The following night.

The moment Naru stepped into the penthouse, she transformed into a lioness. As she prowled in, Usagi smiled at her. "I have the coolest friends. I knew a vampire once connected to Hathor like you are to Bastet." She giggled, "When he transformed into a cow, it lacked the same pizzazz."

Naru became her human self again. "I imagine that would be bad on your wooden floors."

Minako had just arrived before Naru was laughing. "Yeah, but don't lions shed?" She teased.

Shrugging, Naru replied, "Fair point."

"You can keep your lioness form if you prefer," Usagi encouraged.

"No, I am practicing my transitions. I'm finally doing it smoothly and quickly. Gosh, when I started, even Sapphire laughed at me. I would have one furry ear, two hind legs, and a furry face for thirty seconds before I was able to continue my transition. The weirdest part was that my left pinky toe always transformed last."

Chuckling, the three of them moved further into the apartment to join the other women who had already arrived. Usagi was having a sleepover, which meant Naru, Minako, Rei, Ami, Makoto, and Reika were there. Luna was invited, but Artemis insisted that she stay home and get a good night's sleep.

Mamoru was staying the night at Motoki's place and having "a boy's night," as Usagi put it. He didn't know what those were, but he knew it made her smile, so he agreed with her.

Once everyone was sitting, Rei pulled out a thermos and unscrewed the lid. She then poured a reddish thick liquid that looked like it had white and black globs in it into a mug. "Yes, it's as disgusting as it looks, if not more so, and on top of that, it's going to render us unconscious for a minute or two."

"You did the spell!" Usagi said excitedly. "That's awesome!" She then deflated quite a bit and shuddered. "I remember it tasting so much worse than I thought it would. I drank that centuries ago, and I still remember." She then stuck out her tongue. "Not a fan."

Rei nodded and said, "Well, I gagged the whole time making it, but I'm drinking it. It just takes one big swallow of this-"

She was cut off by Ami grabbing the mug and taking a big sip. Her eyes shot wide, and her whole body seemed to curl in on itself. "Well, that tastes vile!"

"You just drank it without knowing what it does!?" Makoto said, shocked and impressed.

Ami shrugged, still cringing. "I became a vampire by drinking blood on a whim. Why not? Plus, I trust Rei. Everything she's done has been for the good of others. So what does this horrible-tasting stuff do?" Before Rei could answer her, Ami fell unconscious, hitting the floor with a thud.

"She still surprises me," Minako said in awe.

Usagi chuckled, "And she was pretty nonchalant about the taste. Or do I remember it being worse than it is?"

"No," Minako said darkly. "It's horrid. I nearly choked on it —twice."

Rei eyed Ami wearily. "I was going to recommend laying down. I hope she's okay."

Makoto simply said, "She's a vampire. That won't have hurt. But to ask the question again. What does it do?"

"Let us see our mated marks. I'll be out longer than you since I'm not a vampire," Rei replied.

Makoto eyed the concoction wearily. "Ami probably had the right idea about it. She just got it over with." She pinched her nose and then took the cup and took a large drink.

Minako looked on at her with sympathy. She figured that surely a chef with a refined taste pallet, even when she had been human, would handle the taste the worst.

"Ack!" Makoto said, gagging. "How am I supposed to keep this down!?" She then laid down and closed her eyes tightly. "I just want to lose consciousness already. Someone, please snap my neck-" She fell unconscious mid-sentence.

Rei took the mug and shuddered. "Well, this will be awful!"

Snatching the cup, Naru took a drink and then passed it back to Rei. "Hurry. That's nasty."

Rei drank and then set the mug down. "Yeah, that's worse than you all made it out to be!"

Finally, Naru picked up the mug and downed the remaining contents. "That's not so bad."

"Seriously?!" Minako said, and at the same time, Usagi said, "No way!"

Laughing, Naru shuddered. "No, that's disgusting. I just wanted to be different. She laid down and shut her eyes as her body convulsed from the taste and then joined the others in unconsciousness.

Minako looked over at Usagi. "When I drank that, I had to pay a small fortune after making my way to Tibet and then to a remote village that had a witch that would help a vampire if you brought her wads of cash and a Prada purse. Just discovering that I could do that took years and a lot of research. And here, Rei brought it to a sleepover."

Usagi agreed, "They don't understand, gosh sorry but there are things you don't understand either. It seems so easy now. But to be fair, I've lived a long time to get to this point where I have you all." Usagi picked up the mug and took it over to stick in the dishwasher. She couldn't stand the smell. Returning, she said, "I was a vampire for over two hundred years before I met a witch who did that spell for me."

Minako watched as their friends lay there unconscious. "I didn't realize until now how vulnerable I was when I drank that. All so I could track down mated pairs when they turned killer."

Usagi laughed without humor. "We both risked way too much. I didn't have a purpose, so I decided protecting the innocent was mine."

"I didn't want anyone to suffer like I did, so I felt like I had to stop every bad supernatural being. I think I was really trying to make up for the fact that I lived and my family died."

"And now that I am fighting for something personal, I lost control for the first time in my existence." She thought of the killing spree she went on when she was terrified of Mamoru getting hurt.

Minako gave her a small smirk, "And Mamoru brought you back from completely losing everything. I think instead of frightening him, it made him feel like more of a man. Dracula made such a big deal over what he was able to do to protect you."

"Hmm, I hadn't thought about it like that. I think you have a point there."

Ami began to stir and then waited as she sat up and made a disgusted face. "The taste isn't gone —crap." She then jumped up and grabbed a bottle of vodka from the kitchen. As she returned, she was drinking straight out of the bottle. "This helps."

Once all of their girls woke up and swished their mouths with vodka, rinsing out the taste, they all settled back down.

That was until Makoto shot up out of her seat and ran for the bathroom. "I want to see my mated marks!"

Rei and Ami got up to join her in admiring the bit marks they could now see.

Minako asked Naru, "Why drink that? Sapphire is a vampire."

"Because the marks are important to my friends and I want to be able to see them too. Plus, it started to feel like an initiation with how terrible the taste was."

The rest of the night, the girls spent laughing and joking together. And somewhere around three in the morning, it hit Usagi: Rei was going to turn, too. The friends she had there with her at that moment would be with her for centuries.

Artemis smiled as he got Luna to giggle. He had switched shifts with his co-worker and had lied about why he wanted Luna to stay home. He tickled her again, loving the feeling of her naked squirming, and slipped under the covers to taste her. He had no intention of her getting to bed early tonight.