Part 6
Uni's Parents
"Uni! Uni, wake up!" said Sammy sadly, cradling Uni in her arms. All the scouts, now back to their normal selves, were at Raye's temple. They rushed there as soon as Uni passed out. All the scouts were circled around Sammy and Uni. Alex was casually leaning against a wall, arms folded across her chest. Her hand was in a cast Raye had made for her, and her wounds were covered with bandages. Her nose had stopped bleeding, so she didn't need a bandage for it. Sammy also had bandages on, and her arm was in a sling, because it was badly sprained. She had Uni in her other arm, hugging her close to her body.
"Uni…" she whispered, her eyes watering. She turned to the four cats, sitting on a pillow. Her eyes narrowed with anger.
"Apollo!" she screamed. He was frightened by the sudden shout, and he lost his balance and fell flat on his back. He quickly scrambled back to his feet. He looked at Sammy with wide eyes.
"What is it, Sammy?" he said softly.
"Isn't there anything you can do?! Don't just sit there, do something for her!"
"Sammy," Artemis said, defending his brother. "There is nothing Apollo or any of us can do right now. Uni has to wake up on her own…" Uni shuddered in Sammy's arms. Sammy gasped and looked down at her, with her mouth slightly open. Then Uni stopped and went limp again.
"Mother…" she mumbled. Sammy looked at Artemis.
"Arty, why does she keep on mumbling about her mother…" Artemis sighed deeply. He stared Sammy in the eyes.
"Sammy…" he said softly, "Uni…she's reliving her past on the Moon Kingdom…through her dreams…" They stared at eachother for a while, then he smiled. "She'll be fine, just give her some time to rest. We can ask her all about it when she wakes up." Artemis put a paw on her leg. "Now, I'm sure that the Sailor Sun Healing Wand can do something about her wounds." Sammy smiled, then reached into her pocket, taking out the wand. She held it above Uni, closing her eyes in concentration. The wand began to glow. Slowly, Uni's wounds began to close, even the big wound the bone had created. When she was done, she put it back in her pocket. She turned to Artemis.
"Someone get me some bandages," she said.
"I'll go get it," said Raye, going into a cabinet and grabbing a roll of cloth bandage. She walked over to Sammy and handed it to her. Sammy took it and began to wrap it around Uni's broken leg.
"Her wounds are healed, but not her leg bone. The wand can't heal broken bones, those gotta heal on their own," she explained, finishing the wrap and hooking the clips on to keep it in place. Artemis nodded.
"That's fine. Good work, Sammy. Maybe you and Alex should use the wands on yourselves?" Alex got off the wall she was leaning on.
"I feel fine. I don't need the wand to heal my wounds…" she said flatly. Sammy sighed.
"Well, I'm not using the wand on myself until Uni wakes up." Artemis nodded again.
"That's fine with me." He looked at Uni, who was breathing heavily. "Now, all we gotta do is wait…"
~~~
The scouts waited for hours, and still, Uni was asleep. She stirred once in a while and mumbled something. All the scouts were asleep, except for Alex and Lita. Lita turned to Alex, who was leaning on the wall once again. Lita smiled.
"You still awake?" Alex turned to her.
"Who can sleep with Serena's snoring?" Lita covered her mouth to stop from laughing. Uni stirred, and the two looked over at her.
"Mommy…daddy…I want…daddy…" she said, then fell silent once again.
"Poor thing…" Lita said.
"Tell me about it," replied Alex. Lita turned to her.
"What's this? You actually pity Uni?" Alex closed her eyes. There was a brief moment of silence, and then Alex broke it.
"That's not what I said," she said coldly. Lita frowned, then turned back to Uni, who was mumbling again.
"So, whatdya think Uni's going through now?" Lita asked.
"Whatdya mean? What do I think she's seeing in her dreams?" Alex questioned. Lita turned to her with a smile.
"Well, yeah."
"All I know is that she's seeing her past in the Moon Kingdom."
"Well, when she wakes up, ya gonna stick around to hear about it?" Alex got off the wall, and sat cross-legged on a red pillow next to Sammy.
"I guess." There was silence again. Lita took a deep breath.
"So, how was your day?"
"What's it look like? I woke up in the middle of the night, scared half to death by that cat, who I thought was a rat, was reminded of my past by Uni, had to fight a youma and ended up with a broken hand and an almost broken nose. Gee, I guess my day's been great, don't ya think?"
"What do ya mean, Uni reminded you of your past." Alex's eyes went wide, then she looked away from Lita.
"Never mind," she said quickly.
"Um, ok," Lita replied. She smiled.
"That youma must have been a pretty tough fighter if he actually got a couple hits off ya. Either that or you're a little rusty…" Alex looked at her angrily.
"RUSTY!" She covered her mouth, and looked at Sammy, who stirred a little, almost awakened by Alex's screaming. "Rusty?!" she whispered harshly. "I did it on purpose! I let the youma get a couple hits off me, cuz it toughens me up!" Lita rolled her eyes back.
"Suuuuuuureeeeeee!" she said sarcastically. Alex folded her arms across her chest and closed her eyes in concentration. "Alex," Lita started, "You don't like Uni that much, do you?"
Not looking up at Lita, she replied, "I like that cat as much as I like Apollo." Lita looked up at the ceiling.
"Well, what I wanna know," she said, and lowered her head back down, looking at Alex seriously, "is who's Cat Guardian Uni is?" Alex let out a small laugh.
"Well, for one thing, she's not mine, that's for sure." Lita got off the wall and sat down next to Alex.
"Well, ya never know," she said. They sat there for a while, silent. Serena's snoring was the only thing that broke the silence. Alex opened one eye and looked over at Serena, who was mumbling something about Darien (as usual!).
"Could you please shut her up?" Alex said irritably. Lita giggled. She looked over at Serena.
"But look at her! I think she's cute when she's asleep…" Lita leaned over to look in Serena's face. "Sleeping like a baby," she said, poking Serena in the shoulder, but her poke was more like a gentle shove, and Serena came tumbling down, hitting her head on the hard floor. Lita and Alex gasped.
Oh great! thought Alex, covering her ears, here she goes! She's gonna wake up and start cryin' like the big baby she is! But Alex was wrong; Serena was still fast asleep. The two let out a huge sigh, then looked at eachother, and started to giggle. Uni began to stir. Alex and Lita looked over at her.
"Mommy? Mommy…where are…you?"
~~~
"Mommy!" screamed Uni, as she backed up against the wall behind her. The shadow with red glowing eyes in front of her inched forward, it's claws extended out, ready to grab her. Uni threw herself down on the floor and covered her head with her paws. The creature's eyes grew redder, as its sharp black claws made their way toward the shivering cat. There was a flash of gray as another cat grabbed the creature's hand with its teeth. The creature roared, as green blood flowed from his hand through the cat's teeth. The creature swung his hand around, trying to get the cat off. After a while, it did, and it flew off the shadowy creature's hand and hit the wall Uni was backing up against with a thud. The cat's body fell to the ground next to Uni. The cat got up slowly to face the creature again. Uni nuzzled up against its warm body. It pushed her off, not taking its eyes off the creature in front of them for a second.
"You have to get out of here!" said the cat, a female, obviously her mother, to Uni.
"But mommy!" Her mother glanced over at her for a second to scold her. "Get out of here! Now!" Looking away from the creature was a mistake, as it lunged at the two cats, straight into the wall. Rocks flew everywhere. Uni was thrown aside, down a steep rock wall. She hit the ground with a thud, and was out cold in a few seconds.
~~~
Uni woke up a while later, still in the same alley she had landed in. Her vision was fuzzy. She got up on her legs, but stumbled. She groaned, and looked at her backleg. It was broken, she could tell, although the bone wasn't sticking through her skin or anything like that. She dragged herself forward, tears spurting from her eyes.
"Mommy!" she cried in a weak voice. Her scream echoed through the barren city. She crawled on, screaming for her mother.
"Mommy!? Mommy! Mo…" her eyes went wide with horror. There, a few feet in front of her, was the body of a gray cat, her mother, blood crusted all over her body. Fresh blood was trickling around the crumbled rocks around her. She had a huge gash in her side. Her guts were spilling out of the side. Some of her insides were scattered around her mangled body. Her tongue was hanging limply out of her opened mouth, and blood was dripping out of her mouth. One of her ears was completely torn off, and there was a big gash coming down from her other ear to her chin, coming right across her eye, which wasn't in the socket anymore. Uni stood there in shock, and then there was a rumbling from behind her, but she didn't care what it was, she just stood there, still in shock at seeing her mother's mutilated body. The creature that had killed her mother flew toward Uni, ready to kill her. Uni, now coming to her senses, turned around to face the monster. She screamed.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
~~~
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" screamed Uni, as she finally woke up. She leapt into the air and landed ontop of Apollo's sleeping body. Apollo woke up and gave a loud yowl. Apollo's yowl mixed with Uni's screaming woke everyone in the temple up. Apollo grabbed Uni, and covered her mouth with his paw.
"Uni!" he screamed. Uni began to calm down. "Uni," he said softer, she finally fell silent. Her eyes were wide open and bloodshot, staring straight into Apollo's blue eyes. "Uni, what's wrong?" he asked calmly, taking his paw off her mouth. Uni stared at him for a while, then broke down in tears. She cried for a while, and when Sammy was finally all the way awake, she crawled over to her and scooped her up in her arms. Uni cried for about five minutes then began to calm down, only sobbing once in a while. Sammy set her down on a pillow as soon as she calmed down all the way. Sammy smiled at her, stroking her soft head.
"Did ya have a bad dream? What did you see, Uni?" Uni looked into Sammy's caring eyes, then took a deep breath, and began her story.
"I saw it all, my childhood with my parents…" Everyone gasped. Artemis walked up to her and put a paw on her shoulder.
"Tell us all about it, Uni…" She looked into his eyes, then looked away, taking a deep breath.
"My mother's name was Star. She and I lived in the slums of the Moon Kingdom, together with my brother, Nemo. My brother and I were playing one day, when we were attacked by something, a huge shadow with red glowing eyes…" Tears began to form in her eyes, and she tried hard to hold them back. She closed her eyes and bowed her head.
"I escaped from the creature, but Nemo…" she sniffed, and shook her head. "I'm sorry…"
"It's ok, Uni. We know how hard this must be for you, but you must tell us about it. Maybe one of us will be able to help you remember who you were if we knew about your parents…" Apollo said to her. She looked at him and smiled.
"All right, I'll try." She took another deep breath, and continued.
"I went to my mother and told her what happened. We searched everywhere, but he was nowhere to be found…I never saw him again…" She wiped her eyes with her right paw, and sniffled.
"My mother loved me and my brother very much. It broke our hearts when Nemo never turned up." Apollo looked at everyone.
"Does anyone remember who Nemo is?" Everyone shook their head, except for Alex, of course, who wasn't willing to participate.
"No, I don't remember a cat named Nemo."
"The name doesn't ring a bell."
"Never heard of him…"
"Ok, Uni," Apollo said, turning back to her. "Go on," Uni nodded, and went on with her story.
"One day, I asked my mother who my father was and where he was all the time. She told me that my father was killed long ago, before I was born. Other cats, my mom's friends, told me that my father was selfish and irresponsible, and that he left my mother when he heard that she was going to have kittens. I never believed them. I never met my father, but my mom said that his name was Comet…and that she loved him very much…"
"Anyone know who Star or Comet were?" Everyone said no.
"Keep going, Uni…"
"When I was five, the shadow came to me again, trying to kill me. My mom tried to stop it, and told me to leave and go where it was safe, but I didn't want to leave her, because she was all I had in the world. The creature lunged at us, and I fell to the side and down the building. I was unconscious for hours, and when I woke up, my leg was broken. It was hard to get around, but I did find my mom…" Uni closed her eyes. "She…was…" Then she broke down again, throwing herself down on the pillow. Apollo put a paw on her shoulder. He looked at everyone. They were all trying to hold back the tears that were forming in their eyes. Apollo looked at Uni once she started to calm down.
"Is that it, Uni?" Uni looked at him, and nodded.
"The rest is unimportant family matters and days with my brother…"
"Can you tell us more about your brother?" She stared off ahead of her, looking at nothing in particular. She concentrated for a while, then looked back at Apollo.
"Only that he had black fur…and an upside-down gray crescent moon on his forehead…" Apollo said nothing, and looked over at his brother, Artemis. Artemis looked over at everyone.
"All right, people, this meeting is over," he declared.
"It's about time," Alex said coldly.
"Alex!" Sammy said, looking at her sternly. "How can you be so cold? Don't you feel sorry for Uni a little?"
"I don't feel sorry for anyone." She turned around and made her way out the door. Sammy sighed.
"Come on, Uni. Let's go home. I'll make you a bowl of Cheerios." Uni looked up at Sammy with a smile.
"Thank you, Sammy!"
"Don't mention it," she said, watching Alex, hands in her pockets, strolling down the stairs casually. "It's the least I can do…" She got up and scooped up Uni and Apollo. "Now come on, you two! We better hurry up, or Alex'll have a fit!"
~~~End of Part 6
AUTHOR'S NOTE: So, how do you like how I explained what Uni's mother's body looked like after the attack. I'm sorry to the little kids who read this and were scared. Please don't tell your parents about how scary it was. I don't wanna be sued or anything…