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It was 2:00AM, and Derpraline was hot to trot. Okay, she wasn't hot, but she certainly was trotting, that odd little gait that was her four-legged version of skipping merrily along the sidewalk. Things had been quiet lately, and the tiny girl hadn't found any more senshi in awhile. It was almost as if after the fiasco with the Makaiju, which Derp still didn't understand what in the world that was; the Negaverse was laying low and gathering itself for something. People still vanished, were found dead or in a comatose state, but random youma attacks were less and less. In other words, it was very very weird.

So it was almost a relief for the kitten when she heard the familiar 'stop it' and picked up her pace, the rainbow feathers of her purple fedora streaming out behind her. That was a familiar voice! That was a Paaaarker voice! He had kissed the pretty blue-haired senshi and then she hadn't seen him again, but she'd really been wanting to. Taranis was a good senshi! He had a pretty girlfriend! It was very magical in Derpraline's mind, and he was her new favorite. Minus Duhr. Nobody could be as good as Duhr. Except Astraea. But she was incomparable, if Derp knew what exactly incomparable meant.

Seeing the senshi, Derp hopped on top of a nearby phone booth and hopped up and down. "Taraaaaanis, Taraaaaaaanis! Over heeeere~" It didn't occur to her until belatedly, that he was fighting a youma. And the youma was now coming towards her.

Oh no! Oh no no no! That had not been very smart, kicking it like that! Derpraline had figured that Taranis would do some amazing twist like she had seen in the Dragon Fist movie Mags had showed her. Instead, she mewled with distress and decided that perhaps it was time for Cheerleader Action. Normally, this meant that she would have to locate, and don, her Cheerleading Hat. But the young girl was so enamored with her newest chapeau that on the spot, Derp decided that it would probably be even better to use what she had.

"Get uppp Taraaaaaaanis! Come oooooon Taraaaaaaaanis!" Bounce, bounce, hop, hop, tail flailing and flashing in her idea of a makeshift pom pom. After all, she was basically as puffy as one, someone had called her 'puffybutt' the other day, and this had pleased Derpraline immensely. Again, however, the little one forgot to take into consideration entirely that there were consequences to her actions. Seeing one of her senshi, lying prone on the ground, had spurred her to loud action. Bats were, of course, sensitive greatly to sound. With a squeal and a cry, it wheeled in midair and started to go for the hatted guardian, claws extended. Had she been any less tiny, adorable, and mildly mentally deficient, this would have been a good moment for her to use her own daily allotment of s**t.

Instead, she simply stared, wide-eyed. What should she doooo, oh no Taranis wasn't getting up, someone had to save her! Astraea had never told her what to do when this happened, could she jump, no she couldn't jump in time! So, the kitten did what any proud guardian cat would - she pretended she was having a bad dream. "Go away, go away, go away!" While wailing, something odd had started to happen. In real time, it had taken less than two seconds. The Senshi of Sand would later remember, and explain to the tiny Praline, what had happened. The five points of her forehead star had glimmered momentarily before the entire thing blazed with a hot light, streaming then into the youma. Had any of the older, larger cats tried this, it might have actually vaporized the thing into tiny Negabits. But she was neither older, nor larger, and the beam was half-strength at best.

So it was with a screeching cry that the bat youma tumbled through the air, and only a single claw made connection. Derpraline yowled in pain as it raked across her haunch and careened into the ground not far away. It was so painful, like the time she had fallen out of that window at Crystal, only worse. Already her fur was pinking with blood as it trickled down her leg, and she yowled repeatedly. "Taraaaaanis I got huuuuuurt, owie owie ow it hurttttssss." Some savior she was!

It hurtttt so baaaad, Derpraline couldn't remember a time when she had been hurting like this. Bruises, there had been many. Hitting her head was becoming second nature, and she had a helmet for such times as it was required to save her from herself. But scratches? No one had ever really let Derpraline near sharp things, even strangers on the street had been willing to save the strange, cross-eyed cat from herself. Cuts had always been shallow, but this was not. It seeped and she tried to do nothing more than lay there and mewl pathetically, blue eyes whirling and trying to focus on Taranis.

"Owwie, Taranis. I hurt." Proper first person tense from Derp? She must have indeed been hurting, to abandon her normally precious way of speaking to make her feelings known entirely. "Bad owwie?" Okay, so she hadn't abandoned it entirely, but this was Derpraline, after all. If she talked like a normal person, the Earth would probably fall from its orbit and drift through space forever until it fell into the supermassive black hole in the center of the universe. Or it would turn into waffles. One of the two.

Taranis was warm, and to her tiny little body, he was as strong and massive as a giant. It was comforting to the wounded little girl in a cat's body, and the guardian curled against his hands across town. It really could have been much worse, and quietly she wondered what had happened. Did Taranis hit it first? Derp didn't remember hearing him over her own screaming, and there wasn't sand until after. Eventually, exhausted with having to think so very hard, she settled on the fact that it was probably confused by her amazing hat. After all, it was not a Battle Hat and was incredibly fancy. Never mind that bats can't see, because Derpraline does not know this.

She might also have been consoling herself with the fact that her hat was amazing, and ignoring that Taranis was probably nothappy and Astraea would probably be veeeeery mad that she had a big scratch and oohie did it hurtie! Drowsing out for awhile, the next thing the tiny cat knew, she was on one of the fluffiest, comfiest beds she'd ever felt. The comforter was thick, and she was surrounded on all sides by pillows. Had she not been bleeding, in pain, and out of sorts, poor Parker probably would have lost at least one of his new presents to tiny claws. "PILLLOOOWWWWW~~" the delight was evident in the cry and almost involuntarily she shifted towards one and yipped in surprised pain. Right. Owwie. Booboo. Shoot.

Twisting around as gingerly as she could manage, her tiny tongue started to lap at the fur becoming quickly matted with blood. Astraea was going to be so mad!

He was not disappointed in her reaction. Already, the idea of something 'stinging' made the kitten think of bees. Derpraline hated bees. She was no Pooh Bear, and while honey was quite enjoyable along with syrup on a waffle, it was not worth trying to find in its natural form. Bees hurt. She hurt! So when the cold liquid hit her cut and started bubbling, Derp opened her mouth and did something that she had not done in as long as she could remember - she hissed. Hissed and growled and yowled in pain while struggling under Parker's strong hand, trying to break free so that she might roll about and soothe the burning in her backside.

"Ow ow ow hurt hurt hurt whyyyyy Paaaaaaarker whyyyyyy hurt Derp?" The growls subsided into snuffles, and her eyes did that strange thing that no cat's could, filling with tears. Seeing a cat cry was unnatural and unsettling, so she tried never to do it. But when you hurt, you cried, and she desperately wished that at that moment, she was a human girl. This was a wish apparently granted by her subconscious, for in less than ten seconds after the thought, Parker was holding what looked to be a fourth grader in a two-hundred year old dress down in his bed. This was unprepared for, and gave Derpraline the Human Girl the chance to wriggle away and heft her dress enough to bend and try to lick her upper thigh, which wasn't working well.

After all, human spines were much different!

"What did you doooo, that was notgood, Parker!" Layer after layer of lace was bunched into her tiny hands, tail fluffing to wave air on her upper thigh and hip. It was easy to see there, the big red scratch that was still slowly bubbling from the peroxide. "It buuuuuurns like fire! FIRE! I don't like fire!" Tears trickled from her large ocean-blue eyes as the girl looked pathetically at her savior. It was a much less severe wound on the larger body of the guardian, which was a bit of a relief for them both. "Is it ok now?" She hoped so. She hoped so dearly.