Oh and Henry Poole is a real guy, more notes about it later on. I apologize to the Cundey family if I paint him badly. Benjamin Disraeli is too, he wrote the book Endymion.
Minako was well... very defeated by this whole affair, here she was her dull gold locks hanging around her perfectly shiny, perfectly straight, and perfectly awful hair. She slumped--yet again--on her bed. She was exhausted--to tell the truth. After donating 1 liter of blood to the blood bank, and having her heart crystal taken, not to mention her travels to the past, she wanted to sleep. She was getting sick of all of this. She found out that YES, she did have a pure heart, but that didn't explain why she hadn't gotten a new transformation as Queen Serenity had promised when she snuck to the moon.
This most likely doesn't make any sense except to Artemis, her faithful, if not very, very, very reluctant--well let's get this straight unwilling--partner through these adventure mishaps. It really started the day she woke up in her bed back from seeing Sailor Pluto at the Gates of Time. One would think that Minako had learned her lesson by now, but it only deepened her determination further.
The truth is that she landed in bed back from her time travel trips. She fought that ugly monster that defeated Makoto, who went into the mountains. They went after her, and that monster was defeated. Big deal, she didn't get to fix her hair problems, and even when discussing with her friends--well they obviously did not understand one bit!
After all Makoto said, "Why worry about it? I like my hair this way..."
"It is very efficient and cute to have my hair short. It never changes," Ami said.
"I need long hair to be an elegant Miko," Rei said, "Until I become a flight attendant, and so on-- then I can wear it up."
"Mamo-chan loves my hair. He calls it cute," Usagi confessed.
Which truthfully left Minako the only one left out.
"Doesn't the ribbon connect you as the goddess of love and beauty?" Rei asked.
"Yes, a red ribbon in folklore are the red strings of fate. It is clear that you have that hairstyle for a reason."
To which Minako could only think--"What creator thinks up this crap?" but not in such kind words. This hairstyle was antiquated, by, let's say, over 2,000 years. It was from another life time! The Sailor Fuku was old, and worse of all her past self had the worst taste in design! Again, she thought what was I thinking? Blue and ORANGE! Who wears blue and orange?
At the time, this made Minako only that more determined, but she could not implement her plan. There was that little incident with Elza after all. She rather admired Elza's courage to train like that. But also, that short hair, wild, yet utilitarian, Minako wanted hair like that... skin so dark like that--but of course her henshin didn't allow such things.
No, the best time to sneak away was when everyone was distracted by Chibiusa's new friend--we all know how disturbing that turned out to be. At least that's what Minako heard about after she got back from a short trip to the moon. Since her mother said she should have a Guardian on trips to foreign places, she dragged sleeping artemis out of his bed, snuck him into a basket while he was still half asleep, and snuck off to the Tsukino house. There, she took Artemis out, and forced him to talk Luna into getting Chibiusa's time key.
"Tell her it's an emergency!" Minako yelled in a half whisper.
Artemis shook his head and said, "Why can't I go back to sleep?"
"Because, we're on an important mission! To restore the injustices of the world! We are the Sailors of Love and Justice, now how are we to get any love from cute guys if I don't fix the injustice of my hair!"
Artemis did not like this logic at all, not having to bug Luna for property that wasn't theirs. Luna was no more pleased than he was to be up at such an early hour. But wanting to sleep overcame her better judgement, and her usual preaching and making fun of Artemis passed, when she mouthed him the key.
Truth was, Artemis was hoping that Luna would be her usual self and outright refuse him. He was about to leave when she added, "Be sure she has it back by tonight!"
Artemis sighed, with his mouth full of the metallic chain, but nodded.
Now, since Sailor Pluto had forbid her from using time travel, it really hadn't prohibited her from traveling within the same time. The Guardian of Time couldn't possibly notice that. She'd gotten the hang of the key now, and promptly delivered herself and Artemis to the ruins of the Moon Kingdom.
She transformed into a Sailor Soldier once she got there. She knew that the central computer had to be somewhere around there. This was clear because after all, the small Queen Serenity hologram had appeared on a pillar. But there had to be a central power source.
"Minako... why are we here at 3:00 in the morning standard Japanese time?" Artemis yawned, "Don't you have school tomorrow?"
"Artemis.. where is the central power source?"
Artemis sighed, and then pointed towards one of the ruined buildings. Minako dashed off towards it. Artemis pondered staying alone, but figured that in Minako's current unstable state, that it was dangerous to his well being to do so--she was likely to go back to Earth and forget him. He resigned himself into a reluctant run.
Minako faced numerous panels and numbers. She didn't know what to do. It clearly needed a power source, but how? All she had were some triple A batteries, hardly enough to power something like this.
"Can't we go home?" Artemis asked in vain. He yawned and rubbed his eyes with his paws.
"No, not until I talk to Queen Serenity!" Minako replied.
Before Artemis could blink, she had Ami in her pajamas in the control room. He groaned and tried to hide. Ami was usually mild-mannered, but being suddenly disrupted from sleep for Minako's emergency didn't please her one bit.
"I can't figure this out. You like computers, can't you fix this?"
It took a while for Ami to realize that Sailor Venus was not a dream or a figment of her imagination. She took one look at the computer and then back at Sailor Venus. Unceremoniously scratching her head, she said, "No. Now, send me back."
"Why Ami-chan?" Minako asked whining a little.
"I need exactly 8 hours of sleep to compute something of this magnitude. Even if the CPU was like Earth technology, it's unlikely that there is an existing power source that has the amp power to power a machine of this size. Not to mention that the RAM, Motherboard, or other processors and hardware might have been damaged. There was the clear short circuit of power when we were here last, and though I've discussed it with Luna it's unlikely we'll be able to fix anything until the creation of Crystal Tokyo, when the technology will finally be sufficient enough to fix such a computer," Ami explained.
Minako had heard about exactly to the point of where Ami mentioned "CPU", the rest escaped her. It did register on her that there was a lack of tools, and also a lack of power, but that was about as much as Minako heard.
"But your portable computer..." Minako said.
"Is an entirely different system. I'm not even sure if it will interface into such a system as this, even if I were to get it working. I barely saw King Endymion's computer system in the past," Ami added, getting crankier.
"Ami..." Artemis started, yawning again, "may I talk to you?"
A cranky Ami and an embarrassed Artemis went outside.
"Please could you do it? Minako is acting like, well Minako again,"
Ami groaned, and though the blue-haired water senshi was usually kind, without sleep, she was downright snappy--who wouldn't be after being waken up from a nice slumber about winning the Nobel Peace Prize?
"What? What am I doing here?" Makoto asked.
Artemis groaned as he saw Minako smile brightly at both of them.
"Can't you do a wide sparkling pressure, and power up this machine?" Minako asked.
Artemis fell down on the ground. He hated when Minako got this way.
"Huh? I was cooking only a few seconds ago," Maokoto said still in a sleepy stupor.
Before Artemis could count to one, a very angry Rei was in the room with them.
"Minako!" She shouted at the blonde senshi.
"Yes, good, I need you to wake up Makoto for me, so that I can get a power source, so Ami-chan will fix the machine," Minako said smiling brightly.
Artemis did his best cat shrug. The three tired senshi transformed and Ami spent time fixing the machine with what supplies she could. Mars, then woke up Makoto from her stupor, enough so she could power up the fixed machine.
The three soldiers stared at Minako, grumbling. Minako smiled and sent them back after firing up the machine.
An image of Queen Serenity appeared again.
The fairy wings and the hologram were clear.
Artemis had enough sense to bow before the queen. Minako opened her mouth before the Queen could speak.
"I want to change my hair, but my transformation won't let me."
The image of the queen looked surprised to see the senshi there.
"Where are the others?"
"Please tell me! I've been working on this for weeks."
The queen was surprised, and then slowly seemed to think about it.
"Well, the Sailor suit will change when you get a new item or a power up--it was designed that way. Your hair, however, cannot change unless you--" The image wavered.
Minako looked at the room where the computer was.
"And then..."
The power went out.
"Nooooooo!" Minako cried.
Artemis groaned--yet again, and then they disappeared in a flash of light. Before he knew it they were back in Minako's room. He wandered off to return the key.
A new item? Perhaps if she got to see her heart crystal, she would get a new sailor Suit. Granted none of the other Sailors had, but it was worth a shot...
That's when she realized that she had been on the moon too long and then went to Mamoru's for a study session. Minako debated this for hours, even when she went to the waltz. It was dangerous to have her heart crystal taken out. As the night concluded, and she helped defeat the daimon, she rejected the idea. Not one of the other sailors had gained a power up or a new sailor suit through the removal of their heart crystals. She would have dropped it further, if not for one small little detail... the study session at Rei's.
Yes, of all the indignation! They had told her she didn't have a pure heart. How could her friends be so cruel? So through Haruka-san and Michiru-san she'd decided, she was going to donate blood! It was the right thing for her to do and it would prove she had a pure heart. Of course Usagi helped her with those energy drinks, but the indignation of it. She thought that perhaps she would get a new sailor suit after that. Perhaps her hair would change too! She tried very, very hard. She donated day in and day out. Maybe she would get a power up, maybe that would be enough to get her a new sailor suit. She ran around like mad, giving every gram of blood she could give. After 3 days of hard work, that's when it happened.
Sure she smiled and helped defeat the lowly Eugial. But disappointment soon overcame her as she hit the front door. That's when she collapsed. Ironically, much of the blood she'd given was returned to her. Her mother was upset, but soon Minako was better.
Minako, now in her room, stared at her perfectly perfect hair. Her hair hadn't changed and her mother was convinced she'd blown the money on arcade games by now. She had to work extra chores around the house. She hated her henshin pen. She stared at it and then threw it at the wall, crying out her frustration, falling more sleepy from the multiple blood donations and hospital trip she'd experienced over the last few days. It simply wasn't fair.
What had her past self been thinking anyway with the perfect hair program into her transformation pen. Didn't Artemis and Luna give them new ones, why couldn't they program them? Jumping up in bed Minako thought of her next scheme. It would work!
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