Earth's Eclipse cpt 2

Minako, Makato, Ami, and Raye walked over to Usagi's house to visit her at the urgings of Luna. They knew she had been depressed as of late, the recent battles and Mamoru's attitude making her feel worthless. Minako walked up to the door and knocked on it, waiting for a response. They waited a few moments, getting no answer.

"I just left her a while ago to get you guys," Luna said from her position in Ami's arms as she started to become concerned.

"Hello? Anybody home?" Makato called out. She tried the door to find it unlocked. The brunette opened it cautiously, the others following behind her. The house was dark and eerily quiet, no one seeming to be there.

"I have a bad feeling about this," Raye muttered as she took off up the flight of stairs that led to Usagi's room, dread settling into the pit of her stomach. She flung the door open to the bedroom, hoping for anything to just find their leader safe, napping on the bed. The sight that greeted her made her gasp. Her closet and vanity were open a large amount of clothing obviously missing. Her stuffed bunny was gone from its hallowed position on her bookshelf. On her vanity laid her transformation broach, a note attached to the mirror above it. The thing that brought fear to her eyes though was her locket lying destroyed on the floor. With shaking hands, the young Shinto priestess took the note down and opened it.

The others of the group came in then, to find Raye standing there, frozen in place. She looked up at them, tears in her violet eyes, as the letter slipped from her hold, fluttering to the ground.

"She's gone," She whispered.

Twenty-four hours later Usagi sat underneath a palm tree, looking out at the beach that lay across the road. She had caught a plane going to the first destination they had an opening on. Long Beach, California. She had used the Luna Pen one more time when she had landed and she now had light cinnamon brown hair the length of Ami's, plus green eyes instead of blue.

The breeze stirred the night air, rustling the leaves of the palm. Tears fell down her face. It still felt right to have come here, but she wondered if her friends even missed her. She knew she missed them. She missed them terribly, but she was sure he was probably glad to be rid of her. She was starting anew, she reminded herself. That meant leaving him behind. She let a few more tears escape, then made herself stop crying. There were more important things to be thinking about now anyway. Finding a place to sleep, for one. She had used the last of her money getting the plane ticket and a bus ride from the airport to a little shopping area near the beach. There had been little traffic at this hour of night, which surprised her. She had adjusted her watch when she arrived here, looking to find it to be only 9:50 on a Sunday evening. Tokyo would still be bustling with activity at this time. A car drove by and she didn't pay it much attention until it stopped then backed up. It was then that she noticed that the car was actually a police vehicle.

"Good evening, Miss," The driver, a man, said.

"Good evening," Usagi mimicked, trying to remember English. She had been grasping it through the day, but hardly anyone had spoken to her. She knew she had said the right thing, even though she was sure it probably sounded funny to him. Speaking Japanese primarily for fourteen years would make anyone sound funny.

"How old are you ma'am?"

She wished now that she had kept up on her studies more. As she heard Ami's nagging in the back of the head she thought about how she had thought she would never actually need English. "Three?" She said at last, hoping she had remembered her numbers right.

The cop looked at her funny and she realized she was in error.

"Umm... Do you speak Japanese perchance?" She asked nervously in her native language. From the blank stare she received it was obvious he didn't.

"Come on, Miss. Let's go," The officer said as he got out of the car and opened the back passenger door for her.

Nathan had no idea why a young girl who spoke very little English was out by herself so close to curfew. She looked too young to drive and the stores had been closed for at least two hours at the shopping area due to the last blackout. He sadly admitted to himself that she was most likely a runaway. Of course he couldn't be sure. He didn't speak whatever language she did, and he was pretty sure one of the people at the police station would either.

He glanced at her briefly. She looked terrified, clinging to her little backpack, her green eyes darting back and forth rapidly. She probably thinks I'm going to arrest her, he thought to himself as he turned down one road. He drove down the street, seeing how the girl noticed the rather large houses with huge lawns of neatly kept green grass. She acted as if she thought the whole thing was supposed to be beach. He pulled up to one of the houses and turned of the car, getting out. Leaving the girl in the car, he went into the house. "Marcus!" He yelled as he walked over to a nearby set of stairs. A boy ran out into view, stopping in front of the top stair, looking down at him.

"Yes sir?" He called out to Nathan.

"I need your help son. I have a girl in my car that speaks one of those languages you study. At least I think."

"Really?" The boy ran down the stairs and followed his dad out to the patrol car. His heart nearly froze in his chest as his gaze fell upon the girl sitting in the back seat. His dad opened the door to the car and he stooped down on his knees so he could talk to her while being face to face. He tried French first to only get a baffled expression from her. Spanish proved to have the fame result. She raised her eyebrows at Swedish and German, but seemed not to understand. Finally he tried his last language, expecting it not to work. He said hello in Japanese and her eyes lit up instantly.

She began to talk rapidly, almost too fast for him to comprehend. He told her to slow down and she did obediently, some or her nervousness seeming to leave her. He questioned her on a few things by his father's instructions and she answered them hesitantly.

"She's a runaway," He said at last. "Supposedly since she was a young child. She grew up in Japan and the person who she had recently been living with started to treat her badly. She said she left to get away from him."

Nathan glanced at the girl. He tried to picture her living on the streets of Japan, recalling pictures from one of Marcus' textbooks. He wasn't as smart as his son was, but he was smart enough to know the girl had to be in a bad situation if she had been willing to flee from the guy who had been sheltering her. He hated to do it, but he knew what he was going to have to do. "Does she know anyone here?" He asked Marcus. "Anyone at all?"

Marcus translated for the girl and she answered him in a quiet voice. He looked back up at his father. "No, she doesn't.

He sighed at the answer. "Then I'm going to have to take her down to the station."

"No dad, please," Marcus jumped up and pleaded with his father. "If you do that they'll just send her back. She'll just end up on the streets again. She might even end back up with that guy."

"Marcus..." Nathan began.

"Does anyone know you picked her up?" He cut him off.

He was quiet for a moment, having a feeling where Marcus was heading with this. "No," He said at last.

"Then she can stay with us. We can say she is an exchange student we took into our home," He encouraged his father.

Nathan sighed again. He looked back over at the girl who still appeared terrified; most likely because she couldn't understand a word they were saying, then back at his son who had a hopeful expression on his face. "How would we enroll her in school?" He asked after a moment.

Marcus smiled; knowing the battle was halfway won. "You could talk to Paul," He said.

He gave his son a sour look. Paul was the principal at the local high school, who just happened to also be his closest friend. "How?" He asked. "By having him forge records?"

"Why not? He owes you for helping him out of that gambling debt."

Nathan threw his hands up in exasperation, startling the girl, but making Marcus only grin wider. "Fine," He grumbled, wondering how his son always managed to outsmart him. "I'll see what can be done, but she's going to have learn some English if you're going to pull this off."

Marcus smiled at his father. "She will," He said. Speaking rapidly in Japanese, he coaxed the girl out of the car and into the house.

Nathan gave one last sigh as she watched the two walk into the house. Muttering to himself, he got back into the car and went back out on patrol.

Usagi walked warily into the house. The boy had only told her to come inside so she had no clue what was going on. The boy was speaking quickly in English as he brought her in and sat her down at a desk in his bedroom upstairs. She figured he had been getting ready for bed due to he was wearing a pair of flannel p.j. pants and a white shirt. She watched as he ran about the room, going in and out occasionally getting some comforters to make a pallet on the floor near his bed. Finally Usagi decided to speak up. "Could you please speak in Japanese so I could understand you?"

The boy looked up at her words. "Sorry," He said sheepily, switching languages. "My name is Marcus," He extended his hand.

"Usagi," She said as she shook his hand. He was thin with a face that seemed to have sharp, rugged angles, despite his young age. He had dark brown hair and deep blue-green eyes that seemed bottomless in their depth; plus a really rich, honey smooth voice to boot. She wondered somewhat sadly if this was how Mamoru had looked when he was younger. "What's going to happen to me?" She asked him. "Am I going to jail?" She added fearfully.

Marcus laughed. "No. You're not going to jail. Dad just picked you up because you were out past the night curfew when roaming blackouts are going on. He tries to keep everyone off the streets when they are going on. But you are not going to be turned in or anything. You can stay here if you're willing to," He sounded hopeful as he said the last sentence. "Either else you may have to go back to Japan."

Usagi's heart wrenched in her chest as she thought about her friends whom she was always letting down and the man who was her destiny but no longer loved her. No, going back was not an option. "I will stay here if I can."

He smiled at her. "Great. We'll work out the details tomorrow. But for now I was just getting ready to go sleep so I could get up to study tomorrow. But I guess I'll be teaching you instead," He grinned at her awkwardly. He started to say something else, but was stopped short as he heard the open and someone come inside.

"Marcus!" A feminine voice called up the stairs, followed by the sounds of footsteps.

"Essence?" He said out loud, to have his question answered by a girl walking into the room.

"Hey Marc. I just thought-" The girl stopped talking as she noticed Usagi.

Usagi was caught off guard to just have someone new barge into the room, especially dressed like she was. The girl wore a blue-based pleated, plaid skirt; a white button-down shirt that was un-tucked and had the sleeves rolled up on it. A black sweater that had the arms and almost half the torso of it cut off was pulled over the shirt, covering up just a little past her breasts. She had on fishnets and boots that bore buckles and zippers all over them. Multicolored bracelets hung on her wrists and glow in the dark necklaces dangled with silver chains around her neck. Thick, red hair was pulled up into a messy clip to stay out of her way, a strand of braided, multicolor hair hanging down on one side near her face. Usagi found it odd to see the girl also sported a pair of very conservative, black rimmed eyeglasses. She was just starting to think of how her eye color reminded her of Raye's when the red head arched an eyebrow at her.

"Why Marc, when did other girls besides me start staying in your room?"

Usagi had not understood what she said, but she saw Marcus turn red.

"This is not what it looks like. Dad found he while on patrol," He said in his defense. "She's a runaway from Japan."

Essence whistled in spite of herself. "That's pretty far to run to end up here," She smiled at him wickedly. "That still doesn't explain the fact of why she is in your room," She taunted.

He turned an even darker red. "She is going to stay with us and I will teach her English during the summer and she will enroll in school next year with us."

"Well, there's your summer vacation down the drain," She muttered at him. "Oh well!" She added cheerfully. "Not like you do anything but study with it as it is."

"At least I don't party during every day of it so all the knowledge I gained from the last year oozes out of my head," He retorted in a huff. "I bet the only reason you're even here is the blackout hit the party district and you just wanted somewhere to crash for the night."

"Hey! I don't party every day! I write and do my art too," Her mouth twitched after a small moment of silence on her part and she started to talk again quietly. "The blackout has hit the party district. I decided to go home, but dad locked me out again, and you remember what happened last time I tried to get in."

Marcus sighed, a trait he picked up from his father. He remembered the last time all to vividly. She had set off the alarm by accident and the cops had came out and tried to arrest her for breaking and entering. Nathan had been the only person able to convince the cops that she actually lived at the house. That was one of the hassles of dressing like a raver and being a child of a very upper-class man. His features softened visibly as she answered her. "Of course you can stay the night. Usagi took your normal spot though," He motioned to the pallet that Usagi had already sat down on.

"That's cool. I'll just sleep downstairs on the couch. You really need to get her an American name if she is going to stay here. People will look at her funny if you run around calling her that."

"It translates to Rabbit," He told her, laughing at the face she made as she started to walk out of the room. "Um, okay. Nice to meet you Bunny," She said to Usagi as she walked out the door. "Night Marc. Thanks," She called out behind her as she made her way downstairs.

Marcus chuckled. He actually thought Bunny might be a cute name for her, for some odd reason.

"Who was that girl?" Usagi asked, interrupting his thoughts.

"Oh. That was Essence. I've known her since I was little. She doesn't really get along with her dad, so she hangs out over here sometimes. She's pretty cool when you get to know her."

"Oh," Was all she said in response. She lay down underneath the covers as Marcus started to talk some more. She wanted to stay awake and listen to him, to ask him questions. Before she realized it though, sleep pulled at her, and she drifted off into dream land.

Marcus had been rambling for a few minutes before he turned around to find her asleep. He stopped mid-sentence, smiling softly at the sight of her dozing form. He got up and turned off the lights, then made his way back to the bed and lay down. "Good night, Bunny," He whispered as he closed his eyes.