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"The cookies turned out just as I had hoped: Sweet, crumbly, and just hard enough on the outside to seal in the soft inside."
Said cookies were stashed in a Pastry Pastures-branded paper bag at Sadie's side. True to his word, they were surprisingly soft and sweet. He had avoided getting any cat hair on the cookies, but Sekhmet's attempts to steal them had left Calvin's pants a little fuzzier.
"I think they turned out well for a first attempt. At the very least, they were better than mine."

Calvin walked a little slower than usual, as though worried that his sister would fall behind. His eyes scanned the streets as he finished talking. Despite the light conversation and cheerful compliments, he had been wary ever since the two had started walking. He watched every pedestrian they passed for any hints of aggression, and always moved to block Sadie from any alleyway on their route.

"Do you have any plans for tonight?" He says, glancing around the corner, "Meeting anyone?"

The youma managed to avoid these searches, sliding up behind a dumpster in the next alley. It stayed quiet for the moment, coiling its long body and preparing to pounce.

"I was meeting you, but now I'm done with that," said Sadie, smiling gently off into the distance. "I might get out the paints? Normally I'd just curl up and watch a few episodes of something, but the sugar has me feeling all inspired."

The energy from the cookies might fade by the time she had actually gotten back to her apartment, as sugar rushes often did, but it was worth trying to ride the wave for as long as she could before it all crashed.

Those thoughts were interrupted by a mew from near her feet.

First, Sadie tensed. Her track records with cats was not the best. She didn't have a way with them, the way her brother did.

Then, she looked down, to see that it was Viatrix. Also, she looked worried. Sadie's heart froze.

To make it worse, with her brother there, her tongue was tied. Viatrix was meant to be just a cat. Calvin would probably be crooning over her in about three seconds, and there was no way that Sadie could talk to her about serious things.

"Oh. Hello, cat," she said, stilted. Sadie did not lie. Sadie did not act. Every word had her feeling terribly strange. "Is everything okay?"

Sadie seemed to be catching the sign that something wasn't right. That was good. Probably, because where did she go without just looking behind the two of them and hissing? Encke would be upset if she got this wrong for sure; never wanted Sadie to even have a chance of getting hurt--

The boy Sadie was with wasn't wrong.

She was scared.

Just not of them.

The wary mewl escaped again as she approached the boy. It was hard to reject pets, anyway, and gave her more time to evaluate her approach to find the right one that would get them all to safety and also not blow Sadie's cover because who the hell knew who else this boy could be. She didn't know his powered form if he had one so she couldn't necessarily assume anything good of it--

She felt it when she affectionately bumped his hand.

Oh.

Was that--

Viatrix needed to stop waffling. The youma was ready to strike, and there was plenty to strike at here. She looked behind the boy as she twisted her body around to affectionately rub at his arm, and then pointedly looked to Sadie, then behind her, and said, "We gotta move."

If Sadie had an unawakened senshi with her, it didn't really matter if she revealed herself, did it--

Calvin blinked in confusion, hand still out to pet the cute new cat. The cat that very clearly just told them to get going. Sadie clearly thought the cat was on to something, so he trailed a few steps behind his sister.

"Wait... wh-"

His stumbling question was cut off by the look on Sadie's face. The focused expression, the curt tone, the way her hands played with her hair... Sadie was serious, and she was scared.

Most people knew Sadie as a soft and gentle, which was true to an extent. People often mistook her for meek and cowardly, but Calvin knew his sister on a deeper level. In truth, she was one of the strongest people he knew. She just didn't let that strength hurt anyone else.

After a moment's hesitation, he followed around the corner. He had wanted to ask a variety of questions about what was worrying her so much, why the cat was talking, and why they should trust an unknown talking cat. But the scene presented to him when he turned the corner reduced all of those to one simple question. "What's happening?"

Calvin backed up against the wall, staring at the glowing woman in front of him. She was magnificent and imposing like some kind of ancient Greek Goddess, but there was also something about her that felt familiar. The spark of familiarity faded quickly though, replaced by shock and growing fear. There was some kind of... monster in the street. It wasn't anything Calvin had seen before, and definitely didn't look friendly. He glanced nervously between the mysterious duo, considering his choices.

"Not defeat," said Pendour, quickly, and there was a hint of steel to her quiet voice, the way there always was when someone tried to get her to fight. Her good eye was locked on the youma, though, which was skittering more directly towards them now that her Transcendent aura was luring it closer. "We just need to get out of here."

Only, then she was actually processing what Viatrix was saying. A world out in space.

Mauvians were the ones who awakened senshi, weren't they?

She blinked. Then she blinked again, frozen in light of all that information despite the fact that the creature was skittering forwards very menacingly, its mandibles clacking.

"Calvin's a senshi?" she asked, and then she blinked one more time, and then she had accepted it.

"Okay," she said softly, inhaling while she caught up to the situation. "Well, awaken him quickly, because I can only distract our guest for a minute or so, maybe."

Then her ocarina was in her hand and she was walking forwards, playing the music that channeled her magic. Luckily, it seemed to take effect on the youma. The mandible clicking slowed, and its eyelids drooped.

Right, defeat was a bad word with Pendour, wasn't it? Encke had said she was something of a pacifist.

Okay, maybe something was too light of a word for it. Very much a pacifist, maybe... "He is," responded Viatrix, without a moment of hesitance. She was certain of it, even, and knew that the starseed of the one she was facing was probably why there even was a youma very determined to get over to them.

Well, the energy from Pendour probably wasn't helping--

The apparent ventriloquist wasn't the one talking, though, and she'd need to resolve Sadie's brother trying to get closer to the youma. She dashed to break the distance he had created as quickly as possible, poking his leg determinedly with her paw.

"Senshi, not sushi, though sushi is pretty good," she responded, stubbornly looking up at him.

If only she could use her bipedal form for this. Something something too much energy output--

"And I am one of Sadie's friends!" Well, she liked to think so, anyway-- "But I also have a gift for you. Look at me, the cat, and take it and follow me away from the monster."

In her teeth, then, she held a henshin pen, and she moved it to her paw and lifted it up for him to take it from her.

Calvin flinched when he felt the tap on his leg, but relaxed when it turned out to just be the cat. He knelt down to listen and... Now he was standing between the cat and the glowing woman, and the voice was still coming from the cat. Ventriloquism couldn't do that.

Then again, there was a giant shadowy monster... thing, which looked like it would have bitten him in half if a magical woman in a glowing blue-green dress hadn't walked out of a random alleyway and started playing music to it. Perhaps he shouldn't be so bothered about a talking cat. Questions could wait until the danger passed. And Sadie would have a lot of questions to answer once he caught up with her.

"Okay, talking friend-cat" Calvin reached out to take the Henshin pen. "What does it do?"

"Tell him... Wait." The voice seemed to connect something in his mind, and the pieces started to come together as he followed the cat. "Is she..?"