You don't start a story with once upon a time. You did not start a good story with in a land far, far away. No, the best way to start a story is to start with something mundane. Something human. An everyday occurrence that was normal. Stories started with life. Movement with words that laid out the world around them and gave voice to the unseen past and the uncertain future. A good story should start with a human.
A better story started with something unique. Which is just what Jane Amelia Johnson was. A unique human with a mundane life that was lived in the cookie cutter predominantly white suburb that was middle America. To say that she would be the start of a good story. A nice story. A better story however?
She would have called it a lie.
She did not have a story. She had an adventure. Born to her plain mother, and her even plainer father, she was just a normal baby when she was born. She was named for famous aviators. Women who's lives had changed the world in small ways. In that sense, her parents had big expectations of her. But not too big of course. That would have just put undue expectations on their beautiful baby girl. Their precious daughter. No, they had given her the option to live up to her names- or to just be average. Another simple girl with a simple name. A Jane Doe if here ever was one.
Growing up she didn't want for anything. Other than all the normal things a child wanted. More candy on Halloween of her favorite type. That Disney princess toy that was far too expensive and was really not worth as much as it cost seeing as how she would have only played with it a few times before it would break and that would be that. She'd wanted shoes that flashed lights as she walked. She had wanted exactly what the other girl got in class because it was popular and she wanted to be popular too, (and that was of course a life lesson in popularity that she had yet to really grasp as popularity was only measured so much by one's items and possessions.)
Jane had gone through a phase demanding to be called Amelia then later to being called LADY Jane. She had been 3 then, though she had for a very short weekend demanded the same thing when she had been 7 for a reason no one was quite sure of. Jane once she was able to read would pick up books at every opportunity, reading or attempting to read them. Still, until she was roughly 11 she liked the times when she and her mother sat together and listened to the audio books over the tablet her dad had gotten her mother one valentine's day. Jane's mother had not told him that it was far too expensive a gift and to return it. She had kept it, because Jane liked it.
Jane had been the deciding factor in a lot of things for her parents lives. Jane had been the reason they had chosen to move to destiny city, to seek out a better life for their daughter. Jane was smart they thought. Smarter than the other kids in her class. Children who lived lives that her parents thought they were above. The school of suburbia was not good enough for their daughter. So they sent her to a private school with good morals and very top quality teachers and materials all in the hopes Jane would thrive and rise above her peers. Live up to those names in the most backwards way possible. This was not how things played out however. This was not how things were to be. This was also not what Jane wanted. Jane wanted to be with her friends, to be back where she was best, not in a place where she was just average. Jane was average in her name. Yet at her new school, the ones her parents chose for her and kept her in, Jane was now as average in her grades and in her popularity as she was with her name. There was nothing special about Jane. That was just a simple fact that Jane, by the age of 12, had learned to accept. She would be average and normal for her whole life and nothing was going to change that.
Nothing except one very unlucky day and one very rude feline that could talk.
It had been on her bike ride home from the park when the cat had started to follow her. It was a cute cat and she had stopped on her way to stroke it's fur and scratch it behind the ears. She had liked it's cute eyes blinking up at her and the gentle meow it made when she pulled away. Still, Jane was dutiful and began to bike home once more, knowing that her parents would call the police if she was overly late and it was dark out.
As she walked away the cat had followed her. She tried to shoo it away, to scare it off but it just kept coming back. It happened four times before the cat said
"Excuse me, I would appreciate you not trying to get rid of me."
And that was how Jane thought she was going insane. One didn't hear cats talking after all. She stopped mid stride and had just stared at the cat like it was an alien, (later she would learn that technically, it was. Not too far off the mark with that assumption).
"Huh?"
"Good. Figured that if I said something you might stick around." The cat's tail had flicked back and forth while Jane had just looked at it like it was going to kill her. Then, very slowly, Jane had turned around and kept walking. As the cat kept calling out she walked faster.
She was not sticking around to hear what a talking cat had to say. Nope. She was very much going to go home, sit down, check her vitals and maybe go to bed early. Talking cats were so not legit in any way shape or form.
"Hey slow down!" The cat called after her.
"Why?" She finally yelled back, paranoid and scarred. However, her fast walking did not slow in the slightest.
"I have something for you!" It meowed. Yelled. In retrospect is was more a yowl but cats voices were a bit peculiar to her anyway.
Still, she was not wanting to know what a talking cat for her, (aside from trouble. Or a dead animal. She would have preferred the dead animal all things considered).
Rushing into her house, the cat kept calling out, turning into very noisy meows when her parents asked why she looked so flustered, (they assumed it was a boy. Jane just gagged on her spit at the idea).
Sitting alone in her room, Jane held up the thermometer. It read as solid 98.8. Normal Healthy. Her eyes and ears seemed fine too and webMD was of no help. Talking cat hysterics was fake. It had to be. That's what she told herself.
Too bad she was wrong.
It was 9PM on new years day when the cat was at her windowsill, meowing constantly when her folks were in earshot.
"SHhhhh." She hissed it from her bed, hoping it would just go away. The cat however, did nothing of the sort. Rather it just meowed louder. Jane even resorted to throwing a pillow at it.
"SHHHHH." She hissed again, wondering why the hallucinogenic cat would not stop bothering her. Throwing the pillow had been a bad idea as then, her mother had noticed the cat, asking Jane just why she was hissing and throwing her pillows apparently.
"Oh, no reason, teen angst you know. Puberty and stuff." Had been Jane's sarcastic answer, which only had her mother giving her a look of exasperation.
"Jane you know I don't appreciate your sarcasm young lady." Her mother said as the teen rolled over onto her side to ignore said mother.
"Jane, are you listening to me?" Jane, being Jane and wanting her mother to leave responded as best she could.
"Yes mother."
"Then next time Jane, you respond you hear me?" Jane could certain hear her wagging her finger that was for sure.
"Yes, fine mother. Next time I'll respond."
"Without sass?" Her mother pressed.
Jane wanted to snap back but bit her tongue, she'd rather not start the new year by being grounded.
"Yes mother. Next time you talk to me I'll respond. Without Sass." The tone was on that edge of passive agressive, and for Jane's luck, her mother let it go.
Mom gone, Jane heard the meowing again and wanted to scream. The damn cat had more or less ruined her night already and had nearly gotten her in trouble. Going to her window Jane looked at the cat that just kept meowing.
"OH god, shut up." She whispered opening her window to attempt to scare it off. Big mistake though, as the second there was an opening, the cat jumped right into her room, starting Jane and sending her falling backwards with a thud.
"Jane, you alright?"
"Yeah mom, just tripped."
"Do I need to get an ice pack?" Jane wanted to stab her mother. She just said she was fine mom stop trying to get an excuse to bother her.
"I said I'm fine. Just leave me alone!" Oops, snapping was not what she planned but Jane was a bit too focused on the cat currently curling up on her bed and staring at her as if they were to play.
"Jane-"
"I said I'm fine!" She snapped again.
"Well alright. Call me if you need me." Jane was wondering if her mother would ever stop being so mom-ish. She was fine, minus of course the cat that was currently taking up residence in her bed.
"You little furry menance." She hissed, reaching out to grab it.
"I bet you have fleas and augh, I didn't need this." Jane kept mumbling under her breath.
"Oh well, that's quite rude. I most certainly do not have fleas. I am properly groomed thank you very much." The cat said.
Jane wasn't sure if she hadn't just hallucinated and froze in place, eyes going wide as they fixated on the cat.
"Oh yes, I can talk so please don't scream."
Too bad for the cat, Jane screamed, sending the feline darting under her bed.
"JANE?" Her mother's panicked voice came. It was then that Jane realized talking cat or no, having a cat in her room would get her grounded.
"SPIDER!" She screamed.
"DO I NEED TO COME AND KILL IT?" Her mother was way too mothering. Good lord have mercy on Jane's soul but the woman's heart was in the right place.
"IT-" She looked to under her bed where the cat was hiding, "-ITS OKAY! I GOT IT!"
"ALRIGHT JUST YELL IF YOU NEED ME." Yelling across the house done, Jane looked under her bed.
"..... Am I going insane?" She muttered.
"No, I can talk." The cat said, curled into the dark corner.
"Also thanks for not telling your mom about me. That would have been very messy, not to mention I would have a whole lot of trouble in doing this." Jane scrambled back as the cat came out, a small pen like object in it's mouth.
"So Spacewatch, funny name that, I'm here to awaken you as one of our senshi Our being well, no one's really. I think you were a roamer. Makes sense I suppose." Jane looked at the cat like it was even weirder than before.
"Oh don't look so taken aback. This is my job. I'm a Mauvian. You're a senshi. That's just the way things work. Now, all you need to do is take that pen, say Spacewatch Make-up, and boom. You'll be a magical girl."
"A magical what?" Jane was certain she'd gone insane.
"A magical girl. Look kid, I didn't make the rules, I just follow them."
"I'm not a kid." Jane snapped.
"Oh wow, no need to get personal Spacey. I just assumed you're a kid I mean-" The cat motioned to her room.
"You have Disney toys and you're not exactly developed you know. You Humans tend to be kids until puberty right?" Jane made a horrified face and threw a pillow at the cat, red filling her cheeks.
"I'm a late bloomer you stinking furbag!"
"Yeow! Dang it Spacey, stop. I'm not a human okay? Your species is just weird about these things." Jane was furious, and wanted to kill this hallucination cat.
"But look Spacey, you're a senshi and it's your job to fight the forces of Chaos. If it wasn't, I wouldn't be here."
"Sen- wait you mean I'm a terrorist?" Jane connected the dots and the cat groaned.
"Hardly. That's what the media says but hey, the media is wrong. Big time Ki-Spacey. Senshi do a lot of damage sure, but they're not supposed to. They just fight Chaos. That's it."
"Uh-huh. And what's Chaos?"
"Bad stuff. Generally Evil. Frankly I stay out of it, as my job is just to play senshi finder and make sure you have your powers. Now, are you going to keep playing 20 questions with me, or, are you going to actually do what I said?"
"Do what?" The Cat rolled his eyes and flicked the pen at Jane.
"Take the pen, say Spacewatch Make up, and become a senshi of whatever and go fight whoever or whatever you find first. Again, I don't make the rules, I just follow them." Jane was extremely skeptical and timidly reached for the pen.
"Oh for the love of- It's won't hurt you! It's a pen!" Jane scowling grabbed it. And to her barley hidden surprise, it was much like a normal pen.
"Oh yess, very spooky. It does noting. Now the words."
"Hrm?" Jane had been lost in throught, looking the object over.
"The words you imbicile! We haven't got all night!"
"Oh. Uh- Hey I'm not-"
"Good lord, fine, I'm sorry now can you please?" The Cat was just as exasperated with Jane as she was with it.
"Fine. Spacewatch.. uh, Make up?"
The light and energy rush was enough to make Jane nauseous and she could here the vague words of 'it's about time' from the cat.
As she opened her eyes, she felt different and-
"What happened to my clothes?" She was in a dress and was wearing gloves and knee socks and-
"Oh uh... You wouldn't happen to be younger than 13 would you?"
"What?"
"I mean um. I thought you were uh, older. You felt old enough. I swear I could have sworn-"
"My birthday is the 1st."
"The cat looking horror struck, check the clock on Jane, (Spacewatch's) desk.
"Oh s**t."
"Language."
"Sorry but um. So I made you a chibi by accident. Kid senshi."
"What?" The cat looked exceptionally nervous and was slowly backing up to the window.
"Power down by willing to go back to normal, keep your power secret and uh-"
"Wait what-"
"Bye kid!"
Jane that night resolved never to get a cat.
