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The ant scattered, all that bravery and bravado broken. Faustite poured his momentum into turning with the arc of the blade, bringing it around to the Princess at his six —

It would be easy, he knew, to cut through her. The angle was better. The force behind the blade more pronounced. Even if he yet lacked a name for it, Faustite knew the blade was terribly sharp. That flesh and bones could be obliterated in a single swing, no matter how willful or defiant the person living within them. Faustite felt his victory building with his inertia.

But something dispelled all that buildup. Felt like a forceful push against his wrist alone, but the ant had vacated and Cybele now stood before him, both hands in view. He spared a glance to his right as he felt it again, fully halting his blade.

There were two silvery shafts protruding from his right arm, at two different angles. One had shot clean through his wrist, with a violent barb at the end of it. He'd seen Umber with arrows like that — broadheads, he called him. Meant to rip through any resistance posed by skin and sinew and bone. Not all that unlike the nameless thing in his hand. A rivulet of black blood began to run the length of an ethereal arrow during his hesitation.

It wouldn't matter, he told himself. He heard a loud clang, felt a thrum dance up his core and into his teeth. He grit them.

He knew this magic. Felt it a hundred times before, whether in combat or by memory, whether at the computer typing up his entry for her or during his report when Augusta bank had gone down and the Negaverse wanted to know what happened to its investment. In dreams or nightmares, it wouldn't matter, he felt it before. But never once did it touch him so — never once did it rip him out of the fiery form he had before.

It wouldn't matter because it shouldn't matter. Faustite reached with his left, for her starseed, even as another previously unseen arrow shot straight through his palm. His smile became a snarl of hate.

It had done something. The fire was out, although Cybele's thoughts about it were a scattered, post-magic blur that only turned into a gut-wrench as she saw, too late, the blackened hand reaching towards her starseed.

Although, it was strange. It was awful that she'd had enough people reach into her chest, or manhandle her starseed in other ways. She'd felt the icy hot tendrils of chaos, or the choking pressure of fingernails pressing into the delicate crystal that was her very being. This? This just felt weak. She felt the faintest brush of his clawed fingers, but that was all. She thought she saw the hind of an ethereal arrow sticking out of the back of his hand, and she shot him that cold, bitter grin as she simply stepped out of his arm's reach.

She understood that something was different about this. She'd used this magic on him before, and it had kept him distracted, but it hadn't made him bleed. Now she could see the dark splotches on his hand, his sleeve.

Was it because of her being a Princess? She wasn't sure if that was how it worked, but-

She wasn't going to question it. She saw Anser coming back around. Perfect.

With the hand that wasn't burned, she swung out in another punch to his face.

The blade flashed in and out of existence so quickly that it was hard to keep track of, eagle-eyed as Cybele might have thought herself. Faustite's attention was on her and only her now, so her attention was on him and only him.

Still, the blade bit fast. She sidestepped, and it didn't find her heart, but it still sent an arc of red to the sky, and sent Cybele biting her tongue until that bled, too, so that she did not scream.

Her wing was still attached, but it hung useless for the moment with the feathers quickly turning red from the deep gash near the joint.

Cybele took a staggered breath, eyes on the General-King. She couldn't dodge forever. It was a death sentence to dart in close enough to try to snap his neck. She'd learned that the hard way. That wasn't an option now.

Her magic was working, though. He bled from it, even as some of his wounds closed over with the power of the starseed. She needed more. Yes. That was it. He was using everything that he had in his power.

Why shouldn't she?

She stepped back and then back again, crystal materializing in her hands. She didn't need to be close for this, didn't need her her wings, her hands.

It took focus, and power, but just like that, the arrows started raining from the sky.

Her arrows fell everywhere.

Faustite knew what that meant, and Anser did too. Anser knew she was witnessing what Cybele had truly deserved to access--as much as there was a small part of her that was envious that Cybele caught back up to her only to surpass her--and she knew that Faustite was soon to regret it.

Blood was pooling.

Anser had half the mind to go for his weapon, but he had dismissed it before she'd have the chance. Pity.

But he was still going.

It would have been an admirable proof of a worthy opponent if Anser was not so deeply bitter and angry at the entirety of chaos. If Faustite had been an uppity knight, perhaps it would have been one thing.

Instead, Anser took the approach of kicking Faustite while he was down to attempt to divert him from crawling after Cybele.

It was ever a curious thing to be in one place and then another. When it came to Faustite, Headache never had a choice on whether it would respond; it was simply tethered to Faustite's will as readily as the General-King's fingers.

Ever he summoned it to and fro, usually to his office. Usually to the team house or elsewhere in the Castle, where it would be urged to fulfill some useless administrative task that Faustite would not deign to do himself. He would sentence Headache to the selfsame busywork that he should have been assigning to his subordinates. So, whenever Headache felt the tug that forewarned being summoned, whenever it sighted the brief portal that yawned open before it in the Rift, it had some expectation of what would come next.

To be summoned into the streets of Destiny City, in the middle of a fight with a Princess, was not that expectation. It seemed a rash and reckless choice to Headache, who was immediately faced with Faustite on the distinctly losing end of a fight with an Eternal and a Princess. But this wasn't the one who dusted his last youma, and this one had a handful other youma about to war for her attention. A veritable menagerie it was, between a sort of pygmy yeti and a zombie dog, a scorpion and an overgrown rat, they would each employ teeth or claw or stinger to try to fight off the offending pair of White Moon senshi.

They wouldn't last long, it knew. Unlike Headache, these youma were all solid figures. They were bigger targets for the hail of arrows that yet rained down from above. Headache had the advantage for being a cluster of small bodies, who were only picked off in small digits between the invisible hounds and a lucky arrow or two. The other youma, however, were already yelping for it. Already starting to disintegrate. What a waste.

But where the others surged forward, Headache drifted back. The cloud of fireflies reformed into Hestia's former appearance with its fluffy angel wings and shorter hair, then set to work on a short message to another, more capable General-King, even as arrows passed through it and threatened to shatter its image.

Faustite needs a rescue, it wrote simply, then sent it off thereafter. Headache wasn't built for combat. Neither was Faustite, if this altercation said anything to the boy's prowess at waging war. And, if Axinite wasn't around to check his messages, or if this charade of a battle went on for much longer, then Headache would have to look for a new — hopefully better — master once more.

It did not remain. Headache soon shed that visage and resumed being a diminished cloud of fireflies before vanishing back to the Rift. So, too, would the beaten and bloodied Faustite disappear, leaving naught else but a growing pool of youma dust to speckle the pair of senshi as the last of the summoned youma were dispatched by Cybele's arrows.