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The blipping from one location to another was far less painful this time. Still, it made Kyanite's stomach flip. She wanted to ask about it -- about what that was -- but there were more pressing questions in her mind. Still, when she had a chance to look at her surroundings, her lips parted in awe of it. She only came back to earth when Zinkenite pulled out a chair for her. The girl didn't really feel like sitting, but she could tell she was supposed to listen to this man so she did as she was told.

"General-King Zinkenite," she echoed. "And you know -- knew. You knew my cousin? You knew Eden?"

He had called Eden something different, but the name was lost to Kyanite. The strange death she had felt on the rooftop was one thing. Yet still her mind would not leave the topic of her cousin. If he was dead, she had to hear it, explicitly. And she had to know how. Only after that would she be able to process exactly what kind of trouble she had gotten herself into now.

This man, Zinkenite, had called her a lieutenant. But he was calling Eden -- Marthozite -- a General-King, like him. What did that mean? On the rooftop, he said something about Eden rising up to the top of the ranks, but it had been such a blur. It still was. Kyanite was more focused on what he said afterward: "He gave up his own life to save others."

In spite of herself, Kyanite burst into tears, shoulders sagging forward. She propped her elbows up on her knees and buried her face in her hands. Zinkenite's words reached her, but it was several minutes before she was able to gain control of herself enough to look up at him through wet and shivering eyes. "He would. He would die to save others. I never doubted he would have done it for me," she said, voice shaking. "He was someone I could always... depend on." A fresh sob sent her face back to her hands, shoulders shaking. She was hardly the picture of strength in that moment, but she had not been in the Negaverse to realize that might be a problem -- let alone to realize that she was wasting the time of a very important man with her sobbing.

"Someone killed him? Senshi -- wait, senshi?" Kyanite had not been in the city long, but she had seen enough gossip rags to hear about the bizarre gang activity in DC, some of whom called themselves senshi. "He was killed by a gang of schoolgirls?" Torturing schoolgirls? It didn't make sense to her. "Eden deserved better than that." Kyanite shook her head, still lost to her sadness.

After a few more moment, she sniffled, wiped her nose on her glove, and looked back up to Zinkenite. "What... what can I do? I have to do something. If Eden were in my place now, he would." It was true -- but Eden had always been stronger than her.

Fight? Renna was not a fighter. She was a planner, an observer. Eden had been the strong one. He was the one who would help her deal with her problems, stick up for her, stand by her. Renna had never known how to fight, but maybe Kyanite would. The girl glanced down at her hands, wet from her crying. She had no idea how her uniform had been determined. One minute she was in her own clothes on the roof, and the next she was in gray and electric blue. She looked like something out of movie. This whole situation was a movie. Perhaps that was what she needed, to view it that way. If she could just view Kyanite as someone stronger than her, a heroine in a story, perhaps she could summon the courage to rise to the occasion?

His fight is now your fight.

There was something about those words that struck a chord in Kyanite. She had been lost in Baltimore. She dropped out of her high school to be homeschooled by her mother. It wasn't that she was terrible in social situations. Renna just never felt like she fit in, not really. After a year of awkward meetings and frustrating teachers, she figured that it was a waste of her time. Her mother, too busy working to really fight her, signed off on it, agreed to be responsible for her education, and then just left Renna to it. As long as she passed the standardized assessments, it was fine. And it had been. But what would she do now? Her mother hadn't precisely agreed to this visit to Destiny City, and now... well, now it seemed like she would be moving to this city permanently. What would she tell her mother?

The tears still hung in her eyes, but they no longer fell. Kyanite sat up in the chair. "I can show perfect loyalty," she said. "But I don't understand. I am one person. What can I do?"

Kyanite wasn't immediately sure what Zinkenite meant by three brothers -- she began thinking about Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows -- but when he mentioned sticks, the story jumped to mind. You can break a single stick; you can't break a bundle. She liked the idea of teamwork. Renna was definitely a team player.

When it came to strengths, however, she had to think. She couldn't very well cite "pop culture knowledge" or "Lifetime movie aficionado" on this list. She doubted he would be impressed by her ability to name all of the children in the Duggar clan either.

Pressing her lips together, Kyanite finally said, "I am reliable, for friends. People can count on me. I'm good at planning. I used to organize social events for my mother's community group." Yikes -- did she just cite 'helping mom' as one of her strengths? If Kyanite was trying to convince Zinkenite she was a crack soldier, she wasn't exactly doing the job.

Kyanite's chair squeaked against the floor as she shot up in her chair, gripping the sides of it. A thing that looked like a monster from a bedtime story entered through the window, apparently at Zinkenite's urging. "That's a monster," she said quickly, eyes wide. "I mean, a youma." There was a hint of uncertainty in the girl's voice. This was an epic ******** for her to process, and as a girl who was often susceptible to nightmares, this thing that was now in her presence seemed a likely candidate to deliver unpleasant dreams.

Her eyes flashed to Zinkenite, uncertain. This creature could be her... friend? "Youma," she repeated again. "How... how do I make an ally of them? All of them." Yep, all of them. Kyanite had no desire to see the dangerous side of one of these... whatever they were. It seemed like whatever happened to her was going to be full of risks, which didn't mix with the safe-not-sorry girl.

Did she even have a choice? He had called them a military. Most militaries had an optional sign-up policy. Granted, she had asked for the truth. She had asked to know what happened to Eden. Apparently, this was the price. It was too soon for Kyanite to determine whether it was a good or bad thing. All she was certain of was a certain pulsing in her chest, an underlying impulse that whispered to her, that told her this was right, that told her to swallow her fear and trust in these strange people and their creatures.

Kyanite had been a member of the Negaverse for less than an hour, and already she felt like she could never know enough about the organization. Eden's face entered her mind again. She saw the two of them back in South Africa. She was playing in the sprinklers. He was leaning against the house, talking to her mother. Even then, he had always seemed too mature for her. Had he chosen this? Or had it been thrust upon him? If Eden was here, Kyanite did not think she would feel the same fear that was currently seizing her chest.

But he wasn't. Because he had been killed. By the senshi -- the Order, as Zinkenite had called them. Her sadness remained a lump in her gut. Soon, though, it would turn to anger. Perhaps then she would have the strength to fight the way that she was certain Eden had.

As the youma's tail swept the floor, Kyanite instinctively lifted her feet off of it, like a child fearing a monster under the bed. She realized the stupidity of her action and attempted to ease both feet down as subtly as possible. When the thing spoke, however, her feet shot right back up. "It talks," she whispered. It was yet another bizarre, bizarre thing to add to the list of topics she would obsess about nonstop for the next month.

So... the youma would attack her, unless she impressed them? It sounded like something out of Avatar -- though, if all of this was real, perhaps that was where James Cameron got the idea. It certainly didn't make her feel any safer around Locke, as it was called, or any of the other youma she might run into, for that matter. And there was someone, not her, who all the youma obeyed. Kyanite would very much so like to be friends with that person, but it was a thought for another day. She got the sense that this meeting was coming to an end, especially when Zinkenite referenced her communicating with an "assigned captain" for the details.

She was a Lieutenant. She would have a Captain. Kyanite only ever experienced the military in heart-wrenching stories of love and loss on Lifetime. She didn't particularly consider herself cut out for it. "Okay," she said, nodding slowly, eyes not leaving Locke. "Okay." The information was overwhelming. She still needed to process her sorrow over Eden's death, but now there was a boatload of other things to contend with it.

"Starseeds, youma, senshi... okay," she said again.

In no time, the meeting was cut short. Zinkenite had more important things to attend to, and Kyanite had the kind of tedious questions that a lower-ranking officer, her captain, was much better suited to answer.

As Kyanite went to leave, she stopped and turned to face Zinkenite. "I'm glad," she said, voice getting stronger, "to know the truth about Eden, or... Marthozite. He was the best person I know. He... I..." She couldn't say more. So, with a nod, the dark-haired girl left the presence of the General-King and went off in search of her assigned captain.