Chapter 4:

Minako tossed her large shopping bag into the rear seat and slid back behind the wheel of her car. "There! That should be enough soda and munchies to keep us from getting hungry while we wait for that sneaky hussy to make her move." She handed her friend a coffee and sipped hers. "Where is all this stupid fog coming from? It's getting really thick outside."

"Good grief! Are you expecting Usagi to drop by?" Makoto looked at the supplies and smirked. "You bought enough junk food to last her for days! On second thought, make that an hour." She asked the blonde, "So... what's the next step in your latest act of utter madness?"

"It's nearly dark, so in another half hour we'll find a good spot to park where I can see clearly through your windows, Mako-chan. But not too close! Then we'll cover my car with those garbage bags I stuck together and wait." She cackled, "Haruka won't suspect a thing until it's too late!"

Makoto sighed, "Wouldn't it be better if you just drove over to Taro's house and stayed there with him? Then we wouldn't have to waste the entire evening sitting in a chilly car, waiting for something that isn't going to happen."

"No, because I want to put a stop to Haruka's wicked plans permanently!" her friend insisted. "And the only way to do that is catch her left-handed when she makes her first move." She giggled, "You know, the same way the police do when they're on a stakeout!"

"Don't mention the police" the brunette groaned. "Not after that night we went shopping and they tried to catch Venus and Jupiter with that tacky youma costume. What a disaster that was!"

"Nani? I got us out of that little bind, didn't I? With the usual Aino Minako quick thinking and efficiency!" she boasted.

"Hai. After stealing a police car, careening across Tokyo like a complete lunatic and ramming into a tree!" Makoto growled back. "Other than that it was the perfect escape."

"Well, we did get away from them" Minako pouted. "Anyway, this time's different. This time, we're the ones doing the hunting."

"Are you planning on having Haruka mounted on the wall of your father's study, Minako-chan? Like one of those safari trophies?"

Minako admonished her with a waggling finger. "Mako-chan, someday you need to learn to trust me more."

"No. Someday I need to learn to stay home and not get dragged into any more of your crazy fantasies! That's what I need to do."

"You'll thank me later, after you rescue your lover boy from Hussy Haruka's wicked plan for him."

"For the last time, there is no plan, Minako-chan! It's all in your head! And Yuji won't go to the house tonight" the brunette muttered. "I'm sure he won't. He's probably sitting at home right now, calling my apartment and wondering why I'm not answering."

The blonde giggled, "Then why do you always get so hot and bothered every time I mention his name?"

"Because... now you're making me nearly as paranoid as you are!" Makoto scowled. "That's why!"

. . . . .

In the gold Lexus, Haruka glanced at her young passenger in her mirror. "She's sound asleep, Setsuna-san" the tall blonde softly spoke, slowing her progress further as outside the car, the swirling fog grew ever thicker.

The young woman beside her nodded. "Good. Hotaru needs to rest and regain her strength before trying to henshin agan."

"Regarding that subject, what happened to her glaive?"

Setsuna frowned. "That was a rather serious problem, Haruka-san. When you first reawakened as Sailor Uranus, your space sword was present in its dimensional pocket and immediately available for your use. As was my time staff, thankfully. But the glaive returned to its native world, in this dimension."

Haruka's eyebrows shot up in surprise. "You're telling me her glaive was on Saturn?"

"Not on the planet as such. That would be impossible due to the gaseous nature of her guardian world." She continued, "After a thorough search for its unique energy signature, I finally located it several months ago, with the use of my Time Gate. It was orbiting the planet, drifting among the particles that compose one of its many rings."

"Ok... I'll bite. So how are you planning on getting it back to Earth?"

"I'm not retrieving it myself, Haruka. That too would be impossible." She told her astonished blonde companion, "I'm having it delivered."

"Tonight, to Mako-chan's house? How? By who?"

"Connections, Haruka-san" Setsuna smiled cryptically. "But as I mentioned before, the less-"

"Hai. I know the routine" Haruka grinned. "The less said, the better."

"Precisely."

. . . . .

"I can hardly see anything through this ridiculous fog!" Minako fumed as her car crept through the darkness toward the old house. "And now my windows are misting up too!" She switched her car's heater to its maximum setting, blasting warm air across the windshield. "We'll need to get a lot closer than I'd planned."

"Park in the driveway" Makoto suggested with a chuckle. "Then you won't miss a thing."

"Very funny." Minako eventually pulled her garishly orange car off the deserted road a scant two hundred meters from the dwelling, bouncing a short distance along a rutted track that lead up a low hill adjoining a farmer's field. She turned her car in the field until her side faced the house. "This will have to do." Minako shut off the engine and rubbed her hands together. "Excellent! Your house is still dark, which means no one else has turned up yet."

"I can't believe we're throwing away a perfectly good Saturday night on this dumb scheme of yours, when I could be sitting comfortably at home with my Yuji." Makoto sighed, "I'm wasting my life."

The blonde ignored her friend's lament, opening her door and springing from the vehicle. "Help me cover the car with the camouflage net thingy I made, Mako-chan."

"Hai. I might as well." The brunette shrugged, then reluctantly clambered out, joining her future sister-in-law in the dense chilling mist. "What else is there to do?"

. . . . .

Five minutes later, the girls had draped the crudely-taped collection of garbage bags over the Toyota and lifted its edges to slip under it and reenter the car. The vehicle now appeared as a dark green lump, rising to a pyramid-shaped peak where the bags hung from the top of its radio antenna. "It's perfect!" Minako gloated. "Now no one will ever know we're here until it's too late!"

"Hai. When they find our lifeless bodies in the morning after we suffocate under this mess" Makoto chortled. She laughed in the pitch darkness, "I see you haven't thought this all the way through, Minako-chan. You didn't leave any way to look out of this stupid tent of yours!"

"Easily fixed!" Minako rolled down her window, grasped the thin plastic outside and ripped a gaping hole in it. "Done and done, Mako-chan! When I think of a plan, I think of everything! Now, where did I put those silly binoculars?"

. . . . .

Fifteen minutes later...

"Mako-chan, I'm getting bored" Minako spoke in the darkness.

"And cold" Makoto added with a shiver, pulling her green jacket's zipper all the way up to her neck. She began to mutter, "If I catch the flu from this-"

"Sshhh!" the blonde suddenly hissed. "There's someone coming!" Spotting a faint glow of headlights approaching in the distance, she raised the binoculars to her blue eyes and peered through the jagged hole in her hiding place. "It looks like Michiru's car!" she whispered.

. . . . .

"Haruka-san, what is that large peculiar shape over there to our left? " Setsuna pointed.

The driver turned her head for a better view as they drove past and promptly burst out laughing. "Minako! It has to be her."

"I specifically instructed the girls not to travel to Nerima this weekend. If your assumption is correct, she's undoubtedly here because of our proximity to her fiancee's home." She warned the blonde, "I'm well aware of the way you enjoy teasing Minako in regards to her Taro. Please refrain from any such antics this evening."

"Me? I won't do a thing" Haruka chuckled. She parked in the old house's driveway. "I promise."

. . . . .

"Do you think they spotted us?" Makoto asked her friend, unable to see anything from her side of the car.

Minako lowered her binoculars and hastily wiped their lenses dry with a tissue. "Not a chance, Mako-chan! When Aino Minako puts her mind to doing something, it always ends in success!"

"Yeah? Since when?"

"Hush, Mako-chan."

The binoculars were raised again and Minako squinted through their eyepieces, fumbling with the focus knob. "Hai, there's Hussy Haruka, just as I suspected. And Setsuna too. They're getting out of the car and... what's this?" Her head whirled around. "Mako-chan, there's someone else with them!" the blonde gasped. "And it's another girl!"

"Nani? Let me look!"

Makoto snatched the binoculars from her friend's hand. "Minako-chan, move your head out of the way so I can see!"

The brunette watched in stunned surprise as the three females entered the house. A few moments later the living room light flickered on.

"It's even worse than I thought!" Minako wailed in despair. "That sick, twisted hussy is trying to turn your house into a... a love hotel!"

. . . . .