Part 2: Into The Fog
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The second encounter I had with Sailor Moon was also my first with
the brilliant and very supportive Sailor Mercury a.k.a.  Mizuno Ami.
 Ami, I would like to say, is more fun than people would ever expect
who just see her as, I quote, "The 300 point I.Q. Girl Genius."  She
is much more than that, just as my Usako is a lot more than just a
girl who would a thousand times rather be playing video games or
eating out than studying.  If you could only know them as I do.
Sorry, I digress.

Anyway, I might not have ever met Sailor Mercury, except that I
started feeling bad vibes about this "Crystal Academy" place that I'd
recently heard about.  The Crystal Academy was a suddenly trendy cram
school, where all the top students in the neighbourhood were going
for after-school studying.

That name, "Crystal" did make me wonder...might it lead me to the
Illusion Silver Crystal?   So Tuxedo Kamen decided to make the scene,
and I arrived just as Sailor Mercury had her first transformation,
right as Sailor Moon and I were watching [that is, if we could have
seen what was happening to Ami through the fog, we would have seen
her transformation.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.]

Poor Ami was in the grip of a computer teacher who had suddenly
sprouted long, vicious razor-sharp nails, and yes, this teacher was
starting to look like many of the Dark Kingdom youmas that Sailor
Moon and I have since come to know, and love.  Uhhhh... love, like a
toothache, that is.

I thought I heard a voice yell at Ami to use her transformation pen
[dunno who could have been talking to her..nothing in the room but
that little black cat?], and instantly, the room was filled with icy
fog...Sailor Mercury, in full battle mode.  However, it wasn't just
the youma who was blinded.  Sailor Moon
 the youma who was blinded.  Sailor Moon couldn't see either,
and the witch with the sharp nails was closing in on her.

How did I know who was where?   I  realize now, that this
was my first real encounter with the extra-sensory powers
Tuxedo Kamen has, which I later learned to master.  My
telepathic powers told me exactly where Sailor Moon would be,
and where that slice-and-dice youma was heading....Like radar
between us, I could feel just where Sailor Moon was, unerringly.

Fortunately, I didn't need to understand the nature of my own powers
to be able to use them in a crisis  So I grabbed Sailor Moon from
behind, and, with a steady grip under her arms, gave her the balance
to aim a crescent-kick dead centre of that witch's face, though
Sailor Moon couldn't see just where she was kicking in the fog.
It's interesting to recall now that without being able to see, and
hardly knowing me, still, she trusted me enough just to follow my
instructions and kick out blindly.  Just as I knew instinctively what
to say, how to move--holding her came completely naturally to me,
without thinking.  We moved as one, like a pair of dancers, long
accustomed to each others' moves.

In retrospect, if I had thought about it at all at the time, it
should have occurred to that things like this shouldn't have come so
easily for Sailor Moon and for me, after only one meeting....It was
as if we had, in reality, known each other for a very, very long
time, to have that level of trust, for the two of us to be able to
function like a team so quickly.  But I *wasn't* thinking. I wasn't
thinking at all.  The inner voice took over and choreographed my
moves, with a precision I never would have known how to achieve, back
then.

Once the youma was stunned by that marvellous kick she let fly, I set
Sailor Moon down and told her it was time for her to do her stuff, a
performance I'd taken pleasure in once before--her tiara throw.  I
hung around just long enough to have the satisfaction of seeing that
tiara hit the mark perfectly, then made my exit quietly.

But I'm getting ahead of myself...let me go back to earlier that same
day, when things, although I didn't know it then, were really
starting to happen in my life....

@)>~~~>>~~~~

Odango
===<<==@

I don't think I will ever forget the day a small, crumpled wad of
paper socked me right between the eyes--lucky I was wearing shades!
I unfolded the paper, and it read: Grade 8, Class 1,  Tsukino Usagi,
Mark: 30.  Thirty per cent!  I was scandalized, that anyone could get
such a low mark.  And also, when I saw this little blonde girl
flouncing by,  long blonde pony tails sailing out behind her like
streamers, and her hair caught up into two little balls, shaped like
dumplings,  I was--annoyed.  [OK, I was furious, I admit it.]  She
wasn't even looking at me.  And by this time, well, I admit it, I
wasn't used to being completely ignored by the female sector.

@)>~~~>>~~~~

[Usako has just come into the room at this point, and, overhearing me
re-telling the tale of how we first met, she says, "Yes, Mamo-chan,
you were spoiled, totally spoiled!  Spoiled, and insufferably
arrogant!"

"Spoiled, huh?  Spoiled, and insufferably arrogant, am I?  I'll show
YOU who's spoiled, Ms. Junk Food Poster Girl!   I'll attend to
you....later."

But Usa's not impressed with my threats, breaking into delighted
giggles.  "Is that a promise, Mamo-chan?  Good, I'll be waiting!"
Then she squeezes my shoulder, gives me a wicked grin, and runs out
of the room, still giggling.  You know, for a girl who was at one
point, very unsure of herself, these days, she can be a terrible
tease.  Not that I'm complaining...]

@)>~~~>>~~~~

Oh, what was I saying?  Usako can be SO distracting.  Oh, yes.  She
lobbed that test paper behind her, not even looking, and after I
recovered from that, I yelled at her, "Hey, Odango Atama [Dumpling
Head]!  Are you really that stupid?  Or are you just plain lazy?"

I don't know what I expected.  When I make a teasing remark to most
girls, usually, they just laugh, and respond in kind.  But this
Tsukino Usagi was different.    Quite the proud little princess, this
one.  She turned on me ferociously, and told me,  "Don't you dare
call me Dumpling Head!   That's my hair style!  And my test paper is
none of your business!"  To my surprise, she was almost in tears.

And now I felt really bad for making fun of her.  But the damage was
done.  She snatched the paper from me, and flounced off.  Run,
rabbit, run.  Never saw a girl take off so fast.  And I was kind of
irritated to find I was still watching her hair--those odangos,
bounce, as she went away--why?  Oh, never mind.  Not going to let
some silly girl wreck my day.

@)>~~~>>~~~~

And that was our first meeting.  Hardly sounds like the beginning of
a great romance, does it?  Yet it was.  And if I'd been paying any
attention to my own reaction, I would have realized that I was way
too interested in having her turn around and look at me.  I would
have said just about anything to make her turn around.  And given
what a depressed mood she must have been in at the time, maybe if I'd
said something polite or nice, she would have probably have run off
in embarrassment, instead of staying, and getting angry at me.  And I
sensed even then, I'd enjoyed that encounter--I'd actually enjoyed
watching her get angry at me.

@)>~~~>>~~~~

About the same time, as I mentioned before, someone else invaded my
life.  The one called Sailor Moon.  At the time, I had no idea that
Odango Atama and Sailor Moon were one and the same person.  I did
react to Sailor Moon differently than Odango, right from the
beginning.  Maybe that's why.  But considering how differently SHE
reacted to Tuxedo Kamen, and how she insulted ME all the time, I
don't know that I have anything to feel embarrassed about here.  But
I do, anyway.

Now, I have a confession to make.  I love to watch Sailor Moon in
action.  I always have, from that very first time she sent her tiara
spinning into the air, in a perfect arc, and then caught it, with
such natural grace.  That day, she just took my breath away.  And she
still takes my breath away.  I never get bored, watching her, to this
day.   I feel so proud sometimes,  knowing she's my Usako, I could
just about bust.   Yes.  About Sailor Moon, I'm a total, total
marshmallow, in awe of her sometimes.   I guess that will never
change.

Yes, sometimes she's scared, sometimes she cries.  She was like that
a lot, at the beginning.  But let's just say, I know exactly what
it's like to be very alone, and afraid.  And not be able to stop your
tears.  There was nobody to tell me to believe in myself, there in
the hospital, and in the orphanage.  Nobody to hold me and tell me
things would work out O.K.   But I remember the feeling, all too
well.  From the beginning, I felt her loneliness reach out to me...I
who knew all about loneliness.  The first time I met her, without
knowing it, it seemed I had made a promise to myself about her: She
will not be alone, never again, if I, Tuxedo Kamen, have anything to
say about it;  I will be there for her.  Until she finds her own way.

But also, once I was sure she was all right, I left her to deal with
things.  I knew that Sailor Moon mustn't get too dependent on me or
anyone else.  To rise to her full powers and confidence, she had to
know beyond doubt, that she could manage on her own very well.   She
needed to learn to trust in herself.  So I gave her space to do that,
though sometimes, in our early encounters, I would have liked to have
stayed around, maybe got to know and her friends, the other Senshi, a
little better.

But somehow, I sensed there would be plenty of time
later to do that.   There was a flicker of premonition in me, that
the relationship between Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Kamen, and her other
friends, was just beginning; that I could watch it patiently, and
very slowly grow, like one of my prized bonsai.

@)>~~~>>~~~~

But, getting back to Odango Atama...In the following weeks, it seemed
that girl with the odangos was ubiquitous, following me everywhere.
In the streets.  On the bus.   At the Crown Game Centre.   Was
it me who couldn't forget her, or was it she who was somehow insisting
I notice her?  It seemed at the time that she was fluttering,
teasingly, like a mysterious butterfly in the edge of my vision, and
I was unwilling at first to bring her into full view.

Now I know better, of course.   She was the one girl I knew who
wasn't falling all over herself to impress me, and that piqued me.  I
was badly in need of ego-puncturing, and Usagi gave it to me.  Swat!
Right between the eyes!  With yet another crumpled-up paper, this
time an ad for a computer cram school, the Crystal Academy.  [Now
this time, I do understand why she threw out that flyer.  The day
that Usako deliberately gives up her free time for studying at some
cram school, for computers or anything else, there will be two moons
in the sky, for sure. Ami-chan, she is not, and will never be.]

I yelled at her, "Hey, Odango!  I'm not a garbage can!"  She at least
had the grace to look embarrassed.

"Oh, it's you again!"  She greeted me like I was a bad penny turning
up.   Arigatou, Odango.  You know just how to make me feel this
small.  And I'm not gonna let you get away with it.  I'll take every
opportunity to take you down a peg too, annoying girl.

@)>~~~>>~~~~

PLEASE GO To Part 3:  All Aboard For The Dark Kingdom
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