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 Posted: Fri Sep 09, 2011 12:31 am
Asteroid Travel Agency!?[Aquarius + Asclepius] After months of hiding, Sailor Aquarius is back! Her first task: find a senshi who knows what she's doing.
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Posted: Fri Sep 09, 2011 12:33 am
The Other End of the Spectrum[Aquarius + Zue + Civilians] Sailor Aquarius sets foot on the Surrounding for the first time. Unfortunately, a bunch of scared and confused people beat her to the punch.
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Posted: Fri Sep 09, 2011 12:35 am
Organization is the key![Aquarius + Menthe + Jarold] With the civilians stuck at the Surrounding, Aquarius tries to organize a few to help her... well, organize.
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Posted: Mon Oct 17, 2011 10:34 pm
None of the Zodiacs knew what was going on, or why a bunch of scared and angry people had suddenly showed up at the barrier they were sworn to attack. In a weird way, that made Aquarius feel more comfortable. Oh sure, the others knew things she didn't, but they were all in the dark about the issue that mattered. That meant that there was plenty of work to do, not only with making their surprise visitors as comfortable as possible, but with figuring out why there were there and how they would be able to leave.
Aquarius' days became very busy. It was easy to see that there was no way she would be able to attend school and fulfill her duties. For a few days she tried to juggle them both, but it only meant that she was useless most of the time, tired from one activity or another. Making the choice to abandon her schoolwork had been difficult, especially after missing so much school for reasons beyond her control. At this rate, she would be lucky to graduate by the time she was twenty. But some things were more important than her grades, and if cataloging her Star Wars shirts fell into that category, she supposed that saving the world had to as well.
It wasn't long before she was spending all of her time up at the Surrounding, ferrying people around or looking through the thousands of illegible books, hoping to stumble across an answer to even one of her questions. She brought a blanket and pillow from home and made a bed in the library, leaving the proper bedrooms for the 'guests.' She ate there, slept there, and worked long hours, aided by the fact that the only measure of time was a clock she had brought. Normally, she wouldn't have bothered, but in this case the clock was vital to her plans.
For no matter how busy her days were, Aquarius always returned to Earth for dinner. Tara Kavanaugh peered into a pot of boiling water, wrinkling her nose. "Looks delicious."
Kent swatted her hands with a wooden spoon. "It's going to be pasta, if you get out of my way and let me cook it." He shook his head, while she stuck her tongue out at him and went to sit at the kitchen table. "So, how's school going?"
Fortunately, Tara had not yet taken a sip of the tea she was holding, or she would have spat it out. "Uh, fine. Same old, same old." It hurt to lie to him, but she knew that he would never agree to letting her skip school for some unknown reason. And telling him that she spent her days in space researching mysterious phenomena was just not an option.
There was a series of small splashes as Kent poured a bag of pasta shells into the pot of water. "What about that extra credit project you told me about? The one that gets you up at the crack of dawn every day?"
The extra credit project was another lie, made up to explain why Tara was never there when Kent woke up. "Yeah, it's going fine. I'm, uh, doing some weather charting for my Earth Science class. Clouds, wind, that sort of thing. And sunrise, which is really important, much as I wish my teacher would just trust the news for that one." That sounded convincing, or so she hoped. As long as he didn't ask to see the project, they were probably fine.
"Sounds... well, it sounds boring, but I'm really proud of you, Tara."
Which just made her feel a zillion times worse about her deception. For a moment she struggled with the desire to tell all, but as always she was able to resist when faced with the thought of Kent, knowing what she was really doing and following her, getting into the middle of a fight and then-
"Thanks, Kent. That means a lot, coming from you." Hopefully he wouldn't hear how hollow her voice was over the bubbling of the water.
Every dinner was awkward, and there were days when Tara would have rather stayed up at the Surrounding and had a sandwich instead, but she never missed a day. Kent had to think that everything was normal. She owed him that much, at the very least. And seeing him, having him ask the usual questions about her day at school... while that made her uncomfortable, it also gave her the hope that maybe normalcy wasn't so very far away.
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Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2013 8:51 pm
The Next Station[Aquarius + Kestrel] Aquarius plays escort and publicist with one of the stranded civilians.
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Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2013 8:53 pm
Facts and Fiction[Aquarius + Zirconia] An equitable exchange of information, or lack thereof.
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Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2013 8:54 pm
Earthbound Woes[Aquarius + Steven] Aquarius hears a plea from, and gives a scolding to, one of her guests.
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Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2013 8:57 pm
Running the Gamut[Aquarius + Civilians] Aquarius issues a challenge- or rather, her outpost does.
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Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2013 8:59 pm
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Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2013 9:00 pm
Breach[Meta Battle!] The Zodiacs take on the invaders and secure the Surrounding once and for all.
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Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2013 9:01 pm
The Surrounding was safe, or at least safer than it had been. The mysteriously arriving civilians had gone back to their homes. The forces of evil had been repelled. After dealing with all of that, Tara felt ready to take on the world. Or at least her calculus class.
Kent had made breakfast for her that day. He’d inquired about the extra credit project she’d claimed to be working on, and commented on how nice it was to see her in the morning for a change. Over oatmeal and toast they discussed the science section of the paper. When it was time for her to go, he’d even offered to drive her to school. Since their discussion had ran a bit long, Tara accepted. It was the perfect start to her first day back at school, and she knew that everything would go well. Somehow. Despite her having a month and a half of absences with a very shoddy excuse.
Anyone else could have seen disaster coming, but Tara had her head in the clouds (cumulus, she noted with approval).
Kent pulled up to the curb. Tara waved to him from the sidewalk, but he didn’t seem in a hurry to leave. Maybe he was making sure that she went inside. Shaking her head a little, she pulled out her school ID and presented it to the security guard who was casually checking them. She expected a basic nod and a wave into the building, like she usually got.
Instead, the guard frowned, took the card from her hand, and consulted something on his desk. “Tara Kavanaugh?”
“Yes?” she went, sudden chill coming over her. The guard was waving over someone she vaguely recognized as a guidance counselor. Was she being sent to the principal’s office? Were they going to call her parents? “I just want to go to class, so-”
“Tara, right?” The counselor tried to smile, but Tara knew that she was forcing it. “This isn’t a good place for this. Would you like to come to my office?”
No, she didn’t. Tara shook her head nervously and tugged on the end of her braid. “I know I missed school again, but I swear I can catch up. Please don’t call my parents!”
“It’s not like that, Tara.” Sighing, the counselor tried to physically steer Tara into the building, but Tara was frozen in place. “Calm down. I need you listen calmly, okay? What I’m going to say is going to sound bad, but it’s really not.” The counselor took a deep breath. “You’re not a student here anymore.”
Whatever Tara was expecting, it wasn’t that. “Um, what?”
“The school board removed all of the students who went missing last month from enrollment. You were an odd case, since you weren’t officially missing, but you weren’t attending school and you’ve already missed so much, that they decided...”
Tara stopped listening. The counselor went on, explaining how the school board made its decisions and how it wasn’t really expulsion, per se, but she couldn’t process any of it. Her mind was centered around the fact that she had just been kicked out of school. She’d failed. Her parents would flip out. Kent would be so disappointed in her. She’d never make it to college, or be a real scientist, or-
“... and your brother has made all of the necessary transfer arrangements. He’s your guardian at the moment, yes?”
“Huh?” Tara snapped back into focus. “My brother did WHAT?”
“He took care of the paperwork for your transfer. He did it weeks ago, since he assured me you weren’t missing, though he said he wanted me to explain things to you, in my capacity as a guidance counselor. So you see, Tara, things really aren’t that bad- Tara, where are you going?”
She wasn’t sure of that herself. Tara had no idea what was going on, but Kent did, and he’d been keeping the truth from her. She was going to track him down and demand an explanation, drag him out of work or class or wherever he was.
She hadn’t gone more than a dozen steps before she realized that his car was still parked in front of the school. Kent still sat in the driver’s seat, leaning on the wheel, the local section of the paper in his hand. Tara stopped in her tracks. He was waiting for her. He knew what was going to happen when she tried to go to school. He’d been lying to her- or at least, he’d been pretending to be convinced by her lies, which was much the same in this case. And she wanted to know why.
But if she asked, Kent would ask the questions she’d been dreading during her weeks in space. “Where were you?” she could hear him asking, his tone accusatory. “Why weren’t you in school? What was so important that you had to focus on it for six weeks? What was so secret that you couldn’t tell me about it?”
She couldn’t explain herself to him. Not without telling him the whole truth, and that was simply not an option. He wouldn’t believe her, and even if he did, she would be putting both of them in danger by telling him. There was no half-truth she could tell him to salvage the situation, and she refused to come up with another lie. Tara was sick of lying to the people she loved.
By this time, she had managed to shuffle over to the car. She was hoping to have come up with an answer by the time she got there, but so far, all she knew was that she couldn’t say anything. She couldn’t explain. She couldn’t demand an explanation. All she could do was slip into the passenger seat quietly and shut the door.
Kent set down his paper and looked at Tara. He waited for her to say something. Anything. To say that now she understood how being locked out of her life felt. To at least try to defend her decision. But all he was met with was silence. Sighing, he turned the key in the ignition. “You’re not hurt, right?”
Tara nodded, then shook her head, unsure which was the right reaction to the question. She opened her mouth, couldn’t think of anything that was safe to say, and closed it again.
“Would you like me to tell you about the new school?”
She nodded again, her eyes practically boring a hole in the dashboard in front of her.
“I’m a little peckish still. Want to grab brunch? Say, IHOP?”
Was that a trick question? Tara looked up, then looked sharply away again. “Okay.”
Kent sighed again. “Tara, look at me. Look at me.” She did, and he poked her gently on the nose. “So we had a blip.”
He called getting expelled for secretly being in space for several weeks a blip? What would he say if he knew she had fought youma and Negas and chaos monsters?
“We’ll get past it. Things happen. I don’t know what kind of things,” he added pointedly, and Tara winced but did not speak, “but we’re okay. We just need to keep moving forward. One step at a time. No matter how far back it looks like we’re sliding, we just need to keep moving forward.”
Tara nodded again. Kent decided that was the best he would be able to get for the moment and grinned. “So, IHOP?”
He turned stepped on the gas. The car jerked backwards, knocking into the one behind it with something that sounded suspiciously like a crunch. Kent cursed, but Tara let out a shriek of laughter. “Guess I’m not the only one who has trouble moving forward,” she gasped when her giggles subsided.
At that moment, Kent stopped worrying. Insurance would cover the damages. If his slip-up had gone even a small way towards repairing the rift between them, it was worth it.
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Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2013 9:02 pm
The Horizon Institute for Technology and Science. At first, it had raised all kinds of red flags in Tara’s mind. She could practically hear the warning klaxons as she read about it being brand new, totally state of the art, very exclusive- it sounded exactly like Barren Pines, except that she’d thought Barren Pines had been there all along. This school was practically run by the government, which still meant all sorts of worries, but the one that her school was really an well-disguised Negaverse scheme need not apply. “Besides,” she told herself, “it’s not like you could possibly end up at two schools that are secretly evil plots.” She smiled at her reflection, then scowled when she saw what it looked like.
The Horizon Institute (or HITS, as the students were apparently calling it) uniform was not exactly flattering. It was better than the Meadowview one in some ways, like lack of blindingly bright color and short sleeves even in winter. It was also kind of dowdy. The pleated skirt and saddle shoes looked totally dated to her, besides being uncomfortable, and the colors were boring. The trenchcoat-style jacket was cool, she supposed, but the rest was awful. Especially the skirt, which was long and caught on things even more than the Meadowview one. For a moment she found herself thinking longingly of Barren Pines. They may have been nothing more than a murderous Negaverse deathtrap, but at least they’d let the girls wear pants.
Kent knocked at the door. “Tara? Are you ready?”
“No.” She sounded totally childish and at that moment, she didn’t care. For emphasis, she sat down on her bed, folded her arms, and crossed her legs. “I’m not going.”
It was day one, and things were already going badly. “I’m coming in,” he warned before doing just that. Even when he was obviously about to enter, Kent never came into Tara’s room unannounced unless he thought she was in danger. Somehow, despite the number of times that she’d broken his trust, he kept to his word on that one. When Tara didn’t look up, he sat on the bed next to her. “Gonna tell me what’s wrong today?”
Since her partial disappearance of several weeks, Kent had been trying to find out what Tara was keeping from him. He didn’t ask her directly, since he knew that it wouldn’t help and might make her situation worse. But he did throw pointed hints out every so often, hoping that if she’d heard enough subtle requests for information, she’d get the message. The idea wasn’t bad, but the execution was sloppy; when Kent was stressed, he had the subtlety of a brick.
“Why can’t I just get my GED and go to college?” Tara whined, putting her head in her hands. “I’m not learning anything useful there. At this rate, I’ll be in high school until I’m... your age!”
Ouch, Kent thought. Even though he was ten years older than Tara, he’d never thought of himself as “old” compared to her. More mature, certainly, but never “old.” Until now. “We’ve talked about this. Getting a GED is an option, but I don’t think it would serve you well. For one thing, you’d have to tell Mom and Dad that you’re dropping out.” He held out one finger, then extended another. “For another, I think you’d regret it. But the main reason you’re still in school is that it’s teaching you things you need to know.”
Tara rolled her eyes. Mid-roll, she realized that Kent couldn’t see them, so she lifted her head and rolled them in the opposite direction, which made her a little dizzy. “Please. Like I will ever need to know how to find the sine curve, or who won the war of 1812.”
“Maybe, maybe not. You never know. But you will need to know how to go to school. You need to know how to write essays, how to read books that bore you silly. If you weren’t planning on going to college, then I’d say sure, get your GED, and then get a job. But for what you want to do with your life, a GED isn’t going to be enough. And getting to college only to screw up there won’t get you to your goal any faster. Believe me, I know.” Kent had dropped out of school for a year right after his first semester, when the pressure of college was more than he could deal with. “Better to get the skills you need now. It’s less stressful, simpler material, and hey, it’s free.”
She considered his statement, and came to a conclusion. Lifting her head from her hands again, she stuck her tongue out at him. “I hate it when you’ve got a point.”
“Then I guess I should be glad I don’t make them too often,” he laughed. “Come on, you’ll like this place. Technology and science! It’ll be right up your alley!”
“Famous last words,” Tara warned him. Kent’s face fell, and she knew she’d said the wrong thing. “No, I’m feeling better now. Let’s go!” Trying to be playful, she stood and tugged on his hands, trying to pull her brother out of the room. His advice had made all the difference, and while she still wasn’t thrilled about the new school, she was ready to give it a shot.
And if it turned out to be a sinister plot? Well, at least she knew how to react.
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Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2013 9:04 pm
Monsters are Scary[Tara + Yvette] A sleepover is just the thing to restore normality, or would be if both friends weren't freaking out.
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Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2013 9:05 pm
Somehow, patrolling on the way to and from school had become a habit. Not because there was a ton of youma activity in the morning and early afternoon hours. Far from it, in fact. Tara chose those times because they offered a slim chance of actual battle while giving her the feeling that she was still doing her job. It also gave her time to work on her skills without a ton of other senshi out to laugh at her. It had been a while since she’d roof hopping, and she was still learning the best ways to make use of her ability. The off-peak before- and after-school hours were perfect for making it look like she was being useful without having to worry about doing anything.
It was a late afternoon, one she’d spent looking at the HITS extracurricular activities with some disdain and mourning the loss of her once-loathed cheerleading squad, that Aquarius found herself on the roof of a building near her school. Her mini-patrol was done, and she was getting ready to head for home when a wave of energy hit her. If usual guardian cats showed up as a tiny ripple in her mental radar, this was a giant wave that threatened to bowl her over. Staggering, Aquarius gripped the top of the roof’s fence and tried to catch her breath.
Whatever that was, it was big. Aquarius was torn between her desire to find out what it was and her gut reaction, to run in the opposite direction and avoid whatever forces were duking it out. Her grip on the fence rail tightened, which drew her attention away from the now-dispersed energy wave and to her hand. A moment ago it had been level with her waist. Now it was up closer to her chest, as was top of the fence. Was she imagining things?
Something shifted again, and suddenly the top of the fence was above her head. Aquarius squeaked in surprise and tried to pull herself up, to no avail. Her hand slipped off of the rail, and she could feel herself pitching forwards, over the edge of the roof. She screamed and flailed around, trying to grab onto something, anything, to keep her from toppling over. This building was only two stories high, but she could still break her neck if she fell from here. Her hands scraped at the fence posts, but they weren’t working properly anymore, and she flew over the edge.
From there, things seemed to slow down. When it was over and done with, Aquarius knew it had only taken a couple of seconds, five tops. As it was happening, she could feel every motion keenly. Her body twisted in mid-air, rotating so that her head was up. Her arms scrunched up in front of her, protecting her head and ready to absorb the impact that was coming. Her legs bent at odd angles. She could see the ground beneath her, and thanked some god somewhere that there was a small flower garden outside this house.
Aquarius hit the ground with a small thump, almost drowning in a clump of hyacinths. Her arms and legs felt tingly, which was a pretty good result considering she had just fallen two stories. For several moments, she just sat there with her eyes closed, reveling in the fact that she had not died (again) and ignoring the other odd things she had noticed on her way down. Like the fact that her arms and legs were covered with dark blue fur and seemed to end in paws. And the fact that she could have sworn she had felt a tail.
Soon, the need to see what had happened to her outweighed the delight she felt nestled in the flowers, so she shook herself off and padded down the street. At that point it was fairly apparent what was going on, but she waited until she came across a storefront with a glass door, and looked at her reflection with a mixture of resigned dismay and curiosity.
She was, of course, a cat. An unusual cat with dark blue fur (except for her belly and part of her face, which were white) and a distinctive gold star on her forehead, but a cat nonetheless. It was probably the fact that she was now a cat that had saved her life. Then again, it was also probably the fact that she was now a cat that had caused her to tumble from the roof in the first place. It made it hard for her to know what to think.
“And Kent will wonder where I am again,” she said to herself, moving away from the door as someone came out of the shop. For the moment, she decided that being a cat was weirder than being a zombie but not nearly as unpleasant, and she set off down the street. Figuring out how this had happened could come later. She had other things on her mind.
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Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2013 9:07 pm
Starry Pelt Cat[Kitty!Aquarius + Yvette] What are best friends for, if not to take care of you when you spontaneously turn into a cat?
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