I know that you usually expect a lengthy disclaimer at the beginning of each fan fiction, but I have found them pointless and time-consuming. This fanfic is mine, however, and if anybody misuses it, there will be hell to pay.
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Discarded Souls
By Darkslayer
Chapter 3
New Beginnings
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One thing Japan had in common with America—school sucked no matter where you attended.
"I have to wear what?" he asked, incredulous to the counselor's comment.
"I know that it is a change for you, Mr. Miller," the counselor continued, "But in Japan, we require that the students wear uniforms to school. It helps to provide a non-hostile environment where no one is distracted and everyone can learn peacefully."
Joseph sighed. "Alright. Where do I pick up some uniforms for this school?" he replied.
The man gave him a pamphlet from a local clothing shop as an answer. He continued on with his explanation of the school, its traditions and policies, and what kind of behavior was expected of the students.
"And I'm afraid that that silver paint in your hair will have to come out," the man scolded, "We do not allow hair dye in school at any time."
"I hate to burst your bubble, then, but this is the real deal. 100% all natural," Joseph laughed, "Here. Feel it yourself."
The man did just that, leaning across the desk and tugging on the prospective student's hair and rubbing it to see for himself. Frowning when it did not come out, he groaned and scribbled something down on the sheet of paper he was holding. The man replaced that sheet of paper with another, and began to write again, filling out some kind of form. Joseph tried to get a closer look, but the man was intent on blocking any view Joseph might have had. Eventually, the man came to another stopping point, and began to talk about the grading policy.
"I see that your grades at semester in your old high school were all exceptional," the man started, "But there seems to be a problem. Your math grades to date have been less than acceptable."
"So I'm bad at math," Joseph shrugged, "So what?"
"I'm afraid that Juban High School does not allow students to pass a class with anything less than a C. Until you show improvement on your own, I'm placing you under academic probation."
Joseph nearly bolted up from his chair. "Excuse me?!"
The man did not look up. "You'll be assigned a tutor until your grades improve and you are able to maintain a C or better in math," he droned, handing Joseph a slip of paper, "Here's your advisor. That's the person you report to until the grade comes up."
Joseph stood up slowly, his fists balled up tightly enough to make them look paler than usual. In fact, one of his hands looked a pale, bleached white, with a rough texture to match. He caught himself before his anger took over, and his hand returned to normal. He turned to leave and was at the door before his pride took over. Taking a deep breath, he remarked:
"This school is full of shit. Especially the administration."
The door slammed hard enough to rattle what little was on top of the counselor's desk. He groaned as he finished the paperwork up, and reached into his desk to grab a special stack of sticky notes. He removed the top one and affixed it to Joseph's permanent record, writing on the label:
'Authority Problem'.
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He walked out of the front doors of the high school hastily. A cool breeze blew through the air, making him wish he had worn his long coat before coming to complete his registration. Kicking himself mentally, Joseph wondered for the millionth time why he had chosen to attend school once more, seeing that each time he did, it just got worse and worse.
"Heh. My first millennium of being alive and here I am with the worst of this generation," he chuckled, slipping his sunglasses on.
The crisp autumn air, coupled with the hustle and bustle of the people around him helped Joseph to forget about the frustrations of school as he walked along the sidewalk. Numerous shops and restaurants were quite busy, creating small pockets of noisy distraction all around. He paused infrequently, noting the names of several places that interested him, and making a mental note to visit said shops later. As he was taking all of this in, a stray thought darted into his mind and made him stop in his tracks.
"Jesus tap dancing Christ," he swore softly, "I have to meet that girl at her house this afternoon!"
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Mina pushed away from the small table and stood up, gathering her things. The other two girls that were sitting on the floor gave her a funny look as she did so, the blond asking her:
"Hey, Mina. Where are ya going to?"
She turned around to face her friends and replied, "I have to go to my house. I'm supposed to meet someone there at three o'clock, and I don't wanna be late."
The brunette perked up at this remark and added her two cents worth. "Oh. Sounds important. Could it be that cute 8th grader you've been eying for the past week?"
At this, Mina blushed slightly, with an almost reflexive shaking of her head and waving of her hand. "No!" she exclaimed, "Nothing like that! I'm just meeting someone from my class…to help her study over a hard part in the chapter we're on. That's all!"
"Yeah, sure," quipped the blond, "I'm sure you and this 'classmate' will be doing a lot of 'studying'…"
"Serena!" Mina snapped, blushing even further, "I can't believe you sometimes!"
Serena stood up and walked over to her friend, draping her arm around Mina's shoulders and nudging her cheek with her hand. "At least tell me he's cute," she prodded, a conspiratorial tone in her voice.
Mina closed her eyes and sighed aloud. She knew that she'd never leave unless she told Serena and Lita the truth about what she was going to be doing. She turned away from both of them and spoke in a quiet voice.
"Well…he is cute…"
The other two girls stayed in their positions, totally rapt in their friend's words.
"Go on," Lita added, leaning forward slightly.
"I don't know that much about him, really," she continued, smiling sheepishly at her friends as they dropped forward onto the floor, "All I do know is that his mother bought the house down the street from me, and he's not from around here. I think he might be American, but he doesn't have an accent…"
"Mmm-hmm," Serena thought aloud, "Is he tall, dark, and totally mysterious?"
"Not exactly. He's a little bit weird, but it's a cool kind of weird, you know? I'm supposed to meet him at my house so I can show him around a little."
"So is it a date?" Lita chimed in.
"No!" Mina blurted, looking angrily at Lita, "I just met the guy! I hardly even know him!"
"Hmm…we might have to tag along and see just how this new guy is," Serena mused.
Mina slid into her shoes and picked her backpack up, walking to the door. As she opened it, she paused, then turned around, fire in her eyes.
"If I see either of you following me, I'll totally kill you!" she huffed, exiting Serena's house.
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Joseph arrived at her house with precious few minutes to spare. He re-adjusted his shades and found a comfortable spot to lean against as he waited for Mina to show up. He didn't have to wait long, thankfully, for he casually glanced up the sidewalk and saw his quarry running toward him at top speed.
Mina came to a stop just a few feet away from him, huffing and puffing like she just ran the Boston Marathon. After a few moments of her breathing extremely shallowly, she managed to straighten up and wave to him in greeting.
"Hi!" she started, "Sorry I'm late, but I had to meet up with a few of my friends after school and I kinda lost track of time."
"Not a problem," he replied, giving her a small smile, "I just got done with some business of my own at the local school and I've only been standing here about a minute."
"Really? What did you have to do?"
"Nothing much. Just register to complete the remainder of school I need to finish off my current year."
"What year are you in?" she asked, thinking, *I wonder if he's talking about Juban…he doesn't look that old…maybe he's in my grade!*
"Completing senior year," he answered, glancing at his watch, "So are we gonna go, or what?"
*Darn,* she thought, "Oh, yeah. Just let me ditch my backpack, ok?"
He waited patiently as she ran up to her house and disappeared inside. A few minutes later, she returned, having changed out of her school uniform and into a pair of dark slacks with an oversized blue sweater. She carried a small purse at her side, from which she produced a key and locked the front door. Turning to him, she shrugged her shoulders and took his arm, saying:
"C'mon. Let's go!"
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*God, I'll bet this looks really weird,* he thought, walking along with Mina leading him around by the wrist.
In the past hour, she had taken him along what seemed to be no less than twenty streets, all crowded with various specialty shops that catered to one particular taste or another. Each one that had interested her she merely paused in front of, scanning the inside for anything that caught her eye. To her friends, Mina had all the prerequisite skills of a professional shopper: good eyesight, quick reflexes, and an uncanny ability to track down a sale, no matter how far away or well disguised it may be. To Joseph she seemed like an average teenage girl mall rat, cut loose in a city full of cute shops and café's.
And he disliked mall rats.
"I really appreciate this," he said to her, looking in the window of a clothes shop, "But I'm getting kind of tired from all this running and looking. Is there anywhere nearby that we can sit down for a minute?"
She pulled herself away from the window as his words sunk in. Involuntarily, she pouted her lips as she thought of the nearest place they could sit and relax for a bit. After a few moments, she snapped her fingers and her expression brightened beyond its already well-developed shine.
"I know the perfect place!" she exclaimed, grabbing him by the wrist again, "There's a new juice bar opening in the mall, and it's only a block away. Let's go!"
He tried to ignore the urge to scream as she yanked him toward their destination.
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"How does the expression go? 'What's a guy you like doing in a place like this one?'"
"Don't you mean 'What's a guy like you doing in a place like this?'" he corrected.
"That's what I said," she replied, eliciting a small groan from Joseph. "Anyway, what's the deal? What brings you to my little corner of Japan?"
"Your little corner? I didn't see your name on it," he quipped, "And the reason I'm here is because my mother got a transfer from the States. Apparently the marketing division for some big corporation needed a massive overhaul, and they called in my mom, the miracle worker."
"Really? What's your father do?" she inquired.
"My dad? He occupies a small box about six feet under."
It took a second before she understood his remark. "Oh, jeez. I'm sorry, I…"
"Nah. You didn't know," he said, waving her off with one hand, "Not your fault. But enough about me. Tell me something about yourself. What school are you in?"
"I'm at Juban Junior High School," she stated, "And I'm in 7th grade. I lived in Britain for a while before coming here to Japan, but I like it all just the same."
"That would explain the mixed accent," he observed, "How about your family?"
Mina paused for a minute to take a long drink from her fruit smoothie before replying. "My mother and father work nearly all the time, which means I don't get to see them very much, but it's okay. I have a lot more freedom than other girls my age, and that makes up for it."
"Mind if I ask you a slightly more personal question?" he said.
"Sure."
"What in the hell caused you to trust a complete stranger and be so kind as to offer to show them around an unfamiliar city?"
His blunt question, coupled with the perfectly casual way he posed the question caught her completely off guard. She sat there for a few moments, drinking her smoothie and thinking carefully before answering him.
"I know what it feels like to be the outsider," she quietly responded, "And I don't like seeing that happen to people."
"Hmm. You're one of those people that like to be friends with everyone, aren't you?"
"What if I am?" she snapped.
"What if you are," he mused, "From where I come from, people like you are in extremely short supply. In public schools, you normally don't see the good-looking, blond, preppie girls freely associating with everyone."
"I think I'll take that as a compliment," she said, keeping her voice even.
Suddenly, before either one of them could say another word, a nearby store in the mall exploded, propelling shards of glass and chunks of furniture into the crowd. Joseph instantly lunged from his seat, grabbing Mina by the hand and yanking her to the floor, falling behind a sturdy-looking ceramic planter. Once they were on the floor, an animalistic howl could be heard echoing around the mall.
"Stay down," he whispered to her, sliding to the left. Joseph carefully looked around the corner of the planter, scanning the immediate area. Inhaling shallowly several times, his mind was flooded with a sensory overload. The air reeked of spilled blood, adrenaline, burning wood and plastic, and a large something that he couldn't identify.
"Jesus Christ," he swore softly, rising into a crouching position. "Mina, are you alright?"
When he received no response, he turned around to where he had left her. All he saw was a purse, the contents of which were spilled across the floor.
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"Come in, you guys! This is an emergency!" she hissed, charging for the nearest women's bathroom. The small communicator in her hand beeped twice, then sparked and fizzled out.
"Great," she moaned, "I'm gonna have to talk to Amy about her making these more durable."
She threw the door open and ran inside the restroom. After quickly checking the stalls, Mina stepped inside the cleanest one and pulled her transformation wand out, holding it high above her head and shouting:
"VENUS POWER!!"
A dazzling light show and a few choreographed transformation moves later, Mina had changed into her alter ego, Sailor Venus! She kicked the door open and made her way back out into the mall, heading straight for the source of the blast. Once there, she stepped cautiously around the piles of smoldering wreckage and unconscious bodies.
"High heels were definitely not made for this kind of work," she muttered, trying to avoid falling for the third time in a row, "I think I got shortchanged on this Sailor Scout deal…"
When she stepped through what once had been the storefront, she instantly saw what had caused the explosion. A large, purple colored thing was hunched over in the store, a thick, meaty hand wrapped around a squirming human. Its other hand was a wooden lance, ending at what would have been the wrist. A shock of red hair sprang up from the back of its head, hanging down its back. The face was the closest thing the creature had to being human, with an overly pleased look adorning it.
Sailor Venus saw the human's struggling begin to weaken, and judging by the creature's laughter, she deduced that it was draining his energy.
"Hold it right there, Nega-Trash!" she shouted, pointing a finger at the offending beast.
End of Chapter 3
