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He’d forgotten to bring some money along for his customary drink, so for once Athene was hitting the patrol beat without a hot drink to hand. Although the trousers that formed part of his super senshi outfit, combined with the relatively mild night probably made said hot drink unnecessary.

His cousin had taken off to spend a few days with an old school friend and their friendly neighbour, Madam Thomas, usually had the lights in her apartment out by about ten – which meant that for once Athene wasn’t too worried about the sneak back in once patrol was over for the night.

This evening his path had taken him by the alley ways that ran behind some of the fast food outlets, the dark-haired senshi trying his hardest to ignore some of the myriad unsavoury-smelling smells around as he surreptitiously wound the longer of the two sashes more around his waist in an attempt to avoid the beads along the end trailing along the ground.

Maybe it was because of being distracted by unsavoury smelling smells, maybe he was just tired, either way Athene heard the other senshi before picking up on their aura.

The aura was stronger than that of a senshi, but not as strong as an eternal senshi and it wasn’t that far away and it didn’t have that not-quite-feeling that the dark-haired senshi had picked up both from his earlier run-in with the creepy negaverse senshi and the later ones with the two senshi that had called themselves ‘Dark Mirror’ senshi.

In fact so caught up was Athene in his musing, that it took a few moments to realise that someone had just yelled out his name, looking up at the sound of the squeal in time to catch a figure in white, black and dark green fast bearing down on him.

The expression on Athene’s face was probably akin to that of a deer stuck in a set of headlights, as the dark-haired senshi stared wide eyed at the figure bearing down on him. There was certainly no time for more than a startled ‘ulp’ or was it a squeaky ‘ulp’ before the hapless senshi of beads was smushed into a rib breaking bear hug.

Fortunately he was released before breathing could become an issue, the figure materialising into another dark-haired senshi, her shoulder-length hair styled into curly ringlets, who seemed to be taking the opportunity to tug at the twin sashes adorning his new outfit causing the beads adorning the end of the darker jade sash to click against each other.

The other senshi seemed to know him if the way she had moved from his sashes to tugging at the rest of his outfit was anything to go by – and something about her did seem familiar. Although it was only when his eyes fell on the biohazard brooch nestled in the middle of the dark green bow tied round her waist that a name sprung to memory. “Atë?” His voice made it a question, after all Athene couldn’t be sure that it was the same senshi that he had encountered during Prince Castor’s training session. Although come to think of it that senshi had swung him around too.

It had only been one meeting and a few months back at that, Athene was probably justified in not recalling the other senshi straightaway. It didn’t stop the dull flush of embarrassment spreading across his cheeks – or maybe that was just down to ‘pretty face’ comments and subsequent hair-pawing – either way he was relieved when his fellow senshi stepped back and hoping that the relief didn’t show too clearly on his face.

“Actually I was just patrolling” he said quietly, looking over as Atë pointed towards the back of the alley and pretending not to notice as she chucked the carrier bag in her other hand in the opposite direction. He did his best not to look over when he heard the sound of something – most likely the contents – hitting the ground.

Actually Athene wasn’t sure he was too keen on Atë’s suggestion that they patrol together, he was still feeling and maybe looking a little like that deer in the headlights – maybe it was the earlier smushing – politeness had him nodding as he added “Only if you’re not too busy.” Not that he’d be upset if his fellow super senshi turned out to be busy, although talking of super senshi. “By the way congratulations on your own power-up.” After all like him Atë had still been a regular senshi at the time of their first meeting.

A part of Athene had been hoping that Atë would agree that she was much too busy to have company on her patrol when he had given his polite, if reluctant agreement. But maybe Athene should have known better. As it was, it seemed that the bead senshi had managed to garner himself a patrol partner for the evening. The dark-haired senshi tried not to cringe as he found himself physically towed further down into the alley by said patrol partner who was chattering babbling almost a mile a moment… Yep Athene most definitely probably should have known better.

Distracted as he was by his fellow super senshi’s chatter (having realised that getting many words in edgewise was probably a no-no, the dark-haired senshi had settled for mainly politely nodding), it took a while for Athene to pick up on the familiar tainted aura that he now associated with the many youma that seemed to have chosen Destiny City as a hunting ground. In fact the thing was almost on top of them, not time for more than an “Atë, watch out!” as something whistled through the air towards them.

It happened quickly – too quickly. A horrible whistling, no more a screeching of air and then Atë was knocked away from him, a thin creature a mane of long red hair obscuring its features landing on top of the other senshi and… Sucking?

Athene had started running in the direction that Atë’s direction, it didn’t take long to see that the monster did indeed seen to be ‘sucking’ at something, the other dark-haired senshi making choking noises that may or may not have been words.

But what to do? Although his senshi ability, seemed to be working better – at least the intenstated version of it – it youma was too close to Atë for Athene to be sure that she wouldn’t get caught up in the crossfire. Nor was trying to find something to lob at the thing for the same reason – that is if he even had the time to do so – Atë wasn’t looking too good.

That left plan here’s to hoping this might work, also known as the dark-haired senshi running at the youma in a tackle, in an attempt to try and knock it off the other super senshi.

Well that answered the question of whether Atë was okay, although at least his fellow super senshi was no longer making those horrible choking noises.

Picking himself up from where he had landed on the ground, Athene pointed to where he thought he might have knocked the youma at the older senshi’s question at where the youma had gotten to.

“I can try trapping it Atë” he offered. “Do you think that you could maybe distract it?” He wasn’t sure she was up to it, although his fellow senshi was right – the sooner they dusted the thing the better.

After a hurried nod of agreement and a comment about holding the thing steady, Atë was off and running in the direction of the youma.

He could do this, he was pretty sure he could – it helped that his new senshi ability tended to behave much better than the one he’d been stuck with before his power-up.

Athene bit his lip as the youma growled as Atë dodged into its sight line and the older senshi called out a ‘Now’ – it looked like here went nothing.

His right fist clenched Athene raised his other hand, calling out the words to his new senshi ability as he did so “Blue Beads of Nazar – intensated!” And although the dark-haired senshi’s voice was not loud, the five words rang out clear across the alleyway.

After the intangible-looking ball of beads formed, Athene pointed in the direction of the youma with a loud “There!” Well okay loud was relevant – but it was loud for the dark-haired senshi who had a tendancy to speak quietly.

Although the ball of intangible-looking beads may have looked familiar to Atë, it seemed that there were a great deal more of them. It looked as if the ball of beads moved faster too. Watching as the beads moved towards the monster, the dark-haired senshi was hoping that his attack would work – after all it would pretty much all be for nothing if the attack missed.

[ooc note: Athene’s Super attack takes the form of a ‘ball of beads’ that can trap a target with ill will towards Athene or one of his allies in a barrier of beads if it connects. (Ill will means that the target wishes to cause some form of harm to Athene or one of his allies). The beads shatter at the end of the attack and may distract (but not harm) target briefly [player’s choice]. Target can still jump, block, or strike with their weapon - but they cannot leave the ring of beads. Beads can be smashed by someone outside the barrier, smashing half (24 – 30) will bring down the barrier.
Duration: About thirty seconds (it halves if target is at a higher level to Athene).
Number: Athene can use it twice]