Welcome to Gaia! ::

Rowan’s parents always warned her not to cut through the alleys, especially at night. Not that it stopped her most evenings. She’d rather face the quick risk of a jaunt through an alley than the ages of wasted time taking the longer route. She always had work to do, after all. Reading, writing, filling out scholarship applications, practicing for the fall recital, practicing for the weekend’s gigs, and addressing every other item in her meticulously organized day planner. She was miles away, mentally trotting across the pages of her schedule when she first heard the growl.

Rowan’s attention snapped back to the grimy pavement, eyes leveled at one of the strangest sights she’d ever encountered. An almost equine shape that shimmered and shuddered oddly at its edges, its shape fluctuating ever so slightly as it pawed the ground, as though impatient. Could it be a Halloween decoration? Some elaborate costume worn by a performance artist no doubt. Maybe waiting to pop out at passersby on the main road. She huffed slightly and straightened her shoulders before preparing to breeze past the stranger.
It turned its attention to her at the sound of her footfalls, deep set milky white eyes fixing on her face. Its movements were far more convincingly and disturbingly fluid than she could have expected as it lowered its head to look her in the eye. When its hot breath hit her face, her mind stretched taut, like a rubber band nearing its limit before snapping back into place with a terrifying jolt. The jolt of realization that this was not a costume, and something was very, very wrong.

Her hand dove into her purse, fumbling for the canister of pepper spray that lived unused within and raising it to the creature’s face. She remembered the simple instructions she’d read when she bought it, flick, point, and spray. The liquid found its way into the thing’s eyes and the growl morphed into something resembling a pained yelp. Just enough time to get back. With a grunt she wrenched loose a leg from someone’s discarded table beside the alley’s dumpster. Hauling herself atop the receptacle’s disgusting lid, she raised her makeshift not-quite-club at the creature, waiting for it to attempt to strike.

So now there’s someone in a miniskirt magically throwing rocks at the bloody thing?
OK, why not?
It wasn’t like she expected things to get less strange after the not quite a Halloween decoration tried to attack her. Still, it wouldn’t have hurt for it to be some kind of ridiculous setup, maybe one of those shows where they prank the unsuspecting people who wander into the sight of their cameras. Maybe have her sisters jump out and laugh at her gullibility. Of course, she’d refuse to sign the waiver to show her on screen. As far as she was concerned, no one needed to see that. But then, she was very well aware that this wasn’t some half-baked reality show joke. It was unfortunately very, very real. As if to make the point abundantly clear, a rubbery appendage shot out of the not-horse’s jiggling mass, taking a swipe at the stranger’s legs.

“Well, I’d hope it’s not happy! It’s certainly done nothing to improve my evening.” Rowan tried to hide the tremble in her voice. She was unsure of how successful she was in the attempt, but at least she tried. She landed a sharp blow on the creature’s head, alarmed and annoyed in equal parts when its skin seemed to tense causing the table leg to glance harmlessly off of its face. She let out a groan, frustrated and disgusted with what she had to do next. After all, staying back obviously wasn’t a viable option. Despite what this woman said, the whatever it was didn’t seem like the sort to back down to one person, magic rocks or not. She’d heard about stiletto heels being weaponized against people before, but she admittedly had no idea how effective they would be against something like this. While it flinched and shook, distracted by the barrage of rocks, she raised her leg and stomped hard in the general direction of its face. To her frustration and disgust, the shoe remained lodged in the thing’s head. Suddenly immensely grateful that she had opted against shoes with straps today, she stumbled back as it schlorped into the viscous mass.

The youma let out a strange, strangled bellow as a second barrage of rocks rained down upon its body. It hardened the quivering mass of its back against the bombardment, sending the stones glancing off. Despite its best efforts, the creature’s reflexes failed its gelatinous head. Its head and neck thrashed violently as it attempted to absorb the impact as it had with the shoe, struggling to expel the projectiles that remained stubbornly lodged within what might have passed for a skull in a more solid being. Its efforts wasted, the thrashing subsided into a writhing, then an erratic twitching as the remains sizzled and oozed outward on the pavement, leaving a single shoe on the ground like some disgusting, amorphous Cinderella.

Rowan carefully slid down from the dumpster, landing precariously on her remaining shoed foot before reluctantly sliding the other into the questionably clean shoe. To her surprise, most of the monster’s form had slid back into the puddle, though an unsettlingly greasy residue lingered within. She wondered if a regular degreaser would work to remove it, she really didn’t want to toss these shoes. Maybe the miniskirted arrival would know, but for now the reality she’d tried to hold at bay came rushing into her. Monsters were real. Monsters were real. She opened her mouth, then closed it, then opened it again.

“Thank you. Really. Thank you. But. Excuse my language. But. What the <********> was that?”

Rowan’s thoughts sprinted faster through her head faster than she could catch them. An unfamiliar word, here, a strange name there, some advice. Condescending? Maybe? Probably not. That, at least, she could grasp. Then she could focus on catching the next one. She realized that her mouth had twitched into a slight frown and adjusted it accordingly. She couldn’t blame the stranger for the monster or youma or whatever she wanted to call it. At least she probably couldn’t. “Well it’s not like it gave me the option to not get close to it. I wouldn’t have sought it out on my own. …Or sacrificed a shoe to it by choice.” She felt herself making a face when her mind went back to the greasy residue currently touching her foot before neutralizing her expression once more.

“You called it a youma? Am I saying that correctly?” The implications of the indirect article “a” hit her like a rush of cold air. It wasn’t “the youma,” it was “a youma.”

“…how many are there?”

Wait. That’s bad. That’s really, really, really bad. Rowan had really hoped that this question would have a decent answer, or a less terrifying one at the very least. Not that she could hold it against Sailor, or would, given that she had probably just saved her life. As enthusiastic as she’d been about swinging that table leg, she had no illusions about its efficacy in her fight against the youmathing. Rowan exhaled sharply, releasing the breath that she didn’t realize she’d been holding.

“Well that’s…not exactly comforting. I do appreciate the honesty, even if I wish there was something more concrete, so thank you.”

She attempted another deep inhale, with mixed success, her breath catching halfway down her chest. “This is…honestly a lot to wrap my head around. I’ve probably got a thousand questions I wouldn’t even think to ask. You said you’re new at this, what did you ask?”

“Halia. Alright, it’s nice to meet you then. I’m Rowan. And before you worry too much, I’m good at keeping secrets, not that anyone would believe anything about this anyway.”

Rowan opted against telling Halia that she’d thought “Sailor” was her legal name. At least one person was spared a name based on a random occupation and she would take any small, absurd victory that she could right now.

“So, that was Superman and you’re Clark Kent? Wait, are you supposed to do that? Show me your real identity, I mean.” She hoped that her inability to hide just how terrifying she found this whole situation wouldn’t get this girl in trouble. If there were monsters running around, it wasn’t a huge leap to think that at least some of the people who fight them might be a bit leery of letting random people see behind the proverbial curtain. Right. The monsters. That was the bigger concern. Right. One thing at a time here.

“Short of having superpowers myself, is there a way to fight those things off? That table leg was…less than effective.”

Rowan smiled back, well aware that it was probably at least slightly awkward. Hopefully the fact that this was a decidedly strange would be something of a distraction. At least she hadn’t run into one of the monster, well, youma’s buddies. Granted, anyone could claim they were the good guys in a situation like this, but Halia had made no attempt to chew on her in an alley, so she had to consider that an important point in her favor.

“I appreciate the honesty at any rate, I really don’t want to get you in any trouble. Especially after you saved my skin like that.” The fact that her skin remained mercifully unpunctured was definitely another point in Halia’s favor. “This is a lot to take in, admittedly. Not that I’m not extremely grateful for the help, and the fact that you stayed long enough to explain any of this to me. It’s just… a lot. Still, I can text you from my phone, so you’ll have my number too. If nothing else, I can throw together a nice tea blend for to say thanks. Not that it’s exactly on par with preventing me from getting eaten, but it’s something.”