Chasing the Moon

[Halbarad]

At Dune's suggestion, I'll go ahead and post this up here. First chapter of a Sailor Moon fanfic I'll be working on for a while. Comments are welcome, of course-except for Dune's. Dunno if I'll post the actual updates here, but if you want to follow the story you can get it off FF.net at this link. Hope you enjoy. ^^

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Sailor Moon characters copyright Naoko Takeuchi and Kodansha; story and original characters copyright yours truly. I'm not writing this fic for money, folks -- although I won't turn down donations. ^_^

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A flowing white dress. Long golden hair, bound up into a pair of buns from which long pigtails flowed. The girl stood behind a gauzy curtain, making most other details too indistinct to make out. She walked forward towards the regal-looking figure, which turned at the sound of her footsteps - revealing a glowing crescent moon on her forehead. In a soft voice, the golden-haired woman spoke. "It's time to awaken, Venus."

"Huh.. what?" she asked, just as the vision of the girl in the white dress faded.

"I said it's time to get up, Mina-chan." Minako Aino opened her eyes to see her mother standing next to her bed. "Get up, Minako! This is the third time I've had to call you this morning - you're going to be late for school if you don't get out of bed and get ready! What's gotten into you this morning?"

"Sorry, Mom, I was just having a really weird dream is all." Minako yawned and stretched, before sitting up in bed. One glance at the clock on her nightstand told her all she needed to know. A loud groan erupted from the girl. "Stupid dream! Now I'm gonna be late!" The blonde burst out of her futon and began to get dressed in a flurry of activity, her mother simply shaking her head and leaving Minako to her own devices.

"Your lunch is ready and on the counter, dear." Minako's mother announced as the girl hurried down the stairs of her home. "Take a few deep breaths and calm down, you're not THAT late. Have some orange juice and have a good day at school."

Minako followed her mother's advice, taking a deep breath before draining the glass of juice. She grabbed her lunch and headed out the front door, a cheery smile on her face. Her school, Shibakouen, wasn't too far from her house, and the blue-eyed girl usually enjoyed the short stroll to school in the morning. The walk this morning was fairly uneventful, aside from one thing. About halfway to the school, she noticed a white cat staring at her from the top of a concrete wall bordering the street. While cats weren't all that uncommon around Juuban, this particular feline seemed to be giving her the oddest searching looks as she walked past it. She walked past the cat, never taking her eyes off it - and stopped dead in her tracks just as she drew even with it. There on its forehead was a golden crescent... the exact same shape as had appeared on the forehead of the girl in her dream that morning. "How weird..." Minako muttered under her breath. She reached out to touch the cat, but it leaped down from the wall and disappeared into an alley before she could react. She stared into the alley for a minute, then shook her head, realizing that she WAS going to be late if she stayed there any longer. The remainder of the trip to school was finished at a jog, enough to get her to class just a minute before the tardy bell rang.

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That evening, Minako settled down at her desk to start working on an essay due the next day for her composition class. It had been assigned almost a week ago, but who wanted to do homework EARLY? As she wrote, she thought over the events of the day. Her best friend Chihiro had filled her in on the latest school gossip as usual; most of it was the usual stories of events, but part of it had been bad news, at least to her. The boy in her class that she'd had her eye on from some time had been seen sharing an ice cream sundae with one of the girls from class 8-3 the night before; it looked like another option for dating had been crossed off her ever-shrinking mental list. The only other odd thing was the cat she'd seen that morning. She could have sworn she'd seen it at lunchtime AND at her volleyball club that afternoon, but both times when she'd turned to look at where she thought it was there was nothing there.

Shaking her head slightly to clear her thoughts, Minako buckled down to her writing. Just as she was writing out the last sentence, her thoughts were rudely interrupted by the most ungodly noise - something caterwauling just outside her room. "Stupid cats..." Minako growled, and seized an old slipper with which to deal with the noisy feline outside. She opened her window, looking around for a target for the missile, when the yowling stopped abruptly. "That's funny... must have seen me coming." Minako shrugged, and turned to go back to her desk...

And stopped dead in her tracks. Right there, sitting directly on top of the homework assignment she'd spent the past two hours working on, was the same white cat she'd spotted on the way to school that morning, down to the golden crescent marking on its head. "Aaaah! Get away from my homework, you stupid cat! I've been working on that paper all night!"  She ran towards the desk, making a swipe for the trespassing feline; it merely leaped over her head to land on the bed behind her, still maintaining its stare with bright blue eyes.

"Not exactly the greeting I was expecting."

At those words, Minako froze in place, slowly turning to look at the cat. "...What?"

The cat shook its head, giving a short sigh. "THIS is one of the Sailor Senshi? You've GOT to be kidding me... Four YEARS of searching and the only one I can find is still in middle school!"

Minako merely collapsed to her knees. "You... talked." Rubbing her eyes, she turned to look at the cat again. "You just talked, didn't you?"

The white cat smirked. "Quick on the uptake too, I see," it said in a somewhat rough, masculine voice. "The name's Artemis, and I've been looking for you for a long time, Minako Aino."

Minako stared in shock. "This has to be a dream... cats can't talk." She shook her head and gave her arm a pinch. "Ow! I thought that wasn't supposed to hurt if you were dreaming..." she pouted.

The cat - Artemis - frowned. It was amazing how much expression a simple cat could manage to convey with its face alone. "It's no dream, Minako. I'm here because I need your help - Sailor Venus' help."

An image of the girl in her dream that morning flashed through Minako's head once again. "Me? What would a talking cat need MY help with? And what's Sailor Venus?"

"Not what, who." The cat began to pace back and forth on Minako's bed as it spoke. "Look, to put this simply: You're a magical soldier named Sailor Venus, and I'm here to awaken your abilities so you can help me fight evil and search for the princess of the Moon."

Minako looked at Artemis dumbfounded for a moment, then burst out laughing. "Okay, that's a good one. Is this something that Yamada-san worked out with the A/V club at school as a joke? Where did you guys hide the speakers?" She started looking around the room.

Artemis growled. "This is no joke!" He muttered to himself for a few moments, then turned an angry look on Minako. "Fine! I'll prove it!" As the feline executed a perfect backflip, a trail of sparkling motes trailed from his tail, coalescing into the form of a short orange wand with a golden symbol on one end. "That's the Venus Pen. Take it, it's yours."

Minako's only reaction to this process was the raising of one eyebrow. "Those guys must have one heck of a special effects budget..." Moving over to sit on the bed, she picked up the pen and examined it. On closer inspection, she saw that the flattened golden "cap" on one end of the pen bore an unusual symbol - a heart perched atop a cross. "So if I'm this magical Sailor Venus person, what am I supposed to do with this? Point it at people and fire lightning bolts out of it?" Minako waved the wand around, making zapping noises in between giggles.

Artemis simply smirked in response. "If you really want to find out, hold it up in the air and say 'Venus Power, Make Up!' You'll find out."

Minako shrugged. "Hey, I think the whole thing is crazy, but what the heck." Taking the pen in her right hand, she held it over her head and called out. "Venus Power, Make UP!"

No matter how many times she tried to describe the process in later years, Minako would always be lost for words in explaining what the next few seconds were like. There was an impression of warmth over her bare skin, and a surreal landscape, reaching out to infinity. A rushing noise filled her ears, and she saw impressions of swirling stars, ribbons, and golden light. The next clear impression she got was one of power - she felt strong, almost invincible. She lowered the pen slowly. "Whoa... that was one heck of a rush..."

A cold breeze from the window, blowing against her legs prompted her to look down. Her school uniform with its red scarf and knee-length pleated blue skirt had gone, replaced by a white bodysuit, fringed with a VERY short orange skirt and a large dark blue bow in the center of the chest. A pair of elbow-length white gloves with orange cuffs covered her forearms as well. These revelations in turn caused a rush to the mirror over her dresser. What she saw there came as quite a shock. She could still recognize herself - barely - but she looked older, more confident. A simple golden tiara with an orange stone adorned her forehead, and an orange sailor-style scarf was fastened around her neck; those, the bodysuit, the skirt, the gloves, and a pair of bright orange, flat-soled shoes with a strap crossing the top of her foot and circling her ankle seemed to complete the strange outfit.

Of course, Minako's reaction was only natural, given the circumstances. She backed away from the mirror in disbelief, neatly tripping over her desk chair in the process. Rather than get up, she laid on the floor for a moment, stunned. "What... in the world... just happened?"

Artemis, of course, had watched the entire thing from the bed with a smirk. "Nice to meet you, Sailor Venus. NOW do you believe me?"

Minako scrambled into an upright position, turning to glare at the cat. "You did this to me... what the heck is going on? What is this weird outfit?"

Artemis sat up stiffly, giving the girl a penetrating stare. "You have been changed into the form of Sailor Venus, a member of the Princess of the Moon's personal guard. As I was TRYING to tell you a few minutes ago, your job is to help me look for the other members of the Princess' guards - the Sailor Senshi - as well as looking for the Princess herself. And unfortunately, it looks like you're going to be fighting the forces of the Dark Kingdom soon as well; I've noticed dark energy starting to show itself around Juuban, and I think they're waking up as well."

"Huh?" was Minako's eloquent response.

The cat huffed. "Your name is Sailor Venus and you're here to help me find the princess and kill monsters. Is that a little easier to understand?"

Minako drew herself to her feet and poked a slender finger in the white cat's face. "Listen, furball, I may not know what's going on yet, but I'm not going to put up with you talking to me like I'm some kind of simpleton, got that?"

The feline spluttered for a few moments. "Furball?! I'll have you know I'm an advisor to the Lunar Royal House, young lady - don't you dare take that tone with me!"

The freshly-minted senshi rolled her eyes. "You're a loudmouthed cat who somehow got me into a weird outfit and started lecturing me about the Moon. I want explanations, or I'm not helping you with anything - so spill the milk already!"

Artemis blinked. "Beans."

"What?"

"It's spill the beans, not spill the milk." The cat sighed. 'This is the material I have to work with to find the princess?' he thought to himself despondently. 'This is going to take longer than I thought...'

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At the same moment, another meeting was taking place, this one with a much more sinister tone.

"Jadeite, report."

A tall man with short blond hair stepped forward from a crowd of dark creatures, saluted with a fist to his shoulder, then spoke. "Queen Beryl, four of the six main youma divisions are at full strength. The other two are at perhaps half strength, but their numbers are increasing by the day as the youma continue to awaken. We have managed to marshal enough energy to start opening portals to Earth, but only on a very limited scale at the moment - perhaps long enough to send one or two youma though at a time, maximum."

The tall, red-haired figure standing on the dais paused in thought for a few moments, her hands moving slowly across a dark crystal orb on a stand in front of her. "How much longer before we can begin sending youma en masse?"

Jadeite frowned. "At our current energy gathering capacity, several months. We simply aren't getting enough ambient energy to contain any sort of decent supply. It's simple enough to gather small amounts of energy, but it takes more energy to contain the rest once we build it up in any quantity. But I do have a plan, my Queen."

Beryl raised one eyebrow. "Let's hear it then."

"I propose to go to Earth myself with one of my elite youma and drain off excess energy from the inhabitants. With no defenses against our forces, I should be able to act with impunity - and it should increase our energy reserves rapidly. The ambient energy we gather now can be used to contain what we collect on Earth."

The dark-robed monarch nodded once. "Very well, Jadeite, proceed. But I expect results, and soon."

Jadeite bowed deeply in response. "I shall not fail you, my Queen." Turning on his heel, he quickly disappeared into the crowd of youma gathered around Beryl's throne.

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The next morning at school was spent in a mild daze for Minako. Artemis had told her a lot of almost unbelievable things the previous night - about ancient kingdoms and great wars, powerful magic and devilish creatures. At lunch, Chihiro tried unsuccessfully for almost five minutes to get her attention, finally resorting to a rap on the top of the blonde's head. "Mina-chan! Is anyone home?"

"Huh? Oh, sorry, Hiro-chan. I was just thinking."

The brown-haired girl cocked her head on one side. "About what? You looked like you were a million miles away there."

"Nothing that important - just a weird dream, I think." Minako replied. Reaching inside her bag, she felt the oddly-shaped pen in the front pocket. 'At least that's what I wish it was, Hiro-san. I'd love to tell you, but Artemis said I shouldn't tell anyone, and I get a feeling he's right about that at least,' she thought to herself.

"Feel like talking about it?" Chihiro asked.

"Nah, it's okay. Just help me get my mind off it - any juicy gossip for me today?" Minako smiled as her friend launched into the latest doings around Shibakouen.

Minako's afternoon was considerably better. Her normal chatter with Chihiro at lunch had reassured her that the world hadn't turned upside-down overnight, and as the day wore on the possibility of any of the things Artemis had mentioned actually happening diminished in her mind, until the idea of a youma attack seemed too far-fetched to even consider. By the time her volleyball club rolled around, she was completely back to her usual cheery self, all thoughts of unearthly monsters, talking cats, and lost princesses completely banished from her mind.

So of course, that was when the youma decided to show up.

The blonde had just changed into her practice uniform when shrieks started erupting from the gym. Figuring that it was nothing more than the rest of the girls roughhousing with one another before practice actually started, she opened the door to the locker room - and froze. The... thing standing in the middle of the gymnasium was like nothing she'd ever seen or imagined in her life. Its head almost reached the level of the basketball goal suspended from one end of the gym's ceiling. Pale blue skin covered the lanky creature's frame, in turn concealed by a suit of heavily rounded armor, like a set of giant globes linked together. Strangest of all, the globes appeared as various-sized sports balls-two basketballs covering the upper chest, volleyballs for the shoulders, footballs over the thighs. One arm appeared to be some sort of cannon, while the other ended in a sharp claw. Around its booted feet were strewn the bodies of the volleyball club girls, unconscious; the youma had its clawed hand upraised, some sort of glowing mist trailing from the bodies of the girls to form a globe above its outstretched hand.

Minako's reaction was almost instinctive. Her arm shot up over her head, the orange wand she had received from Artemis the night before appearing in her hand, once more uttering the words of her transformation sequence. "Venus Power, Make UP!" Again, her vision was filled with dancing stars and lights, and again she found herself in the short skirt and bodysuit of the Senshi of Love. "I don't know who you are or what you're doing, but I will not let you harm these girls! I am the Soldier of Love and Beauty, Sailor Venus, and I will punish you!" Minako blinked as the words involuntarily spilled from her mouth. 'Where the heck did THAT come from?'

Unfortunately, the noise of her transformation phrase and speech had drawn the youma's attention; it raised its cannon arm and fired what appeared to be a tennis ball at the girl. Minako leaped away from the shot, which buried itself several inches in the hardwood floor of the gym in an explosion of splinters. 'How am I doing this?' Minako thought to herself between volleys. 'I've never even taken martial arts classes before this.'  The youma, meanwhile, had lowered its hand to brace its cannon arm, taking more careful aim at the orange-garbed senshi. A shot just behind the blonde forced her to leap forward, and just as she landed the youma fired precisely at the point where her foot touched down, knocking Venus' feet out from beneath her. It gave out a gutteral laugh as it lowered the cannon to point directly at Minako's head; the girl would have no chance of dodging this shot. The youma sighted along its arm and fired....

A flash of blue and red passed in front of Venus' sight for a moment, and a gloved hand grabbed her own, jerking her out of the path of the youma's shot. "Come on, Sailor Venus! You can beat him! You know what you need to do!"

And to Minako's surprise, she found that she did, indeed, know what to do. As she pointed her index finger over her head, two crescents of golden light collected on her fingertip, absorbed into her hand. She braced her wrist with her other hand, lowering her finger to point at the youma, and cried out "Venus Crescent Beam!" A brilliant shaft of golden light lanced forth from her fingertip, striking the youma's cannon arm and mangling the device beyond any possible use.

The youma howled in pain, but its cries were short-lived. "Moon Tiara Action!" Minako's attention, focused on the youma, was drawn away for a fraction of a second at the sound of the shout, but the sight of a glowing golden disc flying towards the youma seized her attention before she could look at the person responsible. The projectile struck the youma in its unarmored stomach, slicing through it with almost no resistance and causing the creature's wailing to die out abruptly in a shower of gray dust. The glowing orb which the youma had been holding over its head shattered, raining sparkling motes of light down over the unconscious girls in the gymnasium.

After a few moments of this, Minako finally managed to turn towards the source of the battle cry, to see her rescuer. It was another girl in an outfit styled almost exactly the same as Venus', although the predominant colors were blue and red rather than orange and dark blue; her feet bore knee-length red boots, with golden crescent moons adorning their tops. The girl's long blonde hair was styled into twin pigtails, trailing from odango-shaped buns on the sides of the girl's head. Noticing Minako's stare, the girl turned to look at her. "Are you all right?"

Minako stared at the girl for a few more moments, a serious feeling of deja vu pounding through her head. "Uh, yeah... I'm fine." She shook her head briefly to try to clear the buzzing in her mind away. "Um.... who are you? And what just happened?"

The blue-eyed senshi gave Minako a smile. "That was a youma from the Dark Kingdom; it was trying to collect energy. And as for me, you can call me... Sailor Moon." The girl leaped nimbly up to one of the high gymnasium windows before turning to look at Minako once again. "We'll meet again, Sailor Venus. Until then, stay on your guard! The Dark Kingdom is beginning its attack!"

The orange-clad sailor dashed a few steps towards the window. "Wait, I don't understand! Why did you help me? What do you know about the Dark Kingdom?" Her questions remained unanswered, though, as Moon simply slipped out of the window, leaving Minako alone in the gymnasium with the stirring volleyball players. Their groans brought Minako back to reality with a bump. 'Oh man, I can't be seen like this...' With that thought, she dashed back into the locker room, letting the senshi guise slip away as she gained privacy in the changing room. Feeling drained from the loss of power, she sat down on one of the benches hard, her mind whirling. 'Did that just really happen? Did I just help another girl with weird powers fight off some giant monster in the school gym?'

Mechanically, the blonde changed out of her gym clothes into her usual school outfit, leaving the school without another word. Sirens were sounding in the street outside as she left, the flashing lights of ambulances rounding the corner nearest the school as she walked away. Her thoughts were elsewhere, though, with a certain arrogant white cat. 'Artemis is going to be doing a LOT of explaining when I find him...' she swore to herself as she began the journey home.

[Halbarad]

*stabs the lack of comments*

Anyway, if you liked what you saw, the second chapter is finished and has been uploaded to FF.net. Just follow the link in the first post.

[Dracos]

Heh, the writing area is slowly growing.  We're still working on it.  Most of us are a fair bit slower than ye, Hal. ^_^

I didn't see any grammar/spelling errors, so I'm left with reactions.  Smoothy written and descriptive, though it left me with a 'what the heck is going on here?"  Alt verse I take it with Moon being awake before Venus.  But wasn't Venus in England back when she started the whole deal?

Dracos

[Halbarad]

It is something of an AU, yes. Sailor V never existed in this timeline, and obviously the senshi are being awakened in a different order.

As to the "wtf is going on?" aspect, I'm actually aiming for that; I'm presenting it as a challenge to the reader to figure out exactly why things are happening the way they are. The later chapters (the next one should be up by the end of this week, if work doesn't kill me first -_-) will continue to drop hints about the real nature of the story, and of course all the loose ends will be tied up in the last chapter. I'm just hoping I can stick to the project long enough to make it that far.