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Sailor Aster's patrols had been a lot less effective in the past weeks. Although the intent of patrolling was to track down the power signatures of her enemies and protect the city, she had mostly been doing the opposite. As soon as any Chaos power signature was detected, she often found herself running in the opposite direction, hiding and hoping to not be caught - hoping to not have another experience like before. She had barely survived her last attack, and there wouldn't be any miracle savior to rescue her the next time.

After running several blocks distance to escape a faint power signature of a low-level Negaverse agent, the Senshi of Sunflowers stopped for a rest break in a dark alleyway. It seemed largely secure and safe - just on the outer limit of the abandoned district of the city where that sleeping curse had hit the summer before. She didn't pack any pot her this voyage out - it was something she was trying to lay back on when she was patrolling, but she felt it was useful for relieving her anxieties.

"Get it together, girl," she muttered to herself as she caught her breath. "You're safe now."

Aster's face lit up as the small kitten spoke to her. She had not seen a talking cat since the one she encountered in the woods all those months ago - the one who had told her she was Sailor Aster and that she was special. She had practically forgotten all about the cat and its words to her, telling her how special she was. But the appearance of this cat proved it: she could hear cat talk. She was special.

"You are so adorable!" she said through a smile as she squatted down to its level and cooed it to come closer. "Aren't you the cutest little kitt--wait a tick. How did you know my name?"

Right. The conversation with the cat was coming back to her - how she was a Guardian Cat, protecting and searching for the Senshi like herself.

"Oh, right. You must be a Guardian Cat." Darn. It seemed like she couldn't hear all cats speak. "I felt a Negaverse agent's signature a few blocks back, I didn't want him to find me. I had a...bad experience before. I'm not ready to fight."

((Quoting you to try this system out instead of tagging via PMs or in thread - this way its easier to find link! I'll remove the quotes once you reply.))


"Hell if I know," she shrugged with a heavy sigh. "Normally I'd suggest we blaze up, but I left that s**t behind at home. Besides, I'd be a pretty awful human if I smoked out with a kitten, huh?" She paused, her voice shifting to a cutesy baby talk to the small kitten "You probably have no idea what I mean, do you? Naw, you're just a cute wittle-kitten-witten aren't ya? Aren't ya?"

She reached out to pet the little fuzzball affectionately as she thought about how much the kitten probably did know that she didn't. "So like, you know a lot about this Senshi stuff right? What's the deal with our names? I mean, you know that I'm Sailor Aster but where does that name come from?"

She didn't have any objections to the name Aster - but if she had a choice her name would have been something along the lines of Sailor Awesome or Sailor BAMF, or something along those lines.

"The asteroid Aster?" she arched a brow. Well, that was an alliteration if there ever was one. She didn't know much about space, but she thought it was pretty wicked that she had an asteroid named after her. Or she was named after the asteroid. Or something.

"Uhhhhhhhhh," she droned as she fumbled with her hands and thought about her Senshi phone. She pulled it out and presented it to the cat. It had a very tactless background, a self-shot of Sailor Aster in an alleyway with a lit up piece all masked behind a light cloud of smoke. "What is it? Are there like, games on this phone since i've been looking, man, and I found nothing."

"I look good in the picture, don't I?" she smiled. "I don't like getting my photograph taken very often though, since the camera captures a part of your soul each time you are photographed. Too many photos and your dead! I don't know how those girls on that Facebooking manage."

She shrugged. It was possible, although unlikely she felt, that she was wrong in this belief. She had strange superstitions about a lot of things.

Aster placed her finger over the button, but did not press it, as she used her free hand to place the little cat on her shoulders. She shut her eyes - not too tight - but sealed enough where she couldn't peek. "Alright, so what do I next? Press it?"

Aster nodded at the instruction, and focused as best she could. It was difficult, especially since each time she tried to get deep into her focus, the image of the purple-haired Negaverse captain who had stabbed her would pop into her mind. She would flashback to being tossed into the fountain, sinking slowly to the bottom in the pool of water and her own blood, convinced that she was at the end.

But then something changed, a peaceful cheerful tone resonated within her. It optimistic, familiar, and filled her with a warm glow. She knew it was time, and she pressed the button, holding down on it as she felt her body dissipate and transport itself to another world: to the asteroid Aster.

The planet was a beautiful planet filled with fields of sunflowers at every turn. Some sunflowers were large – some abnormally large – and others were tiny. Aster and ********* appeared in a field of flowers that were only as high as her calves, but there was a field of larger looming sunflowers by their side that would be easy to get lost in.

There was also a weird sensation across the planet – as if Aster and ********* were suddenly very, very, very high. It was a euphoric sensation, and their sense of time had started to fade. It would take time before they could fully lose track of it, but time itself was distorted to seem slower.

“This is my asteroid?” she grinned. Oh, how well it knew her.

"I said..." Aster paused. ********, what did she say? Right. "This is my asteroid?" She cracked a smile and started to laugh, but wasn't sure why. Everything was so much more wonderful here. It was a very familiar feeling, although she didn't know what was causing it.

"I wanna go exploring, man..or cat," she said through a fit of giggles as she instantly began to run through the sunflower field, cat on her shoulder and all. It wasn't every day that you could say you went to space to visit your very own planet! Yet as she ran, some hazy thoughts began to fill her mind...

"I'm going to get you!" he cooed to the lovely Asterian woman he was chasing through the fields. They were laughing, smiling, playing a flirtatious game as she taunted him to follow her.

"You'll need to be faster than that, Eli!" she called as she made a sharp turn into the a thicker area of tall sunflowers, disappearing from his sight. There was silence as Aster stopped.

Sailor Aster stopped in her tracks.

"What was that?" she asked the cat, as if ********* had seen the same things she had. "There was a woman...and..."

Uncertain, and too distracted by the memory to wait for an answer, she stormed into the heavy patch of sunflowers.

Eli attempted to follow the woman through the sunflower patch and bolted through the thick stems. He couldn't hear the woman's steps or any rustling through the field that she would have made.

"Where are you?" he shouted, nervous. He ran forward some more, but tripped over his own feet.

Sailor Aster tripped as well, and she felt flat to the ground face-down.

Eli picked himself up to see the sun was setting. It was getting dark.

"Oh no," he gasped. He felt nothing but absolute terror.

Aster looked up. The sun was still shining bright.

"What is going on here?" she asked ********* nervously. "I was...I was a man."

The adventure was fun while the fun lasted, but Aster was much too concerned about the panicked man that she was in that...dream? memory? hallucination?...to really enjoy the euphoria that the planet brought her. In fact, she was starting to tweak a bit, nervously rocking. It was certainly not helping her anxieties in the least.

"I want to go home," she pleaded. "How do I go home?"