"Usagi!" Gohan muttered, Usagi. The word meant alot to him, friendship, happiness, and most important of all, a companion. And now when he said that word, it seemed hollow, empty, the light that always surrounded her had disappeared from her name too. And when Gohan tried to sense her power, he felt nothing again. And nothingness was a killer, a heartbreaker. Gohan rapped his knuckles on the table and tried to concentrate, he was doing his Pre-Calculus, like Kami had suggested. But the formula was gone, it too had erased itself from his mind. He tried to recall it, but it was all in vain. There was nothing left to do. Summoning what sanity he had left, he got up, and walked to the room where his father and Piccolo had stayed in for more than an hour. He knocked, exhaling some of his worries.
"Yes?" came the worried voice of his father.
"Dad," Gohan asked.
"Gohan….come in."
Gohan, turned the handle, wondering how simple the mechanism worked, nothing like how he felt right now. The door keeled forwards, and Gohan stepped in. His father looked weary, even slightly old, and Piccolo if anything, looked much worse. They were huddled at a table in the center of the room. Crumpled papers littered the floor, and blank sheets were lying askew on the table, both of the fighters had pens in their hands, trying desperately to come up with a plan.
"Gohan, come help us," Goku said, beckoning his son to sit at a third chair.
Gohan nodded and took the chair, "Dad, will we get Mom back?"
For once Goku couldn't come up with a straight answer, he averted his eyes from his young son. "I-I don't know," grief truly was a killer. He saw Piccolo with the same look on his face.
"I understand, do you know when Forballa will meet us? I'm ready to fight if you are Dad."
"Gohan look," Goku pulled Gohan closer and looked up at his proud son. "I don't want you in that battle, I don't want to lose you too alright?"
"But!"
"Gohan," Piccolo said in his gruff voice.
With that said, Goku stood up and left, he said no words of comfort, no pain relievers, he just left. With a grim expression on his face, Piccolo held Gohan back. And then in turn, went with Goku, the other Z fighters coming as well.
"Daddy…"
Usagi was frantically walking around, it had been three hours, and not a crack, hatch or even a vent. She levitated upwards, wondering if she should just blow the ship to pieces, and kill Forballa while she was at it. But she doubted it would do any good, he probably wasn't even on the lone vessel. Suddenly a clunking noise alerted her senses.
"Hey kid," a gruff voice intervened from behind the bars. "C'mere."
"Why?" Usagi answered rebelliously.
"'Cause I got that lady person that you were with when we got yer."
"ChiChi! Let me see her!" Usagi ran towards the bars. There in a guards hands was the unconscious form of Goku's wife. Usagi scrambled against the bars.
"Hold it kid!" The guard roared. He pulled some glowing gold manacles from his pocket, "stretch out yer hands if you want ter see her alive."
Usagi gulped then pushed her arms through the bars. She kept quiet as a tickling sensation creeped up her arms. Suddenly, the chains disappeared, and instead became single golden bands around her arms, a glowing light in between them. She felt something on her neck, and found that it too supported a gold choker. The bars in front of her disappeared and Usagi dashed towards her good friend.
But a pain at her throat stopped her, the choker, it was cutting off the oxygen flow. Dammit! Usagi swore to herself, she knew something would be wrong. She coughed, and tugged at the gold band. She realized it wasn't choking her it was just glowing, and pain radiated through her body.
Forballa appeared before her, "how do you like my device?" he snickered, and dismissed the guard, who pt ChiChi down gently. He raised his hand and the pain stopped as instantly as it had come.
Usagi coughed a few times, ridding herself of the sensation, she looked up, her blue eyes boring through his flesh. They had a look of deep sadness in them, like an cold blue iceburg lost in a sea of white, alone desolate, and blazing with rage. Usagi lunged forwards, anger flowing from an unknown source inside of her she tackled Forballa onto the ground, and started a flurry of punches.
Forballa was shocked, Usagi seemed almost harmless, not capable of such an onslaught, with extreme difficulty he raised his hand, and Usagi backed away, the bands glowing once again. The bands at her wrists were supposed to act as handcuffs, pulling her arms together, apparently they hadn't served their purpose, because Usagi had beaten him regardless. He got up, wiping more blood from his cut lip. He stared at her bitterly, and levitated ChiChi away from Usagi. "Follow me if you want her to live," Forballa said as he led her down the halls.
Usagi coughed again, the pain was becoming unbearable, "stop," she rasped. Forballa paid her no attention, knowing she couldn't take it any longer, Usagi keeled forwards onto her knees, her eyes became misty and unfocused, then she slid forwards onto the ground.
Usagi awoke, her throat was still aching but she felt much better than before, she stood up, but her manacles clung even closer together, and she just fell down again, she felt totally drained. She levitated herself up, and found herself in a pitch dark room, the only light came from a lamp shining directly onto her. She was about to move out of the blinding light, when she felt herself dissapear, she gave a small shriek, but was nevertheless helpless. An odd sensation spread through her and she found herself somewhere else.
She was on another world, it was flat and dark everywhere. A mist hung over the land, and then the sun came up, making it disappear. It was completely flat and barren, nothing grew, and there were no rocks or mountains.
"Usagi," said Forballa appearing again in front of her, Piccolo was being levitated behind him, with an odd green aura. He couldn't move at all.
"Piccolo!" Usagi yelled and rushed forwards, the pain again started at her neck. "Piccolo!" she yelled again, and concentrated all her power on freeing him. Her head spun with dizziness, she felt faint and cold. Her mind was racing, the blood pounding extra hard, she shut her eyes, trying to whisk the pain away. Think of Maniki! She thought and gritted her teeth, her vision began to spin, and darken. Piccolo and Forballa swirled in front of her eyes. Suddenly she heard a whirring noise in her head, Piccolo began to reappear, and the colors started to return. With a yell the pain completely disappeared, she opened her blue eyes, and lunged forward, her fist at ready. Suddenly Forballa disappeared, and reappeared behind her.
"Sorry brat, I'm not here to fight you," he grinned. Something rumbled beneath Usagi's feet, green vines lept up, tugging at her arms and legs. The twelve year old girl struggled, but soon she was restrained. Piccolo's green aura dropped, and he fell to the floor.
"Piccolo!" Usagi screamed.
"Hey Rabbit, don't move okay, let them take me, you gotta save Goku and the rest," Piccolo said seriously.
"But Piccolo," Usagi asked in confusion.
"Usagi!" he snapped.
Shadows were flitting around the land, chuckling in high pitched squeaks. A look of fear crossed Piccolo's eyes. He glanced nervously towards them. "Usagi listen, I'm going to revive the moon, wait until I'm gone, then look at it."
"Why?"
"Usagi!" Piccolo said. He began summoning up power, his level rocketed past half a million, growing with amazing speed. He continued roaring, and Usagi felt a fault reopen. His power had scraped past a million and was still climbing, suddenly he pushed his hands forwards and muttered something. A white light shot outward, and Usagi shut her eyes blinded by the shimmering light. It shot into the sky, it was a million times brighter than the clearest day. Usagi gazed in splendor, suddenly she felt a tug, she started to grow, taller and taller, her body broke the ivy bonds, the gold bands shattered like wet paper. Piccolo stopped and with a satisfied smirk looked at Usagi.
The saiya-jin ape roared, and ran around in a fury.
The figures loomed closer, and they turned out to be chibi monsters, they had green skin with a yellow gi, there black beady eyes seemed to bore into your mind. There were about twenty of the hideous creatures, they surrounded Piccolo and fired numerous homing blasts in his direction. The Monkey had lost control it ran through them, scattering them all like ninepins. Piccolo focused his energy and split it four ways, each Namek went forward,weaving through the Chibi's firing a blast here and there.
But the ape was out of control, the green insects seemed to bother the giant, and it started going against them instead of the Chibi's. The Chib's in turn, teamed up with the ape and attacked each Piccolo until there was only one, severely wounded one left. The ape roared, and trampled it, and as suddenly as the ape had grown, it shrunk. Usagi lay nude, trembling at the feet of the Chibi's, her silver tail limp beside her.
"Oh God," she cried at the sight of Piccolo's squashed form. She ignored the Chibi's who were reasonably still and got up.She wasweak from the transformation, very weak. She took what was left of her orange gi, and covered Piccolo with it. Suddenly everything became cold and dark, time froze again. "Pluto?" Usagi called.
"Usagi, Oh I'm so sorry!" said the woman sadly, she walked over to Usagi and hugged her. Ribbons flowed around Usagi, covering her in a white tanktop, and skirt. "I should have come sooner, but I was needed somewhere else," Pluto said sadly.
A war raged on inside Usagi's head. Pluto, her Pluto had abandoned her in her hour of need, first Maniki and now Piccolo. Usagi shoved her away, "you did it!" she cried furiously, "it was you!"
Pluto's gaze softened, "now Usagi, no."
Usagi turned around, trying to hide the tears.
"Usagi," Pluto tried to turn her with her staff. "Usagi you have it all wrong. It wasn't my fault, now listen to me, I can help you. Forballa is going to kill you, don't you understand?"
"Oh I understand, the reason why Forballa wanted me dead in the first place was because of you! He anted me to tell him how to find you!"
This time Sailor Pluto spun around, her Garnet Rod was clutched tightly in her right hand, "I know Usagi. It's hard I know. I can only do one thing, you need to prepare more, you broke his spell before when you wanted to see Piccolo. You just need more training, now, I'm going to send you somewhere else, time will go much faster there than here, you are to stay there until you're 13, then I'll return you here. Seek the one named Sailor Moon, and for Serenity's sake, be careful!" With those last words and a twirl of her staff Usagi vanished.
Knowing that she was going to fall onto something like a few years past, Usagi hovered immediately andslowly drifted to the ground. She was in a world quite like the one she had been in for many years previous. Usagi looked down, her tail was gone, but her powers were still there. She was in a busy street which she recognized as Tokyo, but something was different, instead of a Coffee Shop there was a place called 'Cherry Hill Temple' across the street. She walked over there as not to attract attention, maybe they knew of a person named Sailor Moon.
(AN Usagi as in Sailor Moon is going to be called Serena, just so that there's no confusion, everyone else keeps there Japanese names. Usagidoesn't wear odongo's just so that you know.)
Rei was busy sweeping up a Chinese vase that Serena had so graciously broken. "Odongo!" she yelled, as another shattering noise came from the kitchen.
"Sorry Rei!" came a high pitched voice, the thirteen-year-old airhead walked over to Rei. "Sorry! I'm late though, Mamo-kun was going to take me out for dinner." She smiled and dashed outside, only to collide with a twelve-year-old reflection of herself.
"Gomen, I'm sorry," Usagi said.
Serena weaved past her, "s'okay!" she yelled back.
"Is this the Cherry Hill Temple?" Usagi asked.
"Yep, no need to be shy, sorry about Serena there, she can be a huge airhead sometimes," Rei chuckled.
"I was wondering if you had well, any open rooms, just for a while until I get a place of my own," Usagi asked sheepishly.
"Oh no problem. YUUICHIROU!!!"
A brown haired guy stumbled down the stairs, his bangs covered his eyes and he had a 'surfer dude' type voice. "What is it Rei?"
"Show this girl to her room. What is your name anyway?" Rei asked, putting her broom away. "Sorry, here I'll show you where your room is, Yuuichirou will take over for me."
"It's Briefs Usagi, but just call me Usagi."
"Oh well sorry, my name is Hino Rei, nice to meet you. I run this Temple with my Grandpa, but the dork here is trying to learn how to be a singer," Rei explained. She led Usagi upstairs to an empty room. "Here you can sleep here, breakfast's at eight, lock up is at eleven, don't be late, grandpa can get nasty. So how old are you?"
"Twelve, well thanks for the room, mind if I go shopping for a bit?" Usagi asked, watching Rei eye her clothes. Rei nodded and Usagi dashed off, nothing was very different from the Tokyo she knew, and she had no trouble finding anything. The only problem was that she didn't have any money, she remembered Bulma telling her that a desperate guy would always pay for things if you get them right where you want them. Usagi ran to a place called 'The Crown Game Center.' She found a quarter in one of the games, and started playing, it was called Sailor V. She had played video games with Gohan before, and she wasn't that bad, soon she had gotten pretty far, and a crowd was starting to form around her.
"Who's that playing Sailor V?" Makoto asked Motoki.
"Go see, maybe you should buy her a drink or something, I haven't seen her before," Motoki suggested. Makoto slipped off her chair and joined the crowd.
Usagi hammered the buttons furiously, she only had one life left, suddenly a youma appeared behind her, and shot her. "No!" she yelled, and hit the coin return button angrily.
"Hi? I'm Makoto, who're you?" asked a tall brunette girl.
"Usagi, do you live around here?"
"Actually yeah, do you want to grab a shake or something?" Makoto asked, and led Usagi over to an empty booth. "Vanilla okay?"
"Sorry I don't have any money on me, do you know of a place where I can earn some?" Usagi asked. "Can I pay you back for the Vanilla later?"
"Oh hey no problem. Motoki two vanilla shakes over here!"
"Got it Mako-chan," said Motoki, walking over with two vanilla shakes. "Sorry I couldn't help but overhear your conversation, I'm looking for a waitress because my sister is quitting for a bit, so if you want to just come over anytime."
"Great, can I start today?" Usagi asked, amazed at her luck.
"Yeah, in fact, when you've finished your drink, come on over, I've got the uniform already, you're small but you'll fit. Ten dollars an hour, with a fifty dollar start sound okay?"
That good so far? It's getting late so g'night!