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Cybele was patrolling. Considering it was Cybele, that was actually quite extraordinary. Usually, she hunted, covering as much ground as possible until she found something or interest, or occasionally she’d stay somewhere particularly obvious and wait to see who or what showed up. Recently, it had been different. She was less focused on hunting the darkness. Last semester, with her out most nights, her grades had taken a hit, and she wasn’t sure if what she’d accomplished as a senshi made up for it. So instead of the late nights, a few times a week, she managed a quick walk around the neighborhood, or the university, to make sure nothing was getting too close. So far, they’d been uneventful. She’d found a single youma once, that was all. She wasn’t sure if she should be grateful or worried.

She had made it to the joke of a playground that was just a metal slide, old swings, and a small, dirty sandbox on a patch of grass between a few houses. This was where she usually turned around, but for once there was a Chaos aura that was either very strong or close enough to worry about. She couldn’t tell which it was, which was worrying, or exactly where it was coming from. That was worrying. She was a hunter. She needed to be able to know the power level, distance, and direction of her targets, and before she’d been able to. Maybe she hadn’t been focusing enough on being a senshi.

She sat down on one of the squeaky swings and tried to focus.

It only took a few seconds of actively thinking about it to figure out the aura- strong, but not too strong, a Captain's aura, maybe, that was close and moving closer. She didn't move. There were times for chasing things. This was not one of them. She was on high alert now, listening for footsteps, stiffening as she glimpsed a hint of movement through the slats of the fence.

Cybele rose fluidly when the girl made herself known, fists clenched and feet spread apart slightly, turned to the side to give any attacks a smaller target. Fighting stances, it seemed, were deeply ingrained in her muscle memory. "Go home and leave you here unchecked?" she snapped. "I think not." Or rather, she tried to snap. Her words didn't have quite the energy behind them they usually did. She wasn't sure she wanted this to turn into a fight. If she had been actively hunting, this was when she would have charged, but instead, she glanced over her opponent. It was a senshi, not a Captain,which meant magic, and she looked very young, and there was something about her that caught Cybele's attention, something that was strangely... familiar. A name came to her.

"...Warhol?"

She squinted and very slightly shook her head. For a moment there was just confusion. It didn't make sense- this face she knew on a body dressed in black and dripping with the darkest kind of Chaos, with a cracked chest and forehead and far too much hair, saying things that just didn't match up to her memory of a brand new senshi, almost too nervous to speak.

Then, the realization struck. She dropped her stance and took a step forward, brows knitted together. When she spoke again, her voice was soft.

"Warhol... not you!"

"Chrysocolla?"

It was not in Cybele's nature to walk away, but it was tempting to take the other offer, the one that the other girl probably hadn't even been trying to make- to be mistaken about Warhol, to pretend that the girl in front of her was just another Negaverse stranger, just another enemy to be fought, not someone she had failed and lost. The longer Cybele looked, though, the more details jogged her memory. The tiny bows were there, and the blue gems, and how she still wouldn't meet Cybele's eyes. This was not something that Cybele could lie to herself about.

"It's pretty, but it's not your name," she said, looking deep into eyes that regarded her only with casual suspicion. "You're Warhol. You're the Senshi of Moods. You have magic that changes what people feel." Her voice was flat and measured. The numbness was starting to fade, and tears were coming, but she dug her fingernails into her palms and kept her composure. "My name is Cybele. We talked once, a long time ago." She held her position, because she didn't want to be seen as a threat but also because she wasn't sure she could keep it together once she moved. She was still expecting, at any second now, for Warhol to remember her.

The blank stare had really been getting to her, but Cybele's false calm didn't crack until the accusation. "I'm not lying!" Cybele shouted, eyes narrowing into a glare, fists raising ever so slightly.

No. Fighting and threats were not going to help here. She relaxed her stance, inhaled properly, and tried to pull it back together with moderate success. "I gave you evidence... I know those things because you told them to me." With each breath, her mild expression was growing less convincing. Her eyes were definitively reddening, for one thing. It was only a matter of time before tears came, because thinking back to their conversation, what stuck out wasn't the introduction or testing Warhol's magic.

"I mean...they can't recruit me if I don't want to be, right?"
"Not easily. I haven't heard of it happening, but... yes."

She shook her head vigorously as if that would clear her thoughts. "And I'm not the type who usually spends a lot of time talking to the Negaverse. I'm tired of them insulting my court as if that will make me like them. I'm the Senshi of the Hunt. I hunt. I barely know about purification, and I certainty can't show people the error of their ways." The one time she had tried, the agent had ended up as a youma... and her other attempts at conversation hadn't turned out much better. "Apparently I... couldn't even give you enough information to keep you from getting corrupted..." She casually wiped at her eyes and tried to stand up straighter. "Honestly, I came here looking for a fight. But I don't want to hurt you!"

When Chrysocolla straightened, Cybele backed up to the swing set and sat, ankles arranged to cross daintily in front of her, hands gripping the chains so that even if they were so tense they were white knuckled, which they were, it wouldn't look like a threat. After a deep breath, it seemed she had her emotions under her control for now.

"I'm sorry," she said, voice soft at first, tears still threatening, but then something in her expression changed. Even if she couldn't believe that the girl sitting in front of her was an enemy, she wasn't the precious new senshi in need of guidance that she'd once been, either, and that meant Cybele couldn't play the sympathetic mentor. "I'm sorry about the war, I mean, and I'm sorry you... saw the worst of it so quickly, but I'm not going to apologize for the actions of my Court." At least not for this. If the tiny girl had killed her, it would had been different, maybe.

"I won't fight you unless you give me a good reason to. We can talk." She couldn't bring herself to let a Negaverser go without anything, even if that Negaverser was a former ally who had reduced her to this without raising a finger. A moment passed. She began to rock the swing, very slowly, back and forth. "...will you tell me how this happened to you?"

"No, I know that wasn't the worst," she said, staring at pointedly at the crack in the other girl's chest. She realized that she'd never been this close to a corrupt senshi before. Now that she was paying attention, she realized that she could see cracks on Warhol's starseed.

They'd broken her.

A new wave of disgust washed over her, barely made worse by the fact that the younger girl admitted to killing two people. Had she said something about that when they first met? She'd been hanging out with the violent types, hadn't she. Cybele's frown managed to deepen. This was partially Order's fault. Had they not realized that she was maybe fifteen? That there would maybe be repercussions, even ignoring the morality of it all? At least it didn't sound like she had gone willingly. She took the comfort she could in that, but it wasn't much. "We failed you. I'm sorry." There was true sadness in her voice now, although her tears were still under control. There was a pause.

"Are you... happy?" It was a bad question. Neither answer would be good, but Cybele felt like it was worth knowing.

"No, Warhol." The accusation of abandonment hit Cybele like a bullet. She visibly flinched. She's wrong, it's not true, she can't know that, said the logical part of her brain. She doesn't even remember; it's just what they're feeding her. It didn't change her emotions, though. There were thick layers of guilt on top of the sadness, now. But she's right, too. I should have tried harder to keep track of her or... something. She couldn't help but feel, deep inside, that this was Cora all over again.

A true sob finally escaped. She was properly crying now, but she continued to wipe at her eyes frantically and pretend she wasn't. The statement that the Negaverse was helping people also hit hard. If anyone but Warhol had said it, she might have flown into a rage. Instead, she went back to her tight hold on the chains and shook her head sadly. "I'm glad you're happy, but... can't you see they're lying to you? I'll be honest, Order makes its mistakes. I was tempted to leave, even, before I found out the truth." The fateful day of the carnival was years ago, now, but the thought of it still made her grimace. "This is a war. People fight, and people die, but unlike us, the Negaverse does nothing except hurting people."

"All right. I'll stop. I'm sorry," said Cybele, who really wasn't trying to upset Chrysocolla. Her continued talk of abandonment made Cybele want to take her somewhere full of hot chocolate and cats, but of course it was too late for that now. I'm still here for you, Warhol. You're more than just one of them to me, she thought, but managed not to say. Maybe later she would admit that Warhol was gone, that Chrysocolla, the enemy, was all that remained, but now was not that time. She took a shaky breath and looked the other girl in the eyes.

"Why? Why shouldn't I cry? They took you from us and made you think that we didn't care about you! Can't you see that I do?" She was trembling now, both from anger at the Negaverse and the tears, so hard the chains of the swing began to rattle. Her next words, on the other hand, were cool, almost numb. "The Negaverse attacks public events full of innocent people on a regular basis. They use civilians as hostages. They burn buildings. They torture people your age and turn them into youma. They eat souls. I'm not saying you're a bad person, but that's what you're helping them do."