Pretty Cure Fan Fiction ❯ A Mirror Darkly ❯ Chapter 2

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Bel smirked. “Clever, little bird. But don’t think that’ll fool me. You’ve just put Cure Heart in a new outfit.”

Gemini braced herself with her sword, and suddenly a pair of black, feathered wings sprouted from her back. “GEMINI…” Black and white energy spiraled from nowhere, embracing the magic of her sword and causing it to expand. “SLASH!” She brought it around...and the black-and-white blade formed into a wide crescent that cut down the alley, leaving a deep grove in the stone of both buildings and hitting Bel directly in the midsection.

The ‘second-strongest’ Jikochuu’s eyes widened and he doubled over in agony, teleporting away and letting the blade pass through where he had been into the street, where it cut a car in half and knocked over a street lamp on the other side.

Sword’s eyes went wide as the winged Precure turned towards the Jikochuu to repeat her performance "STOP!" Gemini’s eyes went wide as she realized what she was about to attack, and her wings vanished. "Stop..let me." The second time her voice was more gentle.

Gemini paused, then nodded and stood aside. Sword raised her bow again as the Jikochuu monster raised itself up for another strike. "Precure Sparkling Sword!" This time, the attack scored true, and the Psyche was fluttering off a moment later.

Gemini smiled at Sword for the first time since they'd met. "...look, about what happened in the ice cream shop. I'm sorry, I thought you were just some stuck-up pop princess. Well, you are an idol singer, but you're also a Precure, and that gets you a lot of credit in my book."

Sword grinned a bit back at that. "Thanks...but...well, you look so much like someone I know. What's your name?"

"Gemini." The reply was a complete deadpan.

Sword pursed her lips. "I mean, your real name."

"Gemini."

Cure Sword blinked at that, trying to parse it for a moment. "I mean your human name."

"Gemini." It seemed like something wasn't getting through.

"...I mean...what was your name before you became a Precure?"

"...fine. I was once called Aida Mana. Please, don't use that name. You've got some respect but I don't even let most of my allies call me that." Gemini's voice was soft, with just a faint hint of a growl. "Besides, you used my name in the shop, so I presume there's another Mana running around. 'Gemini' will also help avoid confusion."

"...And should I call your Regina 'Queen?'" Sword asked, somewhat sarcastically.

“I'd rather just be Regina," the blonde said. "Unless there's another 'me' around."

It was Sword's turn for a depressed look. "She's been kidnapped. We probably won't run into her."

Regina sighed. "Sorry. I'll try to think of something better then." She glanced up the street and snapped her fingers, her dress changing back into the business suit she had been wearing earlier. Gemini and Sword followed suit just as a pink limo pulled up next to them. The window rolled down and a girl with blonde hair done up in buns looking out...and staring.

“R..Regina!?” She held up her hand. “Lance!”

A small yellow teddy bear popped up behind her head. “Right!” With a puff of smoke, it had changed into a Cure Commune and was in the girl’s hand.

“It’s fine, it’s fine Alice, Lance!” Makoto quickly interjected. “They’re...” She glanced over at the pair for an explanation, only to see them looking at Alice with tears in their eyes.

Gemini was the first to speak. “A...Alice? Is that you?”

Alice opened the door to the limo and stepped out. “Uhm...yes, it’s me...what’s wrOOF!” The air was rapidly expelled from her lungs when she suddenly found herself being embraced by a rather affectionate Jikochuu princess.

“Oh, Alice! You have no idea what a relief it is that you’re here!” Regina half-sobbed, half-shouted. “We came to this world looking for you...”

Makoto blinked several times, before turning to Gemini with an expression half-way between shocked and offended. “Wait, what about me?”

“I’ve known Alice since we started school,” Gemini said flatly. “No offense, but the first time I met you was an hour ago.”

“The first time you met Alice was thirty seconds ago.” Makoto countered.

Alice tried to loosen Regina’s grip.

Gemini shrugged. “Well, so far the Jikochuu here aren’t that different. The people probably aren’t either.”

“That doesn’t even make SENSE!” Makoto shouted back.

Gemini just sighed. “My universe stopped making sense months ago, Miss Kanzaki.”

Alice slowly turned blue.

“Whatever!” Makoto finally snapped. “For a minute I thought you might be like Mana after all.”

Gemini winced, then seemed to collapse in on herself. She crossed her arms over her chest. “Makoto...you’re right. I’m not used to being the one needing help.”

Makoto put her own arms around Gemini. “Hey, it’ll be all right. We’ll get you back home...”

Gemini took a moment to think about how to reply to that. “That’s the problem.” Gemini hugged Makoto back, however. “We’ll...I’ll explain later.”

Alice made a slight wheezing sound, and her struggling to get out of Regina’s grasp ceased.

“Regina, stop,” Gemini chided her friend. “You’re letting your feelings run away with you again.” Regina’s grip released, and Alice sucked in air like it was her very first breath after a lifetime in vacuum.

“...sorry, Mana.” Seeing Alice was all right, Gemini joined in the hug. Alice put her arms around the pair in an effort to be comforting, although her expression made it clear to Makoto that she really didn't know what was going on. A moment later they disengaged, and gave each other a somewhat awkward look.

Alice was the first to speak, in a quiet and refined voice. “It’s good to have you back, Regina.”

“...I’m not Regina,” The girl replied. “Well, I am Regina, but...I don’t think this is the place to talk about it.”

“Quite. Sebastian, we’ll be headed back to the manor.”

Regina grinned. “And tea?”

“Of course!” Alice swallowed as she realized something. “Oh no, we’ve got to get out of here!”

“What’s wrong?” Makoto blinked, but then she looked. While the street had mostly repaired itself, the evidence of Gemini’s attack hadn’t been repaired by whatever magic usually cleaned up after them.

They couldn’t pile into the car fast enough. But as the tires squealed and Makoto had a few moments to think, she realized something. The damage goes away when the Jikochuu is defeated...including ours. So why would Gemini’s not fade?

xoxoxoxoxoxox

The Yotsuba manor house was set in the middle of an idyllic garden, appearing to not be in Tokyo’s Azabu-Juuban district only by virtue of clever landscaping to deflect sound from much of the city proper. At night the illusion broke from the city’s street lamps, but during the day one could imagine the hustle and bustle of the city was miles from the western-style building.

There, in a sun room backed by a small grove of trees, Alice and Makoto were staring, open-mouthed, at their two new guests. The fine tea service sat in the corner, completely cold, as Sebastian had brought in simple iced black tea in several large pitchers, and a plate heaped down with sandwiches of almost every description.

This had happened about five minutes ago. By Alice’s estimation, the meal would have fed the entire board of directors of Yotsuba Media. While it might have left the thirty of them a mite peckish, the dessert tray in the center of the table would certainly have taken care of that.

Half the food Sebastian had brought in was gone, and Gemini and Regina showed no signs of slowing down.

Makoto finally managed to tear her eyes away from the spectacle. “Okay, they’ve been through a lot,” she began, speaking slowly and somewhat skeptically. “I can get that they probably haven’t gotten much to eat recently. What I want to know is how Sebastian not only figured that out, but had this ready to go.”

“I phoned ahead,” Sebastian said in his calm voice. “Although the sweets were meant for everyone.”

Alice smiled, most of her composure returning. “We’ll have tea properly after the others get here.” The phone rang, and was quickly picked up. “Yes. Please, come on up you two,” She put the receiver down again, and then cleared her throat. “Gemini, Regina?” The pair looked up sheepishly from their simple feast. “Ah, good. Everyone else will be here in a moment.”

Gemini quickly cleaned off her face with a handcloth. “Right. There should be two more, right? I don’t suppose you can get other Precure teams up here on short notice...”

“That’s right,” Alice quietly folded her hands. “We can summon them, but only three live in Tokyo and they’re adults, so they’re usually busy in the afternoons. There’s one more of us, but we didn’t have time to pick her up and she’ll be busy helping her grandmother at the tea house anyway. It would take about a day to bring everyone together.”

Regina grinned and bit into one last sandwich. “Well, that’s all right then. We can spend a few days on this side without a problem.” She quickly went through the rest, swallowed loudly, her eyes going wide as Mana came around the corner and into the room.

Mana’s eyes widened in sheer terror. “Wha..no...I...nothing! I’m not seeing!”

“Oh shit! Mana, you have to listen to me!” Regina jumped to her feet and flew up to look Mana in the eyes.

“No!” Mana tried to back away, but Regina put her hands on Mana’s shoulders to hold her in place.

“Mana,” She spoke softly, sweetly. “Mana, listen to me. I’m nothing to worry about, there is nothing unusual about me.”

Mana’s eyes widened as she was forced to look on the source of her irrational fear. “You...you’re…”

Regina nodded. “I’m a friend. A friend being in a friend’s house is normal, right?” Mana nodded. “Right. Just relax, and listen to me.” Mana nodded again, taking deep, gulping breaths. “You want to trust me, right? Even though everything in you is screaming at you to run and hide?” Another nod, this one with a little whine of terror. “Good.”

Regina snapped her fingers, and a heart with swirling blackness suddenly rose from her chest. The others gasped at the appearance of Mana’s Psyche, the heart that Jikochuu like Regina could draw from a person to make a monster. The Psyche pulled out only slightly further, a raised lump of a jewel-like substance growing out of Mana’s chest. Mana’s eyes glazed over, and slowly a dull smile formed on her face.

Makoto reached out for Davie, but Gemini raised a hand to stop her. “I’ve seen her do this before. I’ve also seen her mess it up. She needs to concentrate.”

Alice swallowed. “Will Mana be all right?”

Gemini smiled sadly. “In all likelihood, yes. Miss Aida is strong. At worst, Regina will just have to leave the room.”

Makoto shot Gemini a look of disgust. “You’re lying.”

“...yes.” Gemini said with no emotion. “If this goes as horribly wrong as it can, Miss Aida will become a Jikochuu. Not one of those silly monsters. She’ll be like one of the servants.”

Alice shot up...then slowly sat back down. The newcomers were right. What had been done to Mana couldn’t be left alone. She waited.

Regina, meanwhile, started to whisper to Mana. The tone was almost loving, but tinged with an unwholesome desire that no one could quite ignore. “You don’t have to be afraid, Mana. Just let your heart do what it wants. There’s no need to worry about anything unusual, just deal with it the way you always would.” This continued for almost a minute, while the swirling darkness faded. The Psyche finally sank back into Mana’s chest, leaving no evidence it had ever been there at all.

When the process was finished, Regina fell to her knees on the floor, her eyes visibly faded from a bright amethyst to a dulled violet-gray.

Makoto stood up. “Okay, what th-”

“What happened?” Mana looked down at the ground. “Regina!”

“Stay back!” Makoto shouted. “She did something to your head!”

Mana frowned at Makoto. “But she fixed it. Now, what just happened?”

Gemini stood up. “Regina’s going to be out of it for awhile, so I’ll explain. Regina...well, she drew out your Psyche and changed it. I don’t know all the details, but it’s...well, she put an idea in your head, and then she just took it out.”

“Why?” Mana’s response was unusually cold for her, enough to make Alice glance at Makoto worriedly. And from the way Makoto was still glancing at Davi every few seconds, it was obvious that the answer would have to be a good one if Alice’s sitting room was to be kept in one piece.

Fortunately, Regina managed to raise her head. “I didn’t know she was Cure Heart, okay?” Everyone gasped in shock at that, except Gemini who hung her head. “Oh come on! You girls are smarter than that. We knew who Alice is right away, Gemini’s a version of Mana, figure it out. The odds of it being the same people in both worlds was pretty low, and I’d have been attracted to Mana if I ran into her regardless of whether she was a Precure or not, right? So I figured I’d do a good deed and make sure Mana never followed up on any curiosity about the ‘weird Regina clone.’” She snorted. “Okay, so I messed up, and yes, I’m sorry I hurt you.” She suddenly sniffed. “I’m sorry….”

Mana reached down to hug her and found herself tangled up with Gemini as well. There was an awkward moment, but the crying blonde between them demanded all attention for the moment. Alice smiled, waiting patiently, while Makoto just sat back down with a huff.

Regina found herself grinning despite herself. “Well now. No, I’m sorry, not Regina. Sort of. But I’m hoping we can be friends.”

Mana nodded while Gemini sighed and let her head droop in exasperation. “Regina, please.” She looked up at her counterpart. “Miss Aida?”

Mana blinked in confusion several times as her brain finally made the connections that were slowed by normally only seeing that face in a mirror. “I have a twin sister?!”

“THAT’S NOT IT!” Regina and Gemini shouted at her together. Regina coughed. “Right. This is Cure Gemini, or Gemini to everyone but me.”

Mana pouted. “You don’t have to hide your real name, we’re friends right?”

Gemini glanced down at her hands, which were wringing her skirt. “Yeah. But I just don’t use any other name really. Gemini suits me now.”

“Well, if you insist, Gemini is a fine name,” Mana grinned and took a seat on the couch next to her twin. “Rikka’ll be along in a second, she just went to grab something from the kitchen.”

The atmosphere in the room seemed to chill rapidly.

“What?” Makoto looked between the visitors in sudden confusion.

Gemini let out a low growling sound. “Why on Earth would you bring her?”

“Bring who?” Rikka came through the door holding another tray of sweets in her hands. She stopped, staring shocked at the sudden looks of loathing she was getting from the new girls. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

Gemini ignored her, looking instead to Alice. “I’m waiting for an explanation for this.”

“What’s to explain?” Mana was close to shouting. “She’s my best friend, and she’s Cure Diamond!”

Gemini stood up and turned her glare on Mana, who refused to budge. “That girl is a threat to everything Miss Aida. You don’t know what she’s capable of, in her heart of hearts.”

“I refuse to believe it could be anything that terrible!” Mana now really was angry, grabbing Gemini by her blouse and pulling her close. “I’m telling you, Rikka is my friend. She stays.”

“...fine.” Gemini pushed Mana off. “Come on, Regina. There are three other Cures in this city, maybe we can track them down on our own.”

Regina stopped, looking between Gemini and Rikka, who was staring completely in shock at the display. “Gemini, love. I think we should stay.”

Gemini turned around on Regina. “WHAT?!”

Regina swallowed nervously. “Mana....” The short-haired Mana looked at the other girl in surprise, but neither of the two talking paid her much heed at this point. “She’s not Rikka. She’s not Rune. The girl in this room hasn’t done anything to us.”

“It’s not about what she’s done, it’s about what she could do.” Gemini snarled. “She - You were there Regina! She killed Sharuru, and Lance!”

The room went completely silent for several moments.

Rikka managed to find her voice, but it was faint. “I did what?”

Regina sighed. “Look at her, love.” Reluctantly, Gemini turned towards the blue-haired girl. “That’s not the face of someone who knows what you’re saying. She didn’t...”

“She wouldn’t!” Mana finally managed to speak up again. “You’re LYING!”

Gemini finally stopped, and collapsed into the couch with a sob. Regina put her arms around the other girl. “I’m...I’m sorry.” She lowered her voice, speaking to Gemini in a gentle whisper. “Mana...Mana...we need to tell them so they’ll understand. So she will understand.”

“I don’t care.”

Regina smiled. “Liar.”

“Selfish girl.” The exchange of insults had everybody confused again, especially since Gemini seemed mostly composed again. “Fine. Rune.”

“Diamond,” Alice said. “She’s Cure Diamond, if you have to use her Cure name to feel comfortable.”

“All right. Diamond. I don’t think I can call you Rikka.” Gemini said, sounding genuinely apologetic. “That person meant too much to me, once.”

Rikka nodded to that. “I hope you can forgive me for what...this ‘Rune’ did to you.”

“There’s nothing to forgive, as long as you learn something from her,” Regina said before Gemini could speak. “Right, why don’t you all sit down?” No one seemed to be quite sure when everyone had stood up, but the four girls took their seats while Sebastian waited quietly in the background.

Gemini began. “If you’ve met other Precure, then you’re aware of the existence of many other worlds beyond our own.” Everyone nodded. “Right...now, where we came from...it’s hard to explain, but imagine that concept, only applied to time. Each set of worlds, where major decisions and possibilities occur, creates new ‘sets’ of worlds, or what’s called ‘dimensions.’

“That is where we’re from. Another dimension where someone made another decision, and it was big enough to change the entire course of the universe.”

“Wait! So what are you saying changed?” Rikka sniffed back a tear. “What could possibly have changed to make me...that?”

Gemini bit her lip for a moment. “We’re not quite sure where the divergence point is yet, but we have figured out it was probably some time about nine or ten years ago. Or maybe it was hundreds of years ago and things just proceeded almost exactly the same except that some other guy won some famous battle half way around the world before they all died and nothing changed. These dimension things are way beyond me.”

Regina coughed. “If I can finish telling them.” Gemini and Regina both had the grace to look sheepish. “Ahem! What I can tell you is that the JSDF openly involved themselves in a major battle between Precures and Youkai. The area was cordoned off, a lot of people died, and to this day no one’s sure exactly what the hell happened, but half a year later there were problems in the Alps, and another town was under Youkai attack from another world.”

Gemini picked up the story. “Regina missed this part, but it was on the news a lot back then. The police were blaming two girls. That was when the world first heard about ‘Pretty Cure’. They put together a new government agency just for dealing with magic, and their star agents are known to us as ‘Cure Bloom’ and ‘Cure Egret.’

“They hunted down Cure Black and Cure White and....well, captured them. We don’t know for sure, but we’re told they were executed a few weeks later, after a ‘secret trial’ that wasn’t open to the public.”

Everyone stared at Gemini, and other than Sebastian they were all going decidedly pale.

Mana stood up. “This is...this is horrible!”

“I agree.” Makoto stated, but much more quietly. “But, you’re here now, and you’re safe.” She looked across the table into Gemini’s eyes. “I’ve got some experience setting up fake identities.”

“We weren’t finished.” Gemini sighed. “Thanks for the offer, but we can’t stay. We came as much to warn you as to get help,” Everyone went quiet again. “Thank you. You see, from there things got worse. It started with a Pretty Cure anime, of all things. By now they had a pattern, after all, and they were encouraging young girls to do the sensible thing if a youkai, faerie for most of them, introduced themselves and turn them over to the authorities. That part, I don’t have a problem with.”

Regina snapped “What, not going to mention the part where they encourage the older ones to sign up to become Cures with the Youkai Task Force?”

“I was getting there, yes.” Gemini sighed. “There are a limited number of spots, and no I don’t know how they do it without faeries to partner with the kids before you ask. But if you get picked it means everything for your family. There’s a twenty million yen paycheck in it for you, personally, every year. You get nearly a hundred thousand a month personal pay, and the rest goes into trust. Your family, who basically never get to see you again except maybe on the news, gets the same up-front for ten years, guaranteed. Even if you’re killed.”

Rikka looked like she was about to throw up. “That’s just sick.”

Regina gave her a nasty glare. “They’re using you on the ads this year.”

Mana stood up again. “That was uncalled for Regina!”

Regina winced. “Sorry.”

Gemini just gave them all another nasty look until Mana sat down again. “Right. The important thing right now is that while this has been going on, they pulled in top scientists to start studying magic. And they thought they were building a portal to other worlds, like the Trump Kingdom. Instead, they made one to other dimensions. But they’ve geared up for war, and from what we can tell...they’re not planning to stop.”

She waited for the various cries of disbelief to settle down. “I know, I know. So, that’s why we’re here. Your only hope now is to destroy the YTF’s magical power source and close off the dimensional gate machine. But...”

Alice was the one to speak. “When they find out you’re here, they’re going to send through every one of those girls to this world to try to stop that.”

“Right.” Regina said. “It’s not quite as bad as it sounds. We have this.” She pulled a small little device, bright pink with several buttons on it, out of her pocket. “This key opens and closes the gate. As long as we have it on this side, that gate can’t open to this dimension. Well, until they crack their own encryption or build another one, either of which will probably take a few weeks.”

Makoto looked Gemini straight in the eyes. “There's one thing about this that's suspicious to me. How did you find out about this, and how did you get away?”

Gemini's hand curled into an angry fist. “We had a friend inside, with an understanding. We help her out with the monsters, and she doesn't turn us in. Every so often we managed to get some reliable intel from her. Until now.”

Gemini took a deep breath before continuing. “So that’s the situation. And, for what little it’s worth, I’m sorry to be forcing this on you.”

Mana sighed, gave her clone a sudden hug, and then said “I understand. You wouldn’t do this if you thought there was another way. But can you please give us a few minutes to talk about it?”

Alice nodded her agreement. “Regardless, you can stay here until you’ve got yourselves sorted. Sebastian. Please prepare two guest rooms. They’ll be staying awhile.”

“One.” Regina said suddenly.

Everyone but Sebastian blinked. “Very well. This way, M’lady....” Regina stood up and floated behind Gemini as they followed Sebastian out of the room.

Once they were gone, the faeries popped out of their hiding spot under the table. “That was scary-sharu,” Sharuru said, hugging herself. “Rikka...”

Rikka winced. “Let’s forget about that part for the moment. What do we do?”

Alice picked up the tea Sebastian had just poured. “Personally, I don’t think this is a job for the four of us here.”

Makoto swallowed. “Agreed. This is too big for us.”

Mana frowned. “You know...for once, I can’t argue. It sounds like they want us to fight a whole war for them. I don’t want to tell them ‘no’ but we have to think about our Earth too.”

Rikka sighed in relief. “Oh thank God. I really wasn’t looking forward to talking you out of this...” She swallowed again as she realized seven pairs of eyes were staring at her. “What? You’re not seriously considering this? Makoto, you just said it yourself!”

“Rikka,” Mana said, sounding serious “I just went to bat for you with them. They said some awful things about you. and I told them they had to be wrong. Are you saying I was mistaken, or that I lied?”

“Mana, NO!” Rikka wanted to shrink into the couch, a feeling that only grew when Raquel floated right into her face.

“Rikka, please-Raqu....”

Rikka took a deep breath. “All right. Yes, I think we should say ‘no’ but that’s because I don’t see what other choice we have. We’re four people everyone. Five if we count Jonathon, and we don’t even know where to get in touch with him.”

“Six,” Mana started, but Rikka cut her off.

“No, Mana. This is horrible stuff, we’re absolutely not telling Aguri.” Rikka took a deep breath. “She’s nine years old. She shouldn’t be brought into this mess.”

Mana took a deep breath. “All right, no Aguri. But there’s got to be something we can do.”

Alice smiled. “Well, we can call the others in. If we include everyone, there’s almost fifty of us.”

Makoto nodded. “They have their own lives, and I know we try to keep it to ourselves to keep things quiet, but it’s not like we haven’t helped them out before. They’re all good at what they do, even if some are probably out of practice. They said we had a few days.”

Rikka winced. “Right, I hadn’t thought of that. When you put it that way....all right. We’ll bring the others here, but we’re putting it to a vote. If we don’t get enough willing to step up for this, we figure out something else.”

Davi raised her voice. “Even if Makoto’s the only one going, I’m going with her. You didn’t abandon us when it was our world, now it’s our turn.”

“I’ll go too. I’m curious about my own twin, I must admit,” Alice said.

Lance grinned and landed on his partner’s head. “If Alice is going, I’ll go-lans.”

Mana grinned. “Sharuru, what about you.”

“Of course-sharu!”

Rikka looked around, then sighed. “Even with knowing how dangerous this is going to be...all right. And we leave Aguri with the others to help her out with Tokyo, then.”

“YAY!” Mana grinned “Oh, this is so exciting! I never thought we’d get to see another world!”

<Chapter Break>