on a roll!
I recommend reading my last two posts before continuing. There'll be at least one more, and hopefully two, though I haven't quite figured out the last one yet.
41. Jacket
(Part Three of the Luna Pen Series)
Alicia Blade
560 words
Rei looked up from sweeping the temple steps to see Usagi, Ami, and Luna walking toward her-Usagi looking furious, Ami looking perplexed, and Luna looking evidently amused.
Before she could call out a greeting, Usagi yelled out, “Rei, we need your help!”
“Well nice to see you too, Odango Atama.”
Usagi scowled. “Don’t call me that.”
“What are you guys doing here? Has the Negaverse done something?”
Ami looked up ponderously. “I don’t think it’s Negaverse related.”
“The Luna Pen is malfunctioning,” Usagi answered, pulling the pen out of her purse. “And we don’t know why.”
“Well what did you do to it, Usagi?”
“I didn’t do anything! How come everyone keeps asking me that?”
“Because you’re such a klutz, you probably banged it one too many times when crashing into a lamppost.”
“I did not!”
Usagi’s whining was cut short by Ami grabbing the pen out of her hand and shooing them all into the closest dojo. “Stop arguing, you guys. This could be serious. We need to be sure that the Luna Pen isn’t having any major problems, in case we ever need it for a real emergency.”
“What were you trying to use it for?” Rei asked, and grew increasingly curious as Ami and Luna both turned teasing smiles on Usagi, who, for her part, immediately tried to make herself invisible. “Usagi?”
“I just... asked it... to... mamethobjetomamrusdsire.”
“Excuse me?”
Sighing, Usagi raised her eyes up the ceiling in exasperation. “I asked it to make me the object of Mamoru’s desire, okay?”
Bursting into a fit of laughter, Rei fell to the floor clutching her stomach. “You what?” she cackled. “Well no wonder it’s not working! No amount of magic could ever make Mamoru want you!”
“Hey! I resent that remark!”
Rolling her eyes, Rei turned to see Ami watching them and looking torn between laughing at the thought herself or chastising Rei for being mean. Shaking her head, she tried to bring them back to the present issue.
“So I’ve analyzed all of its inner compartments, wiring, and chemical makeup and nothing seems to be wrong. Rei, I was wondering if you could do a spiritual check on it to see if it’s emitting any strange vibes that could relate to the disturbance.”
Shrugging, Rei sat back on her heels and picked up the pen, turning it over in her hands. “It doesn’t feel strange. It feels just like all of the Senshi equipment does.” After a moment of thinking, she handed it back to Usagi. “Maybe the problem isn’t the pen. Maybe the problem is Mamoru.”
“The problem’s always Mamoru,” Usagi muttered.
“What do you mean, Rei?”
“Maybe it just can’t read into Mamoru’s thoughts and feeling. Here, Usagi, why don’t you try turning yourself into something else Mamoru-related. Like... dress up in some of his favorite things or something.”
Sighing, Usagi held up the Luna Pen, and declared (feeling rather foolish as she did so), “Luna Pen, dress me up in Mamoru’s favorite things!”
A moment later, a blood-curdling shriek rang through the grounds of the Cherry Hill temple.
“Oh, get it off, get it off,” Serena wailed, tearing Mamoru’s favorite, hideous green jacket off of her as fast as she could, before collapsing and cringing in a corner. “And I thought it was bad on him,” she said with a horrified shudder.
53. Giddy
(Part Four of the Luna Pen Series)
Alicia Blade
420 words
“Ami couldn’t figure it out with her brains. Rei couldn’t figure it out with her psychic powers. What, exactly, do you want me to do about it?” Makoto asked, munching on a homemade cookie as she, Usagi, Ami, Rei, and Luna all sat around her dining room table.
“I dunno,” Usagi mumbled through her own mouthful. “Just thought maybe you’d have an idea.”
Shrugging, Makoto grabbed the wand, thunked it three times hard on the table, and handed it back. “Percussion therapy always works on my TV when it’s acting up. Try that.”
Frowning at the pen, Usagi sighed. “Somehow I don’t think that fixed it.”
For a moment, the small kitchen was filled with only the sounds of cookies being munched on as the girls pondered some other tactics. Suddenly, Makoto perked up. “Here’s an idea! Maybe the Luna Pen can’t read the emotion of desire well. Maybe it thinks you’re asking it to turn you into the object of Mamoru’s wrath.”
“That would make sense,” Usagi responded enthusiastically, though Ami and Rei looked slightly more doubtful.
“I don’t remember the Luna Pen having any problems with those sorts of things,” Luna said with a frown, “but why don’t we test it? Usagi, try turning yourself into the object of someone else’s desire and see what happens.”
With a drawn out sigh, Usagi lazily held up the pen. “You know, I’m getting really sick of turning into things today. How about... Luna Pen, make me into the object of Tuxedo Kamen’s desire!” The all-too-familiar pink ribbons swirled around her and a second later Sailor Moon stood in Makoto’s kitchen. “Cool!” Usagi exclaimed, jumping up and down ecstatically in her red boots. “I’m the object of Tuxedo Kamen’s desire! Me! All this time, he’s been secretly in love with me, can you believe it?” Blushing, she twirled around, then balled her hands into fists and pumped at the ceiling a few times, then skipped around the table laughing maniacally, before finally sprawling herself onto a chair with chipper giggles and staring dreamily up at the ceiling. “This is perfect! Next time I see him I’ll tell him I love him and then he’ll swoop me up in that cape of his and fly me away to some romantic, secluded lookout and we’ll watch the sun set together and have strawberries and champagne and live happily ever after and-”
Groaning, Makoto buried her face in her hands and tried to ignore Usagi’s continued rambling. “Yeah, that thing is definitely broken.”