Chapter 11
Jadeite was musing over the new information he just learned about the humans in Tokyo, or rather, the students. It turned out that they were expected to be very studious people that worked arduously in their academics, and that they often used computers to aid them with their studies. Now that was something he considered much more interesting than the other stuff he found out about them. Sounded similar to the way he worked hard. 'However, those sappy humans are only wasting their energy..energy that can be used to replenish Metallia's energy. I will seize it.'
Of course, Beryl would agree..that is, if her mind wasn't too consumed with fury because of his last failure. He would have to do everything in his power to make sure that annoying germ of a senshi didn't interfere, but that was okay. Suddenly, an idea came to him. What better way to destroy the pathetic humans than to turn one of their own academic tools against them? This "computer" came to mind. And the more he thought of the idea, the more he liked it. The slightly grumpy shitennou proceeded to think about how he would go about this scheme. At that moment, he heard Beryl calling him. He appeared in Queen Beryl's throne room, and bowed respectfully.
"Good news, Queen Beryl. I have discovered another human's energy source." Jadeite was speaking a bit slowly. That was because he was nervous. He was desperately hoping that this would be enough to feel some grace from Beryl, and that she would at least listen to him. He tried not to show the evil woman how nervous he was, though, as in her eyes, fear was a sign of weakness.
"Oh? Let's hear it," said Queen Beryl. She was always interested to hear something about the humans that she hadn't seen them do one thousand years ago.
This was just the reaction that Jadeite wanted. He told her how arduous the humans were in their academics, and that they often used a computer to aid them with certain school tasks.
The diabolical queen gave the flaxen haired shitennou a small, deadly smile. He sure was an expert at finding the source of human energy. If only he could succeed, he would be on her better side.
"Hmm. Interesting. Do what you can to redeem yourself." She sounded stern when she said that last statement, and Jadeite knew when she spoke in that tone, failure and disobedience weren't options.
Jadeite bowed again. "You can count on me, my queen," he assured Beryl. He left to make plans. He knew just the youma he would have help him with this plot. He summoned Garoben. An ugly red skinned youma with short, blackish hoary hair appeared.
"At your service, Master Jadeite," she answered.
The bleached blonde told her all about his idea. "I trust that your dark mind can conjure the appropriate scheme for that," he said.
The red skinned youma was thinking about what he told her. Almost instantaneously, an idea came to her. "But of course." She told Jadeite her idea. "What do you think?" she asked.
Jadeite nodded approvingly. "Splendid scheme. Now do your best to succeed."
Garoben bowed. "Understood, Master Jadeite." She disguised herself as a human and teleported away.
Usagi was in the living room, reading a manga. She knew that she had homework to do, but she was procrastinating, for she found it incomprehensible..not to mention that she hated homework. Especially the subject it was related to. She came to a funny part in the manga and started to giggle uncontrollably. She was howling so much that she collapsed onto the couch. Tears started to stream down her cheeks.
Ikuko was in the kitchen, taking out ingredients to bake a lemon pie for dessert after dinner that night when she heard loud laughter. She could tell from it that it was her daughter. She heaved a loud sigh. 'Oh dear, now what is the racket about?' She rubbed her head wearily, she really wished that the girl would laugh a bit more gracefully. She went to the living room to see what the girl was laughing at. Sure enough, she saw her daughter lying supine on the couch, reading a manga and laughing hysterically.
"Usagi, please simmer down," the blue haired woman admonished her. "And you are messing up the couch that I fixed."
The blonde girl looked a bit sheepish. She sat up and calmed down a bit. "Sorry, Mom. But you have to check this out. It is so hilarious!" She showed her mother the funny part. Ikuko had to admit, it was rather tickling. She chuckled a bit. Of course, Usagi started laughing all over again.
Suddenly, Ikuko stopped laughing and put on a very serious expression. She remembered that her daughter had an exam very recently. She hated the thought of her flunking another one. "So, how did you do on your exam?"
"You know that we won't have the results until tomorrow. And why are you so worried? It is only a test." Usagi proceeded to sneak away before her mother could ask anymore questions.
"You hold it right there, young lady."
'Oh crap, so much for getting away before she asked anything else,' thought Usagi. She braced herself for another lecture.
"You really must take school more seriously. Your father and I are afraid that you will fail out of school. Please tell me, what are we doing wrong?" Mrs. Tsukino sounded very hurt about this. And that sadness made Usagi feel the same.
"It's not your fault, Mom. It's just that school is so hard for me and it is so boring. I can't take so much stress. It's going to give me high blood pressure!" she said, sniffling.
The blue haired homemaker couldn't believe how dramatic she was being just to say that. "Oh, Usagi," she sighed, "I should be the one to be upset, not you. I don't want you to make the same mistakes I made when I was your age."
The flaxen haired girl nodded to show that she understood. She didn't want to be a shame to her family. "Yes, Mom." She went to her room.
Meanwhile, Ruby was at a bookstore in the cookbooks section. She knew that her master was fairly adventurous and how much he enjoyed trying different human dishes. She decided to surprise him with a couple of cookbooks that contained recipes for some of his favorite dishes, just in case he wanted to learn to prepare them, or try something new. Plus, she secretly wanted to try more herself.
The humanoid youma walked from one end of the aisle to the other, looking at the different books as she went along. My, my, my, there are so many books to choose from...this could take awhile.' It was no exaggeration, there was a broad variety of books. The cherry-haired teenager just hoped that she would find the ones she was looking for. After a bit more searching, she saw that she was in luck. She spotted a few that would spark Nephrite's interest—a gourmet cookbook, one that contained recipes for various desserts, and one for different international recipes. She pulled them out, one by one. 'Whew,' Ruby thought, sighing in relief. She really didn't want to have to ask one of those humans for help. That would have been an awkward moment. Ruby went to pay for the books. All she could think about was how much Nephrite would like them. She wondered what he was doing right now.
Nephrite was in his planetarium, stargazing. He was gracious enough to give his most powerful servant a little break from keeping tabs on Jadeite's scheme, since she had worked hard the previous two times. He wasn't sure where the girl went, but he trusted her, and so he knew she wouldn't do anything she wasn't supposed to do. When she told him that she was bringing a surprise for him, he couldn't help but raise an eyebrow. He was interested in seeing what this surprise was.
"Stars know everything. Show me Jadeite's next scheme." The stars complied, and revealed an image of a cram school. There were a bunch of students in the class, sitting in front of PCs. There was also a thin woman with dark brown hair. She wore a lime green skirt suit and glasses. It didn't take the star shitennou long to piece together the plan. Using a computer, Jadeite was going to gather energy from students that attended Crystal Seminar, the expensive brand new cram school. He was sure that this scheme would fail..all because of the tragic flaw. However, the higher ranked shitennou respected the fact that the school seemed to be first rate, as well as these "computers" they used. Heck, he had bought himself one of those earlier that week—a mainframe.
Miki appeared in a flash of lightning, and cleared her throat. Nephrite whirled around to face her. He was just beginning to notice how much she enjoyed keeping his company. He didn't think much of it at first, but now he had to admit that he rather enjoyed the company of his henchmen, which was more than he could say for a certain obnoxious general in training. He didn't particularly care to tell them this outwardly just yet, though. He gave a slight nod, to show that he acknowledged the brunette pigtailed youma's presence.
"Found out Jadeite's next scheme?" asked Miki.
"That I did." The star king told her about the scheme.
The chocolate haired young woman wasn't surprised by the scheme. "Just as I thought. The clueless twit will never learn."
Nephrite thought that was a bit hasty on her part, but in all honesty, he couldn't blame her. After all, if Jadeite had learned anything, he would have learned after his first failure. To put it bluntly, he was hopeless.
Just then, Ruby appeared, holding a plastic bag. "Master Nephrite, this is for you," she said, handing her master the bag. He took it, and looked inside. He was confident that whatever it was, it would be to his liking. The woman knew his taste very well, not to mention that her taste was excellent. Inside the bag were 3 rather thick looking hard-covered books. "Hmm," he said, examining the books.
Ruby eagerly watched him, desperately hoping that he liked them. His lips stretched into a half smile. The books had recipes for his favorite dishes. When she saw the smile, she knew he approved.
"Thank you very much," he finally said.
The red head smiled. "My pleasure."
The entire time Miki was bursting to know what those books were. "Oooh, let me see." She peered at the books. When she saw them, she knew she would be using them ever so often. She decided to go and see what her twin was up to.
At school the next day, there was a new girl at Juuban Junior High School. This girl's name was Ami Mizuno. She had very short blue hair. All the students gathered around the bulletin board in the hall, and looked at all the grades for the mock exam they took. They saw that this new girl came first place. Based on what they heard of her intelligence, they were not surprised.
At lunch time, Usagi, Naru and a short, plump girl with very low cut red hair were talking about how smart Ami was.
"She is supposedly a genius, and is the best student in in the country," Usagi stated.
Out of the blue, a voice jumped in, "It is rumored that she has an IQ of 300. She would make quite a worthy academic rival."
The trio of friends recognized the voice. And it was someone they were not too thrilled to hear, either. It was Umino. He always liked to sneak up on people, much to Naru's annoyance. She was startled, and exasperated as well.
"Don't sneak up on us like that!" she said, smacking the nerdy young man in the back of his head. Umino winced in pain. Man, did the girl ever hit hard. But it was her rather abusive nature that made him like her a bit more. He thought her manners might influence him.
The short plump girl said something a little unlike her. "Something tells me that she is a stuck-up snob. You know how geniuses can be."
Usagi and Naru were surprised that she would say something like that. She usually wasn't so quick to judge newcomers.
"Well," said Naru, "I will get to know her so I can judge her for myself. If she proves to be a snob, I will break all ties with her. I cannot stand snobbish people."
Her best friend agreed with her. Little did they know, Ami had overheard the entire conversation.
I guess I won't be making friends as quickly as I thought,' she thought, sighing. Not that she was exactly the world's talkative person to begin with. In fact, she was pretty shy, and her studying took up most of the time. Still, she thought it would be nice to have some friends. She had to admit that she felt lonely sometimes.
Usagi noticed that the cerulean haired girl was nearby. Judging from Ami's expression, she got the impression that she heard what was said. It was too late to take the words back. Worried that the girl's feelings were hurt, she decided to partially change the subject—to talking about some positive traits about her, like they were doing before.
"I heard that she attends Crystal Seminar, that new cram school," the blonde said to her two friends. "My mom said that it was very expensive."
"I heard that her mother is a doctor."
The nutmeg colored haired boy didn't care..he was just looking forward to challenging the new girl's academic achievements.
After school that day, Luna approached Ami when she walked out. She crawled up on her shoulder. Central Control had warned her that this new student could be an agent to the Dark Kingdom, and she decided to keep an eye on her. The blue haired girl was a bit taken aback, but relaxed and proceeded to pet this strange black cat.
"Hi there. You're such an adorable little kitty," she said.
Luna responded by purring. She licked Ami on the cheek. Ami chuckled at this. The kitty seemed to like her.
'Odd. She doesn't seem like the enemy,' thought Luna. Still, she was not taking any chances. After all, Central Control seemed to know what he was talking about, so any concern he had was worth investigating.
Usagi was behind them, and was watching Ami. She felt like she owed her an apology for what happened, but she wasn't sure how to approach her without making a fool out of herself. She walked slowly behind the girl, thinking about what to do. She had an idea. She could just call Luna, as if to let her know that she was done with school.
"Yoo-hoo, Luna!" The small black cat leapt off of Ami's shoulder and trotted over to the blonde.
"I am so sorry that Luna bothered you."
Ami turned around, and saw a girl with long blonde hair pulled into pigtails. The pigtailed blonde looked familiar. She was the one at school. She could not believe that this girl spoke to her, considering the conversation she was involved in.
'So the kitten's name is Luna? What a lovely name. And it fits her perfectly,' Ami thought, thinking of the crescent moon on the cat's forehead.
"It's perfectly all right," she managed to reply.
"You're the new girl, Ami, right?" asked Usagi.
"Yes. Is your name Usagi?"
"That's exactly right," said Usagi cheerfully.
"I heard that one of your friends think of me as a snob," said Ami.
The ditzy blonde felt so badly for what was said. She knew that she would need to apologize if she ever hoped to make friends with the new girl.
"That was just gossip. We didn't really mean it," said Usagi, apologetically.
Ami thought it was really nice of her to apologize. It wasn't necessarily her obligation to do it, since it was her friend that hinted dislike, not her. "It's okay."
Usagi couldn't believe how forgiving Ami was. She was so sure that this incident would destroy any chance of becoming good friends, even if she apologized. But now it seemed that she was stupid to worry. This girl was so nice, and she wanted to get to know her even better. She suggested going to Cafe' Amigo for ice cream sundaes.
Ami gave it some thought. This blonde seemed like a potential new friend . She had cram school in about an hour. She thought it would be nice to spend it getting acquainted with Usagi.
"All right, then."
The blonde girl was so happy that Ami accepted the offer. She walked to the cafe' with her. Usagi spent the whole walk telling her all about her favorite places.