Shades of Gray A Sailor Moon Fanfic By: Aaron Nowack Author's Notes and Annotations "In life, unlike chess, the game continues after checkmate." - Isaac Asimov *********************************************************************** Disclaimer: Sailor Moon is owned by Naoko Takeuchi, whose creative talents far exceed my most humble own. Distribution and other rights to Sailor Moon belong to lots of different companies that I do not own. I make or imply no claim to ownership of Sailor Moon or its characters. However, the text of this fanfic and all original characters presented within are mine, and should not be used without permission. Thank you. *********************************************************************** Well, it's done. As I write this, Shades of Gray weighs in at roughly 142,848 words, or somewhere around 815k. As I write this I am waiting for prereader response to the epilogue, so those numbers should change slightly. It is something I am slightly amazed that I completed, and it is by far the longest work of any sort I have ever written, by an order of magnitude even perhaps. To answer the question that no doubt is weighing on the mind(s) my loyal reader(s), yes, there will be a sequel that will resolve the (numerous) hanging plot threads and take the story up to the beginning of the Great Ice. The working, and most likely final, title is Shades of Darkness. I wouldn't look for it anytime soon though, as I am more than a little burnt out on Sailor Moon at the moment, and have a number of other fic ideas that I would like to take a crack at before returning to this particular story. It's hard to imagine a time when I wasn't writing this fic. I started in the mid-summer of 2000, and the prologue was released to the FFML on August 20 of that year. This means, obviously, that I've been working on Shades of Gray for a bit under three years. When I started it, I had only one other fanfic under my belt, the Ranma short "The Lion of the Tiger?". This fic would never have come about if not for my effort to tape the (new to the US) third season of Sailor Moon off of Cartoon Network for my little sister while she was at summer camp. So for that reason, I would like to take this opportunity to dedicate this story to my favorite (and only) sibling, Rebecca Nowack. I must also thank Angus MacSpon for lending his time and energy to preread this story from Chapter 5 on. Without his efforts, this fic would be both shorter and far poorer. I shudder to think of what the final product would have been without his excellent work. I would also like to thank everybody who ever commented on or reviewed this story. I would love to provide a comprehensive list of these people, but multiple hard drive crashes and lost inboxes regrettably make that impossible. I will, however, single out Brian Randall and thank him for his particularly useful and encouraging comments. The story for Shades of Gray went through numerous major revisions over the course of the writing. Out of egotism and the vague possibility that someone might be interested, I will include the earliest extant chapter outline, dating from shortly after Chapter 2's draft was finished: *********************************************************************** Prologue: One More Day "It's the end of the world as we know it. It's the end of the world as we know it. It's the end of the world as we know it. And I feel fine..." - 'End of the World', REM Chapter 1: Shadows of the Past "It is well that war is so terrible, or we should get too fond of it." -Robert E. Lee Chapter 2: To Fight Fire With Fire "May God have mercy upon my enemies, because I won't." -General George S. Patton Jr. Chapter 3: Inferno of Battle "Cry havoc and let loose the dogs of war!" -Antony, 'The Tragedy of Julius Ceaser' Chapter 4: The Search Begins "Every journey begins with a single step." -saying Chapter 5: Coming of Age "In short, the habits we form from childhood make no small difference, but rather they make all the difference." -Aristotle Chapter 6: King of the Gods "...He has loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible, swift sword..." -"For I Have Seen the Glory" Chapter 7: General's Vengeance "Evil feeds upon itself, but good redeems its own." -Dragonlance Chronicles, Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman Chapter 8: Dark Secrets "With great power comes great responsibility." -almost any issue of Spiderman "Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely." -saying Chapter 9: Vision of Tomorrow "Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory there is no survival." -Winston Churchill Chapter 10: Legacy "There is no knowledge that is not power." - seen on the _Mortal Kombat 3_ video game Interlude: Beresheit (In the Beginning) "Beresheit bara elohim et ha'shamayim v'et ha'aretz." "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." -Genesis 1:1 Chapter 11: The Siren's Call "The sea has an enormous thirst and an insatiable appetite." -French proverb Chapter 12: The Search Ends "This is not the end. This is not the beginning of the end, but it is the end of the beginning." -Winston Churchill Chapter 13: Lord of the Dead "You do not host this banquet. Death hosts this banquet." -Greenthorne the Elf, 'DragonStrike' Chapter 14: No Turning Back "The only thing as terrible as a battle lost is a battle won." -saying Chapter 15: Betrayal of Trust "He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster... when you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you." -Friedrich Nietzsche Chapter 16: All Things Revealed "Before I horribly dismember you and your friends, protocol requires me to explain the entire plot to you." -Lord Saffron, Ranma 1/2 Chapter 17: The Seal "We must hang together, gentlemen...else, we shall most assuredly hang separately." -Benjamin Franklin Chapter 18: Shiva "United we stand, divided we fall." -saying Epilogue: 'Till All Are One "In life, unlike chess, the game continues after checkmate." - Isaac Asimov, from _Fantastic Voyage_ *********************************************************************** There, wasn't that fascinating? Now, on to the annotations (of sorts)! Prologue: One More Day "It's the end of the world as we know it. It's the end of the world as we know it. It's the end of the world as we know it. And I feel fine..." - 'End of the World', REM Well, this is the first section of the story. There really is not all that much to say about it, save that I wince now at some of the writing. Also, if you want a clue into how much the story changed during the course of the writing, reread the prologue and then jump straight to Chapter 10, and see how badly the two versions of what happened during the Silver Millenium match up. As I recall, the prologue was originally going to consist of just the first scene. The other two were added because I felt it would be too short otherwise. The title obviously refers to the fact that the prologue takes place one day before the fall of the Silver Millenium, though if I were rewriting it now I would change the title to "The Day Before". The reason for the quote should also be obvious. Chapter 1: Shadows of the Past "It is well that war is so terrible, or we should get too fond of it." -Robert E. Lee And here we go with the first chapter! Looking back, my writing style is fairly different and the tone is certainly much less dark than later portions of Shades of Gray. The decision to include Jadeite and the Dark Kingdom as villains was a last minute one, mainly inspired by Sailor Moon Z. I sketched up a brief plot involving Jadeite and the Five Diamonds, but didn't expect it to matter very much. My muse would soon prove me wrong. The title is, of course, a reference to the return of the Champions. The quote doesn't really have much relevance to the story, but it sure sounds cool, doesn't it? (And, incidentally, it was misattributed to Grant in the first draft.) This was the only chapter prior to Chapter 7 to be outlined ahead of time, though the outline was not actually consulted while writing the chapter for some reason that escapes me now. Since it is the oldest surviving piece of information relating to Shades of Gray outside of my own mind, it is reproduced here for your edutainment: *********************************************************************** Scene 1: Usagi gets out of detention for being late and goes window shopping. Along the way she runs into (literally) Ikawa. As she shops,she thinks about how she managed to convince the Outersto show up for today's Senshi meeting... and realizes that she's late Scene 2: At the shrine, everyone is waiting for Usagi. They talk about Hotaru. When Usagiarives, Haruka complains about her being late. However, the incipient fight breaks up when Pluto arrives, warning of danger to come. She lets slip that she dosen't know what it is. The Outers then leave. Scene 3: Jadeite awakensand takes control of the Dark Kingdom. After disposing of a challenger, he sends a snake youma to investigate events since Beryl's defeat. The youma arrives and begins to drain energy, from people at the shopping center where Ikawa is. Scene 4: At the Senshi meeting, Ami detects the youma. After a brief discussion, they head off to stop it, forgetting to contact the Outers. Scene 5: The Senshi arrive at the shopping center. The youma uses venom to distract them,while Mercury uses the Bubble Spray to buy them timeAfter some attacks, Mars uses the Fire Soul against it, discovering that theyouma is vulnerable to fire. Scene 6: Above, from Ikawa's viewpoint. He transformes into Ares after seeing the fire soul. After killing the monster, there is a brief confrontation with the Senshi. Scene 7: At lunch, Ikawa discusses the monster attack with his classmate Mamoro. Mamoro reccomends Rei's shrine asa place to get monster wards. Scene 8: The Senshi discuss Ares. Is he a friend or enemy? Usagi beleives he is a friend, but Rei thinks he's an enemy. *********************************************************************** Chapter 2: To Fight Fire With Fire "May God have mercy upon my enemies, because I won't." -General George S. Patton Jr. Not much of interest to say about this chapter. However, two youma Overlords, still nameless at this point, begin a plot to resurrect Metallia in this chapter, much to my surprise and consternation. I noted in the author's notes that the Dark Kingdom was getting more story time than I anticipated. This would prove to be quite the understatement. The title and quote refer to the battle between Ares and Sailor Mars during the chapter. Chapter 3: Inferno of Battle "Cry havoc and let loose the dogs of war!" -Anthony, 'The Tragedy of Julius Ceaser' Continuing on the fire and war theme, the title and quote once again refer to Ares's one-man war. The Mountains of Desolation are referenced for the first time, though I would have no idea how important they would later be, and the characters of Nyxan and Ishamanar (called Ishmanar at the moment) continue to take shape. Another fairly unexceptional chapter, though I do abandon the usage of "<>" to represent thought or telepathic speech at this point. The whole sequence of the awakening of Aphrodite was one of the first scenes I envisioned when originally plotting the whole story. Chapter 4: The Search Begins "Every journey begins with a single step." -saying Both title and quote refer to the beginning of the active search for the remaining Champions (wow, what a surprise). This chapter also features a cheap reference to the Warhammer/Warhammer 40k universe in it. And that's really all I have to say about that. Chapter 5: Coming of Age "In short, the habits we form from childhood make no small difference, but rather they make all the difference." -Aristotle This was the first chapter Angus MacSpon preread. Any sudden jump in quality is purely based on this fact and is most definitely not your imagination. Also, in this chapter I start to write in the darker tone that would last for the remainder of the story. We also see the beginning of the real Dark Kingdom plot, which quite literally came out of nowhere: the phrase "Mordrangar, Dragon of the North" popped into my head while writing the chapter, and everything else came from that. The title/quote, of course, refer to the return of Hotaru to her full age. I was rather proud of her refusal to return to being Sailor Saturn, as it wasn't something I had seen in any of the fanfics I had read before. The Ayakashi Sisters from Sailor Moon R make a brief cameo appearance. Chapter 6: Soul of Thunder "...He has loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible, swift sword..." -"Battle Hymn of the Republic" If you can't guess what the title/quote refer to, I pity you. The phrase "Soul of Thunder" comes from the Legend of the Five Rings CCG, where it refers to the Seven Thunders, a group of warriors destined to fight the dark god Fu Leng. (Incidentally, a good number of names used in this fic are taken from characters from this game.) This chapter features the first Silver Millenium flashback, and with it the "That was then... and this is now." transition. By this point also the Dark Kingdom plot has finally become somewhat fixed, and will have only minor revisions from this point on. At this stage, however, the greater plot for the whole story underwent a major rewrite, and the thought of doing a sequel or sequels first occurred to me. Chapter 7: Convergence "With great power comes great responsibility." -almost any issue of Spiderman In this chapter, I discover the wonders of outlining chapters and actually using the outline when writing the story. Not coincidentally, the size of chapters balloons upward from this point on. This chapter was the first and only chapter to undergo a major rewrite between the initial drafts and the released versions. The original version featured the beginnings of a (thankfully dropped) subplot involving an ancient feud between Zeus and Endymion, as well as a poorly written and anti-climatic battle against Jadeite. At some point I may post the original draft somewhere for comparison. Speaking of which, this is notable in that it is the only time in the entire fanfic that Jadeite actually appears to the Senshi/Champions, unless I have forgotten something. This is probably the point at which I start to not wince when reading the chapters now, as I really start to get a handle on the darker, more serious tone. Chapter 8: Aftermath "I have not yet begun to fight!" "Well, hurry up then, we're losing!" -variously attributed And then there was writer's block, and the story languished for half a year at least. When I was finally done with this chapter, it was what would become the second longest in the entire story, and one I remain moderately satisfied with. It also features, so far as I am aware, the only appearance in Sailor Moon fanfiction of an _im_pure heart crystal. At this point I start to consider trimming the then 20-chapter outline into the 15-chapter one that would be the final version. Chapter 9: Closing the Circle "This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning." -Winston Churchill Much to my relief, this chapter takes a far shorter amount of time to write than the last. The decision to shorten the story is made, and I smush together the Awakenings of the last two Champions into one chapter to get them out of the way. At one point I intended to have Poseidon spend at least some time with his powers but without his memories of the Silver Millenium, but this was cut. Not really that much to say here. Chapter 10: Beresheit- In the Beginning "Beresheit bara elohim et ha'shamayim v'et ha'aretz." "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." -Genesis 1:1 The longest chapter in the whole story, this is also the one I'm most proud of. Contrary to my fears, I managed to get it out in about three months, rather than half a year. I knew this would be one of the most critical chapters of the story, and I'm glad I pulled it off as well as I did. This chapter was inspired by a similar flashback chapter in Angus MacSpon's Sailor Moon 4200. Originally it was to take place entirely in the Silver Millenium (hence its status as an interlude in the original outline for Shades of Gray). However, this quickly proved unwieldy and unwritable, so I switched it over to its current format of cutting between present and past and replaced a good number of the less important Silver Millenium scenes with Hermes's dialogue with Mercury. Missing from the plans for this chapter is a Queen Serenity POV of the last moments of the Silver Millenium and her final confrontation with the Champions, which was dropped as I simply proved unable to write it in a satisfactory fashion. Chapter 11: Collision Course "What is the Way of the Warrior?" "The Way of the Warrior is Death." - seventeenth-century Japanese proverb And now all of a sudden we move into the final plot arc. The battle at the end of the chapter, including the deaths, was one of the three scenes I envisioned when originally planning this fic (the other two being Aphrodite's Awakening and Rei and Ikawa's conversation in the epilogue). Another critical chapter, and one I was very nervous about. Perhaps because of this I sat on a complete draft of this for several months before releasing it, due to my deep dissatisfaction with several parts. One added scene (the confrontation between Pluto and Tamori) and a few minor changes made the chapter much better in my opinion, and it received a positive reaction from the few people who responded to it when it was finally released. Chapter 12: Betrayal of Trust "He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster... when you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you." -Friedrich Nietzsche A chapter I don't have anything to say about, really. I'm rather fond of the Ares/Uranus interaction in this one. This chapter puts the story firmly into the endgame. Chapter 13: No Remorse "We must all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately." -Benjamin Franklin The battle in this chapter was a poor attempt to shine a little light on some under-utilized characters, particularly Sailors Jupiter and Venus, who do hardly anything in the entire fic. This whole chapter is pretty much the calm before the storm, plotwise. I refuse to confirm or deny reports of a Ranma 1/2 cameo in this chapter. Chapter 14: All Things Revealed "Before I horribly dismember you and your friends, protocol requires me to explain the entire plot to you." -Lord Saffron, Ranma 1/2 Chapter 15: Shiva "United we stand, divided we fall." -saying Epilogue: 'Till All Are One "Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what's right." - Isaac Asimov These three parts of the story are fairly straightforward, and were written too recently for me to have any reflections on them yet. I might come back in a few months and add some comments, though. For most of the writing of this story, I have been continually fiddling with a soundtrack for the story. This soundtrack even changed during the writing of the final chapter, and may change again in the future. That said, I now present to you the current version: Sailor Moon - Moonlight Densetsu (LIPS) [Opening Theme] This one was a fairly obvious choice. Sailor Moon Another Story - Soldier Opocito [Champion Transformation Music] Sailor Moon Another Story - Battle [Champion Attack Music] These two pieces from the Sailor Moon SNES RPG seemed to fit nicely in these roles. Galbatron - Toccata et Fuga in D Minor [Dark Kingdom Theme] I'm not sure where I came across this, and its not by anyone I've heard of, but its a kind of techno-ish remix of the famous piece. This would play in the background during most of the early Dark Kingdom scenes. Sailor Moon Another Story - Four Heartful Kings [Flashback Theme] Another piece from the RPG, this would be used during most of the Silver Millenium flashbacks, obviously. Ayashi no Ceres - Apocalyptic Strings [Metallia's Theme] All the scenes with Nyxan and Ishamanar in the sanctum would have this in the background. Revolutionary Girl Utena - Absolute Destiny Apocalypse [Sailor Saturn's Theme] This is the most recent addition to the soundtrack. I imagine little bits and pieces being played during most of the darker Saturn scenes throughout the fic, and a good bit during the destruction of Juno. The song would be played in its entirety for the first time when Saturn attacks during the final chapter. Final Fantasy X - Otherworld [Battle With Metallia] This song seemed to fit the tone of the final battle of the story rather nicely, and the lyrics aren't too out of place. The previous holder of this position was Moon Revenge. Wild Arms 2nd Ignition - Resistance Line (Extended Version) [Ending Theme] I discovered this through its use in one chapter of Brian Randall's Process of Elimination, and decided it fit perfectly as the Ending Theme for Shades of Gray. And that's a wrap. I apologize for the egotistical and stream- of-consciousness nature of this exercise, but I wanted to get my thoughts down on (virtual) paper so I would have something to look back at in a few years, and there is always the possibility that someone out there would enjoy this random excursion into the recesses of my mind. What to expect next from me? First I plan to finish off the last part of my Suikoden fanfic Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn. Then I'll most likely get to work on a multi-part Eva continuation fic, tentatively titled (and this is sure to change) Second Iteration, though it has no relation to the previously released and abandoned fic of mine by the same name. I'd also like to rewrite and continue my Ranma/Eva crossover Lonely Hearts, though this is lower priority and may not happen. The Ranma/SM story Heart of Fire, Heart of Darkness is almost certainly dead at this point. I have a number of other fic ideas running through my head, among them (listed in a rough order of likeliness of them getting written, and all titles are tentative): 1) "New Century Magical Girl Evangelion" - As the title implies, a retelling of Evangelion as a magical girl story. Despite the inane silliness of the idea, this would be a serious fic. This one is high on the list to write as I've already wasted countless hours fiddling with some graphics for it. 2) "Cybermoon 2020: Good Titles Want To Be Free" - Similarly, a retelling of Sailor Moon as a (kind of) cyberpunk story. There will no doubt be influences from Tad William's Otherland and the .hack games and anime, but it won't be a fusion with either of those sources. 3) "World in Flames" And/Or "Ashes of Victory" - Another Eva fic. This one I'm rather excited about, as its not something I've seen done before. Before there was a Nerv, or even a Gehirin or a Seele, the seeds of the story we all know were being laid. "World in Flames" would take place at the height of World War II, while "Ashes of Victory" would be set at the dawn of the Cold War. 4) An untitled Eva fic that would be a retelling of Eva as a fantasy story. Though I have read Alain Gravel's "Chosen", the plans I have for this story are significantly different, and I came up with the idea independently. 5) "The Less Things Change" - A Ranma 1/2 story. What if it hadn't been raining when Genma and Ranma showed up at the Tendos? This one is fairly unlikely to be written, as we don't really need _another_ Ranma 1/2 story that starts over from Day 1. And that's about all the more likely ones at the moment. If one of them greatly intrigued you, feel free to drop me an e-mail begging me to raise its priority or tell you more. And now I really am done.