Note: This is set about seven or eight years after the first season
aired, and the characters are the appropriate ages relative to that.
I'll likely rewrite the whole first scene to make that apparent,
but for now, I guess this will do.
Names are based on the original. Some characters refer to the
Senshi as Scouts as a side effect of being from elsewhere. :-)
Mind you, I've never actually "seen" the show, so everything I know
about this is based on others' descriptions and such... So, um,
help?
As always, C&C will be archived for posterity.
****
Yuuchiro's Cabin
December
Whap!
"Eek!" yelled a startled Usagi. "Rei! You almost hit me!" She
nervously brushed traces of the snowball off the jacket that Mamoru had
bought for her a week ago and slipped into the building behind her. Her
face lit up with the memory even as another near miss sprinkled more
loose snow over her head and shoulders.
Minako popped up next to where Usagi had just been and lobbed another
snowball back at Rei. "Ha! I will avenge Usagi! Take that Rei!" she
shouted and grinned.
The snowball shot through the air and hit Yuuchiro directly in the face,
knocking him backwards. "Yuuchiro!" Rei shouted at him. As his arms
and legs started flailing, she turned back to Minako and continued
yelling "you! Take this!" cutting loose with a trio of well placed
snowballs.
As the counter-fire began, Rei let out an "eep" herself and ducked,
letting some of the snowballs hit the landscape behind her, just missing
Yuuchiro who had cleared the snow out of his face and sat up.
Unfortunately, the tree next to them had taken one too many hits and
finally dumped its load of snow right on top of Yuuchiro and Rei.
****
"Move it you; make some room for me."
Luna grumbled as Artemis squeezed up next to her by the window. She
cracked one eye open to glare at him, and then shut it against the early
morning sunlight. "It's too early to fight," she muttered.
"Hush," Artemis said quietly. "I just want to get some sun too...
While I can."
Luna cracked an eye to look at him. "You think there's going to be
trouble?"
Artemis continued to face the window, ignoring her for a moment. He
looked down from the slowly brightening landscape and flicked a glance
at Luna. "Nah," he said, "not really." He fell silent for a moment,
with his tail twitching.
Luna had started to doze off when Artemis spoke again. "It's just that
most of the times we see all of them together like this something
happens. Or it sure seems like that."
"Be quiet and worry somewhere else," Luna snapped, having opened both
eyes to glare at Artemis. "I'm not going to let you ruin my day."
Artemis turned on the sill.
"And don't ruin theirs either; this *is* a vacation."
Artemis settled down on the sill and watched out the window.
****
Narita
Juliana Metzdorf's normally bright contrallo snapped "you!" harshly (in
english). She was just clearing customs at Narita and stopped for a
second when she saw who was waiting for her. Juliana was slightly above
average height, with shoulder length reddish brown hair and a rather
dark tan. She was dressed casually in slacks and a sweater; just warm
enough for the current season.
A warm tenor voice responed, "hi Jules, nice to see you again. I've got
a black pen on me this time just in case. I have to admit; you were
right about trying to draw wards with a crayon." Randall Widler grinned
at Juliana as he answered in accented Japanese. He shifted the cane he
was using to walk to his left hand and offered his right to Juliana.
Randall was a tall, black man with a medium build and a crew cut. He
was wearing a trenchcoat and boots were visible below that.
Juliana grit her teeth and ignored Randall for a moment. "Don't call me
'Jules'," she grated out, but relented and briefly shook his hand.
The two of them started walking through the terminal, collecting
Juliana's luggage and heading down to the trains. Randall leaned
heavily on his cane as they walked. "I'm kind of surprised to see you
here, considering how that last 'incident' went." Juliana broke the
silence and looked down at his knee; a light brace was obviously on it
under his pants.
"Crystal Consulting is not a large company, you know. I was about the
only person that could work on something like this." Randall explained,
pausing as they entered the train.
"Yeah, you or the other two stooges," Juliana shot, refering to the
other two people in Randall's sub-department. Randall gave her a dirty
look.
"You can drop the hostility any time now." Randall said as they took
seats a little distance away from the other passengers on the train.
"As I was saying, I'm also the only one in the area that's free right
now; Agnes is tied up in other company business."
"That leaves me here, as your mentor, and you as the magical mystery
girl." Randall's gaze softened a bit. "And we're going in now."
Juliana looked startled. "What?"
"It's started already. We'll have maybe an hour at the last stop for
you to warm up, then it's showtime."
"Darn it! I wanted to go sightseeing first."
"It'll have to wait. How much did you get in your briefing."
"You're the briefing; I just got e-mail with a reservation and orders to
get here, and very little time to pack."
"Ah, well," Randall began. He looked around to see how close the other
passengers were, switched to English and lowered his voice a bit. "Two
months ago, there was a break-in at the university in London. Dr.
Graham's office was ransacked and several of her papers on Egyptian
heiroglyphics were stolen. two weeks ago, that got put together with a
number of other crimes with the same m.o. And the targets were all
occult or paranormal related. We took the list to Dr. Graham, and two
days ago she figured out what the thieves were- are after.
"There's apparently a... demon of sorts sleeping or somesuch in a cave
or chamber near our destination. And there's an ancient ritual for
using that kind of demon as a power siphon. Dr. Graham believes that
the thieves intend to use this to drain the Tokyo area of either life
energy or everyone's souls; the translations describing the demon were a
little ambiguous.
"Given the excessive power level of this demon, we'll need a Sailor
Scout to take it down."
Juliana interrupted. "Wait, I thought the Sailor Scouts were just an
urban legend!"
"Oh, they're real all right. There's too many consistenly weird things
going on in Tokyo for there not to be something supernatural. Besides,
we got solid evidence of Sailor V."
Juliana looked startled. "You do?"
"Mind you, it's evidence only to someone who's mystically sensitive,
like the near-dozen in department 5, but the authorities don't recognize
magic items even when they're bitten by them. So Agnes got them."
"Them?"
"Sailor V's boots."
Juliana blinked, then started laughing. She covered her face with her
hands, muffling the sound and rocked back and forth with the force of
her laughing. A few passengers noticed and looked in her direction.
Randall looked at her with concern. "Are you okay?" he asked after a
moment.
Juliana lifter her head and inhaled. Tears were straming down her face
from laughing so hard. "Evidence," she giggled. After a few more
seconds she got a hold of herself and wiped her face. "Do go on," she
said with a silly grin on her face once her breathing was back to
normal. She dabbed at her face with some paper tissue.
"Um, yeah," said Randall, skeptically. "Well to make a long story
short, Agnes figured out how to... weave the enchantment on the boots
inside out. Basically, the boots wear you, and make *you* fit them.
They'll turn you into Sailor V as long as they're on, for up to about
six hours; after that the enchantment gets unstable. So you," he
pointed a finger at Juliana, "are going the take on a demon."
"Er," said Juliana, no longer smiling, "why couldn't the Sailor Scouts
do this?"
"Unfortunately, their existence is *still* only rated as probable, and
we don't have any reasonable way of getting in touch with them. As for
the original Sailor V, no-one has seen any sign of her in years. We
*know* the demon is going to 'wake up' tomorrow; we don't know if the
legendary Sailor Scouts are anywhere nearby. Better safe than sorry."
"Why me?"
Randall shrugged. "Some fighting experincce, and spell-casting -- well,
wards at least -- under pressure. Our best assessment of Sailor V is
that she was a combat mage."
"Bleah."
During the rest of their trip, Randall told Juliana a few more details.
Near dawn, the two of them reached a small shelter a little way up into
the mountains. It wasn't much, but it did provide some walls and a
roof, and a place for Randall to offer some final training to Juliana
before her mission started.
"Okay, then you move your hands like this." Randall demonstrated the
gestures of Sailor Venus' 'Crescent Beam'.
"Like this?" Juliana tried to imitate him.
Randall frowned. "Almost," he stepped beside her and reached for her
hands. She stiffened for a moment and then let him guide her hands.
"More like... this," he guided her through the pattern, repeating twice
to be sure she had it.
"And you've got the trigger down, I'm sure." Randall stepped away from
her and grinned.
Juliana offered a small smile in return. "It's kind of hard to forget.
'Crescent Beam!'" she pseudo-shouted, grinning at the idea of an
ordinary phrase being a magic word.
"Where does the power come from?" she asked after a second.
"Nobody knows. Nobody even has any theories."
They both looked thoughtful for a second.
"Well, I guess I'm set." Juliana sat down and pulled off her boots.
Randall pulled out a pair of calf-high girl's boots sized approximately
for a 14-year old and handed them to her, commenting, "remember, once
you get these on you have six hours to get back." He held a wristwatch
in one hand and added, "I'll start the timer for you. The alarm will go
off with 15 minutes to spare."
"Where did the company get these anyway?" Juliana asked as she finally
got to look at the boots she had heard about the night before.
"Sailor V used them as a decoy during one of her numerous capers in
London," explained Randall. "I guess she forgot to collect them
afterwards. Jeff pulled them out of the rubble after things quieted
down and brought them in."
"Well," said Juliana as she started pulling on the boots, "the moment of
truth arrives."
Her foot slid into the boot. There was a little resistance at first as
her adult-sized foot had to be squeezed into the opening, but once her
heel touched the edge of the boot, her foot slid in without resistance.
Both of them stared at the odd sight of her bare foot against the much
smaller booted foot.
"The fit's just right," Juliana said after a second, her voice
quavering. She stuck her bare foot in front of her booted foot and
completely obscured it. Then she reached down, brushed off her bare
foot, and pulled on the other boot.
When her heel hit the bottom of the boot, the world shifted around her.
She *shrank*. The boot, her boot now, was suddenly larger in her grip.
Her eyelevel had moved down by about a handspan making the sight of the
boot suddenly pop forward. Her chest flattened somewhat. The spot on
the bench where she was sitting felt like it had been warmed by someone
else, a larger someone else. Her coat and clothes had changed too,
leaving her dressed in a light sailor fuku, but the cold seemed to have
gone away as well.
Sailor V inhaled sharply, held it as she was reminded of the difference
in her now narrower shoulders and torso, and exhaled slowly. She let go
of her boot and stared at her now gloved hands and arms, noting their
new shape and lighter skin color.
An errant puff of air teased a bit of her longer hair over her shoulder
into view. Sailor V started to brush it back with one hand, then
grabbed it to stare at its now blond color and new length.
"Houston," she said shakily in *someone else's voice,* "we have now
entered the twilight zone."
Randall handed the watch to Sailor V after a moment, and she fumbled it
into place, pausing for a second after it was secure. She looked up at
him. "Godspeed sailor," he said after a second, and saluted her.
Sailor V returned his salute, froze for a second, then whirled around
and rushed out of the shelter.
Randall stepped to the entry and watched Sailor V leap up the mountain,
each leap covering more and more distance as she adjusted to her new
abilities. Then he stepped over to their pile of stuff, and tossed it
into a duffel bag. He grabbed his trenchcoat from a bench, bundled up
against the cold, slung the bag over his shoulder, and started trudging
up a side-trail, leaning heavily on his cane.
****
Sailor V leapt up the mountain. Each jump left her breathless with her
new abilility; she felt as though she were in a videogame, arcing
forward into the air with the wind rushing past her, she stared down at
the ground several times her own height below her. Then the ground
ahead of her rushed up to her and her feet touched and her legs
cushioned the impact and she was up in the air again...