Reflections of A Soul, chapter 14
Awakening
black beyond
~'~
Ack! I know! It's been forever! But this extra long and moves things along a bit faster. And I've already got the next chapter and most of the next after that written, and all I may say is that if you forsake me now, you're going to miss something that I'm probably going to Hell for.
Oh, wait, I was headed there anyway... ah, ne...
~'~
"No more." Rei gasped, as the dizzying lights began to swirl again. "No
more." Rei stared at Usagi, searching for the words to convey her horror and
shame, and could find none. Finally:
"What... was that?" She gasped darkly.
Usagi looked at her dispassionatly.
"What's wrong, Martian Princess? A taste of my childhood too much for
you?" Smiling cruelly, she stood up, and for some reason, Rei felt that the
shorter woman towered above her. "That's just a few from my first life. I don't
suppose you'd like to see my second?"
Rei shook her head dumbly.
Usagi sighed, and turned around and stepped onto a field of green grass
and wildflowers, and as she did, Rei gasped as the cold woman was transformed
into a girl of about three, her golden hair up in an adorable odango style and
wearing a cute pink dress. As she spoke, the tones of a mature lady and a solemn
little girl echoed one another.
"I have never been kind. I didn't want you to know what I was, but nothing
ever seems to go the way I want it to. Now you have seen part of who I am. What
are you thinking, friend?"
It was a long time before Rei replied. Her voice was fascinated,
realizing, confused.
"Is it revenge, Usagi? Is that what it is? Do you want revenge against
Morpheus, against those that hurt you? Is that it?"
The small child shook her head. "No, Rei. I can't b driven by revenge. It
was my fault I was taken, my blood. I can't blame them." She sighed, ever so
softly.
Rei stared at her, stunned, a horrible thought forming in her mind.
"Usagi, you don't-- you can't---"
"What?"
"Usagi... do you blame yourself?"
~'~
"God, she needs to cut back on all those cakes." Duo panted, his muscles
straining.
Relena grinned, happy with her spectator position. Duo precariously held
Usagi, while Heero had Rei. It was awkward moving the two, because Rei's hand
was firmly planted against the crescent moon on Usagi's forehead. Not even the
crowbar that Dorothy just happened to have worked.
No one asked why the crowbar was sticky. No one wanted to know.
Heero shrugged. "It could be worse. We could be carrying Dr. J and G
instead of two beautiful whatever-they-ares."
Duo ignored him, growling. "You know, your boyfriend could give us some
help." He commented, as they backed into a corner. "Trying to get these two into
the den isn't easy-- and why the den? They looked happy in the living room
floor!"
Heero eyeballed him. "The little girls with strange hair told us the den.
It is our *mission* to get them into the den." His voice held a slightly
psychotic edge that Duo didn't care to argue with right then.
"Stupid little freaks." He muttered. "Using him against me like that. And
where's Wu?"
"Wu*fei* is helping Noin edit the movie." Heero muttered, his mission-ly
demeanor vanishing, and a sour look stole onto his face. "He said he had some of
his own clips to add."
Duo almost dropped Usagi. He looked at Heero curiously while trying to
watch his feet at the same time. "Didn't figure you two as the type, Hee-kun."
Heero scowled. "Hn."
Duo yelped as Rei suddenly started flailing in Heero's arms, and a foot
caught him in his gut. "Make her stop!" He shouted, as the said foot narrowly
missed the most precious part of his body.
Heero sent his most fierce death glare of slow, painful things at Duo as
he avoided the too-strong limbs himself. How the hell was he supposed to do
that? He was a soldier, not a fucking magician!
Duo was thrown back as Usagi stiffened, and then swung her arm hard,
capturing Rei's wrist. Both girls were still unconscius, and there was something
eeiry in the way it was playing out.
Rei, whose lips were twisted in terror, was against the wall, on hand on
Usagi's forehead and the other in Usagi's pale grasp. Usagi now knelt beside the
raven-haired woman, her brow furrowed.
"God, that is creepy." Duo voiced that Heero had been thinking. "What the
hell are they doing, exactly, that made Tomo-whatever-her-name-is grab Quatre's
new doll and run? And who is Jirasu?"
Heero bent down and poked at Usagi's tense face. "Dunno."
Ayame appeared int the doorway, looking perturbed. "Good. They're in the
den. Thank you."
Duo glared at her. "Why the den? Why not a room that was on the same level
as the living room? Do you want to know how evil it is to be backing down the
stairs with two frozen chicks?"
Ayame rolled her eyes. "The den's the biggest room in the house, and we're
expecting visitors. Eleven of them, if you want exactness."
Heero's eyes widened slightly, thinking of the security risks and hazards
and calculating the short distance they were away from their gundams and the
fact that a tape featuring him in various compromising poisitions was about to
be sold to Treize--
Ayame saw his look, and smiled. "It's okay. These are people you can
trust. They've carried bigger secrets than yours, Heero Yuy. But I wouldn't
point weapons at them... after two thousands years of sleeping, they're not
going to be cheery people." She paused, and giggled. "You'll really have to
watch out for the tall, blonde one."
Duo collapsed backwards into a chair. "One day," he said wistfully. "I
shall find normal people and marvel at the normal-ness of their lives. I have
never met normal people." He eyeballed Heero, who was practicing his death glare
of painful things to come (trademarked) in the mirror on himself.
~'~
The child Usagi froze. She stared at Rei, her eyes cold and hard,
uncomprehending something that she saw deep into Rei's violet pools. She made no
reply, instead she began walking away from Rei, out of the pretty field and
danced onto the fantasy-scape, and changed as she did so, becoming a tall,
graceful warrior with long silver curls and wearing a gown of black silk.
She spun around, facing Rei from the distance.
"A lifetime ago, Rei, I was walking home from school." She said quietly,
her voice carrying to Rei's ears clearly on some unfelt wind. "I was fifteen,
and late for another senshi meeting, so I was running, as usual.
"And, as usual, I went crashing into some poor, innocent pedestrian
carrying an armful of papers."
Rei giggled in spite of herself. The one thing that had always been
constant back in those days was Usagi's ditziness. It had given them all a
laugh in the darkest hours.
Usagi-Serenity smiled bitterly. "I helped her gather them up, and a few
caught my eye." Her lips tightened into a half scowl. "She was a writer, Rei. A
magnificent author. Guess what she wrote?"
Rei raised her eyebrows, wondering what it could have been to make Usagi
like this.
"It was a suicide note. She was maybe seventeen, and she was going to burn
all of her stories and poems and then jump off of a building." Usagi shook her
head. "Remember that day, just before we went to fight Beryl, that I skipped a
meeting?"
Rei thought back. "Yes. I was furious with you! None of us had ever missed
a meeting before, and it was an important one, too..." She trailed off, and
looked stunned. "You were with that girl, weren't you? You helped her."
Usagi Serenity closed her eyes, recoiling as if Rei had just slapped her.
"No. No, I didn't help her, Rei. I ignored her. I helped her put her
papers back in her arms, and I walked away." Her eyes were full of self
loathing. "Two hours later she did a double tuck with a twist into asphalt. I
spent that entire evening on a park bench, thinking about it. I could have
talked to her, I could have said good morning. I could have done something."
Rei bit her lip. "What does this have to do with anything?"
Usagi looked as though she would scream out of frustration. "Don't you get
it?" She was almost yelling. "My whole fucking life has been like that! I care
when I'm not supposed to and I'm cold when I need to be caring. I'm just fucked
up! I've hurt so many people. I let you guys die too many times. I've lost too
many fights!"
"Usagi, you've had it rough--"
Usagi slapped Rei, as hard as she could, sending the Martian reeling into
the ground. "Shut up! Shut up!" She screamed. "You wouldn't have said that, you
wouldn't say that, if you thought I was the golden child! You would have yelled
at me and told me to get my ass in gear and stop feeling sorry for myself. Shut
up! My past has NOTHING to do with ANY of this! This is about ME. Right now.
Right FUCKING NOW. This has to do with kicking two of these voices out of my
head, leaving a sane, normal, happy Usagi. This is about sobering up enough to
rule the world! This is about everything EXCEPT MY PAST."
The child was breathing hard, her fury exploding like a volcano.
Rei was amazed, shocked, surprised, astonished-- and yet she had expected
it, in some strange, uncomprehending way. Her own anger welled up, anger at
herself, anger at Usagi, anger at the Divine forces. "Usagi, you had it rough! I
had it rough! Every single fucking one of us had it rough, alright?" She stated
coolly, glaring at her fellow senshi. "None of us have Perfect Pasts. We are not
Perfect People. We do not do Perfect Things. The same thing that makes us and
humans so alike forces us to make mistakes. But we *learn* from them, Usagi. You
have to forgive yourself, your have to forgive the world, and you have to
forgive the people that make you feel."
The child Usagi looked at Rei, frustrated, confused. "I do not forgive."
She muttered.
Rei matched the look. "You are so stubborn. What happened to you, Usagi?
You always managed to keep it together. Even when you were throwing hysterics
you were calm in some disturbed way. What's happening to you?" She shouted.
"I don't know!" The child screamed back, her image distorting into three
different shapes at once, eerie shadows of the image before it: one of the
princess, one of the torn woman, and one of Usagi, the Usagi who had to live
with the other three inside her. The whole Usagi.
Rei climbed to her feet and picked up the child Usagi by the girl's dress,
shaking her furiously. "Why not?" She whispered. "Why not?"
She never saw it coming. She never expected what happened next.
~'~
Several minutes of precious quiet later, Ayame bounced down the stairs
again, interrupting Heero in the middle of one of his glares. The perfect
soldier promptly began a new one, focusing on the young girl.
Ayame ignored him, and turned to Duo, who was twitching and half-asleep.
"They're here, Duo-oji-san!" She sang, in a little voice, as several pairs
of footsteps were heard on the stairs. Heero snapped to attention, his hand on
his gun. Duo just shoved Ayame away at the precise moment eleven of the most
gorgeous women he had ever seen entered the room, all but four wearing sailor
uniforms like Rei's, only in different colors. Three of the others were dressed,
impossibly, in even scantier black lather attire straight out of an SM porno.
The last was tall and elegant, wearing an kimono type-gown.
"Senshi, meet Duo and Heero." Ayame chirped happily.
The tallest of them, a blonde woman expertly welding a glowing sword,
shoved her way to stare Heero down. "I swear to Zeus that if ONE hair on
Koneko's head is harmed, you are a dead boy. DEAD. D-E-A-D. Rigor Mortis." She
probably would have continued, except the other blonde of the group let out a
small shriek.
"USAGI!" She ran to the silver maiden's side, marveling at the angelic
fairy wing before realizing the true problem.
One of them looked to Duo. "I'm Setsuna, Mr. Maxwell." She said, in a very
quiet, mysterious voice. "How long have they been in Usagi's conscious?"
"Ami, try to scan them." The brunette of the porno stars urged.
Duo watched in fascination. He had fallen asleep on the couch and this was
a really fat wet dream, that was it. Any moment, the red-haired kimono chick
would break out a whip and use it on the one with sea-green hair, and Setsuna
would push the tall brunette against the wall and Usagi would stand up and walk
over to Gutsy-Sword-Chick and then the silver-haired porno star would--
Ami, obviously the blue haired one, pulled a little computer out of
nowhere and started typing away. The tall brunette stepped forward, not-quite
discreetly nudging the taller blonde away.
"Hello, I'm Makoto." She said to Heero, cheerfully as can be. "This is
Haruka." She elbowed the one with the sword. "And she's Minako." She pointed to
the blonde who was whispering to Rei and Usagi's bodies.
"My name is Hotaru." An exotic oriental woman wearing a violet-and-black
senshi fuku and holding a wickedly curved glaive stepped forward. "Which one of
you is descended from me?" She asked.
Ayame pointed to Duo, who was staring at his thousandth great-grandmother
in absolute disappointment.
"I'm related to the hottest chick on the planet." He groaned quietly.
"This is just my luck."
"That's my papa." Hotaru smiled gesturing to Haruka. "And this is my mama,
Michiru." She pointed to the senshi with hair the color of sea foam. "And
Setsuna is my other mama."
"I'm Yaten. This is Taiki and that's Seiya. And this is our princess,
Kayakuu." The silver-haired porno star introduced.
Ayame just grinned. "Heero, be a nice sociopath." She said, seeing the
soldier reach for his gun again. Then, she turned to address the mass of
beautiful women again. "Minna, Usagi and Rei should be returning to
consciousness any moment now. I'll go get Zechs and Relena so you may discuss
your plans."
Haruka looked at Ayame, scornful. "What's there to discuss? I was under
the impression that once we awoke, we started the alliance."
Michiru sighed. "Would you rather have the co-operation of the humans,
love, or would you rather start a war again?"
Ami looked up. "She does have a point, Haruka. If we discuss it over with
some of the more influential people in the world right now, creating the
alliance will be much easier than it was last time."
Hotaru frowned. "What if they refuse? The way you people suggest it, it
*does* sound like a world-wide dictatorship. They rejected the idea two and some
thousand years ago, do you think they'd go for it now?"
"If they're smart they will." Makoto disagreed, her eyes flashing.
"And if they don't?" Hotaru asked, pushing Duo aside so she could sit
down. "Shall we play the "let's go massacre millions of humans because they
don't like us" game? Setsuna, tell them they're crazy."
Setsuna shrugged. "I'd be lying if I did." She looked at her watch and
smiled, and her staff glowed for a slight second.
Hotaru borrowed Heero's look of Painful Things to Come as she eyeballed
her pseudo-mother. "What the hell was that for, you--"
Before Hotaru could impress them with her rather colorful vocabulary, Ami
gasped.
"Look!" She screamed, pointing at the place where Usagi and Rei had
been... and which was now an empty corner.
~'~
Usagi melted into the Usagi she thought she had known best, the Usagi with
the long golden hair. The Usagi that had always had a cheerful smile and a kind
word for everyone around, the klutzy Usagi, the ditzy Usagi, the Usagi who loved
life and beautiful things in a way that Rei had always found irritating and now
understood.
Her best friend, Usagi.
"Usagi-chan?" She ventured, hesitating, for her friend's eyes were closed,
her lips clamped together as if she were in great pain. A choked cough startled
Rei and made her jump to the blonde's side, placed a hand on the girl's back,
concerned. "Are you okay, Usagi? Doushite?"
Usagi erupted into a fit of coughing, so deeply and harshly that a trickle
of blood flew from her lips and stained part of the surrealistic grasses a dark,
deep purple-red.
"Usa, Usagi--" Rei hit her leader's back once, twice, before the coughing
was stopped and more blood had fallen. Gasping deeply, Usagi wiped the blood
from her lips with the back of her hand.
"Fine." She murmured breathlessly, like she was disorientated. Her blue
eyes were clouded with pain, something that frightened Rei. The raven senshi
didn't know why, but the pain in her leader's face really frightened her. She
honestly couldn't remember Usagi showing pain.
Had it really been so long...?
She counted back on her fingers and soon ran out. Yes, it had been a
while. It had been a long while since they'd been in the gundam world.
"Rei, I don't like this." Usagi whispered, sounding pained. "Look around."
Rei did. They were in a small room, but when the change occurred Rei could
not say. It had happened so unremarkably that she'd not even seen it, something
that disturbed her even more.
"Do you know this place?" She inquired quietly.
"Yes."
Rei looked at Usagi for a long time, and then extended her hand. "Up."
When Usagi didn't respond, Rei leaned down, grabbed her friend's arm and jerked
her into a standing position, and then spun the shorter woman to face her.
"Tsukino Usagi, you will listen to me. I'll admit that I thought you were
an absolute loser incapable of walking let alone leading a powerful group of
warriors, and a couple of decades ago I would have jumped at the chance to see
you prove it. But know I know the truth, and you're not going to give up now and
become a pathetic head case.
"You may be completely off your rocker, but goddamnit, if you weren't we
would have all been dead a LONG time ago. And you're not giving up now. So stop
having a nervous breakdown and get us out of your head!"
Usagi looked away, and Rei promptly hauled back and punched her.
~'~
The very second her fist connected with Usagi's shocked jaw, the room
vanished and they both fell, down, down into two feet of snow. The cold wetness
made Rei scream as she landed on top of her blonde friend, who just looked
bewildered as she pushed Rei off and floundered around for a second before
getting her bearings and stood up.
"I don't believe it." She muttered, and Rei managed to stand up as well.
They were both covered in soft, white powder, and she shook it off and turned to
see what Usagi was staring at.
"Hey-- we're back!" Her nose was about four inches from the door of the
cabin. She turned to grin at Usagi. "I should punch you more often."
Usagi's hand shot to her face and tenderly poked at the forming bruise.
"No, thank you. I'm going to talk funny for a week as it is." She laughed a
little. "I'm glad you did, though. I might have never got us out of there."
"Where were we?"
"In an old dream of mine were I'm a rat in a maze dying of poisoning where
they poked nail polish in my eye." She replied matter-of-factly.
Rei raised an eyebrow. "And here I thought I had weird dreams. Why-- oh,
never mind. I'm not asking. I don't think I want to know."
"No, you probably don't. Shh-- do you feel that? The senshi are here. All
of them. Kakayuu, too. Hmm. They're in the basement. And all alive.
Interesting."
"You'd think that Haruka would have killed someone by now." Rei commented,
shaking the snow off of her as best as she could. "Want to go in?"
Usagi shrugged. "I haven't seen Kakayuu in a while. Why not?"
------------------
Aiye, no time for a next chapter! I've got to finish sixteen! Eeek! (I will give you a preview of a coming chapter, however!)
I'm not sure which chapterthis will be yet.
Duo was awake at four in the morning. He went immediately to the courtyard and found Venus and Uranus waiting for him. Usagi was no where in sight.
His pack was of medium size and jet-black leather, double stitched with steel-threaded silk, stuff that would never rip. He wore his usual clothing, a black button-up shit with a priest's collar, riding pants, also black, and his plain black cap. His braid was pinned up under the cap, and once he pulled the cap down low, he was indistinguishable from anything around him. His soft ivory skin was muted by some internal will of his own, and he could have made himself invisible, Venus felt, as she watched him approach.
"I'm glad we're taking him." Uranus muttered. "He'll be invaluable."
The love senshi nodded, agreeing whole-heartedly. She was not eager to run into a place that she was clueless about. The idea was enough to get adrenaline pumping through her veins, the bad sort of adrenaline that made her jittery.
Duo, however, was deathly calm as he crossed the dew-soaked grasses, his hands resolutely in his pockets, his head down. He made no noise as he walked, and his step was as sure as any mountain goat's had ever been. Somehow, ever thought she the relation was ever so distant, he reminded her of Saturn at the warrior's best.
Yes, she was very glad they were taking him.
"Hey. Are you guys ready?" He asked, his voice as calm and quiet as his step.
Venus gave him a V for Victory sign, smiling. "Yeah. I didn't think our subspace pocket where that big, but I've got everything I might need."
Uranus rolled her eyes. "Hoo, boy, does she ever. I tell them both, just the necessities, and you better believe that when I went to look every single item in her room's been cleared out. Even that damn blanket."
Venus looked thoroughly offended. "If you mean my custom-made orange and yellow feather down comforter, then you had better be apologizing, Haruka. And besides, Michiru said you had insisted on taking Pookykins." The senshi of love arched once delicately shaped eyebrow. "Just the necessities, huh?"
Sailor Uranus colored to a nice, ripe eggplant. "POOKYKINS IS A TREASURED-- PRICELESS-- UNREPLACEABLE--" She yelled in her loudest whisper. "HOW DARE YOU FOUL POOKYKINS'S NAME?!"
Duo looked at Uranus, bewildered. "What is a Pookykins?"
"An eleven-foot tall stuffed kangaroo complete with pouch big enough for enough for Uranus to sleep in." Venus supplied an answer. "It's chenille."
Hehe... don't ask....
Awakening
black beyond
~'~
Ack! I know! It's been forever! But this extra long and moves things along a bit faster. And I've already got the next chapter and most of the next after that written, and all I may say is that if you forsake me now, you're going to miss something that I'm probably going to Hell for.
Oh, wait, I was headed there anyway... ah, ne...
~'~
"No more." Rei gasped, as the dizzying lights began to swirl again. "No
more." Rei stared at Usagi, searching for the words to convey her horror and
shame, and could find none. Finally:
"What... was that?" She gasped darkly.
Usagi looked at her dispassionatly.
"What's wrong, Martian Princess? A taste of my childhood too much for
you?" Smiling cruelly, she stood up, and for some reason, Rei felt that the
shorter woman towered above her. "That's just a few from my first life. I don't
suppose you'd like to see my second?"
Rei shook her head dumbly.
Usagi sighed, and turned around and stepped onto a field of green grass
and wildflowers, and as she did, Rei gasped as the cold woman was transformed
into a girl of about three, her golden hair up in an adorable odango style and
wearing a cute pink dress. As she spoke, the tones of a mature lady and a solemn
little girl echoed one another.
"I have never been kind. I didn't want you to know what I was, but nothing
ever seems to go the way I want it to. Now you have seen part of who I am. What
are you thinking, friend?"
It was a long time before Rei replied. Her voice was fascinated,
realizing, confused.
"Is it revenge, Usagi? Is that what it is? Do you want revenge against
Morpheus, against those that hurt you? Is that it?"
The small child shook her head. "No, Rei. I can't b driven by revenge. It
was my fault I was taken, my blood. I can't blame them." She sighed, ever so
softly.
Rei stared at her, stunned, a horrible thought forming in her mind.
"Usagi, you don't-- you can't---"
"What?"
"Usagi... do you blame yourself?"
~'~
"God, she needs to cut back on all those cakes." Duo panted, his muscles
straining.
Relena grinned, happy with her spectator position. Duo precariously held
Usagi, while Heero had Rei. It was awkward moving the two, because Rei's hand
was firmly planted against the crescent moon on Usagi's forehead. Not even the
crowbar that Dorothy just happened to have worked.
No one asked why the crowbar was sticky. No one wanted to know.
Heero shrugged. "It could be worse. We could be carrying Dr. J and G
instead of two beautiful whatever-they-ares."
Duo ignored him, growling. "You know, your boyfriend could give us some
help." He commented, as they backed into a corner. "Trying to get these two into
the den isn't easy-- and why the den? They looked happy in the living room
floor!"
Heero eyeballed him. "The little girls with strange hair told us the den.
It is our *mission* to get them into the den." His voice held a slightly
psychotic edge that Duo didn't care to argue with right then.
"Stupid little freaks." He muttered. "Using him against me like that. And
where's Wu?"
"Wu*fei* is helping Noin edit the movie." Heero muttered, his mission-ly
demeanor vanishing, and a sour look stole onto his face. "He said he had some of
his own clips to add."
Duo almost dropped Usagi. He looked at Heero curiously while trying to
watch his feet at the same time. "Didn't figure you two as the type, Hee-kun."
Heero scowled. "Hn."
Duo yelped as Rei suddenly started flailing in Heero's arms, and a foot
caught him in his gut. "Make her stop!" He shouted, as the said foot narrowly
missed the most precious part of his body.
Heero sent his most fierce death glare of slow, painful things at Duo as
he avoided the too-strong limbs himself. How the hell was he supposed to do
that? He was a soldier, not a fucking magician!
Duo was thrown back as Usagi stiffened, and then swung her arm hard,
capturing Rei's wrist. Both girls were still unconscius, and there was something
eeiry in the way it was playing out.
Rei, whose lips were twisted in terror, was against the wall, on hand on
Usagi's forehead and the other in Usagi's pale grasp. Usagi now knelt beside the
raven-haired woman, her brow furrowed.
"God, that is creepy." Duo voiced that Heero had been thinking. "What the
hell are they doing, exactly, that made Tomo-whatever-her-name-is grab Quatre's
new doll and run? And who is Jirasu?"
Heero bent down and poked at Usagi's tense face. "Dunno."
Ayame appeared int the doorway, looking perturbed. "Good. They're in the
den. Thank you."
Duo glared at her. "Why the den? Why not a room that was on the same level
as the living room? Do you want to know how evil it is to be backing down the
stairs with two frozen chicks?"
Ayame rolled her eyes. "The den's the biggest room in the house, and we're
expecting visitors. Eleven of them, if you want exactness."
Heero's eyes widened slightly, thinking of the security risks and hazards
and calculating the short distance they were away from their gundams and the
fact that a tape featuring him in various compromising poisitions was about to
be sold to Treize--
Ayame saw his look, and smiled. "It's okay. These are people you can
trust. They've carried bigger secrets than yours, Heero Yuy. But I wouldn't
point weapons at them... after two thousands years of sleeping, they're not
going to be cheery people." She paused, and giggled. "You'll really have to
watch out for the tall, blonde one."
Duo collapsed backwards into a chair. "One day," he said wistfully. "I
shall find normal people and marvel at the normal-ness of their lives. I have
never met normal people." He eyeballed Heero, who was practicing his death glare
of painful things to come (trademarked) in the mirror on himself.
~'~
The child Usagi froze. She stared at Rei, her eyes cold and hard,
uncomprehending something that she saw deep into Rei's violet pools. She made no
reply, instead she began walking away from Rei, out of the pretty field and
danced onto the fantasy-scape, and changed as she did so, becoming a tall,
graceful warrior with long silver curls and wearing a gown of black silk.
She spun around, facing Rei from the distance.
"A lifetime ago, Rei, I was walking home from school." She said quietly,
her voice carrying to Rei's ears clearly on some unfelt wind. "I was fifteen,
and late for another senshi meeting, so I was running, as usual.
"And, as usual, I went crashing into some poor, innocent pedestrian
carrying an armful of papers."
Rei giggled in spite of herself. The one thing that had always been
constant back in those days was Usagi's ditziness. It had given them all a
laugh in the darkest hours.
Usagi-Serenity smiled bitterly. "I helped her gather them up, and a few
caught my eye." Her lips tightened into a half scowl. "She was a writer, Rei. A
magnificent author. Guess what she wrote?"
Rei raised her eyebrows, wondering what it could have been to make Usagi
like this.
"It was a suicide note. She was maybe seventeen, and she was going to burn
all of her stories and poems and then jump off of a building." Usagi shook her
head. "Remember that day, just before we went to fight Beryl, that I skipped a
meeting?"
Rei thought back. "Yes. I was furious with you! None of us had ever missed
a meeting before, and it was an important one, too..." She trailed off, and
looked stunned. "You were with that girl, weren't you? You helped her."
Usagi Serenity closed her eyes, recoiling as if Rei had just slapped her.
"No. No, I didn't help her, Rei. I ignored her. I helped her put her
papers back in her arms, and I walked away." Her eyes were full of self
loathing. "Two hours later she did a double tuck with a twist into asphalt. I
spent that entire evening on a park bench, thinking about it. I could have
talked to her, I could have said good morning. I could have done something."
Rei bit her lip. "What does this have to do with anything?"
Usagi looked as though she would scream out of frustration. "Don't you get
it?" She was almost yelling. "My whole fucking life has been like that! I care
when I'm not supposed to and I'm cold when I need to be caring. I'm just fucked
up! I've hurt so many people. I let you guys die too many times. I've lost too
many fights!"
"Usagi, you've had it rough--"
Usagi slapped Rei, as hard as she could, sending the Martian reeling into
the ground. "Shut up! Shut up!" She screamed. "You wouldn't have said that, you
wouldn't say that, if you thought I was the golden child! You would have yelled
at me and told me to get my ass in gear and stop feeling sorry for myself. Shut
up! My past has NOTHING to do with ANY of this! This is about ME. Right now.
Right FUCKING NOW. This has to do with kicking two of these voices out of my
head, leaving a sane, normal, happy Usagi. This is about sobering up enough to
rule the world! This is about everything EXCEPT MY PAST."
The child was breathing hard, her fury exploding like a volcano.
Rei was amazed, shocked, surprised, astonished-- and yet she had expected
it, in some strange, uncomprehending way. Her own anger welled up, anger at
herself, anger at Usagi, anger at the Divine forces. "Usagi, you had it rough! I
had it rough! Every single fucking one of us had it rough, alright?" She stated
coolly, glaring at her fellow senshi. "None of us have Perfect Pasts. We are not
Perfect People. We do not do Perfect Things. The same thing that makes us and
humans so alike forces us to make mistakes. But we *learn* from them, Usagi. You
have to forgive yourself, your have to forgive the world, and you have to
forgive the people that make you feel."
The child Usagi looked at Rei, frustrated, confused. "I do not forgive."
She muttered.
Rei matched the look. "You are so stubborn. What happened to you, Usagi?
You always managed to keep it together. Even when you were throwing hysterics
you were calm in some disturbed way. What's happening to you?" She shouted.
"I don't know!" The child screamed back, her image distorting into three
different shapes at once, eerie shadows of the image before it: one of the
princess, one of the torn woman, and one of Usagi, the Usagi who had to live
with the other three inside her. The whole Usagi.
Rei climbed to her feet and picked up the child Usagi by the girl's dress,
shaking her furiously. "Why not?" She whispered. "Why not?"
She never saw it coming. She never expected what happened next.
~'~
Several minutes of precious quiet later, Ayame bounced down the stairs
again, interrupting Heero in the middle of one of his glares. The perfect
soldier promptly began a new one, focusing on the young girl.
Ayame ignored him, and turned to Duo, who was twitching and half-asleep.
"They're here, Duo-oji-san!" She sang, in a little voice, as several pairs
of footsteps were heard on the stairs. Heero snapped to attention, his hand on
his gun. Duo just shoved Ayame away at the precise moment eleven of the most
gorgeous women he had ever seen entered the room, all but four wearing sailor
uniforms like Rei's, only in different colors. Three of the others were dressed,
impossibly, in even scantier black lather attire straight out of an SM porno.
The last was tall and elegant, wearing an kimono type-gown.
"Senshi, meet Duo and Heero." Ayame chirped happily.
The tallest of them, a blonde woman expertly welding a glowing sword,
shoved her way to stare Heero down. "I swear to Zeus that if ONE hair on
Koneko's head is harmed, you are a dead boy. DEAD. D-E-A-D. Rigor Mortis." She
probably would have continued, except the other blonde of the group let out a
small shriek.
"USAGI!" She ran to the silver maiden's side, marveling at the angelic
fairy wing before realizing the true problem.
One of them looked to Duo. "I'm Setsuna, Mr. Maxwell." She said, in a very
quiet, mysterious voice. "How long have they been in Usagi's conscious?"
"Ami, try to scan them." The brunette of the porno stars urged.
Duo watched in fascination. He had fallen asleep on the couch and this was
a really fat wet dream, that was it. Any moment, the red-haired kimono chick
would break out a whip and use it on the one with sea-green hair, and Setsuna
would push the tall brunette against the wall and Usagi would stand up and walk
over to Gutsy-Sword-Chick and then the silver-haired porno star would--
Ami, obviously the blue haired one, pulled a little computer out of
nowhere and started typing away. The tall brunette stepped forward, not-quite
discreetly nudging the taller blonde away.
"Hello, I'm Makoto." She said to Heero, cheerfully as can be. "This is
Haruka." She elbowed the one with the sword. "And she's Minako." She pointed to
the blonde who was whispering to Rei and Usagi's bodies.
"My name is Hotaru." An exotic oriental woman wearing a violet-and-black
senshi fuku and holding a wickedly curved glaive stepped forward. "Which one of
you is descended from me?" She asked.
Ayame pointed to Duo, who was staring at his thousandth great-grandmother
in absolute disappointment.
"I'm related to the hottest chick on the planet." He groaned quietly.
"This is just my luck."
"That's my papa." Hotaru smiled gesturing to Haruka. "And this is my mama,
Michiru." She pointed to the senshi with hair the color of sea foam. "And
Setsuna is my other mama."
"I'm Yaten. This is Taiki and that's Seiya. And this is our princess,
Kayakuu." The silver-haired porno star introduced.
Ayame just grinned. "Heero, be a nice sociopath." She said, seeing the
soldier reach for his gun again. Then, she turned to address the mass of
beautiful women again. "Minna, Usagi and Rei should be returning to
consciousness any moment now. I'll go get Zechs and Relena so you may discuss
your plans."
Haruka looked at Ayame, scornful. "What's there to discuss? I was under
the impression that once we awoke, we started the alliance."
Michiru sighed. "Would you rather have the co-operation of the humans,
love, or would you rather start a war again?"
Ami looked up. "She does have a point, Haruka. If we discuss it over with
some of the more influential people in the world right now, creating the
alliance will be much easier than it was last time."
Hotaru frowned. "What if they refuse? The way you people suggest it, it
*does* sound like a world-wide dictatorship. They rejected the idea two and some
thousand years ago, do you think they'd go for it now?"
"If they're smart they will." Makoto disagreed, her eyes flashing.
"And if they don't?" Hotaru asked, pushing Duo aside so she could sit
down. "Shall we play the "let's go massacre millions of humans because they
don't like us" game? Setsuna, tell them they're crazy."
Setsuna shrugged. "I'd be lying if I did." She looked at her watch and
smiled, and her staff glowed for a slight second.
Hotaru borrowed Heero's look of Painful Things to Come as she eyeballed
her pseudo-mother. "What the hell was that for, you--"
Before Hotaru could impress them with her rather colorful vocabulary, Ami
gasped.
"Look!" She screamed, pointing at the place where Usagi and Rei had
been... and which was now an empty corner.
~'~
Usagi melted into the Usagi she thought she had known best, the Usagi with
the long golden hair. The Usagi that had always had a cheerful smile and a kind
word for everyone around, the klutzy Usagi, the ditzy Usagi, the Usagi who loved
life and beautiful things in a way that Rei had always found irritating and now
understood.
Her best friend, Usagi.
"Usagi-chan?" She ventured, hesitating, for her friend's eyes were closed,
her lips clamped together as if she were in great pain. A choked cough startled
Rei and made her jump to the blonde's side, placed a hand on the girl's back,
concerned. "Are you okay, Usagi? Doushite?"
Usagi erupted into a fit of coughing, so deeply and harshly that a trickle
of blood flew from her lips and stained part of the surrealistic grasses a dark,
deep purple-red.
"Usa, Usagi--" Rei hit her leader's back once, twice, before the coughing
was stopped and more blood had fallen. Gasping deeply, Usagi wiped the blood
from her lips with the back of her hand.
"Fine." She murmured breathlessly, like she was disorientated. Her blue
eyes were clouded with pain, something that frightened Rei. The raven senshi
didn't know why, but the pain in her leader's face really frightened her. She
honestly couldn't remember Usagi showing pain.
Had it really been so long...?
She counted back on her fingers and soon ran out. Yes, it had been a
while. It had been a long while since they'd been in the gundam world.
"Rei, I don't like this." Usagi whispered, sounding pained. "Look around."
Rei did. They were in a small room, but when the change occurred Rei could
not say. It had happened so unremarkably that she'd not even seen it, something
that disturbed her even more.
"Do you know this place?" She inquired quietly.
"Yes."
Rei looked at Usagi for a long time, and then extended her hand. "Up."
When Usagi didn't respond, Rei leaned down, grabbed her friend's arm and jerked
her into a standing position, and then spun the shorter woman to face her.
"Tsukino Usagi, you will listen to me. I'll admit that I thought you were
an absolute loser incapable of walking let alone leading a powerful group of
warriors, and a couple of decades ago I would have jumped at the chance to see
you prove it. But know I know the truth, and you're not going to give up now and
become a pathetic head case.
"You may be completely off your rocker, but goddamnit, if you weren't we
would have all been dead a LONG time ago. And you're not giving up now. So stop
having a nervous breakdown and get us out of your head!"
Usagi looked away, and Rei promptly hauled back and punched her.
~'~
The very second her fist connected with Usagi's shocked jaw, the room
vanished and they both fell, down, down into two feet of snow. The cold wetness
made Rei scream as she landed on top of her blonde friend, who just looked
bewildered as she pushed Rei off and floundered around for a second before
getting her bearings and stood up.
"I don't believe it." She muttered, and Rei managed to stand up as well.
They were both covered in soft, white powder, and she shook it off and turned to
see what Usagi was staring at.
"Hey-- we're back!" Her nose was about four inches from the door of the
cabin. She turned to grin at Usagi. "I should punch you more often."
Usagi's hand shot to her face and tenderly poked at the forming bruise.
"No, thank you. I'm going to talk funny for a week as it is." She laughed a
little. "I'm glad you did, though. I might have never got us out of there."
"Where were we?"
"In an old dream of mine were I'm a rat in a maze dying of poisoning where
they poked nail polish in my eye." She replied matter-of-factly.
Rei raised an eyebrow. "And here I thought I had weird dreams. Why-- oh,
never mind. I'm not asking. I don't think I want to know."
"No, you probably don't. Shh-- do you feel that? The senshi are here. All
of them. Kakayuu, too. Hmm. They're in the basement. And all alive.
Interesting."
"You'd think that Haruka would have killed someone by now." Rei commented,
shaking the snow off of her as best as she could. "Want to go in?"
Usagi shrugged. "I haven't seen Kakayuu in a while. Why not?"
------------------
Aiye, no time for a next chapter! I've got to finish sixteen! Eeek! (I will give you a preview of a coming chapter, however!)
I'm not sure which chapterthis will be yet.
Duo was awake at four in the morning. He went immediately to the courtyard and found Venus and Uranus waiting for him. Usagi was no where in sight.
His pack was of medium size and jet-black leather, double stitched with steel-threaded silk, stuff that would never rip. He wore his usual clothing, a black button-up shit with a priest's collar, riding pants, also black, and his plain black cap. His braid was pinned up under the cap, and once he pulled the cap down low, he was indistinguishable from anything around him. His soft ivory skin was muted by some internal will of his own, and he could have made himself invisible, Venus felt, as she watched him approach.
"I'm glad we're taking him." Uranus muttered. "He'll be invaluable."
The love senshi nodded, agreeing whole-heartedly. She was not eager to run into a place that she was clueless about. The idea was enough to get adrenaline pumping through her veins, the bad sort of adrenaline that made her jittery.
Duo, however, was deathly calm as he crossed the dew-soaked grasses, his hands resolutely in his pockets, his head down. He made no noise as he walked, and his step was as sure as any mountain goat's had ever been. Somehow, ever thought she the relation was ever so distant, he reminded her of Saturn at the warrior's best.
Yes, she was very glad they were taking him.
"Hey. Are you guys ready?" He asked, his voice as calm and quiet as his step.
Venus gave him a V for Victory sign, smiling. "Yeah. I didn't think our subspace pocket where that big, but I've got everything I might need."
Uranus rolled her eyes. "Hoo, boy, does she ever. I tell them both, just the necessities, and you better believe that when I went to look every single item in her room's been cleared out. Even that damn blanket."
Venus looked thoroughly offended. "If you mean my custom-made orange and yellow feather down comforter, then you had better be apologizing, Haruka. And besides, Michiru said you had insisted on taking Pookykins." The senshi of love arched once delicately shaped eyebrow. "Just the necessities, huh?"
Sailor Uranus colored to a nice, ripe eggplant. "POOKYKINS IS A TREASURED-- PRICELESS-- UNREPLACEABLE--" She yelled in her loudest whisper. "HOW DARE YOU FOUL POOKYKINS'S NAME?!"
Duo looked at Uranus, bewildered. "What is a Pookykins?"
"An eleven-foot tall stuffed kangaroo complete with pouch big enough for enough for Uranus to sleep in." Venus supplied an answer. "It's chenille."
Hehe... don't ask....