======================================== Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Orion A pretty original fanfic by LeVar Bouyer Episode #101: Enter Hero[ine] Reel 1 ======================================== BRRRRIIIIIIINNNNNNGGGG! In a darkened room, slowly and stealthily, a hand reached out from under the covers and slapped the pestilent alarm. Suddenly, the head of the owner of the hand popped out from its warm cocoon. A smile creased her face, at both the love of the 31st century for such archaic devices, and one other thing which never ceased to please her. "Right on time," said the contralto. Jennifer Allison Sakachi, age seventeen, rolled leisurely out of bed, flipping on the light in a long-practiced motion. The house's Simulated Intelligence unit responded to the action as it had for years, automatically turning on the shower, activating the radio to Crystal Tokyo's most popular oldies radio station, and displaying the morning's weather report. She blinked as Soundgarden began to blare from the hidden speakers. "Didn't know they were going to play *classical*." In keeping with tradition, Jen cursed the SI and wished that her parents had sprung for a more sophisticated one, one that would have noted her awakening and done most of these tasks before she even got out of bed, and that would have waited until *after* she got her glasses on to show the weather. She fumbled with items atop the night stand for a moment, and finally retrieved her glasses. She would just have to pick up the knocked-over papers later. "Hm, let's see. 'Twenty-four centigrade, light winds eight to ten kilometers per hour, thirty percent humidity, mostly sunny skies, less than five percent chance of rain.'" She sighed, and walked over to the window, looking out at the dawn as it dazzlingly broke over the rooftops of what was considered by most observers, impartial or not, the greatest city in the world. The light glinting off the myriad crystal buildings was indescribable. "Another beautiful CT day," she said, echoing the sentiments of so many citizens. "God, you could get bored of this," she added, a comment which definitely wasn't shared by most people. Chastising herself for being introspective when she should be preparing for school, she removed the hair clips from the red mane which crowned her head and went into the tiny cubicle optimistically called a bathroom. Simultaneously, she cursed their far-too-small home and wished that they were further up in the queue for better housing. A few minutes later, she had wrapped a towel around herself and was rummaging through her closet for a uniform. After some struggles with obstinate evening wear, she produced the red, white, and blue sailor fuku that was required for her school. Her mother called from outside the room while Jen still struggled with the blouse. "Jen! Hurry up, you don't want to be late!" "Mom, when was the last time I was late to school?" A satisfactory silence followed. Jen's punctuality was famous. "That's what I thought!" She finished pulling on her shoes and padded out to the kitchen, where in a minor miracle, the SI had prepared her some toast and tea. "Mom," she asked the woman sitting at the table with head in hands, "when are you going to get that new SI?" "When we get the money." That's a common enough response, Jen thought as she sat down and started eating. "Great. I take it that means after I'm off in college, eh? Oh, I forgot. I'm going to need a ride for tomorrow, 'cause-" "-the Exam's going to be until eighteen and you don't want to walk in the dark?" finished her father, as he groggily entered the room, desperate for caffiene. She grinned. "Something like that." "Consider it done. If you pass we might even buy you a car." He chuckled. "Dad, if I pass I'm not going to *need* a car to go to Mizuno High." "True enough. Though it would be nice to have joyrides down at the School." It was a joke, of course; cars weren't allowed at the School. Too much of a chance of the valuable students being hurt. "Isao! Don't make her nervous!" "Mom! I'm not nervous, and I'm not going to be. I'll just grab my books and be off to school. See ya!" The door slammed behind her. "She's nervous." "Without a doubt." *** "Hi, Jen-chan!" "Bonjour, Kanomi!" replied Jen in flawless French. "Show off." "Bite me." And thus another ritual began as Jen and her best friend joined up a few blocks from Mizuno District High School, to walk the last bit together. "Jen-chan, did you figure out that last calc problem?" "What, the parabolic problem?" "Yes." She made a face. "No way! I just gave up on it." "Jen-chan! How could you do that! That was our final review before the Exam!" "The college entrance exam?" she asked innocently. "What? Honestly," she said with a sigh, "sometimes I don't know whether you're joking or serious. You'd better know that the Exam's a heck of a lot more important than some crummy old *college* entrance exam! Honestly, Jen-chan, do you think that it's going to be one big history question?" 'I can hope,' Jen thought. "No, but it's not going to be all integrals, either, will it Kanomi-chan?" "Touche," said Kanomi. They stopped at a traffic light and waited for the signal. "Do you think you'll pass?" "No." "Good," she said, greatly relieved. "I mean, knowing someone who passed the Exam would be--OW!" This last followed her being run into by a dark-haired boy who had been racing around the corner. "Hey, why didn't you look where you were going? And why the hell are you looking up my skirt, pervert?" "Sorry, sorry, don't hurt me!" "Umino-san?" "In the flesh," said Kanomi disappointedly. Umino was famous at Mizuno for his nerdiness. In fact, he was rumored to go weeks without bathing, in favor of playing with WorldNet and writing fanfics for obscure anime, which usually involved extremely scantily clad women. Jen, ever the history buff, insisted that he had some connection to the Senshi's past, and claimed that his genealogy would be her thesis project. This invariably got laughs from others. Then again, quite a few things she did got her laughs, and not always on purpose. "Why are you in such a hurry?" "Last minute cramming! The Exam's in an hour!" "What?" "Well, it wouldn't do to fail it, and..." Kanomi and Jen both began getting red in the face. Jen spoke. "Umino-san, you realize that no male has ever taken the Exam, for obvious reasons? And that in any case the Exam's *tommorrow*?" He got up and began scratching his head. "Well . . ." "You idiot! You were just hoping to get some looks at some girls! Pervert!" "Look, I can explain!" But he said it to the empty air, as the two girls continued on their way to Mizuno. "What a jerk." "Really!" And with that, they walked into the school five minutes before the bell. *** The voice droned on. Jen sighed; this was one of her better teachers, but even his jokes couldn't really take the edge off of her boredom. "Now class, in the final twenty-four hours before the Exam I'd like you not to think about it, or school. There's no homework, except to have fun. I do *not* want to see you reading or thinking seriously. Watch three-vee, go play senshi-and-generals." This got a few laughs from her class as he suggested that they play one of those popular childhood games. Even Jen smiled; she had always been an automatic choice for Sailor Mercury, despite her red hair. It was too bad that Kanomi was always Queen Beryl. "Or go take a tour of the Palace, but do *not* attempt to think. You've got the most important examination in the world tomorrow, and I don't want you tensed up for it. Okay? Good. Dismissed!" Jen and Kanomi walked out of the punctuated History class. "You know," said Jen, "I could get used to getting out of class early." "Yeah. Shame it takes the Exam to do it." "What's the Exam?" This last was said by a small girl who they hadn't even noticed was following them; turning around, they saw that she was about ten. Pink hair, red eyes, ridiculous odango only two people in the world should have . . . and a strange shimmering around her, much like the waves over hot pavement one can occasionally see. She carried with her a veritable aura of indefinability and capriciousness. It could be said, as stated elsewhere, and in reference to a different person, that she was the living avatar of quantum theory. "What are you doing here?" asked Kanomi. "Looking for Mom," she replied in a tone that brooked no further discussion of the matter, despite her age. "What's the Exam?" Jen tried to ignore the alarm bells going off in her head. Looking for her mother, pink hair, pink hair, something extraordinary had happened to the twentieth century senshi involving pink hair, but her brain wasn't organized enough to remember it. Just like so much of her life.... "Well," said Kanomi, "here's the short version." By unspoken consensus, they began walking towards the cafeteria for an early lunch. "The Exam-" "Crystal Tokyo Scholastic Aptitude and Senshi Evaluation Examination." "-Yeah, that, well, it's a super-hard test. Compared to it, the juken's a ten question true/false quiz. Nearly ten hours of extremely tough questions, on any subject the writers feel like." "Yep," continued Jen. They sat at a table. "Less than one percent of high school students managed to pass. The rub is that the thing's designed to fail almost all the takers. Those who somehow manage to pass it are then admitted to the School-" "-The Tsukino State College-" "Where you're basically taught how to be a senshi. Hey," she said, turning to look at the pink-haired visitor more closely, "why am I telling you this? You should know it already!" A light bulb went off in her head. "Are you . . . Chibi-Usa? The Queen's daughter?" "Jen-chan, get a grip! Her Highness is probably sixteen by now! And what would she be doing here? And if that weren't enough, the Princess usually has odango!" Jen mumbled an apology, while mentally swearing that the girl *had* to have something to do with the inner senshi. "Anyway," she continued, "once you get to the School, they teach you all the essentials of being a senshi, and then, at graduation, you get your henshin rod." She paused. Once, as a little girl, she had seen a graduation ceremony in person, seen those four lucky women transform for the first time. "It's wild." "Yeah. And even if you don't want to be a senshi, passing the Exam is so hard that a lot of colleges will pay you to go to their school. It's better than a free ride!" "I see," said the pink-haired girl in a tone that definitely didn't belong to a ten-year-old girl. It was, like so much about her, difficult to pin down. "Well, I'll be going, now." "What?" asked Jen. "You just got here! What about your mother?" The girl looked across the room. "I think that I've found her," she said distractedly. "Good bye." The pair watched her walk off. "That was weird." "Really." A pause, while they fought deja vu. "Kanomi-chan, I swear it's Princess Usagi! Like . . . like in the past! Remember Modern Japanese History! How Small Lady was sent back to help the senshi then!" "Jen-chan! No-one remembers anything about MJH except you!" "Yeah, well those that forget the past are doomed to repeat it!" "Oh, well it's a good thing for an ignorant man to read a book of quotes!" "And just where did you find that gem?" "Err, a book of quotes." "Ha!" "ARRGGGHH!" *** "Well, Jen, are you ready? Sure you don't want some last minute studying?" It was 21:43 Japan Standard. "Mom . . . quite honestly, if I don't know it now, I'm not going to. And just what type of studying were you thinking of?" "Well," her mother said as they sat in the den watching the latest anime (Sailor Moon SRSSR), "it's not all book learning. I remember *my* senshi exam-" "Oh, like they had senshi exams then!" "Come now, I'm not as old as you think. Anyway, my graduating class was one of the first to take it, right after the Black Moon Invasion, you know." "Yeah. Serenity's paranoid phase." "Jen! After all she's done for the world!" "Mom, she's the queen, not God! A historian's job is to record and interpret, and here's *my* interpretation. Setting up a jury-rigged system to raise a sailor senshi militia as a knee-jerk response to an attack sounds pretty paranoid to me!" "Well . . ." "I wrote two essays on it, Mom. Would you like to see them, or are you just going to bring back the divine rights of kings and queens?" Her mother sighed. "Anyway, we were one of the first, and I remember that there were a lot of questions that didn't cover anything we learned in school. Stuff like, um, 'You find a purse on the floor of a crowded mall. What do you do?' And they wanted pages of response, explaining what you'd do and why. Mind boggling." "Well gee Mom, that's part of the point. I wrote an essay on that too." Her mother groaned. "Oh, come on, it's not that bad. Anyway, it has to be that way. Turning an ordinary person into a full blown Sailor Senshi is exorbitantly expensive from a energy standpoint. Even with the ginzuishou, it's got to take a lot out of Serenity-sama," she said, pointedly adding the last honorific at her mother. There were those who saw the head of state as a roadblock to true democracy, those who saw her as a figurehead, and those who saw her as the Messiah. Her mother definitely fell into the latter category, and Jen had to admit that that camp had a bit of evidence to support its claims, despite her own opinions on the subject. "I suppose that's true, though . . . no." But it was too late. "Come on, I know that tone of voice. That's the 'oh I want to say something but it will offend our Fearless Leader' voice." "Well, I was just thinking that some of the original senshi aren't worth the energy it takes for *them!*" "Well, that's another matter, and you know it. And I'd be careful about that; they don't take criticism very well." "Oh, what happened to the high and mighty historian part?" But Jen had a point. The senshi had historically reacted in rash manners when criticism was directed at them. Neo-Queen Serenity seemed to be a bit more mellow, however. And in any case, her mother's comment was out of line. The inner and outer senshi had been born senshi, and the cost for them had been paid by the universe as a whole, to be paid back upon death. Or at least, that was the main theory most historians held to. For their part, the planet senshi refused to speculate publically. "Anyway," her mother continued, "we've missed half the episode while you've pontificated." They turned their attention back to the screen, where Sailor Moon and a couple others were fighting the monster of the week. "Mom?" "Yes?" "Ever think how unhappy it must be to be a senshi?" "Huh?" "No, really! Look at that," she said, pointing at the screen, where the monster of the week was getting trashed. "Look at what you have to deal with! And that's only if you manage to stay on earth! If they ship you off to captain your own starship, then-" "You're in complete command of hundreds of people, and God of your own domain," finished her father, who had a habit of popping in at interesting moments. "Better than building them, I might say." "Yeah, sure Dad," Jen said playfully. Her father was a section director at the Pleiades project. Therefore, he got to order his underlings around from Earth while they labored in orbit. Pleiades was the Royal Star Navy's newest ship, being built under mysterious circumstances only a few understood. While it usually took nearly ten years to grow the macromonocrystals that the RSN's ships were made up of, they were racing to get Pleiades finished in two years. There were rumors of trouble at the Kingdom's outer colonies, but nothing to worry them, in the cradle of Crystal Tokyo. "You know dear," he said, turning to his wife, "I just might have to go up to H.M.S. Pleiades next week; some kind of inspection. So if you want to stay with your sister in Hokkaido, I'd understand. . . . " "You mean a vacation!" exclaimed Jen. "Great! I'll start packing!" And with that, she almost flew up the stairs to her room. "Isao?" "Yes?" "Why?" "Why not." "Indeed." *** After realizing that immediate departure wasn't near, Jen decided to get ready for bed. As she lay down, and the SI asked her the same questions it had asked before she fell asleep every night, she thought two things, and vocalized both of them. "Alarm at 05:28, temperature 23 C." The SI acknowledged the order. "It's great to have a normal life."