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Alkaid knew today was Tuesday. It didn't seem like a very important detail unless one knew that Alkaid never knew what day it was. It wasn't that she was incapable of counting but, more, that her life existed without true parameters and when the majority of her time was spent alone in the rift or on her planet, it seemed pointless to keep up with such a trivial thing as time. Yet she had diligently been keeping track for weeks as she followed her target.

Penelope.

She'd caught her name by chance only a week into her curious observations. The more she watched of the blonde, the more Alkaid had become enthralled. It was by some chance that Laby suggested she find something else to anchor herself. What better way than with a recruit that could play an audience like a fiddle?

As her target slipped down a the empty street alone, Alkaid found her way down from her perch until she could fall into line several paces behind Penelope herself. Perhaps it wouldn't have been so obvious had her heels not made a sharp click on the pavement, or if her cape hadn't rustled so loudly in the breeze of her walk. Yet despite those small announcements of her presence, she said nothing, but simply followed the figure stalking confidently down the sidewalk.

Alkaid saw the shift in Penelope's body and knew that the confrontation was coming even before the girl had put the effort into facing her. At long last, she found herself staring into a pair of bright eyes she had only seen at a distance.

What would that perceptive gaze make of her, she wondered?

"I'd like to think so."

When she spoke, her tone was soft, and she even went so far as to pull a polite smile across her cracked lips as she did. The General didn't want the young woman to fear her - she didn't want to have to threaten her at all. It was her hope that Pen, someone she had seen seek out prestige among her peers and use knowledge to get what she wanted on more than one occasion now, would simply want what Alkaid had to offer.

"As you can probably imagine, my being here is a long story." Her hands slid behind her back and nestled just above the dip of her waist, where the black wings protruded. It tucked them away out of sight, keeping them where they were obviously at no risk of being employed as a weapon. It was hard to make people comfortable with such an outwardly jarring appearance.

"You can stop being afraid of me. I'm here with a proposal for you, if you're willing to listen and actually consider what I'm saying."

Alkaid watched as Penelope unfolded her character, sweeping her eyes from the finger tapping her chin to the set of her shoulders. At the very least, she was not afraid and that was a very good start.

"Alkaid."

It was the only name that mattered at the moment, at least so far as Pen was concerned. With her hands still nestled behind her back, the Ascendant took a half step to the side, shifting her weight so that she could assess the woman from a different angle.

"I'm interested because you are very, very good at pretending. Just not as good as me." A small smile pulled at her lips, as if it were not such a proud thing to say, and she continued her examination. The small, slow steps began to lead her in a semi-circle around the other blonde, letting her eyes drift from the unusual updo down to the messenger bag supported by her shoulders. "I have seen so many of your little performances and I must say, I'm impressed. For such a trivial life, you play it well."

Alkaid came to stop at Pen's other side, not quite a full circle, but she could meet the blue gaze at last. If she needed someone to be close to her, it would have to be someone that understood the value in their behavior - someone that could choose a response not based on gut instinct.

"I'm not going to give you the sort of attention you're used to, but I can assure you that you are one of a kind. You're the only person I've ever made this offer to." The Ascendant raised her head just a bit, drawing her shattered body up to its full height, and narrowed her amber eyes on Penelope's. "I need a right hand in war, one that will listen and do as I ask, in exchange for a type of glory you'll never feel from kissing boys in a library."

It was rare that people actually asked her the questions that mattered. Despite her outward appearance, Pen hadn't even questioned what Alkaid was and that seemed an unlikely thing for anyone in this city. Her own kind often looked at her with horror but this girl? Not her.

"Because there's a whole stage you're not even playing on yet, dear, and I'm the only one of my kind in the production." Of course, until very recently, she hadn't even bothered to start looking for a supporting character. For a long time she had tried to go it alone but someone close to her had gently reminded her of the dangers her removal from humankind might bring to her - and to those around her. Alkaid was at risk of becoming something else that barely remembered who she had been before.

"I can teach anyone to fight. Warriors are a dime a dozen, the very nature of the power I have to offer will make you stronger than any human you've ever known." She shook her head to dismiss the idea, play it down. Strength was not why she had come to the woman standing before her. "Intellect, observation, manipulation - those are things that I need in my arsenal and they are things that can not simply be taught. At least, not quickly."

Then the Ascendant stepped forward, more into the blonde's personal space, so that she could look deeper into the bright eyes staring back at her. A hand raised between them, an offer written in the way she held it out to the younger woman.

"You can change the world with me, Penelope. Your name can be remembered long after you're gone, spoken with as much reverence as the great leaders that have shaped this world already."

A deal? Well, Alkaid hadn't really expected that.

For a long moment she was silent, staring blankly at Penny with little expression on her face at all. It was one of her great gifts, contemplation without a give away.

"He could die," she said at last, in warning. Sure, she hadn't wanted to point out to Penny that the consequences could be so dire but if her brother perished because of Alkaid's offer she would have an enemy instead of a right hand. The hand held between them raised to a stopping motion between them. "If that is your condition, then I need you to understand that it is at your own risk."

The expression of her face had barely changed, though a tightening in her eyes said that she was thinking long and hard about the right things to say. She needed Penny and she did not want to lose the chance.

"If you think you're better with him, I have no objections. I wouldn't want you alone."

With their words said and the agreement made, there was nothing left to do but bind the verbal contract with the one, unbreakable force Alkaid respected in this world. It wasn't as glamorous, or even as simple, as Penny signing her soul over on a piece of parchment - their world was not one of fairy tale contracts. Alkaid knew, without a doubt, that it was going to be a very painful process for her soon-to-be-recruit; she might not have recruited a soul before the young woman, but she remembered her own day of judgement years and years before this very moment, before she had ever ascended to what she was.

"I'm sorry," her words were gentle and low as she stepped closer to lay her rough fingers gently upon the girl's sternum, "but this is not going to be pleasant."

With only a little force, her fingers dipped past the barrier meant to keep prying hands away from the starseed cradled within the ribcage, and Alkaid's wrist sank beneath her breastbone to clutch the fragile, yet all powerful gem that was Penelope's entire being. Getting to the starseed was never what had made her shy away from recruitment, it was the knowledge that once she possessed it, it was meant to be altered and returned. The blonde girl before her had no true idea how difficult a process this was going to be for the General and she was not about to admit to it.

This was her first challenge in control.

The power erupted from Alkaid's core like a volcano, dripping the amber light along her ruptured plates like lava pouring through rivulets, until it consumed the arm plunged wrist-deep in Penelope's chest. The eerie glow of her eyes brightened as they stared down into the cool blues and Alkaid focused on the reflection of that light across her lens, the glimmer of her own power as it would eventually come to echo in Penny. The first release wasn't a trickle like she had expected but a greedy surge as her own essence, the energy that powered every fiber of her being, poured forward and enveloped the girl's. It poured through her starseed's last defense and took hold like a seed, spreading roots through the core of her soul gem and planting itself so deep that it would change this lieutenant in the image of Metallia herself.

The power flooded like a river, more and more, until Alkaid felt herself growing weary and wasted. There was an art in capping the flow, in not drowning a human beneath the current, but Alkaid's end was sloppy and predominantly luck. The free hand of the ascendant braced Penny's shoulder where she stood, rooted in the onslaught, as her fingers forced themselves back one by one from the starseed she so badly wanted to consume. The power stopped abruptly all of its own accord as she severed the link, until tired and weary, she removed it entirely and left Penny as Stellerite - shaken, perhaps, but whole.

Aware that she was in dire need of refilling her own reserves before anything further, Alkaid offered her a weak, approving smile.

"Take a moment and let it sink in, Lieutenant Stellerite."

Alkaid watched Stellerite as she fell to her knees, face unchanged though her mind whirled. Was this normal, her own flaw, or a cause of her nature? The hand that had been wrapped around Penny's starseed flex its plated fingers and then curled slowly into a half-fist. There were questions she had with no answers to find - the next time, this brother, would simply have to be more focused.

At least she hadn't killed her, or worse.

Alkaid leaned down slowly toward Stella and slipped a strong hand under her arm. They were both weakened and her energy was much, much too obvious - if any of her actual enemies were at all within range she would have too much to contend with. No, the best option was to find a safe place for Stellerite to recover where they wouldn't be ambushed by anyone that knew her weaknesses.

"Let's go, lieutenant," were her only words before they were ripped out of space in Destiny City, heading for the safety of the Negaverse HQ.