“You okay, Lilia?” Mariah asked her friend as they sat on the bus, waiting to take them back to their school in Dublin.
 “I guess,” Lilia said unconvincingly, going to the back to sit with Dani.  “I haven’t been feeling too great since lunch.  Might have been something I ate.”
 The truth was, it wasn’t something Lilia had eaten for lunch that had been making her feel sick all afternoon.  During the class’s visit to Powerscourt Gardens she had found out that she was a senshi from the Senshi Army of Planet Labyrinth.  This was what made her uneasy.  Remembering that in her previous life thousands of years ago she had gotten drafted into an army to guard a planet of which Dani, in her previous life, was to inherit the throne, was a bit too much for one day. 
She and Dani sat down in the very back of the bus, making sure that no one else could hear them while they talked about senshi-related things.  They didn’t want to tell anyone about their double lives yet, just to be safe. 
“Where’s Cypress?” Lilia asked, plopping into the seat.
“He left on his way back to Dublin a while ago,” Dani said.  “He might be back by the time we are, if we’re lucky.”
 “Poor bird,” Lilia said.  “He has to fly all that way, and we get to ride in a bus.”  She shook her head.  “What am I saying?  I’m bestowing pity on a talking magpie.  My life is a nuthouse all of a sudden.”
 “Mine too,” Dani agreed.
 “So how long have you known about this weird senshi stuff?” Lilia wanted to know.
 “Well,” Dani began, “on the way home from my first day of school—”
 “That long?” Lilia exclaimed.  “And you’ve been dealing with these freaky villain people since then?  God, Dani.”
 “I know,” Dani said.  “Anyway, on the first day I was on the underground, right?  And then I start having this heart attack…well, it wasn’t really a heart attack, but it was kinda like what you had today.  And I had some glowing glyph thing on my forehead like you did too.  So Cypress flew into the train when the doors opened, and he told me to get off the train.  I ran off into some alley and transformed for the first time, and then that guy Oscurio came and I fought him off.”
 “And that time at the cinema…” Lilia recalled, “that was Oscurio too?”
 “Yep,” Dani nodded.  “I had to fight him off again.”
 “God,” Lilia said again, shaking her head in disbelief.  “This is unreal, isn’t it?”
 “Certainly is,” Dani said, looking out the window as the bus drove down the highway northwards bound.

***

 “Wow,” Aisling Quinn gasped, seeing the expansive Powerscourt Gardens for the first time, a week after Dani and Lilia had visited it.  “Incredible.  47 acres of gardens.”  She turned to her father, Michael Quinn, the one who had taken her to Powerscourt.  “Isn’t it amazing, Dad?”
 “It is, yes,” Michael agreed.  Years ago he had persuaded the Board of Education to let him home-school Aisling, and they agreed, seeing as her IQ was so much higher than those of other children her age and she was finding 1st class far too easy.  They were at Powerscourt for Aisling’s biology lesson, much like Dani and Lilia’s school trip.  Now Aisling was 15 and studying a college curriculum.  Still, she had always wanted to attend a regular school with kids her age, just to see what it was like.
 Aisling held up her sketchpad.  “I’m gonna go draw down by the water, okay?” she asked.
 “Go wherever you want,” Michael said.  “As long as you don’t get in trouble or decide you want to go swimming in the pond, it’s okay.”
 Aisling giggled and skipped down the steps like a child.  She settled into a bench by the water while Michael went off to look at the walled rose gardens, and started to draw.  This was something she truly enjoyed doing.  She loved to just sit somewhere in nature and draw what she saw.  She had always done this and always would, even if she went into a non-art-related profession.

***

 In the Japanese gardens, Oscurio, wearing a glamour spell, pulled his bag of troll-stones from under his shirt.  It was still hanging around his neck, ever since he received it from Cuchillo.
 “Now let’s see…” he mused.  “What in this garden would make a good troll?”
 He hunted around the Japanese garden for a while, seeking out the perfect troll-carrier, until his eyes fell on one particular item.
 “I’ve got it.”

***

 Aisling, having completed a sketch of the pond, stood up and stretched.  “God, I’ve been sitting here for ages…” She admired her sketch and grinned.  “I’m very satisfied with this sketch…I think I’ll watercolor it when I get home.  Damn.  I should have brought my watercolors here.” 
She closed her sketchpad and walked off in search of something else to draw, but first consulting the map in the gardens’ brochure.  “Rhododendrons and azaleas,” she read off the map.  “Might be nice.  Ooh, there’s a Japanese garden!  I love those!  Pet cemetery…hmm, no.  Mermaid Pond might be a good sketching place too.  I think I’ll go there.”
She started off in the direction of the Mermaid Pond, breezing down one hill and struggling up another.  She was about to enter the walled garden, in which the Mermaid Pond was situated, when she heard yelling coming from the opposite direction.  “What’s going on?”
Aisling turned and went back the way she came from.  Her eyes widened as she heard a familiar voice amidst all the yelling.  “Dad!”  She took off at a running speed, not knowing for sure where she was going, just knowing that Michael was in trouble and she had to save him.  She wasn’t even sure how she was to save him, but she would save him anyway.
Once she got to the main pond, she was able to discern that the commotion was coming from the Japanese garden.  But the yelling had, for whatever reason, ceased gradually until she could hear it no more.  Looking down on the Japanese garden from the ridge above, she saw it was carpeted with unconscious bodies and that there was a man in the midst of them holding up a dagger.  Next to the man was an Oriental-looking woman whose body looked like it was made of stone.  She was wearing a strange umbrella-like headdress and a short skirt, both of which also looked like they were made of stone.
Aisling recognized Michael among the unconscious and fearing the worst she ran down the ridge, still obscured from Oscurio’s view by some bamboo trees.  Unfortunately for her, a root was sticking up out of the ground and it caught her toe, causing Aisling to fall flat on her face.  With her chin bleeding and the wind knocked out of her, she groaned and fumbled to stand up.
“What the…” While attempting to stand, Aisling’s hand fell on a thick pen lying on the path.  It was light blue, with a lilac stripe across the base.  A silver star topped the pen, with one pale blue and pale pink jewel for each side.  The moment her hand came into contact with the pen, she saw images in her mind’s eye, like a dream…

***

 “For the planetary system surrounding Spica…” the draftsman read out to the public square gathered in Nocere, the capital of the Spica solar system.  Young Kareino Yume was among the crowd, waiting to see who would be drafted.
 “February 28th,” the draftsman announced.
 Yume’s heart dropped into her feet.  February 28th.  Her birthday…

***

 Five years later, Yume experienced a repeat of that same scene at the training ground on Planet Labyrinth.  “You have all worked very hard,” Persea, their trainer, announced to the group of soldiers from the Spica system.  “But only one will become the next Sailor Spica of the senshi army.”
 Yume held her breath.  It was the greatest honor to represent one’s planet in the Labyrinth senshi army.  All the other soldiers-in-training were in the same state as she was, anticipating whose name Persea might say, all of them hoping it would be theirs.
 “The new Sailor Spica,” Persea said, “is Kareino Yume.”
 Yume’s fellow trainee soldiers gathered her up in a group hug, eventually lifting her up and chanting encouragingly to her.  She had made it.  She was in the senshi army.

***

 “Spica!” Sailor Nova’s voice called to her.  “You there?”
 “Nova?” Spica called back.  The palace was crumbling around her, Darkdeath warriors attacking on all sides.  A familiar figure dodged falling bits of jade and aquamarine rubble to get to Spica.  It was Sailor Nova, the senshi from the planet Okouri.
 “God, Nova, I was so worried,” Spica said, embracing her friend for a brief moment.
 “So was I,” Nova said.  Spica never saw the knife in Nova’s hand.  She never saw Nova literally stab her in the back.  She only felt the searing pain of the knife piercing her flesh and then severing her spinal cord.  Without the use of her legs, she crumbled to the ground, emulating the way the palace fell to a heap of gravel.
 Nova finished her off by stabbing her once more in the chest, gloating over her former friend’s death.  Before she was whisked off to her next life, Spica uttered, “Even you, Nova?”

***

 Aisling’s spirit and mind were reeling from the flood of memories that had returned to her when she touched her transformation pen.  “Drafted…Spica… Labyrinth…protect the Princesses…Nova…backstabbing…” she mumbled incoherent snatches of phrases she remembered from her former life. 
Weakly she picked up the pen and grabbed a branch to steady herself as she stood up.  “This is mine,” she said firmly.  She peered at Oscurio through the trees.  “And he is the enemy.”  Two things she could be sure of.  Another phrase revealed itself to her, and she repeated it as she had heard it in her mind, lifting her pen as she did.  “Spica Astral Star Power!”
Purple mists gathered at her feet and swirled around her, glowing with an ultraviolet light.  The mists obscured her from normal view, as she began to turn into the person that she was in her memories.  A sailor suit appeared on her, pale pink and blue like her transformation pen, and her pen grew into a sword in her hand.  The mists dispersed, and Aisling was gone.  Sailor Spica was in her place.
“Wow,” Spica gasped.  “A sword, too.  My love for fencing must come from this past life.”  She held up the sword and admired it.  “And the uniform goes brilliantly with my own natural coloring.  I must have been born to be a senshi.”
Then, remembering what she was there for in the first place, Spica charged down the hill, being careful for any stray roots this time, not wanting to trip and look undignified while in senshi regalia.  She represented the Spica system now, after all.
“Hey, Darkdeath scum!” she yelled at the man.  “I’m Sailor Spica and I’m not about to let you get away with this!”
“Are you not?” Oscurio was amused.  “Oh, it’s a different senshi kid than the last time I was here.”
“A different senshi?” Spica wondered.  “The last time you were here?  What do you mean?”
“I’ve already met some of your kind,” Oscurio said.  “They were as pathetic as you appear to be.”
“Don’t you dare underestimate me,” Spica threatened.  “Now tell me what you’ve done to these people.”
“Don’t overreact,” Oscurio said defensively.  “They’re just knocked out for a while.”
“They better be,” Spica said, “or your life is paying for it.”
Oscurio jerked his head at Spica.  “Get her, Troll Joukako.”
 “As you wish,” Joukako, the stone troll, replied.  She held up both hands, palms facing Spica, and boulders the size of watermelons spontaneously appeared and flew at Spica, who ducked.  Spica then charged Joukako, keeping her sword in front of her for defense, and struck at the troll.  Metal hit rock, and didn’t make so much as a dent.
 Oscurio was nearly in bits laughing.  “God, you Labyrinthian Senshi are fools,” he hooted.  “Obviously your little sword there won’t do a thing to Joukako, herself being made out of stone.”
 Spica glared at him, then leapt back onto a rock and tried a different approach: using one of her attack phrases.  “Daydream Rush!” she called, holding up one arm, which started collecting purple dream energy.  She brought her arm down abruptly and the energy hurtled at Joukako.
 “Fwaaaaaaaaaaaaa…” Joukako shrieked, as the energy sent it flying backwards, disintegrating as it fell.  It was soon no more than a pile of dust.  But out of the dust a phoenix rose from the ashes.  The dust began reforming itself, like many gray bugs crawling on top of each other, until it was in its original form: a three-foot-high miniature stone pagoda.
 Spica jumped back down and rounded on Oscurio.  “I’ll do the same to you if you don’t get out right now.”
 Oscurio laughed nervously.  “What, you’ll turn me into a pagoda?”
 Spica raised her arm, getting ready to attack again.  “Daydream…”
 “Okay, okay, I’m gone,” Oscurio said, opening a portal behind himself and hastily making his exit through it.
 Spica sighed in relief.  “All’s well for now.”

***

 “I can’t quite put my finger on it,” Michael was saying to Aisling at breakfast.  “But it’s almost like you’re a different person.  I can’t work out exactly since when I’ve noticed, but it’s like there’s someone else inside you, other than yourself.”
 “Can’t tell him yet,” Aisling said to herself.  “I can’t tell anyone.  Just to be safe.”  “That’s strange,” she finally decided to say.  “Maybe it’s just a part of growing up.”
 But what she would have liked to say, had she been sure that it was absolutely safe to say it, was, “That’s because I am a different person, Dad.  I’m Kareino Yume, born in the Silver Millennium in the Spica system, only twelve years old when I was drafted into the Labyrinth Senshi Army.  Died at age 22, killed by fellow senshi Sailor Nova of Okouri.  Who you’re seeing now is not Aisling Quinn.  It’s Sailor Spica, loyal senshi and sworn to protect the Labyrinth Royal Family.  And protect them I will.”
 

Author's Notes
Oh look, everyone, there's Willow making a fool of herself by writing all these pseudo-dramatic flashback scenes.  No, just messing, this is actually my favorite of all the rewritten episodes so far.  Just to clarify a few things: when Spica died, she was not quoting Caesar.  Remember, this was the Silver Millennium.  Caesar came after that.  So it was just coincidence that Spica and Caesar happened to say the same things as they died at the hand of their former comrades.  Also, "Aisling Poetry" is really a type of poetry.  Aisling means "vision" in Irish, and that kind of poetry is (I think) characterized by a young man seeing a beautiful young woman and then never seeing her again, implying that she was only a vision.  'Course, that didn't happen in this chapter, but it's...foreshadowing.  Yep, it's foreshadowing.  And if you've read the original you may think you know who the man is...but perhaps you don't.  Fwahahaha.

Relevant Images
Spica
Powerscourt Gardens

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