RUNAWAY TIMOTHY

Prologue: The Runaway

- Tokyo -

The scene opens up to a beautiful mansion in Tokyo. It was a nightfall here and there were few lights on in the mansion. It was white all over the outside with four windows covering each section of the mansion.

There was a large fountain in the front yard with a statue of a whale squirting out water from it's mouth. There was a beautiful garden outside with fresh green grass that had looked like it had not been set foot on by anyone. It seemed like someone likes their garden be kept clean and fresh at all times.

We swtich to the inside of the mansion, where we could see someone in the living room. This was an elderly male in his early 60's. He had thick gray hair that was stretched out to his shoulders, blue eyes. Despite his age, though, it looked like he was dressed properly, as if he was going to somewhere important. He was wearing a blue suit, a white coatail, a short blue coat with wrist collars, blue pants, and finely shined black boots.

This man was Miles Strife looked himself in the mirror as he was checking himself to make sure that he was ready.

The butler came in the room. "Master Strife, your limo ride will be here shortly." He informed.

"Very good, Mason. I do not want to be late for the Auction Charity Ball." Miles said, as he fixed his coatail.

"What about your grandson Timothy?" The butler, Mason, wondered.

"I will take care of him myself." Miles stated, finishing the touches on his coatail. "Just be on the lookout when it arrives."

"As you wish, sir." The butler replied, as he made his way towards the front door.

Miles checked himself in the mirror, satisfied with his appearance. He grabbed his cane and made his way upstairs. "Now, I must check up on my grandson to make sure that he isn't out of line."

We cut views to a new room in the mansion. From the looks of it, it was pretty small and not enough space to move around in. The room itself wasn't really colorful, it had a yellow wall, and the only things that consisted in the room were a closet filled with clothes that were the size for a kid, a desk drawer, a bed, and a window. Needless to say, this room was almost empty.

However, there was one person present in the room. It was a young boy, no more than 7 years old. He had brown hair with spiky hair pointing downwards. He had brown eyes, a turqoise shirt, light blue shorts, and black sneakers with white socks.

The young boy sighed as he was sitting on his chair while reading what looked liked a math book. And from the size of it, it looked pretty big for a math book. The boy sighed in boredom. "I wish I didn't receive this much homework." He looked over at a picture frame that consisted of two adults, both male and female. And there was even a picture of himself when he was around three years old.

"Mom...Dad..." Timothy sighed sadly. It sounded like he missed his parents a lot.

The door suddenly opened to reveal Miles Strife. The elderly dressed gentleman who had a grim look on his face. "Timothy. I take it you are focusing on your schoolwork and not slacking off. Am I right?"

"Yes, Grandpa. You are right." The young boy, now known as Timothy responded. He did not sound enthusiastic at all.

"That's what I wanted to hear from you, boy." Miles said with a grin, before changing his expression. "I will be leaving here shortly."

"Where are you going?" Timothy asked.

"I don't know why you would ask me that. But if you must know, I will be attending the Auction Charity Ball this evening." Miles answered.

"Oh great. Another charity auction." Timothy said to himself. "How many of these do you go to?"

"Timothy, my boy." Miles said, waving his finger. "It's for the good of the community. You better learn that, because you will be doing this sort of thing in my place when you grow up."

Timothy obviously didn't care or like about what his Grandfather had to say to him. "Yeah, sure..."

"Now remember the rules. I want you in bed by 8:00. No later. No less." Miles told him.

"But can't I at least watch T.V. for-" Timothy was cut off when his Grandfather smacked him across the face with his cane. "OW!"

"What have I told you about backtalking, boy?" Miles said, his voice growing into irritation. "You know the rules and you should be obeying them!"

Timothy rubbed the side of his face to relieve some of the pain. "But Grandpa, I never had a night off to watch TV. Even on weekends, I'm studying almost every weekend."

"Tsk, tsk, tsk. Timothy, you need to learn about the world outside of you. And in order to do that, you need to study the world by the books. No exceptions." Miles told him.

The young boy wanted to say something, but he didn't want to anger his Grandfather. So he sighed to himself and turned his attention back to his book.

"Master Strife! Your limo ride is here." The butler called from downstairs.

Miles heard his butler and turned around. "I must be going now. I cannot be late for the Charity Auction. Goodn night, Timothy." The old man grinned before leaving Timothy's room after closing the door.

Timothy waited a few seconds before closing his book and putting his hands over his eyes. He really was starting to hate his life. Living with his Grandfather was a real pain and it hurt him personally. He wished he could see the world outside instead of just studying about it from books. But unfortunately, it looked like that wasn't going to happen anytime soon.

The young boy decided to look outside his window. He saw his Grandfather making his way towards the gate. There, a black limosine was parked by the entrance of the mansion. The person in waiting opened the limosine door for Miles, as he got inside the limosine and sat himself down. The person closed the door and made his way towards the the front of the limo. Timothy watched as the limo started to slowly drive off until it was out of sight.

After seeing the limo leave, Timothy narrowed his eyes in both anger and determination. "If he won't let me see the world, then I'll do it by myself. I'm leaving this place for good."

With that said, Timothy went over to his desk drawer and slided it open. He pulled out a small pouch bag and grabbed the frame of his Mother and Father.

"Mom, Dad. Let's leave this place together. Like you promise, it will be a vacation. Just us three." Timothy smiled proudly as he carefully place the frame picture in the pouch bag and wrapped it tightly so the pouch wouldn't come loose. He placed it in his pocket, patting it a couple of times for good luck.

Timothy checked outside his room to see if there was no one around. He saw that the coast was clear before checking his window. He looked to see that everything was clear and no one was around. Before he could make his escape plan, he turned the light off in his room to make sure that he would be following the 'rules' about him sleeping early tonight.

He then quickly went to his window and slid it open. He carefully put both of his feet outside the window and carefully stood in his position and saw how high it was. He gulped nervously before taking a deep breath and jumping down some feet, landing on the ground on all fours.

Timothy peeked inside the window to see if Mason, the butler, was in there. Mason was busy in the kitchen, which gave Timothy a sigh of relief. He turned around ans quickly made his way towards the front gate. When he made it there, he looked around on how he was going to get over this barricade.

"I'm sure there's gotta be a way over this." Timothy thought to himself.

He looked around at his surroundings. He then saw a step ladder, which made his eyes gleam in excitement. He went over to it and picked it up and dragged it back towards a part of the wall of the gate. He carefully placed the stepladder in a straight position before steping onto it. He looked at the height he was at now. It was a little tall, but he decided to make a big leap for it. He crouched down before jumping as high as he could, barely managing to grab the ledge.

"Come on, pull yourself up." Timothy said to himself, giving himself enough strength to pull himself up and over the ledge. He looked down before landing on his feet on the other side of the gate.

Once he was clear, he took some steps back looked over at the mansion one more time. Timothy couldn't believe that he was doing this, but at the same time, he felt really happy to finally be able to get away from this place. This so-called 'home' so to speak.

"Well, it looks like I won't be coming back here. Sorry Grandpa...but this is good-bye." Timothy said slowly. "I don't know where I'll go, but at least it's anywhere but here." With that said, he slowly started to walk away, wondering into parts unknown of Tokyo.

A chilling breeze started to pass by Timothy, as he started to feel the cold wind blow right past him. It had been half an hour since leaving his Grandfather's mansion and he had not taken one look back at it since leaving.

"Man, I probably should've brought a coat. I didn't think the weather would be this cold." Timothy thought to himself, as he wrapped his arms around himself.

He still wasn't sure where he was going, but he still kept going forward. Timothy looked around to see that there wasn't anyone around outside. Probably because of the incoming cold weather and everyone was staying inside to warm their cozy houses.

When he thought of that, a flash image of his mother and father came back into his mind. It was a warm scene with his Mother, Father, and himself as a younger version of himself around when he was three years old. They were sitting near the fireplace in the living room, cuddling and getting warm together as a happy family.

Timothy felt warm on the inside, remembering a fond memory of his past. He loved his parents very much. And the more he thought about them, the more he missed them, which made him sad. It was then distracted when he felt something cold drop on his head.

"Huh?" Timothy looked up and noticed something that shocked him.

The sky was covered with dark grey clouds and it began dropping rain drops. It started off slowly, but then it started to drop down at a fast rate. Timothy covered his head as he ran forward, even though he was starting to get wet thanks to the rain. He saw an open route that lead to a small alley, to which Timothy ran inside to see if there was any kind of shelter. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case. All that was there was a trash can and a newspaper that was sticking out.

Seeing no other way, Timothy went over and picked up the lid of the trash can and covered it over his head as he sit himself down. He even used the newspaper to cover himself up, like a blanket. He had a very sad look on his face, knowing the situation he was in.

"I guess this is what happens when you run away from home. Well, at least it beats my Grandpa's mansion." Timothy wanted to feel happy about that, but on the other hand, he did like the cozyness of his own bed. "I wish I could be anywhere but here."

The scene cuts to several different figures walking through the rain. One of them was a female human in her mid-teen years with blue eyes, blonde hair with pigtails on her sides, she wore a green jacket, blue jean pants, a yellow shirt, black tennis shoes, and also carried a pink umbrella above her head. This was Serena Tsukino.

The second person was young female and was much shorter than the other girl. She had pink hair that looked a little similar to the other girl's blond hair only her hair was curled to the side, red eyes, a blue dress with a red ribbon pinned in the chest area, and red shoes with long white socks. She was Rini Tsukino: Serena's daughter.

And accompaning them was a black bat with red eyes and a yellow moon crest on it's forehead. This was Luna: Serena's pet cat if you would like to call it.

"Aw, I wish this rain didn't have to come today!" Serena whined.

"Well, it looks like someone didn't check the weather report today." Rini remarked.

"That's because you didn't tell me to check it!" Serena replied back.

"Then it sucks to be you for not reminding yourself." Rini said by sticking her tongue at Serena.

"Why you little-!"

"Knock it off, both of you!" Luna shouted at them, before clearing her voice. "It doesn't matter who's fault it was. All it matters was that Serena was too busy playing video games at the arcade."

"But Luna, I was bored...what else was I suppose to do?" Serena asked.

"Oh I don't know, check to see if it was going to rain!" Rini shouted at her.

"B-but Luna said it wasn't my fault..." Serena complained.

"Well, I sorta lied." Luna admitted with a chuckle.

"Hmm, some friend you are." Serena muttered to herself.

Luna ignored Serena's whining when something just caught her ears. "Wait. I just heard something."

Serena and Rini stopped and listened. For a few seconds, all they heard was the rain. Then they heard it. Sneezing sounds were being made almost constantly. There were even a few coughs here and there, as well.

"Sounds like someone is having a bad case of a cold." Serena thought.

"Where is it coming from, Luna?" Rini asked.

"Let me check." Luna said, as she perked her ears wider to hear where the sneezing was coming from. She moved her head a little to get a good idea on it's exact location. "There. Towards that alley."

"Let's go check it out!" Rini said, as she and Luna raced on ahead.

"Wait for me!" Serena called out, following behind them.

The three soon arrived towards the alleyway, where the source of the sneezing came from. Luna and Rini had surprised looks on their faces. Serena covered her mouth in shock at what she was seeing.

The young boy, Timothy Strife, was sneezing almost every other minute. The 'shelter' that he had covered himself with was blown away thanks to the cold wind. So all he had was his own arms covering himself in warmth. Not to mention the fact that he was getting wet and colder with each passing minute, too.

"Oh my!" Rini gasped. "What's that poor boy doing in the rain?"

Serena ran towards the boy and checked up on him. "Hey kid, are you OK?"

Timothy's eyes were barely open and they were also red. He tried speaking up but then suddenly, he blacked out into unconsiousness and fell on his side.

"Oh no!" Serena exclaimed.

Luna quickly went to check on Timothy as she felt his forehead with her paw. "Well, no wonder! He's sick!"

"Don't just stand there, then! We need to get him out of there!" Rini told her Mom.

"Right." Serena gently picked up the kid and carried him on her back, giving Timothy a piggy back ride. "But where do we take him? The hospital isn't for miles away."

"Let's take him to Cherry Hill. It's close from here and we can get Raye to help us out." Luna suggested.

"That's a good idea. Let's go." Serena nodded, as she Rini, and Luna made it out of the alley with the unconsious Timothy and headed towards Cherry Hill.

- Cherry Hill -

The scene shifts towards the Sacred Temple at Cherry Hill. Inside the temple, we could see a raven haired Raye Hino sweeping the floor with her broom, clearing any dust that was presence in the Sacred Temple. She had been busy cleaning ever since the rain started. And it was a nice time to be inside the temple, considering the weather that was going on outside on this cold rainy night.

Raye was just about done for the night, so she set her broom next to the wall and wiped her head, as she was exhausted from the hard work she had been doing.

"I think I might as well turn in early tonight." Raye said to herself. She was exhausted and deserved some well-earned rest."

Knock! Knock! Knock! "Raye! Are you in there? Open up?" A familiar voice called out.

The knocking and the familiar voiced got her attention. She sighed, knowing who it was. "Really?" Regardless, she went over towards the sliding doors and slid them open a little to see who it was.

And not to her surprise, it was Serena. Along with Rini and Luna as well.

"Serena, don't you know what time it is? What are you doing here at this hour?" Raye asked with her arms crossed.

"Please, Raye! You have to help us!" Rini protested.

"Yeah, that's right! Look behind my back!" Serena told her.

Raye looked behind Serena's back. She had a surprised look on her face when she saw the small boy on Serena's back. "What happened?"

"We found him in an alleyway. He's sick and we need to get him inside quickly!" Luna informed her.

"R-Right." Raye nodded. "Please come inside."

She slid the doors open to let the girls inside. They went inside as Raye closed the doors behind them. Serena breathed a sigh of relief. Finally, they were out of the cold rain.

"Bring him to my room. He can rest in there." Raye told them.

Serena brought Timothy over to Raye's room. Rini and Luna decided to wait outside near the Sacred Flame. Once they got him inside the room, Serena gently laid Timothy down on the bed. Raye placed her hand on his forehead to feel it was very warm.

"I'm going to get a wet rag to keep his head cool." Raye said as she went over to her bathroom that was next to her room. "Make sure you get his clothes off."

"Me? But why?" Serena asked.

"So he can keep warm!" Raye answered obviously. "Come on, Serena. Don't tell me your not up to it."

"No!" Serena shook her head quickly. "I can do it!"

Raye shook her head in annoyance before heading into the bathroom. When she was gone, Serena checked up on Timothy and started to remove his shoes, followed by his shirt, and when she started to go for his shorts she saw something sticking out of Timothy's pocket.

"Huh? What's that?" Serena wondered as she reached for the unknown item and picked it up with her hands. She saw it was a picture frame of Timothy's parents and himself at three years old, though Serena didn't know that yet.

"Serena, are you done yet?" Raye asked from the bathroom.

Serena quickly hid the picture frame in her pocket. "Uh, yeah, I'm done!"

Raye came out of the bathroom with a wet rag and gently placed it on Timothy's forehead. "That should help him through the night. Let's leave him alone for tonight so he can rest."

Serena agreed to this as she and Raye walked out of the room, well not before Raye turned off the light and slid the doors closed.

Rini and Luna saw the two girls coming out of the room to join up with them.

"So how is he?" Rini asked.

"He has a fever, but it should heal him overnight." Raye replied. "Now let me ask a question. What happened and why was he in an alley?"

"We're not sure why, but he was out there all alone and by himself out there." Serena said, wondering on the possibilities of why that poor kid was out by himself.

"Oh, I know!" Rini raised her hand. "He was probably separated from his parents and he got lost looking for them."

That's when Serena's mind clicked towards the picture frame she discovered a littler earlier. But she wasn't sure if it was a good idea to show it now or not. "Well, that could be possible..."

"Well, we can ask him in the morning. Right now would probably be a good time to get some sleep for ourselves." Luna suggested. "And while we're at it, we can call in the other Sailor Scouts tommorow to help us out."

"That's a good idea." Raye nodded. "Anyway, I was about to turn in for the night. You guys can sleep over tonight until the rain passes by."

"But Raye, where are you going to sleep?" Serena asked.

"Obviously in a cot. There are some over there you two can use." Raye pointed out to them.

Serena and Rini went over to get the cots and placed them on the floor, as one for Raye as well. Once the girls were set up and in their cots, Raye blew out the candles and everyone sent to sleep.

Well, all except for Serena. As she went digged into her pocket and grabbed out the picture frame she had gotten earlier. She looked at the picture to see if these were this boy's parents. And if they were, how did he get separated from them? But what really concerned her was that why was he carrying around a picture frame with him? Could it be that...no, she didn't want to dig that deep yet. It would probably be better to get the answers out of him before jumping to any conclusions. She put the picture frame back in her pocket and laid her head on the side of her pillow where she slowly fell fast asleep.

Timothy runs away from his Grandfather and unexpectedly gets discovered by very fortunate heroes. How did Timothy manage to live with his Grandfather? What happened to Timothy's parents? And will Serena and the other Sailor Scouts be able to get any answers from him? Find out on the next Runaway Timothy!

Please, read and review.