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It wasn't like turmoil and Charys Murphy weren't friends. It was just that they were strangers -- turmoil was a land that Charys Murphy had never been. Nothing fazed her. Very little propelled her into the type of adrenaline that everyone else suffered, the day-to-day panic of living their lives; it was why she was a shitty sprinter, but lasted the course as a long-distance runner. Long-distance running, she was good at. Her easy, lanky-legged stride ate up the distance slowly, unhurried, keeping the pace -- at least, until she'd decided that even though you weren't running your guts out it was still work, and sent the track captain into paroxysms of grief at her refusal to run any distance longer than that to the cafeteria.

Charys wasn't into stress. It made her a crappy senshi, too.

"You'd be proud of me, Astraea," she said to herself, arms tucked over her chest, thumbs sticking out. Astraea was in fact never proud of Charys, and wrinkled her nose every time she said her name: with particular stress on the a**, a**-traea, which was just how she rolled, on the juvenile train. "Look at me doing this patrolling stuff."

She knew it was an excuse just to get out of the house. Things were pretty bad if she was actually doing senshi work to escape life itself.

Life itself had become Sidra Winters. Kissing her had seemed like an awesome idea at the time, a pretty fantastic idea, when in fact it was a horrible idea. Where the hell did they go from here? What the hell did she do now? Charys was naturally good at a lot of things, but being a girlfriend wasn't one. She had always been a terrible girlfriend. She never answered anyone's calls. She only went out on dates when she wanted to go out on dates. If you passed her a piece of paper -- do you like me? Tick Y or N or MAYBE -- she would have to do a fourth column, EH.

Sidra Winters was the now-or-never kind. Charys was the sometime-later kind. She'd messed up her chords on Guitar Hero the whole night after, riffing so badly she had to swap down from Expert, as Sidra lay on the couch with her head on the arm looking a strange mix of both peaceful and worried. She'd kissed her goodnight, one arm locked around her shoulders, walked her home.

She wanted to say: Sid, do not ask this of me. I am a terrible girlfriend. I am not all that great a friend, actually. I didn't put any points into that column.

And now at Meadowview she just brushed Sidra's shoulder when they passed, and Sidra gave her -- a long, reproachful look, hurt, tucked-up inside herself. Why don't you talk to me @ school? had come the text -- a pretty big thing, Sid hated texting. She hadn't answered.

She still got a high whenever she saw her, that was the shitty part. She loved the way Sidra looked. That was why it was even more important that she not commit to anything. Why make a promise you couldn't keep?

Sailor Nerissa wasn't concentrating; she didn't really expect to run into a youma -- worst case scenario was more Astraea, best case was Nova. Her iPod was on shuffle, her playlist all crappy remixes, and when she saw the other senshi in the shadows she automatically assumed it was Nova -- she had never actually seen anyone else in a sailor skirt; she was stifled in the shadows of the building, half-hunched in the alleyway, turned away from Nerissa completely.

"Hey, pretty baby -- "

The girl turned around, throwing her into a little bit of light from the street. It became readily apparent that it was not Nova, to Nerissa's consternation: for one thing, the girl's height was all-natural, wearing flats, not tiny Nova teetering around in her crazy little boots. She was golden-haired and green-eyed, her skirts turquoise instead of violet, short feathery sleeves and long legs.

"Crap," said Nerissa, brought up short, scratching the back of her head. "Wow, sorry for the sexual harrassment, I thought you were someone else. Damn. Sorry."

Nerissa scrubbed one hand through her hair, immediately wincing as what became apparent to her being a second faux pas. "Not that I'm saying you're not pretty," she said bluntly, "hey, I wouldn't turn the lights off with you -- sorry, wow, douchebag layer on douchebag layer like a Sara Lee cake."

She had to admit it: as empowering as finally coming to terms with, I'm a gigantic dyke! was, it made her kind of an a*****e in terms of hitting on every girl she found attractive. Ume. Now this girl. She told herself: see, this is even more evidence why I'd be a shitty girlfriend to Sid, I can't keep it in my pants, can I? but it sounded lame even to her inner ear. Excuses, excuses. Trying to find them, with a singleminded desperation.

Too bad, the girl really was pretty. She had a fine-boned delicacy to her, looking as though she was contemplating her fight or flee mechanism, even as her voice was rigid and curt. Oh, well, what the hell. Made sense that she'd pissed her off.

"How about we pretend like we haven't started our conversation yet," she suggested. "Me: Sailor Nerissa." She held out her hand, to shake. "Peace. You?"

Nerissa was shaking her hand, grip agreeably firm without being too loose or tight, dropping it again before folding her arms. It was a little brisk, and she appeared to be wearing even shorter clothes than Pegasus herself was.

Inwardly, she let out a breath, then tilted her head to the side to take in more of the self-introduced Sailor Pegasus. Pegasus, huh. Well. It was downright strange to meet a senshi who wasn't Nova, or who wasn't Thuban -- poor Charlie with his endearingly short skirt... thing. Some people would've called it a toga. Charys called a skirt, a skirt. A small smile had briefly tugged the corners of Sailor Pegasus' mouth, and then was gone as soon as it had come.

Whatever, jackpot.

"So, you, uh..." The senshi of whirlpools made a vague motion with her fingers that was probably meant to be interpretively something. "Patrolling? Can't lie, I was about to pack it in. It is colder than a witch's tit out here. This gig was okay when it was summer, am I right?"

Sailor Nerissa was leaning against the wall of the alleyway now. She seemed to be the type to lean. She was rubbing her arms -- they were lavishly goosepimpled -- and grinning a little, despite Sailor Pegasus' stoic, professional demeanour. It was another senshi, to break her loneliness; okay, so she didn't seem to take the entire thing as seriously as Rea herself did, and DUTY didn't appear to be written on her forehead. And she was leaning. But.

"Hey, I wouldn't object," she was saying. She winked. It was overt. It was really overt. So why was it sort of charming? "How about we ditch the middle man and, you know, meet for coffee at the same time?"

It was pretty open flirtation, no matter how casually it was said. Nerissa opened her mouth to say something else --

And then the dumpster next to them made a horrible whak! noise. Pegasus spun around; Nerissa looked up. The air was filled with beating wings: there was a horrible, bird-legged, bird-winged woman standing on the dumpster, monstrous and sharp-toothed, a mockery of a person. Youma. She screamed: it was a noise like fingernails scraped down a blackboard.

"Oh s**t," said Nerissa.

Nerissa cracked her knuckles. It was a slightly horrendous sound coming from somebody with a massive butt-bow and who was dressed in what she herself termed a 'stripper leotard'. "Guess this is where being a Super Sailor helps," she said vaguely. "All right. Here we go."

She seemed more resigned than dismayed at the appearance of the youma, despite its hideous jaws, flapping wings and general monstrous appearance -- despite the general laxness of her demeanour, obviously she had encountered more than a few monsters in her time. The super sailor clinched that. It seemed as though Sailor Nerissa had been around the block.

Which was why her next mistake was so baffling.

"Tidal Concrete Vortex!"

There was a sudden sucking wound opening up in the narrow alleyway -- trashcans and detritus were hurled into the sudden whirlpool of what appeared to be living rock draining down into a dark endpoint in the ground, tugging the dumpster with screaming metal legs slowly into its gaping maw.

This did not a hell of a lot, because as the youma immediately proved, it could fly. Sailor Nerissa watched this, lugubriously -- until the harpy came at them both: they both ducked, narrowly, as it launched itself at the pair, flapping its way into the street and shrieking a hideously loud, earbleeding shriek.

"Okay," said Sailor Nerissa immediately, hands half-clapped over her ears. "Gotta say, sweetheart, I'm completely outpowered here."

"Honestly, I gotta tell you, I'm kind of a one trick pony -- "

It was too late. In a flash of teal, the grim-mouthed and delicate-boned Pegasus had already shot off. For a couple of moments, Sailor Nerissa thought that she'd done a runner; she sort of suspected everyone of being her, when the chips came down to it. People did runners. Not as often as she did, but hey, could you really honestly blame them?

Stall it. Easier said than done.

The harpy youma was flapping, clawed legs outstretched, obviously preparing for another swoop. It shrieked again, that high-pitched, eardrum-piercing scream that made her physically feel a little nauseous -- when all was said and done, the senshi gig, it was not glamorous. She should've told Chaz that. She should've told Chaz that twice.

"Here, birdy, birdy, birdy," she said out loud, though, really -- damn, it wouldn't have been hard to slip away. Down the alley. Sailor Pegasus seemed like a nice girl. Also competent. More than able to exit, stage left, on her own. Goddamnit. "Here, birdy, birdy, birdy -- "

The youma swooped with another one of those horrifying screams. Sailor Nerissa did what any good limbo player did: hit the deck, falling back on one hand and high heels in a flexibility move worthy of 9.9 on the Olympic scale. The razor-sharp claws found air and nothing more.

The shot hit. The youma fell to earth with another cut-off, strangled scream; Nerissa was already scrambling away from the mass of feathers and claws that was the squirming, injured monster.

Looked like Pegasus hadn't run away, after all.

It was a hell of a thing to stand up again in high heels, but she'd been doing this for too long to do it and turn an ankle. Sweat prickled Sailor Nerissa's body. Abandoned beer bottles decorated the front of the alley like peculiar green mushrooms: she picked one up and braced the neck in her hand like a handle. Weighting one heeled foot on the youma's back, she abruptly broke the bottle over its head.

And dug the broken bottle into its spine for good measure -- hey, waste not, want not.

"Okay, boys and girls," she said, backing away, cursing the DNA that had made Sailor Pegasus pretty and her unable to run out when the tough got going. Well, Pegasus had fired the main blow. Just a little more pushing -- ugh, she really hated pushing -- and they could get out of this.

Where was Nova when you needed her? Or, hell, Astraea?

"Tidal Concrete Vortex!"

This time, when the pit opened up underneath the youma, she got sucked into it bodily. Both Pegasus and Nerissa were treated to loud, horrible gurgles as the thing tried to claw itself out -- as bottles, detritus, cardboard was sucked in within her -- until the point where, as it was expelled, out came the youma.

In chunks.

On Nerissa. Ew.

She was covered in dark, purplish, sticky blood, wiping gore off her cheek, mouth curling up in disgust. "Augh," she said, still in the hail of youma rain. And: "Ewww." And: "Euuugh."

Nerissa was dripping with fluids at this point, stained a number of hues and colours -- reeking to high heaven as well, delicately trying to wipe her face free of the goop with her forearm. When that didn't work, she reached backwards for her massive bow to see if there were any clean spots on it -- no luck there.

And Pegasus was laughing at her -- well. Laughing. Really honest to God laughing. She'd thought that the tiny smiles were all you could coax out of the kid, but well, hell, look at that, giggles. That was probably something. At least somebody was entertained.

"Hey," she said, injured. "Hey." (She made a ptooey -- bleeech, some in her mouth, she was going to BATHE in Listerine). "Don't kick a girl when she's down and... covered in... jesus, what IS this stuff, it's like the slime they used to cover kids in on What Now!." The girl was still tinkling with laughter. "C'mon. Pucker up. Don't I get a heroic kiss or something." (Her lips were dripping a little with slime, and she made an exaggerated fishmouth.)