***************************************************************
Part 7…this part kinda sucks but the next part will be better
I promise. I don't own any brand names either….let's remember
that I don't own anything except lots of debt…oh yeah and I've
decided that everything will be explained in the next STORY I
write, which should be roughly in the next fifteen years, so
if everything isn't cleared up in this chapter, it isn't you.
Uh, just for the record, i don't hate anyone, least of all
gay people. Comments always appreciated, b/c i must have
screwed up somewhere. Flame me, already! Thanks to everyone
who helped i can't list your names b/c i think i have carpal
tunnels.
"Things are falling down on me.
Heavy things I could not see." --Phish
* * * * * * * * * * * *
She looked at each of them in turn, her gaze slithering
from one face to the next, and as poisoning and merciless as
her very nature. Her hands were so tightly clasped that veins
and tendons leapt out from under the papery skin, giving her a
more skeletal appearance than the one she usually carried. "Are
you sure it was them?" she asked again, still not believing,
needing to hear it again.
Malachite spoke for them all. "Yes," he replied, supplying
no further explanation.
"How?" Beryl ignored them, ignored the rage that was
pouring out of her mind and threatening to overflow, and stood
up. She stared into space, seeing her face again, the face
that had tortured her for thousands of years and would
torture her for a thousand more. It was because of her
that she hid like a rat in a wretched corner of the universe,
unbeknownst to all but five human persons, instead of seated
in glory. It was because of her disgustingly innocent daughter
that she lost Endymion before she even had him. The beautiful
face that bounced in her mind's eye smiled victoriously,
wise with the secret of her triumph. Beryl wanted to scream
her frustration. Her fingernails cut into her palms, leaving
little half-moon cuts in her flesh.
"Serenity," she hissed. "What have you done?"
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Serena pressed her body closer to Darien's chest, the
beer in her stomach churning like a clothes dryer, too uneasy
to sleep. Her mind swam with infinite possibilities, each as
improbable as the next. She hated sleeping in unfamiliar
rooms, too, especially when post-partying nausea set in.
"Darien?" she whispered in the foreign darkness.
"Hmm?" he mumbled drowsily somewhere close to her ear.
She pulled her head towards his voice.
"Do you remember?"
Silence. From the living room, Lita squealed laughter
and Raye shouted something and started stomping. Darien took
a heavy breath, and said, "Yes."
"What?"
"Everything. No, not everything. I remember growing
up with them around me, they practically my brothers. I remember
what they were like, how they talked, their personalities,
how much I loved to be around them, I even remember how Jadeite
used to shuffle cards…then nothing. I don't remember anything
about the fall of the Moon Kingdom, or anything even before
that. It's like my brain just stopped."
"But how can they be here…and there? In the Negaverse?"
"I don't know Serena. I'll call Luna and Artemis tomorrow.
Maybe they'll know something." He smoothed one hand over
the flyaway hairs on top of her head, and the corners of his
mouth upturned and he kissed her on the swirl where all her
strands met together. "Go to sleep hon, we'll figure out
everything in the morning."
"OK," she agreed, her jaws almost splitting apart from
the impact of her yawn. Her eyelids fell shut.
The door barged open, throwing dim yellow hallway light
in the center of the room. "I'm going under them," Jay's
voice insisted. He crossed the space between the door and
the bed in a few seconds and flung himself on the squealing
mattress.
"No way! If I sleep on top of the covers I'm going to
freeze," Zach protested, pulling Jay off by one leg. A mad
scramble ensued for possession of the comforter.
"Jay, will you shut up? Serena and Darien are trying to
sleep!"
"I'm not sleeping under the covers with you; you're
evil twin's a flameball!"
"F*** you d***head; I'm not gay!" His voice was so
insistent he practically spat.
"Yeah whatever."
"Fine! You sleep with Darien and I'll sleep with Serena."
"No deal," Darien said out loud.
Zach thought for a moment. "OK, how 'bout we sleep
head to toe? Then we can both get under the covers and
still be considered non-gay. Not that there's anything wrong
with that."
"You can still grope me head to toe," Jay muttered,
resigning and tossing a pillow to the foot of the bed.
"Fine. Just don't be snoring all friggin' night."
Twenty minutes later, Serena had her head stuffed
under a pillow and Raye was yelling through a door and a
wall, "WOULD SOMEONE SHUT THAT KID UP?"
* * * * * * * * * * *
Mina woke without opening her eyes. She turned onto
her side, pulling the comforter up to her ears and snuggling
closer into the flannel sheets, and curled into the pocket
of heat that she had created.
Wait just one minute. I don't have flannel sheets.
Her eyes popped open, to yellow daylight streaming
over navy blue pillowcases. Not hers. Groaning, she sat
up slowly, choking slightly when the huge gray sweatshirt
Where did I get this from? she was wearing entangled
itself around her neck. She stuck her fingers between her
neck and the neckline and pulled, and inhaled deeply when
she could breathe again.
She was in a long rectangular bedroom, long enough
that the two double beds faced each other with at least
six or seven feet in between. On the other bed, Raye and
Amy were sleeping soundly with the clothes they had worn
the previous night still on, Raye still with her big do-me
shoes fastened to her feet. Mina smiled at them.
There was a closet next to their bed, and opposite
the doorway on her right was a battered dresser and a computer
on a spindly black computer desk. Various CDs, notebooks,
phone cords, and other superfluous crap leaked out from under
the computer desk, like someone had cleaned off the floor
in a very big hurry. The posters covering the walls ranged
from Steve Young and Dave Matthews to Carmen Electra and
John Belushi donning a sweatshirt reading, "College," and
chugging a bottle of Jack. It was a guy's bedroom.
She slipped out from under the covers, trying to collect
what had happened last night. After de-transforming, (a
process that took Jadeite a little longer than usual since
he was unconscious and therefore, unresponsive to personal
coaching) Serena had suggested they sleep on it before they
answered any questions, and had insisted that Luna and
Artemis be present for the Big Revelation. Mina suspected
she was stalling since she had no more idea what had just
happened than the rest of them. Darien said he had an idea,
but that was still fuzzy, and the whole idea was scrapped
until morning. Mina had been ascending the stairs when
her concussion kicked in again, and she suddenly sat on
the steps trying to clear the dizziness that had taken
control of her head. The combination of running, fighting,
and trying to keep calm around Kevin had taken its toll
on her weakened state. The last thing she remembered was
Kevin picking her up effortlessly and carrying her up the
rest of the stairs, making her feel all of twenty five
pounds.
She opened the door slowly, not wanting to wake Raye and
Amy, and for that matter, the rest of the house. She didn't
know what time it was, but most likely if it was anytime before
noon, she would catch some serious flack.
Lita and Matt were sitting (sitting!) upright on the
couch, Lita resting her head on his shoulder. By some fluke,
they were both awake. Kevin was stretched out on the floor,
a couch cushion shoved under his head in place of a pillow.
She crept in, waving silent hi's at Matt and Lita.
"Hey you," Lita said, obviously not caring if she woke
Kevin or not. Mina's eyes flew open and she waved one frantic
hand while making the "Shush," sign with the other.
"Relax," Matt said. "You don't have to worry; Kevin can
sleep through the friggin' apocalypse. Oh, and watch your feet.
Our vacuum's kinda sh***y and I don't think I got all the
glass up yet."
Mina curled her feet up and looked up at the window,
fully expecting to see a sheet of plastic or taped-together
garbage bags covering a gap in the wall where the window used
to be, and was shocked to see the buildings across the street
through a pane of glass. "How did you-?"
"I didn't, Zach did. Turns out he can like, pull things
out of thin air, anything he wants, so he fixed up the window
so our landlord doesn't lay the smackdown on us. Unfortunately,
he can't pull benjamins out of his ass, so I have no use for
him."
Mina smiled. "What time did you two wake up? And where
is everyone?"
Lita and Matt smiled at each other, sharing some
inside joke. "We didn't go to bed yet," Lita announced,
checking her watch. "And it is now, eleven-thirty."
"May I ask, WHY?"
Matt rubbed one side of his face and yawned. "Lita
has never seen 'Dazed and Confused' before. I couldn't
let her live with that dishonor any longer."
"I have officially been awake for twenty seven consecutive
hours, thank you very much," Lita giggled. "And I'm
not tired yet." Even before she noticed the dark circles
forming underneath the brunette's eyes, Mina knew that
she was lying. They had way too many caffeine-filled
sleepovers at Raye's for her not to notice the fatigue
buried away under a veneer of giddiness.
"You OK?" Matt asked. "How's the head?"
"Yeah, I'm fine, thanks." Not entirely true, since her
temples were receiving sharp lances of pain whenever she
blinked her eyes or swallowed, or breathed, or for that matter,
moved.
Lita whistled, long and low. "You're going to get it
from Raye so bad! She is majorly pissed that you showed up to
fight with a concussion."
Mina choked, holding her palms up. "What was I supposed
to do! You guys sounded the alarm, and I thought you were in
serious trouble, and I just couldn't sit there, and be like,
'Oh, my head kinda hurts, so I guess my friends will just
have to die this time.'" Her pretty faced twisted into
intense sorrow, something that a girl her age should know
nothing about, and Lita reciprocated the expression. Matt
knew then, that all five girls hid this fear from the world
but carried the enormous weight of it every day, the fear
that each day would be their last. They were a team in
every sense of the word, and would probably cease to exist
if one fell and the others went on living, not knowing if
they alone could have saved their friend. It was eating
them alive inside, and in seeing it pass from one girl to
the other, Matt knew that he would become a part of this
cycle, the terrifying fear for the life of the other. It
was like being in war. Any semblance of a normal life was
gone from here on in, and Matt wondered why he squandered
his freedom while he had it.
I know better now.
"Can I use your bathroom?" Mina asked politely,
tugging at the end of her sweatshirt, which read, "Moore
Monarchs," with a giant red M in the middle. "And where
did I get this?"
"Yes you may use the jake, I really didn't expect
you to pee on my carpet, and that's Kevin's, which might
explain why it hits your knees. He gave that to you after
you said you were cold."
"I said I was cold?"
"You said a lot of things, kid. You told Raye she
better take off your shoes before you beat her over the
head with them."
Mina flushed, not knowing if Matt was telling the
truth or busting on her. She scurried to the hallway and
the bathroom.
She used the bathroom and washed her hands, and
considered taking a quick shower until she noticed the total
lack of necessary bathroom products which would transform
her from a stringy-haired, grime-encrusted creature into
a tolerable-smelling, somewhat hygienic human. All that
lined the ceramic was a blue bar of that soap that smelled
inherently male and a lone bottle of Pert. Oh God this
is a male bathroom. They don't even have conditioner!"
She momentarily panicked at the prospect of Kevin seeing
her in all her morning-after battle glory, and was halfway
to picking up the Irish Spring when she realized that having
someone carry you up the stairs while out cold ranked first
on the indignity scale, and no smell produced by the human
body could overshadow it.
She met Serena on the way out. "You're up already?"
Mina asked, genuinely surprised that Serena was up and
moving before sunset.
Serena rubbed her eyes and yawned. "Yeah! Zach
snores so loud I couldn't stay asleep for more than five
minutes." The only time Serena was a light sleeper was
when she was recovering from a particularly heinous night.
"I couldn't sleep the entire night and my mouth feels all
mucky because I don't have a toothbrush and now my head
huuuuurts!"
Mina sighed; Serena's ability to whine was magnified
rather than diminished by her lack of sleep. "Did you call
Luna and Artemis?"
"Oh I'll do it later, it's not like they're going
anywhere. Want to grab some Burger King for breakfast?"
"It's eleven thirty already, they're serving lunch
now." Mina ran one hand through her hair, and wished
fervently for a brush-like object to untangle her snarls.
Her head hurt too, probably more so than Serena's, and
quite frankly, she was more than a little cranky herself.
"Besides, there are four guys that are going up our butts
for an explanation on just what the hell happened last
night, and I have absolutely no clue what I'm supposed to
tell them." She leaned on the sink, and the puddle of
water pooling on the ledge soaked into her jeans. "What
do you remember about the Generals during the Silver Millennium,
besides that fact that they must have existed then because
they're here now? You were the princess, did you ever
meet them?" She squirted a line of Crest on Serena's index
finger, and then did the same for her own.
Serena furrowed her brow with thought, and after a
few seconds said, "No, nothing. All I remember is Endymion.
And you guys. Other than that-" she shrugged. "Diddly-squat."
She stuck her toothpaste-y finger in her mouth and started
rubbing.
"We're so effed," Mina said, rinsing the minty residue
from her mouth and left Serena alone in the bathroom. She
could hear Zach merrily snoring away through the wall, and
Jay drowsily moaning, "Shut up! Shut up!"
She smiled; Jay must have fully recovered from his girly
fainting episode. In the living room, Lita was holding a
wrinkled Hefty Easy-Close open while Matt circled around
collecting empties and throwing them in. He picked a can off
the table and shook it. "Hey, this one still has about an
inch left." He threw back his head and gulped down the
remains of the can.
Lita and Mina were frozen in disgust. "I'm just going
to pretend you didn't do that," Lita said, suppressing her
gag reflex.
Mina folded her legs up and sat down on the floor
next to Kevin, who was thankfully unconscious during the
entire grisly episode. "Like, there might have been someone's
herpes-infested backwash in there! How can you even?" She
shuddered.
"What?" Matt said. "I'm not going to waste beer! And
I like the taste of herpes."
"There is a big difference between wasting beer and
infecting yourself with Ebola." She rested her back against
the couch, and watched Kevin's huge pectorals rise and
fall with each breath. His light eyelashes fanned over
his face, and Mina was taken with how young he looked
while he was sleeping. She resisted the urge to run her
hand across his face, to feel the its heat and texture.
He mumbled something too low for her to hear. "What?" she
asked, leaning closer to him.
"Oh, he's not talking to you," Matt explained, sweeping
empty cans off the counter and into the twisted garbage
bag. "He's completely gone; he talks in his sleep."
"Really?"
"Yeah. Sometimes he'll answer you, but he has no
idea what he's saying. We were messing around with him
last night. Hey, Kevin!" he yelled the last word inches
from Kevin's face.
"Wha?" He didn't open his eyes when he responded.
"Can I borrow your car? Lita and I are going to
drive it into a lake somewhere; do you think you'll mind?"
"No," Kevin said, in the same flat, hypnotized voice.
Mina giggled softly.
"Kev, I think you're mom's hot. Mind if I do her?"
Jay has appeared out of nowhere, nearly sending Mina into
a double coronary. He had snuck into the living room with
so much stealth that the air didn't even move to let his
body through. He rubbed one hand through his severely messy
hair and flopped onto the couch.
"No."
Lita could not stop laughing. Her knees buckled as
she latched onto the counter to keep from falling. "Kevin,
Mina peed in your bed last night. Do you care?"
Kevin's lips moved for several seconds before he
answered. "She was at the top of the stairs…waiting for
me."
The four of them exchanged confused glances. "Who
was, Kev?" Jay asked.
"Minako."
Mina shook her head. "I was?"
"I think he's just dreaming," Matt said, abandoning
his bulging garbage bag and standing over Kevin's slumbering
form. "The next words out of his mouth are going to be,
'And she was making out with Shannon Elizabeth,' and quite
frankly, as much as I would like to see that in real life,
I'm not quite ready to hear it quite yet." He snatched
the cushion out from under Kevin's head. His skull cracked
against the floor. "Hey, big guy, wake up. You're sharing
your sick fantasies with everyone."
"OW!" Kevin swung wide and cracked Matt in the ankle,
hard. "Watch it, d**khead." He sat up slowly, and started
when he saw Mina. Obviously, he was also suffering from "Oh
my God what the hell do I look like?" syndrome.
Lita clanged around in the kitchen, opening cabinets
and rifling around. "Anyone want breakfast? I'm jonesin'
for an omelet." She turned and flashed her patented Colgate
smile at Matt, dissolving him into a Silly-Putty shell of
his former self.
"Ah," Jay said. "That sounds good, but unfortunately,
all we have is Easy Mac and beer. If you can figure out a
way to make an omelet out of Easy Mac and beer, you will
be cooler than Martha Stewart and earn utmost respect in
my eyes."
Lita made a face. "Unreal. How do you guys keep
from starving?"
"Like I said, Easy Mac and beer. If you crush up
a Flintstones vitamin in it, then you satisfy your RDA,
too." He lifted his eyebrows. "It becomes health food."
"That is utterly disgusting."
"How 'bout someone makes a Burger King run?" Serena
emerged from the hallway. "I'm STARVING! And not for
fortified Easy Mac and beer."
"I hear that," Matt agreed, shaking another half-empty
can. Lita shot him a death look, and he sheepishly dropped
it into the garbage pile. "Chill! I wasn't going to drink
it!"
"I will!" Jay shouted, jumping over Kevin's body and
intercepting the orphan can.
Zach bolted out of the bedroom, his hair sticking
up at strange angles and his eyes wild. He was missing
his glasses, too. "WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED LAST NIGHT?"
"Easy, buddy, we didn't get to that part yet," Matt
reassured him, picking up a pack of Camels and sticking
one in his mouth. "We're getting BK first. Who's taking
orders?"
"I'll do it," Serena volunteered.
Amy stumbled out of the hallway, her eyes bleary.
"Hi," she whispered, slumping on the couch with the vigor
of a slug on downers.
"Amy!" Zach rushed to her side. "Are you feeling
OK?"
She graced him with a tiny smile. "Yes. Thank
you for taking care of me."
"What happened?" Mina asked immediately. Amy was
frighteningly pale, and listless beyond belief, but
the way she was looking at Zach lit up her eyes until
they positively glowed.
"All that Woodchuck hit her around two, and she
got kinda sick," Matt explained.
"However, for the record, she did not puke!" Jay
bounced on the cushions, probably nauseating the inhabitants.
He grabbed Amy and bear-hugged her. "That's my girl, Ames!
First time drinking and she doesn't even spew. This girl
can handle her s**t!"
Matt fished a lighter out of his pocket and was
about to strike it when he noticed the horrified look
covering Lita's face. "What's wrong?" he asked innocently,
striking up a flame.
"You," She seemed to have a hard time getting
the words out. "You, you-smoke!" Gross he smokes!!!
Why does the only decent guy I've met in a friggin eon
feel the need to breathe fire, for crying out loud! Oh,
he loses definite points!
Matt must have realized he was losing valuable points,
because he froze in a manner previously seen in deer
when they stepped in front of cars and caught a view
of the headlights. He thought for a few seconds, the
heat from the lighter practically burning a hole in his
thumb, and one could almost see the gears working beneath
his skull. "I don't smoke," he said finally. "Kevin
does!"
Shocked heads turned to Kevin, who caught the thrown
lighter and pack in one giant hand. His expression
clearly read: "What the hell are you talking about?
Speak, before I beat the crap out of you."
Matt shot him a "help me" look. "He's a fiend,
can't keep away from them," he jabbered. "And he plays
football too, can you believe it? I swear, Kev," he
clapped his friend on the back and forced a tight laugh.
"You've got your priorities messed WAY up!"
Kevin simply stared at him, incredulous. Matt
leaned closer and hissed, "Play along, d**khead!"
"Oh yes," Kevin deadpanned. "How did I forget?
I smoke all the time, of course."
"You're a funny guy, Belles!" Matt said, laughing
too loudly and artificially.
"Yeah, Stone Cold Kevin's just a laugh and a half,"
Jay quipped.
Matt changed the subject quickly. "So who wants what?
I'm feelin' it's a Whopper day."
* * * * * * * * * *
Luna sprang onto the bottom rung of the metal fire
escape and began jumping from rung to rung on her way to
the third floor. "Artemis?" she called, after
she realized that her white-furred companion had
not been following closely behind.
"Up here," was the response. Luna craned her neck
up, and saw Artemis leaping from branch to branch on
the giant tree in front of the building. He prepared
himself, and then attempted a valiant leap onto the fire escape.
He would have fallen to his kitty death if Luna hadn't darted
out and caught him by the paws.
"Why must you always show off?" she grouched at him. She
had been planning to spend her day curled on top of
Darien's radiator, with her catnip-stuffed mouse, dreaming
of a beach in some tropical climate that was NOT
northern California, but Darien had called at an obscene
hour and told them to report to 22 Boris St, apt
2C, ASAP. For what, she did not know. However, she
was less than pleased to be trouncing around a place
generally known on campus as the "jock house."
"Sorry," Artemis said, running up to
the nearest window. "Nope, not this one. All
that's in here are a bunch of empty cups and a
few passed-out guys."
Luna crept up to the next window, which seemed
uncommonly clean and shiny as compared to the rest.
Inside, she saw her Senshi sitting around the somewhat
grimy living room, and Darien too, and those four
guys that bore striking resemblances to their mortal
enemies. They were sharing a meal of Whoppers and
fries and onion rings, and Luna hoped that Darien
had remembered to get her one. Amy, Serena, Lita,
and Mina were each holding a fan of greasy playing
cards, and seemed to be getting coached from the guys.
"When are Luna and Artemis getting here?"
The one who looked like Zoycite asked. She could
barely hear him through the glass. "Throw that one
out, Ame."
Darien checked his watch. "Any second now, I
think. I told them to be here in an hour."
Malachite's look-alike wiped off his mouth and
asked, "Do they know where to park? I think the
street's full, they'll have to park in the alley.
No don't!" he began, but Mina had already added
her card to the pile and gave him a "What?" look.
"That was the five!" Amy smiled and cleared the pile
off the tabletop.
Oh, we won't have a problem with that. And
I don't think Artemis would like to see how close
you're sitting to Mina, young man. She tapped
gently against the glass with one paw.
Darien stood up and opened the window for
them to enter. "Aw, look, Darien brought his
kitties!" Jay leapt to his feet and began harshly
massaging Luna's face while talking to her in baby
talk. "Look at you kitty kitty kitty!"
Mina closed her eyes and silently groaned.
He's in for one hell of a surprise.
Luna pried her face out between Jay's palms
and cleared her throat, trying desperately to regain
some of the dignity lost to her when treated like an
SPCA Pet of the Week. "Artemis, over here!" she called.
Chaos erupted. Kevin sat straight up like he had
been electrocuted and had a hard time forcing down his
mouthful of Whopper. Mina giggled at his expression.
Matt, who had been throwing back a cold one, choked
on his beer and began coughing. Zach scooted his
ass back on the carpet and screamed, "HOLY SH*T THAT
CAT JUST TALKED!"
Jay pulled his hand away from Luna and began
screaming to himself in a flat, somewhat reassuring
manner. "OK now I KNOW I've dropped acid! I'm
having another flashback! Or I might have a brain
tumor! Yeah, that's it, acid and a brain tumor!" He
began laughing in hysterical hiccups.
Luna leapt down off the windowsill, and the
three guys minus Jay picked up and darted into the
kitchen, scattering the playing cards and food
wrappers. Matt was still coughing up the beer
that had trickled down into his lungs. Jay
remained hammered to the spot, rambling on about
drugs, brain tumors, and mental illness.
Artemis entered the apartment and jumped
onto Mina's lap. "Mina, are you OK? Why did you
fight last night?"
"Oh Artemis," Mina stroked his back and fed
him a French fry. "You sound just like my mom."
Serena picked Luna up and held her up to the
three cowering men in the kitchen. "Everyone,
this is Luna. She's my Guardian cat, and she
pretty much knows everything, so whenever we get
stuck she's the one we turn to."
"Hey what am I, cheap cat food?" Artemis
protested. "I know just as much as Luna, thank
you very much, and let's not forget that I was
the one who awakened Sailor Venus."
"Yes, how could we forget?" Luna muttered
wearily. "Everyone, this is Artemis, Artemis,
this is, well, Darien tells me some interesting
things about you four."
"Interesting, yes," Jay repeated. "Interesting.
Cat talks to me. Interesting."
Artemis picked his head up. "What's wrong
with that kid?"
"Oh, nothing, he's just never seen an animal
that can talk outside of Sabrina the Teenage Witch,"
Zach filled in, still cowering in the kitchen,
but seemingly recovering from the initial shock.
Luna jumped out of Serena's arms and onto
the kitchen counter, and circled around Kevin's
paralyzed body. "Kunzite," she said slowly. Kevin
stared at her hesitantly. "Yes, yes, I remember
you now. But you were a few years older then, I
don't know why you're this young." She looked at
each of the scared boys in turn, first Kevin, then
Matt, who was still sporadically coughing, and
then Zach, who was rubbing his forehead, trying
to analyze the situation presented, and finally
Jay, who was still rooted to the same spot in front
of the windowsill, his eyes as big as dinner plates.
"Nephrite," Artemis said, joining the party
in the kitchen. "Zoicite. Jadeite. I remember."
"Remember what?" Raye interjected.
"Please enlighten the rest of us."
Luna shook her head, prompting more gasps from
the trio. "I don't remember much, but I remember
you four, you were the guardians of Endymion."
"Who?" Zach asked, pounding Matt on the back as
he leaked out his final coughs.
Serena sighed heavily. "I guess we have to
start from the beginning, right?" She groaned. "This
is going to take FOREVER!"
"First things first," Mina interrupted. "I
think we might have, a, uh, small problem."
Amy was all-ears. "What is it, Mina?"
"Well," she began. "Last night, the Dark Kingdom
Generals, the bad guys," she clarified before the
confused gallery. "They saw them-" she pointed to
the guys. "transform. It's only a matter of time before
they find out who they are and start busting down
the doors with their undead army."
Lita hit Amy on the arm. "Yo, brainiac, why
didn't you think of this before?"
Amy scowled, an occurrence that was as rare
as her blue hair. "For your information, I wasn't
exactly feeling a hundred percent last night."
"So what's the game plan?" Darien asked,
mentally smacking the back of his own head for
not thinking of this before. They had been screwing
around for almost ten hours now, and that was
plenty of time for the Negaverse to start sniffing
around the campus.
"I'll put a protection spell on the place."
Raye rummaged through her purse and pulled out several
sheets of paper. "That'll stop the Nega-sleaze in
their tracks. Now, if I remember this correctly…" She
drifted off the doorway.
Amy had whipped out her mini-computer/Palm Pilot
before Raye finished her sentence. "Zach, can I use
your computer?"
"Use anything you want."
She scurried off to the bedroom, complete with
a foot of cord that she had seemingly pulled out of
thin air. "Can you help me? I need to hack into the
university database and change some things around."
"I was thinking that my help would facilitate
something more…legal, but sure." He followed her
into the bedroom, giving the cats a wide berth.
They settled on the couch, expression ranging
from perplexed to shocked to absolutely in shock.
Jay was still staring blankly at the cats: obviously,
the intrusion in his own universe had sent him
into a genuine case of shell-shock.
"OK," Luna said. "I'm starting from the
top."
* * * * * * * * * *
Two hours and a pizza later, the house
was securely under a protection spell, courtesy
of Raye, and the guys had the basics down, i.e.,
there was once a Moon Kingdom, they had lived past
lives and were reincarnations of those lives, the Moon
Kingdom has fallen, etc. Knowing that the only way that
the Negaverse would recognize the guys was by a picture or
description, Amy had pulled up names of deceased university
students and switched the names under the freshman f**k
finder and any other picture that they were in. Thus, they
were temporarily hidden under a veil of obscurity.
"OK, wait," Matt leaned forward in his chair. "If
all this is true, which it must be because there is no
other way to explain last night, then why isn't any of this
jogging my memory? I mean, if I wasn't there last night,
I would think that all this is a plot of a comic book or
something."
"You don't remember a thing?" Darien asked, the emotion
in his voice devastatingly obvious. Serena's heart almost
broke; it meant so much to him that they would remember him
and the friendship they all shared. Darien was waiting for
his ship to come, and when it did, it was empty.
"No." (Kevin.)
"No." (Matt.)
"Oh yeah, THAT Moon Kingdom. My family used to take
vacations there instead of Disney World. Less traffic."
(Zach, complete with eye roll.)
"Not a thing. You're lucky I'm sober or I'd be agreeing
with you," Jay said, grimacing when Darien winced. "Sorry."
"What do you remember, girls?" Luna asked them.
"Especially you, Serena. You were the one always sneaking
down to earth to see Endymion."
"Or you," Raye said to Mina, the memory dawning on her.
"You were always going down to get her."
Mina stared closely at the four guys, trying to find
a something familiar in their faces that would send her
mind back a thousand years. She stopped on Kevin, and
gasped as the voice from a past era spoke to her again.
"It must be difficult having such a curious
princess."
"Was it you?" she said out loud. He frowned.
"Was it me what?"
"I don't know," she admitted. And she didn't. She
didn't remember Kunzite at all; it could have been one of
the many guards from earth. And her recollection of
fetching Serena was foggy, at best.
Luna sensed the confusion in the room, and knew
that they were stuck in a dead end in Nowhere St. in Got
Me? U.S.A. "Oh dear, it looks like I'll have to break out
the heavy artillery," she sighed.
"I don't like the sound of that," Matt said warily,
erupting into a yawn. He would have to crash soon; his head
felt like a helium balloon without a string. However, he
would stay up for days just to be conscious with Lita, and
her toothpaste-bright smile and perfect face.
Luna and Artemis were too busy planning to hear any
complaints. "What if we used Darien?" Luna asked. Artemis
lit up.
"Yeah! If we channel through him and into them…"
"Channel? Is this going to hurt?" Zach asked, a little
uneasy. He fingered his straw nervously, not realizing that
his power was running out of his hands and through it,
creating new bits of plastic on the end of the original
until the tube was about a foot long. "The words 'through
him,' and 'into them,' usually connotation pain of some
kind…"
"Shouldn't," Artemis responded simply, and positioned
himself behind Darien. "Darien, could you stand up?
Thanks. OK, you guys, position yourself around him in
a semicircle, let Luna in the middle." They stood up,
albeit reluctantly from the fear of pain and death, and
Luna stood in the middle of them, with Darien and Artemis
behind her. Jay turned to Raye, who was curled on the
couch in a fetal position.
"Tell my family I love them. Give all my worldly
possessions to 4C, but keep the DVD player and my lucky
bat, Raye. Call it something to remember me by."
"Moron," she muttered, tucking her head back under
her arm.
"Ready?" Artemis asked. They turned to each other
and shrugged.
"As ready as we'll ever be," Zach supplied.
"Into the valley of death," Matt muttered before
Kevin elbowed him harshly.
"Here goes." Artemis shut his eyes, concentrating.
Kevin's skin broke out in goose bumps in response to
the atmosphere. The air had suddenly thickened, until
he could feel it brushing over his skin with a liquid-like
weight. It was hard to inhale. He looked over his
shoulder, into Mina's enormous blue eyes, her perfect
pout of lips. She didn't seem to have trouble breathing.
"I can't, breathe," Matt gasped.
"Maybe you should stop smoking," Lita supplied from
the peanut gallery.
The air congealed even further, until all four guys
were desperately sucking in shallow breaths, their
unaccustomed lungs trying to separate precious oxygen
from the weave of atmosphere and magic, a magic so
familiar to a people long ago that they needed it as much
as they needed air, or water, and could breathe it with
ease. Artemis's crescent symbol began flickering, faster
and faster like a strobe light, and a beam of gold shot
out from it and hit Darien in the back of the head. It
came out of his forehead, shot down into the back of
Luna's head, and emitted from her crescent moon in four
branches, hitting the guys in the forehead and absorbing
into their unconscious.
Flickers of memories came back to them, piecing
together images until they became whole and solid.
They remembered, bit by bit. Small things at first:
the sound of clanging swords, the white marble castles
of ancient earth, the smell of air unpolluted by car
exhaust and factory smokestacks, the gliding hiss of
playing cards being shuffled.
They remembered each other, playing together as
youngsters, studying together in school, training, laughing,
wrestling, fighting.
They remembered Endymion.
Artemis stopped his beam, and the rest shut off like
a waterfall. They staggered backwards, faces white and eyes
stunned, heads full of forgotten memories. Zach sat shakily
on the couch. He looked into Darien's eyes, and it was like
seeing part of yourself that you thought you left behind.
"Endy," he said, his face cracking into a grin. The smile
remained unchanged after a millennium.
"Endymion," Kevin repeated, his hands shaking. He opened
his mouth to say more, but his voice failed him.
Darien's eyes filled partway with tears, but he blinked
them away before they leaked out. What would his guards
think of their prince if he broke down and bawled like, well,
like Serena? "Miss me?" he choked out.
"ENDYMION!" Jay screamed, lunging at him. For a
second, Darien thought he was going to attack, but instead,
Jay grabbed him in a bear hug and lifted his feet off the
ground.
"OH MY GOD!" Matt joined in, and so did Zach, until
the Prince and his Generals were squashed together in a
group hug, and the whole huddle started jumping up and down.
"Why didn't you tell us it was you?" Zach bounced
gleefully.
"I didn't remember until last night!" Darien said,
trying to catch his breath between the arms encircling his
neck and the pure joy stuck in his throat.
They pulled apart, and hugged again. Jay scooped
up the cats and pressed them against his face. "I love
you guys! I don't remember you at all, but I still love
you! I'm sorry I freaked out before."
"Argh! Get him off!" Artemis squirmed out of his
grasp and slipped to the floor.
"Do I have to like, bow or something?" Matt offered.
"No," Darien said, secretly wondering if they did
have to. That would be cool.
The guys and girls faced each other, a line clearly
dividing the two sides of the room. "Uh, how come I don't
remember the Senshi?" Zach said, confused. "You guys
were supposed to be big-importants way back when."
"I don't know," Mina said, racking her brain for any
time that she ever met Endymion's guards. She scrunched
her face up in a way that Kevin found irresistible. Snippets
of the Senshi training, the clicking noise her heels made
against the white stone walkways in the palace, Serenity…
"AAH!"
"Don't frustrate yourself," Amy warned. "According
to my calculations, we've only regained about a third
of our Silver Millennium memories, and the Generals only
have about a fourth to work with. It's going to come
back to us sooner or later."
"OK," Kevin agreed. "So what do we do about my
evil twin? How did he come about?"
"Ah! Easy answer!" Mina said, grinning when all
eyes reached her. "I have no clue. If you weren't
standing in front of me right now, I would have sworn
that Endymion's guards turned to Beryl's side."
"Oh man," Zach groaned. He looked stricken.
"What if we're the evil twins? Like, they are the real
guards and somehow we were made and we're the clones,
and we're the real bad guys, but we're not, because
we're on the wrong side, and they're the real ones,
follow?"
"Hell no," Kevin grunted, disgruntled at the fact
that someone was walking around with his face, committing
felonies and breaking expensive, non-insured things.
Serena waved their worries away. "I'm sure we'll
figure it out eventually! OOH I can't WAIT until you guys
can fight with us! We'll kick some serious ass then!
No more 'Sailor Moon gets thrown a hundred feet in the
air and lands in a mud puddle'!"
"We got your back," Zach said, hugging her from
behind. "We gotta protect our Prince's woman."
Lita broke through their conversation with a yawn
that practically sucked all of the oxygen out of the room.
She smiled sheepishly when she realized that all eyes
were on her. "Oh, sorry. I think I'm going to head
out, I need some serious siesta. Ready to roll, girls?"
They nodded. "I've got to go to that mixer tonight,"
Raye said. "And Mina is going to STAY HOME and rest,
right?" She shot her patented visual daggers at her friend.
"OK, OK, I get it," Mina resigned, picking up on
of her shoes and slipping it on.
"I'll do some research tonight to try and find
out where the evil Generals came from," Amy supplied.
"There has to be a scientific explanation for them,
they couldn't just-"
"No you're not! You're coming with me tonight!"
Raye insisted.
"I've got it Amy," Jay said very matter-of-factly.
"The next time we run into that good-looking evil guy
and his three not-so-good-looking comrades, I'll ask him."
Amy blinked. "What makes you so sure he'll answer
as opposed to, say, eviscerating you?"
"I didn't get to that yet; I'm just a rookie."
"Party at Darien's!" Matt pronounced, throwing an
arm around Darien. "You don't mind, do you?"
"Not at all." Unless you throw up.
"I know how we can celebrate!" Jay said, rushing
into the kitchen. He rummaged through the cupboards and
produced two bottles. "You're the Prince of Earth, what
country do you want to conquer? Me-hico," he held up a
bottle of tequila. "Or Ruuush-sha?" He waved the bottle
of Absolut in front of Zach's face.
"Tonight," Zach said. "The no-alcohol policy starts
up again for baseball."
"Yes, I know, that's why we'll get it all in
tonight." He didn't see Raye roll her eyes to the ceiling.
"We still have a case of Germany to kill off," Matt
added, checking the inventory in the refrigerator.
"What are you talking about? Don't you mean Colorado?"
Zach got technical.
Matt assumed an air of a snotty wine connoisseur.
"Ah, I think that you are presuming that I was talking
about the mass productive origins of this particular brew,
but if you can recall, the birthplace of the gold foamy is
actually sometime in ancient Germania…"
"You're both idiots," Darien grinned, wondering how at
one point, he lived somewhat completely without them.
* * * * * * * * * * *
"Oh my God I'm WRECKED!" Jay screamed the last word,
at the same time stumbling over Darien's glass-top coffee
table, a cardboard tube from a paper towel roll clenched
in his fist. At one point, he was supposed to clean up a
beer spill in the kitchen, but had decided instead to play
"Hit my Friends with a Skinny Tube." "Let's play baseball!"
"Shut up, Uncle F***er," Matt muttered from the
floor, where he had been laying for the last hour and a
half. He was incapable of standing, sitting, or anything
kind of movement that required voluntary muscles.
Kevin was stretched out and over Darien's couch,
holding the Absolut bottle that he had killed half of.
"If I remember correctly," he started, then stopped for
a full minute, proving that he probably didn't remember
correctly. "I was in charge of you a**holes."
"We salute you, o fearless leader." Zach attempted
to salute, but instead hit himself in the eye. "OW!"
They started laughing, hysterically, until they
were red in the face. "Anyway, like I was saying," Kevin
stopped again, and repeated what he had just said to
himself again. "Yeah, OK, um, I was in charge.."
"Below me," Darien reminded him.
"Well, of course below you, what the hell? I can
still kick your ass, Chiba. Anyway, I was in charge
and…Goddammit I forgot what I was thinking…"
"Yo, Lita is SO hot," Matt rambled from the floor.
Darien reached out and deftly plucked the beer can that
was threatening to tip over out of his hand and set it
on the table. "Why didn't you tell me you had such good
connections, huh? You suck." This was the fourth time
he had brought up her name. "What was her real name
again?"
"Makoto."
"Yeah, I like that." He burped.
Zach and Jay sat completely upright in Darien's
recliners, eyeing each other like prizefighters. Darien
watched them, curious. "One…two…threeSHOOT!" On "shoot,"
they ferociously yanked the handles and pounded their
heads back, forcing the chairs into the reclining position.
Jay had trouble lifting his feet up, ergo Zach won the
Lay-Z-Boy 500.
Darien joined in the hysterical laughter, almost
wetting himself after the fourth and fifth rematch.
"This one's broke," Jay protested. "Take it back,
get a refund."
"It's not broke, you're just slow."
"Back that up, homo."
Zach reached over and viciously punched him in
the shoulder. "Take that back, d***head!"
"I can't help it if your evil twin bats for
the Yankees! Yours too, Kev."
Under normal circumstances, he would have been
off the couch and beating Jay within an inch
of his life, but Russia was winning the Battle
of the Bloodstream and Kevin had no choice but
to remain immobile. "We gotta find out where
the big baddies came from, because I sure as hell
can't remember jack…" Darien noticed that Kevin
never finished his sentences while intoxicated.
Something hit Zach out of left field, a sentence,
and he articulated it before wondering where
it came from. "We made them."
Silence, save for the stereo.
He received incredulous looks from all
corners of the room. "Yeah that's right, I
made them. I'm their daddy," Jay said, grabbing
an unmentionable part of his body.
"Good call Einstein," Matt mumbled.
"You guys wait!" They sobered for a
second and stared at Darien. "Our memories
are going to come back to us in bits in pieces,
and we have to go with it if we're going to
remember anything! Zach, did that just pop
into your head?"
"Yeah."
"What did you mean by it?"
Zach looked so confused that they would
have burst into laughter under any other circumstance.
"I don't know. It just, it just popped in my
head, like that." He snapped. "I had to say it."
"OK, you see? Every time we remember
something, we have to say it, or think about
it, no matter how stupid! All of these little
things could add up to something important,
like the Senshi, or the generals, or," He sighed.
"The fall of the Moon Kingdom."
"What happened, anyway?" Matt asked.
" Do you remember it?"
Darien plowed through his memories, snapping
at anything that looked remotely like what he
wanted. "No, not really. It comes to me
in scenes, like a movie, except that it skips
back and forth. I remember Serenity, and
trying to save her, and." He stopped for a
second, regrouped. "And how I felt when I
couldn't."
They were silent for a few minutes,
lying in various positions around the room,
scratching at memories that weren't really
there and weren't ready to come out. Two of
Endymion's guards scratched at the dust of
forgetting, peeling it back and being hit with
realizations buried underneath as sharp as
tiny arrows. Suddenly, a scene flashed under
Kevin's eyelids, and one flashed in Matt's, and
they both gasped.
Kevin remembered:
A glass half full of shimmering liquid
reflecting the starlight on its surface tipping
over bursting splashing glass tinkling fluid
pouring in rills over the WHITE MARBLE STAIR
the tiny thin clear fragments spraying out in
an arc a female gasp.
Matt remembered:
Dark leaves shiny leaves the sound
of them rustling together the flaky bark
under his hands scratching them tiny burns
of pain rustling swishing hissing up stars
peeking out from the CANOPY OF LEAVES caressing
his face as he lifted through them brushing
feathery knotty trunk a female laughing.
"A glass broke," Kevin said.
"I climbed a tree," Matt said.
Jay sighed, and for a second they erroneously
thought he was being serious. "OK, great.
We've established that Nephrite's a tree-hugger
and Kunzite's a klutz. And we thought we'd
never get anywhere."
Groaning, they threw whatever what was
in arm's reach at him, muttering obscenities.
It hit Zach again, this time stronger than
before, providing much more to go on.
Zach remembered:
Ripples in dark water his feet bare dragging
through it leaving currents swirling like smoke
toes freezing wind blowing his hair his face
motion back then forth then back then forth
his feet moving that way through the WATER
STIRRING rushing over his ankles a hand holding
his.
"I don't even know what mine means," he moaned.
"Don't feel bad Zach, I didn't even get
one yet," Jay complained. The air was heavy, too
heavy with seriousness. It was an environment
that he just couldn't survive in. "So, Kevin, are
they real?"
Kevin yawned from his position on the couch,
the whole couch. "You'll never find out."
"Anyone want to watch Goodfellas?" Darien
asked, giving up for the night. I might as well
get some food, too; they're not going to remember a
nything else.
"Hell yes. Bring it on. Ready Zach?
ONETWOTHREESHOOT!"
Part 7…this part kinda sucks but the next part will be better
I promise. I don't own any brand names either….let's remember
that I don't own anything except lots of debt…oh yeah and I've
decided that everything will be explained in the next STORY I
write, which should be roughly in the next fifteen years, so
if everything isn't cleared up in this chapter, it isn't you.
Uh, just for the record, i don't hate anyone, least of all
gay people. Comments always appreciated, b/c i must have
screwed up somewhere. Flame me, already! Thanks to everyone
who helped i can't list your names b/c i think i have carpal
tunnels.
"Things are falling down on me.
Heavy things I could not see." --Phish
* * * * * * * * * * * *
She looked at each of them in turn, her gaze slithering
from one face to the next, and as poisoning and merciless as
her very nature. Her hands were so tightly clasped that veins
and tendons leapt out from under the papery skin, giving her a
more skeletal appearance than the one she usually carried. "Are
you sure it was them?" she asked again, still not believing,
needing to hear it again.
Malachite spoke for them all. "Yes," he replied, supplying
no further explanation.
"How?" Beryl ignored them, ignored the rage that was
pouring out of her mind and threatening to overflow, and stood
up. She stared into space, seeing her face again, the face
that had tortured her for thousands of years and would
torture her for a thousand more. It was because of her
that she hid like a rat in a wretched corner of the universe,
unbeknownst to all but five human persons, instead of seated
in glory. It was because of her disgustingly innocent daughter
that she lost Endymion before she even had him. The beautiful
face that bounced in her mind's eye smiled victoriously,
wise with the secret of her triumph. Beryl wanted to scream
her frustration. Her fingernails cut into her palms, leaving
little half-moon cuts in her flesh.
"Serenity," she hissed. "What have you done?"
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Serena pressed her body closer to Darien's chest, the
beer in her stomach churning like a clothes dryer, too uneasy
to sleep. Her mind swam with infinite possibilities, each as
improbable as the next. She hated sleeping in unfamiliar
rooms, too, especially when post-partying nausea set in.
"Darien?" she whispered in the foreign darkness.
"Hmm?" he mumbled drowsily somewhere close to her ear.
She pulled her head towards his voice.
"Do you remember?"
Silence. From the living room, Lita squealed laughter
and Raye shouted something and started stomping. Darien took
a heavy breath, and said, "Yes."
"What?"
"Everything. No, not everything. I remember growing
up with them around me, they practically my brothers. I remember
what they were like, how they talked, their personalities,
how much I loved to be around them, I even remember how Jadeite
used to shuffle cards…then nothing. I don't remember anything
about the fall of the Moon Kingdom, or anything even before
that. It's like my brain just stopped."
"But how can they be here…and there? In the Negaverse?"
"I don't know Serena. I'll call Luna and Artemis tomorrow.
Maybe they'll know something." He smoothed one hand over
the flyaway hairs on top of her head, and the corners of his
mouth upturned and he kissed her on the swirl where all her
strands met together. "Go to sleep hon, we'll figure out
everything in the morning."
"OK," she agreed, her jaws almost splitting apart from
the impact of her yawn. Her eyelids fell shut.
The door barged open, throwing dim yellow hallway light
in the center of the room. "I'm going under them," Jay's
voice insisted. He crossed the space between the door and
the bed in a few seconds and flung himself on the squealing
mattress.
"No way! If I sleep on top of the covers I'm going to
freeze," Zach protested, pulling Jay off by one leg. A mad
scramble ensued for possession of the comforter.
"Jay, will you shut up? Serena and Darien are trying to
sleep!"
"I'm not sleeping under the covers with you; you're
evil twin's a flameball!"
"F*** you d***head; I'm not gay!" His voice was so
insistent he practically spat.
"Yeah whatever."
"Fine! You sleep with Darien and I'll sleep with Serena."
"No deal," Darien said out loud.
Zach thought for a moment. "OK, how 'bout we sleep
head to toe? Then we can both get under the covers and
still be considered non-gay. Not that there's anything wrong
with that."
"You can still grope me head to toe," Jay muttered,
resigning and tossing a pillow to the foot of the bed.
"Fine. Just don't be snoring all friggin' night."
Twenty minutes later, Serena had her head stuffed
under a pillow and Raye was yelling through a door and a
wall, "WOULD SOMEONE SHUT THAT KID UP?"
* * * * * * * * * * *
Mina woke without opening her eyes. She turned onto
her side, pulling the comforter up to her ears and snuggling
closer into the flannel sheets, and curled into the pocket
of heat that she had created.
Wait just one minute. I don't have flannel sheets.
Her eyes popped open, to yellow daylight streaming
over navy blue pillowcases. Not hers. Groaning, she sat
up slowly, choking slightly when the huge gray sweatshirt
Where did I get this from? she was wearing entangled
itself around her neck. She stuck her fingers between her
neck and the neckline and pulled, and inhaled deeply when
she could breathe again.
She was in a long rectangular bedroom, long enough
that the two double beds faced each other with at least
six or seven feet in between. On the other bed, Raye and
Amy were sleeping soundly with the clothes they had worn
the previous night still on, Raye still with her big do-me
shoes fastened to her feet. Mina smiled at them.
There was a closet next to their bed, and opposite
the doorway on her right was a battered dresser and a computer
on a spindly black computer desk. Various CDs, notebooks,
phone cords, and other superfluous crap leaked out from under
the computer desk, like someone had cleaned off the floor
in a very big hurry. The posters covering the walls ranged
from Steve Young and Dave Matthews to Carmen Electra and
John Belushi donning a sweatshirt reading, "College," and
chugging a bottle of Jack. It was a guy's bedroom.
She slipped out from under the covers, trying to collect
what had happened last night. After de-transforming, (a
process that took Jadeite a little longer than usual since
he was unconscious and therefore, unresponsive to personal
coaching) Serena had suggested they sleep on it before they
answered any questions, and had insisted that Luna and
Artemis be present for the Big Revelation. Mina suspected
she was stalling since she had no more idea what had just
happened than the rest of them. Darien said he had an idea,
but that was still fuzzy, and the whole idea was scrapped
until morning. Mina had been ascending the stairs when
her concussion kicked in again, and she suddenly sat on
the steps trying to clear the dizziness that had taken
control of her head. The combination of running, fighting,
and trying to keep calm around Kevin had taken its toll
on her weakened state. The last thing she remembered was
Kevin picking her up effortlessly and carrying her up the
rest of the stairs, making her feel all of twenty five
pounds.
She opened the door slowly, not wanting to wake Raye and
Amy, and for that matter, the rest of the house. She didn't
know what time it was, but most likely if it was anytime before
noon, she would catch some serious flack.
Lita and Matt were sitting (sitting!) upright on the
couch, Lita resting her head on his shoulder. By some fluke,
they were both awake. Kevin was stretched out on the floor,
a couch cushion shoved under his head in place of a pillow.
She crept in, waving silent hi's at Matt and Lita.
"Hey you," Lita said, obviously not caring if she woke
Kevin or not. Mina's eyes flew open and she waved one frantic
hand while making the "Shush," sign with the other.
"Relax," Matt said. "You don't have to worry; Kevin can
sleep through the friggin' apocalypse. Oh, and watch your feet.
Our vacuum's kinda sh***y and I don't think I got all the
glass up yet."
Mina curled her feet up and looked up at the window,
fully expecting to see a sheet of plastic or taped-together
garbage bags covering a gap in the wall where the window used
to be, and was shocked to see the buildings across the street
through a pane of glass. "How did you-?"
"I didn't, Zach did. Turns out he can like, pull things
out of thin air, anything he wants, so he fixed up the window
so our landlord doesn't lay the smackdown on us. Unfortunately,
he can't pull benjamins out of his ass, so I have no use for
him."
Mina smiled. "What time did you two wake up? And where
is everyone?"
Lita and Matt smiled at each other, sharing some
inside joke. "We didn't go to bed yet," Lita announced,
checking her watch. "And it is now, eleven-thirty."
"May I ask, WHY?"
Matt rubbed one side of his face and yawned. "Lita
has never seen 'Dazed and Confused' before. I couldn't
let her live with that dishonor any longer."
"I have officially been awake for twenty seven consecutive
hours, thank you very much," Lita giggled. "And I'm
not tired yet." Even before she noticed the dark circles
forming underneath the brunette's eyes, Mina knew that
she was lying. They had way too many caffeine-filled
sleepovers at Raye's for her not to notice the fatigue
buried away under a veneer of giddiness.
"You OK?" Matt asked. "How's the head?"
"Yeah, I'm fine, thanks." Not entirely true, since her
temples were receiving sharp lances of pain whenever she
blinked her eyes or swallowed, or breathed, or for that matter,
moved.
Lita whistled, long and low. "You're going to get it
from Raye so bad! She is majorly pissed that you showed up to
fight with a concussion."
Mina choked, holding her palms up. "What was I supposed
to do! You guys sounded the alarm, and I thought you were in
serious trouble, and I just couldn't sit there, and be like,
'Oh, my head kinda hurts, so I guess my friends will just
have to die this time.'" Her pretty faced twisted into
intense sorrow, something that a girl her age should know
nothing about, and Lita reciprocated the expression. Matt
knew then, that all five girls hid this fear from the world
but carried the enormous weight of it every day, the fear
that each day would be their last. They were a team in
every sense of the word, and would probably cease to exist
if one fell and the others went on living, not knowing if
they alone could have saved their friend. It was eating
them alive inside, and in seeing it pass from one girl to
the other, Matt knew that he would become a part of this
cycle, the terrifying fear for the life of the other. It
was like being in war. Any semblance of a normal life was
gone from here on in, and Matt wondered why he squandered
his freedom while he had it.
I know better now.
"Can I use your bathroom?" Mina asked politely,
tugging at the end of her sweatshirt, which read, "Moore
Monarchs," with a giant red M in the middle. "And where
did I get this?"
"Yes you may use the jake, I really didn't expect
you to pee on my carpet, and that's Kevin's, which might
explain why it hits your knees. He gave that to you after
you said you were cold."
"I said I was cold?"
"You said a lot of things, kid. You told Raye she
better take off your shoes before you beat her over the
head with them."
Mina flushed, not knowing if Matt was telling the
truth or busting on her. She scurried to the hallway and
the bathroom.
She used the bathroom and washed her hands, and
considered taking a quick shower until she noticed the total
lack of necessary bathroom products which would transform
her from a stringy-haired, grime-encrusted creature into
a tolerable-smelling, somewhat hygienic human. All that
lined the ceramic was a blue bar of that soap that smelled
inherently male and a lone bottle of Pert. Oh God this
is a male bathroom. They don't even have conditioner!"
She momentarily panicked at the prospect of Kevin seeing
her in all her morning-after battle glory, and was halfway
to picking up the Irish Spring when she realized that having
someone carry you up the stairs while out cold ranked first
on the indignity scale, and no smell produced by the human
body could overshadow it.
She met Serena on the way out. "You're up already?"
Mina asked, genuinely surprised that Serena was up and
moving before sunset.
Serena rubbed her eyes and yawned. "Yeah! Zach
snores so loud I couldn't stay asleep for more than five
minutes." The only time Serena was a light sleeper was
when she was recovering from a particularly heinous night.
"I couldn't sleep the entire night and my mouth feels all
mucky because I don't have a toothbrush and now my head
huuuuurts!"
Mina sighed; Serena's ability to whine was magnified
rather than diminished by her lack of sleep. "Did you call
Luna and Artemis?"
"Oh I'll do it later, it's not like they're going
anywhere. Want to grab some Burger King for breakfast?"
"It's eleven thirty already, they're serving lunch
now." Mina ran one hand through her hair, and wished
fervently for a brush-like object to untangle her snarls.
Her head hurt too, probably more so than Serena's, and
quite frankly, she was more than a little cranky herself.
"Besides, there are four guys that are going up our butts
for an explanation on just what the hell happened last
night, and I have absolutely no clue what I'm supposed to
tell them." She leaned on the sink, and the puddle of
water pooling on the ledge soaked into her jeans. "What
do you remember about the Generals during the Silver Millennium,
besides that fact that they must have existed then because
they're here now? You were the princess, did you ever
meet them?" She squirted a line of Crest on Serena's index
finger, and then did the same for her own.
Serena furrowed her brow with thought, and after a
few seconds said, "No, nothing. All I remember is Endymion.
And you guys. Other than that-" she shrugged. "Diddly-squat."
She stuck her toothpaste-y finger in her mouth and started
rubbing.
"We're so effed," Mina said, rinsing the minty residue
from her mouth and left Serena alone in the bathroom. She
could hear Zach merrily snoring away through the wall, and
Jay drowsily moaning, "Shut up! Shut up!"
She smiled; Jay must have fully recovered from his girly
fainting episode. In the living room, Lita was holding a
wrinkled Hefty Easy-Close open while Matt circled around
collecting empties and throwing them in. He picked a can off
the table and shook it. "Hey, this one still has about an
inch left." He threw back his head and gulped down the
remains of the can.
Lita and Mina were frozen in disgust. "I'm just going
to pretend you didn't do that," Lita said, suppressing her
gag reflex.
Mina folded her legs up and sat down on the floor
next to Kevin, who was thankfully unconscious during the
entire grisly episode. "Like, there might have been someone's
herpes-infested backwash in there! How can you even?" She
shuddered.
"What?" Matt said. "I'm not going to waste beer! And
I like the taste of herpes."
"There is a big difference between wasting beer and
infecting yourself with Ebola." She rested her back against
the couch, and watched Kevin's huge pectorals rise and
fall with each breath. His light eyelashes fanned over
his face, and Mina was taken with how young he looked
while he was sleeping. She resisted the urge to run her
hand across his face, to feel the its heat and texture.
He mumbled something too low for her to hear. "What?" she
asked, leaning closer to him.
"Oh, he's not talking to you," Matt explained, sweeping
empty cans off the counter and into the twisted garbage
bag. "He's completely gone; he talks in his sleep."
"Really?"
"Yeah. Sometimes he'll answer you, but he has no
idea what he's saying. We were messing around with him
last night. Hey, Kevin!" he yelled the last word inches
from Kevin's face.
"Wha?" He didn't open his eyes when he responded.
"Can I borrow your car? Lita and I are going to
drive it into a lake somewhere; do you think you'll mind?"
"No," Kevin said, in the same flat, hypnotized voice.
Mina giggled softly.
"Kev, I think you're mom's hot. Mind if I do her?"
Jay has appeared out of nowhere, nearly sending Mina into
a double coronary. He had snuck into the living room with
so much stealth that the air didn't even move to let his
body through. He rubbed one hand through his severely messy
hair and flopped onto the couch.
"No."
Lita could not stop laughing. Her knees buckled as
she latched onto the counter to keep from falling. "Kevin,
Mina peed in your bed last night. Do you care?"
Kevin's lips moved for several seconds before he
answered. "She was at the top of the stairs…waiting for
me."
The four of them exchanged confused glances. "Who
was, Kev?" Jay asked.
"Minako."
Mina shook her head. "I was?"
"I think he's just dreaming," Matt said, abandoning
his bulging garbage bag and standing over Kevin's slumbering
form. "The next words out of his mouth are going to be,
'And she was making out with Shannon Elizabeth,' and quite
frankly, as much as I would like to see that in real life,
I'm not quite ready to hear it quite yet." He snatched
the cushion out from under Kevin's head. His skull cracked
against the floor. "Hey, big guy, wake up. You're sharing
your sick fantasies with everyone."
"OW!" Kevin swung wide and cracked Matt in the ankle,
hard. "Watch it, d**khead." He sat up slowly, and started
when he saw Mina. Obviously, he was also suffering from "Oh
my God what the hell do I look like?" syndrome.
Lita clanged around in the kitchen, opening cabinets
and rifling around. "Anyone want breakfast? I'm jonesin'
for an omelet." She turned and flashed her patented Colgate
smile at Matt, dissolving him into a Silly-Putty shell of
his former self.
"Ah," Jay said. "That sounds good, but unfortunately,
all we have is Easy Mac and beer. If you can figure out a
way to make an omelet out of Easy Mac and beer, you will
be cooler than Martha Stewart and earn utmost respect in
my eyes."
Lita made a face. "Unreal. How do you guys keep
from starving?"
"Like I said, Easy Mac and beer. If you crush up
a Flintstones vitamin in it, then you satisfy your RDA,
too." He lifted his eyebrows. "It becomes health food."
"That is utterly disgusting."
"How 'bout someone makes a Burger King run?" Serena
emerged from the hallway. "I'm STARVING! And not for
fortified Easy Mac and beer."
"I hear that," Matt agreed, shaking another half-empty
can. Lita shot him a death look, and he sheepishly dropped
it into the garbage pile. "Chill! I wasn't going to drink
it!"
"I will!" Jay shouted, jumping over Kevin's body and
intercepting the orphan can.
Zach bolted out of the bedroom, his hair sticking
up at strange angles and his eyes wild. He was missing
his glasses, too. "WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED LAST NIGHT?"
"Easy, buddy, we didn't get to that part yet," Matt
reassured him, picking up a pack of Camels and sticking
one in his mouth. "We're getting BK first. Who's taking
orders?"
"I'll do it," Serena volunteered.
Amy stumbled out of the hallway, her eyes bleary.
"Hi," she whispered, slumping on the couch with the vigor
of a slug on downers.
"Amy!" Zach rushed to her side. "Are you feeling
OK?"
She graced him with a tiny smile. "Yes. Thank
you for taking care of me."
"What happened?" Mina asked immediately. Amy was
frighteningly pale, and listless beyond belief, but
the way she was looking at Zach lit up her eyes until
they positively glowed.
"All that Woodchuck hit her around two, and she
got kinda sick," Matt explained.
"However, for the record, she did not puke!" Jay
bounced on the cushions, probably nauseating the inhabitants.
He grabbed Amy and bear-hugged her. "That's my girl, Ames!
First time drinking and she doesn't even spew. This girl
can handle her s**t!"
Matt fished a lighter out of his pocket and was
about to strike it when he noticed the horrified look
covering Lita's face. "What's wrong?" he asked innocently,
striking up a flame.
"You," She seemed to have a hard time getting
the words out. "You, you-smoke!" Gross he smokes!!!
Why does the only decent guy I've met in a friggin eon
feel the need to breathe fire, for crying out loud! Oh,
he loses definite points!
Matt must have realized he was losing valuable points,
because he froze in a manner previously seen in deer
when they stepped in front of cars and caught a view
of the headlights. He thought for a few seconds, the
heat from the lighter practically burning a hole in his
thumb, and one could almost see the gears working beneath
his skull. "I don't smoke," he said finally. "Kevin
does!"
Shocked heads turned to Kevin, who caught the thrown
lighter and pack in one giant hand. His expression
clearly read: "What the hell are you talking about?
Speak, before I beat the crap out of you."
Matt shot him a "help me" look. "He's a fiend,
can't keep away from them," he jabbered. "And he plays
football too, can you believe it? I swear, Kev," he
clapped his friend on the back and forced a tight laugh.
"You've got your priorities messed WAY up!"
Kevin simply stared at him, incredulous. Matt
leaned closer and hissed, "Play along, d**khead!"
"Oh yes," Kevin deadpanned. "How did I forget?
I smoke all the time, of course."
"You're a funny guy, Belles!" Matt said, laughing
too loudly and artificially.
"Yeah, Stone Cold Kevin's just a laugh and a half,"
Jay quipped.
Matt changed the subject quickly. "So who wants what?
I'm feelin' it's a Whopper day."
* * * * * * * * * *
Luna sprang onto the bottom rung of the metal fire
escape and began jumping from rung to rung on her way to
the third floor. "Artemis?" she called, after
she realized that her white-furred companion had
not been following closely behind.
"Up here," was the response. Luna craned her neck
up, and saw Artemis leaping from branch to branch on
the giant tree in front of the building. He prepared
himself, and then attempted a valiant leap onto the fire escape.
He would have fallen to his kitty death if Luna hadn't darted
out and caught him by the paws.
"Why must you always show off?" she grouched at him. She
had been planning to spend her day curled on top of
Darien's radiator, with her catnip-stuffed mouse, dreaming
of a beach in some tropical climate that was NOT
northern California, but Darien had called at an obscene
hour and told them to report to 22 Boris St, apt
2C, ASAP. For what, she did not know. However, she
was less than pleased to be trouncing around a place
generally known on campus as the "jock house."
"Sorry," Artemis said, running up to
the nearest window. "Nope, not this one. All
that's in here are a bunch of empty cups and a
few passed-out guys."
Luna crept up to the next window, which seemed
uncommonly clean and shiny as compared to the rest.
Inside, she saw her Senshi sitting around the somewhat
grimy living room, and Darien too, and those four
guys that bore striking resemblances to their mortal
enemies. They were sharing a meal of Whoppers and
fries and onion rings, and Luna hoped that Darien
had remembered to get her one. Amy, Serena, Lita,
and Mina were each holding a fan of greasy playing
cards, and seemed to be getting coached from the guys.
"When are Luna and Artemis getting here?"
The one who looked like Zoycite asked. She could
barely hear him through the glass. "Throw that one
out, Ame."
Darien checked his watch. "Any second now, I
think. I told them to be here in an hour."
Malachite's look-alike wiped off his mouth and
asked, "Do they know where to park? I think the
street's full, they'll have to park in the alley.
No don't!" he began, but Mina had already added
her card to the pile and gave him a "What?" look.
"That was the five!" Amy smiled and cleared the pile
off the tabletop.
Oh, we won't have a problem with that. And
I don't think Artemis would like to see how close
you're sitting to Mina, young man. She tapped
gently against the glass with one paw.
Darien stood up and opened the window for
them to enter. "Aw, look, Darien brought his
kitties!" Jay leapt to his feet and began harshly
massaging Luna's face while talking to her in baby
talk. "Look at you kitty kitty kitty!"
Mina closed her eyes and silently groaned.
He's in for one hell of a surprise.
Luna pried her face out between Jay's palms
and cleared her throat, trying desperately to regain
some of the dignity lost to her when treated like an
SPCA Pet of the Week. "Artemis, over here!" she called.
Chaos erupted. Kevin sat straight up like he had
been electrocuted and had a hard time forcing down his
mouthful of Whopper. Mina giggled at his expression.
Matt, who had been throwing back a cold one, choked
on his beer and began coughing. Zach scooted his
ass back on the carpet and screamed, "HOLY SH*T THAT
CAT JUST TALKED!"
Jay pulled his hand away from Luna and began
screaming to himself in a flat, somewhat reassuring
manner. "OK now I KNOW I've dropped acid! I'm
having another flashback! Or I might have a brain
tumor! Yeah, that's it, acid and a brain tumor!" He
began laughing in hysterical hiccups.
Luna leapt down off the windowsill, and the
three guys minus Jay picked up and darted into the
kitchen, scattering the playing cards and food
wrappers. Matt was still coughing up the beer
that had trickled down into his lungs. Jay
remained hammered to the spot, rambling on about
drugs, brain tumors, and mental illness.
Artemis entered the apartment and jumped
onto Mina's lap. "Mina, are you OK? Why did you
fight last night?"
"Oh Artemis," Mina stroked his back and fed
him a French fry. "You sound just like my mom."
Serena picked Luna up and held her up to the
three cowering men in the kitchen. "Everyone,
this is Luna. She's my Guardian cat, and she
pretty much knows everything, so whenever we get
stuck she's the one we turn to."
"Hey what am I, cheap cat food?" Artemis
protested. "I know just as much as Luna, thank
you very much, and let's not forget that I was
the one who awakened Sailor Venus."
"Yes, how could we forget?" Luna muttered
wearily. "Everyone, this is Artemis, Artemis,
this is, well, Darien tells me some interesting
things about you four."
"Interesting, yes," Jay repeated. "Interesting.
Cat talks to me. Interesting."
Artemis picked his head up. "What's wrong
with that kid?"
"Oh, nothing, he's just never seen an animal
that can talk outside of Sabrina the Teenage Witch,"
Zach filled in, still cowering in the kitchen,
but seemingly recovering from the initial shock.
Luna jumped out of Serena's arms and onto
the kitchen counter, and circled around Kevin's
paralyzed body. "Kunzite," she said slowly. Kevin
stared at her hesitantly. "Yes, yes, I remember
you now. But you were a few years older then, I
don't know why you're this young." She looked at
each of the scared boys in turn, first Kevin, then
Matt, who was still sporadically coughing, and
then Zach, who was rubbing his forehead, trying
to analyze the situation presented, and finally
Jay, who was still rooted to the same spot in front
of the windowsill, his eyes as big as dinner plates.
"Nephrite," Artemis said, joining the party
in the kitchen. "Zoicite. Jadeite. I remember."
"Remember what?" Raye interjected.
"Please enlighten the rest of us."
Luna shook her head, prompting more gasps from
the trio. "I don't remember much, but I remember
you four, you were the guardians of Endymion."
"Who?" Zach asked, pounding Matt on the back as
he leaked out his final coughs.
Serena sighed heavily. "I guess we have to
start from the beginning, right?" She groaned. "This
is going to take FOREVER!"
"First things first," Mina interrupted. "I
think we might have, a, uh, small problem."
Amy was all-ears. "What is it, Mina?"
"Well," she began. "Last night, the Dark Kingdom
Generals, the bad guys," she clarified before the
confused gallery. "They saw them-" she pointed to
the guys. "transform. It's only a matter of time before
they find out who they are and start busting down
the doors with their undead army."
Lita hit Amy on the arm. "Yo, brainiac, why
didn't you think of this before?"
Amy scowled, an occurrence that was as rare
as her blue hair. "For your information, I wasn't
exactly feeling a hundred percent last night."
"So what's the game plan?" Darien asked,
mentally smacking the back of his own head for
not thinking of this before. They had been screwing
around for almost ten hours now, and that was
plenty of time for the Negaverse to start sniffing
around the campus.
"I'll put a protection spell on the place."
Raye rummaged through her purse and pulled out several
sheets of paper. "That'll stop the Nega-sleaze in
their tracks. Now, if I remember this correctly…" She
drifted off the doorway.
Amy had whipped out her mini-computer/Palm Pilot
before Raye finished her sentence. "Zach, can I use
your computer?"
"Use anything you want."
She scurried off to the bedroom, complete with
a foot of cord that she had seemingly pulled out of
thin air. "Can you help me? I need to hack into the
university database and change some things around."
"I was thinking that my help would facilitate
something more…legal, but sure." He followed her
into the bedroom, giving the cats a wide berth.
They settled on the couch, expression ranging
from perplexed to shocked to absolutely in shock.
Jay was still staring blankly at the cats: obviously,
the intrusion in his own universe had sent him
into a genuine case of shell-shock.
"OK," Luna said. "I'm starting from the
top."
* * * * * * * * * *
Two hours and a pizza later, the house
was securely under a protection spell, courtesy
of Raye, and the guys had the basics down, i.e.,
there was once a Moon Kingdom, they had lived past
lives and were reincarnations of those lives, the Moon
Kingdom has fallen, etc. Knowing that the only way that
the Negaverse would recognize the guys was by a picture or
description, Amy had pulled up names of deceased university
students and switched the names under the freshman f**k
finder and any other picture that they were in. Thus, they
were temporarily hidden under a veil of obscurity.
"OK, wait," Matt leaned forward in his chair. "If
all this is true, which it must be because there is no
other way to explain last night, then why isn't any of this
jogging my memory? I mean, if I wasn't there last night,
I would think that all this is a plot of a comic book or
something."
"You don't remember a thing?" Darien asked, the emotion
in his voice devastatingly obvious. Serena's heart almost
broke; it meant so much to him that they would remember him
and the friendship they all shared. Darien was waiting for
his ship to come, and when it did, it was empty.
"No." (Kevin.)
"No." (Matt.)
"Oh yeah, THAT Moon Kingdom. My family used to take
vacations there instead of Disney World. Less traffic."
(Zach, complete with eye roll.)
"Not a thing. You're lucky I'm sober or I'd be agreeing
with you," Jay said, grimacing when Darien winced. "Sorry."
"What do you remember, girls?" Luna asked them.
"Especially you, Serena. You were the one always sneaking
down to earth to see Endymion."
"Or you," Raye said to Mina, the memory dawning on her.
"You were always going down to get her."
Mina stared closely at the four guys, trying to find
a something familiar in their faces that would send her
mind back a thousand years. She stopped on Kevin, and
gasped as the voice from a past era spoke to her again.
"It must be difficult having such a curious
princess."
"Was it you?" she said out loud. He frowned.
"Was it me what?"
"I don't know," she admitted. And she didn't. She
didn't remember Kunzite at all; it could have been one of
the many guards from earth. And her recollection of
fetching Serena was foggy, at best.
Luna sensed the confusion in the room, and knew
that they were stuck in a dead end in Nowhere St. in Got
Me? U.S.A. "Oh dear, it looks like I'll have to break out
the heavy artillery," she sighed.
"I don't like the sound of that," Matt said warily,
erupting into a yawn. He would have to crash soon; his head
felt like a helium balloon without a string. However, he
would stay up for days just to be conscious with Lita, and
her toothpaste-bright smile and perfect face.
Luna and Artemis were too busy planning to hear any
complaints. "What if we used Darien?" Luna asked. Artemis
lit up.
"Yeah! If we channel through him and into them…"
"Channel? Is this going to hurt?" Zach asked, a little
uneasy. He fingered his straw nervously, not realizing that
his power was running out of his hands and through it,
creating new bits of plastic on the end of the original
until the tube was about a foot long. "The words 'through
him,' and 'into them,' usually connotation pain of some
kind…"
"Shouldn't," Artemis responded simply, and positioned
himself behind Darien. "Darien, could you stand up?
Thanks. OK, you guys, position yourself around him in
a semicircle, let Luna in the middle." They stood up,
albeit reluctantly from the fear of pain and death, and
Luna stood in the middle of them, with Darien and Artemis
behind her. Jay turned to Raye, who was curled on the
couch in a fetal position.
"Tell my family I love them. Give all my worldly
possessions to 4C, but keep the DVD player and my lucky
bat, Raye. Call it something to remember me by."
"Moron," she muttered, tucking her head back under
her arm.
"Ready?" Artemis asked. They turned to each other
and shrugged.
"As ready as we'll ever be," Zach supplied.
"Into the valley of death," Matt muttered before
Kevin elbowed him harshly.
"Here goes." Artemis shut his eyes, concentrating.
Kevin's skin broke out in goose bumps in response to
the atmosphere. The air had suddenly thickened, until
he could feel it brushing over his skin with a liquid-like
weight. It was hard to inhale. He looked over his
shoulder, into Mina's enormous blue eyes, her perfect
pout of lips. She didn't seem to have trouble breathing.
"I can't, breathe," Matt gasped.
"Maybe you should stop smoking," Lita supplied from
the peanut gallery.
The air congealed even further, until all four guys
were desperately sucking in shallow breaths, their
unaccustomed lungs trying to separate precious oxygen
from the weave of atmosphere and magic, a magic so
familiar to a people long ago that they needed it as much
as they needed air, or water, and could breathe it with
ease. Artemis's crescent symbol began flickering, faster
and faster like a strobe light, and a beam of gold shot
out from it and hit Darien in the back of the head. It
came out of his forehead, shot down into the back of
Luna's head, and emitted from her crescent moon in four
branches, hitting the guys in the forehead and absorbing
into their unconscious.
Flickers of memories came back to them, piecing
together images until they became whole and solid.
They remembered, bit by bit. Small things at first:
the sound of clanging swords, the white marble castles
of ancient earth, the smell of air unpolluted by car
exhaust and factory smokestacks, the gliding hiss of
playing cards being shuffled.
They remembered each other, playing together as
youngsters, studying together in school, training, laughing,
wrestling, fighting.
They remembered Endymion.
Artemis stopped his beam, and the rest shut off like
a waterfall. They staggered backwards, faces white and eyes
stunned, heads full of forgotten memories. Zach sat shakily
on the couch. He looked into Darien's eyes, and it was like
seeing part of yourself that you thought you left behind.
"Endy," he said, his face cracking into a grin. The smile
remained unchanged after a millennium.
"Endymion," Kevin repeated, his hands shaking. He opened
his mouth to say more, but his voice failed him.
Darien's eyes filled partway with tears, but he blinked
them away before they leaked out. What would his guards
think of their prince if he broke down and bawled like, well,
like Serena? "Miss me?" he choked out.
"ENDYMION!" Jay screamed, lunging at him. For a
second, Darien thought he was going to attack, but instead,
Jay grabbed him in a bear hug and lifted his feet off the
ground.
"OH MY GOD!" Matt joined in, and so did Zach, until
the Prince and his Generals were squashed together in a
group hug, and the whole huddle started jumping up and down.
"Why didn't you tell us it was you?" Zach bounced
gleefully.
"I didn't remember until last night!" Darien said,
trying to catch his breath between the arms encircling his
neck and the pure joy stuck in his throat.
They pulled apart, and hugged again. Jay scooped
up the cats and pressed them against his face. "I love
you guys! I don't remember you at all, but I still love
you! I'm sorry I freaked out before."
"Argh! Get him off!" Artemis squirmed out of his
grasp and slipped to the floor.
"Do I have to like, bow or something?" Matt offered.
"No," Darien said, secretly wondering if they did
have to. That would be cool.
The guys and girls faced each other, a line clearly
dividing the two sides of the room. "Uh, how come I don't
remember the Senshi?" Zach said, confused. "You guys
were supposed to be big-importants way back when."
"I don't know," Mina said, racking her brain for any
time that she ever met Endymion's guards. She scrunched
her face up in a way that Kevin found irresistible. Snippets
of the Senshi training, the clicking noise her heels made
against the white stone walkways in the palace, Serenity…
"AAH!"
"Don't frustrate yourself," Amy warned. "According
to my calculations, we've only regained about a third
of our Silver Millennium memories, and the Generals only
have about a fourth to work with. It's going to come
back to us sooner or later."
"OK," Kevin agreed. "So what do we do about my
evil twin? How did he come about?"
"Ah! Easy answer!" Mina said, grinning when all
eyes reached her. "I have no clue. If you weren't
standing in front of me right now, I would have sworn
that Endymion's guards turned to Beryl's side."
"Oh man," Zach groaned. He looked stricken.
"What if we're the evil twins? Like, they are the real
guards and somehow we were made and we're the clones,
and we're the real bad guys, but we're not, because
we're on the wrong side, and they're the real ones,
follow?"
"Hell no," Kevin grunted, disgruntled at the fact
that someone was walking around with his face, committing
felonies and breaking expensive, non-insured things.
Serena waved their worries away. "I'm sure we'll
figure it out eventually! OOH I can't WAIT until you guys
can fight with us! We'll kick some serious ass then!
No more 'Sailor Moon gets thrown a hundred feet in the
air and lands in a mud puddle'!"
"We got your back," Zach said, hugging her from
behind. "We gotta protect our Prince's woman."
Lita broke through their conversation with a yawn
that practically sucked all of the oxygen out of the room.
She smiled sheepishly when she realized that all eyes
were on her. "Oh, sorry. I think I'm going to head
out, I need some serious siesta. Ready to roll, girls?"
They nodded. "I've got to go to that mixer tonight,"
Raye said. "And Mina is going to STAY HOME and rest,
right?" She shot her patented visual daggers at her friend.
"OK, OK, I get it," Mina resigned, picking up on
of her shoes and slipping it on.
"I'll do some research tonight to try and find
out where the evil Generals came from," Amy supplied.
"There has to be a scientific explanation for them,
they couldn't just-"
"No you're not! You're coming with me tonight!"
Raye insisted.
"I've got it Amy," Jay said very matter-of-factly.
"The next time we run into that good-looking evil guy
and his three not-so-good-looking comrades, I'll ask him."
Amy blinked. "What makes you so sure he'll answer
as opposed to, say, eviscerating you?"
"I didn't get to that yet; I'm just a rookie."
"Party at Darien's!" Matt pronounced, throwing an
arm around Darien. "You don't mind, do you?"
"Not at all." Unless you throw up.
"I know how we can celebrate!" Jay said, rushing
into the kitchen. He rummaged through the cupboards and
produced two bottles. "You're the Prince of Earth, what
country do you want to conquer? Me-hico," he held up a
bottle of tequila. "Or Ruuush-sha?" He waved the bottle
of Absolut in front of Zach's face.
"Tonight," Zach said. "The no-alcohol policy starts
up again for baseball."
"Yes, I know, that's why we'll get it all in
tonight." He didn't see Raye roll her eyes to the ceiling.
"We still have a case of Germany to kill off," Matt
added, checking the inventory in the refrigerator.
"What are you talking about? Don't you mean Colorado?"
Zach got technical.
Matt assumed an air of a snotty wine connoisseur.
"Ah, I think that you are presuming that I was talking
about the mass productive origins of this particular brew,
but if you can recall, the birthplace of the gold foamy is
actually sometime in ancient Germania…"
"You're both idiots," Darien grinned, wondering how at
one point, he lived somewhat completely without them.
* * * * * * * * * * *
"Oh my God I'm WRECKED!" Jay screamed the last word,
at the same time stumbling over Darien's glass-top coffee
table, a cardboard tube from a paper towel roll clenched
in his fist. At one point, he was supposed to clean up a
beer spill in the kitchen, but had decided instead to play
"Hit my Friends with a Skinny Tube." "Let's play baseball!"
"Shut up, Uncle F***er," Matt muttered from the
floor, where he had been laying for the last hour and a
half. He was incapable of standing, sitting, or anything
kind of movement that required voluntary muscles.
Kevin was stretched out and over Darien's couch,
holding the Absolut bottle that he had killed half of.
"If I remember correctly," he started, then stopped for
a full minute, proving that he probably didn't remember
correctly. "I was in charge of you a**holes."
"We salute you, o fearless leader." Zach attempted
to salute, but instead hit himself in the eye. "OW!"
They started laughing, hysterically, until they
were red in the face. "Anyway, like I was saying," Kevin
stopped again, and repeated what he had just said to
himself again. "Yeah, OK, um, I was in charge.."
"Below me," Darien reminded him.
"Well, of course below you, what the hell? I can
still kick your ass, Chiba. Anyway, I was in charge
and…Goddammit I forgot what I was thinking…"
"Yo, Lita is SO hot," Matt rambled from the floor.
Darien reached out and deftly plucked the beer can that
was threatening to tip over out of his hand and set it
on the table. "Why didn't you tell me you had such good
connections, huh? You suck." This was the fourth time
he had brought up her name. "What was her real name
again?"
"Makoto."
"Yeah, I like that." He burped.
Zach and Jay sat completely upright in Darien's
recliners, eyeing each other like prizefighters. Darien
watched them, curious. "One…two…threeSHOOT!" On "shoot,"
they ferociously yanked the handles and pounded their
heads back, forcing the chairs into the reclining position.
Jay had trouble lifting his feet up, ergo Zach won the
Lay-Z-Boy 500.
Darien joined in the hysterical laughter, almost
wetting himself after the fourth and fifth rematch.
"This one's broke," Jay protested. "Take it back,
get a refund."
"It's not broke, you're just slow."
"Back that up, homo."
Zach reached over and viciously punched him in
the shoulder. "Take that back, d***head!"
"I can't help it if your evil twin bats for
the Yankees! Yours too, Kev."
Under normal circumstances, he would have been
off the couch and beating Jay within an inch
of his life, but Russia was winning the Battle
of the Bloodstream and Kevin had no choice but
to remain immobile. "We gotta find out where
the big baddies came from, because I sure as hell
can't remember jack…" Darien noticed that Kevin
never finished his sentences while intoxicated.
Something hit Zach out of left field, a sentence,
and he articulated it before wondering where
it came from. "We made them."
Silence, save for the stereo.
He received incredulous looks from all
corners of the room. "Yeah that's right, I
made them. I'm their daddy," Jay said, grabbing
an unmentionable part of his body.
"Good call Einstein," Matt mumbled.
"You guys wait!" They sobered for a
second and stared at Darien. "Our memories
are going to come back to us in bits in pieces,
and we have to go with it if we're going to
remember anything! Zach, did that just pop
into your head?"
"Yeah."
"What did you mean by it?"
Zach looked so confused that they would
have burst into laughter under any other circumstance.
"I don't know. It just, it just popped in my
head, like that." He snapped. "I had to say it."
"OK, you see? Every time we remember
something, we have to say it, or think about
it, no matter how stupid! All of these little
things could add up to something important,
like the Senshi, or the generals, or," He sighed.
"The fall of the Moon Kingdom."
"What happened, anyway?" Matt asked.
" Do you remember it?"
Darien plowed through his memories, snapping
at anything that looked remotely like what he
wanted. "No, not really. It comes to me
in scenes, like a movie, except that it skips
back and forth. I remember Serenity, and
trying to save her, and." He stopped for a
second, regrouped. "And how I felt when I
couldn't."
They were silent for a few minutes,
lying in various positions around the room,
scratching at memories that weren't really
there and weren't ready to come out. Two of
Endymion's guards scratched at the dust of
forgetting, peeling it back and being hit with
realizations buried underneath as sharp as
tiny arrows. Suddenly, a scene flashed under
Kevin's eyelids, and one flashed in Matt's, and
they both gasped.
Kevin remembered:
A glass half full of shimmering liquid
reflecting the starlight on its surface tipping
over bursting splashing glass tinkling fluid
pouring in rills over the WHITE MARBLE STAIR
the tiny thin clear fragments spraying out in
an arc a female gasp.
Matt remembered:
Dark leaves shiny leaves the sound
of them rustling together the flaky bark
under his hands scratching them tiny burns
of pain rustling swishing hissing up stars
peeking out from the CANOPY OF LEAVES caressing
his face as he lifted through them brushing
feathery knotty trunk a female laughing.
"A glass broke," Kevin said.
"I climbed a tree," Matt said.
Jay sighed, and for a second they erroneously
thought he was being serious. "OK, great.
We've established that Nephrite's a tree-hugger
and Kunzite's a klutz. And we thought we'd
never get anywhere."
Groaning, they threw whatever what was
in arm's reach at him, muttering obscenities.
It hit Zach again, this time stronger than
before, providing much more to go on.
Zach remembered:
Ripples in dark water his feet bare dragging
through it leaving currents swirling like smoke
toes freezing wind blowing his hair his face
motion back then forth then back then forth
his feet moving that way through the WATER
STIRRING rushing over his ankles a hand holding
his.
"I don't even know what mine means," he moaned.
"Don't feel bad Zach, I didn't even get
one yet," Jay complained. The air was heavy, too
heavy with seriousness. It was an environment
that he just couldn't survive in. "So, Kevin, are
they real?"
Kevin yawned from his position on the couch,
the whole couch. "You'll never find out."
"Anyone want to watch Goodfellas?" Darien
asked, giving up for the night. I might as well
get some food, too; they're not going to remember a
nything else.
"Hell yes. Bring it on. Ready Zach?
ONETWOTHREESHOOT!"