EVERY SM LOVESTORY
Hi! The moon rises, and the update comes. I'm so lucky to have such great reviewers! Please enjoy these next...wierd...chapters... it was long enough to be split in two. (Modern attention span short chapters i like coffee heath bar ice cream. Deep thought: Do you know if you have cookie dough and vanillia ice cream, you can make...cookie dough ice cream! whoaahh!). This chapter is dedicated to the banana phone.
DISCLAIMER: I joyfully disclaim Mr. T. and his pithy one-liners, Bill Nye the Science Guy (who appears twice! good grief), IHOP (mmm), the Shawshank Redemption, or Sailor Moon.
Where we left off:
"There's only one way to find out,"Mamoru said, just as the power went out in his apartment. The closet was plunged into blackness.
"Gahh!" Usagi cried. "Blackness!"
"What's wrong with that!" said Mr. T.
CHAPTER ONE MILLION: Where'd Mr. T. Go?
in DA CLOSET:
"Gack!" screamed Usagi. "That guy with all the gold jewelry who suddenly appeared just...dissappeared!" She began simulaneously crying, dancing and wailing off-key.
"I pity da fool who's stuck in a closet with you for much longer," Mamoru muttered under his breath.
"What was that?"
"I said...uh... there must be another way out of here!" He began jiggling at the doorknob in the darkness.
Usagi, meanwhile, tripped over a piece of carpet that had gotten bunched up while she was flipping out. "Ow, my foot!" She felt around a bit with her hands, and came in contact with something cold and metallic. "Hey, Mamoru, C'mere! I think there's a trapdoor or something!"
He quickly manuevered beside her and together they pushed back the rug and pried open the heavy door. They peered inside to the dark opening below them. Usagi dropped a lighted match down into the hole. "A tunnel!" she cried.
Mamoru peered at her box of matches suspiciously. "Where'd you get those?" he asked.
"Pinched 'em from a restaurant."
"Oh..." he said, not entirely convinced."Well...the tunnel kind of makes sense, actually," he ruminated, as the two lowered themselves into the dark space. "The former owner of this apartment was a professional gambler, so it made sense that he'd have a getaway route. It is therefore perfectly legit and not, I say, not, a convenient plot device." He winked meaningfully at the reader.
"Yuh-huh!" Usagi agreed brightly, crawling down the darkened tunnel. 'Where does this lead?' she wondered. Her stomach grumbled. 'Maybe to IHOP! Pancakes, hurray!'
An amount of Time later...
'This so does not go to the International House of Pancakes!'
Disappointed, Usagi fished for conversation.
"Want a cold one, Andy?" she joked.
"What?" said Mamoru, still crawling along.
"Are you kidding? You haven't seen the Shawshank Redemption?"
He looked at her blankly.
"It'sa movie. About a convict who digs out of jail.You'd like it...You know, tunnel, digging...tunnel... us, right now...It's a joke."
He looked sad. "I cold and serious," he said. "My heart is too small for humor."
Usagi felt a pang of sympathy for her former (still?) enemy.
"So," she said, panting a little. "What were you saying before, about that soulmate stuff?"
Mamoru brushed some dirt out of his eye. "I said," he said, "there's only one way to find out."
Usagi waited expectantly. "So..." she drawled, feeling a burst of confidence.
"You wanna find out?"
Suddenly nervous, Mamoru, who was beginning to look like a burly construction worker/coal miner, acquiesced. "Okay, are you ready?" he asked the blonde girl crawling beside him. "It's a simple question. Simple, but vitally important."
Usagi waited.
"What is my favorite color?"
Usagi gasped.
Meanwhizzy...At The ARCADE,
The four girls were chatting comfortably with the four handsome generals. They had paired up; Minako was giggling and poking Karl's unflinching face, Makoto and Ned were flipping their hair, Rei was lighting JJ's head on fire (AN: trust me, he deserved it), and Ami andZiggy were planning a moon-landing expedition.
"When I was little, I had a crush on Bill Nye the Science Guy," Ami admitted softly.
Ziggy (aka Zack aka Zorkel aka Zoicite) smiled with emphathy. "Ami-chan...so did I!"
The blue-haired girl grinned happily. "Ziggy-chan, we have so much in common!" Little pink hearts and bubbles floated around their heads.
Then, with a 'woof' of displaced air, another pretty woman came barging through the arcade doors. She was tall and slender, with wavy brown hair and eyes that were, at the moment, red with fury. She snorted and dug her heel into the welcome mat, like a recently prodded bull.
From behind the smooth wooden counter, Andrew gulped.
"What's this I hear about you having nightly parties at the arcade with FOUR women and…" she looked around angrily, spotting Artemis and Luna playing checkers on the floor, "strangely intelligent domesticated animals?"
Andrew walked slowly towards her, holding his hands up innocently. "Really, sweetie, it's not what you think…" He filled her in on the situation. "and by the way, how did you know about this?"
The woman blushed, her anger momentarily subdued. "You're not the only one who puts cameras up in peoples' rooms for no reason," she said. She whispered into his ear. "I saw your little show on Thursday, too."
Andrew winced. He'd been singing "I will Survive." With a mop.
"Business was slow," he whispered back. He took the woman by the waist and turned to face the girls and said smilingly, "Everyone, I'd like you to meet my girlfriend, Rita."
"HE HAS A GIRLFRIEND?" Makoto keeled over and died of shock.
"Oh my gosh! They killed Mokoto!"
"I always knew she had a crush on Andrew!"
One of the generals, Nigel (aka Ned aka Neil aka Nephrite aka Juan), who had been talking with the chestnut haired girl for quite some time, looked sad. "I thought she liked me," he said, downcast.
"Don't worry!" said Minako, patting his backsoothingly. "She does! She likes everyone."
"Yeah," reassured Rei. "This happens all the time. We'll just wait for Sailor Moon to come by and resurrect her."
"Huh?"
"Oops," said Rei. "That was sloppy. Mina-chan, can I borrow your hairbow?" She waved it back and forth in front of the man's befuddled eyes. "Forget… Foooorget…."
His eyes spiraled. "I like stars," he said.
Rei smiled. "Good boy." She handed the red bow back to Minako. "This thing is actually really useful," she complimented.
"I know!" the blond girl said, clipping it back into her hair. "Why do you think I wear it every single day? Because some boy I liked said it looked good on me? Because otherwise viewers couldn't tell me apart from Usagi? Shahh! Like even!"
She looked sidelong at the rest of the girls for a moment. "Speaking of which...anybody ever get the feeling we're being watched?" she said paranoidly, her eyes shifting beadily back and forth.
Rei and Ami sighed. 'Not this again.' "Here," Rei said, rolling her eyes. "Play with this."
Minako's face lit up. "Ooh, a paper clip!" She began giggling happily.
in da TUNNEL:
Usagi was stunned by the gravity of the question.
"What's my favorite color?"
"But that's... so personal!" 'This is really hard,' she thought. 'What if it's a trick, like he'll say, "the whole rainbow, because no color is as pretty without the others!" or "I don't have one, since colors are only refracted light, anyway..." She shook her head. 'Ew, I'm channeling Ami...or Bill Nye the Science Guy...'
Unseen by his thoughtful comrade, Mamoru smiled sadly. 'See, of course she wouldn't know. You don't have a soulmate. No one will ever love you. You're just a lonely, stuck-up pig who happens to be excessively attractive... and you smell'. His eyes teared. 'My Inner Voice is so mean!'
By this point, thinking of the row upon row of of olive green jackets in his closet, Usagi had almost decided upon an answer: Pukey, roadkill green. But just as she was about to say it out loud, something made her change her mind.
"Your favorite color is... the shining and soulful blue of my eyes?"
The earth shook. A bunch of dirt collapsed from the ceiling of the tunnel onto Mamoru's head. He coughed and looked at Usagi and, dizzy with surprise and affection, said, "How did you know?"
They spotted light in the distance. "Hey, I think we're almost there!"
At the ARCADE:
Hearts still floating everywhere. Suddenly...
BFFJFoWOOMPH!
Everyone jumped back as the door to the supply closet opened with a crash, and a very dirty Usagi and Mamoru stumbled out.
"No way!" Usagi sputtered. "The gangster's escape route led here?!"
"He liked to play Sailor V," said Andrew, from behind the counter. He shrugged his shoulders at the surprised looks. "Wha? Friend of my dad's. He was into shady things."
Mamoru looked at his friend, incensed. "You! You're the one who's been stealing milk out of my fridge!"
Andrew wrinkled his nose. "Yeah...you should clean that thing out, buddy. "
Usagi and Mamoru looked around the arcade, taking in the strange scene.
"Um," said Usagi tentatively.
"Is everyone okay in here?"
"Oh, yeah, we're all fine. Makoto is dead though."
Usagi sighed. "Again? Geez."
Ami-chan frowned and adjusted her glasses. "She's been out for quite some time, Usagi-chan. You'd better resurrect her soon. And by my calculations, your regular powers won't be enough. You'll have to use the—" Ami looked apprehensively at their rather large audience, and whispered the last word, "crystal."
Usagi groaned. "Shoot. That's such a pain! And what," she said quietly through her teeth to Ami, gesturing over at the generals, Mamoru, Motoki and Rita, "about them?"
"There's no time. We can erase their memories after if we need to."
Usagi sighed. "Ok, nothing for it. Guys!" she said loudly. "Think of something sad!"
This cliffhanger.
To the next chapter!