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It was an obnoxiously, deceptively nice day outside that day.

Destiny City, going into its late summer, was boasting wonderful weather for its number of citizens, both recent coma awakees and not, to enjoy -- the sun was bright, it was mild, there were light and cool breezes touching into the air every once in a while. The grass and trees were immaculately green. The clouds were sparse, white and charmingly fluffy, and sat lazily on top of the atmosphere, rolling ever so slowly across the sky. It was nice. It was a good day for all those people who had to idle away a lot of time talking to complete strangers.

A lot of people were doing the very same at the city's weekly Farmer's Market located at its central park. If one listened in, many would agree that after everything it had been going through, the comas and deaths and who really knew what else, Destiny City really deserved to have this kind of picture perfect day.

Except for Janice Fitzpatrick.

Janice Fitzpatrick was utterly hating today and what it was trying to stand for, and had therefore decided that it was a good day to get some good old fashioned work done.

She was donned in the dark sepia uniform of her darker, stronger half, carefully perched on a tree branch some feet above and away from a cart selling locally grown cabbages, watching the scene below her. If one had noticed her, they wouldn't be able to guess what she was looking at, but that was the entire point: what she was watching was small, and small things tended to be overlooked by most people.

What some might have noticed, however, is how the cabbage salesman had slumped over as if he'd just passed out, falling into his cart and knocking over much of the produce he had wished to sell. And some more feet away, a woman being a bit too enthusiastic with her free sample tasting collapsing where she stood even though it wasn't quite hot enough outside for someone to get heat stroke.

First one, then the other, then one more, all several yards and several minutes away from each other. Carefully timed, and carefully planned.

And then, if someone was watching carefully, a smallish, strange insect could be seen hovering away from each of the victims, their abdomens having a strange glow to them -- almost like fireflies, except not.

They were carrying star seeds.

Having a nice day for once had quite a calming effect, especially after all many of them had gone through. Things were finally settling back into normal, but when could Destiny City ever be described as normal? This sort of weather, Eve thought, was extremely deceptive. Evil never took a day off, and she had a hard time imagining the Negaverse taking a vacation, relaxing on a beach somewhere. It was like how senshi could never really rest, sadly, she reflected.

Even so, Eve liked to stroll about the town, liked thinking that maybe, today was the day where nothing would go wrong and be relatively less exciting... no, that wasn't the word for it. Aggravating. You couldn't really get excited about being a superhero anymore, not when you had realized it was chock full with responsibilities.

She did like the weekly Farmer's Market though, liked buying fresh fruit and sharing some with Rea in their room. While she was bending over to inspect some strawberries, there was a few thumps and a cabbage rolled to her feet, causing her eyes to dart in the direction, only to stare as people started collapsing to the ground.

Her first thought was that maybe it was the comas again, but Eve had thought it was over and wasn't sure if it worked since the Parallels had mostly vanished. She gave a sigh, and then told the salesman she would be back later, and Eve Summers disappeared, emerging from behind a few crates as Sailor Flora, brushing loose petals from her transformation off her arms. It didn't take her long to spot the other senshi and she joined the other, tapping her on the back to announce her presence. "They really don't like taking days off, do they?"

Europa turned around and was happy to see another senshi, even an unfamiliar. Whatever was going on, they'd probably have better luck handling it together than they would separately: with this many people fainting, it was bound to be big. "No," she replied quickly, "Apparently they don't."

She scanned the crowd as it milled about in its gathering panic, then extended a hand to the blonde girl. "Super Sailor Europa, senshi of the deep," she said, still glancing around nervously. "Any sign of the culprit yet?"

Even as she asked this, though, she became aware of a very distinct buzzing noise, and the crowd's increased fervor. Looking towards the source of the noise, Europa squinted just to make sure she really was seeing what she thought she was.

Bees.

"That's a new one," she remarked to the other scout. "I make it dark and hard to move - please tell me you have a better attack."

With a couple of popping noises that were mostly subdued by the buzzing, Uranophane summoned her weapon: even after her promotion, it still remained a wholly unintimidating clipboard and pen. However, it still had its uses so long as she thought carefully and creatively. Not too long after Flora had pointed out the Negaverser's presence, a paper airplane drifted down to land at Europa's feet, decorated with cramped and spiky script that would prove to be a small note when unfolded:

I'd be careful aiming at such small targets. There's just too much room for tragedy if you miss.

The message was fairly clear -- their adversary was kindly pointing out that they weren't up against a Negaverser and a swarm of youma, they were up against a Negaverser and a swarm of youma amidst a large crowd of people. At least for the moment, anyway.

"I'd actually almost prefer a giant bee youma." Flora said, wrinkling her nose as she read the note. Almost. Could you imagine how horrible it would be if a huge bee youma started stinging people? What was worse, a giant bee sting or multiple ones... although these small ones were doing a pretty good job. Urgh. Tiny youma was definitely quite a challenge.

Flora wished there was some kind of butterfly net stall somewhere so at least they could try to catch as many as possible. Too bad all the available weapons were fresh fruit and vegetables, and generally, bees weren't interested in that. They were much more interested in flowers.

She held her breath, watching Europa call out her power and hoped it would work. If not, Flora was ready to blast pollen with crossed fingers behind her back. If instead, by some horrible twist of fate, the pollen made the bee youma stronger, that would be horrible. She motioned to the civilians and called out, "Please! It's dangerous here! Get somewhere safe... and maybe some insecticides!" The farmers of the organic produce were probably insulted at her for mentioning insecticides, but it was also no time to take any offense.

Europa glanced at Flora nervously upon seeing the little effect her attack had. There were too many, and they were too spread out! "I've got a stronger attack," she said quickly, "But it will make it dark. We need all the bees in one place if we want to have a chance of destroying them."

But that still left the matter of the negaverser. They couldn't be in two places at once, and her idea required them to stick together - if they were really going to minimize casualties, they needed to split up and solve both problems as fast as possible. Oh, god, why did this have to be so complicated? "I think you have a better chance of defeating the youma," she informed the other girl, because it was true. If she could get them all into one place then it would be relatively simple to detroy them.

Europa turned her attention to the captain in the tree. "Your corruption of nature stops here!" she called, taking a step forward, then another. "Still waters run deep! In the name of Europa, I'll crush you!"

The recipe for a senshi was one part power to every two parts cheese, and Europa was cooking with all-natural cheddar. In her cheesy haste, she did not even consider that engaging an opponent who was standing in a tree... was not the best idea. Europa leapt up onto the limb and stated the captain down - it had not yet sunk in that this was not her brightest idea ever.

The situation Sailor Europa had just put herself in was really bad all over. Not only had she leapt into a tree with a Negaverse Captain without pausing to consider that there might have been a trap or something up there... she was standing fairly close to the end of the branch, whereas the Negaverser was crouching up against the trunk of the tree, the faint glow of her goggles casting onto a wicked grin. "Crush me? I'm afraid you're a fish out of water in this case, Sailor..."

With that, she crawled a few steps forward and dug her spiderlike hands around the branch -- and began to shake it with all her might.

At around this moment Flora's pollen cloud had burst into existence below, and it took just about that long for it to start taking effect. Apparently bee youma were still bees of some kind: enticed by the scent of magical pollen in the air, they all flew towards it, and circled aimlessly in search of flowers.

"Europa!" Flora yelled out, looking jubilant as the bees followed the pollen; it was working! She experimented with twirls of her hands, careful to keep them away from the fleeing civilians and grinned as the bees mindlessly followed the trail of pollen in the air. She turned, eyes flashing as her fellow senshi fell out of the tree. "Be careful!"

She seemed too preoccupied with the Negaverse agent to use her attack, and Flora tried to hold her attack from waning as long as she could. Now, if only there was a body of water somewhere... or could she drown them in a toilet bowl and flush them? It wasn't a very good idea though; it seemed easier if Europa could just throw her attack once again to crush the bees she had managed to gather with her power.