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Hero had gotten up from the desk and was carefully shadowing herself over by Serenade, in front of the other girl, a tall and redheaded column half-hiding her from the nose of the gun. Her hands were up in front of her as though to placate the gunman and the silent nurse; the doctor didn't seem too fussed. The nurse had closed the door behind them all, and was sliding the lock over the doorknob.

"Why, we want to keep this school safe, of course," said the doctor. "Bacterial meningitis is a terrible disease."

"Stop patronizing us," Hero snapped. "There's no bacterial meningitis case. I found Jude Lawson stabbed to death in the commons."

"It was really disappointing that you did," said the doctor, "or else we wouldn't have to be doing this right now. Also disappointing that Miss Soriano was in the wrong place, at the wrong time."

Hero was flame-eyed, voice contemptuous. "You won't even give us answers before you shoot us down?"

"You don't actually deserve answers," said the nurse dismissively. "You're not even people."

"What in blazes is that meant to mean?" demanded Hero, the only girl who would ever unironically say 'in blazes.'

And suddenly there was a voice, in Serenade Soriano's head. One she'd never heard before in her life.

Serenade. I want you to listen to me carefully.

A friend.

"You can't keep on going on like this," Hero was saying, her voice fluttering in and out of Serenade's consciousness. Hero had a pretty voice; a low, arresting, pretty alto, and she was now declaiming for all the world to hear just in case there was somebody else walking by. Her hands were still up in front of her, placatory, and she was standing in front of Serenade's chair. "Somebody will notice. Destiny City isn't full of sheep. The media will get on to this and tug on it."

"The media won't get on to anything," said the doctor. "The school will go bankrupt in a few weeks. What scholars it has -- and it was mostly populated by out-of-towners, how sad -- will return back to their homes. The campus will be abandoned. And nobody will come to find the bodies."

"You're proposing to kill all the students?"

Serenade, said the voice. This is important. Don't worry about the rest of them. I want you to say, Chronos Princess Power, Make-Up. This is you getting -- a very special second chance. And you only have yourself to thank! I'm sorry I couldn't help you before. But the time has come to make yourself known. Again. You won't be at your full power, but you'll be able to do something. Please, say it.

"You can't kill what's already dead, Miss Barrett," said the doctor, and raised his gun.

Hero looked baffled. But Hero didn't look as baffled as the doctor and nurse suddenly looked absolutely horrified -- there was a bright, shining, overpowering light in the room suddenly, all centered around Serenade, remaking her and reforming her. The doctor was already shooting. The bullets ricocheted off the ball of energy that had formed around her, and the bullets drove themselves into Hero's walls; even as the light died, Hero Barrett had ploughed into the doctor.



"GET BACKUP," the doctor was screaming. "GET BACKUP -- "

He was knocked into the wall by Hero, who drove his arm behind his back and took the gun away; the girl motored herself back, still in front of the dazzling light of the senshi, and she shot. She missed the first, then took out the doctor in two; one took out the nurse.

They both collapsed to the ground, and their bodies were already shrinking up into black, dessicated lumps of tar. Hero was staring at what Serenade had become and her hands were shaking; she flicked the safety on the handgun again, but her hands were shaking as though she were witnessing God moving over the face of the earth.

Hero didn't respond at first; she was treated to the sight of Hero Barrett looking absolutely undone, turning her face away from the glowing, nigh-on incandescent form of Chronos. She checked the safety again, fiddling with the pistol, and set it down on the desk before checking for a dustpan and brush Aurelia had left in the room. She was on her hands and knees, now, sweeping up the tarry gunk (failing a little: it was carpet) and eventually pulling the rug on her floor to cover up the mess.

She looked a little embarrassed. She looked a little awed. Eventually she managed to slowly, seriously train her expression back on Sailor Chronos, and said, a little gravelly: "I'm fine." Pause. Then, stiffly: "Ma'am."

Then she burst out: "Did Lawson know you...?"

"No," said Hero, though she looked a little disturbed. "Not remotely. This is the first I've... seen -- of this kind of thing. I know about the sailor senshi; I've been less judgemental of the inexplicable since I started this term at Barren Pines." Obviously, since the doctor and the nurse were now tar on the floor of her room. "More things under heaven and earth, ma'am."

But she was looking at Sailor Chronos with a terrible, hungry longing, as though she were remembering something chasing at her memory and couldn't quite pin it down. She was staring at her as though she'd never get tired of looking at her, as though she were a religious experience. "So how did you know to change, if you had no idea? Was it an adrenaline reaction? Fight or flight?"

That was Hero, trying to explain things still.

One of Hero's brows raised skeptically, as though she didn't quite trust this apparent magical schizophrenia; but then again, the evidence was right in front of her, even if Serenade as Chronos was still two bricks and a button high in kitten heels. But she was glowing. The energy was coming off her like heat off a roof on a hot summer's day.

"Well -- ma'am." It was strange to hear Hero being so deferential, and it sounded as though Hero herself didn't quite know what the hell was going on. Ma'am came out her mouth, spilling naturally, surprising both of them. "I'd recommend you turn back to normal before somebody comes looking for the -- whatever they were."

It would disgrace the medical profession by calling them "doctors" and "nurses."

"I'll bury the gun."

"Of course they are," said Hero in disgust. "They were out to kill me. They still will be. No, I'm going underground -- I'm holding up in the top floor and I'm taking Miss Thorne with me. It's time to get our defenses sorted. It's that or the second gym -- I'm starting a barricade, and you're coming with me. With all due respect."

Jude would never have forgiven her for anything otherwise, especially not -- with this.

Princess Chronos, simply think about being back to normal and -- you'll go back!

Hero did not appear to have heard this; she just kept on staring flatly at Chronos herself. There was every doubt as to whether she would actually bury the gun. She meant business. She was already moving away and sifting through her belongings, grabbing a knapsack, starting to pile things into it neatly. Obviously Aurelia wasn't there to safely pack for her.

"Yes," said the girl in front of her, who did not bury the gun at all but instead put it inside her knapsack. "Go to your room, get everything you need. I'll be there in five minutes. I need to go and alert Miss Thorne. Don't take anything you don't need. We'll have to carry light."

It sounded as though they would be backpacking through the Alps, not holing up somewhere in the campus. She was all professional now, working briskly, not at all impressed at the fact that Chronos had turned back to Serenade so easily. "We'll leave under the cover of night. They can assume we're dead."