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 Posted: Sun May 02, 2010 8:48 am
It was getting harder to sneak out - Scottie had begun to catch onto her, and was staying up later to see if he could catch her in the act. He was confused more than anything, Selena wasn't the type of girl to sneak out at night. She wasn't the type to lie, but she didn't really have a choice here. But once the girl was sure that her uncle was asleep, she carefully lifted her bedroom window (the joys of living in a bungalow) and slipped outside, henshining up in the alleyway just past her house. Sailor Eos emerged, moving quickly down the streets, keeping her eyes peeled. Silently, she was begging for there to be no trouble, at least not until she'd met up with Europa.
Reaching the point where the pair had agreed to meet - at the edge of the park, by the burger shop - she waited away from the streetlamps, praying that no-one walked or drove past. She had so many questions - the meeting they'd had at Tallulah's house had only raised more rather than answering them, and Sailor Eos was beginning to wonder. Where was her place, in all of this? What place was there for someone like her with, to put it bluntly, pretty useless attacks?
The girl sighed, flattening her dress down as she waited patiently.
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Posted: Sun May 02, 2010 9:04 am
First quarter results were in: sleep was down, caffeine consumption was up, Youma were obnoxious, Castor was never going to stop teasing her. Financial trends would continue as predicted, the second quarter would be much the same. Sailor Europa sat on the roof of the burger shop, drinking a can of ENER-TEA and scanning the street with careful attention.
She spotted a lone, dark haired figure in a pink dress arrive and wait out of the glow of the streetlights. A quick wave of the senshi-phone confirmed her suspicions. It was go time.
Europa dropped the empty can off the roof into the recycling bin below. She stepped off the edge and landed neatly on the sidewalk. "Sailor Eos, senshi of the senses," she said with a smile as she approached. "I hope you didn't have too much trouble getting here."
She flicked the phone in her hand back into her subspace pocket. It was a neat trick. She liked it.
"We're just going to do a quick forty-minute circuit around the park tonight," she explained, "And you can ask me anything you want. Polaris must've thought highly of you, though, or else she wouldn't have invited you."
Even if they both knew each other's civilian identities, Sailor Europa was noticeably more confident and collected than Tallulah ever was. "Someone's taught you the basics, right?" she asked. "You know how to roof jump? We'll start on top of the burger joint. Follow me."
Europa took a running start and leapt onto the roof she'd just come from. She waved to Eos from the top. "Let's go!" she called happily.
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Posted: Sun May 02, 2010 9:16 am
There was a sound to her left, and the girl's attention was there instantly, though her tensed limbs relaxed when she realized it was only Sailor Europa. Tallulah - no, Sailor Europa - greeted her with her Senshi identity, and it felt...odd. This whole thing felt odd, she'd been doing it for a few weeks now and she still hadn't quite gotten the hang of it. "Sailor Europa," she responded ith a polite nod of her head, and a smile. "Not too much trouble, no."
She watched as the phone flicked out of existance - well, not out of existance, exactly, but away from here. Subspace pockets - she'd have to remember to ask about them, too. "Okay," she responded as the plan was explained to her, nodding to show she understood. nother nod of gratitude followed, the girl's cheeks pink. She felt so useless, so noobish, what with all her questions. It was embarrassing, to be so...un-clued in. And there was a little pink of modesty, too. She was sure Polaris didn't think that highly of her. It was more her begging that she needed to be in a team, really.
The basics? Well, what classified as 'basics'? Roof jumping, oh dear... Sailor Eos was about to voice her slight inexperience in roof jumping - she'd tried it a few times, out of which only one had had any success - but Sailor Europa was already off, and up on the roof. Chewing her bottom lip, Sailor Eos was anything but confident as she steadied her breathing, preparing herself before taking a run up, jumping...and landing safely on the roof. It was clear by her loud sigh of relief that she hadn't been expecting such a neat landing.
"Sorry," she mumbled, not entirely sure what she was apologising for but feeling it was appropriate none-the-less, "I'm still...still feeling really new to all of this."
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Posted: Sun May 02, 2010 9:36 am
"Experience is the best teacher," Europa smiled to her, not making any remarks about whether or not she could be considered clumsy. Her own first night of roof jumping with Castor was still recent in her mind. "We'll be on roofs for most of the night," she explained, "You'll get the hang of it."
She was scouting out the terrain, pacing the roof and eyeballing distances. She singled out the 7-11 across the alley. "It's a short jump," she explained, "Almost perfectly horizontal. Let's go."
They made the leap. Europa turned to Eos again.
"So what do your powers do?" she asked.
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Posted: Sun May 02, 2010 9:45 am
Expereince may be the best teacher, but it took so much time. Time whihc she felt was keeping everyone else behind. Things would be so much quicker if she could just be good at stuff. But unfortunately, things didn't work like that. She nodded as Europa explained the plan further - lots of roof jumping involved. Hopefully that meant she'd be good at it by the end of the patrol. Hopefully. She usually picked things up quickly, it was just remembering them she had trouble with.
She followed Europa over the jump, glad to find the horizontal ones weren't difficult at all. Powers? Sailor Eos moved beside her partner, chewing on her bottom lip. "Not...a lot," she explained, sighing, "They're kinda useless, really." It was clear the girl didn't have much confidence in her abilities - but really, what use were her attacks? None, that was what. "It takes away a random sense from the youma, or Negaverser or whatever. Sight, Sound, Taste, Touch and Smell. It's totally random, though, and doesn't really...do anything."
It was clear what she meant - if she was fighting a youma, and all she could do was take away a sense, even if she struck lucky and managed to remove it's sight, she was still just a target. Sailor Eos was useless, in her own eyes.
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Posted: Sun May 02, 2010 10:11 am
Europa looked like she was deep in thought. After a while, she said, "We're going to start going to self-defense classes together at the YMCA on Sundays. Pasha - Pyxis - and I already go almost every week. We'll all go."
She was scoping roofs again, even as she spoke. "And don't write it off as totally useless. Blindness and deafness would be pretty crippling. Touch, too, in the right circumstances - I'm not sure about smell and taste but doesn't one usually take the other with it? We'll figure something out."
"Mine just kind of freezes people in place for twenty seconds, so I'm not in much better a situation," she added, although she did laugh a bit. "Sometimes it makes Youma fall apart. That's kind of fun."
"Anyway," she said, singling out a ledge of fire escape a few yards distant. "We'll jump to there and climb to the roof. Jumps are easier going from up to down."
She leapt, caught the bars, and pulled herself up. She looked back and motioned for Eos to follow.
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Posted: Sun May 02, 2010 10:21 am
Europa's silence made it clear she agreed with Sailor Eos, just didn't know how to say it without hurting her feelings. Self-defense classes certainly sounded like a very good idea, though, and she gave an eager nod to show she was very much up for it. "It is useless, though," she responded at the girl's attempts to cheer her up, sighing, "I need someone else to actually finish the thing off for me." Which brought her mind back to the meeting they'd had recently, and all the people there. Who she...hadn't recognized. "Europa?" she grabbed her attention, with a sigh. "Can you give me a quick run-through of who everyone was the other night? Like I didn't recognize...any of them. Well, except L-...Maia."
She caught her mistake just in time, watching warily as the dark-haired girl made the jump. She followed, falling a little quicker than she'd expected, and only managing to catch on f the last few bars with a hiss as her knees collided with the wall. She took a few moments tugging herself up, but finally managed, catching her breath.
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Posted: Sun May 02, 2010 10:45 am
Europa held a hand down for Eos, helping her up the steep staircase and onto the roof of the tenement. "Sorry," she winced, "Is your knee okay? Here, let's sit down--"
They crouched on a stack of old wooden flats. "Yeah, Maia goes to our school, but she was the only other Meadowview kid there, besides Pasha," she nodded. "The boys are both from Hillworth - Elzo is Sailor Castor, Jaimie is Sailor Regulus. Their attacks are both offensive, they're some of our muscle. Are you following so far?"
She took Eos's nod as a sign to continue.
"And then, Pasha, he's a boy, too, but he's from Meadowview - Sailor Pyxis. He has a stunning attack and a guardian cat, Abel. You didn't meet Abel, but you will. We recruited him a few nights ago."
She stood back up, and offered Eos a hand again. "Are you okay to try jumping again?" she asked, concerned. "I'll tell you more on the next roof."
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Posted: Mon May 03, 2010 2:05 am
Eos gladly accepted Europa's help to drag herself over the edge, catching her breath back in deep, heavy breaths. "It's fine," she whispered softly, eyes closed to calm herself down for a few moments, glad when a sit down was suggested. And then suddenly it was name-central, with senshi names and actual names being thrown at her left right and centre. The forgetful girl tried her best to recall as many as she could, but knew she'd remember one, at best. At least she'd recognize their faces.
She glanced up to Europa as offensive attacks were mentioned, trying to make a special effort to remember them. She nodded when prompted, a small smile creeping onto her face, "Jaimie's your boyfriend, right?" If there was anything that Sailor Eos/Selena was more interested in, it was romance. Pasha, Abel, cat. "Wait, you can...have a guardian cat? I thought they were like, rogue or something, running around and doing whatever?"
Wait until you told her guardian cats had a human form. Eos still thought they were just cats that could talk. "Yeah, I'm fine," she assured with a slightly brighter smile, taking Europa's hand to pull herself up, following the girl.
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Posted: Mon May 03, 2010 1:12 pm
They jumped and found themselves a seat on the casing of an air vent. "Yeah, he is, isn't he cute?" giggled Tallulah, and gave some thought to the guardian cat question. "Pyxis has Abel, yeah. It's... I don't really know how it works. It seems like some of them sorta just wander, but then others belong to people - does that make sense?"
She continued, "Sailor Libra - you haven't met her, she's not a Basterd - she thinks it's got something to do with Princesses, because the Zodiacs only have one- I can't really explain the Zodiacs, I barely know about them myself - but if Pyxis is that moon princess we've all been looking for I will kill him."
She laughed, shaking her head. "I'm joking," she assured the other girl. "The cats, though - they're not really cats. They can turn into people with ears and tails."
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Posted: Mon May 03, 2010 1:30 pm
Cute? Eos grinned, "You sound like you're describing a puppy," she joked, though giggled to show she was joking. She didn't want to be upsetting her team leader, definitely not! "Okay...I think so," she responded with a frown. ********* hadn't mentioned anyone, although she had mentioned her 'girls', That was something different though, wasn't it? Like ********* had awakened her, and then been a little upset to find out Eos wasn't who she was expecting. Maybe cats awakened certain people...Sailor Eos wondered if she had a cat, who'd been destined to awaken her, only ********* had gotten there first?
Libra. Another name. "Zodiacs - you mentioned them, they're like a special group, right? A special faction." Eos grinned at the joke, shaking her head. Pyxis certainly didn't look like a moon princess - it'd certainly be very, very amusing if he was, but Eos was fairly certain that he wasn't.
"Wait...what?"
She knew they weren't really cats. Cats didn't talk or shoot laser beams out of their foreheads. But they could turn into people? "I...I didn't know that." Perhaps a little obvious, but still. "I haven't seen a...a human cat."
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Posted: Mon May 03, 2010 3:58 pm
"I don't think they do it very often," Europa shrugged. "I've only seen them do it once, at the big Senshi meeting we had, before you were awakened. Don't worry about it, we sort of got our phones and got yelled at by Astraea-Luna for half an hour, and that's all. You didn't miss much, we recapped the important parts on Sunday."
She stood again and scanned the horizon. It looked to be a quiet night, but experience had shown you were better off to not voice this opinion. It was like Youma were keyed to show up as soon as you finished the sentence.
She jerked her thumb to the illuminated, wide expanse of the roof of a strip-mall, some six meters distant from the edge of the roof they were presently on.
"Lets hop over there and we can finish talking about who else is on the team. Polaris recommended you - she's Aurora, who goes to Crystal. Let's jump."
She bounded for the next roof.
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Posted: Tue May 04, 2010 7:10 am
If they didn't do it very often, it made sense why she hadn't seen one do it yet. But still...getting her head around the fact that the cats were actually human wasn't something particularly easy for the teen. Or maybe they were humans who were actually cats?
...She was going to stop thinking about this before she got way out of her depth.
She looked to where Europa had indicated, following her without much trouble. She was definitely getting better at this, and Eos smiled at the thought. At least something good was coming out of tonight. "Oh yeah, Aurora," she nodded, with a somewhat knowing smile. The girl who she'd leant her book to. "She's...Super, right?" They'd explained powering up at the meeting. "I'm glad someone thinks I'm useful."
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Posted: Tue May 04, 2010 8:50 am
"You should give yourself more credit," smiled Europa as they landed. This roof was a blank expanse of white gravel, as long as a football field. A facade protected the senshi from view from the street. "You're a senshi. That alone means you're not worthless."
She smiled and scuffed her boots through the rocks as she walked. "So the other girls at the meeting were Liliana Jacobs - you know her from school, don't you? She's Sailor Maia. I'm not really sure who else at Meadowview is a Senshi, just that there must be some."
(It didn't make sense for there not to be. There'd been a hundred people at that meeting!)
"And then... Rose? Rosa? Rose. Rose is the red-haired girl who isn't Lily. She goes to Crystal, like Aurora. And then there's Bell."
What to say about Bell?
"Sailor Bellatrix. She's kind of..." Tallulah held out a hand and wobbled it a bit, to indicate instability. "She's a little bit... damaged."
She frowned at Eos. "She'll get better, I mean- we just have to be careful, and she's an example of why."
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Posted: Tue May 04, 2010 10:03 am
Sailor Eos flashed a grateful smile, despite her mixed feelings inside. Being a Senshi might mean she wasn't worthless - but worthless and useless were two separate things. She may not be worthless, but she sure was useless at the moment, with her attacks as random and rubbish as they were. It was...off-putting, to say the least. "My attacks are useless, though. It's a complete lucky dip, plus even if I strike gold and get sight, it still isn't...impossible to overcome."
She frowned a little, remembering the other night, "Although...I met another senshi. Sailor Orion. He kinda showed me that I can use things around me? Like, distract them with my attack, then use a baseball bat or whatever."
She shrugged, not sure if that made sense, or whether it would actually work. After all, they had finished it off with his attack... "Yeah, Liliana's in my English class, I think? I've seen you around, too. Swimteam, right?"
She smiled.
"Rose, I think. Okay, lots of Crystal girls," she nodded to show she understood, smiling a little wider, though it faded again as Bell was mentioned. She was the one with the starseed, right? "Yeah..." Eos muttered, sighing, "When I had my first...battle, with Valleriite. I didn't know what I was doing, and she caught me off guard...her hand was hovering over my chest before I got away, as if she was going to reach into me. Is that...is that what they do?"
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