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It was fall, and it was starting to feel like properly fall, unlike a few weeks ago when everyone had been taking pictures of their pumpkin spice lattes or started setting up Halloween decorations even though it was still nearly eighty degrees outside.

Now there was a chill in the air, especially in the evenings, when Cybele patrolled. She shivered under the layers of thin fabric that made up her fuku. If someone called it sweater weather, they would not be wrong.

It was not, however, winter.

It wasn't even October. There had to be at least a few months before the deep frosts started hitting.

Despite that, there was unmistakably ice in the grass in front of Cybele.

There was also a Chaos aura. It was not a particularly strong aura, but she walked forwards with caution anyway. She had not seen someone with magic that could make ice in the grass before.

"Who's there?" she called out.

When the man stepped into view, it wasn't only the ground that was frozen. Cybele stood motionless, blinking at one of two people she actually remembered.

When Lyndin had betrayed Order and the Velencyan's generators had been trying to corrupt her, she'd caught a glimpse of this one and remembered the way that he'd handed her over to Sylvite in the middle of her own training, back when he was still wearing white.

For a moment, her blood ran cold, but she was able to push that aside.

Alone, he wouldn't be nearly as much of a threat.

The generators had been destroyed, that night. Sylvite no longer existed either. This time, she had the advantage.

"No," she said, cooly. "I think you've already helped me plenty."

And with that, she was already springing forwards, going for the punch that might catch him off guard, this time.

He guessed she remembered? Cybele's mouth twitched sideways into almost a smirk. "What? You thought the memory loss would save you from the consequences of your actions?" she asked, even as her fist bit flesh and sent him stumbling backwards.

"Mmm."

She clicked her tongue once, and shook her head.

Even in the vast majority of cases, the cases where she did not remember agents, her friends did a decent job of telling her who had been especially nasty to her, before. In this case it was just a bit more personal.

With their history of magic, she was not expecting him to throw a punch quite so quickly. It hit her squarely. Then, she was hissing and stumbling, too. She stepped even farther back and thought the words to her basic magic, firing the bow upwards as soon as it landed in her hand.

It would give her a bit of an edge if they kept brawling, or if he tried to hit her with that loneliness again.

With the focus from her magic, she saw the way that his muscles tensed in the moment before he kicked. She sidestepped. His foot whizzed through air.

She took the opportunity to follow up with a punch towards his back as he followed through, and she was swift.

His comments about her loyalty brought a twitch to her lips, but it was an expression of annoyance, hardly shame.

She didn't understand the people who called her a traitor. She'd been a prize of the Negaverse, it was true, and she'd served them when her mind had been muddled with Chaos and gaslighting, but it seemed over dramatic to call her leaving anything more than an escape. After all, she'd barely started as anything more than a prisoner.

"You're one to talk about loyalty," she told him, her voice remaining cool, even. "You're one to talk about choosing sides when you tried to take my choice away from me. I took my choice back. That's all."

She threw another punch.

He was loyal. He thought the Negaverse was the right side, enough so that he'd turned on her before willingly joining them. There had to be a story there, but Cybele didn't know it.

She didn't think she cared.

This one she had no desire to help. The easiest way to deal with him was going to be sending him back to the Cauldron.

Although, that was going to be easier said than done. She knew that the magic was going to be coming at some point. There was still only so much that she could do to get ready for it. She couldn't dodge, once he whispered the words.

In that moment, it was like the frost had crawled across her skin instead of just the ground. She was shivering in an instant.

Loneliness came with it. It was a chill in her chest that made her not want to be here at all. She wanted to be back at home, on the couch, with Tavi and Livie.

Although the doubts crept up, too, the ones that she could usually shove down, about if it was really possible that they even did love her as much as they loved each other, or if she was just intruding there, if she just deserved to be alone.

She didn't hit. She didn't move. She just sat there and shivered.

Of course she was pathetic. He wasn't saying anything to her that she didn't already whisper to herself on the bad nights. Even as an Eternal Senshi, she'd fallen to the Negaverse twice. The first time, she'd ended up as their puppet. The second, they'd gotten information from her. She'd failed her friends. She'd put her loved ones in danger when they'd come to rescue her.

Did that mean she was better off dead?

No.

Of course it didn't.

She was shivering too hard to make much move to dodge his kick, and she whimpered as his foot slammed into her hand, but she made no move to harm herself.

His magic might have taken all the warmth out of her heart, but it didn't touch the layers of spite. She defied the Negaverse, and she was proud of that after all they'd done to her. She'd been a thorn in their side for a long time, and she would do it all the days of her life. She wasn't going to cut that fight short just because of some traitor's magic.

He magic was stronger, anyway.

"Prey's Agony," she whispered, and with all her strength, she willed her aching fingers to wrap around the ethereal bowstring. Then, at point blank range, she fired at him.

Miyamoto's magic faded as Cybele's seemed to hit him full force. The warmth crept back into her body, at her fingertips first and then to the rest of her. Her head cleared.

The corrupt seethed, and that brought a hint of a twisted smile to Cybele's face, and if that was wrong, she didn't care. He'd stabbed her in the back. He'd led to her corruption, to everything that she'd been falling apart, and having to be rebuilt from the ground up. Now he was acting like she shouldn't even want to be alive.

Cybele was the huntress. She went off necessity. She went for the clean kill. She always had. Even Chaos hadn't taken that from her.

If anyone deserved to writhe a bit, though? It was him.

His attack was weak. The other attacks she'd taken from him were starting to smart, hear head spun and pounded from his punch, but she was going to take her advantage while she had it.

After everything, she also had no problem kicking him while he was down.