A Mew Mew Story: Chapter 1

At six twenty-nine a.m., I woke up to the sound of… breakfast. 

    The microwave was running. It was morning already? Still dazed from sleep, I shrugged the small background noise away and tried to rest again. For some reason I was very tired. However, I barely was able to get ten seconds of shut-eye when my alarm clock went off. I cracked open one eye, hit the snooze button, and forced myself to wake up some more. 

    Monday, Monday… I echoed sullenly in my head- I hated weekdays- as I struggled out of my bed sheets, lazily making my way out of my room and into the kitchen, but not before giving my hair a quick brush. 

    "Good morning, Justin,” my mother greeted me. She didn’t have a blonde hair out of place, and her blue eyes were fully made-up. Clearly she was more of a morning person than I was. "I was just heating up some syrup for the leftover pancakes from the weekend."

    “Hi, Mom,” I replied. “And yes, I heard.” I made my way over to the table. I shielded my eyes from a ray of morning sun and settled down.

    My mother came over, apron and all, and put a plate of pancakes in front of me. She seemed to hesitate before saying, “The earthquake last night didn’t bother you at all, did it?”

    “Earthquake? Where?” I knew I hadn’t gotten a good sleep, but why didn’t I notice it, then? I took a bite of my pancakes. The TV was on in the living room; I raised my head to get a better look. Sure enough, the news was broadcasting it as well. Mom was watching it too. According to the newscaster, the earthquake had only affected our town. And it was pretty noticeable, apparently, but not destructive.

    “Here, silly. First time in nine years,” my mom said, ruffling my also blonde hair. “But I’m glad you weren’t disturbed.” Unfortunately, it seemed like I was. I still felt very incoherent.

    “Oh. Wow. I guess that is good.” I responded, offering a smile for my mom, and continued working at my breakfast.

    After breakfast and brushing my teeth, I made my way back to my room to get dressed. I vaguely noticed something on my left arm as I shrugged on my long-sleeved winter uniform; it looked like a mark of some kind, but I passed it off as unimportant. Hey- I was tired. 

    When I was all ready, I kissed my mom goodbye on the cheek and walked out the door on my way to school. It was a nice winter day out, but a little chilly, as I noted as I continued my walk to school. I wished I could stay outside in this weather for a little longer, but that wasn’t going to happen.

----

     By the time I arrived in front of the school, which was in walking-distance of my house, I felt much better. Chipper, really. Maybe it was the movement that got me up and running for first period- gym class. I made my way into the locker rooms and changed again, but this time into my gym clothes. A few of my friends were there too. 

    “Hey, man, did you feel that earthquake last night?”

 “No, I missed it,” I replied half-committedly, finding a random locker to stuff my royal-blue school uniform into while my friends continued chatting along, moving onto other subjects like which girls were looking impressive today and which weren’t, and exam pains. I shook my head and passed them again after I put my clothes away. Before opening the door to the gym, I looked back once. 

    “Guys, quit gossiping like girls, or we’re going to be late,” I told them, grinning, and walked out the door as they laughed in reply and got moving as well.

    No sooner had I gotten into the gym when the coach shouted in between intervals of blowing his whistle vehemently (or was it just angrily?), “Volleyball! Get into pairs!” 

    Great. I hated volleyball. I paused in the middle of the gym and listened for who I was going to be paired up with anyway.

    “Currant! You’re with Clark!” The coach finally barked at me. I was with Luna Clark. One of my friends patted me on the back. “Sorry, man,” he offered jocosely.

    Luna Clark. Sandy-blonde, blue eyed, tall, and busty, she was the sportiest girl in the school. And, more importantly, she’d beat me to a pulp, because, guess what, she was also the head of the volleyball team! This was going to be fun. Not.

    After we got into our opposite positions on the two sides of the net and greeted with a brief, “Hey what’s up,” and “Oh, nothing, you?” I found Luna eyeing me up and down, but not she did not meet my eyes until after she was done with her survey; her eyes were narrowed as she looked right at me. I wanted to make a retort, but I saved my energy. It was probably that she was being snarky and decided that I wasn’t a good-enough opponent for her.

    A whistle sounded in the distance. We had to get started. I sighed and served the ball, which immediately got caught in the net.

----

    So I lost. Badly, as expected. I was walking out of the locker room when Luna Clark intercepted me. 

    “Um. Good game?” I said awkwardly to her as she stood in front of me, feeling suddenly uncomfortable. She was still scrutinizing me.

    “What’s that on your arm?” she demanded outright. The truth was, I had forgotten what was on my arm until she had brought it up, which surprised me that she even cared. And I hadn’t gotten a very good look at it, either. So I looked down. 

    Well, it was embarrassing. Very embarrassing. It looked a hell a lot like a male sign, but with a heart instead of a circle at the bottom. Where the hell did that come from?

    “It’s a… I’m supporting gay rights,” I replied, coming up with something fast. “Is there a problem?”

    I didn’t know why, but her scrutinizing, almost suspicious look vanished instantly. Her shoulders shrugged forward casually, but there was something else in that movement like relief, although of course I didn’t notice it then. “Oh. That’s nice. Sorry about that… And yeah, nice game.” Just then, one of her friends called to her, “Hey, Supergirl!” (Yeah, that was her nickname, ‘cause she was so sporty and fit and all. Clark Kent, Luna Clark? Get it?), and then she was gone. “See you,” she said.

    As she had predicted, that wasn’t the end of my odd encounters regarding Supergirl. 

    The next time, I saw her acting odd was during study hall, except that I wasn't the one who noticed her. Actually, it was my friend Travis who did; as I was catching up on my homework, paying no attention to anything around me, he nudged me on the elbow to bring her to my attention. Since I didn't know that at the time, though, I looked up at him to find out what he wanted.

    "What?" I asked, slightly confused.

    “Hey, I think Clark has a crush on you,” he said, wiggling his eyebrows, and cocked his head towards the back of the classroom.

    “Shut up, Travis,” I retorted with a smile, only slightly confused, and turned around to see where he was gesturing. Right then, Luna Clark, sitting a few desks behind me, quickly averted her eyes with a blush. I remembered getting the kind of excitement that any teenage male would; I was that convinced that maybe that, infatuation, that is, was the reason she was acting the way she was. A pretty girl like her taking interest in me. Of course it turned out to be nothing like that kind of interest.

    And throughout the rest of day, I had actually gotten various comments on that stupid mark (one even came from a teacher), and I just offered the same excuse. It wasn’t until later that I really figured out what it was.

    The earthquake also remained a main subject of school-talk the entire day. And everyone felt it but me.

----

    It was around three o’clock in the afternoon. I was on my way home, and it was unusually cold, especially for the fall. I rubbed my shoulders and buttoned up my overshirt, with puffs of warm air drifting up and away from me as I exhaled. I adjusted my backpack strap over my shoulder.

    Suddenly, I heard the sound of a bell- no, two bells- in the distance. I turned my head towards the noise, a bit startled. But after a moment… I felt myself being drawn to it, connected to it. I wanted to find where it was coming from.

    It won't hurt to check it out... Right?

    I couldn’t remember what passed until I got there, though I was conscious and aware as I followed the bells' chimes. I remembered walking along the empty sidewalk, rubbing my shoulders again every now and then because it was so cold- I also remembered how the cold bit at my skin- and looking around as if I was expecting something, someone. I didn't know where I was going. It felt so casual, maybe even natural, even though my feet were being dragged in front of me, one after the other, until I finally reached the place and was looking at a spectacle.

    Without even having to think I recognized it to be a fight. But not just any fight- a magical Mew Mew fight.

    Now, the Mew Mews, the half-animal, teenage-girl superheroes who saved the world from the aliens who wanted it for their own had been gone for nine years; that's when I was eight, and now I was seventeen. There was even a popular anime, Tokyo Mew Mew, made about them. They fought all the way back in Tokyo, Japan, too- and I lived in California. Not only was that a long time that went by, it was a long distance. So what exactly was it that I was looking at now? Apparently, the Tokyo Mew Mews hadn't completely eradicated the problem of the past. And here was one. In front of me.

    So I was positively sure that there, in front of me, was a Mew Mew in a bright blue strapless, three-seamed corset-like one-piece that was fringed on the top and bottom with a light purple lining, with the top’s being of a soft fuzz; if she wasn’t a Mew Mew, she was an angel- which she clearly wasn’t, because on the bottom line that was how Mew Mew outfits were supposed to look, even though they were all unique, right? Attached to the bottom lining she wore a sheer lavender high-low overskirt tinted with light blue that might touched the floor if not for her tall blue high heeled boots. As for her accessories, she also had the whole deal- garter, choker, and those puffy arm-bands included, each being blue and a light purple, the former being the primary color of the actual garments and the latter being the color of the soft, fuzzy material that fringed them similarly to the dress. On her head she wore a round, light purple headband, and her hair was a light sky blue with a light purple tint. In addition, which was more unusual to me but not for a Mew Mew, she had white dove wings and a white bird’s tail, both of a soft purple-blue hue that matched her celestial color scheme. And she was fighting, too. Yep, there was no mistaking that this was a Mew Mew.

    Who she was fighting, floating in the air in front of her, also confirmed that she was a Mew Mew, or at least some other part-animal superhero. Why? Because what she fought looked a hell of a lot like an alien- it sure didn't look human, anyway- and more specifically, like the aliens that appeared in the anime. But this one was a girl. She had the long, trademark alien ears that resembled an elf's and hair tied back in a neat brown braid, and wore a girly, exotic pink-laced orange two-piece. There were brown ribbons coming from the back of the bottom piece; I was unable to tell if they were actually part of her body or if they were just accessories. The sadistic smirk on her face was chilling. I couldn’t tell how the alien was fighting, but I knew that she was losing; I didn’t even have the time to determine that because she looked at me, stopping all of my thoughts. By the looks of it, she almost would have charged me if it weren't for the Mew Mew, who then took the opportunity of her distraction and gave another peal of her bells, crying out, “Lunar Song!” This caused the alien to shrink back, and a few moments later she disappeared. There were about three other figures that disappeared behind her, too, in the trees, but they all had escaped my notice too quickly. I was breathing rapidly, completely and utterly stupefied by what I was witnessing. I couldn't believe my eyes. I came to, and boy, was I shocked.

    The Mew Mew narrowed her eyes as if she were expecting something more, which was very unsettling. So I was about to take my chance to make an escape before that something more came when she suddenly whipped her head around and looked my way, her lilac gaze piercing right through me. Her eyes soon met my arm, and I had a sense of déjà vu- but instead of narrowing again, which I subconsciously expected them to, they widened. I looked down again. 

    The mark was glowing a bright red. And suddenly, the Mew Mew glowed in a purple beam of light, and then there was… Luna Clark. Supergirl from this morning! A light purple crescent-moon mark was also glowing, but this time right in the middle of her forehead. I stepped backwards. Don’t tell me that I’d been going to school with a… What the….

    What the hell was going on?