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Verbatim repeat of the last minute or so of 161--Tuxedo Kamen collapses, the sun is eclipsed, everyone talks for a bit, and the Pegasus appears overhead.
[OP--"Moonlight Densetsu"]
[title screen]
The Pegasus floats to the ground near the Senshi, and Chibi-Moon rushes over to hug him. He introduces himself as "Helios, Guardian of Elysion"(sp?). He tells the Senshi that it's useless to attack the Dead Moon, because it draws its power from people's nightmares, and will therefore be unbeatable as long as people have bad dreams.
Helios tells the story of his world. His people had once defeated the Dead Moon, but later lost the power to dream good dreams and were consequently destroyed by the evil Queen Neherenia. He says the only way to defeat the Dead Moon is to use the Golden Crystal, which, everyone realizes, is hidden in the Pegasus' horn. The Crystal had only been known to the Monks of Elysion, but the Pegasus told Chibi-Usa about it in the (apparently mistaken...) belief that she was the one who could use it. He asks the Senshi to find the person who _can_ use the crystal.
Elsewhere in the city, huge green plants force their way through the pavement and begin wrapping around the web-covered buildings. At the same moment, Mamoru collapses in agony. The Pegasus disappears, to Chibi-Moon's dismay.
In the Dead Moon Circus tent, the trapped human form of Helios begins to glow. Neherenia is angry because, even though she has captured Helios' body, his spirit is still free and fighting her. She strikes the huge web structure in which he is trapped so hard that it sways back and forth.
At Mamoru's apartment, the six girls and three cats watch anxiously as Mamoru lies in bed, hyperventilating and clutching the covers in obvious pain. Mamoru explains that he's connected to the Earth--which is currently being ripped apart--and experiencing the same trauma it is. Chibi-Usa is upset by all this, but Rei and the others hasten to reassure her that, even if they don't know who can use the Crystal, their combined powers are enough to defeat the Dead Moon. Everyone except Usagi and Mamoru files out of the room.
Usagi kneels next to Mamoru's bed, crying. Mamoru says he feels guilty that he won't be able to help them in the upcoming fight, but Usagi says they'll be all right. They kiss, and then Usagi leaves as well. The three cats return to stay with Mamoru as another spasm of pain hits him.
As the six girls leave the apartment building, they encounter the Dead Moon Circus parading down the street. Several of the creatures speak to the girls (apparently causing Usagi to fall over in astonishment), and one blows cigarette smoke in Ami's face. Chibi-Usa yells at the Circus, and, surprisingly, they all shut up and move aside. Ami realizes that they're forming an aisle that leads straight to the huge circus tent. The Amazoness Quartet appears, sliding down a pair of ropes apparently lowered from nowhere.
[commercial break]
Vesves and Pallapalla talk to the Senshi. Rei smiles confidently and yells a retort, and all the girls transform and do their intro. speech.
The Quartet vanishes suddenly, and the Dead Moon Circus creatures start to close in. Mars leaps in front of Sailor Moon, loosing a Flame Sniper into the crowd. She smiles and gives the others a thumbs-up, and the Senshi rush into the gap she created and begin fighting their way toward the tent.
The Amazoness Quartet watch a mirror that shows the Senshi running toward the tent. They wonder if this plan to lure the Senshi into the Dead Moon Circus was such a good idea. Neherenia appears in the mirror, and they ask her for more power for the upcoming fight. She obliges by giving their magic pool balls a power-up.
The Senshi, meanwhile, have reached the center of the deserted tent.
As they stand looking around warily, the circular section of the floor on which they are standing begins to rise, carrying them toward the top of the tent.
As they rise, Sailor Mercury tells Chibi-Moon that she used to dream about the Pegasus when she was a child. The other four girls remember having such dreams, as well (and this revelation leads into an almost unbearably cute series of pictures showing little Rei, Mako, Minako, and Usagi riding or running alongside the Pegasus :)). As they got older, however, they decided that the Pegasus wasn't real, and he stopped visiting their dreams.
Chibi-Moon fondly recalls communicating with the Pegasus in her attic room, and says that _her_ Pegasus is real, not just a dream, and that he's her friend. The Senshi say that he'll be with her as long as she believes in him, and Chibi-Moon smiles and thanks them.
The platform reaches the top of the tent, and the Senshi stand in the same spot where the Amazons (the Trio, and then the Quartet) always stood to receive orders from Zirconia. Suddenly, Cerecere appears, swinging from a trapeze bar, Pallapalla rides by on a unicycle, Junjun somersaults over to land nearby, and Vesves slides down the trunk of an elephant and stands right in front of the Senshi. All four of them confront the girls.
Junjun uses a baseball bat to rapidly hit a series of balls at the Senshi; Jupiter manages to stop one with her bare hands, but another explodes right at her feet, knocking her out of the fight. The two Moons attempt to dodge what looks like a shower of deadly yellow flower petals from Cerecere, as Mars gets chased around the tent by Pallapalla, who is on top of a giant ball.
Mercury and Venus help a singed Jupiter to her feet, but Vesves aims a large glob of pink goo at the two Moons, but all four Senshi push the pair out of the way and get stuck to the ground by the glob. Junjun and Vesves look down in satisfaction at the trapped Senshi, while Cerecere and Pallapalla cheer.
Chibi-Moon summons her bell with an angry cry, and, in Neherenia's chamber, Helios' body again begins to glow. Neherenia wonders if the keeper of the Golden Mirror is nearby. She looks in her mirror and watches Chibi-Moon, realizing that this is the person she's been looking for.
Chibi-Moon seems a little hesitant to use the bell, as if she knows it would be dangerous to call the Pegasus here, but she doesn't really have a choice. She does the Twinkle Yell, and the Pegasus appears; as he does, the pink goo holding the Senshi disappears, and the four Amazons cower away from him.
Sailor Moon attacks the Quartet with Moon Gorgeous Meditation, but Zirconia comes to shield them at the last moment. Zirconia says that, although the Pegasus, being a dream, can't be captured by ordinary means, all the Dead Moon has to do to catch him is catch the person in whose dreams he is hiding.
Zirconia hits the flying eyeball (from the top of the staff) like a golf ball, and it ricochets around the tent, eventually striking Chibi-Moon in the back and knocking out her Dream Mirror (the Golden Mirror). The Pegasus, still standing to one side, flies once around the room and then vanishes into the Mirror, which vanishes back into Sailor Chibi-Moon. A full-length mirror suddenly appears behind her and traps her inside. Back at his apartment, Mamoru experiences another wave of pain, and realizes that this one has something to do with Chibi-Usa.
Zirconia addresses a short, triumphant speech to Neherenia--at last, they've managed to capture the Pegasus!--and laughs as the Senshi desperately try to free Chibi-Moon from the mirror.
[ED--"'Rashiku' Ikimasho"]
Copyright ©1998-2000 Stephen Congly
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