"Here I am a rabbit hearted girl
Frozen in the headlights
It seems I've made the final sacrifice"


A soft sigh escaped Gabbie’s lips as she leaned back in her chair and stared broodingly at the images on the computer. It had been days since that ridiculous meeting and she’d spent her precious spare time hunting for references to the senshi Astruna had mentioned in Japan. The search hadn’t been easy. The fact the all the information she’d found had been in Japanese had sent her scurrying to the library to hunt out every Japanese to English dictionary she could lay her hands on. When her brain had failed to translate the kanji characters properly, she’d hunted out every free plugin she could download that would provide translations of the few websites she’d found. It had taken time, patience and every scrap of humor she possessed to keep at her search. But the search had proved somewhat fruitful and informative.

The senshi Astruna had mentioned had been heroes. Plain and simple. Gabbie gnawed on a fingernail before standing up to stretch, pop her spine back into alignment and pace the length of her bedroom. The pacing helped her to think. There was precious little information available on the internet. And most of that was about the mysterious ‘Sailor V’. A few blurry pictures, a few garbled witness testimonies. And then, it seemed that Sailor V had been replaced by Sailor Moon and the four warriors who fought with her. She’d only managed to find a single, blurry, grainy picture of that team in action. The image had already been printed out and now was stuck into a journal for future study. Even with the little she’d found, one thing had been clear. Those girls had been heroes. One other thing was also quite clear.

Almost as quickly as they’d appeared on the scene, they’d simply vanished. There were no references to senshi, in a group or acting singly after a certain point. Gabbie paused in her pacing and stared at the computer, her eyes blank and focused inward. Those names Kunzite had written on the whiteboard, Astruna’s voice when she’d mentioned the senshi team in Japan…. Those girls had died in the line of duty. But they’d died heroes. They’d saved people, put their own lives on the line every time they fought a monster.

This is what Kunzite and Astruna expect of us, she thought. They want us to fight, to save people. To rise up and become heroes worthy to stand with those who had departed. Privately, Gabbie wondered if that lost senshi team had ever felt scared or heartsick of killing, no matter whether it was youma or Negaverse soldiers. Growling hoarsely, she flopped down on her bed and stared at the ceiling. They were people just like us, she mused. They were human. Of course they would have felt scared or tired or sick of fighting sometimes. But they still did it. That’s why those dinky sites I found radiated such reverence. Heroes. She couldn’t escape the word. They’d been heroes in the truest sense of the word. They’d been brave. And if any of them had been frightened of their own powers and magic, they hadn’t let that stop them. They’d gone out and done what was needed.

Closing her amber eyes, she let her mind go still and silent for a moment, simply allowing the information she’d gleaned to sink in. If she wanted to be effective and protect the innocent, protect her Princess (if they ever managed to find her, of course) and rise up to the challenge, she would need to emulate Sailor Moon and her team. Maybe then, she could learn to be a hero too.

"I must become a lion hearted girl
Ready for a fight
Before I make the final sacrifice"