He waved a hand before her face. The other woman narrowed her own eyes. "Don't you trust my work?" Relena complained.

"I trust it; I'm just double-checking it," Thanatos replied. "After all, I'd hate for us to lose this chance because she slipped out of your control."

"Believe me; she won't. I've covered all the bases. I even replaced her love for Shinigami with hatred and gave her another love."

"Oh?"

A sad but proud look in her eyes, Relena answered, "A love that was a dream of mine."

The dark god smiled evilly. "Is that so?" Relena opened her mouth to protest before he continued. "Wake up. Let's test her loyalty."

At a mere nod from Relena, Usagi's dark blue but unfocused eyes snapped open. She searched the room until her gaze lit upon her controller. She smiled and greeted her, "Relena-sama."

"Just "Relena-san,' okay?"

"Hai, Relena-san."

Thanatos frowned at the subservient girl. "Were all these physical changes necessary?"

"Of course." She fingered Usagi's nearly auburn hair first then her new, darker kimono. "She can't be the Goddess of the White Moon and serve a demon like me, now can she?"

"So you changed her appearance?"

"And her name, ne, Hekate?"

"Hai," the dark Moon Goddess chimed in, "Relena-san."

"Now, Thanatos," the demon that had once been a pacifist continued, "how do you want to test Hekate's loyalty?"

~ * ~ * ~

"Duo?" Quatre asked. "Just what is wrong with Heero?"

The Japanese boy in question hade stumbled back to the apartment several hours ago and collapsed. He'd been unconscious ever since then. When he first arrived, there had been more cutes, bruises, and burns all over his body than Duo could count; the last ones were fading from sight as they watched. Somehow, he even seemed a few inches taller. Oh yeah, he'd made the change, no question about that. The question was, what set it off.

As if the question and the thoughts were cues, Heero's eyes opened and he slowly and stiffly sat up on the couch. "Welcome back, Heero," Duo said softly.

"Where's Usagi-san?"

"We were hoping you could tell us."

He sat very still, reviewing what he did recall. I went after Usagi-san alone. She vanished, and I kept looking. I heard her call my name and went back to where her voice came from. Oh yeah. "Relena took her," he finally stated.

"Relena?" Trowa repeated.

"What does Relena-san have to do with this" continued Quatre.

He shrugged. "She said she was working with Thanatos." Beside him, Duo nervously bit his lip. "What?"

"If Relena's working with Thanatos, then it's worse than we thought. To be honest, she's a demon, and demons are more powerful than gods."

"More powerful?" echoed Quatre.

"No one knows the true extent of the demon race's power. If Thanatos has a demon helping him, no wonder he was able to defeat Hyperion." He seemed to be thinking aloud.

Gingerly Heero turned so that his legs hung over the edge of the couch and asked his next question. "What are these treasures Thanatos is after?"

That caught Duo's attention."She mentioned the treasures? But they're just myths."

"Not to be rude, Duo," Quatre interrupted, "but so are gods and other creatures."

"True, but. . ."

Several floors beneath them, something exploded; the force of it shattered windows for several blocks. "That sounds like a challenge," the God of Death surmissed with a cheeky grin.

~ * ~ * ~

He'd known it was cheating to use the speed he'd inherited as a god to beat the others downstairs, especially since Heero didn't know he had it yet, but he couldn't help it; he had a really bad feeling about this. Something wrong was going on.

No one was on the street, not a single soul. Tokyo looked like a ghost town. A faint breeze ruffled his hair and blew a lone sheet of newspaper across the street.

"Shinigami," a low voice said in his ear. He whirled to see a woman with long auburn hair in a dark blue kimono. She had to be a god, sneaking up on him like that, but he'd never heard of a god that resembled her. But he knew her; gods, he knew her from somewhere! "I'm going to kill you, kisama."

He smirked. "You can't kill - Shit! Watch it, you!" She'd tried to take a few inches off his height with those talon-like fingernails of hers. "You could kill someone like that!"

"Yeah, you, you bastard!" she retaliated. She flexed her right hand, and a sword grew out into it. "Die, you - you - you ecchi!"

"'Ecchi'?" he echoed, dodging a wild swipe she took at him. Something about the way she said that word. . . "Usagi?"

"Stop talking and fight, Shinigami!"

"Selene, stop it!"

Her face twisted into true anger. "That's not my name!"

Footsteps skidded to a stop behind her, and Duo heard the tell-tale ominous click of Heero's gun. And apparently so did she. She turned around to face the other three young men and smiled, all traces of anger leaving her face -

- and glomped herself onto Heero, sword, gun, and all.

"Heero-sama! Ai shiteru! Oh, Heero-sama, I missed you!" she declared.

Duo glowered, and Heero demanded, "Who are you?"

She pouted prettily. "Don't you remember me, Heero-sama? It's me, Hekate." When the name obviously didn't ring any bells, she continued, "You know: Usagi-san?"

Heero's jaw dropped a fraction of an inch, for him an expression of extreme shock.

~ * ~ * ~

Somewhere, not so far away, two being, one god and one demon, watching the unfolding events in a large, ornate, eight-armed mirro, smiled most evilly. "This is why I never doubt your work, Relena," Thanatos stated with a benevolent smile. "But did you have to make her fall madly in love with that human? The one who shot me?"

The Peacecraft shook her head, smiling. "He shot you, eh? Typical Heero. To answer your question: I could - and I would - only redirect her love for Shinigami - eh, Duo - completely onto someone else she was already in love with and turn all her love for Shinigami into hatred."

"So the Moon Goddess was in love with that human and Shinigami?" He snorted. "What a strange girl she is. Why would you only make her love someone she was already in love with? You control her; you can make her do whatever you want!"

"Because I've known her several years, and I've seen her normal and I've seen her transformed into Selene, both before and after my own change. And she was always nice to me and treated me like a normal girl, whether she was Selene or Tsukino Usagi! There's no way I'd -"

"Her real name is Tsukino Usagi?" Thanatos interrupted.

"Hai."

"It's impossible," he whispered, his fingers covering the image of the female figure still glomped onto the still stunned Heero Yuy. "Usako. . ."

21 January 2001

Well, how's that for an abrupt change? Hope everybody liked it!

Here's a little note to leave you guys with:
So Usagi is Hekate, and she's working for Relena and Thanatos, and suddenly she's in love with Heero? Just what do you think Shinigami is going to think of this new development? And what about Heero?

Bai-bai!!