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It had actually been complete chance, almost literally running into Keisha as she rounded the corner, a few blocks from her house. This was notable because most things in Madeline McCaffrey's life were not left up to chance, wherever she could help it; she was a girl who liked to be - or at least feel like she was - in control at all times.

So, naturally, one of the most consequential nights of her young life began with an accident of fate.

"Hey, watch--oh, Keisha!" Madeline said, blinking as she calmed down from the initial, knee-jerk indignant reaction that came from a literal collision as he rounded a corner on her usual evening jog. She watched too many true crime related things to do anything as foolish as having the same routine night after night, but that also meant that she wasn't familiar with all the particular quirks of different routes - including which ones were busy around this time of the evening and which ones were deserted.

She knew Keisha, vaguely but positively, from high school. She'd been a solid partner in group projects, and she always seemed nice, if quiet; that was alright by Madeline, as quiet was preferable to whatever nonsense came out of their other classmates' mouths most of the time.

"I'm sorry, I should've been paying attention," Madeline said with a sheepish smile. "Are you okay?" Neither of them had fallen all the way to the ground or anything, but it was still - awkward, if nothing else. She really should have been paying more attention - those same true crime documentaries and podcasts warned her against headphones or daydreaming when out alone.

And her own brother, now a magical soldier in a magical battle with magical enemies and magical friends, warned her constantly against being out at night at all. However, she wasn't going to let fear govern her decisions; she could take care of herself, she argued back, just as well as Mason could, magic or no magic, and anyway, she was the older twin. She would tell him what to do, not the other way around, so there!

She would not be letting Mason know that she'd been so oblivious that she hadn't heard or seen an entire other human being rounding the corner at the same time as she was. He didn't need the ammo against her, so he didn't need to know. It wasn't like Keisha Lyons was a villain who wanted to take her - what had Mason called it? star-soul, or something. Keisha was a friend, or as close to a friend as Madeline had, aside from her brother, and that was rare enough for Madeline to appreciate a run-in (ba-dum-tiss) with the other girl.

Besides. Two young women together was much safer than one young woman alone, wasn't it? Always bring a buddy! Madeline thought to herself - and maybe Keisha would do for a buddy, since Mason was out 'patrolling', like he was some kind of magical policeman, leaving Madeline otherwise on her own.

"It's okay," Madeline said, nodding in understanding. She glanced down at the fitbit watch perched on her wrist; while she didn't really want to lose her heartrate level, but she also didn't want to be any ruder than necessary, so she was about to make some kind of polite excuse and keep on jogging when -

Madeline heard a twig snap. Her head jerked in the direction, a frown on her face as she scanned the woods. She didn't see anything - it was probably just a squirrel or maybe a deer or something, but it set her teeth on edge anyway.

"I do, yeah, so--let's finish your route together," Madeline decided, looking back at Keisha with a smile. "Better to buddy up, right?" Madeline said with a smile. As they started jogging again, Madeline glanced over at the other girl. "How have you been? You're heading into senior year, right? Have you started looking at colleges yet?"

Because that was the biggest thing on Madeline's own horizon - college. And she had no idea why that might change, or why the shadow keeping easy, slobbery pace with the pair of them, waiting for the exact perfect moment to strike, might have taken a special interest in the two girls. She had no idea that her priorities were about to get - forcibly - thrown all the way out of whack.

Madeline - froze. She had always considered herself more of a fighter than a flighter, in terms of responses to trauma, certainly more of a fighter than a fawner.

She had never, not even for one second, thought of herself as a freezer.

But freeze she did, when confronted with the eldritch horror that greeted them.

MASON--! Madeline's thought echoed through the little black earring her brother had given her, sending the thought shooting like a lightning bolt invisibly across the city.

Madeline jolted back to life when Keisha snatched at her hand, and Madeline scrambled to keep up with her, running faster than she ever had in her life. Mason had told her about these things - these monsters - but she'd sort of...

Well, it wasn't that she didn't believe him, per se. It was just that--it was a very different thing, hearing about it versus seeing it. Seeing it bearing down on her. Where should they go? Where could they go? Where would this monster not be able to find them?

"C'mon!" Madeline said, tightening her grip on Keisha's hand. She didn't even know if the thing was still behind them - they couldn't risk slowing down to look behind and check. "Gotta--get away--"



Halfway across town, Blarney, Page of Earth, was having a perfectly fine patrol - nothing exciting, which was exactly the way he liked it. After the...everything - with Sailor Tempesti's home planet, the whirligig that had shattered his face - he was more and more relieved for the quiet nights. Everyone had been right - one hundred percent correct when they'd said he was too young, too green, not powerful enough. He resented it, but they were still right: he had not been powerful enough for that fight. He'd gotten in all kinds of trouble with Mads and Halia afterwards, but still the worst-bruised part of him was his ego.

So sure, Blarney was 'on patrol', but mostly he was sulking. He was never going to be who and what he needed to be, was he? He was going to be stuck as Blarney, Page of Earth, forev--

MASON!

It startled Blarney so bad he almost fell off the roof. "Mads?" Blarney said, looking all around him as if his sister had manifested nearby specifically to yell at him and for no other reason.

Then he realized that the voice - it hadn't come from outside. It had come from inside his head. He'd activated the earring before, on Tempesti, but this was the first time she had started the--could they call it a conversation?

Mads? Mads?? Where are you?? Blarney thought back, scrambling to get his bearings. Where are you, I'm coming!

And he bolted in the direction he thought she might be in. She was sending him thoughts - half-broken, scattered and filled with abject terror. A park, a path, a--

--MONSTER MONSTER MONSTER--

Oh fishsticks. A youma. Blarney pushed himself to run even faster - he needed to get there, immediately. It could be one of the ones that just needed a good scare, or--

Blarney's stomach turned. He couldn't think of the alternative.

I'm coming, Mads. Keep running. I'll find you. I'm coming.

It was a little bit like ice skating. She and Keisha were holding hands, moving as fast as they could, so fast the world was blurring around them in a swirl of green and brown and grass and sky and fear and they were almost flying--

And then Keisha fell down.

"No! No no no no no," Madeline panted, skidding to a stop and barely managing to maintain her own balance. "No, Keesh, you have to get--you have to get...up..." Madeline trailed off, for two reasons.

The first was that Keisha seemed to no longer be...Keisha. She was--having a moment, complete with costume change, and Madeline couldn't even react to it because that thing was staring at her now, like Keisha wasn't even there.

"Oh, no," Madeline whispered, eyes going wide. "Nooo, no no no, we're not doing this. Nice, uh, doggie...fish....bat....thing..." Why had she stopped running? Why had she even slowed down for Keisha? She didn't know her that well! Plus she clearly would've been fine! Oh god oh god oh god. She was walking backwards, slowly, away from the monster, like it was a rabid dog or a bear or something - she was pretty sure that running at this point would trigger its predator instincts, and that if she tried to play dead, she would just wind up...actually dead.

That left trying to calmly leave the situation without anyone getting spooked or excited.

"Nice monster. Goooood monster. We can, uh, be...friends! You're, uh, a very cute--gah!"

Next thing Madeline knew, she was flat on her a**. She peered down instinctively, momentarily forgetting the life-threatening demon that was stalking ever closer, and saw that it wasn't a tree root, or an animal den, or even a rock that had tripped her. It was a small, wooden, Y-shaped slingshot that had caught her ankle just where the branches of the Y connected.

She didn't have time to process beyond that. There was absolutely no way she could scramble to her feet and get far enough away from this thing to have even half a chance of surviving it.

Oh god, Madeline thought, this is how I die.

The creature - leapt at her. Madeline curled up on instinct, kicking the slingshot closer to herself entirely accidentally, grabbing it as she frantically tried to cover her head and protect her vital organs. She shut her eyes, thought one final I love you so much to her brother, and - waited.

But the hit never came.

Madeline peeked one eye open, and then the other, abject acceptance and terror giving way to slow confusion. In front of both her and Keisha was - a wall. A very large, very brown wall. There was a very loud thump, followed by confused whimpering and faint scratching noises. Pathetic little flapping noises that Madeline was pretty sure came from the creature trying, very unsuccessfully, to fly over the wall.

"...What...the...heck?" Madeline said slowly, just as--another something crashed through the trees behind her.



"I love you too," Blarney panted as he crashed through the trees - far less gracefully and suavely than he had originally intended. His heart was absolutely hammering in his chest - he'd run faster, farther, and harder than he ever had in his life, pre- or post-magic awakening. He had in fact run faster than he had thought possible, even as a Page, pushing beyond what he was sure was the top end of his endurance.

Nobody got to kill his sister. Nobody and nothing got to hurt his sister. Absolutely nothing on this planet or any other was allowed to even think about hurting his sister.



"Ma--Blarney??" Madeline scrambled to her feet and ran to him, flinging herself into his arms for a big, tight hug. She was almost crying - no, she was actually, in fact, crying, bawling her eyes out. "How did you--where did you--how--" Madeline babbled, letting him put her back down. She stepped back, her relief melting into faint confusion. Fear, at least, had been forgotten - for the moment, in the wave of the many, many other emotions that were slamming into her.

"Where did you--what's with your stick? What's with your--is that a cape?"



"What?" Blarney asked, blinking in confusion. "Who has a cape? What are you--" Blarney blinked down at his stick. His stick? His stick was no longer his stick. It was...well, okay, it was still a stick, but now it was all...different? Blarney frowned. And what was this about a cape? Blarney glanced behind him, doing a full circle like a dog trying to catch his tail. He did, after another full circle, catch the bit of fabric that was now, somehow, hanging from his shoulders.

"I have a cape?" Blarney said, but it came out like a question, because he was as confused as his sister.

His sister.

As Blarney was studying his cape, his eyes re-focused behind the cape on his sister's outfit. What was she wearing?

"What are you wearing?"



"What do you mean what am I--oh. Oh," Madeline said as she looked down at her own outfit, which was - decidedly not the jogging outfit she'd left the house in. "I'm--I'm--gah!" Madeline jumped as the wall behind them disappeared as suddenly as it had appeared.

"Did you do that?!" Madeline squeaked to her brother, her eyes falling back on Keisha, and whatever Keisha was wearing now--were they all falling victim to some strange and very specific sartorial-based curse? It didn't matter--Keisha was now much closer to the monster than she and Blarney were.

"Keesh! Run!" Madeline shouted, running toward her--well, they were friends now, weren't they? Once a monster tried to eat your faces, you were pretty much bonded for life. She still had the weird slingshot thing clutched in her hand and she grabbed a rock as she ran, slotting it into the sling like it was the most natural thing in the world. She took aim, pulled back, and let the rock sail.

It hit.

The monster jolted as the rock collided with his forehead. It did not disappear in a puff of smoke or do anything she thought it might do if she hit it with a rock, but--

But she had hit it with a rock. Shot from...her slingshot. Her slingshot. Why did she have a slingshot? And what was she wearing? She looked down, frowning in confusion as she took it in: a belt with bows and arrows on it. And--Madeline patted at her hair. Horns??

"DO I HAVE HORNS NOW?" Madeline wailed, not even sure to whom she was addressing her question. "Do I have freaking horns?!"



"What? No, you don't have hor--nevermind!" Blarney said, immediately refocusing on the actual problems in front of him: namely, the fact that there were, apparently, two new Pages, right in front of him, and that one was apparently his freaking sister, and the other--

Well, he didn't know her, but--judging by the outfit, she was an Earth Knight, a Page, and he, as a Squire--

...Wait, what?

He was a Squire now?

Wait. He had done that--that wall. It had kept his sister and this new Earth Page safe, at least for a few seconds. Because he was a Squire now!!!

Celebrate later, save now, Blarney shook his head at himself. Blarney reached inside and--channeled, that's what that feeling was. He channeled and pointed the stick - engravings and stone, why was there a stone - between the new Earth Page, his sister the new Cybele Page, he realized, belatedly recognizing the bow-and-arrow symbol plastered all over her; he pointed his stick there was the wall again, clambering high into the night sky like whatever the opposite of an earthquake was.

"Don't--try to fight it," Blarney said, doing his best to sound authoritative and not scared that this monster was going to eat these tiny baby Pages. "Just run, trust me. Trust me, I'll take care of it, just--just run!"