I would like to thank all of the reader's that have review this story, I love the comments I get it makes me think I might actually be a decent writer. Also this is a longer chapter I actually didn't get to the stopping point I wanted too but I think it works. _ I'll try to write on Troubadours as well and post something today. Sadly I've hit a block with that story again.

Thanks too;

Trish1573

DelSan13

Sailor Tala

Nacy67

LoveInTheBattleField

LunarStar99

Usagi slowly opened her eyes and blinked looking around; she was surprised when she didn't see Mamoru in her room trying to wake her for school. With a comfy sigh she snuggled under her covers and closed her eyes again. Mmmm... it was nice to sleep in… wait… Usagi's eyes flew open and she stared at her alarm clock, it read 9:30 in the morning. She scrambled from the bed her feet tangling in the covers and she crashed to the floor with a startled scream. Why hadn't Mamoru woke her up for school? She flung clothes about as she tried to find something to wear and hoping on one leg as she pulled her designer jeans on she moved down the hallway.

"Mamoru! Why didn't you wake me up?!" she yelled finally winning the fight with her jeans and fastening them, Usagi looked up when silence greeted her yelling. The apartment was empty… like really empty as in no one had been there for hours… empty. Usagi frowned and moved into the kitchen eying the covered plate of food and the small note on top with a red rose lying next to it. She slid into one of the kitchen barstools and opened the note reading Mamoru's familiar scrawling handwriting.

Usako,

Sorry about our fight last night, I shouldn't have called you a child. Also I got called into the hospital for a couple hours today, but I made you breakfast.

Mamoru

And at the very bottom written in such a way that Usagi had known that Mamoru was laughing as he penned it was.

PS. It's Saturday…. American students don't go to school on the weekends.

Usagi cussed for a good five minutes before taking the omelet and throwing it in the microwave still grumbling. Mamoru could have told her that there was no school on the weekends! Usagi would have liked to sleep in until about noon, with a defeated shrug she ate her breakfast and moved to the couch flopping down on it so she could watch TV.

Mamoru looked at the clock on the wall of his office at the hospital, despite all his plans to take emergency leave for a couple weeks they had called him in to perform an emergency heart bypass surgery on an eighty year-old man. And Mamoru hadn't been able to say no, after all if he could help why shouldn't he? Now a couple hours had turned into four surgeries total, and a mountain of paperwork. With a sigh he let his forehead drop to the desk in front of him and groaned, while the additional sleep had helped him he still felt like crap. A light tapping at his door brought his head up and he smiled at the person knocking.

"Hey Zoicite, what brings you to the surgery wing?" Mamoru asked smiling, Zoicite had been the first person at the hospital to make friends with Mamoru and he had been surprised to find that the man was of Japanese descent. Zoicite had blonde hair and blue eyes and looked a bit like Usagi down to the girlish appearance. Which Mamoru knew was a sore spot for the blonde doctor.

"Oh hey Darien, I'm surprised to see you here today as well." Zoicite said his voice rumbling out the words.

Mamoru answered to his American name easily enough, "Ya, emergency bypass. I was actually in the process of calling in and requesting time off, when Adalae called me requesting that I come in today."

Zoicite nodded briefly and eyed Mamoru curiously, "you probably need the time off. You've looked like crap since you started here."

"Thanks…" Mamoru said with a grimace and chuckled ruefully to himself knowing the words to be true. "I guess you're right just had a lot of things happening all at once. First my parents die then I inherited the responsibility of my younger sister. Life's just hectic at the moment; hopefully it'll get better before the summers over."

Zoicite studied his finger nails before pulling out a file and using the tip to clean invisible grime from underneath them. Mamoru watched this show for a couple moments then raised a brow, "so since I know you've better things to do than keep me company while I do paper work, how may I help you Zoicite?"

Zoicite continued to clean his fingernails and glanced at Mamoru over the rim of his glasses before setting aside the file with a small sigh, "I'm in a bit of a dilemma. My cousin is going out of town for a couple weeks and has two cats, I'm not allowed to have pets in my apartment and I was wondering...?" Zoicite let his question trail off.

Mamoru almost choked on his own tongue and shook his head vigorously, Usagi would never let the animals leave if he brought them home, "I can't Zoi...there's no way my sister would never give the animals back!"

Zoicite frowned in concern though really he was smiling inside, "Please Darien I have no one else to turn to." he implored giving Mamoru the full weight of his 'girlish' look.

Mamoru didn't know if he should laugh out right as Zoicite gave him the 'look'. While from a distance Zoicite might be mistaken as a woman, there was nothing girlish about him up close. "Okay...just stop with the look... its creepy coming from you."

Zoicite grinned triumphantly and stood pocketing the nail file and glanced at the clock, "great I'll drop them by sometime this evening. "he announced then exited Mamoru's office and whistled softly under his breath as he strolled down the hall back towards the oncology wing.

Mamoru allowed his head to drop on his desk with a thud, papers and files scattered ever which way and some fluttered to the floor... he had just been played like a fool into taking these animals. He just hoped when the time came that Usagi would allow Zoicite's cousin to reclaim their pets. With another sigh Mamoru bent picking up his dropped paperwork and files and set them back on his desk before grabbing his coat and heading for the door. He met up with his boss Adalae and informed her that he'd be taking a couple weeks off, and after receiving an affirmative response left the hospital pausing a moment to stare up at the bright California sun.

Mamoru with a relieved smile moved to his motorcycle and climbed on making sure his helmet was in place he headed home, on his way out of the hospital he had run into Zoicite and been informed that the other man would be dropping the cats off at Mamoru's apartment sometime in the next couple hours. Mamoru rolled his eyes once more thinking that it'd be a miracle if Usagi let the animals return to their owner in the end. He pulled his bike into the parking spot next to his car and got off hanging his helmet on the handlebars he ran up the stairs and opened the apartment door only to be greeted with silence, and a rummage strewn living area. Usagi must have been annoyed this morning when she realized there was no school... Mamoru thought as he slipped his shoes off and began picking up the mess, wondering briefly where the little blonde had disappeared too.

A short time later Mamoru was frying up some tempura for dinner and humming to himself when pain lanced through his chest and he suddenly stumbled against the counter, he gasped and clutched at the spot sweat beading over his body. Slowly he slid to the kitchen floor his breath coming in shallow pants and his vision fading. Just as he was about to lose consciousness a blinding red light filled his vision and he felt changes coming over him. He closed his eyes as a harsh wind blew into his face. Mamoru must have fainted because he came to a moment later and slowly rose to his feet, his body felt strange and as he glanced down at himself he realized that his clothes had changed. Gone were his black slacks and white shirt, instead he seemed to be wearing a fully tuxedo, he frowned wondering if he were having one of his strange dreams again. Mamoru let released his grip on the edge of the counter and swayed as his legs trembled, he felt like he'd just worked a sixty two hours shift. He was about to move into his bedroom to look at himself in the full length mirror when a nagging situation had his feet moving in auto-pilot out the window of the apartment.

Mamoru didn't have a chance to cry out thinking he was going to plummet to the ground because he landed gracefully on a roof top and soared to the next building. His body almost moving on its own was taking him toward the source of the nagging feeling in his chest. The flapping of material caught his attention and he glanced behind him to see a full length cape billowing out behind him. He refocused his attention ahead of him as his body continued to move without his conscious will, it was like he was riding in someone else's body towards an unknown destination. Suddenly he was soaring again this time down into a park, as he descended a cane appeared in his right hand and stared at it. He looked toward the ground again fully expecting to hand with a fabulous splat on the parking lot below, but instead he landed lightly on his feet. Mamoru had a moment to take a better look at him and saw that he was now wearing white formal evening gloves that ended at his wrists and a top hat, over his face a domino style mask had appeared.

I must be dreaming...he thought as he glanced at the setting sun. Suddenly his contemplation of the strange event was disrupted by an eerie laugh. Mamoru looked all around trying to find the source and finally not seeing anyone looked up. A man stood in the air... no really the other man was floating in the air above him.

"So I see they found you," the mysterious man said.

Mamoru studied the other person as well as he could from the ground, the man seemed to be tall with short red hair and black eyes, on his forehead was a strange tattoo like mark and he wore a vest with no shirt and green pants. Mamoru honestly thought that the other man had horrendous fashion sense, but seeing that he was dressed in a formal tuxedo... he didn't have room to talk. "Who are they?" Mamoru asked seriously confused and half expecting for this to turn out to be a candid camera moment.

"The Shitennou, who else would I be speaking of?" The man said laughing his eerie laugh once more.

Mamoru stared at the man baffled, and beginning to believe that he lost his mind for real.

The man however seemed to become impatient, "I grow tired of your game. I will let you go today but be prepared. The dark moon moves in the night!" With that the man vanished from Mamoru's view and his eerie laughter echoed in the night.

Mamoru's body suddenly filled with weakness and he sank to his knees slowly the strange tuxedo vanishing back to his previous attire. He scanned the sky once more then suddenly slumped over to the ground unconscious. Two figures watched a moment from a tree above the prone man before they jumped to the ground next to him.

"Well its official…" Jadeite said as he knelt lifting Mamoru into his arms and looking to his companion.

"I had truly hoped to give him a choice in this matter," Kunzite said eying the limp body of his sleeping prince in his friend's arms. "As for his transformation… it's most peculiar."

Jadeite nodded his blonde hair falling into his eyes, "we'll have to ask Luna and Artemis about it. However we must for the moment return the prince to his home, Zoicite will be delivering the 'cats' soon."

Kunzite snorted with laughter at the thought, both Luna and Artemis had the ability to turn into normal sized felines. It was a part of their heritage and once that came in handy most times, however Artemis found it demeaning to be treated like a common house pet whenever they needed someone to go undercover. "I have a feeling that my cousin will be cranky for the next few days."

Jadeite just laughed then turned and teleported to the rooftop above the park, together he and Kunzite moved back through the city towards the apartment complex that Mamoru lived in.

"It worries me that the dark moon has started to move already, we only just found the prince." Jadeite said bunching his legs under him as he leapt to another rooftop.

Kunzite followed the other man easily, "yes but we were expecting this. Which is why we started to look for them in the first place."

Jadeite landed softly and paused adjusting the weight of the man in his arms before jumping once more, "yes but I've been wondering if we should awaken the princess's guardians as well." He said grunting as he stumbled on a landing.

Kunzite's hand shot out to steady his friend, "I've been wondering that myself. We are aware of the identities of at least some of them."

The two men paused their conversation as they landed on the balcony of Mamoru's apartment and Kunzite waved a hand opening the door while Jadeite moved into the space depositing Mamoru gently on the couch.

"Rest well my prince… and I'm sorry." Jadeite said softly before turning with Kunzite and exiting the apartment.

They quickly jumped from the balcony to the street below and strolled down the street, "I think we should wait on the princess's guardians until we know for sure we've found the princess. From there we can see what she would like to do, or at least wait until Mamoru regains his memories and ask his opinion." Jadeite said as he pretended to bend down and tie his shoe.

"You may have a point, there's no sense in disrupting the lives of everyone if this turns out to be something we can handle with the minimum show of force." Kunzite said though his icy blue eyes held sadness at the thought.

Jadeite stood and gave his friend an understanding look, "I think that's probably the best course of action."

A man carrying two animal carriers moved passed Kunzite and Jadeite the three men shared a polite nod before they went their separate ways.