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It was not the Negaverse he spotted when moving through the park and towards the signature. Not a corrupted senshi. There was no tale-taled sign of a shattered marking on their person.

There was only one side left, and he grinned at the thought of it. He had been restless. He had been pondering. He had been anxious and lost and wondering but now he was hungry. Hungry to start again from where he left off all that time ago.

The DMC was fractured, only summoning their leaders when someone high ranking was in danger or enough of their troops were being harmed. The White Phoenix mission showed that much. But he didn't have that army again, and had to take other measures.

Take whatever scraps you could get and call attention to himself and bring the DMC out to him. Hunt and be hunted.

The senshi was distracted, holding out something as they lost focus of their surroundings. Rookie in mistake. He knew his signature called attention to himself. There wouldn't be much time before even they noticed something was going on, and so he kicked off and rushed full speed at the senshi.

Picking up a branch from the ground, he threw it at the senshi before following it up with a kick.

There was that moment of clarity when Romulus noticed that the aura was moving rapidly towards her, a moment to realize that she'd misjudged the situation before a heavy branch smacked into the back of her neck and shoulder. It spun her around to face her attacker, startled and wide-eyed, only to find the white clad knight practically on top of her, with the heel of one old fashioned boot striking her in the center of the chest.

It knocked the compact out of her hand as she staggered backward. It bounced once, rolled, and then came to a slow spinning stop a few meters away with the glass facing the senshi of craters as she struggled to get her breath back after the knight had knocked the wind out of her.

"Wha-what are you doing?" The question proved her lingering naivety in this war. Romulus had been sheltered. For as long as she'd been awakened into this life, nothing she'd faced up to this point really prepared her for the opposition blitz attacking out of no where. They usually spoke to her first, asking or demanding she cease her shenanigans, and if they fought, it'd always seemed like they were on equal footing.

This was different. It'd only been one kick, and still she'd felt the strength in it. I might be in trouble here.

The surface of the mirror was suddenly a blur on Ptolemy's end and he heard a dull thud.

"...Rom?"

He barely caught the astonished look on her face before Romulus' compact sailed through the air. It was a few more moments before the whirl of motion distorting the image finally ceased. However, the improvement was bittersweet. While the super senshi could finally get a decent view of what was happening thanks to the angle with which the compact had landed, it didn't look good for his friend.

"Rom, what's happening? Is that a knight?

It was pointless to try to talk to her just then, he knew, but the questions automatically flew from his mouth before he could stop them. It was as if the useless words were his excuse for being unable to help - as if he didn't already know what was happening. And now that he thought of it...hadn't he met that white-hooded being before?

Oh no. That was right. The knight had happened upon him when he'd been a basic senshi and had known about their Dark Mirror royals. He'd been around for quite a while and Ptolemy suspected he probably knew things about their court that most other court members didn't even know.

What alarmed Ptolemy the most, though, was the vague memory that the knight had seemed ready to be hostile but for the claim of seeking better prey. The olive-skinned youth had had his doubts about that, for he hadn't seen what reason the stranger had had to attack him, but all skepticism of his antagonistic intentions had now dissipated.

"Rom...Romulus, tell me where you are! NOW!" If she still couldn't talk, perhaps he could determine her relative location by the surrounding area. If he used that and tried to seek her out by sensing the knight's and her energy signatures, surely he could find her before she sustained too much damage.

The audible exchange between the pair of opponents froze Ptolemaeus' blood in his veins. At least he had faced a few others before who had honestly intended to kill him, so he had some notion of what to expect in a serious fight like that, but what about Romulus? She was still so relatively new and the knight had managed to take her entirely by surprise. Would she be able to use her magic? Would it even be of any use against a knight?

There was still a chance. Even if he alone was no match against a knight, he could still try to get Rom out of there through a mirror where the Order member couldn't follow. But if not...he supposed a super senshi would have made a better target for the Dark Mirror Court-hater than a basic one.

"You will know me. Some of the others already know me VERY well. But you won't know me long, and when I'm done, I'm going to leave a rosy wet message for Leto and Remauqe. I'm coming back for them, and Zinkenite won't be around to stop me this time." He said, giddy at the idea that there would be no one there next time. He would finish them all. He would taste that victory again before the poison of Metallia's oppression kept him from swallowing.

That starseed would be his, and he would feel it's crystal break under his own teeth destroying it all forever.

The call was sent, and he squared his footing and kept his eye open. Magic was tricky. It could be a area of affect, it could fall from the heavens, an it could just be an overall feeling that weakened your will to fight. He had encountered all manner of magic through the years, and he waited for what he guessed might be a meteor shower.

Instead, she rushed at him, and threw her fight at his jaw, hitting her mark and sending him stepping sideways, staggering a moment before he balanced again and snapped his attention back at her. His eye was side, and he felt the blood pooling in his mouth.

"Good. GOOD! Fight for your life. Give me EVERYTHING you have. I want to feel you thrashing to the very end!" He moved again, rushing at her and threw his own punch. Not magic. He didn't even summon his own weapon. It was just that of a fighter long in the war, with no hesitation to break her in any way, of a once-General to full Knight.

The panic had come screaming back in the wake of that horrific declaration of his intentions for her. Tanned skin had paled, eyes widening until whites showed all around the blue, and even as she fought to hide it she could feel her hands starting to tremble.

Romulus wasn't going to be walking away from this.

Even as he goaded her on, taunting her, she could feel her heart slamming into the cage of her ribs, blood pounding in deafening rush through her ears. Blood he was going to spill across the concrete. A high keening sound escaped her lips before the impact of knuckles against her cheek rocked her sideways and damn near staggered her off her feet.

She tasted blood, felt the sting of a split lip, and there was an awful second or two where darkness ate at the edges of her vision, threatening to close in around her. Shaking her head to clear it, she spat out a mouthful of copper, bright eyes lifting to meet manic ones.

One more chance... "Crater strike!" She shouted it at him like a war cry, desperate and fierce, and this time the magic went to her right foot as she drew it up and sent her heel into his stomach.

When it connected she didn't stop to see what the damage was. She turned and she ran, racing down the path towards the distant shape of the bathrooms. Bathrooms she knew they had a mirror in.

Bathrooms that looked like they belonged in one of the parks scattered around the city.

Ptolemy wasn't about to stand for just watching anymore. The scenery behind the fighters had been too vague for him to get a fix on where the battle could have been taking place. However, once Romulus bolted away, he was able to make out the vague contours of the structure she seemed to be headed toward. Were those public park restrooms? There were only a handful of those scattered around the city, weren't there? If he checked a couple now, what were the odds he would find them?

It didn't matter. Anything was better than just standing there and watching his friend get brutally beat up, potentially to the point of death, for likely no fault of her own. With his compact open to keep whatever tabs on the situation that he could, Ptolemaeus went leaping from roof to roof toward the nearest back alley he knew of that was supplied with a hidden, full-length mirror.

It would have been wonderful if Romulus could reach the restroom mirrors before he found her, but he was already aware just how slim her chances were of escape now that she had attempted retreat. It had been a valiant effort, particularly after having actually gotten a punch in, but from what he could tell through the compact, as predicted, the knight was still faster.

Why did he want to fight her when she was so obviously at a disadvantage? Did he somehow feel even more superior by crushing - killing - opponents so significantly weaker than himself?

If they had been in the White Moon Court, would things have been different? Would allies have been in greater supply? And with a greater probability that one would have been near enough to provide what aid she needed?

Well, it was no use wondering about those things now. Romulus' time was running out and if he didn't hurry, it soon wouldn't have mattered what faction or court she was in.

"Damnit!" He shouted as he was hit in the knee and knelt a moment before he threw his body at her, working to force his weight upon her and grab her arms.

"It's is you! It's always you! ALL OF YOU! EVER DMCER is it! The whole lot of worthless trash that got spat out from the White Court. Leto's b**** children." He reached for her wrists to get a firm hold of them.

"I'm going to rip out each and every one of you from her court. I'll leave your limbs scattered across this city and your guts at every mirror I find!" He shouted as he worked to pin her to the ground.