-3 Doors Down �Not Enough�
�Come on you stupid monster! Die already! I still have a pile of Algebra homework to do!� Sailor Centauri shouted as she swiftly dodged a ball of energy that the Soul Stealer had sent flying in her direction.
The creature hissed menacingly in response.
�Okay, this is getting old, fast. You call those things attacks? This is an attack!� Centauri raised her hands above her head and shouted, �Centauri Cosmic Cyclone!�
A bright ball of light formed between her raised hands, and when she brought her arms down to chest level a spiral of energy erupted from Centauri�s hands. The spiraling beam struck the snake-like monster in the chest, causing it to evaporate instantly.
When the last echo of its dying wail � a screaming hiss � had left the air, Centauri dropped her fighting stance and ran over to where the monster had been standing. In its place was a small, snake shaped charm. Centauri knew from Uranus and Neptune�s lessons that this charm had to be destroyed before the monster�s victims could have their souls returned.
She left the charm where it was lying on the ground. Instead of snapping it in half as Uranus and Neptune did, Centauri preferred to crush it under foot, which she did with a swift stomp of her boot covered foot. The air around her swirled as the souls were released and returned to their proper bodies.
By the time their owners awoke, the girl wearing the silver skirt and silver boots had vanished.
�You�re late Koby,� Koby�s mother greeted when she finally arrived home later that night.
Koby gulped and tried to straighten her clothes out before her mother found out what a mess she was in. �Sorry Mom. Jane and I lost track of time. We got a ton of studying done though.�
A moment later Koby�s mother strode into the front hall, dressed in a long gray skirt, white blouse, and a button up gray jacket. Her brown hair was pulled up in a tight bun. Koby recognized this as her mother�s work outfit.
�You�re working tonight?� Koby asked, incredulous. It was, after all, almost 8 �o clock on a Sunday night.
Her mother nodded briskly. �There�s a problem with one of our sellers. They backed out last minute on a sale and now we can�t give the company that we promised to sell material to the material anymore because no one�s selling it to us.� Koby blinked as she watched her exasperated mother slip on a pair of nice shoes and rush out of the house.
�Bye,� Koby said as the door swung shut in her astonished face. �I guess I�m on my own tonight.�
She kicked her Nike running shoes off and walked up to her room feeling exhausted. Lately it seemed as if she were doing more work in one day than her mother did in a week. Although she told her mother that she would be studying for a major World History test with Jane all day, she had really spent the day with Haruka and Michiru, or Uranus and Neptune. It had been almost a week since she found out who she really was and they had trained Koby to the point of collapse nearly everyday.
Koby had met them at a small caf� just down the street from her house and they had taken her to a large patch of vacant forest to train.
For the entire day, under the scorching pre-summer sun and the watchful gaze of Uranus and Neptune, Koby had run laps, practiced her attacks on trees, and had worked on things like flips, dives and rolls. Her experience as a goalkeeper had aided her some on that part, but Koby found that when she had transformed into Centauri she was much more agile than Koby was.
They had also worked on transforming today. Koby found that despite how easy Uranus and Neptune made it look, it was really a difficult process. For starters, there was the henshin stick. Uranus and Neptune could both pull it out of thin air while Koby struggled. When she finally did get the hang of it and had managed to transform, she was impressed.
Her Sailor Senshi uniform had a silver skirt and collar, as well as a silver choker, a tiara with a silver jewel, and knee high silver boots with brown trim at the top. At the front of her uniform there was a brown bow with a red button at about chest level. At the back just above her waist was another bow, this time red. Despite her dislike of skirts and tight clothing, Koby felt that the uniform was pretty darn cool. The fact that most of it was silver helped a lot too; Koby�s favorite color was silver.
When the day began to grow dark they took Koby back to the caf�, said goodbye, and had driven off.
The reason Koby had for drop-offs and meetings at the caf� was so her mother wouldn�t get suspicious. Koby had the strangest sensation that her mother would not approve of Haruka and Michiru.
Noticing that she still had half an hour left before her mother expected her home, Koby had gone into the caf� and ordered a drink and a sandwich. She had had barely anything to eat all day and was starving.
Hardly five bites into her sandwich, Koby sensed something was wrong. She quietly slipped into the bathroom to transform, and, upon leaving it, had found a scene much like the one in her dream. All of the caf�s patrons and workers were slumped in their seats or lying on the floor, eyes glazed and not breathing.
After a swift battle with the monster, Koby had detransformed, grabbed her sandwich and ran for home, hoping she wouldn�t be late. Plus she still had the World History test to study for and Algebra homework to do.
With a yawn, Koby grabbed her school bag from her bed and removed her Algebra notebook from it. This time her assignment came from her textbook, so she picked that up from the neat pile by her bed as well. Most of her textbooks were kept at home as teachers did not require them for class. Every student at Richmond was extremely thankful for this because nearly every class had an accompanying textbook. Some even had two.
Koby set her materials down on her desk and flopped down into her chair. �I�m so exhausted,� she thought as she flipped to the page the questions were on. �With school, soccer, and training, I�m never going to be able to have a normal life again.� There was a lot of truth in that thought. Normally Koby struggled to juggle her intense school schedule with 2 hours of soccer practice every night, but with at least an hour of training every day, she never had time to do simple things like talk on the phone with friends, or think for that matter. To make things worse, the soccer championships were quickly approaching and the varsity coach had shown interest in moving her up as a reserve goalie. This was a chance Koby had been waiting for her whole soccer career, but to get the spot Koby had to work even harder during practice.
Then there was her mother, who grew increasingly suspicious when she started to see less of Koby than she normally did. Koby really couldn't see why she cared. It had long been Koby's personal feelings that as long as she stayed on top of her schoolwork and continued to bring home praise then her mother felt that she didn't need to worry about her.
But the stress didn't end there. With final exams approaching along with state testing, Koby's teachers had assigned more homework and studying than before. Koby didn't know how she'd survive if she ever had to face a major attack.
Groaning, Koby picked up a pencil and forced herself to concentrate on her homework.
The next morning Koby awoke with the fragments of a strange dream in her memory, but no matter how hard she tried she could not remember the entire dream.
As she slipped on the necklace that had mysteriously emerged from her dream, Koby shrugged it all off as an ordinary dream, nothing important. �A psychic dream would leave more of an impression,� she rationalized as she hurried down for breakfast.
�Morning Mom,� she said cheerfully as she entered the kitchen for breakfast.
�Good morning. There are a couple pancakes on your plate. Better eat up quick, I have to get to work early today.�
�Again?� Koby asked as she took a seat. �I think they�re overworking you Mom. You�re at work nearly 18 hours a day.�
�Nonsense.� Koby�s mother stopped bustling around the kitchen for a moment to turn on the radio that sat above the sink. �Have to hear the stock reports,� she muttered to herself.
Koby decided to tune out the boring drone of the radio and lose herself in her own thoughts. She was just about to immerse herself in soccer dreams when a report on the radio snapped her out of her daze.
�Last night there was an attack by an unidentified creature on patrons of the Roadside Caf�. This attack was described by its victims as a snake-like creature stealing the patrons� energy or some other life force. There have been several other reports of attacks like this worldwide. However, instead of losing their lives, the victims were saved by an unknown heroine. An eyewitness in the parking lot of the caf� reported seeing a girl in a sailor suit defeat the monster then run away. A description of this girl has proved to be similar to those of the Sailor Senshi � crime-fighting heroines in Japan. Law enforcement officials are puzzled at the sudden appearance of this girl, but thankful nonetheless. In other news��
Koby stared at the radio in dazed amazement. �They were just talking about me!� she thought happily.
Her mother did not share her happy thoughts however. �The Roadside Caf�?� she was saying. �That�s just down the street from our house! The things happening in this world today. You have your crazy, drugged up thugs and then your equally crazy people dressed in strange costumes that think that they�re super heroes! What nonsense!�
In embarrassment, Koby�s cheeks burned, but that did not lessen the pride Koby felt over her accomplishments. �I saved their lives. Who cares what she thinks?� Koby thought before going back to her breakfast.
At school the halls were alight with talk about the attack. The story eventually twisted itself from being one puny monster to a whole hoard of demons who had slaughtered the customers at the caf� and had started to feed on their limbs until some chick with a huge arsenal blew them all away with her jumbo sized rocket launcher.
Koby listened to the stories fly around her and just laughed to herself. She would have loved to tell everyone what really happened, but she couldn�t. She was sworn to secrecy about her identity as Sailor Centauri.
If the contorted stories about the attack weren�t bad enough, there were also the boy�s fantasies about Sailor Centauri herself.
At lunch, Pete received a smack to the head from Koby for saying, �I�ve seen pictures of those Senshi in Japan and they are hot, let me tell you. I wonder what this one looks like � I bet she�s got some sweet legs. Man, I�d love to lose myself in a pair of legs belonging to one of those Senshi.�
When he asked what he had done to deserve the smack, Koby had told him that he was being too perverted for his own good.
�Sorry Koby,� Pete said grinning, �I didn�t think that you�d be jealous if I talked about another girl like that.�
�Why you little�� Koby began to say but her words were cut off by the bell that signaled the end of lunch. Pete took advantage of the opportunity to dart away from the table before Koby could hurt him again. �You were talking about me you moron!� Koby wanted to scream, but knew that she would just get stared at. �Hopefully this will all have blown over by soccer practice,� Koby muttered as she stood up to head for Biology.
But it hadn�t. In fact, it was all anyone wanted to talk about. Bill took advantage of the situation to tell them that the girl who had saved the caf� was probably in great shape and proceeded to lead them through several exercises that he was �positive she performed on her own time.� It was all Koby could do to keep from laughing out loud.
As practice progressed, Koby became aware of a nagging feeling at the pit of her stomach. She looked around to see if there was anything on the field besides the team, and noticed Haruka and Michiru sitting on the bleachers. Koby normally would have been surprised, but their sudden appearances no longer caught her off guard. Now she came to expect them.
Thinking that she should let them know about her feeling, Koby excused herself from practice to make a trip to the bathroom in the nearby team room � the room between the two stadiums at Richmond where all of the teams changed and prepared for their games. As she headed over to the small brick building on the far side of the field, Koby discretely waved to Haruka and Michiru, telling them to follow her.
She slipped into the building and waited for them to join her. A moment later they too had snuck into the room and were looking at Koby thoughtfully.
�We heard about the attack,� Haruka said with a small smile.
�Congratulations,� Michiru hailed her.
�Yeah, yeah.� Koby brushed their compliments to the side hurriedly. �Who cares about that right now? It�s going around school that some chick with a rocket launcher saved the day.� Koby gave a short laugh before continuing. �Anyway � I wanted to tell you about this weird feeling a I have right now. It�s kind of like the one I felt before the attack at the caf�, but it�s a lot stronger. Do you think there could be another attack here, on the teams practicing? A larger one?�
Michiru frowned as she spoke. �It�s possible� but you can�t know for sure. You say it�s exactly like the one you got before the attack in the caf�?�
Koby nodded eagerly. �It�s right in the pit of my stomach. A really nagging type thing where I feel like something�s�� Koby was cut off before she could describe the feeling any further.
Outside, people were screaming.
Chapter 8
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