Chapter Three - A Rose by Any Other Name...

Sen was practically bouncing up and down in her seat with anticipation and excitement. "Ooh, oo, oo! Hit 'er, Tayna, hit 'er!"

Tayna slipped, sending her body crashing down to the ground. She grimaced, but stood back up and dusted herself off. "Okay. How do I transform?" She dodged an energy ball as she yelled her question to Janus, who was wringing his hands.

Two more balls came flying at her as she waited for Janus' answer. She jumped out of the way of one and flung herself to the ground to avoid the other. "Dammit, Faerie, how do I transform?!" She screamed. The red-head laughed- it was an annoying laugh. Very annoying.

Sen narrowed her eyes- they were practically glowing green. No wait- they were glowing. Tayna found herself being picked up as if strings were attached to her body, and her clothing began to change. She felt as if a whole new world was becoming open to her- which, of course, it was- and she could feel the power in her fingertips.

Janus bowed, the red-head gaped, Sen got out of the car. "I can do something! I rock!" She cheered.

The enemy shook her head. "No matter. I can still defeat you."
"I doubt it." Tayna grinned, and the woman suddenly fell to the ground as something hit her upside the head. "I got a staff!"

Back in her room, Tayna, Sen, and Janus debated on what to do with the woman they had dragged in with them…or at least, Janus debated.
"That was pure genius, Sen, the way you handled my mom." Tayna commented, running a hand through her hair.
"Yeah, well, I figured that passing out from lack of caffeine and too much AP class homework is not such a rare occurrence among your friends."
Tayna sneered and playfully threw a pillow at her cousin; Janus was practically turning red from anger. "Girls, we need to decide to do with this person."

"I'd say that she needs to be roughly woken up and interrogated under a hot grill-light." Tayna grabbed her lamp. "This should do!" Sen giggled, but immediately stopped after glancing at the very perturbed faerie.
"So what do you want us to do, Janus?" Sen asked, and he calmed down a bit.
"I think we need to find a way to keep her from escaping other than just stuffing her into Tayna's walk-in closet."
"Hey- work with what you've got." Tayna mumbled. Janus continued.
"And we need to find out who sent her- I have a feeling this has to do with the dark power I was talking about."
"So you just immediately rule out that she might have spontaneously wanted to kill me?"
"That doesn't usually happen. I did the research on all of the Sailor Senshi's doings, and I don't believe that there was any spontaneity involved with their battles." Sen rattled off.

"Well now we know who the 'smart one' is." Tayna grinned at her cousin, and a sudden expression of puzzlement appeared on her face. "Um…speaking of Sen, how the heck did you get me to transform?"
"I don't know- I just got really frustrated with not being able to help you transform, and then all of a sudden I knew what to do. It's hard to explain, but I think I could just feel the 'door' that was blocking all of your powers. So I just opened it." She shrugged. "That's all, really."

Janus was nodding his head. "That's it, then. Sen has to unlock the senshi's powers, so to speak. Now the question is- can she find the other senshi?" Sen was about to answer when a loud banging on the closet door signaled that the red-headed woman had woken up. Tayna threw herself agains the door, trying to hold it closed, but she couldn't keep it that way for long.

I wish I had a dead bolt on this thing. To her surprise, one began to materialize on the door. "Whoa…that's kind of weird."

Janus shrugged, arms folded across his chest. "Overactive imagination. Told you so."

Tayna stuck her tongue out at the faerie. The pounding on the door abruptly stopped. Sen looked up, suspicious.

"Do you think teleportation works in closets?" She wondered aloud. Tayna shrugged, and both girls looked at Janus expectantly.
"Well, Oberon…?" Tayna asked.
The faerie bit his lip. "I'm just a creation that was pulled out from the Realm of Karos to give you very basic information. Other than that, I don't know much." Tayna sighed.
"Figures my imagination would leave out superior intelligence." She clenched her fists. "I say we take a chance and open the door. If she's not there, then we'll know if teleportation works in closets. If she is, we can take the opportunity to question her and/or I can beat her up again."

The faerie shook his head vigorously, but Sen was looking thoughtfully at the closet door. "It's reasonable- what else are we going to do? We've got to open the damned thing at some point."

The faerie stood back a little ways from the doorway as Tayna and Sen opened the deadbolt. As they did so, something in the darkness smiled wickedly…

Favorite : Story Author   Follow : Story Author