CHAPTER TWO: Incident Near the Swimming Pool When Ryoko and Usagi finally got back down to the tabke, both of them hoarse, the pizza dinner was almost over, and Sasami was looking extremely pleased with herself. Ayeka smirked at the two girls. "Well, I wonder what kept you so long?" Ryoko snarled at her. "Shut up, you, this is all your fault!" Ayeka cuckled mindlessly, yet still managed to look offened. "ME? Why would you acuse me, oh high and mighty Ryoko?" Ryoko rolled up her sleeve. "That's it, I'm gonna clean you out-" "Oh, stop it!" Usagi snapped. She grabbed Ryoko's elbow and pulled her towardsthe two empty chairs at the table. "I've had enough for tonight!" "Me, too," yawned Washu. "Why don't we all go swimming? Just us girls? It is a special night, you know." Ayeka stood up. "What an excellent proposal! I agree totally!" "Come on, then! Let's go!" said Ami excitedly, who loved swimming very much. The girls had all disappeared through a door in seconds, leaving Tenchi, Mamoru, and Noboyuki, Tenchi's father, blinking. ~~~~~~ "Good thing I packed my swimsuit," said Makoto to Minako as she adjusted her lime green swimsuit. They, Usagi, Ami, and Chibi-Usa were in the room they were all sharing, getting on their swimsuits. Usagi's was hot pink, and Ami's was ice blue. Rei's was a hot, firey red, and Minako's was a dark, brooding yellow. Chibi-Usa's was light pink, and had a white bunny sewed into the front. Washu pushed the door open, slamming poor Minako into the wall. "The pool's full!" she said cheerfully. "Come on in!" The twelve girls, laughing and talking with one another, descended down towards the pool. It was actually a bath, but Washu had taken care of that. There was even a diving board installed. Usagi grinned and ran toward the diving board, laughing insanely. Wahu tapped Ami on the shoulder and came up with an energ computer. "Watch this," she whispered. Tapping one key, she turned all the water into ice. Usagi jumped, and landed flat on her head. Everyone laughed, Rei the loudest, and though Ami was clapping politely, she thought to herself, I could do that even more easily as Sailor Mercury. Usagi hopped up, jumping around, yelling, "What's so funny?" and "What are you looking at?", making everyone laugh harder. Rei leaned over the edge, smirking at Usagi. "You'll never learn, Usagi. You're too- whoaa!" Chibi-Usa had come up behind Rei and pushed her. Washu, seeing this, depressed the button on her energy computer. Rei fell into the now-flowing water, squawking in unison with Usagi. Washu laughed. "I'm the greatest! The greatest mad scientist in the universe!" Ryoko and Kyone looked meaningfully at each other, then rushed Washu at the same time. The pink-haired mad scientist was taken totally by surprise as she felt herself being pushed into the water. When she emerged, looking extremely miffed, alomst all the girls had jumped into the water after her. Only Sasami and Makoto still remained. "Makoto," Sasami asked of the older girl, "Do you hear this strange- well- rumbling?" Makoto scratched her head. "Well, actually, Sasami, I kind of do." She looked at the small blue-haired princess. "What do you think it is?" "I..." Sasami did know what it was, and she had an odd feeling Makoto did, too, but if she gave out the fact that she knew, they might realize she wasn't just Sasami... "I don't know what it is." Makoto glanced over at Usagi. "Weird. Well, hope you have a great time, Sasami." Makoto dove in, swimming over to where Usagi and Ayeka were chatting. Sasami glanced at the sky something was wrong... it definately was... ~~~~~~ When the enormous youma danced out of the trees and started shooting dead sticks at them all, Usagi thought she was dreaming. She blinked a few times, but the youma didn't disappear. It stayed there, real as ever, looking a bit ticked that no one was paying attention to it. "Minako!" Usagi hissed. "You see that?" "Yeah," said Minako slowly. "It looks sort of like the youmas we get back at home..." "It is! Listen, I'll create a diversion while the rest of you transform..." Minako nodded. "Right." Mihoshi had actually noticed it first, and was screaming for Kyone at the toip of her lungs. "KYONE KYONE KYONE KYONE!!! WHAT IS THAT THING?" Kyone sighed, and turned. "Oh, come on, Mihoshi- oh, my God! What is that thing!" "I dunno, but it sure ain't Santa Claus!" yelled Washu. "Come on, come on, we've got to get away!" yelled Usagi, encouraging them on. She winked at Minako right before she left with all Tenchi's clan. "Okay, it's safe now," said Minako. "Hurry, let's do this!" They all held up their pens, and began the chant. "VENUS SUPER SENSHI TRANSFORMATION!" "MERCURY SUPER SENSHI TRANSFORMATION!" "MARS SUPER SENSHI TRANSFORMATION!" "JUPITER SUPER SENSHI TRANSFORMATION!" "CHIBI MOON SUPER SENSHI TRANSFORMATION!" Soon, Minako, Ami, Rei, Makoto, and Chibi-Usa ware gone, and Super Sailors Venus, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, and Chibi Moon had appeared. Jupiter, losing no time, leapt at the monster, firing a weak attack to see how powerful it was. "JUPITER THUNDER... CRASH!" As she had expected it to, it blew the attack off like it was nothing. Sailor Venus powered up and threw her best attack at it. "VENUS LOVE WAND... STRIKE!!!!" The spiraling beam of yellow- orange light hit the monster, damaging it to an extreme. Sailors Mercury and Mars aimed a double attack to finish it off. "MERCURY AQUA RHAPSODY!" "MARS FIREBIRD STRIKE!!" The youma gave an enormous groan and disappeared into the earth. Jupiter smirked. "Well, that was easy! We didn't even need Sailor Moon!" "Oh, wonderful!" Super Sailor ChibiMoon pouted. "I didn't get to do a THING!" "All right, now that that's over, we need to get back to the house," said Super Sailor Mercury, glancing at the Masaki residence. "I have a feeling we've got a LOT of explaining to do..." "Do you think they saw us transform, Mercury?" asked Super Sailor Jupiter anxiously. "No, but we'll have to come up with a reason why we didn't run away when the rest of us did," Mercury pointed out. "And what we were doing up here, along with why the youma mysteriously disappeared." "Oh, that's easy!" laughed ChibiMoon. "We'll just say that when Usagi yelled 'Run!' we ran in the other direction, into the woods! And... that we saw it run away when they all went back into the house!" Veus looked oddly at her. "That's very good, ChibiMoon. How'd you think of it?" ChibiMoon shrugged. "Dunno. Just popped into my head, I guess." "All right, then," said Super Sailor Jupiter decidedly. "We'll go along with ChibiMoon's story, and hope they buy it. Maybe Usagi has done something to help us out, here..." "I doubt it," sighed Super Sailor Mercury. "You know how she is..." ~~~~~~ Sasami, although she had not seen the Sailor Scouts transform, had watched the entire fight, open-mouthed. Now, after seeing the youma disappear into the ground, she turned to the rest of the group. "The Saillor Scouts!" she blurted. "They defeated that monster!" Usagi tensed, and dropped a pot abruptly, just barely catching it. "WHERE?" demanded Ryoko, pushing Sasami out of the way. "Where are they? I don't see them, Sasami!" Tenchi came into the room."Does anyone know where Ami, Rei, Makoto, Minako, and Chibi-Usa are?" "There they are!" Ryoko cried. "They're coming out of the woods right now!" "What were they doing in there?" Ayeka asked, uninterested. "Oh, they must have run there instead of back to the house!" said Usagi, not believing her good fortune. If they had believed Sasami, we'd all be in pretty big trouble... When the five girls were back inside, everyone bombarded them with questions of what had happened to the monster. "Oh, it ran away," Ami said hastily. "We waited until we were sure it was gone until we came back." "No, it was the Sailor Scouts! They're here, in Okayama!" Sasami cried. She had a hunch, and she had to see whether or not she was right. None of the girls mobved a muscle, except Chibi-Usa. She stared into Sasami's red eyes. Was it true that she had seen them at battle? "Oh, Sasami!" laughed Ayeka. "The Sailor Scouts aren't here! They live in Tokyo!" All eyes slowly turned to the new arrivals from Tokyo.