The radio show had been going on for about three days by now, and the man reading them had such a cool voice that Usagi just couldn't resist listening to it. The show was called Midnight Zero, and J. Daito just had the greatest kind of voice for the kind of program he was running. Of course, the first time she'd started listening to it, she'd woken up Trevor-nii, and the two of them had ended up almost being late for school; it was lucky for the two of them that Trevor-nii had such long legs.
And also that he could draw on some kind of energy from deep inside himself when he was tired; that had really helped.
As the two of them curled up together on Trevor-nii's futon, listening to J. Daito reading the love letter he'd been sent, Usagi wondered at the name she'd heard him saying.
"Trevor-nii, doesn't that sound weird? I'd never thought that Haruna-sensei would do something like this," she said, looking over at her older brother where he sat on his futon next to her. "Do you think it could be a different Haruna?"
"I don't know, Usa-ko," Trevor-nii said, shrugging his shoulders slightly. "It could be some other Haruna."
Just as she was starting to curl back up against her brother's warm right side, Usagi saw Luna coming into their room.
"Luna-sensei, is something happening?" she asked, feeling more tense now than she had spotted the cat; Usagi hoped that she wouldn't end up having to do any fighting tonight, but at the same time she knew that the only way she would ever be able to defeat the Dark Kingdom and save everyone they were trying to hurt with their plans. "Am I going to have to fight again?"
Luna-sensei paused for a moment, looking even more like a cat than she usually did, then sat back up with a serious look on her face. "I don't know; there haven't been many signs of Dark Kingdom activity lately, but there will always be that chance. Until the day you finally defeat them." Luna-sensei huffed, and Usagi would have sworn that she would have been crossing her arms if her kitty joints had been able to move like that. "Still, the two of you need to get your sleep if you're going to be up for school tomorrow." She turned to look right into Usagi's own eyes. "And, sleep is even more important for you, Usagi-chan, since you're one of the Chosen Guardians. Neither of you have the time to stay up watching late night radio shows!"
"All right, all right," she said, waving her right hand in Luna-sensei's direction. "I guess we really should get to bed now, Trevor-nii."
"Good night, Usa-ko," Trevor-nii said, smiling softly as the two of them began to get settled down in their respective beds again.
Climbing into her bed and pulling her covers up to her neck, she turned to look over at Trevor-nii a last time before she closed her eyes. Tonight, at least, had been fairly relaxing.
~SM~
When the alarm went off, Trevor opened his eyes and sat up on his futon. "Usa-ko, are you awake?"
The form under the covers shifted slightly, and he smiled; this was just like her. No matter how much sleep she got, it never quite seemed to be enough. "Come on, Usa-ko," he said, standing up so he could shake her softly where she was still laying. "You don't want to end up nearly being late again, do you?"
Usagi made a sound like she was yawning and groaning at the same time, and he stepped back as she sat up in her bed. "Trevor-nii, why does morning have to come so early?"
"It's a mystery, Usa-ko," he said, smiling as he began to gather up his futon and clean up the space where he had been sleeping.
"Well, I hope someone solves it," Usagi said, and he smiled; even from his place across the room, and even with his back turned to her, he could all but see the annoyed expression on his younger sister's face.
The two of them were mostly silent as they prepared for their respective days, each taking the time to wash and dress up as they always did, and soon enough the two of them had managed to get themselves dressed and ready for their day at school. When they came down into the kitchen, Trevor saw that his and Usagi's parents were sitting down at the table together and eating breakfast.
"Good morning, mother, father," he called, as he and Usagi made their way over to the table themselves.
"Good morning, you two," their mother greeted. "Let me get your lunches for you."
"Thanks, mom!" Usagi called, as the two of them took their lunches and made their way out of their house and down the path toward their school.
Usagi leaned lightly against him as they continued on their way, and so Trevor shifted slightly so that she would be more comfortable while the two of them walked. Trevor was pleased, in passing, not to have to run to school the way he would sometimes have to do when he and Usagi slept particularly late. Soon enough, the two of them had made it to school, joining in with the other students filing into the building.
As he and Usagi settled into their respective seats, Trevor wondered for a moment just where Haruna-sensei was. Yes, it was possible that she could be late, but he hadn't ever known her not to be there when they all arrived. When Haruna-sensei did come in, however, he couldn't help but notice that she seemed even more tired than Usagi had when the two of them had been walking to school.
"Trevor-nii, do you think something bad happened?"
"I don't know, Usa-ko," he said, softly nibbling the inside of his right cheek as he turned that over in his mind; poor Haruna-sensei looked like she was going to collapse at her desk and fall asleep at any second. "It looks like she might not have gotten much sleep."
Haruna-sensei made a half-hearted attempt at calling roll, but she soon gave up on any pretense of that and just lay down at her desk and started sleeping after declaring today a free day. Honestly, Trevor wasn't quite certain how he felt about that; on the one hand, of course, was the worry for Haruna-sensei and his hope that she would get better soon. And then, there was the worry that something else might be going on.
There was always the chance, as much as he didn't like it, that unexplained things could be linked to the Dark Kingdom.
~SM~
Making her way down the street, passing through the deserted streets as the humans went about their other business, Luna muttered to herself. While it was nice that Usagi's elder brother was there to keep her in line, the guardian cat couldn't help but wish that Usagi herself would take at least some initiative, at least. She was one of the Chosen Guardians, and so she should have been at least as dedicated as he was.
Only she wasn't, and Luna didn't know just what she was supposed to do about that.
"Hey!"
Luna tensed her entire body; she could only hope that the man who'd been addressing her hadn't actually heard her speaking aloud. There could be a lot of trouble for her if he had. Meowing as enthusiastically as she could, hoping to distract the man so he wouldn't think that she'd been talking the way she had, Luna found that she was looking up at the man that Usagi seemed so infatuated with.
"So, we meet again, eh kitty?" the man said, crouching down so he could start petting her; it was a nice gesture on his part. "It's kind of strange to see you without Usagi-chan with you. I suppose she and Trevor-san must still be in school. Why don't you wait here, and I'll get you some milk, all right kitty?"
She sighed softly as the man left. "I really wish Usagi could be this understanding."
The sound of an ambulance driving by forced Luna to turn her attention toward the street, and she hurried closer to see if she could tell what was going on. All of this was starting to look more and more suspicious. Sure, it could have just been that someone had had an accident, but it could have just as easily been that that someone had been injured by one of the Dark Kingdom's plans.
She couldn't let that kind of a possibility, remote as it might have seemed to anyone else, stand if there was even one thing that she could possibly do about it.
~SM~
With the entire class gathered at the windows to watch as Haruna-sensei was taken out of the classroom on a stretcher by a team of paramedics, Usagi found herself crowded against the sill with Trevor-nii, Naru-chan, and Umino-san.
"I wonder what happened to Haruna-sensei," Umino muttered.
"She wouldn't wake up, no matter what anyone tried," she said, looking down at Haruna-sensei in worry; she didn't know what could've happened, but it didn't seem good. "I never knew that being a teacher could be so hard."
"I heard that there was a sickness going around, where you fall asleep like Haruna-sensei and you never wake up," Naru-chan said, sounding worried.
"What?" she asked, turning to look over at Naru where she was standing. "I… well, I guess I wouldn't mind that so much."
"What do you mean, Usa-ko?" Trevor-nii asked, and she turned to look over at him.
"Well, I don't think I'd mind getting to spend the rest of my life dreaming," she said, smiling up at her older brother.
"Not all dreams are good, Usa-ko," Trevor-nii said, looking serious.
She sighed softly, wrapping both of her arms around his left. "I guess you're right, Trevor-nii."
Once Haruna-sensei had been taken care of, they were all let out of class early and Usagi was grateful for that. She was also kind of interested in what Naru-chan had to say about Midnight Zero; it seemed like the both of them were just as interested in the program as the other one.
"Really? You mean you've been listening to Midnight Zero, too, Naru-chan?"
"Yeah; everyone has been," Naru said cheerfully. "I've even sent them a lot of love letters, too." She laughed softly. "I guess you didn't have much choice about listening to it, eh Trevor-kun?"
"Not all that much, Naru-chan," Trevor-nii said, laughing softly.
"Who do you write your love letters to, Naru-chan?" she asked, as the three of them continued walking.
"It doesn't matter so much; they're just to my future boyfriends," Naru said, smiling widely.
"Ahh… that's something I hadn't thought about," she said, holding Trevor-nii's right arm a bit closer to her chest as she looked up to the sky in thought. "My future boyfriend…"
Suddenly feeling herself pulled to a stop, Usagi looked over her shoulder to where Trevor-nii was standing, and then followed her older brother's eyes to where they rested on the face of the person in front of them; the one Usagi realized that she probably would have walked right into if Trevor-nii hadn't been there to stop her.
"Mamoru-sempai, good afternoon," Trevor-nii said.
She winced; of all the people they could have nearly run into…
"I see you're keeping your little sister out of trouble as usual, Trevor-kohai," Mamoru, that complete jerk, said with his usual smug smile on his stupid face. "You might want to tell her to watch where she throws her shoes, though."
"I don't understand," Trevor-nii said, as that jerk Mamoru began to walk away.
"Ask her, Trevor-kohai," he said, laughing as he began to walk away.
Usagi growled deep in her throat. "Thank you so much for the advice, sempai!" she yelled after him.
"Usa-ko, what was that about?"
"Nothing, Trevor-nii," she said, wrapping both of her arms around his right again. "Let's just go home, ne?"
"All right, Usa-ko."
Sighing as Naru-chan broke off from their group to continue on her own way to her house, she leaned on Trevor-nii a bit as the two of them made their trip the rest of the way back home, and Usagi tried not to think about that jerk Mamoru and what he'd been saying. It wasn't her fault that the shoe she'd used to try to tell her fortune that one day had flown so far off course. That was just something that had happened; something stupid, yeah, but not something anyone but a jerk like Mamoru would blame her for.
They both headed inside, and Usagi was grateful once again not to have to deal with Shingo on her way in; she'd had enough just dealing with Mamoru-baka, she didn't need someone else getting on her nerves.
Deciding that there was really only one thing that would make her feel better after everything that had happened today, Usagi sat down at the desk and pulled out her special pad of paper. "All right, a love letter for my future boyfriend," she said, tapping her bright pink pen against the pad of paper she'd gotten out.
She already knew what she wanted her future boyfriend to be like: she wanted someone considerate like her father and Trevor-nii, someone who would take care of her, and someone who would treat her kindly just like her father and her older brother did. Still, Usagi didn't know just what she wanted to write to that person; there was nothing she could think of that sounded quite right. No matter how hard she tried.
"Oh, I just can't do it!" she wailed; it seemed so hopeless! "I don't even know what to write! Oh, there was a reason I flunked creative writing!"
"Usagi-chan, you know that a love letter is meaningless unless you give it to the person directly."
"Luna-sensei!" she exclaimed, turning to look at the black cat that had perched on top of her bed. She exclaimed it quietly, though, since Mom and Dad were home.
Not to mention Shingo, who would never stop teasing her if he heard her talking to a cat; well, any animal really, but a cat would be worse than any other one. Shingo really didn't like cats; she couldn't help but wonder just what he would say if he ever saw Luna-sensei. Probably nothing good.
"I don't think that's your problem, Usa-ko," Trevor-nii said, sitting down on her bed next to Luna-sensei. "Not everyone can think so much of the future."
"Yeah, I guess you're right, Trevor-nii," she said, sighing. "I know! We'll go down to the Midnight Zero radio show, and I'll ask J. Daito if he can help me write a love letter!"
"What?" Luna-sensei and Trevor-nii said, almost at the same time; it sounded kind of funny, though Usagi tried not to laugh.
"Come on!" she called happily, grabbing Trevor-nii's left arm so she could pull him out of the room. "Come on, Luna-sensei! Let's go!"
It was a good thing that the FM 10 radio station building was close enough for them to walk to, since Usagi would have felt kind of weird asking Dad for a ride just so she could have help writing a love letter after all the work he did to support her, Mom, and the rest of their family. It was nice having Trevor-nii with her, though. When they arrived at the FM 10 building, with the helpful sign in mint green and bright pink lighted letters that were turned on for the night, Usagi smiled wider as she made her way over to the gate that the security guard for the building was standing in front of.
"Excuse me, sir, but can you tell me where I can find the studio where Midnight Zero is broadcast from?"
"We don't have one."
"What? But," she looked up to the sign on the front of the building, and then back down to the security guard she was speaking to. "This is the FM 10 radio station, isn't it?"
"Yes, it is, but we've never had any program called Midnight Zero," the security guard said, pushing her slightly away from him. "Now, you kids head along home; you shouldn't be out this late on a school night, anyway."
"Sorry for bothering you, sir," Trevor-nii said, bowing respectfully to the security guard.
Usagi huffed softly, slightly annoyed. "Sorry, sir."
She bowed the same way that Trevor-nii had done, even though she wasn't particularly happy about it; everyone had always said that it was important to be polite, and she was trying to do better even though she got kind of annoyed during times like this. Of course, some people said that that was why it was even more important to be polite during times like this. It even sounded like something Luna-sensei and Trevor-nii would both say.
That was what made it feel that much more important, really.
When the three of them made it back home, they had more than enough time to head back to her and Trevor-nii's room and start setting up his futon so that the two of them could go right to sleep when the program itself was finished. When her clock struck midnight, after Mom and Dad had both peeked in to say good night to the two of them – and in Dad's case to suggest that she find a better way to get exercise than to go on walks late at night – Usagi folded her arms and waited.
J. Daito's voice on the radio, announcing the opening of Midnight Zero, made her feel good and annoyed at the same time; she'd been right, but…
"That security guard lied to us! Here's Midnight Zero, right here!" she folded her arms, glaring at the radio like it was that guard's stupid face.
"He might have been thinking of something else," Trevor-nii said thoughtfully, shifting slightly so that she could lean more comfortably against his left side. "Still, I don't know how it would be possible to be so mistaken about something unless you just weren't told about it."
Trevor-nii was so nice; he tried not to think badly of anyone. "Yeah, I guess-" but then J. Daito said a particular name, and Usagi found that she couldn't think of anything but that. "Wow! They're actually reading one of Naru-chan's letters on the air! That is so cool!"
"Well, Naru-chan must be happy, at least," Trevor-nii said, and Usagi could see him smiling, too.
It was nice to have good things happen to you, sure, but it was just as nice for the people you loved to be happy.
When Midnight Zero ended, Usagi still smiling for how happy Naru-chan would be to have had her letter read live on the air by J. Daito himself, Usagi climbed back up into her own bed and looked back to see Trevor-nii settling down into his own futon to sleep. Smiling softly back at her older brother, Usagi lay down for the night and closed her eyes.
~SM~
The next morning, she woke up still mulling over what Trevor-nii had said last night; he was probably right. That security guard was probably too low in the company to know everything that was going on inside the building he was probably just paid to stand outside of and look imposing. She would just have to think of a way to get past him if she wanted to get anything done.
She and Trevor-nii made it out of the house with a little time to spare, thanks to him waking her up a bit earlier than she would have honestly preferred; though it kept the two of them from having to run, so she could at least be grateful for that. When the two of them arrived at school, settling down into their respective seats, Usagi saw that a lot of the girls in class were starting to cluster around Naru-chan. And also that Naru-chan was holding some kind of brightly-wrapped package.
Smiling as Naru-chan held up the package that she had been given, with the other girls gathered around her urging her to open it, Usagi looked up at Trevor-nii as the two of them joined up with them all.
"Come on, Naru-chan," she encouraged. "I'd really like to see what it looks like."
"All right, here goes," Naru-chan said, picking up the package and tearing the bright wrapping paper open.
Inside was a bright purple flower – it kind of looked like an amaryllis, if one of those flowers came in purple – with yellow pollen-stem thingies on the inside. Also, it looked… "Hey, that looks like just the same kind of flower broach that Haruna-sensei had."
"You mean, the 'Haruna the Dreamer' that they talked about on Midnight Zero was the same Haruna-sensei that we all see every day?"
The other girls all seemed surprised to learn about that, but Usagi thought it was romantic; even Haruna-sensei had the hopes for a romance in her future. When Naru-chan pinned the broach to the collar of her uniform, though, the same kind of weird thing that had happened to Haruna-sensei yesterday morning started happening again.
"For some weird reason, I'm feeling really sleepy right now…" Naru-chan muttered, her head starting to droop in that same, strange way that Haruna-sensei's had, and then her eyes fell closed.
"Naru-chan?" Getting in as close as she could manage to where her friend was sitting, while at the same time trying as hard as she could not to crowd her, Usagi tried to get a look at what might have caused Naru-chan to fall asleep so fast the way she had. "What's wrong? Naru-chan, what happened to you?"
She could feel something pulling at her, something that didn't feel very good at all, and as she felt herself beginning to fall backwards as Trevor-nii gathered her in his arms, Usagi could hear him calling to her even as her eyes slipped closed. She could also feel the warm energy that he was beginning to pour into her; it was clear that he was trying to help her to stay awake, but she couldn't quite manage it.
As she felt herself falling deeper and deeper asleep while Trevor-nii tried to hold her up as best he could, Usagi hoped he wouldn't feel too bad; still, she couldn't help remembering how he'd been yesterday when that Dark Kingdom youma had done something to him. This was starting to look like something the Dark Kingdom was doing.
She'd have to have a talk with Luna-sensei… if she remembered it after her nap…
~SM~
When he woke up right beside Usagi in the nurse's office, Trevor couldn't help the feeling that he'd failed. Yes, it was true that Usagi had been chosen to fight against the Dark Kingdom and all of their youma, but he was her older brother and he'd made a promise to protect her when the two of them were children. A promise that he'd only dedicated himself to all the more fiercely after she had opened her home to him and offered him a place in her family.
And now it seemed like he couldn't even manage that.
Looking down toward the foot of his bed as he felt small feet padding across his legs, he saw the cat that had first informed him and Usagi about all of this strangeness walking up to the two of them.
"Do you think Usagi-san is going to wake up soon, Trevor-san?"
"I don't know," he muttered, turning to look over at Usagi where she slept; she looked so peaceful, but he knew that this wasn't any kind of normal sleep.
He'd felt that same cold, draining feeling from that flower broach that he'd felt from that pendant that the first Dark Kingdom youma that he and Usagi had encountered in Naru-chan's mother's jewelry store. That meant… "Luna-san, do you think that the Dark Kingdom could be behind all of this?"
"That's just what I was about to suggest to Usagi," Luna said, nodding her head in just the same way that a human would have done when they were having this same kind of conversation. "We need to go investigate that radio show."
"Yeah, I think you're right," he said, turning to Usagi where she lay on the bed next to him. "I'll try to wake her up."
Reaching out to lay his hands on her chest, just below her heart, Trevor concentrated on the energy that he had felt filling him up when he had been trying to save Usagi from whatever it was that had been happening to her. He could only hope that it would work this time.
"Trevor-nii?" Usagi called softly, opening her eyes at last.
"I'm glad to see you're all right, Usa-ko."
"I was having a nice dream," Usagi muttered, then she shook her head. "No, that isn't important. Trevor-nii, I think something might really be wrong with those flower broaches that radio show is giving out."
"Luna-san thinks it might be the Dark Kingdom running it."
Usagi folded her arms, glaring angrily at the inoffensive sheets where they had pooled in her lap. "I was starting to think it had something to do with those jerks. Trevor-nii, we have to go stop it!"
Usagi was starting to stand up before he could say anything in response to her new resolve, and as Luna-san hopped down off the bed that his younger sister had been resting in while she recovered from the drain that flower broach that the Dark Kingdom had created, Trevor hurried along as Usagi grabbed hold of his right arm. It was probably a good thing that school was over now, otherwise they would have both been in trouble running out the way they were doing.
The two of them ran all the way to the FM 10 building, which forced him to draw a bit more on that strange energy that he had used so many times before; it seemed to be coming to him more easily now, which he supposed made sense since he'd been forced to use it so much against the Dark Kingdom and their youma. He didn't know just what the energy inside him was, but in every case that he'd used it without being forced to in some way by the Dark Kingdom's youma, it had always seemed to help. That meant that it was probably something good.
Or, at the very least, that it was something that wasn't likely to hurt him; he could at least rely on that.
When the three of them arrived at the FM 10 building, taking care to conceal themselves just behind the high wall that held the fenced gate that security guard that they had met just last night, Trevor found that Usagi was wondering just the same thing as he had.
"Luna-sensei, just how are we going to get inside? That guard is just going to stop us again!"
"Don't worry, I have something to solve that problem," the cat said, sounding pleased and a bit mischievous as she performed the same kind of backflip that she'd done when she had given Usagi the broach that allowed her to transform into Sailor Moon.
Trevor wondered what would appear this time. It turned out to be some kind of an odd, stubby pen that looked a bit too fancy to use for writing. It also looked a bit too chubby to hold comfortably, as well.
"Wow, that's a really cute pen, Luna-sensei." Usagi leaned down to pick up the pink pen with the red jewel at the top from the sidewalk where it had fallen when Luna had summoned it; or created it, Trevor would have been the first to admit that he didn't quite know how the cat went about getting all of the new things that she gave to Usagi. "But, what does it do?"
He had a feeling that he at least understood a part of the process that she used to determine just when to give them, though.
"This is a new item of power for you, Usagi-chan," Luna said, sitting down neatly in that way that cats had of doing. "Just say 'Moon Power', and you can use it to disguise yourself as someone who works here."
"Wow," Usagi said, smiling down at the pen in her hands for a moment, before turning to look at him. "But, will it work for Trevor-nii, too?"
"Hmm." Luna scratched at the right side of her chin briefly, clearly deep in thought. "Well, I suppose if you were in contact with him, and concentrated really hard on what you wanted him to be wearing… I have to admit, I hadn't been expecting to deal with two people when I called on any of the Chosen Guardians."
"Oh," Usagi said, looking back down at the pen in her hands for a long moment, before turning to him with a determined expression on her face. "Trevor-nii, would you come here, please?"
"All right, Usa-ko."
She wrapped both her arms around his shoulders, clasping her left hand around her right wrist, while holding up the pen in her right. Trevor got the feeling that he knew what she was planning.
"Moon Power! Transform Trevor-nii and I into a gorgeous newscaster, and her completely awesome assistant!"
He could feel a rush of energy as Usagi was saying those words, but it seemed to settle on him rather than pulse through him from the inside-out the way he was used to. He wondered for a moment if this was how Usagi felt when she transformed, but the energy was gone in nearly the same instant it had come in, and now wasn't the time to talk about those kinds of things in any case.
"Really, Usagi; gorgeous? Completely awesome? Did you really have to put it that way?" Luna said, sounding a bit bemused by the whole thing.
"Well, of course. It's true, anyway: Trevor-nii is completely awesome," Usagi said, taking his left arm as the two of them began making their way closer to the FM 10 building.
Usagi had ended up wearing a bright pink button-up top, with long sleeves and neckline that showed off her collarbone clearly. She also had a thin, gold chain of a necklace that fit almost tight enough to be called a choker. The necklace itself had a large, pink pearl on the front of it. She was also wearing a miniskirt that he thought was a bit shorter than the one he'd briefly seen her wearing as Sailor Moon, only this one looked like a pencil-skirt while that one had been pleated just like the ones she wore at school. She was also wearing a pair of white, high-heeled pumps; he didn't know just how she'd manage them, though he knew how she liked them all the same.
Even her hair was different: shorter than he'd seen it since the two of them had met as children, and wavy enough that it seemed to have been curled at one point.
He himself had ended up wearing a black jacket that looked shiny enough to be real leather, over a black top that he could feel was sleeveless under the jacket that he was wearing. He was also wearing a pair of dark blue jeans, and when he reached up to take off the pair of sunglasses that he'd found perched on the end of his nose, Trevor noticed Usagi turning to him with a sort of fussy expression on her face.
"No, keep them on, Trevor-nii," Usagi said, hurrying to lower the sunglasses back down onto his face. "You'll look all cool and mysterious that way!"
He couldn't help thinking that the outfit he'd ended up in looked like something Mamoru-sempai would have worn, though he didn't know when. Usagi wincing let him know that he'd probably spoken that thought out loud, though he hadn't really meant to.
"Trevor-nii, why did you have to go and bring Mamoru-baka into this?" she asked, scrunching up her face in clear disapproval. Sighing, she reached up to ruffle his hair a bit. "Well, at least you don't look too much like him."
He didn't say anything else; there was really nothing he could have said in response, and there wasn't really the time for a conversation here and now, anyway. Supporting Usagi when she seemed to be struggling not to trip, they passed right by the guard with only a glance from him at their press badges. He was glad to have ended up in such a thorough disguise, though he didn't know if Usagi was the one who had thought to give the two of them press badges or if it was the magic of the pen that Luna had summoned to give to Usagi making those so that they would be able to blend in better.
Either way, he was grateful for it, though he wished for a moment that he knew who to be grateful to.
The two of them made their way into the FM 10 building, and Trevor began to notice just how quiet it was at this hour. It seemed really peaceful to him; he wouldn't mind working in a place like this during the later hours of the night. Still, he supposed that sleeping most hours of the day wouldn't be the best thing for his continued relationship with the rest of his and Usagi's family. So maybe it was best that he just didn't think about these kinds of things anymore.
He did have a lot of things to keep his mind busy, here and now of all places.
"Wow, that must be J. Daito," Usagi said, her voice the high squeal of happiness that he'd only heard when she'd seen something that she really liked. "Wow! He's so cute!"
"What do you mean?! He's the enemy, Usagi!"
Making his own way over to the window, so that he could peer in through the small spaces left by Usagi and Luna while they themselves were looking in, Trevor caught sight of something a lot more important than the appearance of the man who'd been just starting to start off the night of broadcasting the program he was so involved with.
"It looks like all of those people have been knocked unconscious."
"You're right!" Luna exclaimed. "He's taken over the entire show!"
Usagi gasped, then frowned in what looked like as close as someone as bubbly as her could get to stern disapproval; it was a lot closer than he'd been expecting. The three of them made their way into the room that they'd previously just been looking into, Usagi pulling out ahead of them with her determined, angry march, and all of them ignored what the woman they passed was trying to say. Trevor did look back when she grabbed onto his right shoulder, though.
"Look, it's bad enough that even one of you people is heading in there, but we're on air right now, and I'm afraid I'm going to need a good reason to let you go in there."
Before he could think up anything to say in response, the sound of Usagi shouting about the flower broaches and their effect on the people they'd been handed out to came drifting out of the room. J. Daito was shouting right back, but only briefly as Usagi pressed on without seeming to spare a thought for him. It would have been kind of rude, but he was getting a bad feeling about that J. Daito guy and what he might be planning. It was an uncomfortably real possibility that he might be involved with the Dark Kingdom.
When the woman that had seemed so interested in restraining him when Usagi had been the one running into the broadcasting room turned and tried to throw herself through the window they'd been standing in front of, Trevor dove forward and tried to restrain her himself. When she turned to look back at him, the expression on her face combined with the way that the face itself was beginning to distort, gave him a much worse feeling than he'd had just coming in on the first part of J. Daito's broadcast. He'd seen those kind of features before.
Youma!
~SM~
When Trevor-nii was thrown through the nearly wall-sized window by the woman that Usagi had barely paid any attention to when she'd passed her on her way in to confront J. Daito about the horrible things he was doing to all of those girls in love who had shared their deepest feelings with him, Usagi froze briefly in horror. She hadn't even been looking that way, hadn't been thinking about the fact that anyone who'd been working this closely with J. Daito had to have been in on his plot from the very beginning. She almost wasn't surprised when the woman turned out to be one of the Dark Kingdom's youma in disguise.
She was evil enough to be one, even if she hadn't looked like it.
Trevor-nii didn't look like he'd been hurt badly, just stunned and with his sunglasses knocked off when he'd hit the floor; Usagi was at least glad that he hadn't been cut up by all of the flying glass.
"Don't think you humans can interfere!"
Trevor-nii was just starting to get back to his feet, so Usagi focused her attention on the monster that had been disguising itself as the woman who worked with J. Daito. It looked like the both of them were working for the Dark Kingdom; she needed to be ready!
"Moon Prism Power, make up!"
She could feel the energy transforming her, and when she could see again, Usagi found herself facing J. Daito and the monster that he had been working with.
"I am the Pretty Guardian who fights for Love and Justice! I am Sailor Moon!" she was mad, and it was time that these monsters from the Dark Kingdom knew it! "Trampling on the hearts of innocent young girls in love is crossing the line! And this isn't a crosswalk!"
"You could have left off the crosswalk part," Luna-sensei said; and even Trevor-nii was looking at her funny.
Okay, so that was kind of a silly thing to say, she reflected. "And now, in the name of the Moon, I'll punish you!"
"So, you're the one who's been interfering with our plans," J. Daito – though that probably wasn't his real name – said.
"And you must be the leader of the bad guys!"
"My name is Jadeite," J. Daito- no Jadeite replied, though he didn't say anything more than that.
"Prepare yourself, Sailor Moon!" the youma who had been working so closely with Jadeite shouted, leaping at her.
She found herself knocked out of the room by the youma's breath, something that seemed to cause whatever it hit to explode! Usagi was just glad that neither she nor Trevor-nii had been hit by it.
~SM~
Looking out the door that Usagi and Luna had been blown out through by the youma attacking them, Trevor found himself alone with Jadeite.
"You're just a schoolboy," Jadeite said, with a cold smile on his face that didn't even start to reach his eerie, pale-blue eyes. "What do you think you could possibly do against the might of the Dark Kingdom?"
I don't know, he wasn't about to say to an enemy; but he couldn't help thinking it. "Whatever I can, to help her!"
Jadeite only laughed, beginning to stride forward to meet him. "Well, let's see how you manage, schoolboy."
Narrowing his eyes slightly, trying to draw on the energy that he had pulled from deep inside himself whenever he had given Usagi more energy. He didn't know just what it would be able to do against someone like Jadeite, but the least he could do for Usagi was try as hard as he could to protect her. Even if he wasn't a Chosen Guardian the way Luna had been talking about.
~SM~
Narrowing his eyes as he began to sense a strange power welling up from deep inside the human he was facing, Jadeite began to wonder if that Sailor Moon girl was the only one they should be concerning themselves with now. Just what are you, schoolboy? Moving forward so that he could grab the human's neck, restraining the boy so that he would be able to make a more thorough examination of just what it might be that made this human boy so different from all the rest of his kind.
When he came within reach of the schoolboy's hands, however, Jadeite found himself knocked back a step by a sudden surge of energy from the human's body. Opening his eyes after the flash of light had had a chance to clear, Jadeite heard the schoolboy hiss in pain, and smiled as he saw him fall to the ground on his knees.
"A bit too much for you, schoolboy?" grabbing his throat before the human could try to gather himself up again, Jadeite slammed the boy against the wall he'd collapsed in front of with enough force to stun him so he'd keep still during the examination that Jadeite intended to conduct. "Now, let's find out what you are, hmm?"
~SM~
Breathing heavily as she landed, having just finished off the youma that had been attacking her with her Moon Tiara Action, Usagi struggled back to her feet from where the youma had thrown her. When she'd managed to stand back on her feet, Usagi began to hear someone struggling for breath. They sounded familiar; they sounded like-
"Trevor-nii!"
Turning, Usagi ran back into the FM 10 building, following the trail of sound; it was just like when she had been looking for Naru-chan, and just like with her friend, Usagi was determined to rescue her older brother from whatever Jadeite was trying to do to him. For a moment Usagi wished that she hadn't been forced to leave her brother all alone with what was probably just another of the Dark Kingdom's youma in another kind of disguise, but at least she could do something about it now. Usagi comforted herself with that thought.
When she found her way back to the room where she'd been forced to leave Trevor-nii alone with Jadeite after that other youma had blasted her out of it, Usagi stopped in her tracks in horror as she saw Jadeite lifting Trevor-nii up by his neck. Then, clenching her fists as she gathered herself, Usagi made her way into the half-destroyed room.
"Hey, monster! Let him go!"
"Oh?" Jadeite turned slowly, as if he only cared to notice her because she'd just shouted at him. "Out of all of the humans here, does this one really mean more to you than any of the others? Do you even know what he is?"
"He's important to me!" she shouted; Luna-sensei and Trevor-nii had both said that it was best for her not to reveal anything about herself to anyone, and agents of the Dark Kingdom in particular, but there was just no way that she was going to just let them have Trevor-nii without even putting up a fight! "Let him go, now!"
"I suppose we should count ourselves lucky that he isn't a woman, too," Jadeite said, seeming to have completely ignored what she was saying while he continued to stare down at Trevor-nii; his grip on her brother's neck not having loosened in the slightest.
Usagi ignored what he was saying, too; there were more important things she had to do right now. "Moon Tiara Action!"
Jadeite leaped out of the way, starting to smirk as Usagi narrowed her eyes and commanded her Tiara to swing back around at him just the way she'd done with the other youma she'd just finished with. That youma had been just as arrogant as Jadeite was, and now it was just blowing dust on the rooftop where the two of them had been fighting! It wouldn't be any different. She wouldn't let it!
After Jadeite had managed to dodge two more swings of her Tiara, though, Usagi was starting to wonder just how much stronger he was than any of the other youma from the Dark Kingdom. He wasn't like any of the ones that she had faced before, and the fact that he still had Trevor-nii by the neck was starting to scare her. Just after he had knocked her Tiara to the floor with some kind of strange energy blast, something that she couldn't see but could definitely feel as it shook the air in the room, Jadeite yelled in pain as something fast slashed across his right arm.
Trevor-nii's unconscious body fell to the ground, and Usagi turned to see Tuxedo Kamen standing in the doorway of the building, his arms folded.
"It's admirable to want to protect someone, but not when you forget your limits," he said, tilting his head slightly; Usagi couldn't quite tell if he was looking at her or Trevor-nii. He didn't say anything more about that, though. "Farewell; until we meet again."
Scooping up Trevor-nii from where he lay and holding him for a moment, Usagi felt the slight pulse from inside her older brother's chest that let her know that he was trying to draw on that same energy that he'd used so many times before to sustain the two of them when they had needed it. Wrapping her own arms around his chest from the other side, Usagi put her hands on Trevor-nii's chest so that she would be able to guide at least some of the energy to where her older brother needed it to go. Closing her eyes just as Luna-sensei started to come in, Usagi smiled as she began to feel Trevor-nii reviving from his sleep.
"Usagi, we should be going now," Luna-sensei said seriously; Usagi opened her eyes again.
Trevor-nii seemed to be reviving, and all of the other people looked like they were starting to wake up, too, so Usagi nodded and followed Luna-sensei out of the building with her older brother cradled securely in her arms. With how fast she could run as Sailor Moon, it wasn't long before she had managed to get herself and Trevor-nii safely back home. It took a bit longer to get them both back into their room, since she was trying to be quiet so she wouldn't wake up Mom and Dad, since they both had work to do tomorrow.
But finally she managed to do it, setting Trevor-nii down on her bed so that she could roll out his futon and let him get some real sleep – since he did seem to be sleeping now, instead of whatever that monster Jadeite had been doing to him – for the night. Settling down in her own bed, Usagi closed her own eyes. There would be time for her to think about other things once she'd managed to get some sleep, too.
~SM~
The next morning came earlier than she would have wanted it to, but then Trevor-nii would probably say that it was the same with all mornings. And yeah, he was probably right, but that didn't mean that she suddenly liked mornings any better. It didn't mean she liked going to school any better, either.
Still, their day at school was good as far as days at school went; with Trevor-nii offering what help he could with her work when she asked him about that. But, it wasn't just her schoolwork that Usagi was thinking about today…
"My dearest Tuxedo Kamen, from the moment I laid eyes on you, I was completely smitten," she smiled, looking back over what she'd written. It was at least a good start!
"Usagi, are you still writing love letters?" She looked up to see Naru looking over her right shoulder as Usagi had just stopped writing. "You do know that Midnight Zero is over now, right?"
"That's not what I'm writing it for, Naru-chan!" she shouted, as her friend grabbed the letter she'd been working on. "I'm going to be giving it directly to the person I wrote it to! Give it back to me!"
Out of the corner of her left eye, Usagi could see Trevor-nii looking at the two of them as if they were being a bit silly, and to him they probably were, but even if he was her brother Trevor-nii was still a boy. There were just some things he couldn't understand.
"You know, Usagi-chan, it might be best if I read it over for you, first," Naru-chan said, as Usagi got up and tried to take the note she'd been writing back from the other girl before she could read it.
She didn't want anyone to read it before she gave it to Tuxedo Kamen; not even Trevor-nii!
Naru-chan ran away, still holding the letter she'd been writing out; Usagi heard Haruna-sensei coming into the room, greeting them all and telling them that she was feeling much better after the rest she'd gotten, but she wasn't paying much attention to that. Naru-chan still had her love letter, and she wasn't giving it back!
"Trevor-nii, stop her! Naru-chan has my love letter!"
"Oi, Naru-chan, stop it," Trevor-nii called, gently grabbing Naru's right wrist so that he could stop her from getting away without hurting her.
"Thank you, Trevor-nii!" she called, running over so that she could take her love letter back.
"Of course, Usa-ko," he said, smiling gently as she hugged him.
"Tsukino-san, aren't you going to let me read it, at least?" Haruna-sensei asked,; Usagi jumped back as she found the woman almost standing right in her face. "I love love letters!"
"No, no, no!" she shouted, shaking her head as she held the love letter she'd been writing to her chest. "This is my love letter!"
Grabbing onto Trevor-nii's right arm, Usagi pulled him closer so that she could shield herself with his body. As long as she was close enough to him, she didn't think Haruna-sensei or Naru-chan would try chasing her around again. At least, she hoped they wouldn't.