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The bedroom window had two locks - one on the inside and one on the outside - and a screen that could only be removed from the exterior of the house. This was, of course, a known fire hazard and was why, until two weeks ago, the screen and the exterior lock had been left undone.

This arrangement lasted until Nellie and Angus realized Tallulah was using her bedroom window as a mode of egress. (The trodden geraniums gave her away.) Hence, on the first day of her grounding, the window was locked and the screen installed.

This was what Tallulah stared fixedly at now. Two weeks in and she needed to get back into the game. One way or another, she was going to get out of this window. (Breaking it was not an option.) She removed her henshin pen and her senshi phone from the drawer beside her bed, set the pen on the comforter in front of her, and flipped the phone open. Destiny city was big, but it wasn't that big, and this neighborhood was pretty close to the urban core. There had to be someone nearby-

She hit "scan." A moment later, a result pinged on the phone. Tallulah's heart soared - could it be Pyxis, or Polaris? Maybe even Libra or Regulus?

Her hopes and dreams crashed and burned a moment later, when her phone showed the blinking dot of light to be Sailor Castor. Europa sighed, then bit the bullet. even if he was a creep, he was her only ticket out of here.

She called, informed him of her location and which window it was, then hung up. She picked up the pen. "Europa power, make-up!" she whispered.

Sailor Europa sat down on Tallulah Cowden's puppy-and-kitty print comforter and stared at the window impatiently.

Europa scowled at him and rapped on the window from the other side. He didn't have to act like some horrible parody of Romeo while he was at it, did he? It was going to look bad enough that she had a boy, not even her boyfriend, but just some random boy, helping her to break out of her bedroom at eleven at night without him waking up the rest of the house.

"Take the screen out and undo the lock," she mouthed, and then added, "Be careful with it!" It was a pretty basic latch lock once he got the screen off, and she breathed a sigh of relief when he managed not to rip it. She undid the latch from her side and pushed the window open, not wide enough to climb in or out yet.

"You think you could not wake up the whole neighborhood, Castor?" she hissed.

Castor, Europa was quickly realizing, was far more bark than bite. She really had no idea what he meant by "what I do best," didn't really even want to think about it, but it seemed like if she said no (this was clearly the best option,) then that would be the end of it.

"You're going to wake up my parents," she whispered. They were asleep right upstairs, maybe not even asleep yet - it was still early by senshi standards, even if it was late for the Cowden household.

She shoved him back towards the window. Unfortunately, this involved getting closer to him than she would have liked and the bed was in the way. Not such a good idea - realizing her mistake, she retreated what she thought of as a safe distance.

"I guess I do owe you," she conceded, although his suggestion of payback was not really what she had in mind. "I could go on patrol with you?"

(This having been the original plan, before she realized her handsome rescuer would have to be Castor.)

Talk of "happy hours" went totally over Tallulah's head - wasn't that five PM? She was so lost, such a prude- her jump took her to the neighboring attached house's roof, landing softly by the chimney. She winced at Castor.

"It's like you want my dad to come out here and shoot you," she hissed to him, Europa's cool sarcasm feeling fresh after having a week to sit around thinking of jokes and not having to use any of them. Internally, though, she hoped her parents would think it was just a couple of cats having a fight.

"Are you going to audition for Riverdance, or are we going on patrol?"

Then again, knowing Castor, the answer could be both, and they would pick up fair maidens and plunder their virtue along they way. (Was she one of those fair maidens?)

"Come on," she said insistently, feeling more hopeless every time his foot struck the shingles above her parents' bed. "Let's just do a loop around city hall, see if anything's lurking around the financial district - it'll take forty five minutes, tops."

Castor was clearly going for the lead role in Riverdance.

"Hey, John Travolta Jr. Let's go."

Of all the Senshi in the entire city, why did it have to be him?!

Europa did not make a usual habit of visiting the red light district - she dared say she didn't even know where it was. Just another example of why these were two senshi who were totally unsuited to patrolling together. It was just another few rooftops and then they were out of the residential neighborhood and into a small shopping area.

She paused on the roof of a small strip mall and climbed up onto a marquee for a better look at the city. This did, of course, did give Castor a good view of her rear, but Europa was determined to ignore his flirting (which in any other workplace would count as sexual harassment) and have a productive night of patrolling.

What sort of shadows would be lurking in the dark tonight?

She turned to look back at Castor, and noticed a pair of bright white eyes looking at them through the darkness, housed in a lumpy, shadowy form.

"Castor," she said quietly, and swallowed the sudden lump in her throat. It was a youma, or something like it! "Turn around slowly and tell me what that thing is."

"I think you'd better save it for later," said Europa, sizing the thing up from her perch on the sign. It was about nine feet tall, towering over their heads by a good three or four feet, globular, leaving a trail of hissing slime.

The thing opened its mouth and roared a primordial roar, like something that might have roamed the earth during the age of the dinosaurs. She knew that smell, that foul smell-

"It's tar," she said, wrinkling her nose. "Mixed with petroleum. Maybe some sewage, too."

The thing moved closer. The smell grew stronger. Europa gagged and pulled her kerchief up over her face, twisting it to wear it bandana style so that the brooch thumped against her back.

It opened its mouth again, emitted a belch of foul, phosphorescent gas, and shot a stream of hissing dark liquid from its mouth. Europa leapt from the sign and landed next to Castor, while her perch went tumbling down the side of the building.

"Your night to make up a battle pun," she hissed. The thing slowly began to turn towards them.

Europa frowned at Castor, again missing the better part of the dirty joke. She began to dignify it with a frustrated response, but cut herself short when he spoke again. Yep. Moving sounded like a really good idea right now-

Europa leaped blindly away from the collapsing tower of sludge, following Castor's roll towards the far end of the roof. The sludge slammed down behind her and splattered everywhere, staining her bright uniform with dark globs that hissed. (Her boots, as usual, seemed impermeable.)

She landed sprawled against something soft. Looking up, she saw it was Castor's chest.

Oh. s**t.

Europa scrambled to her feet and thrust and hand towards the advancing Youma. After briefly fumbling over the words, she yelled, "Europa deep ocean pressure!"

The advancing wall of goo paused in place. She looked back at Castor. "Okay, your turn!"

As the youma's tarry exterior melted away, the dripping revealed a semi-familiar form. Standing scarcely higher than a yorkshire terrier balanced on its hind legs, the monster rushed at Europa and Castor, squawking angrily.

Europa narrowed her eyes at it in frustration, then narrowed her eyes at Castor, who was going to let go of her if he knew what was good for him. She wasn't sure if she'd mentioned the fact that she had a boyfriend, but it was only one of a few things standing in the way of what he would undoubtedly call "their love."

"I feel like we've been through this before," she murmured, as the thing took a dive and sank its teeth into the thick rubber toe of her boot.

She wiggled it distastefully.

"Do you want to do the honors?"