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Gigi squeezed her eyes shut, but she couldn't block the sounds of the monster, or the hot rock smell that suddenly filled the alley. A little muffled moan escaped her lips as she felt something rushing by above her. She waited for the fire, but it didn't seem to come. After long moments, a new sound caught her attention above the din, a kitty sound. They hurt a cat?

That terrible thought was enough to kick her out of terror-stricken paralysis. Cautiously, she lifted her head, just a little bit, peeking out at the carnage through a curtain of tangled and slightly singed curls. It looked like someone had gone mad with a stencil set, spraying feather patterns onto the far side of the alley - until she realised how indented the images were, deep into the walls. She didn't see the kitty, and only one of the terrorists, but the monster was still there.

"Oh my god," she whispered. And then bit down hard on her finger in case they heard her.

"I'm...not sure." Grus said, slightly winded. Her eternal attack really did a number on her stamina. But judging by the lack of screams, no one else was hit. "Hopefully far away or somewhere not at my hip height."

"You need me to cover you while you go after...that thing?" She asked, once again falling into her ready fight stance. She was surprised at how well the youma was talking the hits. Most would be dusted by now. Ah well, chalk it up to bad luck finding such a strong one wandering about.

Gigi wanted to stay down, she really wanted to stay down and hide. But she could still hear the cat, and the cat sounded scared-er than her right now, and the terrorists didn't seem to be doing anything about it it. Okay, they were probably fixing the monster issue, but that was no excuse.

The girl reached out from her hiding place, tapping her fingertips gently on the concrete. "Here kitty kitty? Come away from the monster."

Possibly one of the strangest sentences she'd said outside of a dream, and her voice sounded scratchy-raw from screaming. Please let the monster not hear them.

Grus took a step toward the civilian, but decided against trying to drag her out of the way. God knows that would cause her to panic, or hit Grus or something. Instead, she kept an eye on the youma, who wiggled feebly as Athene advanced. When it burst into sparkly dust, Grus finally smiled, moving forward to clap Athene on the back.

"Well done sir, and congrats on the power upgrade." She offered a nod, and then looked back at *********, tipping an invisible hat to the fluffed up Guardian.

"Looks like you got this all handled, I think I'll take off." IN truth, she was feeling a bit wobbly from the Eternal attack and wanted nothing more than to lay down for a few minutes until the world lost its tendency to blur at the corner of her eyes. She waved jovially, and ran out of the alleyway, crossing the street before powering down and joining a group of civilians walking toward the bus station. There would be no jumping buildings to go home tonight.

“Thank you for your help” Athene said with a nod, waving back at Grus as the eternal senshi left before turning to look for ********* and Gigi. ********* was easy enough to find, the kitty sneeze a good indicator – then again the youma had been pretty large and the air was still full of youma dust. Of Gigi there didn’t seem to be any sign.

The dark-haired senshi wasn’t to know that his friend had, after the lack of any monster noises in a while, peeked out from her hiding place only to find that not only was the snakepillary monster gone, but also so had one of the ‘terrorists’ – the one in red and white that had plummeted in front of her like some big giant bird. The cat she had been calling to had emerged from the dumpster, but didn’t look as scared as it had sounded earlier and with the snakepede gone the curly-haired teen had taken the opportunity to slip away – if she was lucky she might even manage to salvage some off the shopping she’d picked up earlier.

No Athene was not to know any of this – all the newly upgraded Super Senshi knew was that he and ********* appeared to be the only ones left in the alley. Walking over to the silver-furred cat he wrinkled his nose up at the slowly dispersing youma dust “Thank you for your help back there as well *********. Are you okay?” After checking that the guardian cat was indeed alright, then the dark-haired Super Senshi planned to have a look for Gigi – maybe it was the shock of finding out that a good friend had been targeted – but Athene would feel easier if he could keep an eye out for his friend, even if he couldn’t tell her who he was.

[ooc note: got permission from Loki to puppet Gigi and post a finishing post for her]

“I had some cookies earlier,” Athene admitted, “But I don’t know what I did with them.” The little bag containing them had somehow become lost somewhere in between dealing with the large snake-caterpillar hybrid youma. “If they’re somewhere around here though then please consider them yours” a small thank you for the tail-less guardian cat’s help.

Starting to leave, he turned to look at ********* again with a slight smile “Thanks again. Maybe next time our paths will cross under friendlier circumstances.”

Turning back round he walked out of the alley, planning to keep half an eye out for Gigi. Maybe he’d find his curly-haired friend and maybe he wouldn’t but if he did then he planned to keep an eye out until she got safely home.

[fin]