Sailor Moon Fan Fiction ❯ A Change of Fate ❯ Surfacing Memories ( Chapter 12 )

Standard disclaimer. Sailor Moon is not mine, the idea and the show belong to people much richer than I. Please don't sue!

Dimmer however is mine.. of course if someone wants to use him or any of his transformations for ANY reason "thbbt" go ahead. You have my complete and total permission. I only request you tell me… Hell, I don't care if you do it without my permission, it's not like I could find out anyway.

Warning: mild language, and this is my first fic. Maybe lime sometime in the far future, but I seriously doubt it.

Dimmer floated through the memories that were his life. Arkand huh? That's my real name? isn't so bad. But he felt like he didn't like it for some reason. He continued to soul search looking for happy times and smiles. He couldn't believe some of the things he was remembering.

It was pure hypocrisy to him to smile from pain, but "Arkand" did it all the time. He thrived at it. It was all that held his life together. Arkand was a good kid. He had some troubles as every kid does. Dimmer loved his childhood, but missed his childhood friends. His father was a Mountie, his mother a nurse. It was his older sister that looked after them when they were at work. His brother was a chronic thief whom he idolized. Money was a problem and they had to move to a different neighborhood. He was never very popular in school. Would often just go unnoticed until, some one felt the need to hurt him. Arkand could not fight back. He'd throw up at the sight of his own blood. He couldn't hurt them. He didn't want to. So he ran. He ran away before they could catch him.

But fear makes the dogs more vicious. Now when they caught him they'd beat him worse, but he was faster. And he'd runaway in his mind, when caught. Someone else felt the pain, it was someone else who was hated, and it was someone else who was always beaten for his actions.

He still had a few friends. Not many. Those who were outcast as he was. He would make them laugh. It was something Dimmer was pleased to have found out. He always had this ability. Whether by simply saying something funny, or by making them laugh by making a fool of himself. He always felt if he made them laugh he was happy. Laughter is contagious. To make others happy, was to make himself happy. He found a way to live. Dimmer was pleased to remember the hard ships and the overcoming of them.

Than one of the few friends he had betrayed him.

"Arkand!"

"Hi Malene!"

"Happy 15th birthday!"

"Thank you"

Arkand was swinging on the steel chained swing. He loved the deserted beach. Years ago it was said to be polluted and no one came back, it wasn't really, just the yacht club close by wanted the area to harbor the boats. He would stay there listening to his walkman from afternoon to in the early morning dusk. More than a few occasions had he watched the sunrise here before he went to school. He came here by bike, and loved that too. Swinging and singing to himself, songs deemed as old. This was his place. Everyone knew it. He didn't go there to hide. Just to free himself and his mind. He created his own worlds there by the ocean. All in his head. He welcomed visitors, and endured those who couldn't understand. Few tried anyway.

The blonde thirteen-year-old lived close to the beach. For some reason he couldn't think of she developed a crush on him. She put as many hints forward as she could, and he noticed them all. Maybe it wasn't nice, but he had few friends, he felt if he told her "no" she would hate him. He didn't want that, so he ignored her hints, and was just friends. He didn't want to say yes either. Arkand didn't feel it would be right to let her take on the teasing that he had to endure. In short he felt he didn't deserve her, or anyone else who might take any part of the beatings that he suffered through day by day.

It turned out that his 15th birthday would be the changing point in his life. He could no longer hide his answer from Malene. Because she finally put it bluntly.

"Arkand, I wanna ask you somethin'."

Arkand felt his heart pound faster. He knew it was coming. As it was he looked at her like a little sister. To him it seemed like an eternity between 15 and the soon to be 12 year old. Three years difference. Much too much. It was that simple to him. He simply looked at her like he would a 9 year old, like she knew nothing about what she asked about.

"Will you go out with me?"

"I'm sorry Malene, you're too young."

"Oh, okay"

It surprised him, but he was glad. That year she remained his friend. Than on his 16th birthday the same scene happened.

"I'm sorry Malene, you're too young."

This time Malene ran away crying. He felt horrible about it, but also thought it was for the best. She wouldn't be hurt anymore this way, just one shot to the stomach was how he thought of it. Instead of a full out gang which he usually had after him by this point.

He didn't see Malene very often throughout the next year, but was still amongst her friends. He was happy with that, even though he used to be her best friend. He was saddened to think that she was drifting away from him because of a stupid crush.

Than one day the gang came after him for a different reason.

"FAGGOT!"

"We don' wan' no gay shits in our neighborhood!"

The gangs never usually needed a reason to beat him. Truthfully it was mostly routine now, 'cept for the fact Arkand was much faster now than he used to be. Usually they couldn't catch him at all any more. "That's strange" he thought as he stuck out his tongue at them while bolting over the train bridge. "Usually its just nerd, geek, or bitch….meh.". He shrugged it off and kept running.

That would be the first of many times he found out. Some one spread word around that he was gay… But the good news was his other friend and cousin since he just moved into this neighborhood so many years ago, known as Raggs (short for Russell) had gotten together with Malene, instead of getting closer though, it seemed both friends grew apart from him.

That was fine with him. Whatever made them happy made him happy. That was how it always was, that's how he thought it would always be.

Soon after though, Raggs and Malene broke up. Now he hardly ever seen Malene, but Raggs hung out with him more. Arkand asked why it was that Raggs and Malene never worked out.

Raggs simply said she was a real bitch. Arkand just laughed along with Raggs. But in his mind he asked himself, "Has little Malene changed so much?"

He found out from Raggs that it was in fact Malene that spread around the rumor that he was gay. He didn't care too much, he didn't care much about what anybody but his friends and family thought about him.

But Malene was a friend. So it hurt that she would do such a thing. He found nothing wrong with homosexuality truthfully he knew a few. But just being tolerant of them in the gangs of Cape Breton was enough reason to be beaten within an inch of your life. It was pretty easy to tell why they all stayed in the closet. In fact Arkand had become the only "known" homosexual that lived around there.

Of course he was straight, but in the end that matters little.

It was a tough year. Raggs was gone to the military. He had no friends. He also found out Raggs helped with those rumors when Malene went out with him. It was no wonder that not a soul besides family and a few new friends believed him. His best friend was the one who helped betray him. But Raggs was a friend when he left, to Arkand that was good enough reason for Raggs to still be a friend when he got back. He still thought of Malene to be a friend. What she told others mattered little to him, it was what she thought that mattered.

He was 17 that day. He swung on his swing until nightfall. To his surprise. Malene came strolling down to meet him.

"Will you go out with me?"

He was awestruck. As far as he knew she was in the middle of dating someone else, not to mention every single scout of the scout troop he was in.

"I can make things even worse you know?"

"No. Malene I don't understand why your doin' all dis."

"Fine!" She walked back the way she came.

It was a month after his graduation that the police knocked on his door telling him that he was put up on charges of rape.

He laughed the whole way there. They had nothing, even some of the gang kids laughed at the officers who asked around.

"So he shot her down again?"

He heard them say. As far as rape charges went. They closed the book the day they asked him to come in. No one paid any attention to Malene or her rumors. (May have been the fact that if he raped her and was gay. What did that make her?)

Of course this still had quite an effect on Arkand. His ability to make people happy was gone. He couldn't comfort them the way he used to be able to. And yet his happiness still depended on the happiness of others. He grew dark, his nights at the beach were more of a punishment that he put himself through. If there was one thing that hurt Arkand it was his honor. It was something he couldn't run away from. He made a vow against drinking at the age of 7. He never drank and would never drink. It was his honor. He wouldn't. It was that simple.

There were some out there that still thought him gay, he didn't care, but there was even more who believed Malene's story of rape. That hurt.

There was a rape that happened on that night so long go. But it wasn't Malene's. Arkand's dignity, honor, and pride were raped from him by the mere suggestion. Depression had settled on his shoulders. He worked as a store clerk and learned how to hide it well though. It was his mask. No one knew the sadness in his heart, because he never stopped smiling. The store mask was a beautiful thing to him. It was a way he could continue to run away. Unfortunately even among his now few but very good, trustworthy friends he found himself using it. When he wasn't paying attention to them and they left and waved good-bye, as reflex action he'd say "see ya now" before they left. It was what he said to every customer that came in the store on their way out the door.

To his ultimate shame, he set another on his path to depression. Mike. Mike grew out his hair after discussing some of Arkand's view on things. Mike's family was in bad shape, in truth he was going through his own depression for much different reasons than Arkand, but that made little difference to Arkand. He felt responsible. Now instead of being able to comfort them into smiles, he had made them depressed. Which made him even more depressed. Yet he still had a few ways out of the depression. They were anime- getting lost in someone else's world where there wasn't so much pain- or just coinciding with their views. And Games, just another escape into someone else's world. But he developed many philosophies on life, and what it meant to him through them. His world was a happier place because of them. He could never get tired of something that made him happy. It was during this period Arkand didn't want to run away anymore. He wanted to accept the other person who lived inside of him. The one who took the beatings day after day, and still got up. The one that was depressed, yet happy with his life. Arkand ran away from his problems, but Dimmer always took them head on. Dimmer was who he was now.

He understood why his mind remembered Dimmer and not Arkand. Dimmer understood pain and wasn't afraid to express it, or hide it when he had to. Crying never happened after Arkand's rape. Dimmer grew sad at points but the only tears he shed were the ones when his eyes were too watery in the morning. Dimmer was depressed to be sure, but he was optimistic. The future would be better because now he exists. Arkand is no more. Just a happy little boy in the back of his mind that didn't know pain.

Dimmer was a quiet rage at the world, he lived only to annoy it.

Dimmer was lonely, no one knew of his problems, and he would never be able to express them.

Dimmer was dark, he felt no light within, just utter darkness that enveloped all that he was. The only light he had was a mask he used for other people's benefit.

Dimmer is darkness

Dimmer is silence

Dimmer is solitude

Dimmer is…

IN PAAAAAAIINNNN!!!!!

Rei looked at the still figure suspiciously. She grabbed him by the cast over his chest and shook him angrily while shouting. "Why you! Do you know how much you made me… everybody worry about you! Way to go you faker!"

"Mmmph mmm..mmm mmmmph mmpph!!"

(interpretation *get this crazy bitch offa me!*)

Dimmer felt himself being shook back in forth and a lot of pain. He flailed his arms wildly, one stuck in a cast the other jutting straight out.

Rei let him fall back and crossed her arms as she sat on his shattered legs. "You can't fool me! Fall from the sky without a scratch, and you fall from Tokyo tower like it actually hurt."

"Mmph!"

"Oh jeez, Dimmer!" She reached over and pulled the gauss from his mouth. "Now speak."

"OOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!"

"Huh?" Rei was sure he was faking

"Woman, you got severe problems in the head don't ya?!"

"I'm sorry Dimmer, really! I just thought that…" She looked at Dimmer as he tried through much effort to lay back down without any pain. Had he just insulted her? He didn't seem to be joking… That was new. There is something different about him.. "Dimmer? Are you okay?"

"I'd be a lot better if some one hadn't shaken my battered, bruised and broken body like a freakin' rag doll! Bloody Hell Rei! That hurt! In fact it still hurts! Get offa my legs!!!!!!" Dimmer shouted in agony.

Rei was off his bed in a second.

"Oh jeez I'm sorry Dimmer. I just thought…" She was quickly interrupted.

"NO you didn't! You obviously didn't "think" at all! Because NO one could actually "think" and come to the conclusion "You know what that guy in the full body cast needs? It's to be sat on and to make him think that he's sittin' on a over-loaded washing machine!"

Rei was well, put in her place. "But I thought, that… I thought… I thought since you survived the fall from the sky, that Tokyo tower and…"

Dimmer raised his hand in a sign for her to shut up. Worried that she had done something to REALLY hurt him this time, she shut up.

"Listen Rei, I don't know why my TV sucked me in and deposited me in a crater along a busy street in your world, but I fell off Tokyo tower and was hit by lightning. SUPERMAN wouldn't have enjoyed that!"

Dragged through his TV?

"My" world?

"Dimmer? Has something happened to you? Has your memory come back.?"

"Oh great. Through the same thinking process that led you to shake my bones out of joint, you've managed to figure out that I remember everything, from me saying one sentence! Can some one please tell me where the logic to that is please?"

Rei gasped. Dimmer remembered his past! … and he was kind of a jerk…

"Okay, okay I'm sorry. Really I didn't mean to hurt you." Rei looked the other way so she wouldn't have to see him strain to lay back down. It was true; he had every right to act like a jerk. Why did she suddenly lose her trust in him like that? Over some stupid rumors that the nurse was asking about too.

"I just thought you were pretending. I saw you today. You're Sundown, right? I just thought you were trying to get out of telling me, like you promised yesterday. Dimmer, you put us all through a big scare last night okay? I was mad at the thought that you might've done it just to get out of explaining…? Dimmer?" She looked back at the bed. Dimmer was asleep.

A vein throbbed on her forehead.

Amy was helping Greg up. He wanted to get some exorcise so she was moving him to the wheelchair ordered up for him. The doctors were completely baffled at the infection in Greg's arm. He should have been able to leave yesterday after being patched up, but here he was hardly even able to stand. The doctors were unable to see what Amy's scanners had. The dark cloud had seemed to spread around Greg's entire body.

"At this rate he might not make it. It's a good thing Rei is here; maybe she can find a way to slow it down.

It was a tough day even for the Sailor scouts yesterday. Amy thought about it while walking the halls of the hospital pushing Greg.

Zoicite's attack, Talenite was her slave it seemed now. The crystal was stolen by Sundown. Tuxedo Mask showed up, so did Sundown. Tuxedo Mask came very close to threatening them. Sundown chased after him. Greg got stabbed in the arm during the fight. He knew she was Sailor Mercury. The wound Sundown's sword had given him was killing him. He said Rei had changed fate somehow. They were summoned to help defend the town from a rampaging Sundown by the television news crew and the police. They decided to trust him again. Rei pulled down his scarf. Amy wondered who Sundown was; Rei was in everybody's way when she pulled it down, so no one else could see. He told them Tuxedo Mask took the crystal from him, and he had another appointment. We let Sundown go. Dimmer somehow fell off Tokyo Tower, and was hit by lightning. He managed to survive.

"Oh, I just know there's something that has to connect Dimmer to all this. Was he following Sundown perhaps? Rei did say he could keep an eye out for the Negaverse or anything suspicious. Knowing Dimmer, that was exactly what he was doing." Rei sighed.

"Tokyo Tower huh? I'd like to meet this Dimmer. And if Miss Rei could help…" Greg was saying as she pushed him along the halls.

Amy smiled, " I don't know, Rei should be able to slow it down again. But I could definitely introduce you to Dimmer. Rei's taking care of him right now, though I doubt he's up yet."

"That's okay Amy. Maybe I'm just being nosey, but I feel that it would be best if I could meet him some how."

Amy turned the corner, to show Greg to Dimmer's room. As they opened the doors, Amy could see Rei's ideas of "taking care of someone" were very similar to the Yakuza's.

"REI!"

"Huh?" Rei looked toward the steaming Amy and swallowed. She looked back at the teary eyed Dimmer she was holding by the scruff of his neck, than back at Amy.

"Uh oh."

Amy pushed Greg into the room letting the doors shut behind her.

"PUT HIM DOWN! NOW!"

Thump. Dimmer's body hit the mattress.

Dimmer's head landed facing the wire stuck in his arm. He quickly fell unconscious.

"Rei! Just what were you trying to accomplish?!"

"I just… I was just… I mean… I … I was… He fainted when I was trying…" Oh great Rei thought to herself. I'm bumbling like Serena. "He was awake Amy, than he fell back to sleep." She motioned to the still body.

"Dimmer was awake?" That was great news! "Still that's hardly any reason to throttle him. Even if he said anything offending you Rei, he is very hurt right now, you will just have to wait until after he heals before you put him back in the hospital, alright? Did you take the bandages off his mouth? Help me put them back, they're there for a reason you know."

"Okay Amy. I'm sorry. But I got other news too. When Dimmer was awake, he told me he remembered his past!" Rei mumbled under her breath, "Even if he was being very sarcastic when he admitted it…"

Amy was, as expected, overjoyed at the news. It was the best news she heard in the past while, and she had been trying to find a silver lining behind all of this. "That's great Rei!"

"Oh yes that's right I remember that you said your friend was recovering from amnesia. It's too bad I have to meet him when he was asleep" Greg wheeled in with his one good arm using the electronic switch on the arm of the wheelchair. "I would like to have…" Greg stopped as he seen Dimmer's face.

"Oh Greg." Rei had only met Greg since they brought him to her temple to help repair the wound. "I didn't notice you there. How is your arm?"

Greg didn't answer as a wave of familiar events washed into his mind. Dimmer's face, but not the one he wore now. It was an unshaven face, years older hidden underneath a scarf. The black brimmed hat glinting in the afternoon sun, and the blade that did not reflect light, that pierced his arm. Greg knew all at once the darkness hidden underneath those closed, peaceful looking eyes.

Dimmer's bangs fell back over his eyes as Greg continued to stare.

Amy was worried Greg grew suddenly silent in the middle of a sentence. "Rei? Please check on his arm. I'm not sure, but I believe the wound is spreading some how."

"Okay Amy." Rei had a feeling Amy was right. Greg was still staring without blinking at Dimmer's unconscious body. Rei tuned her senses to the supernatural. What she felt she couldn't believe. True the wound with the dark power had spread slowly enveloping Greg's body entirely in a small layer of dark energy, but it was what she felt behind her emanating from Dimmer that surprised her. Dimmer's body was surrounded in a cocoon of the same dark energy. It seemed to slowly seep into Dimmers body and skin. She couldn't see his skin but the bond between his aura and the dark glow was obvious. "But how could one man generate so much dark energy?" Thought Rei, as she tried to do what she could with Greg's wound. She took out one of her seals and placed it on her arm. "If it is a dark aura surrounding the wound as it is Dimmer, than I shouldn't be trying to cleanse the wound," she thought, "I should be trying to cleanse him."

She sealed the power and the stunned Greg, finally came out of his trance.

Greg looked down at the piece of paper, obviously some kind of ward, on his wound, than back up to Rei. "Thank you Rei I…. I … think I feel a lot better already…" Greg wobbly stood up out of the wheel chair. Amy put his good arm over her neck to help support him. He left it there, but he knew he really didn't need it. Greg felt a little selfish, but he also felt MUCH better being, that close to Amy. He smiled and walked towards Dimmer. Than he wobbled a bit. "Did something just happen to me?" He thought.

"You are the one. You are the instigator, the beginning, the spark that set the all of fate off. I can tell, I can see. You don't belong here, but the question is will we be better for it." Greg leaned close and whispered into Dimmer's ear, "I can see your inner torments, and your punishments. The three evils, don't let them continue to have their way. It maybe that the fate of our world depends on how you fight for it." Greg could no longer understand what he was whispering. He knew his words were being received. He also knew they might not be remembered. He continued to speak, unsure of the words spilling forth from his own mouth.

"Don't let a dark past echo into your future."

"Don't block out others, it is from their strength you must learn to thrive."

"Follow the light of the flame to find your way through the darkness"

"Live. The answer sings of the past self within your mind and it sings of answers you look for in the minds of those around you."

With each line Greg gained a little strength, and the force grew in his words, but when he finished it felt like that same strength and more seeped from him, he was suddenly glad that he accepted Amy's arm helping to hold him up.

Sudden contortions ripped through Dimmer's body. His eyelids opened up but his pupils were rolled back into his head. And in the low growl that any that heard would recognize as Sundown's voice spoke. "Valor! Do not interfere. All you try, is USELESS! He cannot hear you. Your efforts are futile, and your philosophy, crap." A smirk grew under the bandages on Dimmer's face. "He will choose. And he will choose me, for I am in control, and I offer more power than you."

Greg felt himself stand up on his own with a strength he knew he could never have, he felt his own eyes strain upwards into his skull and spoke with pride. "I am a master of time and space Sundown. He will choose, than we will see just who carries the most strength. The Council has once again foretold what is to come. Your acts against fate have proven worthless, and now fate speaks out against you. Your demise is near."

"We shall see Valor. Fate cannot speak for those who live outside its laws, so again, we shall see." With that the contortions running through Dimmer's body stopped abruptly.

Greg took his arm from Amy. Amy and Rei both looked too stunned to do much.

Greg looked at Amy, "I'm sorry about this Amy, but it is for everyone, I have to do it, but I promise you this. I will never do it again, if I have to change every fate they make, ignore every word they say, I will never do this again." Amy was about to say something, but Greg raised his arm, and made a hand movement in front of her face. Amy stopped and looked like she was in a trance.

Rei shook herself out of her frozen state after seeing what could have been an attempt against her friend. "Hey! What did you do to her you creep!"

The white was all that showed of Greg's eyes, and they started glowing a very sad feeling, blue light. "Rei" All the sadness and loneliness in the world seemed to pulse from those eyes. "I miss you…"

"What do you mean you miss me?" Rei looked closely into the blue light; it seemed soooo… familiar. "Do I know you?"

"Rei, please wait for me. I will be back like I promised… or will promise soon." Greg had a sudden funny look to him that reminded her of someone she thought she knew.

"Stupid time paradoxes. You know? I don't think I'll ever be used to of them. Worry not for Amy she will be fine, but she will not remember this. That is for the best." He smiled; it was a soft, sad smile. The smile of some one who experienced so much heartache and trouble in his past. And his eyes, they shined with a light inside that told of happy memories. That smile, those eyes, she would never forget the expression he wore, she didn't know why but that image was burned upon her heart forever.

Rei looked closer into his eyes, ignoring the fate of a trance-state Amy, believing in his words, though she was not sure why. She forgot that it was Greg that this was coming from. Her heart was crossed with worry about Dimmer who had gone through some strange change upon remembering his past. She felt strength and offered comfort from those eyes. The comfort se needed so badly after Dimmer's fall. Her face and Greg's were now inches apart. Her face was bathing in the eerie glow coming from his eyes.

"I can't do it." she heard him whisper to himself, "I just can't." Tears were streaming down Greg's face, "but this wasn't Greg." Rei thought. She knew it, yet it was all she knew. She didn't know what stranger had inhabited Greg's body, she didn't know what she was doing, and she didn't know how their lips met. She felt his intake of breath, and the soft feeling of his lips. It felt like an eternity and a second all collapsed, time was meaningless while touching him. An eternity did pass and yet it ended all to soon.

They slowly parted, Rei felt herself shaking from the emotions running through her. She watched as he mouthed the words "thank you". He brought two of his fingers to his lips, and softly kissed the tip of them, she watched as his hand slowly came toward her. She closed her eyes in anticipation. She felt his soft touch in the middle of her forehead, and shivered as his fingers trailed down off the tip of her nose to place themselves as soft as a kiss upon her lips. The fingers fell from her lips and all at once she felt, rather than saw, the glow in Greg's eyes disappear. She felt a sudden wave of loneliness unlike any she had felt before. Tears brimmed along her eyes, as she knew for some reason she would wait a long time before seeing him again, and yet somehow knew he was close to her.

"Valor" She said the word to herself, "Sundown called him Valor"

"Sundown called who Valor? Was Sundown here? Rei? Rei!" Amy was trying to get Rei's attention. But her friend just continued to stare off into space. Amy was going to try to shake her out, but she looked so fulfilled just leaning against the wall like that, so at peace. The doctors would be moving Dimmer's bed out of the emergency ward soon though, so Amy got her attention after she put the fallen unconscious Greg back in his wheelchair. Amy made a mental note to ask Rei how Greg had fallen in the first place later.

Next time on Sailor Moon!:

*Sailor Moon waves*

"Hi again! Next time in A Change of Fate, me and the rest of the scouts, are going to try to clear things up! And we finally figure out why Dimmer is always falling unconscious in the middle of things.

remember bad memories are a very hard thing to get over, but we can't let something like that get in our way of being happy! Don't give up! Things will get better!"

Sailor Moon says!" She giggles

Mike's vcr stops recording.

Endnotes:Short chapter! And now Dimmer's past has come into play. What the heck am I supposed to do for an encore? Who the hell is Valor?! Oh! And watch out, this one plays with the mind a little. XD Which means it can be a little confusing. Sorry it took so long for this chapter to come out. Lots of projects lately, which leaves little time for uploads. But I will continue. This fic will be finished!! If it kills me this fic will be finished…