Inside Swirlz, I twirled my spoon in my strawberry frozen yogurt. "So, Kaylee," Joey asked hesitantly, "where did you meet Ryou?"
"Outside the mental hospital," I answered before putting a spoonful of cold heaven in my mouth.
This made Joey laugh, as was my intention. "The mental hospital? The one just up on that hill?" he asked.
"Yup," I responded. It was true. I had wrecked my car in the field just across the street from there.
"Wow," Joey turned to Ryou. "I didn't know she liked nuts."
"Now Joey, who said that Ryou was the nut?" I winked, and Joey stared at me a little worriedly. "Btw, Ryou, thanks for breaking me out," I joked.
"You're welcome?" Ryou said, unsure of what was happening here.
Joey, who had already finished his frozen yogurt, pushed up out of his chair. A dark brown curl made its way into his face, and he brushed it aside with his hand. Taking his empty yogurt cup, he said, "Well, I've got to get going. I don't want the cops to think I'm an accomplice or anything." He winked at me and then left, tossing the empty cup into the trash can on the way out.
"Alright," I glared at Ryou, "spill. Everything. I want to know about why I'm a Mew Mew from an anime show, why Keiichiro isn't real and you are, and why there is more than one Masha. Speak."
Ryou raised an eyebrow again before starting in with a serious look on his face. "The Mew Project is real."
"Obviously. I just turned into a nekomimi freak back there."
Ryou glared at me for interrupting. "The Mew Project is real, and you are the first ever Mew Mew. There is no Mew Ichigo or Mint or Lettuce. There is only you. You are the first Mew."
"Huh?" I scrunched up my face in confusion.
Ryou exhaled in frustration. "Where should I start?" he rubbed his forehead. "Yes, I believe I should start there. Okay.
"My father founded the Mew Project. But then he was killed by the aliens for discovering a way to battle them."
"You mean by that random Chimera Anima," I interrupted again.
"No, I mean by the aliens. Pai, Kisshu, and Taruto killed my father for discovering the way to defeat them. That random Chimera was something that was put in the anime for what the writers called, 'realism'."
"So, you're saying the anime lied?" I inquired. "Why?"
"Let me finish!" he groused. "I took over my father's project and experimented on myself, as you saw in the anime. But I needed a way to throw the aliens off my trail. So, I turned the Mew Project into an anime as a means of protecting myself. The aliens left me alone because they assumed I was only interested in the fame and money brought about by turning science into a children's show. It was this and only this that kept me from being killed as I finished my father's research.
"As I searched for compatible DNA matches, I realized that the anime was also a good way of spreading the word about the Mew Project to the targeted audience; young girls. At first I thought this young age range would be the better target for Mew infusion as well, but later I discovered that being so young made the DNA match unstable. So I waited until my best candidates came of age. You were one of those candidates, Kaylee. That's why you're a Mew Mew."
"Whoa. Hold up, am I getting this right? You made up the anime and put little bits of truth in it to sort of spread the word about Mew Mews and prepare your candidates for their future jobs?" I asked, my eyes bugging out of my head.
"More or less," Ryou answered.
"Dude! That is sooo epic!" I could feel the stupid grin on my face, but it seems I wasn't able to make it go away.
Ryou smirked. "Yeah, I suppose it is. Well then, you understand now?"
I nodded, still grinning. "I'm a freakin' Mew Mew. So when do I find my team?"
Ryou's smirk vanished. "About that… The genetic marker that is necessary for the Red Data DNA infusion is not as common as I first thought. At most, there are about three people with it on each continent. Australia only has one; Africa only has two. Kaylee, you are the only Mew Mew in America."
My jaw dropped. "You mean I'm going to have to fight the aliens alone?"
"Yes, that's right," he replied. "But don't worry. The part that says you'd get stronger with more teammates is fiction too. You have all of the power you need, no matter what they throw at you. And for good measure, here's the pink R200." He sat Masha on the table. "I have to go now. But don't worry, Mew Strawberry, I'll be in touch. I have to go see about a candidate in Brazil now."
And just like that, he left. I sat with my head in my hands. This was cool, but it also sucked. It's not liked the aliens would ever attack a rinky-dink suburban town like mine. And I had other responsibilities besides my Mew Mew ones. What about school when that started up again? What about my parents? What about all of those fan-fiction readers that were eagerly awaiting my stories?
"Kaylee Smith," I moaned, "you are in huge trouble."
"Trouble! Trouble!" Masha repeated. I was just going to call him Masha. It was what I was used to.
After that, I got up and left Swirlz. Masha followed me. I walked back over to my ditched car and somehow managed to get it back on the road. Masha sat in the passenger seat and chirped about various things. After all that had happened today, I needed to go to one place, the place where I always was able to relax. The public library.
During the drive to the library, my mind wandered. "Alright. So Mews Mews are real. And Ryou is real. And Kisshu – squee! – is real. This is awesome! No wait, this is terrible! How am I supposed to save the world from the aliens when I am an alien sympathizer? How am I supposed to fight Kisshu when I'm a Kisshu fangirl? Well… I suppose I could tackle him and start biting his sexy ears… No! Kaylee! Bad mew! You have to take this seriously. You have just been given the responsibility of protecting the entire continent from… Well, come to think of it, no aliens have showed up yet. With my luck, they'll probably attack New York or somewhere else. This suburban town I live in probably isn't of any consequence to them. I might never have to fight anyone at all, but…" I sighed in frustration. "This is so crazily weird," I said aloud.
"Weird. Weird," Masha peeped.
I pulled into the library parking lot. "Even if I do have to fight someone, that doesn't mean it will be Kisshu, right? I mean, if the Mews are split up all over the world, then I might end up fighting Pai or Taruto. I hope it's Pai, because Taruto is super annoying. Or at least he was in the anime…" I found a parking spot and stopped the car. As I opened the door to get out, Masha hovered over to my purse and strapped himself onto it with his tail, looking like a cute little cellphone case or something.
Inside the library, it was nice and quiet. I went upstairs and into the secluded corner of the building called the "Young Adult" section. (It was really the teenager section, but for some reason the library referred to it as something else.) It was a Tuesday. There weren't many people at the library today at all. Most that were here were using the computer lab on the other side of the wall. I walked around and trailed my finger over the spines of the books that sat on the shelves. But with everything that had just happened, I couldn't read some fictional sci-fi story like I normally did. Now that I was a superhero, the last I wanted to do was read a book about one.
I stood there for a few moments before looking out the window at the sunny rooftop balcony. The second floor of the library wasn't nearly as large as the first, and the extra roof space had been turned into a nice little outdoor area with flower pots and patio furniture.
As I pushed open the glass door and stepped out onto the roof, I took in a breath of air before going to sit in one of the patio chairs under the sun canopy. The chairs surrounded a small glass-topped table and I smiled at the small pot of red flowers that sat in the table's center. It was the first time I had ever been out here. It was a good place for privacy, as no one else ever really ventured out here either. I stared at my reflection in the green-tinted glass windows that made up the walls of the building. They shone in the sunlight and were covered in a gloss that made seeing through them from the outside rather difficult. I sat my purse up on the table and sighed, ready to begin a nice long thinking session about every Tokyo Mew Mew fact that I knew. But then…
"Alien! Alien!" Masha squealed, detaching himself from my purse and flying up into my face.
Then I heard a voice behind me say, "Hey there. It seems that the scientist boy tricked us. You popped up on the sensors about a half an hour ago, cutie. And sadly for you, that means it's my job to kill you."
I glanced over my shoulder to see a very foreign but familiar figure. His golden eyes and green hair had haunted all of my daydreams for the last three years. He was pale and skinny and – most importantly – real. My hearing grew sharper and my spine sent a twinge of pain up my back from sitting on my tail. The cat appendages had made their first uninvited appearance. But I barely noticed. As I stared at Kisshu Ikisatashi, my only thought was, "I love my job."