THEN AND NOW
Chapter 2: "The Would-Be Sailor Moon"
A Neo-Sailor Moon fanfic
By Bill K.
Three years earlier: The woman was in her middle twenties, ordinary, unremarkable, undistinguished from the other citizens of Crystal Tokyo. She had been walking the Promenade with her two children, a boy of five and a girl of three. It had been an ordinary day. Nothing unusual. They had been browsing a shop that sold antiques and curios, the children impatient in their boredom with Japanese history. There was no warning of any kind of trouble.
Then she unexpectedly grabbed a pair of jade kanzashi ornaments and put the sharp ends to her throat, the points pressing into her flesh. Everybody gasped. People screamed. The owner of the shop that sold them made a grab for her arm, but the woman skittered back. Everyone froze when she threatened to plunge the kanzashi rods into her throat. The anxiety of the room rose. Her children sensed this and began crying.
And the woman smiled.
Unknown to her, Makoto Kino and Minako Aino had been in the shop. Minako had dragged Makoto along on one of her frequent shopping trips, mostly for company, and had been browsing. Two henshin sticks appeared and two legendary Crystal Tokyo figures were suddenly in the mix. Sailor Jupiter gathered in the two crying children while Sailor Venus bracketed the woman. But she gestured with the kanzashi and neither senshi came a step further.
"Shh, it's all right," Jupiter whispered to the children, trying to calm them. "Nobody's going to let your mom get hurt."
"No, let them scream!" the woman bellowed defiantly. "They should scream! They're about to witness their mother DIE!"
"Hey, no need to get dramatic!" Venus offered, trying to project a non-threatening front while still angling close enough to try to disarm her. "Nobody needs to get hurt here!"
"Wrong!" the woman smiled. "There has to be death! Death and chaos! Anguish and fear radiating out from everyone!"
"Mama!" screamed the boy.
"You see?" she giggled. "Can't you taste it? Can't you smell his fear? Can't you just feel everyone's fear? Because when I die, EVERYONE WILL BE NEXT!"
Jupiter glanced at Venus. She didn't have a shot at disarming or incapacitating the woman without risking her plunging the kanzashi into her throat. She hoped Venus did. But a thousand years experience fighting side by side gave Venus and Jupiter an intuition into the other one. And Jupiter knew that Venus didn't have a shot either.
"You don't have a chance to disarm me," the woman warned. "I have the points of these kanzashi pointed directly at the aorta and the ventricular artery. One thrust and I can paint this whole area red!"
"OK, OK," Jupiter said, holding up her hand to steady her. "Just tell us what you want. There's no need for all of this."
"What do I want?" the woman asked. Then she laughed. Venus saw a moment to move, but before she could focus her Crescent Beam on the kanzashi, the woman sobered and pressed harder with the points of the ornaments. Venus froze, her chance gone.
"Mama, please!" shrieked the boy as his sister cried. "Whatever I did, I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"
"Outside! Everybody!" she demanded. Then she smiled wickedly. "I have some redecorating to do."
And she began herding everyone outside. Jupiter hung on to the two children, both of them fighting not to be separated from their mother. Venus backed away, herding what few patrons had remained. There seemed to be nothing they could do to avert a tragedy.
A sound from behind her caused the woman to whirl around. Venus was about to launch her Love Me Chain and snare the woman's arms. But the cause of the sound made her hesitate for a moment.
"Small Lady?" Jupiter gasped in shock. For charging the woman was the Princess Usagi in a fuku she hadn't worn in nearly four years.
"Pink Sugar Heart Attack!" the fifteen year old Princess shouted, holding up her Pink Sugar Heart Wand. Low voltage electrical bursts emanated from the wand and struck the woman's right hand, causing her to drop the kanzashi before she could plunge it into her aorta.
The Princess took aim at the other hand.
But her adversary was faster. Snatching one of the twin tails of pink hair that dangled from the head of the Princess, she jerked the girl to her and snapped her free arm across the Princess's throat. The kanzashi still in her possession came up to Sailor Moon's throat and pressed dangerously into the soft flesh.
"No! Please!" shouted someone in the crowd that had gathered in the Promenade. "Not The Princess!"
"Oh, this is even better!" cackled the woman madly. "So you were going to play hero, little princess? You were going to save the day just like your mommy always did? Well you can still be of assistance. You can die a bloody death and make all of these people terribly unhappy!"
"You harm her," rumbled Jupiter, "and you won't live to see another day."
"It's not much of a threat," the woman grinned, "considering I was just about to kill her myself."
All the while, Sailor Moon struggled in the insanely strong grip of a woman who was really no bigger than she was. Venus noted that the Princess seemed more mortified at having failed and been taken hostage than at facing the imminent end of her life. And Venus had noted something else.
"Kill 'her'?" Venus wondered out loud. "Just what are you?"
The woman's insane leer changed in an instant into a scowl. She glared at Venus and Venus surmised she'd made a connection she wasn't supposed to make.
"You're a little too inquisitive," the woman growled. Jupiter's lightning rod extended from her tiara as the woman spoke. "I think your princess is about to pay for that."
Suddenly the woman's head whipped back. Her body fell backwards, dragging the Princess backward into the doorway of the shop. The kanzashi clattered to the floor. Venus lurched forward while Jupiter held onto the woman's children. In that second, the fifteen year old Princess pulled free and scrambled to her knees, whirling around in case the woman made another attempt on her. But Venus and the Princess could both see she wouldn't.
A red rose was sticking out of her forehead.
Jupiter turned in time to see King Endymion brush past her. He went directly up to the Princess, seized her by her upper arms and pulled her effortlessly to her feet.
"Are you all right?" the King asked, his voice smothered with parental concern. His daughter's expression was one of immense gratitude. But within moments it had sobered.
"Yeah," she choked out, then dropped her gaze in mortification. "Sorry I let her get the drop on me."
"We'll talk about it later," Endymion replied. "Sailor Venus, when CDP get here, tell them to place this woman in medical quarantine and to have a full psychological diagnostic run on her. And let Ami know. I want her to consult on this."
"Roger and out," Venus sighed as she engaged her communicator.
As Venus supervised clean up of the situation and Jupiter continued to try to ease the fears of the two children, King Endymion escorted the would-be Sailor Moon away from the situation.
The air car bearing the wounded Sailor Ceres and her Asteroid teammates had no sooner landed on the aeropad atop the Palace of Crystal Tokyo then an anti-gravity litter accompanied by palace medical personnel approached. Working quickly, Sailor Pallas telekinetically lifted Ceres onto the litter while Sailor Saturn kept constant contact to keep Ceres alive with her healing aura. Immediately Ami Mizuno engaged the litter's holographic vital signs array, as well as its portable ultrasound and magnetic imaging sensors.
"Prepare Operating Room One for immediate surgery!" Ami barked. "Have a cardiac array prepped and summon Dr. Takashima! He's going to assist me!"
The medical personnel obeyed instantly and swept the litter off the aeropad and into the palace itself. Pallas and Vesta went running after them. Juno moved to follow, but stopped and looked at Saturn. Saturn was braced against the hull of the air car.
"Hey, you don't look so good," Juno remarked.
"Just tired," Saturn exhaled. She held her hand to her head and continued to use the air car for support. Ducking under Saturn's extended arm, Juno came up and braced her shoulder against Saturn while bringing her left arm against Saturn's lower back and waist.
"Come on," Juno told her gently. "Let's find you someplace quiet where you can catch your breath."
"I," Saturn began to argue. But the slight senshi couldn't muster the energy. "All right. Thank you."
"No," Juno countered, her voice choking with emotion, "thank you for what you did for Ceres."
As the litter neared the operating theater in the palace infirmary, Ami glanced up from her patient to see Minako and Makoto hurrying toward her. The two parties met half way.
"What can we do?" Makoto asked.
"Keep Serenity away," Ami replied as they hurried toward the operating theater. "The moment she hears of this, she'll want to heal Ceres and it's too potentially dangerous for her."
"We're on it," Minako nodded.
"So how bad is it?" Makoto asked.
Ami didn't answer. She and her team pushed into the infirmary. Minako and Makoto stopped at the entrance.
"Must be bad," Makoto whispered. At once Vesta and Pallas whisked past them and into the infirmary. "Got any idea where Serenity is?"
"I think she's with Endymion - - in his office," Minako replied. "She and Endymion were in conference with the Chinese ministers."
The two elders headed off, Makoto casting a last worried glance back at the entrance to the infirmary.
Three years ago.
"Well, she was probably in the area and she wanted to help," Queen Serenity offered up. She and Endymion were leisurely walking down a corridor of the palace to their daughter's room. "It's very noble of her to want to help people in distress. We should be proud to have a daughter with that much concern for others."
"I'm not questioning her motive to want to help others," Endymion explained. "But you can't just rush in blindly and expect your good intentions to protect you from harm."
"I did it," Serenity shrugged.
"And how many times did I have to save you?" Endymion asked. Serenity stuck her tongue out at him.
Arriving at the door to their daughter's room, the Royal Couple waited for the environmental control computer to acknowledge their presence and notify the room's occupant. The familiar electronic chirp told them the process had initiated.
"She's not hooooooooommmmmeee," replied the computer's voice simulation. "Leave a message if you wanna."
Endymion sighed. "She's been reprogramming the environmental computer again." His wife giggled. "What?"
"Oh, just enjoying your frustration," Serenity chuckled. "It's reassuring to know I'm not the only one she chooses to aggravate."
"Computer, location of Princess Usagi," Endymion said.
"She's in the Palace gymnasium, if you must know," the computer sighed, sounding more like a teenager than a machine. Serenity and Endymion looked at each other, puzzled.
The Royal Couple entered the gymnasium just in time to see their beloved daughter spin three-quarters of a turn in the air and land loudly on a mat on her back, courtesy of Makoto. The Princess lay on the mat for a moment as Serenity's hands flew to her mouth.
"Ow," she groaned, one eye closed and her teeth clenched.
"I told you, Hon'," Makoto advised her, "you have to roll with it. And don't clench your body anticipating the impact. Loose and limber dissipates the force of the impact, then you roll to a crouch anticipating further attack." Noticing the King and Queen were in the room, Makoto straightened up quickly. "Oh, uh, hi!"
"Honey, what are you doing?" gasped Serenity. She flew to her daughter's side and protectively wrapped her arms around the girl.
"Learning to defend myself!" the Princess replied, trying in vain to wriggle out of her mother's over-protective bear hug.
"Why in the name of the gods would you want to do that?" Serenity argued.
"Because if I'm going to be Sailor Moon, I can't be a liability in a confrontation!" her daughter shot back. "Obviously Pink Sugar Heart Attack isn't going to cut it. And I can't depend on Pop saving me every time I get into trouble."
"You could always stay here where it's safe," muttered Serenity. "And who said you were going to be Sailor Moon anyway?"
"Gods, Mom, why don't you just have me encased in polymer!" fumed the girl.
"Actually," Endymion interceded, "it's not a bad idea for her to learn some self-defense moves - - whether she ultimately decides to become Sailor Moon or not. That little incident in the Promenade should be an indication that the unexpected can still happen, even in Crystal Tokyo and even in this day and age."
"Yeah, Hon', it's a handy thing to know," Makoto added. "Remember when I tried to teach you?"
"Remember? I still have the bruises!" pouted the Queen. Makoto grinned. "Small Lady, Sailor Moon isn't a destiny you have to fulfill. You have enough destiny to prepare for being the future ruler of this country."
"But I WANT to do it! The world needs Sailor Moon!" the teen countered. "And from now on, please don't call me by that name. Small Lady is a child's name. I want to be called 'Usa'."
"'Usa'?" frowned Serenity. "You're kidding?"
"There's nothing wrong with it!" protested Usa. "It's more mature and at the same time more friendly and approachable. 'Princess' puts people at a distance. I don't want people to have the fact that I'm royalty rubbed in their faces."
"But it sounds like somebody grunting," Serenity fussed.
"Honestly, do I have any control over ANY aspect of my own life at all?" howled the teen.
"ALL RIGHT, ALL RIGHT!" Serenity exclaimed, throwing up her hands in surrender. "Be 'Usa' if it's that important to you! Honestly, next she'll be wanting to dress up in pressure pants and pilot a crystal freighter!"
As Serenity stalked out of the gym, Endymion eased up to his daughter. She glanced up at him with strained tolerance.
"As I said, I think this is a very good idea," he told her in a calm, rational voice. "Study hard, do everything Makoto tells you and learn as much as you can."
"Thanks, Pop," Usa nodded.
"And UNTIL you've learned how to defend yourself," Endymion added, "I don't want you going out as Sailor Moon again."
With the finality of someone expecting to be obeyed, Endymion headed for the door, leaving his fifteen year old daughter to burn with frustration.
In the infirmary, Minako approached Ami and Rei. They were both observing the young mother who had threatened both herself and Usa in the antique shop on the Promenade. Ami was concentrating on the holographic readouts from the patient. Rei was concentrating on the woman herself. Minako glanced at the woman as she neared her friends. The woman was unconscious and held to the sensory bunk by a magnetic stasis field.
"So?" Minako asked Rei directly.
"You were right to call me," Rei replied. "The trace signs are unmistakable. This woman was possessed by a demonic spirit."
"I concur," Ami added. "There is no scientific indication of any physical trauma or abnormality which would account for her behavior. And preliminary psychological tests show no indication toward any mental illness. With organic factors ruled out, and no evidence of neurological corruption from cybernetic sources, that only leaves supernatural forces as a possible explanation."
"That's what I was thinking, too. I figured someone or something was controlling her," Minako explained. "During the battle, she let it slip that there was a second party involved. Or rather, whatever was controlling her let it slip. Got any idea what we're up against?"
"There are several possibilities," Rei responded. "It could be she came into contact with an object that had a demonic spirit sealed inside of it and her mind was a receptive enough host to allow the demon to break the seal. There's the possibility that she was being controlled by a Kitsune-Mochi using Kitsunetsuki on her. Or it could be a puppet master demon. Maybe some yurei haunting either her home or the shop. I'll keep digging."
"Good. So will I," Minako nodded. "I doubt anybody wants something like this to happen again."
Continued in Chapter 3