Return of the obnoxious curious brat (For Selenus)

She sighed as she picked one of the back alleys to seclude herself in. She needed a moment to herself, after how considerably busy her day has been. Coming to terms with herself was hard enough, on top of having learned all manner of information as she wandered all over Endymion, trying to find one simple person of all people.

Darn it... even after I finally buckled down at some point and asked Tatsui for the address...

You couldn't bring yourself to invade the property.... darn it, you're a Terrorist now! You can break a few rules!

But I promise I'd stop invading private properties, and I don't think I'm allowed to just casually invade his... le sigh... this is not a good day to be...

Wanna go get some bread or play some games later? Maybe get a comic?

... yeah...

And with that, Tatum sat in her little alley way, trying to let her negative emotions gently pass through before working up the nerve to face the day.

After his meeting with Trinity, Selenus decided he wanted to take a bit of a stroll through town in his new form. It had been years since he’d been able to just be among the crowd, and he’d never in his life been able to do it alone. Unfortunately, as Selenus had figured out prior, maintaining Simon’s illusion costed him a constant expense of energy, and one that was beginning to run him out of figurative breath. Needing to hide away for a bit t drop the mask and regenerate energy, Selenus entered the nearest unpopulated alleyway and kept walking until he was sure he was out of sight of the masses. He looked at the walls that made up the alleyway; they reminded him of that one time he’d painted graffiti on a wall with Miyuki. He hadn’t been able to get in touch with her lately, but he hoped she was simply busy.

Eventually, once he decided he’d gone deep enough into the alleyway, he’d deactivate Anima Humanum and get ready to simply rest for a small bit; or at least, that’s what he would’ve done if right after he hadn’t noticed that a familiar child was directly in front of him and probably saw him shift out of his human form. What was Tatum even doing here? Shit!

She stared at the sight before her. She stared long and hard. Right in front of her was a dog that randomly turned into a robot version of itself. It was worth staring at for a good few minutes. How strange emotions were. All it took was one very sporadic event for all of her negative feelings to suddenly wash away.

"You!" She cried out, standing to her feet and pointing dramatically, "I have questions and you have answers, and I'm not willing to leave until I get those answers! That was you last night, wasn't it? You were one of the ones who came to my help, right? Right?! Right?!?!" With each "right" she got closer and closer until she was staring Selenus right in the face.

"A few people have explained things to me, but right now you're the one I want to confirm everything with, so please tell me what you know!"

“Would you calm down? I don’t even know what you’re talking about!” Selenus clamored. There was no way in hell he was allowing another child to get involved with psyche terrorism if he had any chance at preventing it. “I don’t know what you’re going on about, but what you just saw was an optical illusion; it’s part of my abilities as a robot, high tech stuff.” Selenus would walk forward as Tatum got closer, practically defying her bounciness and “right? Right? RIGHT?” shenanigans. “More importantly, why are you sitting alone in an alleyway? You’re not trying to sneak into more private property, are you?” Selenus’s voice would be stern, yet lacking in anger.

"It was an accident!" she quickly declared, "I thought Shrines counted as Public!" Her other-self failed delightfully at restraining his laughter.

Hey, hey, you'll never guess what happened! Mercury mocked in Tatum's head.

Not helping! Tatum mentally shouted back.

Th-that's besides the point!" she declared before getting practically in his face in order to whisper. "You're Tatsui's friend, right? You know him, right? What about Grins? Do you know a Grins? Pretty Guardian B! Tell me you know her!"

“That’s no excuse to - wait, shrines?” Now Selenus wished he’d never asked. Just what kind of trouble had Tatum been getting herself into anyway? If this kept up Selenus would feel obligated to take ulterior action. “Please at least tell me nobody spotted you…”

Wait, she knew Tatsui AND Grins? He could understand Tatsui: On the surface he was a regular teenager, and he was pretty sociable anyway, it wouldn’t be impossible or even rare for him to make the same friends as Selenus, but Grins?! That guy was never good news. He already had Zavie and Callie… was he trying to surround himself with children? “I don’t know any Pretty Guardian Bee or whatever she’s called.” He did, in fact she’d been a great ally in the playhouse mission yesterday, even if he hadn't met her real identity, but he wasn’t about to tell Tatum that.