It seemed like a quiet night in Tokyo; a slight breeze blew through the streets and alleys of the sleeping city. However this peace would not last. A poster advertising the new Sailor V game blew through an alley, only to be sucked into a vortex of light and energy that had suddenly appeared. The violence of the rip in space and time caused windows to rattle, a trash can tipped over and a rat that had been scavenging for food fled to find safer foraging.

From inside the yortex, came a scream, an inhumanly loud and deep scream. Then a creature was ejected from the vortex. It was unable to stop in time, before hitting the wall on the other side of the ally with a loud THUMP. This creature was the image of a classical European dragon, except it had feathers instead of scales and bandoliers with large pouches were wrapped around its chest and waist. All of its feathers seemed to be colored a uniform dull gray, which hardly seemed natural.

As the creature begin to pick itself up, the vortex began to close. It tried to jump back in, only to see the vortex close and it gracefully slammed into the wall behind where the vortex had been.

After a few moments of lying on the ground, and cursing whatever force had done this to him, in several languages, the dragon picked himself up, and slowly prepared to spread its wings. First the serpentine head poked out form the ally to check if anyone was there, when it saw no one, he stepped out into the street, spread his wings and took off. After a circling about for a few minutes, the creature chose to gently land on the roof of a six-story apartment building, in order to survey the city.

"Well, this place looks like it has a reasonable level of technology, but no magic…"

The thought was cut off, as a very unnatural bolt of lightning came form an only moderately cloudy sky, and seemed to gather, and be shot off again at something in a park not too far away for were the dragon was perched. "Well, looks like I spoke too soon. I think I’ll go have a look at that ", He thought to himself as he prepared to fly down to where magic seemed to be in use.

"Supreme thunderrrrrrrrr", Sailor Jupiter screamed as she launched her attack at the Cardian the Senshi had been chasing for most of the night. The Cardian, a tall, willowy woman with limp purple hair, dressed in a black body suit and a red cape. However just before the attack could hit her, she melded with a shadow, then after the spot were she had been standing was pulverized she emerged on the other side of the park.

As she emerged from another shadow, she waved to the Senshi, blew them a kiss, then to taunt them yelled " It’ll take more than that to stop Shade, catch me if you can sailor girls." Then promptly disappeared into the darkness.

"Argh, I thought I had it that time" Jupiter growled as the Cardian disappeared, " we need a plan to catch this thing".

With this all eyes turned to Mercury who was busily working on her computer. Then she looked up at the rest of the Senshi, who were all focused on her. "I can’t track it well enough to guess where it will come out, so we have to keep it from jumping through shadows".

With this bit of blatantly obvious wisdom, Sailor Mars immediately cut in. "So we have to split up and fit it between shadows, since it runs away whenever we’re in a group".

"But, but …." Sailor Moon tried to get a word in only to get cut off by Sailor Venus.

"Then when it can’t escape we’ll get it".

"… if we’re out there alone it could get us before anyone can help" Moon finally managed to blurt out, but no one noticed.

"Alright, let’s get that weirdo" Jupiter, said, as she had already began to run off into the shadows and trees, the other Senshi soon joined her, except Moon.

" And that monster could get us, " then she realized she was standing alone, and immediately ran off to find any of the other Senshi.

The dragon had flown down to the edge of the park were he had seen the magical Lightning strike. He decided that it would be best to get a look at the spell caster before he revealed himself to whoever had created such a power, since it was obviously some kind of attack.

Sailor Moon was also quietly creeping through the park, trying to avoid the Cardian finding her, and while trying to find any of her friends. " I thought Mako-chan went this way, I hope I find her before something finds me, it would be such a tragedy if a beautiful girl like me were cut down in her prime … "

Moon’s thought was cut short as the dragon who was searching for the magic he had just seen, came out of the cover of the shadows and a row of bushes. The two stopped and for a moment examined each other, then the silence of their meeting was broken by a blood curdling scream from Sailor Moon, as she ran away from the creature in a blind panic as fast as she could. The dragon just stared at her, blinked a few times, and then when it hit itself on the side of the head with it’s fore limb and muttered.

"Great going stupid, you’re in a new dimension only ten minutes and you scared some poor school girl out of her mind."

Usagi’s scream that could have raised the dead brought the other Senshi to where she was, however, they did not find out anything useful from their panic-stricken leader. "…and it was huge, and had big teeth, and was going to eat me, WWWWHHHHAAA".

"Usagi, what are you talking about, you should have stayed if you found the Cardian, so we could destroy it", Sailor Mars, was very annoyed, she really wanted to burn this Cardian, so she could go home and get some sleep; she had chores to do in the morning.

"But it wasn’t the Cardian , it was something bigger and meaner". Usagi muttered between fits of tears.

Mars was just about to literally knock some sense into the Senshi's, fearful leader when, almost on cue, the dragon emerged from the trees and bushes that had been concealing it.

"Ho, crap, there’s a whole group of them, it looks like this bunch has never seen a dragon before". The creature thought to itself, as it rose up on its hind legs, to show it was not concealing anything, or about to cast a spell. However the Senshi, did not see this as a non-threatening act. What he ended up getting was a chorus of attack names being yelled out.

"Fire Soul Bird."

"Supreme Thunder Dragon."

"Crescent Beam Shower ."

The dragon was expecting some running and screaming, instead he got three energy attacks launched at him. However as the volly of energy beams raced towards him, he dodged to the left, and they raced past harmlessly, then hard to the right and the thunder bolt also missed , but cut a tree in half. Then he fell flat on the ground to the bird of fire just went over his head.

"Well, " he thought to himself, " these certainly are not normal school girls".

With that he rose again and spread his wings and did a short flight ( that was more like a hop). He ended up right in front of the Senshi. Sailor Venus, with the thought of the creature gobbling up a Senshi, responded almost without thinking.

"Sailor V kick" She screamed at the top of her lungs, only to be dulled by the loud crack, that followed her foot hitting the creature’s jaw. "Ahhhhhhhh" , Venus’s scream of pain echoed, as she realized she had broken her ankle, the creature hardly seemed fazed.

Sailor Jupiter, immediately followed Venu’s lead and attacked the creature physically. She managed to grapple him round the neck. Mars followed, she could never pass up a fight, and Mercury only joined them to protect her two fallen friends. The fight soon degenerated into a huge dust ball occasionally punctuated by a foot, fist, tail or claw.

Usagi managed to get up, seeing her friends in danger. Only just as she got to her feet, inside the fight the dragon decided to change its tactics. It opened its mouth and begins to breathe out a pale blue gas. The other Senshi were able to avoid this, except Usagi, who got a blast right in the face. She then went right back to the ground hoping she could stay there until the world will stop spinning. Just after this happened Luna and Artimis arrive, after having lost the Senshi a few blocks ago, before they and the Cardian had got to the park. Luna got a good look at what the Senshi were fighting and realized what it was.

"Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, you don’t have to fight this creature its not an enemy." She yelled, but nobody seemed to hear her, or care. Then, after a little time to build up, she yelled at the top of her lungs " SSSSSSSTTTTTTTTTTTTTOOOOOOOOPPPPPPP IIIIIIIIITTTTTTTTTT".

Artimis took a step back, shocked that such a loud noise could come from Luna, while the melee of Senshi and Dragon had stopped. The Dragon had Jupiter in a headlock, Mars pinned to the ground with its hind right foot and Mercury snared in its tail. Venus was sitting on the ground trying to hide how much her injury hurt. Moon was half asleep and mumbling about how school should start at noon.

As Luna regained her composure, the dragon released his hold on the three Senshi he had been fighting. Then once they had decided that they were not enemies, Luna addressed the dragon.

"In the past your kind, had come to the Moon Kingdom … " However she could not finish, as the newcomer interrupted her.

"THE MOON KINGDOM, ho dam, I’m that far from home." The dragon blurted out. Then realizing he had forgotten something (due to the brawl), he faced the group. "I’m sorry, I forgot to introduce myself. I’m Manzer, of the clan Windrider". The great creature then proceeded to quickly bow to the assembled Senshi and Guardians.

Mars look back at the creature, as something struck her in what it had said, then asked him "You know of the Moon Kingdom, were you there in the Silver Millenium?"

Manzer smiled, and stifled a snicker, while Jupiter got ready to fight, thinking that his amusement was a prelude to another fight.

"No, I wasn’t there, do I look that old" he replied. "You would be surprised how far the stories of that time of peace have spread. The stories of its rise and fall have traveled far across the realities." He then looked at the assembled group " and I guess you’re living the story of its rebirth."

While all this was going on the Cardian Shade, was watching the initial fight and subsequent introduction. She was rather miffed that the Senshi seemed to have forgotten about her. She decided to rectify the situation by regaining their attention. The assembled group of barely saw the attack coming, as a barrage of shadow blasts scattered them.

Moon, half-awake, stumped up to her feet, prepared her wand and readied to throw her attack. What they got was a woblly "Moon princess halation", puncutuated wath a yawn at the end. Mars winced and slapped her hand over her face. "You just fried a tree, you idiot". She mumbled as the remains of the tree Moon destroyed (that was nowhere near the Cardian) caught fire.

Manzer rummaged in one of the pockets on his bandoliers for something. He pulled out a small metal cylinder, and threw it at the Cardian. "Damn, that was my last one", was what he thought as the grenade hit the branch the Cardian was standing on, and exploded in a flash brighter than daylight.

The Senshi, their new ally and the Cardian were all blinded by the flash. The Cardian hit the ground with an unceremonious thud, then decided that bringing the energy it had back to its master was more important than getting killed. Shade promptly disappeared before her enemies’ sight returned. The Senshi on the other hand were more than a little surprised that their foe had been dispatched so quickly by the newcomer. The Dragon just smiled and muttered " well I guess that settles that".

Mars, seeing that she could now go home and get some much-needed sleep was feeling a bit charitable to the Dragon. " Um Manzer-sama, do you have a place to stay?"

"Well no, I’ve only been in this dimension about half an hour", he smiled sheepishly.

"You can stay at my families temple. If you’re careful Grandpa won’t find you".

Jupiter butted in " but how is he going to get there? It’s bad enough for us to sneak around, how are we going to hide him".

As she said this Manzers body began to emit a soft glow. His body reweaved its pattern until it was compacted into the form of a human male. A very handsome human male. His human form was tall, about six feet even. He was not heavily built, a medium build. His hair long but not shoulder length and parted in the middle was the same dull grey as his plumage, that made him look older than his features portrayed him, in his mid twenties. His expression seemed to emit a warm friendly aura, a person who seemed always friendly and warm.

Mars was the first to get a good look at the Dragon in his human form, and muttered "he’s so handsome" and blushed a little.

Venus was for a moment able to overcome the pain in her ankle. She joined Mars in her blush and muttered "he’s gorgeous".

Jupiter, turned to see what her friends were swooning over, and uttered her tried and true reaction to any at least moderately good looking man, "he looks just like my old boy friend!" The other Senshi fell into an immediate face fault.

When they had recovered Moon, still a little miffed at the scare he had given her earlier grumbled, "He’s not that handsome".

With the boy crazy Senshi still swooning , Mercury was busily tapping away at her computer, trying to figure out how two tons of dragon compacted into 150 pounds of human. Moon was grumbling about how something about how the universe hated her.

Manzer walked over to the injured Sailor Venus. He took a quick look at her ankle. Then kneeled down and touched his right index and ring fingers to the wound. He mumbled an incantation in his draconic tongue, and for an instant her ankle was embraced in warm healing magic.

He looked up and smiled at Venus. " That should be all right now, I’m sorry that I startled you in the first place." He then stood up and offered her his hands. She accepted them and he hoisted her up without effort (obviously he had not lost strength in this form). "now it should be good as new".

Once she had decided that her ankle was healed, Venus stammered out her thanks quickly and turned a deep shade of red that rarely appears in nature.

In the wrinkle in space above the Earth, Shade knelt in front of her two masters. Without a word Ail turned her back into the card that was the core of her being. Ann on the other hand took the energy she had gathered to and feed it to the Doom Tree. A little life returned to the giant tree, but only enough to keep it from fading a little more. Ail returned Shade to his deck, then turned to his companion.

"Do you think she was telling the truth about that monster helping the Senshi?"

"It’s not the Cardians’ nature to lie" Ann responded, " you animate them, and I bind them to our will. The serve us, and are nothing without us". She sighed " If the senshi have a new ally, it could mean the end for us, if we can’t find energy for the Doom Tree".

As the meloncoly came over her Ail, moved closer and held her close to him " We will keep the tree alive, we don’t have any choice." His words reassured her, and just knowing that she was confident silenced those same doubts in him. Survival was their only concern.

to be continued...