Sailor Moon Fan Fiction ❯ Shades of Grey ❯ Chapter 3 ( Chapter 3 )

Title: Shades of Gray

Author: Moonlight Storm

E-mail: MoonlightStormSM@aol.com

Genre: Romance/Action/Adventure

Season: 1st

Rating: PG-13

Summary: Usagi is changed into a vampire a year before becoming Sailor Moon. As her soulmate, Mamoru is changed too but doesn't know why or how it's happening.

AN's at the bottom....

"Talking"

'Thinking'

Disclaimer: *sticks hands in the air* Ok ok! I don't own Sailor Moon.

Shades of Gray

Chapter 3

Tsukino Usagi ambled along a road that would eventually lead her home both spiritually and physically. She stopped slowly and turned to face a pair of fluorescent crimson eyes.

`One of Ghyard's creatures. It wouldn't be the first time. That incident with the troll was horrible.'

"Usagi…?" the creature ventured hesitantly.

"Hai, that's me," she answered shortly.

Usagi was getting a tad tired of how much Ghyard checked up on her. "I've been looking for you for a very long time Usagi-chan," the form said before stepping out of the shadows of the dark alley and into the light of the street lamp, revealing itself to be a petite black cat.

At this Usagi's eyes widened. Trolls, goblins, dwarves, unicorns, griffins, dragons; those she could deal with. They were all mythical creations, but a cat was a normal, every day, run-of-the-mill animal. But since it talked she supposed it was no more a normal cat than she was a normal human.

"You have? What do you want?" questioned the blond coolly, quickly covering her surprise.

`Aren't black cats supposed to be bad luck?'

"My name is Luna, and you are not what most call an ordinary girl."

Usagi held back a bark of laughter.

`Well this is interesting, does she think this is new news to me or something? I haven't been what most people would call an ordinary girl since Ghyard made me a vampire.'

The cat, no, Luna, had stopped talking, Usagi now realized.

"Luna? What were you saying?"

"Yes Luna, do tell."

Even though her back was to him, Usagi could sense the smirk in his voice.

`Mamoru-baka, why not? The cat comes acting like I should be surprised when she tells me I'm different, and now he shows up before I have a chance to question the cat.'

"What exactly do you want Mamoru-baka?" she snarled, barely repressing the remembrance of his touch.

He grinned.

"Only to know what dear Luna was saying."

The ebony cat in question glared up at both of them.

"Too bad you'll never find out. Come on Luna, I need to get home," Usagi said as she bent to pick up the cat.

The blonde hair blue-eyed classic beauty girl felt similar blue eyes follow her down the street until she turned a corner. When she did Usagi let out a sigh of relief, "What were you saying Luna?"

Luna looked up thoughtfully at her new companion.

"Who was that man Usagi-chan?" "Mamoru-baka? Just some guy I bump into all the time. We don't get along but he's best friends with this really cute guy Motoki-onii-san who works at the Crown Game Center."

"Oh, well, alright then."

"What were you saying before?" Usagi prompted.

Luna blinked a few times, then continued, "Yes, well, you're extremely important to me right now Usagi. I've been searching for you for quite a while now."

The girl looked quizzically at the cat.

"I can buy that, maybe, if you can give me a plausible reason for why I'm so important."

In answer to the question the crescent mooned black cat did a small back flip and produced a brooch, which fell gently to the pavement.

"This is your brooch. You are Sailor Moon."

Blue eyes narrowed, "And what, or who, is Sailor Moon?"

Red eyes stared unblinkingly back into the blue, "The champion of justice. There is an evil person who seeks to take over the world. For this purpose she uses generals, and in turn, they use youma to steal energy to give to their queen."

"So all those strange incidents in the paper and on the news about hospitalized people, were in reality attacked by youma trying to steal their energy?" Usagi said quickly piecing together the bits of information.

Luna smiled as much as a cat could without being a Cheshire cat and nodded.

"And I'm supposed to be the one to stop them?"

"Exactly."

"Alright then, how am I supposed to `save the world' with a brooch?" Usagi asked the cat.

"Shout `Moon Prism Power, Make Up' while holding the brooch.

The girl was still quite skeptical but did as Luna told her.

"Moon Prism Power, Make Up!"

The world suddenly floated away at the rush of power thrown at Usagi.

Her vision was still hazy when everything stopped spinning. Tsukino Usagi looked down at herself to find she was Tsukino Usagi no more. Her school uniform had become much, much shorter, there were pure white gloves on her hands that rose to the elbow, her legs were encased in blood red knee-height boots, and she felt an unfamiliar weight upon her head. When she brought a gloved hand up to inspect the weight, she felt a small jewel in the middle of a tiara resting on her forehead.

A confused pair of cerulean eyes turned to meet the confident stare from the cat; and everyone knows cats are unbeatable at a staring contest, surpassing even vampires. In this new uniform all sarcasm and disbelief fell from Usagi. She opened her mouth to say one thing, "Now what?"

Luna sighed slowly, "You won't be alone in this, there will be other Senshi. But first we have to find them."

Their conversation was cut abruptly short by a scream coming from a near apartment building, "Let me guess, duty calls?" the Senshi of the Moon asked sarcastically.

"I suppose you'll be getting your first fighting lesson sooner than I thought."

A horrible pain like icy needles clouded Mamoru's vision before only blackness remained.

It was ugly. It was huge. It was energy sucking. It was a huge, ugly, energy-sucking thing. Better known as a youma. And it was in her park. And so it must go.

"Yo! Youma, over here!"

(AN: Ok, insert the standard Japanese speech here. What is it? Can anyone help me? I've been searching a few web sites for a while and can't find it. Help!)

The youma's only reply was to send questing a long tentacled arm in the general direction of Sailor Moon. She gracefully leaped out of harm's way, only to trip on a rock in her landing.

"Get up Sailor Moon!" Her reflexes as a vampire were considerably heightened, even so she had just barely enough time to clear the area where the youma had attacked her in a way no mortal could.

Red eyes became slits as Luna observed the Moon Senshi. She was pleased with the maturity and willingness of Usagi, after the expected disbelief, but she had an astonishing reaction time. It probably wasn't in either of their best interests to look the fabled gift horse in the mouth, so she stopped musing about it. If Sailor Moon could react quicker than a youma, all the better.

Sailor Moon deftly avoided a 6th tentacle and called out, "Alright, it's starting to tire, now what?"

"Take off your tiara and shout, "Moon Tiara Action". That should destroy it," the feline yelled back from her safe perch on a branch in a nearby oak tree.

"Moon Tiara Action!" Sailor Moon watched the youma give one last cry of defiance and then turned to dust. As the saying goes: ashes to ashes and dust to dust.

"Well done Sailor Moon," Luna leaped from the branch to the ground at the teenager's feet.

"Yes Sailor Moon. You've done a good job," called yet another voice.

Sharp ears placed the sound and the Senshi and cat turned as one to face the owner of the voice. And blue met blue.

He was dressed all in black, a white masquerade mask hiding his identity. The tuxedo he wore looked to be tailored to fit his body, but before Sailor Moon could note anything else, he was gone. Just vanished.

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An: Minna-chan! Aren't you proud? There goes another chapter…The next should hopefully be out sometime soon. Can someone e-mail me Sailor Moon's Japanese speech and possibly the translation if you have it? Once again, my e-mail MoonlightStormSM@aol.com. Domo Arigato! And Kuroi Doragon, thanks so much for reviewing!