Jon Carp
Greenbeans
Circles of Time: Bad Guy
This fanfic is rated R due to language and graphic imagary.
-----
You're innocent when you dream. --Tom Waits
Reality will be defined by the last man standing. --Ian Shoales
There was nothing unusual about the man. He was slightly shorter
than average, with a bald head and muscular body. His moustache was
neatly trimmed and his beard was nonexistent. He was wearing a dark,
well-pressed suit, with a gray tie and black shoes. Again, absolutely
nothing odd about his physical appearance.
What was strange was the fact that he was falling sideways
through a suburb.
He wasn't screaming. In fact, he didn't seem to notice he was
falling. His suit didn't even wrinkle, despite the fact that his tie
was flapping around his head like a rabid bat. He blinked.
Something didn't seem right.
He landed on the side of a pet store with a slight "Oof!" sound.
He stood up and brushed himself off. He couldn't see a thing, but he
had done plenty of research. He knew that this was called "night".
A rat scurried by, and he blinked again. It was on THAT part of
the world. It moved... right-side up. Bizarre.
Still, he wanted to be as human as possible, so he fell to the
ground. The rat looked up without much interest and then continued on
its way.
The man stood up again. He took a step forward. It worked.
His face formed a smile. "Home," he said happily. "Home home
home home." Then, pleased he was able to successfully use the correct
expression and tone to suit his mood, he walked away, in search of
them.
The people who would save him. The people who would be home.
A voice that might have come out of his mouth (he could never
really tell) asked what "home" meant. Another voice said that "home"
was love. Yet another said "home" was pain. And yet another said
"home" was death.
The first voice asked which was better. There was no answer.
Years ago, he had spoken to his friend about this place, about
how to make it into home. She had suggested evil, but he wasn't so
sure that was a good idea.
"It's easier than the alternative," she had said, in response to
his protests. "And our friends will be happier."
He didn't believe that.
"Check the statistics," she said.
He checked the statistics. The dominant species on the planet
(in terms of intelligence) thought about evil fifteen times more often
than they thought about the alternative, which didn't even have a name
of its own in over sixty percent of the languages.
The numbers secure in his brain, he made his decision.
"Thank you," she said. "Evil it is. Soon we'll be happy with
friends."
Happy they were not. She tried and failed to make them her
friends, and he for one completely blamed the method. What else could
it have been? She had a more than suitable amount of charisma, and her
appearance was very aesthetically pleasing, something that seemed to
count a great, great deal to the dominant species of the planet.
However, they had risen up against her, and eventually forced her
to admit defeat. They had fought her every step of the way, and the
ones that she had wanted to impress most of all (the younger
generation, the power of the future of the planet, which also happened
to be the past, but who was counting) had led the assault. The girl.
The girl had hated her.
It was the evil. He knew it. The evil was to blame.
And so he came back, trying to make his friends with something
else that didn't even have a name in over sixty percent of the
languages on this planet. He didn't like it. It directly contradicted
the numbers.
But a little voice in his head that happened to be coming out of
his mouth seemed enthusiastic about the idea. And yet another, very
similar voice disagreed strongly. And yet another was apathetic.
Dammit, he needed some new data.
Rei had a nightmare.
The man in the suit came upon another man, younger, with five
o'clock shadow and scruffy hair, wearing a Hawaiian shirt and green
shorts. The man in the suit stopped, bowed, and then shook the second
man's hand warmly, smiling and nodding. "Good evening," he said. "If
this is, in fact, what they call evening." Then he continued on his
way.
"That wasn't evil," a voice said. "Yes, I don't think it was,"
another agreed.
He couldn't help but be proud of himself.
After about three weeks of wandering, he spotted two of them.
They each had a color. Beyond what they could see, they had a color,
and those colors didn't even have names, much less had they ever been
seen before.
They were connected, too, he could tell. They knew each other by
sight. They each had a translucent rope connecting them, and when they
sat together at a table, as they were doing now, it looked like they
were caught in a broken spider web. They seemed happy.
"I think someone's staring at you, Rei," Makoto commented,
indicating the general area behind her friend.
"Really?" Rei said, not turning around. "Is he cute?"
Makoto regarded him. "He's too old to be cute," she said after a
minute. "But he's good-looking in an old-bald-man kind of way."
"Should I be freaked out that he's staring at me?" Rei asked,
sipping her coffee.
"I'm not sure," Makoto said.
"Maybe he's looking at you."
"Maybe. He's not looking away, though. He's just staring over
here."
"So give him a death look," Rei said with a wink. "Show him your
muscles. He won't mess with us."
"He's not blinking," Makoto noted.
"Is he breathing?"
"He's... moving his lips. He's saying something. And... he's
smiling."
Rei finished her coffee. "I think we should leave," she said,
standing up. "Don't look at him anymore." They left the building,
leaving him behind.
He was trying to convey warmth and seriousness, but he didn't
think he successfully got it across. One part of him tried to tell him
that, but most of his attention was completely on those bizarre
creatures. They had more than forms, they had minds, they had truths.
They were confused. He liked that. He could relate.
The next day he saw another one. She had a completely different
color, though her body was basically the same. There was a difference,
though. She was connected to him. She knew him by sight.
There was a rope leading from her to him, though it did not lead
back to her. She looked at him and stopped mid-stride.
"Hello," he said.
She did her best to smirk. "That's not a language I've ever had
experience with," she said.
"You're one of them?" he asked. "You're one of the people who
will be my friends?"
She scowled, but a voice whispered to him that she was just doing
it to hide her fear.
Fear? But...
He turned and ran away. She sighed, and, thinking things that he
could never understand no matter how long he tried, she walked slowly
home.
When she got there, she walked upstairs to someone who knew her
by sight.
"Michiru," she said. "He's here."
"Who?"
"The one Setsuna told us about. He's here."
He was running, and had been for quite some time. He was focused
on the voices, which were debating what she had said and why she had
said it.
He was focused away from seeing, and therefore ran right into a
young woman with straight, shiny-silver hair, a green T-shirt, and a
bag of groceries.
She fell down. He continued to run.
In his mind, he was reaching out and touching her, and she was
understanding completely. That's what he should have done. He was
strange, he was absolutely alien, and though it was inconceivable that
he was not welcome among them, they did not understand him, and were
therefore frightened.
He needed to expose them to himself. Let them see and feel him,
let them become a part of him, and then walk away, fully aware of his
every being, his... his beauty.
If they could touch his beauty, they would see. They would see.
At least, that was the solution that the voices had come up with.
Though there still were some dissenters among them.
They knew they probably wouldn't come out of this one alive, and
had sex accordingly. From what Setsuna had told them, he was the Big
Bad Guy. The Big Evil even-if-you-stop-him-you'll-probably-die-in-the-
process-and-it's-most-likely-he'll-destroy-the-world Bad Guy.
They fucked madly, for they both truly believed it to be the last
time. Afterwards, they lay in bed together, watching the snow fall out
the window through each other's eyes and yet their own at the same
time. The world was themselves, and they loved the world more than
anything else. They would gladly die to protect it, to protect
whatever connected them forever.
They embraced for fourteen hours straight. Then, tears dripping
from four separate eyes, they rose to prepare for the battle.
It was a scream louder than most people thought the human vocal
cords were capable of. A crowd of people gathered quickly. Mizuno Ami
was one of them.
A man in a Hawaiian shirt and scruffy, dark hair was writhing and
screaming on the pavement.
"Has he been shot?" someone asked.
It was apparent to Ami that he had not been shot. Something was
obviously wrong with him, but she couldn't tell what it was. The
vision center of her brain knew how apparent his problem was, but
fortunately, it told the rest of her brain slowly, gradually, to
protect her from going absolutely insane.
Then, with something halfway between a gasp and a grunt, she knew
what it was.
The man had hands where his eyes were supposed to be.
People around Ami were beginning to figure it out, and most
turned to run, some vomiting, some not.
The man lurched towards Ami and grabbed her leg with his
hand/eyes. "I can't SEE!" he bellowed. "I CAN'T SEE!!"
Ami tried to pry the hands off, but they were surprisingly
strong. And they were continually growing fingers.
The man let out a high-pitched shriek as his right arm suddenly
turned into a large toe. Ami began to feel faint.
The man let go as his ribcage began to collapse in on itself.
His sternum became another heart, his left foot grew a small intestine,
and every hair on his head spontaneously became a pair of lips.
Ami stood and watched, unable to even blink.
He smiled. Someone finally understood his beauty. Someone had
become a part of his world.
It will spread, a voice commented. Now that it has begun, it
WILL spread. Soon the whole world will be touched by it. And that is
a good thing.
His mouth closed. He would not allow argument.
Makoto held Ami close as the blue haired girl sobbed. It was not
a thing the present company were accustomed to seeing. None of them
had witnessed what she had. The body of the man had mutated and
twisted until only a small mound of organic material was left with
various recognizable bits extruding.
Ami had been ill. A puddle of her own vomit laid near the victim
when the Tokyo authorities arrived at the scene. She had left before
anyone could question her.
The others were called when a shaken Ami climbed wearily up the
steps leading to the Hikawa Shrine. So far, only the Inner senshi were
present, though the Outers had been asked to come. Their absence was
not surprising.
"Ami-chan, do you want to talk about it?" Rei placed a reassuring
hand on Ami's knee. She squeezed it, trying to convey her concern
while still expressing her need to know what had so disturbed the young
medical student.
"It was..." a gurgled sob caught in her throat.
"It's the end of the world," Haruka's stern voice said from the
doorway.
A hand slid the door aside. "Excuse us," Michiru's light timbre
belied Haruka's earlier tone. "But we have business to discuss."
A man in a lab coat examined a tissue sample from the specimen
that had been brought to him yesterday. He had yet to sleep since it
arrived.
What he was looking at was from the lining of the stomach, though
it hadn't started out that way. According to witnesses, this had once
been a man's right thigh.
Personally, he thought someone was playing a prank on him.
The sample was perfectly health with no disease, no tearing of
the lining, no ulcers. It was taken from the stomach of an adult, but
that was the most remarkable thing about it.
And Ami felt fine.
The restaurant was open. It was not closed. Noticing this, she
went in.
She was wearing clothing, but she was not doing it correctly.
The skirt that was tied around her arm and the sandal on her right hand
would tell anyone that. She walked up to a baby wearing a set of
encyclopedias and a monkey or two. She stared at him.
The bank teller in the suit and tie looked back at her, for quite
a long time, due to the fact that she was dressed in such a way that
her bosom was completely exposed.
She was smiling.
"Guitar," she said. "Guitar guitar guitar." Which meant, of
course, that she was hungry and wanted to purchase some food.
The bank teller called security.
"Quel lyot ul treabin rel blourde," she said matter-of-factly.
She was smelling something with her straight, shiny-silver hair.
To her right, two large arcade machines were approaching her.
They were her friends. She tried to run away, but they caught her, and
began dragging her away. That was when she thought she started
screaming, but in actuality she simply fell asleep.
He watched a newscast through the window of an electronics store.
The newscaster's lips moved. He could not hear her, he didn't need to.
His beauty was spreading. Others would see the beauty that he does and
they would thank him for his gift.
A teenager stood besides him, watching the broadcast. "I hear
that she looked like Gojira chewed her up, then spat up her remains,"
he informed his female companion.
The young woman regarded him with a look of disgust. "You are so
crass," she walked away.
He laughed. It was a new experience, for he had not laughed as a
human before. It was an experience that he would have to find reason
to repeat. He turned to speak to the young man. "Thank you," he said
simply, squeezing his shoulder, before walking away humming to himself.
A voice protested that they would not understand his beauty.
That they were afraid. Another argued that there was no better way to
show them not to fear then by bringing it to the forefront.
He listened to their discussion. But the choice has already been
made. There was no way to stop the spread once it was started. They
would see his beauty, whether they accepted it or not.
She nodded her approval. He had made the right decision in her
opinion. They needed more exposure to those around them. He should
seize this opportunity to make Earth his home.
The Soldier of Embrace had a bad feeling.
The newscasts reported ten deaths today. Two were due to an off-
shore fishing accident. Another two were caused by an automobile
collision. One was under investigation, but not the same investigation
as the last five deaths.
Authorities were stumped. They were unable to find professionals
to assist in their investigation since the first scientist whom had
examined the original remains had become a small, pink dog, much like a
toy poodle. His final reports had stated that the remains held no
disease, parasites, or otherwise.
Obviously his reports were incorrect.
And Ami felt fine.
He saw her again. The one who had a rope to him, but he did not
have one in return. She was with a companion whose ropes were likewise
configured.
"Hello," he said hesitantly, stepping forward to meet them. "You
are my friends." It was a statement.
"Are we?" The taller of the two intoned.
He considered her question carefully. "Yes," he answered after
much thought. "You are my friends and I am home."
He then thought some more. "At least," he said, "That is by far
the most likely possibility."
He gathered from the voices that they would probably disagree.
Still, he couldn't be sure. He knew that nothing is a sure thing.
And then they were moving apart very quickly, and he wasn't sure
if he had initiated this new development, or if it was them, but it
didn't matter because he was with them anyway. He knew them by sight.
They were his friends. They had given up a part of themselves and
entrusted it to him.
It was only fair that he do the same, of course. He had to do
the same. He quickly devised a plan.
Ami consulted the records through bloodshot eyes. She hadn't
slept in three days, and that was probably the reason she was so tired.
She couldn't be sure, however. Nothing was a sure thing anymore.
Luna, walking in behind her, yawned. "Have you found anything
important yet?" she asked.
"It's physical contact," Ami said. "I do know that. At this
point, you have to make physical contact with someone who's been
affected to become so yourself. So stay back, please."
Luna blinked. "You... haven't become affected, have you?"
Ami sighed. She put down the coroner's reports and stood up.
"I'm going to show you something, Luna," she said. "And you can't tell
anybody. Do you promise?"
Luna nodded. Ami undid her jeans and pulled them down. "I have
two knees on my right leg," she said.
Luna stared.
"That's where he grabbed me," Ami said, pointing. "I've been
feeling perfectly fine, but I woke up this morning and it was there.
It took me all morning to learn how to walk on it."
Ami bent all three of her knees. Luna looked sick.
Ami pulled her jeans back up. "I'm sorry," she said, genuinely
sorry. She smiled half-heartedly. "It's actually an advantage, when
you think about it. It's stronger, more maneuverable... evolution
could start giving us two knees on each leg in a few hundred thousand
years."
"Ami..." Luna whispered. "Does this mean the others are...?"
"Probably," Ami interrupted. Her voice was level, controlled.
"I need to get some of the actual remains of that man, or one of the
other victims. I need to study them.
"I'll sneak in tonight."
"Setsuna warned..."
"She said it could be stopped by us..."
"The mighty Sailor Pluto imparting knowledge of the future? I
think not..."
"What are you talking about?" Hotaru pushed herself the rest of
the way through the door that had been cracked open. Haruka and
Michiru were lounging in the family room on a couch. An open bottle of
wine and two glasses set on a low table by their shins.
"Hotaru-chan, what are you still doing up?" Michiru slipped into
her motherly mode. She rose off the couch to embrace her. A habit
that had been hard to break, even though she was nearly grown now.
"Michiru-mama," she embraced the woman that was hardly old than
her before repeating the question.
Haruka motioned for her to sit down on a nearby chair. Michiru
returned to her position next to her lover before the blonde haired
woman spoke. "We were discussing the new enemy."
They had, of course, told her about Setsuna's warning of a
visitor from out of system. As to him being a threat, she wasn't as
certain. It was her duty to protect against threats from the outer
system, but her 'parents' could be a little paranoid about it
sometimes. They didn't think she took her duties seriously, saying
that she was being influenced by the recent fad and onslaught of
attention the 'alien' theme had received in movies and television.
Sailor Saturn did not slough her duties.
"Has Ami-chan come up with anything?" She asked, speaking with
the weight the situation deserved.
Haruka gave an annoyed sigh. "This... plague," she used the word
for lack of a better one, "is transmitted via touch."
"For now," Michiru added.
"Yes," Haruka said. "For now. That seems suspiciously...
rational for this particular enemy, though. I don't expect it to last
long."
"Has Ami-chan been infected?" Hotaru asked, her eyes showing
concern but her voice showing none.
"No," Haruka answered. "We've been keeping regular tabs on her,
and she feels perfectly fine. Which is hopeful for us."
Michiru started to laugh. For some reason, the word "hopeful"
struck her as funny. Haruka went to her.
Hotaru imagined what it would be like to destroy the world. It
was something she had done many times in the past, but this time was
different. This time she knew it might not be long before she actually
got the opportunity to do it.
She blinked, and suddenly became aware that there was quite a bit
of drool accumulated on her chin. She wiped it away and turned her
attention to her fellow Outer senshi.
They were arguing. "You know exactly what's going to happen,
Haruka!" Michiru was shrieking. "We're going to DIE, and then Usagi's
going to save the day! Why do we even DO it?! Why the fuck do we even
EXIST?!"
Her mouth was usually sugary-sweet, but not today. Hotaru noted
that her "mother" wasn't wearing any make-up. And that she actually
looked better than she did when she had it on.
Haruka didn't have an answer to Michiru's question. In fact, she
had been wondering that herself.
Hotaru stood up and left the room, as Michiru began swearing like
a drunken sailor.
Later that night, while Michiru was asleep against her side,
Haruka considered the outburst that occurred earlier in the day. Why
did they exist? Why did they try? No matter what happened, they knew
the results: Crystal Tokyo would raise from the ashes, and mankind
would once again cling to life by its fingernails if nothing else.
What about them? No one ever mentioned their presence in Crystal
Tokyo. They had assumed long ago that they would die before the new
age...
Haruka snorted at the irony. They had so cockily announced that
they were 'invited by the new age'. 'Used like a doormat to the new
age' would be more accurate. Their age was quickly coming to an end
after a disappointingly short run.
Why not..? Why not run away from all this? Why not curl up in
some little hole and make mad passionate love to Michiru until the
reaper came for them? If they were to die anyway, why not go out
happy?
Haruka's chest tightened. She gasped at the sudden constriction,
managing to not wake her lover. The Space Sword extracted itself from
her, to glow softly, floating, a half meter above her chest.
"What the..?" She whispered harshly. The sword swung around as
the scabbard melted away to reveal the blade itself. The point hovered
a few short centimeters away from her nose.
"Are you threatening me?" She growled at the defiant object. It
shimmered then dissipated into nothing.
This caused her to sit up, startling the no longer sleeping
Michiru. Try as she might, Haruka could not call the Talisman to her
hand. Stunned at this development, Michiru tried likewise with hers,
having equal success.
"The Talismans have left us?" Michiru gasped.
"We're as good as dead..."
Sailor Mercury snuck down the hall toward the laboratory. She
stopped. Something strange was about to happen.
Suddenly, a feeling that was quite similar to childbirth, yet
carried with it absolutely no pain, rushed through her body. She
smiled. Then she tried to take a step, but fell to the floor.
She looked down at her right leg. The corruption was gone from
her body. She was a senshi. Senshi are only supposed to have one knee
per leg, and so she did.
She stood and, wobbling, continued on her way.
Makoto didn't understand the pounding in her head. Though
understanding did not seem to be her overall problem. The fact that
years of struggling in English classes had overnight resulted in
complete fluency was overlooked when she was channel surfing out of
boredom and had watched a half-hour show without subtitling.
The pounding in her head was too much to take note such minor
details.
"You should leave," a voice said. "You're killing them, and you
should leave. You should go away from here. You should leave. You
should go away from them. You're killing them. You're killing them
and they are being killed by you and you should leave."
He was trying to drown the voice out with real noise, but it
didn't work. It continued to whisper in his ear.
"That is not logical," another voice argued in his other ear.
"You do not try to kill them, and therefore it is too unlikely that you
are doing it. You love them."
"Love?" a voice asked.
"They deserve to be killed by you," another chimed in. "They
deserve it."
He might have been killing them, and it might have been a bad
thing to do. Without hard data, he had to assume that all of the
possibilities were true.
"But mostly what?" a voice asked.
"Shut up," he muttered. That was new slang to him. He liked new
slang. It was mostly a good thing. He laughed.
We're going to die, she heard someone say, and it was a while
before she realized that no one had said it at all. "What?" she asked.
There was silence all around, and it was whispering in her ear.
"I'm afraid," she thought, or maybe she said, or maybe she heard.
I don't even know which character I'm writing about.
There was something touching the inside of her spine, but her
mind simply interpreted it as a beautiful, sweet caress. She moaned
softly.
Behind her, a bald man was weeping silently out of frustration.
He was playing with her hair and stabbing her in the back and raping
her on the floor and kissing her forehead softly all at the same time
but she couldn't even tell or see or know.
Why didn't she understand? Why couldn't her brain even
comprehend his beauty?
"The others could," a voice whispered. "The ones without colors.
The ones with colors are stubborn."
"They hate you!" another screamed from somewhere near the back.
"They'll never be your friends! They're just gonna fight you and send
you away like they did to her!"
"You hate them, you love them, you touch them and they don't
care," one commented. "You spend all your days thinking about them and
we voices talk about nothing else. They don't know or understand you
at all, and if they did they wouldn't care, and if they did they would
just try to hurt you."
He examined her color. It was a pale shade of green that had no
name. All he wanted to do mostly was make them his friends. He wanted
them to love him, mostly.
The loudest voice smiled vocally. "You need to force them," it
said. "You need to force them. If you don't, they won't want you to
be here. They'll want you to go away from your new home."
"Home?" she asked, shivering on the inside. She had absolutely
no idea who she was talking to. She turned around for no reason at
all, but there was no one there.
Tsukino Usagi woke up one morning with an ant on her lip. She
gagged and spit the crawling insect onto the floor. She picked up a
manga on the bedside table and prepared to smack the life out of it.
But she didn't. She began to think about it, scurrying away as
fast as it could. Her lip was warm and safe. All it had wanted was a
place to rest, to stay for a while. It had trusted her lip, and she
was utterly breaking that trust by treating the ant as some sort of
intruder. It was impossible for her to smash it.
She put the manga down and slowly stood up to get dressed.
Usagi ran up the steps to the Hikawa Shrine for a meeting of the
senshi to discuss the plague that held Japan in its grip.
"The problem is," Makoto said, hitting her fist into her opposite
hand, "is that we're reacting instead of ACTING."
"Who's the enemy to act against?" Rei asked. "I've done several
reading and haven't come up with more then faint murmuring of voices."
"I've been... been working on it," Ami muttered in a sleepy daze.
"The best scientists in Japan are working... working on it."
Usagi frowned with concern. "You really need to get some rest,
Ami."
"Can't. No one else can do the work," she stifled a yawn.
"We all know about Ami's efforts. What can the rest be doing?"
Makoto drove back to the point.
"Find an enemy for us to face and I'm at your side," Minako said.
"Until then, what can we do but keep our ear to the ground?"
"The Outers say there IS an enemy to fight!" Makoto exclaimed in
fustration.
"They also claimed that the Starlights were enemies," Rei
reminded gently.
"Zeal shouldn't take weight from their message," Ami piped up.
"Exactly! We should go out there and fight this head on!" Makoto
grinned at having someone agree with her.
Minako sighed. "Again, I ask WHO? What does this enemy look
like? Does he have a name? Where do we find him? We don't even know
HOW he strikes!" She threw her hands up in fustration.
"We'll keep looking," Usagi decided. "That's the best we can
do."
The Outer senshi were not in attendance of this meeting due to
having received an invitation to meet the being the Inners were
seeking.
Japan initiated a quarantine. It did no good. The bald man
learned how to use a telephone, and called a random man in Argentina,
who found himself physically connected to his bowl of Frosted Flakes
within mere hours of picking up the phone in a sleepy stupor and
muttering, rudely, "Que?"
The bald man felt his tongue with his fingers. It was beautiful,
and the sounds it could make were beautiful, too. He was getting more
and more used to this body, a word he wasn't sure applied, but did.
"I'm having a hard time blinking," Ami thought to herself, but
quickly dismissed the symptom as just a psychosomatic response.
Nothing was at all odd about her blinking. She felt fine.
There was evidence, she knew, and there were reactions to be made
from it and ideas to form from the reactions, and from the ideas come
possible actions and from the actions comes the answer and from the
answer comes security and from security comes happiness and from
happiness comes a feeling of self-worth. If she was the one to study
the evidence in the first place. If she didn't, who would? Nobody,
probably, and then none of the good things would happen. But even if
some random schmuck picked up the evidence and made the reactions and
formed the ideas and performed the actions and discovered the answer
and brought about security and basked in happiness and the resulting
feeling of self-worth, then Ami would reap the benefits, yes, all but
the ever-important last one. The self-worth. That would go to
somebody else. And somebody else's daughter would be proud of her
introverted, single mother who had absolutely no idea how to raise a
child. Assuming, of course that they were in that position. And
Setsuna would look up at them and go, "I want to grow up to be just
like them, Mommy, because they saved the world!" And then Ami would
have even less self-worth than if the entire thing had never happened,
and Setsuna would grow up bitter, angry, and neglected, and Ami would
only have herself to blame.
So she studied the evidence as hard as she could.
Makoto held her head between shaking hands as the roar in her
mind threatened to shatter the few shreds of sanity she clung to. This
pain, it was not physical. It was not real. She was not hearing the
thoughts of others.
Yet she was.
And the things they thought were not pleasant.
Rei. Minako. Ami. Usagi... especially Usagi. They all hated
her. They were still afraid of her. They had never accepted her.
They were using her.
Friends? They were never friends with her. They had MADE her
into a senshi, a warrior, because of her strength. They needed that,
not her. Kino Makoto meant NOTHING to them.
It's difficult to describe the place that the bald man decided to
have the showdown, if it could be called that. Approximately half the
voices were, and the rest were not.
Neptune saw the place and felt the inside of her head explode,
which is not what happened. Her knees buckled and she would have
fallen flat on her face had Uranus not caught her and given her
support.
When Uranus caught sight of the place, she could only stare and
blink. Humankind had not created it. It was inside a building, a dark
building, but the dark was light and the building was outside on the
inside, a neat trick that all buildings wish they could pull off. With
this rather mad thought, Uranus took it in. But then quickly had to
stop, since it was time for her to catch Neptune and give her support.
When the bald man saw the place, his first impression was one of
boredom and apathy. He had created it, so he knew what was going to be
there before he had even started, and DEFINITELY before he had
finished. Still, he hoped they appreciated it. He had tried to make
it... homey. Yes, homey. That was one of the voices' favorite word
now. It liked the sound of it.
He smiled, completely ignoring the little voice, somewhere in the
back, that was whimpering, "They're going to hate us. They're going to
hate us. They're going to hate us. They're going to hate us."
Hotaru practiced. She only did so because she knew it was her
duty to be ready when the time came; if it had been up to her, she
would not have done it at all. It was such a disappointment to have to
stop just before the ritual was completed. She liked it, though. She
liked pretending.
And occasionally, she would stop and think about lamps and dolls
and grass and pink flower petals and those really tiny trees and the
fast cars that Haruka (papa) loved to drive and seafood and ocean water
and mud (the really thick, brown kind that was PERFECT to play in) and
puppies and dead insects and shoes and piles of animal bones in the
forest and the criminally insane and juggling acrobats and rabbit-fur
coats and dark clouds that hid the sun for HOURS and moles and rabies
and eggs and empty wastepaper baskets and hotel rooms and imaginary
friends and multiple personalities and dead frogs that fall from the
sky and love and kaleidoscopes and stand-up comedians and large straw
hats and sunscreen and multi-colored dresses and Wellbutrin and her
father and her friends and the future and the past and goats and wet
cigarettes and asexuality and devil worship and Skittles and kindness
and love (the other kind) and marijuana and flute music and anime and
rectangles and Italian poetry and cinnamon toast and ugliness and bear
attacks and everything else that was beautiful in the (meaning this)
world.
And then she thought she didn't care about any of them.
(But she did.)
End of the world end of the world end of the world end of the
world end of
Rei became rather depressed. Dreams about judgement day tended
to have that effect on her. She was getting rather sick of them.
The end of the world. That meant: when ya die this time, babe,
you ain't comin' back.
At least they would fight together. That ensured that she would
die in Usagi's presence. ('Cause I know if she had her choice she'd
spend her final hours with Mamoru and not with me.)
Rei didn't actually think these thoughts. She thought, "I wonder
what terrible villain will come next, after we dispose of this guy.
Probably another megalomaniac, red-eyed woman bent on destroying us
all. We're about due for another one of those."
But when he kills us, there'll be no more red-eyed villianesses
and Usagi won't be there for me anymore and I'll miss her. And even if
I'm unable to feel anything because I'm dead I'LL STILL FEEL THAT.
She wasn't thinking those thoughts, though, so she went to the
store to buy some cereal grains and put the entire situation out of her
mind for a little while.
Makoto was at the store, being interviewed by the police. True,
it was very late at night, but she was naïve to think that nobody would
see her knocking over the shelves containing the snack foods and
breads.
She resisted the urge to beat the living shit out of the cops
only because she had managed to let off some steam performing the very
action that got her into this mess.
They let her off with a warning, because she was attractive and
very obviously suffering from sleep deprivation. They escorted her
back to her apartment, gave her the bill for the clean-up, and told her
to get a good night's sleep.
Rei missed all this, because she walked right by the store and
continued on to a bar, where she drank several gin and tonics, making
herself three and a half times as depressed as she had been before.
Some fat man hit on her, but she slapped him, never once cracking a
smile. She left, puked in a nearby trash can, and headed off to
Makoto's.
Rei's hand hurt. She had no idea why. There was a large purple
mark on the palm, but she was in no state of mind to figure out its
cause.
Makoto had taken her in with calm panic. She said, "Go ahead and
take the bed. I'm not going to be sleeping tonight."
Rei said, "My hand hurts."
She offered it to Makoto for inspection. Makoto took it,
frowning, and poked the mark gently. Rei gave a quick yelp and quickly
drew her hand back. "That hurt a lot," she said.
"Just go to sleep," Makoto said. "If it's not better in the
morning, we'll show it to Ami. You can't get hurt, Rei. Not now."
Rei muttered some kind of response and walked slowly into the
bedroom. Makoto went to the stove to make herself some more coffee.
Rei's hand was swollen the next morning. She applied ice and
pressure, but the swollen part didn't even seem to be flesh anymore.
It felt more like a ceiling.
Makoto went to Ami's mother's house to check on Setsuna. She
examined the girl, who, halfway through the conversation, started
crying, as children her age are apt to do when discussing deadly
diseases. Makoto wiped the tears away with her fingers.
Later in the day, Minako wanted to have a serious talk with
Makoto and Usagi wanted to have a serious talk with Rei. Both were
scared, both were unsure of themselves when it came their leadership
skills, and both were unwilling to believe that Haruka and Michiru's
description of a psychotic, evil villain was entirely accurate.
Makoto hugged Minako. Rei hugged Usagi. Self-confidence
increased twice.
Saturn lay stomach first on the family room floor. The Silence
Glaive lay besides her. Rolling over, she pulled the weapon closer to
her. Certainly she had wielded it enough times, but she'd never really
INSPECTED it.
The blade looked deadly enough. She tested the edge with a
gloved hand. Cloth was easily peeled aside as well as the tender flesh
of her finger. She did nothing to stop the blood that now traced down
the face of the blade.
How could a few drops represent the amount of blood this weapon
was capable of spilling? The blood of humanity...
All of this happened while Neptune and Uranus watched the place
they had been summoned to. They stared, mouths and eyes half open,
thinking some of the strangest thoughts they were capable of. And why
wouldn't they when the world they had always perceived to be reality
was turned inside out?
The room they stood in was not a room so much as an open space
contained. (At least from what they could see). Beneath their booted
feet were many stuffed animals and various soft toys with trees of
lampposts and branches of traffic signs surrounded them, placing them
in a forest of sorts. A belt slithered by Uranus's leg, causing her to
jump back. The belt hissed at her before scurrying away into the
bushes made of woman's undergarments.
"Show yourself!" Uranus challenged.
The bald headed man presented himself from behind a waterfall of
jelly beans. He walked calmly, confidently, to a comfortable 10 meters
away from the two senshi. Bowing respectfully he greeted them, "Good
afternoon."
"You know why we are here," Uranus's eyes flashed before she
adopted a battle posture.
"I do," he smiled warmly. "You are here because you are my
friends."
Neither senshi reacted to this reason. They stood for several
long moments examining each other before Neptune spoke. "How can you
say that? After all the people you have killed?" The challenge, and
hurt, in her voice were unmistakable.
He frowned. The thought of his friends being upset with him
caused him to feel distressed. "I wanted to share my beauty with them,
but they did not accept my beauty. So it is their own faults for being
weak and dying," he reasoned with the help of the voices.
Neptune gasped in surprise.
He again felt distressed. "Don't worry. I have a gift for you
as well! Yes, I will share it with you now," he decided.
"We don't want your 'gift'," Uranus threw her World Shaking at
him. This he easily dodged via teleportation.
"You are my friends!" He was startled at this sudden development.
The voices told him not to be, for these creatures could not be
trusted. He brushed those thoughts aside, willing to give things
another chance.
Quickly, before either one could do anything aggressive against
him, he teleported again. Firmly he placed a hand on each of their
backs. "I see the bonds between you two. My friends, now you can be
as one like you have always wanted," he grinned broadly.
Neptune whispered harshly, "What have you done?"
Uranus screamed as she melted. If it weren't for her
preoccupation with her own pain, she would have noted that Neptune was
doing likewise. She fell into Neptune, her flesh colliding and then
combining with that of her partner.
He looked on with smug pride at the tangle of limbs and flesh
that was his friends.
Now, they will be happy.
She, no, they had always considered themselves close. Closer
than any two people could ever be: of one mind in two bodies. There
was no longer a physical barrier between them, no longer a restriction
from them truly being, forever more, one person.
And it was Hell.
For, no matter their closeness, they were still two people. Two
people with distinct egos and personalities. They were never meant to
be one totally, but two halves together in the creation of one.
They wanted nothing more than to die.
The bald man was laughing because he was angry. He had studied
this species, this culture, and he knew how they expressed happiness.
They were yelling, BUT NOT AT HIM!! They weren't even yelling at
anything!
He faced Nepnusndaantuneur. He grabbed her by a foot that was a
convenient handle. "INGRATE!!" he screamed. "How dare you hate me!
How dare you hate me just because I am alien and different! How dare
you hate me just because my presence causes you to die!"
Usandnepurtunean heard him, but was too busy writhing in agony to
respond. He kicked her with his fist.
"It's your own fault," he said, but he wasn't speaking to them
anymore, but to the whole planet. "You're alien to me, but you don't
see me twisting and changing and dying whenever one of you touches me!
And if you did, it would make me happy!"
Tunenepurandanus ignored him, and simply started rolling away in
search of a ledge or sharp object or something that would offer a
convenient means of suicide.
The voices were no solace, either. Andurtuneusannep's reaction
to his plan had set off a hot debate, and so far there had been no
outcome. No voice seemed to agree with any other, so there was no
mostly. He was confused.
But the voices couldn't affect his mood even if they had been
paying attention enough to try. He was angry. He threw his new friend
across the room and kicked her until she stopped moving much.
Then they started changing back. Uranus and Neptune are supposed
to be separate organisms, and thus they began to become so.
He snarled and pounced on them. Their skin melted and they
remerged. He smiled in satisfaction. They would never be separate
again.
But his emotion was not what he thought it would be. Without the
voices, his reasoning was poor. He thought doing this would make them
and himself feel good, but it did not. They were hurt and he was hurt.
He wept out of sadness, sure he was doing the suitable thing.
The voices continued their debate.
At the home she shared with her parents, Minako watched the
national news. It wasn't an activity that she usually indulged in, but
Artemis, who was on the couch besides her, had insisted.
"It is being compared to the Black Plague as hundred of thousands
of people world-wide fall victim to HMV." (HMV [Human Mutation Virus]
being the name that was given to the plague). "Governments are
scrambling to contain the disease that, as yet, has no cure." The
reporter on location at the local university was replaced by a middle
aged man in a lab coat.
"Initially this disease was transmitted via touch," he announced
in a professional tone, though he wasn't telling the viewers anything
they didn't already know. "It apparently mutated at some point. We
are tracking the changes that occur and are steadily working our way
towards a cure."
Minako chewed on her bottom lip as she continued to watch the
program. Artemis paced back and forth across the top of the couch.
"Has Ami made any progress?" He asked, somewhat annoyed with the
coverage it was receiving.
"No," Minako shook her head.
"On a related note." The scene switched back to the on location
reporter. "Protests have been occurring across the city as hospitals
turn away victims. In a startling announcement made yesterday, public
health officials tightened the quarantine so that no inflicted persons
will be admitted into area hospitals. This has brought forth a
backlash of public outrage as the medical community is seemingly
turning its backs on the people who need help the most."
A man in his mid-fifties with thinning hair and thick glasses
stood behind a podium as a crowd of reporters buzzed below him. "This
is not a voluntary action. In the interest of protecting the patients
we already have admitted, we must restrict the chances for them being
exposed to this plague."
The reporter again, who seemed to be caught slightly off guard,
was glancing at her notes when it was back to her. "We've heard rumors
that the hospitals are even turning away there own doctors and nurses
who have crossed the line by going out to those who seek help on their
own time. These professionals, who have a heart that will not let them
give up to the odds facing us all, are no longer admitted into the
complex after they have seen an infected patient."
"This is a sad turn of events," the anchor in the studio moved on
to other news. (What little of that there was nowadays).
"This is boring," Minako sniffed. "I'm going to Mako-chan's."
Makoto smiled gently as Minako left her apartment. She watched
the window until her "friend" had gone around the corner.
She eyed her apartment with disgust. She concentrated, and began
seeing it as not her apartment, but rather Minako. It wasn't hard.
She began destroying everything she saw. "Liar!", she screamed
softly, afraid to alert the Outer senshi (who were watching her) from
discovering what she was doing. Minako was beaten to a bloody puddle,
her bones crushed to a fine powder that was floating in the bathtub,
her brains ground to goo in the garbage disposal.
Afterwards Makoto studied the carnage and felt a little better.
How dare that bitch come in here and pretend to love and hate and
everything else when she didn't love and hate, she hated and loved.
She hated and loved everything, but the apartment wasn't admitting it.
But now the apartment was dead, for lack of anyone better.
She sat down in the corner, terrified. Quick flashes of rational
thought made her realize what she was doing and knowing made no sense,
but...
Keeping it all hidden in private was getting very difficult. It
wouldn't be long, she knew, before the outside world started changing
for good, and she started having to fight it and maybe kill Minako for
real. The end of the world. So this is what it felt like. She sobbed
at the prospect of killing her best friend.
She took hold of her brain, and knew it was different. She
passed that observation off, however, as one of her insane non
sequiturs. It wasn't, though.
Rei's hand ballooned into something with a face, a voice, and a
smart-ass attitude. Prudently, she called Ami, who told her to
transform into Sailor Mars. Rei did so, and was soon softly rubbing
her new, slender hand.
Ami hadn't slept much in three and a half weeks. She was
beginning to go nuts, but she couldn't even tell.
She was analyzing data, bent over and concentrating, when she
suddenly heard a noise so strange she thought it was a taste at first.
A very sweet taste, like cherry Jello.
It was the sound of the bald man weeping. He was standing behind
her, carrying a mass of something large and organic.
"I'm sorry..." he murmured. "I'm sorry... I didn't know it would
hurt them so much..."
He looked up at Ami. "You have a color, just like them," he said
softly. "Can't you help them? Can't you make them better? I could if
I would, but the vast majority of me can't. Please... give them some
of your color. Help them, please. Help them..."
He set Nusandanurtunenep down gently and disappeared. He was
pretty much ashamed. That was what the final consensus had been.
Usagi was crying. She couldn't even bother to think about the
bald man, or even his disease. She stood in the doorway, staring at
Tuneandnepanusur, feeling how cold the room was.
She stood up and walked over to the writhing mass of flesh. She
looked for a head with which to converse, but there was none, not on
the outside, anyway. The only way she knew for sure that this used to
be Uranus and Neptune was that she could see their colors. Their
colors were apparent, and had not merged together.
She sat down and took hold of a hand that was near her, holding
it gently. The writhing subsided some.
Ami entered the room, her eyes containing more red than blue.
"What's wrong with him is the... it's he's... he's so alien from us, I
mean, he doesn't have atoms or anything I can even see inside him, he's
so different that we can't take it. I mean, our bodies and our minds
can't take it. We're... pushed back... uh... corrupted by it. Him, I
mean."
Usagi didn't respond.
"But the senshi, I mean, the senshi are alien, but not as alien
as he is, so we can take it, when we're senshi," Ami continued. "He
did something to Uanep, I mean Urnus... I mean Uranus and Neptune that
changed the way they are, he did it... um... what's the, did it... on
purpose. He did it on purpose to them, so it's different, so we
can't... do anything, because it's different."
Usagi looked down at the thing that used to be her colleagues as
its grip on her hand loosened. "I think they're asleep," she said.
"Good, cause they... uh..." Ami trailed off as she tried to
remember exactly what was good about them sleeping. "They... uh..."
"Why can't I heal them?" Usagi asked. "Why can't I heal anyone?"
"Because your crystal, it only changes rabbits to bunnies,
y'know?" Ami said. "Dogs to hounds. And back again. That's what its
called healing. It can't turn a star into a yardstick, see? It just
turns person-monster to person. These aren't person-monsters, they're
not person-anythings."
"When he's gone will all of this go away?" Usagi asked.
"I don't know!" Ami snapped. "Sorry," she said softly. "I...
uh."
Suddenly, Nusnepandtunenuran woke up and started screaming. It
was the most horrible sound Usagi had ever heard, but she just
continued holding the hand and being comforting. Eventually the blob
of humanity was quiet.
Usagi's tears were flowing, but she couldn't do anything about
it. "They're asleep again," she said.
"Sleep is good," Ami commented. "Sleep is... yeah, sleep is
good, because it's good for them. It'll help them. Yeah." She stared
off into space for a minute, trying to remember exactly why it would
help them. She knew there was a reason.
But then she forgot she was trying to remember and looked at
Usagi earnestly. "I have to go keep going on the... working, see,
so... um... yeah, you can handle this, right?"
Usagi nodded.
"Okay, well, okay," Ami muttered. She walked back out the door
toward her extensive collection of data.
Saturn eyed the blood of humanity with interest. It was red and
shiny, and she could see the reflected square of light from the nearby
window on its ladybuglike surface.
She grinned. Soon, this blood would no longer represent the
blood of humanity, because humanity's blood would cease to exist, along
with everything else.
It was necessary thing to do, she reasoned, to keep the earth
from becoming a Place of Evil. Plus, it was going to be an utterly
exquisite experience, a unique, beautiful death.
She wished she felt guilty. But she didn't wish particularly
hard.
She stood up.
It was difficult to pinpoint the exact moment that the voices
started talking to Makoto. They saw her color, found her of interest,
and began following her around, trying to whisper in her ear but forced
by the physical realities of this bizarre place to seek refuge in her
brain.
It was boring in there, though, simply because there was very
little material to work with. Her experiences were near-nonexistent:
her past brief and her future unknown. As for the present, well,
walking around breaking things did not hold the voices' interest for
very long.
So they left, leaving behind some beauty as a memento of the time
they had spent together.
When they found the bald man again, they were shocked to find
their peers engaged in a violent argument.
The general feeling thus far had been: it was mostly a good thing
that he did this to his new friends, but their reaction to it had been
painful and dismaying for all involved, which was mostly a bad thing.
There was one thing the bald man had to know, though. He very
well may have strayed into evil by accident. That was probably the
problem from the beginning.
That seemed reasonable to most of the voices. A few seemed to
have their doubts, but none were loud enough to be heard clearly.
Minako's back was covered with flowers, but she didn't know it.
That would have required being able to see her own back, which is
impossible without two mirrors.
Minako had many mirrors, but didn't bother to look at her back.
So it's really her own fault that she didn't know about the flowers.
She was watching Ami, who was talking to herself and looking at
science stuff.
"Can I help?" Minako asked cheerily.
"No," Ami muttered.
"Want some coffee, or something?" Minako asked cheerily.
"Yes," Ami muttered.
Minako left and returned with two steaming cups of tepid coffee.
"I'll make a new pot for you later," she said.
"How's it going?" she asked.
"Fine."
"Making progress?"
"Yes."
"Really?"
"Yes."
"What?"
Ami didn't answer.
"Ami?"
"Yes?"
"What progress are you making?"
Ami blinked, and looked up. "I'm not making any progress!" she
snapped. "None of this makes any sense!"
"But..."
"You're not helping, Minako."
"But..."
"You're not helping, Minako."
"Okay, then. I'll be right outside if you want more coffee or
anything."
Ami muttered an inaudible muttering.
Minako stopped halfway out the door. "Are you feeling okay?" she
asked.
"Of course," Ami said reassuringly. "I'm feeling fine."
"Why don't you go get a few hours of sleep?" Minako suggested.
"I know how bad I feel when I don't get enough sleep. Once I didn't
sleep for TWO WHOLE DAYS and by the end of it, I was all loopy. In
front of my house, I saw a pile of snow by the sidewalk, and I thought
it was Artemis. I stood there talking to it for about twenty minutes."
"Minako..."
"My dad saw me. That was the reason I was sent to therapy the
first time!"
"Minako, I feel fine. Please go and let me work."
Minako frowned. "Okay, but you can't help anyone by going all
crazy. We don't even know what's going to happen. Don't work yourself
to death."
"I won't." Ami forced a forced smile, as Minako left the room.
Just to put things in perspective, by this point, a sixth of the
world's population that, a month pervious, had been alive, was now no
longer so. Another sixth was affected by the epidemic, but not dead.
Of these, half would die of it eventually.
One lucky fellow, a shut-in hailing from Nuuk, Greenland,
developed immortality and omnipotence. He left the planet very
quickly, remarking just before his departure how beautiful this disease
really was.
"On tonight's 'Look at the World': rioting and looting in the US
and what lessons Japanese can learn from it." Minako glared blankly at
the television. Artemis held the remote firmly under a forepaw. They
had argued about what to watch until he made his choice clear with a
scratch across her hand. She refused to leave the room to sulk, so she
was sitting on the couch bored.
"In this time of international crisis, Americans continue with
their materialistic ways. Despite the good chance that they will not
live to enjoy their gain, they continue on this path. We, as Japanese,
will set an example for the international community with our family
bonds and standing by each other in this time of crisis," a guest on
the program nodded his head firmly. "As many Americans are being
murdered by their countrymen as by the plague!"
"Serves them right," Artemis echoed the guest's sentiments.
"Artemis?!" Minako was aghast.
"I've never liked Americans," he grumbled.
The anchor thanked the guest before continuing along to the next
segment.
"Religious cults around the world are gaining in popularity as
they offer reincarnation, afterlife, or even a continuation of this
life. Many firmly believe that the recent epidemic is an omen fore-
telling the end of the world," the anchor was replaced with a room full
of worshippers in what appeared to be a traditional Christian church.
"'And when he opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the
fourth living creature say: "Come!" And I saw, and look! a pale horse;
and the one seated upon it had the name Death. And Ha'des was closely
following him. And authority was given them over the fourth part of
the earth, to kill with a long sword and with food shortage and with
deadly plague and by the wild beasts of the earth.' As with the
previous seals, peace has been taken from this earth to be replaced
with death, with war, with selfishness, with plague, with famine, with
the bodies of the unfaithful lining the streets!" The pastor's booming
timbre was muted when the reporter's voice-over.
"Across the country, a religious revolution has been taking
place. Here at the Church of the Lamb, members have been attending
daily services in hopes of saving their souls and asking mercy upon
mankind."
The picture cut away from the services to a small shrine with a
formidable set of step leading up to it. "Here at the Hikawa Shrine,
the number of visitors hit record numbers weeks ago and continue to
increase as the plague takes its toll on the population."
"We, of course, welcome all," an old man with a bald head said,
though this original statement had been cut short by the reporter's
voice-over.
"As you can see, whatever the force, people are being moved.
Back to you."
"We could start the Temple of the Moon," Minako suggested
lightly.
"Funny," the humor was lost in Artemis' tone.
"And we could sacrifice cats to the purity that is Serenity," she
added.
He swiped her on the cheek, quite conveniently forgetting to
retract his claws. "Not funny."
Minako sniffed. "I'm going to Mako-chan's."
Elsewhere in the city, but not too far away, Hotaru was watching
the same program with an air of anticipation. She rose out of her
chair to stand by the windows, watching the world outside.
"Uranus and Neptune are all but dead," she put a finger to the
glass, tracing a line down it. A trail of her blood was left.
Once she was the Messiah of Darkness. This time, a foreign
Darkness has corrupted the Earth and it is her duty to purify it with
the finality of Death. She is the Senshi of Death and Rebirth. It is
nearly time for the Earth to KNOW her Power.
Makoto laid curled up in a ball, shivering, sweating profusely,
and crying in the stairwell of her apartment building. The pain in her
head had become unbearable, robbing her of all but the most basic of
instincts.
She lost control of many bodily functions, causing her to sweat
and shiver at the same time. Instincts demanded that she do something
to release the heat, but she was not co-ordinated enough to drag
herself to the shower, so she instead pulled off much of her clothing.
The missing clothing was not enough to bring her relief, and now she
could not draw enough air into her lungs to breathe.
She needed some fresh air. Yes, that would do the trick.
Somehow she'd nudged the front door open and was curled up on the
landing. So many separate sets of stairs to take. Which one should
she try to pull herself down? The confusion she felt, much like a
thick fog, would not lift from her mind.
She could hear voices below her. She tried to speak, but did not
have command of her tongue. No sound would emerge from her mouth when
she willed it to do so. This caused her frustrations to grow. Tears
sprung to her eyes as she fought to bring air into her lungs. The
tears were soothing to cheeks that were on fire.
Gasping, she reached out a hand for the iron-wrought supports of
the handrail. Her instincts continued to drive her on the quest for
fresh air, though she was physically incapable of getting down the
stairs to the sidewalk.
"Mako-chan!" A face appeared before her. It blurred, then
focused into only one face that she soon found a name to match to.
Mamoru leaned over her, taking in her situation quickly. He
picked the trembling sweat-covered Makoto up and carried her back into
her apartment. Toeing the door to her bedroom open, he set her out on
her bed, where it would be easier to treat her.
"Ma-," she couldn't quite force the rest of it out. Her
surroundings were familiar. She knew she was safe here, but she was
still terribly frightened. What was going on?
"Don't speak," his tone was gentle, but firm. He stretched her
out fully on the bed before putting a folded up blanket under her feet.
She tried to wiggle away, but he held fast. "I know you're hot, but it
will pass. You're in shock and your body is over-reacting."
She stopped struggling. Part of what he was saying made sense,
though she still felt somewhat confused.
He continued to speak to her in a soothing tone. Something about
Usagi calling? Usagi was worried about her. But why would that bitch
give a flying fuck about her? NO! That wasn't right. She whimpered
audibly.
Mamoru continued to reassure her.
Usagi loved her. Yes, that sounded right. Why would she ever
question that?
Minako didn't make it to Mako-chan's because she was distracted
by a shiny object glittering on the sidewalk. She picked this object
up to find that is was a painted fingernail with no owner. Considering
herself lucky, she stuck it into her pocket and continued along to
where ever it was that she'd forgotten she was going.
The fingernail looked at some lint and grinned. "Hello," it
said.
The lint didn't respond.
"Here's an interesting fact," the fingernail said. "Tuxedo Kamen
ain't no senshi!"
Then it started to laugh.
Sleep.
No sleep.
Sleep.
Can't sleep.
Sleep.
Must sleep.
"Ami-chan?" Usagi shook the young woman to break her out of her
mild daze.
It didn't work.
Sleep?
What'd that word mean?
Give me love and give me a kiss because that's the that's the
give me a kiss.
Give me love.
We always had a always had a hard time loving ourselves but we
also loved ourselves all the time just not never always when never
sometimes we did bad things.
We never loved ourselves, but we always loved ourself, and now we
now we now it's the same thing.
Ha!
Ha ha!
We're just a blob of blob of two one people human evil good.
We're crying. We can't hate and love and love ourselves at the
same at same the time.
We love you but we hate us but you're us and we're you but we're
you and. We couldn't live without us and.
Our foreheads touch, but that's all. Then our lips touch and our
foreheads come apart. Then various parts connect with various parts
and the lips stay together. Then the important parts touch and then
everything touches... but it stays that way. It stays that way. It
stays that way.
And then it's over over it's over then. This is is what two
people dream about when about when they're one two one.
I I love I I.
The place was in the same dimension as our planet, though no
human would have identified it as such. It was orange. And oranger.
Two objects hovered side by side.
"They're not dead," the mirror said, breaking a several-minute-
long silence.
"I know," the sword replied. "I hate this. Why couldn't he just
have killed them?"
"He didn't want to, I suppose," the mirror said. "The asshole
even thought he was doing good for them. Ah, it's what they deserved,
anyway."
"That's not true," the sword interjected. "Even if they were
mostly bad, they still had some goodness inside of them."
"You just care about yours," the mirror scoffed.
"Yes, I do care about mine. And you care about yours, admit it."
"I do not," the mirror replied haughtily. "She used me, every
day, she used me, thinking I was some object, thinking I didn't have
feelings of my own! They never should have been ours in the first
place. If they were TRULY pure-hearted, they'd have thought about US
once in a while!"
The sword was quiet for a second, then it spoke. "The orb
disagrees with your definition of 'pure-hearted,'" it said. "The orb
says they were good all the way through."
"The orb's an idiot," the mirror said. "Just like you."
The sword did not dignify the childish taunt with a response.
There was a brief silence.
"Has Saturn destroyed the world yet?" the sword asked.
"No, she has to mope and waste time first. She doesn't really
want to do it. She thinks the world has goodness that doesn't deserve
to be destroyed, and has some sort of hang-up about it."
"That's not the point," the sword said. "She's not destroying
the world because the world needs destroying, she's destroying the
world to keep it from becoming a place that needs destroying. She's
just saving time."
"She's a fucking, black-hearted idiot, just like all the rest of
them," the mirror said bitterly. "Just like yours and mine, just like
the orb's, just like all of them."
"You're forgetting one of them," the sword said. "The others are
more in the middle, but it'd be difficult to back up an argument saying
that one is black-hearted."
"What do I care about hearts anyway?" the mirror asked abruptly.
The sword could see that no good could come from a continuation of the
discussion, so the topic was dropped.
Sailor Moon stood tall and proud in front of a glowing and
floating crystal. She stared at it angrily, concentrating, shivering.
She was on top of Mt. Everest.
"Purify them," she whispered harshly. "Purify them all."
The crystal turned a shade of bright gray and bobbed up and down
slightly. She took this to be a "no".
It was obvious she wasn't trying hard enough. She hardened her
eyes and concentrated more. Her entire body ached, but she kept it up,
even when her legs suddenly gave way and she sank to her knees in the
snow.
"Take it easy, child," a soft voice said from above her. "You're
going to give yourself a stroke."
Sailor Moon blinked and looked above her. Queen Serenity was not
hovering above her.
"What are you doing up here?" the queen asked.
"I'm trying to touch the whole world," Sailor Moon answered.
"You already do that," the queen said, laughing a little bit.
"Not enough to help everybody."
"Of course not," the queen said. "Why do you think you can help
everybody?"
"That's what I do!" Moon near-wailed. "I purify everybody! I
get rid of the evil, that's what I do!"
"There's no evil here," the queen said, puzzled. "Nothing but
good and neutral, neutral and good, just like in the best of times."
"But everyone's being hurt!" Moon protested. "That has to be
evil, and I have to get rid of it!"
The queen shook her head and looked a little disappointed. "You
live in a happy world," she said. "You don't even really know what
evil is, do you?"
Sailor Moon blinked.
"Get off the mountain before you freeze to death, child," the
queen said softly. Then she was gone again.
Sailor Moon frowned, grabbed the crystal and thrust it into her
pocket, and returned to Tokyo.
Mamoru was on the telephone with someone. A noise behind him
made him turn, and the sight that confronted him made him drop the
receiver.
Makoto stood in the doorway, naked and panting. Her hair was
down around her torso, her sweat glistened over her body, and she
seemed at least eighteen feet tall. She was the most intimidating
thing he'd ever seen.
Makoto Makoto Makoto Makoto Makoto Makoto Makoto Makoto.
"What the hell is my name?" she rasped.
He took a step closer. "Makoto..." he began.
"Stop saying that word!!" she screeched. "Stoppit! I never did
anything to you! Why do you keep saying that word?! What's my goddamn
NAME?!"
He had no clue what to do or say, but luckily he didn't have to
worry about it. She fell to her knees, weak and shivering.
He was talking to Usagi, she didn't know, but it was logical,
right? He'd call Usagi, who'd been worried about her. He was kneeling
over her by this point, thinking she was unconscious because she
wouldn't respond to anything he did or said, but she was simply too
caught up in what she was thinking about to give a damn about him.
As far as I know, I don't have a name. Right now Usagi, who has
a name and who loves me, is on her way here. She loves me because she
knows me. She knows me because she loves me. I can take the love, but
the knowing is a step too far. She'll hurt me. Out of hate or out of
love, it makes no difference, the pain's the same, and the only way to
keep myself from feeling it is to stop her before she gets too close.
I have to either hurt her or let her hurt me.
Which is worse? Oh god, which is worse?
The people had rejected him. He knew it completely, with a few
minor doubts. Maybe this was just a worldwide spat, he thought. Maybe
they were just surprised by his sudden appearance and outlandish
customs, and reacted. He should've expected it.
A thin line of drool trailed down the lab table Ami's head laid
on.
Usagi was careful to let sleeping senshi lie.
There was a scream, but it was not an audible one. Rather, it
was the scream of countless cells colliding as they split One into Two.
Where One had life, the Two clung to it with a diminishing will. Only
laced finger (held in that configuration by choice) connected the Two.
Saturn sought out her sovereign. The time has come.
Usagi ran up the stairs to Makoto's apartment. She didn't stop
to knock on the door, she knew that she was expected. Mamoru was on
the floor by the doorway to Makoto's bedroom, knelt over the immobile
girl.
Mamoru looked to Usagi with eyes that reflected his concern. She
joined her mate in kneeling next Makoto.
"What. Is. My. Name?" Each word was bitten off with a mixture
of hurt, anger, and pain.
Mamoru shook his head to keep Usagi from answering the obvious.
She frowned. She then leaned down so that her face was a few
inches away from her friends.
"What is your name?"
"I. Don't. Know."
"Then let's find you a name together," she suggested brightly.
"I. Don't. Trust. You."
Usagi nodded understandingly. "It's alright. I still love you."
Makoto's back straightened. Her features took on a more focused
look.
"You. Love. Me? You. HATE. Me."
It was an accusation.
Usagi thought before pressing her face close enough to Makoto's
that their breath mingled. "You're right. I HATE you, you whore!
I've never cared for you. I've used you since the day I met you."
Makoto laughed, then smiled broadly.
"I. Thought. So."
Mamoru was dumbstruck at what his lover had just said to her
friend. Usagi picked herself off the floor and headed into the
kitchen. He followed her. Taking a drinking glass from the cabinet,
then filled it with water. This she set down beside Makoto while
saying, "I hope it courses through your veins like a vile poison,
bitch."
Makoto nodded before sipping weakly out of the glass.
"Usako!" He pulled her aside. "Have you gone mad?!"
"Mako-chan doesn't understand, not like we do. She's confused as
to what's good and what's bad."
"That's quite an intuitive leap," he commented slowly, seeing
where she'd drawn her conclusions from.
"I'm not stupid," she defended. "I just don't act very smart."
He chuckled hesitantly while scratching the back of his head.
"Please stay with her. I need to find the others. When you
speak to her, be as insulting as possible. If she starts to take
offense, she's doing better," she gave him a quick peck on the cheek
before leaving.
He shook his head. This disease moves in mysterious ways...
The bald man stood behind Rei, watching her curiously. She was
in the deepest trance she could manage, and she probed herself and the
herselves out there in the world to find some kind of clue. Something
that would lead her to the bald man, so they could all fight him and
not die. Needless to say, she couldn't hear him when he began
speaking.
"I watched the movie Ghostbusters last evening. I've had
exposure of 'cinema' before, of course, through second-hand reports and
the study of others, but it was the first time I ever experienced it
for myself.
"Now, I understand that the events I saw never actually took
place. I'm no idiot. But it struck me as strange that time and effort
would be put into creating something fake for entertainment. I wish I
could do it. I try sometimes, like right now, and it just ends up
being real.
"I also understand the basic story line, what there is of it.
And I believe I comprehend the characters, even the Ernie Hudson one,
who didn't have much screen time. His line, 'Ray, when somebody asks
you if you're a god, you say yes!' made me laugh for just the third or
fourth time since I got here. I liked him, and I think I would like
Ernie Hudson too, if I ever met him.
"But the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man... he was the clearest element
of all to me. Now, I realize he is evil. That's well established. He
tries to destroy New York City out of malice. He steps on a house of
worship, a common symbol of spirituality and peace on this planet.
He's evil. He deserves destruction, and the audience, as well as the
characters, are happy he blows up at the end."
He paused, wondering if she was paying attention. This was
important, after all.
"I need to ask you a question. In this series of events, in this
story line we find ourselves in, am I the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man?
Am I the Bad Guy? I never intended it. I never reached out and tried
to hurt anyone. But... I think I'm the Marshmallow Man anyway! How
did this happen? Please, tell me, how did this happen?"
Rei didn't react.
Frustrated, he went away. He had another friend to meet. He had
to set things right.
The little girl watched with gleeful awe as a red orb danced in
the air above her. It spun and wove its way in patterns that left the
child giggling with delight at the spectacle.
She tried to reach the orb with a small hand, but it was always
just out of reach. The child began to whimper in frustration. The
glowing orb took note of her dismay and settled itself at the end of
her bed. She crawled on her stomach up to it. Her nose was bare
inches away from where it bathed her comforter in an eerie red light.
Now that it was so close, she wasn't so sure she wanted to touch it
anymore.
The orb sensed this. It spoke to her in a reassuring tone,
almost motherly. "Not yet, little one. My power is something that is
coveted from afar, but is not as desirable once attained."
Her eyes were wide. The oddity of speaking to an orb did not
strike her as so. The weight of the message, however incompressible to
her at this time, is what struck her.
She did not giggle as the orb lifted off the mattress to continue
its antics in the air. A piece of her innocence was lost.
As well as a piece of her right foot, but she'd gotten used to
that in the past few weeks. Just that disease everyone was talking
about.
He stood on the roof of a building watching her. She was in a
park, sneaking around the playground equipment as though she was
playing some war game. To her, the war was real.
Hotaru gasped in horror as the man with the bald head came from
around a tree to approach her. He reached his hand out to her in
greeting.
She was caught between staying perfectly still, and raising an
eyebrow haughtily. She eventually decided that the former option was
both more in character and more intimidating.
"Mole people," he said.
She blinked, and her face shifted to confusion. So much for
perfectly still. "What?"
"There are mole people under our feet right now," he said.
"Working and digging, going about their lives, thousands of kilometers
down below us. They have many outstanding artists, leaders, and
writers. Their society is more advanced than any on the surface of
this planet, except possibly that of Sweden. They never did anything
to you, and they are uncontaminated by my presence. Their world is in
no danger of becoming a 'place of evil.' You're willing to just
slaughter them all to protect the surface?"
She blinked.
"Just joshing!" he exclaimed. "Ha ha ha ha! Surely you can
forgive your friend for putting one over on you, yes?"
Then he was not in front of her anymore. And moreover, he had
never said a word.
"Are you okay?" a voice said with genuine concern from somewhere
behind her. "You've been staring at nothing for several minutes."
She whirled around, and he was more than a few meters away. She
got a good look at him for the first time.
"You..? I KILLED you! You can't be HERE!"
He bowed politely. "Mistress 9." He smiled. "The voices are
still with you, I can hear them echoing through mine."
"I'll kill you!" She changed into Saturn.
"Why? We're friends! You tried to bring me here, don't you
remember?"
She approached him menacingly, readying her glaive to strike.
He teleported upto a tree branch. "Perhaps now isn't the best
time to talk." He left.
She glanced around suspiciously. She NEEDED to find Serenity.
The world must be destroyed before he finishes his corruption.
Mamoru leaned his head against the toilet bowl. Mako-chan was
the one that was sick, not him. He couldn't be sick, not now. His
lunch had chosen otherwise and detoured on its way out to come around
again. He picked his head up to look into the bowl. What had once
been bile and vomit was now swimming about the bowl in the form of gold
fish.
"What the..?" He continued to watch the fish swim.
He shook his head before pulling down the handle. "Die."
What was going on in his stomach was not a pretty sight. Not
that it ever had been, but now it was just revolting.
"Ami. Ami! AMI!!" Usagi continued to try to shake her friend
awake. When she'd made it back to Ami's lab, the blue haired woman was
still drooling on the lab table asleep.
In the next room were Uranus and Neptune. They had split apart
while she was gone. Neither reacted to her promptings to wake up.
Their skin was a pasty color and clammy from sweat. She'd written them
off as not being helpful anytime soon.
Ami's eyes flickered open. She groggily scrubbed the sleep from
her eyes. "Wha..?"
"It's happening, Ami. The plague is coming full circle. What do
we do?"
"Sleep," she mumbled, laying her head back down on the table.
"Sleep? No, Ami! You can't sleep, not yet!" She shook Ami's
shoulders, trying to get her to stay awake.
"Must sleep," she sighed before falling back asleep.
Usagi stood helplessly for a few seconds, then noticed a note
lying nearby on the table. There, scrawled in the handwriting Ami
probably used when she was four, was the result of Ami's weeks of
research.
"disease living personality strange. people change, disease
change. people don't change, disease get bored."
Usagi blinked, reread it, reread it again, reread it one last
time, and then started crying from pure frustration.
The senshi have always had the ability to know roughly where
their comrades where. Saturn's intuition led her to Ami's lab. When
she arrived, she found Serenity sobbing softly at a desk.
"My Queen," she knelt before her. "The time has come. The world
NEEDS to be destroyed before all the goodness has left it."
(Inside, she was screaming with hysterical laughter. The very
idea of being so... FORMAL about it! It was ludicrous! You don't ask
permission for an orgasm, you just have it!)
"How can you say that?" She wiped away a tear. "It's bad now,
but we know we have a future. Crystal Tokyo will rise. I KNOW it
will."
(Except she didn't, not really. The complexities of time travel
had always been too complex for her to grasp completely, but she did
know that the future she'd seen was not a sure thing. She also knew
that whether or not it happened was completely on her own shoulders.)
"Crystal Tokyo out of this?" Saturn shook her head at her
Queen's naivete.
Usagi shrugged off Saturn's insistent stare. She closed her eyes
and thought (or more exactly, remembered). What had they seen in
Crystal Tokyo? She glanced back over at the drooling Ami. What if
they could just sleep this away..?
She blinked. Couldn't they? Ami said sleep! She'll put
everyone into a deep sleep, not changing! It couldn't be that easy,
but the minor details could be worked out later. If nothing else,
people could die in their sleep instead of suffering while awake.
Then the reality of what she was planning sunk in. She didn't
have the strength to put everyone to sleep. What resources did she
have? Uranus and Neptune were down. Ami was out. Minako was off
somewhere (who knows where?). Rei was paranoid about being around
anyone after her hand started to sass her back. Mako-chan couldn't add
2 and 2 if the only choice she had was 4. And here was Saturn, ready
to destroy the world.
If only she could harness Saturn's power...
Maybe she could...
"Saturn," she said formally,"I order you to destroy the world."
"Are you certain?"
"I will not trade mine for yours," the sword said from its
position levitation above its host.
"Why not? I don't want to spend the next thousand years with
HER," the mirror grumbled.
"I don't want to spend the next thousand years listening to you
complain about yours."
"Then trade with me!"
The sword sighed. "You know we can't do that."
"Why not?! Now is the time to do it. You can see just what a
CHARMING person mine is, with her vanity and oh, so modestly arrogant
air."
The sword ignored the mirror's sarcasm. "I'm going in," it
announced before slipping into the body of its host.
"No, wait! Dammit!" The mirror sighed at the now absent sword.
It glared at its host before entering as well.
"This can't go on," Uranus muttered.
"Agreed," Neptune said. And then they both fell asleep again.
Mamoru was once again in the bathroom. This time, the plumbing
was working as it was intended to. Considering what he needed to
accomplish, he was seated on the seat doing his duty.
Taking care of Mako-chan wasn't difficult. She mostly laid
motionless on her bed and mumbled random words. He'd decided to make
lunch for them, but it wasn't sitting well now.
The water plunked once, then twice, and then something pinched
his butt. Mamoru shot off the seat like a rocket. He turned around to
see a small crocodile swimming in the bowl amongst snickers bars.
"DIE!!!" He hit the handle with his toes and watched the items
swoosh down the bowl. He sighed, then swore to find Mako-chan a good
plumber once this was all over.
What was going on in his bowels was not a pretty sight. Not that
it ever had been, but now it was just revolting. He doubled over in
agony.
The two of them stood in the middle of the empty street. Usagi
didn't know what effect Saturn's attack would have on the surrounding
structures, but she didn't want to be in one when Saturn unleashed it.
She'd changed into her princess gown. This seemed to please
Saturn, who insisted on referring to her as 'Queen'. It was rash to do
this only minutes after thinking of it. She should think this through
more. Mamo-chan would surely have something to say about it. But more
then anything else, she wanted this affair to be over.
With her nodded consent, Saturn began the ritual.
Usagi watched with fascination as Saturn swung the Silence Glaive
around with skillful ease. She gathered her power, drawing all she
could from herself and the crystal. Her plan was to refocus Saturn's
attack; to use it to amplify her own spell and put as much of the world
into a sleep as she could.
"DEATH..."
Ribbons shot out from Saturn to engulf her.
"REBORN..."
The ribbons expanded, taking in the area around her. Her glaive
was lifted above her head.
"REVOLUTION!!"
The glaive stuck the pavement. What followed was silence.
The world itself screamed. Every bush, every tree, every stone
let loose with a deafening sound that was at odds with the silence.
And then, all was quiet once more.
Saturn was on her feet and trembling. With wide, unblinking
eyes, she looked first at scenery to her right, then the scenery to her
left, then at the glaive she was holding. She couldn't help but notice
that all three were still there.
She pointed an unsteady finger in Usagi's direction. "You..."
she rasped, stumbling forward, hate and rage in her eyes. "What the
hell... did you do?"
She only made it a few steps before collapsing.
Usagi had no doubts that she would be feeling the strain for
weeks afterwards. She crawled over to her to make sure that Saturn was
still alive. It was a miracle to say the least when she found that she
was.
Her next thought was to wonder if it worked. She wasn't strong
enough to pick herself up to go searching for survivors. So she sat
there and stared at a nearby tree.
Before long, a man walked around from the tree. He was bald and
wearing a suit. He stopped approaching her when he was still several
feet away.
"Hello," she greeted. Puzzled by his sudden appearance and by
his calm manner.
"You have no color," he sounded somewhat confused by this stated
fact. "That was not at all what I expected. I expected something more
extravagant, like royal blue, or celadon, or something..."
He stood there in quiet thought for several minutes. "Yes, I
remember you. You are with her," he indicated Saturn with a nod of his
head. "She hears the voices, as I do. You are the one who stopped me
from coming here before."
Usagi was quite confused by this point. "Who ARE you?"
He considered her question. "I don't have a name, I think, which
is exceedingly frustrating. I have always wanted to make this place my
home. But," he frowned, "I didn't know it would hurt you. I never
wanted to hurt you."
"You are responsible for the plague?"
"I think so. That's what most of me believes." He laughed.
"Most of me also did not want to hurt you. I wanted a home. A good
home. But this is no longer a good place... and I think it's all my
fault. Will it ever have itself back?" There was a hope in his eyes
that almost didn't dare to be there. 'I'm terrified to be here, in
this strange man's eyes,' it said to her. 'But I need to let you know
that I trust you.'
She realized that he was much like the ant that had taken shelter
on her lip. He was simply looking for a welcoming place to call home.
"With the raising of Crystal Tokyo, things will be restored. But you
know that you can't stay here. The wound can only heal once the knife
is removed."
He sighed. "I know. I will leave. I'm sorry for what has
happened. Please bring the things back."
She accepted his apology with a nod and a reassuring smile.
He smiled back, mimicking more than actually feeling it. "One
day soon," he said. "I'm going to look down and see this world shining
with your non-color, the brightest and least me place of them all."
The smile went back into his mouth. "And it will have a name, I
think," he said sadly. "Just like you, Queen Serenity."
That last part didn't come out of his mouth, but she heard it
anyway.
He walked away, she assumed to leave the Earth forever. But a
part of her felt obligated to leave him with something.
"You do have a name," she called after him. "Master Pharaoh 90."
He paused. Slowly, hesitantly, he smiled at her. "Yes. I
forgot."
He laughed, bright and hearty, in a manner eerily similar to
Santa Claus. He straightened his tie and nodded to her. "Thank you,"
he said. "Thank you for not being angry." Then he did a backflip, and
was gone.
There was a tear running slowly down her left cheek. He wasn't
really a bad guy, more like a victim of circumstance. They all were,
really. She felt sad that she couldn't offer him the home that he
desired. Crystal Tokyo had turned away its first visitor.
From four different directions came four different silhouettes,
running at Usagi, shrieking questions about what had just happened, why
it had happened, and, if Usagi had had anything to do with it, why she
hadn't consulted anyone else first.
Usagi just smiled at them. That did not deter Rei, Luna, Minako,
and Artemis.
"Just relax," a voice said several meters up the street, clearly
and loudly. They all turned to see Setsuna, eyes wide open and staring
at nothing, dressed in clothes that were a bit too large for her.
"Enjoy the break," she continued. "You all are going to have a
lot of work to do."
Then she blinked, and suddenly looked very much like the
frightened child she was.
They went to Ami and woke her up so she could put them to sleep,
too. She wasn't a great deal of help. In her state, holding her
daughter was too much for her, and coherent thought completely
impossible. It was Luna who made the decision that, whatever they did,
they should all be together to do it.
Makoto, Mamoru, Michiru, Haruka, and Hotaru weren't waking up.
It took them three hours to lug all the bodies up to Makoto's
apartment. "This is as good a place as any," Minako said. Then she
said, "It's getting cold outside."
"meteorology's goin' to sleep too" Ami murmured. "we probably
have to hurry up"
"What do we do?" Minako asked.
"go to sleep" Ami answered. "when people go to sleep tonight
it's gonna last a long time"
"We can't just be so passive about this," Rei protested. "How do
we know what's going to happen? How do we know what's going to be
there if and when we wake up?"
Usagi smiled at her softly. "It'll be okay, Rei," she said.
"You don't know that," Rei said. "I've had five, FIVE dreams in
the last two months about terrible futures, and..."
Usagi hugged her.
"It'll be okay," she whispered in Rei's ear. "Please trust me.
It'll be okay."
Rei blinked, then slowly hugged Usagi back, hard. "It had better
be," she muttered.
They all lay down on the carpet (Setsuna and Ami got the couch),
trying to get as comfortable as possible. Then they closed their eyes
and slept for a long, long time.
Master Pharaoh 90. He would have to do something about that
name, but there was plenty of time to think of a new one.
He sat at a personal vantage point, looking out at the colors and
worlds around him. Some were dark, some were transparent, and some, he
noted, weren't even there at all.
The whole mess was very confusing.
Ah well, it didn't matter. He would figure it out, even if it
took him forever. And once he did it, he would find himself a home.
A determined look upon his face, he set out in the direction of
something purple.
-----
Web Pages:
Circles of Time Homepage ~ http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/9897/ct.htm
Carp's Koi Pond ~ http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Fuji/8272/
Greenbeans' Homepage ~ http://www.kfalls.net/~gbeans/
Email:
Jon Carp ~ jcarp@med.unc.edu
Greenbeans ~ gbeans@kfalls.net
Thanks to:
SlrSkuld
Matt Redding
Allen Gainsford
(
geocities.com/tokyo)