The Chibi Sailors
Episode 10
"How could you let this happen!?" Wicked lady cried throwing her wine glass into Black Citrine's face. The red wine dripped down Citrine's face looking like blood. It stated to steam and left dried crusty remains streaked all down her face and staining the top of her orange top with drops the color of dried blood.
"I'm sorry Your Highness. I have no idea how this could have happened," Black Citrine looked pale under the wine.
"TWO new senshi have awakened, while on your watch! And how did the second awaken again? Oh Yes! She slipped and fell when time stopped, she automatically transformed when the time stopped and you attacked. Then you failed miserably! You even got yourself injured!" Wicked Lady was most definitely displeased. This new scout called Sailor Osseus wasn't even a suspected target. They had been targeting her friend, who had disappeared just before time stopped; they hadn't been able to find the girl afterwards. All in all they had failed.
"Little Sister! You really should be more careful! You may get yourself killed!" It was the light airy voice of one of the Elements; she hid in the shadows, only letting the tip of her black hair, and the tip of the light pink boots show out of the black shadows.
"Enough! Leave, before I decide to punish you, then my dear friend would not be happy with me at all, after all the effort she put into finding you four," Wicked Lady said dismissing the girls. The customary gust of flame marked Citrine Pearl's departure. And a geyser of water, and airy gust, and the sound of crumbling rock marked the departure of the other three from the shadows.
"So where is Mistress 9 anyway?" Wicked Lady asked herself as she sipped a new glass of wine
"Megan! Where are you three sneaking off to?" Marie asked angrily as Corey, Hannah, and I tried to sneak off at the end of school.
"We have some Girl Scout stuff to do," Hannah said sounding as I she was lying, which of course she was. We were actually going to sneak off and do senshi training. The Chibis had laughed until they cried when they found out that Hannah was Sailor Osseus. We found out because we had been sneaking off and Hannah tripped not even a full second before Athena froze time so that we wouldn't disturb the rest of the world with our fights. When she landed she had been in a purple and green fuku and looking up at us angrily.
"Oh, can I come with you? I don't haven anything to do today, and I was kind of hoping I could tag along to your meeting, Mine's not till Wednesday," Marie was not in our Girl Scout troop. She as in a different Cadet and Senior troop. Which was really not cool, because there were only three in all of D.C., and yet she got stuck in a different one than us. But in some ways it was good; it at least gave us a good excuse when we were sneaking off to meet with the Chibis.
"I'm sorry, but we really can't let you. Ms. Stephanie got mad last time we let you. Because we were working on our Silvers and you had already completed yours, so you didn't need the stuff. She asked us not to bring you again," I said sounding sad. The funny thing was all of this was true. Of all my friends I'm the best liar, no one can ever tell when I am lying. So I do all the excuses when we run off. Corey can't lie to save her life, and Hannah's not much better.
"Oh, well I'll get going home then," Marie looked really dejected, but I knew she was faking (mostly because a few seconds later when she was joined by Livi and Katja she acting perfectly happy and normal).
"So we gave her the slip. We're meeting at My Café," I said as we started walking again. The other girls didn't get to talk to the Chibis outside of Senshi stuff, but I did, so I was the one who passed things on. Well I mostly only ever talked to Saki, but that's because she and Sel, and Chibi Chibi were staying at my house. My family has a really big house, but both of my older siblings are in college, and we already had an extra guest room, so they each got their own room in our house. Of course they had needed some Luna-Q help.
Chibi-Usa (now known as Wicked Lady) had always had Luna-P, so when Saki was born her parents made one for her and named it Luna-Q. When Choko was born she got one called Luna-R. But Choko left it in the future when they came to the past. She also left her kitten called Ari. It was really short for Artemis, because after Artemis had died they had named Luna's last kitten after her father. But it had been really sad to call her Artemis, because her parents had just died, so she got called Ari. Of course there were plans to go back to the future and pick up Ari and Diana, but they were scared that Wicked Lady would find them there.
"Did you have to claim it as yours?" Corey asked as we caught the subway to the shopping district.
"No, I actually bought it. What did you think I was going to do with the nine hundred dollars I made last summer baby-sitting? Or the five hundred the summer before? It only cost me a thousand dollars. So I still have money for books and from college. I know I'm already going to get a full ride, even though I'm in eighth grade. They said as long as I keep my grade in the A and B range I have a full ride. So my parents are getting me a car and a new comp when I go to college in a few years," I said casually as I went through my purse looking for my book. I was currently re-re-reading Trickster's Queen, one of my favorite books. When I looked up book in hand they were staring at me.
"Who did you babysit to get that much?" Hannah asked stunned, Hannah never had any extra spending money.
"The President's seven kids. He pays ten dollars an hour per a kid. I doesn't take that much to get a lot of money. Plus I get paid ten dollars an hour for babysitting the Phipps kids. I do that every Wednesday, and most Friday evenings. I watch the president's kids every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and most of Friday. I also watch all of them together on Saturdays, and on Sundays after church," I explained.
"Can I help sometime?" Hannah asked excited.
"No, sorry I only got the job after ten weeks of background checks. Then I still only got it because my dad's a colonel in the Signal Corp," I said sounding truly upset. Which I was not of course. Do you know how many books, and how much tea I can pay for with that amount of money? Of course the whole selection thing was really true, and Hannah hated waiting or anything that long.
"Oh, that sucks," Corey said pulling her book out of my purse, Hannah did the same. It was a very large purse, but even that wouldn't normally account for the number of items I have in there. That's why we call it the Magical Purse. I have several. One is about 7x5x2 inches, and yet it can hold two books, seven pencils, four pens, one glasses case, two cookies, three lip glosses, one mascara, three different eye shadows, and my cell phone. And it only has one main pocket and two smaller pockets inside it. And of course the cell phone pocket.
The three of us spent the next five stops sitting and reading our books as if we didn't even know each other as people got on and off the speeding train. At the third stop I thought I saw Marie out the window at the station, but I knew I must be wrong, she hates taking the subway. But the girl looked a lot like her, except her hair was straighter, and it was really black, not that normal dark brown almost black Marie has.
"What took you guys so long?" Kiyoe asked annoyed as we entered the shop.
"Sorry, Megan had some sort of panic attack something about Marie following us. Of course it wasn't her, just Megan being paranoid," Corey said sitting down in a comfy red armchair. Hannah settled into a purple one I took my favorite leather armchair with rose shaped throw pillows.
"That's not fair," I said as I went behind the counter to fix myself and my friends drinks.
"Of course it is fair. It's completely true," Hannah said digging through my purse for her book.
"Meanie," I said and stuck my tongue out at her. I then proceeded to gather tea leaves in a strainer so I could add them to my boiling water.
"Okay, well since you cleared out the café for the day, let's get to work," Saki said lifting her lime aid to her mouth.
"Okay, so who were those crazy ladies with practically no clothing on who attacked us yesterday?" Hannah asked opening her book to the page she had marked.
"Those would be our enemies," Saki began.
"Well they just work for the real bad guys," Kiyoe added.
"The real bad guys are," that was Asako
"Wicked Lady," Tomi
"And Mistress 9," that was me. I had heard the story enough time that I could have told her by myself I she had asked.
"So who are those two?" Corey asked. We hadn't had a chance to explain it all to her, seeing as the attack where Hannah tripped over her own feet was yesterday, and we had been heading to the café to tell Corey about everything.
"They are two old enemies I once fought," Everyone turned in shock at the voice. Or at least all the Chibis did. The rest of us looked curiously over at where Chibi Chibi had been sitting just a moment before. Now there was a teenage girl with funny looking blond pigtails sitting there. I had to do a double take It looked just like Saki. Then I noticed this girl's eyes were blue, and she had only one odango on each pig tail, instead of the two Saki sported. Sitting on her lap was a black cat, a small gray cat, and two white cats, one big and one small. All four had crescent moons on their foreheads.
"Mama," Saki whispered to herself. The girl looked at Saki as if she were crazy and turned back to face Corey, Hannah and I. The three of us were sitting next to each other.
"Wicked Lady is who my future daughter became when Death Phantom brainwashed her. Mistress 9's case is a little more complex. Her name was Tomoe Hotaru. She was a good friend of Chibi-Usa (my future daughter). But Hotaru's father was possessed by an evil being from Tau Ceti. Hotaru was possessed by not one, but rather two different beings. One was the Daemon called Mistress 9. The other was the Senshi of destruction, called Sailor Saturn. I had thought that when I defeated each they had gone back to their normal forms, but I've come to see that, like myself, that was impossible so those creatures slept inside them. Saturn was reawakened, but later Mistress 9 was as well. Chibi Moon was never put back to sleep, but Wicked Lady was reawakened by Chibi-Usa's annoyance that her daughter was not to lead the new team of scouts, and that her sister had gained the powers of her father, who she doted upon," The woman explained. Now I realized she looked a lot like Chibi Chibi, or Sailor Cosmos. But she was a bit more like Cosmos than Chibi Chibi, if for no other reason than hair color.
"Who are you?" Hannah asked sipping her iced tea.
"Oh, I'm sorry! I have actually have a lot of names, and who I am is not easy to explain. But this form is known as Tsukino Usagi, and so Usagi's a good term of address for me. But my life before this form's was as Princess Serenity of the Moon Kingdom. My life which these girls all know was as Neo-Queen Serenity. But you three know me as Chibi Chibi or Sailor Cosmos, and maybe even Sailor Chibi Chibi. But more important than any of those other names is my name and powers as Sailor Moon, champion of Love and Justice,' Usagi said all of this as I it was as common as dirt.
"Where did you come from?" I asked a little curious myself. I had heard of her, but I thought that Usagi was dead.
"Japan of course! Chibi Chibi called me from there. She has such useful powers," Usagi said happily.
All the Chibis, and I have to admit myself too, faceplanted. I was a little shocked. She had come here from Japan; this wasn't a show from Chibi Chibi or something? Then I saw Chibi Chibi come around the counter with a face full of chocolate.
"So, um are you still Usagi in our time?" I asked as I pulled myself back into my seat.
"Well of course, if I was someone else, we'd be living in the peaceful Crystal Tokyo, the second Silver Millennium," Usagi said picking up the small white cat,' Choko, I believe this cat is yours. Or at least she says she's supposed to advise you.," Usagi added setting the cat in Choko's arms.
"Oh, I've missed you so much! Ari!!" Choko said playfully squeezing the kitten in a hug.
"Luna has decided to help you until you can defeat your enemy, and this is the Artemis of the future, he said that he would hang with this group's Sailor Venus, I believe she was named Mina after her mother?" Usagi said looking around the group. When she saw the girl with long blond hair worn in a ponytail held with a big red bow she guessed and placed Artemis in her arms.
"Diana said that she would advise Terra, in the place of her advisor Selene, who Diana says is still missing," Usagi said placing the cat in her daughter's arms.
Rose watched all of his without much interest until an even smaller cat walked through the door and placed itself in her lap. I looked down at the cat in shock. It was a calico. It couldn't be more than a few days old, and it looked half starved. But that didn't bother me. What did was the golden crescent moon on her forehead. She looked up at me with bright intelligent green eyes.
"My name is Fria I'm here to advise you Princess Rose II," She had a cute girly voice.
"I may need to borrow Luna-Q again, otherwise I won't be able to keep her," I said stroking the top of her head with my finger.
"Okay," Saki said sadly. She was obviously missing Selene who would normally be her advisor.
"This is horrible!" The shadow girl whispered. She had followed the other girls to this quaint little café, and she wasn't the only one. Another girl she had never seen had followed them as well, but she had followed the girl who was giving out cats, she had slipped through the rip the little girl had caused.
But the dimension hopping girl wasn't the only other one. There was also the strangely handsome boy with slightly long brown hair. Or at least it was long for today's styles, for any age in the past it would have been a bit short. He had piercingly blue eyes which seemed to ice your heart.
As the girls began leaving it was the blond who had come to the meeting with help from the little red haired girl who left first. She was followed by the red haired girl, the girl with blond pigtails, the girl with pink pig tails, the girl with blue hair, the one with short brown hair, the one with long black hair, and the one with long blond hair. They took with them the three cats they had been given.
The next group was the two girls who stuck to each other like glue, the short black haired girl, and the one with long dark green hair. They took with them the black cat who had sat on the blond girl's lap all through the meeting.
The last group were the three girls she was to watch. They took with them one cat. The shadow girl moved of as the boy stopped to talk with them, and the dimension girl stopped in the shadows. She thought she rather liked the dimension girl.
"Megan!" I knew that voice. I turned from locking the café with a smile. It was Matt. I had liked him for the last two years, which was all the time we had been in the same place.
"Hey Matt," Corey and Hannah smiled at each other as I smiled and held the cat in front of me like a shield, it wasn't very effective…
"Hey Megan! Where'd you get the cat?" Matt inquired scratching her head.
"She, um just kind of attached herself to me actually. It was kind of funny. I must have left the door into the café open, she walked right in and sat down on my lap," I said as Fria gave a very convincing meow.
"Oh, will you be able to keep her? I thought you said your dad is allergic to cats, and I also thought that you're mom got freaked out by cats. And I'm pretty sure you said you were a cat person who had never had a cat, and " I cut him off at that point.
"That's where I'm going, to make sure I can keep her," I said as Luna-R rolled up and knocked against my feet. Corey picked it up and it sort of shank, without shrinking. But now it looked like a stuffed animal, so maybe it just got softer, so it would fit in Corey's arms easily.
"Oh, well I'll see you later," Matt said and stepped aside. I walked past him with my two friends close on my heels.
It had been easier than I had thought to confuse my parents into letting me keep her. I'll admit, I even felt a little guilty about it. The problem was Corey had followed me, and wouldn't let me alone about Matt.
Matt's family and my own were close friends, so we had known each other forever. So my crush on him wasn't noticed at all. Matt had had several girlfriends while I had been watching him from the unnoticeable, untouchable position as a foster-sister. It was driving me crazy. Corey was not helping matters.
"When are you going to finally tell him you like him?" Corey begged to know as Fria ate a bowl full of stinky tuna. Hannah was browsing through my millions of files of pictures on my computer.
"Never," I said tersely as I flipped the page of my book.
"That doesn't seem that wise," Fria remarked between mouthfuls of tuna.
"That doesn't matter. In his eyes I'm his sister, so it doesn't matter whether or not I tell him, because nothing will come of it," I replied. I slammed my book shut in irritation. It was a rather large hardback book. I was rereading it, so I set it on my shelves of books and pulled out a different book after a moment of considering them.
"Oh! Megan! You still have these pictures? But they're from years ago!" Hannah cried out still looking at the computer screen. She was looking at a picture of me, her, Corey, and our friend Autumn.
"Oh, I remember this! This is the same day we met Dominic!" Corey said happily as she crowded up behind Hannah. Corey was squished between my bed and my computer desk. My desk wasn't very big or all the book shelves I had in there. We had actually made built in bookshelves in my room, so my desk and dresser were built into the wall, as well as the shelves. And every shelf was full of a mixture of books and collected nick-knacks from years past. Around my bed was a bare area, in which I had places two night stands, and on top of those crystal lamps, which had once been my grandmother's. Inside their cabinets on one side were old sketches, paintings, and stories, as well as my awards and such. On the other side it had drawers; the drawers had been made especially for jewelry. I had it organized by a) what I wore most often, b) what was worth a lot, and c) what had sentimental value. I tossed or gave away everything else. Next to my bed was a shelf devoted to mangas, and next to that was a built in vanity table. It had a beautiful mirror, and drawers or all my make-up, hair things, and hair brushes. Not to mention simple cosmetics such as deodorant and lotion, which almost every girl owns.
"Don't you like him too?" Corey said accusingly.
"I got over him, when I broke up with him," I said haughtily as I opened up my book to the first page. I hadn't actually read this book yet, which was rare in my collection.
"When was that again?" Hannah asked absent mindedly as she flipped through other pictures on my computer. Several o them featured me, and my ex-boyfriend.
"Five months," I said slapping this book shut as well. I couldn't start it. I tossed it onto my nightstand, I'd read it later.
"You're acting really weird today," Corey commented as she started going through my boxes displayed all over my room. Corey knew full well that I hid candy in those boxes, as well as collecting them to remind me o all the places I've been.
"I don't know I have this weird feeling along my spine. A sort of prickling. You know like Robert Jordan likes to say like someone's watching me," I said shrugging my shoulders as I that would help.
"Really? You're a really down to earth in a ditzy kind of way. I never would have thought that you would have fantasies like that," Hannah said. Then she found my stories I had been writing over the summer. She shut up and escaped to my world.
"I didn't think so either. But all my doodles have been sort of scary," Corey went over and pulled a bunch o papers from my purse. They wee folded over, and she and put them there ages ago. I leafed through them, and my heart dropped. Every one of them was of scouts falling, dying at the hands of an unseen enemy. In some the enemy could be seen as a menacing figure in the back, I was obviously female, but that was all I could tell.
"Why didn't you say so earlier? We have to warm them!" I said yanking the locket from my neck. The roses fell and rose again as I transformed. Corey was surrounded by the firebird.
Hannah carefully closed the programs, and shut o my screen as I she had all day. Then she pulled a little purple stone from inside the pocket of her overly large green sweater. She blew on it and it rose into the air. It expanded turning green on the edges until the circle enveloped her. Then it shank in and surrounded her body perfectly. Then the colors swirled between green and purple. Finally the colors took definite areas and grew out into her fuku, which like Corey's was all in color, there was no white. The body part was green, and so were her shoes, but the rest of her (including the bow that made me laugh, it was so un-Hannah-like) was in purple they were the traditional colors of Osseus, after which she was named. She was Sailor Osseus.
Saki had stayed with the inners and Chibi Chibi, instead of going off by herself to think about the information her mother had imparted on her, without knowing who she really was. Now she was glad, because they had been attacked by the two Elements. And of course all the toadies they had brought with them. They were all fighting for their lives, so they didn't notice other people coming until Terra saw a bright disk fly by her face. Roses followed in it's wake, so she knew what it was. Quickly it was followed by a shout, and a burst of dragon fire. Barely behind that was a purple streak surrounded by green sparkles. Terra hadn't seen this attack before, but knowing the other two, she could guess. She called over my shoulder, "You guys are late!" Then went back to her fight.
"Mother Nature's Healing Embrace!" Terra cried replacing two monsters with a hare, and a snake. Another burst of dragon ire got rid of another. Roses floated around another, which disappeared. The green sparkles danced around a suddenly purple and unmoving monster. Then Osseus cried, "Ancient mists!" Then the fight was over.
The scouts had been surrounded by some sort of opaque mist, which part before them. The mists danced with green and purple, shimmering in and out, the colors mixing and separating, in a beautiful, perfectly rehearsed dance. The Elements were gone, the monsters replaced by small harmless animals.
"Can you teach me how to do that?" Chibi Mercury asked from behind Terra, "My mists are so weak in comparison."
"I don't think you can do it…It's based on the sorcerous works of ancient Osseus. I don't believe you have the Mage Spark within you. Of course Rose would be a better judge. We did learn our mage craft from her people, and they didn't tell us everything. But Rose was trained extensively," Osseus said shifting on her feet. The mists began to disperse. And we could see around us, just in time to see the outer Chibis come at a run.
"Now that's ridiculously late," Terra commented detransforming as she turned around and headed for Megan's house.