There were not a lot of places in D.C. to hold someone securely that was both easy to get to, but unlikely to be stumbled upon by random citizens. It would defeat the purpose if the prey couldn’t get into the trap, right?

The elderly Anna made a muffle sound and Cinnabar spare her a glance, sweeping her from head to toe to check for undue signs of distress. Granted, being trussed to a chair in a train car wasn’t exactly the least stressful thing in existence, but if the old lady had a heart attack and died, her bait was useless. Crouched at the open door, the captain’s tail swept back and forth over the floor, her scales making a dry scraping sound. There was other movement, out among the parked train cars, but it was subtle… hidden. A couple of lieutenants and captains should be lurking out there, ones she had recruited to help her, powered down in the shadows to wait for her signal to attack. She didn’t plan to make the same mistake here that she had made with Castor, not when she had put so much time and effort into it.

Everything was in place… now it was just a waiting game.

Powered up as she was, it was easy to feel the knight signature as it approached, moving at a speed that said he was being cautious. Cinnabar pushed herself to her feet, called up her glamour, and dropped out of the train car to slink back into the shadows behind it to wait. Her eyes narrowed as the knight finally came into view, pacing down the tracks and looking around himself suspiciously. He knew this was a trap, how could he not, but he had come anyway. His coat was vaguely military, in a pale blue with star shaped buttons. There was fur around his neck and cuffs, and at the bottom of his purple cape. Polaris knight? How cute. The agents who had known him had said his lieutenant weapon had been a pack of matches that had turned into a flaming set of poi at Captain. To serve an icey princess now was fine irony.

He caught sight of the open car and took a half step towards it as he called his weapon into his hands. It looked like something of a wand with a ball on the end to Cinnabar. Knight weapons were weird… but it would no doubt hurt if he hit her with it. She just wouldn’t let herself get hit by it, that’s all.

Cinnabar dropped her glamour as she surged out of hiding, but the knight was ready for her, expecting some kind of attack. He swung at her with his mace and she danced under it, swinging hard for his gut. He must have had very little combat training… he took the punch hard and doubled over, the air rushing out of him. The captain brought her knee up into his face as he brought it conveniently into range, throwing the knight backwards. She followed him down as his weapon went flying, grabbing for his arm to twist it up painfully behind him. The struggle was brief… the moment she had him pinned, she plunged her hand into his chest from behind and closed her fingers around his starseed.

“Shhhh…” She hissed as she bent over him. “Don’t struggle… I don’t want to have to kill you, but I will.”

“P-please…” He gasped out, his fingers digging shallow ruts into the dirt. “Just let her go…. I’m the one you want, she’s not involved in this.”

“You brought her into this, stupid.” Cinnabar growled as she grabbed him by the hair, hauling his head back painfully. “Did you think you could just abandon the Negaverse and no one would do anything about it? Its your fault she’s involved, a*****e. If you hadn’t run away and purified, she’d still be safe at home with the son she loved. You betrayed us, and now you are going to pay for that mistake.”

The captain released his hair as she felt chaos signatures flare up around her. As they approached, she planted her knee firmly in the knight’s back and pulled out her crystal, holding it up to her smirking lips.

“General-Queen Laurelite. I’ve captured one of our traitors. What would you like me to do with him?” She said, giving the starseed in her palm a gentle squeeze, just to hear the man under her gasp in pain.

Word count: 753