Welcome to Gaia! ::

Irina had been outside, in the front yard, for the last hour helping her mother rake up all the leaves and small fallen branches that littered the driveway and lawn. It was a grueling task, and one that had been put off until the last leaf had fallen which in hindsight had been a big mistake.

If only she had done as her mother requested and made a small pile once a day when she got home from school then put it in the yard waste bin then she wouldn’t have to give up an entire day over the weekend to finish this chore. “Oh well,” Irina sighed as she picked up the big yellow bear claws to scoop up another pile of yellow and red leaves. “May as well make a game out of it I guess!”

Looking at the yard and space left in the bin, she knew that the container would be filled way before she ever got the whole place raked. Nonetheless, she still had to get the remaining leaves into a pile on the large blue tarp if only to keep it from blowing all over the place the next time they got another hefty wind; something her father would take care of once she was done. However, in the meantime there was nobody around to stop her from jumping into, or hiding in, it until someone came out to check on her.

Yeah, this could be a lotta fun! Irina smiled to herself while imagining the startled look on her mother's face when she jumped out of the pile. Yeah, this is going to be fun

Irina emerged from the pile of damp leaves with small twigs poking out from her hair and a tiny slug stuck to her sleeve. “Eew” With a disgusted look on her face she flicked the creature off her clothes and away from the pile. The last thing she wanted was to accidentally land on it and kill it because boy do those things make a gross mess.

Unlike a lot of girls at school things like worms or bugs really didn’t bother her. If anything, for the most part, it was fairly easy for Irina to just dismiss them as annoyances or swat them away. Heck, on a few occasions she would actually even hold them in the palm of her hand; especially if it was a rolly-polly potato bug or a ladybug even. The exception, however, was bees; it only took getting stun once to make her afraid. Thankfully, though, it was Fall and therefore not something she had to worry about for a long time.

After wiping the debris off her jeans Irina eyed the pile of leaves once more with a smile that stretched from one ear to the other. But before she could jump back in movement in her peripheral gave her reason to pause. For a second there Irina had thought she was going crazy but after a moment she was sure that she saw some of the leave shift, as if someone had stepped on them… but there was no wind so how could that be?

Confusion drew her eyebrows together but ultimately, after a few seconds of no more movement, she simply shrugged off the notion that something like a chipmunk or squirrel had crawled into the mess and jumped back in.

This time when the leaves beside her rustled Irina let out a startled yelp. Quickly she rolled out of the pile and stood up, brushing herself off in haste before retreating backward towards her house.

Her eyes were wide with fright. “If this is a joke it isn’t funny.” Irina spun around to look in through her living room window to see if either her father or older sister were standing there laughing at her expense.

“Whose’s there?” she demanded to know.

Irina took a cautious step backward. Clearly someone was trying to mess with her, the wind doesn’t just randomly move leaves into a smiley face pattern. But her sister had already left for work which only left her mother inside and she wasn’t exactly one to pull pranks. Their father, maybe. However, he was away at a conference out of state.

Her lips pulled into a deep frown, unsure if she should run inside or try to fight what she couldn’t see. If this thing was one of those monster creatures, it would put her mother's life at risk if she hid. But, if it was something else, she had to wonder if she could handle it on her own. Irina was, after all, only a Chibi Senshi.

“Don’t you dare think about leaving!” She pointed a threatening finger at the pile of leaves as if it had been what had offended her.

Quickly, Irina ran to the front door, leaving it ajar as she ran through the hallways to her bedroom where she stowed the Henshin Pen in her nightstand. “Please don’t be a youma.”

Heedless of the consequences associated with powering up while it was still day time, and this close to home, Irina ran back outside and closed the door behind her before seeking shelter at the side of her house behind the yard waste bin.

“Transylvania power, make up!” It had been so long since she had last spoken those words that she had almost forgotten what it felt like to don the senshi uniform.

“I don’t know who or what you are. But if you don’t show yourself then I will blast you to the moon!” It was an obvious empty threat because her magic wasn’t that strong. But it didn’t know that!

Transylvania nearly let out a startled yelp when an aura flared to life only a few feet away. She did, however, jump back a good foot in surprise.

“Wait,” she paused then took a hesitant step forward. Her arms were stretched out before her as if she were a person walking in the dark trying not to bump into anything, such as a wall or partially open door.

“If you’re like me,” Transylvania started to ask as her arms seemed to pass directly through the spot where the aura ‘stood’ or rather ‘floated’ perhaps, “are you dead?” How else could she sense another senshi but neither see nor hear them?

Goodness, this was horribly confusing.