Word Count: 503

Lucasta waited outside the hospital for news, but news never came.

She was at least certain that Ganymede was alive. She would have known it if Ganymede had died. Perhaps. No, surely. Surely she would have known. Something within her would have told her. She would have felt it, wouldn't she? Lucasta would not let herself believe otherwise. Yes, she would have felt it if death had come to take her Senshi away, like a piece of herself had broken off and left her half-empty.

But the waiting was excruciating. She sat by the door, trying to steal glimpses inside. She attempted to scurry in when the door opened, only to be caught quickly and tossed unceremoniously back out. One of the nurses was at least kind enough to bring her food. Lucasta wished she could take this as a good sign.

It was not.

She prowled around the building by day. She circled its perimeter, checked its entrances and exits, climbed a tree to peer into a few windows. By night, Lucasta settled down in a bush near the main entrance and kept her eyes locked on the opening and closing door. Patients went in. Patients came out. But none were the girl with the golden hair.

The knight who carried Ganymede out of that hell and into safety was nowhere to be found, and other faces she remembered from the funhouse were just as elusive. Once again she was alone in her search, waiting impatiently for the time when Ganymede might leave the hospital—a moment Lucasta feared may never come.

Eventually, when days had gone by without a single sign of her, Lucasta gave up the waiting game and left the hospital premises. She did not do so with a lowered head or drooping tail. She would not allow herself to be disappointed. She had no time for it. There was an entire city to search. The war would not allow her to take her time.

So Lucasta returned to her spot beneath the bridge in the park, and she considered how she might move forward. Clearly the Negaverse was a much bigger threat to their immediate wellbeing than she'd previously thought. That they would take Senshi and Knights captive... they must be becoming desperate.

She recalled Ganymede's prison, the cage in the center of an otherwise empty room. She thought about the battered body upon the floor and burned with anger. Lucasta did not concern herself with the others — not those that were freed, not those that corrupted, nor those that died. There was nothing to be done for them now, nor had there been any chance of changing their fate. Lucasta did not feel guilt — only pity and resignation, that there may come a day when a need would arise to dispose of those who were once their allies.

And that day would come. Lucasta was sure of it, and she would be ready.

And she would be sure that Ganymede was ready, too.