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School had started back up and Oberon couldn’t find any better excuse to not study than to search for youma to fight. It wasn’t much of an excuse in actuality since he would never dare tell his mother that he was out at night, fighting monsters... but he took her general trust of his decently good behavior to prevent her from checking up on him once she thought he’d gone to bed.

He felt bad, of course... but she couldn’t expect him not to rebel a little when his older brothers were much older than himself. And while Sheena usually kept him company nowadays, it wasn’t like he could keep a guardian cat away from doing her guardian cat duties! Whatever those were...

Besides, he was now twelve years old, and needed a chance to... spread his wings, so to speak.

Or stretch his legs, as the case may be. The chibi senshi was up for a night of exploring, and had ventured out of the generally quiet suburbs where he lived, and into the city. He was determined to prove his worth, and not just as a tech guy, but as a real senshi. Despite his age, he thought he had what it took to take on youma. No, he hadn’t really defeated a youma without the help of someone else, but it couldn’t be that hard, could it?

Whether it was bravery or stupidity that had him following after what he thought was the energy of a youma, he refused to choose. He figured if it got too rough he would just run away and call for back up to get rid of it. For now, he was trying to cut it off down an alley, leaping from roof top to roof top and down a fire escape, before it happened to find any civilian.

Being new at this, though... he didn't realize there was a distinct difference between a youma and a Negaverse officer.

The foreboding sense of danger was masked by Oberon’s desire to figure out where this youma was running off to. He hadn’t yet found one who was smart enough to move much on its own, but rather tried to find sources of starseed energy, or even just random people to take their energy or worse.

But now Oberon was completely stumped, and he stood at the entrance of the alley with his hands on his hips, clicking his tongue in dissatisfied exasperation. “Hello??” he called, “I know you’re in there!”

Being powered like this, it was rather difficult to completely hide from, well... anyone else powerd. It sucked when trying not to be found, but when seeking out monsters like this, it was quite beneficial. He could tell that there was a monster of some sort somewhere close by, but he didn’t have enough experience with them to be exactly sure where.

The chibi senshi took a step towards some shipping palettes when a sudden glimmer caught his attention. Something shiny was tied to the streetlight, but... why? He frowned in bemusement, wondering why anyone would tie what looked like a fancy pin to a lightpost...

His hand was reached out, wanting to touch the pin, but when the woman appeared out of thin air it seemed, Oberon jumped as well, nearly stumbling as he spun around.

Oh... so it wasn’t a youma. It was a person. A person with the dark energy he’d come to associate with the monsters that prowled the streets, but if he was honest, he would admit to never paying too much attention to the subtle differences that made up the different kinds of people corrupted by chaos.

“I...” he started, hesitating as something that looked like a switch appeared in her hand. His heart was suddenly racing, not sure what he was getting himself into. The last person he’d run into had tried to walk off with him, and the time before, he’d been kicked hard in the ribs.

And yet, he still insisted that he could be helpful to the others. Maybe he was more of a hinderance.

“H-hey, that’s a cool trick, I can do that too,” he said, materializing his senshiphone from subspace and into his hand. He felt tiny next to her, kind of like how he felt around his brothers. She wasn’t as tall as them, but it was pretty close. And something about the way she spoke had him glancing around for some other way to escape.

Just as he knew when a youma was too strong for him, he knew this woman was out of his league, and hopefully before she could do anything else, he flipped open his phone and hit the button to take a picture, hoping the flash would at least distract her long enough for him to escape... down the alley, somehow.

This wasn't the adventure he was looking forward to when he'd left his house that night.

He knew he was naive. He knew he had been spoiled and pampered and protected his whole life. The monsters he fought in the backyard with cardboard swords and frisbee shields were nothing in comparison to the monsters that roamed the city. The people that controlled those monsters wouldn't hesitate just because he was a child. He should know that by now after his encounter with the General with the eyepatch and that senshi who had carried him off in search of a mirror.

And who had been around to save him in those times, for he was definitely not able to save himself? Despite knowing how angry he would probably be to know Oberon was out at night, by himself, after being told countless times to stay indoors and stay safe... the senshi, hesitated only briefly to flip open the phone and press his contacts list.

The motion was so quick, he didn't have time to notice her as she latched onto his hair, a pitiful yelp emitting as he was yanked back. "Ow!! What's the big idea??" he yelped, one hand reaching up to try and pry her fingers away, while the other haphazardly punched in a single, four letter word to send. His eyes were stinging with tears that had sprung up from the sudden shock of pain, and he was sure his whole body was trembling by this point. Oberon didn't make it a habit to get himself into situations like this, but now that he had, he could only guess how dangerous it was.

The send button was pressed and he lifted the phone up to shoot off another flash, hoping it would distract her enough to let him go.

“Hey!”

Déjà vu.

Scenes like this did not occur often, nor did they occur frequently. Even so, the count was too high, and he found himself disrupting similar situations one too many times—a General, an Eternal Dark Mirror, and now this Lieutenant. The first two times he’d been able to face it with a mix of anger, annoyance, and slight fear.

This was different. By all rights a Lieutenant should be nothing compared to a General or an Eternal, useless as their weapons often were. Yet as he came upon the mouth of the alley, he felt angrier than he’d been either of the last two times, afraid in a way he didn’t usually feel during one-on-one encounters, when the stress was somehow lower and the danger seemed not as high as the large battles he always dreaded. Furious, horrified, sick to his stomach. He hoped the shadows were enough to disguise his trembling.

Eternal Sailor Ganymede had been on his way anyway, after picking up the energy signature of a Chibi Senshi close to that of a Lieutenant, but his approach had started slow, sedate, subdued. From a distance, there had been no telling what was happening. It could have been nothing; the two could have easily been having a quasi-companionable chat, causing no trouble and eliciting no harm. He tried not to jump to conclusions.

That all changed when he got Oberon’s text, a misspelled “Halp” that was easy enough to figure out, and he quickened his pace when a quick scan with his phone showed that the Chibi he’d sensed by the Lieutenant was the boy in question.

“Let him go,” he demanded presently, his voice far calmer than he felt, his stance aggressive, eyes blazing, expression uncharacteristically severe.

The approach of an order signature was noticed a hair or two too late to do much other than mentally curse before there was a silhouette throwing shadow long and telling over her prey and self. A shadow that had clear frames around its lower middle - feather shapes that mimicked and televised what the FEEL of power already screamed - this one was like the Tiger. This one would have potent magic, faster and probably stronger than she.

The ideal answer was immediate - snap the little nuisance's neck and run for it. She didn't have an escape route planned, however, and there were no guarantees to predicting the reaction of an enemy she'd only just laid eyes on. This scout might stay with the body, horrified and cradling it, or they might as easily go berserk or stoney with a grudge and immediately do all in their life's power to hunt her down as she ran and meet out the same. Her best chance at survival then, with no hypothermia-happy alternative, was in the pipsqueaks continued breathing in leveraging, trade, or projectile.

Is that a hat? Once of those dumb, small, lolita pill hats? Looks like a whore..coming to a fight, are you kidding me? Schörl's lip curled in a sneer as she froze her crop mid-swing, "This alley's full; if you need to turn tricks try another across the street. There are children present."

" 'Let him go', or who is going to do what to me? There's got to be an ultimatum or a payoff if you want to persuade-" Then there was a phone in her face. She hated face shots- as the center of human awareness and a load of their identity, it was always a shock when you took any sort of unexpected knock to it - punch, slap, feather accosting, whatever. And sure enough, it got her to wrench hand from hair to toss the boy as she dropped him to bring the hand up in instinctual protection. Her nose and mouth stung a bit.

Oberon landed hard on the concrete as he was unceremoniously thrown aside, hissing at the scrapes and cuts that would surely linger. He already ached all over, bruises forming along his arms from where she had hit him with her crop, his head aching from the way she’d yanked at his hair, his muscles sore from the effort he’d exerted in his attempt to free himself.

But now that he’d been released, now that Ganymede was there and he had someone to keep him from being killed, the chibi senshi couldn’t help the blood that boiled at her insult.

“Don’t make fun of him, you b***h,” he spat, gracelessly clambering to his feet, sending and recalling his phone from subspace. He held it as if she should feel threatened by it, while standing just out of the lieutenant's reach. She may not have called him any names, but to those kinds of insinuations, especially using him as an excuse for Ganymede to leave, drew out as much anger as she did fear.

“You attacked me for no reason! Is that what you people are doing these days? Trying to kill little kids? Too scared to corrupt us, but killing us is okay??” he shouted, his voice cracking under the strain.

“You want an ultimatum? ******** off if you don’t want to get your a** kicked! You’re just a coward who picks on little kids, anyway.”

Clearly his confidence had resurfaced now that he was no longer fighting this alone. He would admit that fighting two on one wasn’t exactly fair, but she’d attacked him for the hell of it. He would be more than happy to see her learn her lesson, whether she ran away or not.

“I am not afraid of you,” Ganymede said, his voice deliberately slow.

He didn’t add that it was himself or his magic that he was truly afraid of, since he doubted that would change her mocking tone at all. He was not of the opinion that fear was a bad emotion to feel, but he also wasn’t of a mind to advertise too many of his fears to people who’d likely have no qualms about using them against him.

Instead, he looked to Oberon, inwardly impressed that the Chibi in question could still mouth off while so injured, though Ganymede would not feel comfortable or confident that the boy was truly okay until this encounter was far behind them.

“Oberon,” he called, directing the Chibi Senshi closer to him, wanting him as far away from the Lieutenant as possible.

Ganymede’s gaze flicked back to her, and he made sure he took in every inch of her appearance so as to be able to accurately describe her to whichever party he deemed it pertinent to discuss this altercation with. “That depends,” he decided, unwilling to step aside so easily when he saw the damage she’d done to his friend. “You’ve hurt him,” he said, motioning to Oberon. “What’s to stop you from hunting down another kid and finishing what you started?”