Chapter 5 – Of Money, Magic and Birthdays
"People who ask our advice almost never take it.
Yet we should never refuse to give it, upon request,
for it often helps us to see our own way more clearly."
Brendan Francis
'Arrrggghhhhh my hands hurt' thought Makoto as she left the large supermarket not to far from her apartment, shopping bags were great if you only had to walk to your car, but not too good if you had to walk about a mile to your home.
'Note to self, buy one of those shopping trolleys, those old women pull around, may be seriously not cool, but it saves on the red hands.' She came to a crossing point, which was on red and with some relief put the bags down.
'Ok do I have everything' she thought standing waiting for the lights to change.
'Cake mix – check'
'Icing sugar – check'
'Eggs – check'
'Rice flour – check'
'Fresh pork ribs – check'
'Chicken – check'
'Butter – check'
'Present for Usagi' came her inner voice.
'Present for ….. owhhhh shit.' Makoto's face dropped like a ton of bricks.
'Arrrgghhhh I have spent up this month allowance already.'
Makoto was in fact quite well off, her parents had left her a large amount of money, that and life insurance pay outs and compensation from the airline for her loss. So in theory she had about 70,000,000 yen to play with the problem was it was not hers until she was 21. Thankfully her father's grandfather and grandmother had help her though the immediate aftermath of her parents death had been nominated executors of that fund. They had made arrangements for the suborn girl who refused to leave her parents apartment. While the capital could not be touched, the interest on such money could be used. So every month her bank account had about 60000 Yen credited to it. Not a great deal but enough for Makoto to keep body and soul together. Since becoming senshi she had actually become a bit better off. Artemis and Minako had managed to get a stash of money together, from the sale of valuable artefacts that he and Luna had collected. While not exactly legal, it did allow them to have some funds, independent of other sources. Each of the inner senshi, including Usagi and Mamoru got 10000 yen a month. The outer senshi when offered claimed they did not need it, although Hotaru later asked Luna if it would be alright for her to claim her bit.
This unfortunately did not help Makoto at the moment as the money was credited on the first of each month.
'Bugger' she thought as she crossed the roads, the pain in hands forgotten.
'Perhaps I can get Ami-chan to sub me a little.' Makoto thought as she stomped down the street, to the next set of crossing lights. As she stood waiting for the sign to change she spotted an advert in a window printed on bright orange paper. It read.
WANTED
Security Guards for Thursday 27th
Tokyo Bowl
Full Training given
Apply within
'Hummmmm' thought Makoto.
Oishi Kyuso, was a very stressed man. To his delight (and his bank mangers too) he had been handed the contract for security for Tokyo Bowl concert of "Cassiopeia" the new and up and coming four piece girl band. Unfortunately it had also come at a time people were on holiday with family, had two major festivals to deal with and an unseasonable outbreak of flu. This had left him ten short on security for the Thursday night so he was rapidly recruiting some extra staff.
Unfortunately all he seemed to be getting was a bunch of losers or people who wanted to get close to "Cassiopeia". He looked at the next application form.
"Kino Makoto, a woman." He said to himself with some surprise, "Well let's give it a try, at least she probably won't be drooling over the lead singer anyway"
The intercom buzzed, "Kino Makoto her to see you sir." Said his assistant.
He held down the talk button, "Send her in." he then got up from his desk and prepared to administer his little test. He picked up a blue stacker box from one side of the room and carried it over to the middle of the room. Just then someone knocked at the door.
"Come in." And turned with the box in his hands and looked at the door at the person coming in. Enter a girl who must be at least 4 inches taller than he and at 5'10" was not small himself, brown hair, green eyes with rose earrings and wearing a conservative black dress suit. She stopped and bowed low.
"Miss Kino." He responded with a slight bow.
"Mr Oishi." She responded polity.
"Before we start, would you please do me a favour of picking up that other box and putting it on the table over this one. He pointed his chin towards a box the other side of the room.
"Certainly" replied Makoto and she moved over to pick it up.
Kyuso had done the box deliberately so it weighed about 65 KG. Makoto went over and gentle pushed the box with her foot. Which Kyuso gave her an extra point. She then squatted down and grabbing both handles, smoothly lifted from the floor. Most men grunted at that point, she how ever was quiet and turned to him.
"Where do you want it." She asked with a slight smile.
'Damn she knows exactly what's happening there." He thought. "This might work out!"
Fifteen minutes later, Makoto had a job for Thursday night, she only had one problem though. Where the heck was she going to get a Tuxedo from, well there was one man she could ask.
Mamoru was to say the least surprised at Makoto's request, but once he knew what it was for (and sworn to security) it only took a short while to sort something out, which with a little letting out would be fine.
"Ding, Dong." When the door chime at Tuskino household.
Usagi looked up from the book she was reading and glanced across at he black cat clock. "8 pm I wonder who that could be at this time." She asked the empty room.
Luna had gone that morning with Artemis, Ami and Professor Tomoe to take up Setsuna's offer of a look around the remaining Silver Millennium technology stored under Chiron Castle.
"USAGI" came a shout from down stairs, "its Ami."
Usagi, got up and ran down the stairs, to be tackle hugged by baseball cap wearing Ami. Ikuko-mama looked on at the two of them and smiled fondly.
"We need to talk, princess." Whispered Ami into Usagi's ear.
"Your mother away again, Ami." Questioned Usagi. Ami catching on nodded furiously.
"Oh Ami," said Ikuko. "Why don't you stay the night with us, I am sure your mother would not mind?"
"Oh, I don't want to be any trouble." Said Ami.
"Its is no trouble at all." Said Ikuko completing the ritual.
Usagi dragged Ami towards her room. On getting there Ami staggered over Usagi's bed and collapsed on to it.
"Tough day." Asked Usagi, as she came over and started to pull one of Ami's boots off. "Where's Luna she not with you?"
"Luna went and crashed out at Minako's with Artemis. Its been a tough six months!"
"What? Six months?"
Ami sat up and pulled off her Tokyo U baseball cap, her blue black hair cascaded out of it until it hung just below her breasts.
"I have been gone from now about twelve hours, but travelled back in time and spent 6 months there are then returned about an hour ago."
Usagi looked shocked, "Obviously the second taboo has gone out of the window then!" (The second taboo, time travel is not allowed)
"I think Setsuna set it up all very carefully, she also picked the right people, once myself and Souichi the only thing that interrupted us was our bodies needing to eat and sleep. It used to take Luna and Artemis all their time to persuade us to stop. The only thing that forced us to leave was the fact that we started to fade."
"Fade, like when I was too close to the Neo queen in the 30th century." Said Usagi remembering back to the days of the battles with the Black moon family.
"Close, apparently you can only spend a certain amount of time outside of your own, before the Universe attempts to push you back to were you came from. Unless you have something like a time key which protects you from that effect. I hate time travel, it gives me a headache."
Usagi, blinked and then filed the last bit of the conversation in a section of her brain labelled "Things to deal with when I have a year with nothing better to do."
"What did you learn . . . . The short version, please Ami."
Ami paused for a moment. "Many many things. We will give a full report at the next big senshi meeting. But we are considerable richer in equipment than I first though we would be, Souichi estimates that he will have all the required equipment for the new costumes done by Christmas. We also managed to get working one of the old Manufactory's, which can produce just about anything, given energy and the right feedstuff."
"I remember those, "commented Usagi, "I remember my mother taking me to one of those on the moon. It produced a copy of my stuffed rabbit, so I had two to cuddle at night. I remember being so pleased, I asked if I could get it to duplicate all my toys."
"The other thing I found was a couple of complete libraries, in them was complete sets of knowledge and histories of the Silver Millennium, plus many books on Magic."
"Magic?"
"Yes, it seems the SM was full of magi and sorcerers, well we from the planets seem to magi and sorcerers came from Earth. Each was a slightly different flavour of magic. Here you might as well read for yourself." Ami reached into her subspace pocket and pulled out three large heavy bound books in a deep red colour. "I had the Manufactory make copies of these for all of us. They seem to be a complete primer to magic. I don't know if Mamoru will get much from it, his power source being fundamentally different to ours, but it may be of some use."
Usagi opened the first of the books, it was written in Lunaan the old language of the moon and other she had never had a lesson in or every thought about it before Usagi knew she could read this like it was Japanese. She looked at Ami who smiled back.
"I know, its funny to find you know a language you have never seen before, I guess that makes five I guess."
"Who wrote these?"
"The moons kingdoms Arch-mage Hecate." Ami's eye brow popped up, "It seems that names of many of the SM famous characters turn up in later earth mythology. It shows that some knowledge of the SM survived into this interglacial period."
Usagi, nodded as if she understood what Ami was going on about, making a mental note to find out what an interglacial period was, and started to read the book. The introduction plate caught her eye.
"Dedicated to Princess Serenity and her senshi
may your Golden Millennium be successful,
and last for all eternity. Hail the new queen."
A memory returned.
"Ami-chan, I remember these books being entered into the royal library, they were not to be opened until after my 18th birthday, they were an engagement present to Endymion and myself. I wondered at the time was the old witch was doing and why I was not able to look at them straightway, now I know."
Ami, nodded "Its highly likely that she saw the future or as Setsuna would put it the most likely outcome. That or she enchanted the front plate to read different things depending on events. How ever it does indicate they were put there for our use."
Usagi, rubbed her left eye and closed the book and then filed them into her subspace pocket. "Ok, Ami what do you want to do with you first night in six months back on earth."
"Eat some of your moms food, richer the better, I am about 10 pounds below my ideal weight, call a hair dresser for a hair cut, watch some mind rotting TV and sleep for as long as I can."
Usagi, put her hand on Ami's forehead. "Are you sure your Ami, "she said with a grin. "Sounds like sailor mercury and sailor moon have swapped places."
With uncharacteristic energy, Ami attacked Usagi with a pillow, and nothing serious happened after that.
Thurday Night – Tokyo Bowl.
'If Rei ever comments about Usagi, being a bratty little wiener again, I am going to have to show her these four. She will see her as a goddess in comparison.' Thought Makoto as she stood and watched the activities of the four girls that made up 'Cassiopeia'. She knew why all security guards she had ever seen wore those dark or mirrored sunglasses now, so that they could roll their eyes with out anyone seeing.
In the half hour she had been there by the door, she had seen five temper tantrums, crying, shouting, complaining and a small food fight. It made senshi meetings seem quiet. Makoto rolled her eyes again and concentrated on the 5000 yen. Makoto had draw dressing room duty by the fact that she was the only woman on the security team.
"Weres the cheese cake!" screamed one of the one with peroxide blond hair.
"Don't tempt me!" muttered Makoto, her mind filling with images of using said cake as face pack for her. A loud thump and the feeling of something heavy hitting the door behind her interrupted her food fantasy.
"What the…..F.."
The door then burst open as three men burst in.
"There they are! Sachi I love you soooo much" the glasses wearing one called.
"Look your not coming her here" said Makoto standing in the way attempting to push them back.. Predictably the four girls started screaming behind her.
"Get out of my way bitch." Said the one with the distorted face and from behind his back he pulled out a stun gun and plunged the contacts into Makoto's hand. In normal people that would be enough to send them back several meters and onto the floor. Unfortunately for them Makoto was anything but normal, even in normal form Makoto was immune to the effects of electricity, her skin acting in Ami's words like a superconductor. The stunners effects transferred itself into the man who she was holding, who fell to his knees.
"Crap!" was Makoto's only comment as she took the gloves off. Grabbing the stunner hand with her right hand, she pulled the man off balance and towards her, which was unfortunate for him, for his face was now heading for her rapidly approaching left elbow. The resulting impact jarred her elbow but sent the gun welder unconscious to the floor, with a nice elbow print on his forehead. The third man she brought down with a kick to crouch was he tried to push past.
Moments later, two other guards came pounding down the corridor along with Kyuso. As Makoto stood shaking her arm out, trying to get some feeling back into it.
"What the fuck happened here." Shouted Kyuso. Makoto nodded her head towards the stun gun on the floor. Kysuo's face darkened. Looking the corridor he saw another of his staff on the floor apparently unconscious. "Shit.. why does this have to happen on my watch! Get the police will you, need to them to take this trash away."
They grabbed hold of the gatecrashers, and bundled them out the door.
"Kino, good work, speak to you later." Said Kyuso. "Leave that thing alone until the police come, they will want it as evidence.
Thankfully the rest of the night went of quietly, well as quietly as you can get at a pop concert with 40,000 screaming, teens and pre-teens. Makoto manage to avoid a fair amount of it was the police interviewed her about the incident. At the end though she was back in dressing room, which post gig was considerably quieter and when the band finally left (with the girl called Sachi giving Makoto her phone number, with the statement "Call me tomorrow, you have plenty of energy, stud!") She went to Kyuso in the security office.
"Kino, good work. Hers your wage!" he said tossing an brown envelope to her. "Plus three time more again as a bonus."
"Thank you, Oishi." She bowed in thanks.
"Hey, you did damn well for a rookie. I know the inspector investigating the whole thing, I will the police keep them off your back. Not that I think there will be a problem anyhow." He leaned forward and rested his elbows on the desk.
"My next question is would you considered staying on our books, I know this was a one-time job for you, but I could do with someone like you in some of the jobs we do."
Makoto thought about it for a moment. "As long as you accept that I can say no, I have a final year of high school to get though. Other than that I would be interested."
"Done." He said nodding his head. "Look after yourself kid."
"And you." And with that Makoto bowed again and left.
Sunday June 30th 1991
"HAPPY BIRTHDAY USAGI!" Came the deafening shout as birthday girl entered, Makoto's brightly decorated front room.
Usagi, was attempting to get her hearing back as she was tackle hugged by all of the inner senshi.
"Hey guys, love you all too. Oooff, but give me some air will you! I would like to make my 18th your know."
The girls, giggling let go of Usagi and Makoto headed for the kitchen,
"Ami could you give me a hand with the food please."
At that point Haruka came over and bowed down taking Usagi's hand, which she proceed to kiss.
"Happy birthday princess. I have to offer apologies for Michiru and Setsuna though. Michiru was called up by her agent on Thursday and had to perform in a concert in Miami tonight to for fill an old contractional obligation. She apologises profusely and promises something interesting from there as a present."
"A nice American football player?" asked Usagi cheekly!
"Er," looking across at Mamoru, "I don't think so! Anyhow, Setsuna said she would be a bit late. I quote 'some bastard is playing with P-Bane manipulation and Sailor Ziezip-ben is not on station' Make of that what you will."
"Setsuna been drinking again?"
"Probably!"
"Hey Usa." Called Minako. "Come here and have your picture taken by your presents."
"PRESENTS!"
Usagi (as ever) did well on the birthday present front.
Driving lessons from both Haruka and Mamoru, bets were being put that she would learn more from Haruka, simply because they would not be heading into lay-bys all the time.
Book on road safety and a set of disks for her computer containing test questions for the written driving test from Ami.
A cased box of make up and perfume from Minako, a lot of it came from France, where parents had spent a few weeks on a second honeymoon.
Several books were Rei's gift, mostly copies of text books for the final year of high school, Rei had also thrown in the newly published Japanese translation of "A brief history of time." By Stephen Hawking. It had taken some doing to keep that one away from Ami.
Makoto contributed the food, a signed tee-shirt from Cassiopeia and an necklace set with a ice blue stone, in the shape of the crescent moon with a set of matching earrings.
Hotaru had make a 40 cm high fluffy rabbit she had made with her tutor, which Usagi preceded to carry it around for the rest of the afternoon, cos she loved it so much.
Setsuna's present materialized just before dinner was served. It was a box of 12 bottles of wine and large box of Swiss chocolates and a note.
'Usagi,
Sorry I am going to miss this party, but I have to give these stupid sods a slapping in real time. Why they decided to start experimenting with time now, is a fine example of bad timing.
Have fun, enjoy the wine and I will definitely be there for the next one!
Setsuna.
P.S Did I every tell you how much I hate non-directed Universes .'
"I think she gets worse!" commented Usagi. Handing the note to Haruka.
"Shes definitely has been at the beer again." Was her only comment.
Makoto opened one of bottles and filled glasses for everyone.
"A toast." Called Usagi.
"To a quiet and successful summer!"
"Cheers" said everyone.
And for once that's what they got.
Author's notes
Sorry this has taken so long, had a bad case of normal life get to me, that and large heap of not so normal life getting in the way as well.
Warwolf commented to me that this bit seems in his words "a bit bitty" to be honest it is. This chapter is mostly a scene setter for later parts. I had to finish it will the birthday though. Again I am not desperately happy with it and when I get a better idea for dealing with it, I will re-write, (that's two bits now) but I really want to get the next part started, so I had to finish it off some how.
The next bit should be more interesting; it will also be a heck of a lot darker, if I can pull it off.
Finally
Not wanting to sound like I am begging, but a few reviews would be nice, if only to see if I am keeping people interested.
Cheers
Jo
