Someone Innocent

Sitting up on the bed with the sheet tucked around her was the girl. She was awake now and staring at him with odd green eyes. It took him a moment to figure out that her eyes were odd because of the almost blank way she gazed out of them.

“Hi,” she said, her voice raspy from disuse. Clearing her throat, she continued. “First question — who are you?”

“K... Kevin,” he stammered. “Kevin Sub’rosa.”

“Second question. Who am I?” She paused with a frown. “And were are my clothes?”

That was the last thing he expected to hear her say. “What do you mean?”

Her green eyes turned on him, confused. “I mean that I have no idea who I am. It’s like that part of me is gone. If it was ever there.” She sounded unhappy.

“It’ll be okay,” he comforted her. “So you don’t remember how you got hurt so badly?”

“I’m hurt?” Her curious question was replied to with a yelp. “Ouch! Ok, I’ll believe you on that score.”

Kevin laughed. “That’s weird. As far I can tell, you’re out of danger. I guess that bacta stuff really works.” He grinned. “If you want, I can help you find somewhere to stay in the city.”

The girl looked worried. “Why can’t I stay here? Just for a little while.”

“You don’t want to, trust me.”

“Why?” she asked softly.

Kevin shook his head. “There’s been someone destroying the crops of all the farmers in the area. They just run their blasters over them and never tell anyone why they’ve done it. It’s almost like they just want to destroy and kill. A bunch of the farmers and all of my hired hands have left.”

When the girl shook her head, it made the black beads in the braid around her face clank together. “I’ll stay. It sounds like you need some help.”

“What can you do? You’re hurt.”

The girl rolled her eyes. “I’ll be ok soon. And I can do something, I’m sure. Everyone can do something. Even people who can’t remember anything. I bet if my mind doesn’t remember, my body does.”

He looked at her with narrowed eyes. “But don’t you want to go somewhere that you make a new start in? I mean, think about it. You have a clean slate in front of you. You cane make up any history you want. Your past is untainted. You’re completely innocent. Isn’t that great?”

“You ask too many questions,” she complained. After thinking for a while, she spoke again, softly. “I don’t even have a name.”

“Then we’ll make one up for you. How about... Inni? Like ‘innocent’,” he asked. “Inni Sub’rosa. We’d say you were my sister so people wouldn’t think...”

She nodded. “It sounds as good as anything.”

“All right, Inni. Welcome to the farm.”

That night, Inni sat on the front porch of the little house and watched the sun set. She was feeling better. The burns may have been deep, but a little bacta cures anything. She sat on the steps and hung on leg down. The other was tucked up to her chest. Inni watched the sun set and the stars came out one by one.

"What are you looking at?” Kevin asked her quietly.

The blonde shrugged and looked up at the sky. “The stars, I guess. I wish I could just reach up and gather a handful of them...” She reached one of her scarred hands out and pretended to scoop up the stars. Kevin laughed. He stopped laughing when she opened her hand and they both saw the tiny points of light in her hand. “What?” she gasped. “Look, it’s stars!”

Kevin gasped. “You gathered them up... um, maybe you should put them back.”

“Okay.” She flung the stars up, and they disappeared.

Too weird, Kevin thought.

She had found one thing she could do. Cook! Inni’s first attempts at the art of cookery weren’t all that great, but she got better. Kevin appreciated his “sister” cooking for him. The food she prepared was perfect for his hardworking life. And she was good-natured when he brought friends over or there was a crisis. She turned out to be one of the best people to count on. Inni was much stronger than she looked at first glance. The nimbleness of her fingers let her do many small things and fine-tune his machine tools. She ended up fixing them a lot.

Whatever and whoever she’d been before she came to him didn’t matter much anymore. Only when she did something odd, like the night she picked stars out of the sky did he even remember she wasn’t his sister.

“Inni?” he called, walking in the house.

“Get your muddy feet off the floor and close the door!”

Sheepishly, Kevin did as she “requested.” “Give me a break,” he begged. “Oh, the In’medias’res family is coming over.”

Inni grinned. “I wish you’d give me a little more warning. Now I have to think of something to fix!” Always smiling, even when she was being pressured, Inni fit right into the role of farmer’s sister. She didn’t seem to mind doing anything. “Soup?” she suggested, her head in the freezer. “We have some makings for it.”

A huge grin split Kevin’s face. “Sure!”

She stood on a stool to reach for a pot to start cooking in and accidentally knocked it off the shelf. The pot went flying across the room as she fell off the stool. Everything happened too quickly for Kevin to react... but Inni herself took charge. Using the momentum the falling stool provided, the girl did a graceful backflip to land on the floor in a crouch. Then she reached out her hand and caught the pot.

“What just happened?” Kevin asked, his eyes wide.

“You’re asking me? I can’t even remember my name!” Inni looked worried and surprised by this new talent. Every time an aspect of her previous life popped up, she got worried. It was almost as if she didn’t really want to remember anything, like she was happy being a girl with no past.

He started to say something else, but the surprised look on her face told him she couldn’t answer any of his questions. “It’ll be ok. Maybe...”

“Maybe I should start cooking.”

The girl quickly stood up and placed the pot on the stove. She filled it with just enough water and threw in some meat. Kevin watched her as she cut up various vegetables. Even the way she handled the knife was different. Kevin couldn’t tell if it was because she was upset or if it was because she was remembering. He reached over and grabbed a carrot. “Stop that, Kousotsu,” she said. Her voice sounded different. Instead of gentle and soft, there was a rougher, yet playful tone in it.

“Who?”

Inni looked up at him. “What?”

Kevin shook his head. “I thought you just said ‘Stop that, Kousotsu.’ It was kind of... are you okay?”

She was holding both hands to her head like she was in pain. If it hadn’t been serious, the blonde would have looked comical seeing as she still had a stirring spoon in one hand. The girl screamed and squeezed her eyes shut. “Please, don’t do this to me...” she begged in the voice that wasn’t Inni. “Stop it... you already killed me... what more do you want?”

It wasn’t Inni talking, so Kevin listened carefully. Maybe there was some clue to her past in the girl’s pleas. But if he was hearing her correctly, it wasn’t a pleasant past. Maybe that was why she couldn’t remember it. Maybe she didn’t want to remember.

“Please... it’s not fair... I chose to die this time...”

This was getting weird. But if she had killed herself, then it would explain the burn on her chest. What wasn’t explained was why — if she killed herself — she was still alive.

“You can’t make me... go... back...” Her voice trailed off as she collapsed. Kevin caught her as she fell.

He made a note to himself not to mention the name again. If she had chosen to die, then she’d chosen to leave her past behind. And that was her choice, not his. If she didn’t want go back, then he wouldn’t make her. There was no telling what would happen if this “Kousotsu” ever showed up. Kevin decided that if he ever showed up that it would be up to Kevin to protect Inni from him.

“Hello, In’medias’res family!” Inni shouted. She waved at the people coming up the walk. “Anything new?”

The people waited until they were closer to reply. “You wouldn’t believe what’s been happening, Inni,” Amy In’medias’res sighed. “They came again.”

Inni’s face fell. “No.”

John In’medias’res nodded. “They” always meant the people who destroyed the crops and killed the farm animals. Nothing was sacred to them. They’d kill nursing mothers and leave the baby animals to starve. It was a wonder that the destroyers hadn’t visited the Sub’rosa farm yet. Kevin was as prepared as he could be. Two blasters were hidden under the kitchen sink in easy reach if the destroyers came to their farm. Kevin had never fired one, and hoped that he’d never have to.

“Did they get anything?” he asked.

John nodded. “Most of the animals, and all of the crops. They burned the barns, too. Almost everything, Kevin. They destroyed almost everything.”

“If there’s anything we can do,” Inni said softly, putting her hand on Amy’s shoulder, “let us know, okay? I’m sure we can help.”

The two smiled, and John spoke. “You have a great sister there, Kevin. She’s so giving and helpful. I wish I knew someone like her...” he sighed dramatically.

Amy, his wife, punched him in the shoulder. “Ha ha ha. Just for that, I’m not going to ask Inni for her recipe!”

Looking horrified, John said, “No! You wouldn’t be so cruel!” He pretended to beg. “Please! Please!”

Inni looked embarrassed. “Oh, give me a break. It’s not that good. It’s only meat soup tonight. And homemade bread. And hot pie with ice cream. And...”

“That’s it! I’m defecting! Just call me John Sub’rosa!”

Amy batted him in the arm again.

The table was set with Inni’s favorite tablecloth, a white one with embroidered flowers that intertwined their six petals. Delicate leaves added color to the cloth and made it elegant. Inni had worked on repairing some of the torn places with her own version of the flowers. It was the same petals, only there were just four of them, like the strange tattoo on her arm. She usually wore long sleeves or covered it up with makeup. It disturbed her, but didn’t make her fall into the trance-like memories that she’d frequented when she was sick.

All in all, it was beautiful, and Inni acted like a perfect lady of the house. She was polite, sharing, funny... perfect. He shook the thought out of his head. She was his sister, by the Force! That wasn’t the kind of things he should have been thinking. But she wasn’t really his sister...

Kevin was saved from his thoughts by the sound of the doorchime. “I’ll get it,” Kevin said, folding his napkin and setting it on the table. It was a long way from the dining room to the front door, but not long enough for him to lapse into his earlier thoughts.

“Hello?” he said, barely opening the door. “We’re eating dinner. Could you come back later?”

The man standing in front of him was tall, taller even than Inni. He had dark hair and intent blue eyes. “Hi,” he said. “This will only take a minute. I’m Kousotsu Renjiro...”

Kevin’s eyes narrowed. So this was “Kousotsu”. “I’m sorry, I don’t know you.”

“I know,” the blue eyed man said, his eyes sad. “I’m looking for someone named Priire.” He held up a holo. “She has a tattoo on her right arm of a flower... have you seen her?”

The brown-haired man looked at the picture carefully. The girl in it wasn’t Inni. Inni’s hair was all down except for the four braids she sometimes wore in the front. Her eyes were the same color, but this girl’s eyes seemed more like an animal’s... ready to pounce. And Inni wouldn’t be caught dead in something that low cut.

“Who is it, Kevin?” Inni called from the dinning room with her mouth full of food. So she wasn’t a total lady. Kevin still loved her enough to protect her from this... man.

“No one important,” he called to her. When he turned back to Kousotsu, the other man’s eyes were filled with pain. “I’m sorry, I haven’t seen her,” Kevin said a little more roughly than necessary.

Kousotsu closed his eyes. “If you see her...”

“I won’t.”

The tall man turned away from the house and walked down the walkway. Kevin resisted the urge to call him back and ask him to have dinner with them. But the way Inni acted just hearing his name... Kevin didn’t want to hurt her again.

“Who was that, Kevin?”

The brown-haired man shrugged. “Just some stranger.”

“You should have invited him in,” Inni exclaimed. “I would have pulled up a chair for him to sit in!”

Kevin laughed. “Nah. He looked like a vagabond or something.” Disreputable, at the least.

Whistling a tune she could sing but not name, Inni mopped the kitchen floor. After a few moments, she started to sing the words. “Don’t really wanna make it tough, I just wanna tell you that I’ve had enough, Might sound crazy, but it ain’t no lie, see ya later, see ya later, see ya later.” What a cute song! she thought.

She was careful not to sling the mop around and make more of a mess than she already had. Technically, it wasn’t her fault the flour spilled. Kevin had left the window open. But Inni was never one for technicalities. Either it was your fault or it wasn’t. Either you did something or you didn’t do it.

Right now she was just having fun cleaning up and whistling to herself. She knew the song she was whistling had words, but she couldn’t remember them. That was also fine with her. Inni couldn’t remember a lot of things.

Dipping her finger into the cake batter, Inni tasted it for perfection. “Mmm!” she exclaimed. “That’s downright good!”

Talking to herself always made her laugh. Inni’s voice was so quiet and gentle that she could call birds with it. The birds loved to sit on her windowsill and listen to her talk. They never acted as strangely as humans did and they never destroyed things. Inni sighed. That was one thing that made her very unhappy. The people destroying the farms were moving closer. Just yesterday they had wrecked the farm three down from the Sub’rosa land. Inni was so scared that they might get her brother’s farm any day. She had no idea if she’d be ready for them.

Inni put the mop up and pour the cake batter into the cake pan.

As far as she knew, she’d never fired a blaster before. The prospect almost scared her. A blaster... it was so dangerous. She would probably shoot herself in the foot or shoot something else equally as bad. Maybe just having them would scare the bad guys off.

Probably not.

The blonde brushed her hair back from her face and untangled it from the necklace she wore. It was a strange black stone that gleamed in the light. She didn’t know why she still wore it, but it did feel comfortable on. Inni put the cake in the oven and set the timer. Soon the wonderful scent of cake would fill the house, and she’d be happy.

Except for that little empty spot in her heart and mind. That would stay, possibly forever. She was getting more used to it now, but still wondered sometimes what caused it. Usually she put it out her mind as an unanswerable question. Today, she brushed it briefly before drifting off to sleep. The timer would wake her up.

Something was different. Inni wasn’t herself. Or maybe herself wasn’t Inni. Did it really matter? No, not in this place. She didn’t know why it didn’t matter, or where she was, only that she was more terrified than she had ever been in her entire life. It seemed that this place was a place outside of life, somehow...

The dream went on and on…and Inni’s cake burned.

When Kevin walked in the house, he knew something wasn’t right. Inni was sitting in a chair, curled up as tight as she could be.

“Inni? Inni, wake up, please wake up!” he begged her, shaking her gently. “Inni, it’s just a dream, only a dream..."

She opened here eyes and looked at him. The eyes that he saw were not the ones usually staring out of Inni’s head. Fright, fear, terror, anger... emotions that never crossed Inni’s eyes before seemed piled up on top of each other, all warring for supremacy in her usually gentle expression. “Help,” she begged him.

Kevin wrapped his arms around his pseudo-sister and rocked her. “It was only a dream,” he kept telling her. “Only a dream.”

Inni tucked her head down to her chest and cried silently for a while. Then she looked up at him with tear-stained face. “I think...” she sniffled. “I think I burned the cake."

He laughed at her quietly. “It’ll be okay. You can go to town and get stuff to make another one.” She’d taken the dream almost seriously, he could tell. A good, long walk into the town would make her feel better. And maybe she’d see someone she could talk with.

Dust. It was kicked up behind the passing vehicles and animals. Even her own feet made tiny puffs of dust as she walked. Inni thought it was fascinating. With the big floppy hat on her head, she was shaded from the sun and could stay outside almost forever! With the hat, and the skirt, and the basket, Inni looked like had been born into the arms of the stars. Stars? The girl wrinkled her forehead. Why did she think that? She was a farmer’s daughter. She belonged on a farm, next to a farmer.

The black darkness in her mind and heart didn’t agree. It wasn’t that she wasn’t happy on the farm — on the contrary, she loved it! — but the place in her heart told her there was more for her. But Inni didn’t want it. What she wanted was to stay with Kevin and bake cakes and go to barn raisings and live the farm life.

Forever.

Well, that was a long time. She couldn’t understand how she could live forever, but if she could it would sure be nice to live it here.

Her eyes turned to the green countryside. There were rolling hills the seemed to be bursting over with crops and animals. If Inni listened, she could hear the sounds of animals bleating loudly and the bells around their necks ringing clearly.

Then there was an area that had a little house in it. The house was small and white, with a pretty vine crawling up the side. The vine was also bursting with fruit and color. Everything was in top form for the harvest. Beautiful flowers intertwined themselves together when the wind blew over them. Crops moved like ocean swells as temperamental gusts washed over them. Of all the sites, her favorite was the little house. Not only did it have the fruit vine, but it had a garden of flowers in every single color she could imagine. Except for that awful black. A group of pretty pink ones were rimmed by vibrant purple... beautiful!

Another landspeeder rushed past her kicking up more dust. She giggled quietly at the film it put over the world.

The man in the speeder slowed it down and asked her if she needed a ride. His voice was muffled by something so she couldn’t hear it clearly.

Inni started to tell him that she liked walking, but remembered that Kevin had warned her not to talk to anyone. She looked at the ground shyly and shook her head.

“Are you sure?” his muffled voice came again.

She nodded. Inni would much rather walk. The girl didn’t see him shrug, but from the rustle of cloth, that’s what she guessed he did. It might have been fun to ride in a landspeeder; she couldn’t ever remember being in one. And the guy was kind of cute. That realization came from looking at the back of his head.

Inni shrugged. If she walked, then she could see more of the countryside and the pretty flowers.

“Trust me, I’m allowed to do what I’m about to do,” the little girl growled to one of her friends. She and another little girl got up.

Inni watched, afraid things were going to get violent. She hated violence.

The blonde- and red-headed girl stalked with a brown-haired friend over to one of the booths. She was shorter than the man she was confronting, which made it almost amusing to see her stalk right up to him and put her hands on her hips. “This,” she declared, “is the third time you haven’t gotten my order right...”

Putting one hand on each of the little girls’ heads was enough to stall them, because her arms couldn’t reach the much taller man. People in the crowd started laughing until a Dathomirian warrior-woman walked up. “I am not amused by this.”

Neither was the man. He fixed what the little girl wanted — perfectly — and the two left.

As they walked off, the younger girl said, “I know if she’d been here she would have helped us.” The blonde seconded the statement.

“It is not logical to think that she could be everywhere at once,” the older girl told the little blonde.

“But it’s nice to dream!” The littlest girl looked around then leaned closer to the darker-haired warrior. “Hey, that girl over there feels weird.”

Shaking warrior braids around, the other girl sighed. “You have been with the Jai too much,” she chided. To herself, she had been wondering the same thing. The girl felt like a baby. Like her Force-sense was still developing.

Inni shook her head, glad that it hadn’t come to violence. Then she walked around taking in the beautiful sights of the town’s bazaar.

Her favorite part of coming to town had to be the little streetside vendors. Each of them was trying to catch your attention first and hold it for the longest time so that you’d buy something and that made them flashy and noisy. One of the booths had a monkey that would wave around the fruits and chatter loudly. When she walked over — having decided to make a sweetfruit cake — he leapt on her shoulder and with all the seriousness he was capable of held out a fruit for her to examine. She took it from him and thanked him politely. Inni looked at the fruit carefully and was happy to see that it was perfect for her cake. She turned to the vendor and told him how much she needed.

“Making a cake, Inni?” he asked with a smile.

She nodded, her eyes happy. “A sweetfruit one. I burnt the one I was making earlier.” Her admission sounded a little sheepish.

He laughed. “Well...” His words were quiet, like he was telling a secret. “If you’ll bring me a piece tomorrow, you can have that one for free!”

Inni giggled and agreed, taking a big bite out of the fruit. It was a little warm from being in the sun and juicy. “Mmmm, perfect! Oops,” she said, wiping a little of the juice that had trickled out of her mouth. “Silly me.”

The man patted her on the shoulder. “And that’s why you’re my favorite customer, Inni Sub’rosa!”

She giggled again and gathered the fruit into her basket. Next stop... next she’d go to the spicer’s booth. Maybe he’d have a sale on the spices she needed. Inni would have to give him some of the cake when she was done making it, of course. Everyone was so nice to her.

Everything that was in her basket made it heavy. Inni carefully held it, trying not to drop anything. This would make the trip home more difficult. She had better take the shortcut through the In’medias’res farm. Thinking about it for a moment made her stop. But the destroyers had been through there. Maybe if they had already been there, they wouldn’t be back.

Inni picked her way carefully through the rubble and burnt crops. Just looking at it made her want to cry. Everything was destroyed. Some people could be so cruel to everyone else.

When she thought about it, Inni realized that the In’medias’res farm was in the middle of the burnt area. It was almost if someone had been planning the destructive path, starting with the In’medias’res farm and working their way outward. She wasn’t all that good with math and so couldn’t figure out if there really was a pattern.

“Amy!” Inni called out when she was in range. “Are you home?”

They weren’t, so Inni kept walking. She was a little disappointed that her friend wasn’t home. She really wanted to talk to her. But that was okay with her.

Inni kept walking. The burns scared the land made it so very different from the beautiful countryside that she’d walked before. It was sad to her that the people responsible had to hurt everything.

When the land started clearing, she could see her house. It was so beautiful... oh no. “Oh no!” she yelled. There was smoke rising from the fields and animals were screaming in pain. “Not my farm!”

All caution was thrown to the wind as she dropped her basket and started running toward the house. “Kevin!”

Kevin turned to see who was yelling his name and saw her. “Run away, Inni!” he told her.

She shook her head in the negative. Next to Kevin was John In’medias’res, in the middle of things, firing his weapon. Inni ran into the house and clawed under the sink for the blasters hidden there. She pulled it out and looked at it. Was this the safety? She thought it was. Clicking it off, the girl went outside.

John’s blaster had stopped firing. He’d been hit. Inni tried to find Kevin through the tears in her eyes. When she saw him, she threw a blaster to him. He checked it and took the safety off. Kevin looked at Inni to beckon her over to him so he could protect her and gasped.

She was doing it again. Inni was being the other person. He knew this because Inni would never have stood up and made herself a target or started firing with such cool deliberation. And accuracy. By the time Kevin had made his way over to her, she’d taken down almost all of the men. “Inni! Inni, duck!”

The girl looked at him and crouched down. “What?” she asked in her gentle voice. “Are they gone?”

“Not all of them... where’d you learn to shoot like that?” he asked, amazed.

Inni looked confused. “You mean... I shot someone?”

Kevin didn’t tell her that she’d shot all of them and probably killed them, too. He’d figured her out, he thought. It was almost like she had a split personality where the gentler nature held sway over the stronger. “John needs some help. Can you get to him...” Kevin voice trailed off without finishing the sentence.

Coming towards the pair was a huge man. He had a blaster in his hand and looked ready to kill. Kevin’s blaster was over by John and Inni was in no shape to do anything. Except... ”Inni, throw some stars at him.”

“What??”

“Stars!” Kevin explained to her. “Like you did that night. Pick some up and throw them at him. Maybe it’ll distract him long enough for us to get to John and help him!”

Inni didn’t look convinced that it had any chance of working, but she reached out a hand and made grabbing motions. Stars filled her hand and spilled out over her fingers. She held one out and grinned at it. “It’s beautiful!”

“Throw them at him!” Kevin begged. He tried to touch one of the beautifully bright stars, but it burned against his flesh. “Ouch! Hurry, Inni, hurry! He’s getting closer.”

The girl released her handful of stars and they flew towards the man, attacking him with their brilliant light. Inni gasped, “I hope he’ll be okay.”

Kevin decided that it was not the time to educate Inni about the peculiarities involved with enemies and their desire to kill other people. “We’ve got to get to John. You can help him.”

“Okay,” Inni said agreeably. She grabbed more stars out of thin air to help them on their way.

A man’s crystalline blue eyes turned their sharp gaze on the sky and, somehow, beyond it. “I can feel her.”

The man’s companion turned turquoise eyes on him. “Really? Who?” The other man brushed lavender hair from his face and sat his book down. “Kousotsu?” he asked when the other didn’t reply.

“Priire...”

“Don’t go mental on me here,” Kami said, looking at him oddly. “We all saw her die. She can’t be alive.”

As smart as Kami was, he didn’t quite have what one should and should not say to a convinced lover. Kousotsu spotted the other man with his crystal eyes, making Kami step back a few paces in surprise.

“Maybe... maybe we should go check it out?” he offered with a sheepish smile. “You can drive.”

Inni whimpered as a blaster bolt struck the ground beside her. To her credit, she didn’t stop trying to help John In’medias’res. The man had rushed into the middle of things — like usual — and paid a high price. He wasn’t dead, but Inni was afraid he would be soon if she couldn’t get him where she could help him better.

“Kevin!” she cried. “Kevin, we have to get him inside. Please, we have to hurry or...” This time, Inni did scream as the flash of a blaster bolt exploded a rock in front of her.

“We can’t do anything right now, we’re pinned down!”

“He’s going to die!” Inni’s eyes filled with tears. She brushed them away and grabbed another handful of stars. She sat them down on a rock then picked one up at a time and used them as singular projectiles, throwing them at anything that moved.

“Whatever happened to the governor?” Annika asked.

“What governor?”

The white-haired girl frowned. “On the planet. You know... ball, dance, pretty lights, good food, evil governor...”

Numako leaned over to them. “Oh... impeached, he was,” she informed them seriously.

“They kicked him out of office?” Nom questioned.

The green-haired and green-skinned girl giggled. “No, saw them do it I did! Impeached he was. And im-tomatoed and im-watermeloned and im-pallaed and im-appled and...”

Everyone glared at her.

The other people, the destroyers, stopped firing for a moment. Inni took the break in obvious danger to try and drag John to the house. A strange woman stopped her.

“Going somewhere, angel?”

Inni looked up. The woman was dressed in red leather and had a black cape. Even her thigh high boots and her elbow length gloves were red. The expression on her face was anything but the kind expression Inni was used to seeing. “What? Who are you?”

The woman’s smile was cold. “That’s an interesting side effect for my little fallen angel. Can’t remember anything...” The smile grew colder. “I’ll have to remind you. Or maybe-” her eyes glinted “-I can just do it all to you over and over again. We’ll see how long it takes you to remember.”

A shot from a blaster arced toward the evil woman. “Leave Inni alone!” Kevin yelled.

She laughed and seemed to catch the bolt in her hands. Forming it into and arrow, she acted like she had a bow and shot it back to Kevin. He ducked away from it and growled in frustration.

“I have no real quarrel with you, nerf herder,” the dark woman said. “I can make one up if you wish. But for your own sake, I say that you let me take my little fallen angel back.”

“Who are you?” Kevin yelled.

The woman took a theatrical bow. “Sailor Sith Ayameru. Now. I’ll just be on my way.”

“Stop right there! You’ve taken the love of that young woman!”

“Messed with her destiny!”

“Destroyed her chance for a normal life!”

“Really, really screwed up her internal light!”

“And her life Force!”

“You have done an injustice to her.”

“For that, we’re going to kick your tail into the middle of last week.” The flame-haired girl spun the staff she had in her hands around. She shot a glare at the evil Sith. “Trust me. I can do that.”

“Sailor Bakura!”

“Sailor Iridonia!”

“Sailor Chibi Naboo!”

“Sailor Chibi Dathomir!

“Sailor Dahgobah!”

“Sailor Dathomir!

“And Sailor Yavin, guardian of time. Together, we’re the Sailor Jedi!”

One of the two other figures held up his hand. “Hey. Don’t forget us. I’m the son of Skywalker and knight of expression and diversity... the Coruscant Knight!” The lavender-haired man pointed to the man beside him. He did a double take when he realized the man wasn’t beside him anymore. “And he’s... uh oh. He’s going to kill you unless you put Priire down.”

“And probably after that, too,” Tuxedo Jedi growled. He held out his cane, and it transformed into a lightsaber. Igniting the brilliant blue blade, he blocked the stream of fire that Ayameru shot at him.

The Sith yawned. “I’m so scared. With my new power, none of you can even get close to touching me.”

And that’s when Inni stomped on her foot.

“Ouch! You little wretch!” Ayameru yelled, backhanding the girl. Inni promptly burst into tears, which only made Tuxedo Jedi angrier.

There are probably a very few things somehow worse than having an incredibly angry Tuxedo Jedi coming after you. But then, those things probably aren’t survivable either.

The dark-haired man’s brown cape fluttered in the wind as his lightsaber crashed with one that had appeared in Ayameru’s hands just in time to block his blow. The red light of her saber lit up her evil face with a malicious glow, while the lightsaber he held cast his face in avenging blues. From the clash seemed to come a command for the men of Ayameru’s army to attack.

Lightning flashed across the space between a Sailor and her enemy. “Vjun!” someone cried. Apparently, the newly-arrived group had been alerted to the danger to their friends and was here to help.

“Brat,” Sailor Vjun said, bopping the Coruscant Knight on the head. “You should have called us.”

“Ouch! Lightning Blast!” Hi attack combined with his future parent’s, and they crashed through the ranks of enemies.

A flash from the heavens joined the two sets of lightning attacks. Iridonia looked up and shook her head, letting the rainwater flow through her hair. It made her look like she was the rock wall that a waterfall was cascading down. She called down an attack that blasted several men into puddles of water in holes created by their own blaster bolts.

Rain poured out of the sky and drenched all of the people. Kevin watched them in fascination. So these were the famed Sailor Jedi, protectors of love and the galaxy. What were they doing here?

“Kousotsu Renjiro. ‘Honest warrior,’” Ayameru scoffed in Tuxedo Jedi’s face. “Honest. Hah. You’re nothing but a lying cheat. You said you loved her... but you left her!”

Kevin’s eyes were wide. Was that the man who had come to his door looking for Inni? He looked different... the pain in his eyes was still there, only this time it was coupled with desire. Desire to get something back. Could Kevin have mistaken him for someone evil when he wasn’t?

“No... I didn’t,” Tuxedo Jedi growled. The lightsabers clashed again, seeming to send a bolt of lightning racing through the sky.

“Do you know how sexy he looks when he’s angry?”

Someone laughed. “Over that I thought you were, Ryloth.” Dagobah slimed a man before continuing. “Besides, how Priire would be if heard that she did you must think."

“Oops... did I say something?” Sailor Ryloth winked and kicked one of the enemy men. The two heard ribs crack before turning to the next wave.

Inni was crawling away from the group as fast as she could dragging John along. “We can make it,” she huffed.

“So this is where you’ve been hiding,” one of the Sailors said.

Inni flinched away from her. “Who are you?”

The girl looked surprised. “Don’t you remember...” she started to say. Unfortunately for the ondago-haired girl, there was a patch of mud. Being the klutz she was, the Sailor slipped in it. “Darn it.”

“Are you okay?” Inni said.

“You don’t even sound like yourself,” the girl said unhappily. “I’m fine. As Yavin IV, senshi of clumsiness, it comes with the territory.”

Inni giggled. “I’d rather be the sen... senshi-” she stumbled over the world like she’d never said it “-of poise... and the color pink!”

If Yavin IV hadn’t been sitting down in the mud, she’d have fallen again. “Pink?? You hate the color pink!”

“I do?” The blonde looked confused. “I hate pink? But it’s such a beautiful color!”

“Never mind. Let me help you.”

Inni made John comfortable and walked back out. What were all these people fighting for? “Stop fighting!” she yelled. Her voice was lost to most of the people, but a few caught it - most notably, Sailor Sith Ayameru and Tuxedo Jedi.

Ayameru took her eyes off the man she was fighting long enough to blast Inni with black flames. It gave Tuxedo Jedi an opening to scorch the evil Sith’s shoulder with his blue lightsaber. The Sith herself cursed loudly and zapped herself over to the fallen Inni’s side.

Lying on the ground, Inni clenched her teeth together. This can’t be happening again... she said to herself. What had happened the first time, she couldn’t remember, but it must have been something awful.

Ayameru grabbed the other girl’s chin in her hands. Inni could feel the woman’s claws through the gloves. “Well, pretty one, we’re going to have to do this again. I wonder where I’ll send you next...”

The evil woman didn’t have time to finish her sentence, because Tuxedo Jedi — with a very nice running leap — slammed into her. She screamed in frustration as she fell to the ground. It caught the attention of every person in the area, except for Inni, because Inni was unconscious.

Kevin had crawled over to where Inni lay, burned like she’d been when he first found her. This must be the being that had hurt her. It wasn’t fair; someone as beautiful as Inni deserved to be preserved forever. Whatever she had done to deserve being hurt the first time, she hadn’t done this time. She was innocent.

A growl of thunder snarled through the sky. Ayameru shoved Tuxedo Jedi off of her and escaped through a bolthole. The dark-haired man stared at the place her bolthole had been as if the mere act of glaring would bring her back. After a few minutes, he ran his fingers through his dark hair and turned to the fallen blonde. The first step he took sent shivers of pain through his leg and he fell to one knee. Must have twisted something, he thought. Clenching his teeth together, he stood.

“Go away,” Kevin told the masked man when he started to limp over. “She’s innocent.”

That stopped Tuxedo Jedi for a moment. “Innocent...” he echoed.

Kevin nodded. “She doesn’t remember anything. Anything at all.”

“More than anything, she wanted to be innocent,” Tuxedo Jedi reflected, almost to quiet to be heard. “Innocent of pain, of hurt... of blood, the blood on her hands... Who are you?” the dark-haired man asked, kneeling beside the two.

“Kevin Sub’rosa,” he answered.