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Chapter Three
{Part 1}
For a change, true to Luna's prediction, it took Ami several days of Usagi being obnoxiously friendly to realize there was a reason why. Usagi had to practically spell it out for the girl to understand that Usagi was Sailor Moon. In that long drawn out process though, they got to know each other better, and Ami was less stand-offish as she had been the day they met.
Usagi though she didn't say it, felt that maybe Ami didn't have a perfect home life. She had grown up with Naru and Umino and both of them hadn't had the best family situations either. It had made Usagi conscious of the possibility. Though Usagi didn't push the issue.
She learned that Ami while incredibly book smart didn't have a clue about anything street-smart. While Usagi probably wasn't the best guide to street-smarts, she at least had the ability to blend in with different groups and talk about something. So, Usagi introduced Ami to the world of comics while Ami mentored Usagi in some of their course loads.
"Why did you come here Ami-chan? With your scores you probably could go to any junior high you wanted. Why this one, when you probably will go onto the best high school?"
"The tests are in a few weeks, I'm spending so much time at cram school that my regular classes would probably have suffered more had I stayed where I was."
Usagi nodded in agreement, with Sailor Moon duties, she had been glad she hadn't been the brightest of students before, so she could at least keep up with these classes and possibly get into a decent high school. She wasn't worried about college, she would be accepted into anything she wanted as long as she got into a semi-good high school.
"You know teaching is usually the best way to learn something, it makes you think about it in several different ways to get the point across."
"You're right Usagi-san." Ami agreed and Usagi wished she would just drop down to -chan already.
Luna had given Ami a communicator and had been contacting her to inform her of any battles they had. Moon and Mercury made a formidable team, better than either thought they would as Mercury didn't have strong offensive attacks and Moon was always managing to trip her way into trouble or knock something over and the youma's sights were still set on the original senshi. Now though, it was either Mercury or Kamen that managed to push her out of the way when she couldn't get there herself as usually she was just regaining her balance from said incident. Yet none of the battles they had fought in, had Moon revealed herself to Mercury.
To Moon though, it was a two-fold test for Mercury, and no doubt to any senshi in the future. The first part was whether or not they could recognize the power in others, the way Moon recognized it in them, including occurrences when they were looking for a new one or if one was in danger. So far, Mercury seemed oblivious to this ability that Moon held. She wasn't sure then if it was because she was leader or if by some other means she was the only one to recognize it. The second part of the test was to check out the senshi, see if they were legit in their desires and actions as a senshi. Luna no doubt did it for her, and now she was just continuing it. She needed to know if they really wanted to be a senshi or just got roped into it like her, but for her, it turned into a duty, and a need to protect these people. It was also for the senshi to prove loyalties to their leader, without knowing who the leader was in real life.
This was something she planned to implement from now on for every senshi that walked through her life. Even if no one else did, her identity would be a secret until they figured it out. They held back a part of them, she only thought it wise to do the same unless she could see them trusting her.
She didn't want to sound mean, but how could they work together cohesively if they didn't trust her first as she was in person, who they met first, and not the real life superhero.
It was one day when they had just finished class, Ami was done, packed up and ready to leave, but she sat there as Usagi slid her books into her bag. Usagi looked up and smiled at the blue haired girl. "Is there something I can help you with Ami-chan?" Usagi asked pleasantly.
"Usagi-san, I-" Ami looked around, to guarantee everyone was out of the room. "I was wondering why you've been so nice to me. What's in it for you? What do you want?"
"Nothing. Just your friendship, and if not that, just being nice to you is me being me." Usagi responded as she folded the flap over her pack and slid the strap across her body. She usually carried the typical briefcase, but she hadn't felt like carrying it today.
"Oh." Ami looked confused for moment before a slight nod as she bobbed her head. "I thank you for that Usagi-chan."
Usagi looked at the girl but she wouldn't meet her eyes, staring instead at the floor. "Thank you." Usagi replied.
"For what?" Ami asked, her eyes raising to her peer's.
"For finally dropping down to -chan." Usagi told her with a smile.
"I, I like you, thank you for being friend when I don't have one."
"It's no problem." Usagi wrapped an arm around Ami's shoulders, she was close, so very close, she just wanted to make sure before she told her. The first person you tell is the hardest, and most important, Usagi theorized.
"I'd like to help you study, to keep your grades up, so you'll get into a good high school."
"You don't need to do that." Usagi shook her head.
"I don't, but I want to. I want to see you succeed." Ami smiled up at Usagi. "Isn't that what friends are for?" Usagi nodded in agreement and Ami continued. "So, how about we go to the crown and I help you with our assignment?"
Usagi grinned, her lips almost cracking because of the width of her smile. Ami had just called her a friend and showed the true nature of friendship. "I have a better idea, do you want to come over to my house for a little while?"
Ami looked hesitant, but then agreed. "All right. Now?"
"Of course. I have something to show you."
They walk into the Tsukino household and there is not a soul around, even Luna was away from the house for this monumental occasion that she'd been harping at Usagi to do for a few days now. Usagi pulled Ami into her room, locked the door and pulled the shades. "Um... Usagi?" Ami asked unsure what Usagi was thinking, and getting a little nervous at the secrecy of it all. "What's going on?"
"This is what I wanted to show you, but I couldn't do this at the Crown." Usagi took the broach from her chest and held it up into the air. She called on her transformation phrase and before Ami's wide, blue eyes, Usagi turned into Sailor Moon once more. After a few gasping and flabbergasting, Usagi returned to her normal form and sat down on the bed, facing Ami once she was sure the other girl accepted it as fact.
"You're Sailor Moon?" Ami finally asked and the blond girl nodded. "I can't believe I didn't see it before, pieces are all starting to click in now that I know that."
"You mean, there wasn't a possibility that you would have guessed the two of us were the same?" Usagi asked, unsure if that was possible.
"No. There was always something about you yes. But I only felt kinship to you whereas with Moon, it was something else, something like a sense of duty rested heavily on me."
"I don't want you to be Sailor Mercury if you are not absolutely into this and want to do it, there can be no misguided sense of duty or being pushed into it. I know you already accepted the wand, and I can't keep you from being Mercury, but we do not need to work together if you feel at any point we don't have each other's backs. We need to work well together if we're going to survive."
Ami nodded. "I vow I will listen to your directions and give you my opinions. I want to be a part of your team. I hope we can learn to trust each other completely and not have any conflicts between us."
Usagi nodded, accepting the vow. It was what she wanted. "There is another thing, there will be more senshi arriving, and you have to trust me on my decisions relating to them and how I want to handle it without interference."
Ami hesitated a moment and if she hadn't, Usagi would have guessed her to be lying and instead, she knew Ami was considering the possibilities relating to such a general request could have for implications. A moment later, Ami nodded. "I told you I trusted you, and I meant it, whatever way you wish to handle the arrival of our future members, I leave up to you, as you are the leader."
Usagi blushed. "I don't know why. I was just the first one discovered."
"You have the most experience of all of us, you know the most about our enemy that we could never learn by just being informed of what has happened. It makes sense." Ami explained kindly.
Usagi smiled at that. "You'll soon outnumber my education on the subject as you gain your own experience. I hope you're ready for such a life style change. I have to warn you, cram school might suffer because of this, I know my classes are."
"Ah, but you have a life to maintain on top of classes and senshi duty, I do not."
"Oh, if you stick with me, you'll soon have a life as well."
"Really Usagi-chan?" Ami asked skeptically, raising a blue eyebrow. "I highly doubt that. I'm not interested in a lot of the daily chit-chat that goes around campus."
"Some of it is not that bad. Nor are some of the people, look at me, you like me, you'll like others too."
"I suppose." Ami sighed, knowing she wasn't going to win this argument. "When are you going to tell the cat?" Ami teased.
"I don't want to let her think she's right, now do I?" Usagi winked. "I'll tell her you've known since the following day and I just forgot to told her, so we'll walk home detransformed together."
"Devious." Ami laughed, and it was good to hear her fellow senshi laugh.
Chapter Three
{Part 2}
Ami was trailing along after her blond friend who had been right, Ami did meet other people who were decent at their school. Including the couple to her left chatting silently. Naru and Umino were similar to her in a lot of ways, and yet so different. Naru was a funny girl with an interesting accent whose eyes when upon their mutual, her lifelong friend, the girl rose and set in those green gazes. Ami wasn't quite there yet, her eyes returning to her leader, but she could see where someone would think that way, Usagi was a soul who never relented into the negative, who always looked to the positive, who was always trying to cheer up her friends, and when she couldn't she let them get it all out.
Yes, Ami watched as the blond dumpling headed girl rounded a corner, one could get very attached. That blond head bounced back and with pale elbows braced herself for her fall, which never came as a hand reached out from the corner and attached itself to the blond's wrist. It stopped her fall, but Ami still winced at the jarring motion. Then the hand let her go as she regained her balance.
"Watch where you're going Odango." A deep voice chasted.
"What, is your chest made out of? Rubber?" Usagi rubbed her wrist and then her nose where she no doubt hit against his chest.
"Thank you for the compliment." The voice replied dryly and stepped around the corner as Usagi stepped back. Usagi opened her mouth but the dark haired man cut her off with a raised hand. "Look, Odango-brain, I don't have time for this today. So be quiet." He looked at her posse and shook his head. "Never could be trusted to go somewhere on your own, could you?"
He didn't wait for her response as he started walking at a quick pace. Usagi blew a raspberry at his back as he left without a glance back.
"Well, that was rather rude of him, wasn't it?" Naru asked on a huff, looking at her blond friend. "He didn't even stay for one of you nice comebacks." She winked and Usagi's frown turned into a bright smile.
"Thanks Naru! You always know exactly what to say!"
Ami saw red eyes in the shadow of an alley way they had just passed. Ami would have said something but didn't want to involve innocents so she doubled back and went closer to the mysterious being. Luna jumped out with a fright. "There's some wacko chasing around Rhett Butler!"
Ami opened her mouth in surprise. Luna hadn't been as crazy as she was now when they had first formally met. But over the weeks, Ami suspected if the cat had any right saying anything to Usagi about where her head was as the cat often 'forgot' that she had to run to central to take care of something. Now the cat swore some crazy man was chasing around a 'Gone with the Wind" character?
"Are you all right Luna? He's long dead, that movie is kind of old."
Luna rolled her eyes. "Honestly, are you as daft as Usagi? This Rhett is a big fat tom-cat who wouldn't leave me alone, now this guy is chasing him, saying something about crystals."
"Crystals?" Ami wondered. "You haven't mentioned anything to us about crystals."
"I suppose its because I didn't want to side-track you, I wanted you to find the other senshi first, then the crystals then the princess. These crystals will form together her crystal and we'll find her then."
"We should probably have been looking for all of these things simultaneously so we wouldn't miss anything." Ami scolded the 'wise' cat. She peered around the rusty colored brick wall to see if she could find this man and cat but with no luck.
"They went down into the sewer system." Luna sighed dejectedly. "Where's Usagi?"
"With Naru and Umino, but I can just call her and she'll think of an excuse to break away. If they aren't wondering where I've gotten to already." Ami added with a grin.
"Just help that darned cat, he saved me from some mean ones." Luna went running in the direction of the sewer, and Ami followed reluctantly, she liked water, but not sewer water.
She was heading down the ladder when she received a phone call. She fumbled in her pocket for the communicator. "Hai? Usagi! We're in a sewer, I think Luna thinks its another attack, but I haven't transformed yet. Will you meet me? Hai, ok, see you then."
Ami pushed the communicator into the bump at the back of her pants, but misjudged the seams and instead it fell to the ground with a 'splush' noise. Ami squeezed her eyes tightly shut, wishing and hoping someone would tell her that just did not happen.
But it had and Ami goes the rest of the way down the ladder, testing out the ground with one foot, and finding a dry, somewhat clean spot, she dropped down to both feet. She pulled out a flashlight and looked around the ground, Luna hopped onto Ami's shoulder and whispered into her ear. "There." Ami had just spotted it as well and gave the cat a 'thanks' look. She shoved her hand into the brown murky liquid and when she pulled it out, her communicator was dripping off a sheet of water. She shook it, hoping it'd still work when this was over, if not she'd have to fix it with what ever she could scavenge. "Hurry up!" Luna growled. "Or we'll loose them!"
Ami rolled her eyes and shoved the small blue device into her pocket, knowing this time that it was the right one as it didn't fall to the ground again. She cautiously made her way over to where she heard a man yelling for a cat to stop, stay and wait!
Luna was already five steps ahead of Ami, as she bounced from one semi-clean spot to the next. Ami attempted to quicken her speed. When she rounded the corner she was face to face with a dirty-blond almost brown haired man who froze at the sight of another human being. "Unhand that poor cat!" Ami yelled at him, not taking in the fact the cat seemed to be prancing around the man's feet now as if he owned the human.
"Um?" The man raised his hands. "No cat being held."
"What are you after?" Ami demanded.
"The crystal the cat has!" He replied evenly. "He stole it from me."
Around the cat's neck, when Ami sent the flashlight's light upon it, glittered a small yellow crystal. "Oh." Ami stated. "That's it? You weren't going to hurt him?"
"No." The man shook his head. "I've been searching for seven of them, and this cat stole one of the ones I found."
"Then by all means." Ami waved, wondering why Luna dragged her down here.
"Thank you, you have no idea, I've been chasing this cat all over town all day." The man bent down and slipped the necklace off of the cat. As soon as it was in the man's hand, the beast started to grow rapidly.
The man quickly dropped him and ran over to Ami's side. "What is it?" He asked her worriedly.
"I don't know." Ami replied as she watched the cat grow and change forms, Luna had stopped in her tracks and stared as well. Ami hastily pushed the communicator button and aimed it at the beast as Usagi's answered.
The moon senshi nodded and Ami could hear duel footsteps racing down the pipe. Sailor Moon quickly rounded the corner, but slid in the gook. "Ew." She groaned then looked up at the cat creature, quickly pulling her tiara off and aimed it at the monster before it could finish.
"No!" Luna pounced onto Moon's hand. "No." She repeated resolutely. "I have something else for you." Luna did a nifty back flip again and there floated a wand with a crescent moon shape on it.
Moon looked at it dubiously. "Will this require more issues on my behalf?"
"No, it's your until the moon princess shows up." Luna whispered, well aware that they had prying eyes.
Moon took the object and asked "What do I say?"
"Honestly, do you not know anything without being told?" Luna sighed. "You say Moon healing exclamation."
Moon repeated the words surprise filled her as the metal heated up and the energy flowed from her through the wand to the creature, the cat was returned back to the original form and Moon frowned. "Was he always so big or did I not do enough?"
Luna laughed. "He was always so big." The cat agreed.
Sailor Moon saluted the other two humans and without the man's notice, she gave Ami a thumbs up for her excellent choice of companion before she disappeared into the tunnel, the opposite way from which she came, giving the appearance of coming from anywhere and going everywhere.
Ami and the man made their way back up to the street, talking as they did. "Are you all right?"
"Yeah, but do the youmas usually change like that?" He asked amazed.
"I don't know, I've never seen a cat change into a creature like that." Ami wasn't lying and the man gestured to the ladder to allow Ami to go first. She slipped and he caught her, allowing her better traction with her slightly wet soled boots. She thanked him and together they got onto the street.
"What were you doing down here anyways?" He asked as they climbed.
"I saw you slip in and curiosity got the better of me. I wanted to know why you were chasing the poor cat. As you can tell I have a pension for them." Ami gestured ahead as Luna and Rhett flirted.
"Ah. I see the cat lover has the same pitfalls as a cat does, don't you know that's what killed the proverbial cat?" He held out his hand. "I'm Ite Zoi." He greeted.
"Mizouno Ami." She replied with a smile, taking his hand and bowing as well. "Are you new to town?"
"Is it obvious?" He asked with a hand slipping through his ruffled long hair.
"Only just." She agreed. "The accent is slight."
"Ah, well, my brothers and I just moved here." He explained and caught her attention as she glanced at her watch, a clear symbol of needing to go. "Could I get your number or could you show me around sometime?"
Ami agreed. "A person always needs a friendly face, especially when they're new." They exchanged numbers and Ami bowed. "Best be off."
"I will see you around Mizouno-san." He bowed back and Ami took off in the opposite direction.
"I thought you didn't like boys." Luna teased as she bounded to keep up with the odd haired senshi.
"What happened to your boyfriend? Did you get into another fight already?" Ami countered as the two of them walked down another street.
"Rhett's a nice cat and all, but I'd rather work alone."
Ami scoffed. "I see you doing so well with that, trying to put together a group of senshi."
"I like it more than you know." She wasn't ready to give up her escapades just quite yet, or to disclose so much to Ami, Usagi already had suspicions.
"I wonder if everyone would say that."
"Usagi doesn't, I swear she's getting dumber."
"I think there's more to it than what's on the surface."
"Is Odango atama rubbing off on you? Or is talking to yourself a normal teenage-girl thing to do?"
With a warning claw on her shoulder, Ami turned to the man that was teasing her friend earlier. "I'm sorry, we haven't been properly introduced." Ami greeted and told him her name.
"I am Chiba Mamoru." He replied. "If your a friend of that Odango brain, we'll probably see each other around." Ami agreed. "Speaking of which, didn't I just see you and her posse go by?"
"I had something to do, so I split off." Ami frowned. "Last I saw you, you were taking off in a hurry. And in a different direction."
"Well, I had something to do and now I've taken care of it." Mamoru responded. "I'll see you around."
He waved as he walked down the street. Ami wondered what his true personality was, she'd have to watch him closely to find out, as he was a lot nicer to her than she had been to Usagi, yet because of her association with her, she'd gotten a little bit of the undertone of annoyance as well. Yes, Ami was going to have to watch that strange man. If only to stop him from harassing her poor friend who was only ever nice to people.