Naru is sure she's going to die. She's going to die from the lack of air, or maybe that monster will break her neck. It'll probably be a broken neck. She never did know how someone was supposed to get help when their neck was broken.
Either way, she's sure she's going to die.
Her gasps for air are painfully desperate, her body jerking wildly until it slows down. Her fingers are still stuck to the goo, but there is no more fight in trying to pull them apart. It hurts so much.
"Maa," Naru wheezes as her eyes roll back, her chest tightening, ready to explode. A bitter part of Naru hopes when her insides explode, it'll ruin the monsters clothes.
"No!" Usagi screams, it's so painfully loud, it hurts Naru's ears so much, it's hurts enough to force Naru to notice the pain even as she begins to lose consciousness. Did Usagi stab her in her eardrums?
Then there is a light, a light so bright. It's brighter than fire, brighter than the stars, brighter than the sun, brighter than starring directly at the sun. It burns Naru's eyes as if she stared at the sun for days on end. It hurts so bad.
But she can breathe.
Naru blinks after a long few moments, and realizes that air isn't a faraway concept anymore. She can breathe, she isn't being choked, and her hands are on the floor. When did she fall to the ground? After a few seconds, her vision returns and the goo monster is no more.
"Usagi-chan?" Naru chokes out, fear clawing at her insides. If the monster is gone, it must have Usagi. Usagi is hurt, and it's because Naru couldn't stay awake!
"Naru-chan!"
Naru turns to find Usagi but it... isn't Usagi. She's too tall, too thin, her hair is too long and the wrong color, she's wearing the wrong outfit. It looks nothing like Usagi. But the girl is crying behind her mask, blue eyes shining in a way that Naru has only seen on Usagi.
Slowly, she's able to see the similarities. The girl has Usagi's eye shape, her fat cheeks, and tears are falling down her face the same way it does when Usagi cries. Her posture is similar, a defensive way of holding herself, the way Usagi does whenever someone is about to criticize her. She has the same bangs, and the hair is a higher up and larger version of her own odangos. It looks like Usagi in so many ways, but is also so different.
"Usa...?" Naru says, and is given her answer when the girl hugs her.
"I was so scared!" Usagi cries into Naru's shoulder, shaking. Her voice is odd, having an slight echo to it, but it has the Usagi Tsukino charm to it. "It was choking you, you were going to die."
"Where'd it go?" Naru whispers, her throat too raw to speak too loudly.
A loud smash gets the girls attentions. The mom-monster is looking on in anger, "What did you do to it?" She growls, slamming her fist against some glass. "What was that flash of light?"
The monster stares down Usagi, who shrinks back closer to Naru, "Um...!"
"Who are you?" She demands, her hair dripping.
Usagi looks at Naru and a determined look flashes across her face. She stands up, stumbling a little but she manages. "I... I..." She looks around, for something, someone to give her the answer. No one does. Usagi takes a deep breath, and shouts, "I am... Sailor Moon!"
A curtain rod slams to the ground, and the full moon shines on Sailor Moon.
"In the name of the moon, I will punish you!"
The monster stares at Sailor Moon, taking her all in. Then she begins to laugh.
"Foolish. I'll have you ripped to pieces." She takes a few steps back, past a small clock that read 11:49, and grabs a large diamond. "Rise, my soldiers. Rise and kill Sailor Moon."
Naru clenches her fists as Sailor Moon tenses. Her body language screams fear, ready to run and cry.
Tick, tick, tick.
The only response the monster get is a low groan from a girl near her. She isn't strong enough to pull herself off the ground.
"Useless!" The monster shouts, and kicks the girl.
"Hey!" Sailor Moon exclaims and takes a step forward. "Leave her alone!"
"Shut up! I guess I'll have to deal with this myself." She sets the diamond back on the table and cracks her right wrist, and pulls it off completely. She squeezes it as if it's clay with her left hand and makes it into a ball.
Sailor Moon covers her mouth, her cheeks tinting green in disgust.
"I'll skin you alive," The monster laughs, and throws the ball of skin into the air. It splits into five pieces and sharpens into mini knives. They spin in the air for a few moments before shooting in Sailor Moon's direction.
Sailor Moon glances back at Naru, who had already begun crawling behind a pillar, before jumping out of the way, in the direction opposite of Naru.
One of the knives smashes into the wall, while the other four turn and begin to follow Sailor Moon.
"GAH!" She screams, and keeps running and ducking. She's much faster than she was before, not having the stress of extra weight on her body, but it's still not enough. One knife slices her arm, and another goes into her leg.
"I can't believe I have a wannabe superhero to entertain me!" The monster laughs as Sailor Moon trips, barely avoiding a knife headed straight towards her neck. "My, oh my! This night has turned out better than I expected!"
The final knife hits Sailor Moon in her shoulder, causing her to scream out in pain and smash into a pillar. She grabs the knife and holds onto the skin around it. Warm blood begins to escape from the new wound, staining her white fuku. The blood spreads as Sailor Moon presses against the wound in an attempt to stop the bleeding.
"Stupid little girl," the monster smiles. She grabs one of the watches out of a broken case with her newly formed hand and stands far enough away from the Sailor Moon where she couldn't throw a punch, but close enough the girl could see the time on the watch. "You see this? It's 11:57. You've lost."
Goo drips wildly from the monsters face, small sharp needles forming as they fall onto the ground. They bounce back up into the air, and make an arc, aimed directly at Sailor Moon.
"Goodbye, Sailor Moon." She smiles, and the needles shoot forward.
"No!" Sailor Moon screeches, pushing herself back against the pillar. "No!" The red jews in her odangos shine and her screams are amplified, and echo throughout the store. The glass in the store cracks and shatters into small pieces.
The monster covers her ears in pain, her body shaking as the supersonic waves went through her. Her needles drop to the floor inches away from Sailor Moon. The monster squeezes her head in pain once the waves have stopped, leaving only the echoing of her ears. She turns to look at Sailor Moon, a murderous look on her face as unhuman blood drips from her ears
"I'll kill you!"
Pain shoots through Sailor Moon, right on her forehead. The tiara on her forehead is so hot, it's burning, it feels like her skin is going to melt. She grabs the tiara from her forehead and throws it forward, far away from her fragile skin.
The tiara shines and changes shape moments before cutting through the monsters stomach, the dark blood splashing on the ground as it exits her body through her back. The tiara took out a good portion of the monsters stomach, leaving a big hole with bright glitter.
"On a human, that would've worked." The monster says, a smirk forming on her face. "If I was a human, I'd fall over because you snapped my spinal cord." Her smirk is fully formed, taking up more than half of her face. "A human can't live through something chopping through their insides. Such important organs gone. But I can."
The glitter begins to glow.
"I can just grow this baaaaaaaaaaa—" blood begins to pour out of the monster's mouth. The blood is bright red, resembling the blood that pooled down Sailor Moon's shoulder. The monster clutches her stomach in pain, and a scream rips from her throat as the glitter brightens. She falls over onto her side, and begins to choke on her blood. Her eyes begin to lose focus, but she manages to glance in the direction of the watch.
11:59.
Her chest stops moving and her skin loses its color. She's dead.
Sailor Moon lets out a sound, unable to comprehend whether or not she should be happy that this monster has died. All she does is look at the women on the floor, and waits for them to begin standing up because she won and they're not going to die.
But no one gets up. No one pulls themselves up and says they're so glad to be alive. No one moves.
Panic begins to bubble, and Sailor Moon looks into the dead monsters eyes. You've lost, they say, before she turns to a pile of bloody dust.
"Naru-chan, no one is waking up!" She screams. Nearby, a woman's skin is drying up hideously fast. She looks like a skeleton with skin pulled tightly around her.
Naru stands up from behind a jewelry case and looks around in horror. It's still 11:59, they still have time. Why aren't they getting up?
Then Naru notices it. The diamond. The one the monster was holding. She manages to run over to the table and grab the diamond. She throws it to the ground with all the force she has.
It smashes into pieces, easily.
Naru laughs breathlessly and leans against the counter. "Not even a real diamond."
A burst of energy fills the room from the broken diamond and begins flying back into the bodies of the women on the ground with speed it makes the girls dizzy.
"Naru-chan, go get your mama!" Sailor Moon steadies herself, and pushes herself up. "I'll get these people awake and out of here!"
Naru stares at Sailor Moon, but all she can see is Usagi Tsukino. Her best friend.
"I... yes." She says slowly. "Yes!" She says again, more sure of herself and her belief in Usagi, and runs down to the basement to get her mother.
Naru and Sailor Moon met back up in Naru's room later that night.
Naru found her mother tied up in the basement and carried her back into her own bed, while Sailor Moon used told everyone to go home and to go to sleep. No one asked any questions. It felt quicker than it actually was.
"That... was something," Sailor Moon says as she takes a seat on the bed.
"Usagi!" Naru shouts, and Sailor Moon flinches. "You're still bleeding!"
Sailor Moon shifts her posture to a defensive one as Naru gets under her bed to get her first aid. As she pulls it from under her bed, Naru notices the ruffles under Sailor Moon's skirt, along with the white stockings, makes it impossible to look up. A part of Naru is relieved.
Naru sets the kit on the bed and looks over Sailor Moon and her injuries. Only two knives were still inside of Sailor Moon. She grabs a hold of the one that entered her thigh and pulls it out. Sailor Moon howls in pain, putting a gloved fist in her mouth.
Naru squints and rips at the stockings so she can take a better look at the wound.
"It's a very shallow wound!" Naru says and begins cleaning it out. By the time she places a Band-Aid on it, it already looks like it's forming a scab. "Now, time for your shoulder."
"Naruuuuu, no!" Sailor Moon whines, but let's Naru pull down the fabric after she removes the knife. She hisses as Naru cleans it and the surrounding blood.
"Usagi, stop moving." Naru says, and begins to bandage up the wound.
"I'm trying!"
"I know," Naru says softly and pats Sailor Moon on her head, "You did a good job."
Sailor Moon flushes and looks at Naru's bloody face. "What are we going to tell your mom?"
"We'll figure that out tomorrow after we find out how much people remember," Naru says quietly. She pats Usagi's newly bandaged shoulder and grabs a wet tissue to clean her own face. "How do you get out of that outfit and go back to normal?"
Sailor Moon stands up and looks in Naru's mirror. "I'm not sure?" She says and looks over herself. Her hair is silver blond and down her hips, rather than the usually shoulder length blond hair she has. Her face looks like a completely different shape. She is thin, so small compared to before. "I don't think I can stay like this," Sailor Moon says regretfully, "My mama will ask questions."
And then the transformation releases itself and there stands Usagi Tsukino, back to her old self. In her hand is a small brooch. "Wha..?"
Naru blinks, and shakes her head. "I'm too tired. Let's... talk about this all tomorrow."
Slowly, Usagi nods her head in agreement and the two girls climb into bed.
Usagi falls asleep in seconds. Naru lies next to her, staring up at her ceiling. She knows this all isn't over. It isn't a one-time thing.
"Oh Usagi, we've got something big coming." Naru whispers into the darkness.
And it's all done! Sorry for the long wait, I was busy with school! I hope this was worth the wait.