Welcome to Gaia! ::

Calvin nodded as he stood up, trying to follow along with everything that this cat was saying.

This lady is his sister, and she's called Pendour. And she's also a knight, but what do- and he's a senshi? Didn't they say "power of a world"? What is 'henshining'?

Screwing his eyes shut, Calvin did his best to dismiss the myriad of questions that keep cropping up. He also wanted the cat to use his name, but clearly this was not the time for interruptions. Whatever was going on, this friendly feline was trying to walk him through it.

"Right," he said once she was done, "Think about- What was the phrase? 'Felis Power, Make-up'? That sou-"

His comment was cut off by a rush of magical power that overwhelmed his body. A cloud of sparkling blue mist dissipated through the alleyway, smelling strongly of wildflowers. As it cleared, Sailor Felis was revealed for the first time, staring at his new fingerless gloves.

"Woah..."

Felis was at a loss for words as he examined the tight-fit blue and white sailor outfit. He touched the brooch of flowers pinned through a pale blue bow on his chest. Despite this being an entirely new experience, it all felt strangely familiar to him in a way.

The fading music and the growing sounds of the dark beast pulled Felis out of his thoughts. Where the monster struck fear and confusion in Calvin's heart, Felis felt confident and powerful. In a rush of sudden speed, he sprinted up to the youma, slamming into it with his shoulder. The creature was not thrown back as he might have hoped, but the blow staggered it long enough for them to build some distance. Felis bounced back with an agile leap that Calvin would never have managed, but he turned to Pendour with a serious confidence that she recognized. Calvin had always been calm in times of crisis, and it seemed Felis was too.

"You seem to know what you're doing. What's our move?"

He was ready.

There was so much that Pendour wanted to do in that moment. She wanted to stare, wide-eyed and reverent, as her brother began to shimmer and shift, as the sharp scent of something minty cut through the city air, and most of all when Calvin came through all that magic, changed into something more. She wanted to look at his outfit, to ask about his magic. He'd have questions, she was sure. She knew that she'd had them, so many of them, that first night when she'd come across a youma and come away from it as Pendour.

It was a lot, she knew. It was good and bad all wrapped up in one shimmering package. She wanted to be there for him, to gently walk him through it.

Instead there was a youma there, interrupting everything, and the very second that the sparkles had faded, Felis was throwing himself at it.

Even as he did that, Viatrix was offering to call for help. Which, she meant well, but Pendour still answered quickly, tone louder than it often was, "Not Anser. Please. Not Encke, either."

They'd try to kill the youma. Anser especially would try to escalate things, but she didn't need Encke here right now either.

"It's okay. We're okay. It'll calm down," she said, and reached out to see if she could take Felis by the hadn. "Try your magic maybe, but we need to get away."

It didn't necessarily surprise Viatrix to reject the concept of Anser coming to help. From what she had observed and found out from her bonded, Anser was basically the polar opposite of Pendour. Same Order alignment, very different modes of operation.

The rejection of Encke did surprise her, though. Why did Pendour not want him around? "Well, I can call him later to help get Felis up to speed on senshi stuff if you want!" Of course, she could help too. That was what she was there for!

But Felis seemed very eager to get started. More enthusiastic than Pendour at least.

"Ah, not exactly! You have magic you can channel! It'll give you the ability to help defend yourself against youma like this one!" Now, what was Felis'? He seemed to do pretty well with channeling his magic aloud, so she wouldn't complicate matters by telling him he didn't have to say anything this early on... "Try Numbing Touch!"

That sounded right...

"Right, safety first." Felis echoed, glancing up and down the empty street, "We should probably evacuate everyone nearby. You brought your phone, right Sadie? Can you call 911?"

Ducking back behind his sister, Felis squared off against the monster. It was still drowsy from the magical music, but the ferocity was returning. They needed to act fast if they wanted to take advantage of this.

"I'll try to cover you. It looks like it's waking up again."

Felis brought up an arm to push away the first clumsy attack, receiving a small scratch for it. He hissed and rubbed his arm, but held his ground. Perhaps the magic could help? He had no clue what it was or how to use it, but both the cat and his sister had recommended trying. Perhaps it could slow the beast down like the music had before.

"If it's anything like the transformation, I would just need to say 'numbing touch', right?"

He shook his hand to get rid of the tingling sensation that had crept back into his fingers. It was getting more intense now, and might impede his dexterity if it continued. Hopefully the effects would fade before he had to prepare the dough for tomorrow.

He glanced over at the magical cat, trying to judge if it would get away in time. Assuming it was as fast as a normal cat, it should be fine, but-

Okay. Okay. Pendour reminded herself to breathe. It was working. They were getting distance from the youma, with their powers letting them walk faster. Her brother wasn't going to get hurt. The youma wasn't going to get hurt.

Hopefully, her magic had calmed the youma down enough that it wasn't going to go after anyone else for a while, either.

"So much electricity," said Pendour, sounding ever so slightly dismayed at the thought. She loved Encke deeply. She loved almost everything about him. The way that he burned people, sometimes? The way he chose to use his magic like that?

That was the one part of him that was a little hard to stomach.

At least numbing touch didn't sound like it would hurt someone badly.

"The words might help with practicing though," she said. "Um, you can try it on me once we get some more distance."

That had to be a better idea than trying it on a youma that wanted to eat them.

"And I can maybe call the police too, once we power down. My things went away when I transformed."

She didn't know that the police would do much, but she wasn't sure what to do either. Her inability to know what to do, exactly, about youma was probably showing in the way that her eyebrows drew together, in the way that she was trying not to think, in the way that she hesitated to do anything except to leave.

It was so much electricity, to be honest, and for all the issues Pendour had with it, Viatrix honestly wished he was there right now. Felis was getting some experience with his ability, but by the same token, it would be nice to have someone there that could properly decimate this thing so they could talk in peace about ... everything that was happening.

For the first part, the fact that his sister was a knight, and he was a senshi, and they were both magical people who had some place in space that called out to them, and the Negaverse was what the youma belonged to and the Negaverse sucked a whole lot, but there were also other things, like the Dark Mirror, and whatever Almadel was, though he wasn't necessarily a threat, and--

Oh, that scream was not good--

Viatrix knew that Pendour wouldn't like this, but she didn't like one of the new people she had just awakened screaming like that. She glanced in Pendour's direction, but that was truly the only warning she was going to give.

"Felis!" shouted Viatrix, over the noise of the youma's roaring and flailing. She would have something a lot more effective than the police that would probably just get their starseeds eaten anyway-- "I got this!"

Did she?

Well, the glow on her forehead that beamed out and smashed into the youma before those attacks could get more deadly was certainly effective.

Sometimes, she envied the senshi for having attacks that just worked without taking basically everything out of her for a few moments, but she had just awakened this one. If he was in pain, the practice on the field time was over. She herself likely had the most effective magic there, and she shut her eyes tight and hoped that it burst into dust despite everything else.

Felis staggered back, looking up at the beast. He gripped his arm instinctively, but didn't take his eyes off the youma as he danced out of range of its claws. His plan might still work, in theory. He just needed to be a bit more careful.

What might actually ruin the plan would be if his sister ran into the fight as well instead of figuring out the problem. Intuitively, a part of him knew this might happen, but he had held out hope that this new power had given her some other ideas.

"Sarandon!"

Calvin rushed over to her. He tried to keep his voice calm and level, but the rush of adrenaline and the occasional swipes from the beast made that difficult.

"You're the one who knows what this thing is! If we're both holding it's attention, then who's going to fix this? The friggin cat?"

Thankfully, Sadie never got a chance to answer that question. Felis didn't catch whatever his new furry friend did exactly, and the flash of light obscured the actual process. All he knew was that the beast that had hurt him before was now a pile of dust in the middle of the sidewalk.

"Oh..."

It took Felis a moment to put together what had happened, still tense and ready to jump if the pile moved. It took him another moment to realize what this would do to his sister. He opened his mouth to say something to console her, reassure her that this was necessary, that they had saved other people from being hurt...

But hearing her flat tone, he stowed the koans. There would be time for those later. Instead, he replied in as calm a manner as he could manage.

"Agreed. Your place isn't too far off. Would that work?"

Now that the rush was fading, the stinging pain in his arm became much more noticeable. Putting a hand on the cut not only made the pain much worse, but also came with a warm wet sensation that shouldn't have been so much of a surprise. With a yelp of pain, he did his best to control the bleeding.

"Ahhhh... yeah, that hurts. Let's go. Do either of you have magic that can numb... nevermind."