Quicksilver's Quill Offers
To Dance By Moonlight
mbsilvana@yahoo.com
standard disclaimers
AN: Part Two, take Two! People actually want me to
continue this, so I trashed the first version- from
now on, the entire story will be told entirely from
Buffy's VP. I haven't worked on this in almost six
months, so feel free to shred it.... also, my
spell-check STILL isn't working.... *blush*
First part can be found at my webpage:
http://quicksilverslabyrinth.homestead.com
Quick Japanese Phrase Guide (not Really Nessessary,
but it helps a little- Usagi will use these words to
color her speech):
Iiee: No
Koibito: Boyfriend, serious relationship
Machinasai : WAIT! Sailor Moon usually says this as
she makes her appearence.
Part Two: Uneasiness
Buffy was dozing through attendence. There was a
seat that was was conspicuously vacant, and she
frowned slightly, wondering if Usagi had managed to
get home at all. It would be just her luck to save
the ditzy blonde, only to have Usagi get captured
again. Still, she had been out patrolling until
almost four am, and was having a hard time trying to
find enough energy to care.
Xander was attempting to give her significant
glances, but she ignored him, listening as Mr. Parnell
continued down the list. "Harris, Xander."
"YO!" Xander called loudly, earning a few giggles and
a long-suffering frown from the teacher.
"Summers, Buffy," he said.
"Present," she replied, settling back into the
wonderful world of inattention. Now if she was
lucky, she'd be able to catch up on her missed sleep
through this class....
"Sikeyno Usagi," he called, and Buffy tried to keep
from thinking of all the nasty things that could have
happened to the cheerful girl. Buffy hated to admit
it, but there was something about Usagi that made a
person feel special and want to be around her.
"Sikeyno Usagi?" he repeated, when no one answered
him the first time. "Hmmm, odd. Not here on the
second day?" he muttered to himself as he flipped his
pen over, ready to mark it with the infamous red ink
teachers everywhere seemed to prefer.
Just as his pen was about to touch the attendence
record, there was a loud "BAM!" from the door. The
class spun around to see the door slam open and
Tsukino barrael around the corner. Somehow or other
she tripped over Sean Quance's feet and ended up
sailing forward in a classic fall. Buffy wondered
how the girl was able to roll to a stop in front of
Mr. Parnell's desk without flashing the entire room,
especially considering her VERY short pink skirt.
The entire class just stared at the spectacle, unable
to think of exactly HOW to react.
The girl blushed and bounced to her feet in record
time, and started to bow repeatedly, apologizing in a
mixture of Japanese and English for being late,
something about sleeping in, and not having anyone
waking her up and misiing breakfast and not being able
to figure out the bus system since she forgot the
buses ran on the opposite sides of the street and she
had been waiting on the wrong place and had ended up
halfway across town before she realized she was going
the wrong way and...
Buffy tried not to laugh. Usagi was babbling almost
as much as Willow did when the redhead got nervous.
It was interesting to here Usagi attempting not to mix
up her languages, and she almost laughed at the
confused look on Parnell's face.
Mr. Parnell finally managed to shut the girl up long
enough to get a word in edgewise. "It's ok this
time, Usagi, just don't do it again."
Usagi gave him a dazzling smiles and murmured thanks,
bowing again. Then she slid over to her seat and
took out her notebook and began to flip through it
before setlling on a page. Very carefully she picked
up a pen (with pink ink, Buffy noted with amusement)
and started to write. She nibbled on the tip and
glanced around.
The two blondes locked eyes, and Buffy was once again
swamped with a wave of surprising sensations.
Caring, love, faith, and charity seem to shine like
beacons to her darker soul, and it was only through
sheer force of will that she pulled herself out of the
deep pools of blue.
Usagi, for her part, just looked at her with a
combination of fascination and confusion. Buffy
noted that there was nothing even resembling fear, and
she was forced to wonder if the other girl was either
incredibly powerful or incredibly stupid. Her vote
was for stupid after seeing her dash off into a
Sunnydale night NO ONE did that if they valued their
life.
Usagi was the one who broke eyes contact, shifting
her gaze down to the paper in front of her. She
yawned rather dramatically and rested her head in her
hands, falling asleep.
Buffy glared. She knew that if SHE attempted to do
that, Parnell would give her detention.
Xander merely raised an eyebrow.
!@#$%^&*
The Slayerette gang met in the library for lunch, as
was their habbit when something big might be going
down. Giles closed off the anitiquated place to the
other students (not that any of them would have sought
sanctuary there) and they would chat over their food,
Xander doing his best to steal the girl's desserts.
Buffy was nervous, having had far too little sleep
and far too much time to think over what the strange
man in the cemetary had been up to. She hated not
knowing someone's motives because it usually was a BAD
THING. So many disasters happened to her through out
the course of her duties as Slayer that she felt she
had a right to be a little jittery.
Xander was munching on two twinkies at once,
gleefullly smeering the white stuffing all over his
fingers in the process. Willow was enjoying a small
serving of yogurt with granola, while Buffy had
resorted to chocolate- it had been one of those days.
Giles straightened his glasses the way he did
whenever Buffy was giving him a headache. Which was
far too often, whenever he paused to think about it.
"So you saw a man in the cemetary who knew you were
the Slayer?" he asked, trying to clarify her tired
ramblings.
"Yup. Right after I saved Usagi from Angelus,"
Buffy said, taking another large bite of her Hershey's
bar. She didn't CARE if it was bad for her, she
could excused the calories.
"Are you sure you were saving her?" Willow asked
hesitantly.
"What?" Buffy asked with some surprise.
"Are you sure you were actually saving her, that it
wasn't fake scene?" Willow pressed, speaking with a
little more confidence.
"Of course I'm..." she began, but lost confidence
before she could complete the sentence. Pieces began
to fall into place, and she didn't like the picture
she was seeing. "Usagi said that she was meeting her
boyfriend, Mamochan, in the cemetary. Maybe he set
her up, since I honestly don't think she's capable of
it," she said slowly. "Usagi is one of the purest
people on the damned Hellmouth."
"Which makes her great demon bait. Maybe her
boyfriend brought her over here for some kind of
ritual sacrifice or something."
Willow flipped the computer on and started to pound
the keys, sneaking bites of her lunch between clicks
of the mouse. "I'm hacking into UC Sunnydale to get
some information on him. Maybe see if I can pull up
a picture or something."
Buffy nodded and Giles frowned at her. "Are you
going to have something besides that garbage for
lunch?" he asked, glaring at the chocolate.
"Yep," Buffy said, stealing one of the many twinkies
that Xander had left sitting on the table, unwrapping
and biting into it with a rebelious air. "Any luck?"
she asked Willow.
"There's no Mamochan listed, so I'm looking under
exchanged students. Just one more sec and I should
have it.... ah! Chiba Mamoru- his last name is
first, that's the Japanese fashion- age twenty,
orphan, excellent grades, pre-med major... darn! I
wish this modem wasn't so slow. I'm downloading his
student picture, you can see if its the guy you saw in
the graveyard."
Buffy leaned over Willow's shoulder eagerly, nodding
grimly when the picture finally came into focus.
"That's him," she said grimly, reaching out to touch
the picture. "I still can't tell what color his eyes
are, though," she said, more to herself then the
others.
"Okay, so we've played 'Name that bad Guy,'" Xander
said, stuffing yet another of the over-processed
treats into his mouth. "Now what do we do with that
information?"
"We arrange to meet him, of course. I'm sure Usagi
would love to introduce her beloved Mamo-chan to her
newest friend, right?" Buffy said. "She strikes me
as the kind of person who LOVES a crowd. How about
inviting her to the Bronze tonight?"
The other Slayerettes gave her nervous glances.
"Are you sure that's a good idea? I mean, we don't
even know what kind of creepy-crawly the creep is,"
Willow said.
Buffy shrugged. "The Bronze is a public place. He
won't dare attack us there unless he has a lot of back
up. Besides, Giles can hand out from above and see
if he recognizes him."
Giles looked very uncomfortable with the situation,
but agreed anyway. Buffy rose to her feet. "I'll
go invite her. Do you want to come, Will?"
Willow nodded and stood up as well, but Xander
remained seated, opening up a pack of Ding Dongs.
"You girls have fun, I'll see you in class," he said,
munching away happily.
After disposing of their garbage, the two girls
walked to the lunchroom to find Usagi. They found
her in the center of a group of people. The group
was one of the oddest she had ever seen- it contained
everyone from the nerds and computer geeks to the
jocks and cheerleaders. Cordelia, who still kept her
association wth the Slayerettes filed as TOP SECRET,
glanced up from the snapple she was sipping at with
somewhat resentful eyes. "Look, it's the freaks,"
she said coolly.
Usagi, though, wasn't detered. She smiled at Buffy
happily. "It's nice to see you!" she said warmly,
waving a hand at the packed table. "How about
sitting down and talking to me?"
A couple of the people scowled, obviously jealous.
Usagi had a quality about her that made people want to
be close to her, and they didn't like the way Willow
and Buffy had been able to grabbed her attention
immediately. Then Usagi laughed, and everyone calmed
down, feeling as though they were being soothed.
Buffy didn't want to be soothed. She wanted to get
this over and done with as soon as possible. "Usagi,
you haven't seen much of Sunnydale, have you?"
The girl shook her head, the long ponytails swaying
freely. "Iiee. I've only seen a little, and the
little I saw I didn't like," she said slowly, her eyes
darkening before she smiled brightly again. "But
Mamo-chan and I plan on seeing more of it tonight."
Perfect opportunity. "Would you like to see the
local hang out? Me and my friends are going there-
it's a great place, live music, decent juice bar.
It's what passes for a life in this town. You can
bring Mamochan too," Buffy said.
Usagi scowled. "His name is Mamoru. No one calls
him Mamo-chan but ME," she said defensively, then the
frown melted from her delicate features. "It does
sound like fun, though."
Buffy smiled and gave her dirrections, arranging to
meet her at eight. Cordelia's eyebrows kept rising,
but she mercifully kept her mouth shut, sensing that
there was more here then meets the eyes.
Buffy and Willow turned to leave, pausing to glance
back at where Usagi was holding court, paying
attention to everyone while making sure no one was
left out of the conversation. They'd never seen all
these groups fused together so well.
"There's something special about that girl," Willow
said.
Buffy could only nod her agreement.
!@#$%^&*
Buffy sat in the Bronze at her usual table with
Xander and Willow, sipping from a Virgin Strawberry
Daquari. The music tonight was good, but none of them
felt like dancing, even though the beat practically
throbbed through her bones. She clenshed her chilled
glass tightly, though she was careful not to exert her
full strength. It wouldn't do to shatter the glass
and cut herself; after all, she would be SLaying later
tonight.
Xander was making some kind of ridiculous comment
about how teachers resembled creatures out of the
imagination of Dr Seuss when Cordelia siddled over,
under the pretext of getting ready to insult the
Slayerette crew, not letting on that she actually
wanted to talk to them. "So what are you up to?" she
asked Buffy suspiciously.
"Up to?" Buffy parrotted innocently.
"Yes. You're planning something with that Usagi
girl. Please tell me she isn't some kind of demon
from hell- I STILL haven't gotten the slime out of my
clothes from the last time," Cordelia complained.
Buffy looked around, making sure no one was
listening. "We're not exactly sure- we think she's
fine, but her boyfruiend knew I was the Slayer."
Cordelia groaned and took a seat. "Great. Just
peachy," she said, adjusting her thigh-high socks with
a pretend pout. "So we get to stop another monster
from creeping out of that hole? Like Angelus wasn't
enough?"
Buffy flinched at his name, but gamely continured
onwards. "We might. Anyway, we're luring him here
so we can get a closer look."
"Wonderful," Cordelia muttered, but made no move to
rise. "I think I see Usagi," she said suddenly, her
face smiling attractively. "And WHO is that looker
with her?"
The looker, as Cordelia had aptly called him, was the
man Buffy had seen the night before. He was wearing
dark clothes that ofset the pale blue Usagi was
wearing perfectly, and had one arm wrapped around the
blonde's slender waist protectively. He looked up at
Buffy and there eyes met again. This time they were
close enough for her to get the color, and she
wondered why she felt as though she should have known
all along.
Blue. Mamoru's eyes were a deep, cutting blue that
had seen everything the world had to offer, and
rejected almost everything as well. She felt herself
being evaluated, and didn't like how he made her feel
as though she should be bowing before him, swearing
fealty.
None of the others seemed frozen as Usagi led her
boyfriend to them. "Mamo-chan, these are my new
friends Xander, Cordelia, Willow and Buffy," she said,
pointing out people. "And this," she said with shy
pride, "is Mamoru, my koibito."
Mamoru bowed slightly, then offered his hand to
Buffy. "I understand this is your custom?" he said
in a voice that was more heavily accented then his
girlfriend's.
Buffy took his hand carefully, shaking it with a firm
grip, resisting the urge to squeeze too tightly.
Mamoru kept his eyes on her face, and the others
noticed the obvious tension between the two. Usagi
wasn't about to have any of it. "Mamo-chan, can you
get me a drink?" she asked sweetly.
Mamoru sighed and headed for the bar, while Usagi
sat down. "Is there something wrong?" she asked with
some concern.
"Well..." Buffy hedged, trying to think on how to ask
the girl if her boyfriend had something sinister
planned. "Not really," she said finally.
Usagi didn't look convinced, but accepted the comment
at face value. "That was odd, though. Mamo-chan
usually isn't like that towards strangers. He's
usually more friendly. He didn't offer any of the
rest of you his hand," she said.
Just then Mamoru returned, carrying a cola, which he
handed to his girlfriend. She happily started to
drink at it.
"So why are you studying over here?" Willow asked
Mamoru, hoping to get some information out of him.
"It's a wonderful chance to see the world," Mamoru
replied curtly, not really paying attention to anyone
except his girlfriend, who he cats surprisingly gentle
looks towards, and Buffy, who he looked at with
concern.
The others continued to pry, but received almost no
information out of him. When Usagi finished the last
of her drink, he held out his hand. "I feel like
dancing. Usako?"
Usagi giggled and took it, laughing as he pulled her
to her feet. "Do you guys mind?" she asked
apologetically.
"No, go and have a good time- we'll see you in school
tommorrow," Buffy said.
Usagi waved and the couple vanished into the writhing
throng. "Did anyone else feel that was utterly
pointless?" Cordelia asked the group in general.
Buffy shook her and and wrapped her light sweater
around her body. "No. It confirmed that he knows
that I'm more then what I appear. Let's get Giles
and go."
!@#$%^&*
Twenty minutes later, the entire Slayerette gang
(plus Watcher) were wishing that they had stayed at
the Bronze. They were quite hard-pressed.
It had begun when Buffy had spotted some actiity in
the graveyard. Any idiot who had lived in Sunndale
for more then a week knew that night time activity in
a graveyard was usually a BAD THING, and since Buffy
was the Slayer, it was her duty to deal with it. So
albeit somewhat reluctantly, she headed into the
graveyard, her friends on her heels.
Bad idea. Angelus was rather annoyed about last
night, and had designed a counter strike. Apparently
sacrificing skill for numbers, he hurled at least
thirty vampires at the Slayerette crew.
Hopelessly outnumbered, the Slayerettes banded
together, watching each other's backs. If they
managed to stay in piece for a while, Buffy would
eventually dispatch the vampires, since almost all of
them were freshly made. The only older vampire there
was Angelus, and he seemed quite content to watch from
the tree branch he was sitting on, clapping like a
spectator at a baseball game.
Predictably enough, it was Cordelia who got into
trouble first. Two of the vampires closed in on her
from either side, and the others were too busy fending
off their own attackers to help her. One of them
seized her while she attempted to shove her cross in
its face, causing it to pull back, hissing in pain.
The other used the oppurtunity to jerked her with
preternatural strength, the cross slipping from her
fingers onto the ground.
"Help!" Cordelia yelled, but no one was in any
position to do so.
The vampire who was holding onto to her was about to
take a bite of her neck when he was interupted by a
voice. The voice was clear and determined, ringing
through the night like a clarion bell:
"Machinasai!"
END PART TWO
Feedback, ne?
Up Net: Part Three: Misunderstandings
Things never go like you planned.... and Mamoru Loses
His Temper.....
=====
Quicksilver
Lady of the Labyrinth
Full time student and part-time writer
http://www.homestead.com/quicksilverslabyrinth
"You haven't lived until you've danced the dagger's edge."
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