Capture and Escape Index
Nephrite and Naru look up from their conversation at the sudden flash of lightning and crash of thunder. The auburn haired man takes the red haired girl into his arms protectively when powerful winds kick up, whipping their hair and clothing in its abrupt wrath.
The day had been clear and sunny. Everything seemed to be at peace for once, so the two thought they'd go for a walk in the park to discuss their upcoming wedding. A year ago, Nephrite, Zoisite and Jadeite were awakened. The auburn haired ex-General sought out Naru and found her just starting her sophomore year in the local university. She was unattached and, amazingly, their love for each other still burned just as strongly as it had all those years ago. They started dating, and about a month ago, he asked her to marry him. Between her schoolwork and his business, though, they haven't been able to spend much time together. This is the first free day they've had in a long time.
Neph looks up first, his arms still firmly around his fiancée, to see another young woman slowly getting to her feet. She's Naru's height, but far more muscular, and her hair matches his love's in color, but flows down to her waist in a thick mass of curls. There are scars covering what skin is revealed by her t-shirt and torn jeans. There's an angry red half-healed gash down the length of her right arm, and another on her neck, starting below her left ear and disappearing under the neckline of her tee.
"Love, who is that?" Naru asks, now looking at the newcomer as well.
"I don't know."
But, he thinks to himself, she seems oddly familiar.
By now, the strange woman is looking at them with slight confusion in her bright green eyes. Those same eyes suddenly widen, and she dives at them with the speed and grace of a cheetah bringing down its prey.
Her cry of, "Look out!" is drowned out by the sharp ring of the gunshot.
As they're shoved to the ground, the lovers watch in horror as blood blossoms on one side of the mysterious young woman's chest and explodes from the other, the bullet savagely tearing its way through her body. In a macabre dance, her body jerks in surprise and pain before slowly falling onto the two, leaving a graceful arch of crimson rain in its wake.
"My god," Naru whispers in shock once time resumes its usual pace. "She just saved our lives." She turns the woman over with gentle hands, holding her as Neph checks her vital signs.
"Hai," he responds, "thankfully, she's still alive."
The newcomer gasps for breath, her face pale and contorted with pain. Naru tries to hold her hands over the two bleeding wounds, trying to at least slow the blood flow. She frowns.
"I feel air coming from her..."
The auburn haired man frowns, brows wrinkling as worry clouds his handsome face.
"We have to get her to Zoisite," he comments, putting an arm around Naru and places a hand on the agonized woman's shoulder. With another thought, he teleports them all to his mansion.
Meanwhile, cold, hard blue eyes meet impossibly dark ones as the dark haired one lowers her gun.
"How did she see us?" the man asks the winged woman beside him.
"I don't know," his companion answers. "Maybe she's in the data-base at HQ."
The man nods and puts a large hand on her black clad shoulder. The two disappear in a flash of ice-blue energy.
Zoisite is pouting at something or another Jadeite had done or said when Neph, Naru and the woman appear.
"Zoisite!"
The effeminate man turns from his position at the kitchen doorway at Neph's sharp voice. His lips were poised to make a stinging reply, but his emerald eyes widen instead when he sees the unconscious and bleeding girl in Naru's arms. He hurries over and lifts the semi-conscious girl's shirt up to see where all the bleeding is coming form. By now, Jae has come out of the kitchen and gasps, along with the rest, at the horrible scarring on her belly and chest.
"Damn," Zoi whispers before putting his hands over the wounds and concentrating on mapping the inside of her chest cavity as well as the damage the bullet did on its way through. He finds that both of her lungs had been punctured and the bullet had just barely missed her heart. Zoi's hands begin glowing a light green.
About half an hour later, Zoi is tired from the hard healing, and the young woman is slowly coming to. Zoisite helps her to sit up when she starts coughing, tears rolling down her face.
"Oh...ow..." she murmurs softly, holding her chest.
"Hai, you're going to be in pain for a while and coughing up blood for a few days," he tells her, "but you'll live."
She smiles at him and whispers in a slightly wheezing voice, "Thank you, Zoisite."
He blinks in surprise. She's very familiar to him, too, but he knows nothing about her, save the story Nephrite and Naru had told him and Jae, as well as what he'd learned about her body through healing her.
"...do I know you?" he asks in a thoroughly confused voice.
"...I guess not in this reality..."
"This reality...?" Jae pipes up from where he had been watching across the room.
"Hai," she looks up as Neph and Naru come in, accepting the help Zoi and Jae offer to get her to the couch. "I know you all from different realities I've been in. My name is Diana." She goes into a fit of coughing as she collapses into one of the arm chairs.
"Is that why you saved Naru and me?"
She nods silently, gaze on her folded hands.
"Since you know so much about us, why don't you tell a little bit about yourself?" Naru speaks up in a friendly tone.
"Fair enough. For about," she pauses to think, "A year now, give or take a few months, I've been traveling from reality to reality, trying to find my way home."
A sword shimmers into her hands with a sparkle of silver. When she frees the weapon from its armored sheath, the light glints off of the double edged, katana-like blade. Although it appears to be forged from the most beautiful of silver, the respect and smoothness with which she handles it with belies the toughness of the material. Rune and katakana characters run up the center of the blade, inscribed there. The wrapped leather hilt has the feel of powerful magic to it, radiating form the five stones set just below the hand guard at the top of the hilt. Around the base of the hilt, there's a carving depicting Diana's story from the Silver Millennium; from birth to death.
"This sword," she shows it around, letting everyone get a good look at it, seemingly well practiced at this, "is bound to my soul, and gives me the power to move between realities and over the five elements." She points to the red stone, "fire," the blue stone, "water," the orange stone, "earth," the green stone, "wind," and the purple stone, "lastly, spirit."
"That has to be very lonely," Naru comments softly, resting a hand on Diana's shoulder.
The wandering warrior looks down, covering her mouth to hide a painful cough, bright eyes hauntingly sad. "Hai," she whispers softly, "it is." She sheaths her sword and it vanishes from her hands in another shower of silver.
After another moment of silence, Naru puts her arm around the other girl's shoulders.
"It'll be ok, Diana. You must be exhausted. How does bed sound?"
"Wonderful," she smiles as Naru escorts her to the guest room.