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When it came to texting, half of the time, Sylvite would get way too into conversations and send like a hundred messages before the other person could get a reply in. The other half of the time, she'd get distracted and leave her friends on read for a week.

She was pretty understanding when it went the other way. Apparently some people got all worried when people didn't text back right away, but it took way more than that for Sylvite to worry. Stuff came up. She got that.

Even when it got to the second week of Cybele not texting her back, despite Sylvite sending her cat pictures every few days in an attempt to check in, Sylvite didn't assume anything was wrong. She went to visit her room in the barracks, and when there was no answer, she left.

She was trying really hard to let Cybele be her own person and to not be a weird stalker or anything.

It was only the next day, when she went to check in again, and there was still no answer, that she decided that something was definitely not right. She didn't jump to any conclusions, though. She looked at Cybele's last text, something about going to Faustite's draining event.

At least it gave her an easy place to start asking questions. Sylvite teleported to hallway with the offices, and she didn't waste any more time before she knocked on a certain door.

"Hey Faustite," she called out, still mostly chipper. "You in there?"

Okay. That was a good sign. At least Negaspace wasn't abandoned or anything.

Sylvite cracked open the door and stepped inside. She hadn't been in here before, so she took a second to look around before doing anything else. It wasn't really her style. It was mostly just clean lines and metal everything, but she might have spent a little bit longer snooping around looking for quirks if it wasn't for the General sitting in front of her.

His eyes were black. That caught her off guard, and she stiffened, taking half a step back before shaking it off.

She was pretty sure that his eyes had been black before, but it seemed wrong now, especially with how pale and exhausted and overall awful he looked.

"You okay?" she asked, stepping forwards again.

She remembered from their chat that he could apparently starve to death at any time. Was that what this was?

She summoned a pack of Ritz crackers from subspace and flicked it across his desk. "Here," she said.

Then she perched at the corner of the desk, careful to look at least a little bit serious and trying not to get too distracted just 'cause he seemed off.

"Have you seen Cybele?" she asked.

Sylvite's eyes flicked from the sick looking Faustite to the untouched crackers at a million miles per hour. She sucked in her cheeks and bit down, like she was physically keeping herself from spitting out the hundred questions that were spinning through her head.

She was.

She wanted to know what was going on so freaking bad, but after the way that he'd snapped at her last time, she knew better than to ask literally anything about him if she wanted him to answer the stuff she was actually here for.

After a full five seconds of looking like she was about to explode, she took a deep breath and said, "The last text I got from her was that she was going to your mission thing."

Since the chairs were there, Sylvite plopped down into one, pulling her knees up towards her chest. "We don't like constantly message or anything, so it wasn't that weird at first? Now it's getting to the point it's kinda weird, and she's not in her room, either."

Sylvite still looked more curious than worried.

"So, uh, what was the mission thing?" she asked.

"I dunno how long I should wait to get really worried," she said.

Sylvite crossed her arms on top of her knees and rested her chin on her hands. She chewed the inside of her cheeks some more, but now it was more because she was thinking over timelines in her head and less because she was about to spit out the wrong question.

"So what was it like?" she asked after a few seconds. "The mission, the enemy response."

She found big draining operations like that iffy under the best of circumstances, but she knew better than to bring that up just yet.

"Was it like, dangerous? Did anyone get hurt?" she asked. "I'm asking, 'cause, like, I know when half the Negaverse got sucked into that other dimension, she tried going after the giant monster that was in there all by herself. I could see her trying to track down big threats afterwards or something."

Cybele was good at fighting and draining, and Sylvite was still really happy with how her recruitment had worked out, but she had to admit that the senshi could be kind of dumb.

She gave Faustite another sideways glance, and let herself ask, now that it seemed a little more relevant, "So what did happen to you?"

"Okay, okay," said Sylvite, her brows raising a little bit. "I'm worrying."

She didn't sit up straighter or anything, though. She wasn't exactly freaking out. It took her a little bit more than a disappearance in the middle of a war to get her to that point, but she was here, investigating. She was doing what she could. If Faustite thought she should be doing more, if he was secretly judging her for not stalking Cybele, a full Eternal, and for not bringing her to heel or whatever, than that was his problem.

After all, she was secretly judging him.

"Of course Order's gonna show up if you make a big scene like that," she said flatly, tapping her fingers hard on the puffy part of her sleeve to keep from rolling her eyes. There was a reason why they hadn't done big draining operations like that in years, but hopefully he saw that now and she wasn't gonna have to rub it in.

Sylvite went quiet for a second, thinking. "So she went toe to toe with a Princess? Okay," she said. That wasn't great, but it was information. "Did you, you know, check in with her after that, or-"

She squinted at his black eyes, putting the pieces together. She knew the basics about most parts of the Negaverse. She knew it took a lot to permanently dust a youma, but, like, a Princess could probably do it.

"Was that when all this happened?" She raised a hand enough to wave it in his direction.

She hadn't been trying to make him feel bad. Not really. Her buried nerves about the whole situation just came out as too many questions, apparently.

When he slumped, she sat up a little bit straighter, her eyebrows scrunching and her lips pressing together in a way that was almost sympathetic. Sylvite went quiet again, blinking at him for a couple seconds. The silence stretched out for longer while she took her time summoning her tablet, and opening a page where she could tap out some notes.

"I'm sorry about your youma," she said, in a tone that was quiet by her standards, after typing the name Benny and giving up on the rest of the spelling. "I'm sorry you got hurt."

She didn't like seeing him all sad.

She still eventually got back to business. He might not even be the type who wanted sympathy, and anyway, he was offering to help instead of kicking her out, so she was gonna take advantage of that.

"Okay. There's Benitoite, there's the Princess. Do you know which one?" She looked up, fingers hovering over the keyboard. "Any other leads, or people who might have seen her?"

He looked so confused, and that sent Sylvite blinking at him again, head slightly tilted. She'd thought it was common knowledge that there were a decent amount of Princesses, but then, it had kind of been specifically her experience that had her chasing after the idea of magical royalty before she'd run into a General, instead.

Umber had found Faustite, too, but from what he'd told her, it had been under pretty different circumstances.

"Yeah," she said, going a little bit more serious. "I've heard rumors of one called Polaris, but like, not more than the name, and I think there might have been a third one at the invasion?"

She squinted and chewed on her cheeks some more, not that it helped much. Her memories of that night and the follow up meetings were a blurry mess, and it had all happened way before she'd started taking notes on everything.

"I guess that only matters so much, though. I can't exactly go interview this lady," she said. She'd keep an eye out and an ear on the ground like always, but that was about all.

She resettled herself into the chair. "Benitoite. Kamacite. Jet." She tapped the names into her tablet. "That's a start."

She glanced back to Faustite, helping her out despite everything, and for the first time since she'd walked into the room, she smiled a little. "Thanks," she said.

"Hey," said Sylvite, raising an eyebrow and crossing her arms over her knees again even though that meant sending off the tablet. "I've got more entries in the database than pretty much anyone else." She wasn't about to get chewed out over her specialty. "The Princesses are just, y'know, super elusive."

It made sense. If they were so powerful and valuable, they'd have targets on their back. It wasn't like the Negaverse's General-Sovereigns were out in the field flaunting their power all that much.

Although, as Information Generals, it probably fell to them to get the details on Order's most valuable targets, even if they did try to stay hidden most of the time.

Sylvite clicked her tongue a few times, then sat up straight and nodded, a glimmer of determination in her eye. "You should try to lure out this Princess," she said. "Since for you, it's definitely personal, and your idea is good. Even if she didn't do anything to Cybele, we can look for weaknesses and try to get some revenge for your youma."

She shifted into a cross-legged seat and rested her hands on the desk.

"I'm going to start out interviewing the people you listed," she said. "I'll tell you what I find out. If they saw this Princess, there's probably at least some basic information that can help, and maybe they know something about Cybele, too. If not, I'll see what I can find out on the field."

She smiled without very much warmth, her head cocking all the way to the side. "I've got my own ways of getting information out of people."