Characters and situations taken from "Sailor Moon" by Naoko Takeuchi. All rights reserved to their respective owners, Toei (in Japan) and Mixx (for the manga) and Cloverleaf (anime) in the US.
Natsuko tried her best to stay calm as she started her way down the corridor to the audience chamber of the Crystal Palce. She figured she was a trembling mess regardless, though if any of the Asteroid senshi picked up on it they were at least polite enough not to mention it.
Her excitement and apprehension was understandable, she figured. After all, it wasn't every day that a daughter of a middle class quantum computer programer was summoned to the court of Queen Neo-Serenity, ruler of the city and most powerful person in 30th century Earth.
No reason was given for her summoning; nothing about the nature of the meeting was given in the official letter her parents received from the royal guard while she was still in School, and her attempts to inquire the reason through web sources and vidphone calls were fruitless. Even the Asteroid senshi, who attended the same classes she did before becoming the Guardians of the young princess Usagi, broke their silence only to say that she was to be accorded a position of honor. That, she figured, could only mean that she was about to join her classmates as a Sailor Senshi.
They stopped in front of the great diamond doors that lead to the main hearing chamber of the queen. Two Guardians stood in front of the doors, and quickly opened them.
Soon, Natsuko stood before Neo-Queen Serenity, and gave a dignified bow to her majesty. "Summoned, I come my queen."
"Please rise, Lady Natsuko." the former Usagi Tsukino replied. Natsuko took her first look at the world's greatest monarch and was astounded. If anything, Neo-queen Serenity was even more beautiful than she imagined, and every expression and gesture radiated peace, grace, and loveliness. Her husband, King Endymion, and the other senshi stood at either side of her highness, adding to the solemnity of the occasion.
"Do you know why you were called before us this day?"
Natsuko thought about it a moment, then stuttered the answer she suspected for fear of sounding haughty or arrogant. "Your majesty ...I think it has something to do with...the Senshi?"
"That is correct," the ruler of Neo Tokyo answered. "You have been found to have the soul of a great fighter for love and justice, and so I will make you the newest member of my court."
"Oh woo...er, uh...yes, thank you your majesty," Natsuko replied excitedly.
"We have summoned you here to receive your henshin wand, the symbol of your power. Once we do this, you will train with Lady Pluto to learn the duties expected as a senshi of the outer Solar System."
An outer? Natsuko beamed; this was better luck than could have imagined. She was an experts on the deeds and exploits of all the senshi, and well knew that the outer senshi were the most powerful of all expect the Neo-queen herself. Sailor Saturn was said to be able destroy worlds with one spell, for the Moon Queen's sake!
Serenity rose from her throne and stepped down to meet with the young schoolgirl to give her the symbol of her new status. "Take this wand, the activation of your power and symbol of the planet you represent."
"I will, your majesty." Natsuko replied as she received the transformation wand. She looked eagerly at the device, and noticed that it was just a red cylinder, lacking the symbolic astrological designs or symbols that she read about the other henshins having. What was going on? What world did she represent anyway?"
"Meaning no disrespect, your highness," Natsuko began, "but what planet do I represent? There doesn't seem to be any symbol on this to tell me, and this seems to have no special design to it?"
There was silence in the court for the moment after the new senshi made the query, and Natsuko became very afraid she said something wrong. Neo-queen Serenity looked embarrassed, and when she saw Lady Pluto attempt to look somewhere else, her heart sank a little further. They seemed to know the answer, and were quite sure she wouldn't like it.
"Well," the ruler of Crystal Tokyo uncharacteristically mumbled, "you see...how do I say it...your planet is rather...new."
"New?"
"New."
"How new are we talking about?"
"It was discovered just before I became Queen...and...well..."
"Well?"
"Well, they seem to have decided to apply a 'tradition' in regard to naming this planet. But there was a problem with that."
Natsuko's excitement was curdling by the moment. She was almost too afraid to ask the now obvious next question.
"What problem?" she said, fear obvious in her voice.
"Well, you see, they decided to wait until it completed a couple of rotations around the sun before they gave it a name. However, the planet is in an orbit between Pluto and Neptune so that means it would have been 480 years before they decided on a name and by that time, I was in charge and...well...forgot about it."
"With all due respect, you can't be serious, can you?! You're telling me I'm a senshi without a name?!"
"Our best scientists assure me their working on the matter. You're only gonna be nameless for a couple of weeks...unless you just want to call yourself Sailor 2000 EB173."
The only sound resounding from the great crystal chamber was that of a young girl face-faulting on the floor.
In case you're wondering what the heck I'm talking about, scientists for the Quasar Equatorial Survey Team (QUEST) recently discovered a new 'minor planet' in a stable orbit between Neptune and Pluto. The new worldlet, about a quarter the size of Pluto, is called 2000 EB173.
Actually, it's probably been there since the formation of the solar system, so it's not really new...just new to us.
The bit about the 480 years came from a quote made by one of the heads of the team, Prof. Charles Baltay, chair of the Physics department at Yale University. According to him, it might well take that long for anyone to name the 'plutino' because, "there's some tradition that these things go around the sun twice before you name them," and EB173 takes 240 years to go around the sun.
The article I'm quoting from can be found on the Fox News Sci-Tech page at: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/102500/planet.sml
There's also a picture with the plutino at: http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/7477/eb173.html
And yes...you may slap me now!!