by Chris Davies
Episode 104:A Thoughtful Message
Serena dozed on the plane to Austria, not really asleep, but not fully conscious either. Her weary mind darted over the events of the last week with uncanny speed.
"Hello, Dr. Mizuno? I attended Crossroads Junior High with
your daughter Amy, and we're ..."
"You mean, Ami, I think?"
"Uh, yeah, right. Anyway, I went to Junior High with your
daughter, and we're trying to organize a reunion."
"A seven year reunion?"
"Uh ..."
"Oh well, stranger things have happened. I'm afraid I can't tell
you where Amy is ... we haven't spoken for the last three years."
"Really? Uh, if you don't mind my asking ..."
"I do. However, I can tell you where she attended university.
She was enrolled in the medical program at the University of
Ingolstadt, in Germany, at age fifteen. I was very proud."
"Wow! I knew she was smart but ..."
"Indeed. Unfortunately, her intelligence did not give her any
great degree of wisdom. Good day, Ms. ... I don't think you ever
said your name ..."
"Huh? I mean ..."
"Good day." Click.
And then ...
"Gut Morgen, Ingolstadt Universitats-Eintritts."
"Uh ... sprechen ... sie ..." flip, flip, flip, "Japanisch?"
"Ja. I do."
"Uh, good. I'm looking for information on a student, namely Amy
Mizuno?"
"Ah, the young doktor Freund!"
"Huh?"
"Ah ... inward joke. She graduated from the medical program,
three years ago. A Wunderkind. What you might call a sterling ...
no, sorry, genius."
"Would you happen to know where she's living now?"
"Hum." The sound of keys. "The last address is in Vienna, and
the file was last updated two years ago."
"Gee, thanks."
"No problem. Sayonara!"
And then:
"I think it would be a really great idea, Moll!"
"Let me see if I've got this right. You wanna go to these three
cities -- Vienna, New York, and San Francisco -- where there are
large Japanese communities, and do cartoons about the experiences
a girl from Japan might encounter in Europe and America?"
"Well, except the second city isn't New York, it's G-"
"And you want the paper to PAY for this?"
"Well ..."
"It's crazy! But it's crazy enough that it might just be great!"
"Then you'll work it out with the publisher?"
"Not so fast, Serena. Is there something you aren't telling me
about all this?"
"Well ... no, not really. I mean, I'm not saying that I really
would like to visit all those cool cities, and do some shopping
and ..."
"That's not what I mean ... you've been acting really strange
lately. I mean, last week when that phoney Sailor Moon was
running around, you ran off in some kinda blind panic ..."
"I was ... worried that the fake Sailor Moon was gonna try and
rob my apartment!"
"Your eyes should be brown."
"Whole lotta people have been saying that lately ..."
"Look, Serena ... there's nothing you can't tell me, right? So
just tell me why you need to go to these cities ..."
"Molly ..." Quick, quick, think! "Molly ... there's a guy."
"Oh ho."
"I can't tell you his name, because of the ... scandal it might
cause. He's gonna be in all of those cities at the same time ..."
"Well, well, well."
"I didn't want to tell you about it ..."
"Why? I understand completely. It'll be our little secret,
okay?"
My eyes should be brown. "Our little secret."
And then:
"But why not?"
"Because, Raye, if they aren't already sure that you're Sailor
Mars, they'll become certain when she shows up in all these
places that you're also visiting."
"That's pretzel logic! If they do know I'm Sailor Mars,
leaving me here isn't going to anything to change their minds!"
"Raye ... I'm afraid."
"Oh, big surprise there ..."
"No, not for myself. I'm scared for you. I mean, think about it.
This bunch knows who I am, maybe knows who the rest of us are ...
and I'm deliberately searching out the rest of the Scouts.
They're going to sit up and take notice. If you stay here, stay
quiet, maybe they won't come after you until they're finished
: with me."
"Don't talk like that, dammit!"
"Raye ..."
"I refuse to let you sacrifice your life for me, Serena!"
"But it's okay for you to give up yours for me?"
Dead silence. "I'm afraid, too."
"Don't be. I'll get all the others back, and we'll take them,
just like we took ... all those youma."
"All right. Go. But if you don't come back, I'm never speaking
to you again."
Geez, she hugs so tight!
"Ma'am?"
Serena came out of her doze relatively quickly when she realized that the voice was not one of her dreams. It belonged to a flight attendant. Serena was shocked to realize that the plane had landed, and come to a stop at the terminal, without her ever being aware of it.
She thanked the attendant, and clambered out of her seat. A few minutes later, she was picking up Luna's carrier and her luggage, and out of the Vienna airport.
A taxi ride later, she was in her hotel room. "Well, Luna, here is Vienna! What do you think?"
Luna slowly, ever-so-slowly, crawled out of the kitty carrier. "Never again, do you hear me? Never again. Do you have any idea how cold it gets in that ... that metal monstrosity?"
"Come on, Luna ... it wasn't that bad, was it?"
Luna gave Serena an incredulous look. "Next time, how about I get the comfy seat, and the dinner, and the inflight movie, and the ..."
"So now to find Amy, and make sure she's okay before we figure out whether or not to give her back her memories," Serena interrupted.
Luna momentarily debated with herself whether to chide Serena for cutting off her rant, or to praise her for keeping a focus on the mission at hand. She decided to just fume.
"I wonder what Amy's doing now," Serena murmured.
* * *
Dr. Amy Mizuno, Special Agent for Interpol, sneezed as she walked down the hall to the office she shared with her partner, David Straczynski. For a moment, she wondered if someone was talking about her, and a brief smile flickered across her face as she flashed back to reading comic books in her youth ... the youth that had been ended so long ago and at the same time so recently.
Her face reverted to its normal sullen expression as she arrived at the office. If someone was talking about her, it probably was one of the members of the conspiracy ...
"Morning, Mizuno," her partner said as she stepped through the door. "Looks to be a pretty nice day, doesn't it?"
"I hadn't noticed," she mumbled as she dropped her large purse on the desktop, and hung up her trenchcoat. "Any requests for assistance come in yet?"
"No ... but this report about kraken sightings in the Baltic is the sort of thing that you'd probably find interesting."
She gave him a look as she took the folder, putting her spectacles on to read it. David Straczynski had been assigned the task of being her partner nearly a year ago, as part of an effort to keep her under leash. He was a complete skeptic when it came to the supernatural and paranormal events that Interpol's "X-Files" division was supposed to examine, which clashed completely with her own, certain knowledge that mysterious events happened every day. Nonetheless, they had developed a wary respect for one another ... and truth to tell, if there was one being in the world that Mizuno trusted, it was Straczynski.
But why did he have to be so damn handsome?
The thought came from a long-suppressed part of Mizuno's brain, and she quickly ignored it.
Suddenly, the phone rang. Straczynski picked it up. "Interpol. Yes? Oh my. Yeah, we'll be right over." He hung up. "Mizuno, there's been a murder ... and the corpse was drained of blood."
And with that, any trace of fatigue flushed from Amy Mizuno's face as she rose up to do battle with her oldest foe.
* * *
Serena looked up at the rather large house. Amy lived here? Boy, doctors must really live well, she thought, ringing the bell.
The door swung open, and the tall man who answered the bell looked at her expectantly. He was a major hunk, but Serena pretended not to notice. She slowly read off the words she'd written on her hand earlier. "Hello," she said in thickly accented German, "I am a friend of Amy Mizuno. Does she still live here?"
"Nein," said the tall young man, his face suddenly stoney.
"Do you know where --"
"Would it be more comfortable for you to speak Japanese?" he asked, in flawless Nihongo.
Serena felt her face turn beet red, and she stammered an affirmative.
"No, Amy doesn't live here any more. And I don't know, and don't care to know, where she does live."
"Uh ... how do you ..."
"My name is Rupert von Helsprechter. I was married to her."
The next thing Serena knew, she was in a living room, lying down on a couch, staring up at him, but he was now wearing a concerned expression. "You fainted," he explained. "I take it that you did not know that Amy had been married?"
"Y-yes ... I mean, no, I hadn't known. But ... you're not married to her anymore?"
"No. It ... went very badly." His face twitched.
Serena slowly pulled herself into a sitting position. "Uh ... if you don't mind my asking, what ... exactly ... happened?"
"I really don't see that it's any of your business ..." Rupert began angrily.
"PLEASE. Please, I was one of her best friends when we were kids, but then she went off to Germany, and I haven't heard from her since, and I overheard her mother saying some confusing things about her, and I got worried! So I've come all the way from Japan to find out what's happened to her! Can't you please help me?" Serena begged. She was dimly amazed to realize that virtually none of what she'd just said was a lie. Maybe I can really get by without them after all.
Rupert von Helsprechter sat down in an easychair across from the couch. "I ... I met Amy five years ago, when I was a student at Ingolstadt. I was in Law, while she was just beginning her medical studies. I don't pretend to understand what I saw in her, nor, in truth what she saw in me. She has ... a very old soul, I think. Or rather, I thought.
"We were married two years later, and we set up a house here. Things ... progressed as they normally do, and Amy soon had to take maternity leave from her studies. Our daughter was born, and things seemed to be going wonderfully." His voice was becoming increasingly strained. "I don't pretend to understand the effects of post-partum depression, either."
He paused for a long moment. "I came home one day, and I found that she had ..." He shook his head. "Amy blamed everyone but herself. She even claimed that the nanny we'd hired to help her take care of the child was some sort of monster; a ... kyuuketsuki, or something like that." Again, he shook his head. "It didn't change anything. We were quickly divorced, and I tried to get on with the rest of my life. I remember seeing something about her working for Interpol, a few months ago."
Serena sat, trying to absorb what the man before her had just said. Amy. Married. Then with child. Then the mother of a dead child. Then ... BLAMED for it? And claiming that it was the work of a monster. And from what Serena knew about the doings of her adversaries, it seemed quite likely that Amy was correct.
"I ... I see. I'm very sorry that I brought all this up, Herr von Helsprechter. I'll go now."
She went out of the house, and made it all the way to the hotel room before she broke down in tears.
"Oh, Ami-chan ..."
* * *
They returned to the office, having examined both the corpse and the crime scene. It was a long, silent drive.
"The victim fits the pattern of all the other vicitms of the killer -- female Asian between twenty and twenty five, with unusual hair colouring for a woman from the East ..." Straczynski began to review.
"All her victims but one," Mizuno interjected, quietly.
There was a long silence in the office.
"Mizuno ... you know as well as I do that serial killers are almost uniformly male."
"True. But this isn't a serial killer. It's a kyuuketsuki. A vampire."
"Mizuno, how can you be so certain?!" Straczynski protested.
"I held my daughter's body in my arms as she gave her last breath, Straczynski. I know what a vampire's victims look like when they die."
"Amy ..." It was a rare violation of their unspoken rule of adressing each other by last names, only.
"And I know that the vampire who killed my daughter hasn't been captured or killed, yet ... my sources would have let me know if she had," Mizuno murmured, fingering the silver crucifix that hung around her throat.
Straczynski sighed, and settled back into his chair. He respected and admired Amy Mizuno more than any other woman ... no, any other person in Interpol, but her obsession with supernatural phenomena was just that -- an obsession. She had gone to enormous lengths to pursue the ... person who she claimed had been responsible for the death of her only child, making common cause with certain agencies that had extensive dossiers in Interpol's files, such as the Society of Leopold ...
The phone rang. They stared at it. It rang again. "I answered it last time," Straczynski pointed out.
Mizuno picked up the phone. "Interpol, Amy Mizuno speaking."
"Uh ... Dr. Mizuno? I have ... information on the ... killer you hunt."
Mizuno knew at once that German was not the speaker's first language. It seemed quite probable that it was Japanese ... so she switched to that language. "Really? I'd be very interested in hearing it."
"Yes, I, uh, expect you would be interested in catching the kyuuketsuki that killed your ... uh ..."
Mizuno sat up straight. She'd assumed that this was a prank call of some sort, but the information that this woman possessed indicated that it was something more. She scrawled the word "finde" on a piece of paper, and held it up for Straczynski to see. He immediately picked up the other line, contacting the agency's phone trace system. "Yes, I very much would like that," Mizuno said at the same time as she did all this.
"Anyway, I'd like to meet with you at ... uh ... the airport! The main lounge, at ten, is that okay?"
"Certainly ... how will I recognize you?" Mizuno said, watching the clock.
"Oh, I'll recognize you, don't worry! Seeya!" The phone was quickly and loudly hung up.
Mizuno settled the phone down to the cradle. "Well?" she asked hopefully.
Straczynski listened to his own phone for a few seconds more with a dejected look. "I'm sorry, Mizuno -- they say that if you'd held onto her for another second ..."
"It doesn't really matter. I think I know what this is, Straczynski. It's a trap, of course. She's using a mortal pawn to try and lure me into an ambush ..."
"Then you shouldn't go!"
"But if I don't go, I'll never have a better chance at her destruction!"
"Mizuno!"
"I'm going and that's it! And don't try to follow me, either!"
* * *
"Do you think it was wise, doing that?" Luna asked as Serena hung up the phone. "She might be very upset when you reveal that you don't know anything about the killer ..."
"But I do, Luna, and that's the worst part."
Luna swallowed. "You mean that you think that Amy's daughter was ... killed by a youma pretending to be a vampire? That what happened to her was because of the Enemy?"
Serena nodded, gravely. "So even if I can't give Amy her memories back, I'll be able to give her some idea of what she's going up against."
"All right. Ten is only about an hour from now, shouldn't we get going?"
Serena nodded. She pulled the Mnemonic device out of her pocket, and stared at it. And then I give you back your memories ... and hope you don't hate me for my part in this ... Suddenly, a thought occured to her. "Wait a minute. What do you mean, we?"
"You don't think I'm going to let you go in there alone, after what happened with Raye and Mina, do you?" Luna asked, aghast. "Are you out of your mind? We know that Amy's been involved with monsters!"
"Luna ... I know you're only trying to protect me, but you have to admit, if a bunch of youma pop out of the woodwork, there's not gonna be a lot you can do! And besides, it's an airport. If you go, you're gonna have to go in the kitty karrier."
Luna stared at Serena in horror. "You knew this! And you planned for it!"
"No! Luna, honest, I ... I just didn't know where else to set up the meeting! Really!"
Luna stared up at her for a few seconds. Then she turned away from her, padded across the bed, and slumped on the pillows. "Go," she muttered.
"Luna ..."
"Just get going! You're right, there'd be nothing I could do to help. I am, after all, just a cat."
Serena stared at Luna's very still form for a few seconds, then turned and ran out of the hotel room, before Luna could see her tears.
And before she could see Luna's tears.
* * *
Mizuno stepped out of the cab, her trench coat belted tightly. She checked her watch. 9:47.
A quick check of the airport lounge revealed that there were quite a few mirrors and other reflective surfaces. Provided that her adversary was one of the species that didn't reflect, she'd have a bit of forewarning at least. She had trained herself to be alert for such things, ever since ...
Don't think about it.
She kept one eye on a clock, another on a mirror, and waited.
At 10:04, a young woman burst into the lounge, and looked around wildly. Her eyes lit on Amy, and a sudden smile came over her face.
She reflected.
The girl was Asian, despite her blonde hair ... a dye? No, it looked startlingly natural. There was something familiar about her ...
"Amy Mizuno?" she asked when she was in speaking distance.
"That's my name," Mizuno admitted.
"I'm the one who called you. Uh ..." she looked around suddenly. "This is kind of a public place for this kind of discussion ... maybe we can go to the lady's room?"
A TRAP! The girl was trying to get her alone in a confined space. "I'm sure that anything you need to say to me can be said out here," Mizuno replied brusquely.
"Uh ... okay. Well. You know how there were a lot of monsters in Japan about seven years ago?"
Mizuno blinked. "What are you talking about?"
The girl seemed to be giving every word that she was saying a lot of thought. "About seven years ago ... there were a lot of reports about monsters running around Tokyo. The police ruled most of it off as just mass hallucinations, coupled with a weird sort of flu-like syndrome -- Jyuban syndrome, it was called, because that's where most of this stuff happened. But it wasn't."
"What ... what does this have to do with the vampire killings, here and now?" Mizuno asked, more than a little confused now. She'd lived in the Jyuban area seven years ago; was that where she'd seen this girl before?
"Recently, there's been a resurgence of these monsters, in Japan. I think it's part of a conspiracy. Anyway, I know about your ... uh, loss. I think its connected, somehow."
"What possible connection could there be between these two things?" Mizuno exclaimed. She had been wrong -- the girl wasn't a pawn, she was something worse: someone who had somehow gained knowledge of Mizuno's weaknesses, and was trying to feed her a line of BS, for whatever reason.
"You."
"WHAT?"
"One of the incidents in the Jyuban syndrome affair involved a certain juken. On one particular day, every student in a certain class in that cram school developed the symptoms of the syndrome. With one exception. You. What do you remember about that, Amy?"
Mizuno stared at the girl, unable to form a coherent thought, for once in her life. "I ... I ..."
"You don't remember anything, do you?" the girl asked, a look of quiet pity on her face.
"What are you saying? That my daughter was ... that what happened to my daughter happened because I wasn't affected by this `syndrome' at one point? That's insane! Who the hell are you?"
"My name's Serena. Do you remember me, Amy?"
"No! No, I don't! What the hell are you trying to pull?!"
The girl closed her eyes, and let out a deep sigh. "I'm sorry. I'm very, very sorry."
And then she looked up, pulled something out of her pocket, and murmured "REMEMBER".
And Amy did.
Lying, and knowing she lied, as she watched them walk away. Waiting for the evil ones. They came. She used every talent she possessed to foil them ... and it wasn't enough. They were killing her, and taking their time about it, as well. One hope remaining -- "one last chance to use this ..." -- and she smashed her computer into the monster's forehead. The illusions faded, and she experienced a faint hint of triumph ... before she knew nothing at all. For a handful of moments, and then she was called back, to serve once more. Then reborn, never knowing.
Until now.
* * *
Amy regained consciousness in Serena's arms. She'd fainted only moments after she had come out of the memory restoration, and Serena had hustled her into the lady's room.
"This is why I wanted to bring you in here for our discussion, because I thought you might not want to have your memories restored in public like that, because it would be REALLY embarrassing, and ..." she babbled.
"Serena?"
"Yeah, Amy?"
"Shut up. And get your hands off me."
Serena pulled back as Amy stood up, walked to the sinks, and leaned over them.
"Seven years," Amy muttered. "Seven years later, after everything, you come looking for me."
"Amy, I only got my memories back a few weeks ago."
"Why?"
"Because of the youma coming back. Luna ..."
"Why didn't you get them back seven years ago?!" Amy demanded, swirling around, her face a mask of rage.
"Because ... I didn't need them ..."
"Did it occur to you, or to Luna, that I might have needed them?! That I might have needed ALL of you?!"
"Amy, please ..." Serena begged.
"Let me guess," Amy barked. "Luna and Artemis both spent all their time watching over dear, sweet, innocent Serena, right? Nary a moment to spare watching over the rest of us! Because you were too simple to look after yourself, MY LIFE WENT TO HELL!"
"Amy, I'm sorry! I want to help!"
"You want to help me? Give me my transformation pen."
"You already have it," Serena sniffled, on the edge of tears.
"What are you talking about, I don't ..." Amy fell silent as she thrust her hand into her trench coat pocket, and came out with the pen. She stared at it for a long moment. Then she looked up at Serena. "Would you care to explain this?"
"Luna said that ... when we were brought back with no memories ... we were unconsciously programmed to carry the pens around with us, no matter what ... in case we ever needed them ..." Serena said, dissolving into sobs.
Amy studied the pen, and then nodded. "Good. Then the other thing that you can do for me is to stay the hell out of my way." And she marched to the washroom door.
"Amy! What are you going to do?!" Serena cried.
Amy paused at the door, turned back and said, "First, I'm going to find the bitch that killed my daughter, and then I'm going to kill her."
And then she was gone.
* * *
Out of the washroom, out of the airport, out onto the sidewalk, down into the alley, then held the pen aloft and screamed, with all the rage of all the mothers whose daughters the thing had slain ... "MERCURY POWER!"
Icy cold descended on her, hardening her, sharpening her five senses to a razors edge. Then the ice burst, leaving the woman.
Sailor Mercury, the Beautiful Warrior of Ice.
Without pausing, she tapped her left earring. The visor formed in a twinkling of frost around her face, and the terminal appeared in her hand -- dented and dusty, but intact.
Adding her knowledge of the nature of the beast to her memories of the energy signatures possessed by youma, Sailor Mercury came up with a workable pattern to track the vampire, and activated the program.
A single signature, in all the city. Good. The grostesque precautions she'd taken had worked.
Leaping to the rooftops, Sailor Mercury began to run with powerful strides to where the monster would be.
Time to kill.
* * *
"And you love me?" the girl asked.
"More than you know ... more than you could imagine," her lover answered.
They lay in the huge, four-poster bed, huddled together.
"More than anyone?"
"More than anyone."
"More than my mother?"
"More than ..."
Frost formed on the glass of the french door leading to the balcony, and then it shattered under the weight of the ice.
"What the hell?" her lover asked.
"Liar! None could love so well as a mother's love!" Sailor Mercury thundered, as she stepped into the room.
"Excuse me, who the hell are you?" demanded the girl's lover, a young man about seventeen years old, who stood up to prevent this strange visitor from getting a glimpse at his companion.
"I am Sailor Mercury. In the legends of the ancient world, Mercury was the escort of spirits to the underworld -- and so shall I send you screaming to Hell! IN MERCURY'S NAME ... IN SERENA'S NAME ... I WILL PUNISH YOU!"
"What the --" the young man exclaimed.
The girl came lazily to a seated position. "I believe she's talking to me, Roddy. Go away."
"But ..."
"GO AWAY."
The young man yelped as though the words had caused him physical pain, and fled without bothering to dress himself.
"Well, well, well," the young girl said. "We meet again, Amy."
"For the last time, Miniko. I swear it."
"By Mercury? Or by Christ? I confess, I am curious in which of their names you will kill me."
"Shut up! I am going to kill, no matter what!"
"You had your chance to do that, when first you realized what I was." The young woman got out of the bed with langourous slowness. "But you passed it up ... and we both know why, don't we?" She came to stand within arm's reach of Sailor Mercury, staring at her with unhidden hunger, her red tresses down to her waist.
"Damn you!" Mercury cursed. "My daughter ... she didn't have to die!" She was weeping openly.
"No ... she didn't. And that's the horrible part, isn't it?"
With a howl, Mercury raised her fist, and drove a punch at Miniko's face, which the vampire caught with ease. Applying a small amount of pressure, she broke the knuckles of Mercury's hand. "Pathetic," she murmured. "I would have expected more from one of the legendary Sailor Soldiers ..."
Sailor Mercury collapsed to the floor in agony. The smile on Miniko's face grew even larger, and the points of her teeth became obvious. "And now, to pick up where we left off ... Ami-chan ..."
"No, you won't."
Miniko whirled, her eyes slits, to look at the figure who stood in the ruins of the french doors, silhouetted by the moon.
"I will not let you hurt her any more than you already have. I am the Soldier of Justice, Sailor Moon, and in the name of the Moon, I will right wrongs, and triumph over evil. And that means you!"
With a roar, Miniko lunged at the interloper, and was upon her before she could lift her hand to touch the gemstone set in her tiara. The stranger struggled with inhuman strength, keeping her neck away from Miniko's fangs ... but slowly, the vampire began to close in.
And then a black form leapt out of the shadows to slam into Miniko's face, claws extended and hissing with the sound of a thousand hornets. It was no more than a moment's distraction, but that was all that Sailor Moon needed to slam her knee into the vampire's stomach, forcing her off, and roll to the side.
Sailor Mercury rose up from the floor, her face covered with tears, and screamed. "MERCURY! BUBBLES! FREEEEEEEEEZE!"
The bubbles which had ever been the signature of all of Sailor Mercury's tactics raced out, surrounding Miniko, congealing around her ... forming into a solid block of ice, in which she stood, frozen in a mask of rage.
With a roar, Mercury raced forward, slammed into the block of ice, and pushed it through the open doorway, onto the balcony, and over the railing.
It fell, smashing into the ground, shattering into a million bloody pieces ...
"Luna?" Sailor Moon cried, running over to where the black cat had landed unsteadily after slamming into the vampire's face.
"Still think I'm useless in a fight?" Luna asked weakly, as Serena grabbed her up into a tight embrace.
"Never, Luna ... never before, and never again ..." Serena sobbed, holding her partner fiercely.
After a few moments, when Serena was sure that Luna was okay (and after the cat had repeatedly insisted that Serena let her go, now), she turned to look at Amy.
Who was standing on the balcony, looking down at the street below with a blank expression.
"Amy?"
Without looking up, Amy replied. "You came after me. Why?"
"Because I wanted to make amends for what happened because I ..."
"It wasn't your fault. It would be stupid to blame you for something like that," Amy noted without emotion. "I only said those things because I was angry." She was silent for a long moment. "I named her after you. My daughter. I didn't know I was naming her after you, of course, I just thought, Serena, there's a nice name for my f-first child ..."
"Amy ..."
"And then ... then I hire a babysitter to help me take care of her, because b-babies are, are hard to handle, everyone knows that, and I become ... f-f-friends with her ... and ... and ..." She was sobbing now. "And I don't know what I w-was expecting to feel ... I didn't think I was going to be elated, but ..."
Serena came and held Amy, as she collapsed into tears.
* * *
"So I'm going to be transfering to Interpol's Japanese bureau next week," Amy said, a few days later, as she stood with Serena in the airport lounge.
"Do you think that's a good move, career-wise?" Serena asked with a dubious expression.
"I don't really care. I need to get back to my roots, Serena. My partner is pretty shocked, but he's made some noise about getting a transfer over there with me. I don't know if he'll actually go through with it."
"Oh, the cute guys just follow you everywhere, Ames!"
Amy blushed. "ANYway, I'm hoping that I'll be able to patch things up with my mother. She didn't approve of ... the marriage. And I'm going to have to find some way of admitting that she was right without losing too much face ..."
"And when you get to Japan ... you'll help me and Raye, right?"
Amy was silent, then sighed. "I don't know, Serena. I've ... I've had enough of war, I think, to last me for the rest of my life. I'm more than willing to give you any support I can, but ... I don't know if I want to be Sailor Mercury anymore."
Remind her about the connections between that vampire and the youma in Japan, a part of Serena insisted. The rest of her ignored it. "Whatever you decide will be okay with me, Amy. You're my friend, and I love you."
"You're my friend too, Serena," Amy replied, and gave her a hug. "But girls really shouldn't say that they love other girls. It gives people the wrong idea."
"Oh, Amy!" Serena fumed, and kissed her on the forehead.
"Get going, you've got a plane to catch," Amy said. She waved as Serena dashed off.
As Serena rounded a corner in the terminal, she ran smack into ... "Herr von Helsprechter!" she gasped.
"Ms. Tsukino," he said gravely. "I saw you in the distance, with Amy ... and I thought we should talk."
"We really don't have anything to discuss," Serena said, remembering how shabbily this man had treated Amy. "I'd just like to say that maybe you should have given your wife a little more credit for telling the truth when she said she found your daughter drained of blood like that!"
"Drained of blood?"
Serena blinked. "Yeah! Isn't that how your daughter died?"
"Is that what Amy told you?"
"Uh ... no. She didn't really say a lot about it ..."
"Our daughter, Serena, was not found drained of blood. There wasn't a lot of blood in her body, but that was because of the stake that was in her heart ... is something wrong?"
The End
(For Now)
Sailor Moon was created by Naoko Takeuchi and brought to North America by DIC. The preceding story, while incorporating aspects of this motion picture which are held under copyright by others, is copyright 1996 by Chris Davies.
Nobody Sue Me Okay?
Serena & Luna Episode 104, 11/10/96