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Dated to June 15, 2015

Kerberos paced back and forth antsily. He had pushed it right up to the wire - his deadline from Schörl was no longer an abstraction. It was here. But he had done it - he had promised to bring Caledonia in, and he was going to do it. Tonight. He'd talked the knight into coming to meet him, and goddamnit he was going to drain him dry and deliver him to Laurelite in a sparkly glittery package.

Even if it damned him.

Kerberos stopped pacing and turned, and as soon as he saw Caledonia, he felt guilt start to eat him up. He looked so concerned - when he shouldn't be worrying about Kerberos, he should be worrying about himself. It made the Corrupt's heart sink into his feet. God, he was already having doubts about this, why couldn't Caledonia have been a jerk? Or something like that?

Anything but a genuinely kind, genuinely good person, whose life Kerberos was going to ruin to save his own stupid, worthless a**.

"H-hey, Caledonia," he said, and he hated himself for how his voice shook. Why couldn't he play it calm? God, he was a failure every which way. "It's...no big deal, nothing for you to worry about," he lied, and he walked over. He was getting decent at draining energy without contact, and that was what he started to do, once he felt he was close enough - pull a little from Caledonia, slowly, so that the Knight would be too tired to run when Laurelite came for him.

Kerberos swallowed. "I'm just...nervous, I guess," He said. "I'm pretty warm, though, actually - loose uniform and everything, perfect for summer. My world must've been...pretty mild, I guess," not that he could judge, he could only remember seeing ti broken and shattered by his own hand.

When Caledonia reached for him, he jumped. "N-no, that's okay," he said, and he sped up his energy draw a bit, because there was no way his behavior wasn't weird.

"It's...I...no, not that," he said, shaking his head. Why did Caledonia have to be so damn sweet and concerned for him? It wasn't fair. There was no planet on which this was in any way fair.

He felt a further crawling guilt at the mention of his homeworld. He had seen it, once, but only to break it open. But that wasn't what Caledonia meant. God, he didn't want to do this, but he had to.

"I'm sorry, Cale, I'm so sorry," he said, and then he yanked with his energy draining, no longer going slow and subtle - pulling in a rush that was hopefully enough to incapacitate but not to knock unconscious. "There's nothing you can do to help me. There's nothing anyone can do to help me. You should be more worried about helping yourself."

Kerberos caleld up his communicator, trying to ignore Caledonia's pleading. "General-Queen Laurelite...or...General-King Zinkenite? This is Super Sailor Kerberos - if either of you is available, I have a Page detained for corruption." He gave their location, and then dismissed his communicator.

Just in time to see Caledonia power down. To Luka.

"No." No, no no no, it had been bad enough when he was just handing over someone who had been kind to him - but his boyfriend? The universe was trying to screw him as hard aspossible, wasn't it.

(At least, he supposed, this meant he would never crystallize Luka, not like in that terrible future. He would never get away with doing that to an officer. And Luka would hate him anyway.)

He had pulled Caledonia's energy nto a graceful, glowing sphere, but as soon as he saw who it was, he dropped it and stepped on it, popping the sphere and returning the energy to its owner. "Luka, you have to go, run, please." He would accept whatever punishment came for him. "Beat me up a little, or something, if you want, but just - run, please, you can't stay here."

Kerberos reached down to pull Luka up, shaking worse than ever. "Pleas,e just trust me on this, you want to run if you want to stay you." He let out a shaky, desperate little laugh. "We know each other pretty damn well, bigass tree," he said, with a surprising amount of affection. "It's...I'm Alex," he confessed, and it felt good to be out with it.

"And I can't lose you. I'm not gonna lie, I'm gonna be in a shitload of trouble if somebody answers that call and you're not here, but I don't care, I'd rather have you alive and safe and away from here and not ******** corrupted." He wanted to cry. He wanted to curse the universe. He sort of wanted to explain things, but - there was no time, not when Laurelite could be here literally any minute. "Please, just go."

Any hope of a private conversation between the two was immediately doused when a very powerful Chaos energy signature appeared only feet away. She seemed ornery and her smile was slightly worn, but present all the same. Scratches and bruises marred her arms and part of her uniform was clearly torn; whatever she had come from, she had done so in a rush.

And so, she had wasted no time in jerking towards the knight; she did not question what had transpired between them or why he was not making an effort to properly defend himself, nor did she particularly care. She pulled her hand back, and then with a powerful lunge, thrust it deeply into his chest. She gripped his starseed, charging it with pure Chaos. Standing still, it was obvious that she was wavering where she stood, but she was too prideful to allow herself to give into any weakness.

"Accept it," she commanded and the Chaos pulsed from her, "And this will go over easier for the both of us. You belong to the Negaverse now. There is no escaping. Come willingly and we will be good to you, but if you fight it you will only suffer. You will find no other fate but corruption either way."

It was too late, his warnings and pleadings had come too slowly. The crushing aura of a General-Queen should have been comforting - normally it was, in its way - but not now. Now it was failure and horror.

He jumped away from Caledonia like he had been electrocuted, and stood in horrified shaking silence as he watched Luka remade from Page to Lieutenant. White became black, gold became silver, and there was the soft tinkle of bells falling from his uniform. It was terrifying.

But what could he do? Resist, and get them both killed? Laurelite was not kind or soft, and he had no intention of seeing Luka dead by his mistakes.

So when it was done, he stared at the ground and said, barely making t to audible volume, "thank you, General-Queen."

What else could he do? It was over.