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 Posted: Mon Oct 17, 2011 2:06 pm
The Squire of Earth was back in his proper place, and doing his nightly duties. Or, as it turned out, daily ones. He was simply walking from lunch at the corner diner back toward the library, as he always did when he failed to bring food from home, when he saw the shadow slink down a side street.
His instincts told him to follow. Bag of left over lunch in one hand, cane in the other, he followed after the shadow quickly enough. His leg had healed well while in the Virgo Outpost, a surprise gift from this whole thing, and his limp was far less pronounced then it had been. The old damage, however, could never be healed, and he knew he would always have his cane with him.
Just, when he needed to, he could move without it.
He followed the shadow down the side street, the complete opposite thing anyone with half a will to keep themselves safe would do. But he wasn't aiming to keep himself safe. If this was a youma, or someone lurking to cause harm of any kind, he was going to prevent it.
Except he lost track of it. He looked around, then hid and took the chance to power up, leaving his food on the floor. He stepped out from behind the trash can and moved further down the long alley between buildings, like a hallway. There were no street lights.
Now where had it gone?
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Posted: Mon Oct 17, 2011 2:59 pm
Between worrying over his cousin and attempting to be a good senshi something had to give and that something had been homework - as a result his school performance had been suffering a little. That is if scoring a bit fat 'F' in the geography pop test that his teacher had deemed necessary to spring on the class as a little.
The teacher hadn't deemed so and had seen fit to dump extra work on him to 'help' his performance - as if all the extra work he'd been stuck doing over the summer hadn't been enough. Somehow Arian had a feeling that explaining that he was moonlighting as some sort of superhero at night probably wouldn't go down so well and had decided that spending a couple of hours in the library working on the stuff would probably be prudent.
Except on approaching the library, a weird shadow slinking down a nearby side street snagged his attention.
The dark haired teen had lived in Destiny City long enough, that when he caught sight of the shadow he immediately equated it to 'nothing good'. For a moment he hesitated - did he really want to get involved in this - especially if 'this' turned out to be nothing? More hesitation and then he sighed - it couldn't hurt to at least take a look.
He paused in his pursuit after the shadow long enough to duck behind a random dumpster and power up into Athene and then the senshi of beads took off in the direction he at least thought the shadow had gone in.
He slowed as he picked up the aura up ahead, moving forward cautiously. Actually come to think of it there was more than one although he wasn't sure where the second one was coming from. "Anybody there?" Maybe it was stupid announcing his presence like this, although the aura up ahead didn't feel like one of the negaverse.
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Posted: Mon Oct 17, 2011 4:43 pm
Camelot heard the voice then felt the aura, not the way he usually liked to do things. That often meant that he was about to be attacked, and he hadn't been paying enough attention to his surroundings. That was one of his major weaknesses, though he did not like to call attention to it.
He certainly didn't want the wrong people figuring out how to sneak up on him.
When he felt the aura, though, the tension in his body faded and he looked relieved. He smiled at Athene, recognizing him from their brief encounter before. He sighed.
"Hello again," he said, though he wasn't sure if the other would remember him. "Camelot, Squire of Earth. Ah. We met while I was a Page, so I look a little different..."
He cleared his throat.
The shadow was no where to be seen, but that didn't mean whatever had made it was gone and things were safe. In fact, the dark alleyway with the high buildings on either side was the perfect place for it to hide. It was dark down there, despite the midday sun, and it could simply cling to the wall above them.
Unnoticed, it seemed.
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Posted: Mon Oct 17, 2011 8:41 pm
"I remember you." Athene said, his voice friendly. It seemed that being a squire granted more armour - at least in Camelot's case - it made the page, no, squire, look even more like something that had stepped out of one of the fairy tales about King Arthur "It's nice seeing you again."
He frowned glancing around, that second aura was still around somewhere and whatever it was - it felt fairly close
For the moment he contemplated asking what brought the Squire to the alley, but then frowned distracted as he remembered the second aura and he glanced around the alley. "Do you sense that?" The tone of his voice was absent-minded as he glanced around the gloomy alley. He bit his lip. Whatever it was, it was around somewhere - somewhere fairly close, but he hadn't picked up anything on his quick look-round.
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Posted: Wed Oct 19, 2011 12:05 pm
Camelot smiled, glad to hear that he was remembered. He hoped Athene was doing well, not wanting to upset him again after basically pouring all the scariest parts of their job onto his shoulders during their last meeting.
His relief faded away, though, and he nodded.
"I followed a shadow down here: I could have sworn it was a youma, but by the time I had powered up I had lost track of it. It has to be down here somewhere, I didn't see it head out into the light on the other side."
And then, of course, the thing dropped down on them.
The youma had long arms and short legs, and a thick, leathery webbing between them. It wasn't capable of flying, it seemed, but it did float down. It broke its own speed, but it could aim its attack, racking its clawed feet at the end of short legs forward to try and scratch Athene's back.
Camelot saw the thing by chancing to glance up when he heard a strange flapping sound and yelped.
"Look out!"
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Posted: Wed Oct 19, 2011 2:56 pm
“Do you think...” Athene begun as he started to ask a question only to be interrupted by Camelot's warning.
Something had him ducking and the dark haired senshi felt the displacement of air as something 'whooshed' over him, something scratched across his back causing him to give out a short, startled yelp.
Wincing, Athene straightened up slowly as something skittered onto the alley floor. “Thank you” he fought the urge to reach up and attempt to pat awkwardly at his back – hopefully it was just a nick – instead the dark haired senshi tried to look for where the 'thing' had gone.
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Posted: Fri Oct 21, 2011 12:54 pm
Camelot saw him get hurt by the youma and moved immediately to his side, shield up and ready, looking around to defend. The youma had skittered up the wall again, and he was surprised by how fast it seemed to vanish.
"Are you alright?" he asked the senshi, looking at his back. It looked deeper than Camelot would have liked, and he frowned. "Ah, it's coming back!"
He saw it coming this time, lifting his shield and its claws slamming into it. It knocked Camelot over, which toppled him onto of Athene in the process. He couldn't help it, the strength of the blow too much for him to stand against though he did himself to brace. He landed on the other side of Athene, his feet on the poor senshi, which was probably heavy as Camelot was a tall man.
"Ah, damn it!" He said, struggling to get back to his feet as the youma glided around to attack them again. This wasn't going as well as Camelot had imagined youma fights would now, what with the upgrade. Maybe he was just bad at fighting, regardless.
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Posted: Fri Oct 21, 2011 3:08 pm
“Yes, I'm...” was about as much as Athene was able to get out in response to Camelot's question and then the youma was attacking them again.
It happened quickly – one minute Camelot was standing in front of him, shield outstretched – the next the Squire was toppling over right... “Ugh!” Was the somewhat winded sound that escaped the dark-haired senshi as he was knocked down by the falling Squire and somehow managed to end up with the older man's boots on top of him – the at that moment in time not-so-awesome armoured boots, his mind chanting a complaining Heavy! over and over.
Then, thankfully the boots were gone. For a moment Athene continued to lie on the ground, but then scrambled up awkwardly when the thought registered that ground was probably not the place to be – not with sharp-clawed monster still lurking around.
Once finally back on his feet Athene glanced around the alley trying to spot where the youma had gone to, the dim lighting seemed to actually favour the monster, making it hard to spot – but he did find an empty beer bottle which was still in one piece. Out of the corner of his eye he thought he caught movement and he launched the bottle in that direction.
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Posted: Sun Oct 23, 2011 12:10 pm
Camelot looked very annoyed and frustrated, but doing his best to hide the look.
The youma let out a screech when the bottle smashed into it. It knocked the thing out of the air, and the youma hit the ground scrabbling, not much for traveling on the flat surface of the floor. It was built for climbing vertical walls or gliding, and it had to skitter across the floor, almost flat to it.
"Ah, good throw!" Camelot cheered, moving to stop his foot down on the youma's wing. It let out a howl and tugged, and an ugly tearing sound filled the alley.
Camelot winced, almost feeling bad for that one.
"We can dust this thing now," he said, keeping his weight on his foot to disallow the youma from getting up and skittering up the wall again. When it got in the shadows it was the most dangerous, and he did not want to let it get the chance to swoop at them again.
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Posted: Sun Oct 23, 2011 2:58 pm
Athene hadn't been expecting quite that level of success with his bottle throw – not that he was complaining though – those as his back could attest to. He eyed the youma warily, but it seemed well and truly pinned by Camelot's foot.
“My senshi ability's not exactly good for youma dusting” he admitted. Even if he was able to get it to work – and most times he wasn't – trapping the monster in beads was not exactly something that this situation called for.
Athene frowned for a moment, then an idea came to him “Can you hold that thing for a moment or two?” The dark-haired teen was pretty sure that he remembered passing a trash can on his way up. “There's a trash can not so far back, maybe dropping it on this thing will do the trick.”
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Posted: Tue Oct 25, 2011 12:24 pm
Camelot nodded his head.
"I've had a youma be killed that way before. I imagine that would be a very effective method. I could try smashing it with my shield, too, but its struggling and I don't want to let it get..."
He nearly fell off the thing as it pitched, but instead of falling backwards he forced himself to land heavily on top of the youma, pinning it more completely. He got a clawed wing arm thing in his arm for that, but his chain mail was resilient and he did not feel it if the claws had managed to get through.
"Free," he finished, keeping it forced against the ground, where it did not want to be. He could not bring his long shield around to use effectively in this position, or he would have to release the youma's arm. He had a feeling if he did that the thing would remove half his face.
And he needed his face, really. No one wanted to talk to a librarian without one.
"I don't mean to hurry you but... if you could hurry, that would be great," Camelot said with a strained laugh and a lot of sincerity.
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Posted: Tue Oct 25, 2011 2:33 pm
“I'll be back soon” Athene promised, before turning and dashing up the alley.Now where had he seen that bin?
It took a few moments – but the dark-haired teen was eventually rewarded by a glimmer of metal.
Athene grabbed then bin – paused long enough to the grab the lid that had toppled to the alley floor with a clatter due to the enthusiasm with which he'd grabbed up the bin – and then trotted back to Camelot as fast he could haul the half full bin.
As soon as he caught sight of the Squire, Athene called out “I've brought the trash can.”
He just hoped that being left to keep the youma pinned hadn't caused the other too much trouble.
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Posted: Thu Oct 27, 2011 11:40 am
Camelot nodded his head, looking up from his struggling with the youma. He had the thing clinging to his arm, trying to pry it off without ripping off any of his own skin or flesh. He looked at Athene and nodded his head for the other to hurry, pulling his arm free of the things hold and stumbling backwards.
The youma was free, but he imagined not for long.
"I think now would be a good time to crush it!"
The thing was struggling to stand and walk, or crawl, as it was wont to do. Its wings had been torn and its frail bones crushed. It was not able to get away very well, though it certainly tried. It scooted toward the wall, which made it a prime crushing target.
Camelot watched, catching his breath and nursing his bruised arm. He imagined he was going to be black and blue by morning, but it was better than scratches or broken bones. Bruises he could handle.
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Posted: Thu Oct 27, 2011 3:00 pm
“One bin coming right up” Athene said in response to Camelot's statement that now was a good time to crush the youma.
Given the state that the youma was in, it wasn't difficult for the dark-haired senshi to catch up with the crawling youma.
Holding the bin above the thing, Athene let go and let gravity take its course. For a moment the youma seemed to frantically try crawl to faster almost as if sensing what was coming next.
It was too late. The bin hit the youma with a loud clatter and then the youma disappeared in an explosion of dust.
Turning away from the bin Athene looked over at Camelot “Are you okay?” Despite the stinging from the scratches on his back, part of him just felt relieved – between the two of them they had done it – they had gotten rid of the monster.
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Posted: Fri Oct 28, 2011 12:33 pm
Camelot breathed a sigh of relief as the youma burst into dust. It was always his favorite part of any battle. The end. He did feel a strange pang, though, wondering about who or what that youma had been before Chaos consumed it. He had learned a bit about how youma were made, and while it did not change his opinion on stopping them and keeping people safe from them, it did add a touch of guilt to each defeated cloud of dust.
But it was something that needed to be done. They were not human, not even individual. They were creatures of chaos, bent on only hurting and killing.
"Oh, I'm fine," he said, nodding his head and snapping out of his thoughts. He smiled and chuckled, rubbing his arm, "I might be a little off color, but nothing a long jacket won't hide. How is your back feeling?"
He knew Athene had taken the harder hit, but only because it had been a surprise. He was hoping it wasn't too bad, but from what he had seen it looked deep enough that stitches could probably be considered. Of course, any bleeding wound Camelot saw instantly brought up the worry of stitches and a hospital trip.
"Good job with that trashcan, by the way. I hadn't even seen it on the way in."
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