"Dreaming of You"

"What is this place?" asked Serena.

"I think it's on the moon," answered Raye, gesturing to the skylights above them.

"Whoa! Cool!" exclaimed Mina, running to a better position for seeing the earth.

"Where did this place come from? And why is it on the moon?" Darien pondered, running his hand along the spines of the books on the wall.

"Well, now that we've found Luna Ball," Raye began, "what do we do now?"

"Maybe there's a button on it that does something..." Serena started poking the ball fearfully. At each poke, it glided away from its static position, only to float back.

"The ice is gone!" realized Lita.

"Ice melts, Lita," said Mina in response.

"Then where's the water?"

"It's magical ice, remember?"

"I suppose..."

Serena continued to poke the ball, then decided to press her finger on the pseudo-cat's pink nose.

"You all have finally arrived!" exclaimed a female voice with a slight British accent.

"Who said that?" asked Luna, in a voice similar to that of the ball.

Everyone turned to where the voice had come from, Luna Ball. "I did. I've been hoping for some time that Sailor Moon would find me. I apologize for hiding so well, but I couldn't allow the Negamoon to get ahold of me."

"What are you?" Artemis inquired tersely.

"That is not important right now. The important thing at the moment is Rini. You must save her, and with my help I hope you'll be able to."

"Where is she?" demanded Serena.

"I'll start from the beginning. She was at recess a few weeks ago with me, when the Negamoon attacked. Scared, she reached for her Time Key and attempted to use it. Rubius fired a blast of energy at her, hitting the Time Key directly. And something went horribly wrong. It exploded and she disappeared. Everybody stood mesmerized with a blank look on their faces. I returned to Serena's house, but I knew the Negamoon would be looking for me, so I created a passageway to the moon, to a secluded remnant of the Silver Millennium, Queen Serenity's study. She spent the last moments of her life, only a few hours after sending the Sailor Scouts and Prince Darien to be reincarnated, in this study.

"I hoped you Sailor Scouts would come looking for me, but everyone lost their memories of Rini and me. Except for the Negamoon. Their forces in the future are working to locate her. You must find her first, and I intend to help you. Where she is, I'm not exactly sure. But she seems to be located beneath the fabric of the physical plane. In other words, you must travel as she did to save her."

"And what do you mean by that?" asked Serena.

"Basically, you're searching for a needle in a haystack. All I can do is get you to the haystack. Once there, it's up to you to find that needle."

"What do we do?" Serena responded.

"I'll open a gate through the archway, but you all need to transform into Sailor Scouts before you go throuhg. There is no telling what dangers may lie on the other side."

"So the archway can lead anywhere?" mused Darien.

"Theoretically, yes," answered the ball. "But it takes great energy to connect it to another location. Once a connection has been made, it can easily be accessed again, akin to blazing a trail or digging a tunnel. So the archway can lead you back to Sailor Moon's home without any problems. I warn you that this journey to rescue Rini will be dangerous-"

"We know," said Serena. "And if we have any second thoughts, we should remain. I don't have any, so open the trail."

"Open the trail? That doesn't make any sense!" exclaimed Raye.

"Makes more sense than digging a trail, which is what I would have said," interjected Mina. Lita laughed.

"What about the archway in the basement?" Darien asked suddenly. "What happens when Serena's mother finds it?"

"Don't worry," answered Luna Ball, "only you five and Sailor Mercury and Rini can see and use the archway."

"So everybody with me?" asked Serena.

A jumbled response came, every person answering in some type of "yes."

"Then let's do it."

"The archway is ready," said Luna Ball.

Sailor Moon appeared in the middle of blackness, but completely visible. Following her, Sailor Mars, then Tuxedo Mask, Sailor Jupiter, and Sailor Venus. "Where are we?" she asked.

"I don't know..." whispered Sailor Mars is response. "Maybe I can brighten the situation..."

"Please don't make puns like that," interrupted Sailor Venus.

"Sorry. But back to what I was gonna do... Mars, Celestial Fire, Surround!!" Sailor Mars screamed as beads of fire surrounded her. She focused her mind and held her hands together, allowing the balls to permeate her. Suddenly, a blast of orange light flared from her hands, passing through everybody without any effect on them. However, it revealed to the Sailor Scouts where they were.

The dark archway stood behind them, in the middle of the room, appearing to be standing upright from no support at all. The floor was composed of ancient stone, a darkened tan, unevenly laid to produce quite visible distinctions between one brick and the next. Above them was a ceiling of the same composition, causing Tuxedo Mask to ponder how the bricks remained from falling; there was obviously gravity wherever this place was.

The tomb was about twice as big as the study the scouts had just come from. The walls' stone texture was smooth and solid, not broken like the faulty architecture of the ground. The circumambient light that Sailor Mars had created showed the carvings in the wall clearly. As Sailor Moon walked up to one wall in an attempt to read the inscriptions, she discovered them to be in some language she was quite unable to decipher. "I wish Amy was here..." she muttered.

In the middle of each of the four walls a doorway opened up, leading to four different hallways, each seeming to progressively reach pitch black within a few feet of their beginnings.

"Which one do we go down?" asked Sailor Mars.

"If Amy were here, maybe she could do her trace-thing again," said Darien.

"No, I can find Rini," announced Serena, pulling out her Crescent Moon Wand, and holding it as if it were a divining rod. Through her wand, she could feel Rini's energy, pulsating, scared, frightened, vulnerable. "This way," she said, pointing to the doorway nearest Tuxedo Mask.

"Then let's go," he said, starting to walk through the doorway, the Sailor Scouts following him, Sailor Moon first.

"Hey, cool! The light's following us!" exclaimed Sailor Venus. "Great job, Raye!"

"Thanks," Sailor Mars grinned. "I didn't know for sure if my power would work that-"

"Hey!" shouted Tuxedo Mask as he stepped over the edge of the bricks, falling into a black abyss.

"Darien!" yelled Sailor Moon, only to begin screaming as the floor fell out from beneath her. Within a few moments, the rest of the Sailor Scouts lost their footing as well, plummetting and screaming. They could all hear one another's screams as they fell, but the darkness would not allow them to see anything, including each other.