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It wasn't the energy that had the general out and about most evenings, it was the hunt for new blood to the cause. Perspective agents and senshi she could bring into the fold, under her wing. Her flock was grown, the majority having left the nest to start their own flocks or immerse themselves in civilian affairs. Now she had only senshi to shepherd over, Ochre and now Vanth, and of the two it was the latter that needed her guidance most. But she had so much more to offer. More wisdom to give, strength to imbue. It was just a matter of finding the right candidate...

A flicker of light prickled at her senses in the distance and it had the general lifting her head from the crowd of civilians flooding out the doors of a movie theater. Strong, eternal or knight, though it felt more like the latter in her head as she focused on it. Moving quickly towards her. Eager?

She was ready when the knight arrived, carrying the advantage of teleportation. The departing darkness vanished from the tall warrior's senses all at once before flicking back into bright existence at her rear. "Bold of you to come barreling blindly into a fight," she chided, voice a warm purr as smaller of the two fighters pushed back her hood.

She hadn't changed much. Still pale, still corded in muscles. Silver eyes blazed from a dark smear of black paint, and violet hair hung around her face, longer now than it ever had been. Hands in fists at her sides, weight evenly distributed, she waited.

That laugh was delighted, wild, and familiar. I know that laugh... She'd heard it countless times before, not just in meetings and missions, but under the dim lights of a bar, and softer still in the darkness of a bedroom.

She stiffened, mind momentarily unwilling to accept what she was seeing, but as the knight spoke it was undeniably, painfully obvious that the woman standing before her was in fact her former colleague and friend. "Cin..." The irony of this moment was thick enough to choke on. Cinnabar had drawn her into her side project of hunting down turncoats, a project she'd so so passionate about, and there she stood now, aura bright enough to blind, wearing the symbol of Mars. Fighting for them.

The general felt cold as the shock of it settled over her, inside her, and she felt herself reacting to the clang of golden gauntlets unconsciously.

Her chin lifted, features stony and intense as metallic silver flashed across her shoulders and down her arms to end in dangerous spikes at her knuckles. Fingers curled into fists tight enough for the metal to bite into the skin of her palms, but she didn't seem to feel it. "You are a traitor, a deserter and betrayer, and this will not stand." She would allow it, couldn't allow it.

A second to stare up at the other woman, and the general charged, arm cocked back and already rolling forward, anger aiming her fist not to subdue but to hurt. She wasn't aiming for that pretty, familiar face, but for a point six inches inside her ******** skull.

The nickname had brought a cold little curl to dark lips, not because it was familiar, but because it dropped home to the general that this knight was no longer the woman she'd known. It was one more little fissure of divide that would make bringing her to get knees so much more satisfying. It removed the pang of guilt, that lingering respect and camaraderie Xenotime still harbored for her fellow general.

That woman was already gone. What remained was a shell that didn't realize it was dead yet.

Metal against metal shrieked as the punch connected with a gauntlet covered arm, and Xenotime felt the shock of it all the way up through her elbow, an aching tingle that pulled her lips back into an excited grin. She could talk all she wanted, but her words held no power. They flowed over the general like water off a duck's back.

As the kick sailed towards her the smaller fighter jerked to the side, but a hand slapped down on a lace covered ankle, another coming up from beneath and a split second shift put small hands on foot and heel before twisting to try to throw the taller woman right off her ******** feet.

"You're not getting any tears from me, b***h. You don't deserve that sort of mourning." Her voice was cold, barbed.

Banter from strangers held no barbs. The knight could talk all she wanted but nothing she said mattered anymore. Cinnabar was already dead, and this woman walking around in familiar skin would follow soon enough. It was all just ignorable static, and Xenotime's features never so much as faltered as the taller woman spit venom as she got back to her feet.

No, cool eyes were alive and bright as the petite fighter sank back into comfortable lines, hands up and feet apart, she was balanced and ready for whatever the b***h decide to throw at her. Including herself.

Xenotime made an amused sound as she blinked out of existence before muscular forearms had a chance to close around her. It was a reckless move, a rookie mistake that any self respecting knight should have known better to attempt on general, but this knight had no memories of who she used to be and no experience with what she was now.

She appeared again at the taller woman's back and with a sharp twist of her hips she slammed the bottom of one boot clad foot directly into the small of the woman's back.

"You mean anymore," she corrected acidly. "You aren't Metallia's little whore anymore. Now you belong to the moon b***h. That absentee monarch that doesn't give a rat's a** about her soldiers."

The sound of those metal gauntlet's grating against the cement was so gratifying, but it wasn't enough. The hiss of her breath after the kick hadn't been enough. She wanted to grab the knight and teleport to the top of he tallest building in the city just to shove her over the edge so she could watch her fall.

It was a beautiful image, and silver eyes flicked up to skyscraper at the end of the street, calculating.

The pause was enough to let the knight spring back to her feet, and Xenotime's attention snapped back with an almost audible twang, and she had her teeth bared, lips drawing back in a feral snarl that cut off abruptly as a metal covered fist slammed into her face.

It sent her reeling, head snapping back and her balance foundering before she managed to reclaim it. Her lip was split, blood dripping from her nose and down her chin, and she spit a mouthful of red stained spit on the concrete between them. "b***h, you're nothing but a body on the ground that hasn't laid the ******** down yet." Her face ached, jaw itself bruised, but she wasn't a stranger to pain and it wasn't about to slow her down.

There was no warning when she snapped forward, and after a right feint her left fist was coming around in a wicked haymaker aimed at the other woman's right cheek.