Chapter Eighteen:
All Cats Go To Hel
by Jenime and Rach
A balmy night is so soothing on the skin, Bastet thought to himself in a brief moment of self-peace. He had seated himself lazily in a tree, his heavy boots hanging over one side, his head hanging over the other. Amazingly enough, this put very little strain on his back - not like Bastet would notice, anyway. For him, it felt like a great stretch. He had to take advantage of the body while he got the chance. Let Ammon be sore later, he'd enjoy being in control for now.
With a sigh, Bastet sat up carefully and balanced himself on the branch. His dark eyes scanned the streets below for any living thing. Already, below, he had made his mark - a squirrel and a lizard lay dead beneath his perch, although they were hardly recognizable as a rodent or a reptile anymore. Still. The blood on his claws had long since dried, and he was craving a fresh - preferably human - victim. With a sigh, he dropped down elegantly from the tree, landing without so much as a wince on his feet. Whistling through his teeth, he nearly skipped down the empty street, pursuing the enemy senshi wherever they were.
Sailor Hel stretched a bit and yawned, stretching her gloved hands to the stars above them and then flopping them back down on the dumpster�s lid that she and her guardian sat on.
"Hey, you wanna go get more coffee?" She asked with hopeful, forced perkiness.
A small, white fuzzball, speckled with black dots, shifted into a lazier position. "Mmmm... nah," he mumbled sleepily.
Hel's half-masked face fell a bit and she flung an empty cup over her fuzzy-collared shoulder. She liked the idea of patrolling. It meant she got to be Hel. That meant being more agile, faster, stronger. God she wished she could transform at work. She also wished patrolling wasn't so boring. She and Gunnar had never seen another senshi. But maybe that was because Gunnar never really seemed to be concentrating on the task at hand.
"Cappuccino!" The dalmatian hamster suddenly shrieked, jumping at the redhead and burrowing in her fuzzy collar.
"FOAM LOVE!" Hel chimed in time. "Now that's what I'm talking about." She jumped off the dumpster and started to jog quickly back down the alleyway, the streetlights shrinking light behind her and the darkness thickening.
________ Bastet froze in place. Was that footsteps he was hearing? "Curse these human ears," he complained, but went with his instincts and immersed himself into the shadow, the dark colors of his fuku blending in so well that the only thing you could see of him, if you looked closely, was the moon light gleaming off his sharp claws. Bastet slowed his breathing and focused on being still and was soon rewarded.
Oblivious, up marched a young woman, masked, and with an outfit like that - more likely than not a senshi. Bastet's hair stood up on the back of his neck. Oh, she was a senshi, all right. Friend or foe?
Hell, what did it matter? He wanted to see some blood tonight. His heart itched for it. With barely a noise, he moved so that he was further against the wall and then, purposely, kicked a trashcan so that it rolled out into the street, near Hel's feet. His lips pulled back to reveal white fangs. This was going to be fun.
An echoing crash rang and rolled forward in the dark, and Hel froze. She glanced back quickly at the streetlights now more than thirty yards away. She swallowed a lump in her throat, the distant orange light tinting her skin a bit darker than her short, blown back tangerine strands. A slow tin-sounding whir turned her forward again, and she watched wide eyed at the slivering circles of reflected light outlining the garbage can as it rolled to a stop at her feet.
God her fuku was itchy.
"Hel," Gunnar whispered to her right ear. "Something's here. Out there, in the dark."
Hel took a step back from the now listless can. "Something like� uh..." She gulped and looked over her shoulder back at civilization again. "Uh..." She continued, panic climbing up her spine like a sugar dripping monkey with its tail on fire.
"Uh-huh," Gunnar answered, skittering around her collar a bit. "Uh-huh."
"Oh..." She said quickly, forcing her feet to abandon their retreat. The result of that effort was a loud clack of her clunky snow boots on asphalt as she stood her ground finally. It almost seemed determined. She balled up her poofy gloved fists at her sides and lowered her head, peering awkwardly down the alleyway.
A high pitched, "Oi?", was all she could manage to choke out.
Another trashcan rolled out, this time from behind Hel. It stopped just before knocking against Hel's ankles, a black boot calmly holding it in place. "Ahoy," muttered the cat god, resting his chin in his hand, which had been placed upon his knee. "Well, aren't you just the most succulent little human?" he purred. Booting the trashcan away, he rose to his full height and stepped closer to Hel. "You look absolutely delicious, mortal."
Hel swallowed hard, eyes widening more at the crazed looking senshi, then immediately cast downwards. "Hi.... uh... I'm Hel." She took a step to the side, kinda like she was trying to get around him like a regular stranger on the street. "How are you? Uh... who are you?"
Gunnar popped up from her collar and groaned disgustedly. "-What- are you??? Are you drooling?"
Bastet ignored Hel's questions, nonchalant until Gunnar poked his little head out. Stooping so that he was face to face with the hamster, he grinned and moved his fist forward at a frightening speed, the edge of a claw pressed against Hel's neck, the other two almost poking Gunnar in the nose. It wasn't meant as an attack so much as a threat, as the tines didn't even cut Hel's skin. With a lazy smirk, the cat god replied, "Bastet. And you, oh furry one, are lunch," he murmured, grinning broadly to expose fangs.
Hel leaned away from the cold metal touch slightly, eyes tearing as she glanced at as his wide toothy grin. This was a senshi? God, no. It was an inhuman monster. "Stop! No! Please!" She began to cry. "Leave us alone! We didn't do anything to you!" Her slight growth of courage shrank deep into negative percentages. Gunnar, she could feel, was shaking through his attempt to remain still. She leaned away slightly from the man's grasp, shakily raising her hands to pull his claws off, afraid to touch them.
She didn't have to touch them. Bastet pulled his claws away quickly - careful not to scratch either the girl or the hamster - and smirked. "You're right," he agreed, his voice a seductive purr. "You haven't done anything to me. Which is great. The blood of the innocent is the -yummiest-, after all." With a loud, hoarse laugh, he took a step back and spread his arms wide, opening his palms so his claws slid off. They landed with a heavy, resounding thud on the concrete, and Bastet lowered his arms. "All right, sweets; I'm giving you a chance. Attack me. Look - I've got no weapons and I've got nothing to defend myself with. But, by the gods, if you run, pet, I'll kill you before you can even start to move." Bastet shrugged and crossed his arms over his chest, closing his eyes with a smirk. "So go ahead. I'll give you a free shot. Do your worst."
Coy stepped back, mouth open to speak, and had it immediately shut for her as she toppled backwards over a trashcan. A shocked and quick squeak came from her collar as her guardian burrowed himself deeper. She landed hard on her palms, braced elbows holding her in some strange yoga-like stretch over the trashcan. Awkwardly, she nudged it to the side with her toe, and brought her ankles under her. Pushing her hands off the ground, and shifting her weight into a crouch, she brought her hands to her face as if she could examine them for scratches. The realization of it being very dark, and her hands being covered in poofy gloves came to her slowly, and she lowered them with shameless confusion. She resolved to wrap them around herself in a hug, and forced herself to stare up at her murderously grinning opponent.
"Awww uh... " she whined and grimaced as she got ready. There were a lot of unpleasant things about being the Noord senshi of the dead. This might have been one of the worst. "Awwww...." She started again, then closed her eyes. "BE DISEASED!"
Her stomach lurched, and her weight pitched forward, forcing her to her knees. Her head hung low and loose and her grimace grew so much that her teary eyes had to squeeze shut. Her back jumped and pitched a bit, and she started to shake violently.
Bastet quirked a brow skeptically. This was the girl's idea of an attack? Last he checked, seizures were not an offensive movement. In the back of his head, he could feel Ammon's worry over the girl, but he mentally shoved his more compassionate side further back and focused on the girl. What in the world was she doing?
Bastet soon found out. Before he had time to react, Hel had literally vomited on him. Bastet's initial reaction was disgust, his eyes narrowing and his stomach twisting and knotting. "What the hell do you think you're doing, mortal?" he screeched, the odor nauseating him further.
"Ohhhh," Hel groaned in response. Then she let out a little burp, and seemed to feel better. She just wished her fuku came with a pocket full of breath mints. As mere seconds ticked by, Bastet felt more and more sickened, his stomach dancing the tango, back and forth, back and forth, back and for- Bastet couldn't stop the bile rising in his throat. With a sickening lurch, he suddenly doubled forward and lost his lunch, breakfast, and midnight snack. Wincing at her hurling foe, Hel stood up shakily.
"Wooo-hooo! Kick-ass!" Her guardian cheered loudly, bouncing on her shoulder.
"Uh, thanks." Hel said, then took a few comfort steps back from Bastet. She didn't know how long the attack would last, but one thing caught her attention. Bastet had openly taunted her about being unarmed, and there, three feet behind him on the concrete, his claws lay forgotten in his fit of sickness.
"Hold on!" She gasped, forcing the words as she quickly picked up a trashcan. With a few running steps, she slammed it against Bastet's back with a loud metal clank. He fell forward a bit, still vomiting, but sounding more angry about it. Rushing to the point where she almost tripped over her own feet, she dipped down and gathered up his claws in her arms. They were heavy and scary, cutting slightly at her fuku with the slightest movement. "Gah, this is a bad idea!" Hel chided herself as she took off down the alley.
Back sore and pride smarting, Bastet staggered after her, stopping every so often to lean against a wall and throw up once more. His stomach felt empty, and yet, he felt more and more sick as the minutes went by. "I'll... I'll... k-kill you, you m-mortal," he managed finally, taking big gulps of air between vomiting. He was going to torture that girl, oh so slowly. He leaned against the wall and held his stomach, as if it would calm it. He decided that he could easily track the girl - he could run fast enough to catch up to her, anyway, best he just rested for a moment.
"Wait!" Gunnar yelled at high pitch, and the scare caused Hel to immediately trip and fall in terror. She toppled out of a dead run, and hit the ground shoulder first, unable to drop the large and heavy manacles fast enough to throw her arms out. After the topple, she uncurled herself on the ground and rolled onto her back, laying sprawled.
"What?" She asked breathlessly. They'd run at top speed for a few minutes now, but even the glimmer of hope that the monster wasn't hot on their tail was feeble. Her guardian crawled out from her collar and scampered near her cheek.
"Go that way! In there! We can hide. It'll be easier to catch him by surprise!"
Raising her eyes, then sitting up as well, she surveyed the dark shapes behind a chain link fence down the street. CAUTION CONSTRUCTION read on a big day-glow yellow sign. She smiled and looked at the happily bouncing hamster.
"Does this have anything to do with the chance to operate heavy machinery?" She asked.
"Hell yeah!" Gunnar whooped, scurrying towards the site. Hel laughed, until she looked down at the slits in her jacket and remember the claws, the horrible monster chasing them, and the actual deadly-ness of the situation. She got up quickly, and chased after her guardian, meeting him at the fence. He crawled under easily, and after tossing Bastet's weapons over, she met him on the other side.
Hel met more than Gunnar on the other side of the fence. Stooping to pick his claws up off the floor was a -very- peeved Bastet, breathing heavily, but no longer vomiting. He obviously had done a good deal of running, so as to be able to meet her on the other side, but he had made it in time. Slipping his claws on, he stood and gave Hel his most menacing look. "It's not good to play with sharp, pointy things that aren't yours, pet." he cooed softly, his voice deceptively gentle. He approached her slowly, crazy grin spreading slowly on his face. "But if you want to see how these claws are used, I can give you a free show."
The girl pressed back against the fence, absolutely terrified. Gunnar was somewhere on the ground. She had to do something, and it was hard to think of anything with this animal skulking towards her.
"BE DISEAS-!" Her cry was cut off as Bastet swung out a clawed hand and clamped it over her mouth.
"Uh-uh-uh." He said sweetly, giving her left, unmasked cheek a gleeful little lick. Her eyes teared and ran, and she tried to shake her head to no avail.
"Hmm. A bit tangy. The tears add the needed pinch of salt, to boot." Bastet grinned, raising a claw so that it carved a line of red down her now damp cheek. "Tell me, girl," he muttered, enjoying himself. "Are you frightened?"
All the she could muster was a high pitched scream that was entirely absorbed by his palm. She struggled, succeeding only in being pressed further into the flexing gate behind her. Her tiny, puffy fisticuffs bounced off his arms and shoulders lightly. With one outlandish kick, though, she found purchase with her foot in between Bastet's legs.
Bastet let out a soft, shrill whimper, pressing his knees together as his olive skin paled with pain.
Normally, Bastet was a master at ignoring physical injury, but this kind of... low blow... was difficult to ignore. Still, though, his ability to ignore pain was definitely helping him, as he didn't drop his hold on her and, rather, pressed her further into the fence.
"C-coward shot," he managed, his voice no longer husky, but slightly high-pitched instead. "I'll kill you for that." Bastet pulled his palm away from her mouth and, much to her surprise, dropped the claw on that hand. He bent quickly to pick up a thin lead pipe and smirked horribly as he swung it with his now free hand, aiming straight for her rib cage.
Fear preventing any kind of counter, Hel took the blow full on in the side, crumpling over the pipe and falling to the ground coughing and gasping. She was winded, but surprised not to hear or feel any kind of popping or cracking. Apparently it took more than that to break a senshi. Looking up at Bastet from a prone fetal position, however, she didn't think that would be a good thing.
"Hey..." She said in a squeaky, broken whisper. "I don't wanna... could you just... please?" She closed her eyes and hugged her aching side. "Please leave me alone?"
"Leave you alone?" scoffed the cat god, dropping the pipe at his feet. "Human, I am Bastet, and I always get the job done," he hissed and kneeled, using his free hand once more to pick her up by the neck, dragging her up onto her knees, so she was face to face with him. With a laugh, he shoved her hard against the fence once more, pinning her body there with his own, and happily licked some of the blood off her cheek. "Delish," he said sweetly. With another laugh, his knee snapped up, giving her another bone rattling jab to the chest.
A choked cry, followed by strangled sounding gasps filtered through Bastet's grating laughter. A white ball of fur shuttered, regripped the top bar of the gate and hoisted himself up. Gunnar fumed and made his way towards the fight as quickly as he could without falling off, again. Bastet made a rather uncouth thrust against his senshi, and the gate shook terribly. This made one already pissed little punk hamster very, very angry.
"FREEDOM!!!!!" He yelled randomly, and lunged from above. Both senshi looked up, surprised, and Bastet's face was immediately covered in flying furry fury.
Bastet let fly a few curses and moved his hand to his face, intent on pulling off the crazed hamster. After a few minutes, he had managed to pull off the furry rodent, glaring daggers at it. He had teeth and scratch marks from where Gunnar had scored hits, and Bastet did not look pleased about it. "You," he panted, anger filling his eyes, "are not worth being an appetizer!" With a yell, he threw the hamster towards the ground.
With an angry yell, Hel brought the same lead pipe down on the back of Bastet's knee. After he dropped, she pushed herself off the ground gasping, and immediately went for her guardian. "Gunnar? You okay?"
Bastet pushed himself up with a wince, knee throbbing painfully. Thankfully, the girl hadn't swung that hard, and he was positive it wasn't broken. It would just leave a nasty bruise. Picking up his dropped claw and slipping it back on, he glared at Hel's back. Stupid move, girlie, he thought, sneering mentally. Never a smart idea to turn your back on your opponent. Disregarding the agony rocketing through his leg, he calmly snuck up on the senshi and, with a smirk, raked his claws down her spine.
With a wail of anguish, Hel huddled over her guardian. Down her back ran slight rivers of red and black. She wished he'd just kill her. How could she ever win? She wasn't strong enough. She felt so weak...
Gunnar squirmed a bit admist her sleeves.
"Hel! C'mon! Don't worry, we'll beat him!" he pleaded.
"Gunnar?" she asked, sounding vacant. The hamster squirmed his way to her palm, digging his claws in slightly. She nodded, surprised to find so much resolve in such a small, weak creature. Folding her fingers around the scruff of his neck, she turned and glared at the smirking cat-villain. To his surprise, she turned in the opposite direction and chucked the rodent away from them both, yelling, "Guardian Garm!" She then covered her head and refused to look at Bastet any longer.
Bastet whirled around - instantly regretting it because of the condition of his knee - and blinked at the suddenly changed hamster. What once was a tiny creature was now huge. A seven foot beast, with drool and foam almost pouring from his two foot bite radius, dripping down a blood soaked furry chest and, Bastet guessed, a serious dislike for cats. The creature sniffed the air, wet steam invading the night air from its nostrils, its three pairs of eyes, low and near the snout, lifted their furry brows and turned to him. Bastet began to move backwards until his back was pressed into the fence. Taking advantage of his prey being cornered, Garm charged, barrel-wide paws shaking the ground with his heavy weight, charging not unlike a far too playful rabid puppy. Bastet dived to the side, hissing as he caught a glancing blow of the creature's claws on his shoulder. Growling to himself, but knowing it was wiser to evade rather than to attack, he tensed his muscles, waiting for the animal to lunge again.
Garm snarled his lips, exposing his tusk-like incisors, and howled in outrage as if to say, "STAND STILL WHILST I EAT YOU, DAMMIT!" It lifted a paw and powered it down upon the fence, knocking it flat without noticing. He charged again, jaws opening wide, preparing to snatch Bastet up like a favorite chew toy.
Bastet's cat-like reflexes were damn good, but not good enough. A loud, almost pitiful screech of pain escaped the senshi's lips as, in attempt to move out of the way, his leg got caught between the beast's jaws. More out of shock and instinct than anything else, Bastet clawed insanely at the monster's face, managing to get it to release his calf eventually. Horribly mangled with barely even shreds of cloth covering it, it wasn't in the best of shape, and Bastet was literally tearing at the eyes with pain. But, buried beneath the agony in his eyes was hatred. This girl was not going to live past this night, and neither was her guardian, if he had anything to do about it.
Garm reared and lunged again, but whilst in mid air, suddenly turned back into a cute and tiny hamster. He landed at Bastet's feet with a light thud, and looked up bashfully. Guiltily, he patted one of his boots, not the gnarled and frayed one, of course. "Hey, nice shoes?" He tried, somehow hoping to smooth over the whole mangling thing.
"You are dead," Bastet said simply. With a snarl, he lifted his good leg and swung, kicking the hamster a good couple of feet away. The cat god turned to face Hel, eyes ablaze. "And so are you." He limped forward, slowly but steadily, claws stretched towards her. With no warning, he lunged forward, yelling bloody murder and arms tearing at Hel. He burst out laughing as the girl barely moved to defend herself, his arms ripping at clothing and skin, venting all his frustration, his need for blood on the poor teenager.
Meanwhile, blissfully oblivious, Gerda marched through the narrow alleyways, ball of light extended in front of him to light his path. "I really should be patrolling with Hodr," he complained to the small bird rested on his shoulder.
Faffie let out a sigh, ruffling her feathers slightly so she seemed to be just a small, puffy ball. "Faffie knows, my Desi, Faffie knows. But Faffie is a stupid bird, yep, yep, Faffie is a very stupid bird who does not know what is best for my Desi, 'cause Faffie is just a bad guardian - "
"Fafnir, shut up," Gerda hissed, freezing. He was hearing noises from the construction site across the street. Dimming the light emanating from his ball, he slid up to one of the remaining fences. With as little noise as possible, he peered through a couple of the links, and literally gasped at what he saw.
It was that damn Bastet, and it looked like he had some sort of victim, the way he was tearing away and laughing. Feeling instantly nauseated, Gerda stood and turned on his heel. Far be it from him to play the saint and get himself killed while trying to help someone.
"You - you s-stupid human," Bastet wheezed, exhausted from his onslaught of attacks on Hel. He gave her one last kick to the stomach before stumbling back some to catch his breath. He had long since knocked the girl out, but he had been careful not to kill her. Not yet, anyway. He wanted her death to be as slow and painful as possible - thus all the shallow, but painful cuts he had given her - but now it was time for this one senshi's life to end. Kneeling at Hel's side, he smirked, dropped a claw, and lifted the girl up slightly by tugging on her hair. His grin becoming more devious, Bastet yanked her head back, leaving the skin of her neck exposed, and gingerly laid one claw upon the skin. Face splitting slowly into an eerie grin, he began to drag his claw along her neck.
With a loud curse in Spanish, accompanied by a "Flash Bomb!", Gerda slammed his lightball into the ground and sprinted forward, snatching the girl out of the shocked and blinded Bastet's hands. He knew he had about thirty seconds, maximum, to drag the girl somewhere where Bastet couldn't find either of them. Seeing how the girl was bigger than him, he also knew that this was not going to be the simplest of tasks. Trying to keep as quiet as possible, Gerda half-carried, half-dragged the unconscious Hel behind a tractor and stilled his breathing.
"GODS DAMMIT!" Bastet screamed. Standing up on wobbly legs and ignoring the jolt of pain he got from his bloody limb, Bastet stumbled forward, searching for the two senshi. "I'm going to find you both!" he threatened, eyes gleaming. "I'm going to find you both and I'm going to tie you both up, and I'm going to cut off your tongue, and pull out your fingernails, and -" Bastet paused and sniffed the air. He couldn't even catch their scent. "Dammit!" he yelled again, banging a fist against a steel beam. "Just you wait," he hissed. "I'll find you both later, and if I don't kill you, I'll kill your friends and family." With his threats complete, Bastet turned and limped out, wincing and grumbling to himself.
Behind the trailer was a slight rustle, and a weak moan. Sailor Hel attempted to move, only able to twitch slightly. "Gunnar?" She cried, not really aware of where she was, eyes kept tightly shut.
"Not quite," was the soft reply as Gerda squinted at Hel. Without the bright ball he normally held, the teenager was having a bit of trouble seeing Hel's injuries, but he was able to guess pretty accurately. Cuts. Lots of 'em. Probably a broken something or other. Desperately, he tried to remember what Hodr had taught him about First Aid. The only thing he remember properly was the RICE method, and he doubted it would help him right now.
"Look, se�orita, just relax." he ordered in a comforting tone. "I'm Gerda. My guardian is around here somewhere, I just don't know where. Tell me, can you walk?"
"Ow..." The girl groaned, and squirmed her face against the ground. "Leave me alone. Please. Please. Pl-" A choke cut her off and she weakly spat some blood in Gerda's direction.
Gerda coughed and looked away, feeling awkward. "Hope they've got senshi drycleaning," he sighed, blinking dimly at the blood that had landed on his thigh. "Look, he's gone, I think. Let's just get you home."
"Rgh," Hel murmured, sorely shifting herself into a sitting position. "My guardian. I can't leave without finding him." She sniffled a bit and rubbed her face, muddling blood and tears uselessly. Looking up with unfocused, but hopeful eyes, she reached out for a hand up.
With another sigh, Gerda extended one of his hands to Hel and carefully lifted her to her feet. "Your guardian," he began, and for a moment pondered where his went off to, "what does he or she look like?"
She leaned against him and started them back towards that battlefield. "He's the cutest little guy," she whispered, scanning the shadows. "You couldn't miss him, palm sized and white with black spots."
"I'm guessing he's from the rodent family, also?" Gerda kept his eyes trained on the ground, not wanting to accidentally crush the missing guardian under his boot. With a sigh, he stopped walking and looked around. The construction area was huge, filled with all sorts of nooks and crannies that a mouse or a hamster or whatever could crawl into and remain, and the girl was heavy and sagging on his small shoulders. "Look, let's speed this up. Could you call out his name, or something? He might respond and make this a lot easier for us."
"Gunnar!" she responded, accidentally in Gerda's ear. Hel's voice echoed through the steel girders and vacant spaces of the construction site. She bent her head forward and listened and, on the very tail end of an echo, she thought she picked up a muffled "Oi".
Limping a bit, she made her way towards a stacking of sheet rock. Nestled between a few pale stony sheets, Gunnar lay on his back, little paws up in the air. Worry still apparent on her face, Hel gathered him up softly and folded him in the puffs of her torn and bloodied jacket. "Oi," she said solemnly.
"Oi," Gunnar mumbled.
Hel turned back to Gerda, forcing a slight smirk. "He's okay."
"I want ice cream and sandwiches," the hamster's voice offered as evidence.
"I'll get you them later," Gerda muttered. His eyes roamed the "battlefield" still, searching for any remaining traces of Bastet. Upon finding none, he relaxed some and managed a faint smile and shook his head. "You look pretty beat, to say the least. How about I sneak you into my backdoor and test out my admirable knowledge of first aid on you?"
Fafnir, finally making her tiny presence known, added cheerfully, "My Desi says that he has been looking for a good victim for a while now, yep, yep."
Gerda gave the bird a filthy look and swatted at her with the arm that wasn't supporting Hel.
"Wait a minute," Coy squeaked, pulling away as much as one can from someone who is holding them up. "I-I don't even know who you are! Are you a senshi? You are,right? Why are you helping me then?" Her eyes began to water shamelessly at the idea of fighting again. "I only fight once a night! It's a rule!"
"Relax," Gerda muttered. With a small shrug, as he did not want to dislodge Coy from his shoulder, Gerda nodded. "Yeah, I'm a senshi, unfortunately. But I'm neither looking for a fight or getting a weird vibe off of you, which is a good sign. I don't think we're enemies. What team are you on?"
Hel blinked, then squinted her eyes at Gerda suspiciously. "Wait... you tell me what team you're on first."
"NOORD!" Gunnar interrupted, answering for them both. "We're all Noords! Break out the party hats!"
Gerda grinned and tossed his head to move some bangs from his eyes. "It's settled then. We're allies." He extended a small, gloved hand to Hel, and introduced himself, "Desiderio Oro Calavera. I'd appreciate it if you called me Desi."
"Desi," Hel replied gratefully, a smile suddenly lighting her battered face. She took a moment to concentrate, then deshimmered into a slashed and smaller girl with bright tangerine pigtails. The smile suited her more now, without the freakish wooden mask covering half her face. "I'm Coy." She said, then leaned into him tiredly, eyelashes batting dizzily. "Thank you for saving me. What happens now though?"
"Close your eyes." Gerda instructed, and once the girl had complied, he concentrated and returned to his normal self in a brilliant burst of light. "You can open them now," Desi said, and gave her a grin just about as brilliant as his senshi-self. "My advice is we either go to my house or wherever you live, raid the medicine cabinet, and get you cleaned up. I learned first aid recently from a friend. Speaking of which," he paused, a faint frown of concern on his face. "Do you know any other Noords?"
"No," Coy replied through a yawn. "Uh, are we close to your house? My station is across town from here, I'm a firewoman." She smirked to herself a little. God, she loved saying that.
Fafnir spoke up for Desi, "My Desi lives two blocks away! Faffie's house is big." the bird chirped with obvious pride, almost similar to Coy's.
Rolling his eyes, Desi nodded. "Can you make it there?" He looked Coy over and grimaced to himself. Stupid cat had done a number on her. Blood was beginning to stain her clothing, along with his. "My good turtle-neck, too," he muttered to himself, the corner of his mouth bunching up into a dry smirk. "Seeing how you're a firewoman, you may know a bit more about bandaging than I do. Think we should kind of stop you from hemorrhaging first?"
"Mmm-hmmm," Coy muttered, snuggling in closer, subsequently staining more of his shirt. Desi could only cast a hopeless glance at the heavens as they turned a corner and gimped slowly towards his house.