Chapter 13: The World Turned Upside Down...Again
Stephanie
"Stephanie?" Logan's voice. The last one I was expecting to hear when I woke up. Assuming I was fully awake...the last thing I could remember was taking off in a full sprint to evade our would-be captors, while Doctor Tomoe's half-baked Heart Snatchers kept the Sailor Scouts distracted. One minute Alyssa was beside me, the next she's gone...
Owww, my head. Why did it always have to be the head?
Slowly, the face that I opened my eyes to and the environment around it came into focus. I thought I could smell burning wood in the distance, symptomatic of Sailor Mars torching a wide swath of the park to cut off my escape. After Sailor Venus yanked a tree down to pin me beneath its branches...is this how they acted when Bollywood was churning out movie sequels about them?
"Slowpoke without your morning caffeine, huh?" It really was Logan's face, glancing down at me sprawled out before him as if I was making a snow angel. Like we were both kids again...but it was ages since we were last friends.
"What are you doing here?" The rest of the park was as fuzzy as the details in my head. "You sounded committed to - " The pigtailed blonde in the skirt coming up behind him.
"Easy, Steph!" Logan motioned with both his hands as if he was directing traffic - Alyssa mentioned he was looking into becoming a police officer when she sought him out - after I dug both of my hands into the cold wet snow, backpedaling from Sailor Moon quickly as I could. "It's just the three of us, I promise. Things wouldn't have gone the way they did if Sailor Moon had been there."
Maybe Logan really believed her baloney. Hell - sorry Nana, I remember you don't believe in Hell - if Alyssa had been standing behind me, not rolling her eyes or reminding me they were closet power-hungry fascists deep down, I might have believed it myself. But they seemed a little too at ease that Alyssa was absent. "What do you say we table this discussion until Alyssa catches up. Unless...you're not expecting her."
Maybe the bottle-blonde in front of me wasn't Logan's latest fling, but there was some fishy deal between the two. Sailor Moon was no Shadow, I saw her eyes dart to Logan for an answer. Then I knew: they agreed he'd do all the talking.
"Sailor Moon and I tried to stop the others from chasing after her." Logan's voice was heavy, though he made it a lot harder to glimpse inside his head. "Alyssa just dumped you on the ground and fled."
"Logan...I might be a novice, but I've told enough lies myself to know an obvious one when I hear it!" I seethed. Alyssa never would have just dropped me after revealing her ace in the hole to save me. "Swear to me that she's still alive!"
Logan's mouth fell open while sorting through his brain for an answer, but it stayed open when his eyes followed mine back to Sailor Moon...and a smirk that didn't fit that innocent-looking face of hers.
"Congrats, Svetlana. You got me..." She flat-out sneered at me, spitting on whatever pact she had with Logan earlier. "But now, I get something from you too."
In an instant, I was drained of all other feeling when the scythe wielded by Doctor Tomoe's traitorous daughter reintroduced itself to my eyes...or at least the tip of it, which introduced itself to Logan by puncturing his chest just under his throat. I didn't scream, I didn't jump to my feet and run for it...maybe watching mom and nana breath their last made me numb to seeing others die in front of me. So I thought, until I stared down at the little red specks dotting my jacket and realized it was my childhood friend's blood. Sailor Moon, meanwhile, looked a different kind of blank, as if seeing Logan killed in front of her was nothing new.
"My Queen..." In a fit of coughs and sputters, Logan flopped down to the snow and reached for Sailor Moon's gloved wrist as if he were about to kiss her hand. "Wh...why?!"
Sailor Moon grabbed his wrist in return and flung him backwards, as if to make the point he was just a discarded piece of trash now. The smirk on her face exploded into the grin of a Cheshire Cat.
"I only need one Shadow to guarantee my reign of Earth will not be challenged. I'll have fun breaking this one in...she's not as naively stupid as you or the billions of idiots who worship me already. MUAHAHAHAHA! HAHAHAHA..."
The End!
A/N: JUST KIDDING! :P
"...MUAHAHAHA!" The return of my splitting headache accompanied the instant change in voice, from 'Sailor Moon' to one decidedly more male and cackling in tone. Why he was laughing was anyone's guess, but I couldn't have been more relieved to see the Scout-torched forest completely out of view, replaced by the comforting dullness of Doctor Tomoe's sterile lab.
"Doctor Tomoe?" My body was a whole lot more responsive now that I was awake, and I sat up with ease. "Why are you laughing?" Still a force of habit maybe, I thought when Doctor Tomoe answered by abruptly cutting himself off.
"Svetlana. Your memory's intact." All elation I had to hear Alyssa's voice, and see her standing at my bedside, was immediately quelled by the scowl outlining her face, and the crossed arms. I didn't have to be a veteran Shadow to know Alyssa was really, really mad at me for wandering off on my own.
"Yes, you had us worried for a moment there." Doctor Tomoe wheeled an IV bag off to the side. I dodged a silver bullet, waking up before Doctor Tomoe could stick me with anything pointy. "I couldn't find any of the usual culprits for passing out so abruptly...which, in my last field of work, was typical of a bop on the head. Happens a lot in my current line too."
Absent-mindedly, I rubbed the side of my neck and it stung. Hard. And it hurt on the other side too, right around the spots a veteran Shadow would squeeze with her arm, cutting off the flow of blood to the target's brain and inducing an early naptime...
Alyssa. I lost sight of her while running for dear life. Doubling back around and putting me in a sleeper hold would have done it, but why -
The Tithon Sendoff...I heard the other trainees talking about it, what would happen to those of us who flunked training or deemed unworthy of the robes. They said that our dark shards would be ripped out one by one: rumor had it the procedure was named in the Spymaster's honor because he put out a memo not to bother sedating or putting the kick-outs to sleep first: their memories would be wiped right after anyway. No one doubted that Spymaster Tithon was the best teacher any of us could have asked for - not that any of us would ask him, even on a dare. But I knew I wasn't the only one secretly relieved that Alyssa kept me under her wing. Though knowing Alyssa put me to sleep first gave me little comfort now...
As conscious as I was that Doctor Tomoe was standing next to my bedside, I reached for one of my invisible shards and I did feel something ooze when I tugged at it, followed by searing pain. What I suspected was confirmed: maybe I deserved it, maybe it was just a shot across the bow. And maybe scowling back at Alyssa wasn't the smartest thing to do knowing she didn't go through with banishing me yet. But I had to know: "I don't remember where all these jabs came from. Was Tomoe literally playing Doctor, or did Hotaru's friends kick me while I was down?"
"You actually saw her?!" That got a reaction out of Doctor Tomoe, spinning so fast he nearly keeled over in a comical fashion. "I noticed the letters weren't in your pocket but - wait, you said her friends tried to hurt you? Surely, you don't mean her old ones! For all the misgivings I - or Germatoid rather, had with them - I can't see them attacking other girls at random!"
And THERE was Alyssa's reaction...an even more bitter stare that would have made Spymaster Tithon quiver. "Svetlana's brain was deprived of oxygen several minutes before we got to her, Doc. Possibly even hours; it's the only explanation we have for why she decided to go off on her own to deliver letters right after I got jumped."
So, Alyssa decided not to tell him that his daughter was moonlighting as a scythe-wielding Psycho Scout...and was less-than-subtly warning me against breaking the news to Tomoe. Not that I blamed her fully - being secretive meant allies were in short supply, and the other 99.5% of the planet adored the Sailor Scouts. At least, if she was mad about me about that, she had SOME intention of keeping me. Maybe.
"Blasted Sailor Scouts! At least I kept myself busy once I got my body back! Somebody's got to tell them off for becoming so lax!" At the end of his rant, Doctor Tomoe's mood chilled as abruptly as it flared off. "Alyssa, you know that I completely disavow what Stephanie did, and I would have talked her out of leaving if I had known you had explicitly ordered her not to, AND you know that I feel guilty for taking her focus off of...whatever it is you are training her for. But while we're on the subject..." Tomoe's eerie moon-shaped eyes fixed themselves on me, "Hotaru got my letters?"
"She opened one in front of me." My look was returned with a shrug from Alyssa - if she wasn't flat out telling me "no", I'll assume it's OK. "She said that she wants to see you."
"As long as the Sailor Scouts are on hiatus, bunkering down is the safest thing. Seeing your daughter is something we can arrange, just...not yet." Alyssa jumped in to make her point before either of us started concocting a plan to get Tomoe himself out of the lab. It had kept him occupied the last four years. Still, what WOULD Tomoe think if he knew his daughter had switched roles with him, that she was on her way to becoming the villain? Quick to change the subject, Alyssa tilted her head towards the next room. "Do you mind checking in on our other guest? I'll keep an eye on Steph. Maybe a leash, too."
The Kinmokuan that the Starlights were after. I almost forgot that he was here...if he had a sane brain cell in his head, he would have appreciated being kept here after hearing how the Inner Scouts would have treated him. I should have wondered why I didn't hear any screaming or whimpering or straight-up crying in the next room. What a doozy leaving Tomoe alone with him could have been...I did NOT think this one through as much as I should have. Here I was now, left alone with my bitter trainer...or ex-trainer. Content with glaring at me for the next several hours.
"You didn't tell him that his daughter's a Sailor Scout." OK, I admit I was never a fan of the silent treatment. There was Logan, during the last four years of grade school, but I deserved that. "AND you were on the verge of kicking me out, weren't you?!"
"Svetlana, you and I aren't Co-Spymasters." Alyssa spoke in such a measured tone, I would have thought she wasn't mad at me if she hadn't called me by my birth name. "You are not privy to my innermost thoughts, and whether I continue training you is not a mutual decision."
"Are you waiting for me to grovel and beg to stay on?" The calmer Alyssa remained, the angrier I got...until I had thrown my legs to the side of my bed and shouted the rest. "Well too bad, because maybe I want to forget that HIS darling daughter almost tore my throat in half, or that her band of bullies nearly trapped me in a burning forest, but Smoky the Bear himself wouldn't believe it because Sailor Moon is everyone's Lord and Savior! Thing with the Tithon Sendoff though, is that maybe I'll get dumped in the room next to that four-eyed weirdo from the hospital we plucked the Survivor from, and when he says "hey babester, aren't the Sailor Scouts just the coolest?" I'll nod and smile because I don't know better anymore, because YOU wiped my memories, and that's your loss because I know YOU didn't just keep me around because I'm pretty!"
"I wasn't a good teacher if you're THAT sure I had another reason to keep you around." ...Wait, I can't tell whether she's joking or not. The head-shaking looked sincere, though. "Good thing your mom didn't steer you into law school, you make some pretty weird arguments!"
"I wasn't in a position to argue when you almost expelled me." Alyssa might have been talking to me again, but all I had left after all that was a shrug of my own. "Why change your mind, then?"
"Because you're lucky." Alyssa tugged at the back of her sash. "Wouldn't have been fair to kick you out, knowing your stunt wasn't a COMPLETE waste of time..." Tucked in Alyssa's hand was a golden key remarkably ornate for its size, if not it hadn't featured the infamous Sailor Scout bow.
"You got it!" It looked so small in Alyssa's hand...I could tell Mini Moon was the one she ripped it from. The comparison to Alyssa swiping candy from a baby came to mind, but I didn't feel bad for the little snot now. She didn't look worried about ME in the slightest. "So now that you've got the key we're looking for, does that mean an intergalactic road trip's in order? I wouldn't mind putting a universe or two between us and the Scouts for a bit.
"Hate to rain on your parade, but..." Alyssa snuck in a grimace while tucking the key between her sash. At least I knew she'd been entertaining the idea too. "I'm more curious about the Galaxy Cauldron our alien friend said he visited, namely what kind of stardust he's been snorting. I've NEVER seen anyone block me out of their minds like that before. Tomoe's got him sedated, but I'd still think twice about putting him on too long a leash. Besides, we don't know if using the key could set off some kind of alarm for Sailor Pluto, or if we could even use it without turning the space-time continuum upside-down or what-not."
"Well, thanks to Sailor Moon, there's no ringing up Amethyst either." I flinched myself when even Alyssa cringed at that name. Much like Spymaster Tithon, everybody admired Amethyst's know-how when it came to the Sailor Scouts...but from what I heard about Amethyst, she was second only to the Spymaster as the last person to call if you were looking for a weekend shopping partner. "And you'd have to threaten me with another Tithon Sendoff to get me to ask the Scouts again. Don't...let that give you any ideas. Please."
Unpredictable as ever, Alyssa took a sudden interest in the jacket I was wearing. Fear took hold when I remembered the jacket was a loaner. I exhaled in relief upon inspection, finding no tears or blemishes thanks to my run-in with the Scouts, but Alyssa paid little mind to it. "Nice coat. Get a raise from your boss?"
A raise - or, any kind of a salary, really - would definitely be cause to celebrate. But celebrate I did anyway, as my inner fangirl crept back out. "OK, you're not gonna believe who I borrowed this from! Or, well, maybe you will. I take it you're not big on violins."
I should have known better than to challenge a master Shadow to a trivia question. "You bumped into Juuban's local celebrity! Michelle Kaiou, huh?"
"Fine, call me stupid" I sighed. "I didn't think you were into classical music. Or...music at all, really."
"Are you kidding? I love classic music, like..." Alyssa paused for an uncharacteristic amount of time. "Like...Final Fantasy, and...Mass Effect. I even go back to Halo when I'm having a rough day."
I could have sworn one or two of those names sounded familiar, but...nope, no bell. "Are those super-secret bands only a Spymaster would know about?"
"I figured you hadn't heard their music before. Especially not live." I'm gonna have to look up those bands later. "You sounded bummed about being stuck here, so how about a trip to return your loaner? You can introduce me to your idol!"
The chance at quick forgiveness sounded too good to pass up, but I just had to throw in a bit of caution."I dunno, Lyssa. Michelle and Amara sounded awfully close to Hotaru's caregiver. They led me right into the other Sailor Scouts. Who knows what history they might have with them? They might even be in on Hotaru's little secret."
"Amara was there too?" Alyssa asked in that tone suggesting this was more of a quiz than a question, but maybe I was just imagining that. If Spymaster Tithon really didn't share that many notes with her, I couldn't imagine him writing up a whole dossier on some violinist who did a gig with the Three Lights.
"Yeah, I...think she's a relative? Or not? I couldn't really tell," I pondered out loud. "Oh well, if this means you're forgiving me, I'll try to squeeze an autograph out of her while I'm at it!"
Too soon to joke, Alyssa's tight face made that painfully obvious.
"This is more like probation, STEPHANIE." At…least she was back to using my name, that meant she was maybe a teeny tiny bit less angry at me. "I'm still not sure that I changed my mind for the right reasons. I know what you're thinking about Tomoe: I don't like keeping things from him any more than you do, but there will be casualties. Better his Heart Snatchers than us."
"Say no more. I remember: you're the boss, you don't owe me an explanation on Tomoe."
"I'm the boss, so if I feel like explaining something to you, you're getting it whether you want it or not." Alyssa finally lightened back up a bit. "Don't make me regret this, Steph…"
Rini
"SVETI YETI, HIDEOUS MONSTER ON THE INSIDE!" My own words just kept echoing again and again inside my head, drowning out whatever noise I made sobbing into my pillow. But I didn't hear myself saying the words in my own voice: I wanted so badly to be able to give Logan, and Hotaru, and Pegasus another explanation. That it was the Negaverse's fault, or dark magic made me do it, or somebody possessed my body and made me say those mean things...
Except I didn't need somebody else controlling my body to make me say the words. I wanted to think I was a better person now...but I never stopped being the same mean-spirited little brat on the inside, had I? Lifting my head up for the first time in what felt like hours, I could almost see my eyes turning a darker shade of red, the shadowy phantom of my older self hovering over me...
"Small Lady?" The soft patter of a kitten's footsteps on the floor outside my - previously Serena's - room, accompanied by the ring of her little collar bell, sent me back into hiding. "Not only was I a mean person, the only time I stopped crying was to look for my Space-Time Key. Everybody - everyone except Logan and Hotaru, that is - had stayed in the park to dig through snow and peek under benches. Hours retracing my steps just wasted. Maybe Diana to relay one of the others' scolding...
"I know things with the traitors in the park didn't go so well." If Logan didn't hate me and was in the room, he would have congratulated Diana on winning the Understatement of the Year Award. "But Sailor Pluto said just the thing to cheer you up! Or, maybe it was Future Sailor Venus who said it? Sailor Pluto warned me her track record with quotes was a bit spotty. But anyway: she said "when people hurt you over and over, think of them like sand paper. They may scratch and hurt you a bit, but in the end, you end up polished and they end up...Plu-less?" Or maybe it was "clueless?""
"That...doesn't make you feel better?" Diana gently mumbled when I sobbed even harder. "Maybe it WAS Future Venus' quote? I thought it sounded mostly right, she definitely got it from somewhere else - "
"Except I was the bully, Diana!" I screeched into my pillow. "You were there, you heard me!"
"Oh..." A long moment of silence passed between the rest of Diana's words. Or maybe I'd been in my room so long, that I lost track of time. "I wouldn't call it BULLYING, exactly..."
"Why? Is it illegal to call a Princess a bully!" If I gripped my pillowcase any more tightly, I would have ripped it.
"Yes! I mean, no! You still hear Future Mars going at it with Future Venus, and Future Mercury, and Future - wait, she asked me to promise not to tell anyone! I...don't think this is helping." And Diana wins the Understatement of the Year award for next year before it even starts, Logan would probably say. "Sailor Pluto said something else about bullies, something that would prove you're not one when you heard it...if I could remember what she said. Being a full-time Shadow Guardian of Time Apprentice Advisor Cat is a LOT to remember!"
I could feel Diana drop from my bed and land gently to the floor while I refused to let out so much as a whimper. "I'm sorry I couldn't help, Small Lady. The Red Ninja of Love sent me in here to tell you don't worry about Spymaster Charon. She'll take care of it."
THAT tilted my head just a little, enough to show Diana one eye. "What was that about Charon?"
"Spymaster Charon still hasn't come back, not since he went to investigate the traitor Scouts' place and find out whether they led the impostor Shadows to us - "
"We might have taken their wands away, but Michelle and Amara are still dangerous! Did he forget they nearly handed him off to the Spymaster themselves?" Logan, no matter how badly you wanted to get away from us, why those two?! "And what does Serena's mangy old clown costume have to do with any of this?"
"Not the clown costume. The ninja costume!" Diana eagerly explained. Not getting what I meant. "I begged her to let me come, she said rescuing Spymaster Charon from the treacherous duo would require stealth and secrecy. It sounds like she knows almost as much about the Shadow ways as he does, but I couldn't find a kitty-sized ninja suit anywhere!"
"Diana!" You win, Diana. If this was some trick to get me out of bed, you at least got my entire face off it now. "Tell me that Serena didn't take the bus to Amara and Michelle's place wearing a Halloween costume!"
Diana's ears perked up and she nodded eagerly. "Serena wasn't headed for the bus stop - she's running the whole way!"
"GREAT! Now I gotta stop that dolt before she gets captured! Or worse, she embarrasses Logan to the point he never wants to be seen with the rest of us ever again!" I reached across the drawer to grab my compact, but Diana's pouty face stopped me cold.
"I just thought...maybe my words cheered you up" she sniffled. "Maybe you could...TELL them my words helped? Charon doesn't seem to think I'm a worthy candidate for second-in-command of Neo Queen Serenity's Loyal Shadows. Even if he hasn't said it yet."
"He hasn't even had the time to start training you for that, Diana. Besides, there aren't going to be any more Shadows, there's no way mom would - " Yikes. Almost popped Diana's bubble and sent HER crying alongside me. We didn't need liars and schemers in Crystal Tokyo: Serena herself hinted that at yesterday's meeting...Logan was still the only hoodie we met so far to call them out on their rottenness! Meeting the rest of Tithon's...Grandpa's cell gave me all the reasons I needed to for why I never caught any Shadows skulking around Crystal Tokyo. But, maybe it was better to let Diana piece that together on her own. "Don't mind me, I'm just rambling. Not like I'd let mom fire you even if she wanted to! Though there WILL only be one loyal Shadow left if we don't get a move-on!"
Tracking down a pea-brained, pig-tailed blonde "stealth" running through twenty-first century Tokyo in a fifteenth-century ninja outfit wasn't even half a challenge. All Diana and I had to do was follow the lines of people staring down the street and the sound of cars honking until we came across a police officer stopping her for us.
"Excuse me? Miss?" The cop threw up an arm to block her, so distracted by her ridiculous outfit that he didn't notice me creep into one neighbor's hedges and come up alongside them. "The outfit you're wearing is...making people very uncomfortable."
"Mister...Police Officer-sama." Through the leaves, I could spy Serena bowing her head to the officer who stopped her. "I mean no harm. This costume merely serves to heighten my senses, for I fear being beset on by prowlers myself. The red brings out the inner ninja within all of us. Wearing it, I am fully in tune with my surround - YYYYOOOWWWW!"
Serena wasn't in tune with her surroundings enough to detect my hands reaching for her elbows BEFORE I yanked her backwards into the bush as soon as the cop turned his head towards traffic. He did look confused when he looked back to where she stood, but he didn't put any effort into looking around for her. He just shrugged and went back to his patrol.
"ANNOYING GRASSHOPPER! EXPLAIN YOURSELF!" Lucky for all three of us, he was too far away to hear by the time that Serena finally came around enough to toss me off of her - wait, did she call me grasshopper?!
"Don't you copy Mina's name for - !" Oh wait - Serena was giving me the usual blank stare indicating she didn't know what I was talking about. Yikes, almost outed Mina's mentorship! "Logan! Her other nickname for Logan! Why don't YOU explain what running around dressed like that would accomplish! If Shadows could die of laughter, they would have gone extinct while you were still in junior high!"
"I was just on my way to liberate him, as a matter of fact! Clearly, pestering him and Mina twenty-four seven didn't teach you anything about discretion, or you wouldn't alert the whole neighborhood by riding to his rescue dressed like Sailor Mini Moon!" Look who's giving me a lecture on DISCRETION! "I bet you didn't even notice Logan wasn't back yet!"
"She knew! I filled her in, just like you asked me to!" cheered Diana.
"..." After a quick head scratch, the Red Ninja of Lard sighed. "oh yeah, forgot I mentioned it."
Stomping my foot, I shouted "you're such a blockhead, Serena! Just because Amara and Michelle can't transform anymore, you think you can charge into their house like a buffoon and cross your fingers hoping they'll put you in the torture chair next to Logan?"
"That's...MAYBE a better plan than the one I had?"
"You ALWAYS go overboard!" My brain registered that Serena actually agreed on something, but she already got me too riled up to stop. "All you had to do was climb through the window dressed like a normal person, but you even managed to muck that up! No wonder he wanted to get away from you!"
"Small Lady - "
"Maybe he wouldn't have had to if just one of you had just thought to ask him what HE wanted, but nobody did and now we all look like crummy friends!" Only my tiny lungs stopped me from going on any further.
"Are you still talking about me, Rini?" A confused-looking Serena asked over my pants for breath. But I caught it just in time to shove Serena through the bush and onto the other side of the street when a neighbor's door flung open and two figures stumbled out...
"HA! RED NINJA!" That voice sounded an awful lot like Amara. But it couldn't be...she was talking WAY too slow to be her. "The grapevine...told us you were comin'! Red Ninja...where'd we hear that one before?"
"Didn't we talk like, three times in the last two weeks?" THAT voice sounded really familiar too, but HE was talking way faster - and louder - than normal. Someone with Logan's exact same figure tumbled out after the woman who sounded like Amara. "I don't remember Red Ninja stuff, unless it was some...metaphor...for you trying to kill me, maybe?"
"I tried telling you their house was just down the street," Diana squeaked at me and Serena. That really was them! But however they tried to brainwash Logan, it must have rebounded on Amara somehow. Michelle was nowhere to be seen - no Shadows either, not that they made a habit of announcing themselves. But the treacherous twosome stooped low enough to work for them before, they were behind this for sure!
"Maybe we should...call Sailor Moon, or something?" Logan suggested. Serena was in half a crouch, like she was trying to decide whether to jump after Logan and drag him to Amy's. I already made up my mind on that...
"I thought-" A sudden fit of hiccupping interrupted Amara. "You were the-anti ninja! You-defend-me!"
"AMARA!" I couldn't take the sight of those two together anymore. Serena tried to pull me back into cover, but Diana pounced down beside me.
"NINJA!" Amara screamed - not pointing at Serena. Pointing at ME. I reached for my Mini Moon Wand, eager to introduce Amara to Super Moon Target - if I could still use it, after turning my back on Pegasus too - but I stopped short of pointing it when she stopped to using Logan as a shield. At least, that's what I thought until...
"Quick!" Logan confused me when he grabbed Amara's wrists. At first, I thought he was giving me a chance to blast her, but he flipped her around so they were back-to-back and he...interlocked his fingers, pointing them up in the air with his hands in the shape of a gun and calling out "Charlie's Angels!"
"O-M-G!" Totally forgetting what was happening right in front of them - and confusing me even more - Amara clasped both of Logan's hands with a dumb smile pasted on her face. "You saw that movie?! I L-O-V-E...that movie!"
"No, but I saw the trailer. And it was EPIC!" This definitely ranked up there with Melvin as the weirdest kind of mind control I'd ever seen. Although it DID remind me of one New Year's Day in Crystal Tokyo, when mom came back to the palace early after calming her nerves with way too much juice. At least that's what she told me when I was five...that it was juice. But Logan way too smart to accept a drink from his almost-killers!
"LOGAN!" A fuming Serena jumped out with her hands planted on her hips, but Amara and Michelle didn't react at all to her red ninja outfit. "I offer to come to your rescue if you're not back in a timely fashion, and I find you like THIS?!"
"I had to stay-" Logan was the next to hiccup. "Serena. I heard there were ninjas! But neither of us thought to pack our own ninja disguise. Serena...has anyone told you that you are THE smartest out of everyone in our group?"
"Aw schucks, don't tell Amy - " Serena might have been slow on the uptake, but even she wasn't gullible enough to think SHE was smarter. "Oh, you're not getting away with that one! I'm wise to your sarcasm now, Mister!"
"Go easy on him, Serena. He's clearly had a bit too much - " My plea was cut short when I noticed Diana looking up at me, waiting patiently for me to explain just what was going on with her sensei. "Juice. Like, you remember feeling woozy after you sampled my glass of OJ, right Diana?"
"Right! I had the BIGGEST tummyache after! The rest of that night's still a blur to me!" Diana chirped. Yeah, something tells me Logan's not gonna remember much about this night either.
"We might have to beat up Amara to get answers about Logan's current state," I grumbled to Serena.
"I don't think she's up for it either," she sighed. "Logan, of all the people to sip juice with the enemy - "
"Yeah, yeah. Stodgy old Charon said that was a bad idea - or I was talking to myself, I dunno. I let him check for poison then told him he could stuff himself in a bottle next to wine as dated as he is," Logan grumbled. Trista's gonna facepalm too when she hears about this, taking drinks from his would-be assassin. Unless maybe...he didn't care whether or not it was poisoned in the moment. And I'd be the one to blame for that...
"Bleh! Quit standing around, making me look like a bad host! Come in, buddy!" Seeing Amara wrap her arm around Logan's shoulder made my skin crawl. My hand wasn't far from my wand the whole time Amara led us back inside their house...
It felt like ages since I last set foot in their fancy place. Well, it had been a couple years, at least. I couldn't avoid comparing it to Raye's Temple when I first came back...they had turned it into such a pigsty! From what Luna told us, the Outer Scouts didn't have a lot of free time in between picking up the slack for the others, and I'm guessing that Plu did a lot of the housekeeping before she took Hotaru with her. Thought number two: a lot of this was recent.
"So Amara..." I got sick to my stomach watching Logan drop his behind on Amara's crummy-looking couch right beside her. And not just because I wouldn't have been surprised if a gazillion rats came scurrying out from between the cushions and under leftover slices of pizza! "What have you been up to since the last time we saw you? Brewing up some magic potion to make anyone your best friend?"
"Hehe...you were right, Logan. Your kid pal's a jealous one!" Oh ewww! Logan talked to Amara about me?! Amara reached for a bottle that was clearly empty, but started chugging it on instinct. "Wizard of Oz just happened to be on when he came on, so later I asked him...who'd win in a fight? Him, or a six-foot-five Lunarian Knight wearing a BIG metal suit with - pauldrons, and a helmet with wings?"
"I'm not following..." I was trying really hard trying to picture all of us hanging out with a titan-sized hunk whose head towered over all of ours. The height difference would be too much for me...though a hulk-sized version of Logan bending down for a hug-it-out with Mina would make a funny picture, though! I wondered, though... "How'd Wizard of Oz give you THAT idea?"
"Because TINMAN!" Amara proclaimed with another swig of air. "Get it?"
"..." Even if I knew Diana had wanted to shout Charon was sure to win, her long wordless stare-off with Serena over 'Tinman' proved I wasn't the only one lost.
Slumping back into her couch, Amara stammered "they teach you ANYTHING in public school anymore?! Somewhere out there, SOMEBODY gets it!"
"Fascinating question," Serena groaned. "But we'd really like to find out how you and Logan became such fast friends. And where's Michelle?"
Michelle gave herself away with a hiccup of her own, appearing behind the kitchen - and a tabletop littered with bottles of different sizes - holding a more elegant-looking curvy glass half-filled with red liquid.
"Oh look, she's got fruit juice!" Diana noticed. If the hiccups were anything to go by, Michelle just gave into "if you can't beat 'em..."
"NOOO! HOW COULD YOU, MICHELLE?!" I think Amara was trying to get off the couch to rip the glass out of Michelle's hand, but she capsized over the couch and landed on her back instead. "You're setting a terrible example for the CHEEL-DRIN!"
Simply watching Amara fumble standing right-side-up as if she was a tipped cow, Michelle just kept frowning and took another sip. "Of course you're right, Amara! How could I be so inconsiderate, thinking about having ONE drink to cope with scrubbing the very couch you're sitting on of two weeks-worth of vomit? And in case you don't remember, the vomit wasn't mine or Logan's."
"I wasn't sitting here, vomiting on the couch for two whole weeks! More like...one-and-a-half!" Amara righted herself back up and dropped herself back down to the couch just as Logan abruptly jumped off it. "I tried the whole 'wallow in self-pity' thing for a while after Serena kicked us out of the group, districting myself with NASCAR on TV. But watching that made me want to go for a drive, and I couldn't because I might bump into...you know who."
So Amara felt guilty about what she did to us, at least. She made me doubt she ever felt bad for anything she did, after last time. If she had learned the first time though, or the time after that, OR the time after that, then Sailor Moon would never have kicked her out. "Maybe it was thinking about the guy who got us kicked out in the first place - no offense, Logan - that gave me the idea to give American soaps a try. But that was even more depressing. How am I supposed to pick a favorite character when the ENTIRE cast looks EXACTLY the same?!"
Droplets of red so-called juice went flying to the other side of the kitchen when Michelle spat out the rest of her drink. "AMARA!"
"Fine, fine, I'm exaggerating a bit!" Amara looked totally oblivious to Logan standing on the other side of the couch, wobbling in the corner. And just as oblivious-looking to what SHE was saying. "There was the red-headed doctor guy. Of course you had to be able to tell HIM from everybody else!"
"And you just called ME a bad example?!" Michelle set her drink down and growled. "And saying that in front of Logan, no less?!"
"That is STEREOTYPING, MichiRU! Just because Logan has the SAME color hair, and the SAME color eyes, and the same kinda-squinty...oh. OH." Amara draped her arm around where Logan used to sit - maybe unaware he was now standing about three feet away from her and leaning on Serena for support. "You know I didn't mean it like THAT, do ya pal? Logan here is my BBBBRRRROOOO! And Darien's OK too, I guess. He's not REALLY American but - I'd have a weak argument if I only had - one example!"
"Is this the longest I haven't said anything?" Logan turned his drunken head over to Serena, who was straining to keep him propped up leaning on her shoulder.
"Mmm...top five, maybe?" Serena answered with half a shrug.
"Don't you make fun of ME, Missy...Moonhead!" Logan slurred. "I might talk more if you asked me what I thought more often! But nobody - NOBODY asks me what I think! You only care about what sober old Charon thinks, and even HE'S barely an on-off consultant!"
"Master Logan, I don't suppose you could tell me how somber old Spymaster Charon thinks my training is coming along?" Diana asked.
I was terrified he might answer that one. Something about Logan always told me he didn't think Diana was the best candidate to take Plu's role guarding the Space-Time Gate. Not that I could see any good reason why she couldn't do it. But Logan just sort of grinned goofily at my kitty friend. And let go of Serena. "You care what I think. I like you. YOU carry me!"
"I don't think that's possible, Logan!" I threw myself over Diana just as Logan dropped himself on top of her. Now I was his crutch instead. Except, as I found out the hard way, even as Sailor Mini Moon...I wasn't strong enough to carry him just yet.
"Tell ya what...Chibi...Bibi Ugaki." I think Logan was talking to me? "Truce if you share a bit of that juice you keep talking about? Um...what was I mad at you for again?" Not that some small part of me didn't want him to forgive me that easily - for however long whatever he actually drank lasted - the ring of Amara and Michelle's bell interrupted whatever this was. Ducking beneath their curtain, Diana leaped to get eyes on our surprise guest...
"It's a girl. She has purple eyes like Hotaru, but with long silver hair!" Diana filled in the deets for us, but seeing Amara and Michelle stare blankly back-and-forth between each other sent Diana pressing her fur back against the glass pane. "Wait, her friend looks familiar!"
Curiosity got the better of me - though better me than Serena - and I sprung up beside Diana for my own peek at the second girl. Around the other girls' age, slightly older maybe though just as pretty, with brown hair that looked like she spent hours trying to iron out the curls this morning and - wait. Oh no...
"STEPHANIE?!"
To Be Continued
Real A/N: It's been such a long time, I don't know how many of you have been waiting for me to get off my arse and post a new chapter already! I just hope nobody missed the "first" author's note and sent me a hate-laced review or note - sorry, I couldn't help myself :P I hope the dream scene wasn't too heavy-handed, but it's been AGES since we last checked in with Stephanie and company, so I thought a little refresher and peek back into her mind would help...Steph's on the opposite side, what little interaction she and Sailor Moon have had so far has been antagonistic and she hasn't had the best introduction to Sailor Moon's other friends, to say the least. That, and dream scene was about the only canon way I could turn Sailor Moon into a cackling villain :P As I'm typing this, I'm trying to picture Terri Hawkes' going "MUAHAHAHAHA!"
If you haven't checked out "The Shadows Beckon" (a prequel I wrote to SoSM while I was racking my brain for ideas for THIS story), seeing Rini's name in bold and italics might have come as a surprise. I wasn't planning on a third perspective, at least not a Sailor Scout, because one of the themes for these stories is that we get an outside point of view. Yeah, we had the show but Sailor Moon and her friends were clearly the focus, and I wanted to move away a bit. Having Rini narrate came down partly to pragmatism: I wrote the scene from Logan's perspective at first, I showed just how he got in this state (and how he became BFFs with his near-assassin...), but the only way seeing Logan narrate perfectly as he's stumbling about in a drunken haze would be if I asked you guys to suspend your disbelief beforehand, and switching to third-person like I did at points in SoSM would feel really jarring (another theme of my stories IS seeing everything through first-person). Writing Rini's narrative in TSB was a lot more fun than I thought and I felt comfortable writing her, so she was a natural choice to give you guys the Sailor Scouts' side of the story :) I know quite a few of you asked for it, and I've also been asked if other Sailor Scouts will narrate:
It's not something I'll rule out entirely, but one big concern I have is splitting the narrative too much: not only is it a lot of work getting several characters' internal thoughts just right and giving them a unique narrative style, it can also get confusing to remember who's telling the story and what one character might know that another one doesn't (like the Inner Scouts have no idea Doctor Tomoe's hanging out under Mugen School of his own free will, they weren't in the scene). I introduced Stephanie for the same reason as Rini, I felt she had something to add to the narrative by showing the opposite side of the fight. I have ideas for other Sailor Scout stories set in the same universe as Logan and the Shadows, but they'd more likely be one-shots or separate stories.
That's it for now! My writing's slowed to the school since I came back to grad school, but it feels good to be back in the game! Hope you enjoyed my latest, and stay tuned!