Welcome to Gaia! ::

Even though her mission in life was supposed to be that of the Negaverse, Renna was still struggling to make sense of her place there, even after all this time. She had been in high school when they got her, and now, she was nearing the end of college with no greater sense of direction, not really, from when she began. If Marthozite could see her now, he would not be proud.

The only thing she seemed remotely capable of was generating a modest presence as a social media influencer. Renna was painfully careful not to lay it on too thick, but had found that she had a lot more success behind the keyboard subtly shading "those weird-skirted evil cheerleaders" than she did as an officer on the battlefield.

Today, however, was really more about fun.

It was a sunny Wednesday, and the partly cloudy sky was casting some gorgeous light on the street. Renna was skipping her way over to a coffee stand to wait for a friend from school, Genevieve. They had bumped into each other socially and hit it off when both of them judged a pack of girls who left a clearly drunk friend of theirs at the bar, alone, past midnight. They nearly crashed into each other walking over to see if the girl needed help, and in the process of shuffling her out to an Uber, ending up chatting for another hour and exchanging social media information. Renna had liked Genevieve's dress and was delighted to hear she had made some alterations to it herself. A lunch date was set for shopping, and since then, they had become casual friends.

Today, fashion was also on the menu.

In order to add more content, Renna had taken to posting street-style pictures taken around downtown DC. Normally she featured herself, but loved including friends. Giving Genevieve's fashionable eye, she had invited the other girl to bring three different outfits for them to snap some shots around town. A nice cross post to Snapchat, Twitter, and Instagram -- and bam! Clickable content.

Renna had arrived a few minutes early and took a minute to adjust her twists leading up into a high poofy bun. She had on asymmetrical hoop earrings, and a bohemian sundress that was not her usual style but fit the summer vibe. Peep toe booties and long layered necklaces finished off the look. It was barely 9AM -- better to hit the streets after rush hour but before their classes began -- so Renna ordered up two coffees and waited for Genevieve to arrive, idly scanning her phone for the latest news.

Renna turned at the sound of Genevieve's voice and smiled widely, bringing the girl in for a quick sidehug. She passed a coffee to her hands. "Nothing in it -- I couldn't remember how you took your coffee. Bad friend, total loss of friend points," she said, eying the bag in the other girl's hand and giving a spin at the sound of the compliment on her own outfit. "If what you have in there is only a quarter of how good you look now, I think we are in business!" Just two girls trading compliments, the usual.

"I spied an alley around the corner with some cool looking graffiti. I figure we'll start there once you've had a second to breathe." In truth, Renna liked the alley because someone had spray painted a large image of a nondescript senshi in a green and white uniform with x's over its glowing red eyes and RESIST scrawled in neon pink paint across the stomach. Under the feet it appeared that the senshi was stomping on the DC skyline.

But first, pleasantries! "So drink your coffee first -- thank you for agreeing to meet in the morning -- and update me on your life. How is everything?" Not exactly a heart to heart, but small talk was easy for Renna.

Whoa. "Three more kittens?" Renna did a terrible job hiding her shock. "You're going to need to buy a farm at this point. Seriously! And a caretaker." In her mind, she imagined mountains and mountains of litter-speckled cat s**t piling up in every corner of a room. Personally, Renna was more of a dog person, but she hadn't been able to summon up the courage to buy one. She hated the idea of it being alone when she was out at school by day and Nega-ing by night. She had no idea how Genevieve managed it all and said so: "I don't know how you manage."

They made their way to the alley and Renna set her coffee cup down on the ledge of a windowsill. She motioned for Genevieve to stand slightly off-center in front of the graffiti, snapping a few test shots. "I think it'll look best from a low angle," she said, dropping to a careful squat in her dress and aiming the camera up toward Genevieve. "Let's get a couple of you looking squarely at the camera, doing that dead-eyed model thing." She snapped away, trying to frame the graffiti as clearly as she could.

Posing wasn't necessarily a passion of Renna's, but she knew that this was a simple, easy way to boost her presence. She grabbed the camera back from Genevieve and perused some of the shots. Solid stuff. She sent her two favorites, one of Genevieve and one of her to her phone. "Time to tweet a teaser," she said.

Grabbing one where Genevieve was pulling a sort of mean-mug look, Renna uploaded it with a caption:



Subtle, she thought. Just... call the senshi a bad guy and move on. Right? With a click and a whir it was flashed off to post on her account. Purple eyes popped back up to the other girl. "Why don't you throw on the next outfit and we'll keep it rolling?"

The day had gone well, and the girls were lightly debating where to go to grab food. Renna was subtly hashtagging just a couple photos in the bunch, nothing too suspicious, but she was going through a liking particularly funny anti-senshi responses in the comments.



Like.

Renna was so engrossed in her phone that she didn't notice at first what Genevieve had said. "The hashtag? Oh yeah, definitely use it," she said. "I think it really fit with the graffiti for that one. Art and a message. People need a little more than a pretty photo to sink their teeth into." She kept walking, scrolling through more photos and oblivious to any unease on her friend's part.

Renna was smiling happily at her friend. At least, until she saw the hashtag. The light dimmed in her eyes. "Super Girl?" she said, scoffing a bit. "You don't really mean that, do you?" Talk of lunch was a bit forgotten.

Super heroes? Renna stilled. Is that really what Genevieve thought? It pained her to think that a friend of hers might value the other side. Look, Renna could understand. She didn't always agree with the methods her compatriots used, but this was war. The senshi were not of Earth -- so why allow them to take it, ruling over them?

"They destroy the city," she said, aiming to keep it simple. "I have seen some of them control water, shoot fire, make people sick. People get hurt, all the time, because of them. How many people have died as a result of their fighting? It's not natural."

There was so much more that Renna wanted to say, but she couldn't risk revealing she knew too much.

Renna fixed Genevieve with a serious glance. "So in your book everyone's a good guy? Even with the lives lost and damage done?" She shook her head. "I'm sorry, Genn, but that just doesn't make sense. If you're a terrorist, how can you also be a hero? It feels like the city would be a lot more peaceful without any magical girls wielding power over the rest of us. Sure, it would be cool to control an element or whatever in theory -- who didn't grow up debating whether they'd rather be able to turn invisible or fly or whatever? But in practice? I mean, in reality? If you got a power, it wouldn't be like the fun X-Men. It would be like Logan -- just a lot of gruesome death, except this time you would be involved. You could be the one that ends up killing."

A beat of silence passed. Renna suppressed a shiver. The idea of Genevieve actually wanting to be a senshi made her feel ill. The Negaverse wouldn't need to exist if the senshi didn't. They wouldn't need to protect the planet from those aliens if the aliens would just go back to their homes and leave Earth alone. Why couldn't her friend see that?