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TranslateTranslateA Gift by Starlight
by Mina Martin
~*~
Chapter 13: A Prism and a Dark Side
~*~
Naru felt underdressed walking to school. Not like she needed a sweater; more like she was missing a piece of armor. Too much in her head, and not enough on her body. Mom still hadn't noticed the missing leather school bag.
Her hands flexed without something to hold.
But more importantly - when would Nephrite call her? Waking up after their... evening together, she had spent all of Sunday on a blissful high.
Even if he'd called her by a weird, wrong name. Very weird, that. Naru probably misheard, she had been half-asleep. Weird dreams were becoming her thing.
But days later that had all drained away, like energy, and Naru needed MORE. Nephrite needed to hurry up and come back to her. Absence made the heart grow fonder and the brain worried-er. When would he contact her again? Why hadn't he contacted her yet? When would she see him again? Was he having second thoughts? What if she forgot what he looked like!
And if Naru thought she was having a bad day, it was nothing compared to Usagi. When they met up on their walk to school:
"WAHHHH! Oh Naru, it's gone! And Luna keeps scolding me for losing it, but SHE was the last one to see it! I wanted to keep it with my jewelry, she's the one that says she put it in my sock drawer. She thinks I don't know that she's being - being - what's the word, defective!"
"I think you mean deflective."
"That can't be right, what do reflections have to do with being a traitor? Because that's what my cat is!"
Naru shook her head, smiling. Walking with Usagi, listening to her outrageous problems; this was normal.
"So, what exactly is missing?"
Apparently a very large and important red crystal. Usagi had even gotten desperate enough to ask her mom to help look for it, as mothers could find anything you lost in five minutes. But it had truly disappeared.
They would normally ask their friend Rei (they as in the Sailor Senshi, Naru Not Included - Rei was not her friend, after all. Yet? Maybe.) if she could scry into her temple fire to help find it. But Rei was in the hospital after being seriously injured by a something-other-than-a-youma monster. Great, there were different kinds now!
"I'm sorry about Rei," Naru told Usagi, and that she hoped Rei would feel better soon. Usagi had gone totally silent. Naru had never seen her walk so primly before, it was so wrong. She and Rei had only been friends for what, a couple months now? But Usagi was a good friend like that.
And she'd made instant friends with the new girl too, who turned out to be Sailor Jupiter. First the girl genius, now the girl brawler. Geez, was every new student going to turn out to be a Sailor Senshi? Well, Naru could also be a very good friend.
"Listen, my mom runs a jewelry shop, right?" said Naru.
"Um, right?"
"Right, so if anyone's going to hear about a giant red gem, it'll be us. Something that big and flawless, if someone tries to appraise or sell it, it'll definitely create a lot of gossip. I'll call you right away if I hear anything!"
Usagi hugged her tight, and refused to let go until they got to school. It wasn't hard to hug her back; now Naru's hands had something to hold.
It made for some pretty disjointed walking, kind of like a three-legged race, and at one point they did the game where Naru would put one foot in front of where Usagi would step, then Usagi would put her foot in front of Naru's leg where she would step, and they kept up the pattern for about ten seconds before falling out of rhythm. And nearly falling over too. They just barely made it to Juban Public Middle School before the last bell rang, and were still laughing so hard from it all that when they got to their classroom Miss Haruna chided them for giggling too loudly.
Naru and Usagi would never make it onto a shudan kodo marching team, but that was perfectly all right with the two of them.
* * * * * * * *
Miss Haruna sighed, and closed her eyes. She stood in front of one of the large windows of the classroom, having wandered out from her normal location behind the teacher's desk. "It's such a beautiful day," she murmured, with her eyes still closed and the sun lighting up her face.
After a moment, she whirled around to her students. "Who here brought their lunch today?"
The grand majority of teenagers raised their hands, and then one by one turned to the single hold-out.
"Uh..." Umino hunched his shoulders. "I forgot mine this morning. I was up late on the Sailor V message boards."
"Great! We're all going outside to have lunch."
The resulting cheer drowned out Umino's sorrows.
Ami and Makoto gravitated towards Usagi, and by extension Naru. But Ami specifically went up to Naru, and she and Usagi saw what they had missed when they'd arrived at school earlier that morning: Ami was holding two school briefcases.
Naru gasped, politely, with a hand over her mouth. "Is that -!"
"My mother found it at the hospital after the gas leak," said Ami. "Since your name was embroidered inside - OOF!"
Ami was cut off when Naru attacked her with a hug. "Oh thank you, thank you!" said Naru. "You saved me!"
"You hug just like Usagi does," Ami noted.
"When did you go back to the hospital?" Usagi asked as they walked out of the main school building.
"You guys mention hospital visits a lot..." Makoto trailed off.
"It's a long story," said Naru.
All four of them ended up at a picnic table in the school courtyard. It was nice; it was still warm enough outside, for an autumn afternoon. They could forget for a moment that they were halfway through a boring day of school. Instead they were... having lunch in a park. Like courtiers! Or diplomats, or fashion magazine assistants.
Miss Haruna dropped a bag of chips in Umino's lap as she breezed past him, the sound of his stomach gurgling making her walk away faster.
"Soooooo, Mako-chan," Usagi said, finger to her chin, eyes wide as saucers and twice as innocent. "Did you maybe, possibly, perhaps, by chance, by happy accident, happen to bring any extra food today that you need to be rid of?"
It was strange to suddenly be in a group of people that were just as amused by Usagi's antics as Naru always was. Makoto brought out a huge bento box with five tiers, clearly prepared for such a humble request, and Ami smiled behind a polite hand to her mouth. Oh, other people humored her best friend, and they were fond of her when they weren't exasperated by her, but did they truly love the honesty and goodness of Usagi's silliness? These two other girls seemed to.
Well, it's not like Naru could've expected to keep Usagi to herself forever. Could she? It was a good thing that more people saw what she saw, that new people agreed with her. It didn't diminish her and Usagi's best friendship. It didn't have to.
Makoto offered up a dazzling spread of neat, colorful food to Ami and Naru, after Usagi got first pick of course. Well, Naru wouldn't want to put her hand in first anyway, not with a hungry Usagi reaching in at the same time. That's how you could lose a hand.
They all opened their lunch bags and laid out everyone's contents party style on the picnic table. Makoto's creations were the stars: little grilled sanma fillets (already deboned!) with shinmai rice, fresh cut persimmons, cold soba noodles with vegetables and dressing, and she still had more! Ami had roasted almonds, one satsuma orange, and simple pockets of inarizushi, a lunch that she'd put together herself. Naru and Usagi had more traditional fare made by their mothers, like skewered hot dogs in octopus shapes.
The sun was at just the right angle where it wasn't in anyone's eyes. Wind brushed up the tree leaves, the corners of their napkins, and on their bare legs. It really did feel like they were having a grand picnic.
"Delicious! Now this is the life," said Usagi, her mouth full with two riceballs already. "This is exactly what young ladies such as ourselves should be doing; enjoying the outdoors and eating yummy food and hanging out. Not being stuck inside with math lessons we'll never use outside of school."
Naru had skipped a whole afternoon of school not that long ago. Usagi was so right.
She made sure to thank Makoto for all the amazing food she brought to share. "You're so different from when we first met," Naru said. "I mean!" she stammered, at Makoto's surprised face. "In a good way! Like, you're this badass warrior but you're also an amazing cook. Maybe some people would have to be one or the other, but you're both!"
"Oh." Makoto looked downwards and blushed, but at least she seemed to accept the compliment. "It's nothing."
"It's not nothing!" protested Usagi, with bits of rice stuck around her lips. "She also has plants!"
Naru tilted her head. "Plants?"
"Yeah, I - I guess you could say I've got kind of a green thumb? I like helping things grow. Not just fresh herbs and stuff for cooking, although I have those too. They're living things to take care of. I kind of have a lot of them at home."
When she was little, Naru and her mother had once spent a whole day at the Itabashi Botanical Garden. She tried to combine the memory of its lush ambience with the thought of a typical, small but modern Tokyo residence. Makoto's bathroom, at least, had to be downright tropical.
"Indoor plants have a documented, positive effect on people," Ami brought up. "They help people feel better, or at least calmer. They can also improve indoor air quality. Your home must be a very relaxing place to study in."
"I've got that, I have a peace lily!" Makoto said. "It's not a real lily, but I know it's supposed to be an air purifier. Although, speaking of lilies, I should probably double check everything in case Luna ever visits. Some plants like true lilies are toxic to cats."
Usagi slammed her fists on the picnic tabletop, making the other three girls jump and a riceball pop out from Ami's chopsticks. "Luna is the toxic one!" The riceball made a graceful arch in the air before splattering to death over the table. "She won't admit that she lost the Red Rainbow Crystal! For once, it isn't my fault!"
Ami picked up the scattered remains of her riceball, putting them in her napkin. Makoto's face had gone comically still, and her eyes darted back and forth to nothing and everything. What was going on here? A typical Usagi-outburst didn't usually make things so tense. Usagi herself was fuming, unaware of anything wrong.
But then Naru realized why, and she knew what she had to do - she just had to be a peace lily. Clear the air.
"It's okay," she said. "I know that you're all Sailor Senshi, and that Luna can talk."
"Oh, phew," said Makoto, and Ami sighed in relief. "I did not know what to say. I think I was about to try a very bad joke about talking cats and Usagi in Wonderland."
"I have to admit, I wasn't sure what to do after that night at my mother's hospital," Ami followed up. "So I did nothing. And now I know just hoping something will go away on its own isn't responsible. I'm glad we can speak openly about Sailor business with you anyway, since you and Usagi are usually together."
"Did you think you were losing your mind too, when you first heard Luna speak?" Makoto asked Naru.
"I haven't actually talked to her yet," said Naru. "I just know that she can. What does she sound like, does she say things with a purrrr-fect accent?"
"She's an evil Mary Poppins," Usagi groused. "She sounds like a snooty British librarian and if she had opposable thumbs she'd chase me around with a ruler and even more homework."
"She would not," stated Ami, over Makoto and Naru giggling at the image. "And Luna sounds like a normal young woman. She's completely fluent in Japanese."
"Isn't Sailor V British? If she had a magical cat too, that's probably what hers would sound like," said Naru.
"And you guys really don't know her?" asked Makoto, to which both Usagi and Ami shook their heads.
"That's what I said!" Naru exclaimed. "But how? There aren't exactly a bunch of different teenage super heroines going around, all kicking bad guy butt totally independent of each other. Her costume is just like yours."
Usagi shrugged and made an 'Idontknow' noise.
"I've wondered that too," said Ami. "I wonder about so many things since becoming Sailor Mercury. And I -"
Ami paused, gearing up her strength to finish what she wanted to say. Her three lunch mates leaned in. This was clearly important.
"I'm going to insist that Luna tell us everything she knows. No more - no more breadcrumbs! I respect that she's our mentor, and I understand the importance of compartmentalization, but we need to know as much as possible to be the best Sailor Senshi we can be."
"You sound kind of American," Naru commented. Usagi saluted Ami with both hands touching out from her forehead.
"I'm serious! What happens the next time we have to fight a Rainbow Crystal carrier? What if Rei isn't out of the hospital when they show up, and we have to battle them with one less senshi on our side? Don't you think we got lucky with Mr. Joe? What if a civilian had been caught in the crossfire? Rei is only alive because our senshi uniforms have magical healing properties. The Sailor Senshi are quite literally more durable than normal humans. If she'd de-transformed any sooner after - it happened - then she would have died."
Ami was holding back tears by the end. Usagi was quiet and still, and even Makoto looked down at her lap. They could hear all their other classmates so easily - at other tables, on the building steps, all eating their lunch and laughing and enjoying the weather - but it was like an invisible wall had sprung up, isolating Naru and Usagi and Ami and Makoto from normal teenagers.
"We have to be prepared," Ami declared. "We're not only responsible for the safety of the citizens of Tokyo, and maybe even all of Japan. We're also responsible for each other."
Naru's respect for Ami went up 150%.
"It's not like there's a class you can take, Fighting Monsters 101," Usagi mumbled.
"Like you'd study for it anyway," Naru tried to joke.
"I don't accept that excuse. We'll make our own training."
Usagi shrunk back from Ami. "You want us to make up more schoolwork for ourselves? It's bad enough that we have normal school, now you want us to go to extra school? And you go to cram school anyway, why are you trying for a third school? Ami, you'd go to school in your sleep if you could."
"Uh..." Makoto said. "How, exactly, would we make our own training?"
"Don't encourage her, Mako-chan!"
"Well, we can start with this." As if counterpart to Makoto's large bento box, Ami brought out a large and heavy manual. She went to place it on the picnic table before realizing almost every square inch was still covered with food. "Oh, um - "
After a moment, she just held it up to her chest so the rest of them could see the glossy front cover. And it turned out to be a book Naru was already familiar with.
"'Japanese Red Cross Society, Basic First Aid Certification'," Makoto read out loud.
Naru pointed out none of them were 16 years old yet, but Ami assured them that her mother could get all of them waivers. "I've already asked her, we just have to take the class through a private training center instead of the JRCS. And they use Red Cross materials too, so we can use the same books to study."
Usagi had Ami open the manual so she could see the pictures. "I don't know..."
"I think it's a great idea."
They all turned to Naru.
Naru put her chopsticks down on the table surface, but used her pointer finger to make them slowly roll back and forth a little.
"I... get attacked by monsters kind of a lot. You guys know that, right?"
Makoto looked confused, but Usagi nodded and Ami was sympathetic.
"It's always a huge relief when the Sailor Senshi show up, even if it's right before I pass out from having my energy drained. Because then I know it's going to be all right. But... when I didn't know their - your - secret identities, I didn't really think about your... qualifications, I guess? I mean, I figured they - you, sorry - I already figured you were teenagers too. But I didn't really think about what that meant. You guys can take on the monsters, no problem. But what about everything else? What about after?"
"After?" Usagi repeated.
"Well, you do love your dramatic exits," said Naru.
"Not true!" Usagi protested. "I love my dramatic entrances. Tuxedo Mask is the one who always leaves like Batman. He's so mysterious and dreamy..."
The hearts in Usagi's eyes meant she couldn't see her friends mouthing to each other; 'Batman?' 'Dreamy?' 'Don't look at me!'
"Okay, but what I mean is, it's sometimes really hard even when the Sailor Senshi defeat the monster and save the day. Do you remember..." Naru trailed off. The first example she thought of was her own first encounter, the one at the OSA-P jewelry shop. Thinking for just a few seconds, that her own mother was choking Naru to death. She didn't want to talk about that.
Instead she brought up the time an evil clock store sold cursed alarm clocks, to what seemed like half of all Tokyo.
"I felt like everything and everyone around me was taking so long to do anything, and it made me so irritated! I woke up at 4am, deep cleaned my entire room, went to school early and then left school early, ran all the way home, then I did all my homework including a totally voluntary essay for history because I thought we hadn't gone over the Boshin War enough, and then I read all of The Makioka Sisters cover-to-cover before finally going to bed, way after midnight. And that was just the first day. It went on a few days before the clocks stopped working."
Naru couldn't even remember anything from the plot of The Makioka Sisters. Usagi goggled at her friend's recount of the situation.
"I remember that," Ami said. It was when Luna had given her the miniature Mercury supercomputer. She was getting very familiar with that piece of magitech lately.
"Well, when we threw out those clocks it was like -" Naru almost said it was like a drug withdrawal, which was true, but she couldn't say such a thing out loud.
"It took a while for our energy to go back to normal. Usually it does, right after Sailor Moon defeats the youma. But not that time. Ugh, pun totally not intended. No, really Usagi, stop grinning like that! I was exhausted the next morning, and for like a whole week after. I napped in class right along with you. And Miss Haruna let us!"
"Definitely not like a Saturday morning cartoon," Makoto mumbled to herself.
Naru lifted her finger from the chopsticks and put her hands into her lap. She stared off a little into the distance, thinking. Remembering what she normally tried to put out of her mind, because she normally tried to just move on with her life.
She told them about falling unconscious in the most random places, like narcolepsy but worse.
She told them about waking up in places far away from where she started out, in unfamiliar and unfriendly streets of the Tokyo megalopolis, with not enough money for a long bus ride home.
She told them about waking up sore, all kinds of bruises and cuts, already congealed with blood and no clue how she got them. She'd never know.
She told them about the opposite of waking up - the nightmares about not being in control of her own body, her brain processing the brief fragments of what she could barely remember: speaking an alien language harsh on the human mouth and throat, or attacking the senshi as part of a violent, zombified mob. The prickle of something stuck in her mind and thinking her thoughts for her, far worse than a hand puppeteering her body around.
Youma attacks were easy to walk away from, if you were wearing a pretty sailor suit. They'd never thought about it from a normal person's perspective before - they never had to. No one had ever been permanently harmed from having their energy drained. The threat had always been real, but the enemy had never managed to make good on that threat.
Not until now, with these super monsters hidden inside normal, unsuspecting humans. Not until Sailor Mars showed them all what it meant to truly dedicate oneself to the mission.
Elsewhere in the school courtyard some boys made a joke and then laughed at their own humor, the words too far away to be understood but their tone as clear as the day. The picnic table that the four girls sat at felt, for a minute, like it was isolated from the rest of the normal universe.
"Anyway," Naru said. "I just think learning how to help people with first aid is just as important as throwing a tiara."
"Precisely," Ami agreed. "If anyone is ever seriously hurt again during a battle, whether it's one of us or a civilian, we can actually help while waiting for an ambulance to arrive."
Instead of just standing around doing nothing while someone almost bleeds out to death.
Makoto had crossed her arms at some point, listening intently. She nodded once. "Well, I'm convinced. The Sailor Senshi are here to help, right? So let's do everything we can to help."
Usagi made a tetchy acceptance, "Oh, all right," and Makoto and Ami formally pledged to the idea out loud. And Naru found herself agreeing along with them.
"Oh, Naru you don't have to do it too," said Makoto, kindly. Her sympathy was mirrored in Usagi and Ami's faces.
"I... well..."
Naru trailed off as they all looked at her. It's true, she was Sailor Nobody. But it had felt, just for a moment, like she belonged with them anyway.
"No, but... I want to become a nurse anyway," she said, finally thinking of an excuse.
"You do?" Ami asked.
"Ever since she was little," Usagi said, along with Naru's enthusiastic 'Uh-huh!'
"I didn't know that. I bet our academic interests overlap quite a lot," said Ami. "We should study together. Um, I mean we could, I'm not trying to be bossy."
"Oh, I'd like that actually!"
Usagi threw a protective arm in front of Naru. "No way, no stealing my best friend for your evil super-deep studying sessions! Save yourself, Naru!"
"I've already got some materials, but I'm sure you have more," said Naru from behind Usagi's hand, which muffled the sound of her voice. "Thank you Ami."
Then she blew a puff of air into her best friend's palm to make Usagi shriek and pull back.
"Mako-chan! Are we the only girls left in Tokyo that appreciate the time-honored tradition of going straight to the arcade after school as many days in a row as possible?"
"Sorry, Usagi." The grin on Makoto's face said the opposite. "I need to keep up my karate skills, so I try and visit my local dojo twice a week after school."
"WAHHHHH!"
* * * * * * * *
Far away from Juuban Middle School, but still well inside Tokyo, Dawn Summer lay in a simple bed in a simple room that reminded her of army barracks. It was some Japanese government-run orphanage version.
She lay on her back, hands clasped over her stomach, fully clothed in sweatpants, socks, and a sweatshirt, all properly sized and provided by the orphanage/children's center/whatever the place was. Dawn stared up, unmoving, barely blinking, possibly sleeping with her eyes open. She stared as if she were naming all the stars, even though the ceiling was in the way, and also, it was daytime.
If she could think, then Dawn would think that this orphanage-y place was better than she could have hoped for - none of the other kids had really tried to harass her. Being Caucasian and unable to speak Japanese, they just kind of shunned her, even the adults, which worked in her favor.
But she couldn't think, not really. Her brain had been hit with a Blue Screen of Death and she had no way to reboot. All she could do was replay the events of the night before in her mind on a loop.
The nice security guard convinced Dawn to come with him to a little utility building on the forest grounds. He gave her some tea and a blanket, and even let Dawn use the phone after him. She tried Willow's cell first, but only got a busy signal, probably because she didn't know how to properly dial outside of the country. Living in Italy for two years hadn't given Dawn any skills on how to make international calls, especially since Willow had given her a magically juiced-up phone that skirted the high cost of a regular, non-magical international phone payment plan.
Dawn's Nokia had not sized up with her when she'd been cursed into being a freakish giant. Everything would be so much easier if she just had a working cell phone.
She didn't protest too much when more official government-type people showed up to take Dawn off the security guard's hands. If they were evil demons in disguise, she wouldn't be able to fight them all off on her lonesome. Better to play along, and play up the helplessness, for now.
And it seemed like they might not be demons after all, because Dawn waited for hours in a police station, and there was nothing quite so evil as human bureaucracy. She was able to communicate a few things - she was American, her name was Dawn Summers, she had no idea what had cratered the park forest, yes it was perfectly normal for American girls to take nighttime strolls alone - but otherwise they wanted her to just sit there, be quiet, don't touch anything.
In the cubicle across from where Dawn sat, waiting and waiting and so bored and waiting, a woman and a little girl who was probably her daughter sat down to talk with a police man. The daughter was maybe four years old, and did the typical, restless sort of gymnastics in her adult-sized chair that kids would do: waving her arms, trying to stand on her head, putting one leg up like a yoga pose. The mother reached an arm out without even looking, without stopping whatever she was saying to the police man, to keep the little girl from falling over. Pure mother's instinct. Dawn had to turn her head, swallow a phantom lump.
When she finally looked back, the little girl was bouncing in her seat, leaving the illustrated figure on her t-shirt in clear view, which to Dawn's surprise was -
"Sailor V!" said Dawn. The little girl glanced Dawn's way, and Dawn tried to wave all friendly-like at the shirt. "That's very cool, I've never seen a Sailor V shirt before, just Sailor Moon ones."
She made a V for Victory hand sign. The little girl just kicked her legs and stared at Dawn.
"Right," said Dawn. "What does the stupid gaijin know."
Dawn wriggled in her own seat. It felt like even her underwear was a size too big.
Finally, a policewoman who spoke English came over and took Dawn to a small, private room, then sat down with her. "My name is Officer Misaki Yoshida. I'm sorry this is taking so long," she apologized. "We contacted the American embassy, but there is no record of anyone with your name arriving in the country within the last twelve months."
Yoshida looked Dawn in the eyes, and said clearly but softly, "Are the people who brought you here not family? Maybe some gentlemen who are supposed to help you start a modelling career?"
"No?" said Dawn. Darn it, why didn't she think of a cover story in the free time she'd been here already? Did she really think Buffy and everybody would just waltz in and rescue her damsel self like this was just another demon kidnapping, easy peas-y, Tuesday as usual? And, okay, it was nice that this policewoman thought she was pretty enough to be a model (she certainly felt statuesque standing next to itty-bitty-Buffy) but where did that scenario come from? Why would -
Oh. OH! Well, demon kidnappings for elder god sacrifices sure could come out looking a lot less evil, in comparison to other evils. There were too many evils in the world, that evil itself came pluralized was also an evil.
Sometimes she thought that regular old vampire crimes were kind of easy, in comparison. You see, you stake, you eat pancakes after. It had to be a lot harder if, like, some regular person tried to rob her. They'd have to be arrested, and processed, and Dawn would have to talk to the police, and then talk more in court, and then sentencing, and after taking forever to deal with low-stakes (heh) crime, Mr. Robber might get out in a just few years. Taking out vampires was much easier. Usually.
Sometimes Dawn still dreamt of the first boy she ever kissed. Like the most delicious cookies she'd ever eaten, only to find out they'd been made with rotten ingredients. She could never again remember the taste the way she first experienced it.
Ok, time to get her thoughts back on track. Where was she? Right, with a nice policewoman trying to figure out if she'd been trafficked. Yikes.
"Oh, no!" said Dawn. "They're not - um, it's a family trip! I mean, it's a business trip - for my dad, and I just came along. I always wanted to visit Japan so he brought me this time."
"Okay. That's okay," Yoshida reassured her. "What's your dad's name? Do you know the company he works for?"
"Hank Summers." For once, Dawn hoped that the ridiculous amount of time and effort it normally took to get in touch with her deadbeat dad would work in her favor. "He works for - um, The Council."
"The... council? Are you sure that's what it's called?"
"I think so. I don't really pay attention to my dad's boring work stuff. Uh, but I can call them? I know a phone number."
At last, an office phone was brought in and placed on the little table of the - honestly, Dawn didn't know what this room was normally for. There was no mirror so it wasn't an interrogation room, and there were cabinets in the corner but also a round conference table, so maybe some kind of weird storage or lunchroom? Who knew. Yoshida showed Dawn how to dial a number outside of the country.
Then Dawn dialed a specific number she had memorized - that everyone in the Scooby gang, plus a lot of the newcomers and the baby slayers, had memorized.
Taking their operational security cues gathered from a bunch of TV shows and movies, the new Slayer-Watcher Organization (they still hadn't come up with a better name. They didn't even stick to the same name most of the time) had some cool things-slash-protocols in place.
See, Willow's magical phone thing was difficult to set up. She couldn't do it for everyone. There were hundreds of new baby slayers, plus other trusted people in Slayer Central, like that one accountant Giles legit teared up over when he learned the guy was still alive.
Instead, if they ever found themselves stranded in any way: without backup or supplies, on a boat in the middle of the ocean, in a totally different country than the one they started out in at the beginning of the day, in a different dimension than the one they started out in at the beginning of the day - as long as they had access to a working phone, there was a single number they could call for help. And the call would always go through.
Giles had made some old-timey joke about call collecting charges on their end. Apparently it was a holdover from the old Watcher's Council, but useful enough to keep around.
Unlike when she'd tried Willow's cell, this time Dawn heard the call go through, and ring a few times before someone picked up.
"Yes, hello! Uh," she struggled a bit to remember the phrasing she was supposed to use when 'civilians' not in the know were listening in. "This is Dawn Summers. Can you get me in touch with the supervisor? Sorry, um, my dad's supervisor. His number is 09-26-00. I think he needs a pickup. I'm - we're in Tokyo, Japan. We got separated, and - it's me that needs a pickup, actually. Can you tell him I'm okay?"
There was silence on the other end for about 15 seconds, probably from logging the info and looking her up.
"I'm sorry, we don't have any company member with that number."
What?
"What? Yes, you do. You have to. I'm in the top ten. I mean, we're in the top ten. It's Dawn Summers, are you sure?"
The top ten being the first ten numbers listed, in order of importance, in the entire Watcher-Slayer Organization. Dawn wasn't sure exactly where she was under Buffy - who was definitely #1 - but she had to be at least, like, the equivalent of the Deputy Secretary of State.
If Yoshida was confused at the half of the phone conversation she could hear, she wasn't letting on.
"Miss, are you sure you have the right number?" The voice on the other end suddenly turned very... English. "Are you perhaps trying to call Buckingham Palace? This is a private line. The public number for visiting tourists is -"
"No, no!" Dawn twisted in her seat and tried to cup a hand around the receiver, speaking out of the side of her mouth and at a lower volume. As inconspicuous as she could be with a member of the police literally in the room with her. "This - this is Slayer Central, right?"
There was another beat in the call. "Who is this?" said the man on the other end.
"I told you, it's -"
There was a knock at the door, and a young policeman stuck his head in to say something to Yoshida.
"We've found a safe place for you to stay, for now," she translated for Dawn.
Dawn looked at the phone in her hand. She could hear the tinny, "Hello? How did you get this number?" from the man at the other end.
She hung up without saying anything else. Something was off. But she could deal with it later; all she wanted was for the Scooby Gang to come find her already, like always.
Also, she really wanted a hot shower. It had been months.
"If I could please gather a few more details?" Yoshida asked. She walked Dawn back out to the general front desk waiting area, and took some final notes for her paperwork.
And then came the 1st Really Freaky Mess, because of course if you're part of the Scooby Gang and the Slayer's little sister, it doesn't matter where you are - or when. Freakiness Will Follow.
"1986?" Yoshida repeated.
"Yes?" said Dawn. "I'm sorry, what was the question again?"
"I need to record the year of your birth."
"Yeah, that's right." The policewoman did the thing where she sucked in air through her teeth. It was subtler than an American would have done it, and Dawn would come to recognize it as a uniquely Japanese gesture. "What?"
"You do not look six years old."
Dawn laughed it off, "Well no, I'm eight- I'm fourteen. Oh, right, so -" She did the mental math as fast as she could. She'd gotten a good look in the women's restroom of the police station; she was definitely fourteen years old again, at least physically. So Dawn would have to say that her date of birth was four years later than her originally recorded year of birth. "1990, actually. Sorry, I - may have tried to sneak into a club? And I practiced saying I was older so much that now it's second nature?"
Wow, and now she missed The Bronze. Dawn hadn't thought about the coolest nightclub of Sunnydale in a long time. It had that special something that even the clubs of Rome didn't have. Something about the indie pop punk alt-rock neo-goth bands.
But that explanation just seemed to make Yoshida even more perturbed.
"Perhaps I am misunderstanding. If you are fourteen years old then you would have been born in 1978, yes? Or maybe 1977?"
"What?" That would make her older than Buffy. "Only if it were... 1992."
"Yes?"
"Yes, what?"
"Yes, it is the year 1992."
"... what?"
All the TVs in the public waiting area suddenly blared out an alarm. Dawn startled; she suddenly remembered how much Japan had in common with southern California, when it came to seismic activity. The thought of rainbows started to fill her with fear. "What's going on, is another earthquake coming?" But the screens showed something very different to a natural disaster warning.
And then came the 2nd Really Freaky Mess because, as has been established, Freakiness Will Follow!
"It's just a warning about a monster event," said Yoshida. "In the... Akasaka district this time. Of course, officially there are no such things, and this is a report of the latest mass delusion, and the location will be investigated for a gas leak or similar issue."
Like gangs on PCP, Dawn thought. There was something on the screens, something similar to the illustration on the little girl's t-shirt. That didn't make sense. This was a serious news report.
Yoshida leaned in, speaking quietly. "But many of us have seen them. I myself was at a salon with my mother when one of them tried to steal our lifeforce. We only caught a glimpse of them at the end, when we awoke from the monster's spell. By the time the news reports on these things, they have already taken care of it."
Dawn didn't know what thought to mentally choke on first. They were - acknowledging the supernatural? Openly? A city-wide news report, even if couched in cover-up terms, was beyond anything anyone ever did in Sunnydale.
"Taken care of it?" she said. "The... monsters?"
"Oh no, the girls!" At Dawn's thoroughly confused stare, Yoshida continued, "Our very own pretty sailor suited girls with superpowers. Naturally I cannot condone civilians fighting in public, and they seem to be very young. Around your age, actually. But they always win. So they must know what they're doing."
Girls? Was she talking about the baby slayers? But - if it was 1992, how? And - sailor suits - wait - in Japan - wait -
Turning her whole body to face one of the TVs, Dawn made herself look at the Official Police Sketches of a certain sailor suited girl with a certain meatball-style hairdo, and her similarly superpowered, super-suited friends.
"These girls," Dawn squeaked. "These - real life girls who are real. What are they called?"
It was Yoshida's turn to look slightly confused. "You don't know? Sailor V has been well known since last year when she appeared in Great Britain. We are very proud to have our own versions in Japan, not even America has a magical girl! Oh, I'm sorry, I don't mean to be rude-"
"Please," Dawn gasped. "Who are they?"
"She is the one named Sailor Moon, of course. And with her friends, Sailor Mercury and Sailor Mars, together they are the Sailor Senshi."
It thankfully came out as a whisper, but Dawn otherwise couldn't have stopped herself for all the apocalypses in all the worlds, and she just blurted out, "What the FU-"
* * * * * * * *
to be continued...
* * * * * * * *
Author's Notes:
Dawn Summers, doing her best impression of the 10th Doctor: What?!
She’s not exactly using the term operational security correctly, but hey, she’s newly 14 again and been surprise!isekai’d. ;)
Surprise!
しっかりね.
* * * * * * * *
return to Index / go to Chapter 14
