[Bat] Not this Again! [Camelot & Ida]

[Lithiasaur]

Anthony Darrow was sitting at his desk, fully focused on the annoying task set before him. It was not, however, the usual cases of a missing book, or backed up returns, or late fees. It was a dog barking at him furiously.

Well. Barking was a generous word. Dogby, the corgi who still looked like a puppy though she was growing up fast (just without the growing part), yipped and whined more than she did bark. She was not a very loud dog, as if the library had trained her without Tony ever actually putting thought into it.

But she was yipping and whining now, scrabbling over the counter top and tugging at Tony's sleeve whenever he reached to pet her or grab her. He was not sure what had her so excited but he had a lot of work to get done and he needed to put her in the back room to let her calm down. Maybe she wanted to go back there anyway, because that was where her food was.

"Alright, hold on. Dogby, seriously?" He moved to pick her up and she wiggled in protest, yipping eagerly.  

[Whimsical Blue]

The soft sound of a dog yipping drew the attention of the library's newest visitor, a teenage girl dressed in purple with a messenger bag over her shoulder. Wrapping her fingers around the strap, Orah wandered further into the hushed building, glancing about to orient herself. It had been a long time since she'd been in this library... she couldn't even remember what she had come here for then. It had been years ago and she'd been quite young.

Meadowview had its own little library for student use, so she hadn't had much cause to come here. What she wanted reference on now, though, wasn't something she thought she could find out in a school library...

As the room opened up into the maze of bookshelves, Orah paused for a moment and breathed in the smell of books, casting about a little as she debated where to start searching for the origin of her name. Maybe if she found out more about it, she could better understand why she had awoken with that name, and even why she had been awoken in the first place or what she was supposed to do now. She might be settling into her role as a senshi, but that didn't mean she didn't have little doubts and questions nagging at her.

Lithia_Brandon

 

[Lithiasaur]

Bluefire Dragonz

"Dogby!" Tony yelled, in that hushed tone one adopts inside a library. It was not a yell, as it was still whispered, but it was emphasized in a way to make up for the lack of volume. Dogby ignored the effort entirely, yipping at him and then doing something she never did.

She took a triumphant leap off the front desk and plummeted to the ground, scampering off at a run, or what constituted a run in Corgi, into the library itself. Tony yelped and hurriedly put out the Back in Ten Minutes sign on the front desk, so he could job after her.

"Dogby!"

She yipped back at him in response to her name, but her scrabbling legs carried her surprisingly far in an even more surprisingly short amount of time. He lost track of her as he moved into the shelves, though he did bump into Orah, almost literally, as he turned down the aisle to look for the dog.

"Oh, ah," he said in surprise, backing up. "I'm sorry. Have you... seen a corgi run through here?" He noticed her lost expression and smiled, "Oh, do you need help finding something?" He pointed to his nametag, "I work here."  

[Whimsical Blue]

Orah jumped when a man came rushing around the corner, nearly taking her off her feet as she stumbled backwards.

"Oh! I'm sorry! I was in the way..." She stuttered as she righted herself, straightening her dress and her bag as she recovered. Confused by his question, she automatically glanced about, a frown pulling at her brow. "A dog? No... I heard something running, but I didn't see it before it was gone. I was just... wanting to look up some mythology, but if you need to find your dog I can certainly wait."

A dog in a library? There hadn't been one here the last time she visited and she honestly hadn't expected one to be here now. She loved animals, but they weren't usually running around a public building.

"I can help you look for it if you like... what's its name?" Might as well lend a hand, since she was here. Then afterwards she could do the research she came here to do.

Lithia_Brandon

 

[Lithiasaur]

Bluefire Dragonz

Tony looked very apologetic, not meaning to have startled her or nearly run into her, but his mind was on trying to catch Dogby, who was acting far stranger than she usually did. Her behavior was usually impeccable, especially in the library. At home not so much, that was where she let loose and was just a young dog having fun.

But at the library she understood her role. Usually.

"Her name is Dogby. She's a corgi. A small one. She's usually very well behaved, she is my dog and comes here every day with me, but for some reason..." she was just running off. He wasn't sure what to think, though he was more annoyed than worried at the moment.

He'd learn soon enough.

Dogs had a way of picking up on things that were going wrong, before they went wrong. She was sensing something in the library, something bad. Tony heard a growl and realized what the possible problem was, but now he was in the company of a civilian who he hoped did not also hear the growl of the youma. It certainly wasn't Dogby.

"I... I... ah. I can go find you some books first, I'm sure Dogby is... ah... fine."  

[Whimsical Blue]

Orah couldn't help a giggle at the name of the corgi as she started down the row of books in the direction the scrabbling paws had gone. Dogby, really? It was a cute name, but still funny.

"Maybe she just got too much energy in her and needed to run it off." She said, looking back over her shoulder. "I'm not in a hurry, I don't mind helping out. I'll try down this way, you can look here or go over a row or something. Maybe she's doubled back towards the front."

The growl had, unfortunately, not caught Orah's attention the way it had Tony's. She figured it was probably the dog, dogs growled right? Maybe she had found something to play with.

Coming to the end of the row, she peeked around the corner, hoping she wouldn't startle the dog and send her running away.  

[Lithiasaur]

Bluefire Dragonz

Tony had never been good at naming things. He used to have a hamster, Booder, but that was just a word he had once said when he was talking to it and it was being cute. But that was before Dogby, and she had been a much better choice than a small, short lived hamster.

He couldn't admit out loud how upset he'd been with that little guy's death, though.

In any case, he wasn't thinking about any of that because he was hearing growls that were most definitely not his dog. Mostly he knew that by the fact that Dogby never growled and probably didn't know how to, but still. He also knew how to recognize a youma sound by now.

He followed Orah at a short distance as she moved down the row, but saw the youma's shadow on the wall. He let out a soft curse and ran off down the other end of the aisle, hoping she didn't see him run off and think him a total coward. He was going to come back, he just needed to power up!

The youma, meanwhile, turned the corner and saw Orah, letting out a much louder, angrier growl as it settled its gaze on her and decided she looked delicious.  

[Whimsical Blue]

The sound of running footsteps from behind her barely had time to register before the leering face of a youma appeared from between the bookshelves. Letting out a startled squeak, Orah looked around desperately for the librarian she had been traveling with. She was a little relieved when she couldn't find him, the sound of running finally connecting in her mind. At least he had the good sense to know danger and when to avoid it. Normally she'd find it bad taste to abandon a girl to danger, but it actually worked in her favor this time.

Orah fumbled for her pen and whipped it out, flinging her hand out as she called for her transformation.

"Ida Power Make-up!" She shouted, hoping that man had gotten far enough away that he couldn't hear her. Too late to worry much about it though as the purple petals of light wrapped around her and her fuku appeared with a surge of energy and strength.

Whirling to face the monster, she swept her hand out and called on her power. "Beautiful Petal Darts!" Petals of light fell from her hand as it moved, stiffening up and shooting outwards towards the Youma. Following in their wake, Ida threw her new strength into a front kick, planting her delicate-looking shoe into the monster's midsection for a nasty impact. Her attack wasn't that strong yet, but training with other senshi had taught her that it made a good distraction, the needling from the darts drawing attention away from her and allowing the senshi in to land a blow with fists or feet.

Her first attack done, she jumped back and scanned the room, wishing they could be doing this somewhere other than inside the library... hopefully they wouldn't hurt any of the poor books.  

[Lithiasaur]

Bluefire Dragonz

It did not take very long for the Knight of Earth to power up. It was accompanied by that same heavy sense of dread and anxiety that had been plaguing him recently, but he ignored it as best he could to face the matter at hand. There was a youma that needed to be bashed into dust, and he couldn't get side tracked by icky feelings.

He ran back to the aisle, confident that the magic that had protected his identity so far would prevent his quick arrival from being the obvious clue to it here.

He had his shield at the ready, though he was surprised to feel a senshi already in the area. He hurried back to the scene and blinked at Sailor Ida, though he was behind her and his bewildered look was wasted because the only thing that could see it was the youma, and it did not give a crap.

In fact, it just looked pissed off that it was being attacked in the first place. It charged at Ida but she kicked it hard enough to throw it off its game for a moment, and Camelot hurried over.

"I'll help!" he proclaimed handily, though she seemed that she had it well in hand. The youma growled at them both, thinking this meal was much too difficult and certain it had seen something weaker looking not too far from this aisle. Maybe Math would be more fruitful. It turned and lumbered away from them, hurrying in its way.  

[Whimsical Blue]

Ida jumped when a man in armor came clanking up to her, turning to stare at him a moment before remembered she was in the middle of a fight.

"O-Okay! There are civilians in here, we have to be careful." She said, watching him out of the corner of her eye. He must be a knight... he certainly looked it in that armor, with a shield and everything. Whoever he was, he'd shown up at a good time. When Youma didn't go down on the first attack, it usually meant a drag out fight for her, but having a partner evened the odds nicely.

The monster knew it too and turned tail to run, giving Ida a surge of fear. What if it found someone in the aisles who wasn't powered up? It could be very bad, even fatal...

"Come on!" She said as she darted after it, all but tackling it from behind as she slammed her elbow into its spine.

Lithia_Brandon

 

[Lithiasaur]

Bluefire Dragonz

Camelot looked at her and nodded his head.

He realized that the girl he had been with was gone and he hoped that the youma had not gotten to her, failing in the same way he had hoped she would to put things together. He imagined the girl had run off when she realized she was alone, and the senshi had come up after.

Ah identity issues. They would never fail to confound. But that was as much a blessing as it was a curse, certainly.

The knight moved to follow the youma, seeing her jump on it and tackle it down. It did not seem to like that, though, swinging around to try and claw at her as she bashed its back. Camelot lunged and slid on his knees to reach out his shield and block the attack, taking a breath as he felt the youma's claws slam into the metal of his weapon.

"Do you have an attack that could dust it?" he asked, not knowing she had used hers already. He could always just hit it with his shield until it was polite enough to die, of course.  

[Whimsical Blue]

Ida squeaked as Camelot darted over to block one of the Youma's attacks, hiding them both behind his shield.

Attack? Well, maybe...

"I used one already..." She said as she got her feet under her, crouch-walking back behind him so she wasn't in his way. "Its not very strong because I'm still kinda new. I can use it once more, but that's my limit and its going to drain me... It'll be up to you to finish it off at that point, because I'm not going to be much use for fighting. Running away is about all I can do."

This had really not been what she had been expecting when she came to the library... but things were rarely that easy for her any more. She might have gotten attacked once before she learned who she was, but now it felt like she was a magnet for the things, powered or not.

"Ready?" She said as she crouched behind his shoulder, gathering herself. When she was ready, she surged to her feet and flung her hand again, calling out her attack as the petals formed and hardened. They zipped forward to spray the beast in needling pricks, doing more damage to it than they did to the wood and books they also hit.

It was a shame she couldn't control them enough to keep them focused on the enemy... some always over shot the target and hit the surroundings, living or not.

Lithia_Brandon

 

[Lithiasaur]

Bluefire Dragonz

Camelot watched as she used her attacking, bracing himself in case it had any kick back or something, but it seemed to be a pretty straight forward one. Some attacks had insane after effects, he had learned over the years, but he was glad this was not one of them.

He moved when the youma reared back. He charged forward and held the grips of his shield tightly as he geared up to swing it like a weapon. He slammed it at the youma's head, but it was still moving backwards in reaction to the needle spray so he instead got it in the neck. Still, it was a hard enough blow to burst the youma into dust after a moment of helpless gagging.

Camelot did not like when things went that poorly. He wanted things to be fast and clean, even with youma fighting, but recently things went more violently than he liked. Or maybe he was just more violent than he had given himself credit before.

He frowned but dusted himself off as he got to his feet. This part of the library was now in a bit of disrepair, but it was not the worst damage he had seen the place sustain. He looked at the senshi, smiling and laughing, despite how uncomfortable he felt. It was mostly from his shield still, anyway.

"Well, that was... interesting. I'm surprised these monsters like to read so much."  

[Whimsical Blue]

A weight settled on her as the monster turned to dust, making Ida's shoulders slump. It sure was hard being new... but she was doing her best, and would continue to do so. At least this monster was defeated, thanks to the new knight.

"I think he was more hungry for food than for knowledge." She said lightly as she smiled, leaning her shoulder against the closest bookshelf. "I feel bad that we scuffed the place up, though, and let that big dust pile. I wish we could have gotten the thing outside, but I was afraid someone who wasn't powered would find it." Or it would find them. Also bad.

"Thanks for helping me out. That one was a two person job, I probably would have had a hard time finishing it off by myself. You... didn't see anyone on your way in, did you?" She said, suddenly wondering what had happened to the librarian. Hopefully he was okay... "Hopefully no one heard the rukus."

Lithia_Brandon

 

[Lithiasaur]

Bluefire Dragonz

"Oh, don't worry about the mess. I'll clean it up later," he said nonchalantly, then frowned and thought about it. He was always telling people to be careful with their identities, then he was casually flippant about giving hints about his own whenever possible. He looked at her and smiled, laughing despite himself.

"I suppose that would make more sense if you knew who I was. In any case, my name is Camelot, Knight of Earth. I'm also the librarian here."

He imagined that cleared it up. It was one thing saying it outside where anyone could hear, but in the library, in this particular section, it felt safe. There was no one around and he trusted other Order aligned folks with his secrets. Maybe that was because he knew that they would be loyal. Or maybe, deep down, he acknowledged that if they were corrupted they would forget anyway.

But that was a little too cold for him to really consider.

In any case, he sighed and relaxed a bit. He still did not feel fully at ease, but that just did not want to go away, whenever he powered up. He just had to ignore it for now, until something came of it or it just resolved itself. Fretting constantly wouldn't help it out.