Disclaimer: I do not own Sailor Moon, or any of its characters. I am simply borrowing them for a bit and will return them unharmed as soon as I am done with them.

Thanks again to all who reviewed. You all are appreciated!!

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Serena was walking home from school on a particularly difficult day. Everyone was yelling at her. True, they said exactly what she thought they should say, but that didn't make it any better. Ms. Haruna was harping about her grade again. Serena knew exactly where the grade was at and she knew how to improve it, but it was so hard to break away from those lovely mangas. They told of heroes, people who had huge problems but were surrounded by people to help them and it always turned out good in the end. Life is never so good.

          "MMMMMMMMMMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWW" screeched through the air. Serena stopped short, started by the sound of a pissed off cat. She couldn't stand anything in pain, and knew she had to help that cat.

          Around the corner, a group of boys were tying pop cans to the poor cat's tail. Serena didn't think that people did that in real life, just in movies. It was so mean to the poor animal that doesn't have hands to detangle him or herself from the string. "Hey you boys need to stop that. The poor cat has had enough of your games. You all need to go home," screamed Serena as she ran up with her arms waving, as if to shoo the boys away from the cat. The boys, so startled by a girl running at them with arms flailing, decided that they could find some other cat and ran off.

          "Ohh, you poor thing. Shhh, it'll be ok, just let me get these strings untied," soothed Serena. The cat was quite beautiful, shinning black and thin. "What's this on your head? Band-Aids, well, we'll just get rid of them too."

          Suddenly there was a flash of light surrounding the cat and the girl. The light was warm and inviting, almost like a happy memory. The sensation of wind blowing around the girl and the cat was definite, although there had been not a whisper of a breeze a few seconds ago.  And as quickly as it started,  it was done. 'So it begins….'

          The cat jumped out of Serena's arms just as she came out of her trance. Did she really just hear a voice saying that? What was beginning? Was it good or evil? Maybe it was all her imagination. She shook her head as if to clear away the last few minutes from her mind and started to walk back home when she noticed the cat was looking at her. "What kitty? You know something I don't? Why don't you run home. I'm sure your owners will be looking for you. Maybe you will even get a nice desert for coming home." Serena could think of no greater present than a dessert. The cat did not look too impressed with this idea. 'Oh well, the cat's loss.'

          As Serena walked home the cat wouldn't leave her side. Serena decided that she would just go for a walk and maybe the cat would get bored and go home. She knew that if she came home with a pet, even unintentionally, she would get a lecture on how she was not responsible enough for herself, let alone another creature. Looking over her shoulder Serena felt a connection to the cat. 'She's so cute. Maybe they would let me keep her just till we could find her family.'

          Soon, Serena walked past the arcade. She really wanted to go in, but she knew that she wouldn't get her allowance this week because she received another 30 on a paper. Her mom would see that and flip. She just hoped that she wouldn't get kicked out of her house. Irene had a tendency to do that so that Serena would "learn a lesson." Although what lesson she was supposed to be learning was beyond her. Maybe it was surviving alone in the wilds of the big city. Pulling out the paper from her bag she couldn't understand why she had done so poorly. She knew that most of the answers were wrong, but they all were very close to the correct answers. It seemed that her instructor doesn't care for near perfect answers. She didn't even say that they were close. She would have thought that a teacher would see how all of the answers were close enough to the correct one that the student would understand or be very close to understanding, and then meet with the student to resolve whatever problem there was. No, her teacher just counted them all wrong and moved onto the next student. It seemed that she didn't matter there either, just that she was there filling a desk for the teacher.

          "Ugh! Maybe if I don't have the paper they won't ground me as severely. They won't think I'm clever enough to get rid of the paper to get out of a harsher punishment. They will just think I had a klutz attack and it ended up missing." And with that the paper was crumpled and thrown over her shoulder.

          "Hey! You should watch where you are throwing things," chuckled a deep voice.

          Serena whipped around. Who had been hit with her test? "I'm sorry, I didn't think that anyone was behind me," she started to explain.

          "What's this? A 33 percent on a test? Did you forget to study? Or are you like one of those typical blondes who just doesn't have a brain in her head?" interrupted the voice. As Serena looked up she saw the boy from the park, the boy who had helped to make her birthday one that she was happy to remember.

          Hurt quickly entered Serena's eyes. Here was yet another person who wasn't willing to look for the real person, instead just taking outside information, such as a grade on a test, to assess her as a person. What did a test tell a person other than how good they are at regurgitating information on a certain day at a certain time? "What does it matter to you? You don't know anything about me? How do you know that's even my test?" and with that she grabbed the test and ran off, tears threatening to stream down her face.

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          The cat just watched the exchange between the young girl and the young man. They both seemed familiar to her, but the girl more so. She was going to have to watch her closely. She may be the girl she had been searching for.

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Here is the next chapter. Any suggestions are welcome. Review!!