Disclaimer: Sailor Moon and all characters contained within this
work are the copyright of Naoko Takeuchi, Toei Animation, Kodansya
and probably lots of other big people I'm forgetting. I am using
them without permission, but suing me because of it would be futile
as I have nothing. Feel free to distribute this work around (for no
profit, of course; I'm not making any...), as long the included text 
is unmodified. If you publish or repost it somewhere, please let me 
know.
  Comments, criticism, flames, etc. welcomed (and, in fact,
requested) at Ultrace@aol.com.


The World Without
A Sailor Moon fanfic by Mike Chenoweth [Ultrace@aol.com]
Co-Plotted by "Tuxedo Will" Wolfshohl [Wwolfshohl@logicon.com]
Additional editing by Novareinna [Novareinna@aol.com]

Part 3:  The Demonic Scent! Schanerla Steals Love!
February, 1997


  "Jadeite."
  The one word, laced with an icy venom, was all that need be said. 
Coming from Queen Beryl, it was a summons and threat combined.
  With a very slight anxiety, Jadeite appeared and humbly knelt.
  "Your efforts of late have been less than satisfactory," Queen 
Beryl stated flatly, a strong disappointment showing in her voice. 
"Have you another plan to gather energy?"
  "While my last attempts have not been entirely successful, I'm 
certain that this plan will yield a considerable amount of energy. 
My youma, Iguana, is more reliable than the others. She is hard at 
work, and will deal with those humans who have interfered in the 
past."
  "Several times now you have underestimated Sailor Venus and Sailor 
Mercury," Queen Beryl reminded him. "Let us hope that this time you 
can take care of them, Jadeite. Proceed."

                            ------------------

  "You realize, Luna, that if this keeps up, I won't have any time 
for studying at all," Ami said as she gathered up her books. "It's 
a good thing that the Dark Kingdom has slowed down their activities."
  Luna smiled. "I'm glad that you're working at being both a good 
student and Sailor Senshi. Yes, we have managed to slow the Dark 
Kingdom's progress, but they are becoming more careful with every 
attack, so we can't let our guard down now."
  "It's getting more difficult to discover their plans in time, even 
with Minako and Artemis," Ami agreed, frowning. "I hope we can keep 
up with them. If they manage to sneak by us..."
  "Don't think like that," Luna said, reassuringly. "As long as we 
don't give up, we'll win." She changed the subject. "But we have to 
find the other Sailor Senshi and the Moon Princess."
  "I've been trying to create a few programs on my computer to find 
out who she might be, but with no luck," Ami said, picking up her 
compact and idly running one of the programs to see if it would be 
effective. The screen remained blank. "I can't think of any other 
way to discover her identity."
  "I ought to be able to sense the Princess if she comes near me,"
Luna told her. "But unfortunately, approaching every person in 
Tokyo--if she is in Tokyo--is not a practical method."
  "We'll keep looking. As long as we can hold the enemy at bay, we 
should have time." Amy glanced at the clock. "I've got to get going. 
Try not to get too bored today, okay?"
  "Don't worry about that. There's no time to get bored with the 
Dark Kingdom out there," Luna said.

  Upon arriving at school, Ami quickly discovered that a new fad had 
sprung up overnight. In front of virtually every class, students 
could be seen holding small furry animals, and fawning over them 
like nothing else mattered.
  Pets weren't allowed inside the school's premises, and, while 
there were always a few who liked to bend or outright break the 
rules, Ami was puzzled to see some of the highest-scoring and most 
dutiful of the students with the animals as well.
  It wasn't until her second period class, however, that she 
realized something was seriously wrong.
  "In this example," her teacher said, diagramming their current 
mathematical problem across the board, "We have to assume that X has 
a value in the range of..." she paused, and looked at one of the 
students. "What are you doing, Toshio-kun?"
  The boy who had been addressed looked up from his desk, the inside 
of which he had been very inconspicuously examining. He did not 
answer her. The teacher, receiving no explanation, strode across the 
room and opened the desk herself, then nearly jumped back, 
screaming. "Get that animal out of here NOW!"
  The boy grabbed the small bundle of fur and clutched it close to 
his chest. It seemed to have a reaction on the other 
students--almost half of them threw open their desks and retrieved 
similar pets. Their suddenly violent expressions conveyed the fact 
that they were not about to be separated from the creatures.
  For a few moments, Ami was worried there was going to be a riot, 
but the students surprised her by getting up and simply walking out 
of the room with the animals, leaving behind all their books and 
materials, and completely ignoring the teacher's commands.
  `No time to get bored with the Dark Kingdom...' Ami thought to 
herself, in agreement with Luna.

                            ------------------

  "Tell me what you make of it, Artemis," Minako said to the cat, 
putting on her most thoughtful expression. "It is discovered that a 
new pet store has opened up within the past two days. Every person 
who buys a pet from this store develops a fanatical devotion to the 
pet, and attacks anyone who tries to separate them from it. And to 
top things off, it just happens to be several days since the last 
attempt of the Dark Kingdom to gather energy. I feel like I'm onto 
something here."
  Artemis decided that Minako was being sarcastic with her last 
sentence, and not scatterbrained. "The question is, `What are we 
going to do about it?'"
  "We check them out, of course. You're the one who discovered the 
store--Where is it?"
  Artemis led Minako to the store, which, not surprisingly, looked 
ordinary in every respect. Even the apparent employee inside seemed 
like a normal human, but the two of them knew better than that.
  Minako moved to enter.
  "We should go get Luna and Ami, and do this together," Artemis 
told her.
  "I'm only looking around, not attacking," Minako said. "What can 
happen?"
  "The last time you asked that, we almost got killed..."
  "Right. But only almost," she echoed confidently, and walked into 
the store. It was crowded with people, all eager for their new pets. 
Some had already picked up animals and were holding them adoringly.
Minako spotted the vacant look in their eyes, indicative of the Dark 
Kingdom's influence.
  She stopped, and sniffed. Something smelled very, very sweet.
  Minako traced the smell to a cage near her, where one of the 
animals, much prettier than the rest, seemed to call out to her. Its 
eyes glowed with a beauty that seemed to melt her resolve and calm 
her immensely.
  She heard the voice of the employee, a woman, in her ear. "These 
are schanerla. They emit a perfume from their bodies, and each is 
different. This one likes you very much. She's perfect for you..."
  Minako opened the cage. "I'll take it."
  Artemis tugged on her sleeve, which was all he could do without 
attracting undue attention from the employee. Minako didn't notice.
  "Wonderful," the woman informed her. "I can tell she's going to 
have a good home, and she likes you so much, there's no need to even 
pay for her."
  "Thank you," Minako said, taking the schanerla out of its cage and 
into her arms. She smiled as she left the store.
  Once they were outside, Artemis took the first opportunity to 
talk. "Mina..."
  "What?" Minako asked sharply, as if now reminded that the cat was 
still on her shoulder.
  "That animal--"
  Minako stopped suddenly, almost throwing Artemis from her shoulder 
by inertia alone. Just as he regained his balance, she proceeded to 
grab him by the scruff of his neck and remove him from his perch, by 
way of throwing him to the ground. Artemis landed on his feet and 
watched her lay the schanerla on her shoulder instead.
  With no mind to her cat, Minako continued on her way.
  Artemis ran to get in front of her. "That animal is influencing 
you. You've got to get rid of it!"
  The very thought evoked a murderous look in Minako's eyes. Without 
breaking stride, she swung one of her legs to kick Artemis, who 
jumped aside onto a car, and immediately vaulted from this new 
vantage point, trying to grab the schanerla.
  Minako was quicker. She hit Artemis with the back of her hand and 
sent him flying into a wall, where he fell behind a few garbage 
cans. Satisfied that he wouldn't bother her any longer, she walked 
away.
  Artemis crawled painfully from behind the cans. "Mina..."

  "I don't understand," Ami said. She entered a different set of 
commands into her computer, but came up with the same result as 
before. Literally dozens of signals, scattered about the city, were 
coming up on the screen. "We've managed to pick up the Dark Kingdom, 
but how could there be that many of them so suddenly?" Her voice was 
tinged with more than a bit of worry. One servant of the Dark 
Kingdom was trouble enough; dozens would be a catastrophe.
  Luna stared intently at a small portion of the screen. "What's 
that, Ami-chan?"
  Ami isolated the area Luna was referring to, where several of the 
signals were gathered in a small radius. After a search of the 
computer's memory, she found out where the signals were coming from. 
"A pet store?" She paused. "Of course..."
  It made sense now. The signals on her computer were, no doubt, the 
pets that she had seen at, among other places, school. They were 
gathering energy, giving off the aura of the Dark Kingdom, and 
therefore coming up on the computer.
  "We need to go and examine that place," Luna said, after Ami 
explained it to her.
  "That's been taken care of..." Artemis said, limping through the 
doorway to Ami's room.
  "Artemis!" Luna said, running over to him. "What happened?"
  "Minako. She got one of those animals, and the Dark Kingdom took 
her over. I tried to get it away from her, but she didn't care for 
that very much..."
  Ami frowned. "Where is she?"
  "I don't know. She probably went home. I thought it would be 
better to come and get you two rather than follow her and have the 
same thing happen again. Between the three of us, maybe we can take 
it away from her and snap her out of this..."
  Ami zoomed in on Minako's house with the computer, and found one 
of the signals there. "Unless her parents also picked up one of the 
pets, then Minako's definitely at her house. I don't think anyone 
else would be there."

  Minako sat on her bed, affectionately stroking the fur of her 
schanerla. When the phone rang, she ignored it. When someone knocked 
on the front door, she ignored it. And when she heard footsteps 
coming up her stairs, she ignored them, as well.
  Only when her bedroom door was flung open did she take notice of 
anything other than the small, cuddly creature. She eyed Ami and the 
two cats balefully.
  "Minako-chan," Ami said, stepping toward Minako slowly.
  Minako held the animal closer to her chest, protectively. "Go 
away," she snapped.
  "You don't really mean that, right?" Ami asked.
  "I don't need any of you. All I need is the schanerla."
  "Now, Luna!" Artemis said.
  The two cats jumped almost simultaneously. Artemis was slightly 
faster, aiming for Minako's shoulder. He dug into her school uniform 
with his claws and held on. Minako reacted as he thought she would, 
grabbing the cat again and yanking him off. 
  While Minako's free arm was occupied with Artemis, Luna snatched 
the schanerla in her mouth with one fluid motion, running for cover 
behind Ami as soon as she hit the floor.
  Minako started to advance on Luna angrily, oblivious to the fact 
that Ami was in the way. It became obvious to Ami that just taking 
the schanerla away wasn't going to be enough.
  "Stop it, Minako-chan!" Ami said, blocking the path to Luna. 
Minako grabbed Ami's arms and tried to shove her aside, but found a 
much tougher time of it than she had with Artemis. Ami was about to 
try and reason with her when one of Minako's feet slipped in behind 
her own and she was tripped backwards onto the floor.
  Luna, still holding the schanerla, tried to run by Ami and regroup 
with Artemis, but Minako managed to barely snag the cat by its tail 
and pick it up off the floor. She then took each of Luna's front 
legs in one of her hands, and started to painfully spread them in an 
attempt to make Luna drop the schanerla.
  Artemis was trying to get back up when he saw the brief flash of 
movement, and heard the loud, flat sound of Ami slapping Minako.
  Minako dropped Luna and brought a hand up her face. "What was THAT 
for?" she yelled, then halted momentarily in confusion. "What's 
going on? Oh, no--Luna!"
  As she bent down with concern and picked up the cat, Luna let go 
of the schanerla. Artemis coughed a little. "Aren't you forgetting 
about someone...?"
  "Oops," Minako said. "Are you okay, Ami-chan? I didn't know what I 
was doing..."
  Artemis rolled his eyes.
  "I'm fine," Ami said. "I'm sorry I hit you, but I couldn't think 
of anything else to do."
  Minako winced as she was reminded of her face, already red. "I 
understand."
  "She wouldn't have had to do it if you'd listened to me, you 
know," Artemis said, making a show of limping over to join them. 
"Remember, we're part of a team now."
  "Fine, we'll do something as a team, then," Minako told him. "I 
know a certain pet store that needs a visit from the Sailor Senshi."

  Iguana had been given careful instruction by Jadeite. Previous 
encounters with Sailor Venus and Sailor Mercury had proven that 
using humans under youma control to attack would be pointless. Which 
was why Jadeite had chosen to give Iguana the honor of personally
disposing of the two pests. She was strong enough to eliminate them
without needing humans.
  Still, knowing how many other youma had been destroyed by those 
two, momentary second thoughts came to her when she heard a voice 
and saw Sailor Venus in the doorway. But the second thoughts were 
only momentary.
  Minako stomped into the pet shop, with Ami close behind. "This 
monster-selling pet shop is closed down!"
  Iguana, regarding the intruders with contempt, mentally commanded 
the schanerla. Under their influence, every human in the store, 
apart from the two girls in the doorway, collapsed. "Oh, really?"
  "That's right. I'm the warrior of love and beauty, Sailor Venus!"
  Ami chimed in. "And I'm Sailor Mercury!"
  "In the name of Venus--"
  "--and Mercury--"
  "--we'll punish you!"
  Iguana was not impressed by the fancy speeches and dramatic 
gestures. She shed her clothes and human disguise and revealed her 
true form of a lizard-like youma. With a blinding speed, she leapt 
forward, closing the gap between herself and Sailor Venus in a 
heartbeat.
  "Crescent Beam!" Minako acted on instinct, firing off the beam of 
light directly at the youma's midsection, only to watch it strike 
with no effect at all. "Huh?"
  Iguana landed and swung her tail around, catching Minako even more 
by surprise and flinging the girl across the room and into a wall. 
Minako started to get back up almost immediately as the monster 
approached Ami. If the Crescent Beam couldn't stop it, then Minako 
knew there was no way that Ami would be able to. "Use the Shabon 
Spray, then scatter!" she yelled.
  Ami followed Minako's commands, clouding the entire area, then 
flipped on her visor and searched for the youma. Minako wouldn't be 
able to see in the fog any more than the youma, but would be on the 
move so she couldn't be found by it. Ami made her way around the 
edges of the store as she scanned the youma in hopes of finding a 
weakness.
  She was so intent in her scanning that she didn't notice Iguana 
getting closer to Minako until the youma was on top of her. Through 
either some hidden power of the youma's or a quirk of fate, the two 
of them stumbled into each other. Iguana had seized Minako with her 
tail and was constricting it.
  Ami frantically tried to make the computer go faster. Minako, 
still entwined, had managed to partially free her arm and was firing 
several beams at the youma, but none of them hurt it enough to free 
her. She was slowly being crushed.
  Ami, feeling completely helpless, silently begged the computer to 
find a way for Minako to damage the youma. When it beeped with an 
answer to her scan, she couldn't ever remember feeling more 
relieved. Precious seconds were spent interpreting the data and 
realizing where it pinpointed the youma's weak spot at. "The tail, 
Venus! Aim for the base of the tail!" Ami yelled.
  Minako struggled, twisting in the youma's grip, to fire where Ami 
had told her to. Iguana, sensing what was about to happen, squeezed 
with all her strength, but it was too late for that.
  "Crescent... Beam!"
  The beam sprang forth into a soft patch of scales and blasted 
the youma's tail off. Both Iguana--howling in pain--and the tail 
were reduced to dust within seconds.
  Minako was gasping for breath and holding her ribs. Ami ran over 
to her. "Are you alright?"
  "Sure. I can probably even fit into that dress I wanted now," 
Minako huffed. She smiled, and seriousness set in again. "Thanks, 
Ami-chan..."
  The schanerla, like Iguana, were falling away into dust, and the 
people in the shop were rousing. Ami checked her computer and found 
that all the energy signals she picked up from the city earlier had 
also disappeared.

  "We'll see you later," Minako said, outside the store, as Ami and 
Luna took their leave. The people inside had all recovered and, 
except for an understandable amount of confusion as to why the pet 
store contained nothing but piles of dust for sale, everything had 
returned to normal.
  "Sailor V?" a faint voice cried. "Wow! Sailor V!"
  Minako turned. In the distance, a blond-haired girl with twin 
ponytails was running up to her.
  Artemis knew Minako loved attention, but her identity as a Senshi 
was not meant as a tool for publicity. "We should be going."
  "She's definitely running up to meet us. We don't want a 
reputation for being rude, right?" Minako said.
  Artemis was going to argue the point, but the girl was now clearly 
within earshot. She was panting with the effort of running as she 
came face to face with Minako. "Sailor V! Can I get your--huh? 
You're not Sailor V..." the girl said, inbetween breaths.
  Minako gingerly reached out and took the autograph card that the 
girl had been ready to offer. "I AM Sailor V," she said, signing it. 
"Only I'm going by my full name now--Sailor Venus."
  "Wow..." Usagi breathed, as the card was given back to her.
  Minako beamed. "Sorry, but I've got to go now!" She leapt away, 
taking Artemis with her.
  "Sailor Venus..." Usagi said in awe.
  "Something wrong, Artemis?" Minako asked, at the cat's expression. 
"Signing autographs can't really do any harm, right?"
  "That's not it. I thought I felt..." The cat shook his head. "I 
must be tired--I'm imagining things now."

  Ami sighed as they walked into her room. "It's already four 
o'clock and I haven't even touched my books yet. It's a good thing 
I'm already several chapters ahead in my classes."
  "Your studies are important," Luna said, "but you can't forget how 
important YOU are as a Sailor Senshi. After all, without you, 
Minako-chan would have died today."
  "That's true..." Ami said, smiling. She thought about it for a 
brief moment, but then frowned with the reminder of how helpless she 
had felt earlier.  She couldn't really take any credit when it had 
been her computer which actually saved Minako.
  Before Luna noticed, Ami cleared it out of her mind and opened one 
of the textbooks in front of her, putting on a smile. "Right," she 
said. "First we'll go over Algebra, then History..."