Chapter Four - Time is Money...

The door flew off its hinges, landing on the two girls. Janus' eyes opened wide, and he disappeared in a flash of green smoke. The woman from the closet stepped onto the broken door, red hair wild and emerald eyes glowing. She grinned, and clenched her fists.

Tayna struggled under the weight of the door, trying to keep it from crushing Sen and herself. She tried to turn her head to look at Sen, and managed to catch a glimpse of her cousin, passed out, on the floor next to her. Damn these thick wooden doors that my mom just had to install during the summer! She felt part of the weight on top of the door disappear, and then heard some movement around her room. Tayna pushed up on the door, finding strength from somewhere inside herself. It clattered to the floor in front of her. She set Sen against the wall, and turned to face the woman.

"What the hell are you doing to my room?!" She screamed. The red-head had torn up everything. "Dude, if you're looking for something, just ask!" Tayna pushed up the sleeves on her shirt above her elbows and narrowed her eyes.

The woman slowly stood up from her position near Tayna's nightstand and rotated around. She opened her mouth to speak, but suddenly cocked her head to one side as if listening to something. She nodded, flipped her red hair behind her shoulder, and disappeared just as Tayna threw herself at the woman. The girl screamed and hit the wall, landing on her bed.

"Tayna!! What did I say about playing Extreme Twister in your room?" Her mom yelled up the stairs. Tayna groaned and rubbed her left shoulder.
"Sorry, mom." She called back, and looked at Sen, who had finally come to and was blinking in the light of the room.
"What happened?" Sen asked, looking around at the mess the red-head had created.
"Spring cleaning." Tayna said facetiously. "What the hell do you think happened?"

"She was searching for something." Janus appeared, floating in the air with his arms folded and legs crossed.
Now it was Sen's turn to be sarcastic. "Ya think? Jeez. And where the heck did you go off to when the closet door nearly suffocated us?"
Tayna sat up on her bed. "Yeah, I don't remember you helping us, Oberon. In fact, I don't remember you even being in the room when I threw off that door!" She reached out and grabbed the faerie by his neck. He flailed his arms around. "Ack! Tayna, I got an urgent call from another Guardian! I believe her plight was a little more important that being stuck under your closet door!" He croaked. Tayna raised an eyebrow.

"I say we lynch him." Sen muttered nonchalantly. Tayna suppressed a smile.
"Nah, it's too good for 'im." She let of his neck and allowed him to sink to the floor. The pink-haired girl sat down on the edge of her bed, head in her hands. "Which guardian?"
"None other than the Princess Pluto."

Sen jogged along the sidewalk with Tayna and a disguised Janus trailing behind her.
"Are you sure she's going to be there?" Tayna whispered to the faerie.
"Yes, quite sure. She has nowhere to go at the moment- she's tried to contact the rest of the Outer Senshi, but hasn't been able to reach any of them. And there's no way Pluto will take this to the Moon Princess- she'd rather deal with this before informing her of what's happened."
"Speaking of that, what has happened?"
Janus wrung his hands together. "Um…I think I'll let Pluto tell you about that." Tayna rolled her eyes. Sen turned around and ran back to the two, grabbing their hands.
"I found it!" She let go of Janus and pointed up at a sign. "'The Bonsai Café'. I hear they sell great lattes."
Tayna squinted at the storefront. "No…nothing is as good as Starbucks."
Janus looked at her thoughtfully. "You've been brainwashed."
"So?" Tayna smiled at him, and walked into the café behind Sen.

Tayna was startled by the maturity and beauty of Setsuna Meiou. She had not known what to expect, but whatever half-concocted ideas and assumptions were proven wrong when she first got a glimpse of the deep-emerald haired, almost glamorous woman sitting in the corner. Setsuna rose to greet the strange little group, and gave a polite Japanese bow to each one.

Tayna had been holding her hand out in greeting, but when Setsuna bowed, she gracefully reached up and ran it through her hair as if that was what she had been planning to do all along. Awkwardly, the student bowed, and sneaked a peek to see what Janus and Sen were doing.

Sen knew exactly what she was doing. She bowed respectfully to Setsuna, and Janus followed suit.

"Just where and when did you learn Japanese etiquette?" Tayna asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Japanese 1- language class. Didn't you learn any customs?"
"…I took Spanish…all I learned about was 'La Dia de los Muertes'." Tayna shrugged and turned back to Setsuna, who was looking ever-so-slightly amused at the exchange. "Hello! I'm Tayna Jacobsen."

Setsuna nodded. "I'm Setsuna Meiou- I actually have known you for thousands of years, but the whole Millenium-Reincarnation deal messed everything up." She grinned.
Tayna was pleasantly surprised at the older girl's sense of humor. "As much as I would love to sit down with you over a cup of coffee and try to remember the 'old days', I have a feeling that the news which brings you all the way to the States is rather important, and probably depressing. I would like to get on with it." The woman raised an eyebrow, still grinning. "Just as I remember you. Well. Have a seat!" She let Sen, Tayna, and Janus sit before she did in the booth herself. "All right- I'm going to 'cut the crap', as Tayna would say. Basically, the Gate of Dreams has um…fallen…into the very wrong hands. I believe you've met one of their 'messengers': an overconfident red-headed girl who goes by 'Raizel'."

"So that's her name!" Sen exclaimed. Janus gave her a cold look, and she quickly lowered her voice. "We were wondering that for the longest time."

Tayna, meanwhile, was looking thoughtfully at the cup of green tea Setsuna had before herself. "Doesn't that mean 'rose'?" She wondered aloud.
Setsuna nodded. "Yes- I believe most of her powers and earth-type and based on plants. So cliché." She commented. Tayna grinned, then suddenly dropped her normally optimistic air; the impact of the news had just hit her.

"Oh my god…my gate?" Under the table, Tayna's hands were clenched so hard they began to turn white.
Setsuna hung her head. "I'm sorry- I don't want to make excuses, but really- one sought-after Gate is hard enough to look after. When Oberon here started flitting away here and there, he got me to look after Karos- which is the other most sought-after gate. I can't be in two places at once- and when I finally showed up at Karos after a premonition I'd had worried me, it was already taken. The only attack I could have used was the-"
"Forbidden one." Tayna finished for her friend. Setsuna seemed a little embarrassed at her outburst, but Tayna reassured her with the fact that America was a much louder country than Japan. "I'm sorry that I wasn't there to take responsibility for my own Gate, Setsu." The nickname had slipped- one by one little memories were being pulled from the dark recesses of Tayna's mind. She bit her lip, but Setsuna did not seem to have heard her: she was looking at a booth across the room where a young boy had fallen asleep against his sister, who was studying.

He was turning a sickly pale, and sweat was breaking out on his forehead. Tayna and Sen followed her friend's gaze; Janus was buying a latte at the moment. Suddenly the boy sat straight up, his eyes still closed, and began screaming at the top of his lungs. Everybody in the café jumped.

"That scream was not a human one!" Sen pointed out. "What's happened to him?"
Both Setsuna and Tayna looked at each other, the latter was at a loss for words. "He's…fallen under the…the…"

Favorite : Story Author   Follow : Story Author