An Ami x Shingo Quintology

A Senshi Ransom 2: Magnesium Madness

A black car drove quietly into the Minato district of Tokyo, an affluent area of the city where it was not uncommon to see people out and about, enjoying their wealth and the luxurious things that it could purchase. The black car wasn't exactly luxurious, but it didn't look out of place in the neighborhood. People drove through Minato all the time, many of them heading to work as receptionists, janitors, and caretakers of the large apartment complexes that were sprinkled throughout the area.

The two men in the car, however, were neither receptionists nor janitors, though they were certainly in Minato to take care of something.

Something that had been bugging them for the longest time. It had kept them awake at night, wondering to themselves how they could possibly rectify a situation that had grown out of control. How they could save face, an important task in their line of work. How they could exorcise the specter that haunted their minds. How they could get even.

Because this something, or rather, someone, was a very formidable specter indeed.

"You think she'll be here today?" asked the man in the passenger seat, a short, chubby man who wore a baseball cap, a thick black sweatshirt, and a matching pair of black sweatpants.

"Of course she will," replied the man who was driving the car, a tall, muscular individual who wore dark sunglasses, a camoflauge t-shirt, a pair of blue jeans, and black cowboy boots. "School's out for winter vacation, you know that. Besides, it's six o'clock anyway... just about supper time."

The girl that the two men were talking about and the specter that had haunted the men's minds for the past month were one in the same. It all went back to that fateful day exactly one month earlier. The two men, career criminals, had kidnapped a 16-year-old girl named Ami Mizuno, daughter of the famous doctor Miyeka Mizuno. Almost as soon as they had gotten her back to the hideout, one of her friends, Shingo Tsukino, barged in in an attempt to rescue his friend.

The reason that the two men weren't bitter at the boy is simple. They had him beaten, and were about to finish him off, when a miracle, at least to everyone except the two criminals, occured. Ami Mizuno, who just seconds earlier had been gagged and inescapably bound to a chair just a few feet away, transformed into the Senshi of Water, Sailor Mercury. The two men had heard of the Sailor Senshi before they abducted Ami, but never in their wildest dreams did they think they had actually kidnapped one in her detransformed state. As soon as Ami transformed, the criminals' caper was over. In a matter of moments, the men were defeated and hauled off to jail, where they had been for twenty-seven days until they managed to bail out three days ago.

Of course, no one in jail believed that Ami Mizuno was Sailor Mercury, despite the men's protestations. And so, when the two bailed out of jail, they immediately set about to prove to the world that what they had seen was real, and at the same time, exact a measure of revenge against their blue-haired foil unlike any ever witnessed in the criminal world. The plan was already made, and it was about to be swiftly carried into motion.

The two men's car pulled into the parking garage adjacent to the large apartment where Ami and her mother lived. The men got out of their car and entered the apartment without incident. Their dress was rather gangly compared to what someone would normally expect a resident of a luxury apartment complex to wear, but the receptionist had nothing but a bright smile to offer the two men as they casually walked up to her desk.

"May I... help you gentlemen?" said the receptionist, a girl with long, straight red hair that went down to just past her shoulders. She wore a blue and white striped dress that perfectly matched her beautiful blue eyes.

"Yes, we'd like to know where Dr. Mizuno's apartment is, please," said the taller man in a deceptively charming voice. He held up a bouquet of yellow flowers. "I'd like to thank her for curing my bronchitis that was bothering me all last week..."