Chapter 7

Usagi had just finished getting dressed for school. She went to the bathroom, and decided to check her weight. She hadn't done so in several months, and she wanted to see if she gained weight since then. She stepped onto the scale. In a few moments, she got a reading. When she saw it, she was horrified. The figure showed that she gained half a pound. Though it was very minor, she didn't think so. "OH NOOOOOOOOO!"

The wail was loud enough for Kenji and Ikuko, Usagi's parents, to hear. Her little brother, Shingo, rolled his eyes and finished off his buttered toast. There his sister was again, screaming like a banshee. Her instability and flakiness was the main reason he had such a penchant for agitating her. He had love for her, but wished that she was not such a scatterbrain. They wondered what she was wailing about now. Usually, they didn't think anything of it since the young lady was a crybaby, after all. But this scream sounded rather serious. Shingo didn't bother going, as he felt she was just being overly dramatic again. Instead, he decided to drink his fruit juice. Mr. and Mrs. Tsukino went to see what was wrong. They saw her sitting on the toilet seat, looking ashen.

"Usagi? What's the matter? Are you all right?" the blue haired woman asked, putting a hand on the girl's dainty shoulders.

"No, I am not. I have a huge crisis that I need to talk to you and Dad about," Usagi replied frantically.

Mr. Tsukino could hear the panic in his daughter's voice. Whatever the problem was, there was no reason for her to be so hysterical. After all, things looked fine.

"Try to relax and tell us what is the problem is," he said.

"I am so FAAAAAAAAAAAAAT!"

Her parents cringed slightly; the whining was so loud that their eardrums were almost ruptured. The girl really ought to lower the decibels. Not to mention that she was overreacting. They wanted to know what exactly was going on, what did the scale say her weight was. As far as they could see, she still looked the same.

"Come on. Let's talk about this," Ikuko said calmly. She and Kenji ushered the odango haired girl out of the bathroom. They led her to the dining room, and motioned for her to have a seat. Usagi sat down, wondering what her parents had in mind. As far as she was concerned, there was nothing to talk about. She gained weight, and that was unacceptable. She liked the fact that she was able to eat all the unhealthy foods she liked and be able to maintain her figure. The ditzy teen didn't know if her metabolism was beginning to slow down or not, but if that were the case, she would be going on a strict diet, which to her meant not ingesting unhealthy OR healthy foods. She feared that the healthy foods would make her gain weight as well, since she got it into her head that eating anything would increase weight.

"All right, tell us, what's the matter?" Kenji said.

Usagi told her parents about her weight gain and her plans to diet.

The two grownups didn't like the sound of that. For one thing, Usagi was not overweight, and two, her method of losing weight would be hazardous to her health. Not to mention the exercise she gets from jogging to school every morning. She burned a tremendous amount of calories that way, so what was the problem now?

Shingo considered this idea laughable. His older sister may have been older, but she didn't always act like it. She was more of an airhead than he thought.

"That has got to be the stupidest idea I have ever heard. You know, you really are an idiot," said the annoying nutmeg haired boy. He laughed uncontrollably. Usagi was aggravated. She was fighting the urge to smack the pest. But it would only fuel his antics. His parents were not amused either.

"Shingo, that's no way to talk to your older sister! " Mrs. Tsukino scolded.

"If you don't learn some manners, you will be banned from playing video games and spending time with your friends for a month," Mr. Tsukino warned. He sounded so stern that Shingo knew better than to protest that he was only joking. Instead, he mumbled an apology to an exasperated Usagi. Usagi didn't acknowledge the apology. Shingo shrugged his shoulders and finished off his glass of fruit juice.

The older man turned to his daughter. "You're not overweight. Even if you were, skipping meals is not the proper way to deal with weight gain."

Mrs. Tsukino nodded in agreement. "It's unhealthy for you," she added. "If you want to lose weight, just eat the treats in moderation and eat more healthy foods."

Kenji agreed..he didn't approve of Usagi eating voracious amounts of junk foods.

Usagi sulked. Her parents didn't seem to understand the issue here. "What good is that going to do when I am trying to take my mind off food. It's food that did this to me." She didn't care how whiny she sounded at the moment.

Kenji and Ikuko sighed. What would it take to get through to Usagi?

The pigtailed blonde glanced at her watch. Five minutes before the bell would ring. She had been so busy fretting that she had not been keeping track of time. It was very typical of her.

"Oh my gosh! I'm gonna be so late! I gotta go! See you guys later!" Usagi darted out the door and sprinted to school as fast as she could. She was not going to get a detention.

Queen Beryl screamed for Jadeite to present himself. He appeared instantaneously. He was a bit nervous. "Yes, my queen?" he answered, prepared for a harangue for his second failure. But his queen surprised him.

"Jadeite, you have disappointed me once again. However, I must commend you on your efforts to find the source of the humans' energy," said Queen Beryl.

"I'm glad you think so, Queen Beryl. I have noticed that the humans are very conceited when it comes to their appearance. They spend energy on an activity called fitness," said the blonde general, bowing respectfully.

Queen Beryl heard of this term fitness. Another human characteristic that she had contempt towards. She felt that the humans were very narcissistic. Yet another reason why she was happy to have surrendered her weak side. The thought of such human behavior made her feel physically ill. Even though she couldn't remember if she paid much attention to her image or not.

"I see," said Queen Beryl. "Perhaps you could put that energy to better use."

Jadeite didn't need Beryl to remind him to do that; it was something that he would gladly do. Why allow the humans to continue to squander their energies on meaningless things such as love, fitness and caring when such vast amounts of energy could be used to power up their Great Leader?

"Believe me, I will," he reassured the witch queen. With that, he bowed politely and teleported away. He decided not to involve any youma in this scheme, but to gather the energy on his own, pretty much. And he had just the plan. He chuckled evilly to himself.

Meanwhile, Nephrite was eating French fries from the best fast food restaurant in Tokyo. It was so good it could almost be considered a gourmet version of a fast food eatery. This claim that it was the best that caught his attention. He had a deep interest in first rate objects. So he wanted to be the judge of this "so called" 4 star eatery. It was a rather amusing experience for him. At first, the worker that served him had heard of him before and didn't expect that he would be there, considering how sophisticated and upper crust he was. She tried to hide her surprise, but it didn't do any good, because Nephrite still considered it transparent. The lady got used the idea though, because his appearance there just meant that he wasn't a rich, stuck up snob. Aside from that little episode, she was friendly. As badly as he wanted to shrug it off openly, he didn't. Instead, he had showed as much courtesy as he could muster.

'So, these are what the humans call French fries, eh? Well, I must admit that they're not too bad. In fact, they're very delicious, which is more than I can say for that pitiful excuse for food in the Dark Kingdom,' he thought as he took a bite out of another French fry. He then took a sip of lemonade.

Miki asked Nephrite if he liked the French fries.

"Yes-I actually do like them," he replied. He might not have considered them as good as the gourmet foods as well as his favorite cuisines, but for low class food, they were decent. For one thing, the fries didn't bother his stomach. It was almost sad that he couldn't say the same about the Dark Kingdom cafeteria food.

"Glad to hear it," said Miki. She thought of having some next time she didn't feel like cooking anything.

Ruby was eating some fettuccine that Nephrite was generous enough to get for her. She swallowed, and told him how good it was.

Nephrite raised an eyebrow. "You think so?" he asked. He adored the Italian cuisine himself. It was his favorite next to Chinese and Greek. He even tried Indian and Mexican. Though he found them a bit spicy, they were still all right.

"Yup," she replied. She ate some more pasta, then thanked him for buying it.

"You're welcome," Nephrite told Ruby.

After school that day, Usagi, Naru and some other girls went to the gym. The pair of best friends managed to get the information out of Umino. Usagi especially wanted to check it out. It was a plan B, just in case her diet didn't work. Her classmates understood, since there were situations that made them want to experiment with dieting. Naru, however, had her doubts about it, but her best friend was obstinate.

Jadeite saw the girls coming. He gave an evil grin. They would soon be in his trap.

'More energy victims. How grand.' This would be the deadliest trap ever. He decided to take his deceit and lies to a higher level. The sinister man put his plan into motion.

"Hey there, girls. I'm , your gym instructor," greeted Jadeite,smiling.

The girls were speechless. There were no words to describe how attractive they found this man. They felt weak in the knees. "Oh my, he's handsome," Naru whispered to Usagi.

"He sure is," Usagi whispered back.

"Right this way, ladies," said the "so called" instructor. The girls followed Jadeite to the exercising room. They saw Ms. Haruna and a couple of other women there. 'Well, it seems that Umino wasn't lying when he said that Ms. Haruna comes here. But why would she need to be here? She has the perfect body,' she wondered to herself as she went over to the treadmill. Naru decided to use the exercising bike. Everyone proceeded to work out. Jadeite kept an eye on them.

'That's it, pathetic humans. Keep exercising. Soon, your energy will belong to the great Metallia,' he thought. After about forty-five minutes, Naru felt out of breath.

"Hey, Mr. J. Dite, I'm done exercising," she said, huffing and puffing.

'Ha, I don't think so,' thought Jadeite. She was quitting way too soon. If he allowed that, there wouldn't be enough energy for the Great Leader.

"Hey, you red-head on the bike! Back to work!" barked Jadeite.

Naru was a little taken aback at the blonde man's tone of voice. Her body couldn't take much more. What, did he want her to pass out or something? She was too afraid to protest, though, so she decided to force herself to keep going. "Yes, sir," said the red head obediently. She did as he said.

An hour later, Jadeite told everyone that they may stop.

"As a reward for your hard work, you all may use the beauty spa downstairs," he said.

"Yay!" cheered Usagi. This instructor was just too kind. It looked like things would go smoothly for once..or so she thought. She followed everyone downstairs.