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Crumpled on the ground, Auriga had too much confusion in her head to be worried about Cyllene -- at least, until the searing burn of acid lit her skin on fire. A choked scream flew from her lips as she tried to slap the acid away, but that only succeeded in making her hands burn too. She was only fortunate her face had been angled away from the girl.

This proved it, she thought. This proved how evil the Negaverse was. She had been attacked while she was down. Crawling to her feet, Auriga spun on Cyllene. "Kicking someone when they are down," she said, screwing her face up. Her skin ached from the acid, burned. "That is what you do. Whatever you were before, that is not who you are now."

With a grunt, Auriga stomped at the girl's feet and then swung a punch toward her jaw, just like Gunn had taught her in training.





His ribs hurt, but Virgo's arms around him suddenly warmed him. His smile ghosted against where he bent to wrap around her, brightness back in his eyes. When she pulled away, he felt a sudden chill -- and then, the familiar call to her magic. A shield? Oh no, a shield that would hurt her. She had put on her scary shield -- at least, scary when she was using it to protect anyone but Chronos.

Neso rows his hands weakly toward Virgo, but he said nothing. Instead, he frowned and stepped backward, trying to determine how best to protect her without actually getting hurt himself and only hurting her more. Thank God Babylon appeared and told him what to do. That made everything easier.

Wordlessly, Neso reached out, latching himself to Virgo's legs as she flew toward Leto, attempting to wrestle her backward to the best of his ability. "Virgo, we should GO," he said, voice thick with something that was not happiness and therefore sounded unnatural. "Think of the Princess." Low blow. Just saying it kicked him in the heartstrings extra hard. A thousand other things were left unsaid.

Bifrost appeared with a shield, and the Senshi of Summer began to feel even better. See? No one had to get hurt! They had double shields AND the strongest shield of all: friendship.

OH AND HEY -- his New Friend was here too: Chariklo. "Hi," he said to her, oblivious to sort of everything and just wanting desperately to leave.

Babylon is on the third floor, heading for the stairs

As much as Babylon had never thought he'd see the day when he took orders from a dark mirror senshi, Chariklo's suggestion of immediate egress sounded extremely reasonable. And, given that Bifrost was providing cover and Neso had held up his end of the bargain-

Babylon grabbed Virgo by her shoulders and tried to ignore how she struggled to break from his grasp. "Okay, yep," he said. "The bloody beatdown can wait. We're getting you out of here." He looked to Neso. "Stairs?" he suggested, and glanced sympathetically at Virgo. She was going to hate him later. She probably hated him now. But Virgo alive was infinitely better than Virgo dead.

"Bifrost!" he called to the nearby squire. "You're doing great. Come on. We're getting out of here."

The high-pitched scream of a shattered crystal rang through Avalon's head, and she knew instantly that it was Kerberos. She had no desire to see another Negaverse death, but she didn't think she could get away unless she got this senshi taken down.

Like that'd be hard.

Avalon twisted to the side, out of the way of the senshi's attack--hefted her sword--and drove it into the senshi's back. "I wish I could say the same," she said, yanking the blade free. There was blood, enough of it that she knew this senshi was going to go down--and then she teleported again, to the source of the shattered crystal's signature.

She grabbed hold of Kerberos, handfuls of his uniform tight in her grip, and then teleported one final time, taking him with her.

Avalon and Kerberos OUT!!

Turquoise is out (actually ICly was a long time ago).

She hadn't expected that kind of response. The tone of his voice was so strong, so hateful. It left her wonder what she had wrong, or was he just in a bad mood? However, now was not time to linger in such thoughts. Her starseed was in fire, threatening her with a pain so hard she almost cried outloud. Afraid such thing would actually happen, she summoned her communication crystal out, not wanting her weak moment to be heard by the general. But even though it hurt, she managed to keep herself quiet by focusing on her breathing alone.

Once the pain was gone, she saw no rainbow on the sky anymore. They are connected? The rainbow and the pain are connected?

Well, it didn't matter. It was time to go home. She had given orders. She felt tired. Hurt too. Not really physically, no, her wounds were more in her pride. Today has been a failure, on her part at least. She turned on her heels and left the burning warehouse behind her.

Lt. Titanlåvenite is on the bottom floor

'A Senshi has General Buddingtonite. Detain her... until I come.'

Things were getting well beyond safe, smoke and heat ranging down into the bottom as well as what must be flooded through the upper floors. It wouldn't be worth waiting if he could find the offending party. It was a big if. The burns from the Princess' magic were terrible, but enough on par of a bad session with his Lord training that he was able to function- stand, walk, jog, run- once the spell was gone. It seemed likewise for plenty of others.

"Yes, sir." He shifted to a run, cornering the stacks and looking for tell-tale signs of Buddy. The brilliant crimsons, the distinctive hat, even just the auras of Generals since a few had vanished with their power to parts unknown. It had taken some doing, but following one of the few General aura's left around ended up being a good choice. Running full clip, Titan saw the nameless senshi and remembered her distinctly. Her name didn't come right away, it had been so long, but the feel of anger came immediately. And why.

Coward. Liar.

She can not be allowed to take Buddy. He kept at the same clip and aimed a bear swipe at the girl's head- the hair that peaked over where Buddy's arm was secured over her shoulders to drag the General along.

Athene is still on the bottom floor and appears to have acquired a Liryn

Awakening from the blackness felt sort of like swimming through fog, for a moment Athene able to do little more than stare wide-eyed and a little blankly as he shoved hair from his face with a pale hand.

What happened?

He had died hadn't he? Atë... Atë had killed him. He had felt the pain from when she had ripped the starseed from his chest and then the pain had stopped and there had been nothing except darkness and nothingness.

Except there was supposed to be white when you died, wasn't there? At least he had always assumed there was supposed to be white and a tunnel - a tunnel leading into light. Or maybe he had read that last bit somewhere, after all a tunnel of light sounded like something that one would read in a tale. Besides the surroundings looked awfully familiar if a bit blurry.

It took a moment, maybe two but eventually a few things sunk in.

1. His surroundings seemed familiar since he was still on the bottom floor of the warehouse and they were blurry because his glasses were crooked
2. There was a super senshi with a cat (Thetis) on her shoulder peering anxiously at him
3. Something warm was pressed up against his side and purring

He rectified the blurriness by the simple expedient factor of straightening his glasses, Athene peered at the Super senshi (Metis) "You saved my life" his voice was something of a croak as he spoke. Although still on the warehouse floor, Athene shifted to more off a sitting position, movements stiff from pain lingering both from Atë's action and his resulting uncontrolled fall managing to add as he did so "I... Thank you."

This was the second time in the war that he had come close to dying, the second time that he had had to be saved. Unlike the first time however his rescuer had not died in the rescuing and he would not be left with her death on his conscience.

Mayhaps he would have said more, but at that moment his eyes landed on the starseed on the floor and not that far from him.

Starseed?

Right he had been trying to return it and with it on the floor that meant that the owner was still out there and either dying or dead.

"No" Athene hadn't realised that he'd spoken the thought aloud, the voice a protest as he forced himself to move ignoring the slight protest as his movement dislodged the warm thing by his side, his hand reaching forward to scoop up the starseed.

He moved to stand up, but then there was something springing for his direction, Athene recognising the tabby bobtail cat as the one from earlier even as the little cat settled against his shoulder and told him that he would go with him.

"Okay," he told it as he stood, somewhat shakily but he managed it,

There wasn't any time to quibble, the starseed wasn't shining as bright as it had been earlier starseed showing glimmering in hand before he closed his hand gently over it and tried to ignore the fact that it didn't seem to glimmer quite as brightly as it had before "I have to return this" it was hard to tell who he was addressing, but the Super and two cats were all by him so it was likely that they all heard his words.

It felt like longer than he'd liked but eventually Athene found the likely candidate for the missing starseed in the form of an unconscious cream furred guardian cat (Cora) and kneeling before her he pushed the starseed against her the fur of her chest.

"Please work. Please" his voice was a soft, croaky plea as he continued tried to push the starseed against the guardian, not sure what he was doing but hoping that it would work anyway, the guardian cat on his shoulder quiet but assumedly watching on. "Please don't let me be too late."

Megrez had to try really hard not to laugh at that (and failed; a small, harsh chuckle escaped her). Okay, so she really was dealing with a misogynist here. Great.

Her eyes went to the objects that clattered onto the floor. Most of them looked like useless little knickknacks, but something metallic gleamed in the light. Hoping his wouldn't leave her too open, she bent down and reached forward to pick it up. She came back up with a rather long kitchen knife. Yes, this was much better than a punch or an egg or even a plate. Perhaps she could inflict a few wounds on him and then escape. Once again, she lunged, hoping to give him a minor flesh wound.