Disclaimer: Would you believe me if I said I own Sailor Moon and everything related to it?...Nope didn't think so.

Okay guys, I was rereading this again after a comment I got made me think about how well I'd thought this story out and I had to agree that it needed some tweaking. Here is the revised version, if u want me to out back the old one I can, but I think this is a big improvement. Tell me what you think?

Mina raced past the arcade, did a double take and raced back. Plastered across one of the windows was a poster advertising the new anime expo being held on Saturday. Mina quickly scanned the information about dates, times and activities until the words '$1,000 prize' caught her eye.

"A Cosplay Competition!" Mina almost shrieked, modulating her tone at the last second. "This is so cool, I have to tell the others!" she resumed her breakneck speed sprint down the street towards Rei's temple.

Bursting through the doors like miniature whirlwind she interrupted the weekly sailor scout meeting in motion. Ami was currently holding the floor as she hypothesised about the causes for the recurring youma appearances even after they'd defeated Galaxia. She stopped in mid-sentence as Mina barrelled in.

"Guys! Guys!" she cried, "Guess what's happening at Armageddon this weekend!"

Rei sighed, from past experience she knew that trying to calm Mina down when she was this excited was an exercise in futility, resigning herself to getting nothing else done this meeting she traded looks with Ami and grimaced before saying "Alright Mina, tell us what's got you so excited now, you know you're going to anyway."

Mina's overwhelming enthusiasm could not be dampened by Rei's sarcasm "They're having a cosplay competition and the prize is $1000!"

Serena laughed and clapped her hands, infected with Mina's excitement "A cosplay competition? Wow can we go? We can dress up as our favourite anime characters and who knows we might even win?" she cried.

"I know and I already have a great idea of who to go as! The Sailor Scouts!" Mina waved her hands to emphasise the 'genius' of her plan, "We'll all transform before we get there and enter as a group cosplaying as the Sailor Scouts and because we are the Sailor Scouts no one can look as much like them as we can and we'll definitely win! It's foolproof."

She grabbed Serena's hands and they danced around, "Hey do you think we can invite Darien too?" Serena asked they when collapsed onto the couch with the room spinning, "Maybe we can get him to come as Tuxedo Mask."

"Great idea Serena!" Mina exclaimed. "With him there it will be a total floor wipe! We'll win everything!"

"Whoa, hold on a second guys, there is a fatal flaw to this so called perfect plan of yours." Lita cautioned, "Nathan and I have been invited to a restaurant launch by a friend of mine. We can't just cancel because of a cosplay competition."

Mina's face fell, "But, without you we won't have a full team!" tears filled her baby blue eyes as she looked pleadingly at Lita, "Can't you try to reschedule?"

"Hey, I never said I was coming either," Rei put in, "who am I supposed to leave in charge of the temple while Grandpa's away. He won't be coming back from that holiday for another week yet and I refuse to leave Chad as the only one in charge in order to go steal someone else's money."

Mina tears immediately vanished and she glared at her nitpicking friend, "We are not stealing someone else's money." She said stiffly.

"Oh no?" Raye asked with a return glare, "Well A) We wouldn't truly be cosplaying

because we are the real thing

B) If we won we would be depriving some other poor person who has put a lot of time and effort into their costume of their deserving prize whereas we would have put no effort into ours at all and therefore do not deserve to win.

C) You have to put your real name down when you sign up for things like this and that would be perilously close to revealing ourselves as the Sailor Scouts

And D) Do you really think that as a Princess of Venus this is appropriate behaviour anyway?" Rei's blistering tirade ended.

Mina's face had fallen inch by inch as Rei speech had gone on, by the end she had to admit that her 'perfect plan' was actually not so perfect. Her balloon of fantastical imaginings had been punctured by Rei's needles of cold logic and she didn't like it.

Amy tried to console Mina, "We could always make our own costumes and compete that way," she soothed "I'm sure that if we make the costumes of the Sailor Scouts ourselves they'll be imperfect enough to make it look like we aren't the real Sailors, we can even make a few deliberate mistakes. You don't have to give up completely."

Mina's shoulders slumped, "It's not going to work anyway if Rei and Lita don't come." she snapped then immediately felt guilty about being mean to Amy after she'd just tried to help. Sighing she turned to back to her blue haired friend, "Sorry Amy," she apologised "I shouldn't have got mad at you I just thought that it'd be great to have a bit of fun as Sailors rather than being serious and having to fight bad guys all the time."

Serena gave her a hug, and Lita shoved a plate of cookies in her lap, "Hey don't worry girl, we all make mistakes and who knows maybe there'll be something next year we can do." Serena said while filching a couple of cookies off Mina's plate.

"Well what do you know, the meatball head actually said something mature for a change." Rei commented snidely.

"Hey, take that back Rei, I can be as clever as you if I want I just choose not to be." Serena retorted, "it's no fun."

The Sailor Scout meeting deteriorated after that, ending up once again with Serena and Rei not speaking to each other and the other scouts breaking up the meeting before serious bodily harm could be inflicted.

As the week passed Mina refused to give up on winning the cosplay competition. If she couldn't go with all the Sailor Scouts then she'd have to go as just one. It didn't matter if she won or not, she planned to give the prize to the runner up anyway. What was really interesting to her was the thought of how much fun she could have while cosplaying and how cool it would be to see how well known the Sailor Scouts really were. Armageddon attracted the best of the best and to see how well the Scouts stood up to that would be very interesting.

As time went by Mina racked her brain to find a way to compete without revealing herself but still cosplaying as a scout. Finally she hit on an idea and nearly burst out laughing at the simplicity of it all.

Yes, she couldn't cosplay as Sailor Venus because that was hitting too close to home but there was nothing stopping her from entering as Sailor V. Sailor V had originally appeared in London England and news of her had spread to other countries from there so everyone assumed she was British. No one would guess that the girl cosplaying half a world away was the real thing, even if she did look exactly like her.

Mina rubbed her hands together in glee and grinned, this would be a competition to remember.

The day of the competition Mina hurried to the convention centre and got into line for a ticket. After half an hour of waiting she bought and paid for one and was admitted into the expo by a tall silver haired man with a walkie-talkie standing by the door.

"Welcome to Armageddon, please have a nice time," he said absently as he tore her ticket and waved her through the door, listening with one ear as someone spoke to him on the walkie-talkie.

"Will do," Mina replied. With a grin she walked past him and onto the first floor of the expo. Following the signs and the guide in her map book she made her way to the bathrooms and with a quick glance around transformed into Sailor V. Walking back out she adopted an air of calm confidence even though inside she was shaking with excitement. Checking her watch told her she had two hours to burn, the cosplay competition wasn't until 12 o'clock.

"I'll go check out the stalls then," she decided and proceeded to the third floor where all the super hero stalls were, planning to see just how well known the Sailor Scouts were in the big wide world. To her joy there was an entire five stalls devoted to Sailor Scout paraphernalia and she spent half an hour browsing through posters, figurines, key chains and fanart. Pride satisfied she went looking through the other stalls and almost screamed with delight when she saw a stand that featured merchandise for her all time favourite actor Kaitou Ace. Other girls were screaming of course but Mina restrained herself to a small gasp and punching the air in delight before rushing over to the stand.

There was already quite a crowd there but Mina was an adept mall-crawler and knew every trick in the book on how to get to the front of a crush. Expertly she manoeuvred until she was near the front of the queue but then a tiny locket with Ace's picture in one half and space in the other half for another caught her eye. Instantly her hand shot out to grab it but unfortunately someone else had the same idea. In unison both their hands reached out and grasped the locket, Mina tried to pull it out of the other girls hand with a quick jerk but failed.

"Give it here, I saw I first!" she shouted across the noise to the girl on the other side of the bench who was not looking at all like she was going to let the locket go.

"Get lost, I saw it first and I grabbed it first so you let go!" the girl shouted back.

"Not happening lady," Mina muttered before yelling, "not a chance, finders keepers and losers weepers and I found it so I keep it."

"Possession is nine tenths of the law!" the other girl hollered back and then yanked the chain, Mina was forced to let go least the locket break but she wasn't going to give up that easily. Leaping the bench in true Sailor Scout style she jumped in front of the girl and grabbed the locket from her hands. Tossing some money to the startled cashier and calling "Keep the change!" she leapt off another counter and caught one of the decorative chains hanging from the roof. Swinging from it she flew out over the heads of the crowd, flipped and landed on the floor below. The crowd on the third floor broke into applause, clapping in appreciation of her antics. Waving Mina bowed once then gestured mockingly at her defeated opponent who appeared at the railing. With a blown kiss and a cheeky wave she held up the locket and then disappeared into one of the viewing rooms off to the right.

After sitting through a boring pointless movie Mina decided that she'd probably waited long enough for things to settle down and checked her watch.

"Oh no, it's nearly twelve o'clock!" she cried and sprinted out of the room.

'Whump!' Mina crashed into someone and went tumbling.

"Ow!" she cried, "What's the big idea?"

"Oh I'm sor— so you're the one who's been causing all the trouble?" she heard a voice say

Mina looked up and found herself staring into the face of the white haired man who'd let her into the expo. Thinking quickly she put on her most innocent expression and asked

"What trouble sir? I've only been watching a movie in there," and pointed towards the viewing room.

The man nodded unbelievingly and caught her arm as she tried to edge away. "Yeah I'm sure you were and quite a few other things too if rumour is to be believed. Your antics ruined two stalls and broke some of the costly decorations. Not to mention giving several people wild ideas about how to get down to the next floor. I'm afraid I'm going to have to escort you off the premises and deny access to the building for the remainder of this event." he said firmly and still holding her arm, walked her forcefully into a closed off part of the building.

"But I didn't do anything wrong, I paid for that locket!" Mina protested, "Will you at least hear my side of the story?"

Totally ignoring her the man continued walking, talking over her until she gave up "First I'm going to need you to answer some questions so we can ascertain what exactly happened and decide if charges need to be pressed," he told her as they walked. "From what the complainer says we have theft, property damage and crowd incitement."

"But I've got a cosplay contest to go to!" Mina cried

"Well I'm sorry but you're going to have to miss your contest," the man replied, clearly unconcerned.

"Who the heck do you think you are buddy? Let me go or I'll call security!" Mina cried and tried to pull her arm free without success.

The man sighed, "Lady I am security, you are talking to Mark Stone, Security Officer of this event and I am really not in the mood for any tantrums or tears or shouting matches so if you will do as I say we can get this over and done with as soon as possible."

Mina gave up, she was clearly not going to get out of this one, "Okay, but are you sure there's no way can compete in the contest?" she asked hopefully.

Mark softened a little, "Sorry but no, you've broken the rules and I must abide by them but if it's any consolation there's always next year."

"I guess," Mina replied gloomily.

Mark stopped and opened a door, "in here, I'll just need you to answer a few questions and then you can go."

Mina nodded and sighed, "Alright, what do you need to know?" she sat down on the chair Mark set out for her and then waited while he got one for himself.

"Okay first –" just then a crashing sound echoed down the corridor accompanied by the sound of many people screaming and an animalistic roar that made the very walls shake. Mark's walkie-talkie burst into static and the screaming could be heard coming through the speaker as well.

"Mark! Mark! Are you there?" someone cried, "There are monsters of some kind attacking the expo! They're attacking people and doing something to them, they can't move and look half dead. Wait! One just got caught in some of the cables on the first floor! Its pulling down half the ceiling! Where are you man we need you to help us get the people out!"

Mark jammed the talk button down, "Don't worry James I'm on my way, keep everyone away from the monsters and get everyone out of the building! I'll be right there just stay calm!" he leapt up from his chair and then turned to Mina, "You stay right here until I get back," he ordered.

Mina jumped up from her chair too, "Wait, I can help. Let me go with you!" she cried. "I can fight this thing!"

Mark shook his head "Not a chance, there are monsters out there and whether you think you're Sailor V or not I can't let you risk yourself. Stay here, you'll only get in the way and get hurt." He pushed her aside and ran out the door, locking it behind him.

Mina stood still her mood going from slight irritation to downright furious, "Get in the way will I?" she muttered to herself then strode over to the door, hammering on it as she shouted at Mark, "You let me out right now buster I can help you!" she yelled at Mark "If you don't let me out in two seconds I swear I'm gonna break down this door!"

Mark was already halfway down the passage Mina's shout not even registering on his mind. The next shout did however.

"I warned you!" Mina cried then took out her Venus crystal. "Venus Crystal Power!"

Mark heard the muffled shout and turned back to stare at the closed door in shock, orange light poured through the gaps between the door and the wall and floor then faded as with a crash the door shattered under the impact or Sailor Venus' shoe.

Mark jumped out of the way and narrowly missed losing an eye on flying debris before Venus jumped over the remains of the door and ran down the hall.

The caught youma had already fought its way out of the entangling cables and was grabbing people left and right, draining their energy and then tossing them aside. The others were causing chaos left and right as people fell and ran over each other and in an attempt to get away. Venus assessed the situation in a glance and sprang into immediate action.

"Venus Love Chain Encircle!" she cried and threw the magical whip she kept around her waist at the monster just escaping from the roof cables. Wrapping around its limbs she pulled the chain tight, forcing it to release its current victims as it fought to break free.

"Quick, get everyone out of here!" she ordered Mark as he ran up beside her, shock still evident on his face at seeing a such a slight girl break down a steel and wood door, superhero or no.

"Do it!" Venus yelled at him, that combined with another roar from the youma snapped him back to reality.

"Got it." Mark leapt forward and like an Olympic sprinter raced down to the three people the youma had dropped and picked them up one by one, running with them to the relative safety of the courtyard outside.

Venus split her chain, anchoring one end to a concrete pillar she sent the others snaking after the other youma. Two she caught and anchored to other pillars but one more powerful than the others snapped her chain as it tightened on him. Venus whipped the end back to her and sent it flying back to him. Twice as fast as before it wrapped around him encircling him completely several times before coming back to her hand. It struggled, fighting her chain with all its worth, sometimes being almost pulled off its feet as it heaved and thrashed.

"Oh no you don't" she told it grimly as it howled and screamed at her, "I'm not letting you off this chain so you'd better get used to it." Glancing at Mark she saw he was helping to get the stampede of people outside, calmly directing his subordinates and volunteers alike until everyone was out and being led down the road out of danger.

Once everyone was out of the building Venus called on her other powers as a Sailor, now that area damage was irrelevant she could destroy rather than hold.

"Venus Meteor Shower!"

A hail of brilliant orange light shot from her hands and the air around her, raining down on the three anchored youma and burning them out of existence. The Boss youma was only mildly hurt by the attack, small burns peppered its scaly hide but it seemed more enraged by that than hurt. With a massive effort it once again broke her chain, howling its fury and charging towards her on all fours.

"And now the real fight begins my friend," Venus muttered.

"Venus Love and Beauty Shock!"

A chain of light but this one more powerful and destructive than her first appeared in her hands. Venus whipped it around and cracked it towards the charging youma. The chain of orange hearts, beautiful as they were, was deadlier than it looked. As each heart hit the youma it exploded, pushing him back with the force of their impact and doing damage at the same time. Venus attacked again, this time aiming for the youma's feet, if she could disable it somehow it would be easier to fight. However the youma's size belied its speed. It jumped over the attack and used it momentum to leap forward inside her range. Before she could call the chain back a massive fist smashed into her, sending her flying into and then through one of the glass windows looking onto the first floor balcony.

Venus cried out in pain, as jagged shards of glass ripped her skin and then screamed as she landed heavily on them, driving the shards deeper. Accepting the pain and then ignoring it she sprang to her feet and sent her next attack at the youma.

"Venus Crescent Beam!" A beam of orange light shot towards the youma, driving it back into the building and burning a crater sized hole in its chest.

She ran after it, attacking with Love and Beauty Shock again, determined not to give it time to get up. Again and again she sent it flying with either her whip or a Crescent Beam but every single time she hit it, it got back up again.

The convention centre was a complete mess, stalls were either destroyed, on fire or crushed to dust, balconies were sagging, walls were full of holes and craters. "When this is over the place will probably have to be demolished" Venus said to herself, feeling a bit guilty about her part in all the damage. The moment of inattention proved to be one second too long, Venus turned to face her enemy only to see a table come flying at her, thrown by the youma. She jumped desperately but the table clipped her legs flipping her over, she landed hard on her arm and with a sickening crack felt her right wrist break.

"Ow!" Venus had felt worse pain before but it still hurt! "Alright, buster I am getting fed up with you." She told the howling thing in front of her, "Its time learned who's the real boss around here."

Drawing on reserves of energy built up through fights with numerous evil foes Venus cast an enormous Meteor Shower, orange comets flaring with sun like brilliance filled the air around her and the youma hammering it to its knees. She called up both of her whips and dual-wielded them, striking it time after time as she continued the Meteor Shower, heedless of the damage she was doing to her broken wrist.

She kept it up until her strength gave out, the storm faded and the Love and Beauty Shock whip faded too, leaving her with only the real physical Love Chain whip. Staggering a bit she kept herself upright by an effort of will and looked towards the burned heap of youma barely two metres away. Her cuts were bleeding, her right arm felt like it was on fire and the fingers were refusing to do as she told them, so she was horrified when the burnt heap moved, stood up and roared at her.

"Oh no." Venus tried to muster the strength to fling her chain but her body wasn't responding to her. The youma raised its fist, set to smash her into the floor and she was too spent to move. Venus closed her eyes and felt the communicator on her wrist spark into life.

"Venus are you there? Venus? Venus!" the other Sailors called desperately but all she had time to say was "Goodbye."

Mark made sure that everyone was heading in the right direction and then let the crowd run past him before heading back to the convention centre. Every so often the sky would light up momentarily with orange light and he knew that that Sailor Venus was still fighting. He rounded the corner where the entrance was but was blown backwards by a wall of air that came out of the building. Amazed he got up and saw the tail end of Venus' final attack. Creeping closer he saw Venus catching her breath, holding her whip in her hand and barely able to stay on her feet. She looked beautiful.

Her blonde hair fell around her like spun gold and moved gracefully in the wind that blew through the shattered husk of the building, the red ribbon was a charming touch, battered as it was. Her whip shone in her hand, reflecting light so that it almost glowed and reflected in its metallic surface were Venus' gorgeous blue eyes. She stood like a frozen statue, a gladiator from another world come to protect Earth, powerful and beautiful, a more worthy Venus than the goddess of legend.

Mark stood captivated for a moment, in that moment the youma moved, heaving itself to its feet and raising its massive fist above Venus' head. Time for Mark froze, he looked from Venus to the youma and back, saw the defeated look in her eyes, the way she bowed her head, heard voices calling her name from somewhere. Something inside him cried out with those voices, begging him not to let the shining star in front of him die out. As if she'd heard his heart cry, Venus looked towards him and smiled sadly, her lips moved "Goodbye."

Something broke inside Mark. Before he knew what he was doing he'd leapt forward in a vain attempt to reach Venus in time, black wings grew from his shoulders propelling him even faster towards his goal. His clothes glowed brightly for a moment and then faded away to reveal a dark military-like uniform edged in silver and blue. The youma's fist crashed down. A scant second before it hit, Mark grabbed Venus out from under it, catching her up mid-dive his black wings powered them both up into the air, up past the wreckage of the third and fourth floors until he found a relatively unmarked and stable space on the fifth where he gently tucked Venus out of harms way.

She looked at him through eyes glazed over with weariness and pain, too tired to even register astonishment at her sudden rescue. Instead she smiled dazedly at him and then her eyes slowly closed and her muscles went slack.

The youma roared below them and Mark took a second to check her pulse and make sure she was still alive before he dived off the ruined barrier at the edge of the floor. His wings snapped open, keeping him aloft well above the youma as he assessed its movements, strange bits of knowledge coming from somewhere him. It's can't move its head well enough to look upwards anymore. He realised, Venus' attacks did too much damage to its head and neck. Making use of his aerial advantage Mark summoned the twin boomerang-like blades that served his long-range as weapons. Throwing both with the ease and accuracy of long practice he'd never had he then drew his sword from the scabbard at his waist. The boomerangs did their work, cutting the youma along the forehead and scoring two long red lines that immediately started bleeding profusely.

The youma roared its pain and fury, blinded by the blood it flailed uselessly at the air as it tried to catch this new assailant. Malachite waited for his chance and then dove in when an opening presented itself. With the added speed and power his wings and momentum gave him, Mark drove his sword through the youma's heart, killing it instantly. He left his sword in its body, carrying on his the motion and using it to propel him back up to where Venus was. With a mighty groan the youma breathed its last and fell over, hitting the ground with a mighty crash and then turning to dust. Mark carefully picked up Venus again and then flew out of the now dangerously unstable convention centre, looking for a better place to hide.

Swift as an arrow he flew to the roof of a nearby building, the dust and debris hiding his unorthodox method of travel. He landed lightly, banishing his wings moments before his feet touched the ground, in his arms Sailor Venus was exhausted and clearly confused as to what had just happened to her. She looked up at him and for an instant her face cleared,

"It can't be," she whispered as she stared at him. "Malachite is that really you?" She shook her head and then winced. "Everything's all confused, I'm sorry that's not right, you're Mark aren't you, what did I call you before?"

Mark went rigid as soon as she called him Malachite, almost dropping her as something in his mind went 'click' and memories surged in front of his eyes. He staggered and dropped to one knee, Venus half-falling out of his arms as he lost all control of his body in the flood of memories that hearing his name had unlocked. Venus felt the change in him, she exhaustedly drew herself to her knees, kneeling in front of him and grabbing his shoulders to steady not only herself but him as well.

"Hang in there Mark whatever's happening it'll be over soon," she encouraged. Mark hung onto those words like a lifeline in a flood as all the memories of his previous life washed over him. The flood only slowly subsided but when it finally stopped Mark slowly brought his hands down from where they'd been clutching his head and opened his eyes.

Mark slowly raised his head and Sailor Venus' gasped as she saw that his eyes had turned from clear blue to silver/grey. Her hands fell nerveless to her sides as she stared at the man who had saved her life. Long silver hair fell free around his shoulders, complementing the silver and blue colours of his military uniform. White gloved hands came away from his head as his eyes cleared and then turned to look and focus on her.

Venus looked into his eyes and felt something stirring in her heart, her hands lifted of their own accord to touch his face. Malachite a voice whispered in her mind, his name is Malachite.

Malachite saw the look on Venus' face and realised that she hadn't regained her memories as he just had. The bewilderment in her eyes was painful as she hesitantly reached up to touch his face. Instinctively Malachite knew what to do although part of him baulked at doing something so forward. As Venus slowly withdrew her hand Malachite gently caught her wrist and pulled her into his arms. Cradling her face in one hand he kissed her with all the love and passion they had once shared in their time on the moon.