Character Sketches #1, Sailor Mercury - Part II - Foreward & Prologue

Written by: LeVar Diwan Bouyer



Some obligatory notes:

I've only seen the DIC interpretation, but I really can't stand it, so I'm using Japanese names, etc. This means, of course, that I'm bound to make some errors, but I hope you will be so kind as to point them out. "Hey! You got the spelling of Juuban wrong, you fscking bastage!" However, some errors may be intentional, so be warned.

Feel free to distribute this, as long as it remains intact, in its entirety, and is not used for profit (fat chance of that).

This is no longer my first story (am I a veteran writer? You make the call), so *don't* be nice! Tear into it, rip it apart, nit-pick anything and everything so future parts can be that much better. A reply would be nice too. You want an email address? Sure, you bunch of ingrates: levar@smart.net. And again, if you're still confused by parts 1 and 2, just wait.

Don't worry about the ending; it will be completed as a trilogy. The chapter list for the next part, as well as other information that sounded like a good idea at the time, can be found at http://www.smart.net/~levar/epreview.html.

On geography: I've never seen anyone on a.f.s-m admit they're from Baltimore, so I don't think that I can be contradicted in that regard. In any case, I tried not to be too much of a homer. Any money the Baltimore Chamber of Commerce wants to give me, however, would be gratefully accepted.

On art: I don't know the first thing. I barely passed painting and drawing I, a course most below-average students manage to get A's in. I tried to be as vague as possible on technical information, but I've undoubtedly gotten some stuff wrong. Kindly flame me about it if you spot an error, and I apologize for this not being up to my usual fact-filled standards.

On names: They're extremely important. Maybe I'm making things a bit too transparent, but Ami-chan has two names here, and they are used for specific reasons. So I *do* know the difference between Amy and Ami.

On part one: I amaze myself sometimes. After all the work I put into it, I forgot to tell you a crucial part. Part one takes place right after R and before S. Part two does not fit into that slot, but that little tidbit is extremely important to understanding what happened in 1 and will happen in 3.

I'd like to give some gratuitous thanks here. Thanks to Ken Arromdee for his excellent FAQ, which I alt-tabbed to constantly for those little details that, in my opinion, make this fanfic great. To everyone who wrote to me concerning part one; you know who you are, and I won't embarrass you by putting any of your names here. To my entire lunch table, who gave me six out of ten possible points on the Modified Weirdness Scale for this effort. To the two Georges: Handel and Gershwin, whose music I listened to constantly during the writing of this piece, and to my latest music love, Mahler. To Susan Cooper, whose books made fantasy okay in my mind. To my mom for condemning me to this hellhole we call Earth.

Finally, everyone's favorite part of a fanfic. Sailor Moon and all associated characters were created and are owned by Naoko Takeuchi and a bunch of other people, of whom I am not. Baltimore Orioles and associated trademarks are the property of The Baltimore Orioles Baseball Club, Inc. Furthermore, Houghton Mifflin, The New York Times, and Harcourt Brace Jonavich aren't mine either. These trademarks, as well as some others, are used without permission. To any corporate bigwigs, I just want you to know that I have no intention of making any money out of this. It's all in good clean, not-for-profit fun.

Although this takes place in a real-life place, no association with real life is intended or should be construed. Any resemblance to actual persons or classes, living or dead, is entirely coincidental, or at least not meant to offend. So if there's a Jen Talbot somewhere at JHU, don't sue me! The name was chosen at random (sort of).

And if you're not a fan of Charles Dickens or Thomas Hardy, be warned that I'm this wordy throughout the whole piece. I think it adds to the atmosphere of the piece, but if you were one of those people who threw away _Return of the Native_ after the first two chapters, don't even bother with this one.

And now...



Character Sketches #1, Sailor Mercury - Part II, "Mizuno at Baltimore"
Prologue: In which we are reacquainted with an old friend



"Of course, one has to wonder what happened on that night. The senshi have always remained rather tight-lipped about the whole affair, and even Ms. Aino's autobiography, considered by most to be the canonical reference on the organization, is silent on the issue. Aside from a couple of paragraphs, it fails to even mention the 'final battle.'

"While it is true that this time was surrounded by such events as the destruction of Tokyo, one still gets the impression that, rather than mere forgetfulness, the senshi have deliberately chosen not to reveal the details of what happened under the Greenland Icecap all those years ago. It is, one begins to feel, as insurmountable a question as the other one the senshi have steadfastly refused to answer, and which Mr. March fails to answer as well. Indeed, while almost all of the senshi have thrown themselves into the reconstruction project with extraordinary results, the glaring absence of one of them continues to chafe. Where is Sailor Mercury?"

-Herman Einstein, from _The New York Times Book Review_, July 22, 2002, on Edward March's _Chicks in Skirts: The Unauthorized Biography of the Sailor Scouts_, Houghton Mifflin, 2002.

"Where's Ami? None of your business!"
-in an interview with Sailor Mars, a.k.a. Rei Hino



"You know, I'll have to kill her first." Hastings ignored the looks of shock on the senshi's faces. "Oh, didn't Serenity tell you?" Her surroundings blinked. "Oh, I seem to have forgotten. Silly me. Say hello to your mother, Ami."

There, backlit by some unholy light, Ayumi's face was twisted with hatred; Ami could barely believe that before her stood her mother.

"I never loved you, Ami." The surroundings blinked again, and suddenly they were in the foyer of her house, Ayumi still in her medical coat, Ami inexplicably in her Sailor Mercury attire. She barely had time to assimilate the changes in surroundings before he faced yet another verbal attack. "You made my love run away, back to where he came."

"That's not true!"

"You know it is."

"It's not! It's not its not itsnotitsnotisnot!" She could fell her control slipping away, slipping away like her past: her past with her family. "You have to love me! Shine Aqua Illusion!"

I don't want to do this, a tiny bit of her thought, but that tiny bit that was the old Ami Mizuno was merely a spectator now. As if from a distance, she watched herself execute a perfect flying kick that would have taken the head off of any opponent.

The frozen Ayumi Mizuno was no exception.

Mercury's blue boot smashed through her mother's head, scattering pink and gray fragments of ice everywhere. In a corner of her mind, Ami was disgusted and appalled at this display of violence, but Sailor Mercury carried on. And even as she wept, even as she killed the person who had raised her, she could hear her mother's screams of pain, and they were her own--

"Amy! Amy! Wake up! AMY!" She felt herself being shaken, being tossed and turned. She opened her eyes to see a pale face framed by blonde hair. Blond hair...didn't she know someone with....

"Amy! Goodness, I thought you were going insane or something! What kind of nightmare were *you* in?"

For a moment Amy Anderson was somewhere else, trying to figure out who was speaking. It was a strange language, with lone, lazy vowels, and unbearable volume. In fact, she wasn't even sure it was Japanese. Oh yes, it was Western...Germanic...English...with an American accent. But why would Usagi or Minako be speaking...oh.

"I'm in America."

"Well, of course you're in America, silly! You've been here for the past two years; where'd you think you were?

Silence.

"Oh, you're homesick, aren't you? It's okay; I remember when I first came down from Vermont. I bawled for days! Can you imagine, coming down from Vermont to what these people call summer? It was a freaking sauna, I can tell you. Remember the first day you were here, when you practically got heatstroke the first time outside of A/C? Huh?"

Even in her half-asleep state, still recovering from her nightmare, Amy had to chuckle at that. The idiots at BWI had arranged the pick-up area so that the sun stared you down in the afternoon. Those first few steps out of the terminal, with the blazing sun and the downright muggy air, had been absolute hell. She hadn't walked outside again for a week.

"Yeah, I guess you're right." She glanced at her clock: 4:39am. Time to get the cobwebs out of her head. "Well, I think I'll take a walk, okay?"

"Are you sure? I'm worried, you know. Haven't you heard about that big crime wave? It's scary out there."

"Jen, I'm a big girl now. Anybody who wants to fight me is in for a surprise!

"Self-defense courses?"

"No, just a few years as a Sailor Senshi. You tend to be amused by anything less than a 20 meter tall youma," Amy didn't say.

"Yeah, I picked up a few classes in Japan."

"Okay," replied Jen, watching as her roommate threw on a sweatshirt and sneakers. "Jeez, Amy, I don't know what's with you, getting up so early. I don't know when I'm going to get used to your morning walks."

And with that, Amy went out onto the grassy grounds, as yet deserted. She went over to her favorite hill. A wye oak stood there, tall and unblemished by age. She sat next to the cool trunk, unheeding of the early morning dew, which soaked through the running shorts she had thrown on. Looking at her watch, she saw that there were quite a few hours to her first class.

Turning to the east, she lay back to await the sunrise. It would be awhile, but she could be patient. She always was. A gust of wind came up, bringing the smell of car exhaust, the sound of police sirens, and blowing a few bits of hair in her face. Annoyed at this reminder of life beyond the fences of Johns Hopkins University, she pushed the black strands back, taking care of a few tears while she was at it.

"I didn't have a choice, damn you." No one was there to hear her.

I didn't have a choice. I had to do it.

Didn't I?



On to Chapter 1... or
Return to Ami's Library...