Needless to say, but the other girls were just a little bit concerned regarding the behaviour of their friend. While it was certainly undeniably true that Usagi Tsukino was, shall we say, flighty and ditzy it never usually quite got to this degree.
"Did you get enough sleep last night?" Ami politely asked. There was no reason for her, or any of them, to assume supernatural or malevolent causation as yet.
"Uh huh," Usagi coyly answered, running her finger around her collarbone, making the bluette blush and look away. "Slept super last night, tee hee."
"You didn't drink anything funny, did you?" Makoto pointedly asked, leaning in and sniffing at Usagi's breath. Earning her a kiss on the nose. That sort of thing could make even the toughest chick in Juuban back off in a hurry.
"No," Usagi replied, pouting cutely. "I mean, like, orange juice never tells me any jokes or anything. And I don't think it can make silly faces or, um, other funny stuff." She giggled. This good mood was not shared by her friends. Not in the least.
"I see..." Ami quietly said. "Um... Makoto? Can I have a word? Mina, you stay here with Usagi; there's something the two of us need to talk about, so..."
The two of them slipped away, leaving the two blondes alone at the table. Ami kept a view of them out of the corner of her eye, observing and noting the obvious physical changes to Usagi's body, beyond the even more obvious changes to her body language. She scowled. This was worrying. Intensely worrying, in fact. Minako didn't seem all that aware of it yet, but Ami certainly was and so was Makoto.
Once they were a fair distance away, but still in view of the table, Makoto spoke up.
"It's magic, isn't it?"
"Probably," Ami admitted. "It appears to be sapping her intelligence, while enhancing certain physical attributes -"
"Like her boobs and butt," Makoto interrupted. Ami nodded, not entirely enamoured with the crass language, yet that was by and large what she meant. And yes, she did mean large under the circumstances. Usagi must have grown a bust size and a half since yesterday, and her butt was making her sit an inch or two taller on that seat than usual. "Great, we got a pervy wizard or youma running around. That's just what we need. Any ideas?"
No, not really. Ami was the genius, but that didn't make her any kind of decision maker. Not really. That was her biggest problem. Shyness. A lack of confidence outside her area of expertise, a lack of real leadership capability. She didn't like telling others what to do in case it made her sound arrogant, like some aloof genius who didn't care for the people "beneath" her, when what she really wanted was to get along with everyone.
The genius looked up at Makoto, and felt a great twinge of envy. Not just because the girl was taller, prettier, more athletic and more "talented". It was because she was so confident. Outspoken. Not afraid of what others said or thought, she just got on with doing what she did best. And that was a skill Ami really did envy.
"M-Maybe if I scanned her with the Mercury Computer, we could work something out?" Ami timidly suggested. To her relief, Makoto nodded in agreement.
"Yeah, we need more information first," Makoto said. "No point trying to throw a punch in the dark. You don't know what you might hit." The tall girl glanced back at the table. "We need to get her somewhere a lot quieter. Probably best if she doesn't know what's going on. Maybe if we faked a youma attack, we could get her alone? I'll try to explain it to Minako first, then we can grab her before she transforms in case that makes things worse."
There were a few tactical problems with that plan so far as Ami could see, but she couldn't quite bring herself to point them out. Like, what if Usagi took their attempt to hold them as evidence they were the ones being corrupted? Or, what if she managed to transform anyway and the influx of magic either healed the effect (which would be good, except they wouldn't learn anything about who was responsible or any useful information to protect themselves and others) or aggravated it? What if Minako didn't agree with the plan and decided to be up front with Usagi about it? What if this caused an argument instead of resolving things?
But instead of raising those issues, Ami nodded her head in implicit agreement. They would have to be careful to make sure it worked, but... That shouldn't be a problem. Right?
<hr>
"What do you think those guys are talking about?" Minako asked, watching the two of them slink off with great interest. Now, it's best to keep in mind: Minako is not an idiot. She really isn't. Merely a little scatterbrained. She'd not really paid much attention to the sheer depths of Usagi's weird behaviour, because Makoto's and Ami's were much more obvious to her. "Suddenly slinking off like that to talk privately, without us...?"
"Oh, I know!" Usagi gasped. "I bet they're like thi~is." Minako turned, and saw Usagi interlocking her pinkies, and giggling playfully.
Now, didn't that fire up the old imagination? Minako looked them over. Ami, the small, shy genius. Makoto, the big, outspoken, tough chick. There was a certain... Something to that, wasn't there? Huh. She'd never thought of it like that, but they did rather complement each other rather well, didn't they? Ami was cool headed, Makoto was a little more blunt. But Ami was also really shy and withdrawn, while Makoto wasn't afraid to speak her mind.
"They do look cute together..." Minako nodded.
"They totes do!" Usagi tittered. "We should play along like we don't know what's going on. Y'know, wait until they're ready to spill."
That did seem rather reasonable... Although, what Minako couldn't guess was that this would result in a pretty great big misunderstanding down the line when it came time to share notes.
- Meanwhile, the transformed youma goes on a date with her would-be victim.
- The transformed youma's boss tries to find out what the hell is going on.
- Ami and Makoto try to get Minako away from Usagi for a little chat.
- The kiss on Makoto's nose has spread the effect to her... But she's only going slightly bimbo so far.
- Something else
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