Learning Curve

Written by Sailor Berchest

Suri set her drink down, twirling the straw in the thick, red liquid. "Really? A bounty hunter? That's sooo interesting! Do you kill a lot of people?" She was in full ditz mode; flirting and acting as shallow as a snowfall on Tatooine. The man started getting a little too cozy, so Suri figured it was about time for her to leave Cherry. It was a bar Seiki had suggested, but refused to enter.

The bartender, meantime, was shooting her a glare every once and a while. Apparently, she wasn't to fond of patrons who just sat around and let others buy drinks for them. "Hey, what's your name?" she asked the red-haired woman. Then, repeating what she thought she heard, Suri handed her a cred chip of sufficiently large denomination. "Thanks, Camel."

She didn't notice the scathing glare that was visited on the back of her head.

"I have to be getting home," Suri said, pleasantly, trying to disentangle herself from the grasp of the man. It was slightly difficult, but she'd dealt with so many men like him that she was very good at getting rid of them. She carefully worked her fingers over his, prying him off of her. He was much more drunk than she was so it was fairly easy. Suri quietly let him stager to the side. She herself started walking a little faster, making her way away from him.

Unfortunately, Suri had misjudged his drunkenness. "Hey, where are you going?" he demanded, reviving a little and reaching for her. "Hey... you..."

"Home," Suri said, jerking her arm away. She started walking faster. He got up to follow her, and she swallowed nervously.

'Fuzz brain,' Seiki said, suddenly appearing and waving to an ally. 'You need to transform! Kick his rear!'

A slight smile ran across Suri's face as she ducked into the ally. "Berchest!" she said, shaking the little bell. "Uplift me!" Waves of orange-red power swept over her, forming the blue, green, and red-orange sailor suit. Sailor Berchest grinned and stepped out of the alleyway, the bells on her high heels tumbling over each other with pretty noises. "Stop right there," she told the man, giving him a glare. "I'm Sailor Berchest! For the oceans I love, and the planet of crystals that I protect, I'm gonna kick your butt." An amusing thought overtook her words, and Suri felt she had to voice it. "All in high heels, without messing up my hair!"

He didn't look impressed and grabbed at her. "Nice legs," he responded, adding on an unladylike name.

Sailor Berchest's mind filled with phrases and attacks and defenses. Unsure of which attack would be the best in the situation, she latched onto the next one that came to mind. "Berchest!" she screamed. Just saying her planet's name seemed to calm her. She spoke the next word in a forceful, singsong. "Crystal!"

Between her gray gloved hands, a shaft of red-orange crystal coalesced from sparkling raindrops. Sharp and deadly, part of her mind assessed. She wasn't even sure what she was going to do with the thing. It was almost like watching someone else showed in small droplets of water. She wondered, idly if it was salt water.

The long crystal shaft slid through her hands until she was holding onto the very end of it. The crystal was half again as long as her forearm, but she could easily encircle it with her gloved hands. All this was pouring through her mind like the sparkling light that surrounded her - everything was registering on the subconscious level. She was trying to understand what she was doing, and it wasn't making much sense. Instincts that she didn't know she had were evidencing themselves in ways that were astounding her.

The man was so close that she could feel his presence in the Force. Berchest had never been good at using the Force on more than an instinctual, sexual way. She knew how to please people, and that was it. Now... now she could feel the man. His emotions were raw and sloppy, switching quickly from lust to fear to confusion and back again. It made part of her head spin. Her instincts were still in full working order. Tendrils of steam seemed to be surrounding the crystal shaft. It glowed in a way that frightened her, a little.

Berchest took the crystal and slammed it into the gut of the man before her. It buried itself deep within him, and she let it go. "Downpour!" the senshi screamed, through her arms wide and stepping backwards. She held the pose.

The man looked down, stunned at the protrusion from his belly. He looked even more stunned when the crystal exploded. Shards of crystal and organic matter sprayed the surrounding area, then seemed to evaporate.

Berchest screamed in time with the man as he put his hands were his gut used to be. He fell to his knees, still screaming. He slumped forward, suddenly silent. The lack of sound was more terrifying than the original noise.

"Oh, Force," Berchest gasped, falling to the ground. She grabbed her knees and started rocking back and forth. Bile started to rise up in her throat. "What did I do?"

Seiki reached out for her, but remembered that she didn't have any real hands. 'You're a senshi, ok? You do what senshi do, and sometimes that means you kill people.'

"But why?" she begged, tears slipping down her cheeks. "He didn't do anything too bad. I mean, he was getting on my nerves, but he didn't deserve... he didn't deserve... this!" She wiped her eyes with her gloved hands.

'Maybe it wasn't the best attack to use,' Seiki conceded with a shrug. 'But it happened. Please, understand. There's nothing you can do about him, but you can learn to use your attacks more... efficiently.'

Berchest put her face into her arms, her bare back pressing against the cold cement of the building behind her. The girl sunk her face behind her crossed arms. "I don't want to do this. I don't want to be responsible for this kind of power." She closed her eyes and willed herself to revert back to her 'civilian' form.

Seiki shook her head, trying to pat Suri's shoulder. 'You can do it. You have to. Do you want to know a secret?'

Suri didn't make any kind of response.

'You're not the strongest senshi out there.' Seiki found Suri's eyes and stared into them. 'There are senshi stronger than you, more powerful than you, and there are senshi with archenemies the like of which you can't even begin to imagine. There are senshi who have to deal with horrible evils and there are senshi who are being chased by wretched things. They have not so good things to deal with.'

"Hey!" Suri said, her face angry through the tears. "I have bad things to deal with too! I just killed another person." The small outburst over, she buried her head among her knees.

Seiki opened her mouth to offer more advice, then closed it. After a moment, she finally spoke. 'Wait, another person?'

"What kind of guardian blue ghostie are you?" Suri demanded. "You know nothing about me!"

'I concede that, Suri,' Seiki admitted. 'I know very little about you. I was busy trying to protect you from the Dark Side of the Force. It kept me from being near to you. But it kept you from being attacked by the evilest Force-demons.'

Suri's face scrunched up in a frown. "You didn't do a very good job of it."

Shaking her head, Seiki spoke again. 'The things that happened to you were just normal bad things. I protected you from supreme evil!'

"Normal?!" Suri protested. She opened her mouth to say more, but aparently changed her mind. "Oh no," the dancer sighed, pulling her compact out of her purse. "I messed up my make up!" She grumbled softly to herself, dabbing at the straying makeup, then reapplying it. "Much better."

Seiki frowned at her charge.

"I want to get back to that stupid embassy and my room," Suri said, affecting a yawn. "I'm sooo tired. And..." She bit her lip. "I really don't understand all of this."

Seiki smiled, the expression filling her face. 'I know. That's why you've got me. I know almost everything that you need to know. How to fight, how to use your powers, who to trust, how to trust them...'

The purple haired wiped a stray tear from her eye. "I'm glad I have you, Seiki. I don't know what I'd do without you."

'I don't either,' Seiki said, keeping the smile on her face. 'I don't either.'

Back to Stories