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Drake wasn't the only person out and about in the garden that evening. Voices coming up from further up ahead.

"Are you saw it come this way Liryn?" Athene asked as he looked down at the small bobtail cat, who had self-appointed himself his patrol partner for the evening, holding the half full cup of sugar-laced black coffee that he'd picked up from a late opening coffee shop a couple of blocks back in his right hand.

He'd paid for the coffee as Arian and had just finished henshining up, when he'd come across Liryn and although it was hard to tell if the path-crossing had been design or just plain coincidence, it hadn't changed the end result of the impromptu patrol partner.

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"Yes" Liryn's voice was cheerful. Although his path-crossing with Athene had been coincidence, Liryn had indeed been looking for the dark-haired senshi and knowing of his senshi's perchance for taking hot drinks on patrol had gone scouting round the coffee shops.

He had gotten lucky, managing to catch up with the dark-haired young man close to the second shop. He had trailed after the other for a bit and after it had been clear that Athene was once again hitting the patrol beat alone.

It wasn't going to happen, not whilst he was around. Liryn wouldn't let any senshi patrol alone whilst he was about and could do something about it, much less the senshi that he had decided on for his own.

The patrol had been uneventful until he had picked up on the youma aura, which in turn had led them to the plants and paths that made up the park-like area winding its way in between the buildings.

Trying to track down auras wasn't something that was an exact science as it only really good for giving a general idea of area - or at least that had been Athene's experience with it. Even so however, he was reckoning on it not really being too hard to find the youma now that he and Liryn had managed to track the thing down as far as the park.

After all given that this particular 'park' really wasn't that big - more of a biggish garden really - Athene was counting on it not taking them too long to search through it, even if they did have to search through every last nook and cranny of the place.

Except they hadn't even had to do that, since he had heard the sound of a voice followed by a growl coming from somewhere further down from where they were currently and given that there were no other powered auras in their current vicinity, it suggested that the youma had managed to cross paths with some unfortunate civilian.

No, not unfortunate civilian Athene told himself increasing his pace as he started to head in the direction that the voice come from, the relative proximity suggesting that they weren't that far away. After all he had no intention of letting whoever the youma had found be a youma casualty.

He was also not expecting Liryn to go charging ahead as fast as his small legs would take him.

"Hey!" he called as he followed after the small cat. "Hey wait up!"

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Given that apart from the eternal strength aura coming from Athene, the only other aura in the vicinity belonged to that of the youma, it was not hard to put two and two together and come to the conclusion that the voice coming from somewhere further up ahead was most likely coming from a civilian.

He moved from trot to run, darting down the path as he called out "Come on Athene, it's coming from this way." Heard Athene as the dark-haired eternal, followed after him.

He hadn't given much thought as to what he was going to do beyond the vague idea of acting like a distraction for the youma so as to give Athene time to do his senshi stuff and although it being a civilian up ahead rather than a fellow senshi or knight made things kind of tricky, Liryn reckoned he was cat enough to handle it - after all it was that or let the civilian become a youma snack and that option was just not acceptable - at least not to him.

He came across the pair in time to see the young man back away from a thing that looked like some sort of combination between of cat, raccoon and lizard and was gearing himself up to carry out his plan as acting as a distraction by charging the thing, when a coffee cup sailed in direction of youma.

Athene's coffee cup to be precise.

As a projectile it was kind of useless, but as an attention grabber - as the latter it was probably a lot more effective.

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By the time Athene had managed to catch up with the small tabby bobtail, Liryn had already managed to find both the civilian and the youma - which seemed to be the result of an unfortunate partnership between a cat, a raccoon and a lizard - a very unfortunate partnership.

Although Athene noted the dark-haired young man backing away from the youma, the majority of his attention was on the youma - well that and from preventing Liryn from doing something like charging the youma.

Which is why he had tossed the coffee cup at the youma, despite the fact that it wasn't really a particularly great projectile. It was supposed to be an attention-grabber rather than a weapon with Athene wanting the youma's attention on him and not the youma or the small cat that really needed to understand that he was a small cat and not a one cat army... And the cup was about half full of coffee - so hopefully that would help in the attention-grabbing.

Bonking the youma with a take out coffee cup turned out not only to be an attention grabber - but a super effect one to boot as the youma levelled a malevolent glare in his direction which was good. It hadn't moved immediately to try and attack him however, which was not so good - particularly as the civilian and Liryn were both much to close to the thing for Athene's liking.

"You should get out of here whilst you have the chance" Athene said keeping his eye on the cat-lizard racoon thingy even as he directed his words towards the dark-haired civilian whilst simultaneously trying to weigh up his options.

The solution came in the form of a nearby bin - well more to be precise it actually came from a nearby bin lid, which Athene darted over and picked up before moving to try and use said bin lid to whack the youma with.

It would probably have been easier to use magic, but given that his magic with the exception of his eternal attack seemed to have a mind of its own, it seemed better to go for the direct route.

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Despite Athene's unvoiced wishes to the contrary, Liryn had no intention of being a sidelines cat and had been fully planning to back the dark-haired eternal up in his little kitty way.

Something had given him pause though and had him turn purplish eyes on the dark haired young man with the bleeding ear.

A sudden feeling, or maybe feeling was the wrong word for it since it was more like a hunch - like the hunch that he'd had on Mizar and on Naos and on Mneme - and whilst the hunch might come to nothing, it was strong enough for Liryn to make his way over towards the dark-haired civilian instead of waiting for an opportunity and then kitty-jumping the thing.

"Hi" he called out cheerfully once he was closer, deliberately speaking rather than the mewing that he did when he was playing cat - well make that when he was playing ordinary cat.

Athene hadn't expected the youma to latch onto the other end of the bin lid, but he had managed to cling onto the end that he was holding enough so that he managed to prevent the thing from its goal of yanking the bin lid out of his grip.

There was an awkward tug of war between him and the monster, his attention mainly on the youma.

On the plus side the youma's attention seemed to be by this point fully on him which meant that neither of them were paying any real attention to either the civilian or the small mauvian.

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Liryn was kind of getting used to the dumbfounded look that seemed to be a popular side effect whenever he spoke to anyone - at least to anyone non powered - and so he had sat easily enough, head tilted up so that his purplish eyes could stare upwards at the dark-haired young whilst a part of him wondered if this would be the one to break the trend.

He hadn't, instead blinking at him for a long moment before saying anything.

There had been a hello there though so Liryn gave him a cheerful but feline smile before padding over to give his legs a gentle headbutt "Well like any other talking being" he said in answer to the dealing with a talking cat comment. "Although I'm partial to scritches when there's no youma around." Another gentle headbutt followed by a brush against the legs. "I'm Liryn and I was actually wondering if you could let me try out a theory."

Well hunch actually, although theory sounded better than hunch.

For a moment Athene thought he might get an opening as for a moment the youma let go off the lid. It was springing back at him though before he could do more than clumsily try to swing at it as hard as he could, whilst hoping he could get a solid hit on it.

Because if he could land a good enough hit on it then perhaps he could give himself a better opening and if he could give himself a better opening then he was going to take his chances with his magic and hope that tonight would be one of the nights when his unpredictable magic decided to actually work for him.

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The scritching was nice - was very nice indeed - but unfortunately the youma that Athene was tackling meant that Liryn couldn't appreciate it as much as he would have liked.

He did purr during the scritching though and gave the young man another gentle head butt once he stopped in order to show his appreciation.

It was time to get to work.

For a moment Liryn backed up a little and then he launched himself into a backflip. It was perhaps not the best backflip, but it was definitely a credible one, two items tumbling down to land on the ground with a thud as his paws touched ground.

He turned and looked at the two items before picking one of them up and crossing the small distance between himself and the civilian before setting the item - which appeared to be an oversized pen of some sort - down by the young man's feet.

"This is a henshin pen. Can you try picking it up and calling out Hydrus Power Make-Up with as much feeling as possible" he said, adding "If my theory's right then this belongs to you."

Technically if his theory was right then the other object, which if glanced at would reveal itself to be a phone, also belonged to the young man.

Right now Liryn rather thought that the henshin pen was the most important of the two however.

The young man had graced him with a stare when he'd asked him to pick up the henshin pen and call out 'Hydrus Power Make-Up' but Liryn had sat patiently and waited, even though a part of him had wanted to go help Athene squash the icky youma.

Athene was strong and an eternal to boot though and besides his theory c** hunch kind of came first - after all two senshi were better than one.

Eventually the young man reached to pick up the pen and called out the words that he'd asked - the resulting light show following confirming that that feeling that he'd had was right - that he was the same as Athene and Ida and Mizar and Naos.

And was that fish he smelt?

It was an interesting thought but unfortunately not one he could really pursue especially since the newly revealed Sailor Hydrus was looking rather confused.

Liryn was kind of getting used to the confused look though - confusion seemed to be an awakening thing.

"It looks like I was right" he called out to the senshi. "You're a senshi like Athene" he frowned in concentration "Like this you are Sailor Hydrus - Hydrus of the Leviathan and that means you can do magic. Your magic..." more concentration "Your magic is called 'Shallow Sea Monsters'."

Not that Liryn was sure what Hydrus' magic actually did but the name itself was a neat one. "I can explain things for you - like that phone and stuff and Athene can explain stuff too, but first we need to finish tackling that youma."

His purplish gaze was suddenly serious as he asked "Will you help us Sailor Hydrus?"

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The sudden ping of another senshi aura so close by took Athene by surprise and for a crucial moment he took his attention off the youma, enough so that the thing's follow up leap was enough to knock the trash can lid from his hands.

His woes didn't end there as the thing followed up by launching itself directly at him and although he was able to shift himself enough for it not to get him in the face it didn't look like he was going to be quite fast enough to get all of the long mass of his hair out of its way.

Fortunately the thing didn't stay latched onto his hair for very long, as a voice from somewhere behind him called out a magic attack.

It had the effect of making the lizard-racoon-cat amalgoration of a youma let go, although not without it taking some strands of his raven-black hair with it. The main point however was that it was off and being held by what appeared to be some sort of small winged dragon-serpenty thing.

Athene had enough presence of mind to retrieve the trash can lid and used it to give the youma a hard whack, hoping as he did so that it would be enough to dust the menace before the magic holding it ran out.

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"Yes" Liryn said, but the newly awakened Sailor Hydrus was already moving into action and his attack was actually kind of a neat one, the serpenty-dragon thing that appeared slithering along the ground until it reached the youma before immobilising the thing by virtue of latching onto it.

Not planning to be left out, Liryn poised with every intention of springing at the monster so that he could give it a few swipes, but before he could put plan into action Athene reached down for a nearby trash can lid and smashed the thing down on the imobilised youma with a pretty solid-sounding thwack.