Chapter One-Meeting Anne
*Ooh, thank you for the review, SailorMuse! I was so bored in Computer Aps. that I did get this chapter done, so I hope you all enjoy^^*
The dark lord sat upon his throne with ease. His castle, a huge mirror world to the normal human one, sat facing a gate to the real world, and he watched the events pass with a melancholy face. "All right, Phantom...Now I know who you're protecting...I just don't know why..." he said to the darkness. "Jolmen! Go to our alternate universe and kill that blasted Phantom Star...or whatever she calls herself now." A black haired, gray eyed teenage boy nodded, and dissapeared like a shadow appearing in light. "Don't dissapoint me..."
~
Serena looked around and yawned. High school was still boring, no matter what anyone said. Her grades were starting to get better as she grew more serious, but she still sometimes barely passed, especially in Algebra. Today, though, the teacher surprised everyone by smiling at a new student, who looked half their ages.
"Class, I'd like to introduce you to Anne, who just transferred from the fifth grade. She'll be joining several of your other classes as well, so I'll tell you now that you'd better show her some respect; I think she'd tie with Amy on any test." Anne blushed furiously as several students awed and oohed, and Serena realized that her mouth was hanging open, and snapped it shut. "Anne, just take a seat beside the blonde girl with the two balls on her head." Mr. Kojima pointed at the seat beside Serena, who was glaring at him because of his comment on her hair.
'When I'm queen...' she thought threateningly. Anne slowly made her way up beside Serena, and smiled at her as she sat down.
"Hi," she sounded smaller than she looked. Serena glanced at her.
"Hey, relax..." she advised, "They won't bother you if you ignore them. Be cool."
"Thanks," Anne said. She took out her notebook and was silent for the rest of the class. Serena talked to her, and sometimes when she wasn't making calculations, she'd help Serena figure something out. Soon Serena knew things that she couldn't learn for years with Mr. Kojima. "If you need help with your homework and stuff, I could tutor you," Anne offered.
"Hey, that'd be great!" Serena told her as the bell rang. "What's your next class, kiddo?" She was starting to like Anne better than she liked Rini, her own daughter-to-be.
"Um...Phys Ed." Anne looked at her schedule closely, "Then English, then Home Ec., and finally the big Science!"
"Cool, you have Science with me and Amy. You'll meet Mina in Phys Ed, and Lita in Home Ec. My other friend Rei doesn't go to this school, but I'll introduce you to her sometime. Do you know you're way to P.E.?" Serena was instantly concerned.
"Uh huh. See ya, Serena!" Anne waved as ran off. Serena looked after her for a moment, then shrugged.
"I can tell I'm gonna like that girl!" she chuckled.
"Okay, girls, this is Anne South, so I hope you get along with her!" The coach screamed. Mina yawned quietly, then observed the new girl as Coach had her demonstrate some of her ballet. She was really graceful, and did three leaps then a pirouette with ease.
"Hey, that girl is the brainiac, some sort of child prodigy, right?" someone whispered in front of them.
"Yeah, more like child loser! Look at the way she does ballet and sucks up to Coach!"
"Hey, cool it, you two, " Mina warned them, "She's from the fifth grade, what's that make you look like?"
"Geesh, Captain Stuck-Up to the rescue..." the girls muttered to one another. Mina didn't mind them talking about her anymore, she'd had enough experience to deal with it, but this girl, Anne, seemed like a nice enough kid who was way in over her head. After class, Mina found Anne sitting on the stairwell. Something seemed to be bothering her wrist, she was scratching at it like she was mad at someone.
"Hi," Mina said cheerfully, sitting beside of Anne. She hid her wrist immediately. "Whatcha doin'?"
"Oh, I'm enjoying being the smart kid who everyone wants to beat up, you?" Anne sounded so positive about it that you could barely tell it bothered her.
"Captain Stuck-Up, at your service." Mina saluted her, which caused her to giggle. "You know, if these kids bother you, that only means they're jealous." Anne looked grave, and nodded.
"I don't know why they would be jealous of me, my life sucks."
"It's good that you're so..."
"Frank?"
"Yeah, frank," Mina said. "Sometimes honesty's better than anything."
"Now you're going to ask me about my wrist, right?" This girl was smart.
"Mm hm...that is, if you don't mind." Anne showed Mina her wrist, which was bumpy and sore. "What happened?"
"Some kids thought it was funny to throw chalk dust at me, and I'm allergic to it."
"Oh...have you gone to the nurse?" Anne nodded, pointing at an ice pack lying a few feet away, obviously flung annoyedly. "Yeah, she does that sometimes. If she didn't smell like coffee, then you'll be okay."
"Coffee?"
"She's addicted to caffeine." Both girls laughed for a few moments, then the bell rang for them to leave. "I guess I'll see you, then?"
"I guess; Serena said she knows you, if you're Mina." Mina nodded, smiling, "Then I will see you, cause I'm tutoring her now."
"Good luck there. See you later." Anne smiled and dissapeared through the crowds.
Lita loved cooking, but not with Joey Reese, the ugliest boy in school. So she was relieved when Anne was introduced into the class, and put with her, as she was the most responsible chef in the entire school. Anne gulped, cooking main courses wasn't her thing, obviously.
"Hey, don't worry, what do you like to cook?" Anne grinned.
"I can make a really good homeade strawberry ice cream, and chocolate cake, and desserts like that."
"I take it you're responsible for your family's desserts a lot, huh?" Anne nodded. "Okay, whip something up for dessert, and I'll take care of the chicken. Do you want to make the salad?"
"Sure!"
"Okay, then that's what we'll do." Their's was the best meal in the class, and Ms. Ling applauded them. Lita whispered afterward, "So have you met Serena, Mina, or Amy yet?"
"Serena and Mina; I'm going to be in Science with Amy, according to Serena."
"Cool; you can hang out with us after school and meet Rei." Anne nodded.
"'Kay."
"Amy, this is Anne. Anne; Amy." Serena said during Science. Amy smiled at Anne; she was looking very bashful at meeting the smartest girl in school.
"Why, hello, Anne. I've heard a lot about you. Fifth grade, huh?" Anne nodded. "That's quite impressive, but just because we're friends doesn't mean I'm going to let you off studying with me that easily, got it?" Another nod, this one accompanied with a smile. "Good. Come on, let's learn this chemistry so that we can move onto Physics." They all got along well, and it seemed that Anne wasn't doing as well as Amy, until she answered a question that Amy didn't know about. Amy was proud of her, but not angry. Serena sighed in relief, everything would work out okay.
That afternoon Anne met Serena and the others in front of the school, and Serena cried out, "Hey, Anne! How was your first day?"
"Well, let's see...I made four friends so far today, and the rest of the people in my classes hate me. Things went fine," Anne said happily.
"You don't mind everyone hating you?" Lita asked.
"News flash, being the smartest fifth grader in Japan gets you a lot of enemies. It's very...important to like everyone, although they don't like you." Anne went on telling them about her friends in fifth grade, one a graduate from the local college and the other, her guardian, Ms. Tomeya. "Ms. Tomeya's name is really Madison, but I call her Ms. Tomeya as a joke, because Tomoyo's Japanese for Madison, and I couldn't pronounce it at first."
"So you pronounced it Tomeya." Amy said, giggling. "I can see how you mixed it up."
"Yeah, I'm better in Spanish than Japanese."
"So, Anne," Serena hesitated, then asked, "What happened to your parents?" The other three glared at her.
"Oh, it's all right." Anne told them, calming the glaring, "They died in a car crash when I was a baby. I can't remember either of them, and all my doctors said that it wasn't unlikely that I had an older sibling that died in the crash, but we got seperated, because I was found far away from my family. They drove over a cliff and into the ocean, I'd fallen out of the backseat while I was in my car seat, and somehow floated to shore. The family that found me said that I was clinging to a toy puppy, but that's all they knew of my family, and if I did have any brothers or sisters, since I was a baby, they wouldn't be able to find them before they had to send me to a foster family. Soon, my foster family sent me to an orphanage, and I was adopted by Ms. Tomeya. They never did find my brothers or sisters, so I guess I didn't have any."
'That's weird,' Serena thought. Darien had, too, been in a car accident that he'd lost his family, and his memory, in, so he couldn't tell anyone of any siblings he might have had. Lita then said, "Oh, there's Rei."
Rei walked toward them grumpily, then sensed a strong aura nearby, and looked up. The girl that was with them...who was she? Her aura was so pure and innocent, it was almost....like actual virtue in human form. She walked the rest of the way to them hushedly, and said, "Hi, guys."
"Hey, Rei. Looks like you had a nice day," Serena said sarcastically. Rei smirked at her.
"Who's this?" she asked pleasantly.
"Hi, I'm Anne," Anne held her hand out to shake hands with Rei, and Rei hesitantly took it. She had a flash cross her mind, a flash of pain and goodness and shadow all rolled into one, and instantly knew that this girl was a force to be reckoned with. She smiled to cover her strange behavior, and gently dropped her hand back to her side.
"And I'm Rei. It's nice to meet you," she added before glancing at the others, obviously saying, 'We have to talk.' They smiled understandably, and the rest of the way home, all hovered around Anne, still curious and wondering about her. Once she waved goodbye to go into her guardian's mansion, which was an enormous Victorian styled home, Rei turned to them, "Where did you meet her?!"
"In school. She got transferred because she's...well, she's almost like a reincarnation of Amy's brain." Lita said truthfully.
"Yes, she's purely gifted," Amy agreed.
"Yeah, well, she's a bit....pure, if you catch my drift," Rei hissed.
"You mean, you don't trust her?" Mina looked baffled.
"Of course I trust her! I just think she's a good attractant for the end of the Sailor Scouts' quiet life. She'll attract a lot of evil with the amount of goodness within her."
"Oh........Rei, maybe you should take a break from the entire sensing evil thing," Serena said. "It gives you a lot of funny ideas."
"OH YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Fine, don't listen to me! When she does get attacked by something, it's your fault!" Rei stalked off, leaving the baffled group behind her.
"Huh......?" They looked at each other, shrugged, and went on home.
The very first tutoring session was going great. So far, Anne had been able to let Serena come to the mansion, which was, in Serena's words, "So completely totally COOL!!!"
It was as huge on the inside as it looked on the outside, and since Serena liked it so much, Anne used the objects within to tutor her.
"So three fourths of the amount of diamonds on the chandelier is...?"
"Eight hundred. Wow, I knew the answer! This is great!" The day past quickly, and Serena thanked Anne repeatedly as she led her to the door.
"It was nothing, Serena, you just needed a way to connect what you learn to what you know already. See ya later," Anne called as Serena waved, walking backward to the gates. For a long time Anne looked suspiciously after her, then turned and said, "Or sooner than you think..."
*Ooh, thank you for the review, SailorMuse! I was so bored in Computer Aps. that I did get this chapter done, so I hope you all enjoy^^*
The dark lord sat upon his throne with ease. His castle, a huge mirror world to the normal human one, sat facing a gate to the real world, and he watched the events pass with a melancholy face. "All right, Phantom...Now I know who you're protecting...I just don't know why..." he said to the darkness. "Jolmen! Go to our alternate universe and kill that blasted Phantom Star...or whatever she calls herself now." A black haired, gray eyed teenage boy nodded, and dissapeared like a shadow appearing in light. "Don't dissapoint me..."
~
Serena looked around and yawned. High school was still boring, no matter what anyone said. Her grades were starting to get better as she grew more serious, but she still sometimes barely passed, especially in Algebra. Today, though, the teacher surprised everyone by smiling at a new student, who looked half their ages.
"Class, I'd like to introduce you to Anne, who just transferred from the fifth grade. She'll be joining several of your other classes as well, so I'll tell you now that you'd better show her some respect; I think she'd tie with Amy on any test." Anne blushed furiously as several students awed and oohed, and Serena realized that her mouth was hanging open, and snapped it shut. "Anne, just take a seat beside the blonde girl with the two balls on her head." Mr. Kojima pointed at the seat beside Serena, who was glaring at him because of his comment on her hair.
'When I'm queen...' she thought threateningly. Anne slowly made her way up beside Serena, and smiled at her as she sat down.
"Hi," she sounded smaller than she looked. Serena glanced at her.
"Hey, relax..." she advised, "They won't bother you if you ignore them. Be cool."
"Thanks," Anne said. She took out her notebook and was silent for the rest of the class. Serena talked to her, and sometimes when she wasn't making calculations, she'd help Serena figure something out. Soon Serena knew things that she couldn't learn for years with Mr. Kojima. "If you need help with your homework and stuff, I could tutor you," Anne offered.
"Hey, that'd be great!" Serena told her as the bell rang. "What's your next class, kiddo?" She was starting to like Anne better than she liked Rini, her own daughter-to-be.
"Um...Phys Ed." Anne looked at her schedule closely, "Then English, then Home Ec., and finally the big Science!"
"Cool, you have Science with me and Amy. You'll meet Mina in Phys Ed, and Lita in Home Ec. My other friend Rei doesn't go to this school, but I'll introduce you to her sometime. Do you know you're way to P.E.?" Serena was instantly concerned.
"Uh huh. See ya, Serena!" Anne waved as ran off. Serena looked after her for a moment, then shrugged.
"I can tell I'm gonna like that girl!" she chuckled.
"Okay, girls, this is Anne South, so I hope you get along with her!" The coach screamed. Mina yawned quietly, then observed the new girl as Coach had her demonstrate some of her ballet. She was really graceful, and did three leaps then a pirouette with ease.
"Hey, that girl is the brainiac, some sort of child prodigy, right?" someone whispered in front of them.
"Yeah, more like child loser! Look at the way she does ballet and sucks up to Coach!"
"Hey, cool it, you two, " Mina warned them, "She's from the fifth grade, what's that make you look like?"
"Geesh, Captain Stuck-Up to the rescue..." the girls muttered to one another. Mina didn't mind them talking about her anymore, she'd had enough experience to deal with it, but this girl, Anne, seemed like a nice enough kid who was way in over her head. After class, Mina found Anne sitting on the stairwell. Something seemed to be bothering her wrist, she was scratching at it like she was mad at someone.
"Hi," Mina said cheerfully, sitting beside of Anne. She hid her wrist immediately. "Whatcha doin'?"
"Oh, I'm enjoying being the smart kid who everyone wants to beat up, you?" Anne sounded so positive about it that you could barely tell it bothered her.
"Captain Stuck-Up, at your service." Mina saluted her, which caused her to giggle. "You know, if these kids bother you, that only means they're jealous." Anne looked grave, and nodded.
"I don't know why they would be jealous of me, my life sucks."
"It's good that you're so..."
"Frank?"
"Yeah, frank," Mina said. "Sometimes honesty's better than anything."
"Now you're going to ask me about my wrist, right?" This girl was smart.
"Mm hm...that is, if you don't mind." Anne showed Mina her wrist, which was bumpy and sore. "What happened?"
"Some kids thought it was funny to throw chalk dust at me, and I'm allergic to it."
"Oh...have you gone to the nurse?" Anne nodded, pointing at an ice pack lying a few feet away, obviously flung annoyedly. "Yeah, she does that sometimes. If she didn't smell like coffee, then you'll be okay."
"Coffee?"
"She's addicted to caffeine." Both girls laughed for a few moments, then the bell rang for them to leave. "I guess I'll see you, then?"
"I guess; Serena said she knows you, if you're Mina." Mina nodded, smiling, "Then I will see you, cause I'm tutoring her now."
"Good luck there. See you later." Anne smiled and dissapeared through the crowds.
Lita loved cooking, but not with Joey Reese, the ugliest boy in school. So she was relieved when Anne was introduced into the class, and put with her, as she was the most responsible chef in the entire school. Anne gulped, cooking main courses wasn't her thing, obviously.
"Hey, don't worry, what do you like to cook?" Anne grinned.
"I can make a really good homeade strawberry ice cream, and chocolate cake, and desserts like that."
"I take it you're responsible for your family's desserts a lot, huh?" Anne nodded. "Okay, whip something up for dessert, and I'll take care of the chicken. Do you want to make the salad?"
"Sure!"
"Okay, then that's what we'll do." Their's was the best meal in the class, and Ms. Ling applauded them. Lita whispered afterward, "So have you met Serena, Mina, or Amy yet?"
"Serena and Mina; I'm going to be in Science with Amy, according to Serena."
"Cool; you can hang out with us after school and meet Rei." Anne nodded.
"'Kay."
"Amy, this is Anne. Anne; Amy." Serena said during Science. Amy smiled at Anne; she was looking very bashful at meeting the smartest girl in school.
"Why, hello, Anne. I've heard a lot about you. Fifth grade, huh?" Anne nodded. "That's quite impressive, but just because we're friends doesn't mean I'm going to let you off studying with me that easily, got it?" Another nod, this one accompanied with a smile. "Good. Come on, let's learn this chemistry so that we can move onto Physics." They all got along well, and it seemed that Anne wasn't doing as well as Amy, until she answered a question that Amy didn't know about. Amy was proud of her, but not angry. Serena sighed in relief, everything would work out okay.
That afternoon Anne met Serena and the others in front of the school, and Serena cried out, "Hey, Anne! How was your first day?"
"Well, let's see...I made four friends so far today, and the rest of the people in my classes hate me. Things went fine," Anne said happily.
"You don't mind everyone hating you?" Lita asked.
"News flash, being the smartest fifth grader in Japan gets you a lot of enemies. It's very...important to like everyone, although they don't like you." Anne went on telling them about her friends in fifth grade, one a graduate from the local college and the other, her guardian, Ms. Tomeya. "Ms. Tomeya's name is really Madison, but I call her Ms. Tomeya as a joke, because Tomoyo's Japanese for Madison, and I couldn't pronounce it at first."
"So you pronounced it Tomeya." Amy said, giggling. "I can see how you mixed it up."
"Yeah, I'm better in Spanish than Japanese."
"So, Anne," Serena hesitated, then asked, "What happened to your parents?" The other three glared at her.
"Oh, it's all right." Anne told them, calming the glaring, "They died in a car crash when I was a baby. I can't remember either of them, and all my doctors said that it wasn't unlikely that I had an older sibling that died in the crash, but we got seperated, because I was found far away from my family. They drove over a cliff and into the ocean, I'd fallen out of the backseat while I was in my car seat, and somehow floated to shore. The family that found me said that I was clinging to a toy puppy, but that's all they knew of my family, and if I did have any brothers or sisters, since I was a baby, they wouldn't be able to find them before they had to send me to a foster family. Soon, my foster family sent me to an orphanage, and I was adopted by Ms. Tomeya. They never did find my brothers or sisters, so I guess I didn't have any."
'That's weird,' Serena thought. Darien had, too, been in a car accident that he'd lost his family, and his memory, in, so he couldn't tell anyone of any siblings he might have had. Lita then said, "Oh, there's Rei."
Rei walked toward them grumpily, then sensed a strong aura nearby, and looked up. The girl that was with them...who was she? Her aura was so pure and innocent, it was almost....like actual virtue in human form. She walked the rest of the way to them hushedly, and said, "Hi, guys."
"Hey, Rei. Looks like you had a nice day," Serena said sarcastically. Rei smirked at her.
"Who's this?" she asked pleasantly.
"Hi, I'm Anne," Anne held her hand out to shake hands with Rei, and Rei hesitantly took it. She had a flash cross her mind, a flash of pain and goodness and shadow all rolled into one, and instantly knew that this girl was a force to be reckoned with. She smiled to cover her strange behavior, and gently dropped her hand back to her side.
"And I'm Rei. It's nice to meet you," she added before glancing at the others, obviously saying, 'We have to talk.' They smiled understandably, and the rest of the way home, all hovered around Anne, still curious and wondering about her. Once she waved goodbye to go into her guardian's mansion, which was an enormous Victorian styled home, Rei turned to them, "Where did you meet her?!"
"In school. She got transferred because she's...well, she's almost like a reincarnation of Amy's brain." Lita said truthfully.
"Yes, she's purely gifted," Amy agreed.
"Yeah, well, she's a bit....pure, if you catch my drift," Rei hissed.
"You mean, you don't trust her?" Mina looked baffled.
"Of course I trust her! I just think she's a good attractant for the end of the Sailor Scouts' quiet life. She'll attract a lot of evil with the amount of goodness within her."
"Oh........Rei, maybe you should take a break from the entire sensing evil thing," Serena said. "It gives you a lot of funny ideas."
"OH YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Fine, don't listen to me! When she does get attacked by something, it's your fault!" Rei stalked off, leaving the baffled group behind her.
"Huh......?" They looked at each other, shrugged, and went on home.
The very first tutoring session was going great. So far, Anne had been able to let Serena come to the mansion, which was, in Serena's words, "So completely totally COOL!!!"
It was as huge on the inside as it looked on the outside, and since Serena liked it so much, Anne used the objects within to tutor her.
"So three fourths of the amount of diamonds on the chandelier is...?"
"Eight hundred. Wow, I knew the answer! This is great!" The day past quickly, and Serena thanked Anne repeatedly as she led her to the door.
"It was nothing, Serena, you just needed a way to connect what you learn to what you know already. See ya later," Anne called as Serena waved, walking backward to the gates. For a long time Anne looked suspiciously after her, then turned and said, "Or sooner than you think..."
