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Tony didn't mind days away from the desk, though he couldn't really say he was too far 'away' at all. Instead of manning the front counter, or sitting at his own desk, he was in the Work Room, the back shelves, sorting acquisitions that were recently processed and added to the library catalog. He was checking the barcodes on a computer in the back, the shelving them in alphabetical, but not numerical, order so they could be put on a truck and taken off to their new homes.

He was just reaching a fairly beautiful book, a thick leather bound edition with gold accents and yellowed pages, when a bell at the counter made him look up. A student worker was supposed to be watching the counter, but as he moved from the back room he noticed there was no one around behind the desk. Frowning, he glanced at the clock to see if he had just lost track of the time, but he hadn't. Someone was supposed to be working right now, and just wasn't.

Shaking his head, he absently carried the book with him up to the front desk, putting it down since he only had one arm to use at the moment. The patron just wanted to check out a couple of books, and he engaged in some idle conversation while he checked them out and stamped them.

Vaguely he wondered where Jada was, though she hadn't been the one he left at the desk. Still, she should have been nearby: he gave her strict orders to take care of herself, and not put any strain on her back. He had seen what happened when she did too much, and was being protective over her.

Someone had to take care of her, if she wasn't going to do it. So he made sure to constantly stay on her case.

Once the patron was dealt with Tony sighed, looking around. He would wait for a bit, to see if the student came back, and so he sat down in the rolling chair and slid the book closer, admiring the cover. He didn't recognize the markings, and couldn't find a title.

Jada had been supposed to be taking care of herself, but with everything going on in her life she had better things to be doing than bothering with it. She needed to throw herself into work or she would go mad with having nothing to think about but the uncertainty of her own future. Dear Tony; he tried so hard to make her sit still and didn't realize the harm that he was doing to her by making her be still. Didn't realize that by making her sit around doing nothing, he was giving her time to think about how much she hated where her life was right now?

What did she have except for money? Ahh, but money could buy happiness, if you didn't have to worry about people. People could screw everything up. It was what most people did best, ruin everything they touched. It was why people should never marry for love, the heartbreak in the end. It was why Jada wanted to run as far away from Destiny City as she could: until she wasn't a Senshi anymore, until all that she loved was out of sight and thus out of mind, until she grew old and rotted away at the end of a wasted and unwanted life.

Jada pushed the silver cart around, shelving books and allowing herself to sink deeper into despair. The books were put up quickly, and Jada slipped into the elevator, listening to the music. And when she stepped out, she was beaming for everyone. The mask Jada wore for her own happiness, and the happiness of others. Nothing wrong with the world. Everything about her life glittering and beautiful, as though it had been pulled direct from the silver screen and into the humdrum of modern life. All of the glamor, all of the beauty. None of the schmutz.

She moved towards the desk, the cart pushed in front of her, frowning as she saw that Tony had been commandeered to the front counter. He wasn't supposed to be the one there. It was one of the new girls; she'd probably shown someone where the books were and gotten sidetracked or something. Well, that or she had actually believed Jada when she'd teasingly told her that the genealogy section was haunted and run away. It wouldn't be the first time they'd lost volunteers like that. Jada required the people in her life have strong constitutions, especially her coworkers.

A young man was approaching the counter, and speaking to Tony. Well, far be it for Jada to interrupt when it was actual socialization for him. She pushed the cart into the back room, grabbing another one that was only half-filled. She could get this work done, at least. "Tony, do you want me to see if I can find the girl who was supposed to be working?" she gestured. Considering it was her fault that the girl had more than likely run away.

It had clearly been a good guess. Johnny nodded as he fished his wallet out and set down his library card. The librarian seemed competent, which was nice, and thus the green haired teen let him get on with his business. No use interrupting a man who clearly knew what he was doing. He spared the assistant only a cursory glance, noting her expression, and then looked away again. She was, no doubt, busy and didn't need to be interrupted either. Just a normal, every day library checkout. Until, of course, the book started moving.

Blue eyes widened as some sort of strange, wormlike creature came through the book. No way. A bookworm? They couldn't possibly exist! After the bull incident, one might have thought that Johnny King might have actually been used to monsters popping up wherever they felt like. In his defence, as terrifying as the last one had been this one was three times as terrifying.

Johnny did the only thing a rational person would do: he ran away. Fortunately for Tony, it was only as far as the nearest bookcase, which he darted behind. Hopefully in his distress the librarian wouldn't notice that he didn't actually leave the library. The shift to Laocoon was effortless as he rounded the shelf and came back up the next aisle to deal with the worm. Sword drawn, he skidded a halt when he saw the situation. Oh dear.

"Uh, minor problem, it's on your chest and I really, really don't want to stab you." He looked sincerely apologetic.

Tony, distraught, heard a voice above him and looked up to see a man nearby, dressed strangely. With a sword? Was this another one of those Senshi, like Virgo? His clothes didn't look the same, but of course he was male, so there had to be some differences there, right?

He didn't know why he was thinking about that, though, when he had more pressing things to worry about.

Struggling to somehow shove the monster from him, though it would not budge and had no eyes for Tony to target in an effort to hurt it or distract it... or any other visible appendage or organ to target on its bulbous, unnervingly slimy body. He punched at it and kicked his feet, feeling a bit light headed.

"I-I would rather you didn't stab me," Tony agreed timidly, unsure if this man was teasing him or even a good guy. Though, the way he sounded it was like he was upset about not being able to help, so that had to be a good sign. Tony didn't need any more problems. And then he heard another voice, which offered him no comfort whatsoever.

"Insurance?!"

The sound of wood shattering and a computer monitor falling away from the ruined desk and smashing into the floor made Tony's heart sink so deeply into his chest he didn't think the monster would be able to get at it, no matter how hard it tried. "What are you doing to my library!?!"

But his protests, misplaced as they were since this new arrival was helping to save him, were interrupted when the bookworm was torn from his chest. He let out a surprised yelp, the leech like creature having created a sort of vacuum affect as it worked to get to what it ultimately wanted, a starseed. The acid was meant to eat away at flesh, make it weaker and easier to remove, while its body sucked in what tissue gave way until it had created an empty hole in its victim. This process was slow and painful, and interrupted completely by being torn away.

Tony cried out at the sudden release of pressure, rolling onto his side and putting his hand instinctively to his chest. The first thing he noticed was that it was still there, which was great. It was like a burn, still sizzling from lingering acidic saliva from the worm, his clothes doing a good job of slowing the process by having to be burned away first. It had only managed to eat at his skin and a shallow layer of flesh, but it still hurt badly. It felt like a second degree burn, enough to cause a lot of pain, but not destroy the nerves.

Deciding he was fine, he struggled to look around, spotting the worm as it seemed to struggle in the grip of strange tendrils. Tentacles? They were coming from the ground, he noticed. And had destroyed the front desk.

The worm was not happy, and it grew in response to the attack. It's defense was to make itself larger, growing to an alarming size, produce more acid, which was much more potent and dangerous, and burn away anything that threatened it. So it started spitting globs of the burning liquid at the tentacles, at Sailor Scylla, and at Cavalier Laocoon indiscriminately. It wanted to eat all of them now. Tony could hear people screaming and fleeing, and he wished he could do something to help.

Oh good, she got a handle on the worm. Lifted it off of her older companion, allowing the older man to roll away. And then the worm grew in her grip, struggling and spitting. She hadn't used enough power to deal with a fighting worm that was suddenly larger. To use anything larger would cause more rampant destruction.

Scylla tried to dodge the spitting acid, but her attention was divided; worry over Tony, worry over the library, worry even over the Cavalier. She took a shot of acid like a punk, giving a little cry as the goo landed on her upper arm, acid dripping down and over her glove, eating away at the fabric. At the same time as her cry, one of the two small tentacles wrapped around the youma was destroyed by the mixture of her distraction and the assault on it, sending one end of the worm falling for the floor, essentially leaving it dangling in midair.

The sailor scout cursed; a most unladylike word.

A third arm tore through the floor violently, lurching for the acid spitting creature. One good thing about the size of this arm was that it would protect Tony from any of the acid; the bad news was that also it sent the main desk flying across the library, papers exploding everywhere and the drawers falling out, pens scattering over the floor. The third of the arms was one of the strongest she could make, possibly overkill as she had an ally, but she wasn't going to take any chances.

Hopefully, Tony wouldn't get hit by the desk.

The larger of the arms worked in tandem with the smaller; the more slender of the two flung the worm towards the floor with strength borne of Scylla's hope that it would stun the youma; the larger fell towards it like a tree, the air groaning around it. "Timber!" came a cry from the stacks to the side. A civilian. Probably one with a camera, with her luck.

These tentacles were bad a** if he did say so himself. Idly, Laocoon wondered if he could petition Alexandros into inviting this girl into their court – he held some sway with Nehelenia, right? – but the train of thought was abruptly cut short as he was forced to dodge flying bits of front desk. Ouch. He had rather liked that desk too. It had a nice finish.

The youma hit the floor with one of the weirdest noises that the cavalier had ever heard. Instead of being stunned, however, it sprayed acid. Great. Just great. Laocoon had taken two steps forward into the acid spray before backpedalling instantly, trying to get out of the way. It was incredibly hard to get out of the way, however, simply because of the way it was flinging its goo all over the library. Unpredictable youma were the worst.

"Mr Librarian, I am always careful!" Laocoon said brightly as he tried to get closer, but was forced to retreat when the acid got worse. The billowing robe of his cavalier outfit was making it harder to hit skin, but it burned through the material fast. This was totally not cool. "I would be a bit more careful if I could, but it's raining acid and it stings," he amended after his second attempt, blowing on one of the acid welts on his arm. Getting close to it was virtually impossible without getting burned alive. Turning his attention to Scylla he called, "Can you use your tentacles to smash it? Or, or the desk! Pick up the desk and hold it down?"

Tony watched as the man with the sword explained things to him. Acid rain did have a bad habit of inhibiting fighting. He frowned, keeping his relatively safe position behind the desk. His chest was starting to really hurt, now that the first rush of adrenaline was ebbing. Of course, he could exactly feel calm yet.

Still, he knew a Zodiac soldier, and she was always capable of keeping everyone safe. Or at least keeping him safe, since they had run into two monsters now. So he had an innate sense of faith in senshi, in general, and didn't buy in to the media calling them terrorists.

Anyway, these two were very clearly trying to help him, despite the collateral damage.

Surprised, he looked at Scylla as she came over to the desk and huddled near him. He almost missed the nickname, and it made his brain stall.

"W-what did you call me?" he asked, his face one of pure confusion. He saw her straining, though, and realized he could probably ask her about it later. He moved a bit closer to her, putting his hands on her shoulders lightly in a very literal effort to calm her shaking. There was very little he could do at the moment, and he was still reeling from the shock of it all. His head wasn't too clear, so he just did what his impulses told him in an effort to help.

"I called you Tony." Scylla realized too late she'd let it slip. "You are named Anthony, right? That's what your little name tag said, anyways. " her attention was kept carefully on the Cavalier, as though she'd made no mistakes. Aww, hell. She instinctively shied away from Tony's touch on her shoulders with a jump; Scylla was more cautious about contact than Jada: Scylla knew what people could do with their touch, and Jada pretended life was hunky-dory. The cavalier's weapon went through the worm and Scylla winced. That looked like it was painful. If worms had nerve endings. Hopefully it would kill the youma. Her tentacles remained clenched on their prey, squeezing tighter, and then they were gone, almost like smoke; they had been held onto for too long. She'd reached her limit. Instinctively, she cried out, purple eyes on the monster and the cavalier near its maw.

But for the most part, it seemed the youma was still, and after a few moments, the tension drained from her shoulders. "Remarkable?" she finally looked the other power in the face, drawing her eyes from the mostly decapitated worm. "I could be as envious of your weapon, Cavalier." she smiled at him, tugging off the scraps of her glove. "I am Scylla, Senshi of the Kraken." she pushed to her feet, looked down at Tony. "I'm sorry for the damages." In fact, Jada was caterwauling in her head over the damages done the front counter and the books scattered around. "I'm really, really sorry."

It was a mess. "I am inclined to say, however, that the library is probably closed for the day?" The main computer was a mess on the floor, monitor shattered. Not to mention most of the front desk was gone.