A SHADOW OVER CRYSTAL TOKYO
Chapter 2: "Secret Life"
By Bill K.
The Crystal Palace dining hall was where everyone who worked or
lived in the palace ate. At any one time you might find anyone from
the lowest person on staff to one of the fabled inner senshi there.
Only the King and Queen ate privately - - even the Princess ate in
the dining hall, telling anyone who'd listen that eating in private
was "aloof and elitist".
This morning found Hotaru scattered among the few eating
breakfast at that hour. The girl was clad in black again - - she
always wore black when she needed to feel comfortable. She sat alone
at a table, absently chewing on dry frosted cereal - - since she
disliked milk, she prefered it dry. A glass of orange juice sat to
the right of the bowl, while a pair of rice cakes slathered in
strawberry jam was on the left. Hotaru stared at nothing in
particular, dwelling on matters only she was privy to. After a few
moments, she spooned up another bite of cereal. . .
- - and noticed Rei sitting before her, smiling sympathetically.
Rei wore her white and blue priest robes and looked to Hotaru's eye
no different than she had in the twentieth century.
"If you only take one bite an hour, you're never going to
finish," Rei said with a light, teasing manner. Hotaru blushed.
"How are you doing?"
"Everyone keeps asking me that," Hotaru replied uncomfortably.
"Sorry. We're just trying to make your transition as easy as
possible. And we inner senshi have always been a nosy bunch of hens.
I guess we can't help it." Rei smirked. "Just ask Usa - - drives
her crazy."
Hotaru nodded silently.
"I imagine the place is still kind of daunting for you," Rei
continued.
"Yes," Hotaru said. "It's beautiful, but - - sometimes I feel
like I'm five again."
"New places can be intimidating," Rei smiled. "So can new
things. Don't get discouraged. So has Usa taken you out on the town
yet? She can be a party girl when she gets the mood. You should see
her sing at this nightclub called 'The Gathering'."
"No, we saw a movie. Usa sings?"
"She's fantastic, and I'm not bad myself, so I'm completely
jealous. The girl can hypnotize people with her voice and stage
presence. I don't know where she gets it, because her mother can't
sing a note."
"I'll have to get her to take me."
"Do you sing?"
"No, I-I couldn't. It would be too embarrassing. Besides, my
voice is too tiny. No one would hear it."
"That's OK. We all have our strengths." She patted Hotaru's
hand. "So cheer up. It'll be all right. And if you still need to
talk, or you just want a charm, visit the shrine." She grinned at
Hotaru. "And I'm always looking for shrine maidens, if you're
interested."
Hotaru grinned back. "I think that's one of the few things I
am qualified to do right now."
"You'll get it. Just have faith. After all, Serenity was the
worst student in the history of the universe and look at her now."
Rei got up and left. Hotaru watched her leave, wishing she could be
as confident as Rei was.
But Rei didn't know what she knew.
Out in the hall, Rei turned the corner and found Ami waiting
for her at the pre-arranged place.
"What did you feel?" Ami asked, giving her friend a concerned
look.
"That is one troubled girl," Rei frowned. "She's worried about
something, and it's not just trying to fit in."
"Do you know what exactly?"
"I'm psychic, not telepathic. All I read was tremendous
anxiety, bordering on fear. I got the impression she's struggling
with something and it's got her really spooked, but she seems too
scared to say anything."
Ami sighed. "Why are young people so reluctant to confide
anything to their elders?" She frowned again. "Perhaps if I talked
to her, I could draw it out of her."
"Wait until tomorrow, huh?" Rei requested. "If you approach
her too close to our talk, she may think we're ganging up on her and
pull away further."
"Yes, that makes sense. And I'll keep a close monitor on her
performance in school today. Hopefully we can determine what's wrong
and help her before it becomes too late."
* * * *
Hotaru walked down the hall to class, lost in thought. Once
more her preoccupation allowed someone to slip up unnoticed.
Suddenly she sensed a presence and turned.
"Hi, Hotaru," Cere-Cere said cautiously. Hotaru noticed the
girl still managed to look pretty even while wearing an ordinary
salmon-colored top and white slacks, both made of something other
than cotton. "I'm sorry about yesterday."
"I suppose I overreacted a little, too," Hotaru confessed.
"How's your hand?"
"Oh, that?" smiled Cere-Cere. "It stopped hurting a long time
ago. I don't know what it was, but it didn't hurt for long." She
glanced at Hotaru and noticed her melancholy. "You OK?"
Hotaru shrugged. "I had a little trouble sleeping last night.
I had a bad dream. And I'm not looking forward to school."
"Who does?" Cere-Cere joked. They walked along a bit.
"Hotaru, my 'sisters' and I were going out tonight - - you know,
trolling for boys. Would you like to go?"
"Well," Hotaru said reluctantly, "it depends on how I do today.
I was out last night with Usa, so I shouldn't put my school work
off."
"Sure, I understand," Cere-Cere shrugged. "I've heard a night
out with Usa's like a week out with anyone else."
"It's nothing against you," Hotaru quickly added. "I just,"
and Hotaru stopped when she noticed everyone was in class but
Palla-Palla. "Palla-Palla's not here?"
"No, today's her special class. She's in another part of the
palace."
"Oh," Hotaru said, disappointed.
"So are we OK?" asked Cere-Cere.
"Yes," nodded Hotaru. "Just have patience with me. I'm not
used to thirtieth century humor yet."
"Sounds like you're doing a pretty good job to me," Cere-Cere
said, flashing her a wry grin. She went over to where Jun-Jun was
sitting. Usa waved to Hotaru and the girl waved back.
* * * *
In the office of Ami Mizuno, Chief Physician for the Palace and
for Crystal Tokyo, Ami sat in her auto-recliner attending to the
day's work.
The auto-recliner was an ergonomically designed chair that
conformed to the particular person's height and body shape. It
possessed controls on each armrest and had several virtual computer
displays projected a foot in front of the face of the person in the
chair. The chair provided a relaxed environment in which to work,
while at the same time delivering a continuous electrical current to
the muscles in the back, posterior and legs to keep the muscle tone
intact. It was said that eight hours in the chair was the equivalent
of an hour's worth of exercise for everything but the arms and the
cardiovascular system, plus a deep tissue massage after.
As usual, Ami had her attention divided as she worked. One
screen held reports from every hospital and clinic in Japan, breaking
down the week's health statistics by disease and injury, by
geographic region, and by age and sex of patient. Another screen was
a report on the latest testing of a new strobe laser treatment for
kidney malfunction. A third contained the latest research on the new
strain of Garon-Barre virus that was gaining ground in Europe.
The fourth screen was an optical view of Hotaru in her
classroom. Listed on the screen were telemetry readouts of her
physical signs such as blood pressure and heart rate and a constantly
updating record of her scores and the subjects she was working on.
Ami paused from her reading of the laser report to give Hotaru's
screen more scrutiny.
The girl was making quick progress in arts courses, such as
literature, language and composition, art and music. In another week
she'd be completely caught up with Usa and the amazons. Her grasp of
history was going more slowly, but she was making steady progress
and, given that she had another thousand years worth of history to
learn than she had just ten days ago (her time), Ami judged her to be
making sufficient progress.
However, it was the science courses that were still dragging
Hotaru down. Simple math was no problem for her, but her scores in
calculus, biology, biochemistry, nuclear physics, computer
programming and astrophysics were still low. She seemed to be making
little progress. It worried Ami, for these were skills necessary for
someone who wanted to go into medicine as Hotaru did.
What also worried Ami was the effect it was having on Hotaru.
Just looking at her face, Ami could see the mounting frustration
etched into it. Any success she had in her other subjects seemed to
be crushed by her failure in the sciences. Ami worried that sooner
or later Hotaru would just give up.
A screen popped up before Ami. It was a requisition form,
asking for permission to continue experimentation on recombining DNA
in order to reduce the risk of radiation allergy in humans. Ami
reviewed the entire proposal and was about to press the ascent light
on the screen when something else caught her attention. She looked
down and saw Hotaru's screen had gone blank.
"Classroom four, view from headmaster," Ami demanded.
A new screen popped up, showing the entire classroom from the
viewpoint of the virtual observation teacher. The observation
teacher was looking at Hotaru, as were the other students.
"Audio replay from 14:47 hours," Ami demanded.
"Princess, the library consists of . . ." the replay began,
with the virtual teacher speaking in Makoto's simulated voice.
"Malfunction. Hotaru-chan, is your lesson screen malfunctioning?"
"Yes," Hotaru said, surprised and just a little intimidated by
the turn of events. "It-It just went blank."
"Recording sudden energy spike at 14:48 hours," 'Makoto'
reported. "Unit is off-line. Hotaru-chan, would you please move to
another seat and resume your lessons there?"
"A-All right," Hotaru said and moved to another seat.
Ami studied the picture with concern. Hotaru seemed frightened
by what had just happened. Now was that because of her unfamiliarity
with virtual technology? Did she think the power surge that crashed
the teaching station was somehow her fault? It was a common
assumption among people with technophobia.
Running an initial diagnostic on the teaching station, Ami
couldn't see any indication of what had caused the spike. She looked
back at the screen watching Hotaru.
Suddenly Ami began to wonder if Hotaru had reason to fear the
crash was her fault.
* * * *
Midnight approached the grounds of the palace of Crystal Tokyo.
Most activity was stilled, but there were some people still awake,
whether by duty or by choice. Outside the walls, though, were two
who were awake by choice.
"We are going to get it!" Cere-Cere whispered as she and
Ves-Ves eased along the wall. The front door to the palace was in
sight, as were the electronic monitors.
"Hey, nobody tied you down and held you prisoner until
midnight," Ves-Ves told her in an equally hushed voice.
"It's not my fault," Cere-Cere huffed. "Looking into
Tsuyoshi's eyes could make anyone lose track of time."
"Right," snickered Ves-Ves. "You know, that's the difference
between you and me. You stay out past curfew with a cute guy and
then feel guilty about it after. I don't. Yoshi is worth Sensei
Minako-sama's wrath."
"I'm beginning to think you don't feel guilty about anything."
"That's not true. That time I squirted mud into your ballet
slippers, I felt really guilty about that - - after I stopped
laughing."
"Beast," scowled Cere-Cere. "Well, we might as well get it
over with."
"You're just going to give up?" Ves-Ves asked. "You are a
priss."
"Well the minute we pass through the door the security system
is going to record our arrival! There's no way around it! What do
you suggest, that we sleep out here?"
"Watch and learn," smirked Ves-Ves. She brought out her
henshin stick and quietly said, "Vesta Power Make Up." Transforming
to Sailor Vesta, she said, "Fauna Assimilation - - chimpanzee."
Vesta's form began contracting until she was an odd amalgamation of a
human and a chimp.
"Finally your true form emerges," snickered Cere-Cere.
Vesta made a rude gesture at her, then began climbing up the
seemingly sheer surface of the palace wall. Though the crystal
seemed smooth, Vesta was able to find handholds in the wall and in
seconds was twenty feet up the wall, headed for a third story window.
"Not bad," nodded Cere-Cere, producing her henshin stick. "But
I think I can do it even easier. Ceres Power Make Up." After the
transformation took hold, Ceres pointed at the ground. "Floral
Stimulation."
Instantly a bud poked out of the ground. In seconds a rosebush
began to grow and thicken under her feet. When the branches became
solid enough to hold her, the bush pushed upward, expanding around
her feet. Flowers bloomed on the bush as it began to overtake Vesta,
but no thorns came anywhere near the bush's mistress.
"Race you to the window," chuckled Ceres as the bush sprinted
up past her sister's simian form.
Moments later, though, she felt the bush jostle and looked
down. Vesta was on the bush now, nimbly climbing up the rapidly
growing thing. Vesta scampered to the top of the bush and, with the
window a mere eight feet away now, pushed off and jumped up to the
sill. Ceres nearly lost her balance and gave a frightened squeal as
she and the bush moved to right her.
"You could have knocked me off!" hissed Ceres as she stepped
onto the windowsill.
"If you hadn't been showboating, you'd have been ready,"
shrugged Vesta, reverting to human form. She and Ceres turned to
head for their quarters - - and spotted Makoto waiting for them at
the end of the hall.
"Late night, ladies?" Makoto asked, barely suppressing a smile.
"Yeah," shrugged Vesta, knowing when she was caught. "We met a
couple of guys and . . ."
"And nature took its course," grinned Makoto. "Believe it or
not, I do remember what it was like."
"We're sorry," offered Ceres. "Please don't be too hard on
us."
"Don't worry. I'm not going to do anything to you." Both
girls seemed visibly relieved. "I'll leave that to Rei, since
starting tomorrow you are both pulling shrine maiden duty for two
weeks."
Both girls groaned. "I still have wax under my fingernails
from last time!" Vesta moaned.
"She'll make us scrub floors!" wailed Ceres. "Do you know what
that does to my hands?"
"Every pleasure has a price," Makoto told them. "So, were they
worth it?"
"Yoshi was," leered Vesta.
Makoto escorted the two girls back to their rooms. As they
walked down the still palace hall, though, the silence of the
midnight was suddenly pierced by a high-pitched, blood-curdling
scream of utter terror. Both girls froze. However, Makoto leaped
into action, racing down the hall even as her henshin stick appeared
in her hand.
Arriving at the sound of the screams, which hadn't abated,
Sailor Jupiter activated the override for the electronic lock. The
door hissed open and Jupiter peered in, ready for anything. Vesta
and Ceres were behind her, their eyes wide. All they saw, though,
was the dark figure of Hotaru huddled in the center of her bed.
Though it was dark, they could tell she was shaking and her
whimpering could still be heard.
"Hotaru, honey, what happened?" Jupiter asked as she sat on the
bed next to the girl. Hotaru leaped into her arms, crushing her
small body to Jupiter's large frame. Lumps formed in the throats of
Vesta and Ceres as they saw the naked terror shudder through her
body. "It's all right. Nothing's going to hurt you. What
happened?"
"She was here," Hotaru whispered fearfully, as if she feared
saying the words out loud would bring the terror back. "Sailor
Jupiter, she was here."
"Who was here?" Jupiter asked.
"What's going on?" Jun-Jun asked, appearing in the doorway.
Palla-Palla was huddled next to her and was crying. "Palla-Palla was
crying and then I heard all this commotion."
"Hotaru, who was here?" Jupiter asked again.
"Mistress 9!" wailed Hotaru. "She was standing right here! I
saw her!"
"Mistress 9?" gasped Jupiter incredulously. "How? Are you
sure?"
"Yes! She was standing right there, where Vesta is now! She
was looking at me, staring at me, smiling! Oh, Jupiter, I can't go
through that again! I just can't!"
She clung desperately to Jupiter and the senshi held onto her
tightly. Palla-Palla began to cry harder and the other Amazoness
senshi looked to one another helplessly, wondering what in blazes was
happening.
Continued in Chapter 3
Chapter 2: "Secret Life"
By Bill K.
The Crystal Palace dining hall was where everyone who worked or
lived in the palace ate. At any one time you might find anyone from
the lowest person on staff to one of the fabled inner senshi there.
Only the King and Queen ate privately - - even the Princess ate in
the dining hall, telling anyone who'd listen that eating in private
was "aloof and elitist".
This morning found Hotaru scattered among the few eating
breakfast at that hour. The girl was clad in black again - - she
always wore black when she needed to feel comfortable. She sat alone
at a table, absently chewing on dry frosted cereal - - since she
disliked milk, she prefered it dry. A glass of orange juice sat to
the right of the bowl, while a pair of rice cakes slathered in
strawberry jam was on the left. Hotaru stared at nothing in
particular, dwelling on matters only she was privy to. After a few
moments, she spooned up another bite of cereal. . .
- - and noticed Rei sitting before her, smiling sympathetically.
Rei wore her white and blue priest robes and looked to Hotaru's eye
no different than she had in the twentieth century.
"If you only take one bite an hour, you're never going to
finish," Rei said with a light, teasing manner. Hotaru blushed.
"How are you doing?"
"Everyone keeps asking me that," Hotaru replied uncomfortably.
"Sorry. We're just trying to make your transition as easy as
possible. And we inner senshi have always been a nosy bunch of hens.
I guess we can't help it." Rei smirked. "Just ask Usa - - drives
her crazy."
Hotaru nodded silently.
"I imagine the place is still kind of daunting for you," Rei
continued.
"Yes," Hotaru said. "It's beautiful, but - - sometimes I feel
like I'm five again."
"New places can be intimidating," Rei smiled. "So can new
things. Don't get discouraged. So has Usa taken you out on the town
yet? She can be a party girl when she gets the mood. You should see
her sing at this nightclub called 'The Gathering'."
"No, we saw a movie. Usa sings?"
"She's fantastic, and I'm not bad myself, so I'm completely
jealous. The girl can hypnotize people with her voice and stage
presence. I don't know where she gets it, because her mother can't
sing a note."
"I'll have to get her to take me."
"Do you sing?"
"No, I-I couldn't. It would be too embarrassing. Besides, my
voice is too tiny. No one would hear it."
"That's OK. We all have our strengths." She patted Hotaru's
hand. "So cheer up. It'll be all right. And if you still need to
talk, or you just want a charm, visit the shrine." She grinned at
Hotaru. "And I'm always looking for shrine maidens, if you're
interested."
Hotaru grinned back. "I think that's one of the few things I
am qualified to do right now."
"You'll get it. Just have faith. After all, Serenity was the
worst student in the history of the universe and look at her now."
Rei got up and left. Hotaru watched her leave, wishing she could be
as confident as Rei was.
But Rei didn't know what she knew.
Out in the hall, Rei turned the corner and found Ami waiting
for her at the pre-arranged place.
"What did you feel?" Ami asked, giving her friend a concerned
look.
"That is one troubled girl," Rei frowned. "She's worried about
something, and it's not just trying to fit in."
"Do you know what exactly?"
"I'm psychic, not telepathic. All I read was tremendous
anxiety, bordering on fear. I got the impression she's struggling
with something and it's got her really spooked, but she seems too
scared to say anything."
Ami sighed. "Why are young people so reluctant to confide
anything to their elders?" She frowned again. "Perhaps if I talked
to her, I could draw it out of her."
"Wait until tomorrow, huh?" Rei requested. "If you approach
her too close to our talk, she may think we're ganging up on her and
pull away further."
"Yes, that makes sense. And I'll keep a close monitor on her
performance in school today. Hopefully we can determine what's wrong
and help her before it becomes too late."
* * * *
Hotaru walked down the hall to class, lost in thought. Once
more her preoccupation allowed someone to slip up unnoticed.
Suddenly she sensed a presence and turned.
"Hi, Hotaru," Cere-Cere said cautiously. Hotaru noticed the
girl still managed to look pretty even while wearing an ordinary
salmon-colored top and white slacks, both made of something other
than cotton. "I'm sorry about yesterday."
"I suppose I overreacted a little, too," Hotaru confessed.
"How's your hand?"
"Oh, that?" smiled Cere-Cere. "It stopped hurting a long time
ago. I don't know what it was, but it didn't hurt for long." She
glanced at Hotaru and noticed her melancholy. "You OK?"
Hotaru shrugged. "I had a little trouble sleeping last night.
I had a bad dream. And I'm not looking forward to school."
"Who does?" Cere-Cere joked. They walked along a bit.
"Hotaru, my 'sisters' and I were going out tonight - - you know,
trolling for boys. Would you like to go?"
"Well," Hotaru said reluctantly, "it depends on how I do today.
I was out last night with Usa, so I shouldn't put my school work
off."
"Sure, I understand," Cere-Cere shrugged. "I've heard a night
out with Usa's like a week out with anyone else."
"It's nothing against you," Hotaru quickly added. "I just,"
and Hotaru stopped when she noticed everyone was in class but
Palla-Palla. "Palla-Palla's not here?"
"No, today's her special class. She's in another part of the
palace."
"Oh," Hotaru said, disappointed.
"So are we OK?" asked Cere-Cere.
"Yes," nodded Hotaru. "Just have patience with me. I'm not
used to thirtieth century humor yet."
"Sounds like you're doing a pretty good job to me," Cere-Cere
said, flashing her a wry grin. She went over to where Jun-Jun was
sitting. Usa waved to Hotaru and the girl waved back.
* * * *
In the office of Ami Mizuno, Chief Physician for the Palace and
for Crystal Tokyo, Ami sat in her auto-recliner attending to the
day's work.
The auto-recliner was an ergonomically designed chair that
conformed to the particular person's height and body shape. It
possessed controls on each armrest and had several virtual computer
displays projected a foot in front of the face of the person in the
chair. The chair provided a relaxed environment in which to work,
while at the same time delivering a continuous electrical current to
the muscles in the back, posterior and legs to keep the muscle tone
intact. It was said that eight hours in the chair was the equivalent
of an hour's worth of exercise for everything but the arms and the
cardiovascular system, plus a deep tissue massage after.
As usual, Ami had her attention divided as she worked. One
screen held reports from every hospital and clinic in Japan, breaking
down the week's health statistics by disease and injury, by
geographic region, and by age and sex of patient. Another screen was
a report on the latest testing of a new strobe laser treatment for
kidney malfunction. A third contained the latest research on the new
strain of Garon-Barre virus that was gaining ground in Europe.
The fourth screen was an optical view of Hotaru in her
classroom. Listed on the screen were telemetry readouts of her
physical signs such as blood pressure and heart rate and a constantly
updating record of her scores and the subjects she was working on.
Ami paused from her reading of the laser report to give Hotaru's
screen more scrutiny.
The girl was making quick progress in arts courses, such as
literature, language and composition, art and music. In another week
she'd be completely caught up with Usa and the amazons. Her grasp of
history was going more slowly, but she was making steady progress
and, given that she had another thousand years worth of history to
learn than she had just ten days ago (her time), Ami judged her to be
making sufficient progress.
However, it was the science courses that were still dragging
Hotaru down. Simple math was no problem for her, but her scores in
calculus, biology, biochemistry, nuclear physics, computer
programming and astrophysics were still low. She seemed to be making
little progress. It worried Ami, for these were skills necessary for
someone who wanted to go into medicine as Hotaru did.
What also worried Ami was the effect it was having on Hotaru.
Just looking at her face, Ami could see the mounting frustration
etched into it. Any success she had in her other subjects seemed to
be crushed by her failure in the sciences. Ami worried that sooner
or later Hotaru would just give up.
A screen popped up before Ami. It was a requisition form,
asking for permission to continue experimentation on recombining DNA
in order to reduce the risk of radiation allergy in humans. Ami
reviewed the entire proposal and was about to press the ascent light
on the screen when something else caught her attention. She looked
down and saw Hotaru's screen had gone blank.
"Classroom four, view from headmaster," Ami demanded.
A new screen popped up, showing the entire classroom from the
viewpoint of the virtual observation teacher. The observation
teacher was looking at Hotaru, as were the other students.
"Audio replay from 14:47 hours," Ami demanded.
"Princess, the library consists of . . ." the replay began,
with the virtual teacher speaking in Makoto's simulated voice.
"Malfunction. Hotaru-chan, is your lesson screen malfunctioning?"
"Yes," Hotaru said, surprised and just a little intimidated by
the turn of events. "It-It just went blank."
"Recording sudden energy spike at 14:48 hours," 'Makoto'
reported. "Unit is off-line. Hotaru-chan, would you please move to
another seat and resume your lessons there?"
"A-All right," Hotaru said and moved to another seat.
Ami studied the picture with concern. Hotaru seemed frightened
by what had just happened. Now was that because of her unfamiliarity
with virtual technology? Did she think the power surge that crashed
the teaching station was somehow her fault? It was a common
assumption among people with technophobia.
Running an initial diagnostic on the teaching station, Ami
couldn't see any indication of what had caused the spike. She looked
back at the screen watching Hotaru.
Suddenly Ami began to wonder if Hotaru had reason to fear the
crash was her fault.
* * * *
Midnight approached the grounds of the palace of Crystal Tokyo.
Most activity was stilled, but there were some people still awake,
whether by duty or by choice. Outside the walls, though, were two
who were awake by choice.
"We are going to get it!" Cere-Cere whispered as she and
Ves-Ves eased along the wall. The front door to the palace was in
sight, as were the electronic monitors.
"Hey, nobody tied you down and held you prisoner until
midnight," Ves-Ves told her in an equally hushed voice.
"It's not my fault," Cere-Cere huffed. "Looking into
Tsuyoshi's eyes could make anyone lose track of time."
"Right," snickered Ves-Ves. "You know, that's the difference
between you and me. You stay out past curfew with a cute guy and
then feel guilty about it after. I don't. Yoshi is worth Sensei
Minako-sama's wrath."
"I'm beginning to think you don't feel guilty about anything."
"That's not true. That time I squirted mud into your ballet
slippers, I felt really guilty about that - - after I stopped
laughing."
"Beast," scowled Cere-Cere. "Well, we might as well get it
over with."
"You're just going to give up?" Ves-Ves asked. "You are a
priss."
"Well the minute we pass through the door the security system
is going to record our arrival! There's no way around it! What do
you suggest, that we sleep out here?"
"Watch and learn," smirked Ves-Ves. She brought out her
henshin stick and quietly said, "Vesta Power Make Up." Transforming
to Sailor Vesta, she said, "Fauna Assimilation - - chimpanzee."
Vesta's form began contracting until she was an odd amalgamation of a
human and a chimp.
"Finally your true form emerges," snickered Cere-Cere.
Vesta made a rude gesture at her, then began climbing up the
seemingly sheer surface of the palace wall. Though the crystal
seemed smooth, Vesta was able to find handholds in the wall and in
seconds was twenty feet up the wall, headed for a third story window.
"Not bad," nodded Cere-Cere, producing her henshin stick. "But
I think I can do it even easier. Ceres Power Make Up." After the
transformation took hold, Ceres pointed at the ground. "Floral
Stimulation."
Instantly a bud poked out of the ground. In seconds a rosebush
began to grow and thicken under her feet. When the branches became
solid enough to hold her, the bush pushed upward, expanding around
her feet. Flowers bloomed on the bush as it began to overtake Vesta,
but no thorns came anywhere near the bush's mistress.
"Race you to the window," chuckled Ceres as the bush sprinted
up past her sister's simian form.
Moments later, though, she felt the bush jostle and looked
down. Vesta was on the bush now, nimbly climbing up the rapidly
growing thing. Vesta scampered to the top of the bush and, with the
window a mere eight feet away now, pushed off and jumped up to the
sill. Ceres nearly lost her balance and gave a frightened squeal as
she and the bush moved to right her.
"You could have knocked me off!" hissed Ceres as she stepped
onto the windowsill.
"If you hadn't been showboating, you'd have been ready,"
shrugged Vesta, reverting to human form. She and Ceres turned to
head for their quarters - - and spotted Makoto waiting for them at
the end of the hall.
"Late night, ladies?" Makoto asked, barely suppressing a smile.
"Yeah," shrugged Vesta, knowing when she was caught. "We met a
couple of guys and . . ."
"And nature took its course," grinned Makoto. "Believe it or
not, I do remember what it was like."
"We're sorry," offered Ceres. "Please don't be too hard on
us."
"Don't worry. I'm not going to do anything to you." Both
girls seemed visibly relieved. "I'll leave that to Rei, since
starting tomorrow you are both pulling shrine maiden duty for two
weeks."
Both girls groaned. "I still have wax under my fingernails
from last time!" Vesta moaned.
"She'll make us scrub floors!" wailed Ceres. "Do you know what
that does to my hands?"
"Every pleasure has a price," Makoto told them. "So, were they
worth it?"
"Yoshi was," leered Vesta.
Makoto escorted the two girls back to their rooms. As they
walked down the still palace hall, though, the silence of the
midnight was suddenly pierced by a high-pitched, blood-curdling
scream of utter terror. Both girls froze. However, Makoto leaped
into action, racing down the hall even as her henshin stick appeared
in her hand.
Arriving at the sound of the screams, which hadn't abated,
Sailor Jupiter activated the override for the electronic lock. The
door hissed open and Jupiter peered in, ready for anything. Vesta
and Ceres were behind her, their eyes wide. All they saw, though,
was the dark figure of Hotaru huddled in the center of her bed.
Though it was dark, they could tell she was shaking and her
whimpering could still be heard.
"Hotaru, honey, what happened?" Jupiter asked as she sat on the
bed next to the girl. Hotaru leaped into her arms, crushing her
small body to Jupiter's large frame. Lumps formed in the throats of
Vesta and Ceres as they saw the naked terror shudder through her
body. "It's all right. Nothing's going to hurt you. What
happened?"
"She was here," Hotaru whispered fearfully, as if she feared
saying the words out loud would bring the terror back. "Sailor
Jupiter, she was here."
"Who was here?" Jupiter asked.
"What's going on?" Jun-Jun asked, appearing in the doorway.
Palla-Palla was huddled next to her and was crying. "Palla-Palla was
crying and then I heard all this commotion."
"Hotaru, who was here?" Jupiter asked again.
"Mistress 9!" wailed Hotaru. "She was standing right here! I
saw her!"
"Mistress 9?" gasped Jupiter incredulously. "How? Are you
sure?"
"Yes! She was standing right there, where Vesta is now! She
was looking at me, staring at me, smiling! Oh, Jupiter, I can't go
through that again! I just can't!"
She clung desperately to Jupiter and the senshi held onto her
tightly. Palla-Palla began to cry harder and the other Amazoness
senshi looked to one another helplessly, wondering what in blazes was
happening.
Continued in Chapter 3