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Astraea did the one most annoying, offensive, horrifying thing you could do in this situation -- which was pure Astraea, who tended to look at a situation, find what was most annoying to say, and then said it in a hail of hate and rage. Well, that was a little unfair; she was dutiful, she was faithful. She just sometimes took duty and faith and wrapped them up in a parcel of frustrated, sleepless hate:

"Now look what you did, you jackass."

She could understand Nibs in a different way -- Nibs was ignoring her totally; her attention was all for Sue. Sue, who was probably going to make all his cats anxious. His scent was changing a little, and as Astraea checked she could see the two tufts of hair that to anyone else would have looked like Sue with bedhead but to her were going to be the start of some fairly epic cat ears. He'd have a harder time with his a**. Tails were annoying to carry around. At least he was making that tiny transition -- he wouldn't be able to return to normal any time soon.

In her heart she wondered if she had lead Charonite here. Charonite would do anything to mow her down. Anything. Bitterly, she knew that probably wasn't even the case; it was just one tiresome, dreary wrong place, wrong time.

"You hurt her. What kind of guardian are you? Apparently you're a fail whale, why am I not surprised."

She was bleeding. Sue's nails had torn her up. She wiped away the blood, more concerned now with the cat than she was with the fight that Nibs had interrupted. Astraea had a heart, it just looked like a walnut sometimes.

(Secret: she had loved Sidra Winters with the peculiar passion reserved for a cat to their specific senshi -- and now was torn between that, with the peculiar passion that Luna reserved only for Sailor Moon.)

Sue's hands hovered over the cat. Nibs was purring quietly, but Sue had no delusions about what it meant. The cat was in shock. The cat was hurt.

Little Nibs, he was certain, was about to die.

"... <********>," he whispered adamantly. And something new snapped within him. It was a messy break, one with fragments of pain and anger scattered all over his psyche, but it was an important one, a needful one; it was the full cycle. He became something that felt a little more than guilt and hate and anger and terror. It was the one that took him a step away from that survival monster he'd grown into; made him human again.

Or at least, made him feel human again - when Sue got a look at himself in the mirror, he might have a different opinion, but that was for later.

Astraea was yammering behind him. Accusations, insults. The sort of thing Sue had heard most his life, really. All Sue could think was: ********, lady. ********>. She talked and she talked and she bitched and she talked, but ******** her if she thought she mattered. The whole world, all its problems, had evaporated. Now Barren Pines, the people in it, the zombies and the skies, were just hanging above Sue like a heavy, waiting fog. Those concerns weren't for now. Now was just for....

Usually, you weren't supposed to move around a cat in a state like this. You immobilized them as much as possible until they could get to a veterinarian. But really... Sue was probably the closest thing to a vet that Barren Pines had just then. And he sure as hell didn't have anything he could do.

So he scooped the poor cat up. He could feel something shift, and Nibs cried out, before returning to her euphoric thrumming. Pulled close to his chest, Sue could damn near feel every breath the cat took - short and shallow and fought-for. And yet she still gave a little sigh of happiness when his fingers stroked along her ear, when he whispered broken apologies to her.

Sue had never really "gotten" Nibs, not like the other cats. She was the feral; she was the people-hater. Just to earn her trust had taken weeks - weeks, for him! - and he'd always been so careful with it since. She'd always paid him a peculiar devotion in return, one that had turned fierce when the school itself turned threatening. A protectiveness without reserve, something that cats normally reserved for their kittens. It had bothered him somewhat, because he'd never understood him Nibs might have seen him like that, but....

You know, maybe in light of recent events, there was something more to how Nibs saw Sue. Not like a human that was a kitten that needed protecting, like a human that was a cat, whose attentions and care had earned a very special brand of devotion. Something he'd never have considered, if it weren't for Astraea yelling you are a CAT into his ear....

"Damn it!" was all he had, didn't seem to sum up the situation enough. Not after everything he'd gone through. Not after what he'd done just now, what clumsiness he'd shown, and what selfishness he felt now. Sue didn't want for Nibs to die like this. Not because it was his fault.

Nibs would have preferred it some other way as well. But she had seen a lot in the past few weeks. She'd always been skin and bones, but between the stress and scarce food, she felt downright skeletal in Sue's hands. She was tired. She hurt.

The little feral didn't have much to hold on to, and cats... they just didn't think in the same way as humans. It didn't matter what significance was occurring, if things were in play to make possible the impossible. Were Nibs human, that should have given her every reason to cling to life; but she wasn't. This was her time. She could accept that.

As for Sue... well. He'd just have to struggle to find storage space for the fresh mass of grief, somewhere on his overcrowded emotional shelves.

As the last purrs faded from the air, a new voice spoke up. It was calling the second most ridiculous name he'd heard that day (maybe the third; Sue's name might not be Zue, but that didn't make it any less ridiculous, even if he usually chose not to count it anymore.) Not paying attention to these things was dangerous, and Nibs hadn't just... died... so that he could follow her. Even as Sue held the stilling cat in his arms, willing himself do not ******** cry, you have not ******** cried for anyone yet and you will not ******** start bawling like a girl now, he turned his gaze around to watch somberly the newcomer in the doorway.

Sue felt very, very tired. Even if there had been something familiar with the stranger, he wasn't up for cracking any identity puzzles just then. Fortunately, it didn't seem to be him that the pretty boy was looking for. That was good. Maybe that meant that they could just... leave Sue alone, for now. Just for a bit, please....

Astraea moved and Foramen got his first decent look at Sue - cradling a too-still cat.

"s**t," Foramen breathed. He knew Sue. He knew Sue and Sue's cats. Where people who were not-Sue and not-Kirin had BFFs, Sue had his cats. Those cats were Sue's <******** family, his constant companions, Sue's version of Kirin's mot-. Foramen's mind shut down, programming taking over as it got too close to certain subjects. Reboot. Try again.

s**t. That would make it harder for Astraea to get whatever she'd come here for. And the cat seemed to have no patience for others, or the concerns of others.

Foramen got that, he really did. He was the same way. He wanted what he wanted and he didn't give a ******** about anyone else. He understood. But it didn't mean they went about things the same way. Foramen hadn't wanted, or needed, anything from anyone else. Astraea was expecting the world of others and she didn't have Kirin's strategic brain to tell her how to get what she needed from others.

Astraea got his attention back by mentioning he was now stuck as Foramen. Personally, Kirin didn't see a downside. Faster, better, stronger - all those lyrics and more. Plus, magical teleportation! ... As long as it didn't make him pass out again. That would suck.

He had no clue what the rest of the names were, so they got ignored along with the rest of Astraea's rant.

"At least this way, we've got a better chance of getting out alive," he told Astraea. "I can imagine what Ophelia is going to do if I come back and you don't, so I need to make sure she gets a living, breathing boss back. I like my chances better like this than as a normal human."

Oh god, if he'd been stuck as a human and the shield went up? Knowing he had this ability now, but not being able to use it? It would have driven him insane.

"So, looks like you've got yourself a proper, loyal soldier for a bodyguard." Foramen made a self-mocking bow, one foot crossed behind the other as he bent and made a flourishing hand motion. "At least until we get out of here."

Checking on Sue once more, Foramen frowned at the stars that had appeared on his forehead. "What's with the glow-in-the-dark stickers?"

Astraea was a cat. They were putting a cat to rest. It was all over and done with as far as she was concerned. There were cats, and then there was the issue of -- she packed that away, there was a different issue now, there was something entirely different to contend with. Unlike Kirin, she didn't have to convince anybody; when they awoke, they were filled with the same terrible longing that all of the other sailor senshi were filled with. Find Serenity. Find the Queen. Find the Moon Princess.

Later on she might look back and be sorry, look back and have sympathy: but she lived a life where everything that happened had to be about the now. There was no room for the later. There might not be a later. Life was cheap in Destiny City. Nibs proved that.

"I'll put it like this," she said. "You. Zue. Do you want to make up for everything you've lost and come with me? Because you lost. They all died. They died and you couldn't save them. Just like with the cat."

And Luna said, with a terrible quiet sadness:

Just like with me.

Not interested.

Just like with you!

Damn you.

"You still can't remember a thing?" She was frustrated. "You're ZUE. You're a FIRST SOULER. You're like Artemis, you're like -- you don't know where Chronos is? Where the Zodiacs are?"

Foramen heard her give a grunt of distress, turning to his flourished bow. "Just my luck and only you came back. You can bodyguard me. If you want. You'll be falling over in six hours when you realise you can't sustain being a senshi that long, you're not an Energizer bunny."

It wasn't an answer. Sue hated that. All he wanted was one answer, a moment of straight-forwardness, and what did he get? An offer. A deal. She was the ******** Don, holding back what he was demanding until he offered something of his own up first.

And the worst part was that she was totally, completely on the mark. Sue couldn't turn it away - not right after Nibs had died for nothing, not after all the other pointless deaths.

He could do one thing, though. There was still one small, token defense he had left to him.

"My name," he grumbled, "is Sue. And I haven't got the slightest damned clue about any of the s**t you're going on about. But." His eyes flickered over to Foramen. The guy was beyond fruity, which made it all the more unsettling that he was the only one present that Sue felt he could relate to (Stripers and Mackie notwithstanding). And he said that this was the way to go?

Sue sucked in a shallow breath. "I'm in."

Foramen nodded as Sue agreed to go along with whatever Astraea was trying to turn him into. This was a good thing, for several reasons. Firstly, because even a noob like Foramen knew they were severely outnumbered here and could use all the magical boys (and cats) that they could get. Secondly - and most immediate for the moment - was that an Astraea getting what she wanted was a marginally less pissed off and ranting Astraea.

Nothing had happened between the two, as far as Foramen could tell, but Astraea began talking and it became apparent she was expecting some kind of result. Foramen hoped it had worked. Because if Astraea spent the next hour head-smacking a wall, she was going to pass on her migraine to everyone else around her. And since Foramen needed her alive, he couldn't just leave and save himself the headache.

It could not imagine putting up with this for non-blackmail reasons. No wonder she had trouble with senshi.

He waited to see how Sue responded, quiet but expectant.