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She was leaving the bio lab kind of late, and Europa had decided to kill birds with one stone and get her night's of patrol done on her way home. It had the added bonus of letting her skip some of the sketchier streets between campus and her apartment, not to mention saved her her bus fair. The senshi of the deep made her way across the darkened lawn, but shortly elected to take the sidewalks. It was late enough that most of the lights were off, save for a few green public safety beacons and the occasional floodlight at an intersection. (Not the safest, but then, at this time of night everyone ought to be in their dormitories!)

The dead leaves crunched beneath her heels, and Europa found her eyes drifting upwards towards the bare branches above her head. Anything would make these trees more appealing than they were right now! She was thinking christmas lights, to be honest. There needed to be some of those.

Scanning the branches above her head, Europa spotted a feline leg dangling down. Surely not the leg of any normal cat, either - this cat was fire engine red, with pitch black markings, and that was enough to make her suspicious. It was time to do some investigating - every guardian cat was enough to make her curious lately, knowing what had happened to Kat.

Europa paused in her walking, a few steps distant, where she could still keep an eye on the branch. "Here, kitty, kitty," she called.

Europa broke into a smile when she managed to elicit a response from the cat, and when it turned to face her and she got a look at the star on its forehead.

She'd been right in one respect - but what about the other? "Oh, I know that for sure," she called back, craning her neck to peer up at the cat in the tree. "But just how abnormal are you?" At one point, she'd thought she had a pretty good handle on which guardian cats operated in Destiny City - but that was over a year ago, and Europa held no illusions that her list was anywhere near accurate now. Not to mention with the weirdness she suspected might be going on...

"Maybe you can help me," continued the scout. "I'm following up on a tip, doing a bit of investigative work." In another life, Europa had almost certainly been a noir detective with a fantastic fedora. She tugged on a lock of her glossy, teal hair and gave the cat an inquisitive look.

"The name's Eternal Sailor Europa, Temporary Private Eye," she explained, pretending just for a second that this was like one of her crime dramas. "Have you heard anything about people turning into cats?"

Well, the lighting was certainly right for Noir! All these long shadows - it made her long for a hip flask and a trench coat and maybe some Marlboros (just for show, of course).

"Talking cats are all in a day's work where I come from," shrugged Sailor Europa, still noir. The cat's response made her glad that someone was at least willing to play along with the scenario-driven line of questioning. She had seen a lot more than she wanted to see - the grimness was setting in, making Europa feel far more authentically hard-boiled than she'd anticipated.

"It's nice to meet you, Super Sailor Grus," she nodded, taking a knee as not to tower over the cat. "I was wondering if you'd be willing to answer some questions for me - if you don't want to or you're not sure of some of the answers, that's fine. It's just that, my roommate was also turned into a cat."

If Grus was a senshi and Kat was an ordinary muggle, then it was a fair bet that whatever had happened to transform them wasn't all too picky. Whether Chaos-aligned individuals had been effected as well remained to be seen, but Europa was keen to find out. It would all help in figuring out who had done this. (And, potentially, why.)

"First of all, what do you remember about the moment you were transformed?" she asked. "She described a sort of tingle, but I was thinking that someone with regular exposure to senshi magic might have a better grasp of it."

"A wall of energy?" asked Europa, cocking her head to the side. This was fascinating stuff! The scout counted herself lucky to have found someone better versed in the lingo than Kat was - of course Senshi senses would have picked up anything interesting! Grus's description was way better than her roommate's vague tingle.

"What kind of energy would you say it was, if you had to describe it?" continued the senshi of the deep, easing back into a sitting position on the sidewalk. "Chaos? Order? Something else entirely?" If the shockwave had a distinct signature, then Europa was certain she'd be in a better position to pin the blame on a specific party!

"The cat bit is really unfortunate," she sympathized, clenching her hands around her jellyfish ribbons. "But you're being really helpful. Is there anything I can help you with in exchange? It's getting pretty chilly out, and I don't imagine that being a cat makes it very easy to find dinner or shelter - does it?" (Kat was lucky in that respect, Europa had to think. Being semi-independent had to be infinitely better than having to explain your sudden feline condition to your family, or else going missing for the duration!)

"Cherry Kool-Aid is a quite apt description for your current color, though," she agreed with a smile. "Does it match your fuku?"

"Something to think about," nodded Europa, cupping her chin thoughtfully in her hand. It was useful to rule out Chaos from all this, because it made her more confident that whatever had caused this recent bout of weirdness certainly wasn't malicious. Sometimes weirdness was just that: weirdness.

"Well, you are cats," she shrugged. Which wasn't to say that Europa was dead certain guardian cats were probably involved in this whole mess except to say that she was. It was looking mighty suspicious, after all! She made a mental note to ask Tomlin when next she saw him. That would certainly provide her with some answers!

"That's interesting, too," she agreed. "My roommate isn't a senshi, and her cat markings, well, they're basically just the color of her hair." Which was sort of reassuring, really.

Europa gave Grus a sympathetic smile. "Well, I always keep a good stock of cat-friendly foods in my apartment," she said, not sure if a senshi-turned-guardian cat would have the same tastes as a real guardian cat. "As well as, you know, real people food. Tomlin likes to stop by, so I have to keep him supplied with tuna."

"You could come with me for tonight," she clarified. "I mean, I've already got one quasi-cat hanging out with me - what's another?"

"Oh, don't worry about it," said Europa breezily. "I'm always glad to help out a senshi in need. Or a knight. Anything for an ally." Giving Grus a long look as she got to her feet, Europa nodded thoughtfully. She'd been dancing around the same conclusion for a couple of minutes now but had been reluctant to pin down anything so solid until the other Senshi said as much.

"Now that you mention it," she agreed, "They definitely could. But hey, better Guardian Cats than the Negaverse or the Dark Mirror, right?" At least in her own mind the logic jived. Best to give someone you knew was on your side the benefit of the doubt, right?

"And we shall. I don't live too far - not in the dorms but, well, you'll see..." She felt pretty good about this decision, all things considered. It was always good to rack up good karma, and with a fellow senshi - it couldn't possibly hurt, was what Europa was getting at.

"It might just be your current size," conceded Europa, and awkwardly offered her arms to Grus. "I mean, I wouldn't mind. If you don't mind."

"Well, not totally alone," replied Europa, adjusting her arms to accomodate Grus as she walked. She was pretty sure she'd mentioned her roommate was also a cat, hadn't she? Best to bring it up again, just to be perfectly clear. "I have a roommate, but she's also been transformed into a cat. That's what kicked off this whole investigation, really - she wasn't sure how it had happened, and I got curious."

Grus might not realize how helpful she'd been to Europa, even if she hadn't given her any sort of conclusive information. Her hunch that a senshi would be able to describe the transformation in more detail had paid off, and now that Europa was convinced this wasn't a case of dark forces at work she felt much more at ease with the whole situation. Just so long as it didn't prove to be permanent, of course.

She started to take longer strides, boosting her land speed with a bit of senshi agility. "Let's hurry up and get inside, though," Europa said to the cat as they left campus. Her building was only a few blocks from here - it wouldn't be terribly long, they were more than halfway there now. Still, they'd been outdoors long enough tonight, and she was getting cold.

"You've been a big help tonight," Europa promised the cat, and fell silent in concentration. Leaping to her balcony was tricky even when she did have use of her arms - best to do it as a combination of jumps, just to be safe. "Hang on," she told the cat as she leapt into the air.

It was a harrowing minute or so as Europa leapt to her apartment's balcony, but once there it didn't take her long to slide the door open and usher Grus into the kitchen where it was warm. She'd come home plus one cat, so it was a good thing she didn't live with her parents anymore - they'd promised to kill her next time she did that.