Sailor Moon Fan Fiction ❯ Boil and Bubble: A Tale of Two Witches ❯ Plane Pain ( Chapter 1 )

 

Disclaimer: Sailor Moon belongs to Naoko Takeuchi et al. This is a non-profit endeavor, done purely for the joy of doing it.

 

Title inspired by Shakespeare's Macbeth.

 

Boil and Bubble: A Tale of Two Witches

 

Chapter the first: Plane Pain - in which everything starts to go wrong and the lives of two witches are taken to new heights. Also, the author makes a bad, poorly fitting pun and breaks down the fourth wall with a sledgehammer, all in the space of one little italicized tag.

 

Today was not Eudial's day.

 

Of course, it was almost never Eudial's day, of late, what with the senshi thwarting her every move. But this target had seemed so … promising. She was sure he had a talisman. And, then the lazy slob sped off to California, before she even got the chance to see!

 

At first, it had not seemed such a bad thing. At least the senshi wouldn't show up in California, and she'd get a nice semi-vacation, courtesy of Dr. Tomoe's wallet. Still, Eudial was not one to play before the work was done.

 

Things were looking up for her. What goes up must come down, however, and

Eudial's good mood had crashed to earth like a fifty million dollar space probe, that is, hard and due to the general stupidity of those around her.

 

It was all that girl's fault.

 

“Oh, steward!” shrilled the girl in question, sitting beside Eudial, “When are we taking off?” She batted her eyelashes. Eudial's fingers curled on the shared armrest.

 

“In a few minutes, Miss,” he said, leaning over slightly. Bad idea, Eudial knew. It was best not to encourage her.

 

Mimete sighed. “You must get to go all around the world and see all sorts of places! New York, Venice… and Paris, of course. The city of love.” She stared at him pointedly. “Have you ever been?”

 

“Um, yes, well…”

 

Eudial felt like knocking herself out on the tray table and spending the remainder of the ride in blissful oblivion already.

 

“You can call me Mimi.” The orange haired girl clasped the steward's hand. And his only crime was being pretty! thought Eudial. She wondered when the drink cart would come around.

 

“I have to get going…”

 

“Oh, why not stay?” Mimete breathed.

 

Sooner than later, if she was lucky.

 

“Erm.” The steward looked uncomfortable.

 

For the record, Eudial didn't believe in luck.

 

“Passengers! Please fasten your seatbelts, put your tray tables up and your seats back in the full upright position! Today's ten o-clock flight from Tokyo to New York will be taking off shortly.” A smiling stewardess stood in the center of the plane. “Please remain seated as we go over the location of the emergency exits and the safety procedures.”

 

“Oops,” said the steward, wresting his hand from Mimete's grip, “I guess I have to go help out.” His eyes shone with barely suppressed relief. Mimete practically growled as he helped the stewardess demonstrate the proper way to put on the oxygen mask.

 

“Why that little—“ she seethed.

 

“When we get off the plane,” Eudial sighed. The last thing they needed was a cat fight in midair.

 

“Don't tell me what to do!”

 

“You didn't have to come, you know.”

 

“But it's Gustav Valcignione!” Mimete gave a starry eyed little sigh at the thought of their target's rippling muscles and thick, luxurious hair, “And you'd just mess it up, like you did all the others!”

 

Where was that drink cart?

 

It was not that she didn't like Mimete. Oh no, she outright despised her. Put it this way: If a giant flaming meteor were to crash into the planet, Eudial could die happy as long as she was secure in the knowledge that it would kill Mimete first. Everything about the orange witch drove Eudial up the wall. She had assumed, over the years, that the feeling was mutual.

 

They had never gotten along, Eudial knew. First, there was the girl's screechy, nails-on-a chalkboard voice. Oh heavens, the voice! It made Eudial want to cram a pen up her own nose, just to distract herself from the aural pain.

 

Mimete's personality, too, left much to be desired. She was a ditzy, dizzy, lazy airhead, the polar opposite to Eudial's hardworking practicality. And, on top of it all, she was vicious, too! Eudial had experienced the orange witch's vindictive side first hand.

 

She remembered the time when Mimete managed to `accidentally' let loose an entire swarm of lab rats in her office. And then, there was the time that she `accidentally' let loose an entire swarm of ants in Eudial's office. And the time (also, incidentally, `accidental') that Mimete let loose an entire swarm of snails in her office …

 

There was an uncomfortable pattern here.

 

In short, Mimete was the last person that Eudial would want to spend eleven and a half hours on a plane with. And that's not even counting the transit flight between New York and California. (At least Tomoe had the good sense not to book a non-stop flight. Eudial didn't think she could stand to be cooped up with that girl for so long.)

 

The first three hours were mostly uneventful. They showed an in-flight movie, something about a man who was really a dog that was really a leopard trapped in the body of a toaster, or some such nonsense. Mimete spent her time flirting with the steward, who evaded her aggravating advances with admirable aplomb.

 

The drink cart had yet to make an appearance.

 

Eudial, for her part, decided to take a nap. Not the easiest feat to manage with only the pathetic two or three square feet of seat space. Eudial figured it might be better if she put her chair back.

 

Ha-ha.

 

The chair gave an undignified squeak and jerked back maybe a quarter of an inch. Lovely.

 

Grumbling, Eudial decided to make the best of the situation. After all, how often did she get the opportunity to see how well a person could manage sleeping at a ninety degree angle?

 

She rested her head on her cheek and closed her eyes.

 

Suddenly, she felt the back of her seat jolt. She turned her head, resolving to ignore it. After the action had been repeated twice more, though, it became apparent that Something Had to be Done â„¢.

 

Eudial was quite good at Getting Something Done. In fact, when Something needed to be Done at work, Eudial was often the first one called to do it. She had perfected the art. It was a matter she prided herself on. Sometimes, all Eudial needed to do was glare at Something, and it would whimper, then skulk off and Do itself.

This in mind, Eudial peered around the headrest of her chair. The culprit, as it turned out, was an extremely freckled boy, about ten or eleven years old.

 

Eudial glared.

 

The child had the audacity to laugh! Laugh! At her! Of course, it seemed to Eudial that she had once again been called upon to Do Something, and, ordinarily she would have. Except … with the flight and that girl and everything, Eudial didn't feel entirely up to Doing Something.

 

Let Something Do itself, this time, she thought, and rolled over. She could sleep easier now that she wasn't facing Mimete (who, by the way, had commandeered the window seat immediately, upon entering the plane.)

 

Unfortunately for Eudial, the child took her non-action as a sign of friendship.

 

“Hey, lady!” he yelled, kicking her seat. When no response was forthcoming, he yelled louder, “Hey, laaaddddyyyy! Hey!”

 

“What?” hissed Eudial. The word dripped with poison. A lesser man might have crumbled. Not so for Timmy Walker, full-time resident of Nebraska. His spiteful father had given him three cans of SuperSugah soda pop and had helped him smuggle at least four pounds of candy in his jacket before sending him back to his mother in the USA. That'd teach her. Full-time custody his red behind.

 

“Whatcha doin'? Huh? Huh? Whatcha doin', lady?” Timmy bounced, reveling in sugar high euphoria.

 

“Ignoring you,” said Eudial, through gritted teeth. And she did.

 

Then the kicking began again. Eudial whipped her head around and glared. The boy looked up at her sheepishly, actually stopping for a few minutes. Of course, this respite was short lived.

 

Eudial grimaced as she felt the back of her seat jolt. She considered asking Mimete to switch chairs with her. The idea was abandoned, however, when Eudial realized that it would require actually talking to the orange witch. Ug.

 

Thus, she continued to rely of the power of the glare.

 

This basically set the tone for the rest of the ride. Shortened version: Kick glare, kick kick, glare kick glare flirt flirt flirt, kick kick kick glare kick, blessed interlude with the drink cart, kick kick kick, glare glare glare. Repeat for about eight or nine hours.

 

Around this time, Eudial was considering destroying the child. The scene it would undoubtedly create would be worth it. However, her homicidal urges were soon deterred by a force bigger than any one person.

 

Well, so to speak. Geno FitzGerald was twice as big as one person, due to a glandular problem that he refused to have treated. `At my age,' he said, `it's no use going to those doctors. They'd only be repairing a washing machine with an expired warranty.' Geno was twenty seven. Also, he was not very good with metaphors.

 

“Please fasten your seatbelts,” he said, over the loudspeaker, “and put your tray tables up and your seats back in the full upright position as we will now be landing in New York.” Hey, it was a gig.

 

The plane hit a little bit of turbulence on the way down and the pest behind Eudial bumped into his obnoxiously non-upright tray table.

 

Justice, Eudial deemed, had been served. At least, for that irritation. Now, if only she could do something about Mimete…