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When Cybele had decided to go seeking out the monster on its own ground, she had been prepared to die. She had thought that the most likely option would be that she would be forced to flee back to town with new information or without it, with a small chance of complete victory or of escape.

She had not been expecting to wake up in a darkened room, sore and exhausted but alive.

Not home, in the Negaverse barracks. If this was some strange dream, as Xyla had guessed, then she had not woken up from it yet. Brief experimentation revealed that she still could not teleport, and as her eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness, she could see a few vaguely familiar figures scattered throughout wherever it was that they were trapped.

The feeling of being surrounded by auras had become the normal since she’d arrived in this town, and had faded almost into background noise, but now she took a moment to really focus in on what she could feel and pick it apart. There was Order and a lot of it, shining too bright to be comfortable, but there was also at least one other person from the Negaverse in here.

One was sort of close to where she had found herself, close enough that when she looked over she could make out the dark clothes. Cybele made her way slowly up to a seated position, gritting her teeth against her complaining bones. Then she nodded to the figure, and keeping her voice quiet enough not to carry, she said, “Hello?”

With so little to look at, it was difficult not to focus on the labored breathing of the man she'd found herself next to, or to hear the curse that escaped his lips.

His eyes glinted, and even in the low light, she could tell that he he was glaring at her. She did not flinch at that fact. She simply continued to stare in his direction, her own expression still blank except for the fact that she was squinting against the darkness. People in pain did strange things, and presumably people trapped in dark cellars did as well. Even if he was snappish, he had not asked her to leave, and so she stayed.

The dull ache in her own back flared up into something much sharper if she tried moving, anyway.

"I am Eternal Sailor Cybele, Senshi of the Hunt," she said. Her tone, while still quiet, was matter-of-fact. The corrupt went unsaid. She'd found that some people were uncomfortable with such terminology, and if wasn't obvious enough by her aura, it would be made clear as she reached into her own chest and pulled out the starseed.

It glowed faintly. It would have barely been enough to be noticeable in most situations, but it was just bright enough that when she held it up, she could mostly see his face.

She then scanned his body for any signs of something that was obviously wrong. "Are you injured?" She wasn't sure what she would do if he was. When she attempted to reach for any medical knowledge, she was coming up woefully blank.

Acquisition?

She'd never heard it phrased quite like that, although of course she'd asked those around her what had happened. After trying to soften the blow with sweets and compliments, Sylvite had explained that she'd been brought over because she was so strong, and this man seemed to know something about it as well.

Cybele nodded. "Yes," she said. She did not think that she minded being a prize, or a servant of the Negaverse. Her eyebrows raised, although it was more out of curiosity than anything. "Do you know Sylvite?" That would hardly be surprising, since it seemed like it was the Captain's self appointed job to be friends with everybody. Still, she hadn't so much as heard her name since she'd arrived.

She glanced down to her own bodice, now visible in the light of the starseed. It was distinctly black, and she couldn't imagine it being any other color. She pressed her lips together for a moment, then asked, "Did you know me, before? I apologize if I should recognize you. I can't remember anything."

Her gaze did eventually travel all the way to his ribs, as she angled her small light in that direction. She did notice the way he was cradling them, but did not mention anything further, and her expression remained fairly blank. If there was something she could help with, he would ask.

"What a coincidence," said Cybele, the corner of her mouth quirking upwards. "Most of what I know about myself also comes from Sylvite's reports."

The hint of dry humor fell a bit flat against the dirt walls and, worse, was muffled by the captain's heavy breathing. Cybele squinted at his chest in the dim light until she realized that she was staring, but there was nothing wrong that she could see.

Although perhaps that did not mean much. Cybele had not seen anything wrong with the mists that had brought her here. It had taken nearly a day and a hallucination to realize that she was trapped in some strange world. She had not seen the danger in going out alone at night looking for a fight. She knew the human body even less than she knew the general state of the world. All she could offer was distraction.

"I think I like Sylvite," said Cybele, shifting her gaze to the starseed in her palm. "She can be a lot, but she is good at her job, and I think she truly has good intentions in everything she does. She was bringing me candy every day for a while."

As she shifted the gem around in her fingers, her gaze went a bit softer. "She was very proud of the ambush, and of me as her prize. I think she would be sad if I was to die here."

She glanced up to the trapdoor in the corner, the one that was sealed impossibly tight and surrounded by thin tendrils of mist, and she sighed.

A moment passed. Then, Cybele tried to straighten up again, wincing before she settled into the new position. "Ah, but my manners," she said, deciding not to risk a nod. "It is nice to finally meet you, even here."

Cybele blinked against the darkness. "Pure?"

Even in her short time in the Negaverse, she'd picked up on the fact that Sylvite was different from many of the other agents. She was fun-loving. She had a creative streak. She was aggressively, obsessively social. Perhaps she thought of herself as pure. She had told Cybele not to use the word corruption, or to ever imply that Chaos was bad.

Still, when it came down to it, she didn't have any more qualms than the others about fighting to the death, or stripping somebody of their memories.

"She's sweet, but I think it might just be that she doesn't know when to stop talking about her accomplishments," said Cybele after a moment, letting a hint of amusement into her voice. "Or anything, really."

Cybele didn't mind that about her. It made her decent at teaching the Negaverse's lessons, and interesting to spend time with. Even in a place like this, Cybele could imagine her chattering away about everything and anything, and probably trying to look on the bright side of things, as well.

She did want to see her again.

Cybele gave a deep nod, likely only partially visible. "Rakovanite." She glanced towards the trapdoor. "I have not given up hope yet," she said. It had proven difficult to break, but it couldn't stand up to endless battery. It was also true that the beast had left them alive so far, although it did not seem particularly committed to keeping them that way. Cybele's back ached, and she knew she was far from the worst one off.

"It's bruising, I think," she said. Earlier, she'd touched each rib and vertebrae to check. "It's not too bad if I stay still, but it's not ideal, either. I was thrown into a tree."

She'd gone out into the mist to hunt, and the details were blurry, but feeling out her injuries had helped to put the pieces together.

Could Sylvite fight?

The thought was an odd one. Cybele hadn't seen the captain with her knives out, not that she could remember, except for during a brief training session, just long enough for Cybele to show that she knew what she was doing.

Yet, trying to think about it directly sent an odd feeling to her body, similar to when she'd met the senshi who had obviously known her. The difference was that then, it had been a lightness she had felt in her chest. Now there was a heaviness there, and a tenseness in her shoulders. For a moment, she closed her eyes and cleched her jaw and tried to push for some more solid memories, but that just brought her back to when she'd first opened her eyes, when Sylvite's hand had still been inside her chest.

Cybele opened her eyes and forced herself to breathe a little easier. "I do not think that combat is her specialty," she said with a small, careful shrug. "That is why I was recruited, I believe."

That was a large part of the reason that Sylvite would miss her when she was gone.

"It is my specialty, from what I can tell," she said, still squinting a bit as if that would help her see the past. "It is all that I know I can do. Even here. I wasn't having much luck growing food or making sense of the talismans. I thought destroying the beast would solve most of our problems, so I went out hunting, but-"

She sighed, and then shifted again, hoping it would take some of the pressure off her back. It didn't, really.

"Time should help with the injuries, and rest, as well," she said, very aware that both were luxuries they may not have. She glanced across the room, towards where she could feel slight Order auras. It was the least of their worries, but also the one that was easier to keep an eye on. "I can watch over you while you rest, if you'd like," she said.

The comment about her kind got an eyebrow raise from her, thankfully hard to see in the shadows. It was true that she had magic that made other people more powerful for a time, but that magic worked just as well at making her stronger. She was a powerful hunter, on par with anyone in Destiny City save the royals.

This place was different. Her magic had done little, and if she'd had a sword, like the Generals did, it would not have done much against that monster, either.

"I knew I wasn't likely going to win," she said, shrugging at the darkness. "There was a chance, enough that it seemed worth trying, but in the event that it all went wrong I did not want to involve anyone who had more to loose than I did." She could not have asked him, or his brother, or any of the others who had shown up in pairs or who talked of family back home.

There had been a few lonely souls in her house who had stuck together out of necessity, but in the end she hadn't had it in her to ask them, either.

She glanced towards the others she could see throughout the cave. They were hurt and bedraggled, as well, and not so threatening, but it was true that the auras did not make things more comforting. "I know," she said, sighing gently. "Sleep is not easy here."

While Cybele did not often touch people, it was cold here, and not comfortable. At his offer, she carefully moved closer and leaned towards him so that their sides were touching. She could give him some small measure of warmth if nothing else.

"Let's just get what rest we can, then, while we have each other."

Here, in a dark in damp cave with nothing but half-spoiled, unpleasantly magical food to eat, it was easy to see that going up against the monster alone had not been the correct choice. Before that, she had not had the context to know that conditions would be so unfavorable, as Rakovanite put it.

She was powerful, she'd been told. She was magically engineered to hunt creatures. Of course she'd known that this monster was quite powerful in its own right, but she'd thought that she might have some sort of chance against it.

In the end, it was an experience she could learn from if they made it out alive.

"It's all right," she said automatically as he apologized, although as she glanced through the shadows towards the enemies sprawled out against the other walls and the mist creeping down in lazy trails through the trapdoor, she was not so sure that all right was true.

"It's not your fault," she said instead, and just for the moment, leaned up against him as she was, she closed her eyes.