Sailormoon, its characters, struggles and story, are copyright and the children of Naoko Takeuchi. No recognition to this tale can be given without properly paying honour to her first. They are rightfully hers and I respect how she has raised them all. May what I have written here, the dark and the light, be considered worthy as a token of my appreciation for the world she has created. His lordship Chaos / Angel Electric 00 – The Words & The Warning Rated PG13. ***** I come along but I don’t know where you’re taking me I shouldn’t go but you’re reaching, grabbing, shaking me Pull out the sun, tear the stars from the sky The more I give to you, the more I die --Nine Inch Nails, “The Perfect Drug” ***** Every beginning has its end. And only from an ending can another beginning come to pass. Gods and heroes fade from our memories. The monsters that terrified us as children are one day swept into harmless corners alongside old orange rinds and dustbunnies. History is swallowed up by dust and forgetfulness. But just because everything fades away doesn’t mean all things cease to exist. Some things don’t like being forgotten. Some things don’t simply roll over and sleep the long sleep of oblivion. But an end, their end, has already found them once. It still failed to destroy them. A second beginning, a second end, may yet find them. And so they wait, dark and patient, eternal and infernal, biding their time for years, even centuries. The ending of one thing is the beginning of another. The gods and heroes are rising once more. The monsters are surfacing from within the shadows. And history shall come full circle. The birth of the Angel Electric is the fall of a Millennium. It’s coming.... ANGEL ELECTRIC -words- His lordship Chaos here. What you are about to read is nothing more than a story, an interpretation, a figment borne out of someone else’s imagination. It is about beginnings and endings and everything that might happen in between. “Angel Electric” represents the culmination of about a year’s worth of inspiration and aggravation. This is only in part due to the length of the fic. The rest of it involves many things from my casual life that seem to conspire together to ensure that my life stays far from casual. Sometimes on a daily basis. Only half of the time do I appreciate the efforts. Three, perhaps even four years ago, I retired from writing Sailormoon fanfics. At the time, I believed there was nothing left for me to write. Nothing that interested me, at least. I had created a dreamworld, shown how magical girls could go wrong, found Neith, waged the Messiah Wars, descended into a cyberpunk Crystal Tokyo from hell, and gave only vague hints at best about a Paradise Army. And then…then there were no more fics. No more ideas. No more desire. I had explored what I’d wanted to explore, and like all things that must come to an end, I made my final bows and retired. “There’s nothing left for me to say,” I said. “Nothing more that I want to say.” “Angel Electric” disagreed. Roughly a year ago, my wife spent a few weeks reading through older SM fanfics about the Silver Millennium, especially the ones focusing on the Senshi/Shittenou romances. I’ve never been much of a SilMil fan, and even less an advocate for the four-on-four romantic pairings. Therein began the debate between Mel and I about just what made for a good SilMil fic (she’s rather discerning and picky when it comes to this). There were hazards and pitfalls and clichés. There were also possibilities and ideas. That debated ended with the birth of “Angel Electric.” The resulting journey has taken me through months of off-and-on writing, punctuated with a few amazingly brilliant plot twists and some equally amazing acts of literary stupidity. Sometimes I’ve had to drag the fic kicking and screaming, and sometimes it’s had to drag me along kicking and screaming. Sometimes the fic and I have come at odds with each other, and only half the time have I won. There was a time late last year where I shelved “Angel Electric” entirely to do “The Paranoia Groove”, and returning to the Silver Millennium at times felt like an ordeal unto itself. But somehow, we’ve reached this point. “Angel Electric” is about to begin, and the Silver Millennium won’t be the same ever again. Mostly due, I should think, to its total annihilation. From the start, my ambition was to have almost the entire fic completed before it was released. That way, I could do revisions in the starting chapters that would give subtle hints about things to happen in future chapters. While the fic has yet to be completed as of this first release, I an very much hoping that the completed chapters will give me a long enough buffer zone to allow for the last few chapters being finished up just in time for their release. Keep your fingers crossed, please. Mine already are. I very much plan on releasing a new chapter of “Angel Electric” every Friday, give or take depending on how fast it gets accepted into the ASMR archives. So for the time being, you won’t be stuck waiting months upon months for a new chapter to come. -warning- There are also a few caveats that need to be said, and it’s probably in everyone’s best interests that they be said somewhere closer to the beginning than somewhere at the end. Please try to bear in mind: this is a large and epic story. If you feel that something hasn’t been properly or entirely explained, or you feel jaded that one of your favourite characters or Senshi hasn’t been given enough “screen time” in any given chapter, please be patient. Most of this story has already been written, so the chances are pretty good that an explanation or a character’s time will come later. All good things to those who wait. Also, what’s written herein is not the end-all, be-all of SilMil fandom. My story offers no absolutes. There are no definitive answers. There are only my thoughts on what those answers might be. Feel free to debate them, or disagree with them, or if you really want to, write a Silver Millennium fanfic of your own expressing your opinions on the matter. The world needs more good SM fanfics, and the Silver Millennium definitely needs more good fics. I have endeavoured to make this the best SilMil fic that I can write. But even I have my limitations. There are going to be differences between “Angel Electric” and the manga. There are going to be differences between “Angel Electric” and the anime. And sometimes, there’s going to be differences between “Angel Electric” and both the manga and anime. So keep your eyes open. You may notice them from time to time. Sometimes it’s going to be just an honest mistake. Other times it will be deliberate, and in at least one case necessary. You will notice soon enough that the Sailor Senshi are all going by their reincarnated, Japanese names. Some of you may consider this sacrilege, and are already sharpening your pitchforks. But please, at least hear me out. Given the size and scope of “Angel Electric”, I felt it necessary to use familiar names for familiar characters. With each chapter length reaching no less than thirty pages single- spaced, and to date eight chapters having been written, it’s sometimes an arduous task to keep track of who’s who. Having “Ami” suddenly be renamed as “Tatara”, for example, would drive me bananas whenever I’d have to review previous chapters, looking up a certain fact about her I’d casually mentioned before. I know that some readers would also have issues of seeing “Tatara” as “Ami.” True, Angus Macspon’s been able to do this name change quite successfully for SM4200, but admittedly I’m no Angus. For starters, I’m only part Scottish, and I’m probably a lot lazier when it comes to this sort of character revision. There’s a loose explanation for their names in the story, but you may or may not find it satisfactory. Certainly, the Ami of the Silver Millennium will have a few similar personality traits with the Ami of future Tokyo, but the two will also have some notable differences in their behaviours and philosophies. Just so you know going in. (And please don’t kill me?) Also, some liberties have been taken with Earth history in general. All of you purist historians and sticklers for accuracy who are reading this might soon find yourselves either with an exploded head, or else being filled with the urge to bang it repeatedly on a desk. For that, I apologize. But I’m not cleaning up the mess. Roughly 1,000 years ago, the nation of Japan was divided into multiple fiefdoms and kingdoms who regularly waged war with each other. There was no alliance, no universal truce, no one ruler. Also, roughly 1,000 years ago, things like the samurai, and bushido, and samurai armour never existed. They were created and/or evolved centuries later. In “Angel Electric”, you are going to find a few glaring contradictions with that last, more historically accurate paragraph. Again, for that I apologize. It’s a case of working with what I was familiar with, what others are familiar with, and ultimately when all is said and done, it’s only a fanfic. That said, thank you for letting me rant. It’s taken a lot to bring it to this point, and it’s not over just yet, but I hope you enjoy what “Angel Electric” has to offer here. Ja. Chaos. (May 12, 2005.)