Welcome to Gaia! ::

It made sense that Athene’s run of quiet patrols wouldn’t last forever – this was Destiny City after all. In fact the dark-haired teen hadn’t been planning to power up into his senshi alter ego at all today given that today had been the day of the dreaded Maths test and Arian just knew that he’d done badly.

Deciding to bake some chocolate chip cookies, partly to stop thinking about his upcoming mark of fail, he’d remembered belatedly that they were out of chocolate and had gone to the store to see if he could pick up some decent chocolate – something like Green and Blacks.

At least that had been the plan until he’d caught sight of what he thought might be some sort of medium dog-sized thing with an elongated snout as he passed the park, at which point the dark-haired teen's afternoon had turned into – find somewhere secluded to power-up, then dash back to where he'd thought he'd seen the thing to see if dog-sized thing was really a youma.

It was a youma – a brown and yellow leathery-skinned youma with beady eyes. Athene bit his lip as it opened its snout to reveal a mouth crammed full of razor sharp teeth – it was not shaping up to be a particularly good afternoon.

Distracted as he was by the youma, Athene sensed the new aura marginally before a voice suddenly spoke up from beside him. Sparing a glance away from the youma, the dark-haired senshi nodded as he turned to look at the newcomer, the movement causing his long braid to swish slightly and set the beads braided into it to tap against each other with little clink-clink sounds.

“Some help would be appreciated thank you,” he told the unfamiliar Page – at least the aura felt like that of a Page. “I’m…” his attention turned back to the youma as the thing let out a growl and charged towards them with its stubbly tail waving aggressively – seemed like introductions would have to wait.

“That would be great” Athene said with a nod to the Page after he managed to dodge out of the way of the charging way. “If you can distract then I’ll try and use my senshi ability on it.” Try being the operative word given how unpredictable his attack could be.

A growl had him looking in the direction of the youma "Watch out." It appeared that the youma wasn't too happy about missing its targets first time round and it had wheeled round to charge at them again, heading towards the source of the weaker of the two powered auras – Pharos.

If Pharos was hoping to keep the youma’s attention on her, then she’d managed to pick a method that was super effective – the waving magenta material appeared to be almost like a red rag for the youma making growling noises as it charged towards her.

The youma’s attention being completely focused on the Page seemed like as good a cue as any for Athene, or as least as good a cue as he was going to get. Clenching his right fist, he tried to concentrate as hard as he could, before raising his left hand as he called out the by now familiar (at least to him) words of his upgraded senshi ability “Blue Beads of Nazar – intenstated!” For a brief moment he had considered calling out the words to his senshi ability, but for whatever the reason, the upgraded version of his senshi ability seemed to be somewhat more reliable.

Time seemed to pass slowly as the dark-haired senshi waited for the glowing ball made up of what would appear to be a set of insubstantial-looking beads to form with the youma getting closer and closer to the blonde Page, however at last however the ball finally formed and floated above his upraised hand.

Pointing at the charging youma, with a called out “There!” Athene watched as his attack moved towards the monster, hoping that it would manage to hit the thing.

[ooc note: Athene’s super attack takes the form of a ‘ball of beads’ that can trap a target with ill will towards either Athene or an ally in a barrier of beads if it connects. (Ill will means that the target wishes to cause some form of harm to Athene or the ally). 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 to 30) will bring down the barrier.
Duration: About thirty seconds (or 2 posts).]

Athene breathed a quiet sigh of relief. It was close, a little too close for his liking, but his attack had managed to trap the youma before it could reach the Page.

At Pharos’ smile, he gave the blonde Page a small smile of his own back as he answered her question with a quiet “My senshi ability’s not going to hold that thing forever so we should probably find something to dust that thing with – maybe something heavy – like a biggish branch or something.”

They were in a park – hopefully finding a something big enough or heavy enough to dust the growling brown and yellow thing wouldn’t be too much of a problem.

“I’m not sure” Athene admitted quietly. “But the beads kind of glow and then shatter once time’s up.” Actually kind of like they were starting to do now – well at least the glowing part.

They had actually had thirty seconds once the beads trapped the youma, although the dark-haired senshi wasn’t aware of the timing – just that it seemed to work longer and better than his (admittedly) less reliable senshi attack.

Youma weren’t exactly particularly understanding of needing to time things, so Athene had never been in a situation where he’d had the chance to stand time how long his senshi ability worked for.

He looked at the blonde Page “I haven’t found anything except this rock which is kind of small” he showed the Page the small rock. “But I don’t think we have much longer” almost all of the beads were glowing now. “I can try…” His voice broke off as the ‘beads’ shattered, the fragments fading harmlessly away – looked like they were out of time.

Athene’s plan of ‘distract-the-youma’ had consisted of lobbing the rock at the thing as hard as he could.

He got lucky – the rock hit and bounced off the thing’s snout just above the nostrils. Although too small to much more than sting, the rock had had the desired effect, as beady eyes turned to stare malevolently in his direction.

Waving his arms, Athene wished that he had another rock or something else to lob. In an attempt to further attract the youma he called out “Over here!” as loud as he could, hoping that his actions would be enough to keep the youma’s attention on him and off the blonde Page – especially since there had been a loud ‘cracking’ sound from the direction that she had taken.

Maybe the ‘rock-bopping’ had annoyed it, or maybe his yelling out had caught its attention. Whatever it was, it seemed that Athene’s antics had done the trick as with a loud snarl the youma turned in his direction.

It was just starting to dash his way when the blonde Page came running back, a thick, sturdy-looking branch in her hands. “I think it will” he told her. Hopefully the branch would be enough to do the trick – it certainly looked sturdy enough.

Athene heaved a quiet sigh of relief as the dog-like youma burst into dust mid leap. The dark-haired senshi had been worried when the ugly thing with way too many teeth had up and switched targets from himself to the Page, however the blonde Page had stood her ground and had dusted the youma by effectively ramming the branch down the thing’s throat.

“That was really neatly done” he told her, feeling sympathy at all the youma dust coating her (youma dust = not fun). “I’m Sailor Athene by the way, or just Athene really if that’s easier.” He held out a hand to shake, the gesture almost automatic as it belatedly occurred to him that he did didn’t know the Page’s name.