Welcome to Gaia! ::

Jada Chamberlyn never went to Public Pools. It was a rule that she had- never go to Public Pools, never step foot near Hotel Pools, and never ever use Public Toilets. There was, however, a public pool near her favorite jogging park, and sometimes she would stop by and look at it, wondering if Public Pools really felt any different than Private Pools, or if they were just dirtier. It was still water, but Szelem had still ingrained in her that while her pool had bleach, Public waters had urine and vomit. It was rather gross, actually. One thing public pools had which most private pools did not, however, were lifeguards. During the summer, many public pools had very attractive lifeguards to pull in customers. Still, attractive lifeguards or not, Jada had never been able to get around the voice of Szelem in her ear from when she was a child, going, 'All the little kids pee in that water. It is like sticking your foot in a toilet.'

Ugh.

The teenager slowed as she came near the pool, hearing the sounds of splashing as she drew closer. That was strange. No one was normally there at this hour of the morning, so the sounds of voices and splashing brought her curiosity to the fore. The fence surrounding the pool was cracked partially open, and the sounds from inside were more as if someone had turned a hose on, little splattering noises. Her dark head peeked over the fence, and what she saw startled her. A Senshi, and a youma, this early in the morning? Well, it stood to be that evil wouldn't wait until people had their morning coffee, but what was a youma doing in the public pool? It was November!

She stood by for a second, waiting to see if the other Senshi would be able to handle it; the other Senshi was using something similar to small balls of fire, which struck the youma and dissipated. Hells Bells. Jada tugged her pen out of her pocket, doing a full spin to see if anyone else was around. Into the bushes ducked Jada Chamberlyn, and a few seconds out came SuperSailor Scylla. It was, the young woman decided thoughtfully as she hopped over the fence (landing in a small puddle of Public Pool Water), much like Clark Kent and Superman. Except without the acclaim that Superman got, or the laserbeam eyes, or the ability to fly into space and throw planets around.

The youma was spitting something terribly familiar to her, she realized as she ducked out of the way of the hose-like spray it sent her way as she came onto the scene. It was shooting acid. “Get back!” she called to the other senshi. If those little balls were as useless against this monster as they had looked from the other side of the fence, this other Scout would be a liability.

Now that the other Scout was behind her... Sailor Scylla ran out of ideas. Oh lord, she was going to ruin the public pool unless she could figure something else to do. Acid was splashing everywhere, but the fish didn't seem to be coming out of water. Logic would dictate just take the fish out of the water, but she wasn't getting in there to lift it out.

Dirty. Public. Pool.

There was a little lifeguard buoy, shaped in a donut like what little kids used. There was a net. There was a little foam surfboard. There was a diving board, which she reckoned she could use to whack the damn thing out of the water. (Which would still involve destruction of public property.) She could drain the pool, but all she knew about how to do that was that it was VERY DANGEROUS. And that there were sometimes some little venty things at the bottom, but that would require either getting in the Public Pool, or using her power- which she was trying to avoid.

Scylla pondered the situation while doing the 'lets not get sprayed by acid' dance around the pool. "So, for theory's sake, how strong are you?" she asked the other senshi, pondering something. "Strong enough to Whack the Mole, or strong enough to pin the sucker down and hold him?"

"Well, if you think you can hold him..." Scylla grabbed the pool hoop on her way by. The odd tribal 'avoid the spray' dance took the two of them close enough that the older senshi passed off the little net. "Hold this, and try to catch him when I hit him. I want to get him out of the water. Any part of that monster you can get will help."

Spica now holding the cleaning net, Scylla moved over to where the diving board was, and frowned, focusing. "Scylla's Hunger!" she snapped... and scowled. The cement had cracked, and the end of the pool near the diving board exploded into a mass of squiddy octopus arms.

The diving board came her way though. She grabbed it in her hand, grunting at the weight. The fish youma leaped out of the water to spray another firehose-strength spray of acid at the two senshi, and Scylla dove behind the diveboard (she'd laugh at the pun later) to avoid it.

The surfboard was covered in wet. How unsanitary. "Now, I'm going to try and hit it, okay?" She wanted to be sure this other senshi was on the same... sigh. On the same boat.

"Good catch!" Scylla said enthusiastically. In both hands, she hefted the diving board, and-

WHAM! The youma was flattened against the side of the pool. If life were a cartoon, it would have an X over each eye. WHAM! She followed it up with a second good bash. Better to be safe than sorry. Double Tap, as it were.

"Get it out of the water while it is stunned!" Scylla instructed, and mimed throwing it over the fence. She dropped the diving board- not into the water, in case she needed to get it again- and leaped the fence, waiting on Spica to follow with the netted youma.

The fish youma was hauled safely over the fence, away from where Sailor Scylla would destroy an entire public pool, and dropped in the dirt. The poor thing was flopping, shooting acid in small sprays. "Now we kill it." She said simply, in answer to the other Sailor's question. "You never, ever leave a youma alive." Her tentacles made quick work of the creature. It wasn't a big creature to begin with; why it had even been turned into a youma she couldn't fathom.

The youma dissolved into golden, glittering scales that blew away soon enough, and SuperScylla turned to the other senshi, a hand on her hip. "You shouldn't be alone at the pool this early in the morning." Was she actually chiding the other senshi instead of congratulating her for keeping her cool in the face of danger?

Yes. Yes she was.

"Your name, Senshi?"

A fire senshi, training before school in a pool of water? Maybe she had misunderstood. Even if she hadn't...

Scylla relaxed her pose, straightening her frown. "I am SuperSailor Scylla, Senshi of the Kraken." She blew a huff of air, blowing away a tendril of black hair that had been working its way toward her mouth. It made her feel better- much better. "And I can see. We'll need to work on that. Have you any plans to attend one of Castor's training programs?" It would really help, and maybe get the girl a mentor.

Not one of Scylla's specialties, working with other people.

She gestured for the other senshi to follow. "Lesson number one, after you dust the youma, get away from ground zero. Cops have this nasty habit of showing up when you don't want them to."

Jada smiled wryly, remembering when she'd first been starting out as a Scout. She'd been in fair enough shape, but she hadn't had a clue of the physical stress of competing in the 'arena' that her hometown had turned into.

"It is good you signed up.Those classes will really come in handy for you." she said finally, then sighed. "And it isn't bad that you went to a pool, I don't mean that by any means." It managed to boggle her mind, now that she was thinking of it. How could a senshi with a particular 'element' handle their attacks? Fire vs. Water (or vice versa). Or what if it rained? Did their attacks just fizzle out? How did they handle it? "It is a good thing that you want to get better." There you go, Jada. "It is also a necessary thing, for all of us. The enemy is getting stronger, so I have heard, and so it is necessary for the Senshi to grow with them, and not just in numbers." She pulled Spica into the treeline, relaxing once they were out of the open.

"I jog almost every morning." she said it finally, looking Spica over carefully. "Since you're willing to get up early, maybe you can join me from now on. I still have half my normal course left." It wouldn't hurt to jog with Spica for a bit, to see where she stood, physically.