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Cybele was very much in business mode.

She was trying overall to be a bit better about check in with friends and take care of herself and smell the proverbial roses, but that was on nights when she didn't power up and immediately notice that the park she was standing in was absolutely crawling with youma.

She'd taken out a few fairly easily, one of the benefits of being an eternal, although some kind of strange slime creature had given her a bit of a run for her money. It had flattened itself out and slithered under the door of a tool shed, which had made Cybele spend nearly half an hour trying to figure out a way to lure it out before she'd given up and smashed the lock to get at it. She hated property damage, hated any excuse the Negaverse could use to say Order was a menace, but in the end a smashed lock was better than someone getting eaten.

She was so focused on the last aura, a weak one that was probably over by the playground somewhere, that she nearly bumped into the boy in the middle of the path.

"Oh, sorry. Excuse me," she mumbled, brushing past before she looked back briefly. She was even less in the mood to try to explain things to a civilian than usual, but he was all alone. It wasn't safe.

As she slowed a bit, listening to the footsteps, Cybele could tell that the boy was walking directly behind her. He probably wasn't meaning to follow her, and he almost certainty wasn't meaning to walk directly into the jaws of a youma, but that was the path he was on, and the aura was slowly getting closer.

She could maybe get to it before it could get to them, but that was a big maybe, not worth the risk and she knew it. With a quick sigh, she turned around and stood in the middle of the path to face him. It looked like there was no getting around public relations tonight.

"Hello again," she said, smoothing out her skirt and suddenly aware of just how ridiculous she looked in her antlers. She liked her outfit, and she was at the point where the ribbons made her feel powerful, but it was hardly any wonder that the Negaverse with their suits got taken more seriously. Her follower looked young, although even with a better look she couldn't tell his exact age. He didn't seem like the drug addicts or the rebellious kids she usually ran into at this time of night. His clothes were different, formal and possibly foreign. With luck he would just be taking a shortcut back from a party or something and he would listen to her.

"Look, um." She swallowed hard, then tapped into a stronger voice, her actress voice. "It's really not safe to be out here right now. You should go home, and by another route if you can."

There was still something about him she couldn't quite put her finger on. . Perhaps it was the clothes. They were odd, even for someone rich. She might have pegged him for a knight if there was any aura coming off of him at all, but he seemed distinctly un-magical and yet was looking at her with neither surprise or skepticism. It was as if he saw people running around in wings and ribbons all the time.

The question came, and Cybele's shoulders relaxed a half inch. That was one less thing she would have to explain. "Yes, I'm a senshi," she said. "My name is Cybele."

She narrowed her eyes, and then slowly turned to look over her shoulder. There was nothing, yet, but she still let out a barely restrained sigh and a quiet, hissed, "Oh, come on." She hadn't been imagining things. The aura was moving, and it was getting close now. It wasn't clear if it was after her or the boy, but it looked like her prey was coming hunting in its own right.

"Never mind about going home," she said in the earlier, clearer voice. "Stay close to me. Do you know anything about youma?"

Cybele's eyebrows shot up when she heard the name Cora. "Oh." She blinked. "Oh."

It was over eight years now that she'd been a senshi, and during that time she'd met so many people that they blurred together sometimes, but she'd never forgotten the cream-colored cat. That jump from the building had set off a chain of events that was burned into her memory. When he said he'd been a cat at the time, she nodded, and then when she spoke, the professional concern in her voice was replaced by something softer, something sadder. "Yes. I remember you now."

There was a longer moment of silence where Cybele looked at her shoes, before saying, in an odd, quiet tone, "I'm sorry I-"

The apology was cut off by the youma bursting through the trees. This one would almost be a snake if it weren't for the unnatural sickly green of its scales and the spikes sticking out of its back. Cybele sighed and turned around to kick it in the face.

"One moment, please," she said, dropping into a fighting stance and sidestepping an attack. It didn't seem too strong, but it was a bit tougher than the others she'd seen tonight. "You don't have to go home. I was just worried that you were heading right towards it."

The snake youma wasn't exactly fast, but the odd spikes were at just the right angle serve as fairly effective protection, poking towards any unprotected fists that got too near to its vulnerable spine.

Cybele kept watching and circling, almost completely forgetting about the guardian-boy for the time being, especially as she had to dodge an attack from a spiky tail.

Then she got a glimpse of him out of the corner of her eye. He had a stick this time. Oh no, she thought.

The youma seemed to notice him, too. Cybele gritted her teeth, but she didn't have time to do much else, even to shout a warning before the snake turned towards him. She heard some kind of splintery impact to lunge for the one weak spot she could see, the back of the skull, where the spikes were smaller.

That was enough to get it to the ground, and it was quick work from there. Once she looked up from the dust, she smiled at the boy in front of her. "You made that much easier," she said. "And, of course, it's lovely to see you again."

For the first time in several minutes, Cybele let herself properly breath. Nobody in the proximity was about to about to get eaten, least of all the boy-- or should she still call him a cat? In any case, he'd brought a much needed boost of courage to her life twice now.

"We should be safe now," she said. "That's what you were walking towards. I'm not sure if you knew that." Despite the fact that she'd talked to many guardian cats over the years, she was finding that she didn't know all that much about them. Could they sense auras? Could they turn into people in strange outfits?

Actually, they could. She was remembering seeing Cora do it on that very same night. There had been something different about it, then, something a bit more distinct or magical, but six years later, Cybele couldn't remember what that difference was.

She could ignore that elephant in the room in favor of the other, though. She looked down to the ground, the old sadness creeping back. "I'm sorry about your friend."

Right. No need to be so caught up in the past.

Cybele took a moment to look over at him, to really watch this time as he looked over at where the youma had been. She watched the way he hesitated. He answered her questions, but didn't seem so sure of himself. She looked at his clothes again, too. They weren't magical in the sense that there was an aura coming off of them, but they weren't quite normal, either. He didn't fit in in the park in the middle of the night, and to be honest, he probably wouldn't have fit in at a rich kid's party, either.

There was a strange sort of in-between sense to him.

There were many questions that Cybele could have asked. She skipped a few of the more obvious ones and tilted her head, softening a bit.

"Are you all right?"

It was clear she wasn't just talking about the attack.