Leslie looked at Aviva with a confused, and maybe horrified, expression. Her text books, pencils, and papers were scattered at her feet. "What do you mean 'confession'?" She said quietly. Zelda was looking at her about to slide off of the beanbag.

"Maybe I'm...geez, you know how cheesy and cliché this sounds? Maybe I...I'm not who I think I am," Aviva was beginning to scowl at herself. She was tempted to gnaw on the pen again but fixed her thoughts elsewhere. Her sight was fixed at her worn sneakers as her dry voice mumbled. Fire scooted over next to her looking helplessly into her owner's eyes.

"Then who are you? You're still my owner, right?" The red Acara was dazed and confused not knowing what exactly she meant.

Aviva chuckled. "Yes, of course I'm still your owner silly," she patted her pet's head and rested her head in her hands.

"I think we'd better call a meeting, Leslie," Zelda suggested regaining her composure.

Aviva shook her head. "No, it's better I'd try my best to explain what I know first. Fire, go back and watch Little Rebel for me please." The tiny Acara nodded regretfully and padded back to her room.

"You were saying?" Leslie pressed sliding back onto the couch.

The disgruntled brunette sighed heavily and slinked over next to Leslie, sinking into the puffy cushions. "I'll explain it as best as I can," she waved off, setting her feet on a throw pillow. "I had a dream just now, at least I think it was a dream, of the Maraqua Ruins, or while it was collapsing!" Both girls had their eyes intensely fixed on Aviva. She blinked and looked oddly at them but continued anyways. "There was panic. Metallic structures, towers, and domes were collapsing on top of each other. It was horrifying, even as a dream. And then there was this girl. A girl and her nanny were rushing through the city through flooding corridors. A tower had crashed on one of the domed halls, letting in water. The two were rescued by a locking elevator and were transferred into a lower chamber."

She sat there even shocking herself as she retold her dream to Leslie and Zelda, her skin growing milky white in complexion. "Then there was a heavily decorated door that they went through only to find a discouraged royalty figure who was pacing. I think she was the King’s monetary adviser or something. Paloma. That was her name. And she was upset because of the destruction and what not and the emperor’s mistake.

"This girl, I - I don’t know,” Aviva stumbled her words as though to talk to herself rarely feeling the presence of Zelda and Leslie in the room. Zelda had one brow raised and held her mouth slightly agape, while Leslie sat with her hands folded in her lap and a calm but attentive look on her face. “Paloma roughly explained a way that the girl would relive the past year in a different place, but that would mean that her image or body would be not only in that new place, but still in Maraqua.”

"That's a lot of quantum science I don't think we're ready for," Zelda shuddered shaking her light brown hair out of her eyes. Aviva slowly nodded producing her corked Evian Mist from her dimensional locker.

"Since this girl's image was in two places at once, I...guess her mentality couldn't comprehend both locations. The advisor assured her that the year she would relive would flow like a bizarre dream. When the year's time was to be spent only one image or body would remain - and that one is the one on the surface. She would not remember the dreamy past, but only the year spent on the surface. Quite clearly, at that.

"Stranger still, the girl had an Evian Mist in her hands. It looked exactly like the Khalida Mist."

"That must mean that-that-," Leslie put the pieces together like it was a seemingly simple puzzle. One, however, with a catch.

"Noooo - NO!! How is that possible, girls? How could Aviva be here if the destruction of Maraqua wasn't at all that long ago?" Zelda was just as perplexed as any of them

"Overlapping time," Aviva whispered holding the Khalida Mist, "the queen was talking about overlapping time! The Khalida Mist! Of course that's how she did it - it's simple." Leslie's face brightened as understanding came into view.

"Aviva, if you are the adviser’s daughter, don't you think you might have something of your home? The Khalida Mist must've been sent with you and you just didn't know it!"

"Maybe you're right Leslie," she smiled replacing the Evian Mist into her dimensional space.

"I don't know," Zelda replied with a smirk. "if you were the contessa's daughter of Maraqua, did someone perhaps know you were in the dormant form of Sailor Blumaroo?"

"I don't know," Leslie began to ponder. "Something is definitely not right here."

"Maybe it's starting to piece together," Aviva smiled thoughtfully.

-

"So Dr. Frank-enstien Sloth, what DO you want now?" Abbie laid back in a chair balancing on its back legs. She took the time to watch Dr. F. Sloth inspect the latest on the Sailor Neopets through one of his monitors. He glowered at her for the redundant nickname and continued to watch the screen closely. His colleague sat tilting in the chair eating yogurt - of all foods in Neopia - and licking the spoon clean.

"It looks like we have some royalty in our midst," he scowled.

Abbie lost her balance on the chair and tumbled backwards, her legs hurling into the air. The spoon was shot like a bullet from her mouth and hit the cold flooring with the sound of a *ping*. She, on the other hand, landed on her back only to add to the sickening sound of the crash.

"Royalty?!" She spat. "And who might I ask is that?"

He smirked and whirled around to face her. "Remember our little rendezvous in Maraqua?" Abbie nodded in response. "It turns out our new friend Sailor Blumaroo was there."

"Um, yeah, She's a Sailor Neopet, right?"

"Of course you loon! At the time she was not awakened. The Sacred Chalice had not found her yet and therefore there was a special reason for her presence."

"Then why was she there? Touring?" Abbie laughed at her own mockery of a decent joke and dusted herself off. Sloth furrowed his brow.

"No Abbie, she was Paloma's daughter!" he snarled, slamming his fist in the other palm.

"Paloma...uh...ah-woman with the thick purple hair and creepishly full lips? She's your confrere on Mystery Island, right?"

"Right. I'm due for a very important meeting with her, strictly business speaking. If we plan to employ her respectable talents full time, her daughter will most certainly have to be out of the picture. Should she run across her during métier, Paloma would instantly resign."

Abbie turned over the thought and narrowed her eyes. "Are you sure we should employ her at all? I mean, sure, the Maraquan hoax was a success and she is awfully credible. But...if we have any notion she'd back out of future plans, we'd best leave her alone."

Sloth was not satisfied. "Not using her to our advantage is too much of a risk. We're running out of ideas and the Chaos Faerie is obviously not pleased. So unless you have better ideas, stick to mine. We simply have to keep Sailor Blumaroo out of the picture, either through injuries, or other unfortunate circumstances, what have you.

"I have cloned several of the Temple Watchmen Erisims from the Southwest. If you're going to be blatantly predictable about your attack, take no more than three. They have been genetically modified to slightly increase their abilities, but are still under a lot of study. I don't want you wasting the other clones," Smoth waved her off and smoothly reverted back to his controls, "Oh, and, the object is to not be so upfront. Sometimes I feel as you're being a bit repetitive in your tactics. Don't aim to obliterate them. Aim to dismember. Figuratively." With that he dismissed her. He only knew she was gone when the clicking of her heels ceased to echo in the chamber.

-

Jody, Melony, and Brooke were walking past Aviva's house just as Leslie, Zelda, and Aviva herself were walking out.

"Zelda!" Jody waved beckoning the youngest senshi. She skipped up the cement walk to her and strolled next to her in the grass. "Do you think you could help me with math?" she asked, ruffling her short green hair with her fingers. Zelda smiled.

"Sure," she answered warmly as they sped up with the others. It was normal for someone to ask her for help in math, or practically any subject at that. Melony and Brooke waved from the cobblestone street at them and joined at their side.

"Howsit’ going?" Brooke giggled jogging along side the rest. You couldn't even tell how hard she was breathing trying to keep her pace.

"Fine, I suppose," Leslie sighed eyeing Aviva out of the corner of her eye.

"What’s that suppose to mean?” Melony asked as she looked warily over her shoulder.

"Well, it's been quite an interesting day," Zelda spoke up on the other side of Aviva. The sun was setting on the west horizon and the night chill was running up and down their skins. Aviva swallowed hard. The dim light of the evening unnerved her for some reason. She stared at the ground coldly trying to keep a definite cool.

"Aviva? Aviva what's wrong?" Jody inquired staring considerately at her.

Aviva wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. "Nothing," she lied. Leslie patted her back. "Don't tell them, Leslie."

Her friend plainly ignored her. "They have a right to know who you really are."

"I know! But-but- I never even knew myself until today!" she snapped clenching her fists. “It was all her fault those - those things happened. I’m ashamed of her.”

"What is she talking about?" Brooke, Melony, and Jody chorused, but not quite in unison. Zelda and Leslie explained in detail about what Aviva had notified them of earlier, each of them switching off occasionally. They described her first vision of the overgrown seaweed column down to the Khalida Mist. The story of the Maraqua tragedy as dreamt by Aviva shocked them the most.

"You mean she's from Maraqua?" Melony shrieked placing her hands over her mouth.

Aviva looked sternly at her. "It's no joke, I didn't know about any part of my past except earlier. My whole life all I've known are lies that were stuck in my head. Lies of an orphanage in the Lost Desert. Lies of moving to Neopia when I was twelve. All lies. I don't know where I got those ideas!" She managed to break down kicking a crushed neocola can off into the grass. The group of six continued to walk down the sidewalk aimlessly, not really planning their destination.

"Come on!" Brooke chirped, still jogging. "Lets go to my house for sandwiches! I'm starving!" Melony and Zelda giggled as the gang turned and crossed the mainly deserted cobblestone path to Brooke’s house. "I've got a hankering for some -," she was cut off by the enormous sound of a crack. Sailor Chia in full fuku form landed at the other end of the road.

"My, my, my, six of you?” She tittered as she fanned herself with gloved hands.

"Abira!" Leslie growled retracting her transforming pen from the air. "Lupe Neo Power, Make-up!" The normality of the gold sparkles surrounded her then vanished revealing her green and cream fuku.

"Uh!" The adversary huffed indignantly. "It's Abbie, please, Abira sounds too formal."

After a whirlwind of color and glitter and other eccentrically decorated images, the rest of the Sailor Neopets stood ready to fight.

"Ho ho ho!" Sailor Chia laughed holding her head as she shunned. "Six little numbskulls thinking they can beat me?" She sneezed. ("Dang! How much glitter and dust do a few transformations need? Honestly, think of people with allergies!")

"Yeah!" Sailor Jubjub counteracted. "Where's your army to stop us?" Abbie stared at her blankly and snapped her fingers. A few moments later, a transport vessel swooped in from behind her in the sky and hovered only a few dozen feet above her. The roar of the spacecraft's mechanics bore into everyone's ears. They didn't even hear the hatch on the bottom open only to drop three huge Erisims onto the cobblestone road. After Sailor Chia secured that all three were there, she motioned to the small ship and it sped away into the atmosphere.

"It'll only take a few minutes," she spoke into a communicator, "don't be gone long."

There was a slight static in the receiver and then someone answered: "Chhhyes, ma'am. Won't be gone looong."

"Not…good,” informed Zelda, stepping back. Sailor Chia had a wicked smirk painted from one ear to the next. She cackled viciously and stepped towards the Erisim directly to her left. All of them were secured with saddles and reigns, but this one had no jockey while the other two had Grunkas mounted atop them. All the girls viewed the creatures' immense height of nearly fifteen feet. She placed a hand between its eyes and stroked it there in attempts to subdue it.

"Even I can't deny how majestic these creatures are," Abbie remarked idly, "and their temper deserves much respect. Next to chias, you know these things are really something behold. But! Enough of that - lets get this thing over and done with." She gave two solid pats on the Erisim's forehead and mounted the saddle by crawling up the tail. As the six girls stood in a semicircle formation before their opponents, each silently drew up their attacks.

Clah-cluck-… cluck …- … cluck. - …cluck.

Sailor Blumaroo watched as the Mist of Khalida bounced out of her dimensional locker and rolled across the street, making an odd u-turn, and stopping at her feet. Instantly she reached down and gently picked it up. With no seconds thoughts or thoughts at all, her slender fingers went on autopilot and uncorked the bottle. The cork held firmly in her hand, she took her free hand and lifted the mist to her mouth. It seemed to flow down her throat without having to swallow or place it to her lips. The bottle recapped, she placed it into her interdimensional locker and stood firm. Her feet were placed shoulder length apart and her arms hung stiffly at her sides.

A silent and slow wind took shape in a handful of long ribbons that birthed at her ankles and twisted around her body. They were slow and quiet only allowing the whisper of the sunset breeze to reach her ears. When the ribbons reached her tiara, they were sucked within her gem revealing her new fuku. It all looked to have been aged through years or damaged in some unforeseen way. The colors of her uniform were darker and more muted. The edges of her skirt appeared to have been torn or burnt, along with several perforations and other signs of wear. She held the bottle in front of her face to see her reflection in the glass. Her normally brown eyes had clouded over and resembled more like clouded opals.

"Grunkas, attack!" Sailor Chia ordered. The Erisims leaped and pounded their paws into the stone, causing the earth to shake as they closed the gap between them and the Sailor Neopets.

Sailor Chia guided her Erisism towards Sailor Lupe, who in turn backed away quickly to allow time to prepare another wave of her attack. The Lupe Lunge's aim held true and scalded the beast's face, but with ease it seemed to shake it off and continue to charge. The Erisim was steered into a quick turnabout and butted Sailor Lupe into the air with its snout. She sailed into someone's lawn and landed on her back with a sickening thud.

The other senshi were having their share of trouble. Sailor Moehog provided a quick distraction for one Grunka jockeyed Erisim as Sailor JubJub tried to run up its wayward tail. Her plan to dismount the Grunka ended disastrously when he whirled his lumpy arm blindly at her. It buffeted her in the face and she was thrown onto the ground.

Sailor Blumaroo stood in the back watching and thinking. She concentrated as she monitored their attacks. While the Erisim were primarily concerned with her other five partners she was relatively undisturbed. Her left arm extended out to her side. Her hand closed into a fist that held the shaft of a polished black halber. She looked to her hand as her clouded eyes widened in curiosity, as the staff had only appeared when she fisted her fingers.

"They're size is overbearing us!" Sailor Moehog shrieked to a staggering Leslie. "We need someone to have the Grunkas and Sailor Chia bucked and then all the Erisims debased!"

Sailor Chia approached them, her beast only at a trot as she stood balanced on her feet in the curve of the saddle with the reigns still in hand. “Chia Giggle!” She said. She tilted her head back and laughed as a bout of orange energy surrounded her hands. Sailor Moehog grabbed Sailor Lupe, who was still recovering from the harsh landing to her back, and attempted to throw her out of the line of the attack. As Abbie was about to aim and release the potential laser beam, the Erism buckled and lurched sideways. Sailor Chia lost concentration of her spell and fell onto the saddle of the Erism, then slid of its flank. She slammed into the ground on her right side.

Sailor Blumaroo regained an upright posture from her position at the back of the Erism. She inhaled deeply and held her halberd with both hands. There was a ghastly wound on the creature’s back right leg, causing it to wail with pain and slump onto its side. Sailor Moehog and Lupe cringed at the creature’s moan and moved away from it. Sailor Chia growled and pushed herself onto her knees, fresh bruises along her face, right arm, and legs from impact on the road. Her ruffled hair collected around her face, which was livid and seething. She managed to get on her feet and turn around, facing Sailor Blumaroo - the one who had delivered the cut to her Erism.

Sailor Chia sucked in air through her teeth, her eyes narrowed beneath her furrowed brow. “Impressive blade,” she whispered sarcastically. Sailor Blumaroo smiled, but said nothing. Sailor Chia tightened the reigns in her hands and motioned for the other Grunka (Seven-eight Gee) “Deal with them!” She then spoke into her communicator: “Calling vessel ‘Harbor 64-4’.”

“Yesss ma’am?” The voice on the receiving end of the transmission crackled.

“Prepare for emergency loading and escape.”

“R-roger, Sssailor Chi-uh.”

Sailor Chia turned off her communicator and turned her attention back to her target: Sailor Blumaroo. Abbie kicked the sides of the Erism with her heels and the creature broke out into a canter towards the lone Sailor Neopet. Aviva did not move, as if readily accepting the blow as the Erism slammed into her body. It knocked her into a tumble across the path until she finally skidded to a stop on her knees. She returned to her feet and threw her hair out of her face. She coughed violently as her knees buckled and her back arched with the forward lean of her body.

“You’re so persistent!” Sailor Chia cried irately as her patience broke. “Chia Chaos Ruin!”

Sailor Blumaroo held the halberd perpendicular to her chest with her arms outstretched and the blade facing down. “Blumaroo Khalida Time Warp, freeze!” The world around her came to a halt and she observed the nature of her attacker, a little astonished by her own handiwork. The moment was not frozen in time, as she could still make small, deliberate movements.

“I wasn’t really expecting this,” Sailor Khalida Blumaroo mused slowly, “I’m sort of annoyed by my own inability to really move.” She laughed calmly and noted that she could still think coherently, talk, blink, and breathe, but not much more. She wondered if the rest of the senshi could too, or if they were affected at all, but she was unable to crane her head - subsequently her viewpoint - to see.

“You’re a real thorn in my side,” Sailor Chia said as everything but her face and lungs ceased to move. Even her Erism stopped in mid-canter as with the rest of the scene. “Sure the Sailor Neopets annoy me, but as of today you really, really take the cake. You’ve bashed up my entire left side,” (Abira, referring to her hefty new collection of bruises) “and you’ve torn up my Erism. I want you to know you’re a pest and a mongrel, and I will easily figure you out. That is, if my attack doesn’t put you in comatose first.”

Sailor Blumaroo smiled slowly and deliberately. “Has it ever, to anybody?”

“It has. You’re so close you’ll take on the full effect of it. And, you won’t have time to counterattack. So I’m sure it will,” Chia said. Indeed, the spell had frozen with Aviva’s ‘Time Warp’ just as it swirled in a violent column from her fingertip. “Go ahead and unfreeze things,” she taunted, “you can’t buy your time forever. I’m sure someone has been meaning for you to die anyway. Or, I know someone has, no matter how indirectly or how menial your presence is, or ever was.”

“Elaborate,” Sailor Blumaroo demanded from her frozen pose.

“There is more to your mother's genius than you would readily assume,” Sailor Chia chided, "if she is really as intelligent an advisor as you would remember her to be, why would she waste her time with the 'greater good' of the Koi king and Maraqua? Why wouldn't she conspire against them for power alongside...say...Slo-"

“Revert!” Sailor Blumaroo cried, and time regained its normal speed. In an instant the negative power slammed into her prone body. The force threw her up into a spiraling arc that collided with the cobblestone on its return to the ground. The ferocious blow left her unconscious. Sailor Khalida Blumaroo's fuku dissolved into the normal Sailor Neopet, and then into her civilian appearance, one which was obviously battered and abused from the strain.

Sailor Chia pivoted the stride of the Erisim as the Harbor 64-4 teleport ship landed smoothly into the street. The cargo bay door groaned open and allowed her and her cohorts to board the vessel. Three-five Gee dragged the dying Erisim onto the ship using his mutant strength. The remaining Sailor Neopets watched dumbfounded as the fight was left with an apparent draw, or even win, going to the opposing team. Though the battle had left a costly creature out-of-commission, it had also left one of their fellows in a critical state.

The girls detransformed as they sprinted toward the struggling body of Aviva Simantro. Her body had succumbed to an exhausted sleep that could last an uncertain amount of time. Leslie's fearful expression scanned over the faces of the other girls as she bent over Aviva's sleeping figure.

-

Aviva rolled over onto her side in a groggy daze, but sprang to life at the pain she felt from the pressure of her own weight. "Oh, Donna!" She moaned loudly, forcing herself to sit up. The room around her diverted their attentions to her wake as Leslie and Zelda hurried over. "O-ohh..." she cried as she bit her lip, trying to repress a stream of tears from the immeasurable amount of pain.

"Do you want some medicine?" was the first question asked to her, but she was too preoccupied with her own misery to realize who.

"Yes, Donna, yes."

Someone told someone else to get herbal tea. Aviva rubbed her eyes and took in her surroundings. She was sitting on Brooke's living room couch amidst a padding of pillows and quilts. Zelda sat at the foot of the couch and Leslie crouched down next to Aviva.

"What happened?" She immediately asked. Her vision was cloudy and fuzzed around the edges. Leslie glanced at a wall clock.

"You've been knocked out for nearly six hours, thanks to Abbie," she said, taking a damp rag and washing the girl's feverish face with it. "Do you remember anything?"

Aviva trembled as the task of holding herself up became such a difficulty. Her breathing was ragged and inconsistent as she thought this over. "N-no. My head just hurts." Leslie's expression darkened and she paused momentarily, hesitant under the weight of some dominating thought, but resumed dabbing water onto Aviva's forehead as to not raise suspicions.

"That's ok," she sighed, "you're ok, so it's all ok."

Aviva was sucked back into sleep, slumping onto the armrest and flux of pillows, her form shivering from exertion and stress. Zelda's lips were tight as she nervously clasped her hands in her lap.

Brooke returned to the room with a steaming mug of remedial tea, only to find Melony, Jody, Zelda, and Leslie sharing an uncertain silence. The epiphany hung in the air, unspoken but thoroughly understood, about the consummation of familial endeavors the unconscious girl would have to face. Leslie rubbed the back of her own neck as she apprehensively stared back at a sleeping face.

"Sometimes we forget how mortal we really are."

-

A woman with heavily curled and feathered purple hair sat at a marble tea table, her white, gloved hand rubbing the intricate handle of the cup. She sat, legs crossed, in a sun dress of silk and small straw hat with yolkalias and white lulus tucked into the ribbon. The distinguished woman sipped strawberry butter tea and cut at an iced bun- a tiny meal treated to her by a business partner of sorts. Said business partner was momentarily consumed with an urgent phone call, but soon returned to his chair.

"The beaches of Mystery Island as simply stunning during the spring season," he noted in his mock performance to sound civil.

The woman's painted pink lips drew into a smile as she watched the waves lap serenely up the sand. The veranda overlooked the picturesque, panoramic view. "Indeed," she whispered when she replaced the strawberry butter tea to its saucer. A cool breeze picked up around them and threw her hair into a soft disarray and billowed the edges of her dress. The presenter of the business at hand leaned over the brunch of contemporary teas.

"Anyway, the call I have just received concerns the outcome of our previous, successful collaborations. It seems my superintendent is assuredly pleased with the long term results and is considerably interested in your employment."

The woman tossed the simplistic offer over in her mind, digesting the elongated statement of his small proposal. "Sloth," she started forwardly, "I've got a lot of loose ends to tie up. I've got a fallen empire to take the blame for, a daughter somewhere out in Neopia, and a reputation now under scrutiny."

"So?" He responded, smoothing back his brow. "Paloma, sneaking you out of the public eye is no problem. Reestablishing your reputation concerns a few strings I know, that you know, how to pull. As for your daughter -"