I don't own Sailor Moon.
I'm working on trying to make some corrections to my earlier chapters as of this upload, though it may take a while. All I will say for now is that the pacing may be slow, but this is a Sailor Moon fic, rest assured.
Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon: Inheritance
Chapter 3 – Not a Clue?
"This is bullshit."
Inaya walked away from the bus stop at an hour far too early in the morning on a Friday for a girl her age to be up, but she couldn't have been able to go back to sleep if she tried.
She'd been asleep for fourteen hours and was currently wired as fuck.
"This is bullshit."
Between her and Ellie, her house was farther from Neri's, which meant she had to dig out her bus pass and try to act as normal as possible on her way to the nearest stop, not too mention the whole ride over, where she had to share the same moving space with two college-aged kids and an old dude who looked both drunk and high. She'd woken up in her own bed, in her own room, in her own house – not the hospital that was practically at the very border of the town itself – so she assumed that her parents weren't as wigged out as Ellie's had been, left a quick note, and took off.
"This is bullshit."
She'd worry about the consequences later.
She wanted some fucking answers, even if it meant diving nose-first into some crazy, astronomiwhatsit-occult shit. If she was cursed, she wanted to know what she'd been cursed with.
"This is bullshit," Inaya had not stopped reciting her anti-insanity mantra since she'd gotten off the phone, needing to affirm that she was awake and that this wasn't some cave-gas-induced hallucination. She even pinched herself every so often to double-check. "This is bullshit and so help me if this is a prank, I will punt somebody-"
Neri's house came into view along a pleasant, unassuming row of normal-looking houses; her neighborhood was pretty friendly, if packed a little close together, but Neri's family didn't seem to mind. Well, except for her sister, but everything bothered Neri's sister.
The sun had just barely poked its head out above the horizon when Inaya made her way up the driveway, side-stepping the Dillon Family Workvan (owned by one Mr. Ethan Dillon), and beelined for the door, converting her mantra into a mental one as she readied the excuse she'd made during the ride here.
Science project, science project, oh dear God, this is bullshit, biting her lip a bit too hard, Inaya nonetheless rang the doorbell, trying to look as casual as possible.
For a couple seconds, she was pretty sure she'd have to ring it a couple more times until someone woke up, but then she heard very audible scampering from the other side of the door, giving her all the warning she could before said door opened and revealed a very frazzled Neri.
"Oh thank God it's you," Inaya breathed with relief, knowing full well that she'd choke if it'd been either Dillon parents, "Ner, what-"
"Nerina? Is that your other friend?"
Crap, it took a lot of control not to say that out loud, but Neri gently grabbing her arm and tugging her inside helped to both distract and ground Inaya, "Ah, h-hello Mrs. Dillon."
The middle-aged woman stood at the end of the foyer, behind Neri, wearing a drab-looking housecoat and a concerned expression all overprotective parents wore when their youngest child was having friends over. Nevermind that she knew them since Grade School...
"Good morning, Inaya," Mrs. Millicent 'Millie' Dillon was polite to everybody, always smiled and greeted her guests in a friendly manner, but you could tell by her eyes what she was really feeling at all times, something that Inaya had noticed by her second visit, "my, it's really early for you two to be over..."
Two. That meant- "Oh, uh, so I guess Ellie beat me here?"
"By five minutes," Mrs. Dillon walked closer as Neri shut the door, "what exactly did you all do yesterday?"
Resisting the urge to look over at Neri, Inaya grasped for her rehearsed excuse minus the mantra, "Science project."
"We... we just wanted to be sure it was perfect," Neri turned to face her mother, big blue eyes looking as innocent as ever, practically her default look, "the due date is...uh...well I think it's today."
Smooth, Ner, Inaya tried not to roll her eyes and went to bail her friend out, "Friday is always D-Day at school, at least when it comes to deadlines."
Mrs. Dillon didn't look totally sold on this, but she didn't trounce on it either, "Still... this early? You're lucky your father is a heavy sleeper, Nerina. He'd have questions."
Like you don't? Inaya now chanced a look at Neri and saw the shorter girl blush before reaching up to tug at Inaya's arm again.
"I know, Mom... I-"
"I guess it's alright, I'm just curious is all," Mrs. Dillon tried to keep her 'Courteous Hostess' act going as she succumbed to a yarn, "Neri was asleep in her room when her father got home. She didn't even come to dinner. We thought she was sick."
So they hadn't questioned when she got home...
"I told you Mom, I... I missed the bus," Neri tugged harder, which Inaya took to mean that she was close to blowing their cover; Neri couldn't lie for a million dollars, hence her using the excuses Ellie made for her on the phone, "and... and I forgot my phone, so I... I had to walk all the way home."
"Gosh, Ner, you should've asked me for a ride," Inaya, meanwhile, had no problem with coming up with a fib on the spot. A tried and true art form that she'd been trying to pass on to her bestie. "My Mom and I would've taken you."
Lie Neri could not, but she could take a hint, "Oh! W-well, I... I didn't want to inconvenience you-"
"Ner, seriously, what are friends for?"
"R-right. … Sorry."
The act seemed to pacify the overprotective adult looming over them, though Mrs. Dillon still looked ready to give a stern lecture. Chances were it'd be a repeat of an earlier one that Ellie had likely heard in full.
Well, Inaya was still too wired to really give a crap.
"Welp, let's go check on that project, Ner," taking Neri by the hand, Inaya made her way past Mrs. Dillon and pulled Neri with her down the foyer, "Miss Evans isn't gonna give an extension this time."
Neri didn't protest and both managed to get past her mother, getting only a polite, "You're free to have some breakfast, if you like."
Neri's Mom couldn't cook for crap, but Inaya never said anything; she just declined every offer given.
Across from the door was what looked to be a large indoor porch with screened windows; it'd been a remnant of the early years, when Neri and her sister were little and their mother didn't want them to play outside, because of course she didn't. To the right-hand side of this porch, a doorway that led to the parents' room further indicated the insane level of vigilance the family matriarch had for her kids when they were trying to relax.
To the left was the kitchen and dining room, mostly done in shades of gold and cream, looking as homely as a kitchen could look in terms of color. The table was a small one, but there was enough room to make it bigger if necessary (and Mrs. Dillon believed in inviting friends and family over for holidays and special occasions).
Breakfast, of some sort, was indeed on the table. It looked edible. Sorta.
Please tell me that's oatmeal, Inaya decided that she wasn't hungry and instead pulled Neri along through the dining area and into the living room, out of maternal earshot, "I didn't think she'd be this calm, to be honest."
"She was up shortly after I was; she... she hadn't been able to sleep good last night," Neri sounded very guilty, "she kept checking up on me..."
"That's not your fault," Inaya took a turn and walked down the hall to where Neri's room was located.
"Still..."
Neri's room was right next to her older sisters', both of which were next to the bathroom; their parents had the luxury of having their own bathroom area attached to their room. Inaya always thought it was more than a bit pretentious, but to complain about it was to cause trouble for Neri and she didn't want that. At least her sister wasn't up...
The door to Neri's room wasn't shut, so Inaya could see where Ellie was pacing back and forth on the blue carpet, staring down at her cell phone with as though it were withholding answers.
Inaya let go of Neri's wrist to let her take the lead, Inaya's other hand had already made its way into her jacket pocket, fingers wrapping tightly around her own cell phone.
"Ellie?" Neri nudged her door open a bit more, so that both she and Inaya could slip in, "Inaya's here."
Looking up at her, Ellie's expression betrayed confusion and panic, even though her voice was steady when she spoke, "Did Mrs. D ask you any questions?"
"Well, duh," Inaya moved over to Neri's bed while aforementioned brunette shut her bedroom door.
Neri's room made a person feel as though they were underwater; light blue walls, pale blue ceiling, darker blue curtains drawn over the window, combining with dawn's light filtering through to give the whole room a watery hue. Her bed and dresser were the only things not colored or accented in blues; her comforter and pillowcase pure pink while her dresser (located right next to said bed) was simply made of wood.
She had to be the only girl that Inaya and Ellie both knew who still had a closet that wasn't built into the wall, and its cream-colored paint job allowed it to get lost in the underwater look whenever Neri drew her curtains. Which was almost always.
Neri didn't have a nightstand: she had a blue-hued vanity across from the foot of her bed, by the door. It had been her mother's idea of a birthday present. It didn't hold makeup or jewelry; it held a lamp, a couple knickknacks, and books.
Lots and lots and lots of books.
There were books in the drawers, for crying out loud.
"What did you tell her?" Ellie continued to press.
"Science project."
"...Yeah, that'll work."
Inaya raised an eyebrow, "Why? What did you tell her?"
"Neri did most of the talking for me," Ellie offered them both a smirk, "didn't keep her from asking questions, though."
"What else is new?" Inaya plopped down on Neri's bed, basking in the normalcy that was whining about Neri's Mom, "if the Pope came to visit, she'd ask questions-"
From the door, Neri cleared her throat... or attempted to. It sounded more like a stuttering cough.
"I... I know what the symbols mean."
Inaya sat up like a jack-in-the-box, eyes hardening, "About that..."
"Cool it, Innie."
"Ellie, don't tell me to cool it when occult crap is involved."
"It's not occult, it's astrology," Neri didn't shout, but she did stomp her foot, which made hardly any noise against the carpet, "I can prove it."
She went for the vanity and clicked on the lamp, banishing the underwater aura with artificial lightning. The book she sought out was already lying on the top, which made Inaya wonder if Neri had already shown Ellie, but she waited impatiently for Neri to open and flip through the semi-thick tome until she found what she was looking for.
"Here," she said, turning the book around under the light and showing it to her friends, "look."
Inaya took a step away from the bed for a better look; there was a picture of the Moon, big and bright and silvery-white against a pitch black background. Text covered one side while a set of smaller pictures were arranged along the other. The symbol that Neri was pointing to on that side looked like a crescent, rounded point facing down, both points facing up.
The same symbol from the top of the creepy cave circle.
"...That's..." Inaya didn't really know what to say, her lips moving a bit without forming sounds, so she looked over to Ellie for an opinion...and her jaw dropped instead, "wha… ?"
Ellie was holding up her cell phone backwards, showcasing the new magenta coloring and the silver crescent symbol emblazoned upon it, "Look familiar?"
Grasping for her jacket pocket again, Inaya nearly dropped her own phone as she pulled it out: the front was totally normal, same as it always was, but the casing had turned a fiery scarlet red and, on the back, had a symbol in shiny silver.
A circle with an arrow sticking out of the side, the point facing northeast.
"Holy shit," she nearly dropped her phone again as she looked from hers to Ellie's: the colors and symbols were different, but Inaya knew, she fucking knew, that they were connected. "what... Holy shit..."
"The... the symbol on Ellie's phone, on the back that is, is the symbol for the Earth's Moon in both astrology and astronomy," Neri explained, before turning the book so that she could flip through the pages again, "in alchemy, too, though not many people practice that anymore-"
"Alchemy? Wait. Like that stuff in Full Metal Alchemist?" Inaya's mind switched right back to occult rituals and voodoo dolls, "that's crazy cloning magic, right?"
"Innie," Ellie tried to keep her friend on the right track.
"Ah, no, not really," Neri found the page she was looking for, "regular alchemy was turning one substance into another, like metal, and each planet was associated with a metal. The Moon was silver..." She turned the book around to show its contents once again. "... and Mars was iron."
Inaya stared.
At the page. At the picture of the big red planet. At the same fucking symbol on the back of her phone.
No way, Inaya looked from her phone to the book to her phone again, no way no way no way no way, this is bullshit-
"Mercury is... is kind of a funny case," Neri's once again went flipping through the book: backwards this time, "see, there's a substance called mercury already, the stuff that you find in thermometers. Back then though, it, um, was called 'quicksilver', so that way no one would get confused." She turned the book to her friends again.
A small, meteor-studded planet presented itself on the page, surrounded by text and a symbol of similarity to the one on Inaya's phone: a circle, atop a plus sign, with what she thought looked like antennas forming a V-shape on top.
Circles and lines seemed to be the general theme with these markings.
…wait a minute.
Just as the gears began to finally start working in Inaya's head, she saw Neri slowly put the book down on her bed and reached into her pocket. Due to her father's habit of penny-pinching, Neri was always behind in terms of the latest technological trends, phones included. Her LG Leon LTE was clunky compared to the rest of her class, but she'd had it long enough to have become attached to it; Inaya wasn't sure if she wanted to switch to a newer model.
But the protective case she usually kept on it had changed: a cool, clear sky blue with an oh-so-familiar symbol printed in silver on the back, which she showed them with a meek expression on her face.
"I... I thought it was relevant... somehow," Neri offered, looking up at her friends, "the markings in the cave... some of them I recognized. From this book."
Inaya stared at Neri's phone. Then Ellie's. Then her own.
"And then, well... my phone had changed and I didn't know why or how... and Ellie believed I had the answers-"
"This is a good start, Neri," Ellie interrupted her shorter friend's rambling, tightening her grip on her phone, "I don't know what it means, but-"
"A good start?" Inaya looked up, eyes hardening, "a good start?" Her grip also tightened on her phone, threatening to crack it as her knuckles went white. "How the fuck is this a good start, Ellie?"
Neri flinched at Inaya's hardening tone, clutching her phone to her chest while Ellie held out her phone.
"It's better than nothing at all, Inaya. At least it's something," Ellie argued, "a lead, a clue, a place to start looking-"
"Where? Outer space? What, you're saying we were abducted by aliens now?" her voice rising in volume, Inaya shoved her phone in Ellie's face, "this doesn't tell us shit! If that's the only clue we've got to being magically teleported from halfway across town while in a coma, then I'd actually be happier if it were the Full Metal explanation!"
Neri had inched her way backwards at the outburst, recognizing Inaya's fiery temper igniting, with her confusion being the fuel.
"Our phones were normal before and now they're not," Ellie held up her free hand in a soothing manner, eyes meeting Inaya's, "besides that and sleeping for longer than normal, nothing seems out of place. We still have all our parts, those parts still work-"
"We could have radiation poisoning for all we know!"
"I... I don't think so..." Neri tried to interject, "we'd... we'd be throwing up by now if... if that were the case..."
"That's not the point, Ner," Inaya ground out, running her free hand through her dark hair, "we have no clue what happened yesterday and both you and Ellie think outer space is the key to unlocking the hours we lost. It could mean fucking anything!"
Neri bit her lip while Ellie took a step closer to Inaya, resting her hand on her shoulder, forcing the other girl to look her in the eye.
"I know you're freaking out; I am too. So is Neri," Ellie's eyes and voice were both gentle; Inaya wanted to be angry at her, she really did, but... "but anything is better than nothing at all. Any clue we can find is good enough-"
"Wait."
Ellie's mouth froze open as she and Inaya turned in tandem to see Neri, eyes wide, pointing at Ellie's altered phone. For a split second, Ellie thought that it was ready to self-destruct and took a step back.
"Ellie, you... you recorded us entering the cave," Neri's words stopped Ellie from flinging her phone in any random direction, "you recorded the circle. Maybe... maybe you recorded a clue."
Inaya gasped at the memory of Ellie activating her cell phone's recording feature mere minutes before they entered the crumpled-up cavern. Sure, she hadn't really been paying much attention – having expected some unseen disaster to leap out at any second – but she knew she'd seen Ellie hit 'Record' before all this crazy shit began.
"I... totally forgot about it..." Ellie slowly looked down to her phone, eyes wide.
"Holy shit," now it was Inaya's turn to point at the phone in question, "that's it. That's the answer! Ellie-"
But Ellie had already taken her Samsung in both hands, using her thumbs to access the menu that led to the Photo Album. Inaya's heart pounded in her ears as she moved beside Ellie while Neri moved closer to flank the other side. Three pairs of eyes were glued to the phone as Ellie opened the folder she was looking for and-
"..."
"... Ellie... where's the video?"
Opening her mouth, then closing it, all the color seemed to be draining from Ellie's face as she checked the folder again, then the Album, then double-checked in a flurry of thumbs. Neri's eyes were widening again, looking almost comical as they reached their size limit... except Inaya didn't feel like laughing.
"Ellie... where the fuck is the video?"
"I..." Ellie swallowed, trying to moisten her now dry mouth, going back into the Video Folder again to find a big fat zero, "... I know that... that I hit record-"
"I saw you do it, Ellie, so where is it?"
"This... no way... not possible..." Inaya had never heard Ellie's voice crack before; she'd always been the strong one, the calm one, the one level-headed enough to rein her in and get Neri to relax, get them both out of their shells. To hear her sound completely lost... "it should be here. Innie, Neri, it should be here. I forgot all about it, I didn't delete it."
Neri looked like a scared rabbit, clutching her own mutated phone to her chest as Ellie let her arms drop, confusion and the first signs of panic crossing her face. Inaya felt herself going pale too; that had been their one chance to understand what had gone on yesterday, where their lost hours had gone, how they got from the town border to their bedrooms. No one else seemed to think anything other than a stomachache or a heavy study session happened, no one was questioning where they'd been or how they got home under everyone's noses.
Even Mrs. Dillon, the Paranoia Queen of Pinion Bay, had been easily pacified.
Nothing made sense to Inaya anymore and she hated it.
"... This is bullshit."
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This chapter was hard to spit out; it went in a totally different direction the first time around, and then I realized that it didn't sound too good, hence the change. Next chapter is the turning point of the story, now that the mystery has been set up. Get ready!