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It was supposed to be a training session.

Easy, basic, safe. Like how a female predator might injury a prey animal and leave it for her offspring to finish off to teach it the skills of hunting. Nothing should have gone wrong. Cinnabar had waited on real world practice until Idrialite was well schooled in basic combat, and then she had carefully selected a target of an appropriate level for him to take out. All the while, she had planned to hover out of sight, keeping a careful eye on him.

What could not be planned though, was how watching the pair struggle had quickened her pulse. Or that the sound of the tussle had called in another senshi to aid the first.

She'd felt the eternal signature approaching and she'd gone to intercept, but that was where things took a turn.

Idrialite was not supposed to be pinned down in an alley, a brick wall behind him and something that was definitely not his general snarling at him from the mouth of it. The bodies of the eternal and basic senshi they had been fighting not long ago were lost to sight, laying forgotten a few streets back with their starseeds gone. The smell of blood could be faintly caught, over the smell of refuse and exhaust. It dripped to leave a red trail behind a pair of red eyes that almost glowed in the darkness and the beast that had been Cinnabar bared it's teeth, stalking closer with the tap of her heeled boots.

If there was still a woman behind those eyes, it was impossible to tell. All that was left was slitted pupils and a feral gleam of hunger, claws flexing as her dripping hands opened and closed. Entreaties seemed to pass right over her, unnoticed or ignored.

Cinnabar had always been dangerous. Impatient, impulsive, and angry, she was nothing nearly as dangerous as Schörl -- Schörl was the true steel, her blade forever sharp and true -- but even brittle iron has a bite, and Cinnabar was nothing to underestimate.

Normally Quartz did his best to steer clear of her when he could. Tonight was different. Tonight things were . . . interesting.

Any given evening spent out on patrol was always a game of sifting through the information All-One brought him. The business of other Negaverse agents was something to be minded -- the wrong indiscretion was worthy of a note in someone's file, after all -- but mostly these sorts of encounters were violent things, and the province of other divisions, and Quartz was better off avoiding them.

Cinnabar and her lieutenant fighting a pair of sailor soldiers was not pertinent to his interests, not particularly. Quartz had no interest in seeing the dead bodies she'd leave behind.

It was All-One who changed his mind. It was All-One who buzzed around Quartz's head, echoing Cinnabar's snarls over and over, then describing the situation to him in its thousand broken voices.

This didn't sound like any kind of training exercise Quartz had ever heard of. It sounded more like Cinnabar had lost her s**t.

"This isn't my problem," he mumbled to himself, trying to wave All-One's small swarm away. "Let her eat her lieutenant and suffer the consequences."

Maybe she'd even be demoted, if he reported her for it. Maybe he'd be rewarded for his hard work.

And either way, Idrialite -- the cool-headed kid who'd resolutely followed Quartz's orders when they'd been trapped in space on an enemy planet -- would be just as dead.

It wasn't his problem. It wasn't. His. Problem.

That was how Quartz found himself standing on a rooftop, staring down at the lieutenant bringing his cheap toy weapon up to bear against a beastly General with her teeth and claws out. He spun his spear out into the air and leaped down into the space between them, before he could think better of it.

When he'd stood between General Xenotime and her intended target, he'd shown her deference in words, actions, and posture. He'd held his weapon in a defensive ward, his own blade pointed away from her, and asked her politely to please stop, and that he meant no disrespect.

This was not the time or place for any of those things. If Quartz showed Cinnabar his bare throat now, he had the feeling she'd tear it out with her teeth.

"Cinnabar," he said, sounding as relaxed as he could, watching her movements. "Not your best look."

Quartz didn't bother telling Idrialite to run. Even with whatever was going on with her, Cinnabar was still a General and could still teleport either of them right back to her, if they made a break for it. And however much Schörl had emphasized the importance of a clear, calm mind in controlling the flow of a battle, Cinnabar was a killer, and Quartz was going to need some help keeping his head attached to his shoulders now that he'd put himself between her and her prey.

Of all the things Idrialite had considered might save him - luck being number one on the list - intervention by another Negaverse agent had not even ranked. He knew this Captain, Quartz, from their...involuntary little trip to outer space, and remembered him as a level head and a good fighting partner.

And here he was, saving Idrialite's a** again.

Even if Quartz had asked him to run, he wouldn't have - it wasn't in his nature to leave someone behind. He did, however, take advantage of what he hoped was Cinnabar's distraction to slide out from behind the Captain and start searching for a more useful weapon. Even a discarded bottle would do, for more bite than a child's toy.

"She's not in her right mind," he said, as if that needed to be stated.

There was a boarded-up window not far from him. He would regret breaking it and wielding a piece of glass, he was sure, but he would regret letting Cinnabar kill him quite a lot more.

Gold spearshaft thunked hard into the half-youma's ribs, and despite the danger, it reached past it, sacrificing safety for a chance to score more damage on the threat that had dropped into its territory. As headstrong as Cin was, even this was beyond the acceptable risk she ever allowed herself in battle.

The swipe took it off her feet and flung the form across the alley, claws spread and body twisting to attempt to reorient and land safely... but there was no time. The half-youma slammed bodily into the wall, connecting with a heavy, solid noise that cracked the stone around the impact. Body rebounded and fell sprawling, the wind taken from Cin's lungs and for a moment, lay still.

When she stirred, finally, it was not to leap to attack again. Slowly, the bloody form pushed to all fours and a low, pained groan slipped free as a thick-finger hand pressed to bruised ********..." Cinnabar hissed as she lifted her eyes, the darkness around her eyes fading to peach skin. Red-black eyes darted to assess the situation, but with a pained squint that held more confusion than menace now.

"Quartz? Idrialite... the ******** hit me? Did you kill it?" She rasped. She... vaguely remembered... hunting senshi. But there were none to be seen, and Quartz had certainly not been here.

s**t. Another black out. Her face screwed up in a grimace and she finally moved to push herself to her feet, a hand still clutching her skull through the damp, dark hair.

"Did the senshi get away, or did you take care of them?" A glance down and a spread of her palm hinted at what had transpired and her lips curled in distaste. "Or maybe I took care of them..."

As satisfying as it was to successfully execute a combat maneuver and get Cinnabar over to a safe distance (in a wall, happily), Quartz didn't miss the shift in the General's appearance and demeanor as she levered herself back up. She was clearly deeply confused . . . and, as Idrialite had stepped in to help with, she seemed to have passingly little memory of the last few minutes.

That was bad in a whole different way.

"Your appearance changed," he pointed out as an addendum to Idrialite's rough, deadpan assessment. "I don't just mean your combat style or your movements, though they changed too."

Quartz paused a moment to expect the gash in his arm. He let out a soft, disappointed tutting sound, then reached down to grab the trailing end of one of his sashes and began looping it snugly around the wound.

It would be inconvenient to have to hide that for work, and wasteful to heal it. Quartz hoped he wasn't going to need a tetanus shot. What a pain in the a**.

"Your face changed -- more black and red, less human skin. More scales."

He knotted the fabric off loosely, one-handed.

"I'm sure you'll want to look into it, General," he suggested.

Officially, he meant. Rather than continuing to endanger your subordinates, he meant. I'll be making a note of it in your file even if you don't, he meant.

All-One's fragmented collection of voices broke the brief silence, a few of its bodies fluttering in the air near Quartz's shoulders . "Does she -- want to hear -- herself," it put the question into the air.