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Posted: Mon Nov 21, 2011 9:32 pm
Peter Gallo had been turned into a kitten. A fluffy little ball of confusion and slight panic. He was going to miss class at this rate. Hopefully the one person he knew as both a senshi and a civilian would be able to help him figure out what was going on. Maybe things like this always happened? A strange alignment of the planets or... stars or who knew what! But this was just too strange to try and figure out on his own.
But he couldn't just sit out in the middle of the park, especially as more kids started heading to school, some even cutting through the park on their way. He didn't know how he managed it, but by pushing his head against the strap of his backpack as he dug his little paws into the dirt, he was able to get his bag out of the line of sight of passersby. He was just lucky there wasn't really anything in his bag... just his lunch and school essentials. His phone was a bit more difficult to move, but he managed it with the same kind of method. Using his head and paws until he could slide it out of sight, behind a tree nearby.
He waited impatiently for his brother's friend to show up and tell him what was going on. He couldn't tell if he believed him from his text, but he was hoping that he was still going to come and help him. People usually counted on him to have an active imagination, but they'd come help him if he asked for help, right??
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Posted: Tue Nov 22, 2011 12:36 pm
The Gallos were going to be the death of him.
First Chris calls him from the hospital at two o’clock in the morning, asking for some fresh clothes and help home. Then Peter texts him not five or six hours later—when he hadn’t even managed to get a sufficient amount of sleep to make up for being awoken in the middle of the night—only to tell him something completely crazy that didn’t even make any sense at all, and request to meet him when he should very well be in class being a good boy and making good grades.
At first, Paris wondered if it was some sort of a ploy of Peter’s devising in order to get out of school, and he was almost tempted to text him back to tell him it was too early for his games, but “the park from before” reminded him of the time he’d saved Peter from a youma, and the mention of a “cat” all in the same text suddenly had him very worried. He couldn’t just leave his ex-boyfriend’s ten-year-old brother to… do whatever it was he thought he was doing… on his own… when there were dangerous things going on in the city.
It was with great reluctance that he pulled himself out of the warmth of Chris bed and pulled his shorts from the night before back on, mumbling something to Chris about going to pick up something for breakfast as he trotted down the stairs while pulling on his coat. He grabbed his purse and his flip-flops and was on his way out the door in a matter of minutes.
A half-hour later, he was stepping off the bus to walk the block or two down to the park in question, entering through the gate and looking around for any sign of the youngest Gallo.
“Peter?” he called when he didn’t immediately see him. For a moment, he wondered if he should have come powered-up, but when there didn’t seem to be anything nefarious in the area, he was marginally reassured.
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Posted: Sun Dec 04, 2011 12:45 pm
The kitten had done his best to stay out of the way and out of sight until Paris showed up. It was a little more difficult than usual because in his adrenaline-filled feline mind, time passed five times slower than usual.
It sucked!!
His classmates heading to school had been very close to finding him and/or his backpack, but after finding a hole at the base of one of the trees near the park, he was able to squeeze inside and wait... Actually he tried climbing up the inside of the tree, but he was still obviously waiting for Paris. His brother's ex-girl/boyfriend was just obviously taking too long to get there...
After what seemed like an eternity of thinking that he was going to be completely alone, or that Paris was going to ignore his plea for help, he heard the older teen's voice from the other side of the park. Finally!
Clawing his way back out of the hole, Peter cautiously looked around to see if there were any others around, before slowly making his way over to where Paris was. At first he thought it would be weird to walk on four legs, but it was just like crawling. No big deal. He kept glancing around until he was close enough for only Paris to hear him... of course he had to nearly break his neck to look all the way up.
"What the hell is wrong with me??" he squeaked out, higher pitched than his usual whining would have been. It probably had to do with being a cat. "Is it because I've met people like you?? Well, just one other, but is it because of that?? Like... is magic contagious?? It is magic, right??"
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Posted: Sun Dec 04, 2011 1:26 pm
He moved a little further into the park, looking around for Peter, only for his eyes to lower as a small, slightly scruffy looking kitten bounded straight over to him. Curiosity quickly turned into surprise, concern, and fright as the cat began to talk to him.
And with a very familiar voice.
“Peter!” he shouted. He was on the ground in seconds to be more on eye-level with him, ignoring how some of the woodchips dug into his bare knees. “Oh, no! Oh, no, oh, no, oh, no!”
He was a cat. Peter was a cat. Chris’s little brother was a cat!
“s**t…” He didn’t curse much, but when he didn’t he no longer saw much of a need to censure it around Peter. The kid was too smart for his own good. Besides, Peter had cursed first. “s**t, what happened? Are you okay? How long have you been like this? Is anyone else here?”
He looked around himself but didn’t see anyone, just a couple of people passing by on the sidewalk.
“s**t, what did I do?”
Was this magic thing contagious? He didn’t want to think it was, because that seemed sort of ridiculous to him, but then the whole thing was ridiculous since magic shouldn’t even exist in the first place, and he’d just been a normal kid before he could suddenly transform into something else and travel into space and fight crime and… and what if transforming around Peter had done something? Paris had first encountered this magic stuff last December, and then two months later BAM! He was a superhero. He’d saved Peter about two months ago, and now… and now he was one of those talking cats.
But it couldn’t be because he’d saved him, could it? It wasn’t as if he’d had much of a choice. There couldn’t be some weird… Two Month Effect… could there?
“s**t, this can’t be happening. I thought the crazy stuff would leave me alone for a while.”
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Posted: Sun Dec 04, 2011 1:57 pm
He stared up at Paris when he started freaking out, making a face that was a cross between disgust and horror. "You have no idea what to do??" he squeaked in disbelief, before letting out a loud, exaggerated groan and flopping over onto the ground.
"I hate my lifeeee!!" he whined, burying his face into his paws. This sucked. Not only was he a cat, but Paris had no idea what was going on. Should he have called someone else?? Maybe just tell his mom what was going on?? Ugh, his mom!
"Mom's supposed to pick me up from school!" he gasped, looking up at the older boy again. "What should I do?? I can't let her know I'm a cat!! That's too embarrassing! She'll probably try to dress me up or something! I don't want to wear a bonnet!!"
Okay, so he was sure that his mother would be worried, too, but still... The chance of him ending up in some cute little kitten costume after she freaks out was high.
"You thought crazy stuff would leave you alone?? I didn't even do anything!!" This was ridiculous. "And Thanksgiving is this week!! I don't want to be a cat! I don't want to be a caaattt!!"
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Posted: Sun Dec 04, 2011 2:06 pm
“Why would I have any idea what to do?!” Paris replied, panicking. Just a little bit. Okay, so maybe a lot. “You think people I know just randomly turn into cats every day?! I… I mean, I know cats… sort of… and they turn into people… sort of… but I don’t know any person who’s turned into a cat.”
Definitely not the little brother of his ex-boyfriend and the youngest son of the woman he’d come to unofficially adopt as a second mother.
“Okay… okay, let’s just… let’s think about this for a little bit…” he said, trying to calm down, even though Peter hadn’t answered any of his questions and he had no idea what to do. “You’re a cat. Just… randomly a cat? And there are no bad guys around?”
He looked around a third time to make sure. Nope, it definitely didn’t look as if there were any bad guys around.
What should he do, then? Was there a way to turn Peter back to normal? Could he turn back by himself like the guardian cats could shift between forms? He hadn’t been under the impression that guardian cats were originally real, normal people, but then he didn’t know all that much about them to begin with, so it wasn’t like he was an authority on the subject.
Should he find an authority on the subject? Maybe he should call some of the Jovians again to figure out what the hell was going on…
But first… “Um… I can… I can take you to Chris’s apartment,” he decided, trying to get his brain to work faster in developing a solution. “He knows about me, so… so he knows about some of the weird stuff that happens and… and we’ll figure out something to tell your mom, and I can just… make excuses to your teachers or something and… and we’ll figure something out, okay? We can fix this.”
He hoped…
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Posted: Sun Dec 04, 2011 4:22 pm
Peter scrunched up his nose as he rolled over onto his back to wiggle around in the dirt a little. "Why would I want to go to Chris's apartment? He'll have no idea what to do. He'll just make sure I'm grounded for however long I'm a cat. He doesn't even like me!" If anything, Chris would leave him out in the rain, or just send him home, or give him to someone else to take care of.
Nah, Chris wouldn't do that. Because then he'd tell mom and then Chris would be in deep s**t. But that didn't mean he wanted to test it out.
The kitten rolled back over onto his legs, and moved closer to Paris to try and claw his way up into his lap, getting the sudden urge to be held and someplace warm. It was cold!
"I'm hungry," he whimpered, sinking his claws into Paris's leg in his attempt to make his way up. "My lunch is in my backpack behind the tree over there... but I'm not really in the mood for chocolate pudding..." Instead, he had the strangest craving for fish... or just... steak... Or lamb! Mmm...
Everything else, though... he figured that Paris can work it out. There wasn't really anyone else he could ask to help him, not without freaking out his mother. He wasn't really in the mood to deal with that.
"Don't you guys get, like... a magical powers one-oh-one book or something? I didn't find anything on Google about turning back from a cat..." It must be a new thing...
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Posted: Fri Dec 09, 2011 2:47 pm
“You’re exaggerating. Of course Chris likes you,” was Paris’s off-handed reply. He was still busy trying to figure out what he was going to do about this. Clearly he had to do something. He couldn’t just let Peter remain a cat, but then he wasn’t really sure who he should talk to about it. Instinct said to get in touch with the Jovians and see if any of them had any ideas—and if not all of them, then Europa at the very least—but what if that didn’t turn up any answers? Should he just wait and see if Peter turned back on his own?
Or should he just suck it up and go find one of the cats? He wasn’t sure he liked that option very much given that he had so little experience with them, but if that was what he had to do to fix this… he supposed he could figure out something. It wasn’t as if they were all bad.
Wait, didn’t Chris know a cat?
He winced and yelped lightly when he felt tiny claws digging into his thigh, torn from his thoughts to look down at Peter trying to climb into his lap. “Hey, hey, watch it! Don’t scratch at me like that!”
Paris grabbed him to lift his little, furry body up in one hand, holding him up at eye level. “If Chris puts up a fuss, let me deal with it. I know how to handle him. Considering he’s not in the best shape at the moment, I don’t think he’d have the energy to do more than freak out and worry. I’ll find something for you to eat when we get there.”
He stood up after making sure Peter hadn’t done too much damage to his legs, moving in the direction Peter had come from to find his school things to take with them. “Trust me, if we had a guide book on this mess, I’d be a whole lot better at this. You can file that complaint with someone with more influence. For now, just… we’ll deal with it. This can’t be permanent.”
At least, he certainly hoped it wasn’t.
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Posted: Sun Jan 08, 2012 12:10 pm
"I wasn't scratching! I was just climbing! I don't have thumbs, so it's kinda hard to grasp onto something without using claws!" he pointed out, making a face when Paris picked him up, wiggling around a little and letting out a disgruntled mew. "Hey hey! Watch it! I don't want to be dropped and break something! And please don't test to see if cats always land on their feet because I'm not really confident in my cat-ing abilities at the moment. Oh goooddd, what if I'm a cat forever??? I can't be a cat forever! I'm too young, Paris! I'm too young!!"
Okay, he was exaggerating a bit, and he knew it. But it still sucked. If this was permanent, how the heck was he supposed to explain this to his mother??
"They should have a guide book! What am I going to do about school! They'll call mom if I don't show up at school! They probably already called her! And what if I'm a cat tomorrow?? We have to figure something out, Paris! And don't take me to the vet!!"
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Posted: Sun Jan 08, 2012 5:12 pm
“You’re not going to be a cat forever,” Paris reassured him, though he had no idea how true his own words were. He was doing his best to think positively, but his efforts never seemed to work too well in situations like this. Still, he tried to remain as cool and collected as possible. Freaking out anymore wasn’t going to help anything.
“Just calm down, Peter. I promise we’ll figure something out. I’m not going to just leave you like this. But you have to chill, because if you don’t I’m just going to start freaking out again, too.”
He grabbed Peter’s phone and slipped it into his pocket, then pulled out his book-bag to sling it over one of his shoulders, keeping Peter in his hand and cuddling him to his chest once he’d successfully grabbed all of his school things.
“I’ll just call the school and pretend to be your mom. I’ll say you’re sick or something,” he told him. “I used to do it all the time. I have plenty of practice. Used to forge my mom and dad’s signatures, too. No one ever figured it out. Trust me, it’ll totally work.”
He was pretty sure he could do a fairly good impression of Mrs. Gallo’s voice anyway.
With a sigh, and plenty of worries still mulling around in his head, Paris turned to begin making his way back to the bus stop, Peter cradled comfortably against him. “Let’s get you to Chris and see what we can do about this…”
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