Welcome to Gaia! ::

Of course Cybele went to the carnival powered up. She'd been tempted to give it a wide berth, given that it seemed like the kind of attraction that the Negaverse could never resist using as massacre practice, or at the very least for some sort of more covert draining operation. However, she realized that she would be needed more than ever in that case, so she had headed over, planning to stick to the outskirts so she could sense if anything went wrong.

However, she was quickly realizing that she couldn't sense much of anything, either in the aura sense or even with her eyes. She'd taken a lovely but secluded looking path that seemed like the sort of place where someone could get ambushed. Still, she couldn't help herself. There was white snow on the branches, and a gentle winter breeze. She shivered, but she also watched as the snow blew around off the trees, looking like something out of a Christmas card. When she looked up, there were no carnival lights. There were no chatting voices. There were just trees.

She thought she heard something behind her, and she tensed, realizing that she was alone. Maybe they were dampening their auras. There was a meow, and then a voice. A cat? That wasn't necessarily a good sign. She creeped forwards, coming around a bend.

There it was. A cat, on a rock, and a guardian for sure, but the star was gold. Cybele let out a breath, her shoulders dropping several inches.

"Oh, hello," she said, coming forwards. "How did you get out here? Aren't you cold?" She held out a hand, very much wanting to cuddle the poor thing if it would let her.

Cybele couldn't stop a smile as she felt the softness of a cat face rub against her fingers. She spent a few seconds greeting him the way she would greet a cat that couldn't talk, with some scratches under the chin and behind the ears. He was such a sweetheart about it, too. When he jumped at her, she caught him and then settled him close to her chest with an arm underneath for support. To be honest, she appreciated the warmth.

"I got turned around, too," she said, "But I was on my own. Something's not right about this path." She heard the whispers, too. They weren't quite as unnerving now that she had a small cat held close, but even as she took a quick breath and tried to think about things logically, they still sent a very, very bad feeling down her spine. She knew the Negaverse had been turning to illusions, lately, and this sort of thing after being strangely separated out from the crowds could not be good at all.

For the cat's sake, she grit her teeth and ran a hand over his fur. "I hear it," she said, keeping her voice level. "It's probably a trick, but it might be a bad sign. Who were you with? I'm the Senshi of the Hunt. My magic might be able to help us find them."

It was a bit of a stretch, with no auras and too many sounds nearby, but she felt like she needed to try something.

The more she tried to focus on the present and zone out the voices, the more that they seemed to close in, until Cybele couldn't help but feel like something was behind the nearest tree waiting to pounce despite what the rest of her senses told her. The cat in her arms was a comfort, but he would only be so much help if real danger showed up.

She'd watched a guardian cat die once. That was not an experience that she felt like repeating.

At least there was no one that they had to go hunting for. That was good. "Hold on," she told him, lifting him up to her shoulder for the moment so her hands were free. If these whispers were meant to get under her skin, it was working. She thought that she heard something right above her, and it sent her shivering.

She gritted her teeth. "Hunter's Deadly Grace!" she called, and did not waste any time shooting her arrows off into the air. The magic came back down, washing over the two of them in a gentle wave, one that sharpened Cybele's mind into a familiar crystal clear focus.

There wasn't quite anything to focus on. There was no prey, but she was faster, too, and the whispers weren't quite so startling. She held tight to the little cat again, and she ran, fast as she could back the way she thought she'd came, and at least she couldn't hear the whispers for the wind rushing past her ears.

She did not feel the fear, now. What she felt was the ground under her feet. Her feet pounded into soil, frost, and snow, step after step. She went as fast as she could, her lungs straining even with the magic, and she could feel that as well., and the too-hot breaths that she sucked in through her teeth.

The magic helped her hear, too. She could hear the whispers at their back. To her, it wasn't the words that stood out, simply the voices. They were soft. They were deep. There were so many, and they were everywhere. They were inches from her ears. They were at her heels. She thought there were even some in the way that she was running.

She kept on.

She ran until her breath burned and her magic faded. It wasn't enough.With the focus gone, it was just like the voices were everywhere again. The weight on her shoulders shifted. She flinched, her fists curling tighter at her sides. The cat was jumping? He was asking for her pen.

That had only happened once before.
Cybele had to stop to fumble through her ribbons. It took a few seconds and it wasn't very graceful, but she found the pen in question and threw it at him.

"Here."

Cybele had been here before.

Not in these woods, of course. If she'd known her way through the trees a bit better, then none of this would have been nearly as much of an issue in the first place. However, she'd been in stressful situations before, desperate ones, even, and once, a cat had taken her pen the way this one had.

She watched the way it glowed. The cat fell, unceremoniously, and hit the ground with a thud. She winced at that. He was tiny. She didn't want him to get hurt for trying to help her, especially if these voices were more dangerous than they sounded. Not that they sounded gentle, but nothing else in four years had triggered an upgrade for her. Standing in a bloodbath in the heart of Negaverse territory hadn't.

This had.

At least, that was what seemed to be happening. She scrambled for the pen, missed, because cats were really not designed to throw things and it only got up to about her knees, and then knelt, wincing at how cold the snow was as she picked it up and blew a dusting of snowflakes off of it. She wanted to stare for a moment at how big it was now, and to look at the orb on top, but there was still something murmuring about what it was going to do to them just past her left shoulder.

The words came to her the way magical details often did. "Cybele Eternal, Make Up," she called out quickly, as loud as she could. She wanted to be louder than anything nearby. The silver sparkles surrounded her immediately, brighter than they'd ever been.

When they cleared, she was stronger.

Cybele went halfway into stance while she tried took another look around, her knees slightly bent and fists curling in case something decided to jump out at them. She was not about to see another cat get hurt right after upgrading her. The new power wasn't quite like her magic. Her surroundings were not clearer, but she felt lighter on her feet, and stronger, and quicker if something went wrong.

There was nothing coming out of the trees, though. She didn't even hear the voices anymore, just some wind in the branches and a very loud purr from the cat winding around her ankles.

"I hear you," she said with a smile, reaching down to give his head a quick scratch. "I don't think I hear whatever else there was. With luck, we scared it off." More likely, with her luck, it was just getting more careful, but at least it seemed like they had a moment of peace.

"Come on," she said. "We should get out of here." Then she started to walk, slow and sure, through the trees.

Cybele kept walking, not minding now that she was having to be a bit slower to avoid stepping on the cat rubbing at her ankles. He was very soft, and his neverending encouragement got Cybele to crack a proper grin. They didn't need to be fast now, anyway. They'd covered a lot of ground during their panic, and she thought she could see the trees thinning out, now.

"They didn't seem very scared of me before you pulled out that upgrade," she said, looking down. He was just too cute! That had helped a lot, too. Without something sweet to be brave for, Cybele very well could have stayed frozen in that clearing. "I'd say you did your fair share of the saving." He was definitely getting cuddles when they got out, and snacks if she could manage it.

Which might not be long. It hadn't been her imagination that they were reaching the edge of the woods. Now, she could see the lights through the trees, and hear something besides murderous voices. It was carnival music and real laughter. It was still suspicious, in Cybele's opinion, but she still let out a deep breath to see it, her shoulders dropping by inches.

Then, she dropped to her knees to give the cat some proper love, careful of her new wings. "What's your name, little one?"