A/N: Here is the 5th chapter peoples! Thanks very much, and a million times more for reviewing 'kay? Enjoy! ~.-
*~*
"I told you I can do it," Raye said smugly and wiped the bit of blood on her hand on the wet towel that was stained with spots of blood. Grandpa's quivered an eyebrow and leered dangerously at Raye.
"Get the antibiotic ointment in the medicine cupboard," he said, his voice was rasped from his constant yelling in pain. Raye nodded lazily and strolled out and into the kitchen. She opened the cupboard on the top right of the sink and sighed hopelessly at the amount of medicine bottle were present.
"Grandpa," she called soberly, "What does it look like?"
"A black bottle with a gray top and no words on it!" Grandpa answered in a croaky voice, "Hurry up!"
Raye sighed tiredly and started searching for a black bottle with a gray top.
After 5 strenuous minutes of picking up bottles and throwing it back down impatiently, she came upon a black plastic bottle with a gray top. Letting out a relieved breath, she happily picked it up and rushed back to the room.
"Got it." She said opening the bottle as she sat down by Grandpa's leg. She took some of the white cream, (Smelling suspiciously like strawberry) in the bottle and spread it over the wounds. She grabbed a piece of cloth nearby and wrapped it tightly around the leg.
"There, done!" She closed the bottle and suddenly flopped down onto the floor with a heavy sigh.
Grandpa sighed also, scratching his baldhead at the same time. "Raye?"
"Yeah?" Raye groaned with her hands over her face.
"Did you get the mail?" Raye suddenly sat up and nodded, suddenly remembering the letter.
"Did you find the ad for that new Day Spa?" He asked worryingly. Raye blinked at him let out an aggravated sigh.
"I don't know," she mumbled in answer, "But I did get a letter from Father."
"You got a letter from your father?" he asked in surprise, "Where is it?"
"In the kitchen on the table," she answered listlessly.
"Well, what are you waiting for?!?" Grandpa shouted as if Raye was denying a million dollar prize, "Go and get it!"
"Alright!" Raye answered sharply, "I'll get it." So then again, she stood up and went outside to the kitchen, picked up the letter, lazily walked back to the room and slumped back down on the floor. You could really tell she wasn't very excited about receiving a letter from her own father.
"Read it out aloud." Grandpa ordered. Raye looked at the letter slowly and placed a slanted, jaded frown on her face.
"Dear Raye, my dearest daughter," she began in a dull voice-
"I hope that you are doing well my child. I am well myself, and so is the rest of us. Everything here is fine, I hope the same goes in Japan—"
"You know," Raye said interrupting herself, "He acts if he cared but he doesn't. Such a liar!" Then she looked at the paper again and continued.
"— For your 17th birthday, I wish to invite you, your grandpa, and maybe some of your friends here to the Sanq Kingdom. Don't worry I'll pay, just mail me back if you're going and how many of your friends are coming along—"
"I can't believe he's trying to buy back my tolerance of him," Raye noted angrily, "And with the money I'm supposed to inherit!"
"I do hope you will come because I miss you very much—"
"He's such a liar," she growled at the letter, "I mean—"
"Raye would you stop commenting after every sentence and read the whole damn letter!!" Grandpa erupted out suddenly.
Raye gave grandpa a glare and looked back at the letter and mumbled, "Right."
"I will need your answer back by next week Tuesday, and if you don't want to come because of me, think of your cousins you have not seen in 5 years. Mitsuko and Aiko truly miss you. They themselves are doing great.
Love,
Your father"
Raye let out an angry, piercing scream at the closing sentence.
"I can't believe it!" she shrieked, "He doesn't love me and dare lie to me! God, I hate him more then before!!"
"Raye, Raye," Grandpa said gently, trying to calm her down, "He's your father."
"He's my father!" she repeated in obscure shriek, "I hate him! After all these years he ignored me! He—"
"You mean after all those years you ignored him," Grandpa interrupted.
"He ignored me first," Raye countered and crossed her arms like a small angry, spoiled child that couldn't get what she wanted.
.
"Are you going?" Grandpa asked. Her face softened into an unsure frown.
"Should I?" she asked, "I really don't want to."
"You should," he replied, "I'll go too."
"Okay then I'll go," Raye said briskly, oddly enough. For a while she stared at something or more specifically nothing, as if dozing off into a different world but she snapped back to her mind not long after. "Anyways, I've got chores." Using this as an excuse, she jogged out the room.
Grandpa stared after her and shook his head.
"Teenagers, a strange age."
*~*
The next day, Raye called her 4 of her friends to the temple for an important meeting and told them quickly about the letter and her father's offering. Serena, Mina, Lita and Amy were surprised to hear Raye actually talk about her family besides Grandpa.
"So you're going?" Lita asked. Raye nodded.
"Yeah," she said with a bored sigh, "He said he'll pay for my air ticket and that I can invite a couple friends over."
"I can go," Lita said instantly and shrugged, "I'm free, besides, I need to get out Tokyo."
"Well, there is no evil currently trying to threaten earth," Mina said slowly, rubbing her chin thoughtfully, "And I don't want to go to summer school, and I'm out of job also so, I suppose I could come."
"Well that's two," Raye mumbled scribbling Mina and Lita's names on a piece of paper.
"I suppose I could go too," said Amy, "I'm sure they have books there I can study for our finals." The rest sweat dropped at Amy's relentless effort to study.
"Serena, you've been quiet," Raye, said, "What about you?"
"I have to ask my mom," Serena replied quietly, "I'm not as free as you guys."
"Have you been grounded again Serena?" Mina asked suspiciously. Serena started faltering and rubbing her neck nervously.
"W-Well sssort of," she stammered grinning sheepishly and anxiously, "But never hurts to ask eh?"
Raye narrowed and squinted her eyebrows deadly at the blond. She bit her lips and wrote down Serena and Amy's name on the paper.
"Okay," she said with finality, "So that's decided."
"Raye, how long have you been away from your parents?" Amy questioned.
"Why?" Raye asked almost shrilly.
"I was just curious." Amy answered, looking a bit intimidated.
"5 years." Raye said briskly, she lowered and eyebrows into a soft scowl, "Since I was 12."
"That long?" Serena said in horror, "Wow, that's pretty long." Raye rolled her eyes at her.
"I personally thought they were dead," Mina conveyed with a slanted frown, "Guess I was wrong."
"Half wrong," Raye corrected, "Mother is dead now."
"Oh, I…" Mina trailed off and looked to the floor.
"Don't feel sorry for me." Raye groaned, "Just don't, I lived without her before she died. I can handle it."
"I understand how it feels," Lita said gently and her green eyes soften sympathetically, "I got over it too." Raye shrugged rashly.
"I never missed them." She told them curtly. Her four companions stared wide-eyed at her as if she said something really foul and to each other with raised eyebrows.
"What kind of relationship did you have with your parents?" Amy asked incredulously.
"Not a very close one, you could say it was almost formal, or very formal. Never talked to them much." Raye answered nonchalantly, not noticing the strange looks she was getting. A tensed silent interrupted their conversation. No further words were exchanged.
But Serena, being as herself suddenly smiled dreamily and whispered out of the blue, "I wish Darien was here."
The others gave her an odd, penetrating stare.
Raye stood up and excused herself outside. Staring out into the vague, but familiar scenery of the quiet Tokyo, scenery, she wrapped her arms around her and let out a tired sigh.
That night when Raye went to bed, she felt something strange. Her heart suddenly felt heavy and her mind was starting to enclose in blankets and flashes of forgotten memories. As she wondered aimlessly around her mind, with the letter stuck in her head more and more came rushing in. Hearing the names she had never heard in 5 years, these familiar yet strange and new names.
She started hearing voices, strange, but familiar voices mingled with each other.
God damn it! She screamed in her mind, I must have some sleep…
A small drop of tears made it out from Raye's tightly closed eyes and flowed down her cheeks, sending a familiar, warm tickling sensation. She wiped off the tears and slowly opened her eyes. A veil of misty tears covered her dark violet eyes and blurred her vision. She blinked to shed the tears and wiped the fall tears off with the sleeves of her kimono.
Tears? My tears... I'm crying, why the hell am I crying?
As seconds passed, Raye's eyelids became heavy and still drying from the tears and meditating on the same thought. Slowly and steadily, the eyes closed and she fell into deep sleep.
*~*
RIIIIIINNNG!!!
The phone went off early next morning. Raye turned in her bed and stuffed her head under the pillow. The phone rang again and she dug her head deeper in the bed, cursing sleepily to destroy the phone. The phone relentlessly rang again, unmindful of Raye's threats. Enraged at the phone for disturbing her sleep, Raye sprang out of bed and snatched the phone of the hook.
"What?" she snapped into the phone.
"Someone got off the wrong side of the bed this morning," said a sarcastic voice from the other side. It sounded very suspiciously like Serena's. In fact, it was Serena, how very surprising isn't it?
"Serena?" Raye asked in shock. She glanced at her clock and sighed. "Its 7:30 in the morning!"
"Yup, I'm early today!" Serena said with a happy giggle, having no hint of sleepiness whatsoever. "I just wanted to tell you that my mom would let me go only if I take Sammy so…"
"Yes Serena," Raye answered, yawning, too tired to tease Serena about getting up early, "He can come." She yawned again, rubbed her eyes and carelessly dropped the phone back on the receiver. She stretched her arms along with a large sleepy sigh and dragged herself to the bathroom, mindlessly thinking about the chores she had to do.
**
In the evening, dressed in her Shinto priestess kimono, sat down by the table with a pen and a piece of lined paper. She started off writing the date, then "Dear…" She paused and stared at the word. What should I write next, dad? Father? Raye shook her head at herself and wrote down "…Father,
I've got your letter and I am pleased to hear that Aiko is doing well. I am very well myself. Everything is beautiful in Tokyo. And to answer your offer, yes, I will come. 4 of my friends are going to…"
Raye stopped and erased '4' and replaced it with '5' remember that Sammy was coming along.
"…to come. 4 female, the name of Serena Tsukino, Amy Mizuno, Lita Kino, Mina Aino, all my age. The last one is a 12 years old boy Sam Tsukino.
Sincerely,
Raye"
Raye dropped her pen abruptly onto the table and picked up the letter and reread it. It wasn't exactly the work of a professional writer, Raye herself being a poet and a songwriter, you would expect a more passionate and creative letter but she wasn't in the mood pouring out her talents to her father. Raye wrote the return address and her father's address, which she found out from Grandpa. She folded it into a small square and placed it in the envelope on the table. Silent, she stood up, stepped outside and walked to mail box. Raye opened it noisily and threw her letter in and closed it. Feeling like if boulders have been removed from her shoulders, she let out a large sigh of relief.
"Glad that's done."
**
Two days later on the nippy Thursday evening, Raye received another mail from her father, this time containing a thick lump of money for the plane tickets. The money and the thought of going didn't exactly thrill her. Shrugging, she went back in and opened up her computer to the Internet. There she bought 7 tickets to the Sanq Kingdom, setting the date to leave in 3 days. Sighing and saying to herself that everything was set, she nodded to her self. Then, grimly and lazily, she started packing for a 2-week trip and at the same time thinking, this is going to be one hell of a nightmare, I just know it…
*~*
"Hey Wu-man!" said the cheery Duo Maxwell as he bounced onto the couch and made a quick grab for the T.V remote, "Whazzzup man?"
"Maxwell," Wufei replied in a low growl, "How many times do I have to tell you moron?! The name is Wufei!"
"Right Wu-man, I'll remember that." Duo mumbled clicking the channel button as fast as his fingers can go.
Thinking that he wasn't going to waste time knocking some sense in that nutcase with a ridiculous braid, he grabbed a dark blue jacket from the closet and went outside. The air was chilly with a soft breeze blowing across the grass. Wufei looked up longingly into the sky., as if hoping to see something familiar.
L5 is gone. They are all gone. Don't be weak, accept this. There is no use mourning over their deaths. There is no use mourning over anyone.
*~*
On the day they were due to leave, Raye and her friends decided to meet at the Air Port around 3 pm. Very simple instruction really but it took almost an hour and a half to find each other, and when they did, it took another half an hour to find their Air Plane counter and wait in line. After all the frustrated waiting, their baggages were scanned and the detector beeped loudly at Sammy's bag. The officials there opened and inspected his bag, finding a small hunting knife. Serena almost went into fit as she screamed at Sammy. He apologized to the officials there that he had forgot to take it out the last time he went hunting with his father. The workers bought it and told Sammy that they'll keep it until he comes back. Then it was off into the plane with Serena still scowling at Sammy.
It was 3-hour trip, but they had to get off at London to catch a second plane. From there they took another 4-hour flight directly to the Sanq Kingdom, arriving as late as 10:30 PM.
It wasn't crowded in the Air Port; maybe it was because the size was twice the size as the one in Tokyo and London. The ceilings were tall, with grayish metallic but engraved with gothic statues. The windows were also huge but narrow and tinted black. They entered into the waiting room; a large room with a dome shape glass ceiling which you could see directly to the sky. There wasn't much to see now in the dark, except maybe the black cloudless sky with shadows of the city light.
"Oh yeah Raye?" Mina said with a sheepish, half-sardonic grin, "Who's picking us up?"
Raye smiled in an assuring, clever way at her friends and grandpa. "Don't worry," she said sensibly, "I know father sent someone."
And right on cue, a lazy, drawling sort of voice said from behind them, "You aren't really hard to spot are you Raye?" They turned to voice and were greeted by a tall, young woman with clear but clearly cold black eyes, black hair that had a tint of purple. She had set a wily, but the same time a greeting grin on her long face.
"Mitsuko," Raye addressed her, giving her a glare, "So he sent you to pick us up."
"That's right Raye," Mitsuko replied with a half haughty grin, "Nor am I that eccentric nor happy to do so."
"Well Mitsuko!" Grandpa exclaimed from the side, "You've grown into a…er…beautiful young woman!" Mitsuko looked down at grandpa and grinned.
"You look well," she said quietly, "Not that you look any better before nor now old man." Before Grandpa could scold her on calling him 'old man', Mitsuko swiftly turned and with a wave of her hand, commanding them to follow, but not once offering help to hold the baggage for them.
"I don't like her," Lita whispered furiously to her friends, "She looks stuck-up." Raye shrugged.
"She's my cousin," she informed with a sigh, "2 years older."
"She's stuck up." Mina confirmed nodding.
"Probably." Amy agreed while at the same time struggling to pull her chest and carry her baggage the same time.
*~*
"Earth," an over passionate voice trilled, "How beautiful! Don't you think?"
"Its blue, brown and white," a less excited voice replied, "Lets just get this over with okay?"
"Yes yes," the other voice replied, "Soon the beautiful blue planet with so much beauty will be mine and in my collection of things of rare and unique power and beauty. It won't be long now. Just wait, I'll show those moon people what happens when they try to take away my collection!"
"Stop it with the talk and get a move on!" the other voice growled impatiently.
"Okay Uraline," the eccentric voice replied hastily, then in a dramatic tone it continued, "Let Operation Earth commence!"
"Lady Akhile," said a small voice from somewhere in the dark domain, "The Imperial crystal isn't on our location Tokyo."
"WHAT?!" the shrill voice shrieked, "Well where is it?"
"We detected it at the Sanq Kingdom."
"Oh." Lady Akhile sounded disappointed, "Well, still attack Toko and—"
"Tokyo lady," the voice corrected.
"Right," Lady Akhile said sounding a tad bit skeptical, "Well, attack Tokyo and its Region and we'll send another troop to get the people of the 'white moon' as they called them at the Sink kingdom!"
"Sanq mistress." The voice corrected again, "The Sanq Kingdom."
"Right, it already sank…" Lady Akhile started laughing shrilly at her own joke while her underlings and Uraline stared at her oddly. When she noticed this, Akhile stopped and cleared her throat looking serious again.
"Get a second troop ready to secure the Sanq kingdom." She ordered solemnly.
"Yes mistress."
A/N: Yes, someone evil is trying to take over the world for the millionth time. He he ^^
Nothing beats a story with a little bit of bad guys on it don't cha think?