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For the most part, she hung back somewhat from all the order signatures.
There were so many, and though she couldn't tell what level they were, she assumed they were all stronger than her. So she held back. Playing the role assigned. Watching, listening and learning.

Then it happened. Her hostage was ripped from her grasp and she was sent flying, as small fires erupted all around her. She landed on the floor hard. The wind was knocked from her lungs and she was dazed for a second. But she was resilient and quickly got to her feet. It was her job to protect Erythrite, so she would. She looked around, but in the fighting and chaos of battle lost sight of her.

She summoned her weapon, as weak and ineffectual as it was... marbles were after fairly useless, and would effect friend and foe alike, but they were all she had, aside from her own body, so she would use them first, as a distraction or to get the foe's attention.

Her communicator went off and she heard a superior's voice come through. She took a brief moment to respond.

'Empressite here, sir. Preparing to pursue and engage the enemy.'

Searching the chaos, she located the one who attacked her, and tossed the first marble.

Galena fell into her role with ease as the false senshi under Schörl's fingers. As the digits firmly massaged into her muscles, she could feel a smattering of goosebumps rise up the back of her neck and down her arms, but for the most part this came naturally and the petite woman seemed to turn on all the appropriate micro-expressions of discomfort in response to the gesture.

Cinnabar's presence was a comfort, but one that was necessary to ignore. It wasn't uncommon for Galena to look to the dark haired lieutenant with wide eyed admiration, but tonight those glances were tempered with a distinct flavor of anxiety and fear. Those wide eyes conveyed something more akin to an animal at the slaughter than an awestruck schoolgirl, and the adjustment had been instituted flawlessly as they discussed her senshi 'anatomy'. There might've been a small, small change in reaction that bordered on dangerously flirtatious when Cin mentioned stringing her up, but for the most part, the way her tear dotted eyes looked on the scene was with the best look of disquiet and defeat.

Any displayed anxiety was false, of course, because she felt firmly secure even in her vulnerable position as a fake hostage. Being between Lieutenant Cinnabar and Captain Schörl seemed like an advantaged position with plenty of security.

At least until the senshi approached. She was still fairly confident in her position until she watched one captive 'rescued'. The chaos that ensued was worrying, and her first instinct was to recoil into closer proximity against Schörl or Cinnabar, but even she recognized that appeared suspicious and it took all of her restraint not to.

The end result had her small figure stand there in what appeared to be frozen, shut down, and too visibly distressed to move.

For a moment, the standoff continued. Cybele glanced around, taking in the details of the situation. "A trick? Maybe. It's definitely a show," she whispered to the Eternal next to her (Kallichore). The spotlights were up, the house lights were down, and the audience was arriving. That was what her theatrical training was telling her, at least. "The Negaverse doesn't put on a lot of performances, so..."

She realized that she recognized the red-haired general who was doing most of the talking. It was that guy who had acted like the Negaverse was so wonderful back when she'd still been clueless... Buddingtonite, right? Even though he'd upgraded, he still hadn't learned how to shut up, apparently, or how to say anything intelligent. Still, she was listening to him when everything exploded.

She'd been keeping her mouth shut in fear of saying something stupid and getting someone killed, but any chance diplomacy might have had was now over. "So, you're saying you lured us here just so we'd leave?" The sarcasm was dripping from her voice, but unfortunately, she didn't have time to wait for a response or even to glare at him much. The fight was beginning.

She wasn't going to charge at this height, but even as she spoke she made her way carefully around one of the fires and towards the combat. She'd learned better, mostly, than to try to fight people far stronger than herself, so instead she threw her fist at the face of the blue haired Lieutenant who had been holding the captive. (Empressite)

A familiar voice grabbed Megrez's attention. "Gunn!" She said back, pleasantly surprised (though she really shouldn't have been, given her tendency to be around when trouble was afoot, or at least that was how Megrez saw it).

Then the action started. There were now flames on the rooftop, the general who appeared to be in charge was rattling his saber some more, and there was at least one skirmish going on between a senshi and a lieutenant. Megrez still wasn't terribly good at processing lots of things that were happening at once, so she wasn't sure who to attack, if anyone. If anyone came to her, though, they'd definitely get egg on their face (or just a fist; not only having three eggs to chuck into a sea of Chaos auras was rather limiting).

She did, however, have the presence of mind to bark at the guy in charge (Buddingtonite). "I think it's a little late for us to go home now! Do your worst!"

Only once she had said that did Megrez realize that she had shoved her foot firmly in her mouth. You don't just egg on people who are willing to kill hostages, even if you are the Senshi of Eggs! Well, shots had already been (literally) fired, so if they were already worked up, her little gibe wasn't going to do much more damage. Ready to engage the enemy that probably wasn't going to come to her after all, she jumped up onto the rooftop.

((OOC: Sorry for the double-quote, but I had to edit out a really stupid error in this post. Even Megrez should know that civilians don't have auras. X_X))

"Not hiding... just staying out of sight and inconspicuous," Sarras said to the senshi, his voice low and his tone flat, making it uncertain what of many emotions he could have been feeling at the time being. He understood her concerns, but he was quick to explain himself, even as one brave senshi made a move. "While they're distracted by the shenanigans of the others, we can plan and make our move to help the hostages."

Hostage. He saw Jade and his mind was set on rescuing her. The rest? He didn't know them... and if they were foolish enough to where they revealed their identity to the enemy, then they might as well be dead. Jade mattered to Sarras because she mattered to Richard, and he would not be the one to tell his brother the news if something were to happen to her.

But he wouldn't tell Mintaka that. "Pleasure to meet you, Mintaka. Name's Sarras. Now, if you don't mind, we might want to consider what our next move will be, before the fire spreads any further or before that pompous a** sticks to his threat."

He was moving towards Jade, which mean he'd have to act quickly... with or without this senshi's help.

When Athene hit the patrol beat, the last thing that he'd been expecting was a power cut. Instead the dark-haired senshi had had his phone out, senshi not regular, and had been in the process of writing a message to his PSSG team mates to see if any of them were out and about on patrol, in the hopes that if they were then he could make the night's patrol either a joint or group one.

The street light that he'd been standing under suddenly winking out had taken him by surprise however and Athene had ended up accidentally hitting send on the message and sending the partially written thing to Tsui and Ida.



It was at that point that he realised that the other street lights had winked out too and not only that but so had the lights in all the nearby buildings.

And then he had sensed what felt like a group of chaos auras, at least one of which felt like Nega-General strength. Mayhaps it was just a coincidence, but the combination of sudden power outage and chaos auras seemed like a bad one and thus something that he should probably check up especially as he could equally sense a few Order auras too.

It hadn't taken long to find the source of the auras, especially given that someone had lit up the place so prettily and Athene had sent another message to Tsui and Ida before making his way up.



One of the floodlights suddenly sparking made Athene put his best foot forward, the small nondescript satchel that he had taken to carrying around on his patrols slapping against his side, making it to the top of the roof in time to spot a Nega-General grabbing what looked like a civilian.

Athene was hesitant to rush in as he had no idea what was going on, although the red-haired Nega-General words about blatantly killing allies did not sound good. In fact none of what he was seeing before him looked particularly good. Spotting a familar red-haired eternal Athene headed in her direction "Evening Maia," he said greeting her quietly, before asking. "Have you been here long? Do you know what's going on?"

When he heard Empressite's quick response, he disagreed with her plan. He did not know much about this Senshi who spread fire... but he had felt her power, seen her wings, and witnessed her resolve. He would never throw a mere lieutenant against such a foe, even in a real fight. "Negative. Too powerful for you. Call for assistance." His orders may have come too late for her - he could not see her from his current position - but he could not let her risk her life. Not when she had showed promise on a night previous. Certainly not when losing her would reflect poorly on him.

Buddingtonite's shout was loud in his ear, and it had nothing to do with the communication crystal's location. Golden eyes shot back to the part of the roof he had just left, but his partner did not appear in great danger...had even summoned Gra to watch over him. To his command, he sent a simple reply, "Affirmative." No, the General would not babysit the plainclothes officer, but he would ensure she did not fall into enemy hands. If only by hoisting her off on another. To her gratitude, he merely inclined his head - a barely noticable motion as he released her from his grasp. Gratitude was certainly the appropriate emotion for the rescued lieutenant to express, and he would listen gratefully to the praise the fell from her painted lips... another time, when he was less surrounded by fire.

It was lucky that he had released the pink-haired girl because suddenly he found a bright red laser against his chest. At first it seemed to do nothing... but then he began to burn, in a way that had nothing to do with fire. His pulse raced in his throat as his hatred of Senshi was inflamed. His blood thirst rose. Maliciousness dripped from his lips as he barked order to Jarosite. It did not take much for him to give into his hatred for Senshi - and the burn that compounded against the heat of the fires around him was more than enough. "Protect your fellows. Kill anyone who interferes." Currently, Serpentine only had murderous eyes for the Senshi who glowed with a queer blue light (Astarte) and he let the whip fly for her chest.

She had been more than ready to attack Gunn, and in fact was weaving through the chaos trying to reach her when Serpentine's voice came over her communicator, ordering her to stand down, or call for back up. This meant that she was most definitely above her skill level, and while Empressite contemplated disobeying the orders and going after her anyway, she didn't.

'Acknowledged. Will not engage.' She paused a brief moment.' Any further orders?'

But there was battle going on, and there was no place to simply stop and stay out of the fracas. She had hoped to at least receive new orders – even if it were something as simple as attack so-and-so, or get to such-and-such a place – before getting any more involved when a fist came flying at her face.

Fortunately for Empressite she saw the fist before it made full contact, dodging just enough that it grazed her cheekbone, rather than full on fist to the nose or eye socket.

'Damn you, that actually hurt,' she turned to face the person who attacked her. And while she (Cybele) was trying to get the momentum back from the failed surprise attack, Empressite balled her fist and hauled off, aiming for her abdomen.