Welcome to Gaia! ::

The fountain gurgled away, oblivious to what had happened right in its waters not so long ago. The park was still open to the public, even, and earlier today, children had played in the fountain with innocent abandon. It was ironic and amusing to Cinnabar to think about it now as she paced around the rim of it.

This place was both a triumph and a failure. The Negaverse had claimed a new member, something they sorely needed, but Cinnabar herself had not had the big reveal for her new rank that she could have hoped for. Rather than shining as she reveled in the flush of her power, she had instead drawn powerful opponents that had simply overwhelmed her. It honestly hadn't been her fault she had lost in that fight... Two or three third stage opponents, a second stage and a cat? Those were hefty odds... but it was a poor return on the investment the General-Queen had made in her, to get off on such a poor foot.

That was why she was here tonight, really... going over the fight in her head again, examining it from all angles and tracing her steps. Was there something she could have done to turn the tide? Should she have run sooner than she did? Should she have used teleportation more, gone straight for the starseeds? Chains rattled as she crouched, squinting to call up the positions of Ganymede and Vahalla in her mind, settling Amphitrite beside them.

Cinnabar's head jerked up as she felt the first brush of an aura, that sickly sweet, rancid honey of Order. Strong... Knight level? Not necessarily something to fear, but caution would go a long way.

Her form flickered and she disappeared from the fountain to reappear among the trees around its edge. Her glamour slipped over her like a second skin and with the loss of horns and scales went the power signature as well. Back pressed to the bark, Cinnabar settled in to wait, attempting to judge how long she could afford to hide herself before she had to power up and test where the signature had gone. It was a shame she couldn't feel auras powered down... it would make things so much easier.

Faintly, barely heard over the sound of falling water, Cinnabar thought she caught the tread of feet. She was completely sure, once the sound stopped. Ah, the frustration of not being able to sense when glamoured up...

Slowly, Cin leaned around her tree, clearing the edge to glimpse the fountain in the middle of the park. Red eyes narrowed, she caught, off to the side, a glimmer of something pale and rainbow hued.

Ah, look... Its the Glow Bug. How fortunate for Cinnabar. She had hoped to see this knight again. The last time had been the New Years party and the little extended 'house party' after. It had been... months since then. Long enough for a good many things to change. Long enough to shore up a weak point she'd never known she had. It was high time she wrapped up loose ends and this was an opportunity not to be missed.

Abruptly, Cinnabar dropped her glamour, her true self revealing itself. Rich red scales caught the light and dark hair fell around the horns that curved above her head. Her coat, sign of her rank, settled heavy around her shoulders and she tucked her hands into her pockets as she gathered herself. In the next moment, she disappeared from her hiding place, flickering out of existence and appearing again some many feet away and closer to the cosmos knight who had the bad luck of coming here tonight. Far closer.

"For all your bright plumage, you're like a carrion bird, you know that? Returning to places of tragedy to pick at what bones are left." Cinnabar said in a friendly, musing tone, her head tilted almost playfully to the side as she stood within arms reach. "Does it get you off, the smell of death and despair? Come here to relive it all?"

Chains rattled as she shrugged her coat to sit more comfortably, stretching her head as she did. Her lips split in a fanged smile, echoed in her black and red eyes.

Her smile cooled a bit, hardening around the edges like ice around a pond in early winter. There was that name again, the one that echoed in her dreams, that tempted her to treason before one of their own had stopped her. The White Moon trick to undermine their position, and what a clever trick it was. She'd seen through it, though. She knew it for the lie it was.

"That's not my name." She said, setting that down in no uncertain terms with her tone.

"Were you even here that day, Glow bug? I don't remember seeing you doing a damn thing... so I suppose you have an abundance of options on what you could have done differently. I don't remember the Bull being there, either. Have you seen him lately? I've missed his company and I know Schörl has. I want to show him my new coat."

Her hands swung the tails of the coat out from inside the pockets, fanning cool air across her hips and up her back. Finally she sighed, her head cocked to the side like a curious animal.

"I don't suppose you've changed your mind about my offer? Its always open, you know. Just say the word and I'll whisk you away... We could be really good friends, me and you. I'd protect you, if you're worried about facing your old allies." Her smile warmed and widened as she withdrew a hand to display bared claws. "You have to admit, that's a pretty good deal, from me. Think of all the power you'd have, all the impact. You'd be wonderful in Infiltration and we'd set you up with a good job, whatever you wanted to do. You'd have money, friends, influence. Everything. No more hiding on the sidelines, but out in the spotlight."

Cinnabar stilled as the knight came closer, unmoving save for eyes that swept down the luscious curves moving under shimmering, rainbow cloth. She was such a delicate looking thing, even as stacked as she was, and had circumstances been different, Cin would have said she was exactly her type of woman... Perfect chest and a** and hips, with skin she wanted to drag her nails over...

But there was that pesky detail of her being stubbornly on the wrong side of this war. It was a shame, really.

Cinnabar's hands returned to her pockets as she closed the distance between them, using her height to loom over the shorter woman and force her head to tilt back if she wanted to keep eyes on her face. The space between them narrowed further when she bent forward, red lips hovering within inches of Hver's own.

"Words are very real things, Glow Bug." She murmured, low and sultry, dark lashes lowering to veil her eyes. "Don't you know that? Just words can cause wounds you never recover from. They can make heroes out of peasants and tempt the faithful to betrayal. You say you're not a threat, but..."

A hand snaked up between them, but the touch, when it came, was only a warm grip on her chin that tilted her head back further and allowed Cinnabar to angle her head lower, lips whispering across lips.

"You are our biggest threat, because you don't look like one." The grip released and hand darted to dig ruthlessly into the pale strands of hair. Cinnabar's lips pulled back from her teeth as she wrenched hard, hauling the smaller woman back by her hair as an inhuman growl rippled from her throat. "You think it hasn't been noticed, you sitting all pretty on the sidelines, chirping about how innocent and helpless you are, while our ranks thin? Is it you, whispering sweet things in their ears to tempt them to defect? You or others like you, I bet. Its the only explanation for why you've made it this far without being killed for corrupted."

Enough of this dancing around... If she was going to be stubborn about refusing her offer, maybe it was time to stop making it. She'd discussed the merits of forced versus willing corruptions... maybe she'd just have to put that to the test.

Although Gehenna seldom walked the streets at night, it never stopped Kam. Even if he didn't enjoy the feeling of his own power, knowing it was there gave him an unparalleled confidence that he could control any situation that might rear its ugly head while he was prowling the bars and seedy underground of Destiny City's night life. There was also the added benefit of not having that pesky traceable aura, though he often failed to account for the fact that he also couldn't feel them himself as a civilian.

Tonight was looking to be one of those nights.

Not unlike a scene he'd happened upon before, the dark brute found himself staring around the edge of a building at a pair of bodies intertwined in a rather precarious situation. At first he had hoped, against all odds, that he was simply about to see the most glorious gift of girl on girl action the universe had ever designed. The moment that the shimmering Cosmos knight cried out, he knew the sick, crawling feeling in his gut had been his instincts rebelling against that sexual fantasy. Not just because he knew he was wrong, but also because he knew there was no way for him to back out of this.

If he fled, the nightmares would plague him worse than they already did. He'd been punished once for leaving a defenseless soul behind and now, no matter how much both of the women caused him uneasiness just by existing, he knew he had no choice but to fulfill his tragic sense of duty.

The power of Gehenna settled over his bones without protest, at once comforting in its familiarity and nauseating in its strength. There was no time to hesitate once it was upon him, lest he lose the element of surprise, and he reached down to grab a chunk of brick that had broken off a crumbling overhang. With a few steps out of his hiding place he pulled back and chunked it, aiming right for the General's thick head. Though it would do little damage, it was the only element of surprise he could hope for. He knew her reflexes - she would disengage before he ever closed the distance for a tackle.

"Hey kitten, why don't you come over here and pick on someone your own size? She obviously doesn't want to go home with you." He'd already started a pointed march in her direction, but the only hope he had of getting her to release the Knight without further harm was to make her angry enough to come after him instead. He'd done it once before, which gave him hope, but she'd also been much weaker then too.

She did not know her rescuer's name.

But she did know him.

The Mars knight that stood in her defense had punched her in the face a year before. He had been a mystery, since then -- there was no sign of him anywhere that she'd looked, not on the streets or in any of the pitched battles Hvergelmir had witnessed. If he'd been there at any of them, it must have been somewhere far from her line of sight. She'd seen him once, and never again: an angry specter, all metal and blood and fury.

She dreamed of him, sometimes: shades of images in bare flickers that might have been from their blackened future and might have just been the product of an occupied mind. He was the ghost of her own self-doubts given form -- and when she dreamed of him, he looked at her with eyes that said Fool, and Coward, and Traitor, and Whore, and he never ever spoke a word. For a year he had been the form that all her insecurities had taken, this man who she didn't know. He was the face and figure of every knight who might someday reject her for the transgressions of her oath. For a year she had lived with him in her head and wondered, who are you? Where are you?

He was here now. A part of her found this oddly absurd, and couldn't understand it.

Hvergelmir caught her feet firmly beneath herself, finally, and tried to squirm free. It was no use; the General that Cinnabar had become was incredibly strong, and her grip was tight and secure. That left Hvergelmir to reach up instead for her own signet ring, striking her finger across it like flint till the magic caught. Her aspect began to glitter on her skin.

She reached to wrap both hands tight around Cinnabar's forearm and try again to dislodge her.

Cinnabar felt Hver squirming in her grip, but she didn't at first pay any mind to it. Her hold was secure and she had the knight off balance and out matched. She wasn't going anywhere...

Except that her grip began to burn suddenly and bands of fire wrapped around her forearm. Her lips pulled back from her fangs as she grit them together, trying to bear the pain of it as it grew more and more intense... And then her control snapped, because the big mars knight had broken into a run and self preservation won out over the need to keep ahold of her prey. With a roar of frustration, Cinnabar released her grip and tore her hand away, gathering herself before the abruptly disappeared from between the knights.

"You little b***h..." She snarled when she reappeared behind Gehenna's charge. She shook her aching hand out before she grabbed hold of her coat and tore it back off her shoulders, throwing it down to free up her movement. It hit the ground in a heavy thump of leather and chain before she launched herself forward and rushed the Mars knight from behind, flexing her hands to bare her claws and swing hard for his back.

The trouble with barreling forward was the inability to change course on a whim. He saw the moment she disappeared from his view and knew, inevitably, that he was going to pay the price for being a bruiser. Though she fought with strength, she had an other-worldly agility to back it up.

As the warning rang out, Gehenna had slowed his speed enough to bring himself in a 180 to face her. The hard heels of his boots protested with a gravelly screech as they slid across the ground, but it was the meat of his shoulder that paid the price. The claws she had been aiming at his back missed, but slashed hard across his exposed right arm as he came face-to-face with her fury, leaving her mark in his flesh. His teeth clenched as pain blossomed immediately, dulled only slightly by the adrenaline coursing through his veins.

Ignoring the immediate blood loss, he pulled back his armored arm and completed a swing with the last of his spinning inertia, aiming right for the side of her head. He didn't know what level of armor those scales afforded her and at such close range, even if he didn't hit, she'd have to dodge.

In the back of his mind, he was already aware this fight couldn't end without his magic, and he had to hope that the other knight was wise enough not to interrupt him when it was summoned this time.