Chapter 3
May 3rd, 7:25 p.m.
Artemis
    You know, the scene that you'd see right now can be perfectly described by this haiku:
        Beautiful sunset
        Bandaged cat with a brick...
        That's Artemis
    That's right, guys. This is the sunset of my life...
    I was sitting on the bridge's railing, a rope tied around my neck and attached to the brick...
    I have nothing to do in this life without Luna if she doesn't love me...
    DARN.
    Forgot to go to the bathroom!..
    Oh, well, it's too late now...
    I straightened up and let out my last and heavy sigh...
    Next moment Luna screeched into my ear: "ARTEMIS!!!!! Are you nuts?!! IDIOT?!!? STUPID??! You @#$%^&* piece of @#$%^&*!!!! WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE GONNA DO?!!?!"
    I almost leaped off.

May 3rd, 7:26 p.m.
Luna
    Well, I don't really think that's what should be said to a suicide, but that's besides the point!
    I grabbed his tail and tried to pull him away, while he clenched the bridge's railing, shouting: "I have nothing to do in this life without you, Luna! Just let me jump!.."
    "No! You're REALLY an idiot!"
    "Nyao!!!!!" came from behind me.
    My head flew around, Artemis's tail slipped out of my grasp, and he... fell off the bridge.
    Wait a minute!
    The brick got stuck between the railings, and Artemis was well hung on the rope!
    "L-L-UNA!!" he screamed.
    I stammered around, panicking.
    What to do!!!?
    I leaped to the railing and grabbed the rope with my teeth, pulling him up.
    Boy, was he heavy!..
    Suddenly, I realized that King Kong was beside me.
    King Kong?!??
    Oi. I mean, that white cat of Och... Ouch... in short, of Ochi-something!!
    Anyway, that white-gray feline was beside me, casting gentle and full of worry looks at Artemis, who was hauling up on the bridge's concrete.
    He smiled at her charmingly. I mean, at King Kong.
    My teeth unconsciously scissored the rope...
    Artemis slipped off and with a loud SPLASH landed into the river.
    Hehe. So there! To not look at other women!.. I mean, cats!
    The next thing I knew, that King Kong jumped after him.
    Good riddance!
    But then I heard him: "I CAN'T SWIM!!! HELP!!!!! LUNA!!!!"
    My heart fell into my stomach.
    He can DIE!!..
    In a second I was jumping into the river after King Kong.
    We both swam to the sinking Artemis and gripped his collar. (You know, he has got fleas, so Minako fastened this thing onto him.) Then we got him to the shore.
    He was unconscious.
    King Kong tried to get the water out of him by pushing at his stomach with her paws.
    It didn't work.
    Oh, my God! It's all my fault! He's dead because of ME!
    I felt tears trickling down my whiskers...
    I decided to do CPR mouth-to-mouth.
    "BREATHE! BREATHE! BREATHE, YOU IDIOT!!"
    Suddenly, Artemis flapped his eyes open and found me in the process of...
    Oiiiii!!!!!!!
    I jerked away from him.
    But he pulled me over, spat out some water, and said: "So you love me! So you really love me, Luna!!"
    "I love you, I love you, just shut up!" I told him, squirming out of his strong paws...
    How I wish I could — !!..
    He kissed me.
    Yeah...
    "Hey! Are you all right guys?? We saw everything! Oohh, you're KISSING!" cried Serenie, Ami, Usagi, Makoto, Rei, and Minako, who were looking down at us from the bridge.
    "We're NOT kissing!!" I felt my ears burning and pushed Artemis away.
    "Oh, I got it! You're FRENCHING!" Rei grinned clown-smile.
    The girls squealed: "Yeah!!!!"
    "No, we're NOT!!" I yelled.
    "But you kissed me!" insisted Artemis.
    "I didn't!"
    "Then you frenched me, all right!" he agreed.
    "I didn't! YOU did!"
    "Woooo!!!!.." came a gushed yelp from the girls' side.
    "No, YOU kissed me!"
    "YOU kissed me!"
    "But you didn't say anything!"
    "IDIOT!!"
    "Luna!"
    "THAT'S the lovebirds?" said Usagi.
    "You mean, 'lovecats'?" remarked Rei. "By the way, no better than you and Mamoru..."
    "Rei, I'll kick you off the bridge!!" said Usagi.
    "What for? For the truth?"
    "I don't want to scuffle anymore." Usagi grimly turned around. "Besides, I don't want to talk about Mamo...ru."
    "Ah-ha!!!"
    That was a long-awaited opportunity to rip out of Artemis's paws and look around at whoever had said the above.
    And we were blown away by a mighty whirlwind.
    What the — !?
    There stood a robed guy. Or a girl, I don't know. You couldn't see it, right? I mean, the person's robe was dark gray and very long. But I could tell that he or she wasn't so tall.
    I heard the cry from the bridge: "We'll be back in a minute!! Hang on, Luna!!!"
    You better transform FAST, guys!!
    Gray Guy headed upon us, stretching out Gray Crystal (it looked like Silver, but it was gray in color, really).
    Darn, darn, what to do!? Girls!! Hurry up!!!! I don't wanna be toast!!..
    Wait a minute.
    The Guy was pointing the Crystal not at me... but at Artemis!
    And he thinks that that cat's got anything pure to take?..
    Yeah.
    "No, you won't do this to him!" I heard myself declaring.
    Am I NUTS?! I shouldn't talk in front of any human!!
    Gray Guy gaped at me.
    Oh, great! Wonderful! DARN!!
    Suddenly, King Kong jumped at the Guy's back and buried her fangs into his butt.
    Hehe!! Go, kitty!
    Gray Crystal let out a gust of wind waves, hitting everything around, as the Guy was trying to tear King Kong off his buttocks by her tail.
    The trees were crashing, the branches were swimming in the air, and I saw Artemis's soul (complete with whiskers and tail) soaring up to heavens.
    I know this is cruel, but the first thought that dawned on me was, 'So he's got something pure, after all!'
    The next thought was, 'Where's that Silver Sailor?!???!?!???'
    A silver beam shot at the ground before Gray Guy, and he stopped staggering around, holding King Kong by her tail, while she was still clinging to his butt.
    I used the moment to bury my perfectly manicured claws into his foot.
    He went like, "Aaugghhhh!!!!"
    Then the voice behind me said: "Let go of the cat!"
    We all whirled around to see a silver-suited Sailor girl.
    Silver Sailor!!!!!!
    The girl raised Crescent Stick...
    "Sailor Silver Moon Crystal Power Rehabilitation!"
    The wave of silver light encircled the soul, pulled it down to Artemis's lifeless body, and the soul dissolved into him.
    Artemis?! Yippeee!!!
    Silver Sailor aimed her Stick at us: "I said, let the cat GO!!"
    I know that voice... Usagi?.. No-o-o-o...
    Gray Guy instantly dropped King King's tail, while the cat was still hanging at his butt. "See??" He showed his hands. "I'm not touching it!!"
    "Get out," the girl commanded.
    "Sure, sure! No problem!!" The Guy ripped off King Kong, threw her to the ground, snatched me off his foot, grabbed his staff, and hit the gas...
    So there!
    Silver Sailor's Stick disappeared. She crouched down, and before you could say, 'Nyao!' she was up in the air, and had probably landed on the other end of the park.
    "Luna?.." said a hoarse whisper.
    I leaped to Artemis's side: "Artemis!! You're alive????"
    He looked at me pitifully. "Yeah. You were trying to save me!.."
    He pulled me over with weak paws.
    I didn't protest...
    "Nyao?"
    HATE THAT VOICE. PERIOD.
    Artemis pushed me away to look at King Kong, who was batting her eyelashes, grinning idiotically: "Luna! What's her name?"
    "King Kong." I stiffly slouched at the pebbles.
    "King Kong?? I thought King Kong's this huge gorilla who weighs a few thousand tons, and whose height is above twenty-storied building, and — "
    King Kong grabbed her collar and shoved it into our faces. There was a metal (not price) tag hanging on it.
    Artemis squinted. "Uh, Luna? I forgot my contacts at home. Can you read it, please?"
    Grumbling, I took a look at it. The engraved (too bad not on her gravestone, actually...) characters said: 'Ginko'.
    "It's Ginko," I murmured.
    "'Silver'? Nice name," he complimented. "It totally describes you. I mean, you're all silver and all." He smiled charmingly at her.
    King Kong smiled charmingly back at him.
    I wanted to gag...
    Actually, I wanted to rip him up in gory chunks... Why I don't wear any knives around...
    "HEY!! GUYS!!! GUYS!! You all right??!?"
    The Sailors' cries shook the neighborhood.
    "Finally!" I sneered. Just then I noticed that King Kong was staring at them. Weird cat, isn't she?
    "Sorry!" said Mars. "The thing is, that worthless piece of Usagi couldn't transform."
    Yeah. Usagi really was in her ordinary clothes.
    If you can call them ordinary, anyway...
    Usagi nodded: "Yeah! When I tried to, I would just fly a few prisms, then POOF! I'd bump down and hit the ground with my butt! It still hurts!"
    "Idiot," gruffed Mars. "So where's that guy? I mean, the robed one?"
    "The guy who was robbed? By whom??" Usagi flapped her eyes.
    Ready, set, go!
    Mars jumped on Usagi...
    The rest is usual.
    Meanwhile, Artemis found a new opportunity to start all over again: "Ahem, Luna. So... did you kiss me?"
    "No," I told him flat-out.
    "Kissed!"
    "Shut up!"
    "Then frenched!"
    "Artemis! I'll kick you back into the river!"
    "But you kissed me!"
    "Double idiot!"
    "LUNA!! Ginko is much more gentle than you are!"
    Right. King Kong was there. Licking Artemis's face.
    I imagined how it tasted. Fleas and all, I mean.
    I gagged.
    "Oh, yeah!" I smirked. "That King Kong is so-o-o gentle! It can't even talk!"
    "SHE is GINKO, for your information!"
    "Whatever!"
    "'Whatever'?! How can you call such an innocent cat names?! She's saved me from drowning!"
    "And what do you think *I* was doing!? I saved you, too, if you remember!"
    "I don't remember." He faced King Kong and smiled at her.
    I could almost feel the electricity running between them...
    I turned my back on that stupid, ungrateful, male cat and marched up the slope.
    In my chest were hatred, jealousy, love, wounded feelings, and other stuff that's supposed to be in a soul...

May 4th, 2:01 a.m.
Ochitsukiko
    I was lying in my bed, staring at the ceiling. Weird thoughts were running inside my head... Like who the hell are those —
    Suddenly, I was interrupted by a loud, "Ahem!" coming from under the opened window, followed by another, even louder. Then I heard a series of a cat's, "Nyao, nyao, nyao-o-o!.."
    I blinked.
    Ginko??..
    In the darkness I groped her fur. Yeah, she was here, right beside me.
    Usagi's cat?..
    The cat's yelps carried on.
    "Luna, shut up..." mumbled Usagi from the floor.
    A hoarse and low voice declared from the windowsill: "That's not me, by the way. It's Artemis, triumphantly clearing his throat! Spring, you know!.."
    "I thought March was over..." I heard Usagi burying deeper into her sleeping bag.
    My shaking hand creeped over to the touch-and-glow lamp...
    The black cat was napping at the window.
    Relax, Ochitsukiko, relax!.. Relax!.. RELAX, I SAID!!
    "Nyao, nyao, NYAO-O-O!!!.." began a new forceful series.
    That's just a cat, right? Right! So I carefully tiptoed to the windowsill and peeked out of it.
    Below it was perched a white cat, holding sheets of paper with melody symbols stamped on them. The cat was starting another couplet, when it got into a coughing fit and saw me sticking my head out of the window.
    "Ginko??" it cried happily. But then the cat noticed that it was me, shook its head, and then asked me, "Would you mind to call up Ginko?"
    I clung to the window's frame with my nails. Gotta relax before I fall out! Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale...
    I numbly walked to my bed, picked up my Ginko, went back to the window, placed her there, came to the bed again, got under the covers, and began counting the sheeps...
    One sheep, two sheeps, three cats...
    Dammit.
    One sheep... Two sheeps... Three sheeps... Four cats... Five cats...
 

TO BE CONTINUED... Part 3 - Rei Meets her Fate!...
Index
______________________________________________________________________________

By May K. Lunnaya

Based on the characters created by the author and Naoko Takeuchi.

This is a work of fiction. The characters*, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

* — BISHOUJO SENSHI SAILOR MOON, characters, names, and all related incidia are trademarks of Naoko Takeuchi, Kodansha Ltd., TOEI Anime Co., TV Asahi, DiC & © February 1992.

* — BISHOUJO SENSHI SAILOR SILVER MOON, new characters, new names, and all related incidia are trademarks of May K. Lunnaya.

Copyright © May 2000 by May K. Lunnaya. All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

With comments and/or for information, contact May K. Lunnaya at sergek@co.ru. The author would greatly appreciate if the readers would mention the site where they had read this manuscript.