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After a month of calmly staying off the streets, and a few days of wandering around her neighborhood fairly uneventfully, Cybele ‘s need to do something had driven her to disregard several pieces of advice. First, she was in a… less classy place than any of her everyday friends, or especially her parents would have approved of, and maybe some of her powered friends as well. She didn’t know. At least a lot of the people around her were too drunk to realize that she was dressed like a terrorist. It also made them easy targets for the Negaverse, it would seem, as there was a reasonable amount of Chaos around. It was hard to tell exactly what it was from, though.

But that was the point. She’d tried patrolling and stayed safe and careful for a few days, but now Cybele was back to hunting, and she had ended up outside a bar. Alone. That was the really bad part, the part she sort of regretted, but not enough to call for backup or anything. She told herself it was because alone was how she hunted best, then focused more on the aura she felt, looking around. She couldn’t just leave now that she was here, but she really hoped she didn’t have to go inside.

Things happened fast, starting with another Chaos aura on Cybele's radar, this one much closer. Then, just as she was psyching herself up to step through the door into the dim, loud room, she witnessed what she was pretty sure was a Negaverser throwing a herself and a drunk guy out the window and that wasn't good.

She ran quickly, feeling very panicked. Maybe for once she could save somebody, do some good, but only if he somehow lasted the few seconds it took her to run to the window. She rounded the corner and got a clear view of something.

There wasn't really time to understand what she was seeing, and there definitely wasn't time to take a deep breath. She saw bits and pieces- a spear, someone being pinned to the ground, it looked like- and she'd already figured out it was a bad situation and she needed to end it. "Let him go!" she screamed, her voice far more high pitched and panicked and generally less commanding than she wanted it to be, but that didn't matter so much because it was followed by a running kick generally aimed at the Captain's midsection.

Then, as she finally had a second to pause, the Captain thought sunk in, as well as the spear, and Cybele realized this probably wasn't going to end well.

It... It had worked? She had saved someone? Violet eyes traced the man's clumsy movements as he escaped. Cybele smiled slightly to herself as the emotions started to well up, mostly excitement because she had actually succeeded for once. She had actually, finally, saved someone.

Of course, the internal celebration quickly stopped as she started focusing on the fact that she had a Negaverser to entertain, probably because she had gotten up and the threats were starting. Her smile turned to a frown, and her emotions quickly darkened as well. In the past she'd ignored threats and ended up regretting it, and though her enemy didn't look very stable at the moment, she was sure of the woman's ability to rip out her soul.

If Cybele had still been trying to be a good senshi, maybe she would have tried to talk things out. Maybe she would have succeeded, with the bargaining chip of the starseed she happened to have. Maybe, life saved, duty done, she would have ran. But she'd given up on all that a long time ago, and she hadn't even come here to save.

She'd come to destroy.

So she'd fight for her life instead. "Maybe," she said, voice slightly bitter, as she stepped forward and threw a fist at the her enemy's face, "But you have to kill me first."

The blow from the spear itself, painfully smacking Cybele's ribcage and sending her stumbling to the side with a gasp, wasn't what made Cybele pause for half a second. That was the thought that next time it would probabally be the point of it embedded in her chest. She'd come into this fight knowing it probabally wasn't going to end well, but despite her words, it had taken her a few seconds to really accept that her life was on the line, and this time 'fate and destiny' probabally weren't going to save her if things went bad. She also took the opportunity to catch her breath.

Strategy... strategy... she took another step back, hoping to give herself one more second to think. Then- an idea, came, maybe not the best, but something. "You don't look happy..." she said as she charged, doing her best to make her voice sound... sarcastic, or strong, or anything besides terrified. A fist was raised like she was about to try to punch the Captain in the face again, but at the last second she changed direction, trying to grab the spear instead.

That would help, right? Maybe then she couldn't get stabbed and things would be better? And if she succeeded at grabbing it, she would start pulling in an attempt to get Mica off balance, or maybe even get the spear for herself.

There were plenty of hints in her expression at her fear and desperation, if one was looking hard enough, but mostly Cybele was returning the scowl with an angry, hopefully equally scathing glare as they tugged at the spear for a few moments. "I already know you're trying to kill me!" she snapped back, her own voice reduced to a growl from breathlessness and anger. She was actually feeling better about the whole situation now that the spear was pointed less at her, though. And she was definitely less panicked than the first time someone had tried to kill her.

But still.

A lot was flying through Cybele's mind. One thing, the thing she tried to focus on, was that she knew more about tug of war than the rest of the fighting stuff, she quickly realized it wasn’t that simple. The spear point kept coming dangerously close to her body despite her best efforts, and it was clear that letting go would probably end up with her getting stabbed. What to do next was less easy to think about, so after a second of trying to think she just ended up going with her instincts.

She did her best to steady her tight grip on the spear. The last thing she wanted was for it to slip out of her hands. Then, she shoved. It wasn’t a halfhearted shove meant for distraction so she could take the weapon for herself. It was followed quickly with few running steps. She wanted Mica off balance, preferably on the ground, preferably soon.

Anything easily could have been different. There could have been a body on the ground instead of the shards of glass marking a struggle. The bitter rage Cybele felt against the Negaverse could have been fresh instead of dulled by a month off the streets. She could have known more about spears, or at least have grabbed it in a better way that could be smoothly turned around instead of awkwardly almost stabbing herself, taking several seconds and giving her time to think. Her magic could have been active, making her slightly more ruthless, or she could have been seriously injured, making her slightly more desperate.

Any of those probabally would have been enough to make her plunge the spear forward, but instead, she registered that she was towering over someone helpless, with a Negaverser's weapon in her hand, and she paused. What am I doing? Then the captain talked and she felt disgusted. It wasn't just because she had almost killed, though. It was also because she suddenly couldn't.

"No," she answered simply, lowering the spear somewhat and stepping away. After that, she had a few less rushed seconds for her logic to point out how useless she was, how now the Negaverser would just go kill someone else, but her emotions wouldn't let her kill, either. Not now that she was thinking of it in those terms. Underneath the desperation, adrenalin, and act of strength, she was still the same. Absolutely pitiful.

"I win," she said as she walked away with the hostage spear, more to remind herself than anything else. She honestly didn't care what Mica thought of her at this point. She forced a smile for the same reason. Victory. Yay...