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Call it getting a lay of the land. The pool was empty right now, but there were posters everywhere proclaiming that "Swimming lessons started April 13th!" and if you looked hard enough, you'd see that one Tallulah Cowden was listed among the instructors.

If Europa was going to spend her summer teaching here, she was going to make sure there was nothing funny lurking underneath the pool. After all, she'd seen that episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark!

It was easy enough to hop over the fence without knocking over the cabana, especially when henshined up. The super senshi of the deep landed effortlessly between a pair of chaise lounges and looked around the darkened pool deck.

"Well," said Europa to herself, squinting at a suspect set of shadows on the grass beside the pump house. They quickly revealed themselves to be a coiled set of lane markers. "This looks innocent enough."

She paced around the tiled edge of the pool and couldn't help but imagine it full of water and noisy swimmers. Even now, there was a ghostly whiff of chlorine and wet in the air, something that never fully went away.

She perched on the edge of a diving block and glanced down at the deep end. There was someone down there. Another senshi, by the looks of it.

"Good evening!" called Europa happily enough, kicking her legs back and forth over the empty side of the pool.

"Mostly during the day," replied Europa, getting to her feet once more. She looked the other senshi up and down quickly. Definitely a boy, but of the skirt-wearing variety. That didn't phase her much - she ran around with Pyxis on a regular basis and all. "I don't come here much at night," she added, hopping down off the diving block.

She took a few steps towards the scout and extended a hand towards him. "I'm Super Sailor Europa," she said, smiling. She'd taken a risk patrolling alone tonight and was glad for the company. "I like your hat."

It was true. She did. It was super-styling. "Kind of renaissance-y, isn't it?"

"Vindemiatrix?" asked Europa, repeating it slowly to make sure she got it right. That was a bit of a mouthful, to say the least! She couldn't think of any longer senshi names at the moment, to be truthful. At his prompting, she looked self-consciously over her shoulder at the jellyfish ribbons dangling from her bow. "Thanks," she added, blushing a bit. She was rather fond of them, especially how they tended to catch the light.

"Stick around long enough and it goes all the way up to Eternal Sailor," she continued, peering down into the pool. Europa didn't like the way the shadows were gathering around the drain, but it was probably just the usual senshi paranoia senses tingling. Nothing to be alarmed with, not really. "I'm working here over the summer, thought I'd come through and check for any nasties that might have moved in over the winter."

She lowered herself over the edge as if she was slipping into the water, and landed gracefully on the pool bottom. "I'm gonna have a look around!" she called up, and went to circle the drain.

"Over a year. Almost a year and a half..." answered Europa, and trailed off to try to count. She could barely remember what her life had been like before she'd been awakened, but it had been October, hadn't it? October or early November, still warm enough that she hadn't minded her shorts, and it was April now...

She crouched by the drain and rattled the cover with a gloved hand. Dry as a bone, and pretty solidly attached. "They can," said Europa, pursing her lips at the darkness beyond. She was still suspicious, just because that was the way her mind tended to work, but there didn't seem to be anything down there. However, that didn't mean there wasn't anything here.... By the pricking of my thumbs, yes?

The pretty-shorted warrior got to her feet and held a finger to her lips. She could just barely make out a strange plastic rustling on the grass - and then the same sound, dragging across concrete, and then-

Super Sailor Europa gave Vindemiatrix a running shove out of the way. An animated lane divider slammed onto the concrete where he'd been previously standing.

She tugged him towards the shallow end. "Come on!

Like a pair of sea serpents, the lane dividers advanced.

The lane dividers began to swerve alarmingly, but were otherwise seemingly undeterred by the wine, which sort of made sense because they were just two very long strings of plastic and cable. They continued their undulating advance, swerving towards the senshi.

Europa turned to her less experienced newfound companion. "Time to get out of the water," she called to him, which she thought was a pretty okay pun, considering what they were up against. The Senshi of the deep turned her attention back to the slithering plastic serpents, her mouth set into a hard line. They were just youma - nothing hard about that.

Another quick glance at Vindemiatrix told her that making it pitch dark would be a really bad idea right now. Europa flung a hand towards the advancing snakes. "Europa deep ocean pressure!" she cried. The youma froze, mid-swerve, but didn't do what she'd been hoping they would do, which was fall over dead. (Sometimes that happened. Not often, though.)

She picked her way towards the frozen youma and began to pondering how to best destroy them. Property damage appeared to be the only answer.

"You don't have anything sharp on you, do you?" she called, heaving a kick at the Youma. This accomplished absolutely nothing. Europa took a few steps away from the stilled behemoths and regarded them again. Kicking them did nothing. They were singularly ill equipped to deal with this.

She turned and began to bound away, intent on appraising the pool house for useful tools-

-and instead found herself yanked into the air by one of the youma. Europa shrieked in surprise and struggled against the advancing vicegrip. She pounded on the plastic, to no avail.

Whoever had cooked this one up was just plain devilish.

Vindemiatrix stood aside while Europa tried out her attack, starting to relax slightly as they froze in mid-air.

"Sharp? No, sorry," he replied, frowning. Maybe it might be a good idea to start carrying a folding knife or something, though, now that she mentioned it, the black-haired boy thought. Something that could cut through, say, duct tape.

Vin was just starting to advance to get a better look, anyway, when one of the creatures lashed out and snared Europa.

"Hey!" the Senshi of Wine shouted, wobbling on his feet slightly as part but not all of him moved to run in and attack. Another glass of wine was out of the question, since the first one had not seemed to do any good at all against the youma, and more than likely a second would only succeed in getting poor Europa intoxicated. Maybe he could run in and pound on it until it let her go? Though ... that did not appear to be working too well, either.

And so, when a talking kitten in a hat appeared rather suddenly, Vindemiatrix was already riveted to the spot with indecision, and, well, the cat just made him gape with disbelief. This one did not look like Ophelia.

"Who-? Are you going to help us?"

"ALL YOUR BASE...no that sounds silly. Silly Derpraline!" Which was really all the introduction Vindemiatrix was going to get from the exuberant fluffball as she regarded Europa for a very long moment. It was probably a waste of time even in that singular tick of the clock, where the guardian cat's eyes had sharpened and focused on the poor female who was in the grip of the youma and going dim.

"I can help you." A shimmer of glitter and light much like a transforming senshi and the Senshi of Wine was left to goggle if he chose at a small girl of about twelve. A cowbell dangled around her neck and as she spun around quickly it clanged and drew the attention of the thing strangling Europa. The odd twirl was finished and a beam of light shot from her forehead straight into the heart of the Super Senshi.

It was the best help she could give.

Everything went brilliant, beautiful, and dark all at once. The sensation for everyone in that small radius of power would have been a freezing rush of water past their face, a heavy sense of breathlessness, and darkness inside light. It was momentary only for all but Europa. When the sensation faded the senshi had all the help she could possibly need.



The girl, no longer in her human form, settled back on her fluffy bottom and turned her walleyed lack of focus on Vindemiatrix. "Derp did gooood."