Alone No More: Minako's Story by Jason C. Ulloa Chapter 5 "I am the sailor-suited beautiful soldier, Sailor V! I will stop you!" Sailor V ran after the two criminals as they fled from the sound of her voice. As she spotted the two criminals darting around a corner, she smiled smugly to herself. The two criminals glanced back for a second. Seeing that their pursuer was still behind them, they sped up, running as fast as they could. What they failed to notice was that a boy had just stepped out in front of them. "What...?" the boy exclaimed in surprise when he saw that he was about to get run over. "Look out!" Seeing that collision was inevitable, the boy braced himself for impact. Sailor V skidded to a halt in front of the three figures moaning painfully on the ground. 'Ryo-kun no baka,' she thought to herself as she pulled out a coil of rope. 'I told you that pretending to just walk into their path was a stupid idea... even if it did work....' ********************************************** After receiving an anonymous tip from a young male caller, two officers ran to the building and found the criminals tied up. A note was stuck to one of them: 'To the police: I caught the burglars. V.' "Damn it!" one of the officers growled. "Sailor V got here first again!" ********************************************** The rising sun shined into Ryoku's eyes waking him from his slumber. He grumbled groggily to himself as he turned onto his side, avoiding the sunlight. Unfortunately, the soreness of the bruises in his side kept him awake even as he tried to go back to sleep. 'It's no use,' he grouched mentally. 'I can't go back to sleep. Stupid bruise. I guess Minako-chan was right; trying to stop the criminals by walking into their path and causing them to crash into me was stupid.' He sighed as he sat up in his bed, flinging aside his blanket. He grabbed his clothes from off the chair beside his bed and walked over to the bathroom to take a shower. The warm water helped to soothe his bruises. He made a mental note to try to think up a different way to help Sailor V without revealing himself. After showering and dressing, he fixed breakfast, ate, then left his apartment. A sudden thought hit him as he left home. Why had he suddenly began referring to Minako-san as Minako-chan? Maybe it had something to do with the fact that they shared a secret between them: the fact that she was Sailor V. Perhaps, but somehow he knew that it was more significant than that. Something was changing between himself and Minako... and time would tell what would become of that change.... 'At least they never suspected that I was working with Sailor V,' he told himself mentally. 'If anyone ever discovered that Kino Ryoku was working together with Sailor V... I could be used as a hostage or something.' He frowned at the thought. 'But I can't stop helping her. I need to help her. I wish I could explain why....' ********************************************** Minako was fast asleep on her bed, still in her school uniform, when her mother walked into her room. "Miiina!" her mom yelled. "Just because it's Sunday, how long do you plan to sleep in? It's already noon! I have to hang out the bedding! Get off!" She pulled the bedding out from under Minako, sending her to the floor. "Uhh...," Minako murmured sleepily. "Ohh.... My skirt's all wrinkled...." "You shouldn't sleep in your school clothes!" her mother admonished. "Come on, Mom!" Minako muttered irritably. "I was tired. I had to do a lot. I'm not just an ordinary junior high student.... The soldier of justice Sailor V...." Artemis quickly coverd her mouth. "Mina!" he growled under his breath so as not to be heard by Minako's mother. "If you talk that carelessly, it'll be a long time until you become fully qualified." "You want to eat a piece of what?" her mom asked uncertainly. "Nothing!" Minako replied quickly. "Shh! Shh! Artemis!" she whispered back to the white cat after her mother left the room with her bedding. "You'll give away that you're a talking cat." Artemis sighed and shook his head in exasperation. "Good weather!" she said as she got to her feet and glanced toward the window. "I've decided. Today, I'm going shopping with Ryo-kun and Hikaru-chan! I'm carefree." Her gaze fell over to her desk where a pile of papers and books sat and her smile faultered. "I have a mountain of homework, but...." She glanced warily over at Artemis as she pulled out her pen. "It's no problem!" she said quietly to herself. "I can easily do even the hardest problems with this magic pen." She sat down and started scribbling down her homework, all the while keeping an eye out for Artemis. After all, he might try to take back her pen again. Once she had finished, she opened her compact and brushed her hair back. "Well, I have to look nice," she told Artemis as she noticed him glancing disapprovingly at her. "Mina, you have an important duty," Artemis said with a sigh. "You're not training enough. You're only going around capturing criminals, which is the police's job." She looked over at the newspaper Artemis had brought in earlier while she was still asleep. The headline read, 'Sailor V does it! The criminals were captured.' "All right," she relented. "One more practice session. I'm making the police look bad." She laughed softly to herself. "I only wanted to beat them once." ********************************************** A police officer burst into the office of the superintendent-general at the Metropolitan Police Office and slapped his hand hard on the desk. "Superintendent-General!" he yelled insistantly. "Every single time, Sailor V is stealing all the credit! She's embarrassing all of us! In short, I think she's a very suspicious character! She must be secretly organizing this series of mysterious incidents!" "I don't want to make a mistake," the superintendent-general replied calmly. "The number of mysterious incidents has been increasing lately. The soldier of justice also appeared. So, I personally established a special police headquarters. I appointed you to lead it, Wakagi Toshio. Are you in any position to complain? If it's too hard, get out of here and do something about it!" She tossed him out of her office without another word. After showing Wakagi out, she looked around carefully, then flipped on a switch. Next to one of the walls, a large poster of Sailor V lowered from the ceiling. "Ah! My V-chan!" she said dreamily. "Nobody can top you, the soldier of justice. V," she stated confidently, "someday, I'll finally win you over to the police department." "Damn it!" Wakagi seethed as he walked away from the superintendent-general's office. "V! Someday I'll get her, and find out who she really is!" ********************************************** "Hmph," a woman sniffed as she looked at the newspaper article showing Sailor V. "V! You will be killed, and I'm the one who's going to do it." She tossed aside the newspaper, then stepped out onto the stage before a cheering crowd. The sign above her read, 'The pretty model, Petite Pandora's first concert!' "Everyone!" she said adoringly into the microphone. "Thank you all for coming today!" The boys in the audience swooned at her smile. "Oh, she's so cute! Petite Pandora!" many boys cried out. "We are all your slaves!" ********************************************** "Hey! Hey! Did you see it on TV yesterday?" one boy asked the next day at school. "See what?" Ryoku asked curiously. "Haven't there been a lot of music shows lately?" Minako asked. "Oh," he said, suddenly losing interest in the conversation. "So will she be an idol or what?" Hikaru asked. "Eheh.... Ehehehe...," Amano laughed. "She already is." "You don't say?" Ryoku asked dryly. "Well, I don't.... What is that???" He frowned in perplexity as he noticed that Amano had suddenly pulled out a device from his backpack. "What are you doing, Amano?" Minako inquired. "Concert watch," he replied. "This receiver catches radio waves sent from the idol's mike. We can enjoy the concert for free!" "And that thing cost you how much?" Ryoku asked. "Umm...," Amano replied, recalling the price. "I think it was approximately ¥12,000." "12,000 yen?!?" he exclaimed in surpise, then sweatdropped. "Jeez!" Minako commented. "You really are a nerd, aren't you?" Ryoku nodded emphatically. "She's so cute!" Amano said, ignoring them as he held up a poster. "The pretty model, Petite Pandora!" 'Petite Pandora?' both Artemis and Ryoku thought to themselves. "Hey, there was an idol called Pandora before," Hikaru mentioned. "She disappeared unnoticed, but I wonder if there's a relation." "Hmm," Minako said, exchanging glances with Ryoku. "Petite Pandora...." ********************************************** Two boys stood on the street, looking at Petite Pandora on a magazine cover. "She's cute!" one of them told the other. "She's the prettiest girl, now. Her trademark is her 'world's cutest wink'! If you say anything rude to her, she'll turn you down." "Is that true?" the model asked as she walked by them. The two boys gasped as they saw her. She smiled and winked at them. "Yes, we are all your slaves," the two boys said in unison as their faces darkened. She walked away laughing. "Heh heh... I need more.... More slaves, so I can defeat V. I can do it with my handsome slaves." She looked around a corner. "Ah.... Another person to be my slave...." She went over to Amano. As soon as he turned around, she backed away upon seeing his face. "I can't! I can't!" she gasped. "I can't make such a loser my slave! Anyway, since I got a lot of slaves at my recent concert, now is the time." She held up an envelope that read, 'A challenge.' "I wonder where V stays. Since she's a soldier of justice, she must be working with the police." She walked over to the Metropolitan Police Office and entered with the envelope. "Umm...," she said to the first person she saw, "I'd like to give this to the best person here, but...." "Best?" the officer in front repeated questioningly. "Miss, are you someone's messenger?" Wakagi walked out at that moment. "What is it? What is it?" he demanded. 'Oh!' Petite Pandora thought to herself. 'He's handsome! I like him. All right, I'll wink at him and he'll be my slave....' "This is no place for little kids," he said impaitently as he tossed her out the door. "Get out of here!" "How'd that happen?" she wondered to herself. "Me, the popular, pretty model.... This is a bad day." After Wakagi threw Petite Pandora out, he noticed the envelope she dropped on the floor. He picked it up and opened it, then read the letter inside. "To Sailor V!" he read aloud. "Meet me at Shiba Park! If you don't show, I will kill all the slaves I have gathered. From the pretty model, Petite Pandora." A slow grin spread across his face. ********************************************** "This is the fiftieth case!" one of the officers stated to everyone gathered in the room. "Lots of schoolboys are disappearing. These are definitely systematic abductions. But there aren't any clues! We have to get this solved!" "If Sailor V would give us some help...," another one of the officers added. "Yeah, Sailor V will come for sure!" a third officer said. Wakagi burst angrily through the doors. "Everyone!" he yelled testily. "Sailor V, V, V! Calling on her to solve these kidnappings.... Do we need to depend on her?" He brandished the letter he found earlier. "Petite Pandora is a suspect in the chain of schoolboy disappearances!" "No way! That pretty girl is the kidnapper!?" All of the officers crowded around Wakagi, each one trying to read the letter. "She brought the police a written challenge to Sailor V!" one of them exclaimed after reading the letter. "What!?" the superintendent-general exclaimed later as she read the letter. "A written challenge to V-chan!?" ********************************************** Amano listened in through his earphones. "Hehe! I just happened to catch a piece of top-secret information. It's shocking!" "Nerd...," Minako commented. Ryoku remained silent. "It seems they've received a written challenge in Petite Pandora's name to Sailor V." "Nerd, show me that book!" she demanded, taking the book from him. Ryoku leaned over Minako's shoulder as they looked at the picture on the cover. "It looks like her," he remarked quietly. "The enemy I beat before...," Minako agreed. "Pandora." The pen in her shirt pocket started to beep. She nodded to Ryoku as they ran behind a corner. Minako pulled out the pen's antenna. "Yes, this is Mina. Boss?" "Mina!! This is a state of emergency! Fifty schoolboys have disappeared in succession! They look like abductions!" "Fifty abductions?!?" Ryoku exclaimed. "Boss, a suspect called Petite Pandora has given the police a written challenge addressed to me!!" Minako told her. "Then, she's probably an enemy!" Boss said. "Here are your orders. Uncover that Petite Pandora's true character and her goal. If she's an enemy... Get rid of her! I also want Ryoku to assist you in this." "Understood!!" Minako and Ryoku replied. "Let's go, Mina! Ryoku!" Artemis said. ********************************************** Wakagi stood in front of a group of cops at Shiba Park. "Damn it, I'm not telling V about this!" he said determinedly. "Not a chance! This time, we're going to do it!" The superintendent-general stood with them, glancing around her, watching. 'I might get to see V-chan work live!' she thought gleefully, making sure not to show her eagerness. Minako peeked out at them from around a corner. "Lots of cops here," she told Ryoku. "I better not go as V right away." "That idol must like handsome boys," Ryoku pointed out. "I could draw her out for you...." "That's not really necessary," she told him as she took out her compact. "I thank you for volunteering, though." She paused in thought for a moment. "But, what if Petite Pandora tries to make you into her slave? Hmm...." She looked thoughtfully at her compact, then glanced at him. A slow, mischevious grin spread across her face as an idea began to form. "Could be worth a shot," she said to herself. "What are you talking about?" Ryoku asked warily. "Now...," she suddenly shouted, "Crescent Moon Power Transform! Change me into a cute young boy! Change Ryoku into a cute young girl!" After the transformation, Minako appeared as a boy in a loose shirt and jeans while Ryoku appeared as a girl in a loose blouse and skirt with long hair with a silver ribbon in the back. "This should get her attention," she said... or rather, tried to say between snickers. "What's so...? NANI YO KORE?!?!?" he exclaimed as he noticed what he was wearing. "WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO TO ME!!!!!" This time, Artemis began to join in on the laughter. He scowled furiously at both of them. 'He's cute, even as a girl,' Minako thought as she began to pull herself together. "Sorry, Ryo-kun, but I wanted to make sure that you were safe from Petite Pandora's influence. I'm surprised that it worked." "So you disguised me as a girl?" he asked flatly. "We'll, I guess if you can go as a boy...." He looked Minako up and down. "The disguise is pretty good, Minako-chan." He grinned slightly. "Even as a boy, you're still cute." He turned around and glanced out from behind the corner, keeping watch for Petite Pandora. Minako stared at Ryoku, still surprised at hearing him call her cute. Could he...? ********************************************** A blimp flew overhead. "A little tea," Petite Pandora ordered, inside the blimp. "Wait," the boy at the helm said. "Come on, you drive this," he said to another boy. The boy took over, allowing the former driver to fetch his master some tea. After sipping some of her tea, she stepped up to a nearby microphone. "I have an appointment now," she said. "I'm over Shiba Park." "Sailor V!" boomed out the voice from the blimp. "Where are you!? I don't see you. I will gather more and more slaves, and seize Earth!" A panel opened in the bottom, allowing Petite Pandora to be lowered on a seat. She winked at the police officers, causing them to become enthralled by her. "She's so pretty!" Wakagi shouted. "A slave! That's the only way to live!" In the mass of converted police officers, she noticed an unaffected boy accompanied by a cute girl. "Wow! He's really hot!" "Hehe!" Minako laughed. "Caught ya!" she said as she signalled to Ryoku. He replied by slipping out a pair of knives from within his blouse and flung them at Petite Pandora... or rather the ropes above her. The two ropes holding Petite Pandora snapped, causing her to crash to the ground. "Moon Power Transform!" Minako shouted as light flashed around her. "You turn innocent boys into your slaves! You cruel woman! I won't let it happen! Codename: Sailor V, the soldier of justice! I am the sailor-suited beautiful soldier, Sailor Venus!" "You're here, Sailor V! I've been waiting. I am Petite Pandora! You killed Pandora, my sister, so I'm taking revenge! Slaves! Go, kill V!" Sailor V started to run from the boys coming after her, but others began to gather behind her. "Uh oh...," she moaned worriedly. "They're everywhere! Ryo-k...." She paused as she remembered Ryoku's femimine disguise. "Ryoko-chan!" "Sailor V!" Ryoku shouted as he fought his way to her side. "Kyaa! This skirt! I just can't fight well in this skirt! Maybe if it was as short as yours...." "Ryo-kun!" Sailor V exclaimed in an embarrassed whisper. "Now's not the time to be talking about my skirt...." "Oh...," he murmured, also slightly embarrassed. Artemis bowed his head and sighed in exasperation. "Mina!" he shouted. "The compact!" She quickly held it out. "Crescent Beam!" she shouted, firing her attack. The melting form of Petite Pandora laughed. "I'm still safe!" she stated. "I'll get revenge for my sister...." Gas filled the air, choking people. "Revenge for my sister...." Sailor V held her nose. "Artemis!" she shouted as she saw Ryoku choking on the poisonous gas. "She's sending out a noxious odor! Everyone will die! Ryo-kun...!" "Mina!" Artemis yelled. "Purify it with Venus power!" "Right," she said as she opened her compact. "Venus Power! Love Crescent Shower!! Pour down rain!" Rain began to fall, dissolving Petite Pandora and her gas attack. The boys slowly began to get up. "Uhh...." "How did we get here...?" "That smells great!" "What's happening?" Wakagi groaned weakly. He glanced skyward, allowing the rain to fall onto his face. "Feels good." "Mina!" Artemis said approvingly. "Great job! From now on, you and Ryo-kun need to work harder and start your real mission." "I know," she replied and paused as she realized what he had said. "What? My real mission?" "Artemis," Ryoku asked curiously, "what is her real mission?" "It's a secret." Both Sailor V and Ryoku facefaulted. "Hey!" Wakagi shouted as he spotted Sailor V. "V!" "Everyone!" Sailor V said as she waved. "See ya!" she quickly leaped away with Ryoku following suit. "Ahh...," the superintendent-general said dreamily. "V-chan!" "Damn it!" Wakagi growled furiously. "She did it again!" ********************************************** Disclaimer: All original materials belong to their respective owners. Sailor Moon belongs to Naoko Takeuchi and a bunch of big companies. No copyright infringement is intended. This story belongs me, so I would appreciate it very much if you would ask for permission before posting it anywhere else. Thank you. The Question and all stories included are: Copyright © July 6, 2001 Jason C. Ulloa. Manga translation by Alex Glover © 1996 All Rights Reserved.