The Fragility of Time
BOOK THREE: "Star
Dust Memories"
Chapter 2: Moments of
Transition
Author: etj4Eagle
Email: etj4Eagle at
yahoo (com)
Email2: etj4Eagle at fanfiction (net)
http/ 12/6/05
Last
Edit: 12/6/05
Disclaimer: A reminder I own none of the characters of this story, all rights are owned by others. However, the unique circumstances of the story are mine. If you distribute the story, do only so freely and inform me of where you post it.
Arriving home exhausted after another late night at the hospital, Mizuno-san headed first to her kitchen. Picking up the tea kettle, she filled it with water before placing in on the stove and turning on the gas. As she waited for the water to boil, she got herself a mug and a tea bag. Hearing the whistle of the boiling water, she removed the kettle and poured the water into her mug. Then as she let the tea steep, she carried the cup to the dining room table and glanced briefly through the mail, which Ami had sorted earlier in the day, but did not find anything that required her attention this evening.
Once the tea bag had steeped long enough, she turned out the lights and taking her cup, headed up the stairs to check on Ami before going to bed. Opening the door to her daughter's room, she found that her daughter had once again fallen asleep while working, this time though at least in her bed and not at her desk. With quiet footsteps, she walked over to the bed and began the task of picking up the various books, notes, pens, and one computer that were haphazardly strewn about the bed. The Mercurian computer was the first item she retrieved, for it was currently located just behind Ami's left foot and only a half dozen centimeters from being kicked off the bed.
How that little computer managed to survive Ami's less than ideal treatment of it, Rikou had no idea. It was not that Ami intentionally mistreated the computer and when she was awake, Ami took very good care of both her computer and her various books. No, it was Ami's habit of getting too wrapped up in a problem to break for sleep that posed the danger to the computer. Many times in years past, Rikou had come home from work to fine that Ami had fallen asleep either at her desk or in her bed with books strewn about. On each of those occasions, Rikou had gathered up Ami's study materials, put them away and then tucked her daughter into bed.
Having now gathered up the last of Ami's study materials, Rikou briefly glanced at the equations and diagrams that drawn in her daughter's notebook shaking her head at how far out of her league those equations were before closing the notebook and placing it on the desk. I knew that there would come a day when Ami's thirst for knowledge would push her into areas far beyond my understanding one day, but I never thought it would occur while she was still in Junior High. Kami, I haven't felt such so clueless in looking at that notebook since I the first time I opened a calculus book. Rikou thought to herself before turning back to the bed.
Returning to the bed, she double checked to make sure she had gotten all of her daughter's study materials off of the bed. Seeing nothing, she took a hold of the blankets on Ami's bed, and then carefully lifting them up from under Ami, she laid them instead on top of her. Once that was done, she tucked the blankets in around Ami and leaned down to give her daughter a kiss on her forehead. Then straightening back up, she picked up her cup of tea and took some sips as she watched her daughter sleep peacefully.
As she watched Ami sleep, Rikou thought back to how troubled Ami's sleep was just a couple of weeks ago and was very glad that Ami's friend, Rei, had been able to help Ami finally come to terms with the loss of her first real friend in years. Watching her daughter grieve had been hard on Rikou. As a doctor she had seen what losing a loved one could to do, and Rikou knew that Ami very much loved Usagi. A love that she knew was not romantic, but just as powerful. If it had not been for the unique circumstances of the situation she would have arranged for Ami to see one of her colleagues, but that was not an option here. And so Rikou was left knowing what her daughter was going through and what it could do to her but not knowing how to help her. Thankfully, just as Rikou was reaching her wits end and was ready to reveal the secret that Ami and Usagi had trusted her with to another, Rei had stepped in and somehow turned Ami's outlook around. And, now with her mood drastically improved, Ami had once again returned to burning the midnight oil as she plumbed the depths of science and magic.
Deep inside the temple of Elysian, the realm's guardian was racing against the clock. Two days ago the last of the once golden fields had fallen under Neherenia's shadow and now those who slept in the fields as well as those who dreams broke into the realm slept in nightmares. However, as bad as that was, it could have been worse for those souls who inhabited the fields. But Neherenia had no interest in the souls of the dead, instead she was only interested in the power that had been entrusted to Helios to guard until the day that his prince was ready to summon his birthright. Of course if Neherenia had known that the White Moon princess lay asleep in the fields, things would have been different and Helios would have been powerless to protect that precious soul. But Neherenia did not know and so for the last two days her forces had laid siege to the temple itself while ignoring the fields.
The wards on the temple proper were the most powerful of the wards in Elysian and against a less powerful enemy would have held up indefinitely. Even Zirconia, FishEye, TigersEye, and HawksEye by themselves would have required a siege of years to penetrate the wards. It was the presence of the other half of the assault team that tipped the scales such that the wards began failing almost immediately and it was only a testament to the power of the wards that they had been able to survive two days against the assault of CereCere, JunJun, VesVes, and PallaPalla. With the wards tied as they were to his body, Helios knew how close they were to failing and with that knowledge he stirred the scrying pool while hoping for just a few more minutes. But those few minutes did not come for at that moment the wards collapsed.
As the waters of the pool resettled, an image of a sleeping pink haired child formed, a child who appeared to be tossing in her sleep. Frowning, Helios suspected that the young girl was suffering from another nightmare. If it had not been for the child's connection to the Sailor Senshi and her own link to the Earth, Helios would have looked for another refuge due to these nightmares. However, as the case was she was the perfect refuge for his soul, even if her dreams were troubled. The pain of hiding in the troubled dreams was a small price to pay for the safety of the Golden Crystal.
Noticing that the waters of the pool had finally stilled, Helios began the spell to open the doorway to the girl's dreams. As he spoke the words, the waters of the pool began to glow a golden yellow as the image of a palace and a silver-haired, winged woman began to replace the image of the child. Finishing the spell, the spell, Helios did not have a chance to view his refuge's dream for just as he finished the spell, the door to the chamber was blown off of its hinges.
Racing through the bowels of the temple following the collapse of the wards, PallaPalla had simply blasted any door that she found in her way, not bothering to try to open of them. It was a strategy that served her well, for if she had stopped to open even one of those closed doors instead of barreling ahead at full speed she would have missed Helios. As it was, she was just in time to see the priest transform the golden horn on his head back into the Golden Crystal.
Not paying attention to PallaPalla's arrival, Helios with the Golden Crystal now in his hands called forth its power as he began the final spell of refuge. Seeing the crystal glow brightly for a moment, PallaPalla reacted on instinct and fired off a quick counter spell at Helios as she dodged out of the way of what she expected to be his attack.
Rolling back up onto her feet, PallaPalla was surprised that no attack had come. Looking over at her foe to see why he had not attacked, she saw that while her own attack had hit home, he was still chanting the initial spell. Confused, PallaPalla prepared to use a more powerful spell. However, she never got the chance, for just as she was beginning to prep her attack, Helios finished the final verse of his spell.
With the spell finished, the crystal gave a final pulse of light before turning back into a golden horn. However, this time the horn was not attached to the head of the priest. Instead, the crystal was carried away from the body of Helios as his spirit, bathed in golden light, slowly emerged from inside. Once fully split from his body, Helios's spirit turned its head and looked at PallaPalla as the golden glow died down to reveal a white Pegasus. Then turning its head back to the pool, the Pegasus walked forward a few steps as it gave its wings a few test flaps. Then apparently satisfied with their functionality, Pegasus used them to take to the air and then plunged down into the pool.
Watching this all unfold, PallaPalla was stunned into silence and it was only the sound of Helios's body crumbling to the ground that brought her back to the here and now. Realizing that she had let the Golden Crystal slip through her fingers, PallaPalla ran up the edge of the pool. Reaching out her hand, she was only met by water as the image of a receding golden dream mirror finished fading from view. Turning back from the pool, she walked over to the priest's body and gave it a kick in its side for the headache she now faced. Zirconia was not going to be pleased that she had let Helios escape and she knew that the punishment that was going to be handed out to her and her "sisters" was not going to be a pleasant one. Picking up the priest's unconscious body, she slung it over her shoulder and began her trek back up to the main levels of the temple. And of course Zirconia is going to send the Amazon Trio out after that Pegasus instead of us as further punishment, letting them get the honor for Neherenia!
With the morning sun beginning to stream in through her attic window, ChibiUsa glared bleary eyed at her alarm clock. While part of her wanted nothing more than to go back to sleep, ChibiUsa only considered that option for a moment, to go back to sleep would mean that she would risk the return of the nightmares. While they were not as often as they were the first few weeks, they were still there and now they had begun to merge with her old nightmares of being Black Lady. After all, her subconscious figured that if it hadn't been for her, Usagi would still have been alive. Pushing those thoughts aside ChibiUsa swung her legs out of the bed, knocking Diana to the floor in the process.
"Hey! Watch it there." Diana called out to her charge as she was crawled out from under the blankets.
"Oops. Sorry about that Diana-chan." ChibiUsa apologized as she picked the blankets back up. "Though, I thought cats were supposed to be graceful."
"We are. But it's not possible to be graceful when you are falling surrounded by blankets." Diana replied as she shifted into her human form and wearing a cream and mouse themed set of pajamas.
"I guess you do have a point." ChibiUsa conceded as she began to change out of her own bunny pajamas and into her school uniform.
As ChibiUsa was getting dressed her mind kept drifting back to her dreams from the night before. While she did have the standard nightmares there was also something else there as well, a new dream. She wasn't quite sure what it was only that she had a feeling that her dreams would be a little better starting tonight, almost as if her dad was able to watch out over her dreams.
"You all set?" Diana asked, breaking ChibiUsa out of her thoughts.
"Yep, let's go get breakfast." ChibiUsa relied as she put the finishing touches on her odangos.
Heading down the staircase, the two girls headed first to Usagi's room where Diana waited outside while ChibiUsa went inside for her morning visit and prayer with her mother. As was the case every morning, ChibiUsa cried for a few moments as she told her mother's sleeping form that she loved her and asked Usagi to watch over Hotaru. The same ritual was again repeated in the evening before going to bed with some additional time to tell Usagi about her day. And if something special happened during the day, such as getting a test back, ChibiUsa would immediately head upstairs to show Usagi before showing it to Ikuko.
When the two girls finally arrived downstairs a few minutes later, it was to find Kenji tending to breakfast instead of Ikuko.
"Where's Ikuko-mama?" ChibiUsa asked.
"She's sleeping in; she's not feeling well this morning." Kenji replied as he began to fix breakfast for ChibiUsa and Diana. "But don't worry, it's probably just a 24 hour bug and she should be fine tomorrow." he added, wanting to make sure ChibiUsa did not start to worry.
"Hai." ChibiUsa replied, somewhat assured.
"Just have to make sure that Minako doesn't find out." Diana remarked, which caused both ChibiUsa and Shingo to start laughing.
"Hai, I don't think our house can take the abuse of nurse Venus again." Kenji replied with a chuckle before placing breakfast down on the table for the two girls.
Sitting down himself, Kenji opened the day's paper and began to read the morning articles while he ate his breakfast and absently listening to the conversation amongst the three children. Hearing ChibiUsa mention Hotaru's name in a sad voice, Kenji looked up from the paper to see how ChibiUsa was doing, something he had been doing since Hotaru ran away whenever her name came up. He could see the hurt that his granddaughter was feeling, as was to be expected. But as had been the case for the past week, that hurt was showing to be manageable and he saw no indication that ChibiUsa might emotionally breakdown as she had the first few days whenever Hotaru's name had come up.
In returning to his paper, his thoughts, triggered by Hotaru's name, turned to cataloging all of the errors that he and Ikuko had made following the loss of Usagi, errors which he was sure had led to Hotaru running away. Their own sorrow in loosing their daughter had blinded them to the full extent of the pain that the two girls were feeling and in trying find solace by keeping things as unchanged as possible, they had not seen how keeping Hotaru and ChibiUsa in Usagi's room was doing those two severe emotional harm. And even though Usagi primarily took care of ChibiUsa and could read the girl's emotional state far better than they could, ChibiUsa wasn't that different from Usagi at that age, so they should have realized how much ChibiUsa was hurting. And, to a degree they did realize that ChibiUsa was hurting and they had talked about needing to keep an eye on her, but at the same time hoping that Hotaru's presence would help ChibiUsa's healing.
What they had not realized was the degree of guilt that Hotaru felt over what had happened. When Usagi's friends had described the battle, they had not truly conveyed the ferociousness of the fight between Usagi and the possessed Hotaru and so Ikuko and Kenji had not realized that Hotaru had felt directly responsible for what had happened to Usagi. And because she felt directly responsible for Usagi's condition, she also had not felt deserving of the support of the Tsukino family, ChibiUsa, the cats, or the Sailor Senshi. Hotaru's running away had given the two of them a needed wakeup call, breaking them out of their own sorrow and opening their eyes to what was happening with their family.
Now finally realizing how detrimental it was to have ChibiUsa stay in Usagi's room, they had decided to transform the attic into a bedroom and move ChibiUsa there. With this change being so long overdue, Kenji took two days of vacation from work to perform the necessary renovation to make the attic livable. Renovating the room turned out to be the easy part, as it was convincing ChibiUsa to leave her mother's room that was the hard part. It had taken four days of arguments that sometimes escalated in yelling and tearful reconciliations between Ikuko and ChibiUsa to convince ChibiUsa to move into her new room and that in doing so she was not giving up on her mother. Thinking back to those horrendous days, Kenji had no illusion that they might have ended up driving ChibiUsa away as well if it had not been for Diana offering a compromise that had finally diffused the situation, the compromise of visiting Usagi before going to bed and upon waking up every morning.
"Mmm… that was good, almost as good as Ikuko-mama." ChibiUsa said as she finished the last of her breakfast, breaking Kenji away from his thoughts.
"Hai, there's nothing like sardines in the morning." Diana replied, which earned an immediate response from ChibiUsa.
"Bleh, I don't know what you see in that."
"Would you prefer I had a mouse sunny side up?" Diana teased her friend, causing ChibiUsa's stomach to sour.
"Hey some of us are still eating here." Shingo complained as he looked up from the comics.
"Gomen Shingo-kun." Dian apologized before gathering her dishes and taking them to the kitchen.
"Shingo you better hurry up or you are going to be late for school." Kenji said.
"Hai," Shingo replied as he read the last comic and turned back to his breakfast, making quick work of it.
Putting down his soup spoon, Kenji got up from his seat and went into the kitchen to assemble lunches for the three kids. Prepping the various items for the three bento boxes his thoughts turned to happy thought of how much things had changed since ChibiUsa had come into their lives. Before ChibiUsa, Usagi had been like any other teenager, lazy and unable to hold onto a yen without spending it on something trivial that had all changed with ChibiUsa. Within that first month, she had done a 180 on all of the traditional teenager behaviors, no longer caring about her own wants and instead only interested in making ChibiUsa happy.
Of course as Kenji gave the three kids their lunches and herded them out the door, he told himself that he really shouldn't have been that surprised. Usagi always did have a big heart, a heart that was instantly drawn to those who were alone and needed help. There was that boy in the hospital she had given a rose to when she was going to see Ikuko following Shingo's birth and then there was that silver-haired girl in the park that Usagi had befriended about six months after Shingo was born. And this past year there was Mizuno Ami who Usagi had befriended even though they had nothing in common; befriending her even before learning that Ami was a fellow Sailor Senshi. So it was no real surprise that with ChibiUsa needing her, her own wants had become secondary. Kenji just wished that he had some of that natural empathy talent that Usagi had, maybe if he had it, he wouldn't have failed Hotaru.
Glancing over at a picture that he had taken the day of the adoption party, which now hung on the refrigerator, Kenji couldn't help but both smile and feel sorrow. The picture showed four happy kids tackling an overwhelmed Luna and enjoying the time of their lives. That party had been the first time when he hadn't felt sorrow from loosing Usagi, able to enjoy the happiness of welcoming a new member into their family. A second photo on the refrigerator from earlier in the party showed a different scene. This photo was just of ChibiUsa and Hotaru and unlike the later photo, Hotaru was not yet carefree and instead looking at the photo now he could see that something was troubling her. He had a feeling that she had already made up her mind to leave by this point and was feeling guilt over partaking in the party.
Returning to finish off his own breakfast before seeing about putting something together for his wife to nibble on, he hoped that somehow Usagi was watching over Hotaru and protecting her. At least she has Luna with her and Luna was able to teach the Sailor Senshi how to survive these three wars they have fought. Kenji told himself for not the first time as he tried to reassure himself that Hotaru would be all right. Plus she is a Sailor Senshi as well. And even if she is only a fraction as strong as she was during that battle, she will be okay. That's if she wants to. Kenji's thoughts continued, with the final thought being what he was most concerned about. He could only pray that Luna would be able to help Hotaru realize that she was not responsible for what happened to Usagi and that he and Ikuko wanted her as part of their family.
Finishing with the last bite of his dinner, Kenji took his dishes into the kitchen and then proceeded to wash his along with the kids'. Once that was taken care of, he got out a tray and a couple of small dishes and proceeded to prepare a light breakfast for his wife. With her upset stomach, he chose a simple bland meal of crackers and yogurt with water to drink. Putting the yogurt container back in the fridge a long forgotten memory suddenly clicked in his mind.
Silver haired foreign child with odangos and a strange mark on her forehead that was how Ikuko had described the little girl that Usagi had befriended. She had said that if she hadn't known that she had only given birth to one girl, she would have sworn that the two girls were twins with how similar their personalities were. Kenji thought as the memories of Ikuko's description of the little girl who looked to be Usagi's twin came back to him. He remembered how at dinner that evening, Ikuko had described the encounter at the park. She had been sitting on a park bench holding a napping Shingo who had just turned six months old at the time when Usagi walked over to a girl her age who was crying over by the sandbox. Within minutes, Ikuko had said, Usagi had the other girl smiling and had then brought her over to meet her mother. The girl had obviously been a foreigner, as she did not speak any Japanese, but for some reason Usagi and the girl appeared to understand each other perfectly. And even odder, Usagi and the strange girl had been practically mirror replicas of each other, especially after Usagi had done the other girl's tangled hair up into odangos. Seeing how cute the two girls looked together and also so that Kenji wouldn't think she had lost her mind, Ikuko had taken a picture of the two girls.
At the time, neither he nor Ikuko had thought much of the event, just taking it to be a strange set of coincidences. Now as he thought back to that day, Kenji was no longer so sure. He now had a sneaking suspicion about the foreign girl and so he decided indulge his pet theory and headed into the living room for a moment. Walking over to the cabinet where they kept the photo albums, Kenji pulled out the one for Shingo's birth year. Then taking the album over to the couch, he sat down and began flipping through. Finally coming to the page he was looking for, he nearly dropped the album when he looked at the picture from that day for a second time, even though he had been expecting to see what he found. This was not the first time he had seen that particular photo, he had seen it when Ikuko had gotten that roll of film developed and other times when they had shown that album to family and friends. However, this was the first time he had looked at it the past year and now he no longer saw a foreign girl with an uncanny likeness to Usagi, but who was definitely not Usagi. Instead he saw Usagi. No not Usagi, Serenity. Kenji thought to himself, as Usagi's form now, minus the wings, was apparently how she appeared back during the days of the Moon Kingdom. And as much as he wanted to say what he knew himself to be seeing was impossible, ChibiUsa was the counterpoint. Somehow that scared girl Usagi had met in the park that day had been Usagi from a thousand years ago. Shaking his head at the craziness of the situation, Kenji decided to bring the album up with him when he took Ikuko her breakfast. I wonder what Ikuko's response will be. This should at least be able to bring a smile to her. And maybe if Usagi is able to find away to be in the right place to comfort her past self in the future, she will find a way to take care of Hotaru. Kenji thought, now feeling more comfortable that things would work out with Hotaru, he just had to have faith in his daughter.
With the onset of morning, Tokyo's now booming construction industry began another day of repairing the damage left by demon attacks and installing various items that were supposedly supposed to offer protection from future attacks (some of them being quite dubious in their claims). The sudden up-growth of the construction industry from the national recession was wholly linked to the demon attacks which over the past few months had become quite severe in their damage. As it now stood there were quite a few buildings that were undergoing complete renovation, the Mugen Academy being only the latest one added to the list.
Not surprisingly, the Diet had even recently been taken in by the desire to buy or invent any form of anti-demon protection that was out there and, consequently, had dramatically increased the military research and development (R&D) budget. Now no longer simply buying already developed equipment from the defense contractors of allied nations, the military was commissioning those same contractors to develop new weaponry to deal with the unique elements of the threat Japan faced. And to support the efforts of the R&D teams, the government had established a top secret R&D center in downtown Tokyo, a center that had come within a block of being destroyed just a week after it had been brought online.
Given the risk associated with placing such an important building in Tokyo, there had been of course a vigorous debate over its placement. On one side those pushing for a secluded location pointed to the collateral damage of the more substantial battles while the Tokyo proponents touted the benefits of having the facility close in where they would have ready access to the technologies being developed at it. With equally good arguments for and against its placement in the city, the debate had gone on into the wee hours of the morning. It was only when the prime minister had brought in the minister of magic to get his thoughts that a break though was reached. While unable to guarantee the safety of the facility 100, he had suggested the use of wards. And so after a further two hour debate on whether or not to listen to the "crack pot," an agreement had been reached on placing the facility in downtown Tokyo. And to help protect the facility, it was build mostly below ground, and a series of wards were placed around the facility to both protect it and to further enlarge its size.
And now with the pending arrival of the first Sailor Senshi to visit the facility, it was brimming with activity. Paint crews were out repainting all of the walls along the proposed tour path, while cobblers were fixing the stone work in the entrance hall. And it was into this mess, that Captain Carter arrived. She was the first of the international partners to arrive, having arrived last night after a long trip that had begun at the Wright Patterson Air Base where she was stationed as an engineer in the United States Air Force. Guess the brass must be visiting today. Carter mused to herself as she side stepped an electrician rushing past her.
"May I help you?" the receptionist asked as Carter finally made her way up to the front desk.
"Hai" Carter replied with one of the few Japanese words that she knew as placed the Japanese version of her orders down on the desk.
"Ah, you must be the head of the American contingent." The receptionist said, this time in English as she saw the Air Force logo on the paper. "If you would be willing to wait just a few moments, I will see about getting you an escort."
"Arigato" Carter replied with a slight bow, before turning and walking over to one of the couches. Picking up one of the science journal on the table she began reading it as she waited.
A few minutes later, the door into the interior of the facility opened and a young Japanese soldier came out. Spotting Carter he walked over to her and said, "Captain Carter I presume."
Standing up, Carter replied, "Yes."
"I am Lieutenant Sano. If you would, please follow me." The lieutenant said before leading Carter through the door and down a short hallway and into an awaiting elevator. Then once inside, he punched in their destination and as the elevator began it descend, he handed Carter her ID badge, who not needing to be told, affixed it to her uniform.
A few minutes later, the elevator reached bottom and Lt Sano directed Carter down another set of corridors until they finally reached a general's office.
"Captain Carter, I had not expected to see you for a few more days." The general said in English.
"The rest of my team won't be arriving till Thursday, but I felt it best to head straight over here. My orders were not that clear on exactly the nature of the situation, but they were clear enough that I felt it best to not waste days doing nothing."
"A true seeker of knowledge at heart, I can understand." The general replied with a little laugh. "Well then, why don't you have a seat and I can fully brief you on the situation. But first I let me ask you this, are you familiar with the Sailor Senshi?"
Thinking back over the limited briefing that she had received state side, Carter shook her head. "While I am familiar with the term, the term was never explained. I assume that it is the code name for this project?"
Grinning, the general had to fight the desire to laugh. "Iie, that is not the case." Then picking up a folder from his desk he handed it over to Carter. "Well it looks like I get the honor of breaking your view of the world. And after having been on the receiving end of what I am about to tell you, I am looking forward to having the honor of breaking the news to another scientist." And with that Carter began to learn about the Sailor Senshi and the existence of magic.
The weeks since the "incident" had seen the Mugen Academy transformed first from a prestigious school to a police scene and now finally to a construction scene. Earlier in the week, the military investigators had closed up shop and pulled out, allowing the construction crews onto the campus to begin the long process of rebuilding. While the investigators had wanted to stay longer, for it had become obvious very quickly that Mugen had been at least one of the sources of the demon attacks, the school's board of directors had eventually been able to use their political influence to get the school released back into civilian hands. While there was no way the school was going to be able to reopen before the end of the school year (given that was just a little over a week away), they hoped that the construction crews would be able to sufficiently clean up the damage that they would be able to reopen the school for the lower grades in time for the start of the next school year.
Of the buildings on the Mugen campus, only the main building, which held the science labs, had been seriously damaged in the battle. That building was a total loss and would have to be torn down once the cleaning crews were finished recovering the various hazardous materials. The rest of the buildings, while not so severely damaged, all had some degree of damage; however, their damage was minor enough that the board of directors felt that they would be able to reopen the school in a limited capacity. The loss of the main academic building, though, would prevent them from reopening the school for the upper grades.
With the current high demand for construction workers, the less glamorous task of cleaning the battle sites prior to leveling and rebuilding often fell to poorly trained day laborers. For the past week, two friends Soun and Genma had been part of the daily crew. While Soun did have a successful dojo and therefore was not hurting for money, his daytime schedule was quite light and with three daughters he could always use the extra money for their college funds. Additionally, it gave him time with his best friend and helped motivate Genma to do an honest day's work, a reason why Soun's wife never complained about the fact that he working below his stature by taking these jobs.
Whereas Soun was able to realize his dream of opening his own dojo, that dream had been closed off to Genma during an accident shortly following the birth of his son. His wife had only been home from the hospital for a week when a propane tank had exploded outside the dojo that Genma and Soun were training at. When the two of them had awoken in the hospital, the doctors had explained that both of them had suffered minor concussions from the blast and various cuts and burns from the flying shrapnel. And, that for some unknown reason, Genma's left leg was showing an unusual amount of inflammation. The doctors were never able to explain why, but for some reason the muscles in Genma's left leg had been poisoned during the blast, crippling his use of that leg. While Genma could stand and even walk on the leg with some minor assistance, he had lost his ability to practice martial arts. And so, without any other marketable skills and a very poor work ethic, he was left to finding work as a day laborer. Thankfully for Genma's son, who was quite gifted in the violin, Genma's wife had some family money, which only she had access to, which she used to support take care of him, as otherwise with Genma's pour financial situation he would never have been able to discover or develop his talent.
Today they had been assigned three of the rooms in the lowest basement level to clear out. As they were just day laborers and not trained hazmat workers, they had received some simple training on how to recognize the more hazardous items such as radiation sources, bottles of acids and bases, biological samples which they were to mark for disposal by the one trained hazmat crew and otherwise not touch. The rest of the semi-hazardous material that they would find, however, they were to just toss into the large trash barrel that they brought down to the basement.
With a routine well developed between the two of them, Soun and Genma made short work of the first room. Now entering the second room, Genma, being crippled, took the refrigerators near the door, as Soun walked to the far end of the room to work for another hour before lunch call. Reaching the far side of the room, Soun had to carefully step over black toolboxes that had been strewn across the floor when the pyramid they had been stacked into collapsed during the battle. Not paying much attention to the black boxes, Soun opened one of the cabinet drawers and instantly found himself standing in a sea of dead C cell batteries that came out of the cabinet. What the…? was all that Soun could think as the batteries flowed out of the cabinet. Who the heck needs that many batteries? Well I guess its time to get to work. Soun thought to himself as he sighed and sat down while grabbing one of the black boxes, which was thankfully conveniently located and began filling it with batteries.
At the other end of the room, Genma, leaning slightly on his cane, was rummaging through one of the room's three refrigerators. With lunch approaching soon, his stomach was rumbling and his rummaging had a different purpose than the one he had been hired for. While he was currently emptying the fridge of both its chemical and biological waste, the last element being something he was not supposed to do, he was only doing that because the items he was picking up did not look edible. His limited training had of course included the warning of not to eat anything, but he had conveniently forgotten that tidbit.
Pulling out what looked to be a promising container, he opened the lid to examine the paste like substance that it held. However, after just one whiff of its contents, he quickly refastened the lid and tossed it into the garbage can before reaching in to grab the next convenient item. This time he pulled out a tray containing vials of a white powder, which he did not give a second thought to before tossing them into the trash can. By this time he had all but emptied the first fridge and he was getting quite discouraged. The next several items did nothing to improve his outlook, however, when he pulled out the next to last item his mood immediately improved as the thought Pay dirt! ran through his mind, for the clear jar held what appeared to be a pickled egg.
Pulling his head out the fridge he looked back at his friend and was pleased to see that Soun was still engrossed with whatever he was currently up to, which meant that he would not have to share. Giving the jar's lid a twist, Genma reached in and plucked out the pickled egg. Wonder what kind of egg this is, doesn't look like a chicken. The shell is not right, though why they decided to pickle it with the shell on I don't know. Maybe it's a snake egg, yeah that's probably it. Genma thought to himself before tossing the jar into the trash and cracking the egg open. Then once he had shelled the egg, he popped it into his mouth, chewed a few times and swallowed. Hmm… not too bad. Not as good as a chicken egg, but I have had worse.
Then with a grin on his face, Genma reached back into the fridge and pulled out the last container, hoping that it was another one of those pickled snake eggs. A hope that turned out to be good, for it was another container of a purplish liquid in which a golf ball sized egg was suspended. Now with his second course in hand, Genma turned back to the garbage can and was surprised to see Soun
"So anything of interest in those fridges?" Soun asked the surprised Genma.
"Iie, just jars of smelly liquids and some dead plants." Genma replied as he palmed the small jar into his hand. Then taking note of what Soun was carrying he asked, "What's with all the batteries."
"Don't know, but there must be thousands of them back there." Soun said as he gestured to the back of the room. "This is only a small portion of them. I can only think that they were used with those black boxes." Soun said while indicating the remains of the former black box pyramid.
Having learned early on not to question what they might find in the various rooms (especially after that Twister game room), Genma just nodded and watched Soun empty the box load of batteries and one pink stuffed bunny with a broken toy drum into the garbage can. Once Soun had begun to walk back to the other side of the room, Genma brought back the jar back out and began to untwist its lid.
Unfortunately for Genma, just as he had fully loosened the lid of the jar he was startled by a small explosion from a few rooms down the hall, which caused him to loose his grip on the jar. No! he screamed in his mind as the jar fell into the trash can and its contents oozed out. Debating for a few moments on whether he wanted to reach in and retrieve the pickled snake egg, Genma eventually decided that since it had now gotten mixed up in some of those foul smelling liquids, which he had tossed in earlier, that he would pass. And so Genma turned back to his task of rummaging through the refrigerators in an attempt to fill his belly. Unnoticed by Genma as he turned away from his lost meal, the egg slowly slipped into the pink bunny.
The two "pickled snake" eggs which Genma had found in the refrigerator were of course neither pickled nor snake, but were instead immature daimon eggs that professor Tomoe had been saving for an experiment. Because they had been set aside for the experiment, they were the only daimon eggs to have survived the battle. And being immature eggs, the egg that Genma had dropped into the garbage can was not able to immediately gain control of its host artifact. However, a little over an hour later, the daimon had finally gain control of its pink body and opening its red eyes for the first time it gave its drum a whack before quickly enlarging to a good five feet in height, instantly shredding the garbage can that it had been in.
With the arrival of lunch time, Genma and Soun had returned to the surface with their garbage can and after leaving the garbage can along side the ones of the other teams for emptying after lunch, they had joined the other workers under the lunch tent. Wrapped up in their boisterous lunch conversation, none of the workers heard the demon's initial awakening. On the other hand, its "It's dinner time!" drum beat that it played after enlarging to a height of five feet was heard by all. Drawn by the drum beat, the confused workers turned to look. Seeing the demon, they as a group began screaming and pandemonium instantly set in as they all tried to stampede away with Genma right in the front of the line (which is an excellent trick for a crippled man).
With the demon not far behind them, the panicking workers quickly covered the distance to the street where half of them turned to run north and the other half turned to run south. Unfortunately for those that chose to turn south, the demon also decided to turn south once it reached the street and even though they were running as fast as they could they were no match for the demon. Closing up on each of the runners, the demon tossed what looked to be an Energizer battery as it passed. Of course with this being a demon, the battery was more than a simple Energizer battery. Unlike its normal cousin, the demonic energizer battery instantly drained its victim of all their energy upon hitting the body, leaving a pale unconscious body behind.
Within five minutes of catching up with the escaping construction workers, the demon had drained every one. Now just standing in the middle of the road, the bunny played a new tune on its drum as it summoned the batteries back and transferring their stolen energy to the giant battery on its back. Looking north, the demon bunny did not see any sign of the second group of workers. Deciding that chasing after that group was not worth it, the bunny collected its drum sticks in one hand for a moment before pulling out a pair of black sunglasses.
Taking a momentary break from grading the current stack of papers, Haruna looked out at her class who were about two thirds of the way through their math final. As expected Ami was already done with her exam and was apparently working on something else. Knowing Ami, it was probably Sailor related and further more it was probably something related to Usagi. Usagi that caused her mind to move to think about her favorite student as her eyes moved over to look at the empty desk. Only a few months ago, she would have laughed if anyone had suggested that the slacker she then knew as Usagi would become her favorite student. But that was before she knew the truth, before that slacker got a daughter and was forced to give up her childhood and mature in order to be the mother that the child needed.
Oh Usagi, I hope Ami and the others can find a way to bring you back soon. This room just doesn't have the cheerfulness it once did. Haruna thought to herself before returning her attention to Makoto's history test. Reading the girl's answer to the next question, she frowned before marking it wrong. While not as bad as Usagi's exams, Makoto's grades were not that great either. Though she did have to give the girl credit for doing as well as she did do. This exam occurred only days after Usagi had been lost, so Haruna knew that Makoto studying had most likely consisted strictly of that last minute preclass cram. Writing the number 77 on top of the paper and then marking the grade in her book, Haruna had to admit that given all of that, 77 was a decent grade. Picking up the last ungraded exam, Haruna let herself smile at the thoroughness of the answers she expected to find. She figured that Ami had to have used at least twice as much paper as any other student in writing her explanations. Leaning back in her chair, Haruna began to read Ami's test. She always left Ami's tests for last, letting her finish her grading on an upbeat note, after all grading a perfect test always left her with a little euphoria feeling that she had to have done something right.
She was about halfway through the exam when there was a light knock at her classroom door. Looking up from the exam, she saw one of the receptionists from the main office walk into the classroom. Getting up from her desk she walked over to meet the young lady. Taking the offered note, she nodded her understanding and then spoke, "Mizuno-san there is a phone call at the office for you."
Not having noticed the visitor's arrival, Ami was startled when Haruna called her name. But, recovering quickly she put down her notebook while Haruna told her of the call. It looks like our vacation is over. Ami thought to herself as she came up with only one reason why there would be a call at the main office for her. If her mother ever needed to get a hold of her at school, she would just leave a message. That left only one possibility, the military, as her name had been given as their contact in the Sailor Senshi. Without her ability to transform into Mercury there was no way for her to keep her identity a secret when she began meeting with the R&D people (her first meeting being scheduled for this afternoon) and she along with Minako and ChibiUsa agreed that they could not afford to wait for her powers to return before she began to work with the R&D. Consequently, her identity had to be revealed. They only hoped that the military wouldn't piece together the other parts of the puzzle, not that she really believed that that not happening was a real possibility. As for why they hadn't contacted her on her communicator, this way see at least had a chance in making up a reasonable excuse as to why she had to leave school.
Following the receptionist back to the school's office, she accepted the offered phone and answered, "Moshi Moshi, this is Mizuno Ami".
"Mizuno-sama there is an incident in progress." came the reply from the other end of the phone.
"Understood, where is the target?"
"Indigo-five. We have a transport enroute to your location, ETA ten minutes."
"What is the situational status?"
"We have assets moving to engage, they will wait for your arrival prior to engaging. The local assets are currently clearing collateral out of the target area. Target threat assessment is currently level 10." Ami sighed in relief when she heard that it was only a level 10 target. Based on the rating scale that she and Minako had put together a week ago, a level 10 threat was one in which the demon was just draining energy and nothing else. It was hoped that the military would be able to eventually deal with these all on their own. A level 1 threat, however, was one she hoped would never occur, for that level threat called for the immediate evacuation of the greater Tokyo area and furthermore she and Minako had recommended having a friendly nuclear capable nation spin up an ICBM for five minute launch at the target area.
Understandably, that suggestion had not gone over very well when Venus had outlined it during their meeting with the defense minister. In fact there is no real term to describe just how poorly that suggestion was received. But after letting the other participants rant for ten minutes, Venus had then forcibly called the meeting back to order and given the floor to Ami to explain why such a drastic response was called for. And, as she described what a level 1 threat would entail, the room had gone absolutely quiet. In a level 1 threat, the Sailor Senshi would likely be either incapacitated or dead and they would be facing an enemy like Hotaru when she was possessed. As Ami described Usagi's battle with Hotaru, all objections had died away. The first to understand and put aside their dislike of nuclear weapons were the military officers, who like Ami knew that they couldn't just rule out a weapon because they did not like its collateral effects. The civilian leaders had been harder to convince, as they did not want to be associated with unleashing another Hiroshima or Nagasaki. However, at the end they had to agree that Tokyo being lost in a nuclear attack was better than loosing the entire nation.
Later that night, on a whim Ami had called up her computer and ran a quick query on the weaponry of the Moon Kingdom. She was not surprised to find that even the Moon Kingdom had a stock pile of hydrogen and neutron bombs in addition to others that looked even worse. However, there was one item there in particular that caught her attention and kept her up awake all night staring at her ceiling, a mention of the ultimate doomsday weapon – a weapon dating back to the foundation of the kingdom, a weapon that had been locked away and used just once. As she lay in her bed with Youko curled up beside her she finally understood why Hotaru felt she needed to get away and find herself. Learning that you were a doomsday weapon was not something that anyone wanted to learn, much less a kid and Ami had no doubts that Hotaru knew the truth, there was no way that she couldn't after that battle.
However, all of these were thoughts of things from before and Ami did not have time to revisit those thought and so breaking back out to the present, Ami replied, "Recommend we proceed with plan alpha."
Then getting an acknowledgement from the other party, Ami hung up the phone and thanked the receptionist for letting her use the phone and quickly walked back to the classroom. Opening the door to the room, she walked over to her desk and collected her materials. Then looking up at Haruna, she said the codeword "Usagi," which both Haruna and Makoto understood to mean both Sailor business and something that was not immediately critical for Makoto. If Ami had said something about Usagi's condition, then Haruna had agreed to find a way to quickly release Makoto as well. As it was with Ami finished with her final for the day, it was not a real issue for her to let Ami go.
Walking down the steps and away from the school, Ami headed out towards the gate. The few teachers she had passed in the hall had not questioned why she was out of class. With her reputation for being a very studious student, none worried about why she was out of her classroom. Also the school faculty in general terms knew of Usagi's condition and many know also knew of Ami's desire to be a doctor and so many just figured that Ami was heading over to be present while some more tests were run on Usagi (a train of thought that Haruna had encouraged by filling out independent study paper work for Ami). Of course, that was all completely wrong, but for Ami it provided the perfect cover to let her out of class to deal with the demon attacks. Arriving at the front gate of the school, she did not have to wait long before a military jeep pulled up and paused just long enough for her to hop in.
"Afternoon ma'am" The MP who was driving the jeep said as he handed her a flak jacket.
"Arigato." Ami replied as she accepted the jacket and put it on while absently taking note of the MP's good driving skills as he weaved in and out of traffic. While the jeep did have a siren and light, given that it was a police vehicle, the MP was driving too fast for those to be much use in clearing out the traffic. Turning her attention back away from the read, Ami proceeded to adjust her cap to a smaller size that would fit her head fastened her hand's free communication device in place. Then with her gear all set, she turned to her driver and asked, "What is our ETA to the target area?"
"We are 3 minutes out."
"Hai" Then toggle her radio for broadcast she spoke, "This is Mercury, ETA to target area 3 minutes, request situation update."
"Mercury, Command. Acknowledge your three minute ETA. Target has moved to indigo six, but has continued to remain a level ten threat."
That's good Ami, thought as she activated the alert function on her communicator. Unlike the panic function, which caused the receiving units to sound an audible alert, the alert function just caused a steady light to activate. Not using an audible alert therefore allowed the Senshi to respond to the alarm when the time was appropriate and given the current assessed level of the threat, Ami felt that the military should be able to handle this threat. But it was still a good idea for the others to make their way over once they finished with their classes, just in case things changed.
Thumbing the transmit button on the radio again, Ami began speaking again as she summoned her communicator. "Ready to receive uplink on secure frequency tango-five." Ami said as she activated the secure wireless function of her computer. Now the technicians who had installed the secure telephone unit in her house would have been mighty surprised that she was using her computer in a secure mode without the use of an external encryption unit and even more so when they realized that as far as the telephone unit was concerned the computer's software implementation was an exact duplicate of the phone and key. Over the previous weekend she had connected the secure telephone unit to the computer and set it to analyze the encryption scheme. By the end of the following Monday, the computer had run the phone through sufficient paces that its magic enhanced quantum processor had been able to duplicate the phone circuitry.
"Acknowledge. We are transitioning to secure mode and initiating upload." As the voice over the radio said this, Ami saw the connection status on her computer change from being simply connected to being in a secure mode. Then with the secure transmission mode engaged, Ami began bringing up the data reports. Analyzing the movements of the demon, Ami entered some commands into the computer and began overlaying various different population maps as she attempted to make sense of its methodology.
By the time the jeep had come to stop just under three minutes later, Ami had a good idea of the demon's movement patterns and how they could use that to their advantage. Jumping out off the jeep, Ami made her way over to the command post that had been setup where two other jeeps were parked.
"Sir, Sailor Mercury reporting." Ami said as she gave the commanding officer a quick salute once she had made her way over. While technically since the Sailor Senshi and the Japan's Self Defense Force were different military organizations they normally would not need to salute each other. However, ChibiUsa in authorizing the integration discussions had requested that the Sailor Senshi be integrated as much as possible into the military's command structure, a request that Artemis had agreed with. For ChibiUsa, the basis for the request was her memories of how the Senshi interacted with the military back home. And for Artemis, he had seen the inherent benefits of a more structured arrangement that would prevent ground confusion over the chain of command.
"Mercury, good to see that you have made it." The officer replied as he returned the salute. Then gesturing for Ami to approach the map, he began pointing out the current location of the demon and his current troop deployments.
"Sir, I have analyzed the demon's movements and I suggest that while we evacuate these areas, we do not evacuate this mall here." Ami said and after receiving a questioning look from the colonel she continued. "The demon appears to be attracted to high population densities, so if we leave the mall unevacuated the demon will head that way. And if we then array your forces here and here we will have a focused kill-zone for taking out the demon."
"Hai that's a good plan Sailor Mercury, though setting up the ambush sites here and here would give the men more cover." the colonel replied as her pointed out his alternate sites to station the men. Then getting a nod of concurrence from Ami, he turned to the soldier standing next to him and gave the orders to setup the ambush.
"Sir, if I may. I would like to join one of the ambush teams." Ami requested once the colonel had finished and turned back to the map.
"I thought you couldn't use your powers?" The colonel asked
"I can't. However, I still have use of my computer which I can use to scan the demon and should the situation change, it will be a useful tool on the frontline." Ami explained.
"And you are still too much of a foot soldier to stay back here at the command post." The colonel replied with a smile, remembering how years earlier he too did not initially want to move up in the command structure and away from directing leading his men. Then turning to his aid, he said, "Lt Zala get Mercury here set up with a rifle and then introduce her to team 4, she will deploy with them."
"Arigato sir." Mercury replied before giving a salute and following the lieutenant.
Kneeling behind the barricade that they had set up, Ami along with the members of team 4 watched as the demon approached. When she had been introduced to her squad mates for this engagement, there had been a fair bit of shock amongst the soldiers with regard to her age, something that she had experienced in meeting the defense minister as well. But that joking had quickly passed when they had realized that she was not just playing dress up and had been issued a weapon and furthermore had a facial expression that showed her to be the veteran of many battles, something that only a few of the soldiers deployed today had ever seen.
So far the demon was playing right into the trap that Ami had laid out. With the large mall behind them filled with shoppers and everything else along the approach route cleared out, the demon was following the bait. Catching her squad commander's visual command out of the corner of her eye, Ami raised her rifle to the ready position and sighted down along its scope as she lined up her target. Then watching the demon slowly walk forward a few more steps and across the second threshold line, Ami slipped her finger around the trigger and prepared to fire. As she did all of this, faint memories of her past life came to the surface and she instinctively adjusted her form to provide a better base against the weapon's recoil and to adjust her aim to correct for the slight in-flight drop of the bullets. The squad commander who glanced over at Ami briefly to make sure she wasn't going to hurt anyone with that weapon, still not sure that allowing a kid to join them was a good idea, was surprised at her form and would have found it hard to believe that this was the first time Ami had held any kind of firearm.
Ami and the rest of the members of her squad and the other squads stayed in that ready position for another five minutes as they waited for the demon to reach the ideal position in the kill zone. At one point it looked like it might have realized that they were there for it stopped its advance and began to play a little ditty on its drum as it spun around in circles. However, it turned out that it was only taking a break and then once it had finished its piece it had proceeded forward again, finally moving fully into the kill zone.
"All teams open fire." the engagement commander ordered over the radio.
With those words, the military units opened up and a hail of bullets pelted the demon bunny. Spinning around trying to escape from the bullet, the demon screamed in pain as bullets poked little holes in its drum and blasted off chunks of fur. However, the demon was more enraged than hurt and as the soldiers paused to change cartridges, the demon took advantage of the momentary pause to toss its drum sticks at one of the ambush sights.
Thankfully the drum sticks were thrown a little too vigorously and hit the building behind the ambush point instead of the soldiers. The soldiers still were, though, pelted by large chunks of falling debris and glass shards from the side of the building. Not letting the demon's counter attack get to them, Ami's squad brought their rifles back up and returned fire. The soldier next to Ami seeing that the bullets did not appear to be doing much damage paused in his firing to remove a grenade from his vest and to load it into his rifle's grenade launcher. Then bringing the rifle back up, he fired off a shot and scored a direct hit on the side of the demon, this time blasting off a large chunk of purplish gunk.
Finishing off her second clip, Ami loaded a third clip in the rifle, but instead of bringing the rifle back up to return fire, she placed the weapon down beside her and instead pulled out her computer and began scanning the demon. As she examined the readings she did not like what she was seeing, but then suddenly her mode improved as one of the numbers changed. Looking up she saw that after affects of a grenade hit on the demon.
Putting two and two together, Ami flipped the transmit button on her radio and spoke. "This is Sailor Mercury to all units. Return fire with grenades only. The bullets are insufficient." Mercury did not receive any verbal acknowledgement for her order; instead acknowledgement came in the form of dozens of grenades streaking towards the demon.
"Now I see why you didn't want us to join you, you are having too much fun by yourself and didn't want to share." Jupiter said when she arrived few moments later, having jumped down from a nearby building to land beside Ami.
"Jupiter, shouldn't you still be in class." Ami asked.
"Iie, the test is over and it is just a study period for the rest of the day since we took our science final yesterday. So what's the deal with this one?" Jupiter asked as the demon was enveloped in a large fireball from a dozen simultaneous grenade hits.
With the eruption of the large fireball some of the soldiers paused in their firing, thinking that they had finally taken out the demon. However, when the fireball died down they found that while the demon was badly scorched and was now missing one of its sunglass lenses, it was still very much alive. With a sinking feeling the soldiers resumed their fire as it took a few steps forward and produced a new set of drum sticks, which it used to begin playing its badly mangled drum again.
"It… it just keeps going and going." Yelled one of the soldiers in Ami's group as the demon began to make its way towards them, seemingly now unaffected by the grenades which were blasting off bigger and bigger chunks of its torso.
"Hey isn't that the Energizer bunny?" Jupiter said as she got her first good look at the demon.
"Hai, I guess you are right." Ami said as she too finally took a good look at what the demon was supposed to be.
"Well while I do like batteries which last for ever, this appears to be getting a little ridiculous." Jupiter said as built up a large ball of lighting in her hand and then with a yell threw it at the demon, a blast which knocked the demon down but not out.
While Jupiter was doing this, Ami ran a second scan on the demon, this time using her knowledge of that gaijin commercial and found the demon's weak spot. "Sailor Mercury to all units, aim for the large battery on the demon's back." she said into her radio.
"Back?" the soldier next to her asked, since they had been in front of the demon.
"Hai." Mercury replied.
"Team's 1 and 2 distract the demon. Team's 3 and 4 circle around the demon." came the resulting order over the radio.
"You heard him men, let's move out." The squad leader said as his team moved out from their barricade and began to flank the demon.
For the two circling teams the combination of the distraction provided by teams 1 and 2 and Jupiter along with the low intellect of the demon proved sufficient to allow them to circle around the demon without issue. Now behind the demon, Ami was once again lining her rifle up with the target. Having not been issued any grenades, she only had her bullets to use, but her mind figured that with everything else that they were going to be throwing at that giant sized battery that her bullets would have to do at least some damage.
When the order came to open fire again, the reaction was almost instantaneous. The demon roared in pain from the sudden impact of grenades and bullets on its battery. In an effort to protect its Achilles heel, the demon tried to twist its body out of the way; however, as fast as its actions were, they were not fast enough. And within seconds the giant battery was leaking battery acid everywhere through large and small holes. Falling lifelessly to the ground, its energy spent, the demon along with everything else nearby began to be dissolved by the demonic battery acid, which now coated the street.
As Ami watched the demon topple over, she idly wondered how similar the behavior of that demonic battery acid was to the real stuff. She was just thinking that it would probably be a good idea to keep flame away from it when rings of fire rained down on the demon's remains from a nearby building. Oh hell. Ami thought as she managed to yell "Duck!" over her radio just moments before her world went white.
"Ooh, my head." Ami moaned as she opened her eyes, moans which quickly attracted the attention of the nearby medic who then proceeded to shine a flash light into her eyes.
"She's okay sir." The medic replied.
Turning to regard whoever the medic was addressing, Ami saw that it was the colonel that she was first talked to upon arriving on the scene. "What happened?" she asked
"Your strategy proved successful for taking out the demon. However, it appears that one of your friends had not realized that the demon had already been neutralized when she arrived on the scene and then forgot that fire and batteries don't mix." The colonel replied.
Taking the hand the colonel offered her to help sit up, the memory of red rings of fire hitting the demon's remains came back. Looking up at the group assembled around her, she saw that Mars was looking a little self-conscious. "Mars-san I think we need to have a little science review of basic chemistry tonight."
"Hai. Gomen Nasai Mercury-san" Mars replied.
"Don't worry about it. It's not like I haven't been through worse. I don't think anything can top Sailor Moon's impression of a bomb."
"Hai, I guess you are right and at least this time you didn't have to jump of an office building and turn yourself into a snowman." Mars replied no longer feeling quite so bad.
Now turning back to the colonel, she addressed him. "Sir, how are your people."
"Thanks to your warning, they all escaped with only minor cuts and burns from that blast. However, I think we need to work with you on how to hit the deck, since if you had dropped faster you wouldn't have been hurt either."
"Hai." Ami agreed.
"One final thing before I let you go. I would like to your preliminary assessment of the engagement." The colonel said referring to the post engagement reports that the Sailor Senshi had agreed to provide following joint operations.
"Sir." Ami replied while sitting up a little straighter. "The demon proved to relatively immune to our bullets, though they did prove to be useful in distracting the demon and to a degree in stunning it. However, only the grenades appeared to have had the required firepower to actually hurt the demon. Additionally, our battle strategy would have been vastly improved had I done a detailed scan prior to the engagement."
Nodding in understanding, the colonel said, "Thank you Sailor Mercury for your help. Those thoughts match the initial ones I have based on the radio chatter. I look forward to reading your after-action report." Then turning to Mars and Jupiter, "Sailor Jupiter, Sailor Mars thanks for your help as well." And then with that, the colonel turned and headed to check in with the other squad leaders.
"You know that look is good for you." Jupiter said as Ami slid off the stretcher and to the ground.
"Huh?" Ami replied confused.
"You know the school girl part time solider cross, what you think Mars?" Jupiter replied in explanation.
"Hai, you're right. Now if only she still had her rifle."
"And me without my camera."
Glad that Jupiter still had not gotten around to carrying a camera with her, Ami looked down at her outfit and noticed that her skirt was in pretty bad shape and that her shoes would need some serious cleaning tonight. Looking back up at her friends, she replied, "Just be glad that the two of you can still transform and generate your fuku instead of ruining your school uniforms like me."
"Why don't you ask Sailor Moon's mom if she might be able to help you? I am sure that she has run through quite a many uniforms in her time." Jupiter said referring to Usagi's tendency to trip over her own two feet if she wasn't paying close attention to her walking.
"Iie that won't work her mom doesn't sew." Mars replied, remembering the time she had tried to enlist Ikuko's help in winning the wedding gown contest.
"Excuse me ma'ams, but I am here to transport Sailor Mercury to her afternoon meeting." A soldier said, interrupting the discussion as he came up to the group of three.
"Hai, lead the way." Ami replied.
A few minutes later after getting into her second jeep for the day, Ami glanced down at her outfit. "Well so much for making a good first impression." she mused to herself.
"Not to worry ma'am. We will be stopping by your residence first so that you can change into your dress uniform."
"Dress uniform?" Ami replied, this being news to her.
"Hai, Sailor Venus I am told helped design them." The soldier replied, causing Ami to drop her head into her hands dreading what she was to find.
Another twenty minutes found Ami up in her room examining the uniform before taking it off of its hanger. The uniform looked like a standard dress uniform, the only differences being that in place of rank insignia, the uniform had alchemic mercury medallions and the Japanese flag included a golden crescent moon embroidered on top of it. All in all it looked very good and along the lines of something she would have designed.
"Minako had some further ideas; however, between me and our military counterparts we were able to keep her efforts focused to just the rank insignia and the flag. Our government friends then further added some ribbons for the three enemies we have fought." Artemis said from the open window where he had been cat napping in the sun while waiting for Ami to come home. He was scheduled to also attend the tour tonight with Ami and having known that she would be brought here to change for the tour, he had just headed on over to her house around midday to wait.
"Well I guess I will need to let Minako know that it turned out good." Ami said as she began removing the uniform from its hanger. Then turning to look at Artemis, she cleared her throat and said, "And now if you don't mind."
"Hai, I know." Artemis replied as he quickly scampered out of the room and down to the first floor before taking his human form.
At exactly 1800 hours, Ami and Artemis were delivered to the underground entrance of the building which housed the R&D facility. Then after being met by another soldier they were escorted into the building. In the facility's lobby she was introduced to the command structure for the facility, the civilian contractors, the wizard contingent (something that Ami had not been expecting) and then the first of the international partners.
From the sidelines as the introductions were made to the Sailor Senshi and advisor, Carter couldn't help but be amazed by the girl's youth. She had been briefed on the fact that four of the Sailor Senshi were just finishing up their next to last year of Junior High, but Carter had not really made the connection to their youth. Shaking her head in amazement she also remembered the communicator designs which she had been examining all afternoon long, designs which this girl was apparently responsible for and had been provided by the Sailor Senshi upon the signing of the treaty. Given that Carter was here in advance of her team, the general had tasked her to the communicator reverse engineering group to see if they could find a way to make use of its advanced features in their communication gear. While the Sailor Senshi had the ability to produce them in a limited scale, the mass production that the military needed required a different approach and so they needed to reverse engineer the design. The intricacies of the design had amazed Carter and the team of scientists and engineers had only made minor progress in the week that they had the plans. And as such, Carter found it hard to believe that the design had been developed by a 14 year old. While Carter did recognize that from the background material that Sailor Mercury had not outright invented them, the girl still had made substantial modifications to the base design.
Hearing her name called, Carter walked forward and gave the blue haired girl a short bow before giving her a hearty handshake as well. Seeing the anticipation that was brimming in the girl's eyes with regard to the pending laboratory tour, Carter knew that she was going to enjoy working with this kid. And so with the introductions all completed, the tour began.
Somewhere in China's mountainous wilderness, Hotaru and Luna hiked in silence, a silence that had started shortly after they had snuck aboard a freighter to make the crossing. Luna had tried to engage Hotaru in conversation the first few days, but the black haired child was not interested. For Luna who had never experienced this problem, having been Usagi's guardian previously, she did not know how to deal with Hotaru's introversion. Whereas with Usagi, she could get the girl to open up by just crawling into her lap and purring for a few minutes that did not work with Hotaru. And so Luna was left to hike in silence beside her charge while hoping that Hotaru would open up to her. As such, Hotaru's first unnecessary words in the past many days took Luna by surprise
Cresting a ridgeline, Hotaru exclaimed "Sugoi!" as she saw the sight before her.
Huh? Luna thought to herself before quickly recovering and joining Hotaru on the ridge. Looking down into the valley before them, Luna had to agree with Hotaru's assessment, for the view in front of them was truly beautiful.
"I had read about the Great Wall in my history books, but never thought it looked like this." Hotaru said, not taking her eyes off the wall which extended out of sight to her right and left.
"Why don't we break here for the night and see if we can make it there tomorrow." Luna suggested.
"Hai!" a now enthusiastic Hotaru replied.
"But first, I would like to get a picture of you with the wall as a background." Luna said as she unfastened her hip strap and then swung the pack off. "Leave your pack on for the photo." Luna added as she noticed Hotaru looking to do the same thing. Then opening the pack, she rummaged around through it for a few moments before she pulled out her camera.
"Nani? When did you get that?" Hotaru asked, not having made the connection when Luna had said she had wanted to take a picture.
"When you took that break to look at the manga, I stopped in at the camera store that was across the hall." Luna explained. "The helpful salesclerk also showed me how to use it."
"Okie." was Hotaru's response as she smiled for the camera.
Then with the picture taken, Luna helped Hotaru take off her pack so that Hotaru could go look around and play while she took care of preparing dinner. No longer encumbered by her pack and with her spirits lifted for once out of the depths they had been on since starting the trek, Hotaru aimlessly walked away from Luna to explore. Inhaling the fresh air of the mountainside, she felt her spirits rise some more. And for the first time, Hotaru took in the sights, which were quite magnificent with valleys and mountains stretched out as the eye could see in front of them. Deciding that she wanted to get a better view of the valley that lay before them, Hotaru found her initially aimless wandering leading her towards a rocky outcropping that over hung the valley. Sitting down on the edge of the ledge, she let her feet dangle as she admired the view.
Having become lost in the view, Hotaru was startled when a soft voice from beside her said, "Earth has as a beauty all of its own."
Confused as she had not thought that there was anyone else here, Hotaru turned and found a ghostly woman sitting beside her on the ledge.
"Don't be afraid firefly." The spirit replied.
With her heart still beating very fast, Hotaru realized that the voice sounded somewhat familiar, almost comforting in a ways.
"Hai, we have spoken before, though I would be surprised if you remember that conversation, after all you were asleep at the time."
"Who are you?" Hotaru asked, now no longer quite so afraid.
"That does not matter, especially since this will probably be the last time I will be able to appear like this. And don't worry about me appearing for you, as I know that is what my daughter would have wanted."
Huh? Hotaru thought, utterly confused. However, instead of voicing her confusion, Hotaru just nodded and returned her gaze back to the land.
"I know you are troubled by your powers little one. With as gentle as your heart is there is no ways you could not be."
"What do you mean?" Hotaru asked as she turned back to look at the spirit wondering if somehow this spirit knew what she really was and wondering if so then why the spirit was not running away.
Reaching out with one of her arms, the spirit rested her ethereal arm, which surprisingly had substance down on Hotaru's knee while she responded to Hotaru's question. "Firefly, even if part of my spirit did not sleep in my daughter's heart, I would always be able to recognize one of my Sailor Senshi."
"Your Sailor Senshi…" Hotaru repeated as she looked more closely at this spirit, not sure what she was referring to.
Chuckling to herself, the spirit said, "Well I guess with my daughter's transformation, recognizing me is not as easy as I thought it would be." as she lifted a hand to indicate the glowing crescent moon on her forehead. Then seeing some light of understanding begin to come into Hotaru's eyes, she continued, "Hai, I am Serenity, the last queen of the Moon and your other adopted grandmother."
"Obaa-san?" Hotaru asked with fear now entering her voice as she pulled back away from the spirit of Queen Serenity.
Frowning slightly, Serenity wished that she had been able to awaken her daughter's soul before making this trek away from the Elysian Fields. Little Serenity, No Usagi now. Serenity told herself, was always much better with matters of the heart. The frown unfortunately was misinterpreted by Hotaru and she curled up further preparing herself for the vengeful spirit's wrath, an action that did not go unnoticed by Serenity. Mentally kicking herself, Serenity glided so that she could forcibly pull the child into a hug.
"Hotaru-chan, look at me." She instructed Hotaru once she had Hotaru in her arms. "Firefly, I do not in any way blame you for what happened to my daughter." Serenity said once she had Hotaru's attention. "I want to remember this; Usagi adopted you because she wants to have you as her daughter. When she recovers, she will give you just as much love as she will give to ChibiUsa. She blames that demon for what happened to you. And remember that when it was important, you broke free of the bonds that demon had placed on you and saved ChibiUsa."
"Demo… The power of Saturn." Hotaru began, but was quieted when Serenity placed a finger to Hotaru's lips.
"Hai, the power, which is your birthright, is a frightening responsibility. And when the Moon Kingdom was first founded and the Sailor Senshi first called, the child who was given that power was not able to fully resist the darkness that is inherent in Saturn's power. But you are not that same child; you are instead the power of Saturn born into this world for the first time." Serenity explained. Then touching Hotaru's heart she continued, "This time the power of Saturn is fully in tune with your heart and as such there is no danger of you ever loosing yourself to the power now that you have woken up. When you accepted the power of Saturn to break free from that demon, you did what the first Saturn was unable to do; you tamed the darkness and turned it into shades of gray."
Pausing in her explanation, Serenity saw that tears had come to Hotaru's eyes as the girl began to take to heart what she was saying. Smiling that she had begun to help Hotaru see the light, Serenity adjusted her hold on the girl and drew upon more of her fading power to strengthen the embrace she was holding the girl in before continuing. "You will never be the pure white that my daughter or your new sister is. Instead you are to be their other side, the blackness that makes them and you whole. Remember how it was together that you and Usagi healed Sailor Erion. Usagi would never have been able to do it on her own."
"Hai, I think I understand." Hotaru said as she thought back to how it had felt when she had helped Usagi heal that other Sailor Senshi. She didn't understand all of what happened then, but she knew that her powers of Silence were just as important as Usagi's powers of Light in freeing Erion from her bondage.
Pleased that Hotaru was beginning to understand, Serenity let Hotaru continue to ponder those thoughts for a while before once again speaking. "Next time you fear your power, think of the beauty that you see before you here."
"Huh?" Hotaru replied unsure of what Serenity was getting at.
"Remember that the power of Saturn gives you the ability to protect the beauty in this world from those who wish to destroy it. Your power is not evil. It is only evil if you chose to do evil with it. Protect the beauty of the world and the hearts of your friends and there will be no difference between your power and that of my daughters." Serenity explained.
"Hai." Hotaru replied starting to understand what Serenity was getting at.
Satisfied that she had accomplished her goal, Serenity smiled again before letting her body dissolve into moonlight, before vanishing completely. And as she finally disappeared, a voice saying, "Take care firefly" could be heard.
Serenity's parting words were only partially noticed by Hotaru, who was once again looking at the valley, but feeling already better about being Sailor Saturn. Her words were also heard by Luna who had come up on the two near the end of Serenity's visit. Not wanting to intrude, but also unable to turn away, Luna had stood hidden behind some bushes as she watched Hotaru and Queen Serenity's spirit talk.
Now finally released from her paralysis, Luna quietly said, "Thank you your majesty." as she gave a slight curtsy towards the rising moon in the late afternoon sky. And while Luna knew that Hotaru was a long way from having conquered her demons, she also knew that Hotaru had finally taken an important step forward. For the first time Hotaru had accepted, even if it was for just these next few minutes, that she was not responsible for what had happened to Usagi, that Usagi really wanted her as a daughter, and that Sailor Saturn was not some evil being. From now on reminding Hotaru of those facts would be easier and eventually Luna now knew Hotaru would come to fully accept that as being the truth.
Walking up beside Hotaru, Luna laid a hand down on Hotaru's shoulder. "How are you doing Hotaru-chan?" she asked when Hotaru looked up.
"Okie." Hotaru replied.
"Well dinner's ready. Why don't we go eat and then we can come back here and watch the sunset. I have a feeling that it will be quite breathtaking from up here."
"Hai!" a very enthusiastic Hotaru replied before following Luna back to camp.
Leading the way, Luna thought to herself Guess it is time to write home. Ikuko and Kenji are certainly very worried and I doubt the letter I wrote before we left helped at all. And they will be happy to know how much better Hotaru is finally doing. Probably be best to write the letter once Hotaru goes to sleep. Don't want to push her too much. There's a full moon tonight, and that will give me more than sufficient light to work with
End Chapter
-The genesis for the Energizer bunny being the demon host was one of the old Space Quest games from Sierra (one of the original great game companies, a company which is sadly no more). There was a particular scene where you as the hero Roger Wilco had to catch the energizer bunny (who was running all of those centuries in the future) so that you could steal his battery.
-Ranma fans will recognize the bumbling idiot who released the latest demon. Unfortunately, there was nothing Pluto could do about Genma's idiocy. All she could do was to make sure Ranma never learned martial arts.
-And as I have previously mentioned, the pummeling of Ami was only short term and now having gotten the emotional help that she needs from Rei, Ami finally beginning to be able to shine again. And you can be sure that an ulterior reason of Minako's for letting Ami work with the military even though she still can't be Sailor Mercury is make sure Ami feels useful and part of the action.
-And now for your time waster of the month: "Something Grim Comes this Way" by Ruskbyte. This is a Harry Potter / The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy crossover. At least as of now it is a one shot focusing on Harry's train ride to and arrival at Hogwarts his first year and is very humorous. While the two stories might not seem to be ones for crossing over, Ruskbyte has pulled together a good story and knowledge of The Grim Adventures is not necessary.
-For those wondering how little Serenity managed to find her way into the sandbox, that is a little plot bunny that has been lurking around in the back of my mind for a couple of years now. The genesis of that little bunny is that Serenity's fascination with the Earth began as a result of a failed assignation attempt (prompted by fear over the prophecy mentioned in Book 1). Banished by a spell, she is saved from oblivion and is instead sent into the future and is found by her future self (of the same age). As a result when she is finally returned to her own time, Earth now holds a special place in her heart and she begins actively seeking to return whenever the backs of her guards or turned, eventually leading to her meeting Endymion. At some point I will get around to writing that one-shot story, of which I do have an initial draft started. Like the rest of my one-shots, the story will be part of the "In the Beginning" series. Of course before I write that one, I need to finish and post "Leaving the Cradle," which is 80 written and tells of the founding of the Silver Millennium.