This is a rewrite of the first part.

The Trial

        Rubieus wasn't happy; he was mad.  Time and again those silly
Sailor Scouts got in his way and ruined his plans.  They worked perfectly
up until they showed up, and it was usually Sailor Moon who really screwed
them up.  He was walking back to his ship from a...more seedy part of town.
There were women drapping themselves all over him and other men, 'You
wanna have some fun?' they would ask.  'Only fifty bucks!' they said.  It
seemed to him that all humans weren't like Sailor Moon.  "I need a perfect
plan, before the wiseman roasts me!  I can't belive I lost the sisters!"
He was so lost in his own thoughts that he didn't notice the five young
toughs starting to follow him.  Eventually they decided that this man was
going to be fun.
        "Hey, dude!  I wanna talk to you!" the largest called out.  "Hey,
I'm talking to you!"
        "And what to you want to talk about?" Rubieus asked in a bored
voice.  The large one walked in front of him.
        "I want your cash, cards, and any jewelery you got on your sorry
ass."  He and the others drew knives and clubs.  Rubieus looked around.
'It won't be hard to kill them, I shouldn't waste my time, but I need
something entertaining to do.  Besides, it always pays to stay in
practice.'  Two minutes later, all but the large boy was dead.  He was
about to kill him, when a glimmer of a plan formed in his mind.  He dragged
the tough by his hair to a secluded place, and then teleported them to his
ship.
        "Alright, human, tell me everything you know."  Rubieus learned
much in the next few hours, but only two things stood out in his mind.
Then he proceeded to kill him, in such a way that would have made the
sisters leave him if they already hadn't.  He walked to the middle of the
ship and summoned the Wiseman.
        "Well, Rubieus, what have you got for me?  A plan I hope."
        "Of course!  And this one won't fail." He then explained everything
to the Wiseman, his whole plan.  The Wiseman was impressed, never having
heard such a well-thought out plan from Rubieus in a while.
        "Very well.  I look forward to it's sucess.  By the way, what have
you done with the human?"
        "It took him five hours to die, and it was slow, and oh so
painfull!" Rubieus replied, an evil gleam in his eye.
****
        Across town, Darien was having troubles of his own.  Every time he
closed his eyes, the love of his life, Serena, would be there.  Sometimes
she was smiling, others she was crying, and others still she was helping
Darien during his occasional injury.  'Why am I doing this?' Then he
answered his own question.  'Because I love her, and if I don't do this,
she'll die!  That won't happen!' he vowed.
        He tried to open the sliding glass door to his apartments balcony,
when a black streak flashed before his eyes, claws gleaming in the
moonlight.  "RRRROWWWWW!" went the streak, and Darien felt a sharp pain on
his face.  The black streak slowed down and turned into Luna.
        "Luna, we came here to talk to him, not cut him up with claws,"
another voice called out, masculine.
        "But Artemis, you've seen what he's done to her, how she cries at
night, how she cries during the day, and how she keeps going on about how
it's _her_ fault!  For doing this to her, he diserves this and so much
more!" and with that, she proceeded to stalk in his general direction.  But
Darien had a reply to her implication.
        "I know what I've done, and I also know what it's done to her, and
it's for that reason, and that reason alone, that I'll let you do what you
came here for."  Darien's admition to what he's been doing to Serena seemed
to drain the anger out of Luna.  She looked up to his face, and saw the
tears in his eyes.  In that moment, there was no doubt in her mind that he
still loved Serena very much, and this was hurting him far more that he was
hurting Serena.  Then she noticed something and remembered her traing about
dealing with royalty, foreign or not.
        "I am deeply sorry about cutting your face, my lord Prince Darien,"
and bowed as only she could.  Darien seemed surprised about the refrence to
his past, but the age-old training that he got, as he was going to rule the
planet, came to his defence.
        "My face?" he didn't relalize that he was bleeding.  "Nonsense,
Luna, I know you were justified in doing that, and please, drop the 'my
lord' bit.  I'm still only human, no prince.  At least, not any more."
        Artemis broke in with a snort, "If you're not a prince, then I'm a
shade of black."  Darien had to smile at the white cat.
        "Thanks, I appreciate the vote of confidence; but if I may inquire,
what did you want to come here to discuss, other than debate my
birthrights?  Where are my manners, would the two of you like something to
drink, even though you're cats?"  Luna and Artemis looked at each other,
looked back at the young man, back at each other, and both nodded, albeit
somewhat nervously.  "OK, I'll be right back," and he wandered off into his
kitchen.
        "What do you suppose he's doing, Artemis?"  But the other cat's
answer was cut off as a voice from the kitchen called out.
        "I'm not going ice skating, that's for sure!"  Luna could only look
on with wonder.
        "Luna, what's he talking about?"
        "He's reffering to our first meeting, Artemis."  And then her mind
wandered back to when Prince, cat, and Princess had met for the first time.
****
        "Princess Serena, come back here at once!" Luna called out.  'What
did I do to diserve this?' she wondered.  Queen Serenity had insructed her
most trusted advisor to look after her precious daughter while she was in
chambers with the King and Queen of Earth.  'It's a demotion.'  Her four
little legs couldn't keep up with the hyperactive young girl.
        "Hello there, what are you looking for?" a young man asked.  He was
dressed casually, a rare sight in any castle indeed.
        "I'm looking for Princess Serena, and I can't find her anywhere in
this castle.  I wish I was back home."
        "What do you mean 'home'?  You live here on Earth right?"
        "No, I'm from the moon."  The man looked like was thinking deeply.
        "Ah-ha!  You're part of the group that came from the moon.  I
should have put it together earlier.  'Young girl and talking cat' they
said.  I'm sorry," and with that he bowed deeply to her.  Of course, this
did nothing for her ego.  She put her nose up in the air, which is to say,
it came up to his ankle.  Then something he said didn't make sense to her.
        "Who said?  And for that matter, who are you?"
        "Just someone who knows what's going on around here," and with
that, he started to run after Serena with Luna in his arms.  'He looks to
be a few years older than Serena, maybe three.  What's he going to do when
he catches up with her?'  "Hey!  Hey!  You lost your cat!"  The blond
stopped running, on a dime it seemed, spun around, scooped Luna out of the
man's arms, and ran off again, yelling:
        "Thanks!", and then she was out of sight, around the corner.  He
only shook his head, and walked off.
        "Serena, you do realize that we're late in meeting the Queen and
King, right?"
        "Where do you think we're going, huh?" She came to a small door,
only big enough to let the people in.  "Luna, are these the right doors?
They look too small."
        "This is where they are."  And Serena walked in, unsure of what she
was going to see.  She saw the largest room in the castle she had seen,
ever.  She saw a large table, with her mother on one side, and the King and
Queen on the other.  They were surrounded by subjects and various helpers.
The whole room was packed, and dead silent when she opened the door.  Her
heart started to race with her embarrasment.  Behind the Queen and King was
a curtain, possibly hiding a corridor.  Her mother gave her the briefest of
glares, before softening and returning to business.
        "Take your place at my side, my daughter, if you would please."  It
wasn't a question.
        "I'm sorry I'm late, I lost Luna."  The cat could only mutter to
herself:
        "Oh sure, blame it on me."  The Queen of Earth only smiled, and
then looked over at Serenity.
        "I don't think that she _has_ to be here, so why don't we let her
and her court do something?"  The King nodded, and Queen Serenity look like
she was mulling it over.  Then, reaching a decision, asked a question.
        "What would they do?"
        "_I_ could entertain them," a strong and clear voice from behind
the curtains called out.  The whole assembly jumped at the voice.
        "Queen Serenity," the Queen said, "may I present to you," and the
young man Luna saw earlier stepped out from behind the curtain, "my son and
the future King of Earth, Prince Darien."  Prince Darien bowed deeply, his
face and waist in line.
        "I am deeply honoured to meet you, My Lady Queen Serenity," he
said.  Luna, meanwhile, was sounding like she was being strangled.  Serena
was no different.  Still bowing, he turned his head to look at the cat and
young lady.  "We meet again," he said to both of them.  "As to what we
could do," he looked over at Serena, "have you ever gone ice skating?  I
thought not." he looked up at the visiting Queen.  "We have a small lake
frozen over out back, skating is fun, and pretty safe, my lady."
        Serena looked like having fun was top on her "To Do" list.  She
found all this formality and politics to be boring, anyway.  'I'd do almost
anything to get away from here.' she thought to herself, her heart once
more regaining it's normal speed.  Queen Serenity nodded, Prince Darien
motioned to Serena to go ahead of him, and they went behind the curtain and
he told her to go find her court, while he got everything that was needed.
        Out back, there was a lake, and it was frozen over, but it wasn't
small.  It looked like to would swallow the whole palace!  Leda, the
princess from Jupiter, looked at the lake.  "If this is small, then I'd
hate to see gigantic."  There were nods of aggrement from the collection of
teen-aged girls.  Then Darien came out, with six pairs of skates.
        "Here, put these on," and he demostrated the way to do it, as
they've never worn skates before.  After ten minutes of figuring, all of
them were laced up and ready to go, with one problem.  None of them could
keep their balance on ice, and they kept falling.  Darien had no problems
skating, as he had been doing it for years, and he enjoyed showingh off,
even though he would never tell them that!  He was skating around,
backwards, forwards, and even sideways for a bit.  Serena was the first to
get the hang of it, and was soon moving, albeit very slowly.  Ami soon
followed, and joined her.
        Leda, Mina, and Rei however, just couldn't do it.  They would be
standing on wobbly legs, and then something would slip, and CRASH!  One
time Ami came a little too close, and accidentaly tripped Leda.  Again,
there was that characterisitic CRASH!  Again, there were groans of pain.
Again, there were poor attempts to stand up.  But, unlike the other times,
Leda had a score to settle.  She pried herself off the ice, wobbled over to
Ami, who was looking in a different direction, got a handfull of her
clothes, and pulled.  CRASH! went Ami, and Leda was pulled down.
        Rei was the first over to see the result, and couldn't figure out
what body part belonged to whom.  "Hey, I thought the ice was cold.  Is
it?"  Rei thought she heard a *pop*, and Leda looked up.
        Muttering "Why don't you come down here and find out!" she hauled
Rei down to the ice.  Rei squeeled, Ami grunted, and Leda howled.  Serena
skated over.
        "Didn't that hurt?" she asked with a grin on her face.  Rei looked
at the others, and soon Serena was in the pile.  Mina, while smart enough
to stay away from the pile, didn't see Darien coming up from behind.  He
body-checked her, lightly, and she was tossed into the pile.  He skated
away fast, and started to laugh.  He laughed so hard he thought he would
break something.  With tears streaming out of his eyes in a futile attempt
to stop laughing, he choked out, "That's so funny!  If I don't stop, I'll
hurt something!!"  Leda, Mina, Rei, Ami, and Serena looked at each other,
nodded, got up off the ice, and started to advance on the Prince.  Darien
never saw it coming.
        With a war cry that would send shivers down a whole army, the five
girls made quick work of the boy.  "OW!!  Hey, lemme go!  OUCH!  Watch it!
OW!
OUCH! /#@*!! LEGGO MY LEG!!!!!" was immidatly followed by a string of
profanity, and a lound crunching noise.  The end result was Darien on the
ice, face down, and five not-to-happy girls sitting on his back with their
arms crossed.
        "Whatever are you doing?" Luna called out as she walked up.
        "Teaching this BOY a lesson," Leda said triumphantly.  Luna looked
down at the dark form.
        "Prince, your mother wishes to see you.  As for the rest of you, I
want to talk to you about this!" and she turned around, and walked away.
One by one the girls got off him, and Darien groaned aloud each time.  Leda
took extra slow, just to make it hurt more.
****
        The whine of the kettle brought Darien out of his trance.
Everytime he thinks back to his past, he comes out of it, with the feeling
that something wasn't right; that something was missing, but he couldn't
figure it out for the life of him.  He took the hot chocolate out to the
cats, in saucers, and put it down in front of them.  He got one look at
Luna, and knew that she was thinking about back then as well.  He smiled.
She smiled.  When they were finished, they left without another word.
        Luna was running back to Serena's house, when she relaized that
something was wrong.  "Artemis...Artemis where are you?"
        "I'm over here Luna, you've got to see this!"  What could it be?
She walked back over to the ally and looked in.  There were about a hundred
cats, sitting there, listning to one cat on the fence.  It was a stand-up
Catmedian show.  Luna sat down at the back, and soon she was howling with
laughter like the rest of them.  Lights came on all over the block, but
that didn't stop them.   Then, a cat got up to leave, turned around, and
stopped dead in it's tracks.  It's teeth were soon chattering so hard that
all the cats took notice, and all turned as white as Artemis.
        At the back of the ally was a huge, ugly, dog.

end part I