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Happily listening to Captain Cadmium getting lectured and bopped by a fairy girl, Hybris froze when she whirled on him. Hand up, he smiled at her offer, and promptly began, "Well, did you see him jump right into a wall earlier? Well that happened! He gets too into things sometimes and ends up a little clumsy, which is actually incredibly endearing."

Giving a little, you know how it is, nod, he went on, "Usually he's very cool and sassy, so the gap, I swear sometimes it's so hard not to kiss him. Isn't that terrible?" Holding up a finger, he waggled it at her, "But he only likes boys, so don't fall in love, okay?"

Then he gave a happy little hum, "Besides, we're getting married."

She was pretty sure the mirror dude was trying to distract her with gossip instead of telling her about any serious business. Luckily, there was a lesson that Nectaris had learned a long time ago.

Gossip was always serious business.

Like, kissing boys, for example? That was a classic Faustite move. Well, she assumed it was. He loved marrying boys. She knew that for sure. She remembered talking to Fulgurite and Albite about how many rings he'd been collecting, and she didn't think he left the kissing part out of that equation.

She didn't really understand it. Nectaris was a Certified Boy Kisser, and she didn't see the appeal of that dude, like, at all.

Still, she put the fiance tidbit in with whatever other evidence she had about what was going on, and nodded at the dark haired boy. She didn't put the staff down, but she did smile. "Aww, congratulations," she said. "How long have you known each other?"

She would've been ready to have an actual conversation, except for the fact that she saw Possibly-Faustite moving out of the corner of her eye. Like, trying to backstab her.

Does it count as backstabbing if it's stabbing in the leg? part of her brain asked. You don't backstab people in the leg, a smaller, mostly-buried part of her brain tried to tell her.If you have a clear shot like that, go for something more important. Although, it had surprised her enough that she didn't dodge properly, and she hissed as she felt the warmth trickling down her thigh, so she guessed it had done something.

"Okay then," she said, without so much of the usual bubbliness. "By that logic, I guess that means you're asking for this!"

She brought the staff around as she whirled in a two handed swing, going for the ribs.

He'd cut her, and Cadmium thought that should be deep enough that she couldn't follow them very quickly. Not so much that she would lay there and die, in case she had a horde of friends that wanted to back her butterfly a** up and avenge her, but enough that she couldn't catch up to them. That was all they needed to go find themselves a mirror —

And as he drew back and dismissed his knife, as he started to run toward his boy, his entire center of gravity shifted to the left against his will, his bones shifted uneasily under his skin, and his feet struggled to find purchase at the right angle. He hit the floor with the shock of it numbing his palms under the gloves, and his next breath came with such a sudden and poignant sharp in his right side that he stammered out a staccato groan. Rolled by a ******** butterfly princess. He murmured his expletives to himself as he dragged his body upright once more, stumbling under the pain of what must have been a bone bruise, or a crack, or a break. He couldn't know for certain.

"Whatever," he wheezed at her. "Won't be catching up now."

It would've been the perfect time to run. Adrenaline would see him through another minute or two, long enough for him and his boy to tuck around a corner and disappear. Enough to find a mirror. Enough to play victims if they needed, and beg for help about this big bad butterfly moon b***h that tried to beat him to death.

But when he turned around, searching for his beautiful boy in all his violet whimsy, he saw nothing. Cadmium thought he felt him — like a shelter, like a cool veil draped about him — but the only figures were the boy, the girl, and the butterfly b***h. That ******** menace of a boy must have ditched. Must've left his aura to linger, or what Cadmium felt was his own wishful thinking.

Orange eyes never left her. Silently he extended a hand out, palm up as if to halt her by will alone, as he limped backward with a few poorly concealed winces. "Couple months," he answered, "or a lifetime."

Teary eyes met Cadmium's and...oh. Oh yes. His boy was looking at a total stranger that he already had a vaguely bad impression of, not the fiancée who he had a very specific bad impression of. Hybris couldn't wait to make fun of him for it after they got away from the fairy knight. Who also glanced over but was also too occupied to focus on the helpless and hapless civilians.

Opening her mouth to call out even louder, she choked for a second as the ground began to glow gently, and her body began to burn fiercely. Hybris had forgotten that while knights and senshi didn't have magic that lopped off limbs, they certainly did frequently have torture at their fingertips. His eyes fluttered close for a moment, and tried to focus on his ribs and the phantom of pain, sweet with worry and care, they still held. He passed another hand over his face to refresh the illusion.

One gasping breath, then another, tear spilling out so much more sincerely now, the "teen girl" yelled out, voice carrying clearly over the area, "Help him! He's not breathing! Please!"

Well, the magic was working. The Captain was running off, and Nectaris, for better or worse, decided not to change him. She went to go check on the civilians, instead.

Not breathing was bad. Not breathing meant dead, probably, and that always sucked, and it was also kinda weird 'cause she didn't think he'd gotten hit that hard, and she hadn't seen a starseed or anything. She could get an ambulance and everything, though, at least make sure the girl didn't have to deal with it on her own.

"Okay, okay," she said, jogging over. She wasn't the best at the whole soothing thing, but she was trying, and she hated when this happened.

Oh, but he was breathing. She saw that hint of chest movement and suddenly it felt like she could breathe again, too. "He's alive," she said. "It's okay. I mean, he got hit pretty hard, but we'll get the doctors and everything," she turned over her shoulder to look at the girl.

Wait.

Two girls?

Her eyes narrowed. "Okay," she said. "You got me. Now go away."