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Sailor Auriga was basking in the glory of her fading summer, not quite ready for the school year to begin again. Once she was back on a normal teenager schedule, it would mean less time to do fun superhero things. She had spent the day sneaking around in the backyard of Meghan Feester, the snobbiest girl on her block who had been spreading rumors about her on Twitter. There had been some rather incriminating logs, and as a civilian, Maggie had vowed to take the high road. But as a senshi? Not so much.

She had used her superpowers to camp out in a tree by the girl's house and snap photos of her sneaking Ethan Jacobson into her bedroom for some late night make out session, which would be very interesting to Meghan's boyfriend Ryan, who was also Ethan's best friend. So much drama! (Maggie was more than a little excited about it. In her own words: "Mess with the bull, and you get the horns, Feester!")

On her way home now, Auriga decided to cut through the park. She was smiling contentedly to herself when a flash of familiar face and hair just twenty feet away stopped her cold. The senshi of pestilence had no idea was the Negaverse general was wearing, but she would never forget that face, those eyes, the image of her driving a sword through that crazy Nega guy and then trying to convert Ganymede.

It was General Avalon -- and clearly, only one person could stop her: Sailor Auriga.

With a running start, Auriga took off toward Avalon, pausing only to leap up into the air and aim a flying kick at the back of her head.

Auriga landed on the ground on the other side of Avalon, but immediately dropped down, swiping her leg in a slash across the other girl's to bring her to the ground. "Nice try, General, but I would know that face anywhere," she snapped, aiming a punch at her ribcage. "And now I'm going to punch it in!" Or at least try to, feverishly.

"Stop playing games," Auriga barked. "I'm not like those senshi who trust things like you. Chaos is poison, and you are toxic, lady. Even if you did kill that evil dude."

The Senshi of Pestilence feinted left and swung right, following through with her shoulder to try and slam Avalon backward. If this really were a general, she would be dead already, but the overconfidence of youth told Auriga that she was just really, really naturally good at senshi-ing.

Obviously.

Apparently General Avalon didn't intend to drop the act. Was she just toying with Auriga? The senshi of pestilence had only seen her in action just the once, but it was scary action. She had been cold, calculating. This girl seemed nothing like her. What was the General playing at? Keeping the act up this long just didn't make sense.

When Avalon shoved Auriga backward, she stumbled, but used the momentum to keep backpedaling, dodging her kick and giving a wider berth to assess the situation. "Finn. How do you know Finn?" Auriga knew him from Order Boot Camp. How would General Avalon...

"If you are not General Avalon," she began, narrowing her eyes but remaining in a defensive stance, "then you would have been purified. But if you were purified, then you would be a Knight, not a Page. So, who exactly are you?"

The break from battle had given Auriga a chance to listen to her body. Something prickled at the back of her mind, her subconscious trying to scream what her brain was ignoring: the aura in front of her was white. The situation still didn't make a whole lot of sense to her, but the girl in front of her, whoever she was, was certainly no Negaverse agent. The realization dawned on her face, meaning clear.

Slowly, Auriga lowered her fists. "He wrote you letters? That is so romantic," she said, her teenage brain overriding her senshi one. "That sounds like a movie. If only we could have a senshi film industry -- imagine the stories we could tell. Two people, torn apart by corruption in a city rife with crime." She had learned the word 'rife' two days ago during a PSAT prep class her mother had signed her up for over the summer. "I could be a director in the film industry, but also an actress. I'd want to do the whole triple threat thing -- director, producer, actress. Like Angelina Jolie." She was rambling, which was pretty typical.

"Lady in white dress or whatever, I can tell you that, like, a month ago or so, you were General Avalon, and I watched you stab another Negaverse general through, like, the heart with a giant sword. And then you tried to pull the star seed on a friend of mine, Ganymede, but, like, a giant forcefield sent you flying away. And then you teleported. I might not understand it, but I'm glad you're not all scary evil anymore." Auriga talked with her hands, taking a few steps closer.

"You're really telling me you don't remember any of that?"

Auriga studied the face of the page standing before her. The apple got a glance, but she made no move to touch it. Instead, she reached out and gently grasped Avalon's chin, lightly turning her head to the left and then back to the right. “The face, I mean… you have her face and her name,” she said, releasing the other girl. “This is some more trippy magic stuff, for sure. Magic-induced amnesia.” Her hands waved around in the air to represent magic and then shrugged. “I’m glad you’re back with us, and double lucky that you found a friend to look out for you.”

It had taken the teenager a long time to even find other senshi; she was still hoping to get that person who took care of her. Ganymede and Gunn were definitely her senshi role models. Plus, Ganymede and Valhalla had helped her when she got her arm broken by that horrible evil senshi of acid. But Auriga did not have her person – that one powered soul who she could share everything with and be safe with. It made the brightness in her eyes falter.

“Sorry, I attacked you,” she said. “I saw your face and just kind of freaked out. I mean, but now you are back on the side of good and sense you maybe don’t remember your old friends, we could totally be senshi pals. Well, senshi-knight pals. Savin’ the world, one civilian at a time, you know?” A beaming smile returned to Auriga and she held up her hand for a highfive.

"Sailor Auriga," she said. "Senshi of Pestilence. I bite people when I attack. It's gross."

A frown sat across her face, furrowing her otherwise youth-smoothed brow. Auriga was not at all a fan of her attack. Sure, it could make people puke, which was gross in an awesome way, but she was going through a lot of toothbrushes at this point. Her stepdad had started to take notice. She passed it off of as a cleanliness thing, but given the mess that was her bedroom, it was a hard sell.

Oh well, that was a worry for another day. (Everything was a worry for another day.)

Avalon was acting kind of strange, but strange was better than evil. "Are you... I mean, is it cool that you aren't with Finn? Because, like, I had almost zero interaction with you, except one scary one, but I think a lot of other people have had really, really bad encounters with Old You. I don't know how they will react to seeing you. Maybe going home to Finn would be a good idea?" If Auriga could recognize her this way, doesn't that mean that the bad guys could recognize her too?