Prologue

At every level of society, there are places where the general population is forbidden to go, for various reasons. In elementary school, the room in which confiscated items are stored is forbidden because it contains items which the school dares not dispose of, yet adamantly refuses to return to their rightful owners. In banks, the vault is forbidden because that is where the much-needed currency is kept. In the distant future, there is a building deep beneath the earth's crust, jealously guarded, which serves as a depository for the confiscated time-travel artifacts of thousands of slain and otherwise bested villains. It is called the Museum of Time, though it is more like a toxic waste dump than a museum. Its only visitors are those who are assigned to add another item to the growing collection.

Until now.

He moves as silently as a shadow's shadow among the dusty "exhibits," sometimes pausing to blow some dust off of this or that ancient machine, the dust making the laser fields protecting the items visible. The plastic covering the liquid-crystal display on an ancient electronic time-dilation accelerator from way back in the thirtieth century has long since decayed to nothing, exposing the workings beneath.

"Someone should complain to the curator." he says. "These displays are in horrid condition." He comes to an early attempt at a time machine, constructed in the twentieth century during the time of the original Sailor Scouts. The ancient machine is so old and decrepit that his sigh causes it to fall into a thousand fragmented pieces. A diamond tumbles outside the laser field, rolling to the uninvited visitor's feet. He picks it up off the floor, examining it closely. "It appears this is the only thing worth spitting on in this dump." the visitor sighs. He continues on until he comes to a door the size of the entire north face of the Sailor Watchtower. The door is imposing, carved from the trunk of a great Tree that once grew on a giant planet in another galaxy, its hinges requiring more steel than a bullet train, the metal skirt on the bottom using many times that. He knows that to touch the Door leading to the Second Great Hall, in which were kept the ageless magical time-travel items confiscated from dark magicians, powerful beings and even dark deities, is to sound the alarm in the Watchtower overhead. Instead he lets his cloak guide him, blending into the shadows, becoming one with them, and emerging once more from another shadow, this one inside the Hall.

Sailor Chibi Io and the Sailor Centauri twins, Alpha and Proxima, followed behind Sailor Andromeda as she watched the stranger move among the exhibits in the Museum. Chibi Io had long ago touched the stud on her belt which had activated the silent alarm. They watched him disappear through a shadow, all but Sailor Andromeda dropping her jaw in surprise. Proxima Centauri called for backup.

The Second Great Hall was different than the first. The difference was palpable the first time one entered. Unlike time-machines, the time-magic required to create items such as the Phoenix Gate, the Timelord's Scepter and the Time Key was immense. A gathering like this of so many magical implements of temporal manipulation was bound to cause ripple effects in time. Magical protections on the walls, the vaulted ceilings and the Door kept these time-ripples from warping the fabric of space and time outside the Museum. He used his magical senses to determine where it was safe to walk. Light itself was refracted where one time-rate moved on to another. Distortions floated about, rippling the light like heat shimmer. In a few places, unwary Scouts stood or hovered, transfixed by distortions which they had unwittingly walked into or which had moved without warning. Here was a place fraught with peril. A single misstep could freeze him forever in time. As he moved, afterimages rippled behind him, each a nanosecond behind the previous, stretching behind him like a ribbon, beginning to disappear a few seconds later. He paused in front of several exhibits ... shields, gems, stones, and artifacts of every description. Floating beneath a bell jar sat the Time Key. Its time-energy had diminished little over the millennia. Quirking an eyebrow, he caused the bell jar to rise, quickly followed by the Key. The light-bending time-distortions in the Hall would render lasers useless, so they were not used. The distortions served as their own security system, requiring a great deal of skill--more than was possessed by any normal being, certainly--to navigate safely. Still, compared to him the challenge was negligible and amateurish. Finally he held the Key in his hand. He closed his eyes and examined its energy. No good. It was a unilateral artifact. It could only move backward and forward. One had to be careful not to interact with the environment. The slightest change, especially if one goes far enough into the past, could affect history in profound ways and be detrimental to the health, even the existence, of the traveler. He returned the Key and its jar to their position. Over to the right was the Timelord's Scepter. Much more powerful, and infinitely more dangerous, it had been created in the place where all times and timelines, all possible histories and even those which were not so plausible, crossed. It hovered a couple of feet above the ground, its staff pointing off toward one of the vaulted domes in the ceiling. The intruder did not need his mystical senses to tell him it hovered in a time-distortion, frozen there until the distortion moved on or was forced aside. Slowly the shimmering of another distortion descended, hugging the wall. One never could tell what would happen when two distortions met. They could occlude one another, or cancel each other out, or one could bump the other elsewhere, depending on the situation.

Impatiently, Sailor Andromeda leaped, her silken red hair barely moving in its tightly-braided bun as she touched the wall across from the Door, and with astonishing strength launched herself at it. She somersaulted in the air, launching a power-call which would allow her to open the Door.

"Andromeda Nova Kick!" she exclaimed, landing a deceptively powerful foot on the division between the left and right halves of the Door. It swung open, the impact of the Door against the doorstops measuring prominently on the Richter scale.

"Not much for subtlety, is she?" Sailor Proxima Centauri asked.

"She's only been with us six weeks, Proxima." Chibi Io replied. "Give her time."

"Chibi Phobos already quit because of her." Sailor Alpha Centauri remarked. "While we're thinking of it, we should add 'tact' to her vocabulary list as well." They followed nonetheless. They didn't want to be left out.

The opening of the Door reverberated through the Hall, rattling the walls, floor and ceiling. A redhead strode imperiously in, as if she expected the distortions to part for her like the waters of the Red Sea had for Moses millennia ago. Gracefully she bounded over the most troublesome anomalies, guided in part by the frozen Scouts who hadn't moved in decades, if not centuries, and in part by the distinctive shimmer of the more severe time-differences.

"I don't know who you are or why you've come, but this place is forbidden." she said.

"I haven't taken anything." he said. "Care to search me?" With that, he removed everything but his jet-black boxers. He noticed just the slightest dilation of her pupils as they moved up and down his form. He could sense her thoughts as she looked him over, many of them beginning with "I can't allow myself to..." She checked the discarded clothing with a toe, and finally called back to her companions that he was clean. "You're not through yet." he said, stepping closer. His muscles were like coiled springs, powerful, but without enough bulk to slow them down, and he certainly wasn't the bodybuilder type, but the gentle touch that pulled her against his chest could easily have broken her neck if he had wanted to. He grasped her hands and guided them over his boxers, and locked eyes with the confused and flustered young redhead, her imperiousness dissipated like mushroom dust in the wind. The others held back, unwilling to brave the distortions that filled the room and confused by the stranger's behavior. The redhead's name was Meiko Nakajima, also called Sailor Andromeda. Her sense of duty prompted her to force back the emotions that had flooded her as she tried to break his gaze. He extended his consciousness to her, and she was fighting a war on two fronts. One against his probing mind, the other against her own suppressed nature. With that nature as his ally, he couldn't lose. The psionic tendril in her mind felt to her like liquid music, making her want to relax, even though she knew fully well that he was trying to control her ... but it felt so good. The intruder smiled as her resistance began to flag. He leaned down, reaching his arms tenderly around her. As his lips brushed hers, he felt her shiver. When he finally let it evolve into a full-fledged kiss, the last of her resistance melted. Her eyes fluttered open when he broke the kiss, and she smiled up at him, feeling utterly obedient and yet more free than ever at the same time. He reached behind her head and removed the pins that held her hair in place. The ruby wealth tumbled about her body, all the way down to the backs of her knees. She shook her head to free it from the braids.

The visitor heard the sound of the Timelord's Scepter clattering to the floor and leaped into the air with Andromeda in his arms. The anomaly which had been descending had bumped the time-freeze distortion, and it was now scooting across the floor like a soap bubble, bouncing off an extremely slow time-bubble containing one of the frozen Scouts. He quickly dashed to her aid before the distortion which had been resting atop that one could descend. Like a laser fired in a house of mirrors the intruder bounded between walls and ceilings, travelling wherever there was a straight line of distortion-free space. They landed in front of the awestruck Scouts and departed through the First Great Hall. Chibi Io gave chase. The Centauri twins closed the door so displaced distortions wouldn't escape.

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