The cat's erudite tones took on a more feline impatience as Alea walked near a small group of people. She slid a shred of fish to the cat which rested comfortably, cradled in her arms.
"Which way did you say?"
Without speaking again, the calico pointed towards a house. Alea strode up and rang the bell.
There was no answer at first, and then, distinctly a girl's voice, though not in a feminine tone "James, YOU can get that!"
"That... would be her" the cat said in quiet aggravation and continued to eat the fish.
There was a loud scuffling noise, and finally, the door opened. "Hello there," yawned the red headed girl that stood at the door. "What'cha need?" she asked nonchalantly, not seeming to notice the cat, glaring at her, which rested in Alea's arms.
Alea dropped her voice to deeper than normal and spoke softly, a melodramatic whisper.
"Mwaaaaahahahahaha! The jig is up, Senshi, I have your cat! Surrender to me or else!"
The red head brushed a few wisps of hair out of her face. "Crap!" she squeaked, and dug her hands into her pockets, hastily withdrawing a heart-shaped locket. "JAMIE!! Could you go in your room for a sec?!" she called.
"Yeah, Yeah whatever!" was the boy's responding call and there was a slam.
Ani thrust her locket into the sky "Eos Goddess poweeerrr..." she paused, flinching, to make sure the girl wasn't going to make a move.
Mater sighed, tsking at the redhead, who obviously needed practice at being a soldier
"Kewlness, so that's what it looks like from the outside, huh? Now surrender to me and invite me in for lemonade and M&Ms, ''kay?"
Ani stopped flinching and let her arms drop to her sides. "Outside? lemonade? M&Ms?!" she paused "Unless you're a demented psychopath--and there's nothing wrong with that--you're no villain!" she scoffed loudly, putting her hands on her hips. She relaxed slightly "And we only have iced tea..."
She pulled out another fish and fed it to the cat, then started forward towards the door, expecting the redhead to invite her in. "Iced tea with lemon, at least?"
"Erm..." Ani paused to think for a minute "I'm not sure ..." she paused, then optimistically beamed "but I can check!" she held the door open and ushered the other girl in.
*I would have made a snide comment* thought the cat as she chewed contentedly at the fish *but this is just to delicious!*
Alea walked in, twirling around to get a view of the house. Mater gave a dizzy yowl in response.
"It's small," the red-head commented as she walked in closing the door behind her, "but its nice." She smiled in satisfaction at her house, and nodded in approval. After a second or two of daydreaming, she snapped back into reality "Oh! I'm Ani! And considering you've got my cat, you must be a fellow soldier?"
"Soldier? Nah, I avoid formalized military duty. I'm a psychotic monstrous entity that has enslaved the will of your cat and is even now hypnotizing you... that's it!"
Ani nodded, seeming interested. "Mater..." she began warily ", I thought you said there weren't going to be any excessively psychotic people I would have to work with slash fight against..."
"I'm afraid you've been mistaken Anima." Ani gritted her teeth at the utterance of THAT name. "You must have been dreaming."
"Anima? As in 'motivating spirit'? Cool. Don't worry, soon my hypnotic powers will be in full effect and I'll have you under my sway. Then you'll get me some candy. Isn't that skirt a bit... drafty?"
"H--hmm?" Ani looked down, noting the fuku. "Arhm... Be right back." she said quickly and quickly walked into the kitchen, there was a bit of noise and a few lights. Ani walked back into the room wearing her usual jeans and shirt, carrying two glasses of iced tea. "So we had lemon!" she said happily and handed Alea a glass.
Alea slurped the tea, bringing a scathing look from the cat who still rested on her prominent front. "You could have changed in here. I'd have liked to see what it looked like. So, are you as bad as Iris and Hypnos?"
"Bad?" she blinked "Erm... I don't exactly understand what you mean." she took a sip from her tea.
"Well, neither of them is exactly the sterling example of a superhero, are they. Iris is a nice girl, don't get me wrong, but she wanted to RUN from Cerberus. And Hypnos is a cold-hearted bitch that wouldn't give me the time of day when we fought Scylla and Charybdis. And just now, I learn I'm one of you 'senshi'."
"O---ooh" Ani said coughing slightly.
"Alea... she's worse." Mater said simply "She's been around the longest, seen the least amount of action, and slacks the most."
"Oh, you just need to be optimistic, old witch cat!" Ani protested "You've got a bloody stick up yer butt half the day!"
"Don't argue with me Anima." Mater said as if she were her mother, the red head once again gritted her teeth, letting out a loud 'hmph' in anger and crossing her arms, pursing her lips and glaring sourly at the cat who seemed hardly bothered by the angry girl.
"There's a lot of love in this room. I can feel it. Mater, sorry to tell you this, but comfortable as they may be, I've got to move you." So saying, she lifted the cat from her perch upon her chest and set her down. "So, you must be the leader, right, um, Sailor Eeyore was it?"
Ani almost fell over at this remark, Mater, although unhappy at the movement in position, seemed very pleased with that comment as she chuckled.
"N--no..." Ani said, fighting the urge to stomp on the cat "That would be Eos, E-OS" she coughed, taking another sip of her tea.
"Like in Eohippus?" Alea did her best to keep from smiling as she teased the red-head. There was something similar about the two of them, and she wanted to see how far she could go.
Ani chuckled slightly, "and again might I ask, oh great, entity of destruction and that rot... what is your senshi name?" her chuckling soon caused her face to crack into a huge grin.
"Let me show you! I am the god of pestilence and disease, who will kick ass a lot! Chronos Goddess Power, Make-Up!" She did a 'Wonder Woman" type swirl and landed on a nearby sofa. "Umm... okay, maybe not. So much for a promotion."
Alea chuckled for a moment, a sound which seemed to draw Ani's brother to the room. Once he arrived, he just stood there, agape as he watched the source of the laughter.
"Jamie." Ani began hesitantly "That..." she said, tilting her head toward Alea "would be, oh, who are you again?"
"Addahh ada ada ada ada..." Jamie stuttered helplessly
"Pardon him." Ani began casually "he's just discovered himself." she grinned cruelly in his direction
Alea giggled. "My name is Alea. And, Jamie, dear, if you are going to 'discover yourself', may I suggest the bathroom? You'll stain the carpet if you do it here."
Jamie coughed, glaring at Ani angrily. Ani's grin shrank slightly, Jamie could be intimidating when he wasn't acting foolish--which he usually was. "Okay! Okay! I'm sorry, I was just kidding."
"Hello Alea." Jamie coughed "I'm ... James."
"Everyone calls him Jamie, I call him lack-wit" Ani said is a 'subtitle' voice. She heard Jamie growl at her, "Woo, down doggy." she said chuckling.
"Erm, Pardon her." Jamie said, clearing his throat, "is there anything I can get you?"
Another chuckle escaped her throat, causing a similar tremor across her front. It didn't help that his eyes tracked every ripple. "I think you'd better go. Your sister and I have some very... " She licked her lips, then let her voice drop to a husky whisper. "...personal and private things to do... you understand, don't you?"
Jamie's eyes shifted to Ani, the rest of his body didn't move. She shrugged casually, apparently she didn't know what was going on. "Okey, I'll just leave you two."
"Okey!" Ani said happily "Yeah... uhmmm, okay." she repeated, and watched Jamie as he ever so slowly walked out of the room and back into his room, to study no doubt.
"So, how personal do you want to get, Eohippus?"
"I'm not a fan of ... *that*," she began "if *that's* what you're trying to get at." Ani examined her fingernails.
"That? What, pray tell, is 'that'?"
"Hmm, I'd like to tell you." Ani began, apparently thinking hard "but I'm not very sure myself," there was a pause "and even if I did know." she pointed at Alea "I wouldn't tell you, because_it's_confidential." Ani drew the last word 'confidential' out, and added extra expression to it. "Or so I would figure."
Alea blinked, then blinked again. "I don't think I have a clue what you're saying. I just need to figure out if YOU have a clue what you're saying. Mater, does she? And do you? And if so, what was it?"
"She's being incoherent again." Mater said, after her 'required' exasperated sigh. Ani's smile was ear to ear, and her expression was 'blatantly stupid' to the situation at hand. "Care to explain... Ani?"
Ani's huge smile faded "Not especially, cat," She said roughly. "So, is there anything I can get ya?"
"I can think of something... some candy, perhaps?"
"Ummm..." Ani looked around "fresh out, I believe." she coughed "We don't usually keep candy around, no one in the family is much fond of it."
"No one?" She rubbed her finger across her lips. "I'm partial to... Kisses... myself."
"Ahhh." Ani gave the girl before her an awkward look. "I'm not a fan of candy either really," she said, trying to be serious "although I can eat cherry cordials every once in awhile, and jawbreakers are fun to ... attempt ... to eat!"
"Tyche"
"Eh?" A look of perplexion spread across the red head's face. "Tyche? Isn't that some kind of martial arts?"
Picking up the calico and dangling it above her face, she fell back. "Mater, do you want to come with me? I can take you away from all this."
"I would undoubtedly enjoy it Alea." Mater began "And maybe I will, but for now, I need to teach her, Ani, what she's doing." the cat sighed, Ani looked at them with interest "She's the worst one out there!". Instantaneously Ani's face faulted, she blinked in bewilderment at the cat. How mean!
"I--I'm certainly not the worst out there!" she retorted angrily "If my powers weren't so dysfunctional... why, I'd be the BEST!" she declared, hands on hips, in full glory. There was an awkward silence, Jamie's door opened slowly, his head popped out, he stared at his younger sister, if the setting of where she was hadn't been her living room, there would have been fireworks and flags and a band!
"What is your problem?" Jamie asked in annoyance "I'm trying to study! Go make your declarations outside, or down at school, or somewhere I couldn't hear you!" with that his door slammed, and Ani's face returned to the discouraged surprised look it had been before.
Alea set the calico across her belly and tilted her head towards Ani. "Okay, first things first. What are your strengths and weaknesses, and do you like fish and chips?"
Ani blinked, she wasn't at liberty to answer that, and she wasn't quite in the mood to. She sighed, rubbing her forehead between her thumb and middle finger. "Let's see then." she stared out into space for a minute.
"Weaknesses..."
"That which she lacks" chuckled the cat, before Ani could begin.
Ani simply ignored the cat and went on "Guys, definitely first and foremost, can't pick up any guys; my powers, virtually useless, especially against that cat; I have the innate ability to bother people; and, of course, Mater." The cat yawned in response "Strengths..." Ani began, as if reading something "I'm relatively intelligent; I'm agile ... and Mom says I have 'quite an imagination'" she chuckled at that remark. "Oh, and fish and chips? erm, I don't like the fish."
"Fair enough, what sort of food do you like? I'm going to take you out for a snack and then to a private little cove I know."
"I like ... umm, pizza, and hamburgers, and that's about the extent of my list of 'stuff I will eat that is take-out. Oh, I'm not to sure about the cove thing...."
Alea shrugged. "We can just do it here, if you prefer, but I didn't think you'd want people walking in on the two of us. Like your brother."
Ani peered at her brother's door "Eh, we can go" she said hastily.
"I'll buy the pizza and soda. What do you want on it?"
"Sardines!" Mater chimed
"She wasn't talking to YOU cat." Ani glared "I'll eat anything, but green peppers."
Shortly less than an hour later found them in a secluded curve of a beach. A small pile of pizzas, chips, and soda lay to the side. The smallest of the pizza boxes was open, and Mater was gleefully, if messily, devouring sardine garlic pizza.
"I really pity you if Mater sleeps with you. Well, here we are. Change clothes, 'kay?"
"All righty'" Ani said, she didn't bother to think about what Alea had said, she was getting use to it. "Eos goddess power! MAKE UP!" after a rather impressive light show, Ani had transformed into Sailor Eos
As Eos took her end of henshin pose, Alea quickly flipped half a dozen wedges of potato at her. Shuriken-like, the chips flew with uncanny accuracy.
"Hey! Hey!" Eos said in surprise as she twisted to one side in attempt to dodge the chips "I wasn't ready!!" luckily most of the chips grazed her feathers, "Warn me fir--" Alea launched a chip, it hit her square in the forehead and fell to the ground. "st...". Rubbing her forehead she looked down at the chip. Ani picked it up and popped it into her mouth. "Five second rule," she said while chewing "still good." she could hear Mater cough in annoyance.
"I suppose that our enemies will warn you first? If you really ARE going to be the BEST, you have to work out. So, what are your dysfunctional powers, and do those things work for anything other than stuffing pillows."
"One... uhh ... I won't answer that." she shrugged. "Two, my dysfunctional powers don't work on senshi or guardians, believe me, I've tried." She shot a glance at Mater "not only that, but it USUALLY doesn't work in general. Three, no. Well, yes. They molt, a lot." Eos paused "Oh, and I can fly with em'." she didn't seem to enthused about the last quality.
Alea nodded, and scooped up a pile of small stones. "At the count of three, I'm going to throw these stones at about knee height and keep throwing for a while. I suggest that you not be that low. One... Two..."
Eos took a deep breath "three." rocks flew, Eos began by jumping to dodge the rocks, but after a little while, grew tired and let her wings do the work. She leapt a bit higher than before on one rock, and opened her wings. With one flap she began moving upward, two, three, higher and higher. Mater stopped eating to look up at Eos.
"Don't go up to high!" Mater warned seriously "Someone might see you, and we don't want a crowd down here!"
Eos let herself fall a bit, and then flapped, steadily moving upward yet again.
With a steady sequence of flicks, Alea kept up the futile barrage far below the flying girl. Deftly scooping more stones as she threw, she set in for the long haul of an endurance test.
"So how long can you stay up there before you just give up and cry?"
"And she's done it before too."
"Quiet," Eos shrugged her shoulders and continued to flap "I usually don't have a set altitude I have to stay at," she paused to wipe sweat from her brow "but I think I can hand in there *pant* a bit longer." she grinned.
Suddenly the stones stopped in their flight. "It's safe to come down, but don't do it yet." She stood and took a braced pose. "I'm a bad guy. Knock me down."
Eos blinked. This would be easy ... maybe. She flapped harder, going higher. She abruptly stopped flapping, opening her wings as widely as possible for a 'hang glider' affect. She dove swiftly forward and held her right shoulder out slightly to push Alea with. She gritted her teeth and braced herself for the collision.
Alea watched as the winged fury dove from the sky. Eos braced herself for an impact that never came. Alea dropped into a split and drove her hand with full force into Eos' exposed gut, then rolled to the side as the winged girl crashed into the area of beach so recently destoned.
Eos fought back the urge to walk home at that point, she wasn't a quitter, oh no, but maybe she just wasn't cut out for this business. She landed in a jumbled mass, feathers everywhere, bent in various ways, her face red in embarrassment, frustration, and probably anger, too.
"That was my fault" she said as she squirmed her way out of the 'crash position' and shook the sand out of her feathers, and hair.
"Yes it was," Mater replied "You should be more careful."
"Bah." Eos said angrily, she crossed her arms and quickly looked skyward in an attempt to calm herself.
There was something about this girl she liked. She was young, brash, and kept going no matter what, or who, happened to her.
Why don't you rest your wings and your tummy a bit. Tell me about your powers, and we'll try round two of the flight in a bit, okay?"
Eos sat, not very carefully, simply letting herself fall into a seated position. She adjusted her wings, as she always had when she sat down while in her fuku, and let out a sigh.
"Well, my powers. First of all, I'm supposed to wrap a sheet around the thing I'm goin' after, and expect it to explode. When I use it on a senshi or guardian the sheet falls down and disappears. When I use it on one of those youma things, it usually just leaves em' soot black instead of blowin' em up; like it should."
"Can you blow up that rock?" She pointed to a coconut sized stone a ways away.
Eos looked at it quickly "Probably not, it'd probably make some pretty lights, and a lotta' noise, but that's it."
"It's because," Mater began as she walked out of the pizza box stretching and yawning "because, the attack is only supposed to char an enemy based on the levels of your anger."
"Ahh, so THAT'S why you're here kitty." Eos said hostily, "so my attack works."
"So much for the indirect route. If your attack doesn't work on a person, blow up something real close to the person. Well, keep it in mind if it ever comes up. Until then, your best bet is to practice what you can control. Ready to take to the air again?"
Eos stood upward, pushing herself upward from the knees. "Yup, I'm ready
"Okay... when a hawk dives at its prey, does it shoulder block? Your major mistakes were that you left your body wide open, and you committed yourself to your action too soon. Try doing a snap kick at the end of your dive. Not only can you use both legs, but if you time it right, the kick propels you away from your target. If you get lucky, you can strike and be gone before there's a counter attack."
Alea returned to her braced position and waited.
*Okay,* Eos thought *This_will_work* she decided it would be best to get a running start, and run she did, surprisingly fast. She opened her wings and flapped a few times and began moving upward. *This ..... will .... work*. She turned and hovered in place for a short amount of time, it was hard to maneuver with these huge things, and then shot downward. Closer, closer, closer, all the while 'this will work' she repeated in her mind. Closer to Alea, and to the ground. When she was only a few feet away, she made a swift movement that put her feet in front of her. In the span of a few seconds, which to Eos seemed like an eternity, she shut her eyes and braced for a collision, and she felt her feet hit.
Pleasure and pride mixed with pain as Alea doubled over and gasped. The diving kick had slid under her arms to drive into her breadbasket, and she was rolling in the sand trying not to cry out.
Eos fell off, rather than bouncing backwards, about the time Alea hit the sand. She instinctively closed her wings around her and landed on her back, she blinked a bit dazed.
"G...Good shot. An eagle *cough* striking usually kills its prey in the swoop." She wiped a bit of blood away from her mouth. "Just... remember... that you have a third dimension, more options, than other people. You can kick ass, Eos."
"Kicking ass and taking names." Eos laughed and stood.
"Well, I must admit, I'm impressed." Mater said blinking at the both of them.
Not one to gloat ... much ... Eos walked over to Alea and held her hand. "Need some help?"
Alea shook her head, still holding tight to her ribs, an act which propped up endowments. "I *cough* just need a few moments."
"Okay," Eos smiled brightly "You sure you're okay?"
"Actually, I think you cracked a rib. Don't worry, happens all the time. I heal quick. If I was totally okay, then you wouldn't have done it right. Remember, monsters are much tougher than we are. We have to take the battle to them, jumping in and taking our shots when we get a lucky chance. It's a matter of seeing that golden opportunity and taking it, not standing and trading blows. Grok it, Dawn-horse?"
She started to rise, still supporting her ribs with one arm, then turned her head as the clear sky trembled slightly with distant soft thunder.
"Got it." Eos nodded and joined looking upward "Rain, gotta love it."
A bright flash of lightning crossed the sky, followed a white flash. The screech of brakes and the crash of metal vied with screams from beyond the entrance to the cove. Alea let her arm drop and began to sprint for the arch, then slowed with a wince. "C'mon, Eos!"
Eos blinked in surprise. ''A Youma?'' She asked herself in a perturbed tone, then ran after Alea, quickly catching up.
Mater smiled slightly as she leapt up and followed behind the two.
The scene was pandemonium as the two senshi arrived on the street. Some people were running, but most were screaming and stumbling with their arms outstretched. Three misshapen figures, each about 12 feet tall, laughed coarsely as they stared around, taking in the devastation with their huge, reddened singular eye that seemed to blister out of their forehead. Spying the two Sailors, one of them held up his grimy hand. A mass of electricity began to crackle in his meaty paw.
Anything beyond that was lost to Tyche's vision, however, as her vision itself was lost. The second of the cyclopses had clapped his hands together and sent forth a wave of light brighter than the sun, and the world had vanished into blind haze.
Eos' wings wrapped up and around herself, it appeared as if she were trapped in a cocoon. The light barely shone through her thick layer of feathers, though she still squinted her eyes and sheilded her face with her arms. When the light slowly faded, Eos relaxed her wings and peered at the tall beasts which stood before her "Eeee."
A police car swerved around the corner, its siren blaring as it drove towards the monsters. The one who had not acted yet laughed gruffly. "Steropes, Arges, they think they can be louder than Brontes, the Thunder!" With those words, he clapped his hands together towards the vehicle.
A muted roar blasted down the road, tearing up the pavement and buckling the car's hood. The siren burst and the car spun to a halt, the police inside insensate.
Alea remembered the last vision she had had, painfully aware of the mass of electricity that could hurl at her at any moment. Blindly, she began to spin to the left. "If you have any battle plans, I'd love to hear them. Otherwise, just name your ass to kick."
Eos was off in daydream land again *I wonder where Sydney gets the funding to repair this stuff?* She blinked twice and shook her head. "I'll take the shiny one." Eos said and pointed at Arges, then realizing Alea could not see her, flapped hard and gained elevation, until she was at eye level with the monster.
"I'll take the loud one, then. He'd be worst for your wings." Her foot caught on the curb and she tumbled forward as a bolt of lightning hurtled above her. Steropes began to curse loudly.
Mater hissed angrily as she realized what SHE would have to do. She leapt toward the giant's foot and clawed at it. The giant looked down at her and chuckled.
Eos, still gaining elevation fluttered toward her target. Seemingly by accident she kicked it's singular eye with her right foot. She chuckled.
Arges screamed and clutched his eye. His form wavered for a moment, but then he blinked a bit and returned to solidity. "Stupid Senshi. When I kill you I will ground your bones to make my bread!
Alea ended her summersault with a leap upwards, hurtling fairly high into the air with her native athletic skill. As she did so, she cleared her mind, letting herself just act by feel... by the moment... by chance and divine inspiration... letting loose a handful of cards like her grandfather had taught her.
Brontes screamed as the cards bit into his flesh and slid on. Skin that turned knives parted before their razored edges, and ichor oozed out. His roars of pain became garbled words as he charged the Senshi of fortune. "Brontes will KILL you now!"
"Where'd you get that one," Eos said as she landed on the giant's head and held on with all her might "a fairy tale?". The monster flailed and shook wildly. Eos didn't waste any time in quickly drawing her hands together and pulling them apart, forming a shimmering gold blanket. She wrapped it around the monster's face. It now wobbled and flailed blindly. "EOS TWILIGHT BLANKET EXPLOSION!" she called loudly and let herself fall backward off the monster's body just as the explosion occurred. The monster stumbled and fell backward, dazed at the shock which the explosion had done.
The winged senshi barely missed being crushed, as the edge of her wings brushed the giant's body as it fell toward the ground.
Tyche took a deep breath and kneeled before the charging creature. She was taking quite the gamble, and she was terrifyingly aware of just how much she was trusting her luck, and the words of a speaking cat. And her grandfather...
That thought strengthened her. She could hear the creature, almost upon her, and could feel its power of thunder rising in its hands, about to crush her body.
As the hands thrust towards her, she raised her hand. The cards that she unleashed had finished their arcing spiral and bit once more into the monster as they returned to her grasp like a lethal boomerang. Shocked and wounded, it stumbled forward, crashing to the ground. Its power, released by the crash, blew apart the pavement beneath it, tearing its already ripped body with shrapnel and dissolving it to so much dust.
Eos landed on monster's chest. She stared down at it angrily, then switched her glance to the last monster, who was still up. He had grabbed the small calico between it's forefinger and thumb and held it before his face, grinning maliciously. The cat only grinned back, as if she knew what she was doing. Eos focused her glare back on the monster she was standing on, it was beginning to stir. "Oh no you don't!" she scolded and placed her hands on it's bare chest. Under her hands the same blanket she had used before materialized. "TWILIGHT BLANKET EXPLOSION!" She repeated, louder than before. She kept her hands on the blanket as it began to explode, applying more and more pressure. She closed her eyes and grunted. The youma beneath her feet literally exploded, sending dust everywhere. Eos fell to the pavement, landing in a seated position with her legs out. She seemed rather surprised at the occurrence.
Steropes began to swell as his brothers' power and prowess swarmed to him. His meaty hands, already close to crushing the calico, swelled to twice their size as he expanded. His laugh rumbled like thunder and his eye glowed with a fierce light as lightning played across his hands.
Mater screamed.
Eos stared up at the monster angrily. Regardless of how much she hated that cat on occasion, that cat, which took joy in taunting and criticizing her, was HERS, and no one else's. "Mater!" Eos called "Hold on! We'll get you!" she turned to Alea "C'mon! That thing has Mater!"
Alea hesitated. "Ani, i'm still blind. If I'm the slightest bit off, I could kill her!"
"So?" Eos protested hastily "You can do it Alea! If I can kill a youma, you can do this!" she peered up at the monster "Besides, that thing is to bloody big! I couldn't take it on by myself!"
Steropes laughed more. "A ugly cat, a pigeon, and a cow? this is all I have to fear? I'll kill the both of you, and then rain destruction down on this whole world. I am the thunder incarnate! I AM POWER" Lightning rained down towards them. A faint tickling was all the warning that Tyche needed to jump back. "Okay, Eos, For the people of Sydney, for Mater, let's do it together."
She held her cards out before her and took a deep breath.
"TYCHE!"
She wasted no time in getting out of the way, Eos leapt backward, the wind catching her wings, pushing her further back than she intended, but she was still out of the reach of the lightning. She landed gracefully and closed her eyes, "For Sydney, for Mater." she echoed quietly.
Eos clasped her hands together and paused, standing quietly for a few seconds she realized what she was doing, and for who she was doing this.
She began her attack, confidently calling out "EOS!"
While she could not see the target, she could feel the cards spinning in her hand. She WAS Tyche. She WAS luck. She WAS the last line of defense between this monster and her beloved city, and one girl so dear to her heart that slept in blissful ignorance of this battle. "GAMBLER'S"
"Twilight," Eos opened her eyes, and pulled her hands apart, for an instant she thought she had seen someone she had met before. She snapped her hand upward, drawing the glimmering sheet with her "BLANKET..."
It was now or never. She couldn't count on luck to dodge forever. Better to play all her chips on one hand. Eos needed her, Mater needed her, and far off, her beloved Quieta needed her. No hesitation quavered her voice as she called out her final word, "Edge!"
The spinning pack began to disgorge the lethal cards. Most of the civilians had left the area, which was fortunate considering the wild spray that occurred. The majority hit the mammoth youma, his hide seemed all but impervious to damage. Pain, was a different story, as a number of the cards embedded themselves into his hands, causing him to drop the Calico.
The ones that had sailed by him flew wild and high, clipping a power line that began to drop towards him.
Eos literally ran upward, flapping madly and holding her hands high "Aiiiiiggh,". The blanket grew considerably in size, Eos had failed to notice it at the time. She wrapped the sheet around his gigantic knees and flew back "EXPLOSION!" she screamed and ducked backward as the sheet exploded like a mass of fireworks. She watched her kitty companion plummet downward, Mater had just passed her and the cat was screaming. Eos, flapping awkwardly made a rather ungraceful turn and began to dive straight down. She caught the cat before meeting the pavement, she held the cat tightly as she collided with the ground. "Owwie."
Behind her the monster fell back, toward the ripped powerlines...
The explosion as the contrary currents of the youma's lightning charged body and The Sydney Power Company's AC powerlines collided was enough to send Alea flying backwards. She tumbled as she landed, her eyes starting to clear now that the mystical power of Arges' brightness faded to dust along with the last Cyclops. Realizing that she was in the entrance to the cove once more, and that the camera crew was disoriented enough to have lost her in the blaze, she ducked back through the gate, hoping Ani would think to follow.
Eos weakly stood in the dent in the asphalt she had left. She wobbled across the half destroyed street, down the hillside and toward the cove. Mater, petrified with fear stared up, wide eyed at the girl who dove into the pavement for her
Grabbing Eos and pulling her through the half-hidden gate just before the camera crew reoriented, she collapsed backwards in the sand, wincing from her still wounded ribs, and spontaneously dehenshined. "Is it always like that?"
"Mostly," Eos began, still dazed, "yes." she set the cat down, rather roughly on the ground and dehenshined also. As if harshly pushed down, Ani fell back onto a rock and let out a loud sigh.
Sprawled out in the sand, Alea kicked off her sandals, closed her still sensitive eyes and sighed. "Still feel dysfunctional, horse-girl?"
"Huh?" Ani grunted loudly, she turned to Alea "Whatcha' want?"
"Maybe to sleep for a zillion years. But what I meant was, do you still feel that you can't handle it? Seems to me like you did just fine. Here endeth the lesson."
Ani chuckled "I think I'm good from here on in." She hugged her legs and rested her head on her knees. "Boy, those were some honkin' big monsters weren't they?"
Soft, sussurant snoring was her only response as the once and future Senshi of Luck had drifted into the arms of slumber.
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