Sailor Moondrop
Episode 101: Destiny Reborn! The Flower Princess is Revealed?
"She must be here… the book wouldn't lie…"
Barley readjusted his reading glasses and scratched his head. He had been meditating at the peak of Mother's Hill for perhaps the past three hours, yet he felt no more enlightened than when he had started. Carefully, he closed the book in his lap and sighed… he was no close to finding the Flower Princess than when he had started his search thirty years prior.
The elderly patron crossed the rickety wooden bridge with care - it had been that way for years now! No one had thought to repair it, though, so it was on its last legs. The wind blew the crossing precariously, and Barley stopped several times to regain his footing…
As he did so, Barley heard a noise in the distance, not unlike the giggling of a child.
Quietly first, then louder and more rapidly. At first, he chalked it up to the ebb of the river below. However, as it became more and more high-pitched and annoying, Barley felt compelled to trace its source. He followed the unmelodic echoing through a trail of dirt and trees until he finally located the culprit: Popuri was rolling mindlessly around in a bed of flowers, laughing her head off.
"Popuri?" he asked quizzically, cocking his head.
The pink-haired ingénue looked up, startled; her eyes were rife with horror. "Oh my God! That thing just talked! Help! Help! Somebody, please, help!"
"Shh! Popuri! It's just me, Barley!" His expression of surprise suddenly turned to one of concern. "You should come back to your family, you know. It's been three days… they're getting worried." Popuri's face showed her alarm - she simply explained that she had come up to the hill last Wednesday to roll around in the flowers but simply lost track of time. "But for three days? I mean… you didn't notice the sun rising and setting, or anything?"
"It's easy to lose track of things when I'm with the flowers," Popuri smiled apologetically. Barley shook his head, and accidentally dropped his book. "Ooo! A book! I never learned how to read because Momma said that girls are supposed to be pretty or pregnant at all times, and not smart. I dunno… Mary is pretty smart, and Elli too, and Ann isn't that pretty and as far as I know, she's not pregnant, so…" The girl trailed off when a cloud caught her eye.
"Yes," Barley smiled, condescending to the girl as best he could. "That's very special. You should be an astronaut when you grow up."
"I'm twenty-five," Popuri responded with a polite smile, and Barley shuddered.
"Yes, well… I thought you had just hit puberty early. Ahem. Anyways, I must be going, and…" He was interrupted with a high-pitched "Whatcha readin'?" from the girl with whom he had been conversing. "Oh, I'm just studying up on my folklore. The story of the Flower Princess, you know?"
Popuri replied that she didn't. In response, Barley handed her a purple flower. "Ooo, pretty! But what's this for?"
"Well, it goes like this…
"Once upon a time, long ago in a small village not unlike this one, there was a flower princess. She was said to be the most beautiful girl in the land, with silky pink locks and giant, scary red eyes. Likewise, her mother, the queen, bore a similar appearance. She had four very special friends - the royal nurse, the royal scholar, the girl who took care of the palace's menagerie of animals, and the village slut.
"It was said that the princess was in love with a boy from the next village, who always wore a purple bandanna. However, the Harvest Goddess was also in love with this boy, and she constantly gifted him to show her affections. He would wake up in the morning to find fresh milk, finely spun wool, and golden eggs on his doorstep. Sadly, however, he did not return the Goddess's affections and had eyes only for the Flower Princess.
"This made the Harvest Goddess furious, and she did everything she could to make life difficult for the princess. But with the help of her friends, known as the Mineral Senshi and possessing secret powers, the Flower Princess could easily vanquish the Goddess time and again. This continued for nearly a decade until the Goddess decided that something needed to be done. Finally, she used all of the energy at her disposal and attacked the palace in a grand sonic wave. The princess and her Senshi were killed instantly.
"The Harvest Goddess was delighted! Surely, she would have the boy in the purple bandanna to herself now! However, it was not to be, as he died of heartbreak, plummeting the Harvest Goddess into a depression. Her life force slowly drained until she finally used all of her remaining energy to bring the boy in the purple bandanna back to life. Unfortunately for the Goddess, though, in order to bring her love back to life, she would need to undo her own carnage and reincarnate the Flower Princess and her Mineral Senshi, and it could not be in the present: it would have to be several hundred years in the future.
"The dates coincide: by now, the princess, the Senshi, and the boy in the purple bandanna should all have been reborn. The Harvest Goddess has slowly been regaining her power for the past five hundred years, prepared to kill the Flower Princess whenever she recognizes her. It is my solemn duty to find the princess and warn her, so that she may prevent this carnage before it occurs. The only way I can track her is by using the flower I just gave you, which glows when it nears the princess. It's the last of its kind left on earth, and-"
He turned to see a guilty looking Popuri with a green stem sticking out of her mouth. She quickly slurped it into her mouth. "It got blown away in the wind," she said innocently, her eyes darting about. Barley buried his face in his palm. "But that's soooo sad! What will happen to the princess when you find her?"
"Well, if she can defeat the Harvest Goddess, things will continue as they are. However, if the Goddess triumphs, time itself will cease to exist! Moreover, the fate of the world will-" He was interrupted by more high-pitched giggling. Popuri was rolling manically around in the flowers again. "Forget it…"
-
"No! You left out the part where the Flower Princess was a stupid bitch! Bah!"
A clatter echoed across the cave behind the waterfall as the Harvest Goddess knocked her crystal ball off its stand, sending it flying across the room and nearly bowling over the small figure dressed in red. "Your Godliness, are you all right?"
"No, General Chef, I am not damn well alright," the furious deity snapped back. "I'm pissed off! The Flower Princess is in this village somewhere, and I want to know where she is! Why don't you know?"
"I've been trying to find her, Your Godliness, but that old man Barley keeps foiling my attempts! It's most vexing," the Harvest Sprite apologized, bowing.
"Shut your festering mouth or I'll use you as a tampon, you little twerp!" the Goddess bellowed, throwing an apple. It hit Chef between the eyes and made him cry. "Stop crying or I will murder you! You do not want to piss me off!" Her voice echoed in the silence.
"Hmm… I'm tired of that old coot meddling in my affairs. Something needs to be done about him. General Chef!" The Harvest Sprite flinched, expecting a beating, but none came. "I need you to create for me a Youma capable of disembowelling that old jerk. Posthaste."
"But Your Godliness, he's gotten the better of me so many times before, and-"
"I'll get the better of your ass, you premature Oompa Loompa! Now kill the old fossil or I'll make salsa out of your relatives!" The Goddess pulled out a puppy, prepared to throw it at the elf, but he was already gone.
"Oh my Me, you just can't get capable help these days…" she moaned, placing her head in her hand. "But it shouldn't be too hard to kill that relic; even Chef won't be able to screw it up. His bones are probably dust by now anyways. What I need to concentrate on is finding the Princess, and in order to do so, I will need to get energy… hmmm…"
Her scheming was disguised by the rushing waterfall.
-
"Popuri! We have to go!" Barley ordered, his patience slowly draining away. He would normally have been at the bottom of the mountain three times already, but Popuri kept stopping to play in the river, or pick tulips, or try to catch birds with a butterfly net. She would then stuff them in her purse, which was now practically vibrating.
"But it's such a pretty day out! I just want to play for a little bit longer!" the pink-haired pixie bubbled. Barley sternly reminded her that she had been out here for going on four days now. "Right! Each one more beautiful than the last! If I leave now, the rapture might come and I'd be indoors, and I wouldn't ascend to heaven! Why do you want me to go to hell, Barley?" The girl began to sob. "I can't believe I ever loved you!"
"Uh… hm…" The old man was lost for a response, but he needed give one. Popuri was back skipping through the flowers and slamming her bird-filled purse against trees to knock down squirrels.
"Popuri!" he yelled, and she stopped cold, tears in her eyes. "We need to leave! The sun is going to set soon!"
"Fine, but can I just pick one more flower?" she begged. He begrudgingly consented, and she began to scan the mountainside for the perfect bud. Her eyes set upon one that seemed to pulsate with red energy. "Oo, that one looks like a dandy!" She skipped up to it and plucked its head, and a low rumbling began to shake the earth.
"Wh- what's going on?" Popuri stammered, falling on her backside and edging away from the flower, which seemed to be growing in front of her. She couldn't resist, though, and put her face close to it.
"Popuri, watch out!"
Barley dove to save her, just as the giant monster burst out of the ground. It wrapped its tendrils around the old man and held him up in the air. The Youma - Floricon was its name - was an ugly creature, which seemed to mimic a flower. It had long slender leaves, roots at its base, and a horrible face covered in thorns. It drooled acid.
"That's not pretty! That's not pretty at all!" she cried. The monster laughed a booming roar, and raised Barley to its lips. "Drop him! Drop hiiiim! Stupiiiiid!" She ran up to the flower and opened her purse, sending a cascade of doves toward it. It roared in dismay and swatted Popuri away, dropping Barley in the process.
"Aiiieee!" Popuri went flying back, landing hard on her side. She began to cry. "You hit me! Why did you hit me?" As she sobbed, Barley noticed from his spot behind the tree a peculiar golden mark forming on her forehead.
It looked like a daisy…
"She couldn't be…"
But she was.
"Popuri, get out of the way!" The old man knocked her out of the way once again as a stream of acid eroded the very grass on which she was sitting. He quickly pulled her into the wilderness. "We can hide here, just keep it down." Popuri shrieked very loudly and a tree in front of them burned down. Barley found a new hiding spot and continued.
"Now, I don't want you to be alarmed by what I'm about to, but I believe that you are the incarnation of the Mineral Senshi."
"What? But they're a story! Stories can't be real!" Popuri gasped.
"Biographies are r-"
"Stories can't be real!" she insisted.
"What about newspaper artic-"
"Never!" Popuri yelled. The Youma burned down another tree and Popuri began to cry.
"Keep it down! I believe that you are the flower Senshi, Sailor Moondrop, with the power to command flowers," Barley clarified.
"Pretty crappy power if you ask me," Popuri replied.
"I didn't," Barley hissed, clenching his fist.
"I'm Sailor Moondrop. You should value my opinion," the pink-hair smiled smugly. Her companion had to visibly restrain himself from punching her in the face. "Anyways, how do you know I'm this Sailor Moondrop person? How do you know that flowers aren't just naturally attracted to my beauty?" She batted her eyelashes and pushed up her hair.
"No, that's definitely not it," the old man replied, earning a frown from Popuri. "You have the mark of Moondrop on your forehead. Here, I have something for you… somewhere…" He rummaged through his rucksack before coming up with a small metal rod with a flower atop it. "This is your henshin stick. It will transform you into Sailor M- wait, what are you doing!"
Popuri angrily hurled the rod at Floricon's head. "Take that, you bastard!" she yelled, then turned smiling to Barley. "Did you see that? I got him right in the cheek! I could get to like this superhero stuff!" The owner of the Yodel Ranch shook his head grimly.
"Go get the henshin stick, you moron. You need it to change into Sailor Moondrop."
"But you just said I was already-"
Floricon knocked the final tree out of the way and towered above the helpless pair. "Raaaar!" it raaaar!ed, its tentacles flailing wildly as it began to release a cloud of spores into the air.
"It's no use… the spores… are…" Barley yawned. "I'm… I cant… hold… my head…"
Suddenly, a moon drop flower cut through the cloud of spores and stuck into the ground. Floricon roared in confusion. "Unhand those two, vile Youma, or feel the wrath of my moondrop flower!" Barley and Popuri cocked their heads to find the source of the voice.
"Who are you?" Popuri squealed.
"I am… Tuxedo Bandanna!" the dark-skinned young man replied simply. He was true to his name, wearing a purple tuxedo and matching bandanna, with a pair of black cat-eye glasses concealing his identity, although he was clearly Kai from the Snack Shop. "I am here to stop this Youma from-" He was cut off abruptly as Floricon launched a volley of acid at him, knocking him off the cliff on which he stood and sending him plummeting to the ground several hundred feet below.
"Tuxedo Bandanna!" Popuri shrieked in terror.
"Now's your chance! Grab the henshin stick while the Youma is distracted!" Barley instructed, and Popuri quickly scampered along while Floricon recharged its spore attack. She grabbed the wand and asked for further instructions. "Now say, 'Moondrop Mineral Power, Make-Up!'"
"Bananaface Super Mineral Power, Make-Up!" A ray of pink light enveloped Popuri as several sakura flowers and cherry blossoms danced around her face. A wave of fuchsia orbed out from the end of her henshin stick, giving her body a pleasant tingly feeling. It stopped as suddenly as it started, and there, in her pink sera-fuku, was Sailor Moondrop, or…
"Sailor Bananaface!" the Senshi shrieked in glee.
"No, no! Not Bananaface! Sailor Moondrop!" Barley yelled.
"Your way is boring. My way is sparkly," Sailor Bananaface giggled.
"But you were destined to bear the name of Sailor Moondrop!" the old man moaned.
"You were destined to shut up!" Popuri retorted happily. "Score one for Popuri! Is that one of my awesome new superpowers? A super-quick wit?"
"Would you just kill the Youma?" groaned Barley, thinking that if it would be this difficult with all of the Senshi he should just join a travelling circus and escape the whole mess.
"Would your mom just kill the Youma?" Bananaface barbed. "Oh! Oh! Score another one for the hot chick in the short skirt! Although… you're really old. Your mom has probably been dead for thousands of years." Tears began to well up in her eyes. "That's sooo sad. My mom is sick, too. C'mere, gimme a hug." Floricon sent a thorn flying at her, knocking her off her balance. "Oh, right, the monster. I'll use my punching!"
She ran up beside the Youma and hit it in the side, causing no effect whatsoever. "It's not working!" the heroine cried. "I thought you said I was a superhero! Why are you lying!"
"Wait!" Barley yelled. "The clouds are blocking out the sun. The Youma should be weakened by the lack of photosynthesis. In order to kill it, you need to use your Flower Power Attack!" Popuri nodded. She raised her hand in the air.
"Flower Power Pretty Petal Extreme Love and Beauty Panic Attack!" the flower maiden hollered, as Barley began to fashion a noose out of stray blades of grass. Lilies and daffodils began floating around her head and developing razor points on their petals before flying haphazardly at the Youma and piercing its thick skin.
"I think it's dying!" Popuri yelled as the beast began to wobble, tumble, and fall to the ground. It then disappeared completely, leaving only a seed as evidence that it ever existed. "Woo! Victory to Bananaface! This shit is BANANAS, B-A"
"Stop talking!" Barley screamed, going red in the face. Both he and Popuri were taken aback. "Now, you need to transform out of your Sailor Moondrop disguise, and I'll tell you more when we get back to my house."
-
"Chef, your stupid flower thing died in twenty minutes!"
The Harvest Goddess throw a thick rock at the Harvest Sprite, striking him the nose and making his entire face bleed.
"Your Godliness, please try to understand-" he spluttered through mouthfuls of blood.
"Shut up! Barley is still alive, Tuxedo Bandanna was nearly killed, and we're no closer to finding out who the Flower Princess is. And now, I have that idiot Sailor Bananaface to deal with! You suck!" the Goddess shrieked, causing a small typhoon somewhere in Europe.
"The next plan will not fail," Chef insisted, wiping the blood off his face with a napkin.
"Oh? What's the next plan? Are you going to come up with some sort of stupid tree Youma?" the Goddess snapped back sarcastically.
"I'm not that stupid," Chef replied indignantly, thinking quickly to come up with another plan to replace the tree Youma. "According to our research, there are five young women in Mineral Town who could be the Flower Princess. After today, that number has been narrowed down to four, because there's no way that idiot with the pink hair is the princess."
"So exactly what do you plan to do about it?" the bitchy deity inquired.
"I plan to target each girl individually in the area in which they are most likely to be found, and use that information to-"
"Could you give me the condensed version, you dribbling pantywaste? I can feel the milk expiring in my breasts," the Goddess hissed. Chef began to cry.
"You don't have to be so mean, Your Godliness," the red elf cried. The Goddess proceeded to rip his leg off and beat him with it until he lost consciousness.
"This is your last chance, Chef," she bellowed to the sprite's unconscious body. "If you screw up just once more…" She chuckled evilly.
"Princess, you will be mine…"
-
"Hey, Kai!" Popuri greeted her friend sunnily as she entered the Snack Shack and pulled up a bar stool. The pair flirted on and off, but nothing had ever been set in stone as far as a romantic relationship.
"Hey, Po," said Kai, turning around to a gasp from Popuri. He was in bad condition - his arm was in a sling, his head was wrapped in a bandage, he was missing several teeth and he had a black eye. "What'll it be today?"
"What happened to you, Kai? Are you alright?" the girl from the chicken farm asked with concern.
"I'm fine. I just fell off a cliff this weekend," the restaurateur replied candidly, and a light went off in Popuri's head. She asked how it happened.
"Oh, a giant flower monster knocked me off with acid."
Popuri arched her eyebrows suspiciously…
"No, it couldn't be," Popuri said, shaking her head and ridding herself of the thought. "I'll take a milkshake."
-
END
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End Credits: Thanks for reading, y'all. This is a new venture in which Apple Goddess and I shall be partaking - this episode was written by yours truly, but look forward to episodes written by A.G. in the near future.
Obviously, this is far less subtle than most of my writing and way more over-the-top, which is kind of what I like about it. Also note that this is based on the Japanese Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon as opposed to the American DiC / Cloverway dub, though most of the jokes remain the same in translation. Popuri's an idiot just like Usagi, so it works.
Look forward to the next episode: Episode 102: A Youma in the Library? The Second Senshi Appears!
-QW