Circuit City Electronics Store
2/5/00
Serena
could not stop jumping impatiently up and down. It was finally out! Sailor
Quest Five was being stocked on the shelves inside the yet to open electronics
store. All five of the girls were there.
“Serena, stop that!” Rei glared.
“Oh, Rei let her alone.” Amy didn’t look up from her biochemistry textbook. She was not here for the game, but she had to get a new electronic organizer anyway, so she had tagged along.
Nothing had happened in over a month, but she had suspicions that they had not seen the last attack. The two matrices had matched perfectly, though the wolf-thing’s energy level had been sicnifigantly higher than the scorpion-creature’s. That meant the same person was behind the attacks.
The matrix one chose to use and how well they used it was like a signature or seal denoting the gruesome works of art as theirs. It was like DNA, but did not denote the creature’s physical characteristics, what diseases it was susceptible to, or any of the other characteristics DNA defined. However, as DNA, in a way, marks the offspring as belonging to a parent, so the matrix can mark a negamonster’s creator.
Amy was glad she had taken samples for so long. She started doing it as a way of collecting souvenirs from their battles. The other Scouts being privy to this habit, they got one for her when she wasn’t present at a battle. She had been playing around on her minicomp one day when she discovered the matrix and from then on she somehow took a sample from every creature they defeated. From there, she discovered the matrices’ secrets.
She had made the note and not mentioned it to the others. Why should she? She might as well have shaved their heads with a weed-whaker. It might take all of them to even half understand it.
“Ouch!” Amy shrieked as Serena took a tight hold of her wrist. The textbook fell to the sidewalk as Amy tried to loosen Serena’s grip; an exercise in futility. “Serena, let go!”
Just then, the open sign flashed, lit up, and the crowd of wildly ecstatic youths cheered. The doors slid open and the five Scouts had to charge in to keep from being trampled.
“Wait; my textbook!” Amy looked back, still attached to Serena. Before she knew it, they were at the videogame counter. Somehow, a copy of Sailor Quest V appeared in her hand and she was whisked through the check-out line. The money in her hand was replaced with change and a receipt before she found herself outside again, bewildered.
And Serena still clung to her wrist.
“Ack!” she squealed after realizing she had somehow in that dreadful blur of activity spent all the money she had intended to use on an electronic organizer to buy this stupid game. “And they have a no-return policy with video games!”
“What’s wrong, Ams?” Serena asked, finally letting go of Amy’s wrist to read the back of the box.
“I wanted an electronic organizer.” Amy sulked. She bent down to pick up her trampled biochem book.
“Awww, come on.” Rei put her arm around Amy, “It’s your type of game; lots of strategy and problem solving. That’s stuff you like.”
“Not to mention kick-asphalt graphics and...” Serena began.
“You’re not helping, meatball-head!” the Japanese girl snapped before returning to Amy, “You like a challenge.”
“But I wanted an electronic organizer.” Amy said again, more insistent this time.
“Amy!” the other girls groaned. Amy simply shrugged and gave in as usual.
She had, of course, chosen Sailor Mercury as her main character and was running through a city searching for something called the Moon Chalice. There was a door she had to open and the lock was a klotski-like sliding puzzle. This proved to be the simplest problem, and it was pretty tough.
Just as she finished, the phone rang. She expected it to be Greg because, it being a Saturday, they were going to go and do something.
“Anderson residence, this is Amy speaking.”
“Amy? It’s Greg.”
Though not surprised, Amy’s eyes lit up, “Hey, sweetie, what’s up? You sound so serious.”
“I had a vision.” Greg had not had visions in a long time. Amy was indeed surprised by this.
“What was it about?”
“I’ll tell you later. Get all the scouts together at Rei’s temple. She needs to do a fire reading.”
“Is it about the new enemy?”
“Yes.” Greg said rather quickly, “Just meet me at the park and we’ll go to the temple. I’ll tell you on the way.” The line clicked. She hadn’t heard this urgency in Greg since Queen Beryl had tried to capture him. Frantically, she dialed Serena’a number.
“Hello?” Luckily, Serena answered.
“Serena, it’s Amy.”
“Hey, what’s going on?”
“Something’s come up.”
Her two ravens were behind her, pecking at the ground as usual. One of them liked up at her and cocked its head as if it were curious, provoking a laugh. “Yes,” Rei said, “I’m sure Serena is holding them all back.”
All at once, Amy, Darien, Greg, Lita, Mina, and Serena appeared at the gate.
“Wow, Rei, you got all decked out for this,” Serena remarked, “what with the robe and all.”
“It’s not a robe,” Rei corrected, “It’s a kimono.” She motioned for them to follow. Before the steps, she rang the bells and asked the spirits to guide her in her vision. She rang the bells again and the group followed her inside.
In the room up on a small altar, the temple’s sacred fire burned bright. It never went out, and provided the only light in the shrine. The group all sat on their knees before it.
“Okay, Mizuno Ami-chan,” Rei addressed Amy using the Japanese name she had given her. It meant “friend of water” and fit the blue-haired swimmer well. “What is it.”
“Well, Hino Reiko-chan,” Amy, though Catholic, was well aware of Japanese custom. Rei’s name meant something along the lines of “spirit that walks with fire.” Tacking the chan suffix meant that she was a close friend. “Greg had a vision.”
“And what did you see?” the dark-haired girl turned to Greg.
“I saw a man with a blue face close his hand over a black crystal and then whole cities were destroyed.”
“That is all?” the question seemed rhetorical instead of surprised. Rei was in the element right now.
“All I remember.”
“Domo arigato, Urawa-kun.” Rei thanked him. She turned to the fire and spoke the ritual Japanese words, urging the fire to show her any clues about the visions.
Suddenly, she shrieked and lurched back. Lita caught her more out of self-defense than concern for Rei.
“What the hell..?” the brown-haired valkyrie was shocked. Rei’s face was twisted wildly and her eyes were rolled back into her head. She convulsed as a stream of Japanese words rolled out of her mouth.
“Ave Maria!” Amy leapt back and crossed herself; the first time she had ever been shocked enough to do this in public.
“Amy, what’s she saying?” Serena asked.
“How am I supposed to know?” Amy retorted, “I study Spanish, not Japanese.” As she spoke, Rei arched her back and began clawing at nothing. Amy got an idea. She crawled closer to the struggling girl, cocked her arm, and delivered a sharp backhand slap to Rei’s cheek.
The Japanese girl stopped struggling and flinched. She was calm now, though breathing heavily.
“Rei?” Serena called her, “Reiko-chan?”
Rei opened her eyes. “Usagi?” she breathed, barely lucid, “Usagi it was terrible.”
“What was terrible, Reiko?”
“A man will appear,” she told them, “and the ground will tremble and the cities will burn. The seas will rise up and everything will lie shattered.”
“Did you see the crystal Greg mentioned?” Darien asked.
“Hai, Mamoru-kun.” she nodded her head, “I did see it. It was black and oval shaped.”
“Yeah,” Greg said, “That’s right.” He took a pencil from his pocket. Amy lent him a scrap of paper and he drew the crystal.
“Why isn’t Luna here,” Rei asked after confirming it was indeed the crystal she had seen. “I need to ask her something.”
“She was out cat-ing around.” Serena shrugged, “I didn’t think I had time to find her.”
“It looks like one of the Star Crystals that adorn our tiaras.” Amy noted, looking at the picture.
“That’s what I needed to ask, Ami-chan” Rei rubbed her head and sat up.
“But none of ours is black.” Lita pointed out, “Mine’s green, Amy’s is blue, Rei’s and Serena’s are red, and Mina’s is orange.”
“But as we know, we aren’t the only Scouts.” Amy reminded her, “There’s still Sailor Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto, not to mention the Sailor Stars and the Sailor Chibi.“
“But none of them have black jewels either.” Mina pointed out, “and the Stars don’t even wear tiaras, do they?”
“And the Sailor Chibi are from the future, so they’re out. And Chibi-chibi’s crystal is heart shaped anyway.” Lita added.
“I thought Sailor Pluto’s was black.” Amy said.
“I could have sworn it was purple or wine red.” Serena said, “And I got the best look at her of all of us.”
“But in that mist, how could you tell?” Darien asked, “I couldn’t even tell what her uniform colors were.”
“Why don’t we go find out, then?”
“Stupid meatball-head!” Rei smirked, “We can’t. We don’t have a time key. Reeney was the only one that had one.”
“Now wait just a damn minute.” Greg held up a hand, “We aren’t even sure it’s one of the Star Crystals anyway.”
“Good point.” Amy nodded.
“Don’t agree with him because he’s your frikin’ boyfriend, Amy.” Rei chided, “It has to be a Star Crystal.”
“I’m not agreeing with him because of that!” the blue-haired girl snapped back, “He has a valid point. We have no idea what it is or where it comes from.”
“Can it, you two!” Darien hushed them, “Amy’s right. We don’t know anything about it.”
“Well we could all be killed before we find out.” Rei pointed out.
“Unfortunately that’s true.” Greg agreed.
“Wait.” Mina said, “What if the vision is abstract. Everything could be symbolic of something.”
“If it were just me who had the vision, I might agree.” Rei shook her head, “Many of my fire readings are more abstract than realistic. But Greg and I both saw exactly the same thing. That has to be how it turns out.”
“Do either of you have any idea when it’s supposed to happen?” Darien inquired of them.
“No.” Greg shook his head. Rei gave the same answer.
“What is the weather like in the visions?” the Earth prince asked, “That might give us a clue what to look for when it does. Or maybe there’s something else.”
“No.” Rei replied, “the sky was just dark and all I saw was the man with the crystal.”
“Same here.”
“That means it could happen at any time.” Darien said, “Luna and Artemis need to see that drawing as soon as possible.” he turned to Amy, “Have you investigated that incident the other day?”
“No, I just assumed that it was from the wolf-thing.” Amy shrugged.
“Well, find out.” He told her, “It has to be connected to this.”
“Right.” she snap-nodded.
“I don’t think I need to remind you all that if we don’t figure this out soon, the whole world is in deep-fried horse scat.”