Chapter 14: Fighting Evil By Moonlight

The dorms were closed until early January, which left me to live out of a hotel on Izumi’s dime until school started up again. For what it was worth, I was finally growing comfortable in living as a woman. Makeup and fashion and my fully transformed body had gone from euphoric to simply being pleasant and routine.

I was getting used to exploring the city as the real me. Not in a costume or to fight crime, but just to experience life as Serena. It felt different, but strangely comfortable.

There were awkward moments, of course. When I had woken up to the gut pains and blood of my very first period, it had taken a lot of Googling and buying an armload of menstrual products from a very forgiving clerk at the local corner store to resolve the issue. Even as I had to lie in bed holding my stomach, I still treasured the new normal.

After a great deal of pestering Mako, I had been provided with Toru’s email. It had been a few weeks since we had last spoken, and while leaving him behind had been hard, he had been right.

Toru-

I still miss you… but I haven’t given up on you either. I’m not going to ask you to wait for me, nor am I going to wait for you, necessarily. But do I still need time to find myself. Apart from anyone else. But all the same, I want you to know that there’s a little rose-shaped hole in my heart from where you left me.

Love,
Serena

I’d expected him to reply to the email sooner, but truthfully, it was less of a conversation and more of a clarification. I needed time. To heal and to get comfortable with myself. It wasn’t fair to leap into any relationship, old or new otherwise.

Stepping back on campus as school restarted was surreal, though. I had regular classmates and professors reintroducing themselves to me. There wasn’t really any kind of question about the disappearance of the old me and the sudden transfer of a girl with the same last name. Apparently, I had so little presence, nobody had noticed my departure. 

Except for one person.

It had been an awkward reunion, to say the least. I had just gotten done using the toilet and as I washed my hands, someone slid up next to me, her face pale in sheer disbelief.

“That’s… that’s really you isn’t it?” asked Carla, her voice quiet.

She’d changed a little too. A shorter haircut, a leaner frame. But it couldn’t be anyone else.

I nodded, trying to swallow the lump in my throat. “Yeah.”

She flinched at my new voice. “Holy shit…” she frowned at me as she looked around the otherwise thankfully empty bathroom. “You know this is the women's restroom, right?”

“Yes, Carla,” I said tensely, drying off my hands, “but I am a woman.”

She looked me up and down, looking sick. “Completely? Like… you have a vag-“

“Carla!” I snapped, my hands clasped around the paper towel I was using as I turned back to her. “Please! It’s been hard… I’m just trying to survive, okay? I just want to be a normal girl right now! This isn’t about my powers or being a Sailor Scout or anything like that right now… I just want to get the chance to live and build a real life again! I don’t need you reminding me of the person I was or asking me intrusive questions about my body! Just let me be me!”

I sniffed and had to wipe my tears. Turning back to the mirror, I saw that my mascara was beginning to run and had to try to fix it. Behind me, I heard Carla say my old name.

“Serena,” I said, frowning as I tried to salvage my makeup, “My name is Serena.”

Carla blinked in shock. “That’s what you’re calling yourself?”

“It’s my name, Carla,” I insisted, “I don’t know what kind of strings Mercury pulled but it’s legally my name now.”

Carla raised an eyebrow, crossing her arms over her chest. “You seriously named yourself after Sailor Moon?”

“It’s not just that,” I sighed, “for one thing, I am Sailor Moon, or at least one of them. But for another thing, it’s a derivative of Serenity. Peace. Tranquility. I’m trying to be there, Carla. I’m trying to be serene and accept what I cannot change and fix the things I can. I can’t change the fact that my parents disowned me or that I have to make up for two decades of missing girlhood. All I can do is work with the here and now.”

I turned back to face her, as she was staring back in silent shock. “Please, Carla… I know I hurt you… and I’m sure you’re still mad… but I’m trying to just move on… and become a better person.”

She didn’t respond until my hand was on the door to leave.

“You really did change…” she said quietly, “Not just your body… but your personality… Cross is really gone, isn’t he?”

“Yeah…” I said, nodding. “And honestly… I think that’s for the best.”

“I could tell people, you know…” said Carla, her voice hard. “Who you really are… what you really are.”

I winced, feeling a sick feeling in my stomach. “Please…”

“I won’t…” she said, looking at the ground, “Because I know that there are people who believe in you… and I wouldn’t want to do that to the Sailor Moon name… but… I want you to know that I could. I… don’t want you hurting me anymore… Serena… you took a lot from me… and I think I just want to move on too…”

“Yeah…” I said, pushing the door open. I lingered for a moment in the doorway. “For what it’s worth… I wish we could have been friends like this…” I said quietly.

“Yeah…” she said, her voice tight.

We couldn’t find anything else to say, so we simply parted ways. I would say we were strangers now… but truthfully, she’d never known the real me.

Neither had I.

Another week went by. I hadn’t transformed and gone on patrol since I returned from Japan, mostly because I felt like I needed to find myself as Serena before I resumed being Sailor Moon. I needed to stop hiding behind a costume and find the person underneath. It was a learning experience, but I was definitely finding my feet.

Right up until the alien invasion.

It was one of those things that just happened, of course. Some kind of massive calamity like the Gates of Hell spilling out demons or robots from the future or some kind of biological doom swarm or some other world-ending scenario would usually happen every year or so. This time, it was aliens who were swarming the world. 

Which included Gotham City.

They weren’t even particularly interesting aliens, honestly. They were the gray, bug-eyed, spindly little things with psychic powers and ray guns. With flying saucers, even. And of course, they were attempting to conquer the planet. The usual stuff.

It was strange how easy it was to get used to it all.

Before now, I had tried to simply stay out of the way in times like this. As Cross, there was very little I could accomplish in the face of a global catastrophe. Meteors simply didn’t care how good I was at martial arts. But now, as a full fledged superhero, as Sailor Moon, I had an obligation to oppose the alien menace swarming over Gotham.

Or at least what was left of Gotham. As I stood on top of a nearby building, the scale of the damage was clear. The city was in flames. An enterprising cape had apparently brought down a flying saucer nearby, but had neglected to see to its safe landing, leading to a visibly massive furrow being dug into the street ending with the fiery wreck of the craft being embedded in a nearby bodega.

This didn’t stop a small party of creatures climbing out of the thing, shrieking and opening fire with their laser guns on civilians.

Fine then. I was more than happy to return fire.

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I raised up my newly-acquired Moon Stick and caught the dim light of the moon through the smoke.

“MOON TWILIGHT FLASH!” I shouted, pointing the wand at them.  

The crescent-shaped crystal flared to life and a searing beam of silvery light shot out from the wand and connected with the ground below in a flash of light and heat.

The aliens were thrown to the ground with the burst of energy and lay still and motionless in its aftermath. It was a very uncomfortable moment as I realized that this was, in theory, the first time I might have ever killed anyone with my powers.

There was certainly the larger philosophical question of if these things were sentient as I could understand it and if even if they were, did I have the capability of communication with them and the possibility to reason with them for their surrender… but most of these questions left my mind when I heard more screaming in the distance. Diplomacy wasn’t an option at the moment. And as much as it pained me, I wasn’t about to allow our planet to become a smoking crater of corpses, interstellar ethics be damned.

I took to my feet and leapt to the next battle, a few rooftops away.

A trio of capes were pinned down by a barrage of fire from invaders taking cover behind the twisted wreckage of their craft, as they huddled behind an overturned truck trailer that was bearing a number of orange, melted laser burns. More were added as the next barrage of alien laser fire was unleashed.

One hero, a man in a gray cowl, returned fire with a bow and arrow as soon as there was a lull in the laser fire, and the arrows exploded and drove the aliens back a step. Another hero, a man in a pure white robe and a sort of kung-fu style gi underneath, levitated a fire hydrant and hurled it at the aliens which drove them further back. The last hero, a man in gleaming gold armor, raised a gold staff and a flash of eldritch energy issued out from it as the last bit of retaliation from them.

But they were very clearly outgunned, five to one, as more aliens began to take the place of their fallen comrades. Behind the heroes, a few frightened families were cowering behind a pile of rubble.

It was my turn to play the hero.

“MOON TIARA MAGIC!”

I hurled the disc of energy and willed it into a long sweeping arc, taking the aliens by surprise and sending them diving for cover.

Before they could take a moment to recover, I leapt over them and rained down an attack from above, catching my tiara in one hand and bringing my moon wand to bear in the other one. 

“MOON TWILIGHT ILLUMINATION!”

Focused through my wand, the energy rained down on them in a spray of light, causing little falling stars to cover the ground and explode on contact. The aliens were driven into a panic and began to fall back.

With the creatures in full retreat, me and the other heroes stepped up to rout as many as we could, with our powers and hand-to-hand fighting. They were remarkably squishy as I kicked them around, but they had needle-like teeth and their psychic powers were no joke as they telekinetically hurled nearby debris at us.

One of them actually tried to do something to my head. There was a brief moment of discontinuity… a sense of floating and being disconnected with my body, but the crown on my head flashed to light with a sudden heat and the alien toppled over grabbing its own bulbous head and the feeling dissipated. I kicked it unconscious and it went still.

“Holy shit…” whistled one of the heroes behind me, “That was incredible.”

I froze. I knew that voice. My stomach dropped out of me as I realized who I was working alongside. Of course I knew them, I should have recognized them from the get-go. I had worked with them through my high school years and I should have known they would be here. The Justice League and all their subsidiaries would have scrambled to stop this, and of course these three would have wanted to team up together.

I turned around to face my old friends. The Team. Or at least a part of it.

Jared had grown out a goatee since I last saw him, and had clearly bulked up from his work. In his guise as the Gray Arrow, he very much looked like a real hero rather than the kid playing Robin Hood that I used to know. He was smiling as he offered up a hand, which I nervously shook.

Kyle had likewise lost weight and leaned out. His hair had been grown out into a ponytail which peeked out of his hood as it rested on his shoulder. His outfit was a white cloak or cowl which rested over a purple martial arts gi with a golden eye-shaped emblem on the front. Even under his cowl, I could see a faint frown as examined me. “Are you really the Sailor Moon?” he asked.

Gary didn’t seem to show any real sense of gratitude and kept his distance as he considered me. His costume hadn’t changed from its golden armor covered in sigils, but he had likewise bulked up and had sported a number of tattoos on his arms. His hair had been buzzed short which he scratched at uncomfortably and crossed his arms silently over his chest, eying me cautiously.

“Not the original, but the current one,” I said as I moved to shake Kyle’s hand. “Sort of a next generational legacy thing, you know?”

“Right,” said Kyle, his frown deepening, but he accepted my grasp all the same.

“Well, I’m just going to come out and say it,” said Jared, with a wide grin, “You saved our asses, Miss Moon. I’m Grey Arrow.”

“Psion,” said Kyle. Apparently Psychodude wasn’t really a heroic name.

“Scarab,” said Gary, his voice stern. “We had it under control, you know… We didn’t need some anime wannabe jumping in.”

“Scarab,” said Jared, looking over his shoulder, “Come on… she really helped out.”

Gary scoffed as he turned his back. “Let’s go. They’re regrouping north of here, we need to move.”

As he turned his back, I noted that there was a very visible and ugly gash on the back of his right arm, freely bleeding. Without thinking, I held out the Moon Stick and cried out, “MOON HEALING ESCALATION!”

The light flowed out of the wand and wrapped itself around his arm. In a single moment, the wound instantly knitted itself back together. Gary looked down at his arm, clearly upset as he turned back to me and pointed his staff at me threateningly.

“I don’t seem to remember asking you to cast any spells on me, Moon Girl,” he snarled, “I’ve blasted people to ash for less.”

“Dude,” said Jared, putting himself between us. “Come on! She’s just helping out. Seriously, we really could use a cleric for our party, anyway!”

I stifled a laugh. In spite of the changes, they really were the same nerds that I remembered, still thinking in terms of tabletop games and twenty-sided die. “I mean… you already got a ranger and a monk and a warlock.”

“See?” insisted Jared, breaking into a wide grin “She’s a gamer too!”

Gary’s frown deepened but he turned back to leave. “Do whatever you want, but don’t get in my way.”

“Sorry about that,” said Jared, shrugging apologetically, “He can be kind of moody. He took over as the gloomy one when we lost our rogue, you know?”

My stomach knotted, “I’m… sorry…” I truly was. All of those justifications and excuses I gave myself for cutting contact with them melted away as I realized how much I had missed them. With the mask of the old me finally removed, I could finally admit how much I cared for them and how much they had really meant to me.

 

“Nothing to be sorry for,” said Jared, smirking, “He was kind of an asshole.”

Kyle silently moved past us. “Come on, let’s get moving.”

 

Kyle and I scouted what remained of the rooftops through use of moon jumping and levitation while Jared and Gary took points from below. It was strangely similar to the way we used to do things back in high school, but the more time I spent around them, the more I could see that there was no way to go back to the past for them. 

Jared was just as friendly as always, but Kyle had grown extremely introverted and silent in the time that passed. And while Gary had never been particularly sociable, he had definitely gotten crabbier.

I missed our other teammates and their absences were visible.

Riley had always been another source of joy and cracking jokes as he worked on all his technology and Casey had been a positive force on everyone with his optimism. Losing them, and myself, had definitely damaged their dynamics.

We regrouped with the other members of Team Arrow, locked in a firefight with some more aliens, hiding behind their flying saucer.

A blast of energy from me and a telekinetically hurled HVAC unit from Kyle broke up the alien position in an explosion of magic and crunch of shearing metal as the creatures screamed in shock and awe. The ambush allowed the rest of Team Arrow to dive in and finish them off in a flurry of firepower and archery.

“Nice work boys,” said the Green Arrow as we jumped down to regroup. He blinked in surprise as he noticed me, “Uh, sorry, and ladies, apparently.”

A real hero. A Justice League member with his own dedicated team. Even if he was basically just a guy with a bow and arrow and wearing hooded, leather armor, he still felt larger than life. His piercing eyes popped out from his domino mask with a surprising fierceness.

He was tall and even if I was impressed with how ripped my old friends were, this guy was on a whole new level of jacked. As he offered me a gloved hand, I accepted it and had to avoid wincing as it felt like he crushed my fingers in his grip.

“Green Arrow,” he said, inclining his head to me. It wasn’t a necessary introduction, as I knew him immediately. There was no mistaking that outfit. He was one of the heroes I really respected, as not only did he fight without powers, he wasn’t quite as squeamish as other heroes in sticking it to the rich and powerful.

“This is my team. Grey Arrow,” he indicated Jared next to me. “Red Arrow,” a scary-looking girl in red, hooded leather armor was peering at an impaled alien, but waved at me over her shoulder. “Spartan,” a large man in a suit of modern armor and holstering a rifle over his back waved over to me. “Blue Arrow,” a smallish girl peeked out from a nearby car, sheepishly, but waved. “And Arsenal,” he finished. A large and imposing man in black and red armor nodded to me but didn’t seem to be too sociable beyond that.

“Uh… I’m Sailor Moon,” I said, trying not to get too star-struck. I didn’t follow Team Arrow that closely (mostly due to bad feelings from my falling out with Jared) but I was impressed to see how many members the team had acquired. I was certain there were more that I hadn’t met yet.

“For real?” he said, his eyes widened, “Yeah, I heard you were working out of Gotham. Batwoman was talking about you. Said you were the real deal. It’s nice to meet you. I…” 

He trailed off, his gaze going distant.

He frowned as he put a finger to his ear. He nodded, sighing in relief, “They’re retreating… Thank god. Apparently Superman had a long talk with their leaders and they agreed that Earth wasn’t going to be the cakewalk that they hoped it would be.”

I sagged, feeling the terror finally sapped from my body. It was over.

He waved over his team. “Okay folks, we’re on cleanup now! Look for injuries and survivors, but keep an eye out for alien stragglers! We still have a long night ahead of us!” He turned back to me, “You mind helping out?”

I winced. He wasn’t wrong, but it still was a miserable feeling that we’d be performing clean-up duty as well as the actual fighting. But not wanting to disappoint Green Arrow, I shook my head. “Not at all, let’s do this.”

While we weren’t really fighting anymore, it was still a long night of work. People were still injured and a handful of aliens apparently didn’t want to leave quite so easily, but it was mostly just long and grueling work rather than adrenaline-fueled action. I realized that being a hero wasn’t always glamorous and sometimes you were just going to be the superpowered maid for a broken city.

By the time one in the morning rolled around, we were all exhausted and just sort of collapsed onto a bench near one of the parks. The remaining streetlights buzzed faintly around us as the distant sounds of emergency sirens still rang throughout the city.

Regardless of their suspicions, Kyle and Gary seemed to have accepted that I wasn’t planning to murder them in their sleep or anything and let me sit on the same bench as them. Jared was all but comatose with effort, even as everything finally finished up. I tried to think of something to say, but truthfully, I was too tired to think properly. Magic didn’t come for free and using so much of it had tired me out like I had run eight consecutive marathons.

We were interrupted from our respite by a woman appearing out of thin air with a faint pop and crack of energy. I was too tired to be surprised, but Kyle and Gary sat up straight.

“At ease boys,” said the woman, taking off her top hat and bowing to them, “Just checking in on my students.”

That was a surprise, especially as I realized who she was. There was no mistaking her look as she wore a tuxedo suit/leotard with fishnet stockings and boots with a red cape that seemed to flutter without any breeze. She had piercing blue eyes and dark locks of hair and was, in addition to her undeniable power, unbelievably beautiful.

“Holy shit,” I said in awe as I turned to them, “You’re being trained by Zatanna?!”

They shrugged as if being trained by one of the most powerful magic users on the planet was no big deal. I gaped at her in shock.

She seemed amused by my alarm and smiled at me. “Don’t sell yourself short, Sailor Moon,” she said, “John Constantine told me an interesting story about a girl using a ‘magic frisbee’ with enough power to punch a hole into an archdemon.”

I blushed as the others now looked at me in awe. “It… was mostly luck,” I said, avoiding everyone’s gaze.

“Most of the time it is,” she said, nodding. She turned back to the others. “Psion, Scarab… did everything go smoothly?”

“As smoothly as could be expected, ma’am,” said Gary, sheepishly.

“They had some dangerous psychic powers,” said Kyle, his face stern. “I had to wrest control of a number of people away from them.”

Zatanna nodded. “I caught some of your work throughout the fight. You did well…” she looked back to me, “But I appreciate you helping my students, Sailor Moon.”

I nodded, still blushing at the thought that Zatanna, the mistress of magic, was talking to me of all people and was thanking me. Batwoman, Green Arrow and now her? I really was moving up into the big leagues.

“We’ll have the debriefing tomorrow, but for the moment, you should all get some rest…” she said, looking at all of us in turn. “Until then… tropeleT!” She disappeared in a flash of light.

“Fuck… I need some sleep, but I’m fucking starving…” groaned Gary, “Did anyone see a Big Belly Burger or something?”

“There was one a few blocks over. But it was flattened by a saucer,” I said, grimacing as my own stomach gurgled in agreement, “I saw it as I was passing by.”

Jared looked at me expectantly. “So you’re a local, right? You know a place that’s open?”

I smiled. “Well… how do you feel about tacos?”

___________________________________

 

“Hola, Raul!” I called out as we arrived.

I was grateful to see that Raul’s place was still standing in spite of the chaos. He was in the process of sweeping some dead and decaying alien corpses off of the sidewalk in front of his store, but otherwise seemed in good cheer.

“Señorita Moon!” said Raul, happily waving to us, “You just missed your amiga, Señorita Bat!”

“I’ll have to catch up with her later,” I said, genuinely disappointed, “I’m sure she had some stories to tell.”

The others looked around with a strange sense of unreality. I could have sworn I saw Gary look to the others, mouthing the word Bat with a questioning look. The other two shrugged and I left them to their imaginations.

“You look like you have some stories to tell, yourself, si?” Raul said with a wink, “But come in, come in… let me make you and your friends something, yes?”

We slid into a booth and Raul went back to make us a meal. I had no idea when the man actually slept, or if he slept at all, but he seemed perfectly energized and ready to serve food. I insisted on paying on behalf of my friends, and while Raul had objected, saying it was on the house for saving the city, everyone else finally won out in offering to pay and he agreed. 

As we settled into the silence, I tried to open up conversation but still found it difficult. They talked a little bit about their history, but it was definitely awkward, no matter how relaxed I tried to make it.

For one thing, there was so much mental energy I was spending in trying to keep from saying anything that I (as Sailor Moon) shouldn’t know. When you’ve spent so much time growing a connection with people, your brain desperately wants to jump into that comfortable space.

I wanted to talk about how their families were doing. Brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers. I wanted to know if they caught the latest movies or what anime they were watching. I wanted to know if they’d heard anything from Casey or Riley. 

But here I was, listening to them describe the very same operation of bringing down an evil insurance company that I was on. And it took all my patience not to be a little annoyed by how much they were leaving out my contributions.

“You should have seen the guy,” said Grey Arrow/Jared, sipping his horchata as Raul set it down in front of him. “Ten feet tall and made of rocks. Was tossing boulders and shouting about squishing us like bugs. I tell the guy to come at me and then he trips right over the trap I set. Didn’t even look where he was going!”

I was the one who set you up for that trap, jerk, I thought darkly, trying to keep a smile on my face.

To give him some credit, I didn’t think Jared was trying to intentionally diminish my contributions. He was actually a nice guy back in the old days. Still was. He respected the work I did for the team and had never looked down his nose at me for not having powers. Right now, he was still just as friendly as he was with anyone, with the added change that I was reasonably sure he was low-key hitting on me (while he was cute, there was too much baggage for me to be chasing after him, especially after my last ill-fated romance).

He wasn’t the villain I had made him out to be… I realized that now. 

None of them had been, really. Truthfully, I was beginning to realize that the problem was me.

“He wasn’t that big,” scoffed Scarab/Gary, crossing his arms, “And Cross distracted him with his stupid Batman poser shit.”

Gary was always a difficult person to get along with, and there was always some feeling that he was going to abandon us the moment he got a chance at something bigger. But he had stayed this long and I had to give him credit for it. He seemed to have grown up somewhat since our high school days, being a little less adversarial and warmer to the rest of the team. But I could see that he was still suspicious of me as an outsider. I couldn’t figure out why, but he was  watching me carefully as if expecting sudden moves. I think my biggest issue with him was that macho masculine complex he projected that made me feel uncomfortable if I didn’t match up to the expectations.

“Hm…” said Psion/Kyle, staring at his veggie burrito thoughtfully as Raul set it down in front of him.

Kyle and I had been the first of our group to team up. We were supposed to be friends for life. We were both dedicated nerds and even outside of the realm of hero-stuff we enjoyed playing video games and discussing comics together. Kyle had, quite honestly, become my first real friend, period. These days, he looked so pensive and reserved and really hadn’t spoken much since we were reunited. It had been the most painful part of this meet-up because of our closeness which had suddenly evaporated. My first real friend didn’t even recognize me anymore. I missed him so much, and sitting here, I began to realize that the distance between us was mostly from me rather than them.

Gary elbowed him in irritation. “You with us?”

“What?” said Kyle, blinking in realization, “Uh… yeah, sorry…”

Gary frowned at him. He didn’t speak, but there was some sort of meaning carried by the look he gave Kyle.

“It’s nothing…” said Kyle, blushing visibly.

“Nuh uh…” said Gary, shaking his head, “I know that look. That’s your ‘I just figured out something with my telepathy’ look.” He stabbed a finger at me, getting out of his seat. “I knew it… I knew she was hiding something! Okay, schoolgirl, either you fess up or I break out the Ancient Egyptian whoopass stick!” He brandished the scepter in hand and, knowing what it could do, I flinched back. A million thoughts ran through my head at the sudden shift in tone, but one thing rose to the surface of my mind and blurted out of my mouth in panic.

“Telepathy?!” I blurted in alarm. “Kyle doesn’t have telepathy!”

It was Jared’s turn to be suspicious. He had initially tried to calm down Gary with a “Woah!” or “Dude, seriously?” but his eyes immediately narrowed at me as well. “How the fuck did you know his real name?” He began to reach for the bow on his back.

“Uh…” I held up my hands, “Hold up everyone… I can explain this…”

Kyle sighed and forced the other two back into their seats with a wave of telekinesis. “Guys… it’s fine…” He looked from them to me. “And to answer your question, I figured out my telepathy while I trained with Zatanna. You would know that if you bothered to keep in contact, Cross…”

Dead silence save for Raul humming quietly in the kitchen and Latin radio seeping out of the speakers. Jared and Gary looked at me uncomprehendingly while I wanted to melt into my seat.

“I… I meant to reach out…” I said quietly, hugging myself. “Things just… got in the way… I’m… sorry, everyone. Really… but things kind of got… complicated.”

“I can see that,” said Kyle delicately, “But we were friends, dude… And you just dropped off the map and shut us out.”

I flinched at the word. “Please don’t call me that… I’m not a dude, Kyle.”

“Wait wait wait…” said Gary, waving his hands around, “Time out… so this chick is supposed to be Cross? There’s no way that she’s really-”

I spoke over Gary as the first syllable of my old name left his lips. I couldn’t stand to hear it anymore. “My name is Serena,” I insisted. “I go by Serena now when I’m out of costume.”

Jared was still blinking at me in shock as I looked at him. His mouth was open, and yet no words seemed to arrange themselves on his tongue.

“I meant to tell you all,” I said, wringing my hands nervously, “I spent most of my Christmas break just trying to put myself together… I… went through a lot. I promised myself that I would try to find you all at some point. But… I just… things got awkward, and I didn’t know how to get in touch and… uh… and…” I cast my gaze on the floor. “I didn’t know what you’d think of the new me. My girlfriend left me. My parents rejected me. But… Kyle, Gary, Jared… I’m sorry… we were supposed to be a team… and I really let you all down...”

“So… wait, you’re really…” Gary frowned for a minute, clearly remembering something. “I mean… I guess I shouldn’t be that surprised… I mean, you were always worshiping anime girls… and you always picked girl characters when we played D&D… Guess this was the logical conclusion.”

“And video games…” said Jared, frowning as well. “You were always picking Samus or Peach or Zelda in Melee…”

“I mean… to be fair, there are perfectly valid reasons for doing those things. And I kicked all of your asses with Samus…” I said a little hotly, “But… yeah… I… uh… I was working through some stuff.”

“So… what are you… like a crossdresser?” asked Gary, frowning as he looked at my chest. “Like… is all that padding or…” He extended a finger which I immediately slapped away.

“I am a woman, Gary,” I said hotly, “and if you try to touch me like that again, I won’t be the only one here without a dick…”

Gary flinched back in alarm. He scowled at me for a moment, as if looking for something. He waved his Scarab staff over me vaguely, blinking at me in surprise. “Holy shit… it’s not an illusion..” he looked me up and down. “You… you really did change…”

“You really are Sailor Moon?” asked Kyle curiously, “Like… you’re not just a copycat?”

“Yes,” I said in exasperation, leaning forward. “I told you… the original Sailor Moon herself picked me to be her successor. Hell, she asked me to form a team of Sailor Scouts right here in America. She knew who I used to be, but accepted me anyway.”

Kyle whistled in awe. “So you met her?”

“I met all of them…” I said with a grin. “Mercury, Venus, Moon, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, Uranus and Pluto…” a slight flutter pulsed through my chest, “Tuxedo Mask… oh, and Chibi Moon, too, I guess…”

Jared raised an eyebrow. “Is he serious?” he asked Kyle.

Kyle nodded. “He is… or at least he thinks he is.”

“She…” I hissed impatiently. “I’m a woman! Do I have to tattoo it on my fucking forehead?!”

“So… wait, is Cross a tranny or something?” said Gary, still ignoring me.

I pounded the table in barely contained fury. “That’s it… we’re done…” I growled. 

 

I tossed the money on the table and turned to walk away. I snatched my quesadilla off the table as an afterthought, because like hell would I let good food like this go to waste. 

“You’ve made it clear to me that I never should have reached out to you and trusted you with this. You have no idea what I’ve gone through and what I’ve lost to get to this point, and how much I’ve changed. I hope you all enjoy the rest of your lives, because clearly you have no place for me in it. Tell Casey and Riley that if they want to meet up, they can decide if they want to hang out with a tranny or not. Because you all have clearly made up your minds.”

If they said anything else, I didn’t hear it over the sound of my heart pounding in my ears. I was so tired and heartbroken from their reactions and the fighting that I just needed to leave. I stomped out of the store and into the night, with them distantly calling after me. I leapt into the air and out along the rooftops into the night. All I needed to do at this moment was just be anywhere else but here.

It took a number of leaps from roof to roof before I finally felt safe enough to break down and cry. The city was still a wreck from the invasion, but the building I hid out on was safe enough for me to hide on top of.

I took bites of my food in between sobs. Even Raul’s spectacular cooking didn’t do much to relieve the pain I was struggling through.

It wasn’t fair. I never asked to be born this way. I never asked for these feelings. And in spite of my becoming a better person, they couldn’t see past the person I used to be. It hurt to know that, like with my parents, my change had cost me yet another relationship of the past. Sure, it was essentially my fault for cutting off contact with them, but they had no idea of how much pain I was in and how torn apart I was inside…

“You could have reached out…”

I tossed the crumpled ball of quesadilla foil in his direction bitterly. “Go away, Psion… I don’t care what kind of powers you have, I can still kick your ass.”

Kyle sighed as he levitated over the rooftop and next to me. “I’m sorry that things went that way. I was trying to figure out a way to bring it up delicately but…” He shook his head, “Cross, I thought we were friends…”

“Why does it matter?” I asked, as I hugged my knees. “You had new friends with the League, didn’t you? Who cares about me?”

“Look… uh… Serena?” He stopped and gave me a strange look. “Are you seriously naming yourself after the Sailor Moon US dub?”

I nodded. “I mean… I had to pick a new name, because the old one wasn’t working for me anymore. And… I guess… it just felt right?”

“So… you really are… a girl? I mean, on the inside?” he asked, frowning.

“Yeah…” I said, nodding, “I mean, I wouldn’t be able to be a Sailor Scout if I wasn’t. But I always wanted to be a girl, even before all this. I eventually figured out that it was because I was a girl, on the inside. If there is a God out there, he fucked up… because I’m not a boy, no matter what my body used to look like..”

“I… I can tell…” said Kyle, watching me closely. “I… I noticed that your voice… I mean, the voice for your thoughts… it’s female. It’s a part of who you are.”

I thought about that for a moment. I guess it reflected my new voice… but it really hadn’t occurred to me until Kyle pointed it out.

“Uh… so was this why you never called or reached out?” he asked, sitting down beside me.

“I had a lot of reasons for cutting contact,” I said, sighing, “Yes, I was angry that I got left behind after high school while you all became professional heroes. Yes, the feelings of discomfort in my own skin had a lot to do with it… but the bigger issue was that I didn’t really know who I was. I created the hero identity of Cross because I didn’t want to be the person underneath the costume. You and the others were always so sure of yourselves and I never was. I never could be. And spending all that time around you just made me feel worse for it. Every time we hung out outside of our costumes, it was a reminder that I wasn’t really anyone underneath the mask…”

“Uh… not to press the subject, but it kind of looks like you’re hiding in another hero costume… another identity… just one from an anime,” said Kyle, a little nervously.

“I mean… fair…” I said, cringing as the point hit home, “But, I’m making it mine. I’m not Sailor Moon because I’m hiding the Serena underneath… I’m making Sailor Moon amplify the Serena within.” I broke into a strained smile. “My time as Sailor Moon has helped me open up. I can feel things, Kyle… for the first time in years, my world is just so filled with color… I feel alive.” I pressed a hand over my chest and detransformed.

Kyle blinked in shock at the real me. I didn’t know if he expected a clone of Sailor Moon underneath the costume or if he expected that the still-male body of the old me was underneath it all, but he definitely didn’t expect the real me.

When I woke up today, I looked in the mirror and felt like a woman. I saw a woman’s body in the mirror and loved it. And as I dressed and put on makeup, I tried to celebrate that femininity in my own way.

There was no denying that I had learned a lot from Mina about the art of femininity. But Nao had also taught me the important lesson about defining my femininity for myself, too. In the end, I had come to love the me that I saw in the mirror. A girl, certainly, but not a prissy, frou-frou doll. I was a woman and a warrior of love, through and through.

And a hot one at that. I was attractive and had been garnering attention on campus but I was surprised to see the effect it caused on Kyle. It was a perfect moment of clarity on how far I had come.

He blinked for a full minute before speaking. “You’ve changed.”

I chuckled. “So have you… I noticed that you’re vegetarian now? You’ve lost weight...”

He nodded. “It’s partially the training regimen, but the new diet helps. Ever since I learned to read minds, the idea of eating something that you know can think for itself in some capacity became too much.”

“Fair,” I nodded, “but… this is the real me. I’m happy like this. I’m happy with people treating me like a girl and calling me Serena.”

Kyle thought for a minute. “You said you talked to your parents?”

I nodded. “Last Christmas, yeah. They gave me the best present a girl could ask for: disownment.”

“Shit…” he hissed, “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” I said, shaking my head, “I have a new family now. I essentially have eight moms, two dads and two sisters now.”

He looked confused for a moment.

“The Sailor Scouts,” I clarified.

“Gotcha,” he said with a nod, “what were they like?” he asked curiously.

I sighed, “Let me get you up to speed.”

I leaned back against the wall of the building and looked up into the stars. Under their shimmering light and under the gaze of the crescent moon, I told Kyle everything. I told him about Carla, about my collision with Sailor Moon. I told him about my slow transformation and the realization that it wasn’t an unwelcome one. I told him about my breakup, my trip to Japan and my disownment. It hurt, and I cried as I tried to relay everything, but it meant the world to me to know that someone finally had the whole story.

“Damn…” he said, staring up into the now-lightening sky with me as I finished my story, “That’s… wow…” He fell silent for a moment, still staring at the sky. “I mean… I kind of get it... “

“Seriously?” I said, unconvinced. I found it difficult to believe that anyone could understand this mess, mind reader or not.

“I mean… not entirely,” he said, shrinking back a little, “But the whole gender thing feels kind of arbitrary, anyway. Who cares what you have between your legs? Why should that define how people treat you? I mean… if you wanna be a girl, then be one, or a boy, then you can do that too... for me though? Gender makes no sense and I honestly couldn’t care less… Given the choice between the two… I’d say I’m closer to neither of them. I’m a person, that’s really all that should matter.”

I looked at them carefully. It wasn’t quite what I was expecting to hear from them, but their perspective felt a little closer to where I was sitting. Maybe I hadn't been as alone as I had thought?

“Yeah…” I said, nodding. "I can understand that."

“Look, Serena,” they said, their voice firm, “I can’t promise that the others will understand, but I will do my best to help them understand. In spite of everything, you’re still our friend. I… I’m still a little hurt by you ditching us… but I guess I can see where you’re coming from. You went through hell, and you had to do it on your own. I’m sorry you were dealing with all of this alone… that we didn’t know you were hurting like this. But… you finally trusted us… trusted me… and I want to honor that trust.”

“Thank you…” I said, smiling.

I reached out and hugged them tight against myself. It felt, at that moment, like the past had finally stopped haunting me. As we sat, talked and watched the sunrise over a broken city, we at least took comfort in the fact that things would eventually be rebuilt.

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