General life advice: don't fight monsters by yourself. Not even when the monsters are pretty mundane animals with magic powers, because magic makes everything more difficult for somebody. And right now, difficult for Beau.

The water turns out to be nothing and the pounding approach of the hippo isn't quiet. Beau hears it in time to keep spinning to face him.

"Shi--" She reaches for the pole she'd borrowed from somewhere, but between the splashed water and the unfamiliar grip it slips from her hand and falls into the water of the fountain. All she's got to deflect his charge is her own dodging.