Jack was so excited. No, he was more than excited; he was completely hyped up! He was now a super-powered being who could run faster and jump higher than normal people, including his old self, ever could! All because he had been picked by a magic mirror to become a Dark Mirror Senshi, be given a magic henshin pen, a compact mirror, and a mirror shard! Not to mention a super cool outfit that he magically changed into. Who could ask for more?

And yet, there was still more. Jack hadn't been chosen to be just any senshi - he'd been chosen as Sinope, the Senshi of Slyness. Personally, he took that as a compliment. But there was one thing that still had him curious. As Sinope, he'd been under the impression that he had a senshi attack - a sort of magic - that was based on his sphere of slyness and was unique to him alone. While he'd practiced all his other abilities as a senshi, he had yet to use his power. He didn't want to go into battle or find himself up against a bad guy without knowing the extent of his abilities. He valued his life, after all.

Thus he decided to test his magic out on some low-life thugs. Jack knew where to find a few easily enough and he doubted senshi magic - even Dark Mirror Senshi - could be all that harmful, especially since he had only recently awakened and was brand new. If something went wrong, he was likely to be in more danger of getting hurt than the thugs in the case that they chose to beat him up. As someone used to getting into trouble, however, Jack was confident in his skill to talk or otherwise worm his way out of potentially disastrous situations. His enhanced physical abilities didn't hurt as a back-up plan, either.

So, upon spotting his first batch of targets - three older teenagers hanging around a back alley while practicing the majestic art of cigarette smoking - Jack walked right up to them in his hooded sailor fuku and shorts. Two of the three looked up, but one didn't even bother.

"What do you want, kid? This here's our territory." one spoke up, eyeing Jack skeptically.

"Yeah, we're practically the kings of this dump. Looking to pay us tribute?" another snickered, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Nope; just wanted to test something out," Jack answered merrily, planting his gloved hands on his hips. He met the eyes of the young hooligan with his arms crossed, grinned broadly, and said, "Sly Secret Steal."

"Huh?" The third guy, who had been too busy lighting a cigarette until then, finally looked up. "What kinda crap is that?"

In all honesty, not even Sailor Sinope knew the answer to that question. He thought he might have been able to learn someone's secret by reading their mind or at least getting them to confess to something like a truth serum, but no such thing happened. Disappointment started to sink in before he managed to catch sight of his target's face.

The guy was no longer snickering, nor did he have his arms folded in an arrogant stance as he had before. He was gaping at Sinope, eyes wide, and lifted a finger to point at the senshi. "You - how could you know?! I never told anyone! Not anyone!"

"Told anyone what?" the first guy asked, appearing thoroughly concerned. If he'd seemed skeptical of Sinope before, he now looked ready to punch the younger teen's face in once he found out what had been done to his friend.

"Man, Joey, did you smoke something besides tobacco?" the third male of the trio asked. But their friend only looked at each of them shakily, his brow suddenly forming a band of sweat like he'd been caught in a sauna.

Sinope was still pretty confused as to what had just happened, but he knew better than to question his good fortune right there and then. Following his survival instincts, he grinned mischievously and said, "I have my sources. But what would your friends here do if they found out you were keeping something like that from them, huh? Would they still be your good friends, I wonder?" Okay, so maybe it wasn't purely his survival instincts at play, but he wanted to know what he could do with this situation and the only way to do that was to test it out. This whole thing was meant to be his experiment, after all.

"What's he talking about, Joe?"

"Yo, you don't look so good." One of the guys reached over to put a hand on the shoulder of the fellow known as Joey, but Joey slapped his hand away.

"I like flowers, okay?!" the young man said, yanking open the front of his jacket to reveal several bunches of wildflowers stashed in the various jacket pockets. "I like having them near me. Keeps the stink of the city away!"

Joey's companions looked first at each other and then back at Joey and his flowers. By this time, though, Sailor Sinope had taken advantage of the guys' confusion to make his getaway. He slipped into the shadows and out of sight before the trio could notice he was gone. Once he was sure they weren't going to come after him, Sinope allowed himself to reason out what must have happened.

"Sly Secret Steal..." he murmured. It seemed like a fairly straightforward attack, but maybe that was the secret. Perhaps the attack was sly because it was more than what it pretended to be. Powering down, Jack looked up the definition of 'sly' on his phone and came up with a number of definitions. However, one in particular stood out to him and he read it aloud to himself. "Sly: showing in an insinuating way that one has some secret knowledge that may be harmful or embarrassing." That had certainly sounded similar to what had happened with that Joey guy.

"Wait," Jack said, realizing something. "If it's just showing or insinuating that 'one' has some secret knowledge, then 'one' doesn't really have that knowledge at all. They just need to make their target think they do." So that was the trick - the magic must have caused its victim to think Sinope knew a secret about them that they must have found harmful or embarrassing. With a name like 'Sly Secret Steal', Sinope began to wonder if he even needed the magical reinforcement at all to convince his victims he knew something they didn't want him knowing. Not that he was complaining.

"Huh...cool. Shame I don't actually get to know their secrets unless they tell, though," he commented. But then he remembered Joey with his flowers and imagined how much worse some people's secrets must have been. "On second thought...maybe there are some things better not knowing." Knowledge was power, sure, but even in the form of knowledge, power had a heavy responsibility. Some things just couldn't be unseen or forgotten once they were known, after all.