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His breath was coming in ragged gasps now. His entire right side was soaked, and the chilly winter air was more of a hindrance than anything. Nevermind that Sailor Merope wasn't dressed for the weather – having boots and pants were one thing, but to only have a vest covering his chest? He would be very glad once summer was here. For now, he had something much more important weighing on his mind. Or, rather, chasing him.

Merope threw a glance over his shoulder at the skittering mass of... demon following him. He was still new to this whole hero Sailor Scout thing. Negaverse? Okay, so they're the villains that dress mostly in black. Youma? Nooo clue.

In all honesty, all he knew about the spikey beetle-like youma presently trying to run him down was that it became particularly angry with him after punching it. It didn't help that it managed to corner a late-night jogger, nor did it help him to know that the... demon for lack of knowing the official term was more than happy to trample over the garbage the boy knocked down behind him to try and slow his adversary down.

“Haaaa! Try to follow this!” Merope huffed and puffed, jumping up and over a parked car. He continued to run before jumping up on top of another car, kneeling and taking a moment to rest and look beh-

The shriek of a car alarm along with the wail of shattering glass was more than enough to jolt the senshi to spring away as the stag beetle-youma grabbed the car in its pincers and threw it to one side before continuing to skitter after the rogue wave senshi. This was not Merope's night!

Atlas was most certainly not ready to play superheroes, but what else was new. His hesitation was about as recent a development as the invention of the wheel, the knowledge that he probably did not want to be here about as obvious as the sky being blue. Alcyone was fortunate in that she had to do much less than the likes of Castor or Thuban in order to get him outside: in other words, she didn't have to physically drag him out to do his job, and wasn't the type to inadvertently guilt him into taking out his henshin pen with a heaping helping of blatant outwardly-displayed impatience.

No, Alcyone was one of the only people Atlas could feel genuinely at ease around, and he would go to any length to make sure their friendship stayed that way. So here he was, the reluctant senshi of Gravity out on patrol with the senshi of Storms. It was a fairly typical patrol. People screaming, hideous monster. Probably a gross-looking bug thing because it was supposed to look like a monster: Atlas still had no clue what it was the Negaverse was up to, but it seemed like a big part of their agenda involved being terrifying.

They pursued the monster for a block or so, Atlas lagging some yard behind his partner, until they'd caught up enough for the youma's prey to come into view: the boy was strangely dressed, seeming to think it was entirely practical to be wearing a white vest during the winter. This meant one of two things.

Either the oversized bug was chasing a total lunatic, or it was chasing a fellow senshi.

If it turned out to be the latter, Atlas really wanted to know what he'd done to get hooked up with a pair of pants -- but magical boy or otherwise, the youma was going after him with another car in tow.

Alcyone didn't know what lucky star to thank that allowed her to always be near another senshi when accosted by a youma. Though winter had provided some help in putting more weight to her attack, the season was beginning to sprout into spring and it wouldn't be long until it was just a temporary heavy rain storm again. Without any lethal energy to work with, Alcyone always assumed that the night she was found on her own would be a final one.

Thus, she did her best in helping others that she felt were in the same situation. Even if they didn't want it at first.

There was a thick sort of silence, like the kind you hear during winter's first steady snowfall, as she watched another car become catapulted into the air by the beetle's large pincers. The Corolla, while a decidedly smart and compact car, didn't look so petite while slowly twisting in the air towards them. She hardly had the time to scream at Atlas to dodge before she dove out of the way herself. The sickening sound of metal scraping metal filled her ears, and when it subsided, she made sure her partner was okay before sprinting towards the blue wonder.

"IF YOU DON'T MIND," She yelled as she tried to match Merope's stride; a difficult feat to do while in a parking lot frustratingly filled with cars, "WE'D LIKE TO HELP YOU. WE ALL NEED TO GET ABOUT 50 FEET AWAY FROM IT SO I CAN SLOW IT DOWN."

She hoped he was able to hear her. Better yet, she hoped he had something up his ...vest, that would prove to be helpful when her storm ends.

In some ways, this entire situation was completely unfair. It was, after all, the year 2010. Sailor Merope felt that he was completely overdue for his flying car that all the sci-fi scientists promised on their shows, and the cars flying tonight did NOT make up for it! The boy skidded to a halt as the girl hailed him, turning to face her before looking at the youma and back. “You know, I think if you guys stayed up on that roof? Yeeeah, a height advantage might've been nice!” He laughed, then grabbed Alcyone and pulled her behind a car as the youma lifted up another convertible.

“Where's your – aha! Hey! Buddy! Over here!” He waved towards Sailor Atlas, sparing a sympathetic wince for Atlas before jerking his thumb in the youma's direction as a car sailed overhead. “What are we going to d- slugbug!” He exclaimed, reaching out to playfully punch Atlas on the arm as the formerly flying Volkswagon beetle flipped and crashed into another car, sirens screeching.

“Aaaagh! OKAY! ANYWHERE BUT HERE WOULD BE SWELL!” He yelled, pointing in a random direction and beginning to move that way. “WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO? I TRIED PUNCHING IT ALREADY.”

The giant beetle threw a Volkswagen beetle over their heads, and between the irony of that situation and the blue-haired senshi slug-bugging him over it (slug-bug, ha ha, get it), Atlas could only gape at the carnage and Merope like some kind of gawky, tall goldfish. It was a good think Alcyone had through to yank them out of the way of the next one -- otherwise the next bug that bug slugged would have would have squished them both -- Atlas jerked out of the way with his partner's tug, making an unintelligible "buhuh??" noise as his feet scrambled to keep up with how fast his torso was being moved.

When Alcyone let go he flailingly windmilled to a stop next to a pile of the wreckage the youma had been making -- the car alarms had all been set off, it seemed like everything in the parking lot was blaring, chirping, and honking in panic and dismay at the whole situation. Atlas sympathized, he was jittering like a windblown leaf as he turned around away from the noisy heap of scrap to keep an eye on what was going on.

On cue, a familiar chill wind pulled at his hair and his star-tipped coattails, and a roiling, rumbling storm cloud formed over the monster. It thrashed and struggled angrily against the wind and rain, but wasn't quite able to scrabble away from the range of the attack; the asphalt grew slick with rainwater and the beetle lost its footing against it even further.

It was immobilized, but not defeated -- if only one of them had an enormous shoe, or something else they could squish the thing with --

Squish -- oh, right.

He could do that.

Atlas shook his head a little to try and get rid of some of the mental haze he was in -- it didn't help much -- but he'd done this routine with Alcyone enough times before when they patrolled.

"Falling Force Snare!" he called out with a hand raised.

The attack cry sounded a little whiny and a little halfhearted, but it still seemed enough: there was a brief flash of easter-green light in a set of rays around where the monster was still being buffeted by Alcyone's storm, and then a crash as it was slammed to the ground. Bits of its carapace were split open a loud crash, and now the raindrops were furthering the damage by falling twice as hard, creating little pinprick dents.

However whiny and half-hearted Atlas may have sounded, Alcyone was just grateful he was coming out of his shell and using his attack, period. She watched the beetle slip and fall on the now wet parking lot, giving the heavy rain an extra hand in keeping it down. Drops continue to pellet against the buggy armor, though she knew it wouldn't last for long. Already the winds were pulling back, and had there been any sun out its rays would be breaking away the formed clouds. A few more seconds and the storm was gone, the only evidence of it ever being there were the slick, water-soaked surfaces and the youma, who was having trouble getting up.

Alcyone was beginning to feel like Merope's enthusiasm was becoming less and less tolerable when faced with danger. "Alright," she interrupted their new ally, "We need to go and beat it while it's down. if we wait any longer, it may get its strength back." She sounded and looked tired; it would seem that the storms were draining a lot more energy than they used to. "Let's go."

A gloved hand beckoned the boys to follow her. The youma would need a few more kicks and some well placed punches before it fell for good, and they were coming.

At the word 'beat,' Merope perked up like a pet hearing its treat bag rattled. Beat'n'punch? He could do that! He lived to punch these things! Or at least that was his new favorite hobby lately. Before it was skatepark this, stay after school to make up that, go back to skateboarding there... Rather mundane in his opinion. Hey! Maybe he should skateboard and beat these demon-things up? His watery punches was the bright, shiny and new in thing to do. Of course, if the two senshi with him found out about this, it most likely wouldn't endear him to them anytime soon.

Nor was the goofy grin plastered on his face helping anything. Honestly, for all intentions and purposes Sailor Merope looked as if he indulged too heavily in a recent splurge of underage drinking. He seemed a bit too excited at the thought of beating down a helpless youma, even if said youma tried to kill him earlier.

The boy bounced up and ran past the two, nearly slipping in falling in his haste to help deliver the final blows onto the downed youma. It was like beating a pinata, only... Merope stared in horror at the ichor that covered his glove as the youma let out a final whine before falling still. That wasn't candy.

“Huh? Oh, yeah,” he said, not taking his eyes off of his glove. “Sorta. I mean, I punched one and beat one a couple days ago, and another before that...” The senshi shook his hand once, trying to dislodge part of it. “Ewww. They don't look this gross on the outside. Oh! Right.” He looked at the two and grinned. “I'm Sailor Merope, Senshi of Rogue Waves! I'd offer to shake your hands but, uh, yeeeeah...” He trailed off, looking at his youma-inside covered hand.

Well, at least there was one good thing about youma... once they were dead for sure, it was an easy cleanup. The pile of ichor gave one final twitch of a couple of its legs before bubbling a bit and formally kicking the bucket, after which it rapidly began to disintegrate into a large (and thankfully less smelly) pile of dust. The two other senshi could hear a hoarse puff of air escaping from Atlas -- apparently he had been holding his breath.

"Oh, thank God," he sighed, taking in gulps of relatively fresh air to try and rid himself of the remainder of the stench. Which lead to him coughing on a few mouthfuls of dust, but it was still quite an improvement. Unfortunately there was still goop smeared all over his boots, but that would be gone when he powered down.

"Um, Sailor Atlas," he replied. "Senshi of gravity. It's... probably not as fun as you might think it is," he added with a shy little smile. "Nice to meet you. You know, besides the whole monster thing."