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Sue had been meaning to do this for a while; he'd just been busy. That's all. That's what he liked to tell himself, anyway.

The road to Barren Pines was a familiar one. The short walk from the bus stop to the school grounds was one he could nearly have walked blindfolded, once upon a time - though of course, his eyes were wide open now, darting and suspicious. These old trees on the outskirts had always been a bit spooky in their own way, but after what they'd been witness to, they seemed almost like grave markers now. Tall and somber, hiding putrid secrets in their shadows.

Someone would have had to come back here eventually, anyway. If not him, one of the other Zodiacs - or maybe the princess. Just to know. Maybe to make sure nothing new was brewing, that the Negaverse wasn't trying to repeat their stunt. Sue, however, had an immediate reason for coming. He'd misplaced two very special friends at the end of that nightmare, and this was the only place he knew they might be; so why shouldn't it be him that came to investigate?

And, as it turned out, it was a damned good thing that somebody did. Arriving on the grounds, Sue discovered that since their leaving this place, the entire property had been transformed.

Where part of the dorms had once sat, a massive mental institution now stretched upwards. Everything here was somber tones and peeling paint; there were no lights on in any of the windows that Sue could see, nor the sound of any inhabitants. It didn't even look as though Barren Pines had been torn down to make way for this facility. There were windows broken out, years' worth of ivy embedded into cracks in the walls. Fallen shingles from the roof littered the grounds. The only sign of life this place had was a stash of used syringes and broken bottles, as though its only use was for stupid teens to get drunk and high.

If Sue had been anyone else, he would have turned around right then. The only reasonable conclusion was that he'd gotten mixed up somewhere along the way; this couldn't be the hellhole that had swallowed up a year of his life, seen unrivaled death and suffering, swallowed up so many good young souls.

But he wasn't just anyone. Underneath what he thought he was, he was also Zue; and even if this place didn't have the same face as Barren Pines, he could still feel it. The evil that this place had seen clung to the site like stink from a cigarette, caught by the same odd sixth sense that marked down the locations of the Zodiacs, or tipped him off when there was a youma afoot. This was Barren Pines.

"Well, god damn," Sue muttered, breaking free of his baffled observation. Was this the Negaverse covering their tracks, or a finishing touch of the Opal Crystal in eliminating the traces of the trap that had nearly taken the Zodiacs for another trip through Hell? Was there any danger lingering here, or was it all just... bad memories, now?

It didn't really matter. This was the place to look if Sue hoped to ever find his friends again. Stripers would be getting quite sick of living off the land by now, and Mackie was overdue for his flea medicine; there was no time to waste. Tucking his scarf more snugly under his chin, Sue quashed all lingering doubts and tromped onward, beginning his search of the property with a walk around the building.

"Astraea." So this was where she had been hiding. Sue wondered whether that was because there was something yet to investigate about the school, or because this was the one place nobody would come looking - but did it really matter? Was it any of his business?

Yes, actually, it was. Because Sue - or Zue - was part of the same mess she was in, to whatever extent, and it was certainly true that someone needed to wonder after her, figure out what she was doing, make sure that she didn't just disappear without anyone's knowing. Maybe, it might as well be him.

"No zombies.... What are you hanging around here for, then?" Even as he asked it, Sue oriented himself in the direction she'd indicated the morgue to be in. Astraea probably wouldn't mind walking as they spoke, after all, and he was here for his own reasons. "There's youma all over the city, seems like. Never even knew they were around before this place happened, and now it seems like I can't buy some damn groceries without finding one sneaking around. Has it always been this bad?"

The ones that didn't make it were youma? His annoying neighbors, the kids from Tallahassee... Zeke? So that monster that didn't want to ******** die the other day - that could have been one of them. What would Chronos think, if she'd known the creature she'd worked to annihilate might have been....

Sobering thought? Yeah. Definitely.

Sue's reaction to hearing there was a meeting, on the back of that news, might have been somewhat less enthusiastic than she'd been hoping. "I'll try telling 'em, then." Not we'll be there, or I'll see to it, or any of the definite statements that Zue would have given - or Sue would have, if he were more on his game. But things... hadn't been going so great, recently. School was going to start soon, and Sue still didn't know the damnedest thing about what he was supposed to be doing as a Guardian. He kept hoping that memories would surface, but whenever he tried to grasp them, it seemed like they weren't just buried, but ran from his fingertips. He'd tried faking it, but all that seemed to do was get him in trouble. Sue needed a refresher course - something, damn it, anything that would bring those memories back!

Setting his sights on the room ahead, Sue didn't call for his cats just yet. Instead, he inspected it carefully - too carefully, really, there wasn't that much exciting to see. But the act was a cover for what was really going on in his head, gave him a few seconds to think about how to approach his problem the most gracefully.

In the end though, of course, there was no way to go about it without losing some dignity. So he'd better just plow ahead with it anyway.

"So, Astraea. This Guardian stuff." What Sue was going to say was probably going to trash her entire day, but to hell with it - his need was real, and she was the only one he knew he could go to with it. "Is there a manual somewhere or something? Because I gotta tell you, making it up as I go isn't working out, and Google's got nothing about it."

That last part was joke, Astraea. A joke. Of course Sue didn't just go and Google "Guardian Cat." That would be ridiculous, and anyway, he'd erased his search history afterwards, so nobody could prove anything.

Mostly over? Astraea was telling him he had to make sure the Zodiacs trained and organized, and she thought that meant his work was mostly over? Sue knew what he was in for. He'd known at least a few of the Zodiacs at school, before everything had gone to hell - and he hadn't liked a single one of them. ********, that wasn't mostly over, that was the judge banging down his gavel on a new jail sentence.

At least there was the princess, though. Things couldn't be too bad with her around.

Sue ambled after Astraea, not managing himself half so gracefully through the overgrown green and hidden debris. But then again, that was a matter of form - humans were lumbering, clumsy things at their base, they weren't supposed to keep up with the neat tricks that cats could do effortlessly. "No more'n usual," Sue replied, clambering over the railing. It groaned under the pressure of his hand, and left a fine dust of old white paint on his palm for him to wipe on the front of his jeans. "But I've been wondering a lot about that stuff. I mean, you can turn human, right? And back then, I was pretty dead tired by the end of it, but I could've sworn I'd had ears and a tail before I went out...."

Oh god please don't let it be that. Let it be anything but that. There were enough things that were marked as just plain wrong about cats turning into humans, turning into cats, without crossing the romance barrier. On the other hand, she did mention something about ruining his life....

Sue couldn't seriously entertain those thoughts, though. So, rather than running away screaming (as might have been otherwise advisable), he gave the ground a scrupulous look - no glass shards, no discarded needles, okay, looked good - and lowered himself. About halfway there, Sue hesitated - "You're not going to melt off my skin again, are you?" the boy questioned, wincing, but slowly dropped the rest of the way all the same. Knees on ground, ready to flinch; not looking quite as much the tough guy as he probably would have, if there'd been human folk around to care.

"Just a rrraghlshhff headbutt, huh...."

This hoarse complaint didn't come until, you know, after. After the flesh of his human body had been pressed, stretched, bent and reshaped, heated up and molded anew like steel in the forge. Once that was past and Sue, forehead pressed to the dirt, was done screaming into his sleeve, he had subduedly wiped a few spots of wet off his cheeks and straightened out.

Astraea could have warned him, at the very least! He wouldn't have backed down, after all - he wasn't a p***y.

... Er, or, he hadn't been a few seconds ago....

But any statements beyond that flippant accusation would have to wait. Because there was something very wrong with the world now, something that wasn't clearing up with the lingering aches of newly-rearranged joints. Something in his head - or in his eyes - or in his ears - or in every muscle of his being. Motion on the scene snapped into his attention more quickly, little blades of grass stirred by the breeze that came to life like he were seeing the world in HD for the first time; sounds were much the same, or perhaps more. He could damn near hear his own heart beating, it seemed! And as for the rest of him....

Sue - Zue - caught something in his peripheral vision. Too close, right near his ankles. He snapped around to the left, moving on a reflex that seemed damn near godly compared to what it'd been (though to a natural-born cat like Astraea, of course, it would still look sluggish.) But it fled from him as he turned! It was small and furry - a cat? s**t, there, it was on his other side now -- dodgy little ********, but as soon as he was after it, it was already on his left again! This time, he feinted, cleverly managing to meet the creature before it could escape him, catching it with one hand --

And so it proceeded that the first act Zue performed in this new body - right in front of Astraea - was to chase and capture his own tail. It was going to take him a few seconds of staring at the fluffy, odd-colored thing in his hand before he realized what he'd just done, too. Sterling accomplishment for team Zodiac.

In his human life, Sue had never been good about being laughed at. In his past life, he'd probably been even worse. So what would be the point in breaking the pattern in this new life as an awakened Guardian?

So, rather than go on the defensive - aww c'mon, why you gotta be so mean to me? - or joke along - well gosh, that sure wasn't there a few seconds ago! - Zue was forced to his favorite fall-back; anger, surliness, and a bad attitude.

"Oh, shut up," he grumbled peevishly, releasing his tail back into the wild. The bushy thing seemed to enjoy Zue's humiliation, however, and simply wrapped around his legs and curled upwards, and seconds later, he was cursing and batting it behind him again. Add sudden acquisition of annoying limbs to the list of things that made his life awkward - somewhere above Elke hugs, jockeying for position with Gemini kilts.

At least this time, the thing seemed satisfied to stay behind him. Feeling an ear twitch atop his head, Zue raised a hand to explore this new piece of flesh as well - then generally worked his way around to noticing his new outfit, the rest of the package. Glancing at Astraea (who he should damned well hope was pulling herself together by now), he asked a very serious and profoundly worrying question:

"I can change back, can't I?"

"I suppose I oughta be touched that you think anybody'd bid good money on me, huh," Zue commented, still sore after his humiliation. But honestly? Zue much, much preferred the insults to the laughter. At least he had a chance of coming up with a witty retort if she was slinging words at him - when all she was giving him were cruel, maddening cackles, there was nothing he could say that wouldn't just make him look like more of an idiot. And he really didn't need any more of that, thanks.

Very quickly, though, he seemed to be adapting. He would've thought that taking a new form would be more difficult to accept, but that already, his mental self was shifting to accommodate his newfound Zue-ness. It wasn't seeming so odd to him to have such fine eyesight, such astute hearing -- though that damned tail was still going to take getting used to.

It seemed like Astraea was hinting for him to take it to the next level, now. Serenity had said it once, too; cat was supposed to be one of his true forms. Despite everything he'd told himself over the years, self-congratulating his unshakable hold on a reality in which he interacted with cats but distinguished himself from them, it looked like it was time to cross that line.

Just concentrate, Astraea said. Maybe think of himself something like how he'd thought of the Zodiacs, each in turn, to pull their identities from detached memories. He was half cat already - couldn't hurt to take it one step more....