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SOLO - 1

After School Practice

Time had been flying by for Samson Colt. It had only been a few weeks since he had been awakened, but it felt like only yesterday. He had been spending as much time as he could possibly spare in his alter-ego form of Sailor Chibi Ixion. Unfortunately for him, that time was usually between 3 and 5 o’clock, before his parents got home from work, and his free time on the weekends. The young senshi tried to sneak out whenever it was possible, which wasn’t that often. The boy’s parents hardly ever went to bed before 10pm, and by that time the kid was in bed himself.

Still, he was eager to learn all he could about senshidom, and honing his powers. He had set up a small target practice in his room, made up of cardboard boxes from his mother’s bakery and catering service. In the time between 3 pm, when he got home from school, and 5pm when his parents came home, Sam would transform into Ixion and practice using his power.

Nearly everyday after school, he’d come home and set up the boxes, trying to make them look like a body. First he would practice basic combat moves, or as close to them as he could do. Chibi Ixion would kick and punch the air around the target. He looked like any other boy, pretending to be a martial arts master and mimicking the moves he had seen on TV. Then when he started to get weary, he’d practice conjuring coal.

Ixion could only manage to summon a few lumps before he got tired. After each was summoned, he’d throw it at his cardboard target. Eagerly, he watched to see what would happen. Half the time the lump would fall the floor and leave a black stain on his beige berber. Sometimes it would explode into a cloud of black soot upon impact. The spot were it hit would be covered in a layer of black, smudged all over the place. It was always a disastrous mess. After conjuring two lumps of coal, Ixion felt a little tired. After three he always felt like having a nap.

Today, he decided against that. Instead, the young boy wiped out his senshi phone. He turned the rusty-orange colored item over in his hands. He hadn’t really bothered to look it over too carefully before. As he looked at it, sliding it open and shut, he noticed that it didn’t have any screws or opening. The rusty-colored body was a smooth single piece. It didn’t even have a flap to open in order to charge the battery. Ixion wasn’t even sure the phone ran on batteries. His little fingers ran along the smooth surface, looking for any sort of weak point. Ixion was dying to crack the phone open to see what made it work. But, he couldn’t. The phone had no weak spot. There weren’t any joints or panels to remove.

Sliding it open, he began to examine the buttons. His fingers ran down the buttons, gently pushing each one as they slid down the phone. It was almost like a regular phone. It had a menu and a list of contacts, it stored the names of all the senshi he had met before. Each button worked and had a function. They all responded to his touch; all except one. When Chibi Ixion pressed the ‘Home’ button, nothing happened. No one had taken the time to explain all the details of the phone to him. But, he knew that it was capable of doing amazing things. Ixion was sure of that much.

He tried it again. Tap, tap, tap. Nothing. Again, he pressed the button, holding it down until the phone made an angry beep at him. That was all it did, all the phone would yield to him. It wasn’t going to let him know any of its secrets.

Suddenly, the young senshi heard the familiar rumble of the garage door open. One of his parents had come home. In a hurry, he de-henshined, transforming back into regular old Sam. Quickly, he broke down the cardboard box target and slid its pieces under the bed. The magic lump of coal had disappeared, but the black mark still stained the carpet. Sam threw a small pile of dirty clothes on top of it, thinking that would have to do for now.

In an frustrated fit, he tossed the phone into the a desk drawer, and slammed it shut. Leaving it in the drawer to be forgotten about, until Sam had the chance to play with it again. Maybe next time, he’d unravel one of its mysteries.

Injury

The pain in his hand was excruciating. It throbbed; blood pooling out and being absorbed into Sam’s sleeve. He could barely hold onto the handle of his bike, but he tried to keep steady as he rode. Tears were streaming down his cheek. Although it was the worst experience of his young life, Sam had other worries on his mind.

As he peddled towards home, the only thing he could think about what was to tell his parents. He couldn’t possibly tell them the truth. He couldn’t burst into his parent’s home, crying, and tell them that an agent of the Negaverse had attacked him; he certainly couldn’t tell them that he was a senshi. No, no a good lie was necessary. But nothing was coming to mind. How could he explain a large gash in his hand? What could he say that would make the puncture wound he had received from Painite seem like a harmless accident?

Sam couldn’t think. He had to protect his identity, and he couldn’t say anything that would make it seem like an intentional wound. The last thing he wanted was for his parents to flip out and forbid him from going outside. If anything, Sam had learned that there were evil people in the world. The Negaverse was full of dangerous people, people that needed to be dealt with. If they could do harm to him, a kid and a senshi, what would they do to regular children?

Drain their energy . . . like that day at school. Further proof that they were not nice people. Who does that? Who picks on defenseless kids? The thought was sickening to Sam. Sure, it was one thing if he picked a fight with a kid. They were the same size, the same age; he always had a reason. He certainly wouldn’t power-up to take advantage of a civilian child.

The events of the last few weeks, and this night only proved to Sam that the Negaverse was definitely evil. It unfortunately also proved to him that he wasn’t strong enough, or skilled enough to take them on. As much as the boy wanted to be a strong fighter, useful in this war, Sam just wasn’t strong enough. But he needed to be. Deep down, Sam knew that’s what he had to become better. Someone had to speak up and fight for the kids in his class. Who was going to protect them? What if he ran into another Negaverse agent? He needed to be prepared for that, and incase they went after his school and friends again.

The bleeding wound on his hand only solidified the boy’s resolve. He had to learn, and train more so that this wouldn’t happen again. Sam knew the risks involved with fighting, but he couldn’t let these past incidents get him down. One injury wasn’t going to stop him.

When he got home, Sam rushed inside and collided straight into his mother’s lap.
Delia Colt was sitting in the den, reading a magazine. Instinctively, she put her hand on top of her son’s dark hair. Her magazine dropped to the floor when she saw the blood on Sam’s sleeve. His hand was clutched tight around the fabric, staunching the bleeding.

“SAMSON! What on earth happened to you honey?” Delia tried to wrestle her son’s palm open to take a look at the injury.

“I… I fell, Mom. Off my bike. I hit I branch or something. It cut me.” The words rolled right off his tongue. They just came to him, in the moment; so simple, Sam didn’t know why he hadn’t thought of it before. Accidents happen everyday. Sam unfurled his hand to show his mother.

“Jesus Christ! Sam!” Delia was on her feet swiftly. In a matter of seconds she grabbed her purse and car keys. “We’re going to the hospital, now.”

The next thing Sam knew, he was in the car on his way to get patched up. As he looked out the window, his mind was working away on how to improve his lie.

There were many, many things that sucked about being a Chibi senshi. The thing that bothered Super Sailor Chibi Ixion the most about that was being unable to help when he wanted to because he had normal kid responsibilities. He had to do things like school, homework, and ‘family time’. The young senshi couldn’t just transform and run off whenever he liked in order to right the wrongs and fight the good fight across the universe. No matter how much he would like to, he couldn’t.

Missing civilians in Destiny City was one thing; a missing child was another issue entirely. Sam could not be absent from his parents for much longer than 12 hours really, not without some kind of reasonable excuse. And honestly, the kid was running out of reasonable excuses to go out. With all that was happening out in the Surrounding, Ixion took every opportunity he could to go. There were only so many changes he would get to see the place AND prove that he was a capable senshi. Not to mention space was just plain cool.

But being shuttled to and fro from the surrounding by Zodiac senshi was a tiring process. He simply couldn’t do it all the time. His parents would notice. So he made the decision to be a normal boy for one weekend. Do normal things for three days. Do his homework, come home at appropriate times, eat family dinners and maybe watch a few cartoons. The civilians had been in space long enough, and there were enough senshi up there that Ixion figured he couldn’t possibly miss much. He needed a break anyways. After witnessing a space fish eat a civilian… Ixion really needed to be just a kid for at least a day. He didn’t think anything else horrible could happen in just a day or two. Well, he was wrong. Dead wrong.

The day Ixion decided not to go space just happened to coincide with the Dark Mirror and Negaverse attack on the Surrounding. Ixion missed the whole damn thing. While some might say it was better for him not be present there, that many died during the Great Youma Dragon attack, but Ixion just felt well left out. The boy was convinced, that had he been there, he could have been helpful. Maybe if he had gone, he could have saved someone. Even though he couldn’t have helped save Holi, the girl who made the chocolates, he held onto the believe that he could save someone.

But that was his bullheaded ego talking. Ixion felt like he was a strong and brave senshi. Facts he remained that he was a child still. His powers were fledgling in comparison to some other senshi. There was nothing he could do but train, work on getting stronger and stew in the regret of what he missed.

Hunting for a Costume

All Hallow’s Eve, as Sam’s teacher called it, was coming up. Sam preferred to just think of it was Halloween. Because Sam was getting older, his father cautioned Sam that he should make the most of the Halloween’s that he had left. Sooner then he would really like, maybe a year or two, Sam would be too old for trick-or-treating. Robert Colt just wanted to make sure that Sam would be able to enjoy his trick-or-treating years as much as possible. The best way to do that would be to get a killer costume.

Halloween just happened to fall on a Monday this year as well. So kids were allowed to dress for the day at school. Often there were class contests for the best dressed or scariest. Holidays like this usually resulted in a half-day, were the kids spents the whole day at school but most of it was really just a party. His class would likely just watch a movie and play games, every kid was expected to pitch in and bring treats. Delia was already baking up a storm trying to create the perfect cupcakes.

There wasn’t a whole lot of time left for Sam to get a costume. His father had been looking forward to helping Sam pick one out and it sadly got left to the last minute this year. When they arrived at the costume shop, it was already well picked over.

Sam wandered through the aisles of the store looking for something that would suit him.

“What about this one?” His dad offered, holding up a generic super hero outfit.

Sam scoffed at it. “Dad, that’s not scary! Halloween is suppose to be scary. I want to be something cool.”

Shrugging, Robert set the costume back down. Sam trailed a finger over what was there. Nothing was really interesting him. There were mummy outfits, cops, devils, and vampires. All the normal classics were there, but they just weren’t good enough. Popping out of the aisle, Sam wandered over to where some teenagers were looking at masks. Typically, the masks ranged from plastic simple things to Venetian and leather. Then there were the celebrity heads and the rubber masks. Those were the more expensive ones. Sam teetered along beside a teenager looking at some frightening rubber masks. His brown eyes looked at them in envy. His dad would likely never go for something like that.

The teen had a selection in front of him. His pale hand moving back and forth between masks. It took him a moment to notice Sam was there next to him. “Hey there dude. “ The teen picked up on the hungry way Sam ogled the masks. Picking up one werewolf mask, he offered it to Sam. “This one would look pretty good on you.”

Sam beamed and mouthed thanks before putting on the mask. It had a hairy head, with pointed ears and teeth that were dripping with fake painted blood. It looked a bit more like a real wolf then the classic wolfman from the old movies. Sam liked it. With the mask on his head, he went to find his dad. Spying Robert still looking at a detective outfit, Sam jumped out and yelled “RAWR!”

Robert was taken back for a second until he realized it was just Sam, the werewolf was wearing the same clothes and red chucks. Robert gave a bit of chuckle. “Nice.”

“You like it? Can I get it? It’s so cool.”

“I dunno, that might be a bit too scary for school.”

“You said I should make the most of my Halloween! The most is scary! Horror!” Sam argued his pointed.

Robert was inclined to agree, if Sam was just going to use his own logic against him. Sam deserved to get the most out of his Halloween. “But what are you gonna wear with it?”

There was pause, Sam hadn’t considered that. What went with a werewolf mask? “I dunno… clothes? You got some old shirts I can rip up right? I can just wear that and some jeans. We could get fake blood! And some claws! That’ll really freak out the girls in my class.” Sam’s voice was chipper with excitement over that idea.

Robert gave a sigh as he gave in. “Alright.” His son had his own ideas about what to be for Halloween, and Robert didn’t feel like he could fight it. Sam was growing up, and as much as he would like to dress his kid up in a little pumpkin costume, Sam wasn’t 5 years old anymore.

The decision was made. Sam was going to be a bloody, frightening werewolf this year.