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What was interesting was walking out of the DCU library and finding a bunch of drunken frat boys having a party. What was interesting and hilarious was watching a young man in what looked like tundra hiking gear running across campus with a glowstick clutched in his fist. Was it pledge week again? Daphne tilted her head halfway and then froze. He wasn't just running, no. This kid was being chased by a youma. s**t.

Stepping into the shadows it didn't take long before they were glowing with a faint blue light and Lina Knight had made her illustrious appearance. The hard part wasn't finding somewhere to phase -- Lina was nothing if not experienced at this after a year and a half, no. The hard part was catching the youma before it had the chance to eat whatever poor powered kid it was chasing.

The scouter narrowed in on the power signature not far away. One was up high and the other was trying to ram...a tree maybe? Feet moved surely and swiftly towards the youma. Ah. A ladder! No that was bad wasn't it? Flicking her face up for a second there was a moment of shock as Lina realized she was no longer the only knight in town. This one was much weaker but he was not a Negaverse agent, but a different flavor.

"Hang on, I'll help!" Almost casually she fixed sights on the youma and fired her interference. The boy on the ladder wouldn't have heard a thing but the youma certainly did, flailing about as her eyes followed him. "Hurry down. I can't keep this up long."

New kid. Well that said a lot for what he was doing up on a ladder and why he hadn't just made the vertical jump to a rooftop for a heavy kick from up...yeah no there was no way he knew about that. "Now we kill it. How much do you know-" Her question about how much exactly this low-powered member of her new faction knew was answered when instead of using the thing's momentum to injure it, he simply dove out of the way. Very new kid. No wonder the youma was drawn to this fresh meat!

Shaking her head a bit the bluenette took up a stance between the eskimo boy and the youma. "Watch and learn okay? Try to get in a hit or two if you can." This was going to be...somewhat tiring. Thankfully this was a weaker youma or there might have been a serious problem that would have involved running headlong towards the nearest senshi power signature.

That bit her a** every time it happened.

Aiming again and taking a deep breath she fired interference when the thing was no more than five feet from the pair of them. The thing wailed again in its inhuman voice and she closed the distance, kicking it squarely in the head. "If you hurt it enough it'll explode into dust. That's our job and we do it well." A few more and one that sent it clearly towards the unnamed young man.

Trial by fire was always a popular method with Lina.

"Nice shot!" A wide grin split Lina's face as the kid brought the glowstick down like a much bigger, wooden stick on the back of the thing's head. There was something about weapons that made them harder to break no matter how small they were. It was good to know that what held true for the Negaverse was so for the knights -- at least in this area. There were quite a few remarkable differences that didn't really have time to meander their way around her mind at the moment.

Bracing herself as the youma came flying the Knight threw all of her meager weight and supernatural strength into the body-twisting kick that drove it to the ground. Hands grasped her ankle and with a loud SNAP of her heel against its skull, the thing screamed unnaturally and exploded into dust. She stood silently for a moment, shoulders slumped and a deep sigh escaping before looking up with a large, albeit somewhat false, smile. "See? Dust."

It wasn't quite easy yet for her to dust a youma, remembering that somewhere there was a mostly-youma young woman who Lina was very much attached to. There was probably a chalkboard somewhere with her name on it and a line for every youma that she killed. "You just have to keep ahead of them. They're not super-strong but they're strong enough to hurt you and keep you off-balance. If they catch you unguarded they'll kill you. You don't want that." The first lesson was always the hardest, wasn't it?

Gloves met in a friendly handshake and widened eyes. "Page? Of Mercury? Man, good thing I came to your rescue then!" Her mind whirled first at the name of rank associating itself with the low power level. So Page was the equivalent to the Negaverse's lieutenant. Interesting. "I'm Lina Knight of Mercury. This," her foot scraped through the stuff already blowing away in the night air "is what we call a youma. I don't know where the name came from. That's just what they are and what they're called. Each youma has its own name like us but you don't usually get to talk much."

Actually, Lina couldn't remember the last time she'd even talked to a youma. She knew Orgel's name because Orgel was hers. Faintly she wondered what had become of her stone golem and dismissed it. If it was a youma it was taken care of by the Youma Queen. That was a bit more information than Babylon needed to know and not something Lina was willing to share with just anyone.

"It also wasn't really after your blood. The blood is sort of a side bonus." The same hand that had shook his tapped lightly right over Babylon's heart with a smile. "We all have a star in our hearts. That's the poetic way of saying that you have something called a star seed. It's what gives you power to be a Knight and be more than a normal human. The youma and their masters, the officers of the Negaverse, feed on this power. The more power you have the more they are drawn to you. So be careful, okay?"

Kind of nasty. Yeah that would describe the things that she had seen, that she had done, that she had taught others to do with the same kind of simple-minded focus they thrived on. Kind of nasty was a very good way of saying it. "I think they're just a twisted version of what we are. I know a lot about the Negaverse and I think...I think they were knights once. But that's just a theory." Certainly her power and her entire self didn't feel much different from when she was a General. Weaker somewhat and much cleaner but not really all that changed.

She really did miss teleportation though. That was a damn useful thing to have.

Leaning against the wall next to Babylon's savior ladder, Lina fiddled with the crystals hanging around her neck and searched through the fragments of memories in her scrambled brains. "You're actually the first one I've met other than myself. I sorta...woke up oddly." To put it delicately. "I was never a page or....what comes after that. I was just a Knight and I wasn't sure if I was just a fluke of the system or if there were more. I think there are though. I mean....Mercury wasn't exactly a warlike lady." Which is why Castor and Pollux had been her twin guards.

Now there was war if ever she'd remembered it!

She didn't exactly know what he was talking about but the word 'lost' registered on all panels across the board and she took pity on the poor guy. "Mercury is also a planet and like pretty much every planet it had a girl who was its protector. She was Princess Mercury and she's the one we served." That much was certain and she'd gleaned it from her own trip to the planet as well as Castor's own memories which he'd offered when she spoke of her own jumbled reminisces. "She was basically one of those girls you see on TV in tiny skirts called terrorists by the media. We call 'em senshi. There are bad guy senshi and good guy senshi but if they're white they're good guys like us. Bad guy senshi are in black." Hands brushed her uniform with a laugh.

"Knights are not so easily told, apparently. Look here, I can try and teach you something. I'm not sure how this really works because I've never taught this particular thing before." There was no need to. What the hell was wrong with this Side of Righteousness and Light that their new recruits didn't know s**t about s**t? There was mild grumbling under her breath and she put hands on her hips to explain.

"Okay so you feel the area around you? There should be this...feeling in the back of your head. As far as ranks go I'm kinda at the top so you should be feeling me. I feel sorta light yeah? Powerful but light. That's a good guy. Bad guys feel...heavy. At least they do for me. Always makes me twitchy." Shoulders rolled. "But if you can feel this stuff you should be okay. If it feels too heavy run away because it sure as hell is going to try and kill you."

She grinned at his obvious pleasure and surprise at getting it right. "You're a quick study, that's good. I don't have a ton of patience though I've been trying to learn." Boy was that an understatement. Daphne was like a bottle rocket, shooting from place to place with limitless energy. But she had little tolerance for idiots. Lucky for Babylon he wasn't one!

"The fight? That's just practice and training. I can sorta teach you a few moves if you want but I've been fighting this fight for almost two years now." On the other side of the fence, but that wasn't the point. Fighting was fighting no matter where you learned your amazing Jedi skills. "It takes practice and a lot of luck and dedication. And running. Never forget that there is no shame in running and living to fight another day, okay?" Her face was solemn and serious as she imparted what was probably the most important bit of information he'd ever learn.

"If you can remember your pledge you can go where your name comes from. I can't tell it to you though. It's sorta...cheating. But if you really think hard about it I'm sure it'll come to you. It came to me pretty easy." Her brain wracked for things that she gained between Lieutenant and Captain, hoping to apply some of that to what she had as a knight. "I don't think there's much else. Your weapon will grow and change as you grow and change and you'll probably get more to work with but we're pretty plain as things go." But that was how she liked it. They relied on their own skills and their own power to do things.

Not some damn planet woowoo magic s**t.