World's Apart
By
Razzy
Rei's Day
Sunrise . Rei Hino awoke with a gasp. She had just come out of a disturbing dream. She sat up in bed and brushed her long black hair out of her face. What had the dream been about? It was hard to remember now. The only thing she could recall was that it dealt with change. Massive change. And it didn’t seem like the sort of dream she should just brush off. It was almost like a premonition. If only she could remember it more clearly… Rei got up and got dressed. Today was Friday. That meant she worked at the shrine today.
Her
grandfather had passed away, and Yuichiro had gone away to pursue his
music career. So the only
one left to maintain the Hikawa Shrine was Rei.
However, she did have another job.
One that she worked Monday through Thursday.
What was she? An
international businesswoman, of course!
She loved her job. And
on Friday s and weekends, she worked at the Hikawa shrine.
If only there was someone else to maintain it… But she didn’t
mind the work.
Rei decided to talk to her divine fire. Perhaps it could clear things up. It seemed to be the only thing Rei depended on nowadays… After all, she was the one everyone in the world seemed to turn to! She was the one that always had to be independent, and was always in the spotlight. Not that she really minded it all that much. It was fun most of the time, but every once in a while she felt lonely. Today was shaping up to be one of those days.
She
kneeled before the flame and chanted.
She closed her eyes and concentrated on the dream, trying to pull
fragments out. Her eyes
snapped open and she saw a scene of the
It
was about
“Usagi!
It’s strange to see you up so early!”
Her smile faded when she saw her friend’s sad stare.
“…Usagi? What is
it…?”
“Rei-chan…”
Usagi said quietly. “Rei-chan.”
With that she continued to stare off blankly.
“Hey,
what happened?” Rei was really worried now.
When Usagi was depressed like this, things were bad.
“I
wondered if I should go away, Rei-chan,” the distant Usagi replied.
“But I can’t bring myself to leave.
I just can’t.”
“Go
away? Usagi!” Rei was cut off by a familiar voice.
“Rei-san!
Usagi-san!” Usagi lost the distant look in her eyes to one of
surprise. Rei and Usagi
whirled around to be greeted by three unexpected visitors.
“Three
Lights!” Rei exclaimed. “Wh..
you’re back!” Sure
enough, Yaten, Taiki, and Seiya were standing there.
“Well
we said we’d come back and visit,” Seiya replied.
“And we’re true to our word!”
“Welcome
back!” Usagi cried, her depressed look all but gone.
She ran forward and gave Seiya a hug.
“I didn’t think you’d come back!”
“Yeah,
didn’t you have to rebuild Kinmoku or something?” Rei asked, also
going closer to them. Yaten
winked.
“Of
course!” He said. “It’s been 10 years.
We’ve done a pretty good job.
Princess Kakyuu told us to take a vacation.
So we decided to come here!”
“That’s
wonderful!” Rei replied.
“Usaaaagi-chaaaaan!”
Another familiar ditzy voice called from not too far away.
Rei turned to see Minako bouncing along.
“Minako-chan?”
Rei asked.
“I
sent our luggage through, and our flight is going to leave soon!”
Minako exclaimed as she came over.
“And… WOAHH!!!” She
stopped and pointed wildly at the Three Lights.
“Yaten-kun! Taiki-san! Seiya-kun!
You’re here??” She
looked utterly shocked.
“Yeah,
like we were just saying,” Yaten said as he rolled his eyes, “We
decided to pay you guys a visit. Is
that really so unexpected?”
“Yeah!”
Minako replied. “And
Rei-chan! I didn’t expect
to see YOU here either! Isn’t today a shrine day?”
“Well,”
Rei said as she flipped her hair back, “I got a premonition to come
here. I guess I was sensing
the return of our friends here.”
After all, that was definitely a change, right?
Maybe not as massive as her dream had made it seem, but it was
still a change. Suddenly,
the ground beneath her began to heave back and forth.
People were falling over, and a slight panic was setting in.
“E…
Earthquake!” Usagi yelled as she crashed to the ground.
“This
doesn’t seem like it’s a normal earthquake!” Yaten yelled back.
He was right. Rei
sensed something from the outside causing this.
She ran towards a window to see the sun flaring brightly.
The glass shattered, and she was surrounded in a sea of
glittering shards of it.
“Ahh!”
Rei covered her face and felt as though someone pushed her from
behind… right out the window. She
was falling now, through darkness.
Someone had their arms around her… Rei’s landing was soft.
She opened her eyes, and was nearly blinded.
The sun was so bright! The
realization that she had landed on top of someone caused her to jump to
her feet. She looked
down… and was shocked at who she saw.
It was a blonde man wearing a gray uniform trimmed with red. His
tiny bright red earrings were reflecting the bright sunlight.
He made an “oomph” sound and sat up as he rubbed his head.
“Are
you alright?” He asked as he raised a gloved hand to shield his eyes
from the sunlight.
“Jedite?!?”
Rei exclaimed in utter shock. He
stood up and brushed himself off.
“I
saw that window break in front of you, and the floor underneath you was
about to cave in so…” He trailed off and looked at the people that
were running around aimlessly. “Looks
like I don’t quite fit in.” He closed his eyes and glowed red for a
minute. When he opened
those blue eyes again, he was wearing a typical red T-shirt and black
jeans.
“How
are you here?” Rei asked in confusion.
“Aren’t you dead? And
why did you save me?”
“Huh?”
Jedite squinted at her. “No,
I never died. After I
failed to kill you that time… at THIS airport, actually, Queen Beryl
froze me in a hunk of ice. Then
she kept me on display in that horrible place.
But you see that?” He pointed up to the sun.
“See how bright it is? Well,
turns out that something has dived into the sun, causing it to be
brighter. It also caused a
slight rift in dimensions. So
I was shifted to this world, and melted out of my frozen state! I can
finally move again. As for
saving you… well, I just saw you standing there.
I didn’t actually realize it was YOU, Sailor Mars, until you
were talking to me.”
“Ah
heh heh…” Rei looked around quickly.
“Hey, my name is Rei. Rei
Hino. Don’t call me… what you just said.”
“Still
trying to hide your identity?” Jedite asked with a coy look.
“Doesn’t really work too well, does it?
How many people after me found out about you?”
“Ummm…”
Rei shook her head. “Anyway!
What do you plan to do here?”
“Well,”
He said with a perplexed look, “Everyone I knew is gone.
My friends, and the Queen… I assume you and your friends
defeated them.”
“Yeah…”
Rei looked back up to the airport and tried to see the rest of her
friends up there. “We
did.”
“Still
in the business of protecting the Earth, I take it?” Jedite tried to
follow her gaze, but the sun was too bright.
“Of
course!” Rei turned back to him.
This was weird. He
was just talking to her normally… and he showed no signs of hostility.
“Well,
then I suppose you should get started again.”
“Why?
What’s going on?” Now she faced him completely.
If he was implying that he was going to try to destroy the earth,
she would take him out right then.
“I
already told you,” He said with a roll of his eyes.
“Something dived into the sun, and that’s why it’s so
bright. I’m pretty sure
it plans to destroy this planet.”
“Ah…”
Rei looked up. He did
mention that before. “Why
are you telling me this?”
“Hm?”
He gave her an amused look. “Ah.
You expect me to still view you as an enemy.
No, I don’t begrudge you anymore.
You avenged my being frozen by destroying Queen Beryl.
My mind has at last been freed.
Although you did destroy my friend, Nehplite… But all of us
were under Beryl’s control. Before…
before we were supposed to serve the Earth back during the Silver
Millennium. So I don’t
want it destroyed.”
“Do
you…” Rei turned her gaze back to the fallen general.
“Do you remember the Silver Millennium?”
“Not
really,” he replied. I
have trouble remembering a lot of things.
I was locked away for so long…”
“Oh.”
Of course he didn’t remember. No
one could…
“Anyway,”
He brought her out of her new train of thought.
“I think we’d better do something about that sun.”
“We?”
This really was odd. Jedite
was going to help her save the world from the sun?
“Obviously,”
he said with annoyance. “What
else am I going to do?” Rei
blinked. He had a point.
“Okay…
do you think the sun has something to do with this horrible
earthquake?” She watched
as the airport continued to buckle in on itself.
She really hoped Usagi and the others were okay…
“Yeah,
probably. Eh?” Jedite reached out his hand and grabbed a hold of a
floating piece of paper. “Though…
look at this.” Rei leaned
over his arm and looked at the paper.
It appeared to be a scavenger hunt.
There was a little picture of a lawn gnome at the bottom.
“Weird…”
Rei muttered.
“Look,
there’s a picture of the sun at the top.
I think this is from our opponent.” He examined it closely.
Normally, Rei would think he was insane.
Thinking a child’s scavenger hunt that had fallen from the sky
was their key to save the world. But
she did sense something strange from it, so why not go along?
“Alright!
What’s the first thing say?” She asked.
It was a little hard to see.
“Sunglasses,”
Jedite replied. “Easy.”
He made a two pairs of them appear.
“I can make articles of clothing appear without any trouble.
Here.” He handed a pair to Rei, and put the others on.
Rei did the same.
“The
next thing…” She said as she leaned closer, “Is a remote
control.”
“Can’t
make that appear,” Jedite said with a frown.
He looked down at Rei, and for the first time, she noticed how
close she was standing to him. “Where
can we find that?” He asked. She
stepped back, a little flustered.
“Ummm…
An electronics store?”
So
“There
are only three things left,” Jedite muttered.
"Oh?
What are they?” She replied.
By now, she was getting along quite well with the man that had
once tried to kill her. Throughout
their bizarre escapades, he had proven to have a sense of humor, and
good people skills. Rei was
quite surprised.
“A
Card Captor Sakura doll, the book Einstein’s Dreams, and two
live fish.”
“Great…”
Rei sighed. “I guess our
next stop is a toy store. You
know, the sun has been getting progressively brighter… and how in the
world is all this stuff supposed to help us save the world from the
thing that dived into the sun?” Jedite
shrugged.
“No
idea. But I have a feeling
we’ll find out once we go to the place it directs.”
“Where’s
that?”
“Ummm…
it gives a street address at the bottom.
It’s signed, ‘The Rebel Gnomes’.
I’m assuming then, they are our allies, and the other gnomes
are our opponents?” Rei shrugged.
It wasn’t like she was going to try and make sense of things.
There was no point in it. Not
now. She was too far gone
into the realm of random insanity.
Why turn back now?
“There’s
a toy store over this way,” she replied.
2:00. Rei and Jedite had finally finished the list. The book had been very hard to find, considering it was written in English. Since Rei was using both hands to hold the large shopping bag, Jedite was holding the little bag with two tetra fish in it. They reached the address on the list, and found a truly strange sight.
There
was a forklift in the street, with a little girl dangling from it.
Crawling around all over the place were lawn gnomes come to life.
Rei felt her jaw drop. Yeah,
she had been wandering around shopping for things on that list all day,
but she never expected to see something like THAT.
She saw Sailor Venus, Mercury, and Star Healer run by,
accompanied by Tuxedo Kamen. Before
she could react, her arm was grabbed by Makoto.
“Rei-chan!”
She said in relief. She
regarded Jedite for a moment, and then pulled both of them into an
alleyway so the people could no longer see them.
They weren’t really paying much attention anyway.
“Did
you complete the list?” Taiki asked from the shadows.
He stepped forward.
“Yes,”
Jedite answered. He held up
his baggie of fish to prove it.
“Great!”
Makoto cried. “We need
those to stop the lawn gnomes!”
“Yeah…
um…. Will that fix the sun?” Rei was trying her best to process what
was going on.
“Oh
yeah,” Taiki replied. “They’re
the ones that have done that to the sun.
They crash landed their mothership there.
But with this stuff… we can set everything right!”
“Rei-chan,”
Makoto said seriously, “You and your friend there need to rescue
Usagi-chan and Seiya-kun.”
“What
happened to them?” Now Rei just didn’t care about making sense of
things. If something had
happened to Usagi… “What do I need to do?”
“The
Lawn Gnomes caught them at the airport,” Taiki replied.
“Makoto here managed to warn me in time. We’ve been working
with the Rebel Gnomes to fix everything.
Listen, get back to the airport!
Seiya and Usagi-san need your help!”
“The
airport?” Rei echoed. “Right! What
do we do when we’re there?”
“Jump
in the hole,” Makoto answered. “I
know you can do it. We
can’t come with you… we have to deal with things here.”
“Okay!” Rei put her shopping bag on the pavement, and Jedite handed his fish and list over to Taiki. “Come on, Jedite! Good luck, Mako-chan!” She gave Jedite a look, and he nodded. They ran off towards the airport. What could have happened to Seiya and Usagi?