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A single-minded blur of color, Sailor Auriga crashed hard into Kerberos, banging her forehead against his head. The veil that covered her mouth ripped free from her hood, exposing her mouth. She felt the pinch of his nails into her flesh and cried out from it. Her battle experience was minor, but she had been working a lot more lately -- both on conditioning and some battle tactics. But it didn't take a battle genius to guess her next move.

The Senshi of Pestilence had a particularly gross attack, and a gross way of transmitting it too.

White teeth bared the air. No time to feel skeevy about it now; she had to embrace the plague. Auriga slammed her mouth against the bare skin at the side of his neck -- chomping once, and then twice. She knew it was Bad News Bears if she touched his bare skin now, but dangling off his back was making it particularly difficult.

"We protect Destiny City!" she shouted, fueled by the adrenaline of her attack and still dangling from his back like a strange koala.

Oh, dammit. That egg had been intercepted by the whip-wielding General (Serpentine), but at least it wasn't quite as embarrassing as a total miss. Now, however, Megrez's target (Buddingtonite) had vanished and given the others the order to retreat. There was clearly nothing left to be done for now; perhaps she could double-team a general some other day (she was definitely still going to be content over that strike with the egg, of course).

There was a more pressing matter: the fire was getting more intense by the minute, and Megrez needed to get out fast to avoid being softboiled burning to death (and to stop sweating so much). Looking to Ganymede, she said, "Let's get out of here! See you next Negaverse battle, huh?" and then jumped down from the roof. From there, she went to find an alley where she could rest and recover for a bit; the intensity of what had just happened was slowly starting to get to her.

[Exit Megrez, unless someone wants to catch her on her way out.]

Even though Jade had been 'dead', she wasn't completely unaware of what was going around her. Even though her focus was in her own condition, in her own performance, she couldn't ignore the debate between Ganymede and Buddingtonite. Ganymede had given Buddy a choice between burning him or burning her. She is suspicious about me, Jade thought. Choose your words carefully, General. And indeed he did. Jade didn't hear his whole speech but what she did hear, she liked it. He was raising up good points and while he could have, he didn't choose either side. Offering himself to be a victim of her attack would have given himself away, and that Jade didn't want him to do. He hadn't sacrificed her straight away either, of which Jade was incredibly thankful. Well played, General. Well played.

She felt foot touching her side. She felt a hand touching her back. And then she heard words 'she is alive'... Busted. The knight (Lyceum) had given him away. She had given her away. She heard Buddingtonite yelling the knight, telling her to not take her. Jade almost panicked. No, General, no! Don't reveal me! And then the senshi called her attack and she knew it would be the burning one. Great distress overwhelmed her of the thought either her or her general being burn and she had to work her hardest to not let it show. Would they be suspicious about her as well now? Or would they still believe her being 'innocent'? Now what? Silently, she started forming a plan, a backstory which she would tell them should they ask for one.

A lieutenant (Tsavolite) accompanied them. Jade wasn't really sure what to think of that. In a way it was comforting to know there was another officer present. However in a situation like this, his presence might have raised more suspicion and thus she might have preferred to work on her charm on them alone. They seemed to believe her being just a civilian, let them continue believing so. On top of that, the retreat order was given. Go, my fellow officer! I'll be fine. Just go! It didn't help the situation that he was trying to take her from the knight that was holding her. It only resulted to objection from both her and from the other knight who was quite loud (Sarras). She also heard another knight (Valhalla) interrogating someone, lieutenant medic she guessed, and asking someone to check out if she, the captive really was alive.

However, that wasn't needed. With fire came smoke. Smoke that lingered inside her lungs, itching and threatening to suffocate her. It was becoming harder and harder for her to breath and stay still and play 'unconscious'. Until finally, she couldn't help herself from coughing couple times.

Well, it was official. Haumea was the Worst. And kind of a Fail on top of that. In all of the confusion, he hadn't managed to take anyone down. And worse, he hadn't exactly managed to prevent anyone of his side from being getting hit or taken down either. Shaking his head as he went through the smoke and confusion, he saw a White Moon Eternal (Athene) bearing down on one of the plain-clothed officers. He had never heard of a White Mooner purposely harming civilians, so it was doubtful that this one was coming over to kill her. Which meant... rescue? Oh s**t.

Scrambling, the Corrupt senshi made his way over to the girl. In the confusion, he couldn't be sure of who her handler was, but at this point, he most defiitely figured 'screw it'. He was going to make sure that no one was captured by Order. Particularly as the crystal in his ear relayed Buddingtonite's order to retreat. Grinning slightly, he crouched beside the girl and offered his hand.

"Well, girl, would you like a hand? Otherwise, you're going to end up with new friends you don't want on the other side."

Without really waiting for an answer, he caught her hand and hauled her to her feet, catching the pained hiss she tried to keep in. And of course she was hurt on top of everything else. With a sigh, he scooped her up and started to run.

"Escape from fiery death now, introductions later, yeah?"

From below his ear, he heard a tiny chuckle and whispered, "Yeah."

---

From where she lay curled into a tiny, pain-filled ball, Alodie thought that, perhaps, this all could have gone a lot better. Order's followers had all shown up so quickly! And in greater numbers than she'd expected to see. And just think, she told herself, that isn't even all of 'em. No wonder that Destiny City was in such a state with that many alien terrorists around.

Shaking a little, she forced herself to stretch her scalded leg and hissed. No help for it, she had to move. Taking a deep breath, she focused purely on getting her arms and legs moving. As intent as she was on simply moving, she missed seeing the two senshi bearing down on her. One, at least, was her own side and got there first. Looking up and blinking, the first thing she saw was ridiculously pretty hair. The second thing she saw was a hand stretched out, offering her assistance just as the tiny crystal in her own ear buzzed with the order to retreat.

Gripping the hand, she let herself be pulled up and then scooped up. Quickly snuggling into her rescuer, she heard him say, "Escape from fiery death now, introductions later, yeah?"

Chuckling a little to herself at the idea of stopping for proper intros in the middle of a fiery maelstrom, she whispered back, "Yeah."

She'd worry about how embarrassing it was to be injured and then rescued all Princess like later.

---

As Chariklo moved, she could hear the ginger behind her talking. And the words coming out of her mouth very nearly caused a second, much cattier battle right there. It was only training and the need to stop the bigger problem that kept Chariklo from turning and punching Penthesilea right in her ******** throat.

Instead, she growled and shot the Senshi of War a dagger laden glare.

"Honey, do not make me sorry that I didn't break your face when I had a chance. Stick around long enough, though and we can fix that little oversight of mine. And frankly, no. Sorry. Wasn't wondering."

She didn't bother making her own introduction. Alas and woe, Miss Manners was surely turning in her grave. Then again, Miss Manners would hardly approve of the way she was bulling through people, intent of kicking as much Negaverse a** as she possibly could.

From where she was, she could hear one officer bellowing and calling out orders to fall back and get away. Well, she couldn't blame them there, since the roof they were all on was, you know, on fire and likely to turn into a blazing death trap at any moment. Well, nothing said that she had to stay up here either. Besides, a fight on the ground was better.

Glancing back at Penthesilea, she cocked her head in what could only have been intended as a challenge.

"Well? You gonna force me to have to kick all that a** myself or what?"

Then she jumped off the roof.

The chaos surrounding her grew far beyond her capacity to process what was going on as senshi and knight attacks occurred left and right. The group of them engaged the enemy quickly, and some of their enemy fled the scene - namely the two generals. Now faced with just a cluster of captains and lieutenants, their duty to disperse them all seemed far easier now. Between Maia, Europa, and the group of other eternal senshi, Leda wagered that the battle would conclude in their favor.

She hated fighting. Breathing a sigh, Leda retreated backward a couple steps before she leapt atop a nearby building. Her heel slipped slightly, but she regained her balance well enough. Looking back at the action one last time, she observed the cluster of agents and senshi one last time. Things are going in our favor, she thought with relief. However, she didn't want to watch any of her teammates kill anyone... And the general had already left.

Knowing she had to find him, Leda began a tired sprint across the rooftop in search of energy signatures denoting his rank.

She knew intellectually that she had done as good a job in a very poor situation, where she was in way over her head, as could be expected. But still, she had failed. And failure was unacceptable. And more she had let down others who had spent time with her, and tried to help her become better, stronger. This wouldn't happen again. She would heal, she would train, and she would become better than this. She would prove her worth.

So she messed up, royally, and got the crap beat out of her, and hadn't even given much thought to the hostage that had been in her care since Serpentine rescued her. She would do better from here on in. She would make it to the next staging area, and with a clear head she would continue on.

Her progress might be slow, but she would make it, with some help. She only hoped that she wouldn't have to jump off another building and land in garbage again. That was one experience she did not want to undergo again.

[and exit post for Empressite]

For a moment she felt a thrill. Her fist had impacted skin--lightly, a graze. A start. Surrounded by smoke, aware of the flames, a little part of her brain was aware she was being stupid. The rest of her brain was deciding to ignore it the little part, sending out another fist to hopefully make better contact than the first's piddly hit. She'd missed how he'd kicked out, catching a calf and giving enough of a yank that Themiscyra fell stumbled backwards.

Landing on her a** with a hiss, she managed sneer up towards the Captain. "And getting better each moment. Where's your lil' pet~?" Freaking youma. Could she toss the feathered dragon into the fires? Getting her hands and a foot beneath her, she pushed up, aiming her other foot for his groin or gut--depended on how fast he could move. She'd be rather pleased if she could land her hell in either area. She was only just aware of other voices--someone called for a retreat? Her attention remained on Jarosite. Would he fall back?

Themiscyra felt something worse than the fires scorch her veins. The idea of him turning tail and running from the match... Personal insult was a light way of putting it.

It seemed however, that despite his wish to rescue what was left of the hostages that Athene wasn't going to be rescuing any of the hostages tonight as at that point the red-haired Nega-General yelled at the Nega-Agents to retreat and lead by example by teleporting out with the source of the other General strength aura.

There was something in the way that the General had sounded the retreat that bugged Athene and for a moment he turned and looked at Shangri-La "I'm pretty sure that 'Showtime's over' is not the standard way of calling a retreat" he said. Then there was the fact that the call for the Nega-agents to retreat had taken so long to come, okay so mayhaps it could be explained by the fact that one of the eternal senshi had managed to set the department store roof on fire, but the fact that he Nega-agents had been pretty much outnumbered from the start nagged at Athene.

Then he remembered the hostage turning in time to see the woman being tugged away by a pink-haired Nega-senshi - the blonde Nega-senshi who had been holding her seemingly having slipped away, perhaps in the confusion.

The blue-haired civilian that the Nega-General had taken the star seed from was still there, although there were at least of couple of Knights by her so he was hoping that something could be done for her - like mayhaps one of them could find her star seed in time.

His gaze was troubled when he looked at Shangri-La "You know I think that perhaps there might be more to all of this" he said. "So I'm going to patrol a bit more and see if anything else is up" adding. "Besides the power's still out, at the very least I can check and see what's up with that." Then for a moment he hesitated before continuing "I wouldn't mind some company if you want to come along." Although mayhaps Shangri-La would prefer to stay with Maia. "If not I can message Maia if I come across anything." And whilst on the topic of messaging Athene noted to himself that check to see if he had any from Ida and/ or Tsui - after all mayhaps one of his team mates had managed to spot something he'd missed.