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Arian Laith was one of those late stragglers, having managed to lose track of time, although the reason could be tracked to the book that the dark-haired teen seemed engrossed in.

He’d actually slipped into the library to while away a little bit of time before heading out on patrol for the night as his counterpart Athene, but one book had somehow become two and two relatively quickly three. Looked like his patrol tonight would be starting somewhat later than initially planned.

Arian was hoping for a quiet night himself – after the ‘excitement’ that the carnival opening had turned into – the dark-haired teen rather felt that he was owed one.

It slowly filtered in that someone was speaking to him, Arian’s head coming up as it slowly dawned on him that he was no longer alone at the small table he had been reading at.

“Oh good evening Mr Darrow” for a moment Arian looked flustered as he realised just how late it was, closing the book, he stood and reached to place it back on the shelf. There was a slightly flustered expression on his face as he admitted “Sorry I hadn’t realised that it was so late.”

He hadn’t noticed the youma prowling around the library, having missed the shadow that had ducked down one of the aisles.

[Arian might have missed seeing the youma slipping down one of the book aisles, but he had heard the growl and for a moment he frowned slightly.

Somehow Arian doubted that said growl had come from Dogby and from his experience growls like that tended not to belong to anything good – well okay it was more from his senshi counterpart – Athene’s experience, but Arian wasn’t counting.

He nodded at Tony’s explanation about needing to run a security check, taking the librarian’s words at face value “Sure” he said quietly as he picked up his bag “Sorry again for taking your time like that.”

Not that Arian was planning to actually leave – not if what he thought what the growl had come from was wandering the library – however he could hardly henshin up into Sailor Athene in front of Mr Darrow and if there was really a youma roaming the library aisles then he wasn’t exactly equipped to handle it as he was now.

So for now Arian would act as if he was going to leave for the evening, and then double back once he had henshined up as Athene – or at least that was his plan.

After saying his farewells to Tony, Arian had walked to the end of the library aisle. Once around the corner and out of sight he’d dropped his bag to the floor and assuming that Tony would continue on in the opposite direction he’d taken a chance on summoning his henshin pen.

He’d planned to move further along down the aisles of books before powering up and hope that he didn’t run into the source of the growl before he could power up into his senshi counterpart, but an ‘Ah’ behind him had him turning round in surprise, Arian realising only at the last moment that he still had the bronze and jade henshin pen in his hand. Oh crap!

“Um…” he said quietly as he tried to surreptitiously hide said henshin pen behind his back and then his eyes widened in surprise as he recognised the Knight in front of him “Camelot!”

Arian’s sagged a little in relief when it sunk in that it was Camelot in front of him. It could have been worse – it could have been Tony who had seen the henshin pen and that could have led to more questions than Arian particularly wanted to try answering – especially as he’d probably end up having to lie and lying wasn’t one of his strongest points.

He had no idea where Camelot had come from and as the youma had just appeared at the end of the aisle, no time in which to ask. Instead Arian had nodded at the Knight’s words and ducked left like the Knight had asked him too.

He dashed a little further down the aisle before calling out “Athene Eternal, Make-Up!” The sequence was familiar and before long Arian Laith had been replaced by Eternal Sailor Athene.

Powered Athene could sense what Arian could not and he headed back at a fast trot to where he could sense both youma and Knight.

There would probably still be questions, but those would have to come later – dusting the youma took priority.

Ironically, Camelot’s civilian identity was safe for now, Athene (or rather his civilian counterpart) having missed the other’s shift from librarian to Knight. On the other the cat was kind of out of the bag with Arian – the henshin pen that he had held marking him out as some sort of senshi – even if for the moment the glamour cracked though it was still held.

Seeing the youma clamped around the Camelot’s arm as it was, Athene briefly considered trying to use his senshi ability on the thing and then decided against it – it seemed too close wrapped around the Knight’s arm as it was and Athene was worried that he might end up trapping both Knight and youma – that is if his senshi ability decided to work given that it still had its temperamental moments.

After a moment or so he settled on moving forward and helping by trying to physically prise the thing off – hoping that his increased strength as eternal would help make a difference.

Despite its seemingly firm grip, Athene and Camelot’s combined efforts were enough to prise the youma off and once the thing was on the ground all it took was a swift slam of the Knight’s shield to turn the thing to dust.

Which meant that later had suddenly arrived.

As he listened to Camelot speak, Athene wondered if the awkwardness he was feeling was one-sided. “It’s okay…” he started, looking up from the dust that had once been a youma in time to see Camelot power down – and promptly got his second shock of the evening.

“Mr Darrow?” Surprise was evident in his voice, his british accent suddenly strong in the tone as he blinked at the librarian for a few moments, and then as the librarian’s expectant look finally penetrated he said quietly and somewhat awkwardly, “Oh right” before dehenshining down, until finally it was Arian looking at Tony from behind his semi-rimless black framed glasses and his hair back in its usual long braid.