Here's Chapter Two. I hope you think it worth your time. Enough said.
Chapter Two: Unplanned Encounters
The rest of the school week went well enough for me, and so did much of the weekend that followed immediately afterward. However, not all of the weekend that followed did, after I rather unexpectedly encountered someone who would be quite important in my life in the future, but who I didn't yet know well enough yet in it. This person was named Terumoto Serizawa, and I first saw him leaving a gymnasium elsewhere in Azabu Juuban, when I was walking past it alone on my way home from a nearby library. He was leaving it with two other boys, and they were tossing around a basketball with each other, as they were doing so. One of their tosses, though, went a little awry, and I got smacked on my right shoulder as I was walking home. One of the boys said, "Sorry," from about ten feet away. This boy was Terumoto, by the way, but I didn't yet know that. I turned to face three boys, and then set my books on the ground as I headed for their ball here. Those three boys would come to be well-known to me, but Terumoto would eventually be the one that was best-known to me in my life, for whatever reason or reasons. At the moment, though, none of us knew all that at all in our lives. I then picked up their ball, and began walking off with it, once I picked up my stuff again that I'd just set down briefly.
The three boys looked briefly at each other, and conversed with each other, before two of them suddenly decided that the other boy with them should try to get their ball back. The other boy, of course, was Terumoto, but I didn't yet know that, obviously enough. I saw all this out of the corner of my eye as I headed away from them all, in fact.
When that boy left his apparent friends outside the gymnasium, he began walking fast. I began running, but he also did so. As time passed, he began catching up to me. Eventually, I had to pause for breath, and that was when he suddenly caught up with me in an alley that I'd just ducked into here about sixteen blocks away from the gymnasium that I'd first seen him outside.
He said, in a rather calm voice here, speaking in Japanese, of course, "I want the ball back, please."
As soon as I recognized that someone was talking to me, I then asked, in the same language, "Who are you, and why should I return your ball to you when you hit me with it?"
He pulled me out of the alley, so that we could both see each other's face well enough. Then he picked me up and perched me on top of a garbage can with lid in use. He then said, still in Japanese, "My name is Terumoto Serizawa, ma'am, and it was an accident that you were hit with it, as I was tossing it around with Shoyo and Nobuo."
We looked each other over briefly, and I saw a black-haired young man of perhaps 17 years or so old here. He was then wearing a mostly light blue and green jacket over a mostly red and blue running outfit of some sort. His somewhat thick hair was about shoulder-length with just a bit of wave to it. Over his eyes, he wore a pair of sunglasses with light-sensing lenses for them. The frames to those mostly rectangular-lensed sunglasses essentially matched his running outfit, but not his jacket. I couldn't see most of the upper half of his running outfit, for his jacket hid most of it from my view at the current time, though. He now appeared to be about 5'9" and perhaps about 150 pounds. His face was rather clean-shaven, but it also showed signs of recent shaving on it, as evidenced by a few small nicks on his chin. A small vertical scar was also present just under his lower lip, for some yet-unknown reason to me.
"I see. And so?" I asked, as he released his grip on me after first setting me on top of the now-lidded garbage can here.
"I would really like our ball back, if you don't mind. And I would like your name, as well, for that matter, ma'am." He removed his sunglasses and put them in a pocket of his jacket, revealing a pair of dark blue eyes while he did so. They were nearly the shade of blue that was often called "Navy Blue," but not quite that shade, by the way.
"Why should I give you my name, Serizawa-san?"
"Because I have this rather strange feeling, for some yet-unknown reason, that we'll often be seeing each other in the future, in fact, ma'am. So your name will be needed by me, if that's true. I will not ask again."
We glared at each other here for at least a few minutes, before I finally said, "My name is Chelsea Hunter, Serizawa-san. I am too young for you, as well."
"You are not. You must be 14 or so years old. I am 17."
"My parents wouldn't let me date a 17-year-old right now in my life."
"But we will be close to each other, I believe, in the future."
"In your dreams." I held the ball quite close to me as I said that, by the way.
"Exactly." He shot me a quite-teasing glance as he said that. How infuriating!
"You're kidding me." I was, quite obviously, rather skeptical here about such things.
"Nope. Saw you. Saw me. Saw the future. You're in it, baby." He laughed briefly like a hyena.
I soon snapped, "Never call me baby!"
"Then what should I call you, ma'am?" asked he, with a sneaky grin on his face as he did so.
"Hunter-san, if you don't mind." I began to fume, as I said that.
"I happen to like 'Baby,'" said Serizawa. "It suits you."
"I think not, Serizawa-san. As you can see, I'm not a baby."
"No, maybe not, but you still have the heart of a child, deep within you, even after all you've already gone through in your life."
"And what would you know of it, seeing as we only just met?"
"A lot more than you think I know, Hunter-san."
"How can you?"
"I can't tell you right now. Later on, I will, I assure you. But just not yet. There will be two others who you will meet, and they will be my rivals for your affection, for that matter. I don't yet know who they are, but I do happen to know that they will be, sometime in the future. They are not from Juuban, I believe. At least not as of the current time, anyway."
"I see. Let me guess. Your dreams?"
"Yes, Baby, that's right."
"Don't call me Baby!" I smacked him on his left shoulder with a jab, and he took it easily enough, with little discomfort, if at all.
"Watch out for flaming torches on your way back home, then, Hunter-san. There are going to be circus performers tossing them around later, as you're approaching their location a few blocks from your home, and if you don't do so, you might find yourself being hit by at least one of them."
"Yeah, right."
"Don't believe me, if you don't want to. But don't be surprised at all if what I say here proves to be true enough, then, Hunter-san."
I then left him, after suddenly slamming the basketball into his stomach, and quite in a huff now, for the obvious reasons. Several minutes later, though, what he had predicted came to be true to a significant enough degree here. I spotted those flaming torches heading toward me, and just barely avoided being hit by their flames as I was still heading home on the necessary sidewalk. One of the circus performers suddenly hurried up to me, and introduced herself as Ryoko Serramas Nakane. She, too, would become rather important to me in due time. But it would take at least a little while for that to happen, most likely.
She checked me out, and said, in Japanese, "Sorry about that, ma'am." She appeared to be about a year or so older than I, and she was then wearing a mostly tan blouse with red trim and a mostly purple mini-skirt with silver trim that fell to just about two or so inches above her knees. In each of her unattached earlobes, there were stud earrings that looked almost like erupting volcanoes, if not entirely like them. A beaded necklace with rubies and jade was around her neck at the present time. On her medium-sized feet, she was now wearing a relatively-new pair of mostly purple one-inch heels.
"I don't recognize you as being from around here, Nakane-san." I unconsciously shifted to English after the word being, by the way.
"I'm not. I live in another part of Tokyo. And where do you live?" asked the magenta-eyed Ryoko, as she ran her fingers through her medium blonde and slightly tousled chin-length hair here. All while she shifted easily enough to English after mentioning that she now lived in another part of Tokyo in Japanese to me.
"I live in the Azabu Juuban part of Minato-ku, and attend Juuban Junior High School in it," I said. We each looked one another over for a few moments apiece, before I decided to introduce myself to her as well. "I am Chelsea Hunter, and I'm from the United States originally."
"I attend school in the part of Tokyo that I live in, of course, Hunter-san."
"And that is?"
"Shibuya, in fact. I live in Shibuya. But right now, I'm visiting friends who work for a circus, mainly, around here."
"Tell me about Shibuya, please, here."
"Shibuya is a highly commercial part of Tokyo. A lot of big companies are based there, it seems to me. I attend school at Shibuya Heights Senior High School, the biggest Senior High School in our part of Tokyo, a few blocks or so away from my home in Shibuya. I attended Shibuya Heights Elementary and Junior High Schools from 1997 to this past June. I moved to Shibuya Heights Senior High School this year, and I am now in 10th Grade there. I am in the Class of 2010, as well, for that matter."
"Do you work for the circus as well, by any chance, Nakane-san?"
"Mainly, I work for them as a ticket-taker, part-time, Hunter-san. But I also have been known to do at least a few, if not a lot of, juggling performances for them every once in a while whenever they're putting on a show around here. I most often work for them during breaks from school, in fact."
We conversed for a little while longer with each other, until one of her apparent friends called for her assistance with something else. We soon parted, with us both not yet realizing that we'd often see each other in the future, by the way. And we parted with some smiles on both our faces as well, for that matter.
I arrived home at around 5 pm local time on Sunday, October 7, 2007. Father and my brothers were out when I arrived home again here. According to Mother, they had decided to spend some time out with each other elsewhere in Azabu Juuban. Mother said that they had all gone to a local art museum for a while, even Woodrow. She said that Clarence had earlier requested that they do so, in fact. And the other males in my immediate family agreed that they should do that for at least a little while on that very day, as well.
Gabrielle was helping Mother take care of Odemyla, and Sable was in our room, when I returned home here. I soon went to my room, and saw that Sable was working quite intently and quite carefully on a new quilt that she'd actually begun work on at the very beginning of the current school year. When I walked in, Sable was beginning to sew yet another patch on the quilt's upper surface. Two square patches were already sewn next to each other on it, and there was perhaps room for at least ten or so others just like them, at least in terms of their shapes, on it, if not even more, for that matter.
One already sewn-on patch had a tan scroll in the center of it with an purple O centered on the scroll, and several silver stars and orange flame bursts were arranged around that same scroll on it. Another patch had a mostly red and blue hourglass in its middle, with most of the sand at the top of it currently, just under a medium-sized white T. The patch that Sable was now working on placing here bore a single double-fluked silver anchor inside a double copper-colored chained circle arrangement with the word "Monsoon" spelled out in light blue Old English text on a brown background for the area between the two concentric circles. The anchor was itself on a navy blue background, for that matter.
I asked her, "Where did you get these unusual patches, Sable?"
"I actually made them out of fabric that Mother and I bought after school two weeks ago, Chelsea. I had a dream last Thursday, and made up these three patches by the time bedtime came to me last night. I sewed the first two of them on right after I had my breakfast this morning. You were already off to the library by then, in fact. Several more are in the process of being made up and prepared for use on this quilt, for that matter. And I will actually be joining you sometime later on this very week in your new battle. Perhaps as soon as Tuesday afternoon, it now seems to me."
"What are you talking about here, Sable?" I asked, as I sat down at my desk in our room and picked up an inspirational-style novel in English that I had recently begun to read.
"You have now begun to fight against evil in this world. My dream that I first saw these patches in told me so. And there was someone who aided you in your first battle against evil last week. A young man helped you in it. The battle didn't make the local papers, mind you, but I still know of it, through my aforementioned dream. This young man will be very important to you in the future, as well." She said this, as I began reading again from where I'd last left off in that novel.
"I saw a young man this afternoon who hit me with a basketball who said that we'd often see each other in the future. He seemed rather insistent about that, and he called me 'Baby,' as well."
"I see. I don't yet know this young man personally, but I will meet him someday, according to my dream. The girl that you met this afternoon not too far from here will also enter my life in physical reality, though she hasn't yet done so. She will also be rather important to you in your life," said Sable.
"He predicted that he will not be the only young man who will be interested in me later on. He said that there will be two others who aren't currently from around here who will be." I read more of my novel, even as I said that to her here.
"I don't know if that actually will be true sometime later on, in fact, Chelsea. But if I know you well enough in my life, I wouldn't be very surprised at all if it ever was later on."
"I am not looking for a boyfriend, Sable!" I set down my book briefly, and reached into a drawer of my desk where I often had kept certain special edible items before. I took out a raisin and marshmallow granola bar, and opened its wrapping, seconds before I began eating it.
"You may not be looking for one, but you will eventually have one, no doubt, later on in your life, if at all possible."
"How can you say that I will, when I have AIDS?" I took a second bite of my granola bar after saying that to her here, in fact.
"You may have AIDS now, as you say, but I'm sure that won't really matter to anyone who really cares for you in their lives. It doesn't matter to me, and I'm reasonably certain that it doesn't to most, if not all, of the rest of our immediate family."
"But as long as I have AIDS, I probably have no chance of being a mother of at least one healthy child in my life." I took a third bite of my granola bar, before setting it down, and reaching for a tissue in a box elsewhere on my desk, for I was now starting to feel tears well up in my eyes.
"That may be true, or not, but I really don't think that you'll be any less of a girl or a woman for that very fact, if you don't let it control what you may or may not do in your own life, Chelsea."
"I want to be a mother of at least one healthy child later on in my life. As long as I have AIDS, that may never happen." Sable set aside the quilt she was then working on, and looked at me briefly here, as well.
"So what if it never does, Chelsea? You don't have to be a mother to be a wonderful woman, I'm sure."
"But I feel that I'll be missing something as a woman if I'm never a mother," I cried.
"How so?"
"I strongly believe that motherhood is the highest known mortal state of possible being as a woman in this world, Sable. And I may never experience it for myself!" Some tears began streaming out of my eyes as I said those things here.
"That may be so, or it may not. But, in the meantime, what do you intend to do around boys and men in the future? I mean, you might not be able to avoid falling in love with them, you know."
"Well, I don't want to get too close to them, Sable. I don't want to take the chance of possibly infecting them with AIDS or anything else in the future, if I can possibly avoid it at all."
"It wasn't actually your fault that you have AIDS, Chelsea." She came over to me, and began holding me in her arms, as I still cried here in my chair
"No, but it was through that sort of thing that eventually caused me to have it, you know."
"Because of what Father did with other people, and then with Mother?" She led me to my bed, and we both soon sat down on top of it, slipping off our shoes as we did so.
"Yes, of course, Sable. I don't want to get that close to any male, if I can possibly avoid it at all."
"Because you don't want to do them possible harm?"
"Obviously, Sable." She briefly released me from her grasp, and went over to my desk, picking up my mostly-eaten granola bar as she did so. As she did, I dabbed at my eyes to try to wipe away a few of the tears that were now still streaming out of them.
"I may not know very much about that sort of thing, for all the obvious reasons here, Chelsea. But it still carries at least some, if not a lot of, risk of actually doing possible harm to someone. No matter how things generally are between two people who may do that sort of thing, or who may think about that sort of thing, in actual reality, I think. That sort of thing requires that people be quite willing to accept certain rather personal risks that they might not otherwise accept. It also requires the total letting-go of anything at all that might possibly detract from the bonding between two such people, whatever it might actually be. That sort of thing requires total commitment to the other person, without which the relationship can't proceed as it should proceed between both people in such a situation. Fear has no place in such a situation. And so don't a lot of other things, for that matter." She handed me back my granola bar as she finished speaking here.
As I finished my granola bar here, I asked her, "Just how do you know all these things, Sable? Do I really want to know, either?"
"Our parents have discussed this sort of thing with me at least a few times, and I have talked with four of our siblings about such things at least a few times as well. Also I have talked with my friends about such things every once in a while, if and whenever needed or desired. Whether it's in the States or here, for that matter, I have. And I have thought about this sort of thing periodically in my life, for that matter, Chelsea."
"And how have your thoughts about this sort of thing changed over time?" I threw my granola bar's wrapper away in the nearest trash can in our room.
"I tend to generally agree with them, if and wherever possible. However, Frank seems to be sort of like you about this sort of thing. He doesn't think that it might be possible for him to have at least one healthy child of his own later on in his life, if not more than one. Joe thinks otherwise, and so does Gabrielle. None of the three are really interested in dating yet, if they'll ever be. But Joe and Gabrielle seem to be the most interested in such an idea for later on in their respective lives. I think Gabrielle might be more interested in potentially dating boys later on than Joe might be in dating girls later on, at least as of the current time."
"That may be so, but I don't think it would be wise for us to consider dating anyone at all if we have AIDS, Sable." I then threw away my tissue in the same can that I'd just thrown my granola bar's wrapper in.
"Because of what might happen?"
"Of course." My tears suddenly stopped as I said that here and now.
"What will happen will happen, whether you like it or not, Chelsea. You can't live your whole life afraid of what might happen. If you do, then you will miss out on a lot of things that you might have experienced had you not been so afraid of what might happen in your life."
"Like?"
"True love, for one thing. There is a special guy out there somewhere for you, I'm quite sure. I don't yet know who he is, I think. But I still believe that there is such a guy out there for you, just the same. You can't be afraid to take the chance that you might fall in love with him and that certain things will happen for the both of you in your lives. I would hate to see you miss out on true love just because you're too afraid to take the chance that someone might not care that you might have AIDS or anything else you might have. Either now or later, for that matter, Chelsea."
"I don't want to fall in love like that."
"You may not want to, but I suspect you will, just the same, Chelsea."
We conversed, off and on, for a good while longer, until just about half an hour before supper. Which eventually came to be served for both of us and the other three females in our own immediate family at about 8:30 in the evening, local time. By that time, Father and our brothers hadn't yet returned from their day out with each other, in fact.
Mother had sometime earlier made us all some supper of fruit salad, beef stew, garlic bread, and assorted other items. She did this with a little help from Gabrielle, where needed, but not a lot of it. We all had our supper with each other, and left some food and drink for the rest of our immediate family, just in case they got back home soon enough during the current night.
After supper, Gabrielle and I helped put away all the necessary things wherever they needed to be in our home here. By 9:15 pm, then, everything that needed to be put away elsewhere was. No matter what it then might be here. And we each began heading to our respective rooms not too long after that particular time as well, for that matter.
Sable and I were both in our bedroom again by 9:30, with her then deciding to retire to her bed within fifteen more minutes of that time. I stayed up, however, until at least 11:10, if not even later than that. I worked on some homework at my desk for a good while before eventually retiring to my bed at about 11:15, where I then wrote and read for a while longer. I turned out my bedside light at roughly 11:45 at night, and was quite soundly asleep again in my bed by local midnight, as was still quite usual for me in my life, by the way.
About 4 pm local time on Tuesday, October 9, 2007, Sable and I were sitting outside our house for at least a little while, when Hatargo suddenly came right up to me here. I briefly looked at him, and then at her, before I suddenly did something that surprised her here quite a bit, in fact. As of the present moment in our lives, we actually were the only ones anywhere on the street, so to speak, rather unexpectedly. At least as far as we then knew, anyway. I hurried up to him, and I hopped suddenly onto his back, without a single word to her or to him, when I did so here. She then tried to keep me from staying on his back. But I wouldn't be moved right here and now. So she quite suddenly jumped onto his back as well, from about two or so yards away, at most. This, quite obviously, really surprised both him and me, of course.
I tried to get her off his back for at least a few moments here. But just as she hadn't been able to get me off his back, I wasn't able to get her off it either. I said, "Sable, go inside. It's for your own good, believe me."
"No. I will not, Chelsea. Tell me why you suddenly hopped on this horse's back first."
"I can't. It's a secret, Sable. A very important one, in fact"
"Then I'll stay with you, until you do tell me that secret."
"Then you'll have to face the consequences of doing so. You don't know what you might be getting into here, Sable. I may not be able to protect you well enough, if you come with me, then. But don't say I didn't tell you that it was for your own good, if you do come with me. Go ahead, Hatargo, and take me where you need me to be now, if you wish."
Hatargo looked briefly at us both, before coming to a decision. He said, "As you direct, so will I do, Chelsea. I just hope that your sister will be able to handle what is to come, if she feels she must come with you here and now."
"The horse is talking, Chelsea!"
"Yes, he is. This is your last chance here to leave me now. Please go inside now, or you'll possibly regret it. If not now, then perhaps later, in your life. I'm not going to force you to go inside, but if you stay with me, then things will have to change for us all at least a little bit, if not a lot, from now on, Sable."
"I know, Chelsea. I will take my chances, though, if I must. What about the rest of our family?"
"They can't be told of this, if you choose to come along with me. And even if you don't."
"Why?"
"For their own good, Sable. If they know of this, then much will change for them and a good number of other people in this world of ours. No matter who they might be. And even if we might not actually know certain people yet in it."
Sable thought in relative silence about those things for a few very brief moments, before I asked, "Are you going inside or not, Sable? If not, then you'll have to come with me to wherever I'm going to have to go now, in fact. What's your decision, sister?"
Sable answered almost immediately, "I'm not leaving you alone with this horse to go anywhere right now alone with them. We were planning to spend a great deal of time with each other this afternoon, evening, and/or night on the current date, and I don't intend to let you keep us from doing it now, if I can possibly avoid it at all."
I thought about what she'd just said here, before finally answering, "Very well, Sable. You may stay with me. But you are not to breathe a single word of this to anyone else who yet doesn't know what you're about to learn. If you do, then there may be certain rather unpleasant consequences that various people might have to deal with. Quite possibly even with you, for that matter."
"I see. Well, then, let's do what we have to do, Chelsea."
"All right, Sable. But never let me hear you say that I didn't give you a chance to stay behind here instead of going with me to where we're evidently going to have to go now, understand?"
"Understood, Chelsea. I do intend to follow your instructions about this particular matter here to the best of my ability to do so, of course. "
I really hoped that she wouldn't do anything that'd put herself in quite unnecessary danger, of course, when we all went to where we'd all now need to go in the local area. But that was still to be seen, quite naturally enough here.
A minute later, I prodded Hatargo's sides gently with my feet, and he began to move to the necessary location in the local area. It took him and us until about 4:20 in the afternoon to find another strange being, after which I told Sable to hide wherever she could hopefully find some sufficient enough cover.
That strange being was similar to the one that I mainly fought earlier, but with no wings. This strange being was about twenty feet tall, and she looked a lot like a rather weird fusion of an octopus, a large-earred elephant, and a lion. At least for the most part, if not entirely. She had sixteen movable limbs, four of which it had to use to support the rest of its body, ten tentacle-like limbs, and six others. Two of the four required limbs that it had to use to support its weight looked like lion's legs, and two of them looked like elephant's legs, for that matter. After I saw that Sable was under sufficient enough cover at the present time, I then found what I thought would be a safe enough place to transform in. But I later learned that it wasn't actually a place where Sable couldn't see me transform well enough. I said the necessary three words, and transformed into Sailor Oshimuke just as quickly as I could, in the necessary manner. That done, I soon went to work on that strange being for a while.
It was another being out for energy-gathering purposes, in fact. I mainly fought it for a while, with at least some success, but not total success, against it in the battle. The young man that'd earlier shown up at my first battle appeared at this one as well. But the monster we were now battling was considerably stronger than the one that we'd fought earlier. So I reluctantly shouted to Hatargo, "We need more help, Hatargo! Get it, if at all possible, please!"
Hatargo immediately sped away from the current battle here, as I spared a very brief glance at him out of the corner of one eye, and as the young man aided me against the monster. He headed straight for where Sable had earlier hidden herself, in fact. He briefly conversed with her, until he suddenly jumped over several garbage cans then arranged in a tall pyramid. He leapt about twenty feet in the air, neighing and clapping his front hooves' bases together until a necklace with a pendant in the approximate shape of a double-fluked anchor materialized suddenly around his neck. He then leapt back over the aforementioned pyramid of cans, and landed about five or so feet away from Sable here.
Sable came right to him and followed his then-following instructions here. She took the necklace from around his neck, and put it around hers. It automatically resized itself as it then had to here. Grasping her new necklace's pendant in virtually the same manner as I had first done mine earlier, she then shouted, all of a sudden, "Gosedei Monsoon Power!" A pillar of mostly light blue light then surrounded her here. It appeared to actually be a pillar of water, in its virtual essence. Or at least for the most part, it did, anyway.
When she became fully visible again to everyone here, including me, she was in a uniform quite similar to mine, but not exactly like mine, of course. On her head, she wore a gold tiara with a black and green stone in it. Quilting needle-like clip-on earrings hung from her earlobes. A mostly light blue choker with several copper and silver symbols of some sort or sorts on it was then around her neck. Her new sailor-style collar was almost exactly like mine, with some obvious differences, in that the silver was replaced by copper, the purple by light blue, and the orange flame bursts by silver double-fluked anchors. She still wore the necklace that Hatargo had just given her, by the way. It currently rested in a similar enough position on her to how my necklace now rested on me. Her front bow, shoulders, and blouse were just like mine, except for the obviously needed color changes related to them all. As had actually been the case for the color changes present between our respective sailor-style collars, silver was replaced by copper, purple by light blue, and orange by silver, for them all. She also didn't have a belt, sword, or scabbard exactly like mine, but she did have a half-metallic, half-leather woven belt of some sort for herself around her uniform's waist, and several dozen quilting-style needles and pouches with any number of unknown items in them hanging from that belt of hers on it. A back bow wasn't present for her uniform either, for some yet-unknown reason, if it ever would be a known reason, here. Her uniform's skirt was also pleated in its nature, but it fell to just above where her birthmark ran around her left leg, by about an inch or two. Her current footwear consisted of mostly light blue ankle boots with silver and copper trim or symbols wherever necessary, and there were matching attached apparently-woven straps that ran up to about three inches below her knees present for them as well. Where there'd been stars on my footwear, quilting needle-like symbols appeared on hers, where possible. Where there'd been flame bursts on it, anchors appeared for her on it, also where possible. Such footwear then completed her current look, by the way, of course.
After she became fully visible here, then, the monster that the young man and I were currently battling turned to face her, and they asked, "Who are you? And why are you here?"
"I am Sailor Gosedei. I am the Sailor of Water and Ice, from a far-away world not around here! Leave now, or be prepared to be drenched! Fail to do so, and you will suffer the ice-cold wrath of the seas!"
Her almost-immediate response to Sailor Gosedei's challenge here was to try to reach out and grab her with several of her tentacles that were close enough to Sailor Gosedei for her to try to do that here. Gosedei didn't like that, and she really didn't like it very much, for that matter. Gosedei then said, "For trying to grab me, you will now be punished. Prepare to feel the ice-cold wrath of the seas, you vile thing!"
"A young girl such as you will punish me? Don't make me laugh!" said the being, who we'd later come to know as "Tataltaka," once the battle was over well enough, somehow.
Gosedei then shouted, as she tossed up into the air several needles and miniature anchors from where they were on her belt, "Gosedei Ice Flood!" From the skies above our heads, a rather large group of clouds of assorted types suddenly became quite visible here to us and to the rather strange monster, at least, if not to anyone else as well. Ten seconds after they each had done so sufficiently well, at most, then, a rather large cage of some sort that was largely, though not entirely, made up of ice and water began to appear around Tataltaka here. She really tried to avoid being trapped by that cage of some sort, quite obviously enough. But she was quite unsuccessful in her immediately-following attempts to do that well enough here. The cage of some sort eventually solidified here into a sort of dome shape, but not entirely. For a bit of an opening was still required in order for Gosedei to complete that attack of hers. A moderately long neck of some sort then appeared at the top of the cage. Soon, the cage largely, though not entirely, resembled a typical scientist's beaker. A rather large funnel of some sort appeared at the top of that beaker-like neck, after which she tossed all her remaining needles at the still-present clouds. All of those needles then penetrated all those clouds quite briefly, making them each begin to pour a great deal of their current contents into the beaker-like cage. Though not all of them. After they'd done that for a long enough time, Gosedei called all of her needles and anchors back to her, and quickly wove a quilt-like cork in front of her that'd somehow be large enough to stop up the top of the cage here. After that cork was made as needed, Gosedei easily lifted it from the nearby ground, and threw it quite effortlessly at the cage's opening. It lodged perfectly into said opening, before Tataltaka could manage to get any of her free tentacles out of it well enough. Once it did, Gosedei suddenly shouted at the young man and me, "Finish them, you two, before they somehow manage to break out of the cage they're now in!"
The young man sent forth another two red-tipped blue roses and at least a few more quills per rose in the exact same pattern as he'd actually done earlier near the end of my first battle, and I unleashed my finishing attack, with no further delay on either of our parts. The entire cage of sorts turned to dust almost immediately afterward, with Tataltaka still inside it. Before that dust vanished from the area as well, it briefly swirled around where the monster had been, and it showed the monster's name to us all. Then the dust disappeared from sight, perhaps never to be seen again in this world, and virtually all of the energy that Tataltaka had just tried to gather returned to those it had been taken from, in fact.
Two minutes later, at most, then, the young man, Gosedei, Hatargo, and I had quite quickly vacated the scene of the battle, for all the obvious reasons here, of course. First the young man left, and then Hatargo left it with Gosedei and I on his back, as well.
When we were far enough from the scene of the battle, and in a safe enough place to do so well enough, Gosedei and I powered down completely. She powered down back into Sable, and I powered down back into Chelsea, quite obviously enough, of course.
She was the first to speak, once we were in a safe enough place to do that well enough. She asked, "What happened out there, Chelsea? Why were you and Sentinel Tunka having trouble with that monster?"
"Sentinel Tunka?"
"The young man we fought alongside just now, Chelsea."
"Never heard of him, Sable."
"Well, he will be one of the Sentinels who will fight alongside us in the future, Chelsea. There still are at least two more coming that we haven't yet met up with, if not more than that. Another Sailor will awaken soon enough, perhaps. Just not for a little while, at least."
"Who will awaken next?"
"I don't know yet, but I do know that I have now joined your fight. I expect to be part of it for quite some time into the future, as well, if at all possible, Chelsea."
"What are we going to tell our parents and friends, then?"
"I'm sure we'll come up with something to tell them, if and whenever necessary, Chelsea, so that they'll be better protected against our various enemies, whoever they may happen to be."
We eventually arrived back at our home again by 5:10 in the late afternoon, on foot. For about a block or two before we got there again, Hatargo quite suddenly had us get off him again. We soon got off him, in a safe enough place for us to do so, before he then hurried away from us both, so that he'd hopefully not be seen well enough with us by our parents and any of our siblings, at least, in fact.
We headed shortly thereafter back to our bedroom, and spent most, if not all, of the rest of the evening or night there. Of course, we said nothing whatsoever at all about our actions related to being Sailor Scouts either to our parents or to our siblings before we both retired to our bedroom for at least the rest of the night, if not even longer than that. Though we both now knew it might be increasingly harder to keep any and all news about our Scout battles from getting around in the local area, the more we'd have to fight evil in it, by the way. We all had just barely vacated this particular afternoon's battle scene before many of the local media personalities quickly began rushing to it to cover the just-ended battle, in fact.
Sable and I discussed the battle for a while between ourselves, among assorted other things, after we'd both gone to our room for the rest of the night, at least. She eventually retired to her own bed by 9:15 pm, local time. While I stayed up for about two or so more hours after that. We turned off our lights near our beds at 9:30 pm and 11:30 pm, respectively. With her turning hers off first, for all the obvious reasons, of course.
Little did I yet know just how important she actually would be to our eventual mission to find the Crown Princess and to resume our service to our true home system's rulers, among other things that we'd be called to do in our lives. But we still didn't yet know of that mission here. We only knew that we were both somehow called to battle evil beings of whatever sort that might be seeking to take over or destroy Earth in our known Universe. That was all we both knew as of that time, and no more than that, in our respective lives.
We both didn't really know either about the various Sentinels from many places that'd aid us every so often in the future. But we, and at least a few other people, would actually happen to learn about them in due time, if and whenever possible, in our lives. Just not for a while, at least, in fact.
In the meantime, however, we both fell quite soundly asleep in our beds at the times of night that we'd often fall that way in them. Even I did so, for that matter, of course.
Chapter Three will follow as soon as I can finish writing it well enough, people. Enough said. The Universal Storyteller out.