Welcome to Gaia! ::

The rock barrage and shouting carried on for a few minutes until anything at all finally happened. When someone finally stirred from within and poked their head out the window, though, it wasn't the one Elzo was trying to summon: instead of a mess of tousled dark brown hair, there was a shock of orange, the boy's freckled face squinting and scowling at the noise.

"Xanis," he groaned, "what the hell are you d--"

Elzo had thrown another rock, which smacked Samson squarely in the forehead. Samson responded, as one might expect, by clutching his face and lividly cursing at the top of his lungs.

This in turn caused Seymour to blearily get up and ask what was going on.

"WHAT THE ******** DO YOU THINK HAPPENED, I WAS HIT BY A ROCK. XANIS HIT ME WITH A <******** ROCK, JESUS CHRIST BALLS ON A BICYCLE I. Was. Hit. By. A. ROCK. Fagface Xanis threw a <******** rock at me, Ferguson, he hit me with a ******** rock--"

This also carried on for a few minutes, Samson shouting, Seymour hoping he would shut up sometime before Valentine's Day, and the words "******** rock" being issued at least a couple dozen more times. Curiously enough, there was no Simon in sight throughout all of this, and he tended to be a pretty light sleeper on most nights. There should have at least been a lanky silhouette visible from the corner of the window, or something.

But there wasn't, and Simon wasn't there -- because he was already outside, standing a few feet away from Elzo. He had actually been there for a good few minutes, meekly waiting for the other boy to notice him.

Samson and Seymour looked at the display of brotherly love, glanced briefly at each other, then looked back out the window again. Then, the blonde rapped Seymour on the arm, and expectantly stretched out his hand. "Okay, now you owe me five bucks."

"Aww, man..." the redhead sighed, hanging his head and digging through his shoes for the cash. "This is so gay. Gayer than Xanis and Ferris, man. Gayer than ten of them."

"Told ya that Crystal chick was a cover girlfriend."

"Can it, Ferguson. Just... can it."

Meanwhile, Simon was yet again being dragged somewhere unpleasant without his consent, and this time it was a revisit of an old favorite: into the snow-caked bushes with Elzo. The moment the henshin pen was raised he'd screwed his eyes shut and turned his face into his shoulder, cringing. He looked like a ten-car pileup was happening before him instead of a relatively less traumatizing magical boy transformation.

Sighing heavily, he clumsily pulled out his own henshin pen and transformed into Atlas, knowing full well he'd be getting dragged along regardless of whether he did or not.

Castor had pants.

Atlas's eyes would keep flicking over to them, which honestly did nothing for his supposed closet case, but the reason for his wandering gaze was actually pretty mundane: he was incredibly envious of those pants. They looked warm. They looked like they maintained Castor's ability to feel his legs, and prevented snow from getting into his shoes. They were extremely practical for this weather and Atlas's jealousy was immense, for Atlas's own uniform was about as effective against the cold as stepping outside in a T-shirt and a pair of boxers... and gloves.

He really wished he knew how Castor had gotten those pants.

With a typical subdued sigh, he allowed the other senshi to drag him along, silently hoping that nothing interesting would happen and his eardrums would still be intact by the end of the night.

Needless to say Atlas was very uncomfortable, but that was pretty much par for the course with virtually any human interaction for him. There just happened to be a few special people in his life -- like Castor, and Demy, and Charlie -- who had the ability to make him feel even more out of place than most others typically did, and Sailor Castor was able to effortlessly use that ability to its maximum potential without ever letting up.

Sigh.

He would have preferred going out on patrol with Marlo.

At least then, he guessed, they probably would have gone somewhere less... seedy. The red light district might have been Castor's favorite place, but it was far outside of Atlas's element. He had zero interest in the hookers and their projected cup sizes. Really, he had never been the type to ogle females at all besides passing observations that they were pretty, and Castor constantly pointing out random women and asking Atlas if he would "hit that" was just making him feel awkward.

Well, nothing requiring a superhero was going on here. It was turning out to be a normal night on the town, relatively speaking.

And then people started screaming.

Fantastic.

At the sound and subsequent sight of Someone in Need, neither Atlas nor Castor were really behaving in the way someone on the Good Side was supposed to. Atlas was hesitant and basically being tugged along by the other senshi's Caribbean blue gaze flicking purposefully back at him every couple of seconds, and Castor... well, he was being Castor. Rowdy, overly enthusiastic, and probably more excited over the fact that something interesting was going on than he was over the fact it was going to be a rescue operation.

Atlas joined Castor on the ground a few ways behind him, his stance characteristically timid. He really wanted to not say anything and just get this over with, but that silent decision was met with a pointed, impatient glare from the senshi of Hail. As if it were a life-or-death situation to not have this look totally cool.

"What g-goes up, must c-come down?" Atlas managed to squeak out, chewing his lip. "I'm S-s-sailor Atlas, and--"

Around that point the youma decided it would be a good idea to let out a massive, angry roar that sounded like a defunct steel mill trying to come back to life. It was definitely pissed off, raising one foot, most likely about to make a fuzzy STD pancake out of their damsel (and feline) in distress.

It figured that the rain of hail wouldn't do much more than annoy the youma further, seeing as it was a monstrously-sized terrapin with an ice-plated shell. The flurry of frozen pellets bounced straight off its face and scattered onto the street, reduced to a tripping hazard for any unfortunate or unobservant pedestrians who might come by. Not that it looked like anyone else was going to come near that thing -- after Castor leapt up to a roof with cat and lady-of-the-night in tow, the only one within relative stomping distance of the youma of Sailor Atlas.

Needless to say, he was shaking in his boots. Literally.

As usual, Castor's overenthused cheering was having a minimal effect on the tousle-haired senshi's composure. There was also the fact that his whooping and shouting was partially drowned out by another roar and rain of spittle from the youma, which ended up splattering down Atlas's front and was a lot warmer and worse-smelling that one might have expected. To this he grimaced, made a whimpering noise and shuffled a few steps backward, hoping the monster was as slow as it looked.

Atlas made a short whimpering noise, that was probably actually a poorly-suppressed gag as another glob of youma-spit landed thickly in his hair. If this monster had secretly been designed to gross out sailor senshi to death, so far it was going a pretty good job of it. On Atlas anyway, Castor was just getting annoyed and assaulting his partner's eardrums more fervently with each second he didn't attack.

Eventually, thankfully, Atlas moved again -- unfortunately, it was in the wrong direction. He was taking even more steps backwards, which must have been thoroughly disappointing and equal parts annoying for Castor. What was even more irritating, however, was how Atlas timidly grabbed Castor by the sleeve and pulled him backwards with him. Away from the danger, away from the action, away from all the excitement.

Just what the hell was he doing?

Then Atlas lifted a trembling hand in a half-hearted gesture towards where the youma was stomping, cringing away from it like he was bracing himself for something to explode in his face. After a second of further hesitation (and pulling Castor out of the fray again), he finally stammered out, "F-f-falling Force Snare!"

For a second or two, nothing really happened.

Then there was a terrible crashing, shattering noise as the terrapin was forced to the ground, its ice shell cracking apart under the force of its own weight. The remnants of Castor's previous attack had been comically flattened into little ice pancakes on the ground, and as the youma struggled to stand more of its shell broke away to reveal soft, vulnerable flesh underneath.