OCWaGH: Chapter 3
Elsewhere, all the way back in Tokyo, it was now 9:45 p.m. We zoomed in on a section of the city named Juban District. Located in this part of the city is an old shrine called the Hikawa Shrine. It is here where we can see a few teen girls gathered around the entrance, as well as two adult women. The teen girls were still wearing their school uniforms while the women wore something more casual.
"So, has no one found any sign of Usagi anywhere?" Minako asked everyone there.
"No, not at all…" Ami said with worry in her voice, "This is very much unlike her."
"I know she was feeling sad because of what happened to Mamoru…" Hotaru stated in sadness, "I just hope she didn't do anything drastic."
Everyone was silent at her remark for a moment before Makoto turned to Rei, "Did any of your fire readings pick up where she could be?"
"Sadly, no," Rei replied, lowering her head a little, "Wherever she's gone to, it must be very far away."
"We should try to check the city once more, just in case," Michiru stated as she turned to Haruka, "This is starting to become dire…"
"I know," Haruka replied, "Wherever she is, I hope she's okay."
"There's no need to worry," stated a woman's voice from behind the group. They turned to see a dear friend of theirs, standing there in her Sailor attire, "Usagi is safe and sound for now."
"Sailor Pluto!" Everyone gasped as she walked over to them.
Rei narrowed her eyes at what her presence could mean, "I can only assume something about the future has changed, right?" She asked.
"You're correct," Pluto replied, "While Crystal Tokyo is still standing in the future, it is now in danger, thanks to the new enemies."
"That's awful…" Ami muttered a little, "Do you know where she is now?"
"Yes, she's been teleported to North America, somewhere in the southeast," Pluto stated, "I suggest you try and meet up with her there."
"Wait, she can't come back to Tokyo?" Minako questioned, "Why?"
"The new enemy is also there, looking for her. So, she needs to stay there for a while until they are gone."
Everyone groaned a little at that, "How do we even get there? Should we use Sailor Teleport?" Makoto asked.
"That's probably the best way to get there, honestly," Michiru stated, "We'll do the teleport as soon as possible, ten minutes from now."
Everyone there nodded their heads in agreement, "I'll go inform Luna and Artemis that you'll be leaving," Pluto stated, "I'm sure they will look after things here."
Meanwhile, back in Peach Creek…
"What did you dorks do to Nazz?!" Kevin shouted at the Eds as Usagi stood beside them. They had brought Nazz back to the playground and laid her on the bench, she was still out of commission.
"W-We didn't do anything!" Eddy shouted back to him, "We found her like this, honest!"
Kevin glared at them, "And why should I believe anything you say?!"
"How about taking my word instead?" Usagi stated, stepping in between Kevin and the Eds, "We all found her passed out and brought her back here. We're telling you the truth."
He then furrowed his brows at her in suspicion, "And who're you supposed to be anyway?" Kevin asked.
"My name is Usagi," she replied, "I'm visiting some friends that live in another neighborhood, but I wanted to look around the area more and found myself here."
"What the heck is she doing?!" Eddy whispered to Double D, who then tried to hush him, "It looks like she's trying to help us!" Double D replied.
"I think everyone needs to calm down for a moment, okay?" Usagi stated, mostly glancing at Kevin and Eddy, "Yelling at each other isn't going to help."
Ed stayed quiet during most of the yelling, looking over to Nazz occasionally, only to see her now waking up, "Oh, Nazz is waking up!"
Everyone turned back to Nazz, who was starting to sit up from where she was lying down, "Are you alright?" Double D asked as they came up to her.
"… I don't know," Nazz replied in a monotoned voice, looking at everyone; they could see the shine in her eyes was gone, "I'm here, but I can't feel anything."
Usagi paused for a moment before asking, "Do you remember anything before blacking out?"
"Yes," Nazz stated with a nod of her head, "I was standing near the entrance to the Lane when I felt myself being pulled towards the back by something that had huge claws. This creature put their hand up against my head, and then I blacked out."
"… It looks like her emotions were taken as energy. It'll come back over time."
Everyone (except Nazz) turned to Ed in surprise; even Ed seemed surprised at what he said, "Huh? That was weird," Ed chuckled, scratching behind his head as he did.
Kevin made a small glare again, "How would you even know that?"
Ed shrugged his shoulders.
"W-Well… If this 'lack of emotions' is only temporary, then everything will be better for Nazz in due time," Double D stated, trying to calm everyone down more.
Kevin made a small growl before making a sigh of defeat, "Fine, I'll take your word for it. But I'm gonna keep my eyes on all of you."
He then went over to Nazz, "I'm gonna go walk her home," he stated before he and Nazz walked away back towards her house, leaving behind the Eds and Usagi.
They all made a sigh of relief, "Geez, it took him forever to get off of our backs!" Eddy stated with annoyance.
"… Is everyone else around here like that?" Usagi asked.
"Only to us, sadly," Double D sighed, "Otherwise they are all very easy-going neighbors."
"… Hey! Wait a minute!" Eddy started to say as he turned to Usagi, "We still need to ask you more questions!"
Usagi made a sigh, "Well, since you already know about Sailor Moon herself, I guess I can try to explain some more things; at least the best I can."
"I can help!" Ed interjected with a smile.
"Yes, of course," Double D stated before realizing something important, "Maybe we should go somewhere where others can't hear us. I suggest my house for now."
"I'll race you there!" Ed cheered as he ran on ahead of everyone else, laughing a little as he did.
Usagi stared at him as he ran, "Is he always like that?" she asked.
"Yes," Double D stated as they walked towards his house, "Ed is very jovial and a good friend."
"Not to mention dense and thick-headed," Eddy snickered.
Double D made a small glare at Eddy's statement, "As much as I want to disagree with that, he can be that way. I think it's because he has a strong sense to protect others, jumping in without a care for his safety."
Usagi stayed silent for a moment before muttering, "Protecting others… just like Mamoru."
Meanwhile, back toward the end of the Lane, a big, sudden bright flash could be seen. Once the light died down, we could see the teen girls from the Hikawa Shrine now standing around in a circle, all of them dressed in their Sailor attire. A few of the girls kneeled over a little from what they did.
"It seems we've arrived where Usagi is," Mercury started to say before widening her eyes at something, "Wait a moment, how am I speaking English?!"
"It's because our powers are helping us adapt to where we are, so we can communicate with people who speak a different language," Venus stated, "This happened sometimes when I was still Sailor V. It was a handy skill now that I think about it."
"In any case, Neptune and I will scout around the area before deciding what to do about living here," Uranus said to the other, "If what Pluto said is true, we'll be here for a while, so we need a place to stay; hopefully there's an apartment complex or condos nearby."
"Okay, we'll call you if anything comes up," Mars stated to the two as they dashed off toward the left, away from the neighborhood beside them.
Saturn was still feeling a little woozy from the teleport, "Is this what jet lag feels like when you're going across the ocean? It's not exactly pleasant."
"Anyway, let's look around," Jupiter stated as each of them touched their brooches, de-transforming into their normal clothes, which just so happened to be their school uniforms.
Back with the Eds and Usagi, they were about to enter Double D's house when both Double D and Eddy suddenly stopped in their tracks. Of course, this was noticed by Ed and Usagi, "What's wrong?" Usagi asked.
"… That's odd," Double D started to say, "I don't know why I stopped walking."
"Yeah, same," Eddy muttered.
Ed then noticed something about them that got his attention, "Your pockets are glowing."
"Huh?"
Both Double D and Eddy took out the medals that were in their pockets, only to see that the medals were pulsing with a weird light. Usagi looked at the medals and the symbols on them before asking, "Where did you get those?"
"Ed had these in his pocket," Double D explained, glancing down at the blue medal he held, "I can see there are astrological symbols on them, but I don't know why they would be glowing."
"Just when I thought this day couldn't get any weirder, now we have glowing medals," Eddy commented, scratching his head as he examined his red medal a little more closely, "What the heck are they even for?!"
"… Aren't those the things that help you change your clothes?" Ed asked, reaching into his jacket pocket to take his golden medal out to show the others, "That happened earlier with me when I helped Sailor Moon!"
"Wait, what do you mean by that?" Double D questioned with uncertainty.
Usagi gasped, "You two didn't see what happened earlier, did you?"
"Uh… no?"
Usagi sighed, "Let's go back to where we were, we'll need to stand in a bigger place."
"Okay!" Ed replied as he and Usagi walked off back towards the playground, much to the confusion of Double D and Eddy.
"Wow, even MORE backtracking!" Eddy groaned with sarcasm, "I feel like I'll need a nap after all this when I get the chance."
"You act as if we don't usually go back and forth to places like this every day," Double D replied to Eddy with a roll of his eyes as they started to walk back to the playground.
As Double D and Eddy arrived back to the playground, they looked back towards the Lane for a moment, 'Wait, what is this strange feeling that's tugging at me all of a sudden?' Double D thought.
Eddy narrowed his eyes in frustration, 'There it is again!' he thought before making a small growl, "Hold on a minute, I'll be right back."
"Huh?" Ed and Usagi questioned in confusion as they saw Eddy run off towards the Lane with Double D following close behind him.
As the two teens were getting closer to the Lane, Eddy started to turn around the corner when… Bonk!
"Oof!" "Ouch!"
Seems like the person Eddy ran into was also not paying attention, slamming their heads together by accident. They both fell to the ground on their butts; Eddy was seeing stars while the other person only rubbed her head from the impact.
"Rei!" gasped a few voices behind the teen girl as they started to come up to their friend who fell.
Double D also did the same for Eddy, "Eddy, you really need to watch where you're going next time."
"Geez, thanks for the late heads up, Sockhead," Eddy groaned.
As Eddy was getting up to try and make his head stop hurting, he could see the person he ran into also starting to get up, brushing the dust off her school uniform's skirt. She had long black hair and was roughly about the same height and age as him. Her eyes were closed for a moment before she opened them to look at him, revealing her eyes to be bright violet.
"Sorry about that," stated the girl with long black hair, going back to rubbing her head from where they ran into each other, "You alright?"
Eddy said nothing in response for a split second before replying, "Yeah?" He could feel his face starting to get warm.
Double D glanced at Eddy with a bit of a surprised look, 'That's… unexpected of him. I thought he would start losing his temper.'
Eventually, the other girls approached their friend, "Are you alright, Rei?" asked the blond-haired girl with the red ribbon in her hair, "We saw you fall," stated the brunette.
The other girls noticed Double D and Eddy in their presence, as well as who was standing behind them at the playground, "T-That's Usagi over there!" gasped the girl with short black hair.
They all started to run over to the playground, but not before the blue-haired girl of the group turned back to Double D and Eddy, "U-Umm, please excuse us for a moment!" she stated, bowing a little as an apology before running off with her friends. Double D blinked a little at her before placing his right hand over his cheek, a blush started to form across his face.
Usagi widened her eyes at the sight, "Y-You guys?!" she gasped as they all came up to her, pulling her into a big group hug.
Ed made a wide smile at their reunion before noticing Double D and Eddy coming back up to him, "Usagi found her friends!" Ed cheered as he also pulled the other two Eds into his hug, "I'm so happy for her!"
Double D and Eddy remained silent as Ed hugged them, both of their faces were still red from their earlier encounters. Usagi turned back to the three Eds when her friends let her out of their group hug with a big smile; the first one she made since arriving here.
"Hello there, fellow guardians!" Ed greeted as he walked over to the group of girls with the other two Eds still in his hug, "My name is Ed!" he then gestured to his friends, "This is Double D and Eddy, my best friends!"
"… Wait, did he just say guardian?" the girl with the long black hair asked before making a small glare at her friend, "Usagi, tell us what's going on."
Usagi made a small sigh, "I don't even know how to begin explaining what happened."
"It's alright," the blue-haired girl stated as she looked around the playground, "Let's try to sit down and talk about what happened, okay?"
They all decided to sit and stand around the swing set nearby.
"U-Um, I guess we should introduce ourselves properly," Double D started to say to the girls, "My name is Eddward, but everyone else calls me Double D instead, because of the two Ds in my name."
Eddy started to comb back the three tuffs of spikes in his blue hair, trying to make himself look more presentable, "The name's Eddy," he stated.
"And I'm Ed!" Ed cheered with a smile and wave.
"Well, it's very nice to meet you three," the blue-haired girl stated with a gentle smile, "My name is Ami Mizuno."
"The name's Rei Hino," the girl with the long black hair stated, folding her arms across her chest, "I hope you've been treating Usagi well while she was here."
"Wow, there's no need to be harsh to them," the brunette stated to Rei, "My name's Makoto Kino, by the way."
"I'm Minako Aino!" The blond-haired girl with the red ribbon stated with a smile, "Nice to meet you!"
The girl with the short black hair smiled a little at them, "And my name is Hotaru Tomoe."
"Now, with all of that out of the way…" Rei started to say as she turned to Usagi, "How did you get here?"
Usagi stayed silent for a moment; she did not want to tell her friends she jumped off Tokyo Tower, trying to end her own life, "I… I can't tell you," She replied before shaking her head, "T-That doesn't matter right now! There's trouble here, so I'm going to say that's the reason!"
"Setsuna came to tell us where you were," Hotaru stated, "She also said a new enemy is somewhere here."
"An enemy?" Double D questioned with a gasp, "So you mean that inhuman sound we heard earlier was an actual monster?!"
"Wait, there was an attack already?!" Makoto asked, "Is the victim okay?"
"Yeah, she's resting back at her house after I destroyed the monster," Usagi stated, "But when she woke back up, it seemed like she temporarily lost her emotions."
"Her emotions?!" gasped the other girls, "So that's their target this time?" Minako questioned.
"No, it's not just that…" Usagi continued to say, "The monster said they were looking for the queen."
The girls stayed silent to that, knowing what that meant; the enemy knew about their futures in Crystal Tokyo, but it seemed like the enemy did not know Sailor Moon was the future queen.
"I almost failed to save the girl that had her emotions taken," Usagi stated before turning to Ed, "Then I had some help that I did not expect. I finished off the monster thanks to him."
Ed made a cheesy smile, "You're welcome!"
"… HUH?!" Everyone else yelped in surprise, even his friends.
"Wait a minute, are you trying to tell us that Ed has magic now or something?!" Eddy asked in disbelief.
"With all the strange dreams and visions, he's mentioned to us over the past week, I don't think I'm that surprised anymore," Double D stated.
"Dreams and visions?" Rei questioned, "Mind telling us more about that?"
Ed nodded his head, "I can try!" He paused for a moment to remember the dream he had last night, "Uh, I was standing in a foggy place at first. I couldn't see anything at first until I saw a guy standing away from me. I went up to him and asked who he was. He said his name was Mamoru and I was standing in a memory of his. Then I could see a pretty sight in front of me! It looked like a palace, and there was a planet in the sky behind it!"
The girls all started to grow pale at what he said, he described the Moon Kingdom during the Silver Millennium!
"He told me that my dreams and stuff were his memories, and then told me to help Sailor Moon from now on. I was kind of confused at first, but I said I would help!" Ed continued to say as he took out the golden medal with the red rose on it out of his jacket pocket again, "I guess this thingy helps me out with that?"
"Huh, that looks almost like a transformation brooch!" Minako gasped.
"… Transformation brooch?" Double D questioned. He then took the blue medal out of his pocket as Eddy did the same with his red medal, "Is that what these are as well?"
The girls looked at the medals that Double D and Eddy held, immediately noticing the symbols on them; the blue medal had the symbol of Mercury on it, and the red medal had the symbol of Mars on it. Ami and Rei stayed silent at this turn of events; they did not know what this meant at all.
"You're trying to tell us these weird medals can give us magical powers or something?" Eddy asked.
"It could be possible," Hotaru replied, "Maybe we can ask Haruka and Michiru what they think about it when they come back from scouting."
"Haruka and Michiru came with you too?" Usagi gasped.
"Of course they did," Makoto stated with a hearty laugh, "How did you think we got here? We had to teleport with their help."
"I-I think I'll go try to contact them now!" Rei stated as she quickly got up from where she was, "They'll need to know that we found Usagi."
"… I'll go with you," Ami commented as the two of them started to walk away from the group.
'Hmm, I wonder… Did they leave because of those medals those two boys had?' Minako thought to herself with a bit of mischievous smirk.
Ami and Rei walked a few feet away from the group, "Rei, are you having the same thoughts as me?" Ami asked.
"Yeah," Rei replied as she glanced back toward the group, "Why would those two have transformation brooches that are the same as our planet's signs? It doesn't make any sense!"
The two stayed silent again, trying to think it over for themselves.
"Either way, I do need to contact Haruka and Michiru," Rei stated with a sigh, pulling out her cell phone as she did.
Meanwhile, back with the group near the swing set, the girls were discussing what to do next while the three Eds could only sit there and listen.
"This is a strange situation we find ourselves in this time, fellows," Double D stated.
"You can say that again," Eddy replied, glancing down at the medal in his hand again.
Ed looked at his two friends in confusion; he could tell something was off about them, but he could not figure out why. An idea soon popped into his head, "Oh, hey!"
"Hmm?" Double D questioned as he turned to his tall friend, "What is it, Ed?"
"Do you think we can show them around?" Ed asked Double D and Eddy, "They'll need to know where things are around here, right?"
Double D thought about it for a short moment, "… You know, that's not a bad idea," he replied with a small smile.
"W-Wait a minute!" Eddy yelped a little in surprise at what they were saying, "You want us to show them around?!"
"Yes? I think it would be a nice gesture for us to do," Double D stated with a nod of his head, turning to Eddy in confusion, "What's the matter with that?"
Eddy was about to interject with his thoughts until he saw Ami and Rei starting to come back to the group, "… You know what, forget what I said!" he stated.
Double D arched his eyebrow in suspicion, 'I have a sneaking suspicion that he's planning another scam,' he thought before making a sigh to himself, 'It's all he can think about sometimes.'
"Hey guys, we're back," Rei stated to the others, "I got into contact with Haruka. She says to meet with her up ahead towards the direction of the town."
Ami then turned to the three Eds, "Sorry to ask you of this, but can you walk with us there? I doubt we will get lost, but we need to know where things are, and…"
Double D rose from where he sat, "O-Of course we can," he replied with a nod of his head, "We just need to take a left at the exit of the neighborhood. It takes about fifteen minutes to get there by foot."
"… Oh yeah!" Ed gasped as he hopped off the swing he was sitting on, "That's the way to the candy store!" he stated with a big smile.
"Really?" questioned Usagi with her smile, "I've always been curious about trying sweets from other countries. Let's go visit!"
Ed pulled Usagi into a big hug, "Yay!" he cheered before letting her go, "You finally smiled!"
'Huh, I didn't even notice until now,' Usagi thought to herself, 'I'm still upset about Mamoru's passing, but maybe things will get better soon. Hopefully.'
Both Minako and Makoto noticed the looks on Double D, Eddy, and Usagi's faces. They turned to each other and made a sheepish smile, chuckling as they did. They knew what those faces meant, 'Time to play the matchmaker!' they both thought.
Author's Note (August 26th, 2023): Oh hey! A new chapter that didn't take 12 years to come out this time! I'm proud of myself. :P