Story: Love Pendant Usagi: Study, Study!

I think this is gonna go a little bit differently than people expect, because my own thought process when putting it together went a little all over the place. Still! Here it is.

Now all I need to do is justify a minor plot hole, but it shouldn't be too hard to cover up. If you spot it and can think of a way to do so, I'm all ears.




The bell rang to indicate Usagi’s favourite part of the school day: “Lunchtime!” She rocketed out of her seat, grabbed her bento, and then was joined by her best friend Naru and that adorable dork Umino before walking right out of the door.

“Are you sure you don’t mind me hanging out with you guys?” Umino asked, his voice like a symphony that soared through the sky. “I wouldn’t want to bother you or anything.”

“Nonsense!” Naru replied. She casually slipped her arm around his. “You could never annoy us.”

“That’s right!” Usagi said while repeating the same move on the other arm. “You’re so smart and interesting.”

But for some reason this seemed to make him uncomfortable. He began to wriggle out of their grip, almost as though he’d been seized upon by a pair of oversized slugs. “I don’t know, girls. I mean, you’re nice and everything, but if you girls will excuse me, I’d like to go and eat some lunch now. I can’t exactly do it if you’re holding my arms like this.”

“Then I’ll feed you, darling!” Naru sighed. She rested her head upon his shoulder, and the way Umino shuddered told Usagi all she needed to know: Naru repulsed him.

“No, I’ll feed him,” Usagi purred. A quick bat of the eyes, and look at the way he was shuddering! Obviously the sight of her was making him weak at the knees! Her heart swelled with love and hope!

“H-Hey, mind the personal space a bit, girls! At this rate, I’ll miss lunch and it is every bit as vital a part of a balanced diet as breakfast is!”

“I found something weird!” Usagi blurted out all of a sudden. No, no! She would not let him leave! Obviously, he was a little confused at the moment. That was all! She just needed the opportunity to show Umino how much she loved him! That was all! The two of them had by now made it to their usual spot - well, the spot where Usagi and Naru would eat and talk. Who knows where Umino usually ate? Hrm. Good question. Maybe she should find out. “It’s a pendant. Take a look!”

“And I’m sure Naru will find it very interesting,” Umino said, not even slowing down his efforts to leave. “I really have to go.”

“Not this one. It’s full of all these weird lights. I think it’s not just a pendant. It’s a device!”

She produced the heart-shaped mystery jewelry and smiled at the attention it was getting. It was easy enough to flip the catch open once again, and upon glimpsing the sight that lay within, well, that was all it took to keep mister handsome from leaving them behind. Behind Umino’s back, Usagi looked over to the fuming Naru and stuck out her tongue.

“Looks like electronic equipment,” Umino said. “Not like anything I’ve ever seen before. This is amazing! Where did you find this?”

“Out on the street. Someone must have dropped it.”

“Bit careless of them,” Naru said, peering over Umino’s shoulder (and sniffing at his hair when the opportunity granted itself). “You should probably hand it in at a police station. Whoever it belongs to is probably looking for it.”

“If it really is that amazing, they should’ve kept better hold of it!” Usagi huffed. “So, Umino dearest, do you think you could figure out what it is?”

He chuckled to himself and adjusted his glasses. “Probably, in time. It looks like it might be one of those two-way radios, like the sort you see all the time in spy movies. See? That’s the microphone, and that’s the transmitter. Weird that I can’t find the speaker or the receiver, but they’re probably built into other bits of the pendant. It’ll take much more than a casual glance to - cut that out!”

“Cut what out?” Naru innocently asked.

“Twirling my hair! This sort of behaviour is exactly why your grades aren’t as good as they should be! Can’t you girls behave a bit more normally?”

That strange feeling from earlier returned with a vengeance, and apparently it had hit Naru as well given the way she was rubbing her forehead. On this occasion, Umino was apparently unaffected… though he was staring in mild shock at the pendant in his open palm with his handsome jaw hanging slightly down from his nerdish face, and - and - Handsome? Usagi blinked and scowled. “Handsome” was hardly the description she’d use for Umino, at least without the words “not in the least bit” stuck in there somewhere. What had she been thinking just now?

“How strange,” he said in that grating tone of voice he used when trying to sound smart. So, basically all of the damned time. “I wonder why it heated up like that? And the way you two reacted when it did so -”

“Gimme that!” Usagi seized her shiny new find and absently wiped it on her uniform. “Your greasy mitts might damage the surface. Or maybe you’ll get ‘dork’ all over it.”

But Umino didn’t seem to be listening. He was rubbing his chin and staring slightly above Usagi’s head. Rude little… This is why nobody likes him! He doesn’t pay attention to anything in a conversation except that which interests him! “… Behavioural alteration… headaches… heating up…” he mumbled. What on earth was he talking about now? Though the sharp intake of breath and suddenly altered posture did seem rather… alarming. “Usagi! Listen! You’ve got to destroy that pendant!”

“Nuh uh! I found it, I’m keeping it.”

What a little creep! Wanting to destroy the pendant she found fair and square! Her throat swelled with vomit and bile at the thought of ever being attracted to that creep. She must’ve been insane! Momentary insanity, that’s what it was!

“You may be pretty, but you’re also pretty stupid sometimes. If I’m right, that pendant is an alien mind control device planted on the street where anyone can find it! They put it there to cause confusion and panic when a careless human finds it and starts to abuse the power it wields!” He stopped for breath and smugly adjusted his glasses once again before looking to the sky triumphantly. “I can tell because it was the plot to last week’s Tales of Human Frailty! Stupid aliens, coming up with such an obvious ploy! We can see right through your twisted games!”

While he raged and shook his fist at the sky in impotent arrogance, both Usagi and Naru stared silently at this and took two small simultaneous steps back.

“Why did we bring him along again?” Naru whispered.

“I have not the faintest idea.” Usagi shook her head in disappointment. “Of all the guys in school to develop a crush on us, why’d it have to be him? Why couldn’t he fall in love with that tree over there instead? He’d stand a better chance of getting a relationship out of it, and - Where’s he going now?”

It was the weirdest thing, but the dweeb had stopped his rather pointless ranting at nothing and slowly turned around. After a moment of standing still and staring at something. Though Usagi couldn’t tell what it was. Neither could Naru, judging from the expression on her face. The boy took a shaky step forward as though he had suddenly found himself transplanted to the top of the high wire, looked down and saw that the net was made of barbed wire that had been set ablaze. The next step was a bit more confident than the first, and the next more confident still until he was marching forward with straightened back and controlled breaths. Before long he reached his destination, bounced on his heels and said:

“Say, did you know that the largest area of forest in the tropics remains the Amazon Basin, amounting to 81.5 million acres? Oh, who am I kidding? A smart tree like you surely knows that already!”

After staring for a moment Usagi withdrew the pendant from her pocket and held it up by the very tips of her fingers. She and Naru shared a look at the mysterious dangling piece of jewelry. Their expressions were both the same. Wide eyed, goggling at it like someone had manifested the contents of an escher painting in reality right in front of them. Mouths operating on automatic as if searching for the words but failing to find them. Eventually Naru was the one to find them. The very best words to express the feelings both girls were having at this very moment in time. The ultimate expression of wonder at the realisation they had in their possession something that was, that should be, that should by rights remain a complete impossibility.

“No. Freaking. Way.”

“Yes. Freaking. Way. Umino may be a dork, but even he wouldn’t chat up a tree for a joke.”

Naru nodded in agreement, then frowned. “Hey, Umino!” she called. “You can stop now! It’s not funny!”

“True love never is!” Umino replied. One of his hands ran up and down the bark of the tree in an affectionate manner. “Don’t listen to them, my love,” he whispered not nearly as quietly as he thought he had. “Those two couldn’t break a score of 90 on their best day! What do they know of anything?”

“He’s not joking,” Naru concluded. “Probably. He might just be trying to make us think that his theory about it being a mind control device is what it actually is.”

“You know, that’s a good point,” Usagi conceded. “But… I am pretty sure it started to heat up just before he started walking. Wait, wait… there’s an easy way to check. Ahem! Naru! I command you to hop on one leg!”

No reaction. Naru looked at Usagi in a puzzled manner, shrugged, and gave a half-hearted hop. The pendant stayed cool. No reaction. “How is this supposed to help?” Naru asked.

“Well, I figured maybe if I gave you a command and you did it, that might test if this really was a mind control device. But it didn’t heat up or anything, so…”

“Oh,” Naru said. “Well, I guess that he is just fooling around after all.”

Not entirely the best choice of words to use given that Umino was now trying to wrap his arms around the tree. Oh. Oh! No! No! The very last thing Usagi needed to see right now was - Ugh! Yuck! Stupid imagination running away with her! This was the problem with being such a ditzy dreamer, your mind sometimes went to very unpleasant dead ends! Especially since his behaviour was now starting to draw a crowd… Oh, hell!

“Umino! You are not in love with the tree!”

Heat. Heat in the palm of her hand. Umino backed away from the tree sheepishly, looked at his hands and suddenly dashed off towards the school building. Naru grabbed hold of Usagi’s wrist while the crowd watched his departure, and the two of them made haste away from the scene as well. “We need to talk about this,” she said. “Somewhere a bit more private. This is too big to talk about out in the open, especially near what just happened!”

For once in her life Usagi’s mind was racing along logical pathways. The pendant really did appear to have some sort of effect on the mind, but it clearly didn’t react to Naru being told to hop. She’d just done it because she’d thought she was being helpful. The crowd was now dispersing with their source of amusement gone, and none of them seemed to pay Usagi or Naru any mind at all, more content to talk about the boy that had hugged the tree.

So weird! He was always a bit weird but this was too much even for him! Maybe. Probably. Alright, he might well do it if he’d found out it increased your lifespan or let you talk to fairies or something. But assuming it wasn’t just him acting up, why did he do it when Usagi had just so happened to make that stupid joke? And why did he stop when she told him to stop? What was the common factor here? If this really was a mind-controlling pendant, then in what manner did it control -

Wait a minute. Wait. A. Minute. Usagi stopped in her tracks and stared ahead for a moment, startling Naru into stopping and turning back with a concerned expression that wasn’t particularly helped when Usagi started to laugh.

“Usagi, are you alright? Don’t tell me you’re going a bit funny too!”

“It’s alright, Naru! I just realised! It’s heart shaped! Don’t you see? It controls love! Probably. I mean… You love the number 7.”

It heated up in her hand again, and Usagi fist pumped the air in triumph. Just what she’d thought! It reacted to love! This was amazing! Was it some sort of magic? Oh! Maybe she could even become Sailor V’s sidekick! After all, the ability to control love was exactly the sort of ability that the Guardian of Beauty and Love would be able to put to tremendous effect!

“Usagi, I’m not sure what you’re talking about!” Naru said. She was blushing and twirling her fingers. “How could I be in love with a number. I mean, it’s not as though I could go on a date with it or marry it or anything. It’s not like… Not like…”

“Hm, I don’t know!” Usagi said, deciding to take the moment to tease her friend a little and test out the power of the pendant. “You could always cut a seven -” Naru shuddered and bit her lip. “Out of a seven by seven centimeter bit of cardboard. Then you could take it out on seven dates at seven different restaurants, and - Oh gosh, now I’m starting to feel bad about this. You do not love the number 7!”

Naru had to catch her breath against a wall after that particular exchange. Goodness, who knew it was so powerful! “… Don’t do that again…” Naru said. “That was… pretty intense! I really did love the number seven so much that just hearing it made it feel like my insides were made of melting chocolate.”

The power to make and break ties of love at will… It really was powerful beyond compare. After all! In the wrong hands it could be used to make people do anything! Just tell them that they love doing it, and they would without hesitation. “Maybe Umino had the right idea…” Usagi reluctantly said. “This is way too powerful for any one person to have. Maybe we should destroy it?”

“No, wait! Wait! I think we should keep it! So long as we’re careful in how we use it, there shouldn’t be any problem. Right?”

“But what if we use it accidentally?” Usagi wondered aloud. The voiced thought was enough to trigger her overactive imagination with a very nervous gulp. “What if we don’t even realise we’ve done it? We break up happy couples, set up people that’ll be miserable together… Naru, this could go so badly wrong for everyone around us! If we can’t figure out how to control it, then -”

“Then that’s what we’re going to spend lunch doing,” Naru firmly said. “We experiment on one another. We already know we can undo any changes it makes. That will have to be good enough.”

<hr>
Lunchtime was over and Usagi staggered back into the classroom feeling rather similar to a zombie. Look at all those tasty brains sitting in their seats, fattening themselves up with the food of knowledge. There was never a time in her life that Usagi could remember feeling so thoroughly exhausted. Not physically, mind. This was a different flavour of tired than she was quite used to. Her capacity to feel much of anything at the moment was rather weak and her usually vivid imagination gave up and went back to bed whenever it would usually run a marathon.

Emotional exhaustion does that to a person, and Naru wasn’t faring much better.

“Guh…” she mumbled. “Buh…”

“Hrn,” Usagi nodded back. The two of them had learned quite a bit about this weird magic pendant over the course of their lunch break. Oh, yes. They really had learned a fair number of fascinating facts. It would only work on someone if they were within line of sight. It would only accept commands from whoever was carrying it, and those commands didn’t even have to be spoken out loud. Luckily there was a button that seemed to switch it off, otherwise Usagi would’ve probably feverishly taken a hammer to it right there in the yard. Who needs every stray thought about love coming true, huh?

But they’d also learned another vital fact. Switching on and off one’s capacity for feeling love towards various things in quick succession leaves one’s emotional batteries needing a spot of charging up.

The classroom had never seemed so gray and drab. The people in it didn’t really look like people anymore. The little imperfections in their skin seemed so much more obvious. The little details people ignore when attempting to recognise a face became so much more obvious. The placement and shape of features, subtle discolouration of skin, individual strands of hair and so on and on and on.

This feeling did eventually fade over the course of the afternoon, but it was more than enough to make Usagi silently swear never to do that ever again. Never ever ever ever ever! The bell rung and to her relief she could actually feel relief at being allowed to leave!

Hooray!

“Just one final reminder!” Miss Haruna yelled as the class made ready to leave. “You all have that test tomorrow! Don’t forget!”

Boo!

“This test should be a breeze,” Umino remarked. “I don’t know why everyone else looks so dour all of a sudden. Don’t they love studying as much as I do?”

“Is that nearly as much as you love that tree?” Another student quipped, but Usagi had barely heard it. Love studying… Would that even work? Ho ho! Opportunity knocking!

<hr>
Alright! The plan had originally been to study with Umino at the library, but stuff that. No. She had a better plan! A bigger plan! This was why she was in her own room, at her desk with a small mirror perched upon it and a certain magical pendant lying in front of it. All her notes were here. All the books related to the test. Pencils. Erasers. Sharpeners. Measuring tools of all sorts.

For added effect Usagi rolled up her sleeves. Let’s do this!

She picked up the pendant and pressed the hidden button to activate it. “I love studying!” she declared while looking in the mirror, hardly believing the words coming out of her own mouth. Just as expected the pendant began to heat up in her grip and she felt a now familiar headache wash over her entire being. The pendant was flipped off once again and lay to rest next to the mirror, and then -

Look at all those books! So many to read! So much studying to do! Yes. Yes. Yes. She couldn’t sit down fast enough. Her heart felt like it was beating its way out of her chest at this point. Yes. Study. She grabbed the nearest book and flipped it open to the relevant chapters for the test as per the study plan and began to read. And read. And read. And re-read. And re-read again. Scribbling down notes faster than she even knew she could write. Her eyes danced across the page absorbing the knowledge like a sponge. She reached the end of chapter questions and rapidly answered them all! X = 3! X = 2 and Y = 1! All answered? Check the back of the book to be sure! Correct, correct, correct, correct and -

Usagi suddenly gripped the table and whimpered. Wh-What was that? Whatever it was, it felt amazing! But she could not dwell on this. Next chapter!

With even more speed and concentration than she had shown previously the second chapter was similarly completed. End of chapter test! The area was 10! The volume was 25! The circumference was roughly 12.56! Correct, correct, correct, corr-

This time she not only gripped the desk but threw her head back and gasped! Even better than before! Like a thousand little lightning strikes all around her spine! This time it took her a little longer to begin the next chapter, and she had to wipe a coating of sweat off her brow. It was too hot in here! Needtobreathe! Need no distractions. Concentrate on studying! Love to study! Love it! And so her shirt was off her back. Yes. Cooler. Better. No distractions now. Study!

<hr>
Three hours passed by and Usagi sat completely naked in her chair. Still studying. Still turning pages, taking notes, answering questions and cumming with increasing intensity every single time she knew she had them right. Her clothes lay around her on the floor in crumpled heaps. Her entire body was now drenched in sweat. As opposed to her normal seated position - legs crossed at the ankles, leaning slightly forward - Usagi was now sitting with her back straight as a ruler and her legs about as far apart as they could get while still remaining comfortable.

“So, this is calculus,” she whispered as though telling a dirty little secret. While one hand took notes and turned the page, the other was conspicuous in its absence. Its fate lay rather underneath the desk with two fingers pumping furiously in and out of Usagi’s by now drenched pussy. “It’s sooo cool! I love to study! I llllooove to study!”

To her this behaviour was not unusual. She loved to study. Furious masturbation while studying helped her concentrate, a realisation that seemed just about as counterintuitive as anything else ever recorded in the history of humanity. Even so, the results spoke volumes. In the span of just three hours a lazy ditz had not only learned but mastered mathematical topics that were frankly beyond her earlier that very day. She loved to study. Just like she had told the pendant. But one of the things neither she nor Naru had learned earlier that day during their emotionally draining tests was the true nature of the trinket they were using. ’Twas not merely a pendant of love, but a pendant of lust… and to its mindless form there was absolutely no difference at all between the two.

With the ultimate trick being that by the time she realised this fact, it would be far too late to do anything about it.
<hr>
A day and a night passed in the blink of an eye. Seven in the morning came, and with it, so did Usagi. She panted for breath and sat up in her bed, and looked at the clock in satisfaction.

“Looks like telling myself I love waking up early did the trick!” she said. “This pendant is more useful than I thought it would be!”

At that very moment her alarm clock went off. Usagi chuckled and switched it off. She’d never felt so very alive before! This was the most wonderful feeling! She could take her time showering, brushing her teeth, getting dressed, eating breakfast and even take a leisurely stroll along to school! She had the time! No need to rush for once. This was it. This was the way her life should be. Everything was falling into place, and what was more -

“Hey, look at this stupid cat! It’s got a bandaid on its forehead!”

Her life was just about to get even more complicated.

    When Usagi becomes Sailor Moon, the powers of the pendant also change.
    The pendant somehow corrupts Usagi’s transformation into Sailor Moon.
    The being that created the pendant chuckles over how it is being used, and considers its dastardly scheme.
    Naru asks to borrow the pendant for the day, and uses it to defeat Morga before Sailor Moon even appears.
    It turns out that the pendant has more effects on those around it than either Usagi or Naru realised.
    Something else