Word count: 792

Grounded.

Peter had not known just what would become of him after his nighttime escape and run-in with Dark Mirror Senshi Remarque, but he certainly hadn’t expected to be grounded. Not with Thanksgiving coming up! And his birthday!

Granted, it had taken his mother a few days to come up with a suitable punishment after being told that her son had been sneaking out at night. He was tempted to just come clean with everything and tell her he was really a senshi and fought for justice and all that other nonsense.

But no. Now he had something he could actually work for. Now he had a reason to stay inside, cooped up on his computer, working on something secret. Something important.

Ever since running into Sailor Kallichore, his mind had been racing, trying to think of ways to help her out. He needed to figure out a way to get into the system of the senshi phones, perhaps get it temporarily connected to the internet just long enough for him to upload his work.

An application that would be easily accessed by senshi that would give them important information that they might not otherwise know. Kallichore had done a decent job with getting the text laid out, and it was easy to read, but what if there were things that needed to be added? What if others needed to put in their own information? What if there was an update that everyone needed to be alerted to??

“Peter, you need to take a bath!”

His mother had been calling him for the past couple hours, and was now sounding distressed... more so than she usually did. She’d cried when she found out he’d been sneaking out, and he didn’t have the heart to rebuttal with “ask Paris what he was doing!” or something along those lines.

She was just acting though. She had to be. That didn’t mean he didn’t feel bad about it, though...

“Okaaayyy,” he called, just to make sure she’d leave him alone for a few more minutes. Crying about him not taking a bath, on the other hand... That wasn’t something he was too concerned with.

He was busy looking up ways to try and set up a proper phone application. It was easy to code simple games, but something that would allow access on a senshi phone? That was a little more complicated. So far, his attempt at uploading anything to the phone had been shut out, and he was pretty sure he’d be needing the use of a Guardian Cat, like the one who had mentioned using the internet before. Cora was her name.

“Did you hear your mother?” his father called this time, speaking through the door to his bedroom so he wouldn’t be overheard by his wife. Probably because he didn’t want to set off the waterworks prematurely. His mother was a strong woman, he didn’t doubt that... but she got so emotional so easily.

“In a minute!” he whined, letting out a noise of dissatisfaction as he failed to get another set of simple codes up and working. Kallichore was lucky she picked someone like him to help, because any amateur would definitely not know what to do.

His father didn’t respond, so Peter figured he’d be okay for a little while longer.

There had to be something he was missing. Something that would open up a door to a lot of other updates with these phones.

As far as he could tell, these things were several years old and could definitely use some new bells and whistles.

“Dinner!” his mother called about an hour later, and Peter finally placed the senshi phone down on the table, looking over his work on his own phone. He could get everything to upload just fine to the phone here... so hopefully it was just a matter of time.

As he opened his door to go downstairs, he felt a strange tug against the knob. He didn’t have time to react as a cascade of water fell from the now empty bucket, rigged above his door frame. He drew in a gasp, sputtering in surprise and then in horror at his drenched smart phone.

And since he knew his mother wouldn’t have been able to reach that high to set it up... it could have only been his father. An Admiral... playing lame pranks like this??

Maybe he should have taken a shower first...

“DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD!!”