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 Posted: Sun Jul 24, 2011 7:39 pm
It happened late at night, like most noises did when everyone was asleep and you were woken up. At first it was quiet, with nothing but the ticking of a distant clock and crickets outside. A car burned rubber somewhere in the distance and drove off.
And then came a tap.
Then it was silent again.
But then a tap again.
If it had been timed and constant, then one could assume it was some appliance or other device forgotten on some counter, but it wasn't. It had presence and it was moving.
A tap, followed by a quick tap-tap-tap again from one end of the room to another. Then it was quiet for a few seconds.
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Posted: Sun Jul 24, 2011 7:42 pm
The child trying to sleep was getting tired of this. She woke with a start again, ughhh stupid noises that weren't there... but. She paused brow lofting, it was there wasn't it?
Tap, and a drawn out silence, another tap, soon it was irritating enough with three quick taps, that the child started to move. Following the noise, what was it? She knew it moved... she just had to track it. She quietly called, "Hug-bell Comet Power, Make-Up!" The child transformed into a senshi and began to look again for the noise.
She was getting really tired of this, so just in case it was bed-bugs she decided at least powered she'd be able to stomp them without having to find her actual shoes. Not that, that answer was rational.
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Posted: Sun Jul 24, 2011 7:46 pm
The high energy signature was enough to stop the tapping. Everything was quiet once more, but then a low noise started. Faint at first, but seemed to be the chirping of something strange. Not a cricket exactly, and clearly nothing a house could produce no matter how old.
In the dark, something moved. A faint glow of blue that jumped from one corner of the room near a pile of stuffed animals, up onto a bookshelf, and then up and over to land by Hugbell's closed window. That's where it stopped, and the tapping continued as little claws tappa-tappa-tapped against the glass pain.
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Posted: Sun Jul 24, 2011 7:49 pm
She was startle by the noise, the child's eyes grew wide. Then a soft blue glow. "Ohhh....." She looked around grabbing the nearest jar she used for firefly catching and tried to trap the.... thing, on the window sill.
She wanted to find out what it was, making sure the lid was where she could get the thing into the jar and keep it there. She frowned looking at it. Now this wasn't good. The child yawned. "What was it?"
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Posted: Sun Jul 24, 2011 7:54 pm
If it hadn't been for the fact the jar quickly was clamped on, the creature would have easily jumped out, and nearly had but had thumped hard and with enough force that it almost made the lid pop out before it fell back with a hard clack against the glass. Turning about, it started to jump violently, it's hard body tapping with great strength for something so small against the class like a hard BB ricocheting on all sides.
Then it fell on it's back once more, and straightened itself out on it's many legs. It stood still, long, slender mouth parts feeling about on the bottom and end of the glass to assess the situation. 
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Posted: Sun Jul 24, 2011 7:57 pm
The child stared at the... bug thing. Making a horrified face as it tried to get out sitting the mason jar on the floor in case it somehow managed to break it, when the thing finally stilled she watched a blue glow pulse from it. This was no firefly and totally not anything cute it was uglllyyyy.
"Ugh..." There was only one answer to what this bug was, well two, but one logical one. The child poked at the glass that was holding the youma, ick bugs. The only good bugs were fireflies, butterflies and dragon flies. She sat cross legged watching it for a moment. She thought about what she needed to do pulling her phone from subspace and flipping through numbers. Stopping at the other chibi senshi, calling Ridley and Sam first. Then Hypnos and Egeria, telling them to meet her at a local playground.
She then got up and headed to sneak outside hoping that Zia wouldn't catch her.
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Posted: Sun Jul 24, 2011 7:59 pm
Zia probably wouldn't have noticed the little senshi escaping, since just minutes prior she was sleeping like a rock, but then her stomach seemed to supersede her need to finally get some sleep and she was just shuffling off to raid the fridge when she almost bumped into Hug-Bell.
At first she just stared, wondering if this was some weird hallucination on her part, since she really didn't see why Hug-Bell would be powered up in the middle of the night.
"Istas, what are you doing?" She asked, her voice still groggy and flat. She tried to rub the sleep out of her eyes and finally noticed the glowing bug. Instantly she was awake as she jumped a step back with a muffled squeak and a clear look of disgust.
"Eeeeew, what is that?" She half whined. Something that needed to be smashed with a shoe, she'd already mentally concluded.
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Posted: Sun Jul 24, 2011 8:24 pm
Zia almost running into her, the child gave a startled squeak. Butter Yellow eyes were wide looking at her babysitter. Oh crap she'd been caught. Oh this was bad, very bad... very ver.... "Whu!? How do you know I'm Istas!?" The child pointed at Zia looking at her suspiciously. "I'm Hug-bell not Istas." She corrected, hoping maybe it was just because Zia was sleepy she'd just assumed.... oohhh this was bad.
"It's a bug." She stated when asked what was that. "A monster," The child yawned, "It's been in my room sucking energy.... you wouldn't understand you're just an adult. Go back to bed, you can write it off as a bad dream."
Hug-bell was sure how well that worked on adults, being told what to do by a little kid... the child shifted and grave an uneasy grin hoping it'd be easy enough though.
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Posted: Sun Jul 24, 2011 8:26 pm
Zia quirked up one eyebrow at her claim of not being Istas and it took the slow, sleepy wheels in her head to turn enough to remember, oh, derp, in fuku call them by their proper names.
But when she said it had been sucking energy, she continued trying to force herself into a more alert state and moved closer to get a better look at the bug in the jar, a clearly squicked out grimace still on her face. "That's a youma?" She asked, her tone taking on a definite air of seriousness.
Suddenly her hands were on her hips in clear authoritative adult fashion as she looked down on the pale headed little girl with a look the spelled trouble. "And where were you taking a youma in the middle of the night?"
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Posted: Sun Jul 24, 2011 8:30 pm
Hug-bell watched curiously. "How do you know that?" Now instead of trying to convince Zia to go away she was now wanted to know how the other knew. "Adults don't normally know that..."
She tilted her head looking at Zia, "It's probably been making us sleepy. I know it's been affecting the others. We're going to go see if we can figure out what these are up to."
She held up the jar towards Zia's face. "Wouldn't you want to know why it was in your room if it was?"
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Posted: Sun Jul 24, 2011 8:34 pm
"We? You're meeting other senshi?" Zia asked, obviously not very happy, if only for the fact it meant if she hadn't gotten up at the right moment, her fist time babysitting for her cousin would've ended with her charge escaping to go deal with youma without her knowledge, and she was pretty sure that was a failure on the babysitter's part.
"Okay," She conceded, "We can go, just let me grab some... shoes or something," She said, deciding that if Hug-Bell was going, she was too.
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Posted: Sun Jul 24, 2011 8:42 pm
Hug-bell looked at her, "You are not going." Hug-bell said, "I am meeting other senshi. I'll be fine, you have to stay here." The child said placing her free hand on her hip and mimicking what Zia has basically done earlier.
"If this is the negaverse you'll just get in the way. We can't have normal people there." The we wasn't settling well with her at all. They were to protect civilians "You'll just get into trouble. We can't focus on the problem if we have you there hovering around and having to protect you too. It's more than we need to worry about. My friends and I can handle this Zia."
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Posted: Sun Jul 24, 2011 8:49 pm
Okay, so, Hug-Bell didn't know Zia was also Zirconia, and she was still wary about spreading her secret identity around to a kid, but it was still insulting.
"I know what I'm doing!" She whined before realizing they seemed to have switched authority somewhere in this conversation. Clearing her throat and eager to take it back, she stood up straight. "I know what I'm doing, kid," She snorted and just in an effort to seem like the adult, she grabbed Istas by the hand and started tugging her in the direction the little girl was going anyway. "Trust me."
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Posted: Sun Jul 24, 2011 8:52 pm
Hug-bell frowned, "I don't care if you think you know what you're doing Zia. I can't have you getting hurt because your trying to protect me."
The child was literally being dragged as she had her feet planted firmly as she could on the ground. The child frowned, and looked at Zia. "I know you're the "babysitter" and all but I can't have you tagging along. Why does no one trust me!? Why am I always too little to do things!? I'm a senshi for crying out loud, if I couldn't do somethings on my own I wouldn't've been a senshi." The child finally started pouting, this was getting ridiculous, everyone, doubted them.
Just because they were little no one actually wanted to believe they could do anything, "This is stupid, let me go Zee." She said still pouting in irritation. "I have a meeting to get to, you're just going to slow me down. How am I suppose to prove that I can do things just as good as the older kids when you're being dumb?"
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Posted: Sun Jul 24, 2011 8:54 pm
Zia stopped and let out a loooooong, exaggerated groan of frustration. then she turned and crouched down to Hug-Bell's level and grabbed her shoulders. "Look, I know you're a good senshi, okay? But it's my job to watch you, and we can't be arguing about that when there's a creepy youma infestation going on."
And suddenly, she was a cat, on all fours staring up at the chibi with the same annoyed little frown. "I'm not going to slow you down," She insisted again, hoping this revelation would make the little senshi stop resisting. But they'd definitely have to talk about this later.
Rather than leave any open space to harp on this whole 'I am a cat' thing, (even more creepily, 'I am a cat that's been stalking you since December') she took off ahead, only stopping to look over her shoulder back to Hug-Bell and shout, "Hurry up!"
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