Chapter 9: Bang! Zoom! To the…

Sakaki could feel the noise.

It was everywhere, and she could not escape it. A blazing building in Shinjuku… a drowning child in Wakayama…a hundred terrified passengers aboard Tokyo Air Flight 117, plummeting into Tokyo Bay — their panicked cries stabbed her ear, rattled her skull and froze her heart. I have to help them! she thought.

And then she realized she was everywhere, too. She saw the flames of the tenement flicker and die as she flashed past, dashing them with the speed of her flight. She felt the stinging salt water in her eyes as she dove into the sea, only to flip porpoise-like out again with confused little girl pressed against her chest. She could smell the fear of the passengers, the smoke from the engines, even the beer on the pilot's lips as she teleported the airliner onto solid ground.

It was not enough. Still the cries came from all corners of the nation, from troubled souls begging, pleading desperately for someone to free them from their pain, fear, and sorrow. And try as she might, she could not get to them all in time. I…I'm sorry! she cried. I can't help you all! I can't! Golden tears streamed from her eyes as she hurtled through the stratosphere at the speed of sound. It's too much! Too much! I can't! She shut her eyes tight. Got to get away! AWAY!

Then, with the crash of a million colliding suns, there was silence. All around was darkness.

There was a light. It was Sakaki.

She opened her eyes a crack. A grey field of ash, stone sand lay before her. Rough-hewn craters and craggy stones marred the lifeless desert. And above them…blackness, and the stars. No, not just stars, she realized. There before her, wreathed in silken clouds and azure robes, was the Earth itself. Australia ambled slowly by, with Japan tagging along for the ride.

Her eyes shone with fear and wonder. "The…the Earth?" she whispered. "But…how?" One look at her hands wreathed crackling light and she knew the answer.

She looked around, slowly. A few paces away stood an American flag. Several studio lamps and a sun-drenched director's chair were positioned around it. Spray-painted on a nearby rock face was the legend, "Black Bolt Wuz Here."

"This is…the moon?" She couldn't believe it. Questions tumbled through her head. What had happened? Why was she here? A small part of her wondered why she hadn't died of asphyxiation yet before it was told, politely but firmly, by the rest of her that such matters were trivial compared to the fact that she was on the freakin' moon.

She sat down. A plume of moon-dust tickled her nose. It smelled faintly of cheese. The voices, she realized. They're gone. She hugged her knees close. It's so quiet here.

And so, the Lady of Light rested there in the depths of space, alone with her thoughts.(1)

***

Chiyo, too, was alone, but nowhere near as collected.

"Miss Sakaki!" she yelled. "Miss Yomi! Miss Kagura! Oh no, oh no, oh dear, oh dear, oh, oh, oh…sugar muffins! This has all gone wrong!" She collapsed on a park bench and cried for a bit, making a mental note to wash her mouth out with soap later. "What have I done to you, Miss Sakaki?" she sniffed.

What did I do? she wondered. She wiped her tears and forced herself to think. It looked like some sort of auto-incandescent quantum detonation, but how could eleutherococcus senticosus and vitamin B cause that? An allergic reaction, maybe? "And why am I thinking about ingredients at a time like this?!" she wailed.

"Chiyo!" said a voice from on high.

"Miss Osaka?"

Osaka swooped in for a landing, dragged by her wind-borne umbrella, and skidded to a halt next to her. "You, uh, still okay, Chiyo?" she asked.

"Yes, but where is everyone else? Where's Miss Sakaki?! And, um, why were you —"

"Dunno, sorta know, and Winds of Watoomb," she replied, waving the last question aside. "Man, I'm glad that 'Find Greater Pigtails' spell worked."

"Miss Osaka, I know we have more important things to worry about now, but I get the feeling you're trying to avoid telling me something," said Chiyo, with a nod to the perfectly paranormal parasol.

"Eh heh," said Osaka, embarrassed. "Actually, I was gonna let Steve handle the explainin', since I don't get it all myself."

"'Steve'?"

She nodded. "Here," she said, plucking an object from thin air, "he's on the line for you." She passed her an unusual phone.

"Miss Osaka? This is a banana."

She nodded, smartly. "It's a phone with appeal."(2)

Chiyo almost questioned the logic of that statement, but stopped herself after she got the pun and remembered that there were some things Chiyo-kind was not meant to know.(3) "Um, hello?" she said, holding the fruit to her ear.

"Is this Chiyo Mihama?" asked a soft, cultured voice.

"Um, yes, yes it is. How are you speaking through a banana? Is this one of those new Nokia Fruit —"

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Miss Mihama, that are dreamt of in your TASTE ELDRICH BOLTS, MINDLESS ONE!"

"Aah!" squealed Chiyo. "Sir? Ma'am? Sir? What's going on?"

After a few distant explosions and soulless roars, the voice returned. "Sorry, I'm multitasking right now. Let's just say 'magic' and leave it at that, shall we?"

"Magic? Oh! Like pulling the rabbit out of the hat?"

"Yeah," said Osaka, who was apparently listening in on the conversation via floating cantaloupe, "'cept less rabbit and more shoggoth."

"Shog — never mind. Who are you, sir?"

"I am Doctor Stephen Strange, master of the mystic arts, Sorcerer Supreme of the universe, and — BACK, shade of Sattanish! — magical instructor to the one you know as Ayumu Kasuga."

"Ayumu…you mean Miss Osaka?" And is that a cantaloupe? she wondered.

"Magical girl in a material world, yo!" said Osaka, giving a thumbs-up.

"Are you — MAGIC MISSILE! — surprised?" asked Strange.

"Actually, this explains a lot," said Chiyo, after some thought. "But please, Mister Strange, Miss Osaka said you could explain things. Where's Miss Sakaki? Is she okay?"

"Hmm," he demurred, whilst apparently blasting some foul creature with greased lightning, "both simple, yet difficult questions for one to answer in a short time. I will need to examine her personally for a complete diagnosis, but from Ayumu's description of events, I believe it's reasonable to assume your friend has spontaneously developed psychic powers on an unimaginable scale, and can now sense dangerous and unfortunate happenings around the world, or possibly Japan."

"Oh no," she moaned. I'll never mess with Gatorade again, she thought.

"Not to worry, she'll probably get a scholarship from the X-Men if I'm right. I will need you, Miss Mihama, to keep her from knocking over too many buildings until I arrive."

"I'll do my best!" said Chiyo, too distraught to realize the implications of that statement. "But where is she, Mister Strange?"

"The moon, I think."

"The moon?!"

"DIN'S FIRE! Yes, the Sea of Tranquillity, to be precise. Ayumu, be a dear and take her there, would you?"

"Eh?!" Osaka nearly dropped her fruity-phone. "B-but how the heck am ah supposed t' do that, huh?!"

"Oh, use your power of love and friendship or something. I'll be along shortly. Iä! Shub-Niggurath!" The line went dead.

Sheepishly, Osaka took the banana from Chiyo's unresisting hand and placed it on the cantaloupe with a click. "Thank you for choosing Watoomb's Wireless!" it chirped, before transforming into a pigeon and flying away. "He, ah, he's a little weird sometimes," she said.

Chiyo moaned. "Oh…vanishing fruit, magical girls, space Sakakis…this is all too much!"

"Yeah, and it's only Thursday," said Osaka, slumping next to her.

"And it's all…all my fault," she sniffed.

"That can't be true, Chiyo! You wouldn't ever hurt any of us!"

"But…"

"And we got bigger things to worry about, right?"

"R-right," she said, wiping her eyes on her sleeve. "Like helping Miss Sakaki, right!"

"I, uh, was more thinkin' 'bout how we're gonna get into orbit and all." said Osaka.

"Oh." She pondered this. "Um, love and friendship, maybe?"

"That's it!" cried Osaka. "If we put our heart's 'n soul into it, we can go anywhere!"

"Miss Osaka, I appreciate your enthusiasm, but I think we need more than good intentions to achieve escape velocity."

"Nah nah, I mean astral projection," she said, standing. "If we separate our spirits from our bodies, we can travel at the speed of thought, which is really fast, y'know?"

"Okay! Let's do it!"

"Let's go!" cried Osaka, umbrella raised high.

"Yeah!"

"Thing is…"

"Yes?"

"I uh, don't know how t'do it."

"Oh." Chiyo sagged. "That is a problem."

"Hmmm," frowned Osaka. "Maybe if I…" She whacked herself on the head with her umbrella. "Ow!"

Chiyo sighed. "Miss Osaka, I don't think that's going to work."

"Nah, s'all good, I (whack!) feel mah spirit (whock!) discombobulating (crack!) already…ooh, stars…" She slopped, boneless, to the ground.

"Miss Osaka!" cried Chiyo, shaking her. "Oh dear, I hope she's not hurt or any "

"Success!" said the glowing ghost of Osaka, leaping from her mortal shell.

"WAUGH!"

Osaka cheered, and did a little levitating spin. "Man, I feel so light-headed…"

"That's because your head is transparent…" whimpered Chiyo.

"Ah, that makes sense," she said. "Okay, now I'll do you."

"W-wait! Agha!" The phantom umbrella went snicker-snack, and Chiyo's body went tumbling back, leaving her soul still standing. "Oh, that was scary!" she said.

"And now…to space!"

"Wait, wait!" said Chiyo. "What about our bodies? Will they be okay?" And do I really look that annoying cute? she wondered, upon seeing herself sprawled on the pavement.

"Yeah, they'll be fine," said Osaka, apparently prepping her umbrella for space-travel. "Probably."

"I guess we don't really have a choice, do we?" she asked. Osaka shook her head. "Then let's go."

Osaka nodded, held her umbrella (which looked remarkably like a magician's staff, on closer examination) before her, and muttered a few syllables under her breath. A light fantastic sparked from its tip, then raced along the fabric as zephyr flames. "Ready?" she asked. Chiyo nodded. She grabbed her wrist (How can I still feel my wrist? wondered Chiyo), spun the parasol at her side so fast that it became a whirlpool of light, and let fly. It popped open with a soft foomp, caught an otherworldly wind and yanked sorceress and student into the wild blue yonder.

"Oh my!" said Chiyo. "Oh my, oh my, oh…actually, this isn't half as frightening as I thought it would be…" Probably because my adrenal glands are a hundred metres away, she thought. The streets and skyscrapers of downtown Tokyo fell away. Clouds and surprised birds whipped past and through her, leaving a cool mint sensation in their wake. Was that an albatross? she wondered.(4)

"Ah think that's it!" said Osaka, shouting over the wind. The great grey moon loomed large ahead of them, eclipsing the stars.

"Yes," agreed Chiyo, "but why are we shouting over the wind in space? I mean, there's the solar wind, sure, but the particle density —"

"Magic, Chiyo. Don't think too hard about it, eh?"

"Oh, right."

"Just think about what we're gonna say to Sakaki. And, uh, think fast, since we're gonna land in about five seconds."

"Huh?"

"And by 'land,' I mean 'crash,' since I don't think there's brakes on this thing."

"What?!"

"Eh heh," said Osaka, embarrassed. "Uh, feel free t' start screamin'."

***

Amidst the grey wastes, a newborn star tried to figure out her place in the universe.

What…am I? thought Sakaki. Am I a mutant? A…magical girl? She briefly tried to imagine herself as a wand-waving princess from fairyland, but shook the thought away. Not even in my dreams, she sighed.

She thought back. It had all happened so fast, she reflected. One moment she was at school, and the next she was…everywhere. Wherever the pain of others pulled her heart-strings, she was there, and, somehow, knew exactly what to do. All she had to do was think, "Help them," and her body had done the rest. Instinct, she thought, like catching a softball, or, uh, a jet liner. Yes. That explains it.

She hung her head. No it doesn't. Where did this power come from? How did I do all that?

Her ears perked suddenly. "And what is that noise?"

It was very faint, just on the edge of her now seemingly superhuman hearing: a sort of long, drawn-out, terrified scream, rising in pitch and volume as it hurtled down from above, that, now that she thought about it, sounded a lot like — "Chiyo?"

The Soul-Train from Osaka hurtled into station precisely on schedule at just under the speed of thought. A flaming parasol, a bemused transparent sorceress and a horrified pig-tailed 12-year old whipped passed Sakaki and disappeared into the ground, leaving nary a wisp of dust out of place.

She leapt back, shocked. "What the?!"

Seconds later, the Lunar Express roared straight up from the soil, did a few loop-de-loops and rocketed around Sakaki a few times before executing a perfect J-turn in front of her, stopping with an audible "ERT!"

"Ouch!" said Chiyo, as she bounced through some rocks.

"Doof!" replied Osaka, now head-first in the sand.

"That was scary!" Chiyo quavered. "I, I could feel the rocks in my brain!"

"Now arrivin' at Sea o' Tranquility," said Osaka, her voice muffled. "Next stop, Rigel IV."

"Chiyo?" said Sakaki. "Osaka?"

"Miss Sakaki!" cried Chiyo, all fear instantly forgotten. She went for a flying tackle-hug. "Whoa!" she said, as she phased right through her, rolling few times on the ground. "Oh, my rumpus…"

"Chiyo?" Sakaki got her first good look at her. "You…you're glowing, and…see-through…ah! You're both ghosts!" she gasped, horrified.

"No no, Miss Sakaki, we're okay!" cried Chiyo. "We're alive and safe, and so is everyone else, I think!"

"Yeah," said Osaka, shouldering her still-flaming umbrella, "this is all astral projection and stuff."

"'Astral'?" asked Sakaki.

"Best not to think about it," said Chiyo. "The important thing is that you're okay, too, Miss Sakaki, so now we can all go home."

"'Home'?"

"Yes! Back to Japan, just up…oh my, is that the Earth?"

"I can't go back," she said, levelly.

"B-but everyone's worried about you!" pleaded Chiyo. "And we've found a strange doctor man who can help you!"

"I can't, Chiyo!"

"But…Miss Sakaki…"

Sakaki sat down again. "I can't face the world again, Chiyo. Not like this."

"'Not like'…Miss Sakaki, there's nothing wrong with how you look. You're beautiful."

Osaka nodded. "Like a walkin' supernova."

"No, it's not that," she replied. "It's…these powers. I can't control them. I can hear…everyone, I think, or at least the ones that are scared. I want to help them, and I can. I think it…no, I feel it, and it happens. But I can't stop it. The fear, the terror, it builds and builds, and my body moves faster and faster until it's doing things before I can stop it. Like what it did to you."

"But we're okay, Miss Sakaki," Chiyo reassured her. "Nothing happened. Well, aside from teleportation, but —"

"This time," she replied, sharply. "This time. But what about the next? What if I send you to Atlantis or the Earth's core or something?"

"You'd never do that, Miss Sakaki, that's not like you!"

"But I'm not like me anymore!" she said, distraught. "I'm, I don't know, some sort of living lightning or something."

"I think he's Latino, actually," said Osaka.

"I don't know what I can do," she continued, ignoring her, "what I will do to my friends, my family, everyone." " She drew her knees close. "If I stay here," she said, quietly, "away from everyone, you'll all be safe."

Chiyo stepped back, stunned, and not just because this was the longest string of sentences that she'd ever heard from the normally reserved Sakaki. "But, Miss Sakaki…how will we ever feel safe knowing you're not around?"

She raised her head, surprised. "What?"

"You'll be all alone up here," she continued. "We won't know if you're happy or sad, alive or dead. We'll worry about you all the time. We…I'm afraid for you, Miss Sakaki. So please, come back with me? I'll do whatever it takes to help you, I swear it!" Seeing a flicker of doubt in Sakaki's eyes, she added, "If you don't, I'll cry. A lot."

Sakaki considered this devastating threat. "It…it will really be okay?"

"Yes!" said Chiyo, determined. "I'll stake my life on it!"

"But the voices…it might happen again."

"Maybe if you tried to focus your attention on somethin'?" said Osaka. "Like, y'know, a tomato or something?"

"Focus on Miss Osaka and I," suggested Chiyo. "Just ignore everything else. We'll keep you safe, I swear!"

"Really?"

"Yes!" she said, looking her right into her flame-ringed eyes.

After a long, tense moment, Sakaki nodded, once. "Okay," she whispered.

"Thank goodness," said Chiyo.

"Phew!" said Osaka. "Ah was holdin' mah breath an' I don't have lungs or nothin'!"

"Please don't remind me of that," said Sakaki.

"Sorry."

(Footnotes)

1. Savvy comic fans will point out that the Watcher, the Inhumans, and quite probably those moon kitties from The Dream of Unknown Kadeth were all also on the moon with Sakaki at this point, meaning she was anything but alone. They can shut up, although Sakaki would probably like the moon kitties.

2. Look up "Osakaphone" if you don't get it.

3. Like how Yukari "Red Means GO!" Tanazaki still had a driver's license, or why rutabagas didn't come in orange.

4. A note from Uatu, the Watcher: Actually, it was Alber the Albatross-Man, who, upon feeling the chilling caress of Chiyo's phantom pigtails passing through his chest, was so scared out of his wits that he called off his first foray in transcontinental robbery, flew straight home, mailed his flight suit back to Adrian "The Vulture" Toomes and joined the priesthood. As a result, he did not distract the Fantastic Four at a crucial moment during their upcoming battle with Annihilus in the Negative Zone, which would have caused the death of Reed Richards and the ascension of Victor Von Doom to the top of the pop charts with his hit new single, "Straight Out of Latveria." It is moments such as these that every Watcher lives for.