I own nothing, not the characters, the space where this story exists, or even the eyes that you are using to read it. This is for entertainment purposes only, no money involved.
"Oh, I'm late, I'm late, I'm late!" Serena said over and over again as she ran full speed towards her classroom. "Oh, why didn't Luna wake me up earlier!" She turned the final corner and collided full speed with a solitary figure who had been standing outside of her classroom. "Owe." She grumbled a little as she rubbed her but.
"You ok?" A light male voice said from above her. Looking up, she half expected to see Darian, the boy she always seemed to be running into the last few days, even though there would be little reason for the college student to be standing out side of her class. But the boy who stood above her was a lot different.
Darian was a tall well defined young adult with black hair and dark eyes and a mature tane. This boy was on the skinny and short side and probably the same fourteen as Serena if he was standing outside of her classroom. He had black hair, but his eyes were a striking crystal blue and his skin was a bit pale almost to the point where she would think it was unhealthy.
"Hello? Anyone home?" The boy said scratch his head. "If this is your class then you should probably hurry before the teacher gets back from the office." This brought Serena back to reality.
"Oh, right!" Serena said and rushed into the room before taking a seat between her two sisters in arms, Amy and Lita.
"Looks like you got lucky today, Serena." Lita said. Lita was the tallest girl in school and even had to wear a high school uniform because they didn't make the middle school uniforms in her size. She had her brown hair pulled back into a ponytail behind her and she had a playful glint in her bright green eyes. Most of the kids in the school had or still were afraid of Lita since she had been expelled from her old school due to a fight. Serena was actually the first one to approach her at the new school and her first friend there. "Mrs. ENG had to go to the front office to check on something about a new student. So you're going to get off without having to stand in the hall again."
"Thank goodness." Serena yawned.
"Honestly Serena, you really do need to try to get to class on time." Amy said with a small pout. She said it everyday, though she was understanding of Serena's position. Even though the blue haired genus was also a sailor scout, she new that using her Lunar Wand was a lot more tiring than any of the attacks. Serena needed her rest.
"I know, I know." Serena said, putting her head down on her desk. Then she looked up. "You said we got a new student. Do you mean the boy from the hallway?"
"Oh, you got to see him already. Lucky." Lita said, grinning. "So, is he cute?"
Serena put a finger to her chin. "He looked a little... ill. Though I guess that could just be what school does to people." Serena's friends looked a bit confused at the statement.
"Alright class, can I get your attention!" Mrs. ENG said as she entered the room. People immediately became quiet out of respect for or fear of their teacher. "Now it seems that we have a transfer student coming in all the way from America! Though it seems no one felt like telling me this until this morning. So I hope you will all be on your best behavor, or else!" The teacher grumbled. She was not the nicest of teachers at the best of times and she had bipolar tendencies. Not being told about a new student until he was standing in front of her class was one of the many things that could set her off. "You can come in now!"
The boy from the hall came in and there were a few whispers around the room. "You weren't kidding about him looking sick. The poor thing looks exhausted." Lita observed.
"He should have just skipped. What difference would it have made if he had just started tomorrow." Serena whispered back.
"Um... hi. I'm Danny... Iapetus. It's nice to meet you all." The boy, now identified as Danny said nervously.
"Is there anything that you would like to share with the class?" Mrs ENG pushed.
"Not that I can think off." Danny said, scratching the back of his head.
The teacher rolled her eyes. "Of course. Then how about you go and sit next to Amy. She is the smart girl with the blue hair." Mrs ENG said pointing Danny in the right direction. "And since I doubt I have any of your attention anyways I will just had out some quizzes and call it a day." The students did there best to hold back a groan. They all learned that when the teacher was in one of her bad moods you just did as she said.
One extremely painful English quiz later they all started talking among themselves. Danny being new and not very visual appealing was left out of the groups until a certain meatball headed blond girl came up to him. "Hi there!" She said probably louder than necessary causing the surprised boy to fall back out of his chair and hit his head.
"Owe." Danny mumbled rubbing the back of his head and looking up at the girl.
"Oops, sorry." Serena said giggling in embarrassment.
"It's alright, you just surprised me." Danny said, getting back into his chair. "I'm Danny, though I guess you know that." He said, trying to find something to say. "It's good to see that you didn't get in trouble for being late. Mrs. ENG doesn't seem like the kind of person to just let it slide."
Serena laughed. "She really isn't, I almost always late and she makes me stand out in the hallway. I've even learned how to just sleep while standing up out there." Serena said a little proud of that accomplishment.
"That's not something you should be proud of, Serena." Amy said, chuckling a little. "I'm sorry about Serena. I'm Amy, and this is Lita." Amy introduced them to the new boy.
"It's alright. I was always late to my classes back in America too." Danny admitted. "So she's preaching to the quire on this one."
"So Danny, why did you transfer all the way to Japan?" Lita asked curious, it was rare to get transfer students in the middle of the year.
"Oh... there were a lot of complications and... my old school ended up being closed down. I'm not even sure why I ended up in Japan. Though I suppose it is a welcome change." Danny said looking down a little.
"Your school got shut down?" Serena said a jealous note in her voice. "I wish our school would get closed down. Maybe we could call the health people and tell them we've been seeing mice or something." Amy rolled her eyes at her friend's ridiculous statement.
"Your Japanese is pretty good considering you are not from Japan. I can't even hear an accent." Amy complemented.
"Oh, really, thanks." Danny said sounding surprised to hear it. He started to scratch his head when his long sleeves fell back and the girl saw that his hands were bandaged.
"What's wrong with your hands?" Lita asked.
"Um... I burned them making breakfast for myself. I'm a bit of a klutz." Danny said trying to seem light hearted. The girls gave him a disbelieving look, burning both your hands to the point where you had to completely cover them in bandages was a bit of a stretch. But they decided not to press it. He was new and they should at least try to make him feel welcome. Or at least, that was Serena and Lita's opinions. Amy was a bit less sure about the whole thing.
They talked for a little longer before Amy brought up Danny's name. "Your family name is an odd one." She said.
"Huh, what's so odd about it?" Serena asked.
"In Greek mythology, Iapetus is one of the twelve more powerful Titans. And he is considered the god who took care of people who dead brutal and horrible deaths." Amy said.
"That doesn't seem like a very good thing to be a god of." Lita said sweet dropping.
"Iapetus was supposed to have been the one who first created the underworld in order to house to souls of the dead, to make sure that everyone got their just desserts in there afterlife. Peace for the good, damnation for the wicked." Danny said. He had a far off look in his eyes. "He kept the balance of mortality. Though in Greek mythology, they didn't view death the same way as people these days do. Yes it was something to be fear and avoided, but it was also the final release from suffering. Where immortality was more often than not, suffering eternally."
"So death is good? That's weird. I would much rather have eternal youth." Serena commented before changing the subject to the local arcade.
That afternoon, Danny sat confused in his new personal condo. He just couldn't understand his day. He could speak and even read in Japanese. He knew history and mythology that he had never read before. Knowledge that just came naturally to him. "Is this all because I am becoming the Ghost King? Or is this just a new part of being a ghost that I never noticed before?" He mumbled to himself, tossing his bag onto his bed. Going to his kitchen, he pulled out some ground meat and put a skillet on the stove.
He looked down at his own bandaged hands and slowly peeled back the wrappings. His hand were almost completely healed after just two days without using his ghost rays. He tried to clear his mind as he eat but his thoughts were all jumbled together.
"Maybe I should just take a flight. If I go out invisibly than it shouldn't matter." Danny said to himself as he let the moonlight ring pass over his body. But as he walked out in front of the mirror he got a good look at himself. His jumpsuit was a mess, torn and stained with his own blood. It hardly even covered anything anymore. And his logo was still stapled onto the chest.
"I suppose I do need a change of wardrobe. Just in case anyone actually does see me." Danny said as he pulled off the remains of his white gloves. In another minute he was dressed up in more civilian wear with black pants and a black hoodie that he had pulled up over his white hair. "Guess this will do." Danny said to himself before flying out the window.
Amy was in her room working on her homework. Her home was quiet. It was always quiet. Her parents were almost never around. It had probably been a good two weeks since she had last seen them. A few days since they had even called to check up on her.
She didn't recent her parents for it. She knew that there jobs were important to them and they had always cared for her. And besides, the quiet made it easier to think. And the thing that she was thinking about at the moment was the new boy in there class.
If the other girls knew that she had been thinking about a boy they would have giggled and poked fun of her. But she was not thinking about him in that context. Being a sailor scout had taught her to keep a more than healthy sense of paranoia, and anything new and unexplained always went straight to the top of the list of things to be watchful of.
Danny didn't seem evil or mean and had been fairly open with them when they had talked to him. But there were gaps in his stories and he had a tendency to avoid eye contact. His ability to speak Japanese was impressive. Far too impressive for someone who wasn't born in Japan or related to anyone who was Japanese.
But the thing that stuck with her most was his eyes. They were not the eyes of the Youma who sometimes pretended to be human in order to steal peoples energy. The Youma always had the dark eyes and expressions that seemed rather arrogant. But Danny's eyes were different, very pale and seemed sad, almost longing. Not the eyes of a killer, but not a normal person's either.
Amy's quiet was disrupted though when her communicator went off. "A Youma." She said, closing her book before pulling out her planet pen. It was time for her to go to work.
Danny was sitting down on a roof a good distance from his new crib. He was looking up at the sky with a broken hearted expression. "You can't see the stars here." He practically whimpered. The big city lights of Tokyo were far to bright. He could hardly even see the planets. Even the moon seemed dimmed by the light from the ground. "Why did I believe that Clockwork ghost? I should have just gone home. I've got no proof that he was telling the truth. That and he admitted to have ulterior motives. Exhaustion must have made me stupider."
"I wonder what he has planned for me anyways?" Danny mumbled. Moments later Danny could hear the distant sounds of people screaming. He looked in the direction it was coming from and saw some police cars moving in that direction. "Guess they got there own kind of crime in the big cities." He said. It was none of his business, he knew that. He also knew that the entire point of him being in Tokyo was so that people though he was dead...er.
But he couldn't help feeling that there was something off in that direction. Some kind of strange energy that he couldn't put into words. He jumped off the roof and went invisible before flying along the roof tops towards the center of the disturbance.
But when he finally reached it he found that it was no ordinary crime going down. There was a full blown battle in the middle of a construction parking lot between what looked like two teenage girls in sailor outfits and a woman that Danny was having a hard time finding a way to describe.
First off, the woman had gray skin and wavy slug green hair with pointy eyes and way to much make up on. Her wide mouth and eyes showed both fang like teeth and slitted pupils. And that was the more normal thing about her! She was wearing what looked to be a miniature construction crane and had her left hand had been replaced with a long steel rope with a spiked wrecking ball on the end of it that she was swinging around at the two teenage girls.
Danny lighted down at the edge of a police perimeter and returned to the visible spectrum while no one was looking. "What's going on?" He asked someone who was watching. He made sure that no part of his face could be seen from under his hood.
"It's another Youma attack." The man said not even looking at Danny. "But don't worry, the Sailor Scouts have everything under control."
'Youma... monster... explains why I didn't sense a ghost. But it doesn't explain everything else, like why...' Danny thought looking at the two teenage girls. One had long blond hair that was done in two tight buns on her head, while the other had short blue hair. Each seemed to be doing there best to avoid the attacks of the wrecking ball woman, but the blond girl was screaming and crying the whole time. Not exactly promoting confidence.
"Wahhh! please, somebody save me! Tuxedo Mask!" Sailor Moon cried as the wrecking ball narrowly missed hitting her.
"Sailor Moon, please calm down." Sailor Mercury said as she jumped out of the way of another attack. "We need to buy time until the others get here." She didn't have any strong offensive abilities, and unless someone weakened the Youma or held it still, Sailor Moon couldn't heal it.
"But I'm scared!" Sailor Moon cried another attack grazed by Sailor Moon and the wind from it knocked her to the ground.
"Sailor Moon!" Mercury shouted running forward. "Mercury Aqua Mist!" She shouted out her attack. The bubbles came out and burst on the Youma creating a heavy mist smoke screen around them. "Run for it Sailor Moon!"
"I don't need to see you to hit you!" The Youma shouted. Seconds later Mercury saw the spiked ball flying at her from the side with the cored pulling it in a wide swing.
Danny's ghostly eyes could see through the mist. 'So the Sailor Scouts have powers?' He thought confused. He had never meet other humans with powers. Does he even count as a human? 'But this is not the right opponent to use that kind of attack on.' Years of video games had taught Danny to never use a double edged sword like a smoke screen on an opponent that had a wide sweep attack. 'I need to help them.'
Danny walked forward. "Kid, what are you doing!?" A man shouted as Danny went over the police barricade. He could see the attack heading straight for the girl with the short blue hair, so Danny ran to the center point in the wire that connected the spiked ball the the youma woman and he hit it hard. Burying his feet in the ground he pushed with all his might and the wrecking ball turned with him being the new center of its circle. The spikes barely missed the sailor girl though the wind knocked her to the ground.
The ball doubled in speed and came full around and smashed into the youma who had thrown it, sending her and ball flying to the side. The mist was blown away leaving Danny standing in the middle of the area dressed all in black. He quickly moved to check on the girl who had just been knocked to the ground. "Are you ok?" He asked looking down at the girl. The girl turned to look up at him, and their eyes met.
Mercury was having a hard time understanding what had happened. One moment the wrecking ball was coming straight for her, and the next it had changed trajectory and only came close enough to blow her off her feet. "Are you ok?" She heard someone say. The voice was strange and held a sort of echo to it.
Then she looked up to find a boy standing before her. He was dressed all in black and wearing a hood that hid most of his features, she couldn't even tell what color hair he might have had in the darkness. But she could see his eyes. His eyes glowed a radioactive and inhuman green. There was a strength in them that was like nothing the young sailor scout had ever seen before.
"I'm... alright." She said though she hadn't really checked. She couldn't help but to stare into the bright green orbs. Several seconds when by and they the boy's eyes widened and he looked away pulling on his hood to try to conceal them, as if he didn't want her to see.
"Who the hell are you!?" The youma screamed. It was pulling itself off of the ground. How did it end up on the ground? Had the boy done it?
"I'm... I'm no one. Just a spirit, passing in the night." The boy said turning to face the monster. "I don't understand what is going on here. But something tell me that your the bad guy, right?" He sounded as if he was just joking around.
"Sailor Mercury! Are you ok!" Sailor Moon shouted.
"I'm alright, Sailor Moon." Mercury said but as she tried to return to her feet she stumbled a bit and returned to the ground. "Eee, my ankle." She said grabbing onto it.
The boy glanced over his shoulder and she got another look at his green eyes full of concern. Then he looked back to the monster.
"Oh? Has the little sailor girl twisted her ankle!?" The youma taunted. "Then I suppose you can't dodge!" She pulled in her wrecking ball hand and started spinning it above her head. The boy took a few steps forward and got into a stance as if he was going to try to catch it.
"Are you crazy. Just get out of the way. I'll be fine." Mercury said though she knew that was a lie.
"Don't worry so much. I've got this." The boy said and then his body began to glow with short wisps of white energy that danced along his form. Mercury couldn't believe her eyes. The youma threw the heavy ball and it came straight towards the boy with enough force to flatten trucks. The boy caught it dead on by the spikes. He was pushed backwards a few feet and the earth beneath him was pushed aside as he went. But he managed to bring the ball to a complete stop before it hit Mercury. "See... I told you... I could... WAAAA!" The boy shouted as the youma pulled the spiked ball back and the boy hadn't let go. He was pulled into the air and landed with a hard thud on the other side of crane woman.
"No!" Mercury shouted in shock.
"Sorry, how about we try that again!" The youma shouted but when she tried to pull on the wrecking ball she found that it wouldn't move. Then something pulled back and she landed on her but. "What the!?"
"Owe. Going to be feeling that one in the morning." The boy joked. He was holding fast to the cord that connected the woman to the ball and he had planted his feet firmly into the ground. "You aren't going anywhere."
Mercury was filled with relief at finding that the boy was alright. The she realized that they had there opening. "Sailor Moon, the Lunar Wand! Hurry!" She shouted.
"What... ow, right!" Sailor Moon shouted pulling out her weapon. "Moon... Healing... Activation!" She shouted and the rays of light fell upon the youma, purifying her and returning her to being a normal human woman. The boy fell on his butt as the cord and ball disappeared.
"Ok, I am confused as to what the heck is going on around here." The boy said as he got up making sure that his hood still covered his face before moving to check on Mercury. "You ok?"
"Mercury!" Sailor Moon shouted as she went to her friend. "Are you hurt?"
"I'm fine, Sailor Moon. I think it is just a small twist." Mercury said doing her best not to put any weight on the leg as she got up. "Thank you for you help." She said to the hooded boy.
"Oh... thanks... I mean, your welcome." He said rubbing the back of his head.
"Hi there!" Sailor Moon said loudly moving in front of the boy. He fell backwards startled. "Oops, sorry." She giggled at the boy's reaction. Amy had the strangest feeling she had seen this exact same thing happen earlier that day. "Thanks for saving us back there. What's your name?" She asked.
"I'm... I'm no one." The boy said making sure that he was still hidden.
"Oh, that's no fun. Come on, tell us. Please!" Sailor Moon pouted trying to get a look at the boy's face. "Why are you wearing that hood? Come on, let us see your face." She begged.
"Sailor Moon. You're making him uncomfortable." Mercury said disapprovingly. Sailor Moon began to rub the back of her head and laughed. "Hello, I'm Sailor Mercury, and this is my friend, Sailor Moon. What's your name?" She asked trying to be polite.
The boy paused for a second and then laughed a little. "Those are your superhero names huh?" He said a little amused. "I don't think those count."
"We just want to know what we should call you. Don't you have a hero name?" Mercury asked.
The boy tensed. "I... don't. But if you want... you can give me whatever name you want, and then just tell me what you choose next time." He said turning away from them. "I'm going to go before the police start asking questions. Hope your ankle is alright." He said before jumping into the air and disappearing from sight.
"Oh no, he's right! We need to get going!" Sailor Moon said as the police started to come over. She grabbed onto Sailor Mercury and they jumped away together. They were a few roof tops away when Sailor Moon finally said it. "I think he likes you, Amy." She said grinning.
"Serena." Amy said blushing a bit as her friend laughed. But Amy had to admit. There was something about that boy's eyes.
"So that is what Clockwork wanted from me." Danny mumbled to himself back at his condo. He was checking the damage to his person from the fight. He had gotten off pretty easy with just some bruised rubs and a large one under one eye. Both would be gone before school on Monday. "He wants me to fight a different set of monsters for him. Wonder why he wants them taken care off." He said trying to fined a reason, but he didn't really know anything about the ghost other than that he didn't try to kill him on sight and that he 'knows everything'.
"Guess I'm still going to have to fight, even though I'm no longer being hunted." Danny complained a bit as he plopped down on the coach and turned on the TV for what felt like the first time in ages. Of course he had never had any cable plan set up so all he got was static. He groaned. What point was a TV when you didn't have any channels or video games.
With nothing to distract him his mind went back to the fight in the parking lot. He thought about the blue haired girl. She was the only one that he had been able to get a close look at, since it is hard to hide your inhuman eyes and see people's faces at the same time. She had had such a beautiful face, and a body that screamed way out of his league. And her eyes, they were a deep blue, not a icy blue like Danny's, but a deeper indigo color. "She sure did have nice eyes."
The Sailor Scout girls all met at The Game Clown the day after the incident with the mystery boy. "So let me get this straight. The boy came in our of no where, saved Amy from being squashed, then restrained the youma so that Serena could purify it." Lita said taking a sip from her shake. "Lucky." She said grinning at Amy. "So was he cute?"
"Lita, not you too." Amy gave an uncharacteristic whine as her friend teased her. "Honestly, I just happened to be in danger when he first showed up. I'm sure that it isn't anything like Serena and Tuxedo Mask where he seems to just follow her around all day waiting for her to get into danger. It was a one time deal."
"Ah, but don't you want to see him again?" Serena teased.
"What? I..." Amy stammered. "There is no right answer to that question is there?"
"That didn't answer my question." Lita said shrugging.
"I didn't even get to see his face. He was wearing a hood and it was dark out." Amy said flustered. "All I saw was his... his eyes." She whispered. "They weren't human eyes."
"Not human?" Serena said confused as she ate another spoon full of ice cream. "I didn't get to see his eyes."
"Of course he wasn't human. What kind of human can stop a wrecking ball with their bare hands?" Raye said rolled her eyes. "I think the fact that he isn't normal is a given. The real question is what is he after?"
"Raye!" Lita said annoyed. "Do we have to become serious so early? I wanted to put it off and just talk like normal girls for at least one more hour." Serena nodded in agreement.
"I'm afraid that Raye is right." Luna said. The black cat with a crescent mark on her forehead jumped down onto the table. "We need to figure out if this new boy is a friend that we can count on or a foe that we will have to face."
"Or maybe he is like Tuxedo Mask and has his own set of objectives." Raye pointed out.
"Oh, I thought we agreed that Tuxedo Mask wasn't an enemy." Serena pouted.
"Just because you keep saying doesn't mean we agreed, Meatball Head. He has been stealing all the rainbow crystals, in case you forgot." Raye pointed out, using the nickname that Serena hated. "You say that the boy wasn't human. Could he be a youma?"
Amy shook her head. "I scanned his energy. It wasn't like any youma or any of the dark generals, or even like Tuxedo Mask's. Though I honestly don't know what he is." She paused for a few seconds before continuing. "But I... I don't think that he knows anything about what is going on." Amy said hoping that it wouldn't encourage more teasing. "When we were out there, he didn't seem to understand what the youma was. He was only fighting it because he guessed that it was evil. And perhaps because he was trying to protect me."
"So you do think that he likes you." Serena said happily.
"I didn't say that." Amy said blushing again. "I'm sure he would have tried to save anyone."
"But if he doesn't like you, then why did he ask you to pick a hero name for him?" Serena said teasing her.
"He did, did he?" Raye said also grinned.
"Raye, not you as well." Amy said in despair as all of her friends were teasing her.
"We've establish that he doesn't know what is going on. So he isn't an enemy, at least not yet. So I'm willing to go back to more casual talk." Raye said shrugging.
"Do you have a name in mind?" Lita asked curiously.
"I... I might have a few in mind." Amy said embarrassed as the girls got their giggles. She could tell it was going to be a long day.