Part 8
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Hi! Sorry this part took forever, News flash, i don't really
know what I'm doing. Um, i decided at one strategic part to leave
the whole "f" word in, for two reasons, 1) it adds for effect and
2) I'm sick of asteriks. So this is rated R, if you are offended
by swearing, you must be Amish or something. Thanks to everyone
who emailed me, you don't know what it means. Pass the love on.
I don't own Sailor Moon, any brand names and Dave Matthews band.
So w/o further ado:
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Look at me dreaming of you
All I could hope is to have you
To have you walking with me
Laughing so in love we two
Almost drunkenly I did imbibe of this
Fantasy of you only…
Dave Matthews Band
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Matt brought his cigarette to his lips and inhaled a double
lungful of carcinogenic smoke, letting it roll around and do a good
job of poisoning his remaining alveoli. He exhaled, and the
blue-ish smoke shot up vertically and curled in the cool night
air, tingeing the black sky gray for the few seconds it existed
before dissipating.
He was lying on his back on the skinny metal fire escape;
letting his feet dangle off the side. A huge chem lab report was
waiting for him inside, threatening to jump out the window and
sit on his chest soon if he didn't give it his full attention.
Whatever. Maybe I'll pay Zach to do it. But he had laid
out here for hours, eyes cast to the sky, tracing the lines and
patterns the stars made, just like he had done the previous seven
nights, while homework and dirty laundry collected in piles roughly
the size of termite mounds on the floor of his bedroom. It was
addicting, this divination that was disclosed only to him and
him alone. Well, not everything was revealed. He had spent
an entire night trying to read into the past, only to have the
equivalent of laughter come from the celestial bodies, which
chided him gently and reminded that they could only reveal
what was to be, not what had been. The next night he spent
three fruitless hours hunting for lottery numbers and basketball
scores.
It was mostly luck, really. There was so much to happen,
from so many different people, that finding what belonged to
him was really a matter of trial and error. He had discovered
huge amounts of really useless information, and somehow his
eyes traveled over those lines over and over like a skipping
CD and stubbornly refused to jump to new revelations. The BIG
one was still there, the one the stars kept flashing to him
like those light up arrow roadside signs, warning of him of
impending danger on a Chernobyl-like scale. Of course, they
gave him no specific details or dates, just the repetitive
admonition with the possibility of death and dismemberment,
practically screaming the urgency, causing a very aggravated
Matt to shake his fist and scream, "If you really wanted to
help me, you'd give me some lottery numbers!"
He could hear Zach on the phone inside. "No, Nana, I'm
just cold, the window's open, I'm not getting sick…"
"WHUT?" Matt smiled. Zach's old Jewish grandmother had
a bit of a volume control problem when it came to phone etiquette.
"Shut the vindow, whut are you, stupit? You etting enough?"
Etting?
"Yes, Nana, don't worry; listen I have to go, I'm meeting
someone."
"Who? Izzit a GIRL?"
"NO! Um, it's, uh, my friend Darien…but listen Kevin has
to use the phone so I have to go love you Nana bye!" He hung
up before Nana had a chance to process his hurried sentence.
Matt smiled; Zach's grandmother was a riot, he especially
loved it when she would visit and make obscene amounts of food,
even though it was kosher. She was under the presumption that
all four of them were dangerously underweight, practically
malnourished, including Kevin, whom she referred to lovingly
as the "Catlick," her own variation on the word Catholic.
He heard Jay stomp his way around the apartment and then
the jingle of snagged car keys. Those better not be mine.
"Kevin I'm taking your car."
"Where?" Kevin was in one of the bedrooms.
"Raye's dorm. Wanna go?"
"I have to finish this history paper first, I need an A
to pull up that D I got on the test."
"Told you to study that."
"I did!"
"And I'm sure the Playstation helped you. I'll tell Mina
you said hi." The door slammed.
More footsteps came from inside. "Matt, I'm taking your
car, OK? I'm heading over Amy's." The door slammed again, prompting
a yell from the disgruntled neighbors.
"What is this s***?" Matt grumbled. I don't even have a
say over my own car? I think Zach should take some of his Bar
Mitzvah money and buy his own damn wheels. Jay, too. His
brain, immersed in grouchy hormones, could not process the simple
facts that Zach's Bar Mitzvah money had probably been blown
on baseball cards and wrestling figures shortly after he received
it, and with six children, the Melman family was most likely
more concerned about things like food, clothing, and shelter
than equipping each of their progeny with a two-ton piece of
metal that could potentially injure them.
He cast his eyes skyward again, wondering lazily if he
should ask Kevin if he wanted to order food, but decided to get
back at Zach by eating the rest of the Frosted Flakes. Ha
ha screw him. "Oh," he said when he caught another star
message hiding behind a cloud. "Wow."
After that one, he looked for the others, finally finding
them. Darien's was the brightest, and Jay's was almost hidden
behind a constellation, but there nonetheless…
"Hey." Kevin the verbose climbed through the window, bearing
two cans of MGD.
"Hey." Kevin slid down next to him, almost wedging his huge
body between the building and the metal railing at the same time.
He held the can out to Matt.
"Thanks." They popped the tops and laid there in silence.
"How's that paper going?"
"I think it's OK. Zach will probably disagree when he gets
home." He pointed with his can-hand. "What's up there? Any
basketball scores?"
"Believe me, I've looked."
Kevin squinted up at the glowing points of light. "How
the hell do you do that anyway? All I see are a bunch of stars."
"Yes, but how many?"
"Uh, I don't know. A hundred?"
Matt grinned in the darkness. "That's your problem, my
fearless leader, you can only see the ones your puny little
optic nerves can process. I can see thousands, sometimes from
out of our own galaxy, and they move."
"They move?" Kevin wondered if he should have withheld
the gift of beer for Matt's own mental well-being.
"Yep. When they need to tell me something." He flicked
his cigarette butt over the side. "Want to know how many kids
you're having?"
Drinking from a can while lying on one's back is not the
easiest endeavor for even the most dexterous of us, and the
combination of not being one of those people and utter shock
caused Kevin to slosh beer down his neck. "Do I want to?"
"It's up to you, buddy. You're having the most out of
all of us."
"So two or more."
Matt squinted. "How you figure?"
"You said 'kids.'"
He laughed and brought his can to his mouth. "Can't get
anything by you, can I, Kev?"
Kevin remained motionless on his back. "Who are they with?"
Matt stopped. "Can't tell you that. Some things are better
left unsaid, it takes the purpose out of life." He stopped and
laughed. "Haha, Jay's having twins. Good for him."
Kevin stopped himself from inflicting pain on Matt and tried
to remember if Nephrite was ever that vague and annoying. He
had a feeling he didn't need to ask the stars for the answer
to that question.
"Oh," Matt raised his can. "By the way, happy birthday."
He raised his and touched it to Matt's. "Well, technically
it's not until tomorrow, but thanks."
They drank in silence, Kevin grateful for his friend's
thoughtfulness, and at the same time trying to bury the onslaught
of emotions that every January 19th carried. Inside, the phone
emitted its trademark obtrusive electronic ring.
"That's Lita!" Matt screamed loud enough for the entire block
to hear. He jumped up and through the window in a flash.
Kevin turned his eyes back up to the heavenly patterns of
answers to the questions he couldn't see. Why did it have
to be the same day?
* * * * * * * * * * *
"Zach!" Amy giggled and tried to squirm out from underneath
him. Her comforter bunched in uncomfortable hills under her
ass. "We have to stop, we're supposed to be studying!"
Zach stuck his face back in her neck. "We are studying."
She smiled again. She had been smiling a lot these days,
more than her entire grade and high school years combined. Amy
had never found herself so happy before, probably in her entire
life, and her newfound bliss was only about a week old, still
in the infant stages. Still…
It happened the next cell bio class after the BIG weekend.
Amy had vainly tried to concentrate on the immensely boring
film the hung over professor had decided to pop in lieu of
lecturing, which in turn had lulled two-thirds of the equally
hung over class into an impromptu nap. Darien was one of
those victims. Amy had her ear trained to pick up any significant
information, albeit finding none, and had nearly simultaneously
jumped out of her skin and transformed when something heavy
settled on her shoulders. Zach had slung his arm around her
like they were sitting in a movie theater instead of a three-credit
class. She looked over at him, perplexed, and caught herself
in the snare of his leaf-green eyes. He had his contacts
in. She preferred when he wore his glasses, he seemed…much
less Zoycite. She couldn't move, much less breath, his
presence cancelled out her senses and left her with only her
pounding heartbeat. Without saying a word, he leaned forward
and pressed his lips against hers, sending rippling shock
waves through her unprepared body. She had never been kissed
before, and despite the intense, full-body sensation that the
simple pressure produced, all she could think was, So this
is what someone's mouth tastes like. Shocked, she had pulled
away, praying that her mother would never find out that her
normally studious daughter was making out during very expensive
class time. Luckily, it was dark enough that Zach didn't notice h
er beet-red face, and she had forced herself to concentrate
on the cinematic disaster in front of her. Still, the entire
time, his arm remained around her shoulders, slightly frightening
and reassuring at the same time. Just like her feeling for
him, an awkward blend of nervousness and infatuation.
At times like these, the nervousness diminished so much
that the infatuation practically swallowed it whole and lengthy
make out sessions were the result, regardless of location.
Lita had almost crapped her pants when she walked in on them
once. And another, previously buried feeling had erupted in
the unusually polite and reserved Ami Mizuno: smugness. She
loved the stares she received from other, less fortunate females,
undoubtedly jealous of her tall, built, gorgeous, right-handed
pitcher (number 11) boyfriend that was as equally infatuated
with her as she was with him. She even loved the title:
boyfriend. Girlfriend. Ha-ha to the Seventh Floor Goshin
Bitches and the green-eyes monsters that lived underneath all
that makeup.
She pushed his head away. "We have to study cell bio,
remember? Big test on Wednesday, one fourth of our grade, must
do well or slink out of class in disgrace?"
He doggedly started sucking her skin again. "I am studying
cells. See?" He kissed her ear, a place she never would have
guessed as being an erogenous zone. "I'm in contact with a
lot of them right now."
She wrapped an arm around his head and cupped her palm
over his mouth. "Zach, we have to get down to business. I
promise, we can resume this after the test." She wiggled out
from under him and scooted to the foot of her bed. "Now, I
have to review the first chapter again, just to make sure I
know all those parts, and then I'll look over the quizzes,
because this girl I know said that he usually…"
"Nope." Zach scrambled up and started crawling over
the bed towards her. Amy suddenly felt like prey.
She swallowed. "Nope what?"
He didn't say a word, just stopped and smiled. She
jumped up and tried to make it to the door, but he was too
fast. He lunged forward with a growl and grabbed her around
the waist, sending them both crashing to the floor. She let
out a squeal of pure glee, giggling as hysterically as Serena
ever could when she felt his lips assault her neck again.
Erin and her roommate Hollie were two seconds away from
knocking on Amy's door to invite her over for some Cool Ranch
Doritos and White Russians when the door visibly thumped
outwards with the impact of something large and heavy hitting
it, followed by Amy shrieking.
"Whoa," Erin breathed, the amazement in her eyes the
same as when she had gone to Yellowstone with her parents and
witnessed Old Faithful erupting. She turned to Hollie. "Who
would have guessed that someone as quiet as Amy would be so
kinky?"
* * * * * * * * * * * *
They were there. He had found them.
Kunzite stared incredulously at the pulsing white boomerang
that he had seemingly pulled out of thin air. He was plastered
to the spot, hypnotized by its throbbing glow, just as he had
been when Serena had shown him the Silver Crystal. Of course,
he had been more awestruck of the aura of power emitting from
the glittering stone than by its flashy strobe effect, but right
now he felt like a kid in a candy store. He silently rejoiced.
All right! I knew I wasn't all defense!
This was technically only their third real skirmish, the
second being a spindly youma made out of a Wal-Mart shopping
cart, and the General's really didn't have time to practice on
it after Mercury got a little overexcited and froze the whole
thing solid. Jadeite had challenged any of them to stick their
tongue to its frozen metal legs before Mars bitch-slapped him
and flamed it, causing the frigid metal to explode when exposed
to the extreme heat. They had celebrated with a case of Coors
and a heated ten-point pitch tournament, the seemingly inept
team of Jay and Serena coming out victorious.
"Kunzite, take a friggin' picture, it lasts longer!"
Zoicite screeched; backpedaling rapidly after his ice shards
had ineffectually and promptly shattered against the metal
chiton of the half bug/half robot youma. Its origins were
obviously refuse; the word BUDWEISER was stretched across its
thorax in giant script and a pull tab sat on its head in lieu
of antennae. Kunzite used every ounce of reserve not to fling
his new weapon at the back of Zoicite's head.
The metal beer can/insect effortlessly dodged a flying
long-stem and emitted a high, shrill buzz a few decibels above
eardrum-shattering, causing nine pairs of hands to clap over
eighteen ears. A stream of putrid brown plasma shot out of
its mouth, dropping to earth like a heavy wet bed sheet and
coating Sailors Mars and Moon, the only two that hadn't recovered
enough to scatter. The smell was sickening.
"AAAHH!" Moon screamed, almost as loud as the youma.
"I'M ALL STICKY! YUCK YUCK YUCK GET IT OFF MEEEE!"
Kunzite would have laughed at Mars's hair plastered to
her head by the brown gook if he wasn't convinced that she
would turn around and fry him without a second thought, and
the slight fact that he was temporarily deaf from not covering
his ears lest he stick the boomerang in his own temples.
"Would someone please dust this thing before I yack?" she hissed.
Kunzite extended his arm, the palpitating V struggling
in his grasp like an overeager child. The energy vibrating
through his arm was intense. He lined up his shot at the youma's
head, coiled his arm, and flicked his wrist like he was throwing
a Frisbee in the park. The arc swung wildly in the opposite
direction he had intended it, and every Pretty Soldier and
Earth General in sight dropped their heads and ducked, for
fear that they would experience a closer shave than any
Norelco could have provided.
"Watch out!" Jupiter screamed as the flash of white hurtled
mere inches above her head. The arc sliced through the
neck of an innocent streetlight, sending orange sparks
showering down as the smell of ozone cut through the night
air. The severed head dropped down directly on top of a
Nissan Maxima that had the misfortune to be parked directly
beneath it. The windshield shattered, the high tinkling
notes a stark contrast to the grating grind of the twisting,
tearing metal and crunching plastic. A section of the
street went dark.
Even the youma stopped to witness the carnage. Kunzite's
face was white as a sheet. He wanted to crawl into the proverbial
hole and die.
Jadeite, of course, was first to speak. "Good thing they
didn't make you quarterback."
Forgetting every rule of protocol that had been drilled
into his predecessor's brain since childhood, Kunzite reached
out and smacked the back of his friend's head hard enough for
the clap to register through hair and glove. Nephrite would
have laughed if he too didn't fear being cranked.
Tuxedo Mask joined their little huddle, out of breath,
eyes wild. "What the hell happened?" he ordered, whipping a
rose out from under his cape and flipping it in the general
direction of the youma. Electricity crackled the air as Jupiter
tried her hand again. "I thought you were all defense, Kunz."
He narrowed his silver eyes. "I'll hit you too."
A screech permeated the air, soft at first but growing
louder as the vocalist drew closer and closer. A slimy,
extremely smelly Sailor Moon grabbed handfuls of Tuxedo Mask's
silk cape from behind and frantically scrubbed her face.
"What are we going to do?! Someone other than Kunzite, please
kill it now I want to go hoooome!" She wailed histrionically
and buried her face in Mask's chest, whose face was a combination
of heartfelt sympathy and utter disgust.
Kunzite simultaneously blushed and felt a slight tugging
on his back. Turning, he realized that Mars had picked up a
cue from Moon and was wiping her face and hair on his cape.
He cleared his throat, but she didn't stop.
"Mercury?" Tuxedo Mask called. She was on the other
side of the street, being covered by Venus as she punched data
through her computer.
"Hold on!" she called. The Budweiser youma whipped around
and sprayed her with a fresh stream of brown matter, this time
with the force of a fire hose, sending her sprawling backwards
and choking on the filth.
Zoicite leaped into the fray immediately. "We don't have
time!" His ice crystal sailed and broke.
The group broke up, scattering in a semicircle to distract
the youma from Mercury. "Hey ugly! I like Coors better!" Nephrite
tried, launching his white comets, which, in turn, shot him
backwards, like a bullet. "OW! Why do I keep doing that?" The
comets ricocheted off the youma's back and hurtled into a glass
storefront, shattering it and most of the electronic equipment
inside.
Jadeite tried his hand. The white spiral he managed to
conjure was nothing short of spectacular, and he would have been
proud of the way it blew off the youma's back if he hadn't been
unconscious and lying on the pavement.
Mars screamed in frustration and rushed to his side. "How
do we KILL this thing?" Mercury splashed a considerable amount
of water on his face to rouse him.
Venus leaped out of the path of another brown stream and
ran up to Kunzite. "Any ideas?"
He looked down at her, noting with amusement that she hadn't
emerged unscathed; the right side of her head was coated with
what he could only describe as youma loogie. "Yeah, I was thinking
we could blast it, but that seems to be falling through." In the
background, Tuxedo Mask gave a yell, undoubtedly reporting that
he too had fallen victim to the filth.
Venus grimaced. "I tried pinning it down with my Love-Chain,
but it just broke through. We need youma-Kryptonite or something,
and fast, before I die of the smell."
Kunzite closed his eyes. During a particularly boring history
class the previous day, he tried to doze instead of listening to
Sherman's siege of Atlanta and found himself replaying the previous
day in his head, scene for scene, like a movie reel. The images
clicked into his head one after the other, each so accurate he
could even remember the make, model, and color of the cars he
had passed on the way to class. He had been shocked beyond
belief at first, and then overjoyed when he could read his history
notes off of the picture in his head, and then silently thanked
the Old Kunzite for the gift. The photographic memory was
undeniably one of the many factors that had made him a great
leader.
The scenes flashed in his head, beginning when they had
transformed and encountered the youma in the middle of the
street, right next to Lola's. He watched each of them in
turn try their hand at destroying it, noting carefully what
seemed to cause it pain, or make it stumble…
It clicked. "There!" he shouted. Venus jumped.
"What?" she asked urgently, and opened her eyes. They
were shining with acuity, and for a second Kunzite wondered
if she had been bestowed the same gift.
"When the streetlight fell, a piece of metal hit it,"
he explained. "And it seemed hurt. Only physical objects
seem to hurt it, so we've just been wasting our time with the
magic. We've probably been tickling the stupid thing for the
last half-hour." His face resolved itself into granite, and Venus
couldn't help but stare at the way he looked when he was serious.
"New plan, Senshi!" she yelled. "It's only hurt by physical
objects; our powers are defenseless against it, so," she
whipped her glowing chain around a chunk of asphalt and
whipped it with the accuracy of Tom Sawyer with a slingshot.
"Let's kick its ass, girls!"
"And guys," Tuxedo added. She rolled her eyes.
"And guys."
"All right!" Jupiter screamed excitedly, just dying to throw
things again after she had nearly shattered Malachite's jaw
all those months ago. She wrapped her hand against another
chunk of blacktop and sidearmed it. It clanged off the
youma's hard back, but it screeched and turned in her direction.
Nephlite, Jadeite, and Zoicite started whipping anything
hard at it, and the dozens of tiny stings made the youma
screech in pain and whip around frantically, searching for
the cause of all the little wasps. Zoicite aim was the
most accurate, and he began nailing the youma right in the
eyes with deadly precision. Venus's Love Chain effortlessly
tossed heavier objects, most of them being the broken
electronic equipment that had spilled onto the street after
Nephrite's comet decided that it liked property damage
better than killing youma.
Kunzite picked up a football-sized chunk of metal and hurled
it at the youma's head. Who says I couldn't be quarterback?
Suddenly, thousands of pieces of crap were flying through
the air at the youma, and it thrashed around, it's tiny
mind trying to process just exactly what had turned the
tables. It curled up like a potato bug, letting the
concrete and plastic rain down on its back.
"I think it's giving up!" Tuxedo proclaimed. "Sailor
Moon?"
"Gotcha love!" she chirped happily, anticipating
the second she could send this youma to hell for getting
her all slimy. "MOON-"
Before she could finish, the youma burst out of its
curled position and crashed into the pavement, creating
quite a pothole in the process. The shockwave sent everyone to the pavement.
"Oh s***!" Nephrite screamed on all fours. "I think
I broke my GD kneecaps!"
They were starting to panic, Kunzite could tell just
by the tight screams. He scanned the street. What
the hell's big enough to take it down? They were
running out of options. Mercury screamed in the background.
There.
"Venus!" he screamed, scrambling to his feet.
"Come here!"
She came. "What is it?" Her voice was tight,
authoritative, nothing like the light Delta Zeta giggle that
he had come to associate with her.
He told her. Her eyes lit up, and she mentally
smacked herself for not thinking of it sooner. "But who--?"
They both turned and looked at the same person.
"You sure?"
"Yes." His voice was steel. He was Patton, he was
Schwartzkopf; he was invincible.
"Regroup!" she shouted, and they gathered around, including
Sailor Moon. Tuxedo wondered only in passing why Venus was
giving orders instead of her.
"Ok, guys, here's the plan." She ran down it, confident
despite all the suspicious stares.
"But who-" Sailor Moon started.
Kunzite's eyes scanned them each in turn before stopping
on Jadeite. "Jadeite?"
Jadeite's jaw practically hit his chest. "Why me?" he
squeaked.
Venus gestured absentmindedly in the air. "Because,
you're the most…you know...bait-y."
He was aghast. "Bait-y? I'm the one who's risking his
life and the only reason you give me is because I'm BAIT-Y?"
"Don't argue, just do," Kunzite said, his basic principle
concerning everything. "Ready?"
They nodded. "Do we have to like, BREAK!?" Zoicite clapped
in the imitation of a sports huddle.
But they were already taking positions, scattering into
nine points around the street, dodging brown gunk and then
taking cover behind cars, walls, anywhere where the youma
couldn't see them. Jadeite stood alone in the middle of the
street. The youma turned, stared at him with its beady red
eyes.
He gulped. Oh my God I'm going to die. "Hey dipsh**!"
he yelled, his lone voice echoing off the brick storefronts.
"Wanna play, you cheap domestic crap? Jeddy has it, so COME GET
IT!!" He jumped just in time to avoid being flattened by the
youma's metal bulk. "AAAHHH!"
"GO!" Kunzite shouted from behind a minivan. His stomach
turned. What if Jadeite didn't make it? He would be the one who
sent his oldest and best friend to his death…
Jadeite ran down the empty street, the youma right at his
heels. Oh God oh God oh God. Beads of sweat formed on his
hairline, more from fear than exertion. He ran the entire block,
and started on another. As soon as he passed the intersection,
the others leapt out of their hiding places and started racing
after them.
At the end of the next block, an older brick building
stood, unimportant in itself, but thanks to his photographic
memory, Kunzite knew that there was a steep staircase next to it,
leading to a short alley and a basement door, two key elements
in his plan. Jadeite found it easily enough; by that point, he
would have gladly jumped into a vat of medical waste just to get
away from the youma and its horrible smell. He pounded down the
stairs, and the youma stupidly followed, not knowing it was trapping
itself…
He reached the end, right in front of the wall and door.
He grabbed at the knob, frantically twisted it. It did not budge,
it was locked; furthermore, it was also rusted shut.
"NO!" He screamed, his fear palpable enough to taste. He spun,
pressing himself against the metal door, his eyes rounding in
horror as the youma drew closer, its mandibles stretched into the
equivalent of an insect grin, dripping brown mucus. He wanted
to shut his eyes, to avoid seeing his own death coming, but
they remained locked open, frozen on the monstrosity before
him, and his eyelids stubbornly ignored the desperate message
his brain was sending. Oh God, I'm dead. Funny how calmly
he said it in his own head, but ended up coming out of his
mouth was the terse but eloquent:
"Fuck a duck."
A flash of gold briefly illuminated the blackness of the
alley, and Jadeite felt something squeeze around his waist
and pull him up so hard that his feet lifted off the ground,
and then he was airborne. He landed in a crash on the sidewalk,
out of the pit of death and into safety. Venus stuck her face
close to his and disengaged her Love Chain. "I'm sorry! I didn't
mean for you to land that hard, I swear! I was panicking and I
just wanted to get you to safety and…" He cut her off.
"It's OK, really."
Meanwhile, Jupiter lined up her shot and fired, the white-blue
crackle of electricity dislodging the metal dumpster from against
the side of the building, and it skittered away a few feet.
"There you go! Be careful, it still might be charged!"
Kunzite didn't have time to worry about it. Bryce University's
number fifty-four, starting linebacker, charged at it and crashed
his shoulder against the unyielding steel, bumping it forward a
few inches and giving himself one hell of a shock. Out of the
corner of his eye, he saw the Senshi leap into the air as if gravity
was but a myth instead of a Newtonian Law and land on a ledge,
and all five of them started raining down anything they could get
their hands onto the youma. It screeched, tiredly, too exhausted
to leap out of the hole.
He pushed harder, wondering what the hell he ever did for
the specific dumpster they chose to be filled with what felt like
bricks instead of, say, cardboard. He ground his feet in and
shoved again, an ant trying to push over an oak.
It slid another foot or so as another body crashed into it,
another player checked against the glass. Now Nephrite was trying
to push it forward, he teeth gritted. "Good goddamn! Of course we
would pick the friggin' World's Heaviest Dumpster!"
Kunzite smiled despite the circumstances. Jadeite and Tuxedo
Mask landed against it with twin thump-thumps, and with astonished
declarations from both.
"Oh good Goddamn!" Jadeite breathed.
"What is thing filled with? Bricks?" Tuxedo said. "Hey
Zoicite, feel like helping, or do you just want to stand there?"
"Push it on three," Zoicite said, bending down in a runner's
stance. "Ready? One…two…THREE!"
They pushed forward with all their strength, and Zoicite
threw himself onto it at the same time. The dumpster lurched
forward a good three feet, and sat just a few inches in front
of the staircase.
"Just a little more," Tuxedo grunted. He looked over at
Zoicite, who looked exhilarated despite the strain.
"You know, I've kinda always wanted to push a dumpster on
something," he explained, his eyes glittering.
"You would," Tuxedo mumbled. They pushed it again, this
time it almost teetered.
"Hurry up you guys! We're running out of ammo!" Mars had
nothing lef t to throw.
"One more time!" Kunzite shouted over the youma's screaming.
"NOW!"
They dug their shoulders in and pushed simultaneously, and
the dumpster inched forward. Suddenly, the tension that had been
pressing onto them vanished as the dumpster fell from the sidewalk
and tipped onto its side. It tumbled down the stairs, the sound
deafening, right towards the youma, who had no choice but to stare
dully at its impending doom. The dumpster took one last, graceless
somersault and smashed through into the Budweiser bug like it was
made of air before banging into the wall with a deafening clang.
It was like a sledgehammer coming down on an overripe tomato.
The youma popped like a zit, and brown mucus sprayed into the air
with roughly the pressure of a ruptured fire hydrant, drenching
everyone head to toe. Tuxedo wisely pressed his lips together as
the foul shower rained down to avoid actually tasting any of the
gunk, a fate worse than death at that particular moment. Sailor
Moon was not that fortunate.
For a second, no one spoke. No one moved. They simply
stood, sodden, stinking brown lumps, eyes wide in disgust underneath
plastered bangs, too shocked to blink lest the hideous youma spring
to life and firehose them again with the horribly smelling liquid.
Sailor Moon regained her vocal chords. "OH…MY…GOD!!!"
"I hear that," Jadeite deadpanned, pulling off one of his white
gloves and wringing out about a gallon of muck.
Her eyes remained open and stunned. "I….THIS IS SO DISGUSTING!!
I THINK I'M GOING TO RALPH!"
"Well, screaming about it isn't going to…oh my God I think
it's in my ears!" Mars interrupted her own diatribe by frantically
digging into her auditory canals.
Mercury calmly pulled one boot off and tipped it upside down.
A mixture of crap poured out; half pure liquid and half gelatin
slime. Even her normally cool, calculated composure couldn't
keep her face from screwing up into a grimace. Zoicite grabbed
one of her arms to help steady her as she hopped around on one foot.
Tuxedo sidled up to his head General, whose mouth popped
open and shut approximately every two seconds. "Crude, yet effective.
Excellent job, number one, remind me to send you my dry-cleaning bill."
By this time, Kunzite's stomach had skipped knotting and
had gone right into Old Age Ulcer Mode. This was his first real
mission, and he wanted to prove to his Prince that the Kevin Belles
Kunzite was just as capable at strategy and execution as the
first Kunzite had been. Tuxedo was an old hand at this; he had
carried out entire operations without any backup, not to mention
that the Queen of the Future was potentially scouting Crystal
Tokyo's future guard by Major League Baseball standards, and
it looked like he would be riding some oak in the minors.
Compounded into the equation was the fact that Sailor Venus a.k.a.
Mina a.k.a. the one girl in the entire world that he didn't want
to look like a total scrub in front of was presently wiping youma
snot off her lips with a look on her face like she had just
stepped in fraternity puke in bare feet.
He looked back up at Tux, and he saw Darien looking back,
Endymion looking back, his oldest friend, and he was laughing.
Laughing at him. Darien of new and Endymion of old had just
effectively busted his balls. He blushed underneath the layer
of grime. "Fine, next time you take on the Budweiser mutant
solo, b***h."
Floating between existence and non-existence, three Guardians
of Old chuckled and elbowed the fourth, who would never had dared
say anything of that caliber to their Prince.
Kunzite's outburst barely cracked the tension, just enough
for them to have a short laugh and collect themselves. "Come on,
guys, we need a shower," Jupiter declared, touching the jewel on
her tiara and detransforming in a flurry of green. She remained
soaked to the skin; her long hair freed out from Jupiter's ponytail
slapped wetly against her back.
The Senshi nodded, flashing briefly in their respective colors
as their normal clothing reappeared on them. Tuxedo Mask removed
his eyewear, and promptly reverted back into Darien. Jadeite was
halfway to pulling off the other glove to detransform when Nephrite
screamed.
"What is it?" Mina swiveled around, her henshin pen clasped
in her hand.
Nephrite's face was stark white, and he seemed to have a hard
time getting the words out. "Oh God, no, no, no." He shook his
head back and forth like a broken bobble-head doll.
Raye had long since run out of decorum. "What the hell's
the matter?"
He looked at each of them in turn. "I think I know what
this stuff is." He stopped.
Zoicite nodded encouragingly. "And?"
"Darien, you said that youma are usually made out of junk
just laying around, right?"
"Yeah."
His face contorted. "Out with it!" Kunzite commanded.
If this is some sort of toxic waste…
"This one was made out of a beer can," he said, his voice
so strained and high that the light breeze was almost drowning
it out. He swallowed and delivered the blow.
"This," he gestured. "Is chew spit."
The Generals were too horrified to speak. Jadeite made a
soft noise and looked like he was going to fall over. Zoicite
promptly started gagging. Kunzite started breathing hard, like
he had been running a marathon for the last four hours.
Darien and the girls simply stared at them. "What's that?"
Serena asked innocently.
"Chew spit!" Nephrite repeated frantically, pulling off both
gloves in the mistaken idea that Matt would be less filthy. "You
know, when you chew tobacco, and you spit into a can…"
Serena's jaw dropped open, and she screamed, her best and
loudest that wavered in octave yet remained the same earsplitting
volume throughout, the scream of someone being murdered. This
time she wasn't immediately silenced by Darien, or slapped by
Raye, or lectured by Amy. They joined in the harmony, and the
street echoed with their disgusted screams.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
The ball dimmed and clicked off the second the youma had
been destroyed, just like it had always done whenever a battle
was over. The white smoke dissipated and the orb appeared clear
again. Beryl sat back on her throne, thinking.
"Soon," she said. "Let them grow confidant before we destroy
them. The Senshi think they've gained the upper hand, but just wait,
just wait." Her mind flashed back to a time long past. "Those
pitiful Senshi will never know what hit them. And as for Endymion's
generals…" She saw Kunzite spitting in her face again, his eyes
narrow and defiant, unwavering in his loyalty to Endymion. She
should have realized he was a lost cause from the start. She saw
Jadeite lunging forward, cursing and damning her to hell a thousand
times over. Zoicite, making one last, desperate break for the door.
The look in Nephrite's eyes when he realized there was no hope left,
which she had always treasured the most. "I hate them the most."
Jedite's grin seemed to be stretched by wires. He cackled,
the insane laugh of hyenas and rubbed his hands together. "Will
you give them to us, you Highness?"
Beryl stood, sending all four of them to their knees.
"Perhaps. Be patient, you'll get what's coming to you." They
thought she was talking to them, but in her mind's eye another
face stood out, a face of an angel, the face that haunted Beryl
every second of her existence.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Jay emerged from the bathroom, hair wet, resplendent in a
bath towel. "You know what?" he announced to the living room.
"I still don't feel clean. I need to run through a car wash or
something."
"Do you wanna hurry up?" Raye ordered, pardon, suggested.
"We're only waiting for you, you know." Running one hand through
her newly washed hair, she admitted that she had to agree with him.
She felt she had to pull back her skin and scrub underneath it to
remove every trace of the filth she had been coated in. She
herself had spent a good half hour under the shower, scrubbing
at her scalp, before Mina had retrieved her. She still thought
she could smell a hint of tobacco underneath all the Pantene Pro-V.
Darien and Zach exchanged looks, getting the exact same idea
at the exact same time. They stood up and casually sauntered up
next to Jay in the hallway, who was now railing everyone for
using up all the Pert. Quick as a cobra they struck, pulling
off his towel.
"A$$holes!" he screamed, wrestling with them for it while
every female present hid her respective eyes. Finally he gave
up and retreated into the bedroom, and Mina caught a glimpse of
his naked ass before she slammed her eyelids shut.
"Hurry up, I want to get there before Happy Hour's over,"
Matt screamed into the hallway before resuming the game of pool
that he had been playing with Lita. They had decided to celebrate
the defeat of yet another youma by hitting Hot Shotz, a
student-frequented bar with the reputation for not carding. The
guys were all equipped with fake I.D.s, just in case, and the
girls were supposed to start babbling in Japanese if they got
stuck. He lined up a shot and sank it. Serena shut her eyes;
the soft click-clicks of the balls hitting each other reminded
her of the Amazoness quartet, of their tiny clothing and Chipmunk
voices. It seemed unreal to her that they had ever fought without
the Generals at their sides.
Jay emerged from the bedroom, fully dressed. "Ready to
go?" Raye stood up next to him and took his hand. "Who's
driving?"
"I guess we all are," Matt said, batting one of Lita's
solids off its course straight into a pocket. She squealed in
protest. "Sure you don't want to come, Kev?"
He nodded. "Yeah, I have stuff to do." Mina had elected
to stay with him, and Matt wondered if she was one of those things.
"You sure?" Darien had asked before why Kevin was acting so
funny, and they had promised to explain once they got to the bar.
"Yeah, I'm sure." Darien gave him one last, concerned look
before he files out with the others.
They were alone, sitting on the couch next to each other.
Mina pulled her legs up from underneath her and touched his arm.
He looked at her.
They stayed that way for a while, not moving, just looking
at each other. Mina felt her insides twist up again. My God,
I can't even look at him without crumbling. He shifted his
gaze away, leaving her to stare at his profile. He seemed to
lose all expression then, and turned to stone.
"What's the matter?" she asked, crawling closer to him.
Zach had forgotten to turn the stereo off before he left, and
Dave Matthews pleaded for his angel. Why is Dave Matthews
on whenever we're together? Is it some kind of cosmic sign or
something?
He shook his head. "Nothing, don't worry about it," he
said in a voice that clearly said, yes, everything, and worry
about it.
A tiny smile spread on her face. "You can't fool me that
easily," she said, tracing one of her slender fingers over his
huge knuckle. The simple touch was more effective that the worst
kind of torture. "Is it because Jay almost got squished?"
He looked back at her, shocked. "How did you know?" She
smiled, wider this time, sending his heart rate up.
She laughed, the laugh of irony instead of amusement.
"Because it happens to me all the time. Sailor Moon, she's,
well, she's our princess, and our leader, but-" She struggled
with modesty. "She just doesn't have what it takes sometimes.
I can think quicker than she can, I know what to do. She just,
she just doesn't. So I give out orders, and they listen. Even
Sailor Moon. If I told her to run down that staircase, she would.
Any of them would. What if they got killed? What if I sent Raye
down there?" Her eye moistened. "I would have sent my best friend
to her death, and she would have went right to it, because she
trusts me to know what's best and doesn't even question it.
What would I say to her grandfather? How could I live with the
fact that I killed one of them? Or my Princess? The rest of them,
they'd never forgive me. They might say it, but I know they
wouldn't mean it, because I told her to go and she went." She
wiped her eyes with her sleeve. "I'm sorry, I'm getting all
weepy on you." She smiled again, so strong yet so sad. Kevin
put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her to him.
"You just said everything I was thinking," he said. She
leaned her head against his incredible solid chest and listened
to him breath. "All I could think about is how I would tell
Jay's mom that I'd killed him. Or any one of them. We're
supposed to protect Endymion…" He stopped as the revelation
hit him. "Mina, Endymion isn't our leader, I am."
"Yeah?" she said, confused.
"So why do you think Sailor Moon is your leader? I mean, she
does have the strongest attacks, but like you said, she's not a
quick thinker or a strategist. Maybe she's not meant to be."
Mina buried her face into his neck and inhaled. Mmm,
Irish Spring. "What are you saying? That I'm the leader of
the Sailor Senshi?"
"Could be. You said yourself that you were the first to
be awakened, and they all listen to you."
She shook her head. "I don't know. We can't remember and
Luna and Artemis haven't told us, so," She shrugged. "It's up
in the air. I just do it because no one else does. Mercury
would be a good leader because she's smart and thinks ahead,
but she's too timid to give orders. Mars is too hot-tempered,
and Jupiter doesn't think sequentially. She has one game plan:
fry everything."
Kevin thought a second. His situation almost paralleled
hers. Nephrite would simply act and not think, Jadeite would
send them all into kamikaze missions, and Zoicite would take a
year and a half to get a simple game plan down. Running out of
eloquent words, he simply said what was on his mind. "Sucks,
doesn't it?"
She giggled again and pecked him on the cheek. "You bet."
He sat back, letting her lay across his lap. "Today's my
birthday."
Mina's eyes snapped open and her mind went reeling back
to a night in her dorm room, how they whispered to each other
in the dark.
"When's your birthday?"
"January 19th. Why?"
She groaned. "Why didn't you tell me? I could have, you
know, made a big deal out of it."
"Don't," he said simply. "And don't worry about it."
"Do the guys know? And how old are you?"
He stroked her face. "Yeah, they know, we just really don't
celebrate. And I'm twenty-two."
She stared up at him. "Twenty-two? That means you're a year
behind."
"Yeah, that's part of the reason we don't celebrate." He
let the silence linger longer than it had to.
"Tell me," she said finally. Her voice was gentle.
"I don't like to talk about it."
"You brought it up," she said, reaching for his hand and
wrapping it in both of hers.
"You're right," he said, staring into space. "I did. We
don't really celebrate because my father died on my birthday."
Mina frowned. "That's not what Amy's computer said." He
looked down at her and she blushed. "I mean, the first time I
saw you, I thought you were Malachite, and Amy pulled up your bio…"
Her ears burned with embarrassment.
She looks so cute when she blushes. "That was probably
my stepfather; he adopted me and I took his name. My father's name
was John McCormick." His mind suddenly switched to Jay, and how he
used to tease him. "Kevin's so Irish he has two micks in his name."
"What happened?" she breathed. She wasn't a newcomer to death;
it had taken Raye's mother and both of Lita's parents. It hung
around them like fog, every time they would mention their mothers
and Raye and Lita would unknowingly flinch. Lita had practically
swallowed a bottle of Valium before she would even step foot inside
the airport.
"We used to live in Boston," he began, his voice softer than
she thought it could ever be. "I know, it's so clichéd, Irish cop
living in Boston, it's probably been a TV movie a few times, but
anyway, I was four, and on my birthday he was killed in a drug bust.
I barely remember it, but I remember my mother's grief. She could
hardly function, and we moved to Junta to be near my grandparents."
"Go on."
"Well, between moving and the fact that my mother couldn't
even get out of bed, no one taught me how to read and I got held
back. She married Frank, and then Jennifer was born, and they
changed my name. It sounds simple, doesn't it?"
Mina shook her head. "Nothing is that simple, believe me."
She thought of Alan, and England, and how for so long everyone had
presumed her dead.
He ran his fingers through her hair, feeling the light gold
mass slip through and tickle the spaces between his fingers. "Thank
you," he said.
She frowned. "For what?"
"Listening to me."
She sat up and kissed him. "That's what I'm here for." He
kissed her back, harder than he intended to, but he couldn't help
himself. He had never felt this way about someone.
Mina let him touch her all over, her heart pounding from the
pressure on her lips. She leaned into him, touching his hair,
wondering why it all felt so familiar.
Dave Matthews sang:
"All you need is,
all you want is,
all you need is love.
Everyday."
* * * * * * * * * * *
"Wow! That's so heavy!" Serena said, her eyes filling
with tears. Darien smiled; his Serena was so big-hearted
that it was almost impossible to believe. "So whenever his
birthday rolls around, he's reminded of his father? Oh, I wish
I could do something." She bit her trembling lower lip, but
tears spilled out anyway and dripped into her beer.
Lita was sitting as stiff as a board. Matt put his arm
around her and squeezed. She had told him about her parents,
and although he knew he couldn't do anything, he wished with
every ounce of his being that he was making it up to her. "You
want to go home, Lita?" he asked gently. She nodded.
"Could you stay awhile?" she asked, her green eyes huge.
"Of course."
"I'll go to Darien's," Serena wailed, her voice muffled
because her face was buried in Darien's shoulder. She sniffed,
proving that her nose was running along with her eyes.
Raye slipped her hand under the table and into Jay's. "Can
we stay awhile? I'm not done with my pitcher." And I want
to forget for a while. I don't want to be sad for five minutes,
please.
He kissed where her hairline met her forehead. "Yes."
"We'll stay too," Amy mumbled, barely audible over the din
of the bar. She had done three Stiff Dicks in under an hour,
and was now heavily supported by Zach. "I'm feeling pretty
good right now."
"And that is a surprise to no one," Jay laughed. "See
you guys later."
"Later," Matt said. He and Lita left.
"OK, enough of that," Jay declared, standing up.
"I'm feeling like I'm going to beat Raye in darts."
She jumped up. "You wish, sped."
* * * * * * * * * * * *
She sighed, staring down at them. They have to know.
And soon.
*******************************
Hey again, i'm sorry but i will get to Raye and Lita eventually , I
swear! like i said, i don't even know what i'm doing..
i can't even fix the crappy formatting. When i started this i knew that
it would prety much be Mina-centered, but i didn't mean to neglect the
others. i'll get there, i promise!
******************************************************************
Hi! Sorry this part took forever, News flash, i don't really
know what I'm doing. Um, i decided at one strategic part to leave
the whole "f" word in, for two reasons, 1) it adds for effect and
2) I'm sick of asteriks. So this is rated R, if you are offended
by swearing, you must be Amish or something. Thanks to everyone
who emailed me, you don't know what it means. Pass the love on.
I don't own Sailor Moon, any brand names and Dave Matthews band.
So w/o further ado:
******************************************************************
Look at me dreaming of you
All I could hope is to have you
To have you walking with me
Laughing so in love we two
Almost drunkenly I did imbibe of this
Fantasy of you only…
Dave Matthews Band
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Matt brought his cigarette to his lips and inhaled a double
lungful of carcinogenic smoke, letting it roll around and do a good
job of poisoning his remaining alveoli. He exhaled, and the
blue-ish smoke shot up vertically and curled in the cool night
air, tingeing the black sky gray for the few seconds it existed
before dissipating.
He was lying on his back on the skinny metal fire escape;
letting his feet dangle off the side. A huge chem lab report was
waiting for him inside, threatening to jump out the window and
sit on his chest soon if he didn't give it his full attention.
Whatever. Maybe I'll pay Zach to do it. But he had laid
out here for hours, eyes cast to the sky, tracing the lines and
patterns the stars made, just like he had done the previous seven
nights, while homework and dirty laundry collected in piles roughly
the size of termite mounds on the floor of his bedroom. It was
addicting, this divination that was disclosed only to him and
him alone. Well, not everything was revealed. He had spent
an entire night trying to read into the past, only to have the
equivalent of laughter come from the celestial bodies, which
chided him gently and reminded that they could only reveal
what was to be, not what had been. The next night he spent
three fruitless hours hunting for lottery numbers and basketball
scores.
It was mostly luck, really. There was so much to happen,
from so many different people, that finding what belonged to
him was really a matter of trial and error. He had discovered
huge amounts of really useless information, and somehow his
eyes traveled over those lines over and over like a skipping
CD and stubbornly refused to jump to new revelations. The BIG
one was still there, the one the stars kept flashing to him
like those light up arrow roadside signs, warning of him of
impending danger on a Chernobyl-like scale. Of course, they
gave him no specific details or dates, just the repetitive
admonition with the possibility of death and dismemberment,
practically screaming the urgency, causing a very aggravated
Matt to shake his fist and scream, "If you really wanted to
help me, you'd give me some lottery numbers!"
He could hear Zach on the phone inside. "No, Nana, I'm
just cold, the window's open, I'm not getting sick…"
"WHUT?" Matt smiled. Zach's old Jewish grandmother had
a bit of a volume control problem when it came to phone etiquette.
"Shut the vindow, whut are you, stupit? You etting enough?"
Etting?
"Yes, Nana, don't worry; listen I have to go, I'm meeting
someone."
"Who? Izzit a GIRL?"
"NO! Um, it's, uh, my friend Darien…but listen Kevin has
to use the phone so I have to go love you Nana bye!" He hung
up before Nana had a chance to process his hurried sentence.
Matt smiled; Zach's grandmother was a riot, he especially
loved it when she would visit and make obscene amounts of food,
even though it was kosher. She was under the presumption that
all four of them were dangerously underweight, practically
malnourished, including Kevin, whom she referred to lovingly
as the "Catlick," her own variation on the word Catholic.
He heard Jay stomp his way around the apartment and then
the jingle of snagged car keys. Those better not be mine.
"Kevin I'm taking your car."
"Where?" Kevin was in one of the bedrooms.
"Raye's dorm. Wanna go?"
"I have to finish this history paper first, I need an A
to pull up that D I got on the test."
"Told you to study that."
"I did!"
"And I'm sure the Playstation helped you. I'll tell Mina
you said hi." The door slammed.
More footsteps came from inside. "Matt, I'm taking your
car, OK? I'm heading over Amy's." The door slammed again, prompting
a yell from the disgruntled neighbors.
"What is this s***?" Matt grumbled. I don't even have a
say over my own car? I think Zach should take some of his Bar
Mitzvah money and buy his own damn wheels. Jay, too. His
brain, immersed in grouchy hormones, could not process the simple
facts that Zach's Bar Mitzvah money had probably been blown
on baseball cards and wrestling figures shortly after he received
it, and with six children, the Melman family was most likely
more concerned about things like food, clothing, and shelter
than equipping each of their progeny with a two-ton piece of
metal that could potentially injure them.
He cast his eyes skyward again, wondering lazily if he
should ask Kevin if he wanted to order food, but decided to get
back at Zach by eating the rest of the Frosted Flakes. Ha
ha screw him. "Oh," he said when he caught another star
message hiding behind a cloud. "Wow."
After that one, he looked for the others, finally finding
them. Darien's was the brightest, and Jay's was almost hidden
behind a constellation, but there nonetheless…
"Hey." Kevin the verbose climbed through the window, bearing
two cans of MGD.
"Hey." Kevin slid down next to him, almost wedging his huge
body between the building and the metal railing at the same time.
He held the can out to Matt.
"Thanks." They popped the tops and laid there in silence.
"How's that paper going?"
"I think it's OK. Zach will probably disagree when he gets
home." He pointed with his can-hand. "What's up there? Any
basketball scores?"
"Believe me, I've looked."
Kevin squinted up at the glowing points of light. "How
the hell do you do that anyway? All I see are a bunch of stars."
"Yes, but how many?"
"Uh, I don't know. A hundred?"
Matt grinned in the darkness. "That's your problem, my
fearless leader, you can only see the ones your puny little
optic nerves can process. I can see thousands, sometimes from
out of our own galaxy, and they move."
"They move?" Kevin wondered if he should have withheld
the gift of beer for Matt's own mental well-being.
"Yep. When they need to tell me something." He flicked
his cigarette butt over the side. "Want to know how many kids
you're having?"
Drinking from a can while lying on one's back is not the
easiest endeavor for even the most dexterous of us, and the
combination of not being one of those people and utter shock
caused Kevin to slosh beer down his neck. "Do I want to?"
"It's up to you, buddy. You're having the most out of
all of us."
"So two or more."
Matt squinted. "How you figure?"
"You said 'kids.'"
He laughed and brought his can to his mouth. "Can't get
anything by you, can I, Kev?"
Kevin remained motionless on his back. "Who are they with?"
Matt stopped. "Can't tell you that. Some things are better
left unsaid, it takes the purpose out of life." He stopped and
laughed. "Haha, Jay's having twins. Good for him."
Kevin stopped himself from inflicting pain on Matt and tried
to remember if Nephrite was ever that vague and annoying. He
had a feeling he didn't need to ask the stars for the answer
to that question.
"Oh," Matt raised his can. "By the way, happy birthday."
He raised his and touched it to Matt's. "Well, technically
it's not until tomorrow, but thanks."
They drank in silence, Kevin grateful for his friend's
thoughtfulness, and at the same time trying to bury the onslaught
of emotions that every January 19th carried. Inside, the phone
emitted its trademark obtrusive electronic ring.
"That's Lita!" Matt screamed loud enough for the entire block
to hear. He jumped up and through the window in a flash.
Kevin turned his eyes back up to the heavenly patterns of
answers to the questions he couldn't see. Why did it have
to be the same day?
* * * * * * * * * * *
"Zach!" Amy giggled and tried to squirm out from underneath
him. Her comforter bunched in uncomfortable hills under her
ass. "We have to stop, we're supposed to be studying!"
Zach stuck his face back in her neck. "We are studying."
She smiled again. She had been smiling a lot these days,
more than her entire grade and high school years combined. Amy
had never found herself so happy before, probably in her entire
life, and her newfound bliss was only about a week old, still
in the infant stages. Still…
It happened the next cell bio class after the BIG weekend.
Amy had vainly tried to concentrate on the immensely boring
film the hung over professor had decided to pop in lieu of
lecturing, which in turn had lulled two-thirds of the equally
hung over class into an impromptu nap. Darien was one of
those victims. Amy had her ear trained to pick up any significant
information, albeit finding none, and had nearly simultaneously
jumped out of her skin and transformed when something heavy
settled on her shoulders. Zach had slung his arm around her
like they were sitting in a movie theater instead of a three-credit
class. She looked over at him, perplexed, and caught herself
in the snare of his leaf-green eyes. He had his contacts
in. She preferred when he wore his glasses, he seemed…much
less Zoycite. She couldn't move, much less breath, his
presence cancelled out her senses and left her with only her
pounding heartbeat. Without saying a word, he leaned forward
and pressed his lips against hers, sending rippling shock
waves through her unprepared body. She had never been kissed
before, and despite the intense, full-body sensation that the
simple pressure produced, all she could think was, So this
is what someone's mouth tastes like. Shocked, she had pulled
away, praying that her mother would never find out that her
normally studious daughter was making out during very expensive
class time. Luckily, it was dark enough that Zach didn't notice h
er beet-red face, and she had forced herself to concentrate
on the cinematic disaster in front of her. Still, the entire
time, his arm remained around her shoulders, slightly frightening
and reassuring at the same time. Just like her feeling for
him, an awkward blend of nervousness and infatuation.
At times like these, the nervousness diminished so much
that the infatuation practically swallowed it whole and lengthy
make out sessions were the result, regardless of location.
Lita had almost crapped her pants when she walked in on them
once. And another, previously buried feeling had erupted in
the unusually polite and reserved Ami Mizuno: smugness. She
loved the stares she received from other, less fortunate females,
undoubtedly jealous of her tall, built, gorgeous, right-handed
pitcher (number 11) boyfriend that was as equally infatuated
with her as she was with him. She even loved the title:
boyfriend. Girlfriend. Ha-ha to the Seventh Floor Goshin
Bitches and the green-eyes monsters that lived underneath all
that makeup.
She pushed his head away. "We have to study cell bio,
remember? Big test on Wednesday, one fourth of our grade, must
do well or slink out of class in disgrace?"
He doggedly started sucking her skin again. "I am studying
cells. See?" He kissed her ear, a place she never would have
guessed as being an erogenous zone. "I'm in contact with a
lot of them right now."
She wrapped an arm around his head and cupped her palm
over his mouth. "Zach, we have to get down to business. I
promise, we can resume this after the test." She wiggled out
from under him and scooted to the foot of her bed. "Now, I
have to review the first chapter again, just to make sure I
know all those parts, and then I'll look over the quizzes,
because this girl I know said that he usually…"
"Nope." Zach scrambled up and started crawling over
the bed towards her. Amy suddenly felt like prey.
She swallowed. "Nope what?"
He didn't say a word, just stopped and smiled. She
jumped up and tried to make it to the door, but he was too
fast. He lunged forward with a growl and grabbed her around
the waist, sending them both crashing to the floor. She let
out a squeal of pure glee, giggling as hysterically as Serena
ever could when she felt his lips assault her neck again.
Erin and her roommate Hollie were two seconds away from
knocking on Amy's door to invite her over for some Cool Ranch
Doritos and White Russians when the door visibly thumped
outwards with the impact of something large and heavy hitting
it, followed by Amy shrieking.
"Whoa," Erin breathed, the amazement in her eyes the
same as when she had gone to Yellowstone with her parents and
witnessed Old Faithful erupting. She turned to Hollie. "Who
would have guessed that someone as quiet as Amy would be so
kinky?"
* * * * * * * * * * * *
They were there. He had found them.
Kunzite stared incredulously at the pulsing white boomerang
that he had seemingly pulled out of thin air. He was plastered
to the spot, hypnotized by its throbbing glow, just as he had
been when Serena had shown him the Silver Crystal. Of course,
he had been more awestruck of the aura of power emitting from
the glittering stone than by its flashy strobe effect, but right
now he felt like a kid in a candy store. He silently rejoiced.
All right! I knew I wasn't all defense!
This was technically only their third real skirmish, the
second being a spindly youma made out of a Wal-Mart shopping
cart, and the General's really didn't have time to practice on
it after Mercury got a little overexcited and froze the whole
thing solid. Jadeite had challenged any of them to stick their
tongue to its frozen metal legs before Mars bitch-slapped him
and flamed it, causing the frigid metal to explode when exposed
to the extreme heat. They had celebrated with a case of Coors
and a heated ten-point pitch tournament, the seemingly inept
team of Jay and Serena coming out victorious.
"Kunzite, take a friggin' picture, it lasts longer!"
Zoicite screeched; backpedaling rapidly after his ice shards
had ineffectually and promptly shattered against the metal
chiton of the half bug/half robot youma. Its origins were
obviously refuse; the word BUDWEISER was stretched across its
thorax in giant script and a pull tab sat on its head in lieu
of antennae. Kunzite used every ounce of reserve not to fling
his new weapon at the back of Zoicite's head.
The metal beer can/insect effortlessly dodged a flying
long-stem and emitted a high, shrill buzz a few decibels above
eardrum-shattering, causing nine pairs of hands to clap over
eighteen ears. A stream of putrid brown plasma shot out of
its mouth, dropping to earth like a heavy wet bed sheet and
coating Sailors Mars and Moon, the only two that hadn't recovered
enough to scatter. The smell was sickening.
"AAAHH!" Moon screamed, almost as loud as the youma.
"I'M ALL STICKY! YUCK YUCK YUCK GET IT OFF MEEEE!"
Kunzite would have laughed at Mars's hair plastered to
her head by the brown gook if he wasn't convinced that she
would turn around and fry him without a second thought, and
the slight fact that he was temporarily deaf from not covering
his ears lest he stick the boomerang in his own temples.
"Would someone please dust this thing before I yack?" she hissed.
Kunzite extended his arm, the palpitating V struggling
in his grasp like an overeager child. The energy vibrating
through his arm was intense. He lined up his shot at the youma's
head, coiled his arm, and flicked his wrist like he was throwing
a Frisbee in the park. The arc swung wildly in the opposite
direction he had intended it, and every Pretty Soldier and
Earth General in sight dropped their heads and ducked, for
fear that they would experience a closer shave than any
Norelco could have provided.
"Watch out!" Jupiter screamed as the flash of white hurtled
mere inches above her head. The arc sliced through the
neck of an innocent streetlight, sending orange sparks
showering down as the smell of ozone cut through the night
air. The severed head dropped down directly on top of a
Nissan Maxima that had the misfortune to be parked directly
beneath it. The windshield shattered, the high tinkling
notes a stark contrast to the grating grind of the twisting,
tearing metal and crunching plastic. A section of the
street went dark.
Even the youma stopped to witness the carnage. Kunzite's
face was white as a sheet. He wanted to crawl into the proverbial
hole and die.
Jadeite, of course, was first to speak. "Good thing they
didn't make you quarterback."
Forgetting every rule of protocol that had been drilled
into his predecessor's brain since childhood, Kunzite reached
out and smacked the back of his friend's head hard enough for
the clap to register through hair and glove. Nephrite would
have laughed if he too didn't fear being cranked.
Tuxedo Mask joined their little huddle, out of breath,
eyes wild. "What the hell happened?" he ordered, whipping a
rose out from under his cape and flipping it in the general
direction of the youma. Electricity crackled the air as Jupiter
tried her hand again. "I thought you were all defense, Kunz."
He narrowed his silver eyes. "I'll hit you too."
A screech permeated the air, soft at first but growing
louder as the vocalist drew closer and closer. A slimy,
extremely smelly Sailor Moon grabbed handfuls of Tuxedo Mask's
silk cape from behind and frantically scrubbed her face.
"What are we going to do?! Someone other than Kunzite, please
kill it now I want to go hoooome!" She wailed histrionically
and buried her face in Mask's chest, whose face was a combination
of heartfelt sympathy and utter disgust.
Kunzite simultaneously blushed and felt a slight tugging
on his back. Turning, he realized that Mars had picked up a
cue from Moon and was wiping her face and hair on his cape.
He cleared his throat, but she didn't stop.
"Mercury?" Tuxedo Mask called. She was on the other
side of the street, being covered by Venus as she punched data
through her computer.
"Hold on!" she called. The Budweiser youma whipped around
and sprayed her with a fresh stream of brown matter, this time
with the force of a fire hose, sending her sprawling backwards
and choking on the filth.
Zoicite leaped into the fray immediately. "We don't have
time!" His ice crystal sailed and broke.
The group broke up, scattering in a semicircle to distract
the youma from Mercury. "Hey ugly! I like Coors better!" Nephrite
tried, launching his white comets, which, in turn, shot him
backwards, like a bullet. "OW! Why do I keep doing that?" The
comets ricocheted off the youma's back and hurtled into a glass
storefront, shattering it and most of the electronic equipment
inside.
Jadeite tried his hand. The white spiral he managed to
conjure was nothing short of spectacular, and he would have been
proud of the way it blew off the youma's back if he hadn't been
unconscious and lying on the pavement.
Mars screamed in frustration and rushed to his side. "How
do we KILL this thing?" Mercury splashed a considerable amount
of water on his face to rouse him.
Venus leaped out of the path of another brown stream and
ran up to Kunzite. "Any ideas?"
He looked down at her, noting with amusement that she hadn't
emerged unscathed; the right side of her head was coated with
what he could only describe as youma loogie. "Yeah, I was thinking
we could blast it, but that seems to be falling through." In the
background, Tuxedo Mask gave a yell, undoubtedly reporting that
he too had fallen victim to the filth.
Venus grimaced. "I tried pinning it down with my Love-Chain,
but it just broke through. We need youma-Kryptonite or something,
and fast, before I die of the smell."
Kunzite closed his eyes. During a particularly boring history
class the previous day, he tried to doze instead of listening to
Sherman's siege of Atlanta and found himself replaying the previous
day in his head, scene for scene, like a movie reel. The images
clicked into his head one after the other, each so accurate he
could even remember the make, model, and color of the cars he
had passed on the way to class. He had been shocked beyond
belief at first, and then overjoyed when he could read his history
notes off of the picture in his head, and then silently thanked
the Old Kunzite for the gift. The photographic memory was
undeniably one of the many factors that had made him a great
leader.
The scenes flashed in his head, beginning when they had
transformed and encountered the youma in the middle of the
street, right next to Lola's. He watched each of them in
turn try their hand at destroying it, noting carefully what
seemed to cause it pain, or make it stumble…
It clicked. "There!" he shouted. Venus jumped.
"What?" she asked urgently, and opened her eyes. They
were shining with acuity, and for a second Kunzite wondered
if she had been bestowed the same gift.
"When the streetlight fell, a piece of metal hit it,"
he explained. "And it seemed hurt. Only physical objects
seem to hurt it, so we've just been wasting our time with the
magic. We've probably been tickling the stupid thing for the
last half-hour." His face resolved itself into granite, and Venus
couldn't help but stare at the way he looked when he was serious.
"New plan, Senshi!" she yelled. "It's only hurt by physical
objects; our powers are defenseless against it, so," she
whipped her glowing chain around a chunk of asphalt and
whipped it with the accuracy of Tom Sawyer with a slingshot.
"Let's kick its ass, girls!"
"And guys," Tuxedo added. She rolled her eyes.
"And guys."
"All right!" Jupiter screamed excitedly, just dying to throw
things again after she had nearly shattered Malachite's jaw
all those months ago. She wrapped her hand against another
chunk of blacktop and sidearmed it. It clanged off the
youma's hard back, but it screeched and turned in her direction.
Nephlite, Jadeite, and Zoicite started whipping anything
hard at it, and the dozens of tiny stings made the youma
screech in pain and whip around frantically, searching for
the cause of all the little wasps. Zoicite aim was the
most accurate, and he began nailing the youma right in the
eyes with deadly precision. Venus's Love Chain effortlessly
tossed heavier objects, most of them being the broken
electronic equipment that had spilled onto the street after
Nephrite's comet decided that it liked property damage
better than killing youma.
Kunzite picked up a football-sized chunk of metal and hurled
it at the youma's head. Who says I couldn't be quarterback?
Suddenly, thousands of pieces of crap were flying through
the air at the youma, and it thrashed around, it's tiny
mind trying to process just exactly what had turned the
tables. It curled up like a potato bug, letting the
concrete and plastic rain down on its back.
"I think it's giving up!" Tuxedo proclaimed. "Sailor
Moon?"
"Gotcha love!" she chirped happily, anticipating
the second she could send this youma to hell for getting
her all slimy. "MOON-"
Before she could finish, the youma burst out of its
curled position and crashed into the pavement, creating
quite a pothole in the process. The shockwave sent everyone to the pavement.
"Oh s***!" Nephrite screamed on all fours. "I think
I broke my GD kneecaps!"
They were starting to panic, Kunzite could tell just
by the tight screams. He scanned the street. What
the hell's big enough to take it down? They were
running out of options. Mercury screamed in the background.
There.
"Venus!" he screamed, scrambling to his feet.
"Come here!"
She came. "What is it?" Her voice was tight,
authoritative, nothing like the light Delta Zeta giggle that
he had come to associate with her.
He told her. Her eyes lit up, and she mentally
smacked herself for not thinking of it sooner. "But who--?"
They both turned and looked at the same person.
"You sure?"
"Yes." His voice was steel. He was Patton, he was
Schwartzkopf; he was invincible.
"Regroup!" she shouted, and they gathered around, including
Sailor Moon. Tuxedo wondered only in passing why Venus was
giving orders instead of her.
"Ok, guys, here's the plan." She ran down it, confident
despite all the suspicious stares.
"But who-" Sailor Moon started.
Kunzite's eyes scanned them each in turn before stopping
on Jadeite. "Jadeite?"
Jadeite's jaw practically hit his chest. "Why me?" he
squeaked.
Venus gestured absentmindedly in the air. "Because,
you're the most…you know...bait-y."
He was aghast. "Bait-y? I'm the one who's risking his
life and the only reason you give me is because I'm BAIT-Y?"
"Don't argue, just do," Kunzite said, his basic principle
concerning everything. "Ready?"
They nodded. "Do we have to like, BREAK!?" Zoicite clapped
in the imitation of a sports huddle.
But they were already taking positions, scattering into
nine points around the street, dodging brown gunk and then
taking cover behind cars, walls, anywhere where the youma
couldn't see them. Jadeite stood alone in the middle of the
street. The youma turned, stared at him with its beady red
eyes.
He gulped. Oh my God I'm going to die. "Hey dipsh**!"
he yelled, his lone voice echoing off the brick storefronts.
"Wanna play, you cheap domestic crap? Jeddy has it, so COME GET
IT!!" He jumped just in time to avoid being flattened by the
youma's metal bulk. "AAAHHH!"
"GO!" Kunzite shouted from behind a minivan. His stomach
turned. What if Jadeite didn't make it? He would be the one who
sent his oldest and best friend to his death…
Jadeite ran down the empty street, the youma right at his
heels. Oh God oh God oh God. Beads of sweat formed on his
hairline, more from fear than exertion. He ran the entire block,
and started on another. As soon as he passed the intersection,
the others leapt out of their hiding places and started racing
after them.
At the end of the next block, an older brick building
stood, unimportant in itself, but thanks to his photographic
memory, Kunzite knew that there was a steep staircase next to it,
leading to a short alley and a basement door, two key elements
in his plan. Jadeite found it easily enough; by that point, he
would have gladly jumped into a vat of medical waste just to get
away from the youma and its horrible smell. He pounded down the
stairs, and the youma stupidly followed, not knowing it was trapping
itself…
He reached the end, right in front of the wall and door.
He grabbed at the knob, frantically twisted it. It did not budge,
it was locked; furthermore, it was also rusted shut.
"NO!" He screamed, his fear palpable enough to taste. He spun,
pressing himself against the metal door, his eyes rounding in
horror as the youma drew closer, its mandibles stretched into the
equivalent of an insect grin, dripping brown mucus. He wanted
to shut his eyes, to avoid seeing his own death coming, but
they remained locked open, frozen on the monstrosity before
him, and his eyelids stubbornly ignored the desperate message
his brain was sending. Oh God, I'm dead. Funny how calmly
he said it in his own head, but ended up coming out of his
mouth was the terse but eloquent:
"Fuck a duck."
A flash of gold briefly illuminated the blackness of the
alley, and Jadeite felt something squeeze around his waist
and pull him up so hard that his feet lifted off the ground,
and then he was airborne. He landed in a crash on the sidewalk,
out of the pit of death and into safety. Venus stuck her face
close to his and disengaged her Love Chain. "I'm sorry! I didn't
mean for you to land that hard, I swear! I was panicking and I
just wanted to get you to safety and…" He cut her off.
"It's OK, really."
Meanwhile, Jupiter lined up her shot and fired, the white-blue
crackle of electricity dislodging the metal dumpster from against
the side of the building, and it skittered away a few feet.
"There you go! Be careful, it still might be charged!"
Kunzite didn't have time to worry about it. Bryce University's
number fifty-four, starting linebacker, charged at it and crashed
his shoulder against the unyielding steel, bumping it forward a
few inches and giving himself one hell of a shock. Out of the
corner of his eye, he saw the Senshi leap into the air as if gravity
was but a myth instead of a Newtonian Law and land on a ledge,
and all five of them started raining down anything they could get
their hands onto the youma. It screeched, tiredly, too exhausted
to leap out of the hole.
He pushed harder, wondering what the hell he ever did for
the specific dumpster they chose to be filled with what felt like
bricks instead of, say, cardboard. He ground his feet in and
shoved again, an ant trying to push over an oak.
It slid another foot or so as another body crashed into it,
another player checked against the glass. Now Nephrite was trying
to push it forward, he teeth gritted. "Good goddamn! Of course we
would pick the friggin' World's Heaviest Dumpster!"
Kunzite smiled despite the circumstances. Jadeite and Tuxedo
Mask landed against it with twin thump-thumps, and with astonished
declarations from both.
"Oh good Goddamn!" Jadeite breathed.
"What is thing filled with? Bricks?" Tuxedo said. "Hey
Zoicite, feel like helping, or do you just want to stand there?"
"Push it on three," Zoicite said, bending down in a runner's
stance. "Ready? One…two…THREE!"
They pushed forward with all their strength, and Zoicite
threw himself onto it at the same time. The dumpster lurched
forward a good three feet, and sat just a few inches in front
of the staircase.
"Just a little more," Tuxedo grunted. He looked over at
Zoicite, who looked exhilarated despite the strain.
"You know, I've kinda always wanted to push a dumpster on
something," he explained, his eyes glittering.
"You would," Tuxedo mumbled. They pushed it again, this
time it almost teetered.
"Hurry up you guys! We're running out of ammo!" Mars had
nothing lef t to throw.
"One more time!" Kunzite shouted over the youma's screaming.
"NOW!"
They dug their shoulders in and pushed simultaneously, and
the dumpster inched forward. Suddenly, the tension that had been
pressing onto them vanished as the dumpster fell from the sidewalk
and tipped onto its side. It tumbled down the stairs, the sound
deafening, right towards the youma, who had no choice but to stare
dully at its impending doom. The dumpster took one last, graceless
somersault and smashed through into the Budweiser bug like it was
made of air before banging into the wall with a deafening clang.
It was like a sledgehammer coming down on an overripe tomato.
The youma popped like a zit, and brown mucus sprayed into the air
with roughly the pressure of a ruptured fire hydrant, drenching
everyone head to toe. Tuxedo wisely pressed his lips together as
the foul shower rained down to avoid actually tasting any of the
gunk, a fate worse than death at that particular moment. Sailor
Moon was not that fortunate.
For a second, no one spoke. No one moved. They simply
stood, sodden, stinking brown lumps, eyes wide in disgust underneath
plastered bangs, too shocked to blink lest the hideous youma spring
to life and firehose them again with the horribly smelling liquid.
Sailor Moon regained her vocal chords. "OH…MY…GOD!!!"
"I hear that," Jadeite deadpanned, pulling off one of his white
gloves and wringing out about a gallon of muck.
Her eyes remained open and stunned. "I….THIS IS SO DISGUSTING!!
I THINK I'M GOING TO RALPH!"
"Well, screaming about it isn't going to…oh my God I think
it's in my ears!" Mars interrupted her own diatribe by frantically
digging into her auditory canals.
Mercury calmly pulled one boot off and tipped it upside down.
A mixture of crap poured out; half pure liquid and half gelatin
slime. Even her normally cool, calculated composure couldn't
keep her face from screwing up into a grimace. Zoicite grabbed
one of her arms to help steady her as she hopped around on one foot.
Tuxedo sidled up to his head General, whose mouth popped
open and shut approximately every two seconds. "Crude, yet effective.
Excellent job, number one, remind me to send you my dry-cleaning bill."
By this time, Kunzite's stomach had skipped knotting and
had gone right into Old Age Ulcer Mode. This was his first real
mission, and he wanted to prove to his Prince that the Kevin Belles
Kunzite was just as capable at strategy and execution as the
first Kunzite had been. Tuxedo was an old hand at this; he had
carried out entire operations without any backup, not to mention
that the Queen of the Future was potentially scouting Crystal
Tokyo's future guard by Major League Baseball standards, and
it looked like he would be riding some oak in the minors.
Compounded into the equation was the fact that Sailor Venus a.k.a.
Mina a.k.a. the one girl in the entire world that he didn't want
to look like a total scrub in front of was presently wiping youma
snot off her lips with a look on her face like she had just
stepped in fraternity puke in bare feet.
He looked back up at Tux, and he saw Darien looking back,
Endymion looking back, his oldest friend, and he was laughing.
Laughing at him. Darien of new and Endymion of old had just
effectively busted his balls. He blushed underneath the layer
of grime. "Fine, next time you take on the Budweiser mutant
solo, b***h."
Floating between existence and non-existence, three Guardians
of Old chuckled and elbowed the fourth, who would never had dared
say anything of that caliber to their Prince.
Kunzite's outburst barely cracked the tension, just enough
for them to have a short laugh and collect themselves. "Come on,
guys, we need a shower," Jupiter declared, touching the jewel on
her tiara and detransforming in a flurry of green. She remained
soaked to the skin; her long hair freed out from Jupiter's ponytail
slapped wetly against her back.
The Senshi nodded, flashing briefly in their respective colors
as their normal clothing reappeared on them. Tuxedo Mask removed
his eyewear, and promptly reverted back into Darien. Jadeite was
halfway to pulling off the other glove to detransform when Nephrite
screamed.
"What is it?" Mina swiveled around, her henshin pen clasped
in her hand.
Nephrite's face was stark white, and he seemed to have a hard
time getting the words out. "Oh God, no, no, no." He shook his
head back and forth like a broken bobble-head doll.
Raye had long since run out of decorum. "What the hell's
the matter?"
He looked at each of them in turn. "I think I know what
this stuff is." He stopped.
Zoicite nodded encouragingly. "And?"
"Darien, you said that youma are usually made out of junk
just laying around, right?"
"Yeah."
His face contorted. "Out with it!" Kunzite commanded.
If this is some sort of toxic waste…
"This one was made out of a beer can," he said, his voice
so strained and high that the light breeze was almost drowning
it out. He swallowed and delivered the blow.
"This," he gestured. "Is chew spit."
The Generals were too horrified to speak. Jadeite made a
soft noise and looked like he was going to fall over. Zoicite
promptly started gagging. Kunzite started breathing hard, like
he had been running a marathon for the last four hours.
Darien and the girls simply stared at them. "What's that?"
Serena asked innocently.
"Chew spit!" Nephrite repeated frantically, pulling off both
gloves in the mistaken idea that Matt would be less filthy. "You
know, when you chew tobacco, and you spit into a can…"
Serena's jaw dropped open, and she screamed, her best and
loudest that wavered in octave yet remained the same earsplitting
volume throughout, the scream of someone being murdered. This
time she wasn't immediately silenced by Darien, or slapped by
Raye, or lectured by Amy. They joined in the harmony, and the
street echoed with their disgusted screams.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
The ball dimmed and clicked off the second the youma had
been destroyed, just like it had always done whenever a battle
was over. The white smoke dissipated and the orb appeared clear
again. Beryl sat back on her throne, thinking.
"Soon," she said. "Let them grow confidant before we destroy
them. The Senshi think they've gained the upper hand, but just wait,
just wait." Her mind flashed back to a time long past. "Those
pitiful Senshi will never know what hit them. And as for Endymion's
generals…" She saw Kunzite spitting in her face again, his eyes
narrow and defiant, unwavering in his loyalty to Endymion. She
should have realized he was a lost cause from the start. She saw
Jadeite lunging forward, cursing and damning her to hell a thousand
times over. Zoicite, making one last, desperate break for the door.
The look in Nephrite's eyes when he realized there was no hope left,
which she had always treasured the most. "I hate them the most."
Jedite's grin seemed to be stretched by wires. He cackled,
the insane laugh of hyenas and rubbed his hands together. "Will
you give them to us, you Highness?"
Beryl stood, sending all four of them to their knees.
"Perhaps. Be patient, you'll get what's coming to you." They
thought she was talking to them, but in her mind's eye another
face stood out, a face of an angel, the face that haunted Beryl
every second of her existence.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Jay emerged from the bathroom, hair wet, resplendent in a
bath towel. "You know what?" he announced to the living room.
"I still don't feel clean. I need to run through a car wash or
something."
"Do you wanna hurry up?" Raye ordered, pardon, suggested.
"We're only waiting for you, you know." Running one hand through
her newly washed hair, she admitted that she had to agree with him.
She felt she had to pull back her skin and scrub underneath it to
remove every trace of the filth she had been coated in. She
herself had spent a good half hour under the shower, scrubbing
at her scalp, before Mina had retrieved her. She still thought
she could smell a hint of tobacco underneath all the Pantene Pro-V.
Darien and Zach exchanged looks, getting the exact same idea
at the exact same time. They stood up and casually sauntered up
next to Jay in the hallway, who was now railing everyone for
using up all the Pert. Quick as a cobra they struck, pulling
off his towel.
"A$$holes!" he screamed, wrestling with them for it while
every female present hid her respective eyes. Finally he gave
up and retreated into the bedroom, and Mina caught a glimpse of
his naked ass before she slammed her eyelids shut.
"Hurry up, I want to get there before Happy Hour's over,"
Matt screamed into the hallway before resuming the game of pool
that he had been playing with Lita. They had decided to celebrate
the defeat of yet another youma by hitting Hot Shotz, a
student-frequented bar with the reputation for not carding. The
guys were all equipped with fake I.D.s, just in case, and the
girls were supposed to start babbling in Japanese if they got
stuck. He lined up a shot and sank it. Serena shut her eyes;
the soft click-clicks of the balls hitting each other reminded
her of the Amazoness quartet, of their tiny clothing and Chipmunk
voices. It seemed unreal to her that they had ever fought without
the Generals at their sides.
Jay emerged from the bedroom, fully dressed. "Ready to
go?" Raye stood up next to him and took his hand. "Who's
driving?"
"I guess we all are," Matt said, batting one of Lita's
solids off its course straight into a pocket. She squealed in
protest. "Sure you don't want to come, Kev?"
He nodded. "Yeah, I have stuff to do." Mina had elected
to stay with him, and Matt wondered if she was one of those things.
"You sure?" Darien had asked before why Kevin was acting so
funny, and they had promised to explain once they got to the bar.
"Yeah, I'm sure." Darien gave him one last, concerned look
before he files out with the others.
They were alone, sitting on the couch next to each other.
Mina pulled her legs up from underneath her and touched his arm.
He looked at her.
They stayed that way for a while, not moving, just looking
at each other. Mina felt her insides twist up again. My God,
I can't even look at him without crumbling. He shifted his
gaze away, leaving her to stare at his profile. He seemed to
lose all expression then, and turned to stone.
"What's the matter?" she asked, crawling closer to him.
Zach had forgotten to turn the stereo off before he left, and
Dave Matthews pleaded for his angel. Why is Dave Matthews
on whenever we're together? Is it some kind of cosmic sign or
something?
He shook his head. "Nothing, don't worry about it," he
said in a voice that clearly said, yes, everything, and worry
about it.
A tiny smile spread on her face. "You can't fool me that
easily," she said, tracing one of her slender fingers over his
huge knuckle. The simple touch was more effective that the worst
kind of torture. "Is it because Jay almost got squished?"
He looked back at her, shocked. "How did you know?" She
smiled, wider this time, sending his heart rate up.
She laughed, the laugh of irony instead of amusement.
"Because it happens to me all the time. Sailor Moon, she's,
well, she's our princess, and our leader, but-" She struggled
with modesty. "She just doesn't have what it takes sometimes.
I can think quicker than she can, I know what to do. She just,
she just doesn't. So I give out orders, and they listen. Even
Sailor Moon. If I told her to run down that staircase, she would.
Any of them would. What if they got killed? What if I sent Raye
down there?" Her eye moistened. "I would have sent my best friend
to her death, and she would have went right to it, because she
trusts me to know what's best and doesn't even question it.
What would I say to her grandfather? How could I live with the
fact that I killed one of them? Or my Princess? The rest of them,
they'd never forgive me. They might say it, but I know they
wouldn't mean it, because I told her to go and she went." She
wiped her eyes with her sleeve. "I'm sorry, I'm getting all
weepy on you." She smiled again, so strong yet so sad. Kevin
put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her to him.
"You just said everything I was thinking," he said. She
leaned her head against his incredible solid chest and listened
to him breath. "All I could think about is how I would tell
Jay's mom that I'd killed him. Or any one of them. We're
supposed to protect Endymion…" He stopped as the revelation
hit him. "Mina, Endymion isn't our leader, I am."
"Yeah?" she said, confused.
"So why do you think Sailor Moon is your leader? I mean, she
does have the strongest attacks, but like you said, she's not a
quick thinker or a strategist. Maybe she's not meant to be."
Mina buried her face into his neck and inhaled. Mmm,
Irish Spring. "What are you saying? That I'm the leader of
the Sailor Senshi?"
"Could be. You said yourself that you were the first to
be awakened, and they all listen to you."
She shook her head. "I don't know. We can't remember and
Luna and Artemis haven't told us, so," She shrugged. "It's up
in the air. I just do it because no one else does. Mercury
would be a good leader because she's smart and thinks ahead,
but she's too timid to give orders. Mars is too hot-tempered,
and Jupiter doesn't think sequentially. She has one game plan:
fry everything."
Kevin thought a second. His situation almost paralleled
hers. Nephrite would simply act and not think, Jadeite would
send them all into kamikaze missions, and Zoicite would take a
year and a half to get a simple game plan down. Running out of
eloquent words, he simply said what was on his mind. "Sucks,
doesn't it?"
She giggled again and pecked him on the cheek. "You bet."
He sat back, letting her lay across his lap. "Today's my
birthday."
Mina's eyes snapped open and her mind went reeling back
to a night in her dorm room, how they whispered to each other
in the dark.
"When's your birthday?"
"January 19th. Why?"
She groaned. "Why didn't you tell me? I could have, you
know, made a big deal out of it."
"Don't," he said simply. "And don't worry about it."
"Do the guys know? And how old are you?"
He stroked her face. "Yeah, they know, we just really don't
celebrate. And I'm twenty-two."
She stared up at him. "Twenty-two? That means you're a year
behind."
"Yeah, that's part of the reason we don't celebrate." He
let the silence linger longer than it had to.
"Tell me," she said finally. Her voice was gentle.
"I don't like to talk about it."
"You brought it up," she said, reaching for his hand and
wrapping it in both of hers.
"You're right," he said, staring into space. "I did. We
don't really celebrate because my father died on my birthday."
Mina frowned. "That's not what Amy's computer said." He
looked down at her and she blushed. "I mean, the first time I
saw you, I thought you were Malachite, and Amy pulled up your bio…"
Her ears burned with embarrassment.
She looks so cute when she blushes. "That was probably
my stepfather; he adopted me and I took his name. My father's name
was John McCormick." His mind suddenly switched to Jay, and how he
used to tease him. "Kevin's so Irish he has two micks in his name."
"What happened?" she breathed. She wasn't a newcomer to death;
it had taken Raye's mother and both of Lita's parents. It hung
around them like fog, every time they would mention their mothers
and Raye and Lita would unknowingly flinch. Lita had practically
swallowed a bottle of Valium before she would even step foot inside
the airport.
"We used to live in Boston," he began, his voice softer than
she thought it could ever be. "I know, it's so clichéd, Irish cop
living in Boston, it's probably been a TV movie a few times, but
anyway, I was four, and on my birthday he was killed in a drug bust.
I barely remember it, but I remember my mother's grief. She could
hardly function, and we moved to Junta to be near my grandparents."
"Go on."
"Well, between moving and the fact that my mother couldn't
even get out of bed, no one taught me how to read and I got held
back. She married Frank, and then Jennifer was born, and they
changed my name. It sounds simple, doesn't it?"
Mina shook her head. "Nothing is that simple, believe me."
She thought of Alan, and England, and how for so long everyone had
presumed her dead.
He ran his fingers through her hair, feeling the light gold
mass slip through and tickle the spaces between his fingers. "Thank
you," he said.
She frowned. "For what?"
"Listening to me."
She sat up and kissed him. "That's what I'm here for." He
kissed her back, harder than he intended to, but he couldn't help
himself. He had never felt this way about someone.
Mina let him touch her all over, her heart pounding from the
pressure on her lips. She leaned into him, touching his hair,
wondering why it all felt so familiar.
Dave Matthews sang:
"All you need is,
all you want is,
all you need is love.
Everyday."
* * * * * * * * * * *
"Wow! That's so heavy!" Serena said, her eyes filling
with tears. Darien smiled; his Serena was so big-hearted
that it was almost impossible to believe. "So whenever his
birthday rolls around, he's reminded of his father? Oh, I wish
I could do something." She bit her trembling lower lip, but
tears spilled out anyway and dripped into her beer.
Lita was sitting as stiff as a board. Matt put his arm
around her and squeezed. She had told him about her parents,
and although he knew he couldn't do anything, he wished with
every ounce of his being that he was making it up to her. "You
want to go home, Lita?" he asked gently. She nodded.
"Could you stay awhile?" she asked, her green eyes huge.
"Of course."
"I'll go to Darien's," Serena wailed, her voice muffled
because her face was buried in Darien's shoulder. She sniffed,
proving that her nose was running along with her eyes.
Raye slipped her hand under the table and into Jay's. "Can
we stay awhile? I'm not done with my pitcher." And I want
to forget for a while. I don't want to be sad for five minutes,
please.
He kissed where her hairline met her forehead. "Yes."
"We'll stay too," Amy mumbled, barely audible over the din
of the bar. She had done three Stiff Dicks in under an hour,
and was now heavily supported by Zach. "I'm feeling pretty
good right now."
"And that is a surprise to no one," Jay laughed. "See
you guys later."
"Later," Matt said. He and Lita left.
"OK, enough of that," Jay declared, standing up.
"I'm feeling like I'm going to beat Raye in darts."
She jumped up. "You wish, sped."
* * * * * * * * * * * *
She sighed, staring down at them. They have to know.
And soon.
*******************************
Hey again, i'm sorry but i will get to Raye and Lita eventually , I
swear! like i said, i don't even know what i'm doing..
i can't even fix the crappy formatting. When i started this i knew that
it would prety much be Mina-centered, but i didn't mean to neglect the
others. i'll get there, i promise!