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Chapter Two
{Part 1}
Usagi slid into class and saw a girl in her seat. With a slight frown, she sat next to the girl. The girl's nose was still in her book and didn't notice Usagi's presence. Usagi watched the girl scribble in her notebook for a moment and Usagi craned her neck to realize it was homework.
Usagi tilted her head as she looked over the girl's appearance, she wasn't someone she'd ever seen before, and figured that she was new. Her shoes were well polished and her socks were crisply white.
Everything in her uniform was crisp and as bright as the day it was made. Usagi couldn't remember anyone else's outfit being so perfect. What set it apart though, was her blue hair, it was slightly mused as if a hand went through it every five minutes in distress. "Studying too much will cause a brain freeze." She mentioned casually.
The girl's blue eyes turned to her in confusion behind red-rimmed glasses. "Excuse me?" The girl questioned.
Usagi smiled. "I'm Tsukino Usagi." She bowed slightly to the stranger.
"Mizouno Ami." The girl replied shortly, turning her attention back to her book.
"You're new around here, aren't you?" Usagi asked, not to be shut down so easily. Her best friends had taken awhile to crack and they were the ones that she trusted the most. The ones that came easily to her, she was friendly with, but her closest friends were a small nit group.
"I am." She agreed, not looking up at Usagi again. Usagi let it go for the moment as Haruna-sensei came in and started class.
"We have a new student, Mizouna Ami, if you'd all kindly welcome her." Everyone in class chorused their hellos and Ami only waved slightly in response. Haruna-sensei back to teaching and called out roll. "I see you have been displaced from your normal seating Tsukino-san, is it impeding your learning too much?" The sensei asked and Usagi only smiled tightly at the thinly veiled insult. So she wasn't the best student? It'd only been going downhill since she started out as a senshi. "Perhaps the new occupant in your seat could help you since she has made you move."
Ami's attention had turned to look at Usagi with a thoughtful gaze, and it was the first time the girl had even seemed to take an interest. Usagi smiled brightly for the teacher, her and the class. "I would love to have a new study partner, Haruna-sensei, but I do not care if I have to move over one seat, I gladly welcome the new student to it, as she will probably make better use out of it then putting gum balls onto the bottom."
Someone in class went "ew" and Haruna knew it was time to leave the girl alone. Ami turned to look at Usagi again and whispered while Haruna went off the roster. "I'm sorry I took your seat, I didn't know."
Usagi waved her off. "It's fine, I wasn't lying just now, you'd probably enjoy that hot seat more than me. This way I'm closer to the window." Usagi winked and the girl smiled tentatively at her. The two didn't speak for the rest of the class period and when Naru waited at the door for Usagi when their classes finished for lunch, Usagi turned to the girl still sitting in her seat, reading the book and taking out her lunch.
"Why don't you join us?" Usagi beckoned to the redhead in the corner. "We could always use another."
Ami looked at them dubiously before making up her mind and nodding. "All right."
They went and sat down outside where a boy joined them as well as another couple of girls. The boy, Umino, was trying to impress them, he was kind of a nerd, but he had a way about him that combated that nerdiness so he could be kind of cute, in the right light.
Usagi wasn't interested, and neither was Ami, but Naru let him hang around and they talked gossip for awhile. Usagi joined in when it was about the latest mangas or celebrity news. Ami only smiled politely at the conversation when they asked her opinion and replied she had none. Usagi always hesitated before returning to the conversation with the others, wondering if Ami just said that so she could eat in peace or if it was what she really believed.
After lunch though, Usagi and Ami split off into different directions as she and Naru had P.E. Together, and some other courses to finish off the day. But when she was walking back to her house, Luna joined her and together, they watched Ami look around before slipping down a side street. "Follow her?" Luna suggested as Usagi told her about her day. "I have a feeling."
Usagi rolled her eyes. Luna had a feeling about twenty different girls throughout the course of their knowing each other and only one of them led somewhere, led Usagi into a lot of hot water, was what. She'd turned out to be a trap set by the enemy, trying to lure Sailor Moon out and into battle as they drained her energy.
Usagi followed none-the-less, anything she could do to help out an innocent. Besides, Usagi strangely already had developed an attachment to the girl that she couldn't explain. Usagi followed Ami to a cram school and Usagi wanted to bang her head against the wall, of course Ami went to a cram school, perhaps thats why she was studying so intently during class, not to get ahead in their joint classes, but to be prepared for this. "I'm not going in." Usagi warned the cat and Luna only sighed, allowing Usagi to go on her merry way.
Usagi spun on her heel and headed to the crown arcade. There she schmoozed with Motoki, gaining herself free game play on the machines. "I don't know how you managed to weasel your way into getting him to bend over backwards for you." A voice whispered in her ear as she faced off a difficult opponent. The timber of the words sounded so familiar, that Usagi missed a beat and her character went to its untimely demise and the words 'Game Over' flashed across the screen.
She turned her irritated attention to the man begging for it and gave him all of it. "Why'd you have to go and do that, jerk? I was wining!"
"You would have lost eventually, and you'd still have nothing to show for it."
Usagi snorted and typed in her initials. "See that? I'm top rank."
But she wasn't for long as a guy slid in and took over. "I've beaten everything else in here." He admitted when she commented seeing him around often. "Excuse me, I need to concentrate."
Usagi and Mamoru moved off, Usagi turned her attention to a different game as something caught her gaze. She squealed and rushed over to the claw machine. "What is it Ordango?" Mamoru asked impatiently, as his argument session with the dumpling headed girl's attention seemed even more short lived today than ever.
"It's a Tuxedo Kamen doll!" He wasn't sure how she knew the name nor why the doll would be in the machine, but at her words, everyone started crowding in around her, whispering over the name and everything else. Someone said 'he's so dreamy' and another said he and moon should get together, while a third laughed at both ideas and said moon was best served on a playboy cover, for all to appreciate.
Mamoru had to admit, he didn't agree with any of them, except maybe the first, as he was after all, a conceited jerk of a male as Usagi liked to call him. Speaking of which, where did she disappear to? He saw a blond strand on a guy's coat, and another on a woman's purse. He followed the path to see that she was being swamped by people, and looking just a little petrified. He reached in, grabbed her wrist and pulled her through the crowd to him, on the outskirts of the raging mob. He stopped her in front of him and he looked down at her, his hand still firmly clenched around her wrist.
She looked from him to their joined position and tugged her hand away, Mamoru missed the silky smoothness as he released her. He looked down to the wrist she was rubbing and saw a purplish bruise near the most noticeable bone. "What happened to you?"
Usagi couldn't tell him that she got it in a youma attack when Kamen rolled them out of danger, but her wrist hit the ground between them as her hand managed to get itself stuck on his arm. She instead shrugged. "Ditz moment, I was gesturing and my arm went flying and hit a wall I didn't realize was so close."
Close Enough. She told herself as she looked up at him, wondering why he cared. "I should have known you'd do something so immature." He teased. Her wrist hurt more than she let on, only realizing how much it hurt when he pulled her along earlier. It hurt to move her pinkie as well, but she should have known he didn't really care, just wanted ammunition to feed the fuel of degrading comments towards her.
She was just tired and sore enough that she didn't want to deal with him today. Instead she turned and walked over to Motoki to order a shake. "Please Toki-onii-chan? I'll pay you tomorrow."
'Toki-onii-chan' couldn't resist the nickname she had called him since she could reach the barstools and tapped her on the nose. "You know you never have to pay." Usagi smiled brilliantly at him and he always had to catch his breath at the sheer impact it had. "I'll go get it, don't get into any trouble while I'm in the back." He warned.
"You might as well get an ice pack while your back there too." Mamoru's deep voice cut off Motoki's movement into the back and the blond man paused to look skeptically at Mamoru's request. "Just do it."
Motoki nodded and Usagi spun around to the irritating man who just didn't seem to get the hint today. "Why does he need it? For you when I break your nose? Or when I spill your usual cup of coffee onto your crotch?"
Mamoru frowned. "Neither, and I don't think you'd do it either. Where did you learn things like that? I only wanted him to bring it for you wrist." He pulled her injured hand towards him and turned it so the palm faced up. "Can you straighten it?" He asked in concern as her fingers curled into a ball. Usagi sighed and tried to do as he requested. Her thumb to middle finger straightened out mostly, but her pinkie and ring finger didn't get as far.
He slid his fingers between her palm and the lame fingers and slowly slid them back so they'd open up more. "Does it hurt when I do this?" He asked and she nodded tightly. She gasped when he went a little further, and then froze at her sharp intake of breath. "You need to get this x-rayed Odango, they'll fix you right up if they're broken."
"They'd just have to put a splint in or metal rods to fix it. It'll be fine on its own, just as fine as if they did something."
"You speak like your a pro." Mamoru stated disparagingly. "What really happened?"
"I told you, I hit a wall with my hand." Usagi knew she wasn't going to get out of this with just a lie, so she furthered it. "I'm really clumsy, this wouldn't be the first injury that was self-inflicted, some are worse then others. I broke my toe awhile back and they told me that for toes and fingers, that's all they can do."
Mamoru nodded, not saying anything more as Motoki came out with an ice pack and a milkshake. Mamoru wrapped the icepack around Usagi's wrist and fastened it close with tape. "Take this off in five minutes, let it be then put it back on five minutes later, and then repeat for awhile, until the swelling goes down." Mamoru stood up and walked out the door.
"What was that about?" Motoki asked.
Usagi could barely shake her head. "I have no idea." She really couldn't believe that Mamoru was being kind to her, maybe he isn't the heartless jerk I've pegged him to be. She turned back to her shake and took a sip. "This is lovely Toki-chan, thank you."
He clasped a hand on her shoulder and leaned in conspiratorially. "You're welcome. You've actually helped improve the recipe over the years with your commentary. I've even added some of them to the menu as quote. But you don't look at that, do you, as you know everything by heart by now."
Usagi laughed in embarrassment. "What can I say? I just love the atmosphere here." She winked and went back to enjoying her shake, and winced when she had a brain freeze. "I'm getting too old for those." She muttered as she squeezed the bridge of her nose, receiving a laugh from Motoki as he left her to attend to the rest of his customers. Excuse me, guests.
Chapter Two
{Part 2}
Usagi was destined to follow Ami every freaking day for two weeks. Finally she had enough and she snapped, that fine, she'd go in and check out the cram school from the inside. So Usagi transformed herself into a geek-looking kid and followed the blue hair genius inside the building. During the day, when Usagi wasn't playing spy for Luna, she and Ami had been getting closer, or at least Usagi had been getting closer and breaking Ami out of her shell. Usagi didn't do that for Luna, she did that for purely selfish motives and the fact that she kind of liked Ami and wanted to get to know her better and be her friend.
There had been a few battles as well. Luna had finally come out and told Usagi she didn't trust that man. Usagi had brushed off her concern until today when Luna told her that the two of them should not trust him as he was unknown and could be working for the enemy. That the senshi should trust no one but the ones on their team.
Usagi had balked at the implication and asked Luna then why she was following Ami if she wasn't sure the girl could be trusted. Also, Usagi had a lot of non-senshi friends and that wouldn't change just because of a job. She trusted them as well as or if not better then she would trust a senshi who had just recently entered her life.
Luna hadn't liked the words, so kept Usagi spying for longer today than normal and told her not to get too close to Kamen, if she did, Luna would take that as an act of aggression towards their princess they were looking for too. Luna didn't trust Kamen one bit, and intended on destroying him the second he stepped out of line. So here Usagi was, sitting outside the cram office, looking like she belonged yet knowing she was in way over her head right now. So she followed Ami to the class, and sat three rows off, close enough to be see but not spotted easily.
Usagi had been feeling irritable all day and the reason to agreeing to finally going in was because she felt something odd about the building. She felt it every time but this time seemed worse. It had caused Usagi to snap at Luna and now she was supposed to avoid Kamen at all costs, thank you for opening your big mouth, she berated herself.
But she didn't have to worry so much about that, as Kamen hardly spoke to her anyways, so it wouldn't be too hard to stay away. She was silently complaining about Luna's impossible task, she'd be called on and she would completely embarrass herself. That's when she saw students slumping in their seats. She pretended to do the same, for some reason these mass attacks didn't drain her senshi energy, but Ami was still wrapped up in her computer and didn't slump over in a faint. Usagi narrowed her eyes, if Ami were a normal human, she too would be passed out like the other students. However, if she was the enemy, she could be using the computers for her merciless means and just as Usagi was about to slip away unnoticed so she could transform and attack Ami, though it hurt her to think of it that way, the teacher at the front started transforming in a billowing cloud of smoke.
Usagi watched in awe and Ami seemed to notice as her head perked up and she scrambled to her feet. "Not so fast!" The youma stretched its spiny hand towards Ami. Ami ducked under the table and crawled away. The youma seemed to grow larger and its attentions were focused mainly on Ami.
Usagi couldn't wait any longer as a girl she had come to respect greatly was in danger. She still didn't know why Ami wasn't long gone like the rest, but she couldn't sit by and ask her either. Glad for her disguise as a fellow student, Usagi shot to her feet and transformed. She was aware of Ami's eyes watching in amazement as Sailor Moon faced off the opponent.
The youma was stronger than Usagi had given her credit for. She was soon placed in a difficult situation as the youma threw cds at her and they outlined her shape as she pressed against the wall, one leg almost as high as her head and her body facing towards the ground. Usagi landed with a painful thud, but scrambled back to her feet, waiting for the next attack, and using the wall as an assurance that there would be no double attack this time.
In the corner of her eye, Usagi saw Luna running through the mess of desks overturned because of their feud. "Quick, transform." Luna called out as she did a back flip and a blue pen floated in the air, waiting for Ami's grasp.
"Don't do it unless you are absolutely sure, I can handle this myself." Sailor Moon called out to the blue haired girl.
The girl hesitated, looking first at the pen, then at Moon, then to the youma, then back to the pen. Finally she looked down at Luna, then back up at Sailor Moon. Ami shrugged and took the pen, she'd made her decision, she would accept her place along side of the Moon senshi, who had been battling alone for months now, clearly exhausted.
Anything the blue haired girl could do to help. She transformed quickly and sidestepped several broken chairs and sticks of wood from the desks and the plaster that peeled off from the heat in the room. She readied her stance and called out instantly without needing instructions. "Shabon Spray!"
The room was coated in a fine misty fog and Moon used that moment to use her tiara and sent it in the last known coordinates of the youma. They heard a satisfying scream declaring this ridiculous and in the faint glow, they saw the youma's body reduce to a pile of white-sand.
Sailor Moon turned to the new senshi and looked over her outfit, she was clad in mostly blue, blue skirt, blue boots, blue sailor shoulder thing and a blue jewel in her tiara. "It's not fair, how come you get sweet blue boots?" The other senshi's hair was black but her eyes remained the mysterious blue that Ami had.
Sailor Moon's hair was still in ordangos but her hair had been turned black as well. It was another defense for them, so they could fit into their surroundings better. Also to make it less likely that they were noticed in their everyday life. Although the transformations kept their hair styles, so Moon wasn't sure how much it protected them.
"Would you grow up?" Luna asked, pouncing onto Moon's shoulder. "Koan might be around."
Moon nodded but she turned to Ami in curiosity. "What should we call her, Luna?"
"We don't just get to make it up Moon." Luna hissed. "I would like you to meet Sailor Mercury."
"Pleasure have you on the team. I'm Sailor Moon."
"I guess this makes us a partnership?" Mercury held out her hand. "I've been following you in the news. You've done some pretty good work."
Moon smiled at the compliment and nodded. "I've tried, this isn't an easy job, I've made some big mistakes along the way."
"I'm sure I will too." Mercury responded.
"I doubt as much as I have. How did you know your attack without needing to be told?"
"It just kind of came to me, I knew what was needed and when. I think I have other attacks too, but they won't tell me what they are. I guess it needs to come out when its needed, then I'll be able to do it as I deem necessary. How about your attack?"
Moon shook her head. "She had to tell me." Her head gestured towards the cat.
"Let's get out of here, I think this is done for the night." Luna broke up their conversation and together they left the cram school.
"I guess I won't be getting to go there for awhile, hmm?" Mercury mused as they headed along the rooftops to get as much distance as possible between them and the attack.
"No, I guess not." Moon agreed. "Well, good night then."
"Don't I get to know who you are? You know who I am!" Mercury grabbed Moon's white gloved arm and held her attention.
Sailor Moon smiled patiently at Mercury. "You'll know soon enough, but for now it'll be a fun mystery to see if you can figure it out." Sailor Moon winked before taking off into the night. Mercury looked around her, trying to orient herself to this new perception of the city and then took off towards her home. Tomorrow would be a new day for Mercury, and something about the words Moon spoke was telling her that she no doubt would be seeing her in her civilian form.
"That wasn't very nice of you, leaving her in a lurch like that." Luna reprimanded.
Usagi waved it off as she slipped inside to her room and detransformed. "Posh, it'll be good for her, this way she'll actually take an interest in her fellow classmates, if only to try and figure out who I am. It shouldn't be too hard for the genius."
"I'm sure it'll be harder than you give it credit."
"Whatever Luna." Usagi replied as she changed.