Act 5:
DINGDONGDINGDONG
DONGDINGDINGDONG
School let out and a rush of girls ran into the sunshine. Trailing behind the rest was a fourteen-year-old girl with long blue hair and pale gray eyes. "Happy birthday to me." she sang softly to herself. "Hey Miz! Wait up!" She turned around and laughed quietly as a boy carrying what looked like a million balloons rushed towards her. "Jay! What's all that for." He rolled his eyes and thrust the balloons into her hand. "You, bakka. It is your birthday today, right?" She nodded and smiled. Jay was her only friend, but could always be counted on to make her feel like she had thirty more friends every time he was around. Right now he was walking backwards in front of her, and it wasn't until too late that she realized he was going to run into something. She cried out, but he was already falling back into the bench, and into an unsuspecting girl's lap. The balloons went flying away, though in the confusion no one noticed. "Gomen ne! I should have been paying more atten." Mizu laughed. Jay never had been good at speaking to girls (other than her) and this girl wasn't making it any easier by staring at him. Then her gaze turned to Mizu, and she saw just why Jay was having trouble. The girl was smiling, but it was a little scary; like seeing a villain from a book smile because you knew they weren't smiling because they liked you. "It's alright. My name's Kaji. You're Virgo aren't you?" Mizu stammered, "Ummm, I'm not quite sure what you mean. My sign of the zodiac is Virgo, but-" Kaji waved away the questions in the teens' eyes and grabbed Mizu, pulling her toward the cemetery. "I need to talk to you now." Another smile, although this one was a bit nicer. "I live right next to the beach with a friend." She called over her shoulder, "Don't worry-she'll be back in an hour or so." They left him standing there all alone. It was the last time anyone saw Jay Moore alive. *** When they reached the ocean, Mizu wrenched her arm out of the older girl's grasp. "What did you mean by 'Virgo?'" Kaji frowned and pulled out a red wand with a strange silver symbol in it. She whispered something and suddenly was surrounded in light. When the light died down, Mizu was standing next to a girl wearing a short red skirt and a silver leotard. "I am Sailor Celestial, and you are Sailor Virgo." Mizu backed away. "Long ago there was a beautiful kingdom on the moon. This age was called the Silver Millennium, and peace reigned throughout the galaxies. Unfortunately, a force called chaos began working to destroy our harmony. It was sealed into the body of a sailor soldier, Galaxia. It began to consume her, and brought evil, like Queen Beryl, Pharoh 90, and Queen Nehelenia to Earth."
"What happened to the moon kingdom?"
Kaji sighed. "Sorry, I forgot to tell that part, didn't I?" Mizu nodded. "The queen of the moon, Selenity, had two daughters, although the rest of the galaxy only knew of one. She was Princess Selenity, who now lives here as a girl named Usagi Tsukino. The moon was attacked, and in a last effort to save her kingdom and daughters, our queen sent everyone to earth to be reborn. Princess Selenity was reborn with the powers to become a senshi so she could fight for earth with her guardians, Sailor Mars, Jupiter, Venus, Mercury, Saturn, Neptune, Pluto, and Uranus. The princess became Sailor Moon, and her love is now Tuxedo Kamen.
"On the other side of the moon lived the second princess of the moon, who wasn't even supposed to exist. She was hidden from the universe in hopes of protecting her. She too had guardians, who never should have existed either. Their names were Sailor Aquarius, Celestial, Virgo, and Aries. She also had two dear friends who served as guardians as well, Sailor Star and Sailor Mirai. These two were perhaps the most powerful of her protectors. All of us would sacrifice ourselves in a second to save our princess. We were sent to earth as well, and now we have to find each other again and search for our princess. Chaos, which Sailor Moon dispelled several years ago, is back, and took the other senshi's powers. We have to be the ones to destroy it and save the world this time. We need you."
Mizu backed up again, shaking her head. "This is a real nice joke and all, but even if it was true-I'm not sacrificing my life for some princess I don't even know. Even you don't know her! Jay was right-I shouldn't have gone with you."
She was about to walk away when Kaji threw something at her. "Keep it. If you get into trouble, say Virgo Make-Up." She smirked, as if enjoying some sort of inside joke. "And if you change your mind, you can come to my apartment since you won't be able to go home for a while." With that, Kaji started to jog back towards an apartment complex. Mizu thought for a second before running back to find Jay. He'd have a field day with this. *** "Hey, listen. I don't have any money with me, so why don't you go talk to someone else," Jay said to the thing standing in front of him. It hissed and lunged toward him. He tried to dodge its attack, but tripped. Before he knew what was happening, it was on top of him, powering up an attack. It ripped his throat out, and he had a vague picture of Mizu running in screaming, but then everything was black, so none of it mattered anymore, because it was quiet. So, so quiet. *** "Virgo Make-UP!" The thing Kaji had tossed to her glowed and surrounded her with a water filled wind. Not waiting for it to die down, she screamed the first thing the popped into her head. "Ice storm!" The water surrounding her froze and shot at the figure getting off of Jay's bloodied form. The thing was quickly encased in a blanket of ice. Sailor Virgo reached up, and found what looked vaguely like a gun. She aimed, fired, and missed. She collapsed saying, "I can't do it."
"Shooting star!" A ball of fire hit the ice, destroying both it and the thing inside. Mizu looked up to see another senshi watching her with a slight smile on her face. This one's smile looked genuine, however it was somehow worse that Kaji's. Miz ran, detransforming as she went and not noticing that the gun she'd dropped had disappeared. She was almost to her house when she realized it. "She was right-I can't go back."
Her path changed abruptly to the beach. Avoiding the more quiet sections of town, she quickly lost herself in crowds. An hour of dodging and looping back, found her in front of a door knocking. Kaji opened it smirking, although that quickly dropped to a more concerned look, and nodded, seeing the girl's state. Mizu followed her in, crying. *** "Gemini, I saw another senshi today. It looked like her boyfriend or something just got killed.I feel kind of sorry for her." She grinned. "But, if the senshi keep showing up like this, I won't need to worry about looking!" *** "Mizu..." She didn't move. "Mizu, you can't sit here and lay around! The school is wondering what happened to you, and-and even more people could die while you're trying to get over him." Kaji's voice softened. "There was nothing you could do. If anything, I should have let you go earlier." The blue-haired girl only shook her head. It had been over a week since she'd collapsed into the apartment crying, but she had yet to move from her spot by the window for more than a few minutes. Kaji watched her a few minutes longer before sighing and walking to the door.
"If you decide to actually get moving, I'll be nearby."
The door shut and Mizu allowed a small smile. 'Kaji's taken such good care of me over the past week; it really isn't fair that she has to deal with other problems too.' "Guess it wasn't that great of a birthday present, was it?" The senshi spun around, but no one was there.
Mizu was already out the door.
*** The scene hadn't changed much, except that the woman was now holding a sword in her hand and preparing to plunge it into Kaji's body. Virgo's transformation was instantaneous-the gun appeared with the fuku, and was fired without a thought of aiming. However, it had the desired effect; the woman whipped around to see the senshi who'd fired it. Scowling, she backed off and disappeared. "Kaji!" The girl smiled up at her savior, taking the offered hand for support while standing. The pair didn't notice the man standing nearby. "Glad to see you caught that one kid. I'd hate to see all my hard work go to waste." Virgo hesitated and glanced behind her, but he was already gone.
***
"Princess, they're awakening and it's time for you to do the same."
*** Virgo removed her tiara and sighed as the now-familiar wind swirled around her, removing the senhi's fuku. She opened her eyes and gasped, seeing a face right in front of her. She caught a glimpse of Jay's long brown hair before it was swept under the coat he was wearing. "Jay..." He winked and walked through her. She winced, then blinked and turned around. The park was empty. "What'd you say?" Miz shook herself slightly. "Nothing. I just thought that." She trailed off. It wouldn't do any good to say she was seeing her best friend. Not when he had already been dead for a week. She searched for a new topic. "Have you found any other senshi?" She glanced at Kaji. Apparently she hadn't, judging by the way her shoulders had slumped.
"No. Really, one could walk by me right now and I wouldn't even know it."
"How did you know I was one then?" This time the older girl looked troubled, and hesitated before answering. "I'm not really sure. I had had a dream. There was this voice telling me that I had to be sitting in that bench at that time, and that I had to take a girl away from there alone." She shrugged. "Somehow I just knew that you were the girl, and that you'd be back." Miz merely nodded, satisfied with this answer and unwilling to add any more to the conversation. Kaji, as if noticing this, continued on her own. "Back on the moon kingdom you were pretty famous with the rest of us. You're something of a psychic already, ya?" She grinned. "But what you've got now is nothing to back then. We'd walk up to you, say 'I lost-' and you'd already be telling us where our necklace or pencil had gone." She slung her arm around the smaller girl's shoulders, pulling her closer. "It was up to me to make sure you weren't swallowed whole by the mobs of" "Six people?" Kaji sighed. "Nah. There were more than that. But you're right. I guess we didn't really have mobs precisely. It was more like.large clusters of five or six." "Who were the other people?" "Hmmm. Well, there were the guardian cats. What were their names? Oh yeah: Luna, Artemis, and Gemini. They were always fun to be around. Luna and Artemis didn't come too often since they were supposed to be helping the queen, but Gemini was completely Star's. Come to think about it, they were kind of hard to separate. Ah well. There was also our messenger dude. He was pretty cool. Don't remember his name though. Every couple weeks he'd come and visit and bring news from the other side of the moon. Last time I saw him was" Suddenly she fell silent and stared at the apartment building before her. "Hey-you're gonna need some new clothes, right? Why don't you take my credit card and shop for a while? It'd probably do some good to get out more. And don't worry about the money. They'll find you if you use yours, and I can always get more." Miz nodded, and after making sure her credit card was in good hands, Kaji jogged towards a closing elevator.
Without Kaji's constant monologues, Mizu was suddenly aware of how quiet everything was. Although there were groups of people all around here, she couldn't hear anything. She glanced around nervously for an explanation. "Miz!" Mizu whipped around, only to meet a crowd of strange faces. The sound of talking once more washed around her as she ran towards the closest store. *** "He's going to get eaten. They've already got a taste." The girl looked over at the stranger. "How can you be here?" she asked, curious as to why another was in her dream. He snickered and continued watching the man surrounded by darkness. "I'm dead. Not a lot you can't do 'cept carry on a decent conversation." She nodded and leaned against him. "You're warm." "That's what your power can do, princess." She backed away, relaxing only once he'd disappeared. In the darkness, Mamouru let loose another scream.
"Kage? Are you all right?" The fourteen year old blinked and backed away from the mirror, the vision already fading from her mind as she raced down the stairs to meet Kari. "Coming!" Kage searched for her friend while running, but didn't see her in time. "Kari-oooph!" Both girls cried out in surprise as Usagi's sister tripped over Minako's. Kage picked herself up carefully then helped up her friend. "Sorry," she mumbled, face red. Kari had a suspicious look on her face. "What?" "I said I'm sorry." Kari grinned and said, "What?" again, a little too innocently. "SORRY!" Kari backed away holding her ear. "I was just asking. Jeez." Kage grinned. "I know that. Hey-do you wanna rent some boats? We could go row row row our boat." Gemini snuck after her charge as in the background, Usagi smiled. It was nice to see how her sister was warming up to Kari so fast. Minako had been worried, but Kage's attitude was cheerful enough to rival her own. It was as if they really were related. 'And this time there's no hypnotism or anything involved.' She thought happily as she too left. *** The two girls were running now, and Gemini was hard pressed to catch up.
"Hey Gemini!" The guardian spun around, only to come face to face with a man wearing a long, dark green trench coat. His eyes twinkled cheekily from behind long chestnut strands of hair. Her fur immediately stood on end as goosebumps washed over her skin.
"Come on, don't be like that. I know you've gotta remember me." Gemini hissed at him, although she didn't yet remember where this sudden dislike for the stranger came from. She almost felt bad seeing the look of disappointment that crossed his face before that infuriating laughter overcame his eyes once more. "I guess even now ya don't forgive me... Oh well." He nodded to himself and started walking away. She fought with herself for a moment before calling after him, but no one was there to answer, and by the time she turned back around, both Kari and Kage had disappeared. ***
Kari was gazing up at the sky umtil someone bumped into her. "Hey!" It wasn't for another moment that she realized she was alone in the boat.
"Kari! Come on-I'll race ya to the other side!" Kari grinned, forgetting all about the incident.
***
"She's not there anymore." Gemini glared at the young man next to her, but the only response was a dramatic sigh as he sat down. He grinned. "Of course, m'lady, you already knew that-didn't you." Overcoming her hatred of the man she nodded and looked curiously at his figure, actually studying him for the first time.(1) "Who are you, and why do I hate you?" His face fell. "You don't remember." It wasn't a question. She waited as he searched for some sign of recognition. "Ah well, you'll remember soon enough. The dark man's coming and all." He smirked and started to walk away. "We're all going to Nebraska. Bring out your dead cuz the dark man's coming." He paused. "Or is it dark lady now?" He shrugged and continued on, singing now. "Wait! Who's the dark lady? What-" A burst of wind surrounded her, whispering in her ear. When she looked back, he was gone. "You've got to choose because she already has. Are you his or not?" The guardian shook the words from her mind and hurried to find Kari.
***
"The dark's all here and we're all drowning in it. All we know's that it's not gonna stop coming until she brings in the light. Are you ready for that?"
"Who are you?" He glanced back over at the girl shivering next to him, rolling his eyes. "Why does everyone ask me that?" He bowed his head, laughing darkly, then looked back up at her. She screamed.
"I don't want you here!" She shuddered and inched away from the souless specter before her. His faceless grin remained, a pulsating power in the dark. "You're different now." His grin only became wider at this. "Stop! I-You were him. From the dreams." He smirked now and stood up. "Of course, but people change, and it helps that I'm dead. All the rotting of my skin..." For a brief instant she saw his true form and cried out, turning away from the horror. "All right, calm down. I'm not here for you yet." He became the man once more, but she could no longer see him, only the rotted flesh from beneath. Seeing this he sighed and started to walk away. "It's different, being dead. You suddenly get back all the jobs, all the duties you shirked during life, saying you didn't know you had them. Start getting ready, princess. They may not know it, but they're gonna be your pretest." She ran to catch up. "Then what does that make you?" she asked coldly. He seemed surprised for a moment, but quickly recovered. "Finally someone in your family's got a spine." "You didn't answer my question." He smirked. "If they're the pretest? Well my dear, I guess that'd make me the final exam." She fell behind, confused, as he vanished past Mamouru, only barely visible through the darkness. Far away, two senshi chuckled.
The man with no face was back. "Are you ready?" "Get out! Leave me alone!" The man slid back to the shadows, leaving the blonde alone in her dreaming. She gazed into the dark for a few minutes longer, searching for a sign of her elder sister's prince, but he was too far gone to see. "Wait any longer and there won't be anything there to see." She screamed and scrambled away, leaving him grinning at her, sparkling with a purple electricity. "I ask again, are you ready?"
1-AHHH! She's checking him out! Ahahahahahahahahaha! *falls over* Everyone else: *sweatdrop*
School let out and a rush of girls ran into the sunshine. Trailing behind the rest was a fourteen-year-old girl with long blue hair and pale gray eyes. "Happy birthday to me." she sang softly to herself. "Hey Miz! Wait up!" She turned around and laughed quietly as a boy carrying what looked like a million balloons rushed towards her. "Jay! What's all that for." He rolled his eyes and thrust the balloons into her hand. "You, bakka. It is your birthday today, right?" She nodded and smiled. Jay was her only friend, but could always be counted on to make her feel like she had thirty more friends every time he was around. Right now he was walking backwards in front of her, and it wasn't until too late that she realized he was going to run into something. She cried out, but he was already falling back into the bench, and into an unsuspecting girl's lap. The balloons went flying away, though in the confusion no one noticed. "Gomen ne! I should have been paying more atten." Mizu laughed. Jay never had been good at speaking to girls (other than her) and this girl wasn't making it any easier by staring at him. Then her gaze turned to Mizu, and she saw just why Jay was having trouble. The girl was smiling, but it was a little scary; like seeing a villain from a book smile because you knew they weren't smiling because they liked you. "It's alright. My name's Kaji. You're Virgo aren't you?" Mizu stammered, "Ummm, I'm not quite sure what you mean. My sign of the zodiac is Virgo, but-" Kaji waved away the questions in the teens' eyes and grabbed Mizu, pulling her toward the cemetery. "I need to talk to you now." Another smile, although this one was a bit nicer. "I live right next to the beach with a friend." She called over her shoulder, "Don't worry-she'll be back in an hour or so." They left him standing there all alone. It was the last time anyone saw Jay Moore alive. *** When they reached the ocean, Mizu wrenched her arm out of the older girl's grasp. "What did you mean by 'Virgo?'" Kaji frowned and pulled out a red wand with a strange silver symbol in it. She whispered something and suddenly was surrounded in light. When the light died down, Mizu was standing next to a girl wearing a short red skirt and a silver leotard. "I am Sailor Celestial, and you are Sailor Virgo." Mizu backed away. "Long ago there was a beautiful kingdom on the moon. This age was called the Silver Millennium, and peace reigned throughout the galaxies. Unfortunately, a force called chaos began working to destroy our harmony. It was sealed into the body of a sailor soldier, Galaxia. It began to consume her, and brought evil, like Queen Beryl, Pharoh 90, and Queen Nehelenia to Earth."
"What happened to the moon kingdom?"
Kaji sighed. "Sorry, I forgot to tell that part, didn't I?" Mizu nodded. "The queen of the moon, Selenity, had two daughters, although the rest of the galaxy only knew of one. She was Princess Selenity, who now lives here as a girl named Usagi Tsukino. The moon was attacked, and in a last effort to save her kingdom and daughters, our queen sent everyone to earth to be reborn. Princess Selenity was reborn with the powers to become a senshi so she could fight for earth with her guardians, Sailor Mars, Jupiter, Venus, Mercury, Saturn, Neptune, Pluto, and Uranus. The princess became Sailor Moon, and her love is now Tuxedo Kamen.
"On the other side of the moon lived the second princess of the moon, who wasn't even supposed to exist. She was hidden from the universe in hopes of protecting her. She too had guardians, who never should have existed either. Their names were Sailor Aquarius, Celestial, Virgo, and Aries. She also had two dear friends who served as guardians as well, Sailor Star and Sailor Mirai. These two were perhaps the most powerful of her protectors. All of us would sacrifice ourselves in a second to save our princess. We were sent to earth as well, and now we have to find each other again and search for our princess. Chaos, which Sailor Moon dispelled several years ago, is back, and took the other senshi's powers. We have to be the ones to destroy it and save the world this time. We need you."
Mizu backed up again, shaking her head. "This is a real nice joke and all, but even if it was true-I'm not sacrificing my life for some princess I don't even know. Even you don't know her! Jay was right-I shouldn't have gone with you."
She was about to walk away when Kaji threw something at her. "Keep it. If you get into trouble, say Virgo Make-Up." She smirked, as if enjoying some sort of inside joke. "And if you change your mind, you can come to my apartment since you won't be able to go home for a while." With that, Kaji started to jog back towards an apartment complex. Mizu thought for a second before running back to find Jay. He'd have a field day with this. *** "Hey, listen. I don't have any money with me, so why don't you go talk to someone else," Jay said to the thing standing in front of him. It hissed and lunged toward him. He tried to dodge its attack, but tripped. Before he knew what was happening, it was on top of him, powering up an attack. It ripped his throat out, and he had a vague picture of Mizu running in screaming, but then everything was black, so none of it mattered anymore, because it was quiet. So, so quiet. *** "Virgo Make-UP!" The thing Kaji had tossed to her glowed and surrounded her with a water filled wind. Not waiting for it to die down, she screamed the first thing the popped into her head. "Ice storm!" The water surrounding her froze and shot at the figure getting off of Jay's bloodied form. The thing was quickly encased in a blanket of ice. Sailor Virgo reached up, and found what looked vaguely like a gun. She aimed, fired, and missed. She collapsed saying, "I can't do it."
"Shooting star!" A ball of fire hit the ice, destroying both it and the thing inside. Mizu looked up to see another senshi watching her with a slight smile on her face. This one's smile looked genuine, however it was somehow worse that Kaji's. Miz ran, detransforming as she went and not noticing that the gun she'd dropped had disappeared. She was almost to her house when she realized it. "She was right-I can't go back."
Her path changed abruptly to the beach. Avoiding the more quiet sections of town, she quickly lost herself in crowds. An hour of dodging and looping back, found her in front of a door knocking. Kaji opened it smirking, although that quickly dropped to a more concerned look, and nodded, seeing the girl's state. Mizu followed her in, crying. *** "Gemini, I saw another senshi today. It looked like her boyfriend or something just got killed.I feel kind of sorry for her." She grinned. "But, if the senshi keep showing up like this, I won't need to worry about looking!" *** "Mizu..." She didn't move. "Mizu, you can't sit here and lay around! The school is wondering what happened to you, and-and even more people could die while you're trying to get over him." Kaji's voice softened. "There was nothing you could do. If anything, I should have let you go earlier." The blue-haired girl only shook her head. It had been over a week since she'd collapsed into the apartment crying, but she had yet to move from her spot by the window for more than a few minutes. Kaji watched her a few minutes longer before sighing and walking to the door.
"If you decide to actually get moving, I'll be nearby."
The door shut and Mizu allowed a small smile. 'Kaji's taken such good care of me over the past week; it really isn't fair that she has to deal with other problems too.' "Guess it wasn't that great of a birthday present, was it?" The senshi spun around, but no one was there.
Mizu was already out the door.
*** The scene hadn't changed much, except that the woman was now holding a sword in her hand and preparing to plunge it into Kaji's body. Virgo's transformation was instantaneous-the gun appeared with the fuku, and was fired without a thought of aiming. However, it had the desired effect; the woman whipped around to see the senshi who'd fired it. Scowling, she backed off and disappeared. "Kaji!" The girl smiled up at her savior, taking the offered hand for support while standing. The pair didn't notice the man standing nearby. "Glad to see you caught that one kid. I'd hate to see all my hard work go to waste." Virgo hesitated and glanced behind her, but he was already gone.
***
"Princess, they're awakening and it's time for you to do the same."
*** Virgo removed her tiara and sighed as the now-familiar wind swirled around her, removing the senhi's fuku. She opened her eyes and gasped, seeing a face right in front of her. She caught a glimpse of Jay's long brown hair before it was swept under the coat he was wearing. "Jay..." He winked and walked through her. She winced, then blinked and turned around. The park was empty. "What'd you say?" Miz shook herself slightly. "Nothing. I just thought that." She trailed off. It wouldn't do any good to say she was seeing her best friend. Not when he had already been dead for a week. She searched for a new topic. "Have you found any other senshi?" She glanced at Kaji. Apparently she hadn't, judging by the way her shoulders had slumped.
"No. Really, one could walk by me right now and I wouldn't even know it."
"How did you know I was one then?" This time the older girl looked troubled, and hesitated before answering. "I'm not really sure. I had had a dream. There was this voice telling me that I had to be sitting in that bench at that time, and that I had to take a girl away from there alone." She shrugged. "Somehow I just knew that you were the girl, and that you'd be back." Miz merely nodded, satisfied with this answer and unwilling to add any more to the conversation. Kaji, as if noticing this, continued on her own. "Back on the moon kingdom you were pretty famous with the rest of us. You're something of a psychic already, ya?" She grinned. "But what you've got now is nothing to back then. We'd walk up to you, say 'I lost-' and you'd already be telling us where our necklace or pencil had gone." She slung her arm around the smaller girl's shoulders, pulling her closer. "It was up to me to make sure you weren't swallowed whole by the mobs of" "Six people?" Kaji sighed. "Nah. There were more than that. But you're right. I guess we didn't really have mobs precisely. It was more like.large clusters of five or six." "Who were the other people?" "Hmmm. Well, there were the guardian cats. What were their names? Oh yeah: Luna, Artemis, and Gemini. They were always fun to be around. Luna and Artemis didn't come too often since they were supposed to be helping the queen, but Gemini was completely Star's. Come to think about it, they were kind of hard to separate. Ah well. There was also our messenger dude. He was pretty cool. Don't remember his name though. Every couple weeks he'd come and visit and bring news from the other side of the moon. Last time I saw him was" Suddenly she fell silent and stared at the apartment building before her. "Hey-you're gonna need some new clothes, right? Why don't you take my credit card and shop for a while? It'd probably do some good to get out more. And don't worry about the money. They'll find you if you use yours, and I can always get more." Miz nodded, and after making sure her credit card was in good hands, Kaji jogged towards a closing elevator.
Without Kaji's constant monologues, Mizu was suddenly aware of how quiet everything was. Although there were groups of people all around here, she couldn't hear anything. She glanced around nervously for an explanation. "Miz!" Mizu whipped around, only to meet a crowd of strange faces. The sound of talking once more washed around her as she ran towards the closest store. *** "He's going to get eaten. They've already got a taste." The girl looked over at the stranger. "How can you be here?" she asked, curious as to why another was in her dream. He snickered and continued watching the man surrounded by darkness. "I'm dead. Not a lot you can't do 'cept carry on a decent conversation." She nodded and leaned against him. "You're warm." "That's what your power can do, princess." She backed away, relaxing only once he'd disappeared. In the darkness, Mamouru let loose another scream.
"Kage? Are you all right?" The fourteen year old blinked and backed away from the mirror, the vision already fading from her mind as she raced down the stairs to meet Kari. "Coming!" Kage searched for her friend while running, but didn't see her in time. "Kari-oooph!" Both girls cried out in surprise as Usagi's sister tripped over Minako's. Kage picked herself up carefully then helped up her friend. "Sorry," she mumbled, face red. Kari had a suspicious look on her face. "What?" "I said I'm sorry." Kari grinned and said, "What?" again, a little too innocently. "SORRY!" Kari backed away holding her ear. "I was just asking. Jeez." Kage grinned. "I know that. Hey-do you wanna rent some boats? We could go row row row our boat." Gemini snuck after her charge as in the background, Usagi smiled. It was nice to see how her sister was warming up to Kari so fast. Minako had been worried, but Kage's attitude was cheerful enough to rival her own. It was as if they really were related. 'And this time there's no hypnotism or anything involved.' She thought happily as she too left. *** The two girls were running now, and Gemini was hard pressed to catch up.
"Hey Gemini!" The guardian spun around, only to come face to face with a man wearing a long, dark green trench coat. His eyes twinkled cheekily from behind long chestnut strands of hair. Her fur immediately stood on end as goosebumps washed over her skin.
"Come on, don't be like that. I know you've gotta remember me." Gemini hissed at him, although she didn't yet remember where this sudden dislike for the stranger came from. She almost felt bad seeing the look of disappointment that crossed his face before that infuriating laughter overcame his eyes once more. "I guess even now ya don't forgive me... Oh well." He nodded to himself and started walking away. She fought with herself for a moment before calling after him, but no one was there to answer, and by the time she turned back around, both Kari and Kage had disappeared. ***
Kari was gazing up at the sky umtil someone bumped into her. "Hey!" It wasn't for another moment that she realized she was alone in the boat.
"Kari! Come on-I'll race ya to the other side!" Kari grinned, forgetting all about the incident.
***
"She's not there anymore." Gemini glared at the young man next to her, but the only response was a dramatic sigh as he sat down. He grinned. "Of course, m'lady, you already knew that-didn't you." Overcoming her hatred of the man she nodded and looked curiously at his figure, actually studying him for the first time.(1) "Who are you, and why do I hate you?" His face fell. "You don't remember." It wasn't a question. She waited as he searched for some sign of recognition. "Ah well, you'll remember soon enough. The dark man's coming and all." He smirked and started to walk away. "We're all going to Nebraska. Bring out your dead cuz the dark man's coming." He paused. "Or is it dark lady now?" He shrugged and continued on, singing now. "Wait! Who's the dark lady? What-" A burst of wind surrounded her, whispering in her ear. When she looked back, he was gone. "You've got to choose because she already has. Are you his or not?" The guardian shook the words from her mind and hurried to find Kari.
***
"The dark's all here and we're all drowning in it. All we know's that it's not gonna stop coming until she brings in the light. Are you ready for that?"
"Who are you?" He glanced back over at the girl shivering next to him, rolling his eyes. "Why does everyone ask me that?" He bowed his head, laughing darkly, then looked back up at her. She screamed.
"I don't want you here!" She shuddered and inched away from the souless specter before her. His faceless grin remained, a pulsating power in the dark. "You're different now." His grin only became wider at this. "Stop! I-You were him. From the dreams." He smirked now and stood up. "Of course, but people change, and it helps that I'm dead. All the rotting of my skin..." For a brief instant she saw his true form and cried out, turning away from the horror. "All right, calm down. I'm not here for you yet." He became the man once more, but she could no longer see him, only the rotted flesh from beneath. Seeing this he sighed and started to walk away. "It's different, being dead. You suddenly get back all the jobs, all the duties you shirked during life, saying you didn't know you had them. Start getting ready, princess. They may not know it, but they're gonna be your pretest." She ran to catch up. "Then what does that make you?" she asked coldly. He seemed surprised for a moment, but quickly recovered. "Finally someone in your family's got a spine." "You didn't answer my question." He smirked. "If they're the pretest? Well my dear, I guess that'd make me the final exam." She fell behind, confused, as he vanished past Mamouru, only barely visible through the darkness. Far away, two senshi chuckled.
The man with no face was back. "Are you ready?" "Get out! Leave me alone!" The man slid back to the shadows, leaving the blonde alone in her dreaming. She gazed into the dark for a few minutes longer, searching for a sign of her elder sister's prince, but he was too far gone to see. "Wait any longer and there won't be anything there to see." She screamed and scrambled away, leaving him grinning at her, sparkling with a purple electricity. "I ask again, are you ready?"
1-AHHH! She's checking him out! Ahahahahahahahahaha! *falls over* Everyone else: *sweatdrop*