturn,
weaponry from each world, even a resting place for the brief times he
needed it. Right now, Queen Serenity occupied that bed, growing more
and more pale, while her guardians tended to her. Finally, Thanatos
found what he needed: Cryogenic pods. He'd remembered long ago when
his brother Noah wanted to wait for his love to return, that he would
use these pods to keep his mortal form alive and young for the day
she would come back to him. Thankfully, he'd asked to learn how they
worked when he realized Mercury had a very similar item. He found a
larger one and pulled its mechanics into the black space, and two
smaller ones for the two cats. Thankfully the three had independent
power sources, though the larger one's power source was limited.
Finding these, he pulled himself inside as well.

"You two must guide and train the people who have been forced into
reincarnation. The crystal won't allow for Metallia to be free, but
the humans and most of the monsters will be permitted to live again,
and they can free her with enough energy. Above all, you must never
let them find these." he said, showing them the seven colored
crystals. "These seven crystals form the silver crystal that caused
this mess, and if that falls into the hands of your enemy, along with
the monsters within the crystal, then all will be lost. Until princess
Serenity is reborn, and the evil is released from these gems, nobody
may make the crystal whole again. As a precaution, I will disperse
them on Earth, where the spirits were sent." he said, palming the
gems, then pulling forth the crescent shaped wand. "Keep this for the
moon princess, when the time comes. It's designed to home in on the
specific energy signal of the crystal, so it should be able to find
all the pieces." He rummaged through the relics he'd found after the
battle, and came across a mysterious brooch he'd found in the remains
of the castle, a pen with a gem at its tip, and four other pens, each
with a symbol of each of the four inner planets. "Certainly, these
must have some use that you are familiar with." he was temporarily
tempted to keep the Mercury-symbol pen, but it would have no use to
him.

Luna and Artemis only nodded. "These items will be most helpful in
defending once they awaken... but what of the queen? Why are you
keeping her here?"

"I must save someone... if nothing else, to remind me that I tried my
best to defend this system, but even immortals may be humbled... even
destroyed." his thoughts drifted off as he found one last item in the
bag... the ring he'd given Amilia.

The two cats lowered their heads as Thanatos lifted the Queen into the
chamber, laying her hands over her stomach. "If one day I may find a
way to restore you, Queen Serenity, then I will. It is my penance. I
shall see you again when I wake you..." he said, lowering the glass
pane and beginning the procedure. He edged the cats into their pods as
well. "I will time your pods to open four years before their full
reincarnation, when their memories may begin to set in during
maturity. During that time, you must train them to fight the darkness,
because if they do not, darkness will win, and the last free planet in
this system will be just like the others. There may yet be one or two
survivors." he thought, remembering the words of Metallia, that they
hadn't found Chronos. "I will search for them in the meantime. When
the darkness comes in full force, my brothers and I will return to
defend you all."

They stayed silent and eased into the pods, closing their eyes when he
closed the smaller glass canisters, and set dates upon the two for
them to awaken. He waited for the glass pane to frost over on all
three capsules, then raced for Earth to track down the souls of those
that were sent ahead. It was difficult to pinpoint where they would
land, since the queen had simply aimed for the planet. He was looking
for two very distinct souls. Those of the princesses of Venus and
Earth's Moon. These two were specifically guardians of the royalty of
those respective planets... and the girls could respectively be
considered 'next in line' in authority.

As he placed the white guardian cat's pod in a cavern near the soul of
Venus' princess, he wanted to find Amilia's soul and hold onto it, to
know when her time of judgement would be up, and when she would be
born, to keep her with him and make her safe forever. He would love to
even stay until that time, to be with her again, but he knew such a
thing was impossible. He couldn't touch the spirits now, because they
were already set for judgement. He silently chided himself and
searched for the spirit of the Moon Princess, having placed the
encapsulated black cat in a small cave near where the spirit would be
born. Returning above the planet's atmosphere, he looked at the seven
screaming shadows within the crystal shards.

"-It's your fault the war ended this way. You killed my brother, made
me sacrifice my gifted one, and imprisoned me while stopping your
army. If you weren't present, the war would be won.-" he spoke
judgement upon the seven, and he didn't know if they could hear him or
even understand. "-Let father's energies from this crystal purify your
evil ways. Live peacefully, like the others that were sent ahead...
and learn from your mistakes.-" With those words, he placed them all
in one hand, and launched the crystals down upon the Earth. Never was
he so glad to be rid of his enemies.

He sighed, thinking to himself in the silent vaccum of space, and
staring at his love's ring. 'I hate doing this alone... but what can I
do? Ares was obliterated, Chronos is nowhere to be found, and Noah...
Noah!' he thought, now feeling the gentle yet insistent probe of his
brother.

-'It's about time you answered me, Thanatos! I can't get in contact
with Ares or Chronos! Where are they?'-

-'...They're gone.'- was all he could think to his brother.

-'What do you mean, 'gone'?!'-

-'The physical body of Ares was completely destroyed in a massive
battle with the darkness... a being we never encountered before.
Though we managed to shatter that massive dark creature, I was
entrapped by its pieces... it caught me by surprise. A large form of
Falz was behind that being, and Chronos... we haven't heard from him
in more than a month. The planet he was residing upon is completely
dead. No life anywhere. It's the same way with almost the entire solar
system, now... the only life left is on the planet that started this
mess; the one that was possessed by the darkness. Apparently there
were a good deal of people that couldn't be corrupted by the darkness
as easily.'-

-'Did you check the door of time for Chronos?'-

Thanatos smacked himself for not thinking of that sooner. He even
SUGGESTED it to Chronos before the last time he spoke with him! He
should have known that since his own thoughts couldn't reach his
brother in that dimension, that the communication technology wouldn't
reach that dimensional plane either, so naturally Pluto's princess
wouldn't hear it. -'I didn't! He may yet be alive. I'll let you know
in a moment!'- he thought aloud to his brother, then willed his scythe
to tear open into the misty dimension of time, stepping through the
tear which promptly sealed behind him.

"-Chronos! Are you here?-" Thanatos shouted into the fog. He saw a
figure in the fog a distance away.

A female figure.

He returned to their normal language. "Princess Setsuna? I fear I have
terrible news..." the figure didn't move. "Have you seen Chronos? I
haven't been able to talk to him in many years, and he must know these
events too."

Silence.

CLANG!

Thanatos had anticipated this. Chronos had taught Setsuna to test
whomever approached the door of time with extreme predjudice, whether
they were going through or not. She had mastered a good deal of
Chronos' abilities, and was able to move at enough speed to catch
nearly anyone off-guard, especially with her own impressive abilities
included. But his own perceptions were far too heightened. The
heart-shaped talisman atop her staff was caught in his scythe's curve,
but defensively. He was well-trained in Chronos' abilities as well. "I
may have been beaten by the darkness, but I still have enough strength
to defeat Chronos' disciple. I mean you no harm, princess Setsuna.
Please, just answer my questions, and I will be on my way."

Her gaze was dull. Red eyes stared at his cloaked form, and the stress
against his scythe eased. "I haven't seen Lord Chronos for some time.
What did you mean, when you said the darkness beat you?"

Thanatos sighed and recounted the tale since she was last seen,
recognizing her outfit as being similar to the one worn by Saturn's
princess in their time of crisis, except that she lacked shoulder
covering altogether, and the crystal on her bow was scarlet like her
eyes. Were these outfits related to these events somehow? She listened
with horrified fascination about all he knew: the wars on Earth, the
darkness outside their system, the death of her planet first, then the
rest of them, the sacrifice of Sailor Saturn, the end of the alliance,
the death of Ares, and the sacrifice of Queen Serenity. Her eyes
reverted from their widened state, and she turned to move back to the
door. "I'm sorry for the loss of everyone, but my duty to Lord Chronos
was greater than my duty to serve my people. Had the darkness gotten
here, the destruction could have been infinitely worse, and we'd never
know that it happened."

"Indeed so. But Chronos was lax, in that he should have been here
guarding WITH you, or at least to help guard your planet, or even
guard here while you led your people. He said nothing about his
location?"

"He said only that paradox came to this plane two decades ago being a
thousand years old, and that he needed to figure out why the source of
the paradox exists at that time, as well as a millennium from now.
There are two of the same thing here." she said, righting her staff
once more. "I await his return as much as you do."

Thanatos nodded in understanding. "Thank you for telling me, Princess.
I hope he returns soon. If he does, please let him know what has
transpired."

"I shall... but please, refer to me by my planet's name. I am Pluto."

Thanatos nodded, and with that, he tore back through the dimensions
following the faint telepathic call of his brother Noah, finding
himself on an icy world. He had hoped to find his brother, but the
source of his thoughts were coming from such a desolate world such as
this? What had happened?

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

What HAD happened? Thanatos, saving the queen from death? Setsuna,
oblivious to the plight of her own planet? Where the hell has Chronos
been? What's been happening on Noah's end? What paradox do they refer
to? Let's find out next time!