"Are you sure about this, Dani?" Marie asked Dani as they were
driving in Marie’s car.
"Yes, I’m sure," Dani replied. "Besides, I made the appointment
a month ago. It’d be sort of hard to cancel it now."
Marie nodded in understanding. "So where is it?"
"Next left," Dani said. The car turned the corner, and
she pointed out the window at the beauty salon. "There it is."
Marie parked the car, and she and Dani went in.
"May I help you?" the woman at the counter asked.
"Yeah, um…I have an appointment," Dani said. She looked
around the salon; she hadn’t been to one since she was nine.
"And your name?" the receptionist asked.
"Daniella Wood," Dani replied.
"Right this way," the receptionist said, leading her over to
a chair. Dani sat down, and a hair stylist washed her hair, then
led her to another chair.
"And how much do you want cut off?" the stylist asked.
Dani glanced at Marie, who looked nervous. "Three inches,"
she said.
"You sure?" the stylist asked.
"Yes," Dani replied.
The hair stylist cut her hair to the length that Dani had asked,
then spun the chair around to face the mirror so that Dani could see herself.
"How’s that?" she asked.
Dani looked in the mirror. Her hair, which had been about
chin-length before, was now cut to about an inch all around. She
smiled. "It’s great—"
She was cut off by the window of the salon crashing in.
People were screaming and scattering all over the salon, trying to get
away from the window. In the window was a woman with light blue hair
in pigtails, holding a gun.
"Don’t worry, little human people," the woman said. "I
just want a heart crystal or two, no big deal."
Dani jumped up from her chair. "A Celestial, I bet," she
said to Marie. "Let’s go."
They ran into one of the dressing rooms nearby, but there was someone
in it. "Sorry, lady!" Dani yelled an apology before she and Marie
went dashing into another dressing room.
"Nebula Astral Star Power!"
"Zephyr Astral Star Power!"
They transformed, then went back out into the salon. But the
blue-haired woman was already gone, and so was Dani’s hair stylist.
In the stylist’s place was a monster, with wings, a beak, and scissors
instead of arms. It had spikes along its neck and back that looked
like the teeth of a comb, and it was light purple, the same color as the
hair stylist’s dress.
"Okay, what is this," Nebula muttered. "Edward Scissorhands the
sequel?"
"Or a wraith, maybe?" Zephyr said.
The wraith, upon seeing Zephyr and Nebula, lunged forward at them with
the tips of its scissor arms pointed at them. Zephyr dodged the wraith,
then launched one of her attacks at it. "Star Wind!"
The attack hit the wraith, and the wraith started to shriek and run
around frantically in circles. "Oh no! I broke a nail!"
Eventually it left through the window that it had broken when it entered
the building and it flew off.
"Shoot, it got away," Zephyr said.
"That was one weird wraith…" Nebula said.
"And we’ll be seeing more of it, since it got away, won’t we?" Zephyr
said.
"Unfortunately," Nebula rolled her eyes.
"I thought you didn’t want them to see your hair like that until
Monday?" Marie asked Dani. They, along with Shisou, were in the cave
that they had found a few weeks ago, which was where they were going to
hold a meeting of the sailors.
"We have to have this meeting," Dani said. "I didn’t want
them to see this because I wanted to surprise them, but since there’s some
crazy wraith running around the city, I kind of have to tell them about
it."
Just then, Sara, Daphne, Chrysta, and Lilia came climbing up
the hill towards the cave. "Hi, guys," Sara said. Then, noticing
Dani, she asked Marie and Shisou, "Hey guys, who’s this?"
"It’s me, Dani," Dani said, standing up.
"Really?" Sara gasped. "No way!" In her surprise,
she tripped and fell back halfway down the hill.
"You got your hair cut?" Lilia asked. Dani nodded.
"I think it looks cute."
"You do?" Dani asked. "It’s not supposed to look cute."
"And here I thought that Dani didn’t follow trends or anything,"
Daphne marveled. "And she goes and gets a pixie haircut!"
"What’s a pixie haircut?" Dani asked. "Is that to say that
I look like a pixie, or some kind of fairy creature?"
"No, it’s…um…never mind," Daphne replied.
The next ones to arrive were Ryan, Shiloe, Michelle, and Moira.
Upon seeing Dani with her hair cut, Michelle said, "Daniella? Is
that you?"
"Yes, it’s me," Dani said. "I finally fulfilled my New
Year’s resolution and got my hair cut."
"Um, Dani?" Shiloe said.
"What?"
"Well, saying ‘it’s me’ is not grammatically correct," Shiloe
pointed out. "The correct usage is actually ‘it is I’."
"Thank you very much, Miss Textbook," Ryan commented.
"All right people," Chikyu said, who had been watching from his
perch on a rock ledge. "We seem to be forgetting that Daniella here
called a meeting."
"Oh yeah," Dani said. "Well, when I got my hair cut, one
of the Celestials came and turned my hair stylist into a wraith."
"Okay," Moira said. "And we care because, why?"
"Because," Marie put in, "the wraith got away."
"What?" Lilia demanded. "Why? Why’d you let it get
away?"
"Well, if you think about it," Shiloe said, "since I wasn’t there
to heal the wraith, then that leaves two things that logically could have
happened. One, they killed the wraith. But they didn’t, because
that would be murder of a human being. Two, the wraith got away.
Since I didn’t heal it, and they didn’t kill it, then it got away."
"Which means that there’s a wraith loose in the city?" Michelle
asked.
"Obviously," Moira said.
"So that’s what I called the meeting for," Dani concluded.
"And what are we supposed to do about this?" Chrysta asked.
"Well," Pandora spoke up, "we could set a trap for this wraith."
"That sounds dangerous," Sara said, looking nervous.
"It would be," Pandora said. "We’d have to transform, and
then I guess we’d just…um…"
"Sit there and wait to be attacked," Cypress finished.
"Yeah right," Ryan snorted. "You actually think that’ll
work?"
"Yes," Cypress said. "Well, probably won’t work very well,
but…"
"Or maybe it just won’t work at all," Moira said.
Lilia shrugged. "I don’t know about you guys, but I think
it’s worth a try."
The others agreed, so Dani said, "Why not? Let’s do it."
"This idea sucks," Sailor Nova muttered. She and the other
Astros had been sitting in the park for an hour waiting for an attack.
"I could be home playing Tomb Raider right now," Orion said.
"But no, I have to sit here in the park looking like an idiot, waiting
on some suicide mission for some people to attack!"
"This isn’t a suicide mission," Andromeda said. "We’re
not going to die, nor do we want to. We just want them to attack
us."
"I still say this sucks," Nova said.
"Yeah well, isn’t that what you say about everything?" Inferno
asked.
"No," Nova answered. "I didn’t think ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’
sucked."
"Even though it did," Inferno commented.
"Hey, guys?" Sailor Arcturus spoke up. "What’s that thing
out on the lake?"
"What thing?" Io asked. She looked out at the nearby lake,
and, seeing nothing, responded "Chrysta, have you been getting enough sleep
lately? You’re seeing things."
"Or maybe it’s a matter of you not seeing things, Io," Sailor
Andromeda said.
"Well, there’s nothing there to see," Io said.
"May I suggest that you get a stronger prescription of glasses,
Io?" Spica remarked. "Because I definitely see something out there."
"Darned people with 20-20 vision," Io muttered.
"Yeah, there it is!" Zephyr shouted, pointing to a spot on the
lake where the water was beginning to ripple, as if something were underwater.
"That might be the wraith."
"So what’re we waiting for?" Orion demanded, running out towards
the water. "Let’s get it!"
"But wait!" Nebula called after him. "Maybe it’s not the
wraith, maybe it’s just someone swimming there! Orion!"
But Orion continued running towards the lake. When he got
to the lake, he dove in and began swimming towards the source of the ripples
in the water when suddenly, he was pulled under. A moment passed
before he surfaced again, calling for help.
"Orion!" Spica yelled. She ran out into the lake, dove
in, and swam out to rescue him. Minutes later, she surfaced again
and swam back towards the shore with both Orion and the wraith in tow.
The wraith had Orion by the ankle, and Spica was swimming frantically while
dragging Orion, trying to get him to shore.
"Is he okay?" Inferno asked.
"Yeah, I think so," Spica said. "Just in case, someone
check him while I heal the wraith." Inferno ran to help Orion while
Spica pulled out her sword. "Purity Healing," she whispered, waving
her sword over the wraith. The wraith turned back into Dani’s hairdresser,
while Inferno checked Orion’s breathing.
"Hey, Inferno, I didn’t know you knew how to check someone’s
vital signs or anything like that," Vega said.
"Yeah, I learned it in babysitting class," Inferno said.
Meanwhile, Dani’s hairdresser stood there, confused. "What’s
going on?" she asked. Then she noticed the Astros. "And who
are you, and what are you doing here? Hey, girls, you want a haircut?"
"Um…we’d better get going," Nebula replied. "See you!"
She and the other Astros took off, leaving the stunned hairdresser behind.