"She's NOT normal, Ami," Haruka said. "If we're gonna have to
work together, then you're going to have to learn to trust me." She
sat down on the bed and crossed her arms. "You may not like
everything I do, but I don't lie, I don't make things up, and I don't
hallucinate."
"Well, calling EVERYONE, even teachers by an affectionate
nickname as if we were all five years old isn't normal, but..." Ami
resisted the urge to sigh. How could anyone see Noriko as a
threat?
Haruka frowned. "Did you listen to ANYTHING I said? I thought
you're supposed to be the smartest member of our little army."
Which isn't saying much.
"I live with Noriko, and I've never noticed anything
supernatural about her. She does have some weird quirks, but I'm
not sure if either of us is any position to point fingers and call
someone weird." Such a beautiful lass could hardly be evil, Ami
thought, then wondered why she even thought such a thing. I seem to be
more aware of people's appearances than I used to be, she thought,
frowning. Ami didn't like it, either. Maybe getting a boyfriend has
something to do with it, though that didn't make any sense to her.
Haruka frowned. "You don't like my lifestyle, eh?"
"I didn't say that! I just said...oh, never mind. Look, I'll do a
computer scan and..." She trailed off, sighing. "Well, if my
computer wasn't busted into tiny bits, I would. I'll try to figure
out some other way to find out."
Getting up, Haruka said, "It's a start. Let's get out of here
before she asks me on another date." Haruka blushed slightly.
"You could tell her you're a girl, you know," Ami said, getting
up. But I think you enjoy leading people on too much to do that.
"Once we settle this one way or another, I will. I might need
that edge." She looked Ami in the eye. "Are you going to be able to
do what will have to be done if she is a monster?"
"Are you going to apologize if she isn't?"
Silence. Neither was willing to be the first to look away.
Noriko settled the matter by barging in without knocking,
since she did live there, after all. "'Ka-kun! 'Mi-chan!" Things
went downhill from there.
******************
Sailor Moon Z #15:
"All That Glitters is Not Lead:
Can Mercury and Uranus Learn to Cooperate Before They Get
Eaten?"
******************
Usagi blinked at the front door. "Hi, Hime-chan! What brings you
over here?"
"I gotta ask you a question." She looked around. "In private." She
looked serious.
"Umm..okay." Usagi took Hime-chan upstairs to her room, chasing out
her brother, who was likely up to no good.
Hime-chan sat down at Usagi's dust covered desk. "I want to tell
Daichi about me being Sailor Pluto. And everything. Because he already
knows about my powers and stuff, and I just...I don't want to decieve
him." Sounding very nervous, she stared off at the walls, which were
covered with posters.
"Go right ahead." Usagi said.
Hime-chan blinked. "What?"
"If you trust him, I can trust him. He seems nice enough." Usagi
laid back on her bed. "He kinda reminds me of Haruka."
He's nothing like Haruka, Hime-chan thought. Well, not a lot like
Haruka. From the way Pluto was talking, I was expecting more
resistance... "Okay, I'll tell him tonight."
"Now we just have to get Mako-chan a boyfriend and induct him into
the auxillaries." Usagi laughed. "Well, and get Rei to finally admit she
likes Yuuichiro."
"You really think she likes him? I haven't seen him much, but..."
"Then we'll all be set!" Usagi sat back up, counting off on her
fingers. "Oh yeah, we gotta set up Hotaru...maybe that Elf
guy...hmm...gonna be tricky to get ahold of him...we could set up Rei and
Yuuichiro and Hotaru and the Elf dude and Makoto and...some guy. Hmm.
Now, who can we fix Makoto up with..."
The debate continued, without much result, on into the late
afternoon.
*****************
A few hours later, Ami headed down the hallway to her room.
There was a manila envelope shoved under the door. A quick check
showed it was for her, so she picked it up and unlocked the door.
There was a note from Noriko on Ami's computer, stuck on with a
little post-it. 'Gone until some time tomorrow. See ya later,
'mi-chan!'. Ami laughed faintly. She won't even write the first
syllable. Noriko is such a nut.
She tossed the envelope on her bed, then changed out of her
bathing suit into her pajamas. She had gone down to the school
pool for a swim, and now she was properly tired for bed. Minako,
Hime-chan, and Yuki had shown up, surprising her when Minako
suddenly jumped off the diving board and nearly landed on Ami's
head while she was doing laps.
Once she got into her blue pajamas, which had physics
equations all over them in yellow (a gift from her mother), she sat
down on the bed and picked up the envelope. It looked like it had
some kind of small book in it, or a manga volume. It turned out to
be a manga volume. There was a note from someone named Seiji
Matsuno, who she didn't remember ever meeting. It said, "I saw
this and thought of you because you mentioned you like Sailor
Mercury the best. I bet this will tickle your fancy. I put an index
card at the start. XXXOOO." Ami looked at the odd little row of Xs
and Os and wondered what it was supposed to mean. It was in
Latin script instead of Kanji. Binary code, maybe? Xs would be 1s
and 0s would be 0s, otherwise, you wouldn't need the Xs. That
would be 72. 72 what? Or it might be roman numerals, except
they didn't use O...Thirty? Thirty thousand?
Ami liked puzzles. Let's see. It could be days and
nights...straight and curved lines...black and white? Maybe a color
code for a black and white monitor...She spent several minutes
puzzling over it. A phone number maybe. American phones used
letters to designate numbers sometimes. Finally, she concluded it
was intriguing but she didn't have enough clues.
She took a look at the manga cover. "Moon Rising". It looked
like some kind of Sailor V dojinshi. The art wasn't quite right for
it to be the real thing. So this will be Sailor Hermes, she thought,
laughing faintly. Sailor V didn't have the other Sailors in it, not
the real ones, but it did have some knock offs. The latest season of
Sailor V had featured a lot of other sailors, all from different
countries, as Sailor V travelled the globe, collecting the pieces of
the Rod of Seven Parts, which had been scattered by the spider-
queen of Chaos and her husband, Lord Arioch. She was aided by a
strange little red-haired girl who only spoke in curse words, and
thus her voice was always blotted out by a pinging noise (leading
most fans to call her Ping-Ping), but who was the only person who
could find the parts of the rod, Sailor V had travelled to various
countries, meeting their local monsters and sailors. Sailor Hermes
wore Sailor Mercury's costume, but she had a mediterranean
complexion and wings on her shoes, so she could fly. Like Mercury,
she used a computer, but also used a harp that let her control the
waters.
This should be fun, she thought. Ami didn't read manga often,
though she had read more manga since meeting Usagi than in her
entire life before that. She lay back on the bed and paged to where
the index card was stuck into the manga.
To her surprise, it was a Sailor Mercury story. The art was
much better than the cover, which was a bunch of badly done
super-deformed and almost unrecognizable Sailors and a few
villains, including one that looked suspiciously like Darth Vader.
The story was called, "Sailor Mercury's Day Off".
Ami laughed. That sounds about right, she thought.
I wonder what Ryo is doing right now, Ami thought. I wonder
if he'd be jealous this boy is asking me out. She giggled. She
turned to the next page.
Aiya, Ami thought. I'd never wear something like that. Ryo-
kun would die of shock. That bathing suit incident was bad
enough...how could I have not noticed what I was wearing? I guess
whoever wrote this has no way of knowing what I'm really like.
Which is probably a good thing. I'd be turning some heads with
that, though. Everyone would...what am I thinking? I'm already
having to do enough damage control on my reputation after
Athena...she shuddered.
Ami laughed. "Now that's my mom," she whispered. Although
Dad's the one who might end up at a peace conference. For a
moment, she missed both of them very intensely.
Ami grinned at the page. That about sums up me and Ryo,
except we probably would both faint. Especially if I was dressed
like that. Maybe just for him...it would be okay. I love you, Ryo-
kun, she thought. A memory of their last kiss warmed her thoughts
and made her feel tingly all over. She turned her attention back to
the manga.
Ami remembered seeing a clock on the previous page and
turned back. The last panel had a clock showing 11:00. He passed
out for a half hour?
Ami blinked. No way. On a FIRST DATE? She was stunned.
This must be him dreaming or something. Yeah, that's it. The clock
is the clue. She congratulated herself on catching the clue and
turned to page 7.
Page after page, Ami turned through it in disbelief. Pages 7
through 22 showed one sex act after another, often with footnotes
explaining various aspects or giving credit to various sexual
manuals. By the last panel of 22, 'Hitomi' was on orgasm #6,
when...
That was the end. Ami stared in shock, then read it again,
just to be sure she hadn't hallucinated the first time. A quick run
through the rest of the manga showed that the whole thing was full
of H stories about the various Sailor Senshi and different people's
visions of what their private lives, which of course the drawers
knew nothing about, were like. Neptune seduced the rest of her
orchestra in a single night. Uranus was with someone who looked
rather like Speed Racer as her boyfriend. In one story, Tuxedo
Kamen was cheating on Sailor Moon with Pluto, Saturn, and
Jupiter...all at the same time. In another, Tuxedo Kamen was Sailor
Moon's older brother, and the two of them seduced two characters
that Ami thought were from Macross. The one that finally snapped
Ami out of her fugue of reading ecchi manga was the one in which
Sailor Moon seduced Sailor Mars and her boyfriend, who was
Canadian, at the same time.
Rei would probably set this on fire, Ami thought. A few
seconds later, she realized she had read almost the entire thing. A
few seconds after that, she dropped it. A few seconds after that,
there was a knock on the door. I have to hide this, she thought.
"Just a minute!"
She shoved it under the mattress of her bed. I'll find this guy
later and ...I don't know what to do. What did Athena tell this guy?
Ami's whole body was acting strange. Nervously, she answered the
door.
It was her friend Manami, who was also in her pajamas. "Hey,
Ami, got a minute?"
"Uh, sure." Ami stepped back and Manami came in, stretching
and yawning, her long black hair flipping about.
Manami plopped down on Ami's bed, sprawling out. "Okay,
here's the problem. There's like this guy and he's really cute and I
like him and I'm so terrified when I get near him, I can't talk."
Ami started to reply, then realized a corner of the ecchi
manga was sticking out from under the matress. There was no way
to shove it under without making it obvious and she REALLY didn't
want Manami to find it there. Nervously, she said, "I'm not really
the best person to ask for romantic advice."
"Yeah, but I think we're a lot like each other...so how did you
get past your shyness with Ryo?"
He turned into a monster and I helped save his life, Ami
thought. "We...uh...It wasn't easy."
Manami rolled over onto her side, while Ami sat down at her
desk. "Well, you see, his name is Seiji Matsuno, and I heard that
you and he had a really long talk a few weeks ago, and I was hoping
that...uh, well, you could sort of...um...talk to him and help set me up
on a date with him."
Ami paled. "We...uh...You want to go out on a date with him?"
"Yeah. We're both in the manga club, even though I stink at
drawing. He's like a REALLY great artist. He was doing this really
wonderful picture of Sailor Mercury yesterday, fighting Jaws. It
was cool." Manami rolled over on her back and smiled. "He's such a
goooood artist."
Ami laughed at the mental image. "I...uh...I guess I could try
and um...talk to him." I'm dead, she thought. How can I go up to this
guy when he...when he...what if he knows I'm Sailor Mercury? Maybe
he's a youma and he's taunting me...no, this is just Athena's fault.
Damn her! Ami was starting to get mad, but tried to control
herself so Manami wouldn't think she was mad at her.
Manami leaped up and hugged Ami. "Thanks!" She danced
around. "I'm really not any good with boys. Set it up for this
Saturday night, okay?" Ami saw that Manami had struck the manga
and sent it sprawling across the floor. It was sitting under
Noriko's desk. She tensed and Manami released her. "I gotta go
sleep. Lemme know when you see him!" She ran off.
Ami closed the door, picked up the manga, and more carefully
concealed it under her mattress. I can toss it out tomorrow. Just
as she finished shoving it under and adjusting the mattress, there
was a knock on the door. Taking a deep breath, she answered the
door. It was Minako. "Hi, Ami-chan!" Minako rushed in and plopped
down on the bed, bouncing slightly. "Hmm. Your bed has more
bounce than mine." The mattress shifted slightly. Ami tensed.
"What...what's up, Minako?"
"I just needed to test that." She looked at Ami. "You look
tense. I'm sorry, were you asleep?"
"I was about to go to sleep." It was mostly true.
"I'll go, then." She got up and sprinted out, pausing in the door.
"Where's Noriko?"
"Gone for the evening."
Minako winked and said, "And you haven't invited Ryo-kun to
spend the evening with you?"
Ami paled slightly. "Minako!"
"Or are you planning to read ecchi manga all night?" Her voice
was teasing, but this was the wrong time to tease.
"MINAKO!" Minako ran, wondering why Ami was in such a bad
mood.
******************
The next day, Himeko and Ami sat in Himeko's room with Pokota
sitting on Himeko's shoulder. The remains of Ami's computer sat
on Himeko's desk. "You really think this will work?" Ami asked.
"The only real question is whether or not I can turn into
someone dead. I'll use my Pluto powers, go see who made it, then
turn into them and fix it."
Pokota said, "What if you can't fix it in an hour? Aren't you
going to need parts and stuff?"
"At least I'll know what to get!"
"What if one of the Hounds of Tindalos eat you?"
"They haven't eaten Sailor Pluto yet and she time travels all
the time."
"And how do you propose to time travel by yourself without a
Time Staff?"
"I'll just duplicate Pluto, then."
"She's going to kick your butt again if you do that."
Himeko looked over at Ami. "Back me up, here!"
"Actually, Pokota's right." Ami reached over and patted him on
the head. "He's pretty smart." It just didn't quite sound right to
Ami. Hotaru had said they would somehow sense what to do, and
this wasn't triggering any such sense.
Pokota purred and smiled. "See! She's a genius. Listen to her,
Hime-chan."
She cocked her head for a moment. "Ahah! I know! I bet Erika
can get you a new computer."
"You can contact her?"
"Well, sometimes she's watching. She'll show up if she is.
Hey, Erika!" Hime-chan started waving her arms.
The mirror on the closet door shimmered and rippled like
water as a woman stepped out. She looked like Hime-chan, but
with longer hair and a very elaborate red and white dress with
huge poufy arms, several layers of skirts, and fine gold and silver
embroidery. She wore a silver tiara upon her brow set with a ruby.
"Hello, Hime-chan." She bowed to Ami. "Hello, Athena-chan." She
walked over while Ami was still staring and patted Pokota on the
head. "Hi, Pokota. Been taking good care of Hime-chan?"
Ami, like the others, hadn't been really sure if Erika was real.
Normally, no one ever saw her but Hime-chan. She was not just
real, she...she knew about Athena. "I...I'm called Ami in this life."
Erika smiled. "Oh yes. Of course. That would explain why you
don't know what to do about your computer. You should go to the
Dwarves of Mercury. They made your old computer. They can make
you a new one. Each Mercury needs her own computer, anyway. It
is the Talisman of Mercury, after all." She sat down on the bed. "I
don't suppose I could ask you for something to drink?"
Hime-chan got Erika a coke. "So how are things in the Magic
Kingdom?"
"Well, Sae turned everyone blue for a few days, but we got that
cleared up." Erika laughed. "So you're Sailor Pluto now, Hime-chan?"
Hime-chan laughed nervously. "I guess so. I seem to have
been...drafted. Daichi was rather surprised when I told him. He thought
at first I was just playing a prank with my locket."
Erika nodded. "You've done that enough times." Everyone except
for Hime-chan laughed. "So Daichi knows about all this?"
"He does now. It took a while to convince him." Himeko laughed.
"Of all the reactions I imagined, disbelief wasn't one of them."
The door opened, and everyone froze for a moment. Daichi
walked in. He was of medium height with unruly brown hair and
handsome. "Erika! Did you come to bring me a magical soccer ball
so I never lose?"
She laughed. "No, but if you drink this," she pulled out a blue
potion, "your head will shrink to where you can actually get
through doors without getting stuck."
He walked over and sat down by Hime on the bed, giving her
hand a squeeze. "Hi, Hime-chan." He turned back to Erika. "How
about an enchanted flying motorcycle that leaves a trail of flame?"
"Comb your hair for a month, and I'll think about it."
Daichi started combing his hair. Erika laughed. Hime-chan
said, "I wouldn't mind a flying broom myself."
"Anyway, I'd better get back before Dad notices I've gone
running off again." Erika laughed and got up, still holding the Coke.
"Anyway, Ami-chan, I suggest you go to Mercury."
"But how do I get there?"
Erika blinked. "You just teleport there. It is your symbol
planet, after all."
Daichi laughed. "So was John Carter a previous Sailor Mars?"
Ami and Daichi laughed. No one else got it. Erika said, "It's
easier if you can see Mercury in the night sky. I'm sure the
Dwarves will help you, especially if you bring lead. They go gaga
over it."
"Why lead?"
She shrugged. "It's rare on Mercury and it has a lot of uses. If
you're a dwarf, anyway. Well, see you later, Hime-chan! Nice to
meet you, Ami-chan! Don't do anything I wouldn't do, Daichi." She
stepped into the mirror and vanished.
Daichi looked at the computer on the table. "Geez, someone
really went to town on this poor thing."
"It died protecting Umino," Ami said. She went on to explain
the whole story.
***************
Rei wasn't normally one to perch on rooftops. Falling off the
roof was NOT her idea of a good time. However, Shingo had been
rampaging all over Usagi's house like a maniac with a squirt gun,
and Rei just wasn't in the mood to deal with it. She smiled a little
as she heard Usagi squeal loudly. I told you not to taunt him,
meatball head, she thought.
Movement nearby startled her. She spun, then relaxed when
she saw it was only Yuuichiro. "How'd you get up here?"
He pointed to a ladder. "Same way as you."
She hadn't used the ladder, but she wasn't going to mention
that. "Grandpa driving you nuts so you had to get away from him
for a while?"
"Naah. He's watching TV. I just thought I'd come by and see
how you're doing." He sat down by Rei. "Usagi's mom sent me up
here. She and Usagi are pinned down in the living room by Shingo."
He laughed.
"They get pretty crazy sometimes," Rei said, smiling.
"Grandpa and Hachiman-sama are getting along okay, I hope?"
Hachiman-sama was the head priest of the shrine that Grandpa and
Yuuichiro were staying at while the repairs continued at the
Hikawa shrine.
"Well, Grandpa accidentally tried to invoke a Fire kami, and
offended the sacred pool, according to Hachiman-sama, so they
beat each other up for about two hours yesterday, then passed out
from exhaustion and I had to run everything myself for the rest of
the day." He grinned. "It really went well. I even managed to tell
the story of the Hikawa Shrine to some schoolchildren who
came to tour. You ought to come by some time."
"Okay, I will," Rei said.
"Grandpa misses you and so do I," Yuuichiro said quietly, then
glanced over at Rei.
Rei looked back at him, and for a moment, the image of
Jadeite's face imposed itself over Yuuichiro's. She started and
suddenly began to slide. As she tried to stop herself, she panicked
and simply made it worse. Before she could tumble off the roof,
Yuuichiro caught her by the hand and began pulling her back up.
He blushed. "I didn't mean to scare you. I just..."
She sighed. "It's not your fault, Yuiichiro. I need to be more
careful up here. I promise I'll come visit. I DO want to see you
guys."
His usual confident, but slightly goofy grin returned. "Well, I
guess I ought to get back before Grandpa panics."
As he started to get up, Rei reached out and grabbed his hand.
"Don't go yet."
He blinked and sat back down. "You wanna talk about
something?"
"Yuuichiro...what are you planning to do with yourself?"
"Catch the next bus back to the temple, then maybe get some
dinner."
Rei stared at him for a moment, then laughed. "No, I mean in
the long term."
"Become a priest like Grandpa, I guess. He can be pretty silly
sometimes, but he...He knows what he's doing, what he believes...I
want to be like that. I was just kinda drifting before I ended up at
your temple." Yuuichiro smiled at Rei. "I can hardly believe I've
been there for two years."
It felt like forever, Rei realized. Like Yuuichiro had always
been a part of her life, for good and ill. Rei wasn't sure how she
felt about it. Sometimes, he seemed like an idiot brother, like
Shingo, but other times, she had had romantic thoughts about him.
He was cute, and a nice guy, and sometimes he could be really
charming. This was one of those times. But thinking about doing
anything romantic with him was also making her think about
Jadeite, and she didn't want to think about Jadeite. She was still
too confused over all that to be able to think clearly. If she...tried
anything with Yuuichiro, it would have to be when she had Jadeite
out of her head. "I'm glad you're still here, Yuuichiro. I know I can
count on you."
He smiled at her, and she felt a little bit of her self-control
melting. Maybe it wouldn't hurt to just...*SPLASH!!* Cold water
innudated her, followed by manical laughter. Shingo was standing
on the top of the ladder, Super-soaker in hand. "I'll punish YOU in
the name of the Moon!" he shouted.
"Hey! Don't squirt Rei!" Yuiichiro said, then got hosed down.
Rei grinned ferally at Shingo. "You have three seconds to run,
and then I'll punish YOU in the name of the Moon."
***************
It was Thursday afternoon, and Ami was sitting on a bench,
waiting for the manga club to get out so she could keep her
promise to Manami. I can't believe I'm doing this, she thought.
This guy is a pervert and only the gods know what kind of twisted
impression he has of me. Suddenly, she realized the ecchi manga
was STILL under her mattress. She'd forgotten to throw it out.
The door opened. Seiji was remarkably bland, with dark black
hair, brown eyes, and a small nose. His clothing, the Tsunami
uniform, was unremarkable as well. Only a small scar under his
right ear made him stand out at all. He was carrying a small
portfolio and a pencil box. He saw Ami as he came out of the
building and blinked, then smiled and walked over. Ami thought he
was the most normal looking pervert she had ever seen, not that
she had seen many.
"Hiya, Ami-chan." He paused and looked around in a vaguely
conspiratorial manner, then sat down next to her on the bench, and
casually watched everyone else wander off, except Manami, who
Ami could see lurking inside the building, watching through a
window. Before Ami could muster up the strength to speak, he
leaned over and whispered, "Don't worry, the school counselor told
me about your little secret."
Ami stared in abject shock. NO WAY. Unless she had some
little secret she didn't know about, that could only mean
that..."She...she told you?" Ami's voice dropped to the faintest of
whispers.
He nodded. "Don't worry, I won't tell anyone. I thought you
were just joking around about being royalty from Mars back when
you...well, you know."
Ami's mind began to fog. "I...I told you I was from Mars?"
"We both were drunk off our ass. You carefully explained that
while you wanted to rip off my clothing and have mad passionate
sex on the floor, you were actually from 25,000 years in the past
borrowing your future self's body, and that your future self was
still a virgin and you had decided it would be rude to make you lose
your virginity when you wouldn't even remember it. And that your
present self had a cute boyfriend, and you wanted to...uh, anyway,
you get the idea." His voice was a little amused.
Ami blushed horribly. She could hear a tinkle of laughter in
her head, but she didn't feel like laughing. "I...uh..."
"Anyway, at the time, I was so smashed it made perfect
sense, then later, I assumed you were just drunk off your ass. I
mean, I once claimed I was Conan when I got drunk at a party.
Later on, I was Tokugawa too." He thought for a moment. "Did you
get the manga?"
Unable to speak coherently, Ami nodded yes.
"Sorry about that. The counselor explained to me that your
normal 'nice-girl' personality is dominant right now, and assuming
you don't run out of medication, it will probably stay that way." He
paused. "I hope that didn't sound insulting. Anyway, your other
personality asked for the manga, but I didn't know about...you get
the idea. It took me a long time to find another copy. Mine got
stolen along with some really expensive stuff I'd gotten signed."
He sighed. "So you can tear it up or give it back or whatever you
want. I'm REALLY sorry."
"She...Athena asked for it?"
"I showed her this other one, but it didn't have any Sailor
Mercury in it."
"There's MORE THAN ONE?" Ami started to shriek, then shut
up when several passersby stared.
"Well, there's a lot more H Sailor V manga. It's hard to do an
H Sailor Moon manga, cause no one really knows what the Sailors
look like outside their uniforms. I mean, Manami could be one of
them and neither of us would ever know. They've gotta have some
magic thing that keeps people from recognizing them, since they
don't wear masks or anything."
"Did you and Athena...umm..."
"We did a lot of talking about sex, but we didn't do nothing."
He looked carefully at Ami. "Man, you two really look different. I
guess body posture and attitude really make a difference. Same
body, but...hey, are you okay? You really look kinda...I dunno. Do you
need to take your medication?"
Suddenly, Ami felt a strange sort of pressure in her mind. It
was as if her brain was pushing at her skull. Her vision changed, or
maybe her perception of it. She was suddenly far more aware of
Seiji's body. He had a nice one. Not really muscled, but a pleasant
one to look at. And close. Close to her. She fought back against
whatever it was, and the awareness dimmed but didn't go away.
Seiji stood up. "I think you're about to have an...umm..attack or
whatever. C'mon, let's get you your medication. Not that I would
mind chatting with Athena some more, but she is kinda majorly
delusional."
Ami took a deep breath. "I'm fine. Actually, the real reason I
wanted to talk to you was that Manami asked me to ask you out on
a date for her. She was hoping Saturday would be good for you."
"Is this Manami from the manga club, or another one of your
personalities? The counsellor wouldn't tell me about all of them."
Ami winced. "From the manga club."
"So that's why she's been watching us. I thought maybe...
anyway, you can tell her I said yes." He grabbed Ami's arm. "Now,
let's get you your medication before you start thinking you're Susan
Sarandon this time."
Ami resolved to ask Pluto exactly WHAT she had told Seiji.
***************
Saturday afternoon should have been spent on homework, but
Minako, Steven, Haruka, and Michiru were spending it at the Crown
Cafe, instead. "Anyway, so then I poked her in the back. Just a
gentle poke. I couldn't believe what she did."
"What, she threw a fit or something?" Minako asked, frowning.
Haruka laughed. "She grabbed my hand somehow and rolled
forward, tossing me over her shoulder. I got slammed into the
wall. Then I kicked her butt, but it was a good move."
Michiru laughed faintly, while Minako looked confused. "You
sounded like you were mad about what she did." Minako scratched
her head.
"Well, I didn't expect Ami to pull a judo move on me. She
claims she saw it in a comic book Usagi made her read." Haruka
paused and ate some more of her sandwich. "I wish I could just
read a comic book and learn a martial arts move from it."
"Ami is very smart, but I suspect she was joking," Minako said.
"Otherwise, she ought to learn all your moves just by watching you.
I mean, if you could learn from just a picture on a page..."
"Then Usagi would be the smartest person on Earth," Steven
said. Everyone laughed. "So how are you and Rei doing, Michiru?"
Michiru sighed. "Well, we nearly burned down some poor
farmer's field, and we both fell down in a rice paddy. However, I
had been letting my hand to hand skills slide, and she's helped me
get back up to full trim." She nibbled on her sandwich. "It would
probably help if she didn't act as if being partnered with me was
some kind of personal insult." The tiniest bit of irritation crept
into her voice. "She's got a sharp tongue."
"How about you and Hotaru?" Haruka asked Minako.
"We've had a lot of fun. We went to the mall and bought some
nice outfits and played laser tag and..."
Haruka rolled her eyes. Michiru said, "What about training?"
"We've been practicing an hour a day. She didn't know
anything about hand to hand hardly, so we've been working on that.
And I don't think we're going to have a repeat of the trip to Titan."
She stuffed some fries in her mouth and quickly ate them. "I HOPE."
She glanced over at Steven, who shrugged.
"Urawa sees the future, not me."
"So how do you deal with Rei, Minako?" Michiru asked.
"She'll get over it. She's just hacked 'cause she's...well, Usagi
kinda surprised us all. She's probably just pissed cause Usagi
picked Makoto as her partner instead of Rei. Especially since Rei is
even still living at Usagi's house." Minako shrugged. "Rei'll get
over it. She and Usagi used to fight like pitbulls. Okay, they still
do sometimes, but..."
"I don't want a partner I'm going to be fighting with all the
time," Michiru said, finishing off her meal. "You can't chain a lion
and a gazelle together and expect them to cooperate."
"Yeah, you'd make a good gazelle," Minako said. "Graceful and
fast. Though Haruka's even faster."
"I just can't see why Usagi did this," Haruka said.
Steven laughed a little. I don't think Michiru meant herself to
be the gazelle. "The only way to get to know and understand people
is to be around them. The senshi were feuding, and Usagi did the
best thing she could to end the feud. I'd have done it."
"You didn't get split up from your partner!" Haruka said
sharply.
Steven rolled his eyes. "Is Ami now sleeping in your bed? Is
that Ami over there? Did Usagi send you both to different halves
of the planet?"
"Well, she..." Michiru began.
Steven was on a roll. "Is it going to flay the flesh from your
bones to try to work with someone new? You're not going to be
able to fight every battle side by side with exactly the person you
want. There may be times when you have to partner with someone
else. Better to get used to it NOW, then to try to learn in the
middle of a battle. It's not like you don't STILL see more of Michiru
than you do of Ami." He sighed. "Not that I can talk, really, being
just the boyfriend of a Senshi and not one myself."
Haruka sat quietly, looking thoughtful, while Michiru said,
"You may be right, but I still don't like it."
"Now, I just have to hope she doesn't tell me I have to date
Pluto," Steven said. That got the laugh he was hoping for.
********************
The vicinity of the Ichi Entertainment Building in LA was an
urban nightmare of rubble-strewn streets and crushed and burnt
out cars. A bum lay in the doorway of what had once been an
insurance company, and now was his air-conditioned home, since
when everyone fled, they hadn't bothered to turn off the power or
lock the doors. He could see a few winged figures flying in and out
of the upper story windows of the building. He raised his bottle in
a salute. Most people were terrified of them, but they had gotten
him a free house, so he liked them.
Watching the street, he saw a few rats scuttle across the
street. Idly, he tossed a rock at one and watched it run. Glancing
down the street, he noticed two helmeted heads poking up from
behind a car. One of them had a long, strangely constructed rifle.
It looked like someone had attached a bunch of model kit parts to
it, to try to build some kind of weird submarine/battleship rifle
thing.
It was the last thing he ever saw. The rifle spat a beam of
purple coherent light that punched a fist sized hole in his head. He
quietly died, his last act to cradle his bottle to his chest so it
wouldn't break. The man who had shot him fired a second shot,
"just to be sure".
"Nice job," the woman with him said. "Better shoot the bottle
in case it's a grenade or bomb."
"He was drinking out of it," the man said. "I'm not paranoid."
The heavens shook with a shriek. "It was just a harmless old
bum! You just murdered him!" The voice was female and mildly
hysterical.
The man spoke to the heavens. "You sent us to scout ahead.
You're not here, so be quiet."
The woman nodded. "Let's face it, we've seen bento boxes turn
into monsters in real life. We can't be too careful. Remember the
cute doggie that sprouted metal tentacles and tried to rip off your
head a few minutes ago?"
"We didn't shoot it before it did that, though!" another female
voice boomed. "This is like...like...shooting monkeys in a barrel!"
More laughter and the mood broke the rest of the way. It was
another Saturday night Torg game. Haruka and Michiru had joined
the game as a pair of bitter Race soldiers, 'Harry' and 'Michelle',
who had a strong tendency to shoot anything that moved and wasn't
them. However, in war-torn, monster-stalked Los Angeles, this
wasn't always a bad thing.
"Monkeys in a barrel won't rip off your head and spit down
your throat," Haruka said. "This is a war, and I don't intend to die
because you want to be kind to every monster we meet."
"It was just a bum!" Minako shouted. "Throwing rocks at
rats!"
Usagi was spazzing out too much to even say anything
coherent. Mamoru said quietly, "It could have been a trap. This
city is a warzone worse than I've ever seen, even on the
frontlines." His voice had shifted subtly to the tone he used for his
character speaking instead of himself. "Alexandrite has three of
the Tears of Apeiros. We have three. We HAVE to get the last one
before he does. We'll need that advantage."
Usagi snapped out of it and stared at him in surprise. "But,
Mamo-chan..."
Umino watched quietly as the argument raged. It was half
in-character and half out. In many cases, it didn't matter, since
many of them played characters that were basically themselves in
disguise, but there were some differences. Dag (Steven's
character) argued that killing the guy was fine, since he was 'Dead'
already in the way that Edeinos viewed death, living a life like he
did, for example. Umino was relieved that Michiru and Haruka
weren't left alone to defend their actions. He'd been afraid at first
that this would result in them storming off. I should do something
to calm the waters, he thought, but I don't know what to do. He'd
never faced a philosophical rift among his players before.
He'd been surprised enough when Pluto had come to him and
announced that she and Hotaru, and Haruka, and Michiru would be
joining the game. Not asked, mind you, but simply announced,
although she had asked when would be a good time to come make
characters. He was surprised she hadn't simply foreseen when
would be good and shown up then. Haruka and Michiru were playing
Race soldiers from the War-torn realm of Tharkold, which had
taken over Los Angeles, turning it into a microcosm of the eternal
war of the Race (Tharkold humans) and the Tharkoldu (a race of
technodemons). Hotaru was playing Usagi's character's sister,
Luthien, an Elven sorceress. She had found some 'elf ears'
somewhere and was wearing them. In fact, she had come dressed
as her character.
So had Pluto. Umino never thought of Pluto as Setsuna. As far
as he could tell, Setsuna was just a mask that Pluto wore. Now
she was wearing another 'mask'. She was 'Chesire', a masked
avenger, dressed in a green trenchcoat, a small 'bandit' mask, a
fedora, with two pistols and a long green scarf with weighted
ends. She spoke with an odd accent and never broke character
except to roll dice, the results of which she briefly announced with
her normal mild voice, then returned to her loud, brassy, in-character
voice, which was mildly disturbing. She stood up at this point,
gesticulating wildly, "C'mon youse guys! If we sit around
and jaw, this mug Alexandrite's gonna make off with the goods!
Are we gonna crack this joint or what?"
Silence fell on the room for a moment. Hotaru stood and
started waving about a sword that looked a little too real for
Umino's tastes, but he wasn't going to tell someone who could
snuff out entire planets what to do. "Yeah! C'mon, sis!" She
grabbed Usagi's arm. "There be demons to slay and glory to be
earned! We must not tarry at the threshold, discussing the matters
better left to philosophers than us! To battle!" She turned to
Umino. "I charge across the street into the building."
"Ahh!" Usagi shouted. "I run after my stupid sister! Come back
here! You're gonna get eaten!"
Umino gave a sigh of relief as things got going again. The
rest of the night went fairly well, or at least as well as any game
with that many players could go. They'd better not find any more
senshi, he thought, or my living room will explode.
********************
Minako and Makoto had the same English class. The new
English teacher was very different from the old one. Before
Summer Break, they had done the same thing every day. Come to
class. Read a passage from their readings book line by line.
Translate it into Japanese. Each student did one line, and he
always went in the same order, up and down the rows, so you could
translate a few sentences in advance and you were all set. They
had expected more of the same, especially since their new teacher
was mainly a biologist and had been roped into teaching one
section of English mainly because the school hadn't found a full
time replacement for the old teacher yet.
Clark Maguson had collected the English books and
ceremoniously burned them on the first day, then circulated a
collection of readings. They translated them at home and tried to
discuss them in class. He wouldn't respond to anything unless you
tried to say it in English. It was about twenty times harder, and
half the kids hated his guts by the end of the first week. A dead
goat could have passed the old class. Now, you had to work, and
work hard.
What really drove Makoto nuts the most was that Minako had
no problems at all. She had been leading the class anyway, but now
she was clearly the teacher's pet. It really, really ground Makoto's
gears. "So what was the basic idea of this poem?" Clark asked
Minako.
Everyone spent a moment, struggling to translate the
sentence he had just spoken, so they might have some chance of
understanding her reply. Every syllable of fluent English that
dropped from her lips was like a knife in the heart of most of the
other students. "The poet is talking about World War I, and how
everything passes in time." She smiled at Maguson-sensei, and
Makoto felt the knife in her gut again.
"Very good, Mina." That was another annoying thing. Everyone
had to take an English name. It felt like a nightmare version of
"Let's Pretend." Namely, let's pretend we know what we're doing.
"Now, Maggie, where in Europe is this poem set?"
Makoto gave a sigh of relief. She understood the question and
knew the answer. "Flanders." She paused. "Wherever that is."
"Good, Maggie." He smiled at her, and for a moment, she felt
very good, then irritated at herself for responding like a little
child to praise. Still, it was the smiles which made him bearable.
He pressed his students hard, but he never taunted or humiliated
them. If you couldn't answer, he moved on, and if you were right,
he made sure you knew it. And every time you were right was a
tiny motivator pushing you to be right more. "Now, Maggie, what
flower is being used as a symbol of mortality here?"
Flower? There were flowers in this poem? She looked at her
messy tangled scribble of a translation. Where were the flowers?
I must have mistranslated something. Hmm. Field of soda pop... I
knew that made no sense. Maybe this poem isn't as deranged as I
thought. She ran a finger down the lines. "Poppies?"
He nodded. "Very good, Maggie." He pulled out a large picture.
"This is a poppy. Some of you may have had problems with this
word. It's not native to Japan. Now, white poppies grow in China
and the Middle East, and are used for making opium. However, this
is a red poppy, found in Europe, and a field of poppies..."
He was interrupted by Minako, "Looks like a field stained by
blood?"
"VERY good, Mina," he said. "Just what I was thinking."
Showoff, Makoto thought. Suckup. Feh.
**********
Haruka dragged Steven down the hallway. "I tell you, I've
never noticed anything unusual about her!" he said.
"Well, you've never taken a really good look at her, have you?"
"That's a good way to get beaten up by my girlfriend," Steven
said.
"Look, it won't kill you to just look, okay? I won't tell."
Steven had a bad feeling about this, but he didn't bother to
resist too much. Haruka might be right. Better to settle this.
They knocked on Ami's door. Noriko answered. "'ka-kun!
'ven-kun!"
Steven laughed. He let Haruka engage her in a bantering chat,
while he turned his sight on Noriko. He wouldn't go too deep. Not
like he had with Haruka. That had embarrassed him too much.
He didn't have to probe too deep. However, what he saw made
him realize he shouldn't tell anyone what he now knew. He broke
off the viewing before he could probe further. It was enough. They
chatted with Noriko a while longer, then left.
"So?" Haruka asked as soon as they were out of sight.
"She's not a threat."
"So what IS she?"
"Just a friend. She's no danger to us."
"How can you be so sure? How can she be so strong?"
He sighed. "I wish I can tell you more, but I just...I can't do
that. She's NOT a danger."
Haruka frowned. You're holding out on me and I don't like that.
"Steven. She might..."
"Trust me, okay?"
Haruka frowned. Trust didn't come easily to her. "If she does
anything...anything at all, I'm gonna rip your arms off."
He sighed. I wish I could figure out a way to reassure her
without giving away Noriko's secret.
**********
"So how is your new English teacher?" Ami asked. "Manami
was saying that he's really good."
Makoto frowned. Manami was the other teacher's pet. She and
Minako were both quite good at English, although Manami was
better. "He sucks. Feh. Not only did he bounce an eraser off my
head one day, that class is so much work, I think my brain is going
to explode."
Minako said, "He's great! That old English class was so boring
MY head was going to explode. I could have passed it while dead."
Makoto glared at Minako, who didn't even notice. "Not all of us
can be a teacher's pet like you."
"Hey, he doesn't wait for me to find the answer like he does
for you when I don't know!" Minako said. "I am NOT the teacher's
pet."
"Uh huh. And Haruka's the moon princess."
Usagi laughed. "Haruka wouldn't be too happy in a dress. How
are you two getting along, Ami-chan?"
Ami sighed. "Well, no blood has been shed yet."
Usagi frowned. "That bad?"
"Well, we're getting better at beating each other up." Ami
sounded like someone trying to put a good face on the fact that
their house was on fire by saying that they needed to renovate
anyway.
"Maybe I should..." Usagi started to say.
Ami shook her head firmly. "Haruka and I have to learn to get
along. We're going to be around each other for a thousand years,
after all. I'll figure something out."
Naru said, "You got along okay before this, didn't you?"
"We weren't trying to be partners then. We could both go
away if we didn't want to deal with each other. If I can convince
Haruka my roommate isn't some sort of beast from beyond space
and time, it would help." Ami fell silent and finished off her lunch.
A passerby paused and blew Ami a kiss. Everyone turned and
stared. She blushed, and he bowed, grinned, winked, and walked
off. It was a little gratifying to have someone handsome doing
that, but Ami was hugely embarrassed. She glanced over at Ryo-
kun, and he was watching the guy walk away with a big frown on
his face. She sighed. I'm sorry, Ryo-kun. Athena really made a big
mess of my life in a week.
****************
Ami and Urawa finished assembling the telescope in her
backyard. "That wasn't too hard," she said.
"How many billions of yen did you pay for this?" Urawa asked.
"Mom bought it for me. She's always happy to buy me science
things." Ami laughed. "I should bring her back a rock from
Mercury."
"Too bad there's not room for this thing in your dorm room.
It's gonna be a pain using this thing any time but weekends,"
Urawa said.
"I needed a pretty strong one. Really, I need one of the huge
ones, but Mom isn't that rich." Ami said, cranking the telescope
around. "Now to find Mercury."
"She's right here," Urawa teased.
Ami laughed a little, and searched the skies. "Found it."
"Spotted any dwarves yet?"
Ami laughed again. "No, but I spotted a cow orbiting the
moon."
"So what's it look like?"
"A little reddish-grey blur." She sighed. "I was hoping for
better."
"Good enough for targetting at least, you think?"
"I hope." She moved away from the telescope. "You want to
see?"
He nodded. "Sure." He moved over and took a look at the tiny
little reddish-grey blur known as Mercury. It was almost full, but
not quite. His sight blurred for a moment, and he saw dwarves
running, screaming, fleeing some unseen foe. They were in a vast,
mine, lit by some unseen light source. A huge blue hand reached
down, grabbing some dwarves, and the vision faded.
"Ryo-kun? Are you okay?" Ami asked.
"I'm fine, Ami-chan," he said. "I think the dwarves are in
trouble."
"From what?" She put a hand on his shoulder.
"Something blue." He frowned. "This is going to be
dangerous, Ami." Ryo took Ami's hand from his shoulder and
clasped it firmly. "I didn't see you in the vision, but..."
"It's always dangerous, Ryo," Ami said quietly. She stepped
closer and put her other arm around his back and drew him close.
He got the hint and hugged her. "But it's what I do."
He sighed. "I know. I wish I could help you more."
Kiss me, she thought. Then we could...she blushed. "Ryo-kun,
you help me just be being you."
He smiled. "Flattery will get you everywhere, Ami-chan."
They kissed under a summer moon.
**************
Haruka rounded the corner of the house. Stupid traffic, she
thought. This really annoys me. Now Ami will probably give me a
lecture on being late.
Ami and Ryo were too busy necking to notice Haruka's arrival.
Nothing too serious, really, more what passed for hot and heavy
with fourteen year olds than sixteen year olds, but certainly more
intense than Haruka had ever seen Ami and Ryo being. The polite
thing would have been to withdraw and make loud noises to alert
them that someone was coming.
Haruka didn't feel like being polite, although she wasn't going
to be rude either, exactly. She simply stood and watched and
waited for them to notice her.
It took longer than she expected, but finally, Ryo happened to
glance her way and suddenly locked up like a deer in headlights.
Ami didn't notice for a few seconds then said, "Is...something
wrong, Ryo-kun?"
"Uh...Haruka is here."
Ami jumped away from Ryo and toppled into the pool with a
huge splash that doused Ryo and the telescope. Ryo sighed. "Now I
know how that happened," he muttered.
Haruka made a few monster faces. "Blah Blah! I'm the
horrible cycle monster!" She laughed. "Hello to you too, Ami-chan."
Ami soon surfaced and clambered out. "Brrrr. I'm dripping
wet."
Ryo said, "I'll go get you a towel, Ami-chan." He scooted off
into the house.
Haruka found one of the deck chairs and sat down. "So we're
going to use that to aim?"
"I think so. We can go to Mercury whenever you're ready."
"We'll go this Saturday. So we don't miss too much class if
we get bogged down. Assuming we don't end up on Titan like Hotaru
did."
Or that I don't end up going without you, Ami thought. By
accident or by choice.
**************
Miss Haruna sighed. Her date had stood her up. While her
academic life had definitely improved now that the flunk-meister
and her band of friends had graduated, her love life wasn't looking
up. She was just about to call the waiter and order when a pair of
hands surprised her by clamping over her eyes. A vaguely familiar
voice said, "Guess who."
It had been a while, but his accent gave him away. "Clark?"
she asked, just a little bit hesitantly.
He laughed. "You with anyone? I hate eating alone." It was
Clark Maguson. They had both gone to Kyoto University and
gotten certified to teach at the same time.
"Why'd you come somewhere this expensive by yourself,
then?" She asked.
"The spirits told me I'd find someone to eat with."
She laughed. Clark did a good medium routine, especially
when they had all been drunk at a party. "A rough day?"
"I dunno. It just seemed like the right thing to do."
"So, are you still at Greenwood?" she asked.
He looked a little embarrassed. "One of the students, umm...I
decided to seek opportunities elsewhere."
Something bad must have happened, she thought. That was a
good school. "That's too bad. I'd have happily given you my job at
Juuban these last few years."
"Students giving you problems?"
"I had the Queen of bad grades and sleeping in class to deal
with. She's going to...Tsunami, now, I think."
"Tsukino Usagi?"
"You're teaching at TSUNAMI?" She asked.
The waiter came and took their orders while she waited for
his reply. Finally, they finished ordering, and he said, "You sound
like I was sentenced to ten years in prison."
"That's a pretty crazy school from what I've heard."
"Good kids. Most of them probably hate me by now, but they'll
thank me later. I hope." He grinned. "Remember Dr. Sumida?"
She groaned. "I bless his classes and curse his memory daily."
"Exactly. When I'm done with them, they'll be able to speak
English and read it, if they really want to. If not, they can forget
it as soon as they graduate. I have some good students, though.
They're the ones that keep you going."
"I got a bunch of lazy lunkheads like Tsukino Usagi and Kino
Makoto." She sighed. "Not quite so bad this year, though." She
looked up at Clark. "I kinda miss them, though. My first students.
I wonder what they think of me, some time."
"I'm sure they have fond memories," he said, smiling. She
smiled involuntarily. He was good at building people up, she
thought. "You had problems with Kino Makoto? She's one of my
better students. Most of them just stare mindlessly if they can't
answer my questions, but she tries to figure them out as best she
can. She doesn't give up, and that's half the battle."
The thought of Kino Makoto being a good student baffled Miss
Haruna. "Well, I certainly wish you luck."
"Luck is one thing I always seem to have enough of. The real
problem is that almost of all of them are only where they should
have been about six years ago, language learning wise." He sighed.
"It's an uphill fight."
"It always is."
**********
Haruka waved by and rode off on her motorcycle. Ryo and Ami
went back inside Ami's house. Her mother's house, really, now. It
was huge by Tokyo standards. Her mother was very well off, so
despite never being home, she had kept the huge house after the
divorce. It sat empty a lot now. Normally, being alone in the house
made Ami depressed, but for now, she was okay with it, because
she had Ryo with her. She gripped his hand tightly and smiled. It
was Wednesday and they ought to go back to school and study, but
she didn't want to study, which scared her. She rarely got to spend
much time alone with him, and she was savoring every sweet
moment of it.
They went to the living room and turned on the TV, which was
gathering dust. Ryo cleaned the dust off the screen, and they
watched the Sailor V TV show. Sailor V was in Hawaii, where she
met Sailor Ares, who was a priestess of the Volcano Goddess.
Sailor Ares and Sailor V nearly had a battle after Sailor Ares tried
to beat up Ping-ping for her usual swearing. Ami leaned over,
following an impulse and put an arm around Ryo's shoulder. He
started, fell off the couch, and banged his head on the ground.
"Ryo-kun!" She knelt down by him. He was clonked out,
although he didn't really look hurt. His breathing was normal, too.
She picked him up and set him down on the couch.
Her brain picked this point to remember a similar incident
from the ecchi manga that had been sent to her the previous week.
Her mother was gone until some time tomorrow, on duty at the
hospital. They were all alone in the house. They could do anything.
Anything at all.
For a moment, she blanked out, then suddenly realized she had
unbuttoned her blouse halfway down. She was having another
attack of awareness of someone's proximity as well. Ryo was
cute, but normally she wasn't this perceptive of it. She could
almost smell him, very faintly, a unique scent all his own, and she
liked it. She pulled her hand away from her blouse buttons, and on
its own, it snaked down to first touch his forehead, then rest
gently on his chest. It rose and fell gently as he breathed, and
very, very faintly she could feel his heartbeat. Somehow, his face
seemed to be getting nearer to hers. Perhaps space was bending.
His breathing sped up a tiny bit and his eyelids fluttered
slightly as she realized her lips were only an inch from his. Part
of her mind was urging her onwards, sending her other arm to take
his hand and pull it towards her. {Wake your prince with a kiss}, it
told her. {Dost he not deserve your love? There is none to disturb
thee here.} It was her voice and not her voice. She didn't have an
accent, and she didn't normally sound so...longing.
She froze, realizing who it was. [Athena?]
A tinkle of laughter. {Who else might thee share thine mind
with but thyself?} Athena was only a voice, but Ami easily conjured an
image up in her mind, of herself, but different. It was hard to say
exactly how the other self was different, perhaps the way she carried
herself, or the twinkle in her eye.
[Do you know how much TROUBLE you've gotten me into?]
{Thou art more strait-laced than even Aurora. At least mine
cousin knows what to do with a man she loveth. Canst thou not see
he loveth you? Any man who canst resist mine charms is well
worth the effort to keep, if he be not sworn off women entirely.
Thee must claim him for thine own. No man can wait forever for
such deeds of love, though he may claim otherwise.}
[So instead you hit on every man that moved! You got drunk
and told some pervert who you were so he sent me an ecchi manga!]
{And thou read every page of it. In fact, it still dwellth
beneath thine bed, awaiting you to return to it, because thee
keepest 'forgetting' to throw it away. I think thou hast no
intention of ever disposing of it. I thinkest thou likes it.}
[No way! I just don't want to think about it, so I blank it
out!] Ami shuddered a bit, remembering the story, then suddenly
becoming aware that she was on her hands and knees over Ryo with
her blouse half open. If she moved, the couch would shake and
likely wake him, but she couldn't button her blouse if she didn't
move. [Maybe I can just slowly rock back onto my knees.]
{Or thou couldst bring his hand up to touch your...}
Ami started humming inside her head, trying to override
Athena's voice. She succeeded in pushing with her hands and
rocking back to where she could button her shirt. However,
because couches are soft and yielding, she distorted the cushion as
she did so, which caused Ryo's head to shake and he woke up with
Ami kneeling over him with her shirt unbuttoned. In her panic, she
undid two more buttons instead of rebuttoning it. Ryo blinked in
surprise, then gulped nervously.
For a moment, they stared at each other mindlessly, neither
sure of what to do. Athena, on the other hand, was full of advice,
advice Ami didn't want. Finally, the silence broke when Ryo said
very quietly, "It scares me too, Ami. You're the only girlfriend I've
had and I don't know what to do. You...you don't have to do anything
you don't want to. You're worried about what Athena did, right?"
Ami gulped and said very quietly, "She told someone she was
from Mars and now he thinks I have an alternate personality that's
as hentai as him and he...he..."
Ryo frowned. "Did they..."
"He says they didn't, and I don't think he'd bother to lie. Men
usually don't claim they haven't had sex if they did. But she...I
think she's probably wrecked my reputation forever. People I don't
even know blowing kisses at me." She listened for Athena's
response to all this, but Athena was silent.
"I lost track of her a few times, including one party we
somehow ended up at. By the time I found her, she was trying to
tell everyone she was Queen Serenity and that she was engaged to
an idol singer. Or maybe that she WAS an idol singer." He sighed,
reaching up and taking Ami's hands.
She could tell he was trying to not stare at her breasts, but
wasn't succeeding too well. It made her feel good and embarrassed
at the same time. She wanted to button her blouse, but she
couldn't while he was holding her hands. I wonder if he has that in
mind, she thought. No, of course not. He's not like that. He just
wants to hold my hand. Holding his hand felt good. She never
wanted to let go.
He pulled her down, and she let herself be pulled. Their lips
met in a kiss, and she had a strong feeling she knew where this
was going. She was scared out of her mind, but excited at the
same time. Amazingly, Athena wasn't making any comments. Her
arms moved almost of their own free will and wrapped around Ryo.
It was the longest kiss of her life to that date.
Suddenly, he started and broke off the kiss. "Is something
wrong?" she asked.
"Your mother is going to walk in the door in thirty seconds."
Ami set a land speed record for buttoning a blouse.
**********
Having Athena be quiet was making Ami even more nervous
than hearing her speak had made her. Maybe I imagined it, she
thought. I must have. Yeah. All that talk about alternate
personalities and me feeling...how I did. I'm gonna go get that ecchi
manga and burn it. That'll keep her from bothering me again.
She got up and reached under her bed, and pulled it out, then
got some matches and headed out the door to burn it. Minako was
in the hallway, talking to Yuki. "Anyway, so then Artemis knocked
the salt shaker on my...oh, Hi, Ami!"
"Hey, Ami-chan, you doing anything this Saturday?" Yuki
asked. "Toriyama-kun and I won some free tickets to the Sailor V
stage show, so I thought I'd see if you and Ryo want to go!"
"I've got to do stuff Saturday night. Maybe next weekend."
Ami tried to dodge between them. This worked, except that Minako
spotted what she was carrying.
"Hey, the new Sailor V manga! Gimme!" She grabbed for it.
"Minako!" Ami jumped back, and Minako closed in on her.
"Must...read...Sailor V...manga..." Minako was doing a zombie
imitation.
"No!" I can't let her see this!
Yuki looked over and blinked, then grinned a little. "It's a
great issue, Minako! You gotta let her see it, Ami!"
"Yeah! You know I'm Sailor V's biggest fan!"
Ami panicked and took off running with Minako and Yuki in
full pursuit. They were both laughing hysterically. She ran down
the hallway, then down the stairs, and out the door. There weren't
too many other students around, but a few stared.
"Circle right, Yuki! I'll go left and we'll catch her in a
pincer like Hannibal did to his elephants at Cannae!"
"I think that's a film festival, not a battle, Minako," Yuki
said.
Ami shouted, "It was a battle, but he was fighting ROMANS,
not his elephants! They all died crossing the Alps!" She vaulted
over a low hedge, which Yuki had to go around, and Minako tried to
vault, but tripped on.
Minako scrambled to her feet. "Herd her towards the
fountain!"
Round and round the campus they ran, but finally, they backed
Ami up against the fountain. There was nowhere to run but into the
fountain. "Hand over the goods!" Minako crowed in triumph.
Ami was breathing heavily. She tried to think clearly, to plan,
but her brain was in a jumble. All she knew was that she couldn't
let them see it. It would be so embarrassing, she would die.
Before she could think of a plan, Yuki darted forward and grabbed
it.
"I'm QUEEN OF THE HILL!" she shouted and took off running.
The next hour blurred in a haze of running and constant
handings off of the manga, in and out of buildings and people's
rooms. Finally, Minako got the manga, after a tussle in Yuki's room,
only to find out..."I've already READ this one!" She stormed off in a
huff.
Ami blinked and picked up the manga. It wasn't the one she
remembered putting under her bed. It was just Sailor V manga,
volume 4, where she fought the evil Doublemint Twins and their
ninja Card-bots. "This isn't..."
Yuki pulled a manga off the top of the large stack by her bed.
"I pulled a switchoff the FIRST time we ran through here."
"..."
"You know, if you don't want people to know you read ecchi
manga, you shouldn't walk down the hallway with it in plain sight."
Yuki sat down. "Wow, I'm zonked. We ran around for an hour and
you two aren't even tired...I gotta learn your secret some time."
"The manga...it's not mine...I mean..."
Yuki shrugged. "What you read is your business, Ami-chan.
You don't have to make excuses to me. Anyway, I sleepy. See ya
later!"
Ami left it with Yuki, happy simply to be rid of it, and hoping
to never see it again.
**********
"Should this be 'And then Ranko fell down the well and
drowned?'" Makoto asked Ami, as she puzzled over a difficult
sentence in the reading. Their reading was rather twisted, about a
crazy girl going to China to have her baby and being hounded by
family and friends until she fell down a well and drowned, so they
all committed suicide. At least that's what she THOUGHT it said,
but since it was for English class, she wasn't sure.
"Your English Teacher picks weird stuff," she said. "That
should be 'pool', not 'well', though."
"He says we have to learn to wade through bad writing as well
as good. We also read part of this really horrid thing called, 'When
the Legends Fly' or something like that. It was sort of like pulling
your teeth with a chainsaw. Slowly." She sat back and laughed.
"Trying to remember everyone's 'English' names is difficult too."
"Awful as this is, it beats the stupid readers we have in my
class. I feel like an eight year old. 'Mr. Jordan had a ring. Mr.
Jordan went mad. See Mr. Jordan try to conquer the universe.
Conquer, Mr. Jordan, Conquer. See Ganthet. See Ganthet go to a bar.
See Ganthet give a barhopper ultimate power." She waved a finger
in the air. "I could read it in my sleep." A thought struck Ami. I
wonder if Makoto has ever...heard Juno talking to her. But how to
ask so I don't sound crazy? "Makoto have you ever..." She lost the
will to ask halfway through the sentence. She'll think I'm nuts.
"Have I ever what? Conquered the universe? No." Makoto
laughed. "I can't even conquer my English class."
"I thought I...Have you ever dreamed that...Juno was talking to
you?" Ami tried to sound casual, but her voice and body were both
tense.
"Yeah. She gives me cooking tips," Makoto said, laughing.
"And we trade old boyfriend stories."
Ami sighed. Well, at least she doesn't think I'm crazy.
"I envy her, though. She died horribly, but at least she found
someone...before she died. Nephrite was so...I almost didn't want to
leave." She sighed. "I seem to have scared off Chester somehow...I
don't know what I did."
"He dumped you?"
"I guess one date and then nothing doesn't count as a 'dumping'.
I want to call him, but I'm scared of what he'll say." She rapped
her fingers on the table. "I don't know why I'm so scared to call
him. Normally, I don't let anything scare me off. I just....Do you
ever think about Zoicite, Ami?"
"The me who loved Zoicite isn't the me who loves Ryo," Ami
said quietly. "I don't even understood what she saw in him. I didn't
find him attractive at all. And my past life was basically insane.
She's wrecked my reputation, and everything I learned about her
was bad. I couldn't tell you one good thing about her. " Ami's voice
was becoming more agitated, and she started pacing about. "At
least one person on this campus thinks I have to take medication to
keep from randomly changing personality as a result of her! And
then she...she..." She tried to convince me to seduce my boyfriend.
A part of Ami's brain realized that was a rather silly accusation,
but Ami was too worked up to care.
"Yeah, Ryo-kun was telling me how she wore that skimpy
bikini to the pool one day and three dozen guys tried to ask her out
and..."
Ami got big eyes. "Where'd she get a skimpy bikini from?"
"Borrowed it from ...uh...Inanna. One of Minako's. She doesn't
wear it too much. Saving the view for Steven, I guess." She sighed.
"I wish I had someone to show off my body for."
Could she have made me wear that...I'm getting paranoid, she
thought. Athena is nothing more than a set of memories I wish I
could forget. "You'll find someone."
"I hope so. I don't suppose you'd consider renting out Ryo-kun
some time?"
"..."
Makoto laughed. "I was joking, Ami-chan."
{One should not pay for love. Now a trade...that would be
another story. A pity Nephrite is no longer around.} Ami visibly
jumped when Athena made her comment. "I would not trade..." she
trailed off when she realized she was speaking, almost shouting,
aloud.
"Trade what? Boyfriends?" Makoto laughed. "I don't have
anything to trade except memories." She turned back to her
homework. "Let's finish this before it gets too late."
Ami was jumpy all night, but Athena didn't say anything else.
**********
Leo gestured and the door opened. He and his student passed
through the doorway, which was still occupied by what looked like
a soapbubble, though it let them pass without popping. Leo Istarii,
his student, a nervous sixteen year old redhead, once known as
Sayuri in what now seemed to her almost as another life, followed
him quietly. Leo himself was tall, blond, and disgustingly
handsome. Leo Istarii had a serious crush on him already, even
though she knew it was a waste of time. He and Cancer had a thing
going, and had been together for a long time as far as she could
tell. She didn't even know his real name; he had used at least four
different ones in her presence and asserted that he was French,
Russian, or American, with appropriate accents at various times.
He was in the Ascendant now, but he was still devoting time to
training her. Given the way some of the Zodiac acted when they
were ascendant, she knew she was lucky.
"Everything is ruled by the stars," he began.
"If one more person says that to me, I'll strangle them," she
muttered. Sometimes it seemed that no one in the Zodiac could go
more than ten minutes without saying that.
"And we rule the stars. We take their wild, untamed energy
and bind it into shape, create order from chaos. We weave the
threads of the tapestry of fate." His arms stretched wide. "Do you
know why there are twelve Zodiac constellations?" He turned and
stared intently at his Istarii.
"Um...uh...because the ancient Greeks thought it would be
cool?" She felt like a total idiot.
"We were ruling the stars when the ancient Greeks still
thought banging rocks together was the ultimate form of
technology. There are twelve signs of the Zodiac because those
who went before us willed it. The stars have power, but they lack
will. Our ancestors had will, but lacked power. We are the fusion
of the two. Once humans lived like beasts, hunted by the Things
from Beyond, who used the power of the stars to control humanity.
Only by learning those powers, and bending them to our own wills,
were we able to defeat them, to free the world from its
enslavement, to bring about the Silver Millenium, the height of
human history." He gazed up into the sky, pointing at as many of
the planets as he could find. "We became the guardians of the
borders, watching outside and repelling the things from beyond, but
we made a big mistake."
"Which was?" Leo Istarii gazed at the night sky in wonder.
You could see so many more stars without city lights. She found
her constellation, Leo, easily. She could sense it now, whether she
could see where it was; now she always knew which way it was.
"We forgot to look inside for trouble as well. The kingdoms
fell to quarreling, and destroyed each other, and then the Things
came again and finished the job. We drove them off at great cost,
but only Earth could we save." He sighed. "And the Earth itself
sank into chaos. The worst of it was that the power of the Stars
itself declined, and with that loss of power, it became harder for
us to help. We've spent the last 25,000 years trying to undo the
results of a few decades. I am the Ascendent One, the leader of the
Zodiac, and yet...the power I wield is but the level of strength once
enjoyed by every Zodiac member. And so we must hunt for the one
who holds the key to our regaining our strength. The Star Princess."
Leo Istarii frowned. "And what are we going to do when we
find her?"
"Reclaim our power. The Royal family forfeited it when they
let the Star Kingdom be destroyed by a Thing from Beyond without
lifting a finger to stop it. We tried to warn them, but they would
not listen. And we need the power. A great darkness is rising.
This year is a crucial nexus point, according to our astrological
studies. If we can regain our full power, we will triumph. If
not...the world will fall under the shadow. And I will NOT let that
happen." His voice was stern and determined. He turned and
pointed to the Earth, a tiny dot far away. "This is the last refuge
of humanity. If it falls, we are doomed, and it will NOT happen on
my watch."
"What, can't we tell what is going to happen? I thought
astrology told the future?"
"The omens are often not clear. And we, of all people, should
know better. The world shapes you...but you can shape the world
back. Now, Pisces, or Virgo, or Aquarius might teach you
differently, and Aries can't think clearly enough to teach at all, but
I tell you that we cannot rely on the stars to do our work for us and
that we don't simply do their work for them. If you learn anything
tonight, I hope you learn that. Now, I'm going to take you on a tour
of the Solar System. There's a few places worth seeing. Take my
hand."
She took his hand and vanished, having forgotten to even ask
him how they were breathing in a vacuum.
*************
They set up the telescope in the Tomoe backyard, just so Ami-
chan's mother couldn't walk in on them accidentally. Tomoe-san
sat nearby on a lawn chair with Setsuna and Hotaru, while Michiru
stood next to them and looked nervous. The rest of the Inners were
scattered around the yard watching, and Ryo stood by the
telescope. "Well, Mercury is ready and waiting," he said, which
sounded silly even to him.
"I certainly am," Sailor Mercury quipped, and took Sailor
Uranus' hand.
Sailor Uranus looked over at Michiru, whose face was
carefully bland. "I guess this means I get to miss my turn doing
the dishes."
Michiru laughed and relaxed a little. "It means you get double
duty when you come back. Have fun storming the castle, Haruka."
"Now, Mercury, gaze into the telescope and concentrate on
Mercury. Uranus, focus on giving her your power. Let her draw you
after her," Pluto said.
They nodded and followed the instructions. They both began
to glow, and then a circle of light rushed out from them, engulfing
Ryo and rising into the sky, forming a high circling wall of mixed
orange and blue. Ryo tried to back out, sensing he didn't REALLY
want to be inside this, but he was too slow.
The pillar vanished and Mercury, Uranus, and Ryo were gone.
Usagi said, "Was that supposed to happen?"
Michiru said, "Hey, how come HE gets to go and I don't?"
Setsuna smiled.
**********
Khazgrum adjusted his grip on the tiny hammer and moved the
tiny wedge he was holding a few millidurins to the left. Carving a
lead-gold alloy was a delicate process as it tended to either ignore
you entirely, or suddenly bend horribly, depending on what day of
the week it was and fluctuations in Mercury's magnetic field. He
raised the hammer to make the tiniest of taps.
*BOOM* The air exploded behind him as a swirling pillar of
blue and orange energy displaced it. He staggered, and the hammer
came down in a heavy blow that beheaded the small statuette of
the goddess Sif that he had been trying to carve. Spinning on one
heel, he shouted, "That's IT, Balin! I've had enough of your...You're
not Balin."
"Gee, what was the first clue?" Uranus barked out, slumping
to her knees. "Yeesh, it normally isn't this tiring."
Mercury simply fell flat on her face and mumbled something
incoherent into the stone floor. Ryo said, "I'm not tired at all."
Uranus blinked. "What the hell are YOU doing here?"
"Who are you people? And what are you doing in MY STUDIO?"
Khazgrom shouted. Khaz himself was a dwarf, with a long red
beard and short, neatly trimmed hair. He was wearing a long brown
jerkin and brown work pants with high boots. As usual, he was
scowling.
The studio had a low roof, but luckily six feet of clearance
was enough for the two sailors and Ryo. It was a fairly simply
room, about fifteen foot square with two doors, a long shelf of
statuettes, a big box in one corner and a table in the middle with
tools and a headless statuette on it.
Ryo helped Mercury sit up. "I was standing too close when
you two teleported, I think."
"We're Sailors Uranus and Mercury, and we're here to get
Mercury a new computer," Uranus said.
"Sure you are," Khazgrom said. "And I'm Dwalin the Mighty. I
kill five giants a day and have a talking bear I keep in my pocket
too." He rolled his eyes (but didn't get a six.) "So who are you
really?"
Mercury blinked. "But we are Sailor Mercury and Sailor
Uranus!"
"And I suppose the boy is Prince Endymion? Get real, the
Sailors are all dead, dead, dead."
"We got better," Uranus said, grinning.
"We've been reborn." Mercury began.
"Sure you have. And I suppose I'm actually Vulcan reborn too."
He sighed. "I'm going back to my work. Get out of here before you
make me cut off another head."
"Are you threatening me?" Uranus glowered.
"Not unless you're volunteering to be my next statuette." He
hustled them out of the room before they quite knew what had
happened and slammed the door.
They found themselves in a long corridor lit by glowing gems
every sixty feet, which hung from the ceiling. The corridor was
about sixty feet across and ran on for as far as the eye could see.
There were doors every thirty to fifty feet, most labelled things
like 'Khazgrum's workshop' or 'Bofur's Crossbow Shop' or 'Ye Olde
Ale House' or 'Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap.' About three hundred
feet down to the right, they could see an intersection with another
major hallway and a huge spiral staircase leading up and down. A
pair of long steel runners ran down the middle of the hallway,
about ten feet apart. They were covered with runes and what
looked like microcircuitry.
Mercury kneeled down and activated her visor, which was still
somewhat functional. "Don't touch these. They've got electrical
current running through them."
Ryo moved all the way to the wall. "Better get back, Ami."
"Hmm?" She looked up. "Why?"
Uranus looked down the hallway, then pulled Mercury back.
Moving at VERY high speed, a mine cart without any wheels
barreled down the 'rails', floating over them with no apparent
means of support. Three more dwarves were riding in it. Two of
them looked scared while the third was laughing maniacally. They
quickly zipped out of sight. "I bet the driver's related to Minako,"
she muttered.
Mercury smiled. "If she had come, she probably would have
jumped in with them." She looked around. "I have no clue which
way to go to find someone who can help us."
"Had any useful visions, Urawa-kun?" Uranus asked.
He closed his eyes and concentrated, hoping he would see
something useful. A completely useless image swum into his mind.
At least he thought it was useless. "Well, it looks like your first
child is going to be blonde like you."
Uranus sighed. "I say we knock at the next door and ask who
can direct us to a computer maker."
Mercury nodded. "Sounds good to me." She was about to
knock on the next door when another 'bullet cart' roared up, and
five dwarves, each dressed in a different garish and conflicting
costume, leaped out. The tallest was dressed in red and looked
disturbingly like a Dwarven Power Ranger. He had a long staff with
a blade on the end. The second wore a somewhat similar outfit,
although he had a long cloak and an open visor that revealed his
face and looked somewhat like a bird beak. His costume was
yellow, and he carried a long tube with several colored lenses on
the end of it. The third was wearing a suit of platemail, but he had
painted it red with gold trim. A sword hung at his waist, and some
sort of glowing lens was attached to his chest plate. The fourth
was wearing a blue bodysuit with red trim and a long red cape.
There was a big red S on his chest. He had no visible weapons. The
fifth looked hideously embarrassed and was wearing chainmail and
a open helm, and carrying a glowing axe. He also had a small
notebook computer slung from his belt. "Okay, team, let's spread
out and investigate. And this time, let's NOT shoot everything that
moves, okay?"
Uranus blinked. "Have you people been watching Earth TV?"
Ryo began to laugh. "Are you guys Science Ninja Team
Gatachadwarf or something?"
The second dwarf said, "Yeah!"
"No, we're the Mighty Dwarven Power Rangers!"
"The Dwarf Avengers!"
"The Justice League of Mercury!"
"A bunch of lunatics," the fifth dwarf said, sighing. "We're
investigation team #45. A big magic spike set off the DBI alarms
and so we were sent to make sure some idiot hadn't set monsters
wandering the halls again."
The rest of the team fell to arguing over their names, then
started beating each other up. "Geez, and I thought we had
problems," Uranus muttered.
"My name is Dworkin and...hey, you're humans! How'd you get
here?"
"Has Kwal been summoning humans again?" 'Iron Dwarf' asked.
"I'm Sailor Mercury," Sailor Mercury said, "And this is Sailor
Uranus. We've come to get me a new computer." She paused a
moment, then said, "And this is..."
"Are you Zoicite?" 'Superdwarf' asked Ryo.
Ryo boggled at the thought. "Do I look like Zoicite?"
"Well you can't be Uranus' lover." He looked over at Uranus.
"How you people can date women who don't have beards..." He shook
his head. "And you Earth women all shave your legs too.
Disgusting."
'Gatchadwarf' slapped him. "Don't go around insulting a
Senshi! You'll get your head blown off!"
"Anyway, the last I heard, Mercury was engaged to Zoicite...oh
wait, you all died, so I guess that ended that." 'Superdwarf'
scratched his head.
Mercury said, "Were you alive when we...during the Silver
Millenium?"
"Naah. But Grandpa was and he tells stories about it ALL the
time. That and he watches Oprah on Crystalvox until the rest of us
smash the set just so we don't have to listen to it. He's getting
kinda senile."
"What is Oprah?" Ryo asked.
"He means 'Opera'," Dworkin said. "He has a bit of a weird
accent."
"No, I mean OPRAH," 'Superdwarf' said. "Some weird Earth
show. Anyway, we'd best take you down to DBI HQ. I'm sure they
can help you."
They all piled into the long cart, which had two long benches
on the sides with seatbelts and a large crystal and metal
contraption in front with a command chair which Dworkin sat in.
There was room for up to twelve people, so there were plenty of
seats. Uranus was frowning as they sat down and Mercury
whispered to her, "What's wrong?"
"This could be a trap. At least the sane one is driving," she
whispered back.
"So who are you anyway?" 'Superdwarf' asked Ryo.
"I'm Urawa Ryo. I see the future sometimes."
"So you're Nephrite's reincarnation?"
"I don't think I'm anybody's reincarnation." Well, other than
one of the seven shadows, he thought. I don't think I want to bring
them up. "I'm dating Mercury."
Dworkin said, "Everybody buckle up. Next time someone flies
out because they forgot to buckle up, I'm gonna run you over."
Everyone made SURE they were buckled up.
*************
Most of the inhabitants of DBI HQ turned out to be rather more
sane then Investigation Team #45. Lieutenant Commander Kazgro
was a black haired dwarf woman with a braided beard and sedate
blue clothing. "So you claim you're Senshis Mercury and Uranus,
eh?" She sounded rather skeptical.
Mercury nodded. "Yes. We've been reincarnated."
"Uh huh."
"And my Mercury computer was slagged by a lightning bolt."
She pulled it out and put it on LC Kazgro's desk. "So we need to get
a new one." A tiny voice spoke in her head and she flinched before
it even finished the first syllable. {By the ancient treaties, they
must fix it for you.} Ami hoped Athena was right.
"And how do we know you didn't kill the real Mercury and take
her computer? Or it find it amongst the wreckage of the Moon
Kingdom?" She leaned across her desk. "You look like a sweet girl,
but we've had imposters show up before."
"What kind of proof do you want?" Uranus asked, frowning.
This was the first time anyone had ever refused to believe she was
who she was.
"," Kazgro said
first.
Uranus swore mentally. Her memories of the Moon Kingdom
were spotty at best, and CERTAINLY didn't include any linguistics,
other than a handful of words. She recognized the words 'Moon
Kingdom' in that tongue, but that was it.
Mercury had a moment of panic. Then Athena said, {She is
speaking in our ancestral tongue, Ami. Let me speak through you,
and I will answer her questions.}
[But how will I know what you're saying to her?] Ami was
VERY afraid of how Athena might carry on if she let her actually
speak.
{Trust me. Do you think I wish myself ill? I am not your
enemy, Ami. I am you. Let me help.}
[Please tell me you're not gonna do something crazy like
hitting on her.] That was what Ami was most afraid of.
Athena laughed in Ami's head. {I do not 'hit on' everything that
moves and breathes, Ami.}
Ami knew she couldn't wait any longer. Kazgro looked
impatient. She spoke as Athena prompted. ""
Kazgro smiled slightly. ""
""
""
"" Athena sighed. {I miss Iron. She was kind to everyone. I
wish I knew her final fate.} Her voice was tinged with sadness.
Ami hadn't entirely believed her capable of such an emotion.
Uranus was fidgeting. She glanced over at Ryo, who was
calmly watching various dwarves sitting at desks, filling out
reports or writing them. "How can you be so calm?" she
whispered.
"I have faith in Ami-chan. She's a genius, and it sounds to me
like some sort of quiz. If she doesn't get an A, I'll eat my hat."
"You don't have a hat." Uranus frowned. I wish I could be so
confident as him. If they attack, I'm sure we'll stomp them, but I'd
rather not fight the entire planet.
Ami kept up the barrage of answers to the questions, picking
up a lot of Moon Kingdom trivia along the way. The assault of
questions was unrelenting, but Athena easily answered them all.
Finally, Kazgro said, "Well, if you're a fake, you're a knowlegeable
fake. One last test. We need to see your powers in action. We have
a bit of a problem. If you can solve it, I'll see to you getting a new
computer."
Mercury said, "Rampaging monsters?"
"One of our mines has gone silent. No contact with the
outside world. We need someone to investigate and solve the
problem." She thought for a moment. "I'll give you team #45 to
help you. They're not doing anything." Thank the gods they're not
doing anything, she thought. Maybe this will finally get rid of
those maniacs. Even if these people are imposters, I'd happily
arrange a free computer for anyone who got those five out of my
hair.
It's a trap, Uranus thought. She looks far too gleeful about
something for my taste.
{Ask for a contract,} Athena said. {The Dwarves will never
break a written contract. They can't. They can lie all they want,
but they have to keep their word if you get it in writing.}
Ami smiled. "Let's make a contract."
Maybe she really IS Sailor Mercury, Kazgro thought. "Right.
Let's deal."
**************
The Gloin Lode was the richest vein of lead that had been
discovered on Mercury in twenty years. It had six levels already,
and they had been working on a seventh when disaster had struck.
Whatever disaster that was. Dworkin went over the maps with his
team and the Senshi while Iron Dwarf tried to enlarge one of his
suits for Urawa, who didn't want to go, but hadn't been given a
choice by Kazgro. Uranus liked Dworkin. He was sane and efficient.
She intended to let his lunatic assistants take their own chances,
on the other hand.
Iron Dwarf said, "Okay, now you use the first tongue toggle to
turn on the air supply."
Urawa looked inside the helmet. "I'm supposed to flip these
switches with my TONGUE?"
Iron Dwarf said, "Well, the effort to build a thought-controlled
helmet caused so much property damage that my grandchildren will
still be paying it off." He sighed. "And external switches lead to
disaster. Trust me on this. One thrown rock and...anyway. The
second tongue toggle gives you a quick shot of mead to allay thirst.
And the right one turns on the visor wipers for rainy situations."
"Uh huh."
Dworkin said, "Okay, our first concern is to reach the internal
offices on the second level. From there we can patch my computer
into the internal network and try to determine what is wrong.
There's an elevator near the entrance, but it will probably be too
dangerous." He pointed on the map. "So we have to head in about
200 Balins to this staircase."
"What's a Balin in metric units?" Ami asked.
"What, those miles and yards and furlongs per fortnight?"
"Meters, grams, etc."
"A Balin is roughly 1.07 meters, I think."
"So 214 meters?"
Uranus said, "What kind of security can we expect?"
"Well, if someone controlled the security system, we could
expect dozens of rotating blades to dice us to ribbons in seconds
upon entry, followed by the floor opening up, draining off the blood,
then dumping our corpses in a pit, followed by jets of water to
remove the gore. Then it would pop up into place. A full cycle
takes about three to five minutes." Dworkin said, "Now, there's
sniper holes past this, but probably this is a monster attack, and
they don't use missile weapons usually."
"WAIT a minute," Uranus said. "How do we make sure they
don't dice and slice us if they DO control the security system?"
"The mine owners gave me the passcodes and overrides. Plus,
the security was turned off since the mine usually operated 24-7
with live security as well."
"What if they change the passcodes?"
"We die a horrible screaming death, then we go have a cold
frosty one in Valhalla."
While that did have a certain appeal, Uranus wanted a better
plan. "There has to be some other way in."
"Every way that humans and dwarves can fit into is trapped
in very deadly fashion to stop thieves." Dworkin shrugged.
"Actually, there is another way. We could dig a new tunnel and
bypass the security. However, that could take weeks or months."
Mercury said, "There is another way."
"Go on."
"Uranus and I can teleport to the control center and shut off
the security. Then the rest of you can enter."
"Good point. I'm not used to having that option. Okay, then
we'll enter. Can you teleport somewhere you've never been?"
"Would have been hard to get to Mercury if we couldn't."
Dworkin laughed. "Another good point."
Meanwhile, Iron Dwarf said to Urawa, "Now, holding the right
middle finger aloft while depressing the other fingers activates
the tape deck."
"Uh...isn't that kinda rude?"
"No, no, that's if you stick your thumb straight up while
making a fist. Don't do that. Someone will beat you up."
"Riiight."
**************
Mercury took Uranus' hand. "Ready?"
"Ready."
"Let's go," Uranus said. They concentrated and the world
winked out in a flash of light. When the world winked in, they
were in pitch darkness except for flashing and beeping lights on a
huge set of linked bronze boxes along one wall. Two of them had
linked keyboards with crystal matrix screens. Uranus summoned
the Space Sword. Its light let them see a row of screens along the
walls, all dead. They also could see a large file cabinet in one
corner and the large blue lever along one wall with a label in
Dwarven Runes. Mercury sat down at one of the computer
terminals. "Watch for trouble."
Uranus nodded. "This is too easy." There were two doors, on
opposing walls at the far end of the room from the computer bank.
She put her back to Mercury and watched them.
Ack. The keys are all runes, Mercury thought. {Ahh, how your
education is neglected.} [I think this is a job for you, then.] {As is
getting you properly bedded with your love, but we can discuss this
later. It is time to go to work.}
Ami watched and did her best to learn, keeping up a running
conversation with Athena. Ami was familiar with the SMOS that
the Dwarves, being conservative in some ways, still used, but she
had never done as much with it as it was capable of. At Athena's
direction, her fingers flew across the keys. The first step was to
log in, which was easy. Second step was to shut down all security.
Third step was to restore full power, which brought the view
screens and room lights up. Fourth step activated the mine crystal
voice system. She sent a transmission to Dworkin and company.
"Welcome to the Gloin lode. Security is off."
The view screens showed various empty and abandoned mine
rooms. There was no sign of life or inhabitants or damage, even.
Uranus frowned. "There ought to be corpses or something...two
thousand dwarves don't just vanish. Unless you had REALLY hungry
monsters."
Mercury nodded, watching as unit #45 and Urawa entered the
front door. No rotating knives hacked them to bits, nor were their
remains cleaned up. However, the picture and the Crystal Voice
transmissions began to conflict. "Okay, we're past the front door.
Five incoming large blue humanoids, probably Frost Giants. We're
engaging them. We'll open fire with...hey, they're right on us!"
The viewer showing the entrance zone continued to show the
dwarves quietly poking around and looking at things, but not mortal
combat. "Shit!" Uranus said. "We're done here, right? Let's go kick
some butt."
"Hold on while I..." Mercury heard Urawa scream in pain over
the Crystal Voice system. "Ryo-kun!" She was out of the chair,
across the room, and through the door before Uranus could blink.
Uranus ran after her. "You can see through illusions with your
visor, right?"
Mercury nodded. "Yes, but it works better with my computer
hooked up to it."
"The giants probably fuzzed the camera or whatever that was
with an illusion. Be ready."
"Good thinking." Click. The targeting/LED visor came down.
They reached the stairs and sprinted up them. The Crystal Voice
transmitter/reciever they had been given had fallen silent after a
few more screams.
Uranus was just a tiny bit impressed. Mercury was running
faster than she had thought her capable of. They came out of the
stairs into the main gallery. There was no sign of the dwarves or
any giants, or any signs of battle. The lights were on and the
mine's front door was open.
"What the hell?" Uranus said. She sprinted down to the
entrance. The forty feet between the entrance and her became a
wilderness of blades, and she jumped back as far as she could.
"Hey!"
Mercury soon reached her. "I thought I turned the security
off."
A voice boomed over the intercom system. "And I turned them
on. Thank you for leaving the terminal open. If you want to see
your friends alive, you'll do exactly what I say." The voice was
male, deep, and booming.
"Who the fuck are you?" Uranus shouted.
"I am Utgaard-Loki, King of the Frost Giants. Now, will you do
what I want, or shall I kill your friends?"
Uranus whispered, "Ignore him. He's almost certainly killed
them already."
"No. He can't." Mercury said, her eyes wide. "He can't have
killed Ryo-kun." Her voice was shaking.
"I'm sure he died bravely," Uranus lied. It was the best she
could do to be reassuring without giving Mercury false hopes. She'd
already written them off as dead or good as dead. People who took
hostages couldn't be trusted to keep deals.
"Wh...what do you want?" Mercury shouted.
"I could slay you now, but killing is boring. I will give you a
chance to beat my champions in three contests. Win the best two
of three, and I will let you take your friends and leave. I wish only
to take all the lead from this mine in peace, not to slaughter
people. That is why I have not killed off all the workers, and even
fed them. They work deep below, extracting precious lead and
copper for me."
"Contests. Yeah. Rigged so we can't win," Uranus whispered.
"Geez, does this guy think we're stupid?"
"What if we lose?"
"I kill your friends and you can play again to save your lives."
Mercury hesitated, staring off into space. Uranus suspected
she was talking to her other self. I hope Athena has some sense,
she thought. "Don't say yes just because he might have Ryo. I
wouldn't play into a stupid trap just because Michiru might be in
danger. We don't even know if he REALLY has Ryo."
Mercury turned and stared at Uranus. "Would you not? I think
you would."
"No fucking way! We both agreed our mission is more
important than either of us!" Uranus was starting to get pissed
off.
"And WHEN did you ever have to do that? I seem to remember
Neptune being unable to act boldly when you were taken hostage.
Name just ONCE you had to put that to the test."
Uranus' mouth flapped open and shut half a dozen times.
Finally, she said, "The marine chapel."
"You shot yourself. You didn't shoot her. Would you have been
able to shoot her? To kill her? Even to stop the Silence?"
Silence.
"Name once you've had to let Michiru go into mortal danger
without you when you could have saved her, but your mission came
first."
Uranus was seething, but she didn't seem able to speak.
"Don't give me a FUCKING LECTURE on how noble and self-
sacrificing you are!" Mercury was on her toes, trying to scream in
Uranus' face, even though it was futile as she was just too short.
Uranus stepped back a step anyway, shocked that Mercury had
actually sworn at her. She hadn't thought Mercury even capable of
swearing. "On how I should just let the man I love get killed by
some maniac when I could have prevented it! Especially when he
isn't even asking us to betray our goals! We just have to play some
stupid games!"
"It's a FUCKING TRAP, YOUR GENIUSNESS! You really think
some hostage-taking, dwarf-enslaving greedy motherfucking
bastard is REALLY gonna let us walk out of her alive?"
"Well, what's your reply?" Utgaard-Loki sounded just a little
bit hesitant.
"SHUT THE FUCK UP! We're BUSY!" Uranus shouted at the
voice. "We'll get back to your all powerful ass when finish this!"
Silence.
"You didn't have to tell him we suspected it might be a trap,"
Mercury hissed.
"WE? You're the moron who wants to go through with this!
I'm the one with the sense to realize he's just playing damn mind-
games with us!" Uranus hissed back.
"You're right. It probably is a trap," Mercury said, her voice
calming slightly. "But I have to take the chance to save Ryo-kun."
Her voice dropped lower. "At least this way we might be able to
get close enough to him to beat him without him carving us to
ribbons with all the security."
Uranus boggled. She admitted I'm right? She had a good
point, too. Unless he let them come to him, this place's security,
plus his friends, would probably chop them to ribbons, or at least
weaken them too much to win. "What kinda piece of shit contests
are you talking, Assgard-Loki?"
"UTGARD. A race, an eating contest, and a wrestling contest."
Uranus flexed. "Too bad Moon isn't with us. We'd have one of
those locked down even if he DID cheat."
Mercury laughed for a few seconds. "Can we change the eating
contest to something else? We just ate."
"How about swimming?"
"Okay. You're on," Mercury said.
"If you get us killed, I'm gonna kill you," Uranus said. "And if
it's a trap, you have to pay for Michiru and I to have a night on the
town."
"And if we win the contests and get our friends back, you get
to send me and Ryo on our dream date."
"Deal."
***************
Level three of the mine was the site of the race. It was
basically a quarter mile long gallery with small side tunnels. A
bulletcart track ran down the middle. Various enslaved dwarves
were hard at work in the side tunnels, with a twenty foot tall
Frost Giant standing over them, watching them. Mercury wondered
why the dwarves had put thirty foot ceilings everywhere, although
in some places, it looked like natural caves they had tunneled into.
A huge Frost Giant, nearly twenty five feet tall, sat on a huge
stone throne at the far end of the gallery. He wore a crown of lead
and rubies. His hair was long and red, unlike the white hair of his
gang of giants. He was Utgaard-Loki. No relation to the legendary
Norse god, not that he would admit, anyway.
Uranus was warming up on one side of the track while Mercury
watched her competitor, an ugly, skinny Frost Giant who looked
like he probably couldn't outrace Chibi-Usa...if he hadn't been
twenty feet tall and thus would move over twice as far with one
stride as Uranus. Mercury was trying to scan for illusions, but her
visor wasn't registering any. She wasn't sure if this was because
there weren't any, or because she needed her computer. [You know
any way I can tweak this, Athena?]
{Squint.}
[Squint?]
Athena shrugged in Mercury's mind. {Actually, it is said that
one can sometimes see through an illusion by peering through a
tear.}
Having never trained in acting, Mercury couldn't cry on
command. She tried thinking of painful past experiences, but none
of them were recent enough to make her cry. She walked across
the gallery to Utgaard-Loki, which took a while. "So what's the
condition of this race?"
"First person to reach me and touch my throne wins." Utgaard-
Loki said. He repeated that in a booming voice for all to hear.
Uranus grinned faintly. Mercury hoped she had good reason to
be confident.
Soon, all were ready. Utgaard-Loki said, "When I count to
three, start running." He raised his arm. "One. Two. Three." His
arm dropped.
Uranus took off at high speed, but her opponent was even
faster. He was running effortlessly, it seemed, while she couldn't
pass him, even straining. At the quarter mark, he was fifty feet
ahead. A hundred feet ahead at the halfway mark.
Utgaard-Loki said, "I think your friend is going to lose. But
don't give up. You could still win if you win both of the other
contests."
Mercury clenched her fists. Even Uranus couldn't win a race
against a twenty foot giant without cheating.
At the three-quarters mark, the giant would have had a
hundred and fifty foot lead if Uranus hadn't suddenly vanished in a
flash of yellow light and reappeared right next to Utgaard-Loki,
slapping his throne. "I win." She turned to Mercury and grinned. "I
shouldn't have played with him like that."
Utgaard-Loki blinked. "I thought you people had to be in a
group to teleport."
"And I thought Thor killed all you people. Guess we're both
wrong," Uranus said. "It's just those wimpy inners who need a
whole mob." She gave Mercury an odd look.
"Hey, we've ALL been learning to do it by ourselves."
Uranus sighed faintly. "You know morse code, Mercury?"
She nodded, then frowned when Uranus tapped out 'baka'.
*************
The bottom level was partially flooded with a large lake.
The race was simple. Swim across, touch the other side, then
swim back. No teleporting allowed this time. Mercury's opponent
was a big ugly frost giant in brown fur swimtrunks. He had shaved
all of his hair off. Mercury wished desperately she had a swimsuit,
or at least that there was some way to take the skirt off her fuku.
She had taken off her boots.
"On three, ..." Utgaard-Loki began.
"Hold on," Uranus said. "I wanna see the captives. We want
to know you haven't killed them all already."
She blinked when Utgaard-Loki nodded. "Thrym, bring out the
captives."
Thyrm, a handsome, relatively well dressed frost giant
strode off down a corridor, then returned with five dwarves and
Urawa in a silly looking suit of armor. They were tied together and
he was carrying them with effort in his arms. "Here they are."
Iron Dwarf said, "If I could reach the blade toggle on my knee,
I'd break free and destroy you all!"
Urawa said, "Do your best, Mercury! I don't want to die!" He
began to cry.
Mercury tensed. She'd never seen him cry, not even when he
knew he was going to turn into a monster. I have to win this. I can
do it. She looked at her twenty four foot opponent. I just have to
swim...twice as fast as him. Or more. She looked at the water. It
was murky and you couldn't tell how deep it was. Deep enough, no
doubt.
Uranus shouted, "You're a wuss, Urawa! Stop crying like a
little girl!"
"You're gonna rust your armor too!" Iron Dwarf said. Dworkin
got his arm free enough to clonk Iron Dwarf in the head.
Urawa simply cried more while the Dwarves bickered.
Mercury frowned at Uranus. "He is not a wuss!"
"Spineless coward. You see the future, but you won't DO
anything about it! You worthless fatalist! This is just like the
time you saw you were going to fall out of that tree, and you didn't
tell me! I could have caught you, but no, you broke your arm! Then
you ranted about how the future couldn't be changed! Dammit, I'm
ashamed to have you as a brother!"
Urawa blubbered a bit. Mercury blinked. What? Brother?
But...they never told me. They sure don't look like each other.
"I'm sorry! I'm worthless! I can't help it! The future
can't be changed once I see it! You've gotta save me, Mercury!"
Utgaard-Loki said, "Enough sibling recrimination. Are you
ready, Mercury?"
Mercury glanced over at Uranus, who gave her a look. She
knew that look, having already had it several times today.
Unfortunately, she was too stressed to interpret it, and guessed it
was a hint to not screw up. "I'm ready."
The correct interpretation struck her a few seconds later
when she hit the water. She was trying to see if that's really
Urawa. It could be an illusion. She swum as fast as she could,
shooting through the water, but racing the giant was a lost cause.
It was almost done by the time she reached the far side. Urawa
was crying more now, and she was sure it couldn't be him. How
much of this was illusion and how much was real? The dwarves
were acting like they usually did, but Urawa wasn't.
When she dried off within seconds of leaving the water, she
was sure there were illusions going on. I've got to get my visor to
work before Uranus finishes the third contest. She tapped out, "You
think Urawa is a fake?" in morse code.
Uranus grinned and replied, "Damn straight. I bet he's
keeping the real Urawa somewhere as an ace in the hole."
Mercury nodded. She tapped out her plan while Utgaard
wasted a few minutes celebrating his side's victory. Now it was
time for the deciding match. A huge dark blue frost giant with
muscles as large as Uranus' head squared off with Uranus in a
crude 'ring' marked by four posts driven into the floor.
Mercury sat down and began trying to focus her power into
her visor, which flickered. She thought about her namesake, the
trickester messenger god and thief, a spyer out of secrets. She
focused on him and her symbol. It hung before her eyes, an icon of powr,
shimmering, though she knew it was just her imagination. Or was it? It
seemed so real. She reached out and touched it, and energy rushed through
her. Words flowed naturally from her lips. "Mercury Crystal Power,
Makeup!" It was a transformation, her super form, she realized, like the
one Sailor Moon had gained from the Grail.
More power rushed through her as she climbed to a higher level of
being. The outward changes were small. Her skirt was white now, with
blue and purple bands on the hem and a belt marked with the sign of her
planet. Inwardly, however, she felt quite different. Stronger, faster,
and farther-seeing. She remembered things, pieces of her past that she
had forgotten. Like how to make her visor work well without her computer.
It was a tool to focus her power. And this form was far less dependent on
tools than her normal Sailor form.
The visor suddenly kicked into normal mode, just as the giant almost
pinned Uranus. There was no giant. The giant holding Urawa and the
dwarves was actually a huge wooden statue with a character on its
forehead. It was really holding the dwarves, but not Urawa. {A lesser
golem}, Athena prompted her. All the other giants were illusions.
Utgaard-Loki was actually a five foot tall bearded blond man with pointed
ears. The giant fighting Uranus was another lesser golem, this one made
of stone. The pool she had swum in didn't even exist. [Is that guy
an elf?], she asked Athena.
{Most likely.}
[What do elves fear? Cold Iron?]
{Boredom. Uncreative things. Being trapped in rooms by
themselves for eternity. Elves fear anything that is antithetical to
creativity.}
[Like one of Umino's speeches about earthworms?]
{A pity he is not here. Although he can be creative as well. If
you refuse to play the Elf's game, he might give up and go away. Or
he might get mad and kill his captives. Elves can be kind and
gentle, and they can be utter sociopaths in the way that only a
being with eternity to sink into utter evil can be.}
Mercury watched Uranus dart about and tried to think of a way
to tell her without letting Utgaard-Loki know. Well, I'll have to be
half subtle. "Hey, Uranus, kick his butt! NOOGIE HIM TO DEATH!"
Please let that break the character.
It didn't. Uranus had an odd look on her face after doing that,
though. Mercury prayed she had gotten the hint.
Uranus thought, it felt like stone, not flesh. Is it that tough?
Is...a memory took her without warning.
*************
Marduk faced a huge mountain of a man in the wrestling ring
that the Elder Uranus had set up. The Elder Uranus was pretty large
herself, nearly six feet tall and heavier than Marduk, despite his
being taller. And it was all muscle. So was the guy he was facing.
Far more muscles than brain, which was why Marduk hadn't been
grabbed by the guy yet. He'd slugged him three times, but it felt
like he was punching rock.
Then it struck him. He WAS punching rock. He could sense
the stone now that he thought to look for it. That was his knack,
power over stone and earth. Ever since he was little, he'd been
able to shape stone with his will and his hands, although he'd never
been good at doing anything really artistic with it. He was a
skillful harpist, but despite having the potential to be a great
sculptor, he lacked the vision. Or interest. He tended to make
simple, practical things like walls. Or his father's great throne.
It had to be a disguised lesser golem, not to be confused with
the Golems, the nine warriors of the Kingdom of Mars, each a
statue infused with a living soul. This was but a glorified
automaton, animated by a character that had been imbued with
power. When it charged him, he drove his fist into its skull, and
filled his fist with his power, whispering, "Flow" so that the stone
would splash like water as his power came over it. It splattered
and the character was destroyed. The golem froze in mid-punch.
With effort, he wrestled it to the ground and held its shoulders
there for ten seconds, laughing. "Okay, next test, Uranus. Can we
try something a little harder?"
The Elder Uranus frowned. "So you're good with stone. Come
with me, and we'll see how good you REALLY are."
The memory faded and reality returned.
*************
The golem nearly took Uranus down. It was stronger, but
Uranus was faster. She jumped up onto its shoulders and began to
pound on its head, mouthing something over and over. Finally, she
reached over and drove her fingers into the character on its
forehead and twisted. The stone molded like clay, destroying the
character. The statue froze up, and Uranus leaped off, then pulled
it down. It fell out of the ring. She grinned and posed. "I'm Queen of
the Mountain."
Utgaard-Loki stared in shock. "You...won."
Uranus walked over to him. "Fork over the prisoners, Mr.
Utterly-Worthless. Or you're gonna be Utterly-Luckless."
Utgaard-Loki had the other golem put down the dwarves and
'Urawa'. "There you go."
"And the REAL Urawa Ryo!" Mercury said, stomping over.
"NOW!"
"That is the real Urawa," he said smoothly.
"It's an illusion. The jig is up, Mr. Elf!"
Uranus blinked. "He's an elf? Where's his wings?"
"I am Utgaard-Loki, king of the Frost Giants! I..."
"You're an elf with delusions of grandeur. Where's Urawa and
what have you done with all the dwarves in the mine?"
"Yeah, Nosegard. Where are they?" Uranus went over and cut
the dwarves loose.
Utgaard-Loki sighed. "You people are no fun." Mercury began
to recite the periodic table of elements in excruciating detail.
Utgaard-Loki coiled back in his throne. "No! Stop!"
"She's memorized the entire dictionary. I think that's next if
you don't produce her boyfriend." Uranus said, laughing. "So where
is he?"
"On the bottom level with my third golem and all the sleeping
dwarves. I wish that sleep spell worked on humans. Baah."
"You keep him pinned down. I'll go get him, Mercury."
Mercury nodded and moved on to Boron.
***********
Kazgro handed over the computer. "Good job, Mercury. Here
you go. Contract fulfilled. So what was he after anyway?"
"Stealing lead. Also, apparently he and the mine manager
have been feuding for a few centuries," Dworkin said. He handed
over a thick sheaf of papers. "Here's the report. You three heading
back to Earth?"
Mercury nodded. "Yeah. Once we get some sleep."
"I'll arrange a room for you," Kazgro said.
****************
The room was nicely furnished with a large wardrobe with
human sized clothing, and with an actual wooden table and chairs,
along with various tapestries of Senshi in action. Ami was amazed
they had found any. It had only one problem. There was only one
bed. It was the only one the dwarves had that wasn't too small. It
had room for three people, but these three people weren't exactly
used to sharing a bed.
After a long futile discussion of who sleeps where, Haruka
finally said, "Forget it. I'm going to sleep. You two can discuss
what to do." She flopped down on the left side of the bed, wearing
a blue set of pajamas from the wardrobe. "It's gonna be hard
enough sleeping with this much clothing on."
Ami and Ryo finally scrambled into bed and nervously cuddled
up to each other. Ami kissed Ryo, then kissed him again, then
stopped herself. This time, he kissed her. Things were starting to
move along when Haruka said, "I can't fall asleep THAT fast."
Haruka wouldn't have believed Ryo could jump that far until
she saw it.
****************
Mercury, Uranus, and Ryo stood together in a tight circle and
prepared to teleport back to Earth. They each had something to
take with them. Mercury had her new computer. Iron Dwarf had
given Ryo the set of armor he'd loaned him earlier, along with a
magical briefcase it all folded up into. While Ryo had no intention
of ever wearing it again if he could help it, he wanted to be polite,
and it was possible it might come in handy one day. Uranus had a
golden statue of herself, given by the DBI as a token of their
gratitude.
Team #45 was there to see them off. "Come back and visit us
some time!" SuperDwarf said.
"We will!" Mercury said. She joined hands with Uranus and
Ryo. "SAILOR TELEPORT!"
The universe streaked past them at high speed and seconds
later, they reappeared at her house. Over the pool. Walking on
water was NOT a Sailor power. *Splash!*
***************
Haruka flopped down onto her bed. "So you like the statue?"
"It's lovely." Michiru said, as she sat in front of the mirror,
brushing her hair. "Sounds like you and Ami made a pretty good
team."
"Yeah. I'd have been in trouble if I'd been partnered with
someone else. Woulda helped if she'd listened to me from the
start." She rolled over onto her stomach. "I'm glad we did save her
boyfriend and those goofball dwarves. Michiru, what..."
"I'd have done the same if you'd been captured. And you for
me." She smiled. "That's something all the senshi have in common.
We'd cross any mountain for those we love."
Haruka came over and hugged her. "So what mountain do you
want me to cross today?"
Michiru grinned. "Well, it's your turn to do the dishes, and
they're piling up, so I think that counts as a mountain."
Haruka acked.
*******************
Ami kissed Ryo goodnight. "See you tomorrow, Ryo-kun."
"See ya, Ami-chan." They stood, still hugging each other,
reluctant to let go.
Noriko stuck her head out the door. "You two coming to bed?"
Ami blushed. "Just me."
"If 'Yo-kun wants to stay, I can go use Grandpa's guest room,"
Noriko said.
Ryo tried to say something, but his brain froze up. Ami
blushed. "Thanks, but that won't be necessary."
"Oh. When you started getting ecchi manga in your mailbox, I
assumed you'd decided to change your image."
"..."
She tossed Ami a brown-wrapped manga. "This came in the
mail while you were gone."
It was titled, 'Moon Rising #2'. Ami dropped it like it was
radioactive, and Ryo picked it up. "This looks like a Sailor V
manga."
Minako's door flew open down the hallway. "Did I hear the
words...Sailor V?"
The chase was on.
*********************
DBI Team #45 says:
[Cue the usual stage, with team #45 spread out on it.]
Dworkin: Today we learned that I have to work with idiots.
Iron Dwarf: Yeah, our bosses aren't too bright.
Dworkin: Clueless idiots. Anyway, the moral of our story is that if
you work for the DBI for decades, they will reward you by putting
you in charge of maniacs.
GatchaDwarf: Unless you're lucky and get to work with us! [poses]
For I am...GatchaDwarf!
Ami: [runs out] Hey, this is MY spotlight episode!
Dworkin: Banish my team to the Dark Kingdom, and I'll let you have
the stage.
Haruka: [comes out] Tell me Noriko's secret and I'll banish them.
Dworkin: I can't tell you.
Haruka: [fumes] Everyone says that! Why? Why can't you tell me?
Dworkin: I don't know it.
Haruka: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! [runs off into the
distance]
SuperDwarf: And the moral of our story...
IronDwarf: Don't mess with Texas.
Dworkin: Whatever. Go home. The story's over. Move along!
[Iris out]
****************
Closing Credits:
"My road leads me far away."
We see Nephrite telling Juno that he must go soon for a great
conflict is about to begin.
"Though my heart tells me to stay,"
We see Princess Serenity clinging to a worried looking Endymion.
"When my duty calls, I must go"
We see Pluto appearing in the midst of the ballroom at the Diamond Gala.
"'Twixt worlds of fire and worlds of snow."
We cut to a shot of the solar system, with the nine planets and the
moon lined up from the Sun at the left to Pluto at the right, with the
Senshi and Prince Endymion standing on their planets as shadowy figures.
"The road I travel will be long"
We see the White Knight galloping down a Tokyo street on horseback.
"To set things right, to end the wrongs."
We see Tuxedo Mask tossing a red rose into the barrel of a gun,
which backfires and explodes.
"But this message will I send,"
We see Rei picking up a blue crystal, which starts to play back a
message.
"Wait for me at Journey's End."
We see Naru waiting for someone outside a restaurant.
"Do not forget the love we share"
We see Princess Serenity and Endymion tearfully bidding each other
farewell.
"Though I must leave, my heart will stay."
We see Naru crying as Nephrite dissolves away in her arms.
"Do not think I ceased to care"
We see Beryl implanting crystals in the foreheads of the four
Guardians and cackling maniacally.
"When my duty took me away."
We see Steven waiting at a restaurant, then sighing as he checks his
watch.
"The road I travel will be long"
We see the Sailors using the Sailor Teleport to travel to the ruins
of the Moon Kingdom.
"To set things right, to end the wrongs."
We see Umino trying to fight a monster in "Tuxedo Umino Kamen" mode.
"But this message will I send,"
We see Luna trying to use a dial only phone.
"Wait for me at Journey's End."
We see Umino leap to his feet as Naru comes running up the sidewalk
to him with Usagi and company.
"I have only my heart to give"
We see Haruka and Michiru sharing a quiet moment.
"For my life is not my own."
We see the baby Saturn in a crib.
"It is for others that I must live"
We see Pluto having a frustrating time trying to counsel a young girl.
"But it is for you that I come home."
We see Mamoru following a trail of smoke to Usagi in his kitchen.
"The road I travel will be long"
We see Capricorn vanishing through a portal.
"To set things right, to end the wrongs."
We see a chamber with stars for a ceiling and a horoscope on the
floor. A man stands in grey robes in the center and stares down at the
horoscope.
"But this message will I send,"
We see Usagi listening to a message on the phone, her eyes getting big.
"Wait for me at Journey's End."
We see a closing tableux of the Sailors, Umino, Naru, Steven, Tuxedo
Mask, and twelve shadowy figures standing on a Zodiac wheel.
****************
Author's afterword:
Well, the Sailor Senshi spotlights have begun. I'll be doing
Mercury, Mars, and Himeko/Naru. The Mars one deals with her travelling
to the old Mars Kingdom and dealing with some left over business
from the days of the Moon Kingdom. The Himeko/Naru story will take us to
the great library of the Star Kingdom and the revelation of a few secrets
Man was not meant to know. (But since they're female, they'll be okay.)
(
geocities.com/telraven)