New Earth
Part 4
By Tisha

	Michiko stopped walking and leaned against a wall, trying to fight a sudden urge to cry. "We've 
been walking in the dark for two hours. Everyone back in Tokyo is probably already worrying. We're 
not good enough to do this. My mom's *life* depends on it!" 


	The other four stopped walking as well and stood in silence for several minutes. Takara finally 
sighed and put a hand on the younger girl's shoulder. "I'm sorry, Michiko. You're right, we shouldn't 
have tried this. But the longer we wait the more that can happen. We just need to go and get this over 
with. We'll get your mom back, and we'll stop the bombing. I know we can do it. Our parents worked 
too hard training us for us to fail."

	Michiko looked at her and nodded. "I know. It just feels hopeless. I mean, have we even 
gotten anywhere?"

	No one wanted to admit that with all of their walking they had never seen a single thing to tell 
them that they had even made any progress. For all they knew, they were walking in circles. Naomi 
looked both ways down the hall. "Well we just passed another fork. I think we should split up. I'll keep 
going down this one, Takara can go back the way we came, Kita and Michiko go take the other path 
from the fork, and Usa* can go with Takara until the next fork back and take that one."

	"But what about Michiko's light?"

	Takara looked at Michiko. "I think I can see without it. My eyes are well adjusted now."

	"Yeah, me too."

	Everyone agreed on the plan and went their separate ways, planning to use the communicator 
if they found the right way to go. Kita and Michiko were both glad to have been sent together and 
they went down their own tunnel looking for anything besides more walls and forks in the road. Kita 
heard a sound and turned around to find that Michiko was gone. She pressed the button for the 
communicator. "You guys, Michiko just disappeared!"

	Naomi's voice was the first to sound over in a reply. "The same person probably took her. Kita, 
just stay calm and keep walking in that direction. We'll find them both soon enough."

•••••••••••••••••••
Quick author's notes:
*Usa= Although most of the adults still call her Chibi-Usa, her friends call her Usa for short. And 
although the new senshi are currently transformed I'm just referring to them in their real names so 
you don't get all confused by me calling them Sailor Moon, etc. ^_^ Hope this way isn't even more 
confusing.
•••••••••••••••••••

	"Look who dropped in for a visit." Toshi entered the large room holding Michiko in front of her, 
her hand tightly clasped over the girl's mouth.

	Rei looked at her daughter's frightened eyes and cringed. "Please let her go! You can't want 
revenge on her; she had nothing to do with anything!"

	Toshi pushed Michiko toward a wall and she was immediately trapped in the same restraints 
holding Rei. She glared at the girl before looking back at Rei. "She broke into my palace, not to mention 
that she is the very reason that *my* boyfriend was going to abandon me for good."

	"Can't you see that he didn't want you? Whatever you may have now is a lie! You brainwashed 
him into loving you! That's not true love."

	Toshi looked mad enough to spit nails and she responded by zapping Rei with a lightening ball.

	"Mom!" Michiko watched her mother struggle against the pain, just noticing the sorrow in her 
eyes, red with tears.

	Rei bit her lip and forced a smile at her daughter. "I'm okay, Michi." She turned back to Toshi 
and simply looked at her. The other woman returned the stare before marching out of the room. Rei 
looked at Michiko. "Are you okay?"

	Michiko nodded. "What about you?"

	Rei sighed. "I'm fine. I can't believe you guys didn't tell Usagi about this. Where are the other 
girls?"

	Michiko shrugged, trying to relieve the ache of her bound wrist at the same time. "We split up 
to try and find you, or anything. And I was just suddenly here."

	Rei let herself relax onto the cold wall behind her. "I can't believe she's trying to take this out 
on you. And don't ask. It's a very long story." Rei looked at her daughter, who was obviously trying to 
get in a comfortable position despite the way she was tied up. Her heart nearly broke at the sight of 
the person who she loved most in the world in such a position because of her. She bit her lip to hold 
away tears, cursing herself for being so susceptible to them lately. It was like ever since she first broke 
down and cried twelve years ago there was no way to stop the tears from coming.

	She saw someone enter the room and looked up to see that it was Yuuichirou. She glanced at 
her daughter again, biting her lip in concentration. This was the time to try the only plan she had 
managed to come up with. She hadn't planned on Michiko being present, but she would have to do it 
anyway. "Yuuichirou?"

	He walked up to her and stared at her. Rei looked at Michiko to see that the girl had been 
surprised to hear the name. She tried to send a reassuring look to her daughter before looking back to 
Yuuichirou. "Do you even love Toshi?"

	He acted annoyed as he started to walk away. "I don't know. Why do you care anyway?"

	"You don't know? It's impossible to not know when true love is right in front of you. You don't 
even know what love is, do you? To you, I was love so she had to take the entire feeling out of your 
memory, right?"

	He snapped around and looked at her hard. "What the hell are you talking about?"

	"Why do you think she asked you whether you remembered me? You *did* know me. Toshi 
wiped out your memory and now you've just got a gap in your head where your love for me used to 
be." Rei's arms were throbbing terribly with the position they had been stuck in for hours. She was 
nearly shivering from sitting on the freezing floor, but she tried her best to keep her will to get them all 
out of this. Yuuichirou seemed to be considering what she had said.

	"Mom? What's going on?" Michiko had not wanted to think that this man was her father. She 
knew plenty about him, and had seen pictures, and she knew that this guy looked like him and went 
by the same name. But now with her mother talking this way she was sure of it. She wasn't sure 
whether she wanted to hug him or kill him for abandoning them and having them locked up right now. 
She suddenly remembered that she was transformed. Toshi hadn't even realized it. She was capable 
of using her powers right now. She concentrated her energy to cut the locks holding her hands and 
feet, while trying to be discreet.

	Rei looked at Michiko to see that she didn't even seem to be awaiting an answer. Instead, she 
looked like she was concentrating on something. Rei realized what she was doing and continued her 
conversation with Yuuichirou to distract him. "Please just try and remember me. Do you even 
remember anything from fifteen years ago? I bet not. For all that time you were with me."

	He grabbed his head and made a sound. "Stop trying to confuse me! I have no idea who you 
are and I never *have* known you!" He turned and nearly ran from the room. Rei sighed and looked 
back at Michiko. "Careful, Michi. Toshi's more observant than he is."

	Michiko looked at her mother, still trying to focus her energy on the metal, which she had 
almost penetrated. "Is that really him?" She stopped with her own chains, which were very close to 
breaking, and started on weakening the restraints on her mother. 


	"I think so. I'll tell you the whole story later but this isn't a good place." She looked up to the 
place where her wrist was chained to the wall. "I wonder if we can even find our way out of here."

	"My communicator hasn't been working since she brought me here, so I can't contact the 
others. But we should be able to find at least one of them."

 	Toshi entered the room and Michiko quickly stopped her power from further penetrating the 
metal. "You do not say one more word to him! Just face it, he doesn't remember you, and he never 
will! The memories are gone forever. They can't just surface if you remind him." She walked toward 
Rei and kicked her hard in the shin. Rei clenched her teeth to keep from crying out. Toshi glared at her 
for a minute.

	"Wait a second. I bet that didn't hurt you as much as this will." She turned to Michiko and sent 
a small energy ball toward her, jerking her back against the wall.

	"Stop it!" Rei pulled on the restraints, wanting to be able to help her daughter. Toshi turned 
back to Rei. "Maybe from now on you'll be good!"

•••••••••••••••••••

	"Any word yet?"

	Usagi turned to see Makoto enter the room. She sighed and sat down. "Nope. Nearly three 
hours and Rei hasn't called us once. Isn't that a little weird?"

	Makoto nodded and studied the many pictures on the control wall. "Takara made the call this 
morning. So technically we haven't seen Rei since they left here. What if something happened to 
her?"

	Usagi shook her head. "That's the weird part. If something had happened to her the girls 
wouldn't just go to the palace anyway, right? Michiko wouldn't abandon her mother, and I'd like to 
think that the others wouldn't either."

	Mamoru turned from where he had been working on getting new diagrams and analysis. 
"Except if the people at this palace used Rei for bait. Wouldn't they try to save her themselves, while 
still working on the original task?"

	Makoto bit her lip. "Sounds like something Naomi would do."

	Ami continued to push buttons from the controls. She pushed her glasses up on her nose and 
turned to the others. "I was able to track the girls from the signal in their communicators. They used 
the communicators about an hour ago. At that time, Chibi-Usa was here, Naomi here, Kita here, and 
Takara here. But I couldn't pick up on Michiko."

	Everyone looked at the diagram. It didn't make any sense that they hadn't heard from Rei yet, 
especially if her daughter seemed to be missing. They struggled to figure out what was happening and 
how to deal with it. Every single one of them felt completely useless.

•••••••••••••••••••

	Michiko knew that the restraints on both her and her mother were very near breaking, but 
she wasn't sure what they would do as soon as they were out. She looked at her mother, who looked 
exhausted. "What are we going to do about the bombing?"

	Rei shook her head. "She's trying to start a war. I don't think we can talk her out of it. We 
should just leave here and when we get back we'll make sure everyone knows where these attacks 
are coming from. It'll backfire on her soon enough."

	Michiko nodded and started concentrating to finish the job on her mother's arms. "What 
about...you know."

	"You mean Yuuichirou?" She averted her eyes to the ground. "Toshi's right. Whatever she did, 
he'll never be the same person. Those memories can never resurface. I think we need to go on living 
without him, as we always have."

	Michiko studied her mother. She could tell that she didn't like suggesting the idea, and that it 
hurt her to think about, so she decided not to respond. One of Rei's wrists dropped free and Michiko's 
fire finally melted through it. Rei circled the wrist, trying to relieve its ache. She looked at the other 
one, which was just about to break. "When we're both out, we make a run for it. We've got to find the 
other girls and get out of here. If we see her on the way, you'll have to hold her off."

	Michiko nodded, finishing with Rei's other hand. Rei was able to pull on her weakened foot 
restraints enough to break them off so Michiko quickly returned to her own. She was out soon enough 
and they went for the exit to the large room. There were dark cave halls in both directions. They could 
hear Toshi's voice somewhere to the right, so they went left. Walking very quickly, they tried to find 
any of the other senshi. This cave was no different than the ones the five young senshi had wandered 
for hours. It went on forever and never reached anyplace.

	They came to a three-way split in the road and had to decide which way to go. Rei looked at 
Michiko, "Just pick one."

	"Let's go right." Michiko replied, leading the way down the path. But she stopped when a large 
white aura seemed to appear in their path. They both stood back and watched as it materialized into 
the form of Toshi.

	"Do you people actually think I'm this stupid?" She asked them. "You can't escape me. I still 
need to take my revenge. And now I have reason to hate you even more. You underestimated me." 
She snapped her fingers and Rei and Michiko were trapped in some sticky substance as a very large 
man came out of nowhere and dragged them both back to the large room where they had been 
imprisoned before.


To be continued...