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In hindsight, she should have been paying more attention to her surroundings. With the princess nearby, blaring their signatures and the threat they represented, amid the struggle of Order versus Chaos, she let her attention focus to closely on the Princess she taunted. It left her back open to a surprise assault. Cinnabar was aware of the sudden movement behind her only moments before the weapon came swinging for her. She might have even managed to dodge it… she was fast, but as her attention shifted, Ganymede took the opening and lunged at her.

The half-youma felt something heavy and hard slam into her back, between her shoulders, and she moved with it, falling forward with a cry of pain caught between gritted teeth. She heard glass shattering and, fleetingly, she was glad for her leather and scales, that kept the glass from slicing her open on top of the blunt force of the hit.

A smaller, but stronger, body slammed into her from the front and Cinnabar heard the senshi calling out her attack as she came. She knew what was going to happen, there was no ******** way she was sticking around for it… As the burn settled into her, the half youma dropped the starseed and wrenched herself out of the grip of the senshi princess. The moment she was free, she disappeared from between them, leaving them to mop up their mess on their own.

Cinnabar stumbled as she reappeared across the station, tripping over the prone forms of the family she had ripped the starseeds from earlier. She collapsed against the wall as she groaned, feeling heat rushing through her and growing steadily worse. She ached with familiar want, the starseeds in her pocket drawing her with physical need. But no… not those. Reaching out, the General wrenched open a hole in reality and from it poured four youma, screeching and skittering as they swarmed around the hallway. One shrieked as she pounced on it, gripping tightly so she could drive her fangs into it like a dog on a haunch of meat. It’s form disolved and she swallowed it greedily, combating the heat inside of her and the weakness that came on its heels with the rush of power and euphoria that came with eating a youma.

Only when the magic had run its course did she finally shove herself to her feet, shaken and ******** b***h… YOU.” She snapped, pointing at the three remaining youma who milled about, reluctant to approach but unable to leave. “Follow me.”

They cringed before her as the General turned and headed back down the hall, her hands flexing to drive black claws from her fingertips.

Cold. His voice, his words, the tiles beneath her, winds from elsewhere on the platform, disturbing the station dust. It seeped into her, leaving numbing chill in place of the energy she thrived on. The Senshi of Coffee shivered, staring up at her assailant with wide-eyed disbelief. No mercy, no humanity, no appeal. And she knew, she knew what they’d done to the people they’d taken at New Year, and in the future, and at the attacks she’d witnessed. And somehow she’d still expected better from him. Heat of battle and all that stuff, she could understand. Not this.

Would her parents be able to find her, Subamara wondered, or would she remain one of the many many missing that never found their way home? She’d wanted to make a difference this time! She wanted a different future.

A fountain of red hair appeared in her vision behind the lieutenant, accompanied by a very welcome aura, and for a moment she hoped.

Subamara drew a breath to thank the Page for his timely arrival, but the words didn’t make it out of her mouth, transforming into a little yelp of shock at the unnatural sensation of a hand sinking right into her body. The rest of the chaotic battle faded until the world was focused on the small space around her chest, lines of pain radiating out as the enemy took hold of her starseed. His fingers were so cold.

Cinnabar disappearing came as a relief to Ganymede, though she had little time to dwell on it, for the General had dropped Valhalla's starseed. Ganymede fumbled it for a few seconds before managing to catch it as it fell from the General's grasp, cradling it safely in her hands.

Once Cinnabar had disappeared, Ganymede looked to Sessrumnir with a mix of gratefulness and confusion.

“When did you get here?” she asked.

She didn't wait around long for an answer. Instead, Ganymede turned back to Valhalla's prone form on the ground. She knelt by him, turned him over onto his back, and brought the starseed close to his chest. She watched as it was returned to him. After pulling his helmet off, she guided his head into her lap again, carding her fingers through his hair while she waited for him to regain consciousness.

Ganymede glanced back up at Sessrumnir. “Be careful. She hasn't left,” she said of Cinnabar. She could still sense the General's aura.

For a moment, she spared a look for the control room she'd been intent on entering before Valhalla had been attacked. Briefly she considered approaching it again, but she could sense another Princess in the vicinity and knew that whatever was occurring in the office was being taken care of.

“Come on, Val, wake up,” she said, gently caressing his face.

The Senshi had dropped, because of, or in spite of the hit, and she was pushing up from the floor and darting past the general before pale fingers hand time to close in those wild curls. Xenotime had tried though, hand snapping out to make a grab for her, but she got nothing but the barest brush of ginger hair before she was out of reach,and the general gave a impatient snarl of frustration. "The ******** is going on here!" People were throwing themselves at her left and right, but she couldn't keep a target for anything.

The inclination to follow was there, and she'd even tensed, ready to teleport inside the office to assist the agents fighting against the page inside, but the sound of a crash and a cry of magic jerked her attention back around in time to see Cinnabar take a direct hit to the back before the senshi princess had bum rushed her. Heat, a struggle, and Cin disappeared, away from the range of the burning attack, but not before dropping the starseed, which landed with a small bounce at the short blonde's feet.

They needed that, for the leverage, but even as Xe started to move towards it Ganymede was retrieving it and returning it to it's owner. "Stupid b***h!"

Three steps, and she was on them, sinking a hand into the mass of those golden curls, closing around a thick handful and yanking her smaller frame back and away from the fallen knight. "Ganging up on a lady like that, don't you have any manners at all?" She didn't dare summon her weapon again, not with whatever other magic had jerked her back last time, but she didn't really need it. Her free hand drew back, upper body turning, then snaping back for a wicked right hook aimed at Ganymede's stomach.

Sometimes he wondered what would happen after death. If people just faded into nothingness, or if their starseed managed to be salvaged, someday they would be reborn? As the youma General pushed him away and took his starseed, it was almost a relief. Ever since Laurelite had almost corrupted him, he’d been in constant pain. Most of the time he could try to ignore it, or at least distract himself enough so that it didn’t affect his daily routine, but there was always that low burning in his chest, like something was wrong, something that wasn’t as easily fixed with the magic of purification.

But he didn’t have enough time to die, to fade into nothing, to never be reborn again as would have been the case had the General managed to destroy his starseed. Instead, it was returned to him with the same care and gentleness he’d come to expect from Ganymede. She’d saved him on so many occasions already that he knew she would always continue to try. But one day, even she wouldn’t be able to save him.

With the return of his starseed came the return of the pain he constantly felt. His eyes opened just in time to see Ganymede being pulled up to her feet, another General trying to hit her, but Valhalla couldn’t react quickly enough. He felt weak and his body shook, and the most he could do at that moment was to roll to his knees, a hand over his mouth, but it wasn’t enough to stop him from retching.

There was something wrong with him. The last time he’d had his starseed returned to him, when Benitoite had pulled it a couple years back, it had been such a relief to have it returned to his chest. But now? Now he felt sick and pathetic. And he was angry that he felt that way, unable to fight. He wasn’t much of a fighter, but he’d been able to fight more than what he was able to do now. Instead, all he could do now was empty his stomach onto the platform, disgusted and embarrassed at himself for being unable to control the reaction.

Ganymede was still fighting to save him, a knight, and all he could do was throw up? It was pathetic.

Jet watched in surprise as the Eternal senshi threw herself backwards, trying to knock Aquamarine backwards in the process. But even worse than him missing the Eternal with his daggers, was the sickeningly powerful aura of the Princess that entered the room.

There was hardly any time to react, but he could see that she was looking straight towards him. He was sure she could see the fear that begrudgingly crossed his expression, but he was prepared to take whatever it was she had to dish out.

He could feel the pull of the metal in the room, and he knew it was aimed towards him, but what he didn’t know was that Aquamarine would try and jump between him and the Princess to take part of the attack, instead.

Aquamarine wouldn’t be able to stop the magnetic field from all sides, and instead of just him getting hurt, it would be both of them. Without another thought, he grabbed hold of Aquamarine and used almost everything that was left of his energy to teleport them just outside of the office, but not before taking a large portion of the attack.

“s**t, what the hell did you do??” he hissed at Aquamarine, lowering the Lieutenant’s suddenly limp body to the ground, and looking wildly around in his now exhausted state to see if the Princess was going to follow them. He wasn’t powerful enough to teleport them much farther than just outside the office, and if they didn’t get backup soon, the dark mirror senshi and Aurostibite might end up getting hurt as well. “General! They need help inside the office!” he called when he caught sight of General Cinnabar and her youma.

Jet could feel the blood on his face from where a piece of metal had cut him, and his jacket and pants were starting to soak through from the cuts across his arms, legs, and back, but he doubted any injury was as bad as Aquamarine.

“I-I shouldn’t pull it out,” he said in a shaky voice as he eyed his own dagger sticking out of the Lieutenant’s side, tears of anger and fear filling his eyes. His hands were just as shaky as he tried to wad up some of the fabric of Aquamarine’s jacket to try and stem some of the bloodflow from the wound. He kept Aquamarine’s head off the ground at least, but couldn’t imagine he was very comfortable.

It took a few moments for Athene to recover enough to finally pull himself back up, his back and legs still feeling sore from the earlier forced (and on his part most certainly unwilling) introduction to the pillar.

A voice spoke up nearby. The Lieutenant - a lieutenant that he had ironically forgotten about until the other male decided to remind him of his presence.

He turned his head to stare at the taller male, as it sunk in that the other really was confusing him for a girl.

"You know in addition to leaving, you should probably go and get your eyes tested" he suggested quietly, adding "Because I'm not a girl." It wasn't as if he was pretending to be a girl either and whilst he had long hair - it wasn't as if he was the only guy in the world with long hair.

He opened his mouth to say something further, but at that point he once again heard someone call out his name, whilst at the same time the commotion from down the other end seemed to be getting worse.

Athene looked back at the Lieutenant "I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to cut this short" he said instead as he clenched his right hand into a fist and raised his left hand, calling on his magic as he called out "Blue beads of Nazar – intenstated!"

Directing the ball of beads that formed towards the Lieutenant - or at the very least trying to direct them that way - Athene tried to head in the direction of the where the voice had come from, whilst hoping all the while that his attack would work and score a hit...

Because if it did then at least it would give the civilians a chance to continue to try and get away whilst the Lieutenant was otherwise 'indisposed' - aka trapped.