Chapter 3: Wipe Away My Eyes (Yomi)
Thanks to both the people who reviewed the last chapter! Your long reviews make me so happy I don't even know what to say.
I'd like to announce that I'm officially entering this story in Tomahawk 3.0's Mew Mew Contest, which theoretically means that I have to finish it by January first. Here's hoping!
Yes, the chronology in this chapter is messed up. That's purposeful, and it's probably only going to get worse as the story goes on...
And check it out, they fixed the linebreaks!
From AdOrAbLe YoMi'S jOuRnAl Of ThInKs:
I hate to admit it, but magical girl anime lies sometimes. For instance, whenever there's a guy who sort of acts like a jerk, you know he's secretly got a crush on the lead and they're gonna end up together by the end of the show. There's never a boy who's really a meanie unless he's working for the baddies and isn't hot. And even then he's kinda likely to turn good at some point.
Jerky boys really aren't the important part, tho. The whole point of those shows (which, for the record, I LUV) is that the magical girls have a destiny to save the world, and whatever their flaws, whether they're ditzy or clumsy or whatever, the girls shape up into real heroines and save the world. They're never too scared or disgusted or stupid to do what they have to do.
I really don't like me right now. After the fight at school today... I'm a really sucky magical girl. I kinda always knew that, but I figured I'd grow out of it like a real heroine. Now I just think I suck. Which is SO stupid! If anyone on my team should be an awesome magical girl, it's me! I've watched the shows since I was little. I know all about them. So why do I still freak like a baby whenever I'm in a fight?
I guess maybe it's because I'm not destined for this. None of us are, I guess. I didn't have this journal 4 months ago, when all this started happening, so I'm gonna record it here for posterity, and because I need to do SOMETHING to distract myself from how much I hate me right now.
o()o
KD, Akane, and Yomi pushed through the panicked, fleeing students. After a couple minutes of struggling against the human current, the hallways emptied, and the three girls came to the back stairwell.
Standing at the top of the stairs was a-- well, they wasn't sure what it was. It wore a tattered school uniform and was humanoid, more or less, but it seemed to be made out of some sort of semi-translucent jelly. Alone, that wouldn't have been good for more than a moment's pause; they'd fought things that looked a lot weirder.
"It doesn't look too bad?" Akane said tenously, hopefully.
"Are you kidding!?" Yomi responded a tad hysterically. "Look at the stairs!"
Scattered down the stairwell were the unmoving bodies of about half a dozen students (and who could tell if they were dead or unconscious? All Yomi could think about was the sizzle and thump of their bodies falling), limbs akimbo and with strange holes burned through their uniforms.
"See how the chimera's got those tendril thingies?" Yomi asked, reigning in her panic enough to warn her teammates.
"That's what burned everybody?" KD eyed the monster warily.
"OMG, KD, you have no idea. It was like some sort of jellyfish, I guess, and it just appeared in the hallway. I was there and not everyone had time to get away and—" Yomi, blinking back tears, was so caught up in her recollections that she didn't notice the chimera lashing out with thin, viscous tendrils.
Akane leaped out of the way, and KD, realizing that Yomi wasn't paying any attention to the monster, pushed the smaller girl away. Unfortunately, that meant that the stinger struck the bird-girl square in the chest. KD screamed for a fraction of a second before her jaw clamped shut, her body seizing painfully from the chimera's bioelectricity.
"Reborn, Akane Lash!" The pudgy girl's whip burnt through the monster's arm, releasing a disgusting burning-plastic smell. The thing barely seemed to notice, though, and its semitransparent arm hovered in the air for a moment before strands of goo spurted out from the monster's shoulder, reattaching the severed appendage. "Yomi, do something!" Akane called, her voice somewhere between a whine and a scolding.
"R-reborn, Yomi S-sparks!" with a cringe, the little girl spun three shuriken in the chimera's direction. They glowed brighter and brighter as they whirled through the air, but each of them hit the monster with a dull thwak, losing their glow as they were absorbed into the thing's torso. The little blades hung suspended there for a moment, completely visible though its semi-clear flesh, before the monster spit them out.
It wasn't a very good shot. The shuriken bounced harmlessly off the stairwell walls, but fear sparked in Yomi's heart as she realized just how little her and Akane's attacks were.
o()o
Like I said, I don't think giving the magical girls their powers is supposed to be as sloppy as it is in real life. I was in the park one day, just hanging out on a bench drawing, when all of a sudden there was this white light. Dunno what it was, but I must've passed out, cuz the next thing I know this COMPLETE hottie was standing over me. Like, really, really hot. I thought I was dreaming. He didn't give his name or anything, but he said to follow him.
Of course I did it. Did I mention how absolutely B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L this boy is? He brings me to this equally adorable cafe and tells me to hang out while he goes and gets the others. There are already two other people in there, KD and Akane, both of who I knew at that point just by rep (KD's way involved in student gov and Akane's sort of infamous for being quiet and sad. Unfortunately, it's more a pathetic-sad than romantic-sad or tragic-sad), and we just kind of sat there awkwardly while Mr. Hottie went and brought in Noa and Lorne.
Once we were all there, he brought us into the back of the cafe, which was all secret agent-y and metallic and cool. We went into what I guess was his lab (although he is WAY too hot to be a scientist).
"I'm sorry. This was an accident. We didn't want or mean to involve you girls, but we need you. Especially you, Yomi." I'm paraphrasing a little (and I may have made that last part up), because I can't remember his exact words, but he definitely didn't say anything about how it was our destiny to save the world. And he introduced himself as Ryou Shirogane, call me Shirogane.
o()o
Out of seemingly nowhere, a blade whipped down and cut through the protoplasm anchoring the sandy-haired girl to the monster. Lorne smirked as KD tried to regain her footing. "Sorry I'm late," she said half-sincerely. "Not all of us get a warning when chimera start showing up."
KD glared at the dark-skinned girl as she stood up. "Thanks, Lorne," she ground out, but it was impossible to tell if her tone was due to annoyance or just an aftereffect of being shocked. She punched toward the monster with one brass-knuckled fist, clutching her chest with her free hand. "Reborn, KD Slam!" The chimera bent out of the way of the golden wedge that shot from KD's fist, causing Lorne's smirk to grow.
"Don't feel bad, KD. Reborn, Lorne Slice!" Blades of red light exploded outward from her blue-clad form, cleaving the monster into several chunks. Still smirking, she turned to KD and shrugged.
"Don't turn your back on it," Akane muttered, keeping her eyes downcast in an attempt to avoid Lorne's scorn. And indeed, the mouse-girl was right. The chimera reconstructed itself in short order, shooting more tendrils at the assembled Mews. They all dodged, Lorne cursing as she did so, but the frustration of a seemingly unwinnable battle weighed heavily on all the girls.
"What did I miss?" A worried, slightly out-of-breath voice asked from behind them. As one entity, the four Mews turned to see Noa in full fuku.
Well... sort of. As their eyes moved down her form, the others noticed that her clothes, always the iron-gray of rhino skin, seemed to be made out of actual metal, which shone dully in the stairwell's artificial lighting. The girls' shock at seeing their teammate's strangely altered fuku was cut short when Akane cried out and grabbed at her own neck, where an angry red welt was already forming.
At the top of the stairs, the monster reeled in its tentacle and prepared for another attack. Thinking quickly, KD hissed, "Okay, everybody hit it together. There's gotta be a way to beat this thing. Reborn, KD Slam!"
"Reborn, Lorne Slice!"
"Reborn, Akane Lash!"
"Reborn, Yomi Sparks!"
"Reborn, Noa Detonation!"
The chimera was variously sliced, burned, and twisted into chunks (some with shuriken suspended in them), but it began to slowly reform. After a moment, though, green light grew inside every translucent lump of flesh. When they had gotten so bright that it was almost blinding, every piece exploded in a shower of goo.
Everyone turned to stare at Noa, who seemed as shocked as they were, staring open-mouthed at the aftermath of her attack. "KD, finish it off before it can get together," the iron-clad girl managed to suggest. Her leader nodded grimly and bounded up the stairs two at a time. When she was close to to the epicenter of the chimera's explosion, she raised a fist.
"Reborn, KD slam," she muttered. At point-blank range, the golden light of her powers burned away the goo. The chimera's abandoned school uniform reinflated, filling with a girl KD didn't know, who was unconscious and looked badly-hurt. "Guys!"
o()o
Then Ryou's (yeah, I'm not gonna call him that too his face, but no one has to know if I do it privately :P) partner Keiichiro, who's nicer but not as hot (although if I had an older brother, I'd totally want him to be like Keiichiro) came and explained that aliens were attacking and they'd accidentally (accidentally!!) turned us into magical girls to help fight.
We all got endangered animal DNA that gives us our powers. It's something like this:
KD: Something sandpiper.
Akane: Mouse? Rat? Can't really remember.
Me!: Pink Fairy Armadillo (I looked them up and they're not as cute as they sound :( )
Noa: Rhinoceros
Lorne: Uh... some kind of black snake. I think.
So, yeah, nothing Ryou did made it look like he was anything but a real jerk, but I know he's nice deep down! He's gotta be! No one that good-looking can really be a jerk. He went on a little bit about how he didn't want us but he couldn't do anything about it now, but he also let us work in the cute cafe! (Lorne would say "made us work," but she's a snot.)
o()o
The rest of the Mews climbed the stairs and looked at their schoolmate's prone form with varying degrees of horror. Yomi was the first to speak.
"H-how can they use people? Oh my God!" the little girl broke down, sniffling openly.
"Shh, shh. It's okay." KD wrapped an arm around Yomi in an attempt to comfort her, "I don't know. But we'll find out and stop them from hurting anyone else. I promise."
"It's not our problem anymore," Lorne said matter-of-factly. "I hear sirens. If help is on the way, then we need to get the hell out of here." There wasn't even any noises of assent. The Mews drifted apart, separate except for KD, who was still consoling the horrfied Yomi, to think privately on what they'd just seen.
o()o
That didn't really help. I still feel like a loser. Even Akane is a better magical girl then me, which is just about the most depressing thing I can think of. I mean, she's nice (way nicer than Lorne and Noa), and I guess it's good that she has us as friends, but still! Ugh, I dunno how to say that without sounding like Noa. Blech.
Sigh. I dunno. I'm gonna go to sleep now, and hopefully I won't feel like a little emo idiot in the morning. 'Night, journal.