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Part 6, I hope, this is going very slowly! Um, i know it's getting
really confusing and I'm sorry! Thankx to: rosey, yosh, ice,
and anyone else i forgot.
disclaimer: yeah i own sailor moon. i also own Microsoft, AOL,
and the Baltimore Orioles. Just kidding. In reality i own nothing.
Really. NOTHING!
* * * * * * * * * * * *
“Whoa!” Zach ducked, almost catching a full cup with his face.
The owner swiveled around; it was female, young, with extremely heavy
makeup, and definitely a few beers past drunk.
“HI!” she shrieked over the pounding music. “WANT TO GO SOMEWHERE?”
“Yes,” Zach said, squeezing into the crowd. “Away from you.”
He scanned the packed apartment for a distinctive blue head, but
there was not a bright blue coif to be seen among the hair sprayed perms
and baseball hats. Elbows and backs and butts slammed into him from all
sides; it was like being packing in with a hundred intoxicated, dancing
sardines. He squished his way through the grinding crowd, eyes peeled
for anything blue.
Zach started mentally panicking. <<Where is she? She said she
was coming, right? I just saw her yesterday in class; she said she was
coming. >>
“AMY!” he tried, unsuccessfully. His voice was barely audible
over Jay-Z’s. He pried himself from the crowd, into the kitchen, where
the keg was tapped. “Hey John,” he said, tapping the beer keeper on
the shoulder.
“Yo,” he called, taking Zach’s empty cup out of his hand and
filling it up.
“Have you seen a short girl with blue hair? Really pretty?”
John scratched his three-day stubble. “Uh, yeah. She was here
a while ago, with some hot black-haired girl. She didn’t take a cup,
man, what’s up with that?”
<<Sounds like Amy. >> “Where did they go?”
“Oh, I don’t know man, I’m really wasted.”
“Thanks,” Zach responded wryly. Sighing, he reentered the mass
of sweaty, drunken bodies, dodging sloshing beer and flaying limbs.
He wandered aimlessly for a while, holding his cup up above his head,
his Amy-radar cranked up to max. “Ouch!” A muscular forearm smacked
into his jaw, clicking his teeth together, which in turn chomped down
on his tongue. “GOD-” Mid-swear, he spotted Amy discreetly trying to
blend into the wall, an impossibility considering her distinctive blue
locks. Raye was dancing nearby with some guy, who, Zach noted, was not
Jay. Amy must have insisted she go, since Raye kept sneaking glances at
her over the guy’s shoulder.
Ignoring the glass-sharp pain in his tongue, Zach took one more
valiant leap through the rolling swarm, landing next to Amy. She jumped
when he touched her arm.
“Oh!” she exclaimed, catching her breath. “Hi Zach.”
“You came,” he shouted near her ear. Behind his grin, his teeth
glowed purple in the black light.
“What?” she yelled. The tiny sparkles on her eyelids glittered
in ultraviolet bursts, and Zach realized he had never seen her look so
pretty.
“Never mind,” he said, grabbing her hand and pulling her into
the crowd. “Dance with me.”
She did her best, and was pretty good, despite the fact that
as a pre-med student and Sailor Senshi, she hadn’t had a lot of practice
grinding against someone to “Money Cash Hoes.” Her hands were on Zach’s
back, their bodies were pressed together, and the simple contact was
sending currents shooting up and down beneath her skin. She stared up
at him, catching his eye. He smiled, and Amy noticed how clear and
green his eyes were, like a leaf against the sun. Nerves gripped at
her throat and she looked down at her shoes, the heat burning her face
bright red.
They danced until they both were sweating, and Zach leaned over
and yelled, “Do you want to go to my place? It’s not as loud.”
She nodded, and they snaked their way through the crowd and out
the door. The hallway was almost as crowded, but cooler. Amy wiped
her forehead off with her sleeve, unaware that Zach kept turning
around and staring at her flushed face. <<Damn. Does she know how
pretty she is right now? >> The sight of her all sweaty was giving
him nasty thoughts, so he hurriedly grabbed her hand and led her into 2C.
It was just as dim and alcohol-filled as 4C, but much quieter
and less crowded. Bass was still blaring through the walls, but Bob
Marley was playing, placating the crowd into a mellow, Grateful Dead
parking lot kind of mood. Amy smiled; Serena and Darien were here,
and Lita, too. “Excuse me,” she said to Zach, and joined her friends
at the pool table, which was covered with a huge piece of plywood with
industrial markings stamped into it.
“Hey Ames, where were you?” Lita said, throwing back her beer.
“Haven’t seen you or Raye in like an hour!”
It was more like twenty minutes, but Amy didn’t bother to correct
her. “Where is Raye, anyway?” Serena asked, giggling as Darien hugged her
from behind.
“Back in 4C.” Matt came over to them, fully equipped with a stack
of plastic cups and a pitcher of beer.
“Ready for some beer pong?” he asked, handing a stack of cups to
Darien and bumping playfully into Lita. “You on my team?”
“Maybe,” she teased, her eyes bright with heat and alcohol.
Darien was pouring beer into the triangle of cups. “We’re going
to kick your ass,” he sang, pausing to peck Serena.
“Bring it, Chiba.”
Amy stepped off to one side, trying to get out of the way, and
backed right into Zach. “Oh! I’m sorry!”
“That’s OK,” he said, holding out a bottle of Woodchuck. “I
brought this for you.”
“Oh, I don’t drink,” Amy said, patting him on the arm and smiling
apologetically.
“But thank you anyway.”
“Oh AMY!” Serena bellowed. “C’mon, just try it! You’ll like it,
I promise.” She burped, loud enough for everyone to hear over the Wailers.
“That’s my girl,” Darien said, smiling.
“AW, Amy,” Matt said, sauntering over and dropping his arm around
her shoulders. “If you’re in college, you have to drink. It’s like,
admissions policy or something.”
“C’mon Amy!”
“Let’s go; Amy’s drinking!”
“You guys,” she said simply. She thought of how much school meant
to her, and how she would never become a wastoid who drank away her college
career, and how disappointed her mother would be if she found out
her only daughter had become a lush.
She was in the middle of explaining how drinking was something she
wasn’t interested in, and how severe the penalty would be if she
was caught, when Matt turned her around to face the crowd and
started pointing.
“Amy, see that guy over there? The one with the blue hat?”
She stood on her tiptoes. “Yes.”
“Well, that’s Paul Burns. He’s here on full academic
scholarship, and has a paid internship all lined up; the kid’s
a genius. And that, “ he pointed to a short girl with dark
hair. “is Jen Mattillo, who’s only seventeen because she graduated
high school early. And that guy with the orange Tommy shirt is Rob
West. Perfect SAT score, first in all his classes, also a genius.”
“I know him.”
“Yes, are you seeing my point here?”
“Absolutely not.”
“You can be a genius and still get cranked every weekend.
You’re not going to flunk if you throw back a few tonight, I promise.
And if you do, in twenty years, end up as a crazy bag lady that lives
under a bridge and collects stray cats, I give you permission in
advance to run me down with your stolen Wal-mart shopping cart.”
Matt took a bottle opener out of his back pocket and pried off
the cap. “Here. Bottom’s up.”
She stared at the bottle for a few seconds, until finally
she took it out of his hands. <<I can’t believe I’m listening to
drunken logic. This is definitely a new low. >> Everyone held
their breath, waiting for any sign of life from the petite blue-head,
and she surprised everyone by cautiously sipping. She paused, took
a longer gulp, and pronounced, “It’s not that bad. It doesn’t even taste
bad.”
They cheered, using the initiation of Amy into official college
life as an excuse to kill the rest of their cups. Zach and Amy settled
on the couch, while the remaining four took their places on opposite
ends of the covered pool table and began a highly competitive game
of beer pong.
Amy settled down, feeling almost as comfortable amidst the
party atmosphere as she did in her personal corner on the second floor
of the library, her third most comfortable spot after her own house
in Japan and her dorm room. The obstructing thought popped into her
head so suddenly, she almost dismissed it as a side effect of having
her first drink. <<That’s not how you play beer pong. It’s played
with cherries. >> She furrowed her brow, trying to grasp the memory
that was as slippery as soap bubbles, as just as fragile. <<Crystal
glasses, half full of amber liquid, white tablecloth, silver and gold,
and…cherries! The whole point is to throw the cherry into the glass. >>
“Amy?” Zach asked tentatively. The glint of a memory dissipated
like smoke in her hands.
“Yes?” she replied, swallowing a flood of Woodchuck.
<<Dear God I’ve turned her into a lush. >> “Um, you look really
good tonight.”
She swiveled, looking straight at him as he blushed. <<Is he
for real? Or is that just the beer talking? >> Her throat constricted
as the feeling of utter and paralyzing shyness shot through her,
freezing her vocal cords and numbing her genius brain. She looked
down, away, anywhere but at his face, and at the same time, the touch
of his leg against hers on the couch blurred out the music, the noise,
the sticky thirsty feeling the Woodchuck was leaving in her throat,
and what conspicuously smelled like a pot cloud coming from the hallway.
The touch was all she felt, all that she actually wanted to feel.
“Thank you,” she managed to blurt out, pressing one hand against
the heat of her face. <<Ah, what the hell. >> She killed the rest of
the bottle within seconds. “Could I have another one of these?”
Meanwhile, back in 4C, Raye managed to break out of the slithering
grasp of the jerk she had been dancing with and was squeezing her way
around the apartment, searching for Amy. And perhaps someone else.
“RAYE!” someone screamed. Raye turned and spotted two of
her sorority sisters, Christina and Angela, waving her over. She
smiled.
“Oops, oh, excuse me, sorry, coming through. Hey you guys!”
she said, pulling her hair off her sweaty neck and fanning her flushed
face. “Have you seen my friend Amy around?”
“Which one’s that?” Angela, a tall, busty brunette, held out
her cup and offered it to Raye.
She shook her head, refusing. “Uh, you know, the girl with
the blue hair. Did you ever meet her?”
Christina brightened, obviously from an epiphany. “Oh yeah,
I met her before! Uh, she was dancing with some guy and, uh, I
think they went to 2C or 3C. The whole floor’s having a party. “
“Probably 2C, that’s where he lives,” Raye declared, tying
her hair into a ponytail with the elastic she wore around her wrist.
“Oh, look, there’s Jay Melman,” Angela said, pointing above
everyone’s head. Raye pursed her lips together and dared to sneak
a glance over her shoulder. Sure enough, Jay was shoving his way
through the crowd, pushing people left and right. Before she could
duck or move, his eyes settled on her, and he grinned.
“Raye!” he called, his shout drowned to a whisper. She almost
smiled, but caught herself in time. He started towards her, obviously
having no regard for human life by the way he flung people out of his
path, and was making progress until he was intercepted by the
notorious Seventh Floor Bitch herself, Kristen Hayes.
“Oh my God, can you believe the way that girl throws herself
at him?” Angela shook her head in disgust.
“Never mind that, can you believe those pants she’s wearing?
Uh, we don’t want to see every dimple in your cottage cheese ass,
ya two-dollar ho!” Christina cackled.
Kristen rubbed her heavy-ringed hand against Jay’s chest, making
sure to smirk at Raye over his shoulder. Raye would have noticed that
his smile was tight and forced if she hadn’t been battling icy cold
knives in her stomach.
Angela noticed Raye wasn’t laughing, but was preoccupied with
Kristen and Jay. “Raye? Did Jay just call your name?”
“Huh?” She turned around, her violet eyes flat. “Well,
yeah, but he obviously has other things willing to throw themselves
at him.”
Christina reached out to touch her, ready to let loose
with another scathing insult directed at Kristen and her
tight pants, but Raye broke away suddenly and strode out of
the apartment. Jay noticed, and literally threw Kristen into
a random guy and took off after her.
“OH!” Christina sniggered. “I think he wants Raye,
hardcore! Whaddya think, Ang?”
“Definitely.”

* * * * * * * * * * * *

“YES!” Lita squealed, bouncing in celebration. She jumped
up and Matt caught her in a hug and also jumped up and down, and
would have disturbed the downstairs neighbors if they hadn’t also
been partying next door.
“DRINK!” Matt bellowed over Lita’s shoulder, continuing to
hop in celebration. Darien grinned and threw back the half-cup.
“Darien! We lost!” Serena moaned. “We have to play again!”
“OK,” he mumbled, steadying himself against the pong table.
The room seemed to sway. “Uh, on second thought, hon, why don’t we
sit down for awhile?”
She pouted briefly. “OK.” They stumbled over to the couch and
plunked down next to Amy and Zach.
“Hey Serena!” Amy chirped, grinning so widely her molars were
exposed.
“How you feeling, Amy?” Darien asked warily. It was just his
luck that Amy would get bombed off her ass and end up ralphing the entire
night. And it would be all their fault, too.
“Little dizzy. Otherwise, OK.” Darien looked down and noticed
that she and Zach were holding hands.
“OK,” he repeated.
Matt carried Lita piggyback style to the couch. “Check it
out, it’s the loser couch!” They burst into such hysterical giggles
that Matt had to hike her up so she didn’t slide off his back and
land ass-down in a beer puddle.
“Not funny, dips***,” Darien muttered, then spotted a familiar
person lingering near the doorway, surveying the room. “Hey Raye!”
he called to her, waving frantically.
She practically raced over to the couch, and dove between Darien
and Serena, knocking Serena’s cup hand and sloshing beer on her lap.
“RAYE!” Serena bellowed, blood rushing to her face in a rage.
“You ruined my new shirt! You-“
“My God, will you shut up?” Raye hissed, craning her neck to
see around the half-Lita, half-Matt centaur. “Oh no.”
Jay had entered the room and was making his way to the “loser
couch.” Matt moved aside to make room for him. “Hey guys,” he
slurred. “Hey Raye.”
“Hey,” she muttered, not once looking in his direction.
“So, uh,” Jay searched his intoxicated mind for something to
say and dissolve the uncomfortable reign of silence that his presence
had inflicted. “Has anyone seen Kevin?”
“No,” Matt said, turning to Zach. He shook his head.
“Ah,” Darien concluded. All four males smiled knowingly at
each other, and Raye rolled her eyes.
“Yeah, my MAN! Wow, I never thought he’d even talk to another
female again after Megan,” Jay concluded.
“Who’s Megan?” Serena asked suspiciously. If Kevin was using
Mina, for any reason under the sun, she would personally march down
to the dorms in the freezing cold and moondust his sorry ass before
he had a chance to blink.
“His ex-bitch, real stupid slut who used to screw around on him
all the time. He needed to smack her up, hardcore.”
“OH MY GOD!” Raye jumped up in a fury, knocking Serena’s cup askew
once again. “You are friggin unbelievable!”
“Huh?”
“Just-I don’t know! Stop it!” Embarrassed at her unwarranted
outburst, she stalked off angrily, bulldozing any unfortunate individual
in her path to the door.
“O-k,” Jay said slowly, stretching the two letters into a full
sentence. “What just happened? Do I smell or something?”
“Just a guess, hon, it might have been your dumbass putdown of
women that got her. Raye’s a kind of, um, a uh, um,” Serena blinked
and waited for someone to fill in the right word.
“Femme Nazi?” Jay guessed dryly.
“NO! A liberal?”
“Bra-burner,” Matt tried next.
“No, never mind.”
“I wonder what’s getting to her,” Lita mused from behind
Matt’s head. “She’s usually not so, uh, bitchy.”
“You think?” Serena quipped, having been on the receiving end of
one too many Raye-bombs.
A female shriek was heard from the opposite end of the room,
practically drowning out Bob Marley’s melodic wailing. Matt, Jay and
Zach whipped their heads around towards the sound, wincing at the
unnatural screeching emanating from the equally unholy beings. Zach
audibly groaned; Jay jumped, looking like he would dart away like
a startled deer.
“I think I know what’s getting to Raye,” Matt laughed. “Hey
Jay, do you feel a breeze in here?”
Zach jumped in on cue. “Yeah, it’s like there’s a TYPHOON in
here or something!”
“F*** you both,” Jay muttered, heading towards the door at a
speed a few notches below breakneck. Fortunately, he remained unnoticed
by the two screechers.
“OK, what’s going on?” Lita asked, finally sliding off of
Matt’s back.
Matt and Zach erupted into hysterical drunken giggles, Zach
laughing so hard that tears leaked out of his eyes. Matt gasped
for air like a goldfish out of water, finally choking out, “This-this
girl last year, Stacy Mayeski, Jay was seeing her for like 2 whole weeks,
and then she started getting psycho so he dumped her. And THEN,
she went freakin’ postal and sent him this ten page email that
said all this crap like, “I wish I could dance with you under the
stars,’ and ‘Whenever I see you, a TYPHOON goes off in my heart.’”
Serena snorted. “Are you serious?”
“Yes! We all read it, and then this one,” He pointed to Zach,
who nodded. “Sent it to everyone on campus…it was the best!
Everyone started calling her Typhoon Lagoon after that! We always
bust on Jay anymore, for that, and for Crazy Kristen. She’s probably
worse than the Typhoon.”
“Which one’s Typhoon?” Lita asked.
“The short chick with the dark hair and white shirt. The one
with the shorter hair is Crazy Kristen.”
“She’s a Seventh Floor Bitch!” she exclaimed. “I know her,
she’s disgusting.”
“Got that right.”
“Oh, I bet that Typhoon or Crazy K. said something to Raye!”
Zach bounced up animatedly, pleased with his conclusion. “That
chick’s CRAZY, she would so do that!”
Matt groaned and put both his hands to his head. “No way!
She’s going to screw everything up!”
“What?”
“Nothing…How you feeling, Amy?” he covered quickly.
“Hmm?” Her aqua eyes were extremely glassy, Zach noticed.
Maybe he should cut her off for the night.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Raye pounded down the stairs, her heels clunking heavily on
the old wood. <<So much for a stealthy escape. >> She wanted out,
just out of the building, out of everyone’s sight, off the planet
Earth for a few minutes. This happened every time she met someone:
they ended up being a player with fifty girls hanging off their
stupid frat-boy chest and couldn’t give two sh**s about her. Jay
didn’t really like her; he liked her face and body just like he
liked stupid Kristen for her…whatever, obviously not her thin thighs,
and that slut Stacy for her low alcoholic tolerance and willingness
to get naked.
Plus she had a raging case of PMS. Any male over the age of
two was getting on her very last nerve.
“Raye, wait!” She looked up, startled, and saw Jay pounding
down the stairs after her. He leaped over the banister with the grace
of a wasted panther, landing very close to her being and nearly
knocked her ass over teakettle down the sticky stairs.
She turned to leave, but he caught her by her wrist. “Wait,
don’t go!”
She wheeled around, violet eyes flashing. “Why?” she asked,
trying to struggle out of his grip. “Isn’t Kristen waiting for you?”
“So what if she is?”
“Well, if you’re screwing her, then just leave me alone! I
don’t need some guy playing me and hitting that fat bitch at the same time!”
Jay inwardly blanched at the thought of anyone with sound
mind and body getting it from Crazy Kristen. “Raye, what are you talking
about?”
“You know!” <<Dear lord am I making an ass of myself? >>
“No, I don’t! Please enlighten me.” She stared at him for a
second, wondering what his face would feel like if she touched
it. Her bearings returned and she shook her head.
“Kristen told me that you’re calling her up again and you
two are supposed to hook up tonight and-“
He groaned. “Are you sh***ing me?”
“No,” she replied, raging heat rising to her face again.
<<What, did he think I’d never find out? >>
Jay shoved his hands in his pockets and prayed to every
god that he knew that he wouldn’t screw this up. “Raye, listen,
if you didn’t already know, that girl is crazy. Like, clinically,
medically, really, truly crazy. I dumped her a while back and she
thinks that if she annoys the hell out of me I’ll see the light
and take her back. Do you know what she said to me when we broke up?”
Raye shook her head slowly, wondering why she was so quick
to jump to conclusions.
“She said, ‘You can’t break up with me because you love me.’”
He made a face to match his mocking tone. “What the hell was that?
What did she think I would say, ‘Oh, yeah, you’re right, I do love
you! Whatever was I thinking?’”
A tiny laugh escaped from her glossy lips. She could see
Kristen saying something like that and actually believing it.
“Please, Raye, believe me when I tell you she’s crazy, and
I don’t have any feelings for her whatsoever. Basically, she’s
just a big pain in the ass.” He touched her hand gently, pleased
that she didn’t automatically yank it back. “I want to know you
better, Raye. I want to know all about Japan and your temple and
everything. I want to know your last name.”
She looked up at him, and saw that his crystal blue eyes
were sincere, and how amazingly his blond eyebrows fit into his
face. <<Dear lord I’m staring at his damn eyebrows! >> At that
moment, in the dingy stairwell of a moderately priced off-campus
apartment building, with beer drying stickily to the soles of her
shoes, Raye let him in. She leaned forward to whisper in his ear,
“Hino.”
The reverberation of her breath traveled through his psyche
at the speed of light, igniting his senses wherever it feather-brushed.
He felt the heat of her face radiating on his own, almost making him
shudder with the sensation. “I really spell my name R-E-I,” she
continued in his ear. “I just changed the spelling to Americanize
it a little, it was Usagi’s idea.”
“Who?”
“Serena. Her real name is Usagi. Darien was the first to change
his name. He thought he’d have an easier time fitting in as “Darien”
than Mamoru. Usagi thought it would work for us, too, so we all
picked American names.”
“Really?”
“Yes. I’m really Rei, and Serena’s Usagi. Mina’s Minako,
Amy’s Ami, and Lita is Makoto.”
<<Makoto? That’s one hell of a stretch from Lita. >> “My
name’s really Jason. I shortened it in first grade because
there were four Jasons.”
She laughed a little. “And you wanted to be different, right?”
“No, my teacher wanted me to know that it was me she was yelling
at and not the other Jasons.”
She laughed and relented at the same time. Maybe she would
give Jay a chance after all, and besides, if he hurt her, she would
just microwave him from the waist down and then let him live. “I’m
sorry, I mean, I really shouldn’t have flown off the handle like that.
I was way out of line.”
“Hey don’t worry. And believe me, Kevin would rather jump in
front of an eighteen-wheeler than raise a finger to a girl. You should
have seen his mom kick the crap out of him when she saw his tattoo.”
Mutual apology was shown in their eyes when they looked at
each other, violet to blue. Deep amethyst to crystal blue. Jay’s
brain fumbled with several words before he said, “Want to go back
upstairs? Matt and Lita think they’re the s*** since they beat everyone
at beer pong. I think they need an ass-whupping.”
Raye’s black eyebrows rose into her wispy bangs. “Really? Do
you think we could take them?”
“Are you kidding? I’ve seen you play pitch; I know we can take
them.” Raye smiled, throwing a look to Jay that would have made him
melt if he was made of wax or snow or something that wasn’t a carbon-based
life form. She started climbing the stairs again, Jay following her closely.
She knew where he was looking without even turning around.
“Stop looking at my ass,” she commanded. <<Even though it does look
pretty damn good, I must admit. >>
“I’m not,” Jay lied, his eyes glued directly to her ass. As
they reentered the dimly lit apartment, Jay threw an arm casually
around Raye’s shoulders. She was about to say something when she
noticed Typhoon Lagoon and Crazy Kristen watching them with daggers
of jealousy in their eyes, and she smiled like a cat. <<Good call,
Jay. >> He had basically marked her as his, and even the two crazy
skanks couldn’t misinterpret it.
Lita and Matt were still boasting over their pong skills.
<<We’re going to clean the floor with them. >> “Shall we?” Jay asked,
turning to her and smiling. This time,it was Raye’s turn to mentally melt.
“Yes, we shall.”
* * * * * * * * * * * *
<<This is the way it’s supposed to be. >> Serena thought lazily,
watching the two couples battle for superiority with plastic cups and
a ping-pong ball. Raye had loosened up to Jay so much that they would
exchange drunken hugs whenever the ball landed in a cup. Lita and
Matt were getting desperate, since only one of their cups remained,
while three sat in front of Jay and Raye in a pyramid.
Suddenly, Darien stiffened, a feeling of foreboding flaring up
in the cells of his body, and something almost primal made him scan
the room hurriedly, and he stood up and peeked through the window blinds.
He saw nothing through the railing of the fire escape but Boris St.
below lit orange from the streetlights and a few drunken passers-by
tripping over their shoelaces and stumbling into cars (and finding it
hilarious to boot).
“Darien?” Serena asked, her voice trembling. Darien turned to
her, sitting on the couch, her face crossed with worry. Whatever was
alerting his senses was doing the same for her.
“Do you feel it?” he asked, already knowing the answer. The Negaverse
was near, he could feel its evil energy clustering somewhere in the
building, not in 2C, but somewhere very close by. Serena shuddered
involuntarily, trying her best to squelch the rising panic in her throat.
Raye abruptly stopped her victory celebration with Jay and stood
rigid in shock, her spine holding her upright like a rod of steel. She
numbly stumbled over to Serena and Darien and whispered, “They’re here.
I can feel them. On the roof.”
Darien swallowed, his mind racing. He suddenly wished that Mina
were present; she was always the quickest to execute and devise a course
of action that could possibly work. Someone else was stuck in his head;
the image so fuzzy and distant that he couldn’t name him or her for the
life of him, and all he remembered was something white.
Amy and Lita joined the huddle. Impulsively, Lita turned to Raye
for answers. “What do we do now?”
Serena raised her eyebrows. She was about to reaffirm her leadership
status and remind everyone that they should be turning to her for advice
and not Raye, when something heavy thumped down above the ceiling, something
heavy enough for plaster dust to flutter down on the startled crowd and
for the CDs in both apartments to skip.
Everyone’s head shot up, and Matt screamed, “What the hell is
that?”
Darien’s head snapped to the window, and Zach reached out and
pulled him away from it a split second before it imploded.
Raye was thrown down before she heard the glass shatter,
and gasped for breath on the carpet under heavy dead weight which
turned out to be Jay. He had shielded her from the shower of jagged
projectiles with his body, and was rewarded with several pieces of
window embedded in his bare arms.
Raye’s heart leapt in her throat, disbelieving that he was
stupid enough to throw her, the Senshi of Fire, to the ground at
the risk of his own life. “Jay,” she croaked, pain picking at her
heart sharper than the glass.
“Ouch,” was the muffled reply.
People, mostly girls, were screaming, and a mad rush to the
door only previously witnessed in police busts ensued. Thinking
quickly, Matt picked up the flat, black cell phone that had fallen
out of Raye’s purse and was about to punch the police button when
Lita knocked into him in her scrabble for cover. He tightened his
grip on the phone, not realizing that he had punched the pound key twice.
Lita joined Amy and Serena behind the beer pong/pool table,
who were both hidden in safety and concealment behind the
ancient wooden furnishing. “Ready?” Lita asked, pulling out
her henshin pen. The other two nodded.
The youma floating outside the window was transparent red, its
head aflame and one arm replaced with a metal striker. Shimmering
heat waves surrounded it, and as Darien watched, transfixed, it flicked
its striker arm, sending sparks shooting through the now-open window.
He pieced together the unusual anatomy, and concluded that it had
been created from a discarded cigarette lighter. Jay sat halfway up,
his eyes as big as teacup saucers. “Oh my God,” he whispered, white
from pain and shock.
Only Zach saw the flash of pink, green, and blue from behind
the pool table. He opened his mouth to say something when the youma
crashed down in front of him, knocking him backwards into the wall.
“No way!” Zach shook his head; stunned, incredulous that one of
those monsters would choose to attack him and his friends.
“Stop right there, ugly!”
Heads turned to the sound. Sailor Moon stood on top of the
brittle surface of the beer pong table, arms crossed, flanked on
either side by Jupiter and Mercury. Darien smiled; halfway relieved
that the majority of them were able to transform in semi-privacy.
Raye squiggled out from under Jay and ran towards the hallway; a flash
of red confirmed that she’d transformed into Sailor Mars.
“I am Sailor Moon! On behalf of the moon…”
“Oh cool, the cheerleaders came to save us!” Jay said from the
floor. A look of annoyance flashed across all three Sailor’s faces.
Sailor Moon guffawed. “I am NOT a cheerleader, thank you very
much, I am the Defender of love and justice, and now I’m going to do
away with YOU.” She pointed one gloved finger at the youma.
Darien’s one second of serenity was interrupted by a flash of
white-hot sparks shot mere inches from his face. The youma entered
the apartment and kicked over the coffee table, sending over orphan
cups of beer flying and soaking the carpet.
“Hey cutey!” it screeched, flicking at its striker. It hadn’t
shot any flames yet, Darien noticed, so the lighter must have been
out of fluid before it had been created. Still and all, according to
the New England Journal of Medicine, sparks hurt too, and would most
likely leave third degree burns when coming in contact with human skin.
Sailor Mars ran out of the hallway. “What did I miss?” Zach
and Matt, who had run over to assist Jay, gawked at her. “What?” she
asked in response to their open mouths.
“What’s with the do-me heels?” Jay asked, supported on either side
by his friends.
<<I’m going to put this do-me heel right through his forehead. >>
“That’s none of your business, you moronic civilian.”
The youma saw a break, and pounced on it like a rabid mountain
lion. Leaping in the air with surprising swiftness for an oversized
Bic, it caught Darien with enough force to rattle his fillings and knocked
him backwards out the window and onto the rickety fire escape. “Need a
light?” it screeched maniacally, standing above his supine form and shooting
sparks dangerously near his face. He cried out and clapped a hand over
his face in a desperate attempt to save his visage and retinas.
“DARIEN!” Sailor Moon screamed, the desperation in her voice heard
louder than the name she cried. She only took one faltering run-step to
the window and the love of her several lives before she was blocked by
three male bodies unwisely squiging their way through the jagged windowpane.
<<That guy is the biggest idiot the world has ever seen. >> Mars was
the first one out the window after them, thinking of all the heinous, possibly
illegal things she would do to Jay for playing superhero while big chunks of
glass were stuck in his forearms. <<Doesn’t he know that he could have cut
or will cut several major veins and arteries, causing him to bleed to death?
Jeez, you would think he totally slept through biology. Oh, wait, he did,
I’m in his class. >>
Jupiter helped Mercury and Moon through the Window of Death, but
Mars was already gone, her do-me heels clanking down the metal fire escape
with the subtlety of a school bell. “Where are they?” Moon shouted down to
her, trying to keep the tears and her composure in.
“Those stupid idiots are CHASING it!” Mars shouted up at them, her
face the color of her signature fuku. “ I don’t know what the hell they
think they’re going to accomplish except get their worthless asses kicked!
They went down that alley!” She pointed down the narrow alley that ran into
Boris St, and then casually jumped over the railing.
“Let’s go girls!” Jupiter leapt off the second floor fire escape and
landed deftly on her heels like she had been skipping a curb. Mercury and
Moon landed behind her with a soft thump-thump.
Darien and Matt were down on the ground, and as they watched, both of
them rolled to either side to avoid being singed with sparks shooting from
the youma’s hand. Zach unwisely threw an empty bottle at it, clunking its
plastic head and shattering the bottle, spraying the area with more potential
hazards.
“Oh, good move, dipsh**!” Matt shouted, on his feet again and running.
“Oh, what, you got a better idea? I just saved your ass; you should be
on your knees thanking me!”
Darien threw a frantic look to Serena, and she understood. He was
frustrated that he couldn’t transform lest he give away his identity, and
save his friends from energy-drainage and possible death.
<<Well, they have spine, at least. >> Mercury touched on her computer
visor and scanned for weaknesses.
“Supreme Thunder!” Jupiter cried, the tension leaving her hands as
the white-hot lightening did. Her hasty attack missed by miles, nearly
frying Matt alive.
“Sorry!” she immediately apologized. Matt didn’t recognize her as
Lita, she knew that, but still and all, he would be pretty pissed to know
his beer pong partner almost sent him up to the pearly gates.
“Where’s J-the other one?” Mars asked, a fireball forming between her
hands.
“I don’t know!” Zach said nervously. “He was right behind me a few
seconds ago!”
“Looking for this?” came an arctic voice from the treetops. Darien’s
head snapped up while his heart sank to his stomach. He knew that voice,
all right, and a few times he had wondered if it would be the last sound
he heard. Nephlite floated down from his perch in the tree, joining Zoycite,
who stepped out of the shadows, dragging someone by their arm. Darien
forced his face into a blank, even though he was nervous enough to upchuck.
Jay was standing perfectly still, his face the color of bleached flour,
with Zoycite directly behind him holding an ice spear to his throat.
“Don’t even think about it, girls, or this guy’s a eulogy.”
Jupiter and Mars slowly lowered their hands, the first course of action
dissolving with the emergence of something the Negaverse hadn’t tried before:
hostages, with the threat of death.
Sailor Moon didn’t see the youma behind her; her attention was completely
focused on her bleeding friend trapped in the clutches of a Negaverse monster.
She still didn’t know what hit her when she took a face full of concrete.
“Sailor Moon!” Mercury screamed, before she was knocked down too.
Mars and Jupiter sprung to life, Mars seemingly not caring if Jay died if
it meant the life of the princess.
Darien had no choice. He would rather trust Matt and Zach with his
deepest, darkest secret than see his beloved die defenseless on the
potholed pavement of Bryce University. In a flurry of red rose petals,
Darien Chiba disappeared and Tuxedo Mask stood in his place.
He caught the slightest glimpse of Matt and Zach’s open mouths
before he tried his best to intimidate the stronger, older, taller, and
definitely more lethal dual. “I will not let you hurt these people, or
any other person on this campus, in the name of evil! I will defeat you!
I am Tuxedo Mask!”
“Oh, man, pick a better name!” Matt cut off Zoycite before he even
started. “Can’t you be Neo or Morpheus or something badass? Hey, that
guy looks like me.”
Nephlite made a face like he had just stepped in dog sh**. “Yes,
how unfortunate,” he hissed, and in the blink of an eye swooshed down
and pinned Matt against a tree by his neck. Matt let out a whelp
before his air was cut off. “How unusual, indeed. Beryl would be
interested in seeing this.”
“NO!” Tuxedo Mask reached in his cape and hurled a rose at
Nephlite, not really aiming and not really caring. It traveled
about 10 feet before being blown to mulch by a purple boomerang.
“Not so fast, Mask,” Malachite growled, leaping out of his hiding
place behind the wall so fast that Zach didn’t even see what was coming.
He was slammed into the pavement with Malachite’s boot shoved under his
chin.
“Where did he come from?” Jupiter screamed, charging forward
unwisely with the good intention of punching Malachite’s lights out,
disregarding the many times she had tried and failed at this particular
endeavor. Malachite merely raised one prim, white-gloved hand and
Jupiter bounced off his black energy dome like a crash test dummy.
Zach screamed from the blast of dark energy delivered to him.
“Uhhh!” he grunted. “Dar-Darien, help!”
“Hang on!” Tuxedo shouted, elongating his wand and preparing to
jump. Zach was a sitting duck underneath the Nega-verse’s most powerful
general, but Matt was quickly running out of air. “Sailor Senshi, take
care of the youma!”
“We’re trying!” came the reply from Mars. It was harder and harder
for her to fight with Jay in danger of being skewered by her least favorite
general.
Jupiter was two steps behind her. Ignoring the youma completely,
she focused on the Generals, Zoycite in particular. There had been
some bad blood between them ever since he remarked that her fuku was
looking a little tight these days. “Let them go, Nega-s***, or I’ll
zap your girly hair out!”