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It was mid-November, and the first signs of approaching snowfall had laid icy edges across stop signs and white tips of frost in the grass. The sky was an cool gray, lit by the soft glow of lamp light. The park had traded its lush green vibrancy for red-oranges and browns and yellows, shrugging off leaves like an old coat. The shop front windows that lined the sprawling park were decorated with straw-stuffed scarecrows, tiny plastic pumpkins, and stuffed turkeys. The next week, the Thanksgiving wares would be thrown into the dollar discount bin and replaced by boughs of holly, sleigh bells, and little reindeer woven out of reeds.

Bo disliked the cold.

Growing up in Florida, he was what one might call a native sun -- pun intended. The boiling sun was a welcome start to his day, even in late October. He loved his land of the two seasons: hot and less hot. The little beachside condo that he shared with his mother had big bay windows that lit his room with a sweltering heat that could fry eggs by midday. While others whined about the humidity and darted from one air conditioned room to another, Bo prowled the streets in flip-flops, a tank top, and board shorts, drinking in the sun that released buckets of sweat across his skin. He was not alone in this love. His friends would gather early on weekends and camp out on the beach. They had sunglasses tans and seashells cuts and stories about I totally saw a shark, what are you talking about and famous people who they spotted jogging.

Florida was a far cry from Destiny City. In the winter, it felt worlds away. Five years had passed since his mother had moved them away from the land of oranges and manatees, but Bo still viewed that time of his life with a quiet reverence that only his Grandma Winnie understood. For her, he would brave the cold.

Icy grass crunched under his slip-on Toms. The melted ice had soaked through the cloth shoes and left his toes tingling. He had been out for several hours, just wandering around Destiny City as he was prone to do. Before all the weird stuff in the news, he had wandered a lot farther, but one run-in with a scary tiger animal had scared him back into his house when the sun went down.

Camera in hand, Bo spotted a bench ten feet ahead of him. In the quiet morning, it looked starkly serene against the metropolitan backdrop. A smile crossed Bo’s lips as he hoisted up the camera to eye level and took aim. A flurry of clicks echoed out, and Bo changed his angle once, then twice. Gwin (his grandmother) would love it. Before she got her Alzheimer’s, she used to tell him that a bench had more stories in it than any book in all the world. Bo liked that kind of old wives' logic. Maybe if he showed her this bench, he could get her to remember it?

Bo crossed the few feet to the bench and took a seat, leaning back. It squeaked a little, but it was a nice bench. It had a good view. He placed the camera down beside his thigh, popping the cap back over the lens. Bo fumbled in his pocket for his cellphone, but it wasn’t there. He didn’t frown. Losing his cellphone came as naturally to Bo as breathing. He knew they would find each other again if it was meant to be.

In some trees ahead, two bright red birds darted in and out of the sparsely leaf-covered branches. They looked like they were dancing, or maybe fighting. Bo preferred to think it the latter. He turned to reach for his camera, but it wasn’t alone. There was a tiny puff ball of a cat sitting next to him on the bench, staring up at him with wide wall-eyes. Its head was quirked to the side, tail draped over one rung of the bench.

It was also wearing a hat.

“Hey there,” Bo said. To the cat. He was a big believer in conversing with nature. “You want a picture?”

Slowly, he lifted the camera back up and removed the lens cap. A cat in a hat. It was classic. The camera snapped a flurry of shots, Bo mumbling between them things like “So cool!” and “You’ll be in my collage!” The cat just sat there, head still bent adorably to one side. “I’m digging the hat,” he said, grinning.

The hair on the cat’s tail puffed out, and it hopped up on all four legs. “Sailor Neso want hat too? Derp will hat you!” The tiny kitten did a little backflip, shooting a wide-brimmed woven straw hat into Bo’s lap. He looked down at it, then at the cat, then back at the hat, then to the cat.

He took another photo.

“Hat is for head,” Derp chirruped, hopping over to Bo’s leg. She nudged the hat, and Bo lifted it on command, dropping it on his head. All weirdness aside, it was a very nice hat.

Despite his sing-songy, flighty nature, Bo did not often partake of the wacky tabacky. A talking cat could, therefore, only mean one thing to him.

Bo leaned in close to the puffy cat and whispered, “Are you my spirit animal?”

It made enough sense to him. His mother told him that his spirit guide would appear at an important time in his life to give him the enlightenment of the ages to guide his soul. She claimed that her spirit guide had been a red fox. Bo imagined his might be a dolphin, or maybe a manatee, but a fuzzy little hat-wearing cat didn’t seem too far off the path either.

Derp seemed entertained by the accusation. She slowed her prancing around the bench for a second to stare at him. “Okay, Sailor Neso, here is henshin pen!” The little cat did a flip. Nothing happened. She did another. Nothing again. Then another, another, and another. The puffball let out a tiny gasp of exasperation, and then geared up for her strongest flip yet. At the height of her arc, a gleaming pen catapulted out of thin air, nailing Bo squarely in the forehead before falling into his lap.

Derp fell too. Right off of the bench.

Rubbing his forehead, Bo leaned down to look at the fallen guardian cat. “You okay, little buddy?” The pen in his hand appeared far less interesting than a talking and flipping guardian cat.

Derp popped back up, stumbling a little but relatively unphased. “Derp got pen out!” She did a little prance in place, and Bo thought she might flip again. She didn't. “Okay, Neso Neso, just say Neso Power, Make Up! and go fight baddies, okay? Okay!” Awakening senshi was still a very new thing for Derp, very new. She had succeeded in spotting the unawakened senshi and given him the pen. Was that it? She hoped that was it. If it wasn’t, then Astraea might make a mean face at her. Oh well! Derp was a successful Derp that day. In her own mind.

With no more explanation, the little guardian cat began to trot off in another direction. There was a Waffle House there. Perhaps she could smell it? “Okay, Neso Neso, Derp goes!” Her little puffy body was a shadow across the ground, and then she was gone, leaving Bo behind with a camera and a strange pen. He stared at it for a long time, eyes wide. Did spirit animals often leave totems behind?

Up ahead, another bright red bird landed in a tree to the joy of a flurry of chirrups. A nest of birds? Gwin always told him that a squawking child might get the food, but it also gets the smacks. Maybe if he got a picture, she would like it.

Tucking the strange pen into his pocket, Bo wandered across the icy grass and lifted his camera again, this time to a nest of birds. Maybe when he got home he would talk to his mother about his spirit guide. Maybe she could help him figure out what the little pen meant.

If he remembered to talk her, that was.

It would be two more weeks before Neso actually henshined up for the first time (in his bathroom while using the henshin pen as a microphone), another week before he attempted to fight a youma (to save his favorite hot chocolate vendor), and an entire month before he put two and two together to realize that he was a senshi like on the news. Patrolling had never been explained to him. Either had the Negaverse. Either had the Moon Princess. Either had his actual attack. Bo didn't know what it meant to be a senshi. He didn't know who he was, or what it meant, or what his purpose was. And being Bo, he didn't really question it either.

After getting the crap kicked out of him while climbing trees as Sailor Neso one evening, Bo popped his henshin pen in a drawer and proceeded to forget entirely about it.

For now.