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NAVIGATION: The
STAR
The
PORTFOLIO The
FANFARE
The
ESCORT
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Worlds Apart Rei’s
Day
Sunrise
. Rei Hino awoke with a gasp.
She had just come out of a disturbing dream.
She sat up in bed and brushed her long black hair out of her face.
What had the dream been about? It
was hard to remember now. The
only thing she could recall was that it dealt with change.
Massive change. And it
didn’t seem like the sort of dream she should just brush off.
It was almost like a premonition.
If only she could remember it more clearly…
Rei got up and got dressed. Today
was Friday. That meant she
worked at the shrine today. Her
grandfather had passed away, and Yuichiro had gone away to pursue his music
career. So the only one left to
maintain the Hikawa Shrine was Rei. However,
she did have another job. One
that she worked Monday through Thursday.
What was she? An
international businesswoman, of course!
She loved her job. And
on Friday s and weekends, she worked at the Hikawa shrine.
If only there was someone else to maintain it… But she didn’t
mind the work.
Rei decided to talk to her divine fire.
Perhaps it could clear things up.
It seemed to be the only thing Rei depended on nowadays… After all,
she was the one everyone in the world seemed to turn to!
She was the one that always had to be independent, and was always in
the spotlight. Not that she
really minded it all that much. It
was fun most of the time, but every once in a while she felt lonely.
Today was shaping up to be one of those days.
She kneeled before the flame and chanted.
She closed her eyes and concentrated on the dream, trying to pull
fragments out. Her eyes snapped
open and she saw a scene of the It was
about “Usagi!
It’s strange to see you up so early!”
Her smile faded when she saw her friend’s sad stare.
“…Usagi? What is
it…?” “Rei-chan…”
Usagi said quietly. “Rei-chan.”
With that she continued to stare off blankly.
“Hey,
what happened?” Rei was really worried now.
When Usagi was depressed like this, things were bad. “I
wondered if I should go away, Rei-chan,” the distant Usagi replied.
“But I can’t bring myself to leave.
I just can’t.” “Go
away? Usagi!” Rei was cut off by a familiar voice. “Rei-san!
Usagi-san!” Usagi lost the distant look in her eyes to one of surprise.
Rei and Usagi whirled around to be greeted by three unexpected
visitors. “Three
Lights!” Rei exclaimed. “Wh..
you’re back!” Sure enough,
Yaten, Taiki, and Seiya were standing there. “Well
we said we’d come back and visit,” Seiya replied.
“And we’re true to our word!” “Welcome
back!” Usagi cried, her depressed look all but gone.
She ran forward and gave Seiya a hug.
“I didn’t think you’d come back!” “Yeah,
didn’t you have to rebuild Kinmoku or something?” Rei asked, also going
closer to them. Yaten winked. “Of
course!” He said. “It’s been 10 years.
We’ve done a pretty good job.
Princess Kakyuu told us to take a vacation.
So we decided to come here!” “That’s
wonderful!” Rei replied. “Usaaaagi-chaaaaan!”
Another familiar ditzy voice called from not too far away.
Rei turned to see Minako bouncing along. “Minako-chan?”
Rei asked. “I
sent our luggage through, and our flight is going to leave soon!” Minako
exclaimed as she came over. “And…
WOAHH!!!” She stopped and
pointed wildly at the Three Lights. “Yaten-kun!
Taiki-san! Seiya-kun! You’re
here??” She looked utterly
shocked. “Yeah,
like we were just saying,” Yaten said as he rolled his eyes, “We decided
to pay you guys a visit. Is
that really so unexpected?” “Yeah!”
Minako replied. “And Rei-chan!
I didn’t expect to see YOU here either! Isn’t today a shrine
day?” “Well,”
Rei said as she flipped her hair back, “I got a premonition to come here.
I guess I was sensing the return of our friends here.”
After all, that was definitely a change, right?
Maybe not as massive as her dream had made it seem, but it was still
a change. Suddenly, the ground
beneath her began to heave back and forth.
People were falling over, and a slight panic was setting in. “E…
Earthquake!” Usagi yelled as she crashed to the ground.
“This
doesn’t seem like it’s a normal earthquake!” Yaten yelled back.
He was right. Rei sensed
something from the outside causing this.
She ran towards a window to see the sun flaring brightly.
The glass shattered, and she was surrounded in a sea of glittering
shards of it. “Ahh!”
Rei covered her face and felt as though someone pushed her from
behind… right out the window. She
was falling now, through darkness. Someone
had their arms around her… Rei’s landing was soft.
She opened her eyes, and was nearly blinded.
The sun was so bright! The
realization that she had landed on top of someone caused her to jump to her
feet. She looked down… and
was shocked at who she saw. It
was a blonde man wearing a gray uniform trimmed with red. His tiny bright
red earrings were reflecting the bright sunlight.
He made an “oomph” sound and sat up as he rubbed his head.
“Are
you alright?” He asked as he raised a gloved hand to shield his eyes from
the sunlight. “Jedite?!?”
Rei exclaimed in utter shock. He
stood up and brushed himself off. “I
saw that window break in front of you, and the floor underneath you was
about to cave in so…” He trailed off and looked at the people that were
running around aimlessly. “Looks
like I don’t quite fit in.” He closed his eyes and glowed red for a
minute. When he opened those
blue eyes again, he was wearing a typical red T-shirt and black jeans.
“How
are you here?” Rei asked in confusion.
“Aren’t you dead? And
why did you save me?” “Huh?”
Jedite squinted at her. “No,
I never died. After I failed to
kill you that time… at THIS airport, actually, Queen Beryl froze me in a
hunk of ice. Then she kept me
on display in that horrible place. But
you see that?” He pointed up to the sun.
“See how bright it is? Well,
turns out that something has dived into the sun, causing it to be brighter.
It also caused a slight rift in dimensions.
So I was shifted to this world, and melted out of my frozen state! I
can finally move again. As for
saving you… well, I just saw you standing there.
I didn’t actually realize it was YOU, Sailor Mars, until you were
talking to me.” “Ah
heh heh…” Rei looked around quickly.
“Hey, my name is Rei. Rei
Hino. Don’t call me… what you just said.” “Still
trying to hide your identity?” Jedite asked with a coy look.
“Doesn’t really work too well, does it?
How many people after me found out about you?” “Ummm…”
Rei shook her head. “Anyway!
What do you plan to do here?” “Well,”
He said with a perplexed look, “Everyone I knew is gone.
My friends, and the Queen… I assume you and your friends defeated
them.” “Yeah…”
Rei looked back up to the airport and tried to see the rest of her friends
up there. “We did.” “Still
in the business of protecting the Earth, I take it?” Jedite tried to
follow her gaze, but the sun was too bright. “Of
course!” Rei turned back to him. This
was weird. He was just talking
to her normally… and he showed no signs of hostility. “Well,
then I suppose you should get started again.” “Why?
What’s going on?” Now she faced him completely.
If he was implying that he was going to try to destroy the earth, she
would take him out right then. “I
already told you,” He said with a roll of his eyes.
“Something dived into the sun, and that’s why it’s so bright.
I’m pretty sure it plans to destroy this planet.” “Ah…”
Rei looked up. He did mention
that before. “Why are you
telling me this?” “Hm?”
He gave her an amused look. “Ah.
You expect me to still view you as an enemy.
No, I don’t begrudge you anymore.
You avenged my being frozen by destroying Queen Beryl.
My mind has at last been freed.
Although you did destroy my friend, Nehplite… But all of us were
under Beryl’s control. Before…
before we were supposed to serve the Earth back during the Silver
Millennium. So I don’t want
it destroyed.” “Do
you…” Rei turned her gaze back to the fallen general.
“Do you remember the Silver Millennium?” “Not
really,” he replied. I have
trouble remembering a lot of things. I
was locked away for so long…” “Oh.”
Of course he didn’t remember. No
one could… “Anyway,”
He brought her out of her new train of thought.
“I think we’d better do something about that sun.” “We?”
This really was odd. Jedite was
going to help her save the world from the sun? “Obviously,”
he said with annoyance. “What
else am I going to do?” Rei
blinked. He had a point. “Okay…
do you think the sun has something to do with this horrible earthquake?”
She watched as the airport continued to buckle in on itself.
She really hoped Usagi and the others were okay… “Yeah,
probably. Eh?” Jedite reached out his hand and grabbed a hold of a
floating piece of paper. “Though…
look at this.” Rei leaned
over his arm and looked at the paper. It
appeared to be a scavenger hunt. There
was a little picture of a lawn gnome at the bottom. “Weird…”
Rei muttered. “Look,
there’s a picture of the sun at the top.
I think this is from our opponent.” He examined it closely.
Normally, Rei would think he was insane.
Thinking a child’s scavenger hunt that had fallen from the sky was
their key to save the world. But
she did sense something strange from it, so why not go along? “Alright!
What’s the first thing say?” She asked.
It was a little hard to see. “Sunglasses,”
Jedite replied. “Easy.” He
made a two pairs of them appear. “I
can make articles of clothing appear without any trouble. Here.” He handed
a pair to Rei, and put the others on. Rei
did the same. “The
next thing…” She said as she leaned closer, “Is a remote control.” “Can’t
make that appear,” Jedite said with a frown.
He looked down at Rei, and for the first time, she noticed how close
she was standing to him. “Where
can we find that?” He asked. She
stepped back, a little flustered. “Ummm…
An electronics store?” So “There
are only three things left,” Jedite muttered. “Oh?
What are they?” She replied. By
now, she was getting along quite well with the man that had once tried to
kill her. Throughout their
bizarre escapades, he had proven to have a sense of humor, and good people
skills. Rei was quite
surprised. “A
Card Captor Sakura doll, the book Einstein’s Dreams, and two live
fish.” “Great…”
Rei sighed. “I guess our next
stop is a toy store. You know,
the sun has been getting progressively brighter… and how in the world is
all this stuff supposed to help us save the world from the thing that dived
into the sun?” Jedite
shrugged. “No
idea. But I have a feeling
we’ll find out once we go to the place it directs.” “Where’s
that?” “Ummm…
it gives a street address at the bottom.
It’s signed, ‘The Rebel Gnomes’.
I’m assuming then, they are our allies, and the other gnomes are
our opponents?” Rei shrugged. It
wasn’t like she was going to try and make sense of things.
There was no point in it. Not
now. She was too far gone into
the realm of random insanity. Why
turn back now? “There’s
a toy store over this way,” she replied.
2:00.
Rei and Jedite had finally finished the list.
The book had been very hard to find, considering it was written in
English. Since Rei was using
both hands to hold the large shopping bag, Jedite was holding the little bag
with two tetra fish in it. They
reached the address on the list, and found a truly strange sight.
There was a forklift in the street, with a little girl dangling from
it. Crawling around all over
the place were lawn gnomes come to life.
Rei felt her jaw drop. Yeah,
she had been wandering around shopping for things on that list all day, but
she never expected to see something like THAT.
She saw Sailor Venus, Mercury, and Star Healer run by, accompanied by
Tuxedo Kamen. Before she could
react, her arm was grabbed by Makoto. “Rei-chan!”
She said in relief. She
regarded Jedite for a moment, and then pulled both of them into an alleyway
so the people could no longer see them.
They weren’t really paying much attention anyway. “Did
you complete the list?” Taiki asked from the shadows.
He stepped forward. “Yes,”
Jedite answered. He held up his
baggie of fish to prove it. “Great!”
Makoto cried. “We need those
to stop the lawn gnomes!” “Yeah…
um…. Will that fix the sun?” Rei was trying her best to process what was
going on. “Oh
yeah,” Taiki replied. “They’re
the ones that have done that to the sun.
They crash landed their mothership there.
But with this stuff… we can set everything right!” “Rei-chan,”
Makoto said seriously, “You and your friend there need to rescue
Usagi-chan and Seiya-kun.” “What
happened to them?” Now Rei just didn’t care about making sense of
things. If something had
happened to Usagi… “What do I need to do?” “The
Lawn Gnomes caught them at the airport,” Taiki replied.
“Makoto here managed to warn me in time. We’ve been working with
the Rebel Gnomes to fix everything. Listen,
get back to the airport! Seiya
and Usagi-san need your help!” “The
airport?” Rei echoed. “Right! What
do we do when we’re there?”
“Jump
in the hole,” Makoto answered. “I
know you can do it. We can’t
come with you… we have to deal with things here.” “Okay!”
Rei put her shopping bag on the pavement, and Jedite handed his fish and
list over to Taiki. “Come on,
Jedite! Good luck, Mako-chan!”
She gave Jedite a look, and he nodded.
They ran off towards the airport.
What could have happened to Seiya and Usagi? |