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"SAILOR MOON ETERNAL"
The 6th Season of the Sailor Moon Saga
Chapter 55
"The Calm Before the Storm"
Denenchofu Tokyo outskirts, Starr Manor...December 31, 1999...12AM...
Have you been to Scarborough Fair?
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme
Remember me from one who lives there
For she once was a true love of mine
A languid Susan Starr hums along with her harp's melancholic tune as she strums the medieval instrument oh-so-tenderly. The eight and a half month pregnant mother-to-be was feeling the haunting 16th century melody full of yearning ring throughout her troubled soul which quivered each time the age-old guardian of Time thought about the course of this earth's present era.
This world may have been under attack, but it was not defenseless. Not with the Sailor Soldiers of Love and Justice hailing from every planet and beyond this galaxy to protect it. Though a component of the group, the Outer Soldier of Pluto had existed alone for countless centuries, set apart from Time, living in solitude in Time's Doorway for as long as she could remember. Susan had taken on this contemporary name, along with a contemporary life, in this short era when Time had allowed her to exit the gateway to bring about and raise Sailor Saturn's coming.
Before living an actual physical reality on earth with her fellow soldiers and new friends, and thus meeting and falling in love with Sailor Star Maker, Sailor Pluto was never concerned for the future so much before in all her long life. Was it because she now had been granted a chance to live a full life in the 'real world' as an authentic woman and cherished wife as she only had before dreamed? Or was there something gnawing at her heart that ached for her unborn child to ever have the opportunity to experience a future she herself had been set free to enjoy by her own true love?
Tell her to make me a cambric shirt
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme
Without any seam nor needlework
And then she'll be a true love of mine…
In the days following this last Christmas night, when Sailor Moon had shone through with a brand-new power, the moon had lent her its energy and guidance to give some wayward souls a chance again someday. The light of hope glowing inside of this moon child gave others faith to gather around and make her dreams possible as every one of her Sailor Soldiers believed in their Princess.
Susan finally could find a smile after lying awake for many hours in shivered fear. But her brilliant Terry could do anything, the quiet female considered the incredible feat her wonderful mate had accomplished so heroically to assist their shared Princess and save those poor lost souls, even if their fate only time could tell.
Only Time can tell…
The vague, yet ominous, sentiment echoes in her timeless soul. Her bonded wrists palpitating from within reflected Pluto's trembling apprehension of a future unknown.
Even as the close of the millennium drew near, some intuition inside each soldier foretold to them that truly the end times may indeed be at hand. They all could sense that Queen Metallia herself was soon to rear her ugly head, even though the emissaries of her evil had been liberated from her control. Patiently gaining power in shadowy corners, the dark spectre of the embodiment of pure evil was on the verge of a complete uprising once again. The gathered immense energies of hers already glimpsed from afar, was striking fear and unease in each soldier's heart, as each one knew they had given nearly all they had within them already.
But what more could they do? Every Sailor Guardian understood soon it would be required of them to go above and beyond their limits. And face the worst enemy ever to scourge this planet, even to the depths of the universe that the despised Queen of evil herself had once again been unleashed to ravage unchecked, leaving them all feeling powerless.
Susan especially, from where her contentment's indulgent yearnings had made her more of a contention of burden than a soldier of battle she had been assigned to be since a forsaken childhood, long, long ago.
Tell her to dry it on yonder thorn
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme
Which never bore blossom since Adam was born
And then she'll be a true love of mine…
As her mind repeated the haunting melody of the unrequited folk love song full of impossible tasks, Susan's eyes snap open in the still darkness, feeling her uselessness sharply as she sets her harp to the side.
"Terry darling!?" In a lavender mist of claustrophobic fear, Susan Starr whispers suddenly, struggling to sit up where she had been beside her beloved husband upon their large king-sized bed. The once so slight of figure, forgotten soldier of the planet Pluto had now a bulging girth about as large as she was going to get. So much so that she could barely move now, Susan did her best not to crush her long limbed, sinewy lover in the middle of the night as her brave husband's sturdy figure had held her close all through this restless December 31st early morning hours.
"Susan, my love? Is it time!? Do you feel the contractions yet?! Should I–?!" Sleeping oh-so-lightly, ever vigilant husband Terry quickly jerks himself up to be at wide-awake status. He, for the past few days since Christmas, and even beforehand, had been paying strict attention to his pregnant wife's every word and manner. She was that very close to her delivery time, as the intelligent scientist in him had concluded Susan's condition and the eager husband in him had worried of her delicate physical state.
Susan was especially fragile, he knew, due of her incomprehensible age and emotional ordeals of late. Logical Terry Starr had tried to convince himself that she would have a perfectly normal delivery, even if his timeless lady was two thousand or so years old…
"No, darling, no. Forgive me, not quite yet." Susan quiets his deserved fears with a gentle finger to Terry's tentative lips. Leaning her head closer to his warm chest, she easily reclines into his tense body again with light stroking to his well formed abs and manly pectorals that Susan took great wifely pride in.
"Don't apologize, my precious one. I live for you. I am here for you." The romantic song writer breathes a sigh, but not in total relief. He wished that the baby would come soon, in this peaceful lull in between battle times. For Terry understood how his beautiful, selfless and beloved wife had cried soft, silent tears to herself in the nights. Tears for the child she feared might never have a future on this battle scarred planet that Metallia's vicious force of evil was threatening the very existence of, if not for the intervention of Earth's protectors in the Sailor Soldiers that she and her beloved were part of.
"What is it then, my lady?" Terry runs a tender hand over Susan's full stomach, praying that his trepidations were unfounded. He wished he could honestly tell her so, but he too shared that sinking feeling of impending doom, as her profound tears fell to his bare chest. "Tell me, and I will find a way to calm your fears." Softly Terry murmurs into Susan 's long dark hair, kissing its rose scent as his large hands fold around her body, He was trying to draw the inward woman's heartfelt worries and fear out of herself gently so he could at least tenderly calm and smooth her brow.
"It's nothing." Susan whispers meekly, her magenta eyes gazing into her husband's besotted orchid ones at such a yearning, longing look on her face. "It's silly, but…I just.…I only wanted to hear your voice, Terry darling. I love the sound of your gentle, lilting tenor. It always brings me such peace." Touching fingers to Terry's beautiful mouth which always uttered such poetic beauty for her in dulcet, comforting tones, Susan blushes demurely, ashamed to have awakened her hard-working hero for such a childish frivolity.
"I am pleased that it brings you such peace, my beloved. I shall endeavor to recite reams and reams poetry for your benefit." Terry chuckles, teasing her. "But, truly, is that all, Susan? I wish for you to hold nothing from me, so I can correct any wrongdoing on my part." The Time Lord did entertain some guilt for leaving his precious partner locked in Time's doorway from time to time when he had to leave to help the fight. But not for the possessive, domineering reasons that her Outer Sailor leader, Uranus, accusingly believed. The loving husband had done it entirely for his darling wife's own good and safety. But perhaps the once lonely and trapped woman did not feel same way? The gentle, thoughtful man begins to question himself and his protective convictions.
"Wrong doing? You could do no wrong, my caring, capable and conscientious handsome husband. I just needed to know you were really here and safe—not only a distant, imagined dream of mine again." Sailor Pluto admits her genuine worry as the intuitive Guardian of Time heretofore. Time that she could feel slipping away as the fate of the future yet hung in the balance. Susan finds solace in caressing her cheek to Terry's sweetly as she closes her eyes, wet with tears and loses herself in his strong, and broad, masculine chest.
Terry could feel her almost desperate want, her absolute need in her touch to feel him near more than ever before, realizing what his tender wife desired the most right at this moment was his reassurance.
Although, he too, as newly inducted Time servant guardian, sensed the times drawing near secretly inside acutely, though neither wished to believe it, even as the hourglass they were both intrinsically connected to through their bond was mercilessly cascading down…
"Susan, my love. Please do not worry. I pledge to you, that no matter what may come ahead, I will always be right beside you. At your side, for eternity, through all time. I believe that the Good Lord will grant us that with all my heart and soul, just as my love for you runs deeper than coursing time, my rose without thorns. I believe 'everything works for a purpose for those who serve the Lord.' Please, Susan trust me that all will turn out as it should in the end, for He will give me the strength and aptitude needed when the time comes. I do truly believe that God gave us this impossible dream that must come to fruition. For the peace of this earth, the future of our child, for the sake of my most cherished lady of light and love who has been so generously placed in my care, I will change time itself for you, my unsurpassable, matchless Rose Angel." Stirred with emotion, Terry whispers in his wife's ear, landing multiple tender kisses over her closed eyelids, her cheeks, her mouth as he looks upon her with much love beyond measure.
"Oh, Terry, our baby must have a future. Please, Lord. Oh please, be merciful to us. Help our Princess shine for all time."
In every corner of his being Terry heard the muffled words from her lips and felt the moisture tearing from her overflowing eyes against him. The man from beyond the stars gazes down and holds his love close, swearing that his reassurances to her would be true. Everything would be fine, their baby would have a peaceful world to be born to. He vows to make this so with all in his power—and even more—so that these things would be possible for his adored Susan, whom this Star Maker loved with a deep abiding passion.
"Fear not. No matter what it costs, I will find a way. You'll see." He himself unsure of the vacillating future that was yet to unfold, the able-bodied and strong-minded Star Soldier from another galaxy had enough confidence for both of them to share through all time.
"Oh, thank you, my lord, for being so wonderful to me! I love you terribly! Please, Time, please. Let it be so. I do trust him completely. My Terry can do anything." Blissfully she whispers to both Time and the Time Lord of it that she had the greatest faith in to make dreams come true.
"I will do my utmost to live up to your praise, my lady. Just as I will love you for eternity, my flawless rose." Terry's sonorous voice serenades his lover's pet name on her cheeks, kissing Susan's trembling tears away with a prayer to God above to bless him with yet another miracle, growing within his graceful beauty's womb.
For your love has quenched my soul…
For her sake and that of our little one to come, please Lord God, lend me the strength to protect this world and the eternal promise of a future that You have blessed this humble servant with…
Denenchofu Tokyo outskirts, upstairs Starr Residence...December 31, 1999...1AM...
Not so far down the hallway, on the second floor of the rural Starr residence, a not quite as tender or sedate conversation was taking place. Five youthful sleepers—who all had seen more than their young share of fighting, death and destruction in combat—totally ignore the impending threat of danger that all the grown-ups were getting into such a snit about.
Instead, huddled close in a quickly thrown together sleepover where little sleep was accomplished, they chose to rather exchange secrets and confidences than plan for boring old battles the Quartet and Tara simply rolled with best.
The ambitious little Quartet had dragged the heavy oak furniture together in the middle of the room earlier when PallaPalla wanted to play 'jungle princess' like they did back home in the Amazon forest. The blanket covering the canopy beds was still up, shielding the little flashlights stationed as spotlights for the magazine and comic book cramming mischief-makers.
"JunJun!" Removing her satin pink eye mask, CereCere whines in her highest, most pleading voice as she reaches across the joined bed to smack her nearby bedmate's arm.
"Gibbaut wahk, Sree?" Awh drin't dake n'nting!?" An indignant JunJun stuffs her mouth full of a handful of animal crackers from the bag she had snuck into bed as she looks up from her handheld videogame still running for hours now on battery power.
"Now look what you've done! Aw, man! You let the other guy kill me! Damn! Damn! Damn!" Swearing up and down, rough-and-tumble JunJun slams the defeated videogame down on the pillow with an angry look at Cere who had interrupted her winning the all night long gaming match.
"Shush, JunJun! Someone will hear you! Terry-papa says those aren't proper words for young ladies." Wide-eyed and well-raised Tara Tomoe—though she had matured to a fourteen-year-old just days ago in that last Saturn power-up incarnation—had graduated from childlike total adoration of the man to more of a teenaged hero worship for her cherished guardian. Still, she shakes a finger in innocent reproach at her badmouthing friend.
"Terry-papa, this, Terry-papa, that. Geez! I'm starting to confuse the man with God." JunJun twists her lip, frustrated with the Sailor Soldier fangirl right beside her in the 'jungle tent' who always was correcting her with some rule 'darling Terry-papa' had made.
"Oh, no, Terry-papa isn't God." In all seriousness, Tara looks reverently up to the Heavens, as if in silent apology for her ignorant friend's disrespect. "He's just really good, and really nice, taking the example from Him." The black and purple blunt cut haired girl smiles sweetly over into JunJun's smirking apple green eyes at Tara's high regard of her noble surrogate father.
"Yes, well…" CereCere pats the innocent girl on the hand as she turned the subject back to her own issue with the wild child of the asteroid Junos. "Who stole my delicious and rare, imported chocolates, all the way from Switzerland that Miss Moreau—I mean Mrs. Moreau Starr," Cere stops in the middle of her own flaunting speech to correct her own error. She was more than impressed by the marked change overcoming her idolized violinist/painter/debutante artist Michelle Moreau by the return of her too cute rockstar husband. "—had given only me for Christmas. Those chocolates I had placed under my pillow are now missing! You know the ones I mean!" A distressed CereCere continues in her accusation, looking around with a raised snooty eyebrow from each put-on innocent face to face, of the girl group surrounding her in the flashlight lit bed.
VesVes ignores her, continuing to read an obviously exciting murder novel rated an age too old for her; Tara, had the holy pale face of an angel, her hands folded in prayer before going to sleep as she blessed everyone she knew, right down to 'Luna and Artemis' and 'Rei's crows, Phobos and Demos' before the young girl, whose body had gone through a lot this night, closes her eyes again, as Terry-papa had instructed; JunJun, reclaiming her video game controller, wipes the sour expression off her own mouth, still chomping cookie crumbs which had spread all over the bed.
Cere lastly directs her accusing stare at the last of their little group. She never imagined guileless Palla, simply preoccupied on the other edge of the joint bed, playing with her dollies, could ever be the thieving culprit…
"PallaPalla!" CereCere exclaims in shock as PallaPalla turns around, unabashedly displaying for all to see, her full mouth and completely smudged face—not to mention the borrowed nightdress and her entire side of the bed—covered in an unmistakable chocolate coating.
"Uh huh, CereCere?" PallaPalla looks up from behind her pillow and grins toothily, the pillow and her little pearly whites all brown streaked from chocolate tasting stains. Her countenance was absolutely innocent as she takes the last of the stolen chocolate bonbons from the box hidden under said pillow and pops it in her mouth right in front of an astonished salmon pink haired prissy young girl.
"My chocolates! She's eaten every one of Mrs. Moreau Starr's fine imported chocolates! PallaPalla! I was saving those to serve someone important! Oh, Palla, how could you?!" On the brink tears at the sight of her expensive, hard-to-get candies being just loosely devoured by a child who didn't care about such things at all, was almost too much for her to bear.
"But JunJun said I could have them! Palla's sorry, CereCere. Here." PallaPalla, as innocent as a dove, digs deep in her night dress' pocket, coming up with a half-eaten Hershey bar appearing in her fudgy fingers sweetly offered to Cere in trade.
Cere just looks of the sad little bar in exchange for her expensive box's rare imported chocolates with nothing less than disdain. "JunJun!" So she lashes out with anger at the real guilty party of the neon green haired imp who was whistling as she giggled inwardly at riling up her favorite sparring partner like this so deliciously.
"But hey, CereCere." VesVes smacks closed her novel to finally look up with the mature face of a leader. "Isn't PallaPalla an important person?" She asked, cocking her burgundy red ponytailed head at her snooty friend.
"Well…" Cross and frowning, CereCere glances over at PallaPalla, whose sad face was being cleaned off by a helpful sleepy-eyed Tara who had woken up with her sweet Sammy's handkerchief in hand, then drifted right back to sleep when she was done, still tenderly clutching the now chocolate-ly cloth of her young boyfriend. The dark pink haired Amazoness turns her attention back to her penitent-faced, sky blue little friend. "I suppose she is that. Even some irascible others are, too." CereCere leans a conciliatory gaze in to meet JunJun's eyes with a coquettish smile.
"Oh, brother." JunJun sighs as a sticky CereCere wraps herself around her friend's bare arm. "PallaPalla important?" Pallas looks to Vesta for reassurance as the tall ponytailed leader smiles to touch her bubbly blue companion's chubby cheek.
"Yes, PallaPalla is very, very important. We're all the most important to each other, aren't we, gang?" VesVes asks her Quartet, receiving JunJun's thumbs-up, CereCere's sighing fluttered eyelids, and PallaPalla's rapid head nodding in total agreement.
"Yes. You're all important to me, too!" Tara interjects as her sleepy eyes pop open once again from where she had been cuddling the violet Santa hat wearing teddy bear her sweetie Sammy had quick gone out earlier that night to exchange with Tara's oversized Christmas present dress.
Ahh! Not anymore! I should've waited a few hours, my cool, yet age confusing Sailor of Rebirth! Then, it would've fit! Sammy had thought after witnessing Eternal Sailor Saturn's amazing reformation this Christmas night of miracles, regretting bitterly to himself that he'd already rushed out to have done the exchange. But nonetheless, as he had whispered her 'Merry Christmas' and 'goodnight' with a chaste kiss to her pale—yet never again sallow—cheek, he was still smiling at Tara with boyish admiration for his truly astounding, first true love.
Recalling their moment with a dreamy smile of her own, Tara held a special soft place for the Moon Princess' younger brother in her developing womanly heart that was becoming something far more than her good opinion for even Terry-papa.
"You four girls and my Sammy, and my Papa, of course, plus my precious Rini; Alex-papa and Michelle-mama and the Princess and Prince and the Scouts and the Starlights—everybody I know! And most of all, I thank the Lord for Susan-mama and—!" She starts to say that certain someone's name it seemed for the thousandth time this night. Having lived with the age-ranging, sweet young girl for weeks now, the Amazoness quartet all knew who the violet teddy wielding gal was going to say now by rote, as they announce together:
"Terry-papa!" They five all sing out from under the sheet covering in laughing chorus the beloved man's name on this earth his shooting star had fallen to dazzle many a young girl's starstruck heart, leaving ne'er a fear in this household.
Cuddling tight to one another in this sleepover party in the wee hours to send a laughing 'good riddance' to the last night of this past millennia, the five hyperactive girls finally drift off to sleep, worrying of nothing and caring more of video games, young men, chocolates, dime store novel adventures, cookie crumbs, and less of the coming threat looming over them…
Akasaka Tokyo, Hikawa Shrine...December 31, 1999...2AM...
RUMBLE….RUMMBBLE…
However, the shadow did loom over the less light-hearted of the Sailor Guardians who soulfully sensed Metallia's impending attack was imminent, as storm clouds hanging in the dark skies threateningly displayed.
Rei Hino was one of those feeling it the worst, her extensive intuitive abilities had haunted every night's dream. But the nightmares stretched into hours of early morning, way before first light, where she spent every free moment doing her fire reading even at this ungodly hour between midnight and dawn, trying to anticipate where and when exactly Metallia would come so she could give the team a heads up.
But time after time, the priestess of the Hikawa Shrine, in fiery aggravation, comes up with nothing.
"Argh..." Rei sighs once again in frustration, laced fingers running through her loosely flying ebony hair. She did not spare a moment to style her hair or even fix it out of her way as she usually would after hurriedly bathing. But these days of restlessness were more than unusual for Rei, knowing time was of the essence for the Sailor Scouts and she simply didn't have the time to waste a second taking care of herself in vanities.
Suddenly Rei feels a slight, gentle tug at her hair, the touch of somebody tying her long wisps of waves up so they wouldn't wander into the flames and burn in the fire, as the often done and unnoticed, yet welcome, thoughtful act of someone who had become so unexpectedly important to her.
"Thanks, Chad." Rei says, coming out of her trance as she turns her vehemently angry face of frustration into a smile at her sweet…friend. There was no other title for him, Rei Hino was not willing to call this young man who had come to work at the temple for her grandfather anything more—nor less either. Chad truly had proven himself to be one of the most selfless and kind people she had ever known in her life to forever call a friend.
"No problemo, Rei. I was just waxing the floor out here and I thought I saw the flames rising pretty close and I, like, knew you needed your hair tied up so—here I am!" With his surfer boy speak, loppy grin and stubbly good looks, Rei sometimes wondered if there was a working brain behind those hunky features and long wavy brown hair. Right now she realized again there was something far more than a brain—there was a good heart.
"Yes, Chad. Here you are." Rei smiles at him genuinely.
"I'll…umm…like…get out your way now, okay? I better go check out everything's battened down, like, 'cause I think there's like, a bad storm coming. I can totally feel it in my bones! So, I'll…uh…catch you later, Rei." Chad begins to stumble out the door, he having been accustomed to her kicking him out from her fire reading pretty well by now.
"Oh." Rei says, impressed by his responsible side for the temple as she watches him go with disappointment for some strange reason this time. "Chad, wait!" She suddenly decides to call him back, as Rei prided herself in being never shy to say what she felt.
"I could use some company, if you don't mind my bouts of silence every now and then. Meditating can get pretty lonely, you know? And I don't know about you, but I could really use some tea. I think it'd be nice if we shared it together." Rei asks with a small smile at the young man kneeling next to her in his yukata and pale blue pleated pants of the temple he worked at.
"Fer real, Rei?" Chad says excitedly. Rei actually including him in her fire studies? Allowing him to be present while she was concentrating in her fire reading? "No way! I'll go make your favorite tea and be right back ASAP, okay?!" Chad jumps up, nearly tripping over himself as he was happy as a lark to race out into the newly waxed floor with his sandaled feet—and falling on his face as a result.
Rei allows herself a laugh as she watches Chad get smilingly back up with a wink on his reddened smashed in face, still full of joy for her attention.
"Yeah, Chad. It's okay." Rei whispers to the fire, her restless soul gathering all its frustrated pieces together. Chad's sweet openness gave her a little more faith that everything would be all right as this tough year draws to a close.
It'll be okay…As long as we're all together…together… together…
Rei hears Serena's familiar words echo in her head with the clutter of dishes breaking somewhere in the background. Chad, in his excitement at her friendly invitation, made the madly in love man a little more klutzy than ever. In no time at all, he flings the temple's paper door open with the biggest smile on his really comely features.
Yeah, it will. Rei smiles back up at him as her purple eyes gaze intently back into the flame with even more resolve than before to keep the peace this way, even as the sparking hot flames surge, relentlessly unreadable…
Shoto Tokyo Bay, Moreau Summer Mansion...December 31, 1999...3AM...
Another blazing fire flickers its warm inferno in the upstairs fireplace of the Moreau sprawling luxury Tokyo mansion on the upscale seaside garden section of exclusive Shoto Minato-ku overlooking Tokyo Bay. This wealthy celebrity enclave had a European influence of fine art and culture as nearby high-end museums and prestigious classical theatres attested.
This impressive combination of an old world and moderne designed, three story mansion stood on the cliff side of the waters, its towering elegance laying long shadows that overlooked the crashing high tide below the thick, gloomy firmament that begins to weep.
Casting his own shadow, Robin Starr's stare had remained fixed on the darkened, angry skies that had abruptly erupted over him with a vengeance. He had been leaning out the open window with eyes closed tightly as he had been facing the night sky in an attempt to send a message to someone far, far away. But as he did, the dark clouds began to shed raindrops to cascade down his silvery hair onto his undaunted forehead, eyes, then cheeks and chin, making his glistening face appear almost ethereal as his sleek countenance continued to look up to the cloudy, torrentially starless sky of this December last's early morning.
"Robin, dearest?" Awakening at the sound of the thunder, Michelle Moreau Starr flutters across the huge second-story anteroom of her fifteen bedroom mansion. The nouveau architecture really only started out as her French papere's modest ten-room summer retreat to Japan. But Michelle had expanded on her parents' wedding gift to make this remarkably ornate mansion everything she dreamed her first home with her new husband should be. With an artistic eye running over each gold filigree trim décor, she fluidly moves across her immense bedroom in her billowy nightgown negligee withaqua chiffon silk train.
'Michelle, don't come out here. Your silk nightdress will be ruined by the rain.'
Although she clearly received his considerate warning, the lady of the house goes straight to her loose night-shirted husband and wraps her arms around his slick with rainfall, silvery haired neck, caressing his quickly becoming sodden body close.
'You're worth far more to me than this negligee.' With tender ministrations, as she fluidly removes said negligee in a single move to use its expensive silk to dry his rain-soaked face. This mermaid, who was at home in the water, does not shy away as Robin swivels around to face her now. She leans her aqua tresses out the open bedroom window to join him instead, licking the soaking wetness along his determined jawline away, then drowns her returned lover in her own moist kisses.
'I'm sorry if I woke you, Michelle. I was on my way back to bed…but then, I thought if I maybe tried again tonight…' Melding to her warm body on so many levels, Robin easily maneuvers his own semi-damp silk night shirt to be draped over her generously bared chest as well. At the same time, his mind delves into his gorgeous wife's silent question via their psychic line on how a short trip downstairs for a glass of milk could've taken so long and ended up with him a sopping wet mess in the window.
'You still can't contact your Princess Fireball?' Both of them ignored the water that was intrinsically a part of her, now running down their intimately pressed together, slender forms, as Michelle mentally responds in concern. She hugs her love's drenched by now, stiffened shoulders tightly when Robin shakes his matted down, no longer coiffed hair's sleek head with a soft, negatively defeated sigh, causing cold droplets of rain flying this way and that.
'It's been so long, Michelle...I can't pierce this dark veil covering the earth! Metallia must be blocking me, I'm certain of it now! I'm just as sure the Princess must be terribly worried about us, with virtually no communication since I…since that day on the cruise ship. But when the three of us left Janus, she did say she was going to let us 'go our own way.' Maybe she just thinks I didn't care enough to contact her anymore…' The usually unaffected young man airs his troubled suppositions in frustration wordlessly until that quiet, growing fear inside him must cry out in his most plaintive pitch filled with his heart's regret as the apropos torrential storm roils in mercilessly down upon his back.
"I don't want her to think that! I didn't have the chance to thank her for her caring or even bask in her glow for a moment when she sent us her scent during those times when I was…so lost…Michelle, as much as I love you—as much as Earth is now my home, our Princess is still important to me. I feel responsible to protect her still. All three of us do. I just wish I could talk to her for only a minute, to see if everything's alright on Janus with her. I need to tell her that everything's all right here, too. Now anyway, thanks to you." Speaking aloud through the storm's cacophony with hand held over heart, Robin glances over his shoulder to meet Michelle's crystal blue eyes, not fearful to share all that was on his mind, his heart, his soul with the woman he had chosen and been blessed to share his life with. She, the destined heroine who had so freely and so beautifully reclaimed his soul back from the lonely shore his ship had been scuttled upon by Metallia's evil, lost if not for the lighthouse of this daughter of the water's endless faith in him that led the way to welcome him home.
"Is everything going to be all right, dearest? I can feel how every one of us is so worried and unsure this final night." Physically trembling in the unrelenting chilled rain, with tears just as cold in her eyes, Michelle touches her heart, her own psychic abilities giving her insight and connection into the rest of the Sailor Guardians' pensive states during this calm before the storm they all knew was drawing nigh.
"Yes. It has to be, Michelle. Because you've shown me that love is not only worth fighting for, but it's stronger than any other force in the universe. You've proven ourlove can penetrate any darkness." Looking down to meet her shivering gaze, it was now Robin's turn for his sensitive soul to offer her the courage that she so generously devoted to him when he had needed her most. Gently brushing the wetness from the soft sea of her curls, he whispers his absolute love in them to calm her, perceptively tender. Then the svelte young musician places a strong forte hand on his violinist's tremulous pianissimo one already resting over his French beauty's compassionate heart, squeezing it tightly. Michelle was reassured by him as she squeezes it right back, the two of them soon lost in one another's souls as they gaze, face to face, into the harmony of the others' deep eyes, even as the rains keep pouring down behind them.
'Robin dearest? What would I do without you? Secure in the embrace of his reclaimed soul, Michelle sends out this overwhelming thought wave to him over their special mind link which had been reinstated even more spectacular than ever before.
'I promise you'll never have to know again, Michelle. I wouldn't be me if it wasn't for you. Because now I know why I was born.' The now honed and powerful psychic easily and readily caresses her delicate spirit which had been mercifully entrusted to him, with utmost gratitude for all she had done to call his soul to hers.
'Oh, Robin. I thank God for our beautiful destiny still awaiting us. I can feel it, now that we're together again.' Michelle's heart reveled in each time she could feel his wonderful, glorious presence entering into her consciousness again, where he was born to be. For she knew, in the empty absence of all those long desolate months without him, that she would forever cherish every second of their soulful sharing from this day forward.
'I feel the same way, Michelle. You are my hero. I believe in your dream now, too.' Sensing intuitively what she needed to hear to find that inner tranquility, Robin's healing spirit strokes Michelle's soul in that intimate way he indulges her with. In reality, his willing hands and lips can't help but mimic the same in the windowseat of their mansion master bedroom the young Starlight soldier softly presses her down to.
After several minutes of being immersed in his honest love offered from the core of his being on this early, early morning, blissful Neptune then gently guides her Healer's fully open soul into her restored serene one that had been considering his troubled heart all the while.
'Maybe you can't contact her now, dearest. But perhaps we can send a repeating message of sorts, encasing your electromagnetic waves in the molecules of my waters, ever-circulating up there around the atmospheric moisture of the earth, that will play in a continual loop until it can finally leave our atmosphere out to Princess Fireball. And, perhaps, on its own, undetected by Metallia, someday soon, it may travel out there among the cosmos, with the hope your message to cross the millions of light-years, where your Princess might be able to receive it in a moment Metallia's guard may be down. I know it sounds fantastic, but…Let us try to do that, right now, Robin dearest, together. Let's try.'
'Everything about you is fantastic, my mermaid.' With kisses to her enchanted oceanic hands, both of them were still ensconced in the rain, though neither felt it anymore as Robin smiles at her brilliantly love-inspired proposal. Glowing, Michelle warmly reaches her spirit out to his no longer lonely one, once again combined on the astral plane they now shared. And then, together as one, both explore his unlocked abilities imbued with hers with not anger nor fear, but trust and love now that made all things possible through their joining.
Through their incredible love, Robin's heart's message was sent out across the skies, hidden in electromagnetic water drops above the atmosphere, to remain there until one day it could find freedom, hopefully close at hand, when the Princess of the Starlights could receive it someday…
'My Princess. We hope you receive this message soon and it finds you well. There has been great trouble on this earth and a time of crisis is at hand, but fear not…Please stay happy, keep hoping, never lose faith, for I will always be with you." That's what you taught we three lights of yours, always shining here bright for you, searching for your love still, even as the true loves we have found here on this planet have fulfilled us eternally as we together protect the Moon Princess and those she loves. Come what may of this battle facing my deepest foe whom you warned me of as a child—who my soulmate Neptune has freed my soul from—I'll be thinking of you each time I look up to the stars, Princess. Until we meet again, you always have an infinite place here in our hearts, our crystal of heaven, our Queen Fireball…'
His heartfelt message, with Neptune's steady, strengthening support he referred to embracing him tenderly, goes out into the night sky. The double soul powered message holds its own against the evil shadow barrier hovering over the planet, as the spiritual signal stealthily circumnavigates the globe's upper atmospheres, obscured in the atmospheric moisture Neptune commanded. But rather than simply dissipating away into the black covering void's absorption, the blocked starlit memorandum bounces off Sailor Star Healer's magnetized electrodes amid the masked humidity Sailor Neptune carefully controlled, and kicks the amplified signal around the sky, biding itself for when it could patiently wait to be sent again. For now, its obscured essence remains spinning in an elliptical revolution around the earth's electromagnetic poles this Eternal Star Healer had tapped the manifest ability to wield the potent energy thereof.
Waiting for a time when it could be sent to a distant galaxy three songs of stars had once crossed millions of light-years to return to this special planet and have their hearts captured by the beauty upon it, subliminally beckoning to them with inconceivable, fantastic, timeless love not so very far away…
Shoto Tokyo Bay beach, Moreau Summer Mansion...December 31, 1999...3:20AM...
Beneath the starless sky in a spot by the bay not so very far away, a red Ferrari sits in the beach's sands, its two stealthy occupants within busy staking out the scene in another all-nighter surveillance. But this time the rain was pounding onto the automobile's rooftop relentlessly, creating quite a noisy racket.
"Shrimp's getting soaked." The golden haired woman, leaned over her steering wheel in the driver's-side seat was, despite the torrent on her pricey sports car's tinted windows, straining her eyes with the murmured statement. She dutifully was observing the by now fairly drenched figure in the upper bedroom window of the stately mansion she had clandestinely parked her vehicle in the subdued shadows of the beachfront below.
The red jacket bundled up young man next to her in the passenger seat, wearing headphones to block out the storm's noise was instead surveilling her with the mischievous grin etched on his handsome mug as he looked amused upon his lover.
"You look so silly doing that, Ally." Sayer just could not keep his tongue any longer as he watches his wife's tense body—oh Ally, I do love when the muscles in your neck do that, wink wink—leaning forward on the wheel. Just as she has done the entire night that they had been spying—yes, we are spying, U—on Michelle and Robin's exclusive beachfront mansion home.
From his point of view, Alex very much resembled a lioness stalking her unknowing prey, at any moment ready to pounce, with the backdrop of the rainstorm playing the rhythmic hunting orchestration.
"'Doing' what?" There was more than a tinge of annoyance mingled with the bit of defensive familiarity in her low voice as she answered her partner. Her strong fingers thumped a nervous rhythm—almost in time to the pounding rain—under her racecar's dashboard, though Alex Starr's hawk-like eyes never wavered from the third story windowsill.
She becomes especially fixated when her targeted silvery prey began to get drenched where he was leaning out with a lost spacey look on his features that she could see all the way from where her Ferrari was parked on the storm tossed beachfront down below.
"You know 'what' I'm talking about, my sexy super sailor secret spy." Rolling all the S's over his smooth tongue luxuriantly, dark-haired Sayer Starr Sokova teases a dallying finger along his wife's set jaw line as he hums along with one of the Three Lights' more provocative songs playing on his walkman.
'Morning burns with your illumination…'
"Geez, Ally! Haven't we tailed 'Chelle and Rob enough? Give her some breathing room now that she's finally landed Rob in her dream mansion! You know what it's like the first night in your new place with your favorite guy in the whole world, hey, Ally? Whew!…'How many nights have we exchanged soft kisses?'" Feeling rather impatient and frisky in the trapped car encased in the pelting rain, he sexily huffs some cold air out from his chilled lips followed by breaking into a smooth lyric from the Three Lights' tantalizing song. Serenading her with come-hither eyes, Sayer snuggles his face closer to Alex's navy leather jacket, slowly unzipping it...
Not only for shared warmth on this cold, rain-soaked night, but maybe on the off chance for a little something else extra. After all, their two shivering and yearning for warmth bodies were just sitting here in the hammering deluge, doing nothing else, alone together on this dark beach night just days after their unforgettable first anniversary…
"Oh, do I? Can't think especially of any lovesick crooner fitting that description around here." Alex smirked her biting remark, hitting Sayer right between the enticing eyes as he rubbed his frosty hands all over her legs to 'warm' them.
"Hey! I thought you can't go on living without me?!" Pouty mouthed Sayer relaxing on her chest snaps up, his bright eyes flashing at his smartass partner who seemingly had forgotten all eternal friendship–type sentimentality in a few short days as he yells loud enough to be heard over the thrashing winds and downpour.
"I'm your trapped audience, aren't I?" Uranus, once upon a time, would've shunned any other tag-a-long partner in such tight, confined proximity, save for Michelle. "Besides, Starr, I can never tail her enough. Neptune is sure to be one of Metallia's main targets, chiefly due to that shrimp brother of yours. And she's not just my responsibility, not only my cousin, she is a part of my soul I have sworn to give up my own comfort to protect from whatever comes along the way. Just like I care about the Princess—and you, now, too." With a soft, dazzling smile to show their bond was not forsaken, Alex lets her uptight form relax back in her car seat, stretching her aching, extended neck to meet his dark blue eyes beside her in the darkened vehicle.
And the harsh Soldier of the Wind was more than pleased to find Sayer's warm hands easily wrapping around, massaging her neck that he was usually a pain in, at just the right spot.
"I know, Ally, I know. I feel the same way. I'm just being a whiny jackass." The understanding of her in Sayer's gorgeous eyes was something else she was grateful to have accepted all over again as his slim, wiry form slips quite easily between the stick shift middle console and closer to her driver's seat to get a better massaging angle on her.
"You don't have to tell me that. You're ace at it. And this, too, oh...ahh-ahh." Alex cracks at him before uncharacteristically sighing in ecstasy at his touch as she trusts his strong fingers around her neck, Sayer continuing to massage her aches away warmly until his energetic hands enthusiastically travel elsewhere, too.
"My neck is up here." She says evenly in that half-sultry, half-challenging low tone he loved, smiling softly as she felt the past days' tensions lighten a little with his musical fingers' contact, even for just a few minutes.
But then, suddenly sitting up to peer closer through the rain, Alex's keen eyes attention was caught by the appearance of another familiar figure in the window joining the shrimp in the torrential rain.
"Hey, there's 'Chelle. Ummm…Ally, peeking in their bedroom like this, umm…don't you kind of feel like a…" With a guilty gulp, Sayer glances up through the windshield when he, too, spots Michelle's arrival in her revealing negligee. His cheeks flush a bit at viewing the quite voluptuous aqua haired beauty wrapping her silken hands around his lucky brother's chest in a very suggestive fashion. Her filmy negligee, like shimmering rain magic, coming off completely—
"Whoa…'Chelle...Woo woo, go Rob!" With a catcall whistle as his side of the windshield suddenly fogs up as the young man had moved closer to it for a better view, Sayer, for one, totally did not intend to be a spectator on this night at the reunited newlywed couple, even if his own mate obviously did.
Well, I guess it is kind of interesting to watch how much a man Rob really can be when it comes down to it, hee hee…
"…A voyeur? You should talk, bright-eyes. I see you checking out my Michelle." Alex leans even further forward to see how far this show would go on in the cold, pounding rain up there. With a stolen side glance at her companion in the passenger seat, Alex remembered once a long time ago a wolf whose dangerous dark eyes were more than willing to seductively undress Miss Moreau the violinist, never mind spy on another brother's spicy beach exploits with a partially clothed Susan. She silently chuckles, as, out of the corner of her eye she could clearly see her sweet lover's blue gaze trying hard not to peek with great interest at Michelle and that undesirable shrimp's rather intimate embraces.
Oh well, Michelle, if he is your choice of a so-called man, I don't know what to tell you. Alex laughs to herself, before her mind goes more solemn. As long as he behaves himself…I'll be absolutely certain he does, this time…
"Ally, do you always have to be so damn smug? I—I was just trying to...s-s-see what was going on through the rai—ugh!" Stuttering Sayer stops his good-natured ribbing back at his wife midsentence, holding onto the front dashboard as an intense feeling sweeps over and straight through him, it seemed.
"It's a nice message." Alex breaks the silence pervading the Ferrari as each of their finely attuned senses pick up the sent entreaty to Princess Fireball that Robin and Michelle together had beamed out for her to receive someday when this planet's dark shadow imprisonment was all over.
"Yeah…" Sayer sighs longingly with tears for his missing Princess springing into his eyes. For inside he knew he was going into uncertain, decisive battle without even having the chance to say 'goodbye' to his adored sister. It bothered his tender heart to no end as Fighter passionately wanted to be able to talk to his Princess Fireball one more time. To see her gentle smile, delve in her scent, touch her endless warmth that he had been raised to love and protect since he was a babe, it all was too much for his emotional heart to bear as the uncertain tears flow unbidden.
"Come here, little puppy." Amid the raindrops and tears flowing, Alex perceives Sayer's sadness and longing as she draws her 'whelp's' crying head close to her with her own style of warmth in the front seat. She understood very well how one's own soul could be so dependent on another, how important Princess Fireball meant to all three of these siblings she had let go of so magnanimously in order for them to mature and pursue their own destinies, a galaxy away.
Alex believed that she herself could never be so generous and sacrificial as that, while she also sends an unspoken prayer from her golden planet Uranus for the shrimp's communication message to go forth and reach the one they all loved, who truly in their hearts had never left these three special wandering shooting stars.
Enveloping Sayer in her strong arms in the intimacy of the Ferrari encapsulated in the rains, adding her glow to the message, Alex holds his pale blue shimmering body tightly, feeling the silent hot tears fall to her golden shining breast. And the tough woman vowed to never, ever let his bright light dim, no matter what changes surely lay ahead of them in the near future unfolding.
As the swirling winds and heavy rains forebode Metallia's evil hand, all was now in position to be raised to strike a deadly blow over them as she, the Outer Sailor Scout leader Uranus could sense intensely. But, so sure of her love for this special Star Soldier was, even the bitter end Armageddon—which Alex's deep spirit could clearly feel drawing near in the soul she believed was damned—would never part them again.
Nonetheless, she fervently prayed that her fierce winds of determination would be strong enough to rip the darkness and light apart, if need be, to stop that tragic conclusion from ever happening and cause her own dazzling star to ever cry like this again…
Denenchofu Tokyo outskirts, Starr Manor...December 31, 1999...3:33AM...
Silently in the quiet of this darkest, stormy night, Terry Starr's eyes open again to feel the tender message of Robin's heart being sent across the wide expanse of the galaxy in a fight to escape the confines of this Earth's darkening dusky sky. In a lavender haze, the heart of Star Maker sends his gentle waves of love and gleaned hope out along with his star waves alongside Robin and Sayer's as he sensed his fellow Starlights reaching out to Princess Fireball this spurious night.
Terry's aching heart, so full of caring smiles masking the tears, could also feel the wash of comfort Michelle brought to Robin's devoted soul. Even though Terry was often at odds with the harsh woman, he was pleasantly shocked to find Alex's planetary signature there as well, comforting Sayer's passionately weeping heart as both Outer Sailor Soldiers' lights were there for their chosen mates to lean on, bolstering their starlit partners' message journey.
Indeed, Terry was glad for the pair of women his brothers had found to share their lives. And he knew, deep in his soul, that though she needed his reassurances even more now often of late, understandably so, he also required his Susan more than she would ever know. She was the stability in his world, the timeless beauty of his entire being—his everything. His life was meaningless without her and the sincere assurance of her love that she gave to his soul so freely, day by day unquestioningly.
"My darling lady." Softly, oh so tenderly as not to wake the sleeping beauty Princess still lying in his arms, Terry gently strokes the hair of the rose scented angel of his heart. She was the leading lady of his life who had turned the darkness penetrating his world to light. Holding her demonstratively close, Terry vowed never, never to allow her light, her brilliance ever to fade. He pledged before God Almighty that he would do anything, give anything, be anything Time necessitated to keep safe his Susan, their baby, and this world, threatening to come to an end very soon.
Even if it took every last ounce of breath in him to make it so.
Just at that moment the hands of the stately grandfather clock in the hallway of their mansion begin to strike its ominously telling hourly gong, the increasingly powerful Time Lord intelligibly felt every intangible strand of time woven by every passing second which ticked by.
My lady, no matter what may await, you will be safe for all time. Terry gently lands kisses on the soft sleeping eyelids of his Susan's angelic face.
I will find a way…for you...I must… The brilliant genius mind begins racing with innumerable probabilities this night.
The foreboding night on which the enormity of being Time Lord was weighing heavily upon his troubled soul as the final day of this millennia was drawing closer and closer to its finish.
But before it could, feverishly inconceivable calculations were being born within his vaunted intellect pressured intricately by the quickening ticking down of the clock, each hand striking until it counted to three…
…For three shooting stars had impacted this world with a miraculous three-part harmony song that would incredibly ring throughout the universe for all time.
If only this Maker of that starlight could envision a means to grasp its fraying threads from irrevocably unraveling…
Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock…
Azabu Tokyo city, Arnold residence...December 31, 1999...6:30AM...
Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock…
As time continues its march forward, the clock in the shape of a white cat hanging on the bedroom wall indicated the closing in end times of this millennia.
But the syncopated clicking down sound made it impossible for a destined young woman to find much sleep at all this night, her own eyes remaining opened in thought, up to now in the wee morning hours.
As the cat's yellow eyes glowed, they moved back and forth with each passing second, but the blonde girl lying restlessly in her bed had too much on her mind to sleep. There were so many possibilities preying on the mind of yet another Sailor Soldier where Mina Arnold lived, further on the edge of the city.
The battle torn cities around the entire world which had been so badly scarred were slowly beginning to plan to reconstruct their shattered cities and villages in this last week of the year. The broken governments, whose leaders had either died standing up for their peoples and beliefs or had ended their fates betraying them, all attempted to rationalize a logical explanation since their individual area's miraculous rescues, trying to reestablish strongholds again. The shell-shocked citizens of world were all slowly coming to believe that the apocalypse being predicted was naught but a nightmarish fairytale.
Nightmare, yes. Fairytale, she was not so sure.
Usually full of frenzied energies—'crazy' was what this lively young woman would be called at times—Mina found herself in a rare melancholy as she just stayed there on her bed, wide awake and yet…
Desperately wishing she could go back to sleep—a peaceful one please, this time—for the bad feeling her bones could not shake even when she opened her eyes hours ago had been haunting even her dreams.
Mina silently wished for this all to go away, for things to go back to what they were just a few months ago when her Sailor Scouts believed that peace had finally come to their world and they were free to enjoy regular normal lives together with new people that they had come to be more than friends and fall in love with.
"Mina? You awake? That's a surprise, lazybones." Artemis' sarcastic voice was always the first thing she heard in the morning, this sleepless one, just before daybreak was no exception.
Even though Artemis and Luna had been married now for several months and Artemis often stayed overnight at Serena and Darien's apartment, Sailor Venus' partner kitty had been spending every night planning cram sessions with Mina here over these past several extensive days.
"It is still pretty early—sun's not even up yet-maybe you should try to get a little more shut-eye after last night's intense Scout meeting. It's going to be a busy one today, Mina-girl, for sure." The caring side of Artemis for his favorite girl Mina would often come out, despite the necessity for the Scout leader to plan their next move. Unlike incessant go-getter, authoritarian Luna, Artemis was generally dubbed a 'lazy cat,' as his indigo mate was always ripping him with that nickname.
But really, the Moon cat was anything but, Artemis up and awake and alert as any good general, scheduling grueling late nights as much as possible in the planning of strategies with Mina, trying to pinpoint where Metallia would rear her ugly head. And even though, time and again coming up empty on results, night after long night on his Sailor Guardian scanning computer, the responsible white cat doggedly would never give up.
"Mina?" Artemis pauses in his analytical mind organizing the day ahead for the entire team, as was his unspoken job as team leader Venus' wingman, turning his head up at his unresponsive partner.
Silence.
A little concerned, Artemis hops up on the bed Mina was tightly tucked into. He cocks his pure white furred ears forward, eyes peeking over to see that maybe she was still actually asleep, since Mina's quick, snappy answer were usually forthcoming right away.
"Mina?" Artemis' white brows furrow when he strains to see in the yet-to-emerge dawn the Guardian of Venus' cerulean blue eyes seemed to be fixed on her ceiling, rather than make any eye contact with him.
"Artemis? Do you think that we'll always be together?" The serious, vague question seemed to come out of nowhere, Mina's least excitable voice and thoughtful eyes still attached to the ceiling above. Her faith had been shaken by another long ago who had sworn to her that they would always be together side-by-side, and who did not live up to his promise.
"Mina? What do you mean? Of course, we'll always be together! We're buddies, right?" Artemis now knew the grave questions plaguing his usually bright and exuberant Sailor partner's mind were heavy ones. He had pushed aside his own negative conclusions of the immense power he and Luna had discovered that Metallia had already gathered.
At least, pushed from his mind, if not his heart, doing his best to keep smiling his finest feline grin at his feeling down best girl.
"'Buddies,' Artemis? Is that what we are?" Mina's eyes travel down to her dear friend at last, though she was still lying there, unmoved physically, with wide eyes upon him.
"The best kind, Mina-girl! You're gonna be stuck with me forever, you hear? I want no lip on that." Flexing his authority with a puffed up white fur chest, Artemis crinkles his green eyes over at her with a semi-wink.
"Oh, Artemis! I don't know if I ever told you but…I love you so much!" She suddenly jumps up in true Mina style, grabbing hold of her beloved kitty's body, squeezing the tar out of him in a sweetly, loving hug.
"I love you—urgh–-too, Mina. But—argh—you're breaking my back." Artemis squeaks out, his vertebrae crackling as he tries to straighten it. But there was a big smile on his feline face at her tender words.
"Oh, that's right!" The cat with so many subjects on his mind all of a sudden remembered something he needed to say that had slipped his overworked mind. "I forgot to tell you last night, that boy, Ken, called when you were in the shower and asked if he could come over to watch the last sunrise of the year with you, before he headed out for that architectural seminar he'd told you about in the north in the new year. I said 'I dunno,' because we're gonna be real busy this morning early going to the Scout meeting and I thought you might still be too tired from last night to entertain visitors so early, so I told him—"
"YOU SAID WHAT?!" Mina shoots straight up from her mussed bed to her feet, her eyes flashing down at the sheepish white cat.
"Uhh, umm—he said he'd come by anyway, but besides, we don't know if the sun's even gonna show up since it's been so dark and raining in that storm all night, and there's not going to be much of a sunrise anyway to vi—ewwww! Whoa! Slow down, Mina! Ohhhh!" Trying to justify his blunder, Artemis groans out words at the life being squeezed out of him when Mina's rapid fire mind kicking back into gear grasps the sentences he was uttering.
Then she lets go of him, chucking the poor tomcat across the room like a ragdoll.
"Artemis!? How could you?! Forget my Kenny!? I'm never forgive you if he doesn't—!" Mina was back to her old flighty self as she spouts meaningless threats and quickly dials her trusty phone like a pro, but Ken's end was only on voicemail. "If he said he'll be here, he'll be—ding dong!—HERE!? EEEKK! He's here already and I'M NOT EVEN DRESSED! GOOD JOB, ARTEMIS!" She barks in a fierce whisper at the white cat.
"Good morning—huff—Ken-nnnyy!" Lucky for Artemis, as Mina ran to throw open the front door downstairs, the blonde bombshell—literally the perfect word for her flustered appearance—was in quite a state, as she trips on the doorstep with her left and right wrong feet white kitty slippers. But fortunately, Mina lands right in her boyfriend's sure, strong arms which seemed ready for anything the vivacious dynamo had to offer, even this early in the still dark morning.
"Good morning, indeed, Mina! I'm glad I caught you." The sweet voiced, kind-eyed, lovely smiling, good-humored young college student said all the right things to still his anxious girlfriend held securely tight in his grasp—Yes, Mina had finally landed a real, live boyfriend who her strict mom and dad didn't frighten away!—as she gazes up at her hero adoringly.
Ken apparently didn't mind one iota that Mina's long hair was askew, with her pink pajama attire all in a wrinkled, crumpled mess. He just wanted to be with her to enjoy this last sunrise together.
"Me, too. Oh, Kenny. You're so romantic—I love you." As Ken held her tenderly in a somewhat diagonal position, delirious Mina unconsciously speaks her sigh aloud before she caught her sleepy self. "Uh, did I say that out loud?"
"Yes, you did, my morning Sunshine. I love you, too." Ken answers honestly in her eyes, reveling in her unmatched glow just as much, as they share the tender sentiment. "Here, put on my coat. I think the show's about to begin soon, if those dark clouds get out of the way." As down-to-earth a young man yet he was still hopeful and dreamy, the handsome blend of perfect boyfriend suited Mina just fine. After checking his watch in anticipation for the predicted daybreak minute, he gentlemanly removes his coat and drapes it over Mina's pajama shoulders.
She didn't even realize she had been shivering until Ken did that chivalrous act for her as his hand points to the dark, stormy sky while he led Mina to the swinging bench her stern, yet truly warm deep down dad had installed on the side of the porch for his bright and sparkling little girl when they moved to this house in Tokyo.
Ken's caring reminded her of her father, Mina giggling in pure delight as Ken tucks her into the seat for the viewing, twirling the scarf sill attached to his neck around hers when he sits close beside her. With eyes having to tear themselves away from her radiance to gaze up in anticipation for the shy sun's emergence, Ken's arms wrap around her body swathed in his big warm fleece coat.
"C'mon, sun! You can melt those nasty dark clouds with just one smile!" In the spirit of the happy moment, he brought her heart where his love sparked her to shine over the night's fears, Mina encourages the solar body to make his appearance after a long, dark and cold wait.
GLIMMER!
"Look! You did it! You scared the clouds away, Mina! Here comes the sun." As the struggling sun finally peeks through to dawn, just on cue, Ken announces proudly with a similar chuckle to watch the thick storm clouds break, just at the moment the 'goddess of Venus'' giggle summoned it to shine forth.
Even though this final night was full of dark trepidation, anxious stress and foreboding storms, the new day's sun God had promised was still there, just hiding its light behind the shadows until they would be dispersed by shining belief.
And if anyone had unstoppable belief, it was Sailor V.
Mina's once against boisterous mouth was going a mile a minute, as she was excited to discuss all her practically-forgotten-in-all-the-serious-battle-fears plans for the new year, now remembered again with her budding love interest patiently listening with interest.
Peering out the window above when the sun miraculously streams a few rays through the clouds, giving not only light, but hope, to the frazzled nerves of the guardian cat as well, Artemis shares a loving, grateful smile all his own to the Creator of light. From the window directly above the bench swing, he could hear Mina's ceaseless chatter, chatter, chatter override her quiet visitor, who looked serene, seeming to like it that way anyway.
Knowing his girl so well, Artemis was glad the Soldier of Light and Love had been brought out from her depression by both, that stemmed from deep inside. The white cat sighs, pleased to see Mina bright and beaming again, just like he always wanted her to be.
That's right, Mina, your light can't go out—even if the rest of this world is enveloped in darkness… I will always look for your shine to light my way… Fighting the negativity that breaks into his rational head with her incredible, inextinguishable glow, Artemis' attention was truly conscientious for his young charge on this earth.
Yoyogi municipal park, Shibuya Tokyo city...December 31, 1999...7AM...
Worry was a common symptom among the Sailor Guardians on this daunting last day of the year. Not so far across town, that small window of sunlight breaks through over another young woman who was anxious it may not dawn at all on this dark, stormy morning start.
HI-YAAH!
The busy schedule Artemis was referring to had kicked into full gear early for this responsible, tall girl who was intensely focusing on her karate practice training against a defenseless park tree as her lone opponent.
Though the morning sun was still somewhat cloudy, the representative Sailor Soldier of the thunder planet, Jupiter, was grateful to God when the deafening storms—she had no part in causing this time—at last had parted enough for her to get outdoors and do some needed calisthenics.
Bobbing and weaving, swift kicks and punches smack around the padded pillow abdomen area of the tree dummy posing as her enemy. Her chestnut hair gleams as ponytail and perspiration both fly through the air unbound, despite the cool weather. The entire thirty foot tall maple tree shakes and shivers at her kick, proving Lita Mitchell was indeed a force for any opposition to deal with.
Lita's finely honed fighting skills—the product of years of toughening street fighter training—were backed up by a might of unbelievable proportions for a young female. Unshakable Jupiter was always a pillar of that strength, of courage, of fortitude for the rest of Sailor Scouts. Her innate belief in truth prevailing against any threat was a towering mountain for her friends to run to and shelter behind.
But at this tense moment, the immovable mountain of faith was close to crumbling down.
What if we're not tough enough to beat Metallia herself? Her minions were pretty bad…it was too close to call…some of us almost didn't pull through…No way would we have made it without our latest power-ups!…I've gotta keep getting stronger! I've gotta be better this time! Not good enough yet! I'm not good enough!
SLAM!
Hard, Lita smashes her toughened fists with such ferocity into the dummy, sending the hay creation flying. Its padded body spins at dizzying speed, not taking off to the sky only due to Lita's double safely secured knot around the oak tree's thick hanging bow above as well.
"Whoa! Lita! I sure hope I'm not the one you're mad at." An engaging male voice calms her angered emotions immediately. Lita sees through the red clouding her eyes when Andrew Collins arrived on the scene, picking up and pointing at the battered and bruised stuffing popping out of the seams of the dummy Lita had just massacred and sent flying across the Tenth Street Park.
"Andrew!" The stressed girl feels her heavy heart lightening a tiny bit at the sound of his soft voice and the sight of her tall blond boyfriend's kind features.
I can't believe Andrew's really my fiancé. Sigh…
Lita, after a full year of their relationship being official and upgraded to engagement, was still in awe that her longed-for-since-junior-high-perfect-dream-guy was actually hers.
The real live man lived up to that fantasy hype as 'warmest sweetheart ever' as Andrew comes up and lands a sweet kiss on her sweaty forehead, hands nimbly adjusting her crooked hat with a genuine smile.
"Oh, I must look a wreck." The tough girl blushes a little at how unfeminine she must appear, sweating like a horse. Not to mention, wearing worn and torn jeans, an oversized, quite unbecoming sweatshirt layered on top of another old workout tee, beat up sneakers and a dirt-stained baseball cap.
She certainly was not the ladylike, stylish creature Andrew's former girlfriend, Rita, once was. So, Lita could not help but look up sheepishly while tugging at the stains and holes of her shirt to hide them from her fiance as best she could in shame.
"No, Lita. You look totally in-shape! I think your workout suit is really cute and more importantly comfortable and loose for your circulation. Maybe I should put my favorite, hamburger grease stained, holey sweats on and come out with you more often to work off some of these holiday pounds I've been putting on, mostly due to your good cooking, huh? Doctors should be good examples to their patients and follow their own orders, especially when in such stimulating, stellar company." Andrew's smile was contagious, Lita laughing inside to have such a perfect boyfriend who—Alex's sage advice of inspirational words still ringing in her ears after all this time—'accepts you for who you are and not who he wants you to be'.
Smiling now, Lita grins, letting all the holes and stains and wear on her beat-up old sweater now show as she accepts the smashed up dummy from Andrew's amused, laughing hands and merry eyes at her.
"Guess I made a mess of this guy, to match me." The tall brunette scrutinizes the padded pillow she'd fashioned to be her enemy target. Its head had been all but knocked off, the stuffing protruding from both neck and gut making him look rather morbid, had it not been so comical.
"You're never a mess, Lita! You're perfect. You can do no wrong in my eyes." Andrew puts a hand on the tall brunette's shoulder with the honest compliments reflecting pride in his green orbs.
"No way, Andrew! That'd be more like my friend, Michelle…or Alex, for that matter." Considering her older, classier and definitely more cool and composed, Outer Scout friends whom she looked up to greatly, more in the perfect and infallible categories than she, Lita again blushes under the young doctor's intent gaze. "You're just saying that make me feel better, like you always do.
"I'm serious, Lita! No one I've ever met has it all together like you do." The handsome young man says as he leads his young lady to sit beside him on the nearby park bench.
"Me?" Bearing in mind her low state of psyche today, the deep, scratchy voiced and too tall and awkward to be considered a beauty in petite Japan, Sailor Soldier of Jupiter found his words kind hearted, but difficult to buy.
"Look. Any girl who can cook incredibly like you do, keep house all on your own like you do, make all kinds of crafts for your friends like you do, sing like an angel like you do, all while keeping up with your studies and a pretty physically taxing part-time job; not to mention being super-strong, a reliable Sailor Scout, a truly great friend—and a beautiful person all around—I'd say your about as darn near perfect as they come." Speaking honestly from where he sat beside her, Andrew rattles off her credentials until he had no fingers left on all of his hands as he described Lita Mitchell's innumerable good traits.
For once, Lita did not blush as she gazed up at into his honest eyes gazing over at her with such admiration.
"Really, Andrew?" Lita feels the usual confidence that was slipping away these past few days filled with worry coming back to her full force. If there was someone as real and genuine and true as Andrew Hansford telling her she was more than good enough, then it was more than good enough for her to believe it.
"Really, Lita." Andrew nods with conviction. "No matter what happens, I know you can beat it. You can do anything you set your mind to, my tough, yet at the same time still feminine fiancée. And I love that determination about you more than anything else. There's not a thing you could do better, because you give your all and try to help everyone else first. You're a really special kind of person. And I'm a very lucky guy to have you." Andrew wraps a comforting arm around Lita's thick shoulders, giving the reassuring squeeze to her sweaty sweater, before he suddenly leaps to his feet and scoops up the demolished dummy from the ground Lita had dropped earlier.
"How about trying your skills out on a real moving target now, Jupiter?" Always helpful, jumping in with anything she was doing, because whatever was important her, was important to him. So good guy Andrew holds up the distressed dummy in front of him for his Lita to give her all—
SWING!
WHOOSH!
With a playful smirk at her own disciplined capabilities, Lita's powerful quick fist just misses connecting with Andrew's peeking around jaw. The look of shock and awe at her swift moves and self-control crossing his face turns into a chuckle at his warrior woman's alert quickness and strength.
"And I didn't even include the fact that you're the best girlfriend ever! Even if you just tried to deck me! C'mon! Give me all you got again, Muscles!" Andrew's encouraging chuckling voice brings Lita such joy, peace and acceptance that she forgets all her troubles and insecurities to beam her 'best boyfriend ever' her brightest grin that dared to scare the storms away.
And above all, whenever this tough but tender-hearted young woman gave him a smile, no matter what happened in this changing world, Andrew Hansford knew he could be counted on to always be smiling right back for her at the end of his amazing guardian's long day.
Arisugawa Park House, Motoazabu Roppongi, Tokyo...December 31, 1999...7:30AM...
And whatever happens…and whatever happens…
Whistling the tune of the song Amy Anderson hears echoing through her, she sits at her desk at her apartment house, all alone, continuing to input data into her computer.
Doing more than one thing at once was a common habit for this rightly dubbed 'girl genius.' Amy could type at an amazing rate of over ninety-words-a-minute, draw a detailed map of the target location she was researching online onto her minicomputer, simultaneously mentally calculating the time it would take her to finish the report, while taking bites of a midnight snack sandwich in between.
The short cropped, dark-haired girl was still nibbling on the said sandwich, all by herself staying up deep into the night after the tense Sailor Scout meeting at Rei's temple. Amy Anderson was doing all of that—plus some mental exercises on geometrical equations to keep herself sharp—all whilst whistling this melody as her only companion.
It was Amy's overactive mind's way of a sort of release, her bottled up frustration at figures not adding up, or some spatial maps not quite making sense leading nowhere that often made her whistling even louder, sharper, more intense. And the conundrum of Metallia's hidden, secret lair on this last morning of the year 1999 was plaguing her mind and making her whistle all the more frenzied.
"… Amy? Ummm…are you awake already? I was just…umm…wondering…Amy…uhh…but if you are probably too busy—that is, I should go away, now…so…just say so…" Greg's uncertain voice wobbles through the crack in Amy's bedroom door.
Remembering her very important holiday houseguest, despite herself, Amy smiles as she paused in her anxious whistling immediately, to go to meet him at her door.
"Good morning, Greg. Did you sleep well, I hope?" Amy's furrowed frustrated brow hides itself as she puts on her sweetest smile to the welcomed guest whom her Mom had thoughtfully offered him to stay over for the holidays. His own folks had all gone overseas to visit the rest of the Mueller clan in Germany soon after Christmas morn spent with their brown haired son. But Greg suddenly decided to remain in Japan to ring in the New Year with a certain special young woman in his life. His strict parents, taken with the romance of the Christmas season in Japan, allowing Greg to remain after Mrs. Anderson—a capable doctor of similar good German stock no less—had assured them that their son would be well cared for in their two week absence over the January holiday.
"Oh, good morning, Amy." The timid young man responds in little more than a shy whisper. "Oh—yeah… I slept fine. Didn't you, Amy? You look kind of…uhh…tired…but I mean that…uhh…only in the best way!" Trying to cover up his rude faux pas as to describe the young woman's looks in the morning with multiple stutters, as soon as the honest words had come out of his mouth, Greg bites his lip, fearing he had said too much in their tentative relationship.
"Oh, no. I'm fine, really. I often stay up late at night on my computer. It just got especially late this time, because there's a lot to think about…" Amy trails off, contemplations of this most serious enemy who had virtually disappeared, who had not made any incursions since Christmas night at the Starr residence after Amy and the others had already left. At that time, Eternal Sailor Moon and Eternal Sailor Star Maker had together made that incredible time transfer possible for those poor souls of the Dark Moon family to the converse side of the moon, ingeniously in one second out of time's phase, to make it possible for them to safely escape Metallia's grip.
That was very intelligent and quite impressive for Terry as a new Time Lord to accomplish. So that is how the Dark Moon was born… Serena was fortunate to have Maker and the other Sailor Starlights there to help just at the right time. Time is such a capricious master.
"Don't worry. I'm fine. I'm used to it. Come on in, please." Covering up her tired body and mind alike, Amy tugs on a sweater over her warm turtleneck. Then she pats the edge of her bed for him to sit while she returns to her computer desk near the window.
"Soooo…" Greg stretches the word out. Even after spending several pleasant days at Amy's house, he was still little shy about coming into her bedroom, unchaperoned. Her mom had already left to begin the early morning shift at the hospital.
"So…what have you been studying all night, here alone?" He says, just making conversation for the sake of it, being of a shy, reticent nature as long as he could remember.
"Just trying to pinpoint where the enemy may be right now. The Sailor Scouts are pretty much all in agreement that Metallia will be at her maximum output—if we calculated correctly her last energy boost—at exactly 12 o'clock midnight tonight. The end of this millennium—that is, if we don't find a way to stop her first." Amy feels ice chills go up and down her spine in her own prediction when she points at the much studied and scrutinized over and over again computer screen to keep coming up blank, with only the forecast of certain doom continually flashing across her computer screen's cognitive malaise.
She, a calculating genius, understood for a fact that that level of pure evil darkness was more than enough to overcome the entire planet—and the entire human race along with it.
"You mean, if she does, there won't be a beginning of the next one." Greg says, he never one to look at the glass half full, rather often seeing the glass half-empty due to his past experience with the Negamoon.
But this morning of all mornings, it seemed Amy could use some uplifting in her unusually low spirits. for he could see the anxiety and worry clear in her pretty blue eyes without having any 'Bumboo' boy prediction abilities…
"Yes." Amy, considering Greg's words, smiles despite her anxious heart. She giggles softly at the truth in what he had just stated. Midnight, after all would be the first minute of the 21st century… "Everything depends on the way you look at it, doesn't it?" The girl who usually looks for cold hard facts states, concluding with a smile at the maturity of the nineteen-year-old young man gazing at her with his piercing brown eyes full of concern and more logical intelligence than she felt in herself at the moment.
"That's right, Amy." Greg nods with a soft smile, joining his new girlfriend at the keyboard she was madly typing it. "I'm not even close to being half as good as you are at the computer, or at anything for that matter. Not even the journalism I'm majoring in at college. But—as good practice for being an investigative journalist—at least let me try to help you look for this Queen Metallia? I bet the search will go faster if we bounce ideas off one another…together." Greg offers, wanting to help his Amy in any way he could offer with his small, unworthy services for mental capacity. But at least she would not be spending this last day in worried solitude with just a computer as her cold, calculating companion.
Not if he was here at her side.
"Sure, Greg. That sounds like a really great idea. Let's get something good to eat first, though. I'm not much of a cook, but my mom taught me the greatest recipe for sugar cookies, if you're interested?" Feeling her downed spirits uplifted, the sentiment of 'never giving up,' her life motto which had she'd been ruled by, egging her on again, Amy leads Greg to the kitchen. It felt so right to have someone to talk to over cookies, about her equations and calculations and discoveries— things might just go right after all and turn out fine with a sweet friend like Greg and the other Sailor Scouts believing her, not just for her genius mind and incredible research intellect—but for the sake of her love and friendship as well.
With her mom's fresh-baked sugar cookies in her hand, and Greg's even sweeter smile in her eyes, Amy was certain now that she would find Metallia before the evil queen reached the power point too great for them all to handle, as her intelligent, worried mind turns around to be more positive.
I just know we can do this all together, guys!
And whatever happens… If we experience love in this life, it will be okay!
Hello!
Last day of the year 2023 Greetings Sailor Moon friends! ^0^
Thank you so much for reading and participating in this grand Sailor Moon adventure! We are just a few chapters away from this long in coming novel's completion! It's been two decades in the making, with my goal of finishing our beloved first story in next year's 25th anniversary from when I first wrote this story from my heart!
I hope you enjoyed this 'calm before the storm' episode as the sailors each connect with their own loves and partners in life as they prepare to face the greatest enemy (the evil Negaforce that has underscored each villain throughout the entire series) that Sailor Moon and her Sailor Scouts have ever known as time counts down their perilous last day of 1999!
I pray to the Lord that all will be well for you and your dearest ones in this upcoming New Year!
God bless and keep you, minna-sama!
May Jesus' Love and joy fill your hearts with peace all through the year,
Your friend in Christ,
HarukaKou