THE OUTLAW
Chapter 2: "Quadrel"
By Bill K.
Jun-Jun braced herself against the wave that headed for her. The still cool water surged up against her body, bare but for the green and white two piece she wore, and made her skin tingle. She was supposed to be watching over Palla-Palla, for though her sister Amazon was sixteen she still couldn't swim very well and lacked the common sense not to wander too far out into the beguiling Pacific. But there was something about being in the water that robbed Jun-Jun of logical thought. Call it a kinship or resonance or deep-seeded respect, but the water often exerted as powerful a command over Jun-Jun as she could exert over it.
Palla-Palla's playful cackle shook her from her reverie. Her sister was to her right, wading in the surf and giggling happily when it mischievously surged up against her. To her left was a young couple, the man admiring the way Jun-Jun's damp swimsuit clung to her emerging curves before glancing away lest he be caught by his date. For a moment it made Jun-Jun feel good. Sometimes it was hard being "the good one". Cere-Cere was far more glamorous and Ves-Ves possessed a belligerent sensuality to boys. It was nice to know that she could be seen as attractive to men as well.
A noise attracted her attention and Jun-Jun glanced toward it. It was a child, squealing loudly the way children seemed to do for no logical reason other than they could. Satisfied, she began to turn back to Palla-Palla. Then she locked eyes across the beach - - with him.
He stood at the perimeter of the beach near an air-car. Several other males and a pair of females were gathered around him, but he was the central figure in the group and the unspoken leader. Rather than swimming attire, he was dressed in a tank top and form-fitting pressure shorts that hugged the hips and upper thighs and ended mid-thigh. They were shorts worn by Strato-ship pilots, but many youths wore them to look cool. He had a lean body that was hard and athletic and radiated the coiled power of a jungle cat clear across the beach. His hair was thick and black, parted on the left and combed over so that it fell across his forehead insolently. His eyes were covered by a tinted sun-visor, but he had soft skin, a firm heart-shaped jaw and sensuous lips couched in a slight sneer.
Instantly Jun-Jun felt her pulse spike. She knew they were looking straight at one another, despite the visor concealing his eyes. She felt time pass without either one moving. She knew she was staring and she knew he knew, for he was staring at her. But she couldn't force herself to look away. He was just so utterly gorgeous. And then he shoved himself off of the side of the air-car. Amid the curious looks of his group, the youth ambled leisurely toward her. That spurred Jun-Jun to look away. Timidly she glanced back and realized she'd looked away too late. The invitation had been sent. Overtly that concerned her, for she recognized his type.
Secretly it thrilled her.
"P-Palla-Palla," Jun-Jun panted. "You've been in the water long enough. Go on back with the others."
"Does Palla-Palla have to?" the girl whined.
"Yes," Jun-Jun replied, struggling to control her tone. She was eager for her sister to be gone before this youth reached them, but didn't want to communicate that. "I'll catch up with you."
"OK," Palla-Palla pouted and headed back for the others with exaggerated deliberation.
Jun-Jun turned to see how close the youth was and found him standing within a foot of her, admiring her. Jun-Jun swallowed self-consciously and averted her eyes. Up close he was even more magnetic - - and more menacing. His beautiful mouth was curled into a smile, but it was the type of smile she could remember as a child seeing on anacondas as they were poised to strike.
"Hi," he said, so alluringly confident. Then he smirked maliciously. "Nice head dress. What is it, Chinese?" Several of his followers were several paces behind him and snickered.
"It's Brazilian," Jun-Jun replied icily, though she didn't feel very icy inside. "My guardian made it for me."
The youth didn't apologize. He only stared and that increased Jun-Jun's insecurity. But then she noticed a subtle change to his smirk. There was a hint of respect. She'd stood up to him without overplaying her hand. He seemed to like that. Then his head shifted slightly and she could tell he was looking her figure over. He seemed to like that, too. Her mind told her to challenge him again, establish that she wasn't someone to mess with if his intent was malicious. But her voice was gone, her throat paralyzed.
"You're kind of cute," he said, not in a way that hoped she'd be complimented - - as if he expected her to be complimented.
For her part, she was.
"Let's go, Quad," one of the other girls said. She shot Jun-Jun a territorial glare. "This is boring."
"Nobody's keeping you," the dark youth uttered. His response was controlled, but low and gruff and laced with warning.
Dismissing her and the rest of the group, Quad turned back to Jun-Jun. He reached out and stroked along her cheek with his fingers, as if touching her were his right. Jun-Jun didn't recoil. Instead, she fought to keep from trembling.
"What's your name?" he asked.
"Jun-Jun," she whispered, taking a few seconds to find her voice.
For a moment he seemed about to laugh, but he didn't.
"Quadrel Nakamura," he told her, caressing her cheek again. "Want to go for a ride?"
"In that?" Jun asked, nodding to the air-car. He was a stranger and though he looked divine, the back of the amazon's mind was screaming out warning signs.
"Hey, if you're afraid," Quadrel shrugged. Some of the respect was gone. Suddenly that seemed like a crisis.
"No, I'm not afraid," Jun-Jun forced herself to say.
Suddenly he was beside her. Suddenly his arm was around her waist. Suddenly his lean, masculine frame was pressed up against her right side.
Suddenly Jun-Jun's pulse was racing.
"Great," Quadrel said, leading her to the air-car.
"But Quad!" protested the girl in his pack.
"Find something to do!" he barked
As she walked to the air-car, Jun-Jun got a sudden thought of how dangerous this was. She knew nothing about him, about the craft, about his intentions - - well, she kind of sensed how dangerous his intentions were.
But that was what made him so exciting. And at that moment she was on such a high that she couldn't think straight.
Roughly thirty yards away, Palla-Palla was approaching her companions as they conversed on their beach covering - - and the princess smiled at the barrage of wolf whistles she received.
"Hey Stupid," Ves-Ves queried, glancing around the beach, "where's Jun?"
"Over there," Palla-Palla replied and pointed off to the right. Then she grew a naughty smirk. "Palla-Palla thinks Jun-Jun has a new boyfriend."
Instantly three head snapped to the right.
"Where?" Ves-Ves barked hungrily. "I don't see anything!"
"What's he look like?" Usa asked, scanning the crowd to spot the new couple.
"Well, he's taller than Jun-Jun and he has black hair," Palla-Palla related, searching her precocious memory for facts that were even now fading. "And he had a visor just like yours, Princess!"
"I SEE HIM!" Hotaru gasped. "Oh, she's getting into an air-car with him!"
"You don't think she's in any trouble?" Ves-Ves asked warily.
"Palla-Palla will find out," Palla-Palla offered. She closed her eyes and reached out to her sister senshi with her mind. "Jun-Jun, are you in trouble?" she thought.
When the thoughts entered Jun-Jun's mind, the girl stopped and turned back to them momentarily.
"You coming or not?" Quadrel asked. It wasn't an insistent tone of voice, but it communicated that he was leaving and whether she joined him or not was of no consequence to him.
"Yeah," Jun-Jun replied. Then she thought back to Palla-Palla, "I'm OK. Tell Ves that I'll catch up with you two later."
And in to the air-car she went.
"Jun-Jun says she's OK," Palla-Palla dutifully reported. "She says she'll catch up with us later."
"She ditched us?" grumbled Ves-Ves. "For a guy?"
"Must be some guy," Usa smirked saucily.
"He looked a little - - dangerous," Hotaru scowled.
"Well, there's dangerous," Usa shrugged, then smirked again, "and then there's 'dangerous'."
Abruptly the air-car lurched violently into the air. At a cruising altitude of just ten feet, the small ship banked forty-eight degrees and then shot across the crowded beach at over fifty kilometers per hour. The maneuver send many beach-goers ducking for cover and the rest grasping their ears as the sonic squeal of the car's turbines pierced the air. More than one denizen of the beach called after the craft angrily or shook a defiant fist as it rapidly disappeared along the coastline.
One of Endymion's observation drones swooped in.
"Please return to what you were doing," the drone, basically a computerized camera and sensor array with built in anti-gravity technology, told the crowd. "All specifics concerning the incident have been recorded and are being transmitted to the appropriate authorities. Please return to what you were doing."
Suddenly the drone turned and descended into the crowd until it was less than a meter from Usa.
"Princess Usagi," the drone began. "This attire is inappropriate according to the specifications downloaded by King Endymion. Under these protocols, this unit is instructing you to return to the palace immediately."
"OH, MAN!" howled the princess, her pink hair shaking with fury.
"Busted," Hotaru added, trying to conceal her smirk and failing.
"All right! Get lost!" Usa snapped at the drone. She sprang to her feet, gathered her clothes and stormed off amid curious stares of her fellow beach attendees. "God, Pop, why don't you humiliate me in front of the WHOLE WORLD?"
With that, Hotaru and Ves-Ves began to gather up the rest of their possessions. In the midst of packing up, Palla-Palla tapped on Ves-Ves's shoulder. The redhead turned to her sister.
"Do we have to leave already?" Palla-Palla whined, her large, blue, supplicant eyes on the verge of tears.
"ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?" shrieked the normally placid queen of Crystal Tokyo. Reverberations of the shriek could be heard through that floor of the palace and in parts of the floor above and below.
"Mom," Usa sighed dramatically. "Would you please not burst a blood vessel."
"You expect me to remain calm while you're exposing yourself to AN ENTIRE BEACH FULL OF PEOPLE?"
"It's the latest fashion!" Usa countered. "And I looked good in it, too! Every boy on the beach was staring at me!"
"Probably the way a dog stares at hamburger," murmured Endymion. He sat in a chair, his cheek resting on his hand, futility coloring his expression.
"Oh, thanks a lot, Pop!" Usa snapped.
"What's next? Am I going to find you on some internet porn site?" Serenity demanded.
"Mom, would you lighten up! I'm sixteen years old! I'm going to be seventeen in three months! I know how to live my own life and if I choose to wear a swimsuit like that, I should be able to!"
"Usa," her father said, calmly as opposed to his wife's rage, "when you chose to wear that suit, did you even consider the message it was sending out?"
"Message?" the pink princess asked.
"I'm sure you'll call me a prude for saying this, but dressing in a provocative manner can send a message that encourages sexual advances, particularly among - - well, let's call them 'inexperienced males'. And if its an unintentional message, you might be asking for unanticipated trouble."
"Pop, I don't intend to wear a sack for the rest of my life, OK," Usa fussed.
"I'm not asking you to mute your fashion sense, honey," Endymion replied and for the first time his daughter noticed the disappointment in his expression. "I'm asking you to think before you act. And there is such a thing as grace and subtlety. As you go through life, you'll learn that the more you scream for attention, the more likely you are to get the kind of attention that you didn't intend on."
With that, the king got up and left the room, his disappointment obvious to all. Usa stared after him, stunned and just a little chagrined. Even Serenity had stopped shouting and stared after him. After a few seconds she finally found the ability to move.
"Consider yourself grounded for a month," Serenity said hoarsely as she sped past her daughter and out the door after her husband.
Leaving the princess to wonder if she'd finally gone too far.
Cere-Cere entered the quarters she shared with her sister amazons. When the door closed behind her, she sagged against it and sighed dramatically.
When no one responded, she sighed again.
"We heard you the first time," Ves-Ves said, not looking up from her vid-com. "We just don't care that you and Gallan had to part."
"THAT'S BECAUSE YOU'VE NEVER BEEN IN LOVE!" Cere-Cere fumed. "God, I miss him."
"You've been apart for, what, ten minutes?"
"No! We've been apart for TEN MINUTES! It's torture. If I could, I'd spend every minute with him."
"Why don't you? It'd get you out of my hair."
"Where's Jun?" fumed Cere-Cere. "I want to talk to somebody who's sympathetic - - and who's not a BORDERLINE PSYCHOTIC!"
"If I knew what that meant, you'd probably be in trouble," Ves-Ves muttered. Just then Palla-Palla wandered in.
"Palla-Palla, where's Jun?" Cere-Cere asked.
"Jun-Jun is out with a strange boy," Palla-Palla dutifully reported.
Then she stepped back in surprise as Cere-Cere was across the room in a flash. Too late she flinched back and her sister seized the girl by the upper arms. Her wild eyes looked directly into Palla-Palla's and for a moment the girl knew fear.
"What boy?" Cere-Cere demanded, hunger for gossip turning her into a snapping, ravenous beast.
"Cere-Cere is scary!" sobbed Palla-Palla.
"I thought you knew that, Stupid," Ves-Ves chuckled. As Cere-Cere huffed in frustration, Ves-Ves put down her vid-com. "Jun picked up some guy at the beach and went off with him in his air-car."
"What did he look like?" Cere-Cere prodded.
"Only got a look at him for a second," Ves-Ves shrugged. "Kind of tall and slim, thick dark hair, eye visor. He's into air-cars - - you can tell by the way he was dressed."
"Was he dreamy?"
"I thought you had a boyfriend," Ves scowled.
"What's that got to do with anything? Jun is like a sister to me! I don't want her going out with someone ugly!"
"He's not ugly," Palla-Palla offered from a safe distance.
"You saw him, too?" Cere-Cere asked.
"Not very well," Palla-Palla explained timidly. "But when she was talking to Jun-Jun with her head, Palla-Palla could tell Jun-Jun thought he was very, very good looking."
"Well that's good. Hey, he's got his own air-car. You suppose he's got money?"
"Why is that important?" Palla-Palla asked.
"Hey!" Cere-Cere said suddenly. She had that look again and Palla-Palla stepped back. "You think you can peek in on Jun's thoughts and find out how her date's going?"
"SENSEI SAID THAT ISN'T RIGHT!" Palla-Palla howled defiantly.
"Would you stop trying to corrupt her," growled Ves-Ves.
"I am TRYING to find out how our sister is!" Cere-Cere fumed. "After all, she went off with a strange guy that we don't know anything about! I'm looking out for her!"
"Suuuuuure you are," Ves-Ves smirked..
"VES!"
"Look, Jun's smarter than the three of us combined," Ves-Ves told her sister. "She can handle herself."
"You're not even curious?"
"Sure I'm curious. But it's Jun's life. If she wants to go off with some guy she just met on the beach . . ."
"She's probably nuts," they heard Jun-Jun whisper. The three girls turned and found the subject of their argument leaning against the door. The first thing they all noticed was the haunted, slightly frightened look on her face.
"Jun?" Ves-Ves inquired, climbing out of her chair and coming over to her. But Cere-Cere beat her to the punch.
"Jun, are you OK?" Cere-Cere asked anxiously.
"I don't know," Jun-Jun replied, a slight tremble in her voice.
"What happened?" Ves-Ves demanded.
Jun-Jun swallowed. She seemed confused and disoriented.
"Jun, what is it?" Cere-Cere cried.
Jun-Jun sighed. "I-I think I'm in love."
Continued in Chapter 3