RIBBONS OF TIME CHAPTER THREE: ***************************** by Alina http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Island/2924/GOM.html Special Thanks to Gembird for editing and to Arielle for plot help and offering to co-author. ****************************************** The world, no matter how awful it seems in the cold breeze of midnight, wakes up warm when the sun dawns as full as a sunflower. At least, Hotaru thought, as she sunned in a pool of the liquid gold light of the sun, she believed that. Last night she’d felt such extremes of emotion, and everything seemed charged with foreboding. Lying here, she was just a girl. Just like anyone else, and all thought of past lives, future danger faded away into the sensation. Also diving into the moment, Saphire slipped into that warm morning sunshine and forced his eyes to adjust to the bright play of light along the crystal walls. He’d had fun dancing and talking to Serena last night, but the whole time he kept thinking of Hotaru. She’d disappeared on him, when Serena had led him to dance. He’d kept searching for her, but somewhere in the middle of laughing at one of Serena’s stories, he’d realized Hotaru had left. So now, all thoughts of the night before were pushed aside. Like a tiger he followed his instinct to the garden and his instinct proved right. Seated in the same bench that she had occupied the night before, she seemed to be staring at another book. A patch of sunlight washed over her, giving her a golden glow. He smiled. She looked almost the same as when he’d first seen her. , She was even sitting in the same position, her legs drawn up to balance a book. There were differences. First, her book appeared to be a serious one, rather than a comic book. She also seemed to be less attuned to its phrases, because her eyes were closed, her head tilted up to the sun, and she was smiling. Physically she also looked different. Her hair was longer, and so were her legs. They now stretched across the length of the bench, leaving him very little room to sit down beside her. He planned to do just that though, as he strode towards her. “Where’d you run off to last night?” Saphire said, smiling as he dropped down beside her, sitting on the very edge of the bench arm and leaning over her slightly. Her eyes slowly slid open, reluctant to trade the hazy red glow against her lids for actual images. Without facing him, she answered “I just became tired. You looked like you were enjoying yourself dancing with Serena.” She didn’t sound jealous, but as if she were just calmly mentioning a fact. Except that she hadn’t turned around to face him. “Well, she is funny.” He said. He grinned involuntarily as he recalled some of the things Serena had said. “But I was surprised you left so early.” He added. Hotaru turned towards him, in one fluid motion that brought her face to face with him. She looked a little startled to find him so close to her. A slight gasp betrayed her unease. “You didn’t grow again.” He said to break the somewhat wary purple gaze holding him. “I think I stabilized.” She said as she shifted back away, like a fire fly dancing off a leaf. “That’s good..” He said quietly. “I was thinking of asking you--” Whatever he was thinking of asking her, he failed to finish asking. “YOOO HOOO” A voice called loudly, as Serena ran up to Saphire. “HI!!!” She bubbled. Her two long ponytails danced like golden rabbit ears behind her. Saphire sighed. He’d really wanted to talk to Hotaru, but he couldn’t be rude. “Hi Serena.” “The King and Queen are going to Paris...Isn’t it amazing?! Do you want to come?” She said this without pausing for a breath. “To where??” He asked confused. “To see new colony they are going to build...” Serena said nodding. “And we’re going to eat in Paris! I just love French food! Or new Paris. I don’t know what that food is like, but in my time, it was really really good, I mean, different than Japanese food which is also really good, and nothing beats a really nice curry, but then its so cool cause its French, and so, you’d like to come, wouldn’t you?” He did feel tempted, just out of curiosity, but he also felt as if he’d be betraying Hotaru somehow. He turned to look at Hotaru. She didn’t even blink. “Why don’t you go?” “I suppose we could go.” He said, meaning to indicate himself and Hotaru. “Great!” Serena said grabbing his wrist, and hauling him up with amazing strength. Hotaru frowned. The change in emotion passed so quickly, that by the time Saphire could turn his head back towards her, she simply had closed her eyes and resumed the thoughtful pose he’d seen her in before. “Serena...slow down!” he nudged his captor. She screeched to a stop. “What? Why?!” “What about Hotaru?” He said. “Oh.” Serena blinked. “Of course she can come, I just thought she didn’t want to go.” “Well, lets make sure, ok?” Saphire said. Serena nodded. “But we have to hurry. I think they’re leaving in just a few minutes. If we don’t catch up, they’ll leave us behind. And they said they know I’m always late and if I wanted to go, I couldn’t be late, but come on hurry!” She broke into a run. She sprinted faster than he ever could hope to go, and he lost her around another turn. As he slowly gathered his breath back, he realized that perhaps this worked out better. Finally, he was Serena-free, and could go find Hotaru and.... “SAPHIRE!!” A cheerful voice called a second before he looked up and found himself catching hold of a whole lot of Serena. The impact with which she struck him convinced him that’d she’d tripped. He’d learned last night in dancing with her that she was not exactly graceful. She blushed slightly as he steadied her. “I’m sorry, Saphire.” She slipped anyway. He sighed. Not graceful? Try clumsy. “Its OK, Serena.” He smiled looking at her. He’d been prepared to feel grateful to her, for what she’d done as Sailor Moon. He hadn’t been prepared to like her, but he did.“ Why at happened, why did you come back?” “Because they left without me!” She pouted as she tugged his arm. “The King and the Queen just left....!” She looked as if the world were going to end, as tears trickled to her eyes and she heaved every word with effort. She paused, as if expecting him to have some reaction. He did. “What is so special about ‘Paris?’” He wasn’t sure what she’d meant, as usual when she’d gotten so excited. “Paris?! Paris is...Paris...” She paused, her eyes shifting. “A foreign, far away place...I’ve always wanted to see it. It was always this far away romantic city, that I’ dreamed of going to but never did. Darien promised to take me there for our Honeymoon....” “It won’t be the same as the city in your world.” Saphire stated, not trying to be unkind. “This whole world is rather devastated isn’t it? For all its wonders, I think Paris won’t be the Paris you recall. You’d best wait to see it in your own time....with Darien. Like everything else in this world, it wouldn’t be half of what it used to be.” She frowned. “But this world is incredible.” She turned to stare at the mountains of crystal. “Like living inside the silver crystal!” “The first thing I remember about your world, was how green it was.” He responded. “Nothing could be more beautiful than that.” “This place is pretty though, its all silver. Like the Moon.” She sighed. “Only the earth isn’t floating above us, but under us.” She sighed. “I wish you could have seen how beautiful the Moon Kingdom once was, Saphire. I only have my memories, but this place reminds me of it quite a bit. It really is beautiful here, and maybe it isn’t the same as the earth in the past, but it is a wonderful place.” “You once lived on the Moon?” He said surprised. He hadn’t heard of a kingdom on the Moon, but perhaps that made sense given that she was Sailor Moon. Yet he wondered that someone would voluntarily live on a satellite so cold and atmospheres, let alone build a kingdom there. However had they managed it? “A lifetime ago, apparently. but I don’t really remember it...just pieces of it.” She sighed. “The pieces about Darien....” “He lived there too?” He said. She nodded. “That’s when we first met....first realized we were destined to be together...I feel as if part of me is missing without him here..” She confessed. “But its OK. I’ll be back soon, and in the meantime, I get to stay in this wonderful place, with all my friends, and Queen Serenity....and I’d always wanted to meet her, too.” Sapphire’s eyes flickered to the garden. He started moving Serena towards the entrance. “And now that you have?” How much longer would Serena talk to him? Serena sighed. “She’s amazing. I know she’s me, so maybe its not polite to say that, and I’m being horribly conceited or something, but I don’t think of her as me. She’s like some older sister or something. And I want to try and be that graceful, but..oh, I think its impossible for me to turn into her.” Saphire looked down at the pouting girl in front of him. “Why do you say that? She just has a bit more time on her side. Time and experience. You’re fine the way you are.” Serena flushed. “I just want to be more like her.” Saphire smiled wryly. They were now almost to where they’d left Hotaru. Time to end his Serena-sitting duties. “You probably don’t have much choice on that. Anyway Serena, I was going to go and talk to --” He looked up at the bench, but Hotaru was gone. “To who?” Serena said, skipping along in front of him. “Never mind. “ He said. “Good, because we deserve to be cheered up for being left behind, and I thought you might like to go find out if they have ice cream here.” He frowned. “What’s eye scream? Is it painful?“ She laughed, but then got serious. “You don’t know what ice-cream is!?” Serena’s face became set as determinedly as it had when she faced great villains as Sailor Moon. “Well that is horrible. I can’t forgive whoever raised you not to know what ice-cream is!” She just barely posed, and then grabbed his arm, and pulled him along behind her. “You’re going to love this stuff!!” ****************************** Saphire nibbled the ice-cream. Again he had to admit spending time with Serena always ended up being so enjoyable he couldn’t really get annoyed that she’d detoured him. The cool sweet substance slid down his throat. Definitely good, but his mind really was not on the food. Something he could not say for Serena, who looked totally involved with her dish. “There’ s no money here, isn’t that weird?! I can eat as much of this as I want...” She said happily. “Money?” Saphire asked confused. “You really are strange!” She giggled. “Money is how you pay for things...how you get things.” “We didn’t have money on my world. There was barely enough of things to go around, so no one “charged”.” He said matter of factly. “There’s no way you could live in Tokyo without money!” laughed Serena. Maybe some things about the past were not so good, Saphire thought. He didn’t like this concept of paying for things rather than simply sharing the wealth of what everyone had. ********************** “Serena seems to be enjoying herself.” Mercury said quietly switching off the monitor. “She is restless.” The G.R.E.G.’s voice answered her comment, which was really more a thought she voiced out loud. Frequently of late she noticed it answering her more, even though she hadn’t given it a command. That bothered her slightly, but she couldn’t explain why. After all, the computer was not just artificially intelligent--having been created out of Greg himself, it retained in a sense his identity. Actually, she was never really sure what had happened to create the computer. When they had awoken in the 30th century, much had been almost erased from their minds about their pasts and what had happened. She could still remember slipping out of a bed of crystal that had covered her completely, clothed in her sailor suit, and holding a note from Greg. “If this works, then it was worth it. I love you” The words were written beneath a sketch of the palace in which she now stood. At the heart of that palace, stood the room in which Mercury interfaced with the main computer. Everyone had awoken in different rooms in the palace, but she had woken here. So she was the first to touch the panel on the screens that looked vaguely familiar to her. What happened next had stunned her. She’d heard Greg’s voice, and the computer introduced itself as the Guardian of the Royal Eternal Guard. She now took that for granted, although that day the first thing she’d done was to ask the computer about Greg. She hadn’t liked the answer. “The entity known as Greg was absorbed into this system and exists in this system. The individual you knew is gone. The G.R.E.G. can serve your needs.” In a way, the computer had grown these last few years as it began to take control of more operations. A personality, not very much like Greg’s, even began to develop. She supposed that the computer perhaps copied her own style, she could never really be sure. Of all of the Scouts, though, the computer seemed to favor her over others. “Are you really in there Greg?” She whispered. “The entity known as Greg was absorbed into this system and exists in this system. The individual you knew is gone. The G.R.E.G. can serve your needs.” Mercury made a rather strange smile at that. “Not all my needs.” She closed her eyes to a barrage of images--Serenity and Endymion, Venus and Malachite, Jupiter and Neflite, Jaedite and Mars, Diamond and Pluto, and now, perhaps, Serena and Saphire. She shook her head. “No matter where she is, she finds love.” Perhaps Saphire and Serena were not in love, but they were spending a lot of time together of late. Mercury stretched, to shake the odd feelings away from her brain. Perhaps she should go swim before she dove into thoughts of her loneliness again. A very unproductive activity, which she needed to stop indulging in. She should instead be concentrating on how to fix this time door problem. “See you later G.R.E.G.” She called. As she left the room, she missed the blipping of the crystalline chips. The room seemed to drain of energy, perhaps signifying a judicious rationing of sources, but hidden in that movement of power lay something else, something emotional and alive. Ami’s hands touched the water, splitting the surface clean. Instantly she was surrounded by the buoyant embrace of the water, and she felt whole. Sliding through the liquid, somehow eased the ache she felt in her heart. A beautiful melody played through her mind, pushing all other thoughts away. She was just Ami, just swimming. As she reached the other side, she emerged from the silence of the pool to hear someone address her. “I never knew you swam so well.” Zoicite said leaning over the pool. He was dressed in a bathing suit too. She blushed. She felt like a school girl, but she couldn’t help it. There he was, wearing far less clothing than she’d grown used to seeing on men here in Crystal Tokyo, and he was only a foot from her. “Oh.” She said inelegantly. He looked different than she might have thought. Though age had added a bit of width to his slight frame, he still appeared deceptively thin, but now she could see the impressive contour of his muscles. He must do more than swim, she thought looking at him, before it occurred to her she should probably not stare like that. He knelt down. “Are you coming out?” He extended a hand to help her out. She hesitated, feeling suddenly shy about appearing in front of him in the slim, simple suit she wore. Before she could answer he suddenly fell towards her. She barely moved out of the way, but could feel the impact of his body hitting the water as it displaced an equal amount of water to his weight. She resurfaced, as did he. “What happened?!” She heard him say, as the answer began to apologize. “I’m sorry, I was just going to say hi, but then I slipped!” Serena said leaning over the pool. “Are you all right Mr. Sineheart?” Zoicite winced. “Please, don’t call me that Princess.” He managed to smile. “Least you could do for making me do an unplanned dive into the pool. Call me Zoicite” She blinked. “Its really true. You’re not the same! Not that I knew you before, when you were like that...but, he is different isn’t he Mercury?” Mercury sighed and avoided the question. “Are you swimming Serena?” “I’m going to show Saphire how to swim, because he never has. Can you believe how many things that poor boy has never done!” She proceeded to tell them. As she droned on, Mercury caught Zoicite’s eyes, and they both smiled. Mercury felt as if he knew exactly what she was thinking. The second Saphire distracted Serena by arriving, Mercury and Zoicte dove, swam to the other side and left the pool, wandering over to the terrace overlooking a smaller garden. Mercury blushed as he casually draped a towel around her shoulders. She gratefully cradled the soft cloth, allowing it to remove the excess moisture that now wrinkled and puckered her skin. “Now for some reason, I don’t remember Serena being that clumsy.” Mercury smiled. “I do. You get used to it.” “She seems very easy going.” “She is. Nothing big really bothers her, just the smallest things ...usually about Darien. And I wonder how much of that is just to get attention?” “So do you think you’ll be able to solve this destiny problem?” Mercury frowned. “I don’t know. I thought it was a Time problem, though, not destiny.” He smiled, his eyes hinting he’d been referring to something else. “Ah yes, the time door. I’d like to help. I don’t know much about this type of magic, but if there is anything I could do--.” She avoided his eyes. “Thank you.” She cut him off. “There isn’t.” He felt as if she’d encased him in ice with that cool reply. “What is it going to take to break this wall between us?” He said getting impatient. She turned and met his eyes. “What wall?” “The wall you’ve put up between you and everyone around you.” He stated. She looked away unable to hold his direct gaze. “Haven’t we talked about this before?” “If we did, I didn’t like your answer. Ami, I’m willing to start again with you. I realize you don’t love me, let alone trust me. You don’t have to do that ...yet, but can’t you accept my friendship, or at least, my help? I thought we were getting somewhere.” She paused. “I’m confused. About how to solve the time door, about you, about what is happening here in Crystal Tokyo.” “What do you mean here in Crystal Tokyo?” “Why aren’t the plants growing back? Why is this world so unlike the way it used to be? Ever since Saphire awoke, and has been pleading to go back to the past, I’ve been thinking. He has a point. This world just isn’t the way it used to be. Serena wants to go back where she belongs, but so should we. This world is too artificial, even if it is like the world of the Moon.” “What are you saying?” “I’m saying maybe something was lost when we built this world, and I want to know how we did it. Our experiments with other cities are not going well. We can’t repopulate and sustain that repopulation. Unless we can grow plants naturally, not having to synthesize everything, how can we survive?” “You have a point.” Zoicite said. “And I’m tired of living in the palace. I’m tired of never growing older, never having a normal life....things changed in the life I had before. Nothing does now...except rarely.” At those words the ground shook a bit. Zoicite steadied Ami. “What was that?” She shook her head. “I have no idea.” Inside the computer room, a monitor reflected Ami and Zoicite. Lia la Met growled at it momentarily. “That’s right, twin, keep her occupied while I work on this. For at least once you can be of some use to me.” Lia La Met smiled a nasty smile as she focused her head down on the Computer. Imagine, the heart of Crystal Tokyo and no one guarded it? With the whole palace so busy either worrying about the time door, or worrying about the potential new colonies, their minds were not on internal safety. How arrogant to underestimate her. Now how did one control this thing? She frowned and experimented letting her own magic call to the computer. She could feel its power inside, deep, of the crystal surface. The intelligence inside wanted out. It wanted out and she wanted it out. She smiled, knowing there had to be a way to merge into the computer. If she gained power, giving up her body was a small thing. She pushed again, feeling something click. The experience defied explanation or description. Electric, warm waves of existence and she reformed without a physical component to herself. Pure energy remained where her body had been, flowing freely into the planes of the crystal. The other consciousness that existed inside, too weak, depressed and disjointed with the long degradation that came from being stored in this state yielded easily as she shut it down. “A new program is taking over.” She would have cackled. Yet as a stream of information and impulses, a code of power, she expressed no emotion. Only traces of it, and they flashed evilly in the screens of the computers. “Hope you enjoyed the party last night.” Lia La Met pulsed. “It was your last.” ******************************************************************* Present: ************** Mina struggled with the toaster. Not that it turned into a monster and attacked her, which considering her previous fights, was entirely possible, but she simply couldn’t seem to get her pop tarts installed correctly. She blushed as they popped out, still quite raw, and slammed into EZ with amazing force. He sighed, brushed the pastry and the fruit filling from his face, and looked into her eyes. They’d had a long night last night, and he really couldn’t bear to snap at her when she looked like that at him. Her eyes, those pale pieces of the sky, hovered on him, stress and worry stealing the brightness he normally saw there. “Mina, perhaps I’d better cook.” “No, no, I can do this...” She said stubbornly. “It is just pop-tarts.” He didn’t even like pop-tarts. He shook his head. “I’m sure Lita will have cooked for us. We should get going. The others are waiting.” They arrived late, somehow Mina’s sense of timing overpowering his, and were met with the indignant snort of Raye saying “Well, its about time! How long did you want us to wait while this new enemy is out there terrorizing the city!!” Mina shrugged. “The crystal stabilized last night, didn’t it?” Raye frowned. “So?! We were going to discuss this, and you aren’t taking it seriously. Honestly Mina, I expected that with Serena missing even you’d be more together.” Jed put a steadying arm around Raye to distract her, but she slung his arm off. “And another thing, with her missing , you’re supposed to lead us, but when you show up late to this meeting, I--” “Please!” Amy said in her quiet voice. The last thing she needed to hear after staying up all night to analyze the crystal was Raye’s loud angry tirade. Lita nodded. She looked at Amy in sympathy, and added. “I know we want to get to the bottom of this, and I’m sure Mina has a good reason for being late.” Actually, Mina didn’t, but she just busied herself with avoiding Raye’s eyes. “So, Raye, you were saying that you haven’t been able to feel anything psychically about this threat?” Field interjected. Raye shifted a piece of her long dark hair out of her eyes. “No. Its as if there is something blocking me. All I can see is this gray haze.” She shivered again at the memory of that haze that covered everything. More terrifying than the dreams of the silence, but as equally frustrating. She couldn’t answer her questions no matter what she tried. She’d kept that to herself the last time, but this time she’d realized that holding her worries back would only hamper their efforts to figure out the nature of the enemy attacking them. Her nightmares were signals, but they were far from clear. “I asked Greg about this too...” Amy said. “He promised to check out the crystal this afternoon and see if anything registered with him.” “So where did this crystal come from anyway?” Jed asked. EZ frowned. “I think that was the crystal I saved from when Lia la Met attacked. I’d been doing experiments on it.” Everyone stared at him. He shifted. “I didn’t know this could happen.” “I don’t think its your fault.” Amy quickly said. “From what I read, apparently something altered the structure of the crystal you were working with when a temporal disturbance passed by...and the result was what we saw last night.” “A temporal disturbance?” Field interjected. “Could it be when Serena disappeared...” “Perhaps.” Amy replied. “The strange thing is that I detected something of equal mass arriving here, but rather than taking Serena’s place, the mass seemed to have dispersed.” “Dispersed?” Lita asked her eyes loosing focus. She couldn’t follow this. “Did it blow up?” “No...I think the mass underwent some strange transformation, and actually, expanded, but was somehow not exchanged exactly for her location as it should have been.” Amy explained. “So rather than remaining compacted, it--” “Wait, why should the mass exchange exactly with the location where she would have been?” EZ interrupted. “I wish Sailor Pluto were here to explain this.” Amy said, pushing her short hair off her forehead. Her head felt as if someone were shrinking her skull. Again, she blamed lack of sleep for her condition. “Or Darien, he’s good with that intellectual stuff...but why is he late?” Lita interjected as she snuggled up against Field. She didn’t sound worried, but Field winced at her “hug” Anyone weaker than him would probably have bruised ribs. Her mind was obviously distracted. “Shouldn’t he be here by now?” Mina turned to Raye. “That’s right, as the saying goes, she who’s not last should not be laughed at first.” Raye rolled her eyes as Jed chortled. “That’s not the right saying Mina.” Field ignored the by-play between the two, as he disentangled Lita’s embrace. “Has anyone talked to Darien since yesterday?” The others exchanged blank gazes. Amy frowned. “Perhaps we should finish this later and check for him. He can sense when Serena is in danger, but the rest of us are not connected to him.” Without warning, Luna appeared. They’d almost forgotten about her--after all, their last set of fights had honed their skills enough not to need her guidance. And as their latest sets of enemies had not been known in the Moon Kingdom, the cats had added little to their own knowledge. More and more Luna’s role as an advisor had shrunk, until the small black cat could really just concentrate on motivating Serena to focus on the daily but boring tasks of life--dentist appointments, school work, government forms, that kind of thing. Luna’s eyes flashed though with a worry they hadn’t seen since Serena’s absence had begun to stretch too long. “Tuxedo Mask is in trouble! You must help him!” She said as she collapsed. Artmeis jumped to her, and began to lick her face. “She’s exhausted.” He said to them. “Hush Luna, they’ll take care of it.” “Crystal is going crazy...he’s at Tokyo Tower.” Luna gasped as her eyes slid closed. “Come on everyone. Let’s go.” Sailor Venus said as her transformation light died around her. The others blinked. They hadn’t even heard her say her transformation call. EZ had suddenly also become Malachite, as silently as a wink. The sound volume rose into an almost physical wall surrounding them as the rest shouted their phrases. The spire of Tokyo Tower rose above them, a giant metallic testament to mankind’s desire to mark the earth and say “Here we are.” No match for the giant mountains, or even some of the taller skyscrapers now under construction, but the tower had its own eerie beauty and strength. That might be why it was such a favorite for those bent on destruction to attack. Whatever the reason, the tower now lay buried under a coating of crystal, which rapidly generated itself onto the surrounding countryside. Tuxedo Mask, bruised, his hat and mask missing, his cane broken, lay half frozen in crystal. “Tuxedo Mask!” Mars yelled as she ran up to him. “Get back Mars.” He warned. “It’ll trap you too. Quarantine this section of the city off. There is nothing you can do.” “NO!” She screamed as she raised her hands to charge a holy-paper. She threw it down, but it had no effect. At least, not to stop the crystal which suddenly altered its course and headed straight towards her. “MARS” Jaedite yelled as he transported and grabbed her to pull her out of the way of the crystal’s lunge. “Don’t go near that!” He said as they reappeared. “We’ve got to save him!” Mars said. Jupiter, Venus and Mercury nodded. Malachite frowned. “I’m not sure we can.” “You’re giving up--just like in our last lives, you’re giving up aren’t you?” Mars yelled breaking free of Jaedite’s arms. “No.” Jaedite replied. “I’m not giving up. He asked us to back off.” “We’re Generals, but we have to obey him.” Neflite said. “Even if we don’t like it.” “Besides, we don’t know what we are dealing with. He’s right. Fighting without knowing the enemy’s weakpoint would be foolish and would only result in more losses.” Malachite added. “We need to retreat.” “LOSSES!?” Venus yelled. “This is Tux, not a loss!” “You have to know when to break orders, Neflite!” Jupiter yelled as she launched a flower hurricane at the crystal. It too had no effect. “We’ve faced worse before and survived.” “You’ve never faced this before.” Neflite responded. “And you’ve never been without Sailor Moon before.” “Well even if Sailor Moon isn’t here, I’m still a Sailor Scout and I don’t give up. Even if it means I’m risking my own life.” Mars replied. Venus nodded. “Because my life wouldn’t be worth saving if I didn’t save him. He’s our best friend too “ “And if you’re not with us, then you’re against us.” Jupiter chimed in. “Just remember, we kicked your excuses* the last time we fought” Venus said for good measure. THE END OF CHAPTER THREE. {Author’s note: Another Mina-ism. She means to say kicked your buts, which of course should be something else I’m not writing, but she of course messes up.}