AUTHOR'S NOTE: Naoko Takeuchi created Sailor Moon, and I didn't. This is just my latest reboot of my alternate universe Sailor Moon fanfiction.
SAILOR MOON: A HERO FOR THE 1980S
CHAPTER 1: A CAT, A BROOCH, A BLONDE, AND THE POWER OF THE MOON
TUESDAY, 26 AUGUST, 1986
EL DORADO HIGH SCHOOL, PLACENTIA, CALIFORNIA
12:25 PM
"And here we are, ready for another glorious year here at El Dorado High," Chris Forney said, as he pulled his 1971 Dodge Hemi 'Cuda into the spot next to where Jerry Logue parked his 1974 Harley-Davidson 350SS.
"Looks like it's gonna be a good year," Jerry said, as he and Chris went to get their schedules, outside and gym locker assignments, and parking passes for the upcoming school year.
Meanwhile, at the office, Usagi Campbell and Molly Hogan are getting their schedules and locker assignments. "So we have any classes together this year?" Molly asked, showing Usagi her schedule.
"Just US history," Usagi said.
A couple minutes later, Jerry and Chris went to get their schedules and locker assignments, and ran into Usagi and Molly. "How was your summer?" Usagi asked Jerry, giving him a friendly hug.
"Not too bad," Jerry said. "Pretty much spent the whole summer at my mom's house in La Habra. Not too much to write home about, I made some money as a bus boy at my aunt's restaurant, went to both Disneyland and Knott's Berry Farm, that's pretty much it. There is one other thing, though. I met a girl."
"Nice," Usagi said.
Later that afternoon, as Usagi was walking home, as she was cutting through Tuffree Park, she heard a cat screech. She turned towards the sound, and she saw several young boys mistreating a black cat. "Leave that cat alone, you little twerps!" Usagi said, chasing the boys off.
"Please don't tell my mom," one of the boys said, recognizing Usagi.
"Hope those little juvenile delinquents didn't hurt you," Usagi said, picking up the cat to see if it was okay. As she did, she saw the cat clawing at a bandage on its forehead, in an unsuccessful attempt to remove said bandage. "I'll get that for you," Usagi said. "It might hurt a little, kitty." Usagi removed the bandage, and noticed a gold colored bald spot on the cat's forehead, in the shape of a crescent moon. "That's strange," Usagi said, as the cat leaped out of her arms, and into a nearby tree."
After seeing the boys mistreating a cat, Usagi wasn't in the best mood when she got home. "I'm home," she said.
"You don't seem like your normal chipper self," Irene Campbell, Usagi's mom, said.
"Something happened on my way home from getting my schedule," Usagi said.
"What happened?" Irene asked.
"Saw some boys mistreating a cat in Tuffree Park," Usagi said. "One of them was your friend Joyce's son, Charlie."
"You sure it was him?" Irene asked.
"Definitely," Usagi said. "When he saw me, he told me not to tell his mom."
"You don't have to worry about telling his mom," Irene said. "I'll tell her for you."
Half an hour later, Usagi was in her bedroom, having just painted her toenails, and got the feeling she wasn't alone in the room. She thought at first it was her younger brother Sam, but she remembered he hated the smell of nail polish, and would never go into her room while she was doing her nails. Then again, her bedroom window was open, and Usagi knew she didn't open the window, as her mother had the air conditioner on. "I don't know who's there," Usagi said, grabbing her baseball bat out of the closet, "but I find it only fair to warn you I have a Louisville Slugger and PMS right now."
"I'm glad to see you have that much spirit, Usagi Alison Campbell," a voice from somewhere in the room said.
"Who the hell are you and how do you know my name?" Usagi asked, assuming a death grip on the bat she was holding.
"Please put the bat down and look on your bed," the voice said, "I'll answer all your questions."
"Might as well," Usagi said. "Something tells me the only way this will make any sense is to do whatever the voice in my head tells me to do." She put the bat down, and looked on her bed, only to see a black cat sitting there. "No fucking way," she said, when she saw the cat.
"Is something wrong?" the cat asked.
"You mean, except for the talking cat on my bed?" Usagi asked.
"You say that like it's a bad thing that I can speak," the cat said.
"It's not a bad thing," Usagi said. "It's just that cats don't speak, they just go meow. I know, this is just a hallucination, brought on by that brownie my mom put in my lunch today. I just know she got them at the Alice B. Toklas bakery."
"Exactly what are you talking about?" the cat asked. "I don't see how brownies cause hallucinations, and I have no idea what this Alice B. Toklas person has to do with it."
"She's known for making brownies containing a particular herb," Usagi said. "Let's just say some people call this particular herb Mary Jane."
"I see," the cat said. "But let me assure you that I am not a hallucination caused by recreational drug use."
"Then I must be dreaming," Usagi said. "Anyways, why don't you be a good little pussycat and tell me your name, so I can tell my friends about this crazy dream once I wake up."
"How rude of me," the cat said. "My name is Luna."
'They call you that because of the crescent moon on your forehead?" Usagi asked. "Come to think of it, there aren't that many black cats in Placentia that have crescent moons on their foreheads. In fact, the only one I've ever seen is..."
"Yes, I'm the cat you saved from those little hooligans today," Luna said. "And I would like to thank you for that. That, and for removing the bandage from my forehead. With my moon covered, I wasn't able to speak, or use any of my other special powers. When you removed it, I saw that you were the one I was looking for. You're the one who's going to defeat the evil Metallia."
"Okay, Kill 'em All, Ride the Lightning, and Master of Puppets may be noise pollution," Usagi said, "but I wouldn't exactly call Metallica evil."
"Not Metallica," Luna said. "Metallia. She's an evil empress who's trying to take over the universe."
"And how exactly am I supposed to defeat her?" Usagi asked.
"With this," Luna said, giving Usagi a gold brooch with a red stone in the center. "Now put the brooch on and repeat after me. Pretty Soldier of the Moon, Make-Up!"
"Might as well do as the nice kitty says," Usagi said, puitting the brooch on. "I have a feeling this is the only way any of this is going to make a lick of sense. Pretty Soldier of the Moon, Make-Up!"
The next thing Usagi knew, she had transformed. She was now wearing a skintight white shirt with long blue sleeves and a blue sailor collar, blue fingerless gloves, red wristbands, red boxing boots with blue laces, blue bicycle shorts with red bands at the hem, a blue choker, gold tiara with silver crescent moon, and the buns in her hair were covered with red and white caps, while the French manicure she had on her fingernails had transformed into red polish. "Congratulations," Luna said. "You've now accepted your destiny, and you will now be the superhero known as Sailor Suit Wearing Warrior Princess of the Moon."
"I don't really like that name," Usagi said. "It's long, and too much of a mouthful."
"You think you can come up with something better?" Luna asked.
"I got it!" Usagi said, after a minute. "Sailor Moon."
"How did you come up with that?" Luna asked.
"I took the name you gave me," Usagi said. "I took the first and last words, and got rid of everything in between. I figured that Sailor Moon has the 3 main qualities a good superhero name needs."
"And what are those?" Luna asked.
"It's short, memorable, and fits neatly on a newspaper headline," Usagi said.
"Now that you mention it," Luna said, "I like that name. From now on, you'll be known as Sailor Moon."
"I need one other thing," Sailor Moon said.
"And what's that?" Luna asked.
"A mask," Sailor Moon said.
"Why do you need a mask?" Luna asked.
"Isn't it obvious?" Sailor Moon asked. "If I'm going to be a superhero, I need something to protect my secret identity. I don't know if you read comic books, but if you do, you'll notice a lot of heroes wear masks to protect their secret identities. And while we're at it, I need some gloves that cover my fingers, as well."
"Why do you need gloves?" Luna asked.
"Same reason I need a mask," Sailor Moon said. "To hide my identity."
"How will gloves protect your identity?" Luna asked.
"That way,I don't leave fingerprints everywhere," Sailor Moon said.
"You don't have to worry about that," Luna said. "One of your powers is whenever you transform into Sailor Moon, you're surrounded by an aura that protects your secret identity. It obscures your face, distorts your voice, and prevents you from leaving fingerprints. And if you were to lose anything that contains your DNA, such as hair or skin fibers, any bodily fluids, teeth, or anything else, your aura will filter out enough of your DNA so they can't use it to identify you. Trust me, when you're transformed, you could stand in front of your own mother, and she won't recognize you. The only way anyone can recognize you is if they know that you're Sailor Moon."
"So I'll be fighting this Metallia character by myself?" Sailor Moon asked.
"Not exactly," Luna said. "You will have allies, it's just a matter of finding them.
"Today has gone from zero to completely batshit crazy in about 2.1 seconds," Sailor Moon said.
"Why do you say that?" Luna asked.
"This morning, I was just a normal teenage girl from Placentia, California," Sailor Moon said. "I got up, ate breakfast, brushed my teeth, and went to school, thinking today was going to be a normal, boring day where nothing happens out of the unusual. I go to school, after school, I come home, and since I don't have any homework, I paint my toenails."
"That doesn't sound all that unusual," Luna said. "That sounds like a normal day for an American teenage girl."
"That's because it is a normal day for an American teenage girl," Sailor Moon said. "I haven't gotten to the best part yet. You know, the part where it gets weird. The part where a talking cat breaks into my bedroom and gives me superpowers, and to go along with it, a costume that looks vaguely like something you'd see in a Japanese comic book."
"I don't have time for you to be freaking out about this," Luna said.
"I'm sorry," Sailor Moon said, "but just the fact I'm having a conversation with a cat gives me a Constitutional right to be a little freaked out right now."
"Do you think you can be serious for a moment here?" Luna asked.
"Let's just pretend for one second that getting superpowers from a talking cat isn't something that happens to teenage girls on a regular basis," Sailor Moon said. "I seriously need to wrap my head around what just happened for a bit. I swear, it would be a lot easier if I had just gotten knocked up."
"Knocked up?" Luna asked.
"It means getting pregnant," Sailor Moon said. "It's not like every girl gets pregnant at 16, but at least it's something I can deal with."
Meanwhile, Luna perked up for a second. "Quiet," she said. "Something wrong"
"I hear something, too," Sailor Moon said. "From what I can tell, it's downtown. But how can I hear something going on?"
"That's something I'll explain another time," Luna said. "Anyways, I'll teleport you there."
They teleported to nearby Tri City Park, where a demon was holding a jogger up by the throat. "Give your energy to Queen Metallia," the demon said.
"Leave that jogger alone!" Sailor Moon said.
"And who the hell are you?" the demon asked.
"I am the Sailor Suited Soldier who fights for Love and Justice!" Sailor Moon said, making several battle poses as she spoke. "I am Sailor Moon, and in the name of the Moon, I'll punish you!"
"Sailor Moon," the demon said. "Never heard of you. But I'll make sure they carve that on your tombstone."
"I don't think so," Sailor Moon said, as she got a running start, and launched a flying kick at the demon. "Sailor Moon Kick!" she said, kicking the demon. While her kick barely grazed the demon's face, she managed to open a small cut, which began bleeding.
The demon dropped the jogger it was holding, and touched its cheek, where Sailor Moon's kick hit it. It then looked at its fingerprints, and saw the blood. "You're going to pay for this," the demon said, splitting into 4 copies of itself.
"Now there's 4 of them," Sailor Moon said. "And I thought fighting just one would be hard enough."
As Sailor Moon began to engage the demons in battle, a figure, obviously male, leaped down from the trees. He was wearing a yellow sleeveless kekogi over a long sleeved hooded black T-shirt, black gloves and wristbands, yellow karate pants tucked into black jika-tabi boots, a black web belt with several pouches, and a black ninja mask that covered his whole face, save for holes for his eyes. He also had a olden wooden rod, about a foot long, strapped to the side of his right boot. "This a private dance, or is it okay for me to cut in?" the figure asked.
"Since I'm gonna need all the help I can get," Sailor Moon said, "go ahead and cut in."
"Thanks," the figure said, grabbing the rod from where he had it strapped to his leg, and extending it into a 6' long staff. He twirled the staff around, and a small ax blade emerged from one end. He began attacking the demons as they charged him. For every demon he destroyed, 2 more quickly took its place. "This isn't working," he said. "I think we're gonna have to destroy the main demon."
"How do I do that?" Sailor Moon asked.
"Say "Moon Tiara Boomerang!" and throw your tiara at the main demon," Luna said.
"I hope this works," Sailor Moon said, taking her tiara off. "Moon Tiara, Boomerang!" she said, throwing her tiara at the main demon, As her tiara hit it, the demon was destroyed, also destroying the other demons the male in the yellow and black ninja costume as fighting.
"That seemed to do it," the masked ninja said.
"Sure did," Sailor Moon said. "Looks like you and I make a pretty good team.'
"I say," the masked ninja said. "If I was interested in teaming up, that is."
"You don't want to team up?" Sailor Moon asked.
"Whatever we just fought," the masked ninja said, "that looks like your battle. I just happened to show up right before you did, and since you weren't the one attacking joggers, I figured you were the good guy."
"Anyways," Sailor Moon said, "I'm Sailor Moon."
"And you can call me Golden Hawk," Golden Hawk said, grabbing a small pellet from a pouch on his belt, and tossing it to the ground. He was surrounded by gold smoke, and when the smoke cleared, he was gone.
A few minutes later, Sailor Moon returned to her bedroom, and had transformed back into Usagi Campbell. "Looks like we've already found one of those allies of mine you were talking about," she said.
"Yes and no," Luna said.
"Make up your mind," Usagi said. "Is Golden Hawk one of my allies, or isn't he?"
"He's not one of the allies I'm searching for," Luna said, "but my gut tells me he's going to prove a valuable ally to you in the long run."
À SUIVRE...
IN OUR NEXT CHAPTER: Usagi meets the new girl in town, while Sailor Moon finds the first of her fellow Sailor Soldiers. Join us for chapter 2:
FROM THE EMERALD CITY, THE SAILOR SOLDIER OF WISDOM