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An unfortunate thing about the senshi phone was that Cybele had to be powered up to actually use it. She was attempting to be responsible and to actually arrange backup when she was on patrol, given that the Negaverse’s target on her back was apparently bigger than she’d thought, but it was hard to get in touch with some of her contacts, or at least to speak to them plainly about senshi things, without being Cybele and sending out an aura for everyone to feel while she waited for replies.

She was in an alleyway, huddled over her phone and scrolling through contacts, trying to wrack her brain for who might be available, when she felt the aura nearby.

It was a dark aura, which made Cybele sit up straighter, eyes narrowed. It wasn’t quite the same as the Negaverse, however. Her skin did not crawl at the feeling of it. If anything, it brought that feeling of pleasant familiarity to her chest.

Dark mirror, then.

Letting the phone vanish, she moved to the end of the alleyway to peek out at the street.

Evidently she wasn't going to have to look very hard for this senshi. He ran right into her before she was even all the way out of the alleyway. Cybele let out a small sound that seemed suspiciously close to a giggle, even as she stepped to the side a bit and gave her skirt a quick smoothing.

"Hello, yourself," she said, looking him over in the dim light. The horns on his tiara had her curious about his sphere, while something about the flow of his outfit and the lack of cracks on him confirmed her suspicions that he was, in fact, Dark Mirror.

Cybele chewed her lip for a moment, but rather than letting things drift off into awkward silence, she said, "There's a chance this might come off as terribly rude, but I've been looking for one of you. Do you know Remarque?"

Thinking of how few people she knew in her own court, she gave a small shrug as she looked in his direction. "If not, you're free to give me a lecture about how not all Dark Mirrors know each other, but if you do, can you bring him a message for me?"

Perhaps they even had their own phones or something so he could look up the other senshi, even if they weren't immediately connected.

He was tense, which made sense. They were technically enemies, more so than they would have been back when she'd been corrupted, which was an odd thought. She didn't think that she wanted to be the enemy of this man. He wasn't doing anything that deserved that.

She certainly didn't plan on hurting Remarque. "Nothing violent," she said, flashing a small smile.

"I'd just like him to know that I purified, that Cybele purified, and that the negotiations I was going to make with the Negaverse on his behalf did not get very far."

More for the benefit of the newer senshi in front of her than for Remarque himself, who presumably already knew some of this, she added, "Also, let him know that the Negaverse gets backstabbing enough among their own ranks. I'm sure they'd have no problem turning on you without a moment's notice. They're awful."

Cybele nodded. "I was going to see if I could form some kind of alliance," she said. "Remarque apparently knew me before I was corrupted, and I've liked all of the Dark Mirror Senshi that I've met since. I wanted to see if I could do you some sort of favor."

She hadn't wanted to be enemies with the Court back then, just as she didn't want to be enemies with them, now.

"Turns out I couldn't even do myself any favors in the Negaverse, though," she said, shrugging. Her voice was light. While her time spend corrupted had been awful, she didn't mind talking about it, especially not during times like this when she was free to go off about how many problems there had been. "They like to act as if they're the organized ones, but there are many flaws in their systems. Half of them don't want to be there. The other half are crawling over each other for attention or the glory of Metallia or something."

Perhaps someday their internal problems would get so bad that they would collapse into a Chaos-filled heap. Unlikely, but it was a nice thought.

"I would hope that they know my starseed's too broken to be of any use to them if they try putting Chaos in it again," she said, and she hissed the last bit despite her best efforts to keep up the casual tone.

She liked the life that she was living, now, new and fragile as it was. The thought of the Negaverse in her past was one thing. The threat of them in her present or future was quite another. Also, she was aware that they weren't giving up. Sylvite might want her dead, but some of the others were implying that they'd like to see her with cracks in her chest again.

If her starseed shattered completely in the attempt, that also probably wouldn't be a loss to them.

"I'm looking into something called Transcendence, though," she said, regaining her composure. "A bit of extra protection, although it's not something you can just sign up for, unfortunately."

"I don't think it's completely broken yet, but it's certainly weakened by all the Chaos being shoved in and out of it." Cybele's expression was flat, her lips twisted slightly. "Before all this, I was an Eternal, but I lost my wings when I purified." Out of everything, her new weakness had been the hardest pill to swallow. She blamed the Negaverse for it, of course. "And it hurts. My chest ached for weeks after I purified, and that still flares up every once in a while."

At least that seemed to be subsiding more and more in recent weeks.

"You shouldn't have to worry about being corrupted, though. I don't think the Negaverse's Chaos is compatible with whatever happens in the mirror."

At least, as far as she knew. It was one of those things that she hadn't actually asked anyone about, and yet according to whatever snippets of instincts she had, it seemed true.

"Stabbed in the back, perhaps, but that's not as bad." Her lips pressed together even thinner. "I promise."