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It was with pride that Alkaid answered every one of Stellerite's summons - the new lieutenant never wasted her time and always, always, handled herself with Alkaid's best interests in mind. It helped that the Ascendant had so clearly tied Stella's interests to her own but she had the hope, deep down, that Stella would soon come to serve the Negaverse before herself too. For now it was simply enough that she handled all of the Ascendant's surface duties without troubling her over much. With so much free reign to pursue her own goals she could spare the time to meet with whomever this corrupt was - not that she ever turned one of her own kind (loosely defined) down at request.

The trek from the Tower was a long one but teleportation within the chaos of the rift was rarely accurate. It left her energy signature, dampened only by the mass of chaotic energy within the rift itself, to slowly grow stronger and stronger in Adamantine's awareness until at last the crackled Ascendant came into view at a distance. Trails of rift dust kicked up at her heels as she approached, only to be brushed back into the hard-packed earth by her sweeping cape.

It wasn't hard to pick out the glimmering corrupt that awaited her at the entrance of the rift and she pulled a small, but polite, smile onto her lips as she came face-to-face with the woman. Both hands slipped behind her back, nestled just above the wings that protruded from the base of her spine, sporting her generic, regal pose as she came to a halt before Adamantine.

"My little bird says you have need of me." She said nothing more, only settled her eerie, back lit gaze on the corrupt.

The Ascendant General dipped her head in acknowledgement of the fledgeling corrupt's formality, hiding the pleasure she took from it beneath the generally blank mask of her face. Despite her own beginnings, there was no one more pleased to see subservience among the ranks - and, most especially, among the corrupted senshi. The girl was off to a good start if she meant to make an impression. Of course, as Adamantine got straight to her point, Alkaid realized that this was not at all about her at all.

There were a series of thoughts that fluttered through her complex mind at that moment - so many and so suddenly that for a long time, she did not even react to what the corrupt had said. It must have been awkward for Adamantine, just as it was always awkward for those that did not know her or the internal struggles she faced every day, watching the statuesque woman waffle between an analytical mind and a (slowly dissipating) heart. If she was reading between the lines correctly, he was missing.

When she spoke next, her words were softer and all together more human than her General's tone. There was some concern in her voice that did not quite reach her face but it was there, none the less, for anyone capable of picking it out.

"How long has he been missing, little one?"

It wasn't an answer but she didn't have one to give without knowing how long they'd been looking for him.

Where Adamantine faltered, Alkaid did not.

There was a recognition for the lost feeling she could see eating at the young corrupt, she had known it all too well many times throughout her life in the Negaverse. It was a slow itch, spreading and consuming like a festering wound in the soul. She had lost so many of her superiors in such a short amount of time and now, Chase?

"You are never too weak, girl."

Alkaid's chin rose slightly as she spoke, bringing her nearly six-foot figure all the respect she had earned for herself. Her hands remained trapped at the small of her back, curled around one another and gripping so tightly she could feel the strain of the plates at her fingertips - but Adamantine didn't know that.

"There is nothing in this realm that we can not do. If you lack strength, find it. If you lack knowledge, find it." Her emphasis was a hiss as she finally stepped closer, narrowing the distance and using her slightly taller height to her advantage. Those eerie, smoldering eyes stared down at Adamantine but there was no anger or disappointment to be found. All of Alkaid, right down to her starseed, was filled with the fire of pride and ambition and support. If she could not guide, who would? There would be no quiet despair for Adamantine in her presence, not today.

"I have not seen him, but that does not mean that I do not know where to begin looking." Her words were quieter then, calmer. "If you want to follow me I'll keep you safe here, but I will not listen to you belittle your power. Understood?"

It made Alkaid want to laugh, to know that anyone in Labyrinthite's pack would seek her out for guidance when he went missing despite knowing so very little of her. The General and the Ascendant had always had such a rocky, secretive bond - never in front of their superiors, never in front of the army, never in front of eyes that would ever know what weakness he gave her. Yet it had always been that man there to keep her anchored, despite it all, to teach her what it meant to depend upon and be depended upon.

She owed him more than she could tell his fledgling and perhaps there were others that needed him more than Alkaid did, now; she realized that as she stared down at the glimmering, demure woman. The blonde considered Adamantine and her quiet request in silence, wondering if she had the knowledge to guide his recruits the way he saw fit. But if not, who else would?

"I will always guide those who seek me out, you are not wrong to have come." Yet Alkaid's answer seemed less practiced, less diplomatic than she would have given even moments before. It was no secret that she had soft spots for corrupts but few new the soft spot she felt for the broken and in need. Though they were worlds apart, serving Metallia at times that did not intersect, in that moment Adamantine seemed as lost as the first time that Khal had opened his eyes and acknowledged her from his bloody bed. It was another joke at the expense of their duality to see her in Labyrinthite's employ and the comparison would, no doubt, be completely unwelcomed by the pink-haired man Chase had become.

With an amused, dramatic sigh, she took a half-swiveling step backward away from the Senshi of Stardust - back toward the rift, and the direction she'd come - and held her arm out with her palm extended ahead of them. She needed the girl, at the very least, to walk in her line of sight; the rift was a scary place and the youma deep within only just respected her. She still didn't trust their instincts.

"Let's go find out what we can about your General, first. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't worried too."

Once they were under way, the gait was easy. Alkaid's attention turned ahead of them to judge their distance from the old tree, picking out features in the landscape that varied so subtly from the rest that she knew only the well-versed of their ranks could even navigate it. That, too, made the rift a frightening place.

"Yes," she answered, immediately, dropping her eyes from examining the horizon so she could stare at Adamantine's averted gaze. "It is not exactly that they are not fond of you, more that they would consume you without a second thought. One on one, in the city, a youma would measure it's ability to do so - but here?" She swept out a hand at the dim, ominous world surrounding them and let her gaze travel with her fingertips. "There are hundreds, thousands, and many of them starving for energy. I'm enough of something else to make them reconsider but you?"

The words ended with a shrug of her shoulders, making her cloak ripple lightly with the motion where it trailed behind her. There was no reason to doubt her words and for the corrupt's sake, she did walk as close to Adamantine as she dared without tripping herself (or the senshi shrouded in flowing silks) up.

The corrupt's words didn't surprise her, though the similarity to her own feelings nearly did. For the first time in a long while, she felt someone pulling at Kaia's heart strings. At least someone other than Labyrinthite himself.

"I understand," her words were her own sigh, then.

"Laby is my oldest friend in this entire war, little one. He is the only one who even remembers a time before I chose my duty above everything else. Sometimes it's a blessing, sometimes I want to strangle him." Her eyes shifted sidelong to follow a shadow that had come too close for comfort but left, again, as it began to fade back into whatever nothingness it had come from. She had even managed a small, if tight, smile for the other woman's sake as she turned back. "But we are too old to disappear without a sign. We will find him before long or he will find us."

After a moment, she reached out to put a hand on Adamantine's shoulder - not for comfort, but to steer her more at a right angle as she herself shifted in that direction.

"Over that crest there, on the horizon. It's still a walk but that's where we're headed."

There was a long pause after Adamantine's questions, until at last, Alkaid finally spoke up above the dull hum of the Rift.

"No one ever really asks about that." It was a blunt admission, coupled with the narrowing of her eyes in the distance. Her absence from the human world and the something else were one and the same, tied so intricately together that she could remember every time a new discovery in herself had inadvertently taken away a little more of her humanity and her life. "I do, actually."

The narrowing of her eyes diminished and her lips curled, just barely, into a smile. It was smaller than others she had given, but oddly at home on her ghastly features. There were a dozen or more simple memories then, fluttering through her thoughts in no particular order as she reflected on the things she would never experience in their entirety again - snow, fresh apples, a kiss. It continued in that wistful way it had after she'd watched Hematite's face the first time through the crystal, the first time she realized she had closed an entire book about her life. It was a consequence, she knew, of someone asking her questions that had naught to do with war or battles but everything to do with -

Alkaid's eyes swung back to Adamantine as her thoughts spiraled to a finish, only to widen as they slid past her and locked onto a youma galloping at them, full speed. It looked too much like raptors she remembered from history books, with long, spike-tipped tendrils protruding where feathers should have been along the spinal ridge. The memories of her life before were drowned to silence in favor of the few seconds she had left for an assessment - fast, nimble, medium range - and the hand that had touched the corrupt's shoulder instead held her in place. The dreadhead moved forward toward the beast a few steps, chin high and body tensed as it continued, unperturbed. For now.

"Don't panic, stay behind me."

Alkaid’s attention honed in upon the wild creature and as it did, the light that marked her power and the burn of her energy began to seep from the starseed at the center of her chest. As the seat of her power, it poured light along the cracks of her skin, crawling from her sternum up her shoulders and along her arms. It didn’t stop until her fingers were aglow with spiderwebs of light and she raised the flat of one palm forward, putting it between the youma and the pair of travelers as surely as any weapon.

The beast faltered as even its primal gaze recognized a show of power from an energy that was both strong and quite unappealing. Alkaid did believe it had been charging mindlessly for the girl and not herself - it had been so with Ate, actually, as well. She knew she was a general in name but these creatures here were not altogether quite certain what she was; at least they had all come to the consensus that she seemed to be worth avoiding.

“Stop.”

The command was short and simple, bellowed with as much force as Alkaid could manage. The faltering beast came to a complete stop just yards from them and, though it tilted its head and emitted a series of unsettling, predatory clicks, heeled to her will. The raptor beast backtracked a few, slow steps before it turned with its head held low like a chastised dog and finally began to slink away. Alkaid held her pose as it retreated, silent but for the threat of her hand in the air, until she was completely certain it had no intention of turning back.

When she half-turned to look back at Adamantine, the light along her skin had already begun to recede, though her eyes stayed aglow with the peculiar, haunting backlight until the rest of it had completely dissipated.

“I think both options are dangerous for different reasons,” she offered, quietly, with what she hoped was an apologetic smile. She couldn’t ever get that one quite right. “But there is nothing in Destiny City that I fear, so perhaps I could come visit?”

When she held her hand out again, it was just a gentle request for Ada to begin walking again when she was ready. They needed to find the hollowed tree - she just hoped that youma was there even if Labyrinthite wasn’t.