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was going back to Kami No Ko Wa Kami, but had enough material for 4th labor
for the first three chapters. So...
FOURTH LABOR chapter 1
disclaimer: this takes place after 3rd Labor, uses characters originated by
Naoko Takeuchi, and if you're taking any of it seriously you've missed the
point.
"Keep conscience clear, then never fear." - Benjamin Franklin
Asgard:
"Why a memory blockage anyway?" Jared sat at the table, curious, as various
figures set up their machines or enchantments or enchanted machines. One
thing that appealed to him was the possibility of meeting all sorts of
Beings who could be useful associates and allies for later. Such as that
Tennyson fellow. He hadn't even known the beholders *had* a god who embodied
the philosophy of "Live & Let Live" - but saw all sorts of possibilities if
he ever ran into something like the Mulmaster Beholder Corps and had this
fellow's pager number.
"When Grey was ejected from that Catgirl Nerima timeline," answered Celeste,
"his memories were largely suppressed by your own spell - 'Blessed Oblivion'
I believe. While in the Third Labor timeline, he was merely Grey with some
Frostbite mixed in. On returning to Central, all those suppressed memories
came surging back. And with several lifetimes worth of identities all
crashing in, it basically reduced him to catatonic status."
"That's odd, it's never bothered me that much," Jared quipped. Then checked
his watch, he still had 15 minutes before he had to get back to the
piratical Kunos.
Celeste shrugged, technical data was her forte. She didn't know the fellow
that well. Professionally, yes, but not personally. "That was the data I got
anyway."
"Where's Ranko anyway?" Belle asked from where she was working on a
completely seperate timeline.
"In the Forest Of Midnight Dreams with Totoro," responded Sif offhandedly.
"Looks like she's having a much better time than on that Pokemon world."
Jared briefly scanned the text on the display in front of him. "So, his
fourth Labor is to settle on *one* girl. His memories are pretty much
screwed up and he's being put in as a reborn Nebula - the Knight Of Duty?"
"Yes, it would be more confusing to put him in as one of his other memory
sets, and he needs to acclimate the others gradually." Celeste spoke more
firmly now, as she was on more certain footing. This had been the best
compromise so far. "Nebula was the Consort of Queen Serenity, briefly, then
had a brief liason with Princess Jupiter after being dismissed from
Serenity's Court. Nothing heavier than cuddling. Which was still further
than he got with Pluto, after Jupiter went after Narcissus and before her
appointment as Guardian of the Time Gate."
"As the ones pursuing him from the Evangelion timeline were merged with your
own Scouts, and therefore lost, it's possible that his closeness to them -
particularly that timeline's Ami, has caused further problems with his
integration of his various selves." Sif pointed out, then blew foam off her
ale. "To be in that sort of mutually affectionate relationship, and now not
even be remembered except in a vaguely friendly manner. Not terribly good.
I've known mortals to go locking themselves into caves over that sort of
thing. Back in the old days at least."
"Very not terribly good," pronounced Tennyson. "Understand you bipedal
bigendered take that sort of thing rather badly."
"So who are *these* girls?" Jared said, who'd gotten confused somewhere
along the way. He wasn't changing the subject because he didn't particularly
care for the reminder that he'd end up with an awful lot of the fellow's
romantic subplots being snagged by him. It wasn't HIS fault that he had a
Charisma of 22, was luckier, wealthier, scads more powerful and dashing,
more worldly and commanding, or that Shan (and some of the others) had this
weird idea that "more is better" as far as co-fiancees went. No, definitely
not.
"During his Second Labor, timelines were rewritten repeatedly. The end
result were several non-Senshi who accompanied him during his conquering of
China and extradimensional journey." Celeste popped screens to display the
girls. "During his Third Labor, these girls also became dragons of various
species and fell under the Rules for Aramarian Dragons. I'm not sure what
they all mean, though."
"That much I know," Sif said, smirking. As a Norse goddess, she could be
quite earthy. "One of the things is that dragons of Aramar are *not* exactly
the same as their Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms versions. They're more
elementally inclined creatures, and the reference he made to you about 'not
getting along' was actually a reference to *breeding cycles*. The females of
the species bond to a specific male, but they're not interested in anything
other than being friends until a certain cycle comes around. Then they get
*very* interested and their scent triggers a similar state in the male."
Jared muttered about "way too much information" and was able to divert his
imagination from going there. Then an idea *did* click into his head and he
made a note to research it further.
"Uhm, well," Celeste was less successful in curbing her imagination, though
the Richter Scale also figured in her likely consequences file, "in any
case, err. The Nuku Nuku that accompanied him was actually a catgirl android
built to serve as his bodyguard. The Honey Kisaragi is an associate who he
rescued once, then came back later in another guise but was recognized
anyway and she's been tagging along since then."
"He's also picked up a Sea Elf, three drow, Morrigan Aenslad, and Queen
Serenity from his First Labor," added Sif. "Though the drow are from the
latest adventure and they may drop when they accept that the girl whose idea
it was to rescue them was actually a guy."
Jared shuddered. Drow. Ugh. Even if he knew that these particular ones
weren't evil, there was an instinctive aversion to the blackskinned
whitehaired betrayers of all elvenkind and horrid child-eating monsters...
err those persons.
*krik* *krik*
Jared looked through his pockets, and discovered one of his pokeballs
moving. ~What the heck? How did it get filled? WHEN did it get filled?~
Confident in his ability to handle anything, particularly with the goddesses
Celeste and Sif, and the gods Apollo and Tennyson present, Jared thumbed the
release.
*SHOOM!*
"For justice and friendship!
For truth and love!
Comes forth the pokegirl in training!
Let evil hearts quake in fear!
Sailor Pocky is here!
Yayyyyyy!"
Everyone blinked at the vision of an eight year old half-drow girl in a
handstitched "Sailor Venus" costume. Currently posing on the table.
Jared groaned. She was obviously one of those girls from that Sabre
Marionette world, one of Edema's cloned "daughters" that had been sneaking
late night viewings of that hentai pokemon derivative on the television
there. AND had watched some of Sakyo's left-behind tapes dealing with the
Sailor Moon series. "Oh dear."
Celeste struggled for a few minutes before she started snickering.
Sif merely clapped her hands. "Well now, *this* I can genuinely say I
haven't seen before."~A drow paladin-in-training? Very unusual. A fangirl
drow, not terribly common. A drow fangirl paladin? But then Grey was always
a 'weirdness magnet'.~
Jared mumbled that he didn't see anything. He didn't hear anything. Because
this could very obviously *not* be happening.
With the girl further declaring her desire to champion the causes of good,
scour evil from the universe, and "fight in the name of truth, love, and the
true spirit of chocolate!" nobody was paying that much attention to the
monitors, or those inserted into the Labor.
Or that it had quietly started.
------------
Azabu Juuban, Tokyo, Japan:
March, 1994:
"Oh, dear, would you stay a moment?"
Ami stopped, hearing a tone in her mother's voice she never had before. Also
her mother looked nervous, which was almost unheard of. "Mother?"
Dr Mizuno seemed to consider the soup on the stove as if expecting to see
some sort of answer in its depths.
Ami was about to ask again when her mother finally spoke.
"You've studied the Reconstruction, of course."
Ami nodded, having no clue where this was going now. The decade following
WWII where Japan rebuilt itself. Some would also say reinvented.
"During the Reconstruction, your grandfather met and befriended an American
serviceman that was here."
Ami nodded again. It certainly wasn't unheard of. Her mind raced ahead. No
doubt there was some continuation of that friendship, and they'd have
visitors soon. Well, English wasn't Ami's strong suit and maybe this would
help.
"This arrived yesterday," Doctor Mizuno pulled a letter from her apron
pocket and placed it on the cabinet.
Ami tried to ignore the way a little alarm bell started ringing in her head.
She read the first page once, frowning at some of the unfamiliar words, then
read the second letter stapled to the first. It was a photocopy of a much
older letter, one written in 1953. As this was written in Japanese, Ami had
no trouble reading it from *that* quarter.
"Is... Is this correct?" Ami asked in a tiny voice.
"I recognize the handwriting. That is indeed my father's handwriting." The
pediatrician shook her head. "He never told me why he disapproved of my
first marriage. Now I know why."
Ami twitched a little as she turned that one over, and scanned the quick and
uncertain language of the third letter. Yes, that was definitely the case.
Her grandfather went on for some time about his disappointment that his
daughter hadn't even finished medical school before taking up with a
vagabond artist. "An arranged marriage?! ME?!"
"Well, you still dream of being a doctor yourself. Trust me, the vast
majority of Japanese men might marry a Doctor, but would expect you to
retire to take care of the home." A sidelong glance. "I won't force you, but
according to that, I was able to attend medical school largely through the
assistance of this American friend of my father."
Ami blinked again, otherwise staring at the old document. Why did life have
to be so complicated? Fighting the Dark Kingdom, maintaining her GPA, now an
arranged marriage between families!
Waitaminute, what if he were cute? She'd have Makoto and Minako all over HER
fiance!
Ami sighed and repeated her earlier thought about life's complications.
Kumori Mizuno, seeing that her daughter hadn't rejected it, crossed her
fingers and made a phone call to confirm the meeting.
------
A week went by with little accomplishment.
News that there would soon be an exchange student attending, and one who had
little learning in Japanese, leaked among the students from someone within
the administration.
There were several reactions to the thought of a gaijin invading their
school. According to the school paper: 10% regarded this as something to
seriously disturb the "wa" of the school, 5% regarded this as evidence of
the Apocalypse, 15% described it as neat, 30% as hopes that s/he would be
cool looking, and 40% wondered if tutoring the gaijin in Japanese would be
considered for extra credit in English.
Ami, keeping her nose in a series of books during the rampant speculation,
declined comment. Though she *did* manage to overhear a discussion of "what
American boys did to poor Japanese girls when they got them alone" and vowed
to Shabon Spray anyone who tried to do *that* on a first date. Even on the
second date. Well, maybe if he was cute... (blush, fidget, twitch)
Usagi, and Minako sensed *something* was up with Ami, but quickly came to
the conclusion that (considering that it *was* Ami) this had something to do
with studying or exams. And rather than trigger a study session dealing with
subjects they didn't have to deal with otherwise they further independently
came to the same realization: it was best not to say anything.
Rei had a few odd dreams, dealing with some Disarmament Era policeman with a
chain style weapon. And he did... and then... and then Rei got up to get a
cold shower and gripe about her hentai imagination getting out of control
lately while she hung her bedding out to dry. She was *not* into those
things. Nope. Uh uh. And thanked the kami that Usagi had never found her
stash of *those* magazines.
-------
If he had been Ranma Saotome, he would never admit fear. If he had been the
Pheonix Mage, he'd have strode off the plane with confidence and a smile on
his lips, absolutely certain that he'd come out victorious no matter the
opponent.
As it was a fellow named Grey Shard, a student in Junior High with halfway
decent grades, going into a land where he barely spoke enough of the
language to ask where's the bathroom and didn't know anybody OR the local
customs that well, and was supposed to meet his fiancee for the first time,
he didn't have any trouble with the concept. FEAR - a feeling of
apprehension and nervousness, often marked by a concern for one's physical,
emotional, or mental safety. F-E-A-R. Fear.
He'd read all the way over from LA, where he'd caught a flight via Singapore
Airlines. Customs, trying to brush on catch phrases and a language that
seemed designed to confound outsiders, and especially trying to figure out
what the heck he'd gotten into.
Apparently the Japanese took personal honor seriously and family honor to be
a matter beyond life and death.
The things he could do wrong seemed infinite, what he had a reasonable
chance of getting right - infinitesimal. The path before him - hanging
suspended by a thread over a minefield.
The only comfort he could think of was that he wasn't likely to cause an
international incident and that his record of striking out with the "fair
sex" was likely to remain unbroken. Not very great comforts at all. In fact,
that last one was something he'd like to see proven wrong.
The long flight had done little to settle his nerves, and he'd found that
packing a supply of Pepto-Bismol pills in his carry-on luggage had proven to
be one of his best ideas so far. He was confused, he was afraid, he just
*knew* that he'd say or do something wrong and destroy this girl's family
honor. Mizuno-san. He didn't even have a first name, just a last.
His parents had apparently been quite amused by the whole thing. His father
thought the experience might "toughen him up" while his mother was more
interested in seeing him find a nice girl.
What if it turned out to be a guy? Or a crossdresser? Or some violent thug
like Melanie? Or... no. The phone conversation his mother had had with Mrs
Mizuno hadn't indicated anything like that. Surely it would have come up.
Grey cut that off with an effort. The problem was that his imagination was
sufficiently fertile that he could see *lots* of possibilities for disaster.
He tried to focus on what could be *right* with this encounter. She could be
cute. She could make allowances for his scattershot Japanese, after all it
wasn't like Spanish where it was damn near required in the American
Southwest. Maybe they had something in common *despite* the language barrier
and the racial barrier and the huge gulf that seperated man and woman? And
maybe he'd hit the lottery, win ten million dollars, and be able to attend
Wood's Hole Oceanographic Institute.
Yeah, maybe.
He exited the plane and went through the Customs line without much problem.
When they'd asked him if he had anything to declare, he'd almost said yes,
he would declare he needed more time to figure out the language. Say a
couple of years and not being self-taught.
The Security Guards gave him a once over. Fifteen year old boy, looks scared
half-to-death, might be an international criminal mastermind on his way to a
major drug deal. Or one of those weirdos that kept popping up in some town
called Juuban, at least according to "News Of The Weird." Right.
Grey continued on, noting the crowd of people meeting other people. Nope. No
signs with his name on them. There was one girl about his own age, maybe a
little older, but she was holding a sign with that katakana stuff on it. Or
was that Hiragana? Too bad, she was really cute. His type too. Girls with
glasses, especially ones that had the right kind to frame their eyes - like
this one did. Wow. There was something else about her that just... wow. Not
her though, he'd tried to make eye contact and she hadn't returned the
gesture.
Maybe if he was lucky the girl he was supposedly engaged to would turn out
to be that cute. And maybe NASA would get a budget and go back to the moon
and set up a permanent colony so that the US would have something that we
could actually brag about.
Grey walked past the crowd, still looking and carrying his bags. Nobody.
Well, this certainly fit the way the rest of his life went. "'She'll meet
you at the airport.' Here's another mess my parents have gotten me into. i
couldn't get a break even outside the country. Rrrrrr."
---------
Ami waited until the crowd finished debarking, then glanced up at the
monitor. Yes, this was the right flight. A quick question to one of the
attendents indicated that no one was still on board.
Ami frowned ever so slightly. Had he come by? Finally she asked one of the
attendents to check the passenger manifest. Yes, he'd been here. He debarked
normally, passed through customs.
And had managed to get lost somehow apparently.
The kindly attendent looked over the sixteen year old and noticed something.
"Uhm, Miss, does this Americajin know Japanese?"
Ami blinked. "Uhm, maybe not."
"Then why did you write your sign in Japanese?"
Ami stopped, blinked, and turned her sign over. It was a literal translation
of his name in kanji with the katakana pronunciation below it. "Oh dear."
"Well, if it's any consolation, he probably hasn't gone too far." The flight
attendent favored Ami with a smile. "Probably still looking around the
airport." ~Providing he doesn't think you stood him up, in which case he's
probably at the bar.~
Ami winced. "Well, thank you very much, you've been quite helpful."
----------
Grey used his precious VISA (precious because it had taken him a long time
to get it) to rent a "capsule hotel" and was glad he wasn't claustrophobic.
At least not much. The hotel "room" bore a rather distressing resemblence to
a coffin. Albeit a coffin with a TV built into a wall. Or a torpedo tube, he
supposed.
Tomorrow promised to be a difficult day. He had their address. Now all he
had to do was navigate the Tokyo subway system, find a station relatively
close to the address on this envelope, then walk the rest of the way.
Carrying three suitcases. One of which was full of gifts because it was
apparently a big no-no to show up at a friend's house without a gift.
Well, at least it was April. The night was cold but it'd be warm tomorrow if
he'd figured out this Celsius stuff.
Though he'd have to see if he could get a job here it looked. He was
supposed to be here at least six months, and he'd had to quit his job (part
time Stocker/Sales) at Waldenbook's.
Pity. He'd really miss that employee discount.
----------
Elsewhere:
1,400 km beneath the surface of Terra Two:
Shan floated among the plasma currents.
Sakyo had turned it up among Lorelei's memories. A current among the plasma
fields, that built up in a loop over 80,000 years. When it reached a
bursting point, almost all life on Terra Two would be exterminated.
Sakyo had uploaded the relevant files to Shan and had spoken to Makoto
Jupiter.
The Sailorjin had opened the path.
Shan had then spent some time absorbing plasma until she had developed the
counter.
Between the three of them, saving the planet had been easy.
Of course, this was all getting away from the task that they had been set
on. Necessary but still a diversion.
Shan comforted herself with the thought that while she was carving out
channels that would safely allow the plasma to dissipate, Sakyo was busy
carrying out her Master's plans.
----------
Ami Mizuno was NOT the most self-confident or extroverted girl in the
prefecture of Tokyo known as Azabu Juuban. She might well have helped her
friends to save the world from vampiric entities, be able to transform into
a magical princess from an ancient kingdom, and be the fabled genius girl
who remained at the prestigious top of the test scores and cram school
rankings.
All this was quite true about the short haired girl in the glasses.
Sometimes.
When facing energy leeching monsters from some Dark Kingdom, there was not a
hint of back-down in her. Swarm of giant rats? No problem! Part of this was
because she had come to regard her identity as Sailor Mercury as being
seperate from herself. Sailor Mercury was the fearless warrior of love and
justice. It was her way of coping with the role despite having more than the
usual share of shyness common to Japanese schoolgirls. Ami Mizuno would have
been embarassed to appear in public in that fuku. It wasn't a problem for
Sailor Mercury.
Ami Mizuno, on the other hand, frightened and embarassed easily, did NOT
have that much confidence in her looks or abilities outside the classroom,
and would have run shrieking away from giant rats. At least until she could
transform.
Telling her mother that she'd lost her fiance because she'd made a simple
mistake (through nervousness she now suspected) in making up a sign. Well,
Ami found herself wishing for a Dark Kingdom attack or the aforementioned
swarm of giant rats. ANYTHING to take the attention off of her.
"You didn't?! You did? Oh dear," Doctor Mizuno said and covered her eyes
with one hand. It had been a long shift at the hospital again. "Well, I
suppose you left word at the station?"
Ami nodded once. It was HER fault that some stranger was in a strange land.
HER fault he was lost and alone and not knowing where to turn. HER fault.
Not the most auspicious of beginnings to what might (or might not) be a
relationship.
"Well, we'll have to wait until we hear something. I'll call his mother.
Hopefully he'll call home and we can arrange for you to find him. Now get
some sleep, honey. Tomorrow's a school day." Doctor Mizuno glanced at the
clock. "Okay, *today* is a school day."
----------
Slogging through the rain, glad that at least he'd Scotch-guarded the
suitcases, Grey felt absolutely miserable. He was wet, he was cold (it
turned out that 16 degrees Celsius was *not* anywhere near the mid 80s
Farenheit), he was hungry, he was tired, he was also sick and tired of the
natives moving to get as far away from him as possible.
He was also, after getting directions from someone who thought they could
speak "Engrish" better than they apparently could, sitting on a bench
waiting for the next train in some place called Yokosuka. He wasn't sure,
but he was reasonably sure that he wasn't even in Tokyo anymore.
As for what station he was at, he had no idea. It was a wooden station with
holes in the roof. Instead of the little gadgets where you bought a ticket,
he'd found some old guy behind a booth. When he'd gotten the guy to wake up,
he'd tried repeating "Juuban" repeatedly and pointing to the tracks. He
thought the guy had finally gotten the right idea.
He hoped, anyway.
------------
Rei startled awake, realizing that the odd noise had been Usagi's snoring,
but that word seemed to echo in her head. "Nebula?"
"Nebula?" Ami repeated. ~A large cloud of gas (and other matter) which gives
birth to stars?~
"What's that?"
"I just had the oddest dream," Rei began. "And a phrase - 'Nebula returns.'"
"I had an odd dream too," Usagi cut in. "I had eaten too much ice cream
when..."
Usagi was interrupted as suddenly Sailor Pluto was standing in the room
leaning over Rei. This especially interrupted Usagi because the future moon
princess had been knocked sprawling and was currently underfoot.
"AAAAAA!" This was the general consensus reached by three of the girls
present at suddenly someone just appearing like that. Usagi merely groaned.
"Nebula?! He's back! Where? When?"
"Uhm, she might answer better if you put her down," suggested Usagi. "And
could you please stop standing on me?"
Rei hesitated, taken aback by the intense look in Sailor Pluto's eyes. "I
don't know. There was a wind, and three lights combining into one. Then a
chain came spinning in to surround us, only it was broken by the wind, and
then the statues of us got broken, and..."
"A chain? Sort of a grey color?"
Rei nodded, seeing an intensity about Sailor Pluto that hadn't been present
when their paths had crossed previously.
"Nebula. Finally." Sailor Pluto seemed to relax for a moment, then
straightened and looked directly at Makoto. "He's mine!"
Makoto blinked, unsure of why she wanted to argue the point.
Artemis cleared his throat, seeing *Pluto* distraught was, well, a bit
strange. Best to guide the conversation to where everyone knew her opinion.
"So what about the effect on Crystal Tokyo?"
"SCREW CRYSTAL TOKYO!"
The assembled Senshi had gone from staring to outright boggling at this
point. Luna had turned nearly as white as Artemis.
"Do you think I wanted this damn job? Guard the Time Gate and let nobody
near it? Well, when the job was given me the *last* time I had to turn away
my lover and watch him and everyone I cared about *die!* And it's not like
anybody *uses* the damn thing anyway! The Dead Moon, Esmeraude, even that
meddling Doctor fellow! They *all* time travel and not one of them uses the
gate! I am sick and tired of being the lonely Guardian of Time! My boyfriend
from the Silver Millenium is back and I AM NOT SITTING BACK AND WATCHING HIM
DIE AGAIN!"
This last had been shouted into Luna's face when Luna had tried to
interrupt.
Setsuna Meiou vanished. Everyone was silent and continued staring for
awhile. Luna's feet were sticking stiff and straight up from the depths of
the pillow where she had landed.
"Uhm... right," said Rei beginning to recover. ~Why do I get the feeling the
other shoe's about to drop.~
Minako reached out with one finger and pushed Artemis over. He thunked
against the floor as if made of wood.
"I wonder if he looks like my sempai," wondered Makoto aloud. ~Nebula. That
name means something. But what?~
Luna recovered with a blink. "It must be some new plot against the world.
Mind control. Yeah. That's it. We'll just have to break the mind control and
destroy this fellow."
Artemis frowned, which was difficult for a cat but he pulled it off. "There
was something about Nebula. I can almost remember. Something bad. Some sort
of scandal."
"Uh huh," Minako had her doubts but it sounded like everyone else had seized
on the explanation as the one that made the most sense.
Ami nodded and nervously asked what she'd been hesitant to bring up since
the study session began. "Uhm, Rei. Can I ask you about something else?"
Rei blinked at both the novelty of Ami asking her a question during a study
session, as well as the not so smooth change of subject.
"Uhm, I," Ami began drawing in on herself, blushing furiously. Admitting her
mistake and this strange situation was drawing more attention to her than
she was comfortable with. She was sure they'd make more of this then there
actually was. "I... my family... old agreement... then at the airport...
I... well... in a hurry... so... and then... so I don't know where..."
Everyone leaned closer, trying to make out the mumbling, especially with Ami
now trying to curl up in severe embarassment.
"So, err, I kind of lost my fiance."
*THWAM!* There was a simultaneous facefault and this mystery of some Dark
Kingdom type was thrown aside as irrelevant. Well, to teenage girls, it was.
The two mooncats merely exchanged a helpless glance. They knew from
experience that they'd have to wait until the girls had gotten this out of
their system before they could concentrate on anything else.
"FIANCE!" Rei, Usagi, Makoto, and Minako yelped simultaneously before they
all started asking questions and trying to grill Ami on this development.
"...I'm so sorry..." Ami said, forehead pressed against the tabletop.
Minako hushed everyone. "You wanted Rei to do a fire reading?"
Ami nodded.
Another round of incomprehensible babbling as everyone tried to ask
questions at once. This time Rei managed to cut everyone off. "What can you
tell me about him? What's his name?"
"His name's Shard-san, he's American, his grandfather knew my grandfather,
and that's about it."
"And you made a mistake in meeting him at the airport and now he's wandering
around lost somewhere?" Usagi wanted to make sure about this. It sounded
like Ami had pulled an Usagi.
Rei thought the same thing and nervously hoped it wasn't contagious.
----------
Rei settled herself before the sacred fire, beginning the ritual of a fire
reading. It hadn't taken long for the study session to completely collapse
after Ami's little bombshell.
Twice she tried to get a glimpse of the feelings of foreboding. This new
enemy, the three points of light becoming one that seperated again and
vanished, the Silence. Flickers of barely recognizable images, including a
tree outside, but nothing else.
Tired, she nonetheless tried to get Ami's fiance. That should be simpler
right?
----------
"Princess Mars?"
Rei turned in shock, seeing a palace grounds with a red sky above. The
palace had a vaguely Arabic-East Indian look to it. Sort of. "What?!"
An officer of some kind, one with far less medals and ribbons on his chest
than the Princess of Mars was used to seeing, saluted her briefly and with a
certain rote fashion to it.
Glancing down, Rei noticed she was wearing a fancy gown embroidered with
red. There was a kind of curious dual awareness. As if she was seeing all
this through the eyes of her previous incarnation and just along for the
ride.
"Princess, I am First Lieutenant Basalt, Marines Division 459. Reporting as
required by protocols to a member of the court."
Rei was about to say something nasty, why bother HER over some minor
requirement that she'd never heard of before?
Seeing her expression, the soldier raised an eyebrow. "I am a Class 4 Esper
and Special Agent. It is required by Imperium Law that I report my
whereabouts to the Court I'm passing through unless I'm currently on a
mission."
Rei nodded in irritation. She knew that. Class Four? This guy didn't look
that special. That was almost on a level with the Knights. It meant he could
tap the manna currents of the Crystal. Nothing near what SHE could, of
course. WAY short of Bennu's level. This guy was short and lean, not
especially good looking, but had a toughened look about him. Like most
Marines, if he had an ounce of fat on his body it was hiding. "Fine, fine,
you've done so. Go ahead."
A slight smirk appeared on the soldier's face. "You know if you're going to
pursue Bennu, you ought to just go ahead and do it."
"WHAT?! Howcouldyou?! I'mnot..." Rei wasn't prepared for the flood of
embarrasment and confusion.
"You've been staring at him every time you're not glaring at me, Princess.
It's a crowded playing field, but he hasn't made a choice yet." The soldier
shrugged and looked off. "He's got his Pheonix Tower on Deimos, that's
definitely within your sphere of influence. Maybe you should go visit, just
officially keeping an eye on a powerful mage in your backyard of course."
Rei stared at the dashing figure that *had* to be the mage in question. She
felt her heart speed up even though he was halfway across the courtyard.
"Don't be ridiculous. There's no reason for ME to go visit HIM. If I wanted
an audience with Lord Bennu, I would summon him to MY presence. I'm the
Princess after all, he's merely a nobleman - and out of favor with the Court
at that."
Shaking his head, the soldier left without another word.
----------
Rei shook her head. "What the blazes was THAT?!"
~Princess Mars? Basalt? Bennu?~ She'd rarely gotten as cohesive a section of
her previous life as that had been. On a couple of occasions, she had met
her previous incarnation. ~My goodness, I could make out the sand clinging
to that soldier's uniform. For that level of detail, this must be terribly
important.~
Splashing water on her face to wash sweat and soot off, Rei considered it.
This had come up with trying to find Ami's lost fiance. So this tied in
somehow.
Rei's head snapped up, sending a trail of water across the sink. What if
Ami's fiance was BENNU?! Someone she had pursued in a previous life? And
Sailor Pluto had this bit about some guy named Nebula, so there might be a
connection.
But what?
----------
Floating in midair, a redhaired witch considered. There was a feeling, that
perhaps this girl with the uncanny knack with fire readings was not the best
candidate to start with. Perhaps another target would be better to start off
with for a "pure heart" that could produce a Talisman.
No, despite the feeling that events were shifting and changing, Kaolinite
settled for the priestess. Under her direction the daimon egg shifted and
settled to the trunk of a tree, then merged with its akashic pattern. The
potential would grow until it reached a critical mass, sparked by proximity
to its prey, and then...
and then the game would be afoot.
Kaolinite smiled, certain that even if the priestess did not have a
Talisman, that this first stirring of the waters would at least reveal what
obstacles lay hidden to the Professor's plan.
---------
Grey continued to grumble, lugging his suitcases along, when he felt
*something.*
Despite a lackluster attendence at school through frequent illness, he'd
managed some decent grades. Mainly because of a "cheat" - he got flashes of
things before they happened. Not quite precognition, but more than
intuition.
This felt *bad*. Wrong. Twisted. It also had a direction. Grey's eyes looked
up the stairs. That symbol on the gate was "fire" or "hi". The rest of it he
wasn't sure about, having only a few simple kanji memorized at this point.
Frowning, Grey decided to investigate. If nothing else, maybe they had
directions.
"MIKUJI!"
"Na- Nana no?"
Out came the (slightly damp) Japanese > English dictionary. Unsurprisingly,
there was no listing for "Mikuji". ~Watch it mean poison gas or
something...~
Coming up to the top of the stairs, there was a woman(?) floating in midair,
menacing one of those shrine maidens. Cute one too. More rapidfire Japanese,
too fast for him to even make out a vague idea of what they were saying.
After a quick moment to look for the camera crew, and seeing the girl about
to flee, Grey decided to put his year of Tae Kwon Do to use by using a
flying kick. He'd wonder about the weirdness factor later.
He was proud of it, for a brief moment, he was sure he'd gotten it off
perfectly. It slammed into the weird floating girl's head on the downward
part of the arc, catching her right above one ear.
"DON'T INTERFERE!" *WHAM!*
Landing on pavement, Grey considered his options. He was fairly scraped up
from his landing, he was still damp from a brief downpour this morning, he
was waiting for all those little squiggly points of light to stop moving
around, and the robot(?) had backhanded him rather handily. It felt like the
time he'd gotten kicked by a horse. He couldn't call a cop, for the very
simple reason that he didn't know how to say "can you help, there's a girl
being attacked by some reject from a cheesy B-horror flick over at that
Shrine over there" in Japanese. He got enough giggles and blank stares from
"Maigo no watashi, doko ni jusho mieru?"
Getting up brought all the itty bitty floating sparks of light back.
"Ouchie." Maybe he ought to stay right where he was.
A scream cancelled that notion. He couldn't very well sit here, feeling
nauseous and useless, if some girl was being attacked, could he?
---------
Rei wasn't one to look a gift horse in the mouth. Well, not very often
anyway.
Some gaijin had shown up and tried to take the youma on. Judging from the
sounds, he had been fairly quickly flattened. Finding a moment, Rei took out
her henshin pen and raised it up. "MARS STAR POWER! MAKE"
*WHAM!*
Rei heard the transformation pen land on the ground as her arms were pinned
to the wall by the youma, who then floated back and gave a typical youma
speech.
"Your fortune today is - bad luck!"
Then an obvious Dark Kingdom General type floated down. Something about her
immediately reminded Rei of Esmeraude. Hopefully she didn't have that same
annoying laugh. "Daimon Mikuji. This girl might have a Talisman in her pure
heart. Get her pure heart!"
"Mikuji," responded Mikuji, demonstrating that she might be a pokemon as she
had a tendency to say her name frequently for no apparent reason.
"Daimon?" Rei repeated. Looked like a youma, talked like a youma, therefore
it was a youma. Unless it was a cardian. And a pure heart? If they'd seen
her magazine stash, they'd likely not be targetting her.
Then a line of agony as a beam from the daimon's breastbone made contact
with her own chest.
Rei lost track of most of the rest of the dialogue, twisting in pain from
the beam. This hurt even worse than the usual energy-sucking attacks.
Another weird thought was how this sort of lifestyle had gotten to the point
where some little corner of her mind could calmly compare the attacks while
it was going on.
The pain lessened and she gasped for breath, that corner of her mind now
noticing that Sailor Moon had arrived, followed by the other Senshi, and all
of them were really getting beaten on.
"Anyone else?!" The Daimon snarled and turned back to finish Rei off.
Rei's eyes went wide as she saw a chain loop in from somewhere.
----------
Mikuji dealt with the interference. First with the one with the highest
power signature. Then with the humans, then having to turn her attentions to
the one calling herself Sailor Moon again AND some guy, then with some
stupid cats.
"Anyone else?!" Mikuji snarled, being thoroughly annoyed at this point. "Now
I can get the pure heart without interference."
"Sounds like my cue." *THWAM!* *THWAM!*
Mikuji staggered back, noting an energy disruption field similar to that
thrown rose from earlier. This one from - thrown chess pieces?!
>From the woods it struck like a serpent. A dull grey chain, with a moon
crescent blade on the end. It struck at Mikuji's neck, HARD. If she had been
human, the strike would have seperated the Daimon's head from her body and
likely her life. As it was, there was a wooden thunk and the retracting
chain left a mark like an open wound on the magically enhanced wood.
*THWAM!*THWAM!*THWAM!*
Three more chesspieces (knights, Ami would notice) slammed precisely into
bonds as the soldier ran into the clearing. The chain moved again, an
arrowhead-shaped end rearing up like a cobra and pointing towards Mikuji.
Mikuji snarled as she blocked three more rapid attacks. No, they weren't
attacks. This fellow was testing her defenses. He was different from the
girl or the previous guy. Weaker. Also no speeches, just a nearly constant
set of strikes as he tried to find a weak point. "Mi KU JI! Again- BLACK
TRIANGLE ATTACK!"
The guy with the chain tried to block, only to be thrown entirely from the
clearing.
"Jupiter -"
"Venus -"
"Mercury -"
" - Star Power. Make up!"
Mikuji turned as three more power signatures blossomed. "You, annoying,
pathetic... HUMANS!"
--------
Nebula noticed the three transform and attack, though his attention was
elsewhere. He also made a note to bring up that they were NOT using any sort
of tactics. Merely unleashing medium powered attacks.
The arrowhead reared up again, this time darting around as if testing the
air. Nebula concentrated on his link with the Chain Of Duty. Not there. Not
there. Not there. Not there.
It had been a hope, that the boss was still in the area. ~Kill the general
and the troops are easier.~ He was a soldier, he knew to go after the head
of the beast when possible. As that did not appear to be possible now, he
re-entered the fray, sending a chesspiece towards one of the bonds holding
the primary victim.
"Jupiter, link with me - Storm Chain attack!"
The ponytailed girl blinked. "WHAT?!"
Grey sent the bladed end of the again, having it strike out and retract like
a whip. "Don't you remember? Link your attack with mine. CRESCENT CUTTER!"
"...how do I do that..." Jupiter mumbled. There was something familiar about
this guy in the vaguely "Three Musketeers" outfit. Something that caused
some part of her to want to laugh and cry and sing all at the same time.
"Again?! VERY BAD LUCK FOR YOU!" Mikuji turned her attacks briefly towards
the single male in the battle, using her binding attack to wrap him up. Then
one after the other of the girls.
Seeing that Jupiter had landed nearby, Nebula couldn't resist. "Just great.
I realize you broke up with me so you could go chasing after Narcissus, but
did you have to forget my lessons on tactics and combining attacks,
PRINCESS?"
Jupiter blinked at the bitterness in that voice. And a feeling of shame? The
rest of her, the part that was Makoto Kino, was merely confused. The part of
her that she'd come to accept as Princess Jupiter, her previous life, wanted
to cry. Motion caught her eyes and she realized that the strangely familiar
man was talking to cover his using that chain of his to try and break the
wooden ties holding him in place.
"You and me, Jupiter, I thought we had something. Oh, I'll admit you ogling
all the better looking members of the Moon Court bothered me. As long as you
kept it to looking it was something I could deal with. I knew after the
Queen dismissed me that I wasn't what you or the others could have
considered 'prime materia' - and you have no idea how much it hurt when
you'd talk about how fine some *other* guy was," the man's voice went beyond
bitter now. "But when you dumped me to chase after Narcissus, extolling that
courtier's good qualities..."
Mercury and Venus listened also watching the chain move and try to break the
wooden ties.
"ANNOYING!" Mikuji noticed too and proceeded to add enough bindings to form
a coccoon around the male.
--------
Mars twitched, reaching down with the freed arm. She could *almost* reach
the henshin pen, if she could, she was sure that she could transform to
Sailor Mars. Just a little further.
"MIKUJI!" Again the beam struck Rei's chest. This time there was no one to
step forward, though the Daimon stopped three times as if expecting yet
another interruption at any point.
"In a heart so many wanted to protect, there MUST be a Talisman," declared
Mikuji as she held out a hand to pluck the crystalline form from the air.
*CRASH!* A ball of yellow energy slammed into Mikuji, causing her to miss
the heart. "WHAT?!"
*SMASH!* A ball of blue energy struck immediately thereafter, overwhelming
the daimon's defenses.
"Anything?" asked a girl in shadows as the bonds around the captured girls
(and two guys) faded and vanished with Mikuji's death.
"It's not a Talisman," responded the girl holding the crystalline shape that
emerged from Rei's chest. She prepared to hoist it and toss it back to where
it had come when she noticed the group below.
---------
Ignoring the girls gathered around their fallen friend, Nebula held his
chain and concentrated again. The arrowhead end moved and twitched, shifting
as it sought. Not there. Not there. There!
Nebula ran, ignoring the called question. He found the crystal easily
enough, as if it had been abandoned. He looked over the area, determined two
people had been here, and planned a return for further investigation.
When he returned, he shouldered past the girls to place the crystal near the
girl's chest. It merged without a mark. He backed away from the crying girls
and their moment of tenderness, preparing to turn away.
"Excuse me," said Jupiter, breaking away for a moment. "Who are you, and how
do I know you?"
The soldier sighed and gave her a hurt look. "You don't remember, Princess?
i am, or was, Nebula, Knight of Duty."
There was mass blinking. "You?!"
"QUICK, KILL HIM NOW!" Everyone stared at Luna as she yelled. "I remember,
he was banned from the Court by Queen Serenity!"
"i am *so* out of here," Nebula said, fading out.
"SEE! He fled! He's going to go doing something else!" Luna's fur was
sticking straight up along her back. "I just *know* he's behind this whole
thing!"
Rei cracked her eyes open to look up at Usagi. "Better switch Luna to
decaff, Usagi."
"Huh?!" Usagi responded, not understanding.
---------
Setsuna fretted and paced before the Gate Of Time.
She hadn't foreseen this but the moment she'd caught an errant comment from
Rei had been ready to latch on with both hands and not let go for ANYTHING.
Then she'd found where her boyfriend had turned up and had just stumbled to
a halt.
Her current incarnation was 24 years old, at least in the understanding of
the locals of biological age. She was a bit older than that chronologically,
of course.
She was the lonely guardian of time who had been born during the Silver
Millenium and had guarded it for a LOT longer than a thousand years. 10,000
years had passed. She had gone from being apparently 18 to apparently 24.
Yes, she had aged well.
Her boyfriend, unfortunately, had not survived the fall of the Moon Kingdom.
Now he'd been reborn. But was 15 years old.
This was a problem.
Oh to be sure, a mere nine years was as NOTHING to one raised in the Silver
Millenium. A lifespan of a thousand years insured that attitudes about time
considerations was considerably less than in this modern era. The problem
was that Nebula had been reborn in 20th Century America. A woman nine years
older was a BIG problem. Anyone over 18 dating someone on the other side of
that line was looked askance at to say the least, thrown in prison and
declaimed in the papers more likely. He was not likely to be receptive until
after Nebula had fully awoken.
And if he did awake? He would remember being abandoned by her, called off to
duty without a backwards glance. He wouldn't know about herr attempts to
get the "no visitors" policy waived, he'd been sent away from Court and
would have been completely out of the loop. ANOTHER big hurdle.
So Setsuna Meiou, guardian of the Gate Of Time, Sailor Pluto, fretted and
watched and paced and tried to come up with a plan.
----------
Grey picked himself up. The headache and blackout indicating that maybe he'd
hit his head harder than he'd thought.
He picked himself up in time to see the priestess return, this time with a
crowd of others. Nodding briefly, Grey winced at the stab of pain that
brought. "Uhm, do any of you speak English?"
That brought a couple of surprised looks from several of the girls. The
shrine priestess was leaning on a tall girl and looked like she'd been
through the ringer.
"I speak English," said a girl who had a red bow in her hair. She had an
accent but it was minimal - indicating that she likely spoke quite well
indeed.
"Oh, sorry to bother you, uhm," Grey decided to shelve questions about the
whatever the heck that wooden girl was. They'd just think he was crazy if
they hadn't seen her, and the priestess didn't look too steady yet. "i'm
kinda lost. Do any of you know how to get to," here he took out his note and
read the address off.
Everything was silent. Causing him to look up. Great, more staring. He'd
never gotten the feeling of being on display quite as much as he had over
this past day, and he was getting really tired of it. "Well, if you don't
know, thanks anyway."
A short haired girl that looked *really* familiar cleared her throat. "Errr.
Uhm. Shard-san?"
"Yes," Grey answered, finally placing the face. It was the girl from the
airport yesterday. Had it only been yesterday? It seemed longer.
----------
Everyone stared. The boy looked a bit sullen, tired, irritated, and scruffy.
He was scraped up, it looked like he had a head wound, his clothes were
ripped in a couple of places, and he had obviously been not doing too well
of late.
"He tried to intervene against the daimon when she first showed. He didn't
do too well." Rei spoke in Japanese, of course, noting from the
uncomprehending look that the boy either didn't speak Japanese or wasn't
very good at it. "I think I can stand on my own, Makoto."
"Oh dear," Ami said, switching to English and bowing. "-I'm Ami Mizuno. I'm
terribly sorry. I... missed you at the airport.-" She switched back to
Japanese. "I'm so embarrassed I've forgotten how to say it in English. How
do you say 'it was my mistake'?"
"-It was my mistake,-" said Minako, the English language being one of her
strengths.
"Uhm, everyone this is, err, ahh, my, uhm, fiancee..." Ami's voice trailed
off into nothing.
Makoto opened her mouth.
"Come on, Mako-chan, how does he remind you of your old sempai?" Rei prodded
the taller girl.
"Actually, he doesn't look a thing like my old sempai. My sempai was tall
and handsome and had this really great smile..." Makoto's voice trailed off,
the boy had just reacted to something.
"He's not blonde. Aren't all Americans blond and tanned? Except for some of
their movie stars of course." Usagi agreed that the fellow didn't look like
much.
"Well, he doesn't look that bad," said Minako. "Uhm, he doesn't speak
Japanese does he?"
---------
Grey let out a deep breath, this would let him know how much of what they'd
said he'd gotten right. "Nihongo wa sukoshii hanashimasu." (i speak a little
Japanese.)
Yup, multiple apologies and a lot of bowing. Oh, this was just *peachy.*
This girl was embarassed to have him as a fiance, combined with the bits of
dialogue he understood earlier, plus apologizing for what they'd said. It
all added up. That he'd gotten some of their words wrong was not immediately
obvious, tone and expression filling in blanks.
"Gomen nasai, Mizuno-chan, I shall endeavor to be less a burden to you and
return home," Grey turned and walked off. He didn't need this. If he wanted
to be insulted, abused, dismissed, or just plain treated as a doormat, there
were plenty of *American* girls to do this.
He heard more Japanese being spoken behind him, but frankly this hadn't been
a good day and he was *not* terribly understanding of these things at this
point. He was *tired* and didn't want to focus on anything more difficult
than a warm dry bed. He wanted somewhere where he could read the street
signs, he wanted somewhere he could order food and not wonder if there was
dog or cat as a primary ingredient (he'd heard stories), he wanted to be
someplace where he was tolerated even if not particularly liked, and damn
it - he wanted to be able to change into dry clothes!
The Shinto priestess from earlier ran in front of him and started yelling
something that sounded extremely uncomplimentary.
"Get out of my way. I'm tired, I'm *still* damp, I'm cold and I am heartily
*sick* of this crap!"
The priestess blinked for a moment, then threw her hand forward as if to
slap.
Grey blocked, dropping his suitcases in order to chamber the other hand
ready to strike. Except that at the moment they touched, the girl seemed to
go off into la-la land. Picking up his suitcases again, Grey prepared to go
past the seemingly stunned girl.
Except the tall one seemed to have some grudge now and she turned out to be
a better fighter.
---------
Seeing Ami curling up in embarassment at this gaijin meeting her and then
REJECTING HER, Rei found her feet and started forward.
"How *dare* you lay all this on Ami-chan! Then turn your back on her like
that!"
The boy said something that sounded uncomplimentary.
Rei felt the boy's arm make contact with the flesh of her own arm and got an
immediate dream image.
---------
"First Lieutenant Basalt? Here? How interesting," said Coral, one of the
older members of the court, Princess Mercury's second cousin if Princess
Mars had the genealogy right.
"He's boorish and clumsy, an oaf," sniffed Princess Mars in reply.
"He's the favorite uncle of Princess Venus," said Coral, as if to herself.
Princess Mars stumbled slightly. "Excuse me?"
"He's the favorite uncle of Princess Venus, a professional soldier who's
spent most of his life away from the courts and its intrigues. Until about
eight years ago, of course."
"What happened then? That mouth of his get him demoted?"
Coral seemed to consider something for a moment. "He became a Special
Operative responsible directly to Queen Serenity herself."
The graceful Princess Of Mars bumped her knees into a chair as she stumbled
again. "THAT PUMPKIN?!"
Coral nodded again, mysterious smile in place that said she was keeping the
juiciest parts back for later. "He's been of great benefit to the Kingdom.
Why, I've heard it said that Princess Serenity would not be here today if it
were not for the man's efforts."
Mars-ohime grimaced slightly, considering that she'd not been terribly nice
to him. Maybe she'd overplayed her princess role.
"Though, like Bennu, he's currently out of favor with the Queen. Whereas
Bennu circulated that limerick about Her Majesty," Coral smirked in
appreciation of the jest, however politically suicidal that had been,
"Basalt merely failed to deal with some courtly intrigue. Or so the rumors
say."
Again Rei grimaced. Courtly intrigue rarely suited her mood either. She'd
rather "Fire Soul" her opponents than engage in indirect smear tactics or
the like.
"Mako-chan!"
Rei shook her head, clearing it of the vision.
Just in time to see Makoto land a good one on the boy, a really devastating
sweep-kick. Very effective as it knocked the boy into the air above the
steps. He made a nice little arc, finally landing on the pavement below in a
heap.
At which point a car ran over his outstretched leg.
"I didn't... I mean I didn't see..." Makoto was just now realizing how far
the fight had escalated and what she'd done.
Rei winced. Take a certain fifteen year old, add another decade, and you had
someone who looked an awful lot like First Lieutenant Basalt. "Uhm,
Mako-chan. I'm okay. He's not Dark Kingdom either. Actually, err, I'm
thinking he *was* on our side."
=============
-----------
Having seen enough to know that this wasn't
a slapstick but a heroic moment, Ukyo played it to
the hilt. After all, when had she had a chance to
do something like this in HER life? "Enter the high
school warrior-chef (sentai-pose - chain to spinning
the spatula around and another pose with it behind
her in a more samurai pose) whose spatula strikes
injustice. Ukyo Kuonji, age 16!" (gleam of teeth)
-Reluctant Bet
metroanime@mindspring.com
http://metroanime.home.mindspring.com/