The Trial
       At once, all heads turned as one to face the newcomer. One cat, who
was grey to start with, turned as white as
Artemis. "Luna, what do you suppose what that... that... THING is doing
here?" Artemis managed out, although is
sounded like someone had put his tail in a paper shredder.
       "I have no idea" came the equally strangled response. Luna was, for
her part, not shaking like most of the others.
       'From this point forward, no more talking to Serena about bravery'
Luna thought to herself.
       The dog started walking forward cautiously, head bobbing left,
right, up, and down, cheaking all of the nooks and
crannies of the alley. No shadow, no little crevice escaped the dreadful
glare. Each time the glare passed over the cats, they
all shived in fear as one. All but one that is. Luna was a colagé of
emotions. First fear, like any other sensible cat, then
anger, unlike any other sensible cat, and last but not least, curiosity.
       'I wonder what that dog is here for?' Her question whould be soon
answered.
       * * * *
       Unlike her mentor, Serena was far from the apparent danger of her
worst physical enemy. On the other hand, being
on her bed with all her blankets rolled up around her, over her, above her,
under her, and all together blocking out all
possible light sources, while crying, is not much better. And that's
exactly what she was doing.
       'Why? Why? Why? Why?' was the only thought going through her head,
over and over and over again. "What
have I done to diserve this?" she wishpered to no one in particular. 'After
all we've been through, why does he do this?'
She sniffled, cried, sniffled, and cried again.
       Unbelivevly, a ray of light started to peak through the
blanked-shield. Slow, as if a mother coming to comfort her
child, the ray crept forward. The ray changed into a beam. The beam crossed
the blanket, up Serena's body, to shine on her
right cheek. Specifically, the light stopped where tear had decided to stay
because of a dimple in her face.
       "Sniffle."
       Serena rolled over in her bed because her side was getting sore.
With the shift in her head, and the shaft of light no
longer rested on the tear, now it was directlty over her shut eyes. She
sensed the light, opened her eyes, blinked in the
sudden change in light level, wondered where the light was coming form and
how the light was getting throught the
blankets. She decided to find out. In her present state, her normally ditzy
mind was razor sharp. She figured out that she
would have to get out of her coccoon. It took ten minutes to fight her way
out, and when she saw the source of the bright
invader, she gasped, then swore.
       It was the full moon. The light was reflected off the moon and into
the Tsukino residence. "I hate you" she said to
the moon. "If you hadn't done this to me, I would still be a normal
teenager, with no worries other than how to explain my
bad mark. I would still be fighting with HIM, but no! You had to go and
ruin everything. Why couldn't you have left things
alone? Why couldn't you have left me alone?!" She slowly sagged down to the
floor, covered her face, and tried to cry, but
no tears would come. Serena just now noticed that her face was dry.
       The moonlight had dried her tears so well that not a mark that she
had everbeen crying was showning, other than
the red eyes. 'Just like the sun' she thought. For a minute she thought she
could hear Queen Serenity's voice in the back of
her mind. She couldn't figure out what was said, if anything, but it was
soothing to hear. The doorbell rang, and Serena
ignored it, too deep in thought to even hear it. After a pause, the bell
rang again, and this time Serena heard it. 'Sammy's get
it, or mom or dad.' A minute passed, and no one opened the door. 'What's
taking them so long... Oh yeah, they said they
were going out to dinner and asked me if I wanted to come, so they couldn't
answer the door. I'd better get it.' It took a
minute of effort to get up and go down to the door. When she got there she
couldn't believe the trouble that she was going
to be in. Rei stood outside fuming.
       * * * *
In a preditors lope, the dog slinked forward, while keeping it's eyes on
the assembled cats. Still examining the alley for any
thing out of place, any thing that might pose a threat. The cats now all
but cowered behined Luna, and that was because she
wasn't big enough to hide all of them. Luna still couldn't figure anything
out about this dog, the lope was more in a guard
position, the angle was wrong for an attack, and the dog still had not said
anything.
The dog, for all its fersomeness, still hadn't made it's intentions clear.
Most of the cats thought that it was there to kick there
butts from here to the end of the block and back again. Most. Luna, on the
other hand, was still at the front of the pack, and
was still very curious about what was going on. 'What is that dog doing?'
and 'Why is that dog here?' are just some of the
questions that were running through her head, and she couldn't come up with
any resonable answers to them.
       The dog walked right up to Luna, who for her credit, didn't shiver
when the ice-cold nose touched her own. There
was contact for only a second or so, but that was enough to satisfy the
dog's curiosity, for the moment. The dog sat down
right in front of Luna, and sniffed her. It was from a fair distance, but
the second was closer, the third closer still, and the
fourth had dog and cat touching noses again. It seamed t satisfy the dog
and the deadly gleam in the eye faded to just a
glimmer, but didn't fade away. Two humps started to form on the dogs back.
The humps slowly started to detach
themselves, and the patches of darkness now on the ground, started to rise...
       * * * *
       "What took you so long?!" Rei fumed. Serena could see that she
wasn't happy, and being left outside probably
didn't help things any. "Are you going to answer me or what?"
"I think I'll take the 'or what'." That wasn't the best thing to say, but
Serena figured that Rei couldn't say anything that
would hurt her more that she already was. To her surprise, Rei smiled.
"What's the matter? Are you sick?" Serena put her
hand on Rei's forehead and was shocked to find that Rei was her normal
tempature. Rei's smile broke into full-blown
laughter.
       "Nice to know your back to your normal self! Come on outside!" she
choked between fits of laughter.
       "What for?"
       "You'll see." Serena looked at her strangly, and then decided to
follow her friend to find out what was going on.
She stopped only long enough to write her parents a note and to grab her
house key. Locking the door behind her proved to
be the worst move of the day, because the moment her back was turned Rei,
reached behind her back to grab something,
guestured something to herself, and wrapped the length of silk that she now
had her in hand around Serena's eyes, and
smilled glefully.
       "Wha...? What are you doing?"
       In a low whisper, Rei answered: "You'll see, Princess."
       * * * *
       The shapless patches of darkness, took shape, and then started to
move. Closer to the light from the lamp, came the
shapes, and the dog started to look more testy then before. The shapes
stepped into the light... and turned out to be two
kittens.
       The mass of cats let out one large sigh of relief, and started to
talk again to each other, ableit quietly. Luna was the
first to breach the queastion that was on all their minds. "Who are you?"
       The lighter of the two answered, "My name is Monkell, and my brother
here is named Edmundy."
       "Yeah, we came because we were bored," Edmundy answered. Monkell was
definatly female.
       A torrent of questions bombarded the two little cats, and it soon
came to be deafening. A loud bark from the dog
settled that situation.
       "One at a time, please." Monkell asked.
       This time it was Artemis who asked the new question, instead of
Luna. "What are you doing with this... this
DOG?"
       "Dog...Dog... oh! You mean our mother."
       "Mo...mo...moth...mother?"
       Endmundy shouted, "Hey! Whitey has a brain! We could never tell!" No
questions this time, just silence.
       Monkell turned to the dog, "You said this place was fun! You were
wrong! "It's funny", you said, "It'll be a blast!"
you said, yeah right.
       At this point the owner of the show stood up and said in a clear
voice "This is the most increadable fence comedy
routine you'll ever see, and we have no objections to you listning to the
act, but the dog must go, we don't cater to their
kind."
       "What!!!!! the twin kittens yelled. They turned to look at each
other with horror, then smiled, then put their heads
together to plan. They said something that sounded a little like "Break"
and turned to the company.
       Monkell spoke first, "Alright, but when we leave with our mother, we
spread the word to other dogs that you are a
racist, neutered, fluff ball, and they will set up a guard around this
alley, and any other you try to occupy for your act, and
they will scare or hurt anyone who tries to visit your show..."
       Edmundy then finished her sentence: "Or will you let the three of us
watch your show?"
       The owner, beings a business cat, decided to let them watch.

end part II