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Heels clacked on the sidewalk as Scylla ran as fast as she could for the cover of trees. s**t, s**t, shiiiiiit. How was she supposed to know that some types of baddies hunted in packs? Virgo hadn't told her about this last night, when she got a rough rundown on just what this Senshi-thing was. And why hadn't she listened, when Virgo told her, 'Don't patrol alone!'

But she had.

And now she was running as fast as she could, two of those youma-things on her heels. At least (she hoped) the guy they'd had cornered had gotten away. Please, please let there have only been two of them!

She shot into the park (still not winded, even though surely she'd done the mile from where she'd been to where she was in just a handful of too-short minutes!) and almost immediately leaped into a tree. Damnit, gymnastics had never been her forte. She kicked one of the youma in the face as it leaped after her, blue heel digging into the third eye in the middle of its forehead. "Scylla's Sorrow." she hissed, and the second youma found itself dragged back by a thick tentacle that at her desperate thought, wrapped itself around the creature's neck. Strangle your prey. Hold the prey.

Higher and higher she scrambled, until she was almost at the top of the tree. The other, smaller, of the youma whined and scratched at its destroyed center eye. It sounded pained, but she couldn't reach it from where the tentacle was. Only one, it would give her longer to get away. Trying to judge the distance from one tree to the next was tough in this darkness. The tree wove as the wounded youma flung itself back towards the tree, and she slipped with a shriek.

Oh, great.

A hand grabbed her arm, pulling her up.

Pants.

A person in pants.

"So if you see anyone in pants, you need to run away." she remembered Sailor Virgo telling her seriously- just the night before! Her mind whirled to the point she didn't hear anything, but saw his lips moving.

Her panicked shriek (something along the lines of "You Negaverse s**t!") as she shoved at the figure that had just given her a hand up made more tentacles spring up, one clutching around the necks of each of the youma (three now!) at the base of the tree, yanking them forcibly down to the ground.

And then the figure in pants was falling. Youma were scrabbling at the tree, choking as they fought to get not only at her but at the pant-clad figure. She sprang from the tree, flinging herself desperately to the next. The branch proceeded to crack, and she too was tumbling for the ground.

Thud.

Scylla hit the ground behind the other senshi hard. Castor? Castor. "Well, Cas--Sailor Castor--has pants. He's all in blue and has an ascot." She eyed the person in front of her quizzically, and then shot a foot out, between his legs at the one-eyed youma who was about to sling itself between them to get at her.

The tentacles at the other tree reached out, lunged forward and grabbed the wounded youma, jerking it back with a snap that was clearly audible. Apparently the monsters had spines. And that one had just had its spine broken by the force of Scylla's panicked, wordless command.

She got to her feet. "Castor. Oh. I heard of you. Sorry for the misunderstanding." her voice was faint, embarrassed. "I'm Scylla. Thanks for the umm... and sorry about..." She kicked out again at the one-eyed youma that was starting to try and circle around the tree. The one Castor had hit (twice) was still shaking off his punch. "So, any ideas on how to make these guys go away?"

That was when she saw what was hopefully the last of the youma spring from the tree she'd been in, jaws wide and mandibles dripping. Gross. She didn't have time to do anything other than shove her arm out to try and protect the other Senshi's face.

The jaws closed on her arm (instead of Castor's face), and she shrieked.

Jada had heard his question (apparently this Castor was well known by females), but the time to answer it was unfortunately not there. Her hand was in a youma's mouth, her chest pressed to his back so she could reach around his ego to protect his big head.

It took her a few seconds to catch on to what had happened, and when she did, she just gave a slightly hysterical laugh. Youma head was stuck on her arm. Well, the jaw was. The rest of the skull had shattered under hail that somehow hadn't hurt her at all. She remained behind him for just a moment before her powers started waning; she could feel them doing so.

The jaw fell off a second later.

There were only two youma left. One of them only had one eye left, and was yowling; the other of the two had taken a good kick and punch from Castor and was visibly debating tearing into his own ally instead. Her arm hurt, but she pulled it back from around Castor.

"It's not reassuring that you're cursing." her voice was somehow agonizingly level. She wasn't bleeding too badly. Her words were, however, underscored by a growl and another weak leap at the pair from the one-eyed youma.

Scylla, being the delicate flower she was, repeated Castor's curse from her place of safety behind his back and used the last of her waning skill to cause one of the tentacles to catch it mid-leap. There wasn't enough strength to do much more than grab and squeeze the single back leg it got, causing the youma to hit the ground hard. She'd overextended herself a bit; a lot was probably more accurate. And it wasn't her magic that was tired by this point, she was physically tired as well.

She was athletic by nature, but Scylla had sprinted a full mile, climbed a tree, pulled a failed attempt at a Tarzan leap from tree to tree; the youma bite was the last straw for her.

She hated this job. "Scylla of the Kraken." she pushed her slender body back from his to rest her back against the tree. "I'm glad you approve. I rather find them creepy." Who cared about the last one? One of the youma was going to bleed out (he sure as hell better, she was far too willing to go stomp on its last eye at the moment), and the last one was still visibly torn between targets.

Her sitting made up the youma's mind and it went for her with a yowl.

Once again, the delicate flower displayed her skill with the garbage man's tongue. "********." she managed to sigh.

Jada was so tired, but as the youma moved, she and Castor moved at the same time to try and protect her. She heard him curse at the same time she did and grab her arm haul her up faster than she could rise and pin her against the tree with his body.

Oh. Oh.

He was warm, and her back was pinned to the tree, and he was so close to her that she could feel the rumble in his chest when he called out his attack. She could see over his shoulder though. What she saw made her almost sick. The youma was being torn apart by the other senshi's attack; Jada flung her arms around her guardian, trying to bat the hail away from her face and his back.

Castor's attack decimated the youma that was moving for her, leaving only one. That was when the other senshi's weight went suddenly heavy against her as though he'd lost the strength in his arms. She shifted, struggled, keeping purple eyes on the last youma.

Its allies were gone, it was wounded, and still it hated. It growled, moved. And as it jumped, she managed to get one leg free, and kicked. She didn't know where her kick landed (she felt it connect though) or if Castor was hit by the beast. But as she kicked out, she used the last of her own strength to summon up one last attack on the beast.

"Scylla's Sorrow." she whispered, mouth close to Castor's ear. A tentacle snaked up around the whining youma's neck, closed. Squeezed.

Snap.

So there she was, pinned up against a tree by a man, legs hanging on each side of his hips and arms around his neck. Anyone who saw them would have them arrested for public indecency, and they hadn't even done anything.

It was Castor's fault anyway.

"So was it as bad for you as it was for me?" Scylla joked weakly, tiredly leaning her head on Castor's shoulder.

His groan near her ear made her giggle. "Sorry about that," she started. His hand slid down her back and she didn't think much of it rather than giving him a curious look, head tilting to the right. "Are you okaaaaaaaaay?!" the word was stretched out into a quiet little squeal as he fell. Luckily he was falling backwards, and he wasn't rolling to pin her.

She landed atop him roughly, knees hitting the ground to either side of his body and jarring her. It didn't register where his hands were. It didn't register where she was sitting. All that registered was that she wasn't being chased by monster dogs from the pits of hell and that she wasn't alone.

And her hand hurt.

She let her upper body collapse onto the other senshi, unaware of his reputation, and laughed softly. "I thought I'd really done it. I'm so sorry, Castor, I didn't mean to shove you out of the tree." she pushed up, looking down at him, very sincere. "I mean, Virgo told me pants were bad, and she told me about you but I forgot, and-"

And then his comments about his tentacle registered and she froze, face immediately shooting to a bright red as she looked down at him. What?

She rolled off him like he'd scalded her as soon as she registered the word boner. "How in the hell do you have the energy for that right now?" the entire sentence came out as if she was cursing him. "If you're so tired." she moved closer to his head, tired herself.

He did look pretty damn wiped out.

What did he mean senshi outfits didn't have underwear? She thought she had underwear, though... she reached up, trying to check for a strap along the shoulders. Maybe it was built in... Castor may have seen Scylla's face fall as she checked her shoulders. Nope, nothing there. And he was right, the outfit wasn't very constricting. But she had underwear. Maybe just the guys weren't so lucky.

"... thank you for saving me." Her face was still red from his particular brand of crudity and her unhappy brassiere discovery. "Is there something I can do to help you?" She didn't want to leave him here like this. That was no way to thank anybody. "Do you need help back to your home?" She chewed on her lip, looking down at the other senshi. "I can help you to get close to the place you are staying, if you need aid."

"Do senshi have credit cards?" she asked, ignoring with extreme difficulty his comments about moving her top off-shoulder. "Cause I don't know how you plan to pay for a hotel." he rolled onto his stomach and she moved to help him. Hopefully he actually had the honor he was speaking of.

She helped him stand, moving close enough to support him when they were finally up. Was he going to be able to actually carry himself? She slid an arm around his waist, moved him towards the sidewalk. "Alright, you." she said finally, and started them on the walk to the hotel.

This was not the direction she needed to be going to get to Crystal.

By the time they actually got to the hotel, she was leaning on Castor as much as he was leaning on her. The bleeding of her arm had stopped, glove caked onto her arm in tooth-sized streamers. She looked up at the other senshi, face pale in the lamplight. "Do you need anything else? You didn't get hurt, did you?"