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Derpraline was tired. She'd been trying to find her beloved Astraea all day, and the silvery cat was nowhere to be found! Not at the chocolate shop, not at the thrift store, not outside of IHOP! Nowhere! The tiny kitten hadn't stopped to consider that just because she haunted a place, the elegant Guardian might not do the same thing. After all, in her tiny little mind, they were the best places in the world! Also, the shiny new cowbell around her neck was heavy! In all, Derp's thoughts were those of a whiny five year old, and all she wanted to do was go home.

So when the boy in red had walked by, she hadn't thought twice about hopping from her lofty perch on the wall to the bag on his back with the shiny new clanka-clank of her bell. What she hadn't counted on, however, was that the bag was substantially lighter than she herself was. The world tilted, and her claws dug in while she yowled in a tiny voice and the bell clanked with her flailing.

Behind the pair in the shadows, interested ripened.

Usually it was just mildly unsettling for Derpraline to have her head explode with the power of an unawakened senshi when they only lightly brushed her star. To have fingers running over it repeatedly, trying to pick at the edges, was giving her a headache to go with the exhaustion of being a very tiny kitty with a very large bell. In response, however, all she could do was mewl piteously and try to squirm out of the boy's grip. It was exhausting, being so little!

The distraction with the small tasty snack that registered in the beastly mind as 'cat' was all the thing needed to slide further out from the shadows, grotesque slurping noises emanating from the deep recesses of its body as it drooled in anticipation of the meal. All that tasty human energy, and a soul for the queen who would be so happy. Happy enough to give him more energy. What had not been counted on, however, was that to Derpraline there were things even stronger than her senshi sense - her youma sense.

Suddenly, exhaustion was pushed back and slightly rolling eyes became uncharacteristically focused as the little cat laid her ears back and hissed over the boy's shoulder, claws digging into the nearest thing so that he might drop her and they could run. He needed his pen! He was a senshi! Senshi had to fight youma! Oh no bad bad bad!

She could feel it, oh oh this was bad bad bad! If the senshi didn't know then she had to make him know but how did she do that? She was just Derpraline she was not Astraea! Right before the thing lunged, she simply opened her mouth and gave up all pretense of being an adorably normal cat and yelled as loud as she possibly could. "RUN!! This way, come on come on!" Then praying that he heard her, she started to run her fuzzy bottom in the opposite direction as fast as she could, making sure to hop lightly so that he could see her. After all, even senshi did not run as fast as Derpraline!

Lunge the youma did, intent on having the human seed for a snack even if the cat escaped, and it threw all its massive bulk out into the light towards the boy showing it for the beast it really was. A large gaping mouth was slobbering all across the sidewalk and massive claws curved cruelly from its fingers. It cut you down, and ate you, and this was a creature designed for little else. Apparently, they were sick of having to bury bodies over in the Negaverse, and had engineered a solution.

Scrambling around the corner, the kitten managed to backflip and out came both pen and cell phone to clatter onto the concrete in front of her as blue eyes tried desperately to focus and make sure the senshi had followed. "OVER HERE, COME OVER HERE." Tiny voice bellowed out and hoped that the boy was perhaps faster than the beast. Otherwise she was very much now a snack, and that was not good not good!

Run?! You couldn't run away from a youma, not a senshi! Especially not a boy senshi! Alright, so Derpraline was mildly sexist and had rather ridiculous double standards that Mags would have thwacked her lightly on the nose for. If she kept repeating them, the blond would pull off her hat and refuse to give it back. It was not pleasant. The fluffy cream cat struggled as the boy ran and her voice was insistent.

"No no no! No running anymore! Stop stop stop!" Surprisingly, he stopped. The best wasn't far behind, she could feel it pressing against the inside of her head now. Derp had taken it for the pangs of hunger that sometimes echoed through her tiny body, but knowing what it was made everything worse. The senshi wasn't helping, he was pressing against her senses too! "Hold it up! Hold up the pen! Orion Power, Make Up!" When the redhead simply stared at her, and the pressure grew greater, the kitten yowled plaintively. "Go on! Try it!" Tiny paws made a shooing motion, meant to be encouraging and just looking pathetic.

They didn't have much time!

It was a new sensation, being held while the senshi transformed, and Derpraline was not entirely sure that she cared for it. It burned just a little, tickled quite a lot, and the glitter in her fur would take days to lick out! But it was pretty, and on the spot Derpraline decided that she wanted a clear and shimmery cape. The yelling was what brought her meandering and tiny mind back to the present, and the little cat wriggled and hopped down. "It's so coooool, Sailor Orion!" Her tiny voice was encouraging, and her eyes were wide with awe. "You have BOOTS. Like COWBOWS. Duhr loves cowboys, she says they are the best. So you're the best? The best boy senshi?" Every senshi was the best senshi to Derpraline, it was part of her 'tactics'. Even though she honestly believed they were all the best, it helped to tell them that!

The monster however, was not distracted from them. The lights and yelling had clued him in to exactly where they had gone, and it was agitated as ever, roaring in defiance and moving as fast as it could through the shadows to charge the pair. Derpraline was safe on the ground, it was going for the larger target. "Look out! Move!" Already she was diving into the street, her bell clanging the alarm. She hadn't had time to tell him his attack yet! This was so so so so notgood!

Duhr? He thought she was Duhr?! That was nonsensical and not something that Derp would remotely tolerate. She was not a senshi! "No, Derp is Derp! Duhr is senshi like Orion! Very goodgood, yes Orion?" Her azure eyes were stressed and she squeezed them shut to focus for just a moment. It wasn't easy when your mind was always doing dizzy little dances to get down to business, but her mind cleared finally and she saw Astraea telling her what she already knew.

"Orion Meteor Rain! Say it loud, say it proud! Derp believes in yooou!" Her tiny little kitten voice was as loud as she could make it, shrill and her fur puffed with the effort of expelling all of the air in her little lungs to scream it out as the youma came closer and closer, making her back away and trip over her giant fluffy tail with a tiny mewling yelp. Things weren't going so great. Hopefully he wouldn't tell anyone!

Derpraline went head over tail backwards as she tried to dodge a meteor with little success, singeing the hair on her tail with a light yowl. It was thankful that her tiny blue-eyed face was flat, or she would have hurt her nose! The little kitten voiced this rather vociferously, yelling again. "Try again! Aim at youma. Aim at youma!" It didn't quite sound like the same voice, instead of a light encouragement with an absentminded lilt, this was a ringing order loaded with authority. The five year old pitch was still there however, and it only made the entire thing that much more surreal.

After all, how often were there talking cats that sounded like five year old children snapping out orders after teaching you how to call meteors from thin air? The answer was never. Absolutely never. But for Damion, it was his lucky day!