A Life Without Destiny, Chapter 2

Chapter 2

The charred ground looked as if it hadn’t been touched in years. Even dust had not wanted to settle on the disgusting grime of the mold on where the scouts presumed there had once been life. Everywhere they went there would be grime, dirt and despair. No where they looked could they escape the feeling as if souls were begging to set them free. They had been wandering for days. After the first couple of hours of walking, sometimes slipping, through the ashes of Earth they had decided nothing could be alive here.

It was only then did they return to their civilian outfits. Katrina being the newest had had no reason to change the fact being no one had any idea how to get her to transform into Sailor Earth, as Artemis had stated.


“So what now?” Lita said, bite in every word.

“Who knows? I don’t think any of us expected this,” Mina replied, carefully walking down the mountain.

“Can we at least stop and rest? We’ve been dredging around for days with no idea where we are going, what we are doing or what happened? We don’t even know the date,” Lita said slumping to the ground not bothering with her clothes that were slowly getting dirty.

“Sure,” Amy replied, “I think we should all get some rest, we’ve barely slept and if we’re ever going to learn anything we’re going to have to have as much energy as we can possibly get.”

“No.”

Katrina was still standing looking around. She had been leading the group for quite sometime now and had gotten the least amount of rest. The Scouts were baffled at this. They had no idea where she was getting all this energy from. She had explained to them it was just adrenaline and it would wear out at some point but she would make as much use of it as she could now. But to Darien her story had been completely different. She wanted to understand. She was the newest of all of them. She didn’t know how her powers worked, or even if she had powers. She didn’t know much about Serena, much less Serenity. Katrina was one of those people that had to be in the know. She was either in the circle of knowledge or she’d deem it unworthy of anyone’s time. But this was different. This time she was curious, actually for the first time ever she was curious. This girl had had an entire different lifetime with Darien. She had loved him twice, granted she lost him both times. Or had she never had him at all since they were now, or never were she guessed, not soul mates. Even that sounded incredibly odd to her. But she was determined to know because this time it concerned the man she loved.

It was true she loved Darien. He was loving and a gentleman. When she had met him she knew then and there it didn’t matter who he was with or who he wasn’t with as the case had been, or never been. She had been working on Darien for months, breaking down his persona, his habits, and friends. She had even come to the Crown Arcade to watch him be with his now-never-ex-girlfriend. When she had seen Serena, she was astounded. She had expected Darien to be with this mature, cultured, accomplished woman of the world. And there he was with an immature, babyish teeny-bopper. Sure she was gorgeous, Katrina would give her that. But the pig-tails, and the excessive eating proved she was nothing but a little girl that could be pushed aside.

It was months of studying, many of her friends had called this stalking, the divine god that was Darien Shields she had watched him transform into the mysterious and ever eluding Tuxedo Mask. She had had a brief private love affair in her mind with Tux boy. But that had ended quickly once she met Darien. She was ecstatic to find out that they were one and the same. Once she found out her had broken up with the annoying, in the sense that she was in Katrina’s way, little girl she had dove right in and healed his wounds. So here she was many months later his lover and his soul mate and no words could describe her happiness at this, excluding the fact they were in some alternate universe in a wasteland of what once was Earth.

“Amy, you know that little computer you used to make sure we were all alright and weren’t sick or anything? Do you think you can use it to patch into the satellites and scour the Earth for any signs of heat then water to see if there is any life on Earth? Just because Earth was defeated can’t mean everyone was killed right? Some people must have survived?” Katrina instructed faking a commanding calm voice. She was incredibly scared right now.

“I could. I used to hack in all the time for Seren…” Amy left off knowing that they could finish her thought.

Darien feeling incredibly guilty said quietly, “This isn’t our fault we could never have known this would happen.”

“Yeah, this is her fault,” Lita sharply said as she looked pointedly at Katrina. Quickly snapping her head Katrina glared down at Lita. She and Lita had never gotten along. When Raye had nominated her as the replacement Lita had been the first to refuse, though Mina almost beat her to it, and Amy came quickly after that. Katrina knew getting the girls respect would be a difficult one in normal circumstances but this would be insanely impossible. These girls hated her for what her meddling had done. Katrina knew, well now she did, that had she not gone after Darien they would all be fine more or less. Probably with a lazy Serena, but at least they would have had their lives and would eventually gotten through to Serena.

No stop thinking like that. Just because Lita doesn’t like you doesn’t mean that they all hate you. You never could have known Serena would have done this to get revenge. Katrina thought soothing her conscious.

“Look Lita I know we all don’t like this situation and it’s easy to point fingers…” Katrina said, trying to smooth down the situation was quickly cut by Lita.

“You damn right it’s easy to point fingers!” Lita yelled her voice seeming to carry out for miles. “Since you are our only culprit we all know who to blame.”“Lita calm down,” Mina said quietly from her sitting place on a rock.

“I did nothing! I had no idea this would happen!” Katrina countered, both her and Lita ignoring the others. They were finally getting the shouting match they had wanted long ago.

“Lita this isn’t the time nor place!” Raye spoke loudly trying to get attention from either of the girls knowing if one back down the other would follow but they both ignored her.

“Look around Raye! We don’t know the time nor the place we are in! What difference does it make? HUH? We’re all starving, tired and all cos this bimbo decided that she could replace Serena!” Lita screamed hysterically at the top of her voice. She was beyond angry, beyond even rage. She was fuming, hatred seeping into every single one of her molecules.

Darien was about to defend Katrina when Amy, who had been waken up from her reverie by Lita’s booming voice, decided to speak up.

“Guys we have a problem,” Amy said nervously.
“Yeah, and she’s our new leader apparently,” Lita mumbled under her breath.

Sparing Lita one last glare, Katrina looked back to Amy.

“What do you mean? Did you find the satellites?” Katrina asked her voice slightly harsh after the fight.

“Well sorta,” Amy respond hesitantly, “I found satellites; they just aren’t that of humans.”

“Are you sure?” Darien asked.

“Yes, I’ve never known any language to exist on earth to ever appear like these inscriptions. They are slightly like the English alphabet, but there are accents and letters that I am pretty sure aren’t from this planet,” Amy said.

“So we still know nothing?” Min whispered more to herself than anyone else.

“Well I was able to secure the knowledge that we are in fact on Earth, and that these satellites are probably from the Moon,” Amy replied a little more confidant.

“How?” Raye asked quickly eager as the rest for any good news.

“Well, it’s more a guess than anything else. Any other planet would be too far for my computer to reach the signal we can at least be sure the Moon is still thriving.”

They all remain quiet for the rest of the night. Deciding to rest where they had stopped they all slept more or less close together to preserve their body heat and to be close should anything attack. Though an attack wasn’t likely here.

As the night slipped on peacefully Darien remained awake with Katrina curled neatly into his body. He was sure he was the only one awake at the moment knowing while the others were in a dream state like himself more of the time, they had nothing on their conscious or at least not as much as he.

There was only one thought in his mind.

Serena. I guess guilt really gets to you.

No matter what Darien did, his mind would always wander to that moment his brave Serena slumped to the ground. Breaking up with her had nothing to do with the fact that he didn’t think she was a good Sailor Moon, or leader. It was Raye that had told Katrina the truth and Raye that nominated Katrina for the job once she saw Katrina’s athletic and academic history. He had dumped Serena because they weren’t right for each other. They were too different to be compatible at any level. He loved helping others while she saw it as a burden. He loved studying while she loved having lazy days. He love the indoors while she was constantly at the park amongst the flowers and insects and animals. She was the picturesque sixteen year old girl. While he was the tortured medical student. Katrina was exactly like him. She loved to study, and read and help others. She was studying to be a nurse and a doctor at the same time. They had often joked that they would be this perfect doctor and nurse team before they had started going out. He had never told Serena about Katrina. He felt that Serena would never understand his relationship with her. With Serena he felt like a little kid again, but Darien was all about the future and not dwelling on the past, considering that his past wasn’t a wonderful one. But still he had dumped Serena out of the blue. She had definitely not deserved that. She never saw it coming because he hadn’t told her about Katrina. She had thought they were perfect when they weren’t. her and Darien didn’t match. They looked nothing alike and they acted nothing alike. It had been time.

What had surprised him was that Serena would do this. Why would she purposefully try and hurt him? Yes, maybe he had not gone about their relationship the right way but he had never known Serena to be the type to get revenge, a little like himself he thought. If he ever saw Serena again it was the first thing he was planning on asking her.

The night slipped peacefully on. Until about day break, when they heard stones rolling their way and as the Sun rose above the hill of dirt Darien was sure he saw an animal rise with it.

Read Chapter 3 here