"It's a shallow life that doesn't give a person a few scars." - Garrison Keillor in Salon.com
**************
Amy Lynn was not the sort to make mistakes. She carefully analyzed each decision she made with the utmost logic and care. Invariably they turned out to be correct.
"You're a pervert!"
"I didn't decide to be gay!"
"You married me, for God's sake! You obviously like women, so how the hell can you stand there and tell me you didn't decide to be gay?!"
In her room, sitting on the floor, knees pulled up to her chest, door ajar as she listened to her parents scream at each other, Amy Lynn privately admitted to herself that taking her father up on his offer might have been a mistake.
"This isn't about me, Janice! This is about Amy Lynn! She needs both her parents. Whatever else I may do, she's still my daughter and I want to be part of her life!"
"She's my daughter, Michael! You gave up all those rights ten years ago!"
"Not the right to be part of her life! I agreed that you'd get sole custody not because I didn't care, but because you're a hell of a lot better at being a parent then I am. I don't know the first thing about raising kids! But I didn't give up on the right to be a father! You sent back every letter, card, birthday and Christmas gift I ever mailed to her. You shut me out of her life, Janice. You!'
"She's not becoming a degenerate pig like you! I refuse to let her be swept into your disgusting little world!"
"I'm not trying to sweep her into anything! I just want to be part of her life! I want to be her father!"
"Her father?!!" Her mother's scream rose to a high pitch and with two fingers, Amy Lynn shut her door, unable to listen anymore. Crawling over to her bed, she climbed in, curled up in a ball and cried for quite some time, before eventually falling into a dreamless sleep.
**************
Sighing to himself, Malachite entered the small cabin on the plantation grounds that he shared with, Zoicite. His clothes fading away to be replaced with his general's uniform as he dismissed the illusions that allowed him to walk amongst humans. The changes were subtle, but significant. His skin darkened to almost black, ears were more pointed and the planes of his face more angular. His eyes took on an almost inhuman silver sheen. In ancient times, they had called them Sidhe, later on they had called them Dark Elves and in both cases, they had been spoken of with fear.
He sighed again. It had been too long since he had... he pushed the conclusion of his meeting with Janice out of his mind. She had agreed to let him spend time with Amy Lynn, that was the important thing, everything else was irrelevant.
Moving into the bedroom, he began to remove his cape, giving only a brief glance to Zoicite, who lay on the bed, naked. "Hello, Love," Malachite said absently, hanging his cape up.
Zoicite said nothing. Turning to look at the bed, Malachite realized his lover was staring at him with a strange expression.
"Jeddite told me about your meeting," the younger man said. "A family?" The younger man slid off the bed and came over to Malachite. "You never told me about a family."
"A remnant of my human life," Malachite said, undoing the collar of his jacket. "Nothing to worry about."
"Good, good," Zoicite said, leaning against him. "I'll talk to Jeddite and the next youma will be sure to pay them a special visit. They'll be dead in--URK!"
With a speed fueled by anger that in retrospect would terrify him with its intensity, Malachite's hand shot out and grabbed the other man's neck. Real fear filled Zoicite's eyes as he grabbed Malachite's wrist, trying to release the pressure on his windpipe. "Not a finger will be laid on them," the white-haired general said very softly. "Remnant or not, my blood flows in the child's veins." Dark Energy crackled across Malachite's fingertips, energy that could turn Zoicite's head into a pulp and was restrained only by Malachite's will. "Listen to me, Zoicite, until I determine the child's powers, if any, she and her mother will remain alive and unharmed." Malachite tightened his grip. "Understand me?"
"Y-yes!" Zoicite gasped out.
"Good." Malachite released him and continued undressing. "Now let's go to bed, shall we?"
**************
The next night, an hour or so after her mother had gone to bed, Amy Lynn sat at her desk constructing a subspace transciever out of an old ham radio, some short wave receivers, and one of the CB sets she had found in the clinic's garage. The one TV station she could get in Juuban Hollow had run a Next Generation Marathon the other night and the show's repeated use of subspace had piqued her interest.
It was then that she took notice a rattling sound against her window. Curious, she set down the improvised soldering iron and went to see what was making the noise.
Standing on the ground was Bunny, Luna by her side. "I'm goin' possum huntin'," the blonde called. "Wanna come? Molly said her mother needs her ta unpack a delivery."
Amy Lynn gave the transceiver a glance. There would be time enough later and she didn't want to turn down a friend. "Okay."
A few minutes later, she left the house and crept down the stairs wearing the work shirt and jeans Bunny had loaned her for the farming assignment, and the boots.
Stealthily, the two made their way to the road where Bunny's truck was parked and climbed in. For once, Bunny did not drive in her usual fashion...not until they had left town, anyway.
At least she turned on the headlights.
**************
At the very edge of the woods, Bunny parked the truck and grinned at Amy Lynn, who seemed a bit pale, but otherwise okay.
"How do you hunt 'possums?" Amy Lynn asked, trying not to think of what she had just been through.
Bunny grinned and reached behind the seat. "With this." She drew out an old, but well maintained rifle. Amy Lynn knew about guns, her mother being a servicewoman and all, but had never actually used one before.
Reaching back behind the seat, Bunny removed a roll of duct tape, a backpack, a pair of flashlights, a box of bullets, and two pistols, which she loaded with bullets she took out of her shirt pocket. She tucked one into the waistband of her shorts and the other one she handed to Amy Lynn. Then she turned on one of the flashlights and taped it to the rifle. "C'mon."
Copying Bunny, albeit nervously, Amy Lynn tucked the pistol into her jeans and grabbed the flashlight. With Luna in the lead, the two girls set off into the woods.
**************
Amy Lynn was no stranger to the wilderness. You couldn't grow up in Minnesota and not be familiar with it, but this was different for some reason. Maybe it was the lack of a campfire and conversation, or maybe it was the just she was in a different place. She had heard stories on the net about strange things you'd find if you went far enough into the American South. Old Native American relics, cursed places, witches, and places where slaves had died in the most brutal fashion possible and their ghosts still lurked, waiting for anyone foolish enough to trespass into their grief.
Then of course, there were the modern bogeymen. Space aliens, crazy old men and secret societies. Of them all, Amy Lynn was worried only about the hermits who might be out in the woods and the pistol in her jeans did nothing to lessen that worry. As she and Bunny made their way through the woods, Amy Lynn found herself coming up with scenarios, battle plans, and escape routes.
While on her last Girl Scout campout (the troop had folded a month later thanks to a penguin named Bill) Amy Lynn had met an old woman who sold dream catchers up by Lake Tskykeputchy in Minnesota. The woman had been normal in every respect except that she was convinced that the rocks in a small pond several miles into the woods had teeth and that their bite changed you into a half plant, half animal creature not unlike a demented squirrel. She claimed when she was a little girl, she had watched her entire class change and then run off into the woods. That encounter had sparked a brief interest in American myths. In the space of a week, Amy Lynn devoured every book on it in both the Saint Paul and Minneapolis Public libraries.
"There's not much you c'n do wit possums, 'course," Bunny said, breaking into Amy Lynn's thoughts. "Ma has a recipe for possum stew, but without a decent tater ta toss in there, it don't taste vera good. Gotta admit though, ain't nuthin better then some warm possum gloves when it gets cold."
"I've never used a gun before," Amy Lynn said.
"Guns is easy," Bunny said, pulling her own pistol. "See this?" She indicated the barrel of the pistol with the barrel of her rifle. "Point this at whatcha wanna shoot, and then pull this thingy here." She curled her finger around the trigger. "Nuthin simpler." She shoved the pistol back into her shorts.
At that moment, Luna stiffened and then growled, staring off into the woods. "A possum?" Amy Lynn said, reaching for her pistol.
"Ain't sure," Bunny said, an odd note in her voice as she switched off the flashlight taped to the rifle. "You stay here. C'mon Luna." With that, she and Luna disappeared into the trees.
Several minutes passed, then from the direction Bunny had gone, Amy Lynn heard a blood-chilling roar.
Without a second thought, she gripped her pistol and ran in the direction Bunny had gone.
**************
She had only gone perhaps a few hundred feet when she came upon a clearing which held a large pond at its center. In it, a woman dressed in clothes that seemed to made from moonlight battled a monster out of nightmares. It was at least eight feet tall, with a birdlike beak and three eyes in a triangle. It's skin was green and knobby, and claws sprouted from its four-fingered hands. It's hair was long and green and ram's horns sprouted from the side of its head.
The woman was dressed in a one piece white gown that came to her knees with a belt made out of silver mesh around her waist. A tiara encircled her forehead and her hair came down past her shoulders, which were protected by golden plates. Her calves were covered by golden yellow shin guards and she wore heavy boots. Golden bands encircled her wrists and she carried a sword in each hand, the one in her left longer and heavier then the one in her right. Behind the monster, a great black wolf circled, lunging in to try and sink its teeth into the monster's hamstring.
With a backhand swipe, the monster slammed the woman against a tree and then moved in for what had to be a kill.
With a boldness that surprised her, Amy Lynn stepped out of the trees and aimed the pistol at the monster. She pulled the trigger several times, each one causing the monster to stagger. Then, suddenly, instead of the sound of gunfire, she heard only a faint clicking.
Uh-Oh.
Amy Lynn turned and ran back into the trees, only to be sent flying as the ground exploded underneath her. Grunting, she hit the dirt path, bouncing and rolling for several more feet before carefully picking herself up as behind her, she heard another roar.
"Amy Lynn!" An woman's voice said. Amy Lynn looked around. There was no one around. "Amy Lynn!" came the woman's voice again. "Over here." Looking in the direction of the voice, she found herself face to face with the great black wolf she had seen moments earlier. A crescent moon flared brightly on it's forehead and it was though a veil had been lifted from Amy Lynn's eyes. The wolf became Luna and with a horrified start, she realized the woman in white back in the clearing had been Bunny.
"L-Luna? What's-"
"There's no time!" Luna snapped. "You have to help the Moon Priestess."
"Help? How?" Amy Lynn asked, faintly aware that she was having a conversation with a dog and must therefore be losing her mind.
Using her snout, Luna rolled something across the dirt to her. "With this."
"What is it?" Amy Lynn asked, her fingertips tingling slightly as she picked it up. It was colored ice blue, about the size of a writing pen, slightly thicker, and topped with a loop of gold. Inside the loop was a thin slab of crystal.
"Never mind that!" Luna half-shouted. "Hold it up and say, 'Mercury, Grant Me Strength'
Amy Lynn did as she was told. "Mercury, Grant Me Strength!" Cold, wonderful cold rushed into her and she felt her clothes vanishing and more cold sliding over her limbs and body like velvet. When it cleared, she was wearing a bodysuit that covered her torso and neck, but not her arms and legs. Blue boots covered her feet and white gloves covered her forearms. The exposed part of her arms and legs was covered with a light blue fabric that she instinctively knew was light as air and harder then any metal. A tiara encircled her forehead and from it hung a tinted blue visor. A continuous stream of data ran up the right side and in her hand she held a sword.
She looked back at the clearing, her feet twitched and then she was back at the clearing's edge, the wind of her movement fading. The monster had Bunny pressed up against a tree with one hand and had the other hand raised to administer the killing blow. It regarded her for a moment, and then looked back at Bunny.
Raising her hand, Amy Lynn fired four ice spikes, one from each fingertip, which flew across the clearing and sank into the creature's hide. Roaring, it tossed Bunny aside like a rag doll and lunged for her, only to smash into a tree as its target darted aside. Like a whip, her sword flicked out, leaving a gouge as large as a man's arm in the beast's side. She raised the sword high to bring it downon its neck, when it's arm moved, striking her hard and sending her to crash down next to Bunny.
"Who?" Bunny asked, trying to stand.
"Never mind that!" Amy Lynn said as the monster leapt high into the air. "Roll!"
They rolled in opposite directions, the monster landing where they had been, dirt flying as its impact left behind a crater. Rising from its crouch, the monster began to move towards Amy Lynn slowly, it's breathing ragged.
Standing, she reached out to the cold of the pond and called it forth, encasing the monster in a block of ice. Her hand tightened into a fist...
And everything went white as the loud roar of an explosion filled her ears.
When she could see again, she was lying on her back in some bushes, staring up at the stars through a gap in the trees. Then Bunny, dressed in her usual clothes, loomed over her. "You okay, Amy Lynn?"
"B-bunny? What happened?"
"There's no time for that!" Luna snapped. She pointed to the bushes with her nose. "Look!"
Peering through the bushes, Amy Lynn saw that they overlooked a huge crater. It was a good twenty or thirty feet deep and perhaps two or three hundred feet wide. The clearing and the pond had been obliterated.
A group of trucks were nearby, some marked with the insignia of Black Mountain Plantation. In the light of one set of headlights, she saw her father and mother standing side by side talking with another man that she vaguely recalled being pointed out as the county sheriff and the tall black-haired young deputy she recalled Bunny arguing with during that first day.
"What are we going to do?" Luna whispered. "Bunny's truck will be heard if it starts up and there's no way to push it out of here without being seen."
"We face the music then," Amy Lynn said softly. Going back to where she had been laying, she picked up her pistol and tucked it into her jeans, pulling the work shirt into position to hide it.
"Amy Lynn, you shore 'bout this?" Bunny asked.
"No. But Mom probably knows I'm not in bed by now, I'll get yelled at either way. Here or at home. Here, she might be a little less loud about it." With that, Amy Lynn stepped boldly through the bushes and crouched at the edge of the crater. Here she could see the sides were smooth like glass and cold to the touch. It wasn't ice, but not glass either. It seemed almost like crystal.
"And what do you think you're doing here, young lady?" Standing, Amy Lynn faced her mother. Doctor Anderson had thrown some pants and her white lab coat on over her nightgown, which had been tucked into the pants and strapped to her hip was the black metal of her service pistol.
"Mah fault, Doc," Bunny said stepping up beside Amy Lynn. "Ah invited Amy Lynn to go possum huntin wit me and we heard the explosion. Wut happened here anyways?"
"Catch anything, Buns?" asked the dark-haired deputy.
"Shut yor mouth, Shields, 'fore I shuts for ya!" Bunny snapped. "An don't call me Buns!"
"But it suits you so well."
Bunny's faced turned red with anger.
"Mom, what did happen here?" Amy Lynn asked, hoping to divert her mother's attention from the fact that she was out and about. "It looks like an impact crater."
"That's what we thought," said a gravely voice. Turning, Amy Lynn saw a tall man with a mane of brown hair. He wore a green T-shirt and black pants. "But the sides are too smooth, and too cool. He smiled at Amy Lynn. "Nathan Johnson."
"Amy Lynn Anderson."
"Like what?" Doctor Anderson asked, stepping forward. "I've been in this nation's military since the day after I graduated High school and in all that time, I've seen every kind of explosion and impact crater there is." She jabbed her finger at thecrater. "And questions of explosives or metors aside, gentlemen, believe me when I say that neither one accounts for the crystal lining."
"Mebbe it was spacemen," ventured a man standing nearby. "Or demons or somethin."
"There's no such thing as any of those, Mister Furnuckle," Doctor Anderson said stiffly. She faced the sheriff. "If you'll excuse me Myron, there appears to be no need for my services and I must take my daughter home. I'll meet you back here in the morning."
"Shore thing, Janice," the Sheriff said absently, scratching his head as he stared into the crater.
"Come along, Dear," Doctor Anderson said stiffly. Amy Lynn sighed and handed the pistol back to Bunny, which made Doctor Anderson's nostrils pinch with barely supressed fury, and then followed her mother to the car.
**************
For the second time in as many days, Malachite was angry and the dark power in him was practically begging to be released.
Jeddite grunted as he hit the wall, propelled against it by the raw power bolt Malachite threw at him.
"You...idiot," Malachite seethed. "What in the hells possessed you to give a youma that much power? Now the humans are going to be getting nosy. On top of that, we now have another one of those blasted Priestesses to deal with."
"W-we can handle them," Jeddite gasped out as a collar of dark energy clamped around his throat.
Another bolt smacked the blonde general across the face. "The goal was to find Empreya's jewel before Serenity's spell could gather all six together, Old Boy," Malachite drawled. Jeddite felt the icy hand of fear clamp his gut. Unlike the others, Malachite's anger made him calmer, almost relaxed.
The words "Old Boy" spoken in a drawl, meant that he was on the edge of losing his temper...and considering that Malachite was the most powerful of the Four, that event fit nicely into the bad things catagory. Especially if you were the source of his wrath. "That way we don't have to fight them. But perhaps you missed that when we first gathered after being awakened from our human lives."
"N-no, Malachite. I didn't. I just wanted to be sure we could be rid of the Moon Priestess once and for all. She's interfered enough. I honestly wasn't expecting Mercury's chosen to show up."
"One more screw up, Jeddite, just one more...and I'll have your head on a pike." The collar vanished and Malachite strode out of the room.
****
Entry #138
Mother and Father are speaking to each other...somewhat. It's a start, I guess. Got caught being out when Mom had already gone to bed. She took away my laptop for a week. I can deal with it though.
Something else happened tonight. But I'm not sure I can talk about it yet.
I'm not sure I'll ever be ready to talk about it...
**************
Amy Lynn was not the sort to make mistakes. She carefully analyzed each decision she made with the utmost logic and care. Invariably they turned out to be correct.
"You're a pervert!"
"I didn't decide to be gay!"
"You married me, for God's sake! You obviously like women, so how the hell can you stand there and tell me you didn't decide to be gay?!"
In her room, sitting on the floor, knees pulled up to her chest, door ajar as she listened to her parents scream at each other, Amy Lynn privately admitted to herself that taking her father up on his offer might have been a mistake.
"This isn't about me, Janice! This is about Amy Lynn! She needs both her parents. Whatever else I may do, she's still my daughter and I want to be part of her life!"
"She's my daughter, Michael! You gave up all those rights ten years ago!"
"Not the right to be part of her life! I agreed that you'd get sole custody not because I didn't care, but because you're a hell of a lot better at being a parent then I am. I don't know the first thing about raising kids! But I didn't give up on the right to be a father! You sent back every letter, card, birthday and Christmas gift I ever mailed to her. You shut me out of her life, Janice. You!'
"She's not becoming a degenerate pig like you! I refuse to let her be swept into your disgusting little world!"
"I'm not trying to sweep her into anything! I just want to be part of her life! I want to be her father!"
"Her father?!!" Her mother's scream rose to a high pitch and with two fingers, Amy Lynn shut her door, unable to listen anymore. Crawling over to her bed, she climbed in, curled up in a ball and cried for quite some time, before eventually falling into a dreamless sleep.
**************
Sighing to himself, Malachite entered the small cabin on the plantation grounds that he shared with, Zoicite. His clothes fading away to be replaced with his general's uniform as he dismissed the illusions that allowed him to walk amongst humans. The changes were subtle, but significant. His skin darkened to almost black, ears were more pointed and the planes of his face more angular. His eyes took on an almost inhuman silver sheen. In ancient times, they had called them Sidhe, later on they had called them Dark Elves and in both cases, they had been spoken of with fear.
He sighed again. It had been too long since he had... he pushed the conclusion of his meeting with Janice out of his mind. She had agreed to let him spend time with Amy Lynn, that was the important thing, everything else was irrelevant.
Moving into the bedroom, he began to remove his cape, giving only a brief glance to Zoicite, who lay on the bed, naked. "Hello, Love," Malachite said absently, hanging his cape up.
Zoicite said nothing. Turning to look at the bed, Malachite realized his lover was staring at him with a strange expression.
"Jeddite told me about your meeting," the younger man said. "A family?" The younger man slid off the bed and came over to Malachite. "You never told me about a family."
"A remnant of my human life," Malachite said, undoing the collar of his jacket. "Nothing to worry about."
"Good, good," Zoicite said, leaning against him. "I'll talk to Jeddite and the next youma will be sure to pay them a special visit. They'll be dead in--URK!"
With a speed fueled by anger that in retrospect would terrify him with its intensity, Malachite's hand shot out and grabbed the other man's neck. Real fear filled Zoicite's eyes as he grabbed Malachite's wrist, trying to release the pressure on his windpipe. "Not a finger will be laid on them," the white-haired general said very softly. "Remnant or not, my blood flows in the child's veins." Dark Energy crackled across Malachite's fingertips, energy that could turn Zoicite's head into a pulp and was restrained only by Malachite's will. "Listen to me, Zoicite, until I determine the child's powers, if any, she and her mother will remain alive and unharmed." Malachite tightened his grip. "Understand me?"
"Y-yes!" Zoicite gasped out.
"Good." Malachite released him and continued undressing. "Now let's go to bed, shall we?"
**************
The next night, an hour or so after her mother had gone to bed, Amy Lynn sat at her desk constructing a subspace transciever out of an old ham radio, some short wave receivers, and one of the CB sets she had found in the clinic's garage. The one TV station she could get in Juuban Hollow had run a Next Generation Marathon the other night and the show's repeated use of subspace had piqued her interest.
It was then that she took notice a rattling sound against her window. Curious, she set down the improvised soldering iron and went to see what was making the noise.
Standing on the ground was Bunny, Luna by her side. "I'm goin' possum huntin'," the blonde called. "Wanna come? Molly said her mother needs her ta unpack a delivery."
Amy Lynn gave the transceiver a glance. There would be time enough later and she didn't want to turn down a friend. "Okay."
A few minutes later, she left the house and crept down the stairs wearing the work shirt and jeans Bunny had loaned her for the farming assignment, and the boots.
Stealthily, the two made their way to the road where Bunny's truck was parked and climbed in. For once, Bunny did not drive in her usual fashion...not until they had left town, anyway.
At least she turned on the headlights.
**************
At the very edge of the woods, Bunny parked the truck and grinned at Amy Lynn, who seemed a bit pale, but otherwise okay.
"How do you hunt 'possums?" Amy Lynn asked, trying not to think of what she had just been through.
Bunny grinned and reached behind the seat. "With this." She drew out an old, but well maintained rifle. Amy Lynn knew about guns, her mother being a servicewoman and all, but had never actually used one before.
Reaching back behind the seat, Bunny removed a roll of duct tape, a backpack, a pair of flashlights, a box of bullets, and two pistols, which she loaded with bullets she took out of her shirt pocket. She tucked one into the waistband of her shorts and the other one she handed to Amy Lynn. Then she turned on one of the flashlights and taped it to the rifle. "C'mon."
Copying Bunny, albeit nervously, Amy Lynn tucked the pistol into her jeans and grabbed the flashlight. With Luna in the lead, the two girls set off into the woods.
**************
Amy Lynn was no stranger to the wilderness. You couldn't grow up in Minnesota and not be familiar with it, but this was different for some reason. Maybe it was the lack of a campfire and conversation, or maybe it was the just she was in a different place. She had heard stories on the net about strange things you'd find if you went far enough into the American South. Old Native American relics, cursed places, witches, and places where slaves had died in the most brutal fashion possible and their ghosts still lurked, waiting for anyone foolish enough to trespass into their grief.
Then of course, there were the modern bogeymen. Space aliens, crazy old men and secret societies. Of them all, Amy Lynn was worried only about the hermits who might be out in the woods and the pistol in her jeans did nothing to lessen that worry. As she and Bunny made their way through the woods, Amy Lynn found herself coming up with scenarios, battle plans, and escape routes.
While on her last Girl Scout campout (the troop had folded a month later thanks to a penguin named Bill) Amy Lynn had met an old woman who sold dream catchers up by Lake Tskykeputchy in Minnesota. The woman had been normal in every respect except that she was convinced that the rocks in a small pond several miles into the woods had teeth and that their bite changed you into a half plant, half animal creature not unlike a demented squirrel. She claimed when she was a little girl, she had watched her entire class change and then run off into the woods. That encounter had sparked a brief interest in American myths. In the space of a week, Amy Lynn devoured every book on it in both the Saint Paul and Minneapolis Public libraries.
"There's not much you c'n do wit possums, 'course," Bunny said, breaking into Amy Lynn's thoughts. "Ma has a recipe for possum stew, but without a decent tater ta toss in there, it don't taste vera good. Gotta admit though, ain't nuthin better then some warm possum gloves when it gets cold."
"I've never used a gun before," Amy Lynn said.
"Guns is easy," Bunny said, pulling her own pistol. "See this?" She indicated the barrel of the pistol with the barrel of her rifle. "Point this at whatcha wanna shoot, and then pull this thingy here." She curled her finger around the trigger. "Nuthin simpler." She shoved the pistol back into her shorts.
At that moment, Luna stiffened and then growled, staring off into the woods. "A possum?" Amy Lynn said, reaching for her pistol.
"Ain't sure," Bunny said, an odd note in her voice as she switched off the flashlight taped to the rifle. "You stay here. C'mon Luna." With that, she and Luna disappeared into the trees.
Several minutes passed, then from the direction Bunny had gone, Amy Lynn heard a blood-chilling roar.
Without a second thought, she gripped her pistol and ran in the direction Bunny had gone.
**************
She had only gone perhaps a few hundred feet when she came upon a clearing which held a large pond at its center. In it, a woman dressed in clothes that seemed to made from moonlight battled a monster out of nightmares. It was at least eight feet tall, with a birdlike beak and three eyes in a triangle. It's skin was green and knobby, and claws sprouted from its four-fingered hands. It's hair was long and green and ram's horns sprouted from the side of its head.
The woman was dressed in a one piece white gown that came to her knees with a belt made out of silver mesh around her waist. A tiara encircled her forehead and her hair came down past her shoulders, which were protected by golden plates. Her calves were covered by golden yellow shin guards and she wore heavy boots. Golden bands encircled her wrists and she carried a sword in each hand, the one in her left longer and heavier then the one in her right. Behind the monster, a great black wolf circled, lunging in to try and sink its teeth into the monster's hamstring.
With a backhand swipe, the monster slammed the woman against a tree and then moved in for what had to be a kill.
With a boldness that surprised her, Amy Lynn stepped out of the trees and aimed the pistol at the monster. She pulled the trigger several times, each one causing the monster to stagger. Then, suddenly, instead of the sound of gunfire, she heard only a faint clicking.
Uh-Oh.
Amy Lynn turned and ran back into the trees, only to be sent flying as the ground exploded underneath her. Grunting, she hit the dirt path, bouncing and rolling for several more feet before carefully picking herself up as behind her, she heard another roar.
"Amy Lynn!" An woman's voice said. Amy Lynn looked around. There was no one around. "Amy Lynn!" came the woman's voice again. "Over here." Looking in the direction of the voice, she found herself face to face with the great black wolf she had seen moments earlier. A crescent moon flared brightly on it's forehead and it was though a veil had been lifted from Amy Lynn's eyes. The wolf became Luna and with a horrified start, she realized the woman in white back in the clearing had been Bunny.
"L-Luna? What's-"
"There's no time!" Luna snapped. "You have to help the Moon Priestess."
"Help? How?" Amy Lynn asked, faintly aware that she was having a conversation with a dog and must therefore be losing her mind.
Using her snout, Luna rolled something across the dirt to her. "With this."
"What is it?" Amy Lynn asked, her fingertips tingling slightly as she picked it up. It was colored ice blue, about the size of a writing pen, slightly thicker, and topped with a loop of gold. Inside the loop was a thin slab of crystal.
"Never mind that!" Luna half-shouted. "Hold it up and say, 'Mercury, Grant Me Strength'
Amy Lynn did as she was told. "Mercury, Grant Me Strength!" Cold, wonderful cold rushed into her and she felt her clothes vanishing and more cold sliding over her limbs and body like velvet. When it cleared, she was wearing a bodysuit that covered her torso and neck, but not her arms and legs. Blue boots covered her feet and white gloves covered her forearms. The exposed part of her arms and legs was covered with a light blue fabric that she instinctively knew was light as air and harder then any metal. A tiara encircled her forehead and from it hung a tinted blue visor. A continuous stream of data ran up the right side and in her hand she held a sword.
She looked back at the clearing, her feet twitched and then she was back at the clearing's edge, the wind of her movement fading. The monster had Bunny pressed up against a tree with one hand and had the other hand raised to administer the killing blow. It regarded her for a moment, and then looked back at Bunny.
Raising her hand, Amy Lynn fired four ice spikes, one from each fingertip, which flew across the clearing and sank into the creature's hide. Roaring, it tossed Bunny aside like a rag doll and lunged for her, only to smash into a tree as its target darted aside. Like a whip, her sword flicked out, leaving a gouge as large as a man's arm in the beast's side. She raised the sword high to bring it downon its neck, when it's arm moved, striking her hard and sending her to crash down next to Bunny.
"Who?" Bunny asked, trying to stand.
"Never mind that!" Amy Lynn said as the monster leapt high into the air. "Roll!"
They rolled in opposite directions, the monster landing where they had been, dirt flying as its impact left behind a crater. Rising from its crouch, the monster began to move towards Amy Lynn slowly, it's breathing ragged.
Standing, she reached out to the cold of the pond and called it forth, encasing the monster in a block of ice. Her hand tightened into a fist...
And everything went white as the loud roar of an explosion filled her ears.
When she could see again, she was lying on her back in some bushes, staring up at the stars through a gap in the trees. Then Bunny, dressed in her usual clothes, loomed over her. "You okay, Amy Lynn?"
"B-bunny? What happened?"
"There's no time for that!" Luna snapped. She pointed to the bushes with her nose. "Look!"
Peering through the bushes, Amy Lynn saw that they overlooked a huge crater. It was a good twenty or thirty feet deep and perhaps two or three hundred feet wide. The clearing and the pond had been obliterated.
A group of trucks were nearby, some marked with the insignia of Black Mountain Plantation. In the light of one set of headlights, she saw her father and mother standing side by side talking with another man that she vaguely recalled being pointed out as the county sheriff and the tall black-haired young deputy she recalled Bunny arguing with during that first day.
"What are we going to do?" Luna whispered. "Bunny's truck will be heard if it starts up and there's no way to push it out of here without being seen."
"We face the music then," Amy Lynn said softly. Going back to where she had been laying, she picked up her pistol and tucked it into her jeans, pulling the work shirt into position to hide it.
"Amy Lynn, you shore 'bout this?" Bunny asked.
"No. But Mom probably knows I'm not in bed by now, I'll get yelled at either way. Here or at home. Here, she might be a little less loud about it." With that, Amy Lynn stepped boldly through the bushes and crouched at the edge of the crater. Here she could see the sides were smooth like glass and cold to the touch. It wasn't ice, but not glass either. It seemed almost like crystal.
"And what do you think you're doing here, young lady?" Standing, Amy Lynn faced her mother. Doctor Anderson had thrown some pants and her white lab coat on over her nightgown, which had been tucked into the pants and strapped to her hip was the black metal of her service pistol.
"Mah fault, Doc," Bunny said stepping up beside Amy Lynn. "Ah invited Amy Lynn to go possum huntin wit me and we heard the explosion. Wut happened here anyways?"
"Catch anything, Buns?" asked the dark-haired deputy.
"Shut yor mouth, Shields, 'fore I shuts for ya!" Bunny snapped. "An don't call me Buns!"
"But it suits you so well."
Bunny's faced turned red with anger.
"Mom, what did happen here?" Amy Lynn asked, hoping to divert her mother's attention from the fact that she was out and about. "It looks like an impact crater."
"That's what we thought," said a gravely voice. Turning, Amy Lynn saw a tall man with a mane of brown hair. He wore a green T-shirt and black pants. "But the sides are too smooth, and too cool. He smiled at Amy Lynn. "Nathan Johnson."
"Amy Lynn Anderson."
"Like what?" Doctor Anderson asked, stepping forward. "I've been in this nation's military since the day after I graduated High school and in all that time, I've seen every kind of explosion and impact crater there is." She jabbed her finger at thecrater. "And questions of explosives or metors aside, gentlemen, believe me when I say that neither one accounts for the crystal lining."
"Mebbe it was spacemen," ventured a man standing nearby. "Or demons or somethin."
"There's no such thing as any of those, Mister Furnuckle," Doctor Anderson said stiffly. She faced the sheriff. "If you'll excuse me Myron, there appears to be no need for my services and I must take my daughter home. I'll meet you back here in the morning."
"Shore thing, Janice," the Sheriff said absently, scratching his head as he stared into the crater.
"Come along, Dear," Doctor Anderson said stiffly. Amy Lynn sighed and handed the pistol back to Bunny, which made Doctor Anderson's nostrils pinch with barely supressed fury, and then followed her mother to the car.
**************
For the second time in as many days, Malachite was angry and the dark power in him was practically begging to be released.
Jeddite grunted as he hit the wall, propelled against it by the raw power bolt Malachite threw at him.
"You...idiot," Malachite seethed. "What in the hells possessed you to give a youma that much power? Now the humans are going to be getting nosy. On top of that, we now have another one of those blasted Priestesses to deal with."
"W-we can handle them," Jeddite gasped out as a collar of dark energy clamped around his throat.
Another bolt smacked the blonde general across the face. "The goal was to find Empreya's jewel before Serenity's spell could gather all six together, Old Boy," Malachite drawled. Jeddite felt the icy hand of fear clamp his gut. Unlike the others, Malachite's anger made him calmer, almost relaxed.
The words "Old Boy" spoken in a drawl, meant that he was on the edge of losing his temper...and considering that Malachite was the most powerful of the Four, that event fit nicely into the bad things catagory. Especially if you were the source of his wrath. "That way we don't have to fight them. But perhaps you missed that when we first gathered after being awakened from our human lives."
"N-no, Malachite. I didn't. I just wanted to be sure we could be rid of the Moon Priestess once and for all. She's interfered enough. I honestly wasn't expecting Mercury's chosen to show up."
"One more screw up, Jeddite, just one more...and I'll have your head on a pike." The collar vanished and Malachite strode out of the room.
****
Entry #138
Mother and Father are speaking to each other...somewhat. It's a start, I guess. Got caught being out when Mom had already gone to bed. She took away my laptop for a week. I can deal with it though.
Something else happened tonight. But I'm not sure I can talk about it yet.
I'm not sure I'll ever be ready to talk about it...