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Cybele was one of those people who had never quite grown out of the phase where she wanted to be a princess, which meant the clothes that came with being a senshi were definitely one of the perks. The power, while nice, came with a lot of responsibilities that she couldn't live up to. On the warm, quiet nights when she didn't need the power, sometimes she'd sit on park benches and admire her ribbons and feel like a lady.

Now, in some twist of luck, or who knew what else, both her outfit and the magic that came with it had been upgraded. Her tiara was heavier. It seemed less likely that it would snap in a strong breeze. More importantly, there was the new weight of wings at her hips. Occasionally, she'd wondered about being Eternal. She'd been around for almost seven years. The people around her seemed to rank up sometimes, but of course, she didn't. It made sense. Cybele had gained a string of kills since her last upgrade, yes, but she'd barely ever actually saved anyone.

But it had happened, finally, and tonight, Eternal Sailor Cybele walked down the city streets with a bit of spring to her step. She did like the extra bits on her her outfit, but right now she liked the power more. She could feel the strength in every step. With the streets empty, it was easy to appreciate.

As she approached the theater district, she had a thought and pulled out her phone.



She still felt very bad about the part where she'd punched her friend in the face, but this was also the sort of thing that would be better to share with someone, and she felt like Anser was just the one. Cybele smiled, liking the thought of surprising her.

Cybele wasn't exactly what one would call a memelord, but she knew enough of what was going on online from practically living in the theater, and in this case it brought a smile to her face. That was mostly because it was from Anser, but still.



She wasn't sure if that was strictly needed, since she was fairly certain that her aura was lighting up the better part of the district at this point. Despite the hunter title, she'd never really been one for stealth, but it would still take some time to get used to being this much of a beacon. Still, it would probably be easier to meet up with an exact location, so she made her way over to the picnic tables and settled in, doing her best not to squish her new feathers when she sat before scrolling through the apps on her phone.

She only had a few minutes to think about how she could just go off to a different planet on a moment's notice when another aura came by. It was Super, though, which meant it was likely someone new. Connections were always good, of course, but the timing wasn't great. Cybele was looking forwards to just catching up with Anser.

She set her teeth and stood up. She was an Eternal now, and she would do her best to be a leader to a group that sorely needed them. "Hello?" she called out.

It wasn't a stranger that came around the corner, not a stranger at all.

"Anser!" she called, and she let the professional smile she had on relax into a grin. That was about all she had time to say before the chibi, fast as ever, was right next to her, grabbing her hands. Cybele gave a light laugh and used the girl's momentum to spin around her at arms length.

"I am," she said, pulling away a bit and doing a twirl on her own to fully show off her outfit, especially the new wings that she'd waited so long for. There were parts of her new outfit that she actually liked more. She had beautiful gloves instead of the old flimsy ribbons, and her tiara was sturdier, too, but the wings were what marked her as an Eternal. She was worth respecting now. "I wanted to surprise you. Great minds think alike, right? Look at what you've been up to!"

She took a moment to admire Anser's outfit. It wasn't hard. She liked the new details. Something about the skirt made her think about the Dark Mirror Court in a way that she appreciated, although she decided not to mention that point. Instead, she gave a closed lip smile and nodded. "Very nice," she said, "And quick, too. You must really be proving yourself to the universe, and I guess I finally did, too."

She tilted her head at Anser's last comment. "Your brother is an Eternal?" That was also good news.

Cybele, who was nothing if not a performer, gave a deep curtsy when Anser clapped for her, even if she was working hard to hold back her own giggles.
Then she straightened, slowly, hands still on her skirts.

"It's still so cool," she said. "I'm very impressed." She was warm inside. Proud. That was the word. She was proud that Anser had kept her determination when things got rough, and that she still had the same strength and smile as when they first met. She'd earned that upgrade for sure. Cybele was also relieved that she was past the most vulnerable part of all this.

However, there was a fairly large part of her glad that this wasn't going to be another case of someone she explained the very basics of the war to shooting up to Eternal in a matter of months while she stayed behind. She did giggle at Anser's explanation for their joint upgrade, though. She still had very mixed feelings on what had once been described to her as fate and destiny bullshit, but maybe for Anser she could pretend.

"We are teammates, aren't we?" she said with a smile. "That must be why. You'll just have to show me that you're as strong as I am when you hit Eternal." For some reason, she got the feeling it wouldn't take too long. She nodded at the description of the brother.

"Encke. Oh, he was with you at the brawl, right?" As well as on rooftops, occasionally. Cybele's smile went softer. "I'll try not to get mushy, but I'm glad you have people looking out for you."

As nice as her new powers were, Cybele was very aware that being an Eternal did not mean that she was unstoppable. Looking into Anser's bright eyes, she thought back to the times that she'd seen Princesses fall. This was a celebration, though, not a time to focus too harshly on the fact that they would never be strong enough.

It was true that they had much better prospects as a Super and an Eternal, after all. "Don't worry too much about getting to Eternal," she said, keeping up the smile. "We should be able to kick a decent amount of butt now."

She hadn't been expecting to open up the floodgates quite so much about Anser's family. She hadn't known that Encke was Anser's brother a minute ago, and now she heard that he was being overprotective. That wasn't something that Cybele minded, but she knew that the last thing that Anser was going to listen to was someone telling her to stay safe.

"Some people think it's safer to be a civilian," she said. "That's something I don't understand. I've seen a lot of people killed by youma. Youma, not even officers." On bad days, she could still get flashbacks to a roller coaster that she'd had to jump from onto a platform filled with mangled corpses. She hadn't been able to handle heights since. "I haven't heard of a single senshi dying to a youma. It could happen, but not often. We kill them."

That didn't make things safe for senshi, by any means. If Anser hadn't been at that battle, then Cybele wouldn't have punched her half to death.

That was still hard to think about.

"If you two are the ones he's been thinking of as the ones he's protecting, it's probably hard to see you actively putting yourselves in danger all the time." She paused, before adding, at the risk of sounding even mushier, "That can even be difficult for me." She tried not to get attached, but it didn't always work out for her.

Unfortunately, Cybele had been in this war for far too long to ever think that anyone was going to be okay, but she did appreciate the reassurance. She quirked an eyebrow at the last comment and said, half-teasing, "Learning some restraint already?" She smiled. "You're years ahead of me on that one, too."

Although Cybele had never had too much of a problem running after Generals, and at this point, she was the one who needed to be fighting them. She'd fought a lot of confused lieutenants, though. Mercy was what she'd had to learn.

"But all right. You can take care of yourself." She waved a hand as if she could wipe away her previous statement and she nodded in approval. That might have sent mixed signals, now that she thought about it. She settled down instead, sitting on one of the picnic benches. She crossed her ankles as she gave Anser another once over, trying to look past the new bits to her costume. She was young, yes, but not so much younger than Cybele had been when she'd awoken. She was as strong as Cybele had been during the invasion. She was as tall as Cybele was now. She needed support, not coddling.

"You might be able to take a General under the right circumstances, actually," she said. "With backup, preferably, but that's not always how it works. The trick is to go for their weapons first, especially if they have something with reach."

She noticed that the brother hadn't really come back up with the reassurances, just with the mention of transcendence. Cybele sat up a little taller at that. "Does he know how to get you to transcend?"

Cybele nodded and folded her hands in front of her own the table, externally letting herself settle into the picture of a teacher even if she wasn't sure she was qualified to talk about these things. She'd read up on a few articles about strategy before trying to host a training meet, but they were either very theoretical or they'd involved things like tanks and bombs.

"Captains, too, actually. It's not as extreme, but they've still got weapons that can hurt you." She pursed her lips at the list of possibilities, some of which she'd never seen before. Bows and swords? It seemed likely, but also a bit terrifying. "Polearms, if you're lucky. Spears and things. They've got range but they're made for shield walls and horses, not single targets. There's space for you to grab it, and the agents don't usually know how to react to that."

She leaned in with a slightly less proper smile. "Then, you have a spear if you're lucky. Either way, you've got magic that they can't take from you." Although they had the weapons that didn't vanish after thirty seconds, and to escape easily when the tides turned. Cybele wouldn't exactly call it even. "I'm not sure what to try with a sword, though. Probably not that."

Anser only knew that Transcendence was vaguely related to space, which was the same information that had been going around for years. She took a quick look up at the sky. "Oh. Space. Right," she said, sounding a little less impressed. "I usually like the stars more from here." She'd come more to terms with her asteroid lately, but it still seemed like a bit of a waste to spend too much time on it.

Anser wiggled with all the enthusiasm of someone who had never stabbed another human being. Cybele wondered, underneath a careful smile, what would happen when her attempts to smash evil at a higher stake level met with success. Killing did harsh things to people, and thinking about it made Cybele almost want to stop and tell Anser to be careful and listen to her brother.

Yes, that approach had just worked perfectly in the past. It had only led to the corruption of an unprepared recruit.

"Swords are the hardest, I would say. Going for the sword arm could work in some cases, but often you might just have to deal with the fact that your enemy has a sword." That probably wasn't the fun strategy Anser wanted to hear, but Cybele wasn't going to completely support her young friend's efforts to daringly end up stabbed. "Luckily they don't seem to common. I think I've seen bows. Bows are weak up close. You can break them, unless," she leaned in closer, with a proper grin and a quirked eyebrow, "It's mine."

Space wasn't really Cybele's area of expertise, but she nodded along as Anser described her brother's world. Electricity was fairly impressive compared to the ruins she'd seen.

"It's something different, yes. The sky is purple on my asteroid, and I do like the castle on the moon." She'd thought about trying to have training there if it weren't for the logistics of getting people up. "There's giant silver forest on Cybele, too. It's very pretty. I just don't see the point of going up too much when the war is down here, but I'm glad it's working out for him."