Welcome to Gaia! ::

The evening was a calm one, or so the residents of Willow Pines Apartments had initially thought. No evidence of any weather patterns, no vandalism, and thankfully, no terrorist attacks. They were right sick of them! Just as the little ones were being tucked into bed, a strange sound pierced the evening air. It sounded like a cross between a very distant horn and the shriek of a large carrion bird. Oh no. That was never, ever good. In an instant, all windows and doors were shut and boarded. Willow Pines knew all about the monsters, or had at least heard them. Families huddled together in fright as they heard giant wings beating overhead.

The youma resembled a very large vulture, but possessed four legs instead of two. Its wings were not enough to carry it, but allowed the beast to lift itself up while jumping just a few feet. It was simply too heavy to fly. It was about the size of a compact car and, when running, could reach a modest speed of a bicycler. Needless to say it was on the hunt for delicious starseeds, human or otherwise. A mindless beast like itself could not be counted on to be patient and hunt, no sir. It was ravenous, and started to tear apart the parking lot of the apartment complex, trashing someone's brand new motor bike.

"SCHREEEEEEEEEEEE!" it shrieked and kicked off the rear view mirror of a luxury sedan. It was making quite a mess!

Iridescent red eyes met the gaze of one Sailor Atë, who transformed right in front of it. If it had eyebrows, one of them would be lifted in pleasant surprise. Now that was a starseed it could sink its teeth into. The newest victim - a relatively new Subaru sedan - could wait. The giant vulture/gryphon youma turned to face the sailor senshi and let out a short series of shrieks. Oh ho, and who might this be? A snack! A delicious snack! it seemed to say. Youma did not understand human words, but all it knew how to do was maim, kill and consume. And that was just what it was about to do. No taunt was going to tell it otherwise.

It started out as a slow trot, for the youma was a good distance away from the senshi of pollution to start. After a few steps, it picked up speed, gaining momentum in a charge that it intended to use to squish the senshi and pluck her starseed straight from her chest. The closer the youma got to her, the faster it moved until the point where its limbs hardly touched the pavement. Wings unfurled to make itself look bigger and more menacing.

"SCHREEEE!"

The youma came barreling down the street like it was ice. When Ate rounded the corner by the use of the lamp post, the beast had to slide to a stop and turn before pursuing her again. A shriek pierced the night air and just as it was about to climb on top of her, rubbish and dirt (and a shoe!) were thrown in its face. Dust in the eyes make it back down a bit, attempting to claw at its face to relieve the irritation. It shrieked and stumbled and chattered to itself about how it was going to enjoy busting open Ate's ribcage, if it could think that definitively. It shook its great head, scraping it against the ground in an effort to get rid of the dirt in its face.

Meanwhile, someone else out on patrol heard the screaming and stopped on a roof nearby. Sailor Kallichore thought she shouldn't interrupt another senshi's youma conquest, but the screaming wasn't something to be ignored. A brief power scan showed Kallichore that the other senshi was probably outclassed. Nothing wrong with a little teamwork. Her attack seemed to stall it just enough for the senshi in red to get a good running start off the building and down to run across the concrete fencing just near where the youma lay. As it reared its ugly head to stare in disgust at Ate, Kallichore's red boots came down on its flat skull, slamming its jaw down into the pavement. The other senshi flipped off of it and landed in front of Ate, love sleeves furling like wings.

God they were annoying sometimes. Kallichore turned to Ate to see if she was alright. "Are you injured?" she asked, keeping one brown eye on the youma, who may have bitten its tongue and had a tangled shoelace between its teeth.

While the youma was busy trying to figure out whether or not its tongue was still attached, Kallichore had readied herself into thinking she would just distract the youma long enough for the other senshi to kill it off. Or they would team up and take it out, and she would be on her way like most other nights. Kallichore wasn't above stopping to help someone else, especially a senshi in need, but this girl's attitude? It smelled just like whatever she threw at the youma, only ten times worse.

"....excuse me?" came a hiss with the gray haired warrior looking over her shoulder at Ate, her face reeking of indignation. She just helped this chick, and the first thing out of her mouth was an insult? Was she serious? "Yes, sure, I'm Sailor Boxcart, Senshi of Hobos. Oh darn, I've ripped my fuku again. Guess I better let you handle this since you've got such a good grip on it." The tail end of her statement was filled with venom. She'd never been so insulted in her career as a senshi! Sure, her fuku was ripped and sure, she was rather self-conscious about it, but she did just stop a youma from taking a bit out of her. Whoever she was. Kallichore turned heel and made to walk away. If anything, the youma may come after her instead, in which case she'd finish it off. Otherwise, maybe Miss Attitude could get a wake up call.

Naturally, Kallichore wouldn't let another senshi die by the hands (or talons) of anything if she could help it, but that wouldn't stop her from trying to teach someone a valuable lesson. Miss 'Tude even looked older than Kallichore. Shouldn't she know better?

The youma hazily righted itself, bracing its great weight on the street with powerful legs. With another (albeit less intense) shriek, it fixated its eyes back on Ate, the one who threw a shoe at it. On the one hand, the shoe ended up being sort of tasty in a rubbery kind of way, but on the other hand, it was pissed. It didn't get to eat a starseed, and it was hungry again. Minus a tongue, the youma felt a pulsating pain it its jaw that slowed it down considerably, tarlike blood leaking onto the concrete. It started forward again at a slow pace, claws clicking away at the ground.

As soon as the youma started moving, Kallichore's ears were on it. Once nail hit concrete, the super senshi's muscles tensed. She was ready for it, but not necessarily ready for the other senshi's pleas. With a sigh, Kallichore turned around to face Ate and the youma. It was considerably slower than it was before, but if Miss 'Tude said she couldn't finish it on her own, then the super senshi was going to believe her. The insults stung but there were much more pressing matters than someone's pride on the line. A swift turn and a slight running start signaled the beginning of Kallichore's attack. Transparent heat waves built up around the senshi as she trotted, culminating in her hands as she threw it. "Surge of the Maddened!"

The smoke traveled through the air at a swift pace, engulfing the incoming youma's head and mouth. The attack quickly dissipated with no visible effect at first, until the youma suddenly stopped moving, jerked its head and started to turn around. It obviously saw or heard something that wasn't really there. Kallichore knew she couldn't kill the youma without an improvised weapon of some sort and turned to Miss 'Tude (Ate, Kallichore had to remember her real name!). They had about thirty seconds of relative safety before the effects started to wear off and the youma regained its senses.

"Ate, I'm Sailor Kallichore. I can't kill it with just my attack - all the youma I put down are ones I have to use a weapon for, but we have some time. Can you do whatever it is you did again? But maybe..." She looked down, frowning as she looked at Ate's shoes. Obviously she didn't throw her own shoe at it. "Can you throw something with a bit more oomph to it than a shoe?"

In the middle of a rotation, the youma turned towards the senshi and yet didn't seem to see them. It opened its injured mouth to wheeze a bit at something just in front of its face.

The super senshi winced at Ate's panicked shrieking. Sure, no one in their right mind could blame her for it. They were, after all, tasked with saving the world by transforming into sailor-suited warriors with magical powers. Wouldn't anyone be panicking when being faced down by a monster made of pure darkness hellbent on devouring them? Plus it was the size of a sedan. That was not small in the slightest. "Everyone's attack does something. You just have to be creative sometimes." Kallichore tried to explain this over Ate's yelling, but eventually it seemed to work. Kallichore learned over the course of her training that panicking did nothing in the grand scheme of things, but that didn't mean she didn't have her own fair share of doubt and fear. She simply tried her damnedest not to show it.

It was then that Sailor Ate called up her attack. Kallichore watched in rapt fascination as the trash from around the street gathered in her hands like, well... a giant wad of trash. It all suddenly clicked that this was what pollution really meant. Kallichore really had nothing pictured in her mind aside from smog, but this really seemed that much more disgusting and useful. The trash ball sailed perfectly into the youma's mouth like a two point slam dunk, easily choking it with old cardboard boxes, used socks, newspaper and tin cans. The youma's throat swelled enormously and it wheezed, clawing at its own neck to open up its airways. This proved to be its undoing. In a matter of seconds, the youma had clawed itself open and laid down in the street to die.

"Impressive." came a low response and the super senshi darted out after the youma's dying corpse to rummage around. She started to kick at the ribcage as the youma started to melt away, trying to find something. Ah, some... nothing. A whole lot of nothing in the chest cavity. Then how on earth was a youma powered? What gave it sentience? Kallichore stood up as the youma's corpse finally disappeared completely. She shook her head and returned to Ate's side, quite disappointed.

Any references to loot or video games went right over Sailor Kallichore's head. She was neither a player nor an interested party, so the only response Ate got was an eyebrow being raised. The gray haired girl shook her head. "Armor? No, I didn't find anything. That's the problem." She crossed her arms and turned to stare at the spot where the youma's corpse once lay. It was only a few weeks ago that Kallichore was thankful youma corpses disappeared so quickly - it meant police wouldn't find too much evidence suddenly. But now that she was on a mission, that blessing turned into a curse.

She decided to explain herself. "I'm trying to find out what makes a youma tick. The Negaverse is pumping them out like crazy, but I don't know if they're made from energy, star seeds, people... I have no idea. If I could figure out how they're made, maybe we can better stop them." The super senshi shrugged, knowing she wouldn't find the answer very quickly, and especially not tonight. "But you? You need to calm down a bit. You did well, but be prepared to have to defend yourself alone next time. You never know when someone else might be around to help or hinder."

Kallichore had no idea if Ate knew how to scan for other senshi or Negaverse agents. It was a very good skill to have under one's belt. She ignored the ramblings of the other senshi while she continued her questioning. "How long have you been awakened? Have you used your attack before tonight?" These were crucial questions!

Giant balls of chaos given shape...? Kallichore supposed that made a great deal of sense once she thought about it. Somehow there seemed to her to be some other mechanism at work, but if it's random, or at least instigated by someone or something in the Negaverse, it could solve the problem. Thing was, without some sort of internal organ or crystal or something, Kallichore did not know how to reproduce the effect for the senshi's side. If there was nothing to them other than Chaos, how could a senshi hope to manipulate that for their side? The super senshi shook her head. "Well, if they are nothing but Chaos, that makes my work harder and easier simultaneously. But enough about that."

Shifting her weight, Kallichore looked over the other senshi from head to toe. Two weeks? She remembered when she was that young in terms of being awake and how in the dark she was. Now was her chance to repay the favor other senshi had given to her. "I won't comment on the prank, but I wouldn't recommend doing it again. Some people could hold a grudge about that sort of thing." she explained, crossing her arms as she thought. The senshi started to pace around Ate in a semi circle as she continued. "Well, as a rule of thumb, it's a good idea to keep aware of your surroundings by performing mental scans every so often. You can pick up powered individuals by a sort of radar and you can tell roughly how powerful they are and on what side they stand - senshi or Nega, if that makes sense."

"Another thing is that, well, you look pretty fit. I think you're fine there. Have you tried using your cell phone?" With a flick of her wrist, a crimson cell phone appeared in Kallichore's hand. She flipped it open and aimed it at Ate, taking a picture and registering her information. "Once you take a picture of someone, you can call them anytime from your phone."