I'm bored because there is no school for me
today and I missed watching Gundam because my
stupid computer kept on freezing up and wouldn't
let me do anything! I've restarted it about fifty
times already today! (Actually, it's more like
three, but it feels like fifty, okay?) I wanted
to do some more work on this, because I'm finally
getting to where I want to go with this. I hope
the last chapter wasn't too mushy...anyway, oh,
will y'all write me and tell me what you think I
should cross with SM in my next fic? I can't
decide. So many choices. (Not really, I don't know
that many.) There's DBZ, Tenchi Muyo, (actually,
that'd be good crossed with Ranma) Blue Seed, or
I could do another GW, FY, or Ranma. I don't know.
Give me your opinions. Actually, the one I'll
probably do is another SM/GW but with a different
pairing. (Usagi and someone...)
    I don't own anything...except that really neat
wooden training sword I bought at the Flea market
on Saturday, and there's no way you're getting
that! I love it too much. I swear I carry it with
me everywhere.


Sister Earth
Part seven


___________________________________________________________

    Teleporting to a planet very far away surprisingly
didn't take up very much time. Unfortunately for the
inhabitants of that planet, the short trip did nothing
to calm Usagi's sour mood.
    Princess Fireball and the Starlights stood calmly
waiting for the Senshi to arrive, but when they did,
good 'ol Fireball almost regretted calling them in the
first place.
    "Fireball! How dare you do that! You interrupted
something very important! I swear, you have ruined my
life forever! I will never forgive you for this! I
swear it!" Usagi stormed, pacing the length of the
throne room quickly. Back and forth, back and forth.
    For a while, the others tried to follow her
movements, but soon found themselves too dizzy to even
try.
    "Serenity, please tell me what is wrong. Why are
you angry with me?"
    "Why am I angry? Why am I angry?! She asks me why
I'm angry!"
    Minako tactfully cleared her throat. "Um, you sorta
interrupted her during a date."
    "A date?" Seyia asked in an unbelieving, bewildered
type of voice. "How..."
    "Yeah, she met this really cute Chinese boy!" Makoto
put in, happy for the chance to gossip. "They make a
really cute couple, but he talks about justice and honor
and crap too much."
    "He does not!" Usagi stopped pacing to yell. "Don't
you dare talk bad about him! It's...it's...INJUSTICE!"
She began pacing again.
    The girls looked at each other and burst into laughter.
    "Odango sounds just like him!" Rei choked out, tears
of mirth falling from her eyes.
    Ami, the only one not laughing, rubbed her temple.
"Can you all please keep it down? I have a slight headache
due to my...um..."
    "Hangover?" Minako offered.
    "Yes, precisely." Ami looked down, blushing deeply.
"Fortunately, the effects of transforming and teleporting,
not to mention regurgitating some of it, have succeeded
in sobering me."
    "Anyone catch what she just said?" Makoto asked
blankly. The other Inners shook their heads.
    "She said she's all better now," Hotaru said in her
tiny voice. "Haruka-papa, what's a hangover?"
    Haruka looked at Michiru in panic. Neither of them
had an answer.
    "Uh..."
    "So let me get this straight," Taiki began. "Ami got
...drunk?"
    "I'm afraid this other Earth is changing them all,"
Sestuna muttered sadly.
    "Oh yeah, so how did I catch you at that karaoke bar
last night? Don't you count yourself apart from us!"
Haruka challenged.
    "It is changing us," Ami admitted quietly, "Although
I promise I had no idea that punch was spiked."
    "Usagi's the most different," Minako laughed. "You
should have seen her and that guy, kissing right in the
middle of the dance floor! In front of everyone!"
    "Kissing.." Seyia choked out.
    "Oh yeah!" Michiru got a sly glint in her eye. "They
were all over each other."
    "How is it that I'm always too late for you Usagi?!"
Seyia cried out.
    Usagi looked at her watch. "Too late? But it's only
eleven o'clock."
    Rei knocked on Usagi's head. "Nope. It's not ripe yet.
Too bad."
    "What did you want us for anyway, Fireball?" Makoto
asked. "We had to transform in front of a lot of people..."
    "I erased that part of their memories," Sestuna put in helpfully. "Only
the Gundam pilots couldn't be brainwashed."
    "Usagi, what are you going to do? Wufei knows who you
are now, and he hates Sailor Moon."
    Usagi completely stopped pacing and sat down in the
middle of the floor, completely bewildered. "I don't know
...oh gosh! I can't lose him!" She buried her face in her
hands and began to cry.
    "I thought you said she had changed..." Yaten muttered,
plugging his ears up to stop that horrible noise.
    "Usagi, quit that!" Rei scolded, forcing her friend
to stand back up. "Now, Fireball, please tell us what was
so important that we had to sacrifice our hearing."
    "Yes. Well, as you all know, the Earth you are on is
in the middle of a horrible war."
    "Yeah, so why'd you send us there? There's no real evil
for us to fight, just people and MS's," Makoto asked, getting
bored.
    "Well, you see, I was wondering at the urgency I felt
in bringing you there myself. So Sestuna and I compared
notes and discovered that if OZ wins the war, not only
would it be bad for the people of this Earth, but also for
yours. If they win, they would begin to concentrate on
expansion. One day, they would find the Milky Way galaxy,
and eventually your Earth. Their weapons and technology
are already superior beyond comparison. If a war occurred..."
    "We'd be annihilated," Usagi finished quietly, her
earlier anger forgotten.
    "Yes. By not interfering and fighting in the war now,
you could be setting the stage for your own deaths in the
far future." Fireball looked as solemn as they all felt.
_____________________________________________________________

    Wufei walked down the sidewalk with his fellow
pilots, deep in thought. It was a week after the
dance, and Usagi and her friends still hadn't
returned. He knew that because he secretly went to
her house everyday to check if anyone was there.
Once, he'd even kidnapped her neighbor and questioned
him fiercely on her whereabouts, but the poor man
had not known anything.
    They'd discovered soon after the Senshi left that
no one except them remembered a thing about it. The
girls had left after Ami got drunk, and Usagi had
never even been at the dance. It didn't help any in
terms of finding out where they were, but it did
keep everyone from remembering that Wufei had kissed
someone and Heero had giggled.
    How had he survived before Usagi came into his
life? Everything was so dull and he felt like he
was trapped in one of those primitive black and
white movies. And the hurt he felt, along with his
wanting to see her again made him weak. He'd even
almost messed up two of their missions.
    Missions which almost failed because of the absence
of Gundam Artemis and its following MS's.
    It was almost as if their normal lives could no
longer function without those girls.
    Everyone was a little off from their usual
personalities. Heero was even more anti-social than
usual, and his glares caused one unfortunate student
a trip to the hospital. Trowa talked less, if that
was possible. Quatre was no longer happy, and his
unending kindness somehow found its end. He even
threatened Duo once, something extremely unusual.
    Duo was another story. Wufei had to admit he
missed the old baka that would never shut up. The
braided man never laughed or talked unless it was
to talk about something depressing. All in all, the
somewhat quiet group they used to be, was even more
quiet now.
    It was eerie.
    "Argh! Those weak onnas have ruined us!" he
shouted suddenly, no longer able to keep his thoughts
in his head and stay sane at the same time.
    "Thinking about Usagi again?" Duo smiled with only
a trace of his old self shining through. "She was
something else, wasn't she? It was almost like she
tied us all together." For a moment, he sounded normal,
then he ruined it all. "Too bad she's gone."
    "But Duo, it has to be harder for Wufei. He loved
her," Quatre put in.
    "Love, you weakling. Present tense, not past."
    "Shut up, Wufei! What do you know anyway!" The
blonde boy sped up so he no longer had to walk with
the group.
    Heero glared at the sidewalk, and it looked like
it was actually suffering from it. "Somebody, please
kill me. If I have to stay another moment with all of
you...." His voice trailed away and he turned his glare
to the sun until it was covered by a stray cloud.
    "Don't you all see what's happening to us?" Trowa
asked, surprising everyone that he was actually speaking.
"We weren't a good team before because we thought this
whole thing would last forever, but the girls, especially
Usagi, brought us hope that one day the war would end.
Don't you remember? While they were here, we were like
a real team. I'd even started thinking of all of you
as my friends. We got dependent on the girls to cheer
us up and make us human on the inside, but we can't
rely on other people. If we want to be normal, then
we have to do things for ourselves. Think of how
ashamed we'd all be if they came back right now."
    Wufei allowed a small smile to cross his lips.
"You are right. It's injustice to waste the gift
they gave us."
    "And what gift is that?" Heero challenged.
    "They forced us to be friends," Duo answered,
smiling for real. "Who wants ice cream? I'll buy."
    "Shut up, you baka! We don't want any weak ice
cream! We are not twelve-year old girls!"
    "I don't know. Duo sort of looks like a girl..."
Heero muttered.
    "What'd you say???"
    "I'm sure he didn't mean his words," Quatre put
in, rejoining the group with a big smile on his face.
"You don't look sort of like a girl. You look completely
like a girl."
    "Heeey! I do not!"
    "Heero!" came a loud screech from the other side
of the street. The five quickly took refuge in the
closest store, abandoning the debate over whether
Duo looked like a girl or not.
    It was an ice cream store.
    "I feel like such an onna..." Wufei muttered,
eating his ice cream nevertheless.
    "Look, guys!" Duo rejoiced. "We're bonding! We-" He
was cut off by Heero pushing his ice cream into his face.
    "Baka, if you ever say that again, I *will* kill
you," he threatened.
_________________________________________________________

    "How long have we been here and how long until we
can go home?" Usagi whined, collapsing onto her bed in
the room she shared with the Inners.
    "Well, according to my calculations, we have been
here for approximately a month. But I do not know when
we will return to our Earth," Ami answered without
looking up from her laptop.
    Usagi frowned. When she asked about home, she hadn't
been talking about the Earth they had come from. She was
talking about the Sister Earth, which seemed almost more
like home to her then the moon had been.
    "Ugh, I am so tired!" Minako moaned. "I don't suppose
there's any chance that I can persuade any of you to give
me a massage?"
    "I'd rather kiss a youma," Rei muttered, flipping
through a magazine.
    "Hey, Mina-chan, why don't you ask Yaten to help you?"
Makoto taunted.
    "You think he would?" she asked hopefully.
    "No!"
    "Oh...is anyone as tired as me?"
    "We're all tired, Mina-chan," Usagi comforted. Since
they had come there, they had been taught a little in real
fighting, not to mention having to take their MS's out
everyday for what they liked to call "robot sparring."
    Sestuna suddenly walked in the room, slamming the door
open in a way that made all five girls jump.
    "Get ready. You're going back to the Sister Earth today."
    "Just us?"
    "Yes. Haruka has a race in a week that she can't miss,
so the other Outers are leaving. But the Starlights will
go with you, and while I'm on Earth, I'm going to pick up
Mamoru to help, too." (heh heh, she makes it sound like
she's going to the store. "Hey, pick me up some Mamo while
you're at Wal-Mart, okay?" Oh! Ni, I know you like that idea!)
_______________________________________________________

    Wufei gritted his teeth and violently turned the
controls of Shenlong away from the oncoming explosion.
For one terrifying moment, the balance of the great
machine was off, but it soon returned. Just in time,
too, as another enemy MS shot at him. He cursed when
he felt a slight impact and quickly got his revenge for
the damage done to his precious gundam.
    "Hey, Wu-buddy, you doin okay, man?"
    "Duo, I swear, if you call me buddy one more time,
it will be you who I am destroying and not these weak fools."
    "Please, you two! We have to concentrate on the
mission!" Quatre's face appeared on their con-links.
"Don't fight now!"
    Wufei grunted and turned his communications systems
off. It was a weak mission and he and the others didn't
really want to do it. Relina was being held hostage
until the colonies surrendered to OZ. The gundams were
there to save her, although they'd just as soon let
the enemy have her if it wasn't for the fact she was
actually important in the stupid war.
    A moment too late, he noticed enemy fire coming
dangerously close to him. He could dodge, but there
was no way he would escape being fatally hit unless
he had help from one of the others. For a split second,
he considered calling for someone, but he knew if he
did, he would never live it down. As it happens with
most guys, pride won out over reason.
    Wufei closed his eyes and prepared for the blast
that would end his young life.
    It never came.
    A very familiar gundam stood in front of him, and
they were both covered by a shield made up completely
of energy.
    Gundam Artemis.
    And there was only one person who could pilot that gundam.
    Wufei clicked his com-link back on.
    "Usagi! You weak onna! What are you doing here?"
    "'Bout time you noticed me here," she answered back
playfully, her smiling face appearing on his screen. "It
sure is good to see you again."
    "Hey!" Duo interrupted. "Will you two quit flirting
and fight already?"
    "Shut up, Duo, you baka!"
    "Wufei, you think you could watch my back? The
Senshi and I are going to run in and get Relina."
    "You can't do that! It's crazy!"
    "Duo!" Wufei yelled. "Get your braided butt out of
our conversation! Usagi, you can't go in there. It's
swimming with guards. You'd get killed."
    "Not me." She winked and shut off her communications link.
    "Usagi, you weak onna!" ge yelled, knowing full well
that she couldn't hear him. He'd lost her once, and now
he was going to lose her again.
    And he couldn't do anything about it. She'd used her
weird powers to lock him in his gundam.
_________________________________________________________

    Usagi steered her gundam away from the battle and hid
it in a nearby forest, then taking off at a run toward the
base. She didn't check to see if her friends were behind
her. She knew they were. The Inners had stayed at the
battle to help, but the Starlights were going into the base
with her since they didn't have any form of an MS. They
hadn't transformed, just pulled on some fake OZ uniforms
and stood waiting in the woods for Usagi. She didn't get
a fake uniform. She couldn't very well change in front of
three boys, could she?
    No, if she did, then Wufei would kill them all.
    So as she ran, she muttered some very specific words.
"Disguise power! Change me into a...high-ranking OZ soldier!"
    She felt the change. It kind of tickled, but she kept
running. Within moments, she began to hear the footsteps
of the Starlights as they neared her.
    Sneaking into the base was no problem. With the
battle going on, people were coming and going, and most
of them were running. Usagi and her group were not noticed.
    "Seyia, give me the map Sestuna gave you before she
left," Usagi commanded, not looking at them. She had to
keep up the illusion that she worked for OZ and was not
someone to be questioned so she kept walking.
    Seyia dug it out of his uniform and gave it to her.
The map showed exactly where Relina was located. Usagi
stopped.
    "I can't make any sense outta this map!"
    "Um, it's upside-down," Taiki pointed out.
    "Oh, right..." Usagi laughed nervously, butterflies
having a carnival in her stomach. She turned the map
around only to find that they were directly in front of
the room holding the heir to the Peacecraft throne. "Oh,
that was easy!"
    "A little too easy. Let us go in first." Yaten reached
for the doorknob, but a shout stopped him.
    "Hey! What do you think you're doing??"
    Usagi turned to the soldier, relying on her disguise
to make him go away. "Do not question me. I have important
orders. Now go do something useful or...something!"
    "Yes, ma'am!" He saluted and walked off.
    Usagi pulled out her gun and stepped into the room.
It was empty except for Relina, tied to a chair.
    "I don't like this. Where are the guards?" Taiki looked
around the room. Relina was nodding urgently and trying to
say something, but she couldn't because she was gagged.
    Suddenly, something hard slammed into Usagi's temple
and she fell. The guards stepped out from the shadows
behind them. Immediately, shock registered on their faces.
    "Sorry, ma'am! We didn't know it was someone important.
We were told not to let anyone in here," one said. The other just babbled
incoherently.
    "You fools!" Seyia yelled. "You could have hurt her!
Get out of here this minute!"
    They scurried out as if the hounds of Hades were after
them. Usagi picked herself off the ground, her powers,
combined with how used she was to falling, kept her from
being hurt other than a small cut on her forehead that might
need stitches.
    "Somebody untie Relina, then let's get out of here. I
don't like those two, and I have the feeling they'll find
out we're not what we appear in no time."
    "Right."
_________________________________________________________

    The battle was nearly over by the time Wufei saw
Usagi's gundam coming out of the woods. In the gundam's
hands were three boys and one girl who were holding on
for dear life. Usagi's com-link immediately clicked on.
    "Mission accomplished. Let's drop princess off here,
then go get some cheesecake!"
    A cheer rose up from the Senshi's MS's, and everyone
followed, leaving the battered and confused OZ troops
who didn't have a clue that Relina had been taken.
    They left Relina in the care of the scientists and
stored their gundams and MS's in the hanger before taking
the bus downtown, where they were sure to find food
somewhere.
    Quatre and Duo talked happily with the girls and
their three new companions while Trowa, Heero and Wufei
walked ahead, not feeling like having a conversation,
but glad to be included in the group. Wufei felt a
little depressed. Usagi was back, but she had brought
three guys with her, and he already knew that one cared
for her deeply. Did she love the man back? Could he be
the Mamoru that she had mentioned breaking her heart?
He hadn't listened when they'd been introduced. If the
man was Mamoru, then there might be a chance that he'd
taken her away...
    Usagi left the group to join the ones who weren't
socializing, taking gentle hold on Wufei's arm and
laying her head on his shoulder. He immediately stopped
walking and Usagi raised her head.
    "Are you mad at me? I'm sorry I didn't tell you who
I was, but Rei-chan would have killed me...Wufei?"
    He reached out and tucked a strand of her hair
behind her ear, smiling slightly, and noticing the
Band-Aid over the cut she had received during the
battle. She wasn't weak or stupid. She was brave and
important...and his life. "No. I'm not angry, Usagi."
    She smiled back.
    Suddenly the tender moment was interrupted by the
flash of a camera.
    "Oh, man! That is sooo going to go in the yearbook!"
Duo said happily. Usagi blushed, but didn't look angry
so Wufei decided not to pound the braided baka into a
pulp until later.
    They reached the cafe they were planning on buying
their cheesecake at.
    Wufei's heart stopped beating in his chest as Usagi
froze next to him with a shocked look on her face.
    Standing coolly in front of the cafe was a man in
his early twenties with dark black hair and deep blue
eyes.
    Usagi's whispered words confirmed his greatest fear.
    "Mamoru..."
____________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________
To be continued
Hmm, this seems like a nice place to stop!