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Avalon didn't even know what she'd done. One moment, she'd just been walking home after collecting some energy--nonfatally, even, she hadn't been doing anything wrong. None of those civilians would even miss the energy! But here she was, an Eternal senshi bearing down on her like a bat out of hell, and Avalon already had such an unfashionable rip in her skin--right through her eyebrow, dripping blood down her face, filming one half of her vision bright red.

She skidded around a corner, her boot-heels catching on the asphalt. Please don't let me roll an ankle or something ******** stupid, she thought, please let me live. Could she teleport? Yes, but not without more concentration than she had, and more energy, and--so many things that she just didn't have right then.

A wall appeared where she was sure one wasn't before, and she found herself quite trapped. "********," she said, because--there was no way out. "Oh, <********>." So she did what she'd been told she should never do: She summoned her purple communication crystal and shattered it.

A beacon rang out. Not in sound. Nothing that could be physically seen or felt, but still it jerked captain Xenotime's attention. It was like nothing she'd ever felt before, but she knew, on some baser level, what it meant. Somewhere close by, through dark streets and cool shadows, an ally was in danger. It had the veracious teen stepping away from the civilian she'd drained. Fingers releasing the front of his shirt to let him drop limply against the sidewalk as she turned away from him. Luck would let him see another morning.

It was easy to find the pair. The over-lapping auras were a dead give away. Xenotime moved swiftly across cracked pavement and down the alley, approaching the eternal senshi from the rear. "Are you so sure?" There wasn't a hint of fear in her voice. Only the well earned confidence of a soldier who'd faced opponents more "powerful" then her and walked away the victor. Not once, but multiple times. "Maybe it'll be you that dies tonight."

The bare tips of her fingers slid against dirty brick, nails scratching. A soft accompaniment to the clack of her heels as she advanced. All rolling hips and contained violence.

A flick of gunmetal eyes took in the other captain pinned against the wall, and she dipped her chin minutely as a smile slid along painted lips.

Deliverance on black wings.

"Come on Red," Xenotime stopped, sliding into a balanced stance with either hand up and ready. "Why don't you start with me?" A flash of silver circled slender fingers, metal looping beneath knuckles. She didn't summon her weapon often, but eternals could be a real pain in the a**.

"Nothing would please me more," came the hissed response as Gunn came for her in a streak of ginger hair and earth tones. A fist shot for her throat, and the captain jerked back, sweeping her arm up to redirect the punch to the side, letting the other girl's momentum propel her onward as the captain side stepped, pivoting on her heel so she wouldn't give the senshi her back. It was clear this woman knew what she was doing. She wasn't just powerful, she was experienced, and that was enough to put that excited, manic gleam in pale eyes.

Oh how she loved a good challenge.

But the captain was not without her own experience. Years of training that accumulated into a legitimate profession. The teen was a brawler by trade. Fighting came as second nature.

There was no hesitation in the chaos agent, she closed what small distance there was between them in the blink of an eye. Movements fluid and flawless. One hand was snatching forward, fingertips reaching for the senshi's collar to cut off any chance for a dodge as the other swung low, coming up to direct knuckles at the girl's stomach.

Satisfaction came in the form of fingers closing around fabric and knuckles sinking into flesh and muscle. She saw the impact resonate through the senshi's features, and an answering grin spread across painted lips before the kick to her knee forced her back snarling. The captain staggered, smacking her palm into the alley wall to keep on her feet, then paused as the her opponent made a move like a dancer, voice sliding easily between close set walls.

The word 'flame' had the captain's jaw clenching, and she watched on in apprehension as a spark flashed to life in the air, then another, and another..

The lighter fell, bouncing once in the tall grass before the accelerator ignited and flame spread in shocking peel, not around the girl, but..

Steel eyes snapped to the other agent still pressed against the back of the alley. Flame erupted as Xentoime made hr move. Not to save herself, but into harms way. She raced the swirling wall of fire as it spread through the brick lined corridor. The heat seared her back as her hands hit the wall to either side of Avalon's head. Melting through fabric, layer after layer, before scorching flesh. Xe stared at the other woman's face as she burned, teeth clamped down around a scream of pain.

Oh, how she sympathized with her general, the agony he'd endured. She'd had a taste of that pain before, now she knew better.

There was blood on the wall where the tips of pale fingers had dug into rough brick, but she curled those slender hands into fists as the flames receded, squeezing around the warm metal of her brass knuckles as she turned to face their enemy. Gunn, Senshi of wildfires.

The irony was thick enough to choke on.

There was a handful of seconds where the captain merely glared, then she was gone. Swallowed by darkness before phasing into place at the other girl's back. The first strike was blast of sharp knuckles into the vulnerable region of delicate kidneys. Lightning quick, jack hammer hard.

It was only the beginning.

With Flames had come memories. Fear, torment, agony and despair. Not just the wash of wildfire that had eaten into man she cared for, but everything after. A hard lesson, a harder task. The shock and corruption of crossing that last, black line.

All of these emotions spilled out in a rage fueled shriek as she unleashed upon the senshi. Strike after strike, she worked that strong body, aiming not to hurt, but to break.

She would destroy her.

Fire was not the death of energy, it was the birth of it.

"You're wrong." Pain did not drive her. Pain was a byproduct, nothing more. Pride, excitement, rage, retaliation, protection, sorrow. It was any number of things that that drove Xenotime into action. She was not two dimensional. She was boundless, limitless, unpredictable, flawless. The teacher, the trainer, the guardian, the protector. Lover, fighter, friend. Gunn dared to deny she had depth? The caption would make her regret such bold assumptions.

She ignored the blood and spit that painted bright lines across pale skin. Her attention was all for the senshi of wildfire and the sudden downward duck that tuck her below sweep of her arm. Not simply exploiting an opening, but creating one for herself. It caught the captain completely off guard. Grey eyes widened, breath sucking in past clenched teeth as that closed fist swung upward to connect with her shoulder. Something popped, and a scream echoed it as the captain's right arm dropped to her side.

But it didn't matter. She would not stop.

Gunn was close, too close. It was Xenotime's time to take advantage. With her good arm she grabbed for the back of the senshi's head, her hood, and the ginger curls beneath it. She dug her fingers in, jerking the other woman's head away and down, and her knee came up to meet it, smashing into that pretty face.

Xenotime didn't need both her hands. Her entire body was a weapon, honed and trained over years.

Silver eyes connected with wide brown eyes over the senshi's back She looked terrified, awestruck. Absolutely frozen.. Avalon's fear drove her.

See, the problem Avalon had with violence was that it was so very violent. Even in her worst fights--way back when, when she fought on the Surrounding for the lives of those civilians--she has never been up close and personal with the actual act. She smashed in a Negaverse lieutenant's head and she saw civilians get crushed and she took an attack for a little girl who turned out to be a Knight of Chronos, but she had never seen people who had trained for it go at it. The savagery inherent in the fight between the Captain who'd answered her call and the Eternal (Gunn, she noted, the Eternal senshi's name was Gunn) was like nothing she'd ever seen--and now she had a front row seat!

It was the sort of thing that caused nightmares, she thought.

So she froze against the wall and watched this battle of--maybe not titans, but trained warriors. People with power, experience, instruction. Things she'd never received from the side of Order. And she thought, I want to be able to do this one day. Save someone who needed it from an unjust attack. Save the world from senshi encroachment, bring all the Knights around to the right side of the war…

She almost missed the sirens, her attention riveted on the fighters in front of her. It was during the silence that she heard the telltale whine, and because she didn't want her savior to get caught, she shouted, "Sirens!"

That brought them both to a halt. Gunn pressed a hand to her bleeding nose, looked towards the opening of the alley--and then she slammed an elbow into the other Captain's mouth and ran. Which left Avalon to make sure her erstwhile rescuer got out alright.

She moved, suddenly, uncertainly, and grabbed the arm that didn't look like it'd been wrenched out its socket. "C'mon, we have to go," she said, and she pulled the purple-haired woman alongside her, away from the sirens.